An Age of Expectation

At the same time, such a word points to the universal, to that which cuts into all human relationships, which does not make us see the poet, the spiritual hero, as merely enthroned in the clouds, but as truly intervening in spiritual conditions. Thus, in the whole consciousness of Herman Grimm, there was something about Goethe that was truly capable of taking Goethe's spirit so universally that Goethe could appear to him as the spiritual emperor, the emperor of spiritual life. And in a different way, my dear friends, than one is otherwise accustomed to in the world, the free personality, the complete free reign of the personality, the self-assurance, is expressed in someone like Herman Grimm. One can truly say: In Herman Grimm lives something that allowed him to take external circumstances as they are, but on the other hand always let him base himself on what he had within as his spiritual life; and he judged all worldly circumstances according to the security of this spiritual life.