NOVALIS

The Novices of Sais

Illustrated by Paul Klee

Translated from the German

by Ralph Manheim

archipelago books
 Copyright © 2005 Archipelago Books

Second Printing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Archipelago Books
232 Third Street, #a111
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.archipelagobooks.org

Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

www.cbsd.com

The Novices of Sais

Published in 1949 by Curt Valentin, New York
All rights reserved

Jacket art: Town of Cathedrals, Paul Klee, 1927

Copyright © 2004 Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College

This publication was made possible by support from Lannan Foundation,

the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the
New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Friedrich von Hardenberg, who wrote under the pen-name
Novalis, died on March 25, 1801, at the age of 29. He belonged to that
period shattered by the French Revolution, period of wars and revolu-
tions only exceeded by those of today.
Novalis belongs to the Romantic poets who died young, and who
seem to have lived lives wedded to death. When he was 23, in 1795, he
came to know the thirteen-year-old Sophie von Kuhn, whose beauty
and early maturity his biographers describe. A year later, he was pursu-
ing medical studies in the hope of being able to cure her of a fatal illness,
from which she died, in 1797. There follows a period of “brooding
melancholy,” and the writing of the famous Hymns to the Night. In 1800,
Novalis contracted consumption, and died a year later, his own end
hastened by the shock of the sudden death of his fourteen-year-old
brother.
The parallel with Keats is obvious. There are the same tragedies, the
same consumption, the medical studies, the core of common sense
 within a romantic and poetic temperament. The father of Novalis was
director of the Saxon Salten Mines, and Novalis himself entered the
family business. Doubtless, on account of his association with the
mines, Novalis’s romanticism seems to be connected with mineralogy,
with crystals, rocks, strange formations of nature. Grottoes, caves, fos-
sils, petrified objects, play their part, of course, in the Romantic scene.
viii In fact, the roots of English Romanticism are to be found in Pope’s
grotto, in the Eighteenth Century interest in scientific curiosities, and
in balancing wildness against orderliness in landscape gardening.
The great strength of Die Lehrlinge zu Sais lies in its combination of
romantic emotion with a naturalist’s love of nature.The interpretations
of nature made by the Novices are like a set of variations on the theme
of the relation of Man to Nature. Each Novice who expounds his phi-
losophy, organizes a vision of Nature around his idea, with a power like
that of a snow crystal forming out of a drop of vapor. The whole prose-
poem is a flight of fancy compelling variations, as intoxicating in its way
as Rimbaud’s Bateau Ivre. Yet, of course, the aim of Novalis differs from
that of Rimbaud. His journey is not for the poetry’s sake, but for the
sake of bringing a succession of impassioned dreams to a sane ending:
“Therefore, he who feels an inner calling to impart the understanding
of nature to other men, to develop and cultivate this gift in men, must
first give careful regard to the natural causes of this development and to
learn the elements of this art from nature. Having thus gained an ix
insight he will devise a system based on experiment, analysis and com-
parison whereby these means may be applied by any individual.”
This is very far from Rimbaud’s pursuit of the “systematic derange-
ment of the senses.” And yet the ecstasy, the approach to madness, the
yearning towards death, the rapture of the senses; all the qualities
which give Hölderlin, and to a lesser degree Novalis, a prophetic signif-
icance are there. The surrealist islands are visited, though not stopped
at, and the aim of the poet is to bring nature back to the instruments and
the engineers.
 Klee, too, is an artist fascinated by the inner structure of crystals,
leaves, insects, small animals. A passage such as the following seems a
prophetic invocation of his art:
“A few stand calmly in this glorious abode, seeking only to embrace it
in its plenitude and enchainment; no detail makes them forget the glit-
tering thread that joins the links in rows to form the holy candelabrum,
x and they find beatitude in the contemplation of this living ornament
hovering over the depths of night. The ways of contemplating nature
are innumerable; at one extreme the sentiment of nature becomes a
jocose fancy, a banquet, while at the other it develops into the most
devout religion, giving to a whole life direction, principle, meaning.
Even among the childlike peoples there were grave men, for whom
nature was the face of a godhead, while other, merry hearts only prayed
to her at table; the air was to them a soothing drink, the stars were a
light to dance by, plants and beasts were merely delectable fare, nature
to them was not a wondrous, silent temple, but a jolly kitchen and
pantry. In between, there were other, more contemplative souls, who
found in the nature before them only large but neglected gardens, and
busied themselves creating prototypes of a nobler nature.”
This is a curiously interior world; a world of pure art and pure con-
templation, of imagist poems, and an intense, glowing yet humorous
and meticulous imagination. The drawings here are not meant as illus-
tration, but as parallels, a kind of reflection of the world of Novalis xi
within the world of Paul Klee.
Stephen Spender
The Novices of Sais
 The Novice

Various are the roads of man. He who follows and compares them will
see strange figures emerge, figures which seem to belong to that great
cipher which we discern written everywhere, in wings, eggshells, clouds
and snow, in crystals and in stone formations, on ice-covered waters,
on the inside and outside of mountains, of plants, beasts and men, in
the lights of heaven, on scored disks of pitch or glass or in iron filings
round a magnet, and in strange conjunctures of chance. In them we sus-
pect a key to the magic writing, even a grammar, but our surmise takes
on no definite forms and seems unwilling to become a higher key. It is
as though an alkahest had been poured over the senses of man. Only at
moments do their desires and thoughts seem to solidify. Thus arise
their presentiments, but after a short time everything swims again be-
fore their eyes.
I heard a voice say from afar that the incomprehensible is solely the
result of incomprehension, which seeks what it has and therefore can
never make further discoveries. We do not understand speech, because
speech does not understand itself, nor wish to; the true Sanskrit would 5
speak in order to speak, because speech is its delight and essence.
A little later, there was one who said: “The holy scripture needs no
explanation. He who speaks true, is full of eternal life, his written word
seems wondrously akin to the mysteries, for it is a chord taken from the
symphony of the universe.”
Surely the voice was speaking of our teacher, for he knows how to
gather together the traits that are scattered everywhere. A unique light
is kindled in his eyes when he lays down the sacred rune before us and
peers into our eyes to see whether in us the light is risen that makes the
figure visible and intelligible. If he sees that we are sorrowful because
the night does not recede, he comforts us and promises future happi-
ness to the assiduous, faithful seer. Often he has told us how when
he was a child, the desire the practice, to busy, and to fulfill his senses
left him no peace. He looked up at the stars and copied their paths and
positions in the sand. Unremittingly he observed the heavens, and
never wearied of contemplating their clarity, their movements, their 7
clouds, their lights. He gathered stones, flowers, insects of all sorts, and
arranged them in rows of many different kinds. He turned his mind to
men and beasts, he sat on the seashore and looked for shells. He lis-
tened closely to his spirit and his thoughts. He knew not whither his
yearnings drew him. When he grew older, he roamed the earth, saw dis-
tant lands and seas, new skies, strange stars, unknown plants, beasts,
men, went down into caverns, saw how the earth was built in shelves and
multicolored layers, and pressed clay into strange rock forms. Every-
where he found the familiar, only strangely mixed and coupled, and
thus strange things often ordered themselves within him. Soon he be-
came attentive to the connections that are everywhere, to meetings and
encounters. It was not long before he ceased to see anything by itself. —
The perceptions of his senses crowded into great colorful images;
he heard, saw, touched and thought at once. He delighted in bringing
strangers together. Sometimes the stars were men for him and some-
times men were stars, sometimes the stones were beasts, the clouds
plants; he played with forces and phenomena, he knew where and how 9
he could find this and that, or make this and that manifest itself; he him-
self plucked the strings in search of chords and melodies.
What became of him after that, he does not reveal. He tells us that,
led by him and our own inclination, we shall find out what happened
within him. Several of our numbers have left him. They have gone back
to their parents and taken up a trade. Some he has sent off on missions,
we know not whither. He elected them; some had been with him only a
short time, others longer. One he sent was still a child, no sooner had he
come than the teacher wished to make him the teacher. He had great
dark eyes with sky-blue whites, his skin gleamed like lilies and his hair
like little sunlit clouds at evening. His voice melted our hearts, we
would gladly have given him our flowers, stones, feathers, everything.
He smiled with infinite earnestness, and when we were with him, we
felt strangely happy. “One day he will come back,” said the teacher, “and
live with us again. Then our studies will be ended.” — With him our
teacher sent another, one who often grieved us. He always looked sad, 11
he had been with us for many years, nothing that he touched prospered.
When we looked for crystals or flowers, it was hard for him to find
them. He could not see well into the distance, or lay varicolored rows.
Everything broke under his hands. Yet no one had his desire, or his
delight in seeing and hearing. But one day — before the child entered
into our circle — something befell, and suddenly he became gay and deft.
One day he went out sad, night came, and he did not return. We were in
great sorrow; then the dawn came, and all at once we heard his voice in
the copse. He was singing an exalted, happy song; we were all amazed.
The teacher gazed eastward with a look such as I shall never see again.
Soon the novice stepped into our midst with ineffable joy in his face; he
was carrying a humble little stone, of a strange shape. The teacher took
it in his hand and kissed it a long long while, then he looked at us with
tears in his eyes and laid the little stone in an empty space among other
stones, where many rows came together like spokes.
Never shall I forget those moments. It was as though our souls had 13
known a bright and fugitive presentiment of this wondrous world.
I too am more awkward than the others, and nature’s treasures seem
less willing to let me find them. Yet the teacher is devoted to me and lets
me sit thinking when the others go out to search. With me it has never
been as with the teacher. Everything leads me back into myself. I well
understood those words of the second voice. I take delight in the strange
mounds and figures in the halls, but to me it seems as though they were
only shapes, cloaks, ornaments, gathered round a divine, miraculous
image, and this is always in my thoughts. I do not search for them, but
within them I often search. It is as though they might show me the way
to where in deep slumber lies the maiden for whom my spirit yearns.
The teacher has never spoken of it to me, and I cannot confide in him, it
seems to me an inviolable secret. I would gladly have asked that child,
in his features I found kinship; and near him, everything within me
seemed to grow clearer. If he had stayed longer, I would surely have
learned more within myself. And in the end perhaps, my heart would 15
have opened, my tongue been set free. I would gladly have gone with
him. It was not to be. How long I shall remain here, I do not know. It
seems to me, as if I might stay forever. I scarcely dare admit it to myself,
but so fervent grows the faith in me that here I shall some day find the
thing that I long for everlastingly; that it is present. When with this faith
I look around me here, everything converges into a higher image, a new
design; and all my companions are moving towards one place. Then
everything becomes so familiar, so dear to me; and what before seemed
strange and foreign, becomes all at once like a household utensil.
 It is above all this strangeness that is strange to me, and that is why
this collection has always both repelled and attracted me. I cannot and
will not understand the teacher. He is dear to me in the measure of my
not understanding. I know that he understands me, he has never spoken
against my feeling or my desire. He wants us rather to go our own way,
because every new road goes through new countries and each in the end
leads anew to these dwellings, to this sacred home. I, too, then will 17
inscribe my figure, and if according to the inscription, no mortal can lift
the veil, we must seek to become immortal; he who does not seek to lift
it, is no true novice of Sais.
 Nature

It must have been a long time before men thought of giving a common
name to the manifold objects of their senses, and of placing themselves
in opposition to them. Through practice developments were furthered,
and in all developments occur separations and divisions that may well
be compared with the splitting of a ray of light. It was only gradually
that our inwardness split into such various forces, and with continued
practice this splitting will increase. Perhaps it is only the sickly predis-
position of later men that makes them lose the power to mix again the
scattered colors of their spirit and at will restore the old, simple, natural
state, or bring about new and varied relations between the colors. The
more united they are, the more united, complete and personal will every
natural object, every phenomenon enter into them; for to the nature of
the sense corresponds the nature of the impression, and therefore to
those earlier men, everything seemed human, familiar, and compan-
ionable, there was freshness and originality in all their perceptions,
each one of their utterances was a true product of nature, their ideas
could not help but accord with the world around them and express it 21
faithfully. We can therefore regard the ideas of our forefathers concern-
ing the things of this world as a necessary product, a self-portrait of
the state of earthly nature at that time, and from these ideas, considered
as the most fitting instruments for observing the universe, we can
assuredly take the main relation, the relation between the world and its
inhabitants. We find that the noblest questions of all first occupied their
attention and that they sought the key to the wondrous edifice, some-
times in a common measure of real things, and sometimes in the fancied
object of an unknown sense. This key, it is known, was generally
divined in the liquid, the vaporous, the shapeless. The inertia and help-
lessness of solid bodies gave rise, no doubt, to a not unmeaningful
belief in their baseness and dependence. But soon a pondering mind
encountered the difficulty of deriving forms from forces and oceans
without form. He attempted to loose the knot by a kind of combina-
tion; making the first beginnings into solid particles definitely shaped
but minute beyond conception, and from this sea of dust, he believed 23
that he could complete the immense edifice, though not without the
help of ideal fictions of attracting and repellent forces. Earlier still we
find, instead of scientific explanations, myths and poems full of mar-
velous imagery, of men, gods and beasts all building together, and it is
here that the genesis of the world is most naturally described. Here at
least we find certainty as to an accidental, handicraft origin, and even
for those who despise the uncontrolled outpourings of the imagina-
tion, this conception is full of meaning. To treat the history of the uni-
verse as a history of mankind, to find only human happenings and rela-
tions everywhere, is a continuous idea, reappearing at the most widely
separate epochs, always in a new form, and this conception seems to
have excelled all others in miraculous effect and persuasiveness. More-
over, the capriciousness of nature seems of itself to fall in with the idea
of human personality, which is apparently best grasped in the form of a
human creature. That is why poetry has been the favorite instrument of
true friends of nature, and the spirit of nature has shone most radiantly 25
in poems. When we read and hear true poems, we feel the movement of
nature’s inner reason and, like its celestial embodiment, we dwell in it
and hover over it at once. Scientists and poets have, by speaking one
language, always shown themselves to be one people. What the scien-
tists have gathered and arranged in huge, well-ordered stores, has been
made by the poets into the daily food and consolation of human hearts;
the poets have broken up the one, great, immeasurable nature and
molded it into various small, amenable natures. Poets have lightheart-
edly pursued the liquid and fugitive, while scientists have cut into the
inner structure and sought after the relations between its members.
Under their hands friendly nature died, leaving behind only dead, quiv-
ering remnants, while the poet inspired her like a heady wine till she
uttered the blithest, most godlike fancies, till, lifted out of her everyday
life, she soared to heaven, danced and prophesied, bade everyone wel-
come, and squandered her treasures with a happy heart. Thus she en-
joyed heavenly hours with the poet and called the scientist only when 27
she was sick and bowed down with conscience. On these occasions she
answered each one of his questions and treated the stern man with rev-
erence. Those who would know her spirit truly must therefore seek it in
the company of poets, where she is free and pours forth her wondrous
heart. But those who do not love her from the bottom of their hearts,
who only admire this and that in her and wish to learn this and that
about her, must visit her sickroom, her charnel-house.
Our relations with nature are as inscrutably various as with men; to
the child she shows herself childlike, pressing fondly to his childlike
heart, and to the god she discloses herself divine, in accord with his
exalted spirit. It is bombast to speak of one nature, and all striving after
truth in discourse about nature only removes us farther from the natu-
ral. Great is the gain when the striving to understand nature com-
pletely, is ennobled to yearning, a tender, diffident yearning that gladly
accepts the strange, cold creature, in the hope that she will some day
become more familiar.Within us there lies a mysterious force that tends 29
in all directions, spreading from a center hidden in infinite depths. If
wondrous nature, the nature of the senses and the nature that is not of
the senses, surrounds us, we believe this force to be an attraction of
nature, an effect of our sympathy with her; but behind these blue, dis-
tant shapes one man will seek a home that they withhold, a beloved of
his youth, mother and father, brothers and sisters, old friends, cher-
ished times past; to another it seems that out there unknown glories
await him, a radiant future is hidden, and he stretches forth his hand in
quest of a new world. A few stand calmly in this glorious abode, seeking
only to embrace it in its plenitude and enchainment; no detail makes
them forget the glittering thread that joins the links in rows to form the
holy candelabrum, and they find beatitude in the contemplation of this
living ornament hovering over the depths of night. The ways of contem-
plating nature are innumerable; at one extreme the sentiment of nature
becomes a jocose fancy, a banquet, while at the other it develops into the
most devout religion, giving to a whole life direction, principle, mean- 31
ing. Even among the childlike peoples there were grave men, for whom
nature was the face of a godhead, while other, merry hearts only prayed
to her at table; the air was to them a soothing drink, the stars were a
light to dance by, plants and beasts were merely delectable fare, nature to
them was not a wondrous, silent temple, but a jolly kitchen and pantry.
In between, there were other, more contemplative souls, who found in
the nature before them only large but neglected gardens, and busied
themselves creating prototypes of a nobler nature. — For this great work
they broke into companionable groups, some sought to awaken the
spent and lost tones in the air and in the forests, others fixed their pre-
sentiments and images of more beautiful races in bronze and stone,
fashioned more beautiful rocks and made them into dwellings, brought
back to light the treasures hidden in the crypts of the earth; tamed
unruly streams, populated the inhospitable sea, restored noble plants
and beasts to desert regions, damned the forest floods and cultivated
the nobler flowers and herbs, opened the earth to the touch of the fruc- 33
tifying air and the kindling light, taught the colors to mingle and order
themselves into charming shapes, taught wood and meadow, springs
and crags to join again in pleasant gardens, breathed tones into living
things, that they might unfold and move in joyous rhythms, took under
their protection those poor forsaken beasts amenable to human ways,
and cleansed the woods of savage monsters, the misbegotten creatures
of a degenerate fantasy. Soon nature learned friendlier ways again, she
became gentler and more amiable, more prone to favor the desires of
man. Little by little her heart learned human emotions, her fantasies
became more joyful, she became companionable, responding gladly to
the friendly questioner, and thus little by little she seems to have brought
back the old golden age, in which she was man’s friend, consoler, priest-
ess and enchantress, when she lived among men and divine association
made men immortal. Then once more the constellations will visit the
earth that they looked upon so angrily in those days of darkness; then
the sun will lay down her harsh scepter, becoming again a star among 35
stars, and all the races of the world will come together after long separa-
tion. Families orphaned of old will be reunited, and each day will see
new greetings, new embraces; then the former inhabitants of the earth
will return, on every hill embers will be rekindled; everywhere the
flames of life will blaze up, old dwelling places will be rebuilt, old times
renewed, and history will become the dream of an infinite, everlasting
present.
He who belongs to this race and this faith and wishes to contribute
his part towards the taming of nature, frequents the workshops of
artists, gives ear to the poetry that bursts forth unawares in every walk
of life, never wearies of contemplating nature and conversing with her,
follows all her beckonings, finds no journey too arduous if it is she who
calls, even should it take him into the dank bowels of the earth: surely
he will find ineffable treasures, in the end his candle will come to rest,
and then who knows into what heavenly mysteries a charming subter-
ranean sprite may initiate him. Surely no one strays farther from the
goal than he who imagines that he already knows the strange realm, 37
that he can explain its structure in few words and everywhere find the
right path. No one who tears himself loose and makes himself an island
arrives at understanding without pains. Only to children or childlike
people, ignorant of what they are doing, can this happen. Attentiveness
to subtle signs and traits, an inward poetic life, practiced senses, a
simple, God-fearing heart — these are the basic requisites for a true
friend of nature, and without them his striving will not prosper. With-
out full, flowering humanity, the striving to understand a human world
does not seem wise. Not one of the senses must slumber, and even if
not all are equally awake, all must be stimulated and not repressed or
neglected. As we see the future painter in the boy who covers every wall
and every level stretch of sand with his drawings, who combines bright
colors into figures, we see the future philosopher in him who untiringly
pursues and inquires into all things in nature, who turns his mind to
everything, gathers whatever is noteworthy and is happy if he has made
himself the master and possessor of a new phenomenon, a new force 39
and knowledge.
Now to some it seems not worth the trouble to pursue the infinite
divisions of nature, and moreover, they find it a dangerous undertaking
without fruit or issue. Never can we find the smallest grain or the
simplest fiber of a solid body, since all magnitude loses itself forwards
and backwards in infinity, and the same applies to the varieties of bodies
and forces; we encounter forever new species, new combinations, new
phenomena, and so on to infinity. They seem to stand still only when
our fervor wanes; we waste the precious time in vain study and tedious
enumeration, and this in the end becomes a true madness, a fatal ver-
tigo over the horrid abyss. And nature, they say, remains wherever we
turn a terrible mill of death: everywhere monstrous change, indissol-
uble endless chain, realm of voracity and mad luxuriance, incommen-
surable and fraught with disaster; the few bright points, they say, only
serve to illumine a night that is all the more terrifying, filled with all
manner of specters that frighten the beholder into insensibility. Death
stands like a savior by the side of unfortunate mankind, for without 41
death the madman would be the happiest among creatures. The effort
to fathom the giant mechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss, a
beginning of madness: for every lure seems an expanding vortex, which
soon takes full possession of the unfortunate and carries him away
through a night of terrors. Here, they say, is the insidious pitfall of
human reason, which nature looks upon as her worst enemy and every-
where seeks to destroy. Praised be the childlike ignorance and inno-
cence of men, which leaves them unaware of the terrible dangers, which
everywhere like awesome storm clouds surround their peaceful dwell-
ing places, threatening at every instant to break over them. Only the
inner disunity of nature’s forces has preserved man up to now, but inex-
orably the great moment will come when all mankind by common
resolve will save itself from this intolerable lot, will wrench itself free
from this hideous prison, when through voluntary renunciation of their
earthly possessions men will redeem their race forever from this mis-
ery, and escape to a happier world, to the home of their ancient father. 43
Thus men would end in a manner worthy of them, thus they would
anticipate their inevitable extermination or even more terrible degen-
eration into beasts through gradual destruction of the mind, through
madness. Association with the forces of nature, with beasts, plants,
rocks, storms and waves, must inevitably make men resemble these
things, and this adaptation, transformation, dissolution of the divine
and human into uncontrolled forces is, they say, the spirit of the awful,
devouring power that is nature: and is not indeed everything we see a
rape of heaven, a desolation of former glories, the remnant of a hideous
feast?
 “Very well,” say some who are more courageous, “let our race carry
on a slow, well-conceived war of annihilation with nature! We must
seek to lay her low with insidious poisons. The scientist is a noble hero,
who leaps into the open abyss in order to save his fellow citizens. Artists
have dealt her many covert blows: continue along this road, possess
yourselves of the secret threads, and make her lust after herself. Exploit
her strife to bend her to your will, like the fire-spewing bull. She must be 45
made to serve you. Patience and faith befit the children of mankind.
Distant brothers are united with us for one purpose, the starry wheel
will become the spinning wheel of our life, and then with the help of our
slaves we shall build ourselves a new Djinnistan. With inward triumph
let us behold her devastations, her tumults, she shall sell herself to us,
and bitterly atone for every violent deed. With a rapturous sentiment of
our freedom let us live and die; here rises the stream that will some day
submerge and quell her, let us bathe in it and gather courage for new
heroic deeds. The monster’s rage cannot reach us, a drop of freedom is
enough to lame it forever, and put an end to its devastation.”
 “They are right,” say some; “here or nowhere lies the talisman. We
sit by the source of freedom and look; it is the great magic mirror, in
which all creation is disclosed clear and pure, in it bathe the tender spir-
its and images of every kind of nature, and here every chamber is open
to us. What need to journey wearily through the dismal world of visible
things? For the purer world lies in us, in this source. Here lies the true
meaning of the great, varicolored, confused pageant; and if, full of these 47
perceptions we go out into nature, everything is familiar to us, and with
a certainty we know every shape. We need not inquire at length; an easy
comparison, a few lines in the sand are enough, and we shall under-
stand. Thus all things are a great manuscript to which we hold the key,
and nothing comes unexpected because we know the motion of the
great clockwork in advance. We alone enjoy nature with all our senses,
because it does not destroy our senses, because we are not frightened by
nightmares, but bright awareness makes us confident and calm.”
“The others speak falsely,” said a grave man to these last. “Do they
not recognize in nature the true copy of themselves? They devour them-
selves in wild heedlessness. They do not know that their nature is a
game played by their thoughts, a wild dream fantasy. To them, indeed,
nature is a terrible beast, a strange, adventurous mask of their own
desires. The man who is awake sees without trembling this brood of
his uncontrolled fancy, for he knows they are immaterial ghosts of his
own weakness. He feels that he is lord of the universe, his self soars all- 49
powerful over the abyss, and for all eternity it will soar exalted over this
world of everlasting change. His heart strives to proclaim and diffuse
harmony. As he moves into the infinite, he becomes more and more at
one with himself and his creation round him, and at every step he sees
the eternal, all-embracing efficacy of a high, ethical world system — the
citadel of his self — emerge more clearly. The meaning of the world is
reason: for the sake of reason the world exists; at first it is the battle-
ground of a childlike, burgeoning reason, but some day it will be the
divine image of reason’s workings, a true cathedral. Until then, let man
honor it as the symbol of his spirit, which is ennobled as he is ennobled,
in uncharted stages. Therefore let him who would gain knowledge of
nature, practice his ethical sense, let him act and mould according to
the noble core of his inwardness, and nature will freely reveal herself
to him. Ethical action is the one great experiment by which all the mys-
teries of the most manifold phenomena are solved. He who under-
stands this experiment and closely reasoning can break it into its parts, 51
is the eternal master of nature.”
Anxiously, the novice listened to the crisscrossing voices. Each
seemed to him right, and a strange confusion overcame his spirit. Little
by little the inward tumult subsided, and a spirit of peace seemed to soar
over the crashing dark waves, bringing new courage and contemplative
serenity to the young man’s heart.
A merry youth with roses and ivy on his brow came leaping to the
spot and saw him as he sat huddled in thought. “Why must you sulk and
ponder?” he cried. “You are on the wrong track and will get nowhere.
What matters is a joyous mood. Is nature morose? You are still young.
Do you not feel the commandments of youth in every vein? Do not love
and yearning fill your breast? How then can you sit alone? Does nature
sit alone? Joy and desire shun the recluse: and without desire, of what
avail is nature? Only among men is the home of the spirit, which invades
every one of your senses with a thousand bright colors and embraces
you like an unseen beloved. At our banquets its tongue is unloosed, it
sits on high and strikes up songs of life at its happiest. You have not yet 53
loved, poor fellow; at the first kiss a new world will open before you, and
life like a thousand arrows will flash through your entranced heart. I
shall tell you a story. Listen well:
Long long ago, far towards the setting sun, there lived a youth. He
was good and kind, but very very strange. He spent his days grieving
and pining, and always for no cause; he went about in silence or sat
alone when the others played and made merry, and he followed after
strange lore. Caverns and woods were his favored abode, and all the
while he spoke with the beasts and birds, with trees and rocks, and as
you may imagine he never said a sensible word, but such nonsense you
would have died laughing had you heard it. Yet he was always morose
and solemn, although the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot and the jay
did their very best to distract him and show him the right way. The
goose told fairy tales, the brook strummed a ballad, a big fat boulder
gamboled like a billygoat, the friendly rose crept up behind him and
twined herself in his hair, and the ivy caressed his careworn brow. But 55
his sulkiness was stubborn. His mother and father were sorely dis-
tressed, they had no idea what to do. His health was good, he ate well,
they had done nothing to vex him, and up to a few years before, he had
been happy and gay as no other, first in every game and admired by all
the girls. He was very handsome, as though an artist had painted him,
and he danced like an angel. His name was Hyacinth. Among the girls
there was one, a fair, delightful child with skin like wax, hair like golden
silk and lips like cherries; her figure was that of a doll and she had coal-
black eyes. Such was her loveliness that he who saw her might have
swooned away. In those days Rose Petal, for that was her name, loved
Hyacinth with all her heart; and he loved her in return. The other chil-
dren knew nothing of it. Then a violet told them, the house-cats had
noticed, the houses of the two children were not far apart. At night
when Hyacinth stood at his window, and Rose Petal at hers, and the cats
ran by, chasing after mice, they saw the two of them standing there and
often they tittered and laughed so loud that the two lovers heard them 57
and grew angry. The violet had told it to the strawberry in confidence,
and the strawberry told it to her friend the gooseberry, who spoke sourly,
bitingly whenever Hyacinth came by; and thus the whole garden soon
learned of it and the forest too, and when Hyacinth went out, cries
assailed him from all sides: “Rose Petal is my sweetheart!” Now Hya-
cinth was angry, yet he could not help laughing with all his heart when
the lizard came sliding along, sat down on a warm stone, wagged his tail
and sang:
 Poor little Rose Petal
Has suddenly gone blind,
She takes Hyacinth for her mother,
Round his neck you will find
Her entwined.
And when she sees ’tis not her mother,
Just think — she takes no fright,
But keeps on kissing him
With fond delight. 59

Alas! How soon their joy was ended. There came a man from foreign
lands, who had journeyed wondrous far; he had a long beard, deep eyes,
terrible eyebrows, a strange cloak with many folds and weird figures
woven into it. He sat down before the house that belonged to Hyacinth’s
father and mother. Hyacinth was very curious, he sat down beside him
and brought him bread and wine. Then the man parted his white beard
and spoke until deep into the night, and Hyacinth did not stir from the
spot or weary with listening. As far as could later be learned, the man
told many stories of strange lands, of unknown regions, of marvelous
things; he stayed for three days, and he and Hyacinth went down into
deep caverns. Rose Petal cursed the old sorcerer, for Hyacinth was so
immersed in their talks that he saw nothing else and only took a little
food now and then. At last the man went on his way, but he left Hyacinth
a little book which no one could read. Hyacinth gave him fruit, bread
and wine and accompanied him a long way. And then he returned, deep
in thought, and began an entirely new life. Rose Petal was filled with 61
sorrow, for from that time on he took little notice of her and remained
always by himself.
But one day he came home and was as though new born. He flung
himself into the arms of his father and mother and wept. “I must go
forth into foreign lands,” he said, “the weird old woman of the woods
has told me how I shall be healed; she flung the book into the fire and
bade me ask your blessing. Perhaps I shall return soon, perhaps never.
Say farewell to Rose Petal for me! I wish I might have spoken to her;
what is in me I cannot tell, something that drives me forth; when I try to
think of the old times, mightier thoughts rise up, all peace is gone, my
heart and love with it, I must go forth in search of them. I wish I might
tell you whither, I myself know not, I am going where dwells the mother
of things, the veiled maiden. It is for her that my heart yearns. Farewell!”
He tore himself loose and departed. His father and mother grieved and
lamented, Rose Petal stayed in her chamber and wept bitterly. As for
Hyacinth, he wandered through valley and wilderness, crossed moun- 63
tains and streams, in search of the mysterious land. Everywhere he
asked for the sacred goddess Isis, he inquired of men and beasts, of
stones and trees. Some laughed, some were silent, nowhere did he re-
ceive an answer. At first he passed through rough, wild country, mist
and clouds lay across his path, and everlasting storms; then he found
endless sandy wastes, burning dust, and as he wandered, his spirit
changed, the hours seemed long, his unrest was appeased, he grew
gentler and the turbulent force within him changed to a strong but tran-
quil stream in which his whole soul dissolved. It was as though many
years lay behind him. Now the country became richer and more varied,
the air mild and blue, the path more level, green copses lured him with
comforting shade, but he did not understand their language, they
seemed indeed not to speak, and yet they filled his heart with green
color and a cool stillness. Higher and higher rose the sweet yearning in
him, broader and softer became the leaves, louder and merrier the birds
and beasts, balmier the fruits, darker the sky, and more ardent his love; 65
the time passed faster and faster, as though he felt his goal to be close at
hand. One day he met a crystal spring and a throng of flowers coming
down into a valley between black pillars that rose to heaven. They
greeted him with friendly, familiar words. “Dear compatriots,” he said,
“where shall I find the hallowed abode of Isis? It must be nearby, and
perhaps you know this region better than I.” — “We are only passing
through,” the flowers replied; “a family of spirits is going on a journey,
and we are preparing their path and living quarters, but not long ago we
passed through a place where we heard her name. Just climb to the place
whence we have come, and surely you will learn more.” The flowers and
the spring laughed as they spoke, they offered him a drink of fresh water
and went on. Hyacinth followed their counsel, asked and asked again,
and at length he came to the long-sought dwelling that lay hidden
beneath palms and other delectable trees. His heart beat with infinite
yearning, and the sweetest fears ran through him in this abode of the
eternal seasons. Amid heavenly scents he fell asleep, for only a dream 67
could take him to the holy of holies. And the strange dream led him
through endless halls full of curious things, amid melodious sounds
and changing harmonies. It seemed to him all so familiar and yet of a
radiance such as he had never beheld; the last trace of earth vanished as
though dissolved in air, and he stood before the heavenly maiden. He
raised the light, shimmering veil, and Rose Petal sank into his arms. A
distant music surrounded the mysteries of the lovers’ meeting, the out-
pourings of yearning, and excluded all that was alien from this lovely
place. Afterwards Hyacinth lived many years with Rose Petal among his
happy parents and playmates, and innumerable grandchildren thanked
the weird old woman for her advice and her fire; for in those days people
could have as many children as they wanted.
The novices embraced one another and departed. The broad, echo-
ing halls stood empty and bright, and the wondrous colloquy continued
in innumerable languages among the thousandfold natures, which had
been gathered together in these halls and arranged in various orders. 69
Their inner forces played one against the other. They strove back
towards their freedom, their old relations. Some few stayed in their
proper place and calmly watched the multiform stirrings about them.
The others complained of dire pains and torments and bemoaned the
glorious old life in the heart of nature, where a common freedom joined
them together and each spontaneously obtained what he needed.
“O, if only man,” they said, “could understand the inner music of
nature, if only he had a sense for outward harmonies. But he scarcely
knows that we belong together and that none of us can exist without the
others. He cannot leave anything in place, tyrannically he parts us and
plucks at our dissonances. How happy he could be if he treated us
amiably and entered into our great covenant, as he did in the good old
days, rightly so named. In those days he understood us, as we under-
stood him. His desire to become God has separated him from us, he
seeks what he cannot know or divine, and since then he has ceased to be
a harmonizing voice, a companion movement. He senses, to be sure, 71
the infinite delight, the eternal pleasure in us, and that is why he has so
wondrous a love for some among us. The magic of gold, the secrets of
colors, the joys of water are not alien to him, he surmises the wonder of
ancient stones, and yet he lacks the sweet passion for nature’s weavings,
the eye for our entrancing mysteries. Will he ever learn to feel? This
divine, this most natural of all senses is little known to him: feeling
would bring back the old time, the time we yearn for; the element of
feeling is an inward light that breaks into stronger, more beautiful col-
ors. Then the stars would rise within him, he would learn to feel the
whole world, and his feeling would be richer and clearer than the limits
and surfaces that his eye now discloses. Master of an endless dance, he
would forget all his insensate strivings in joy everlasting, nourishing
itself and forever growing. Thought is only a dream of feeling, a dead
feeling, a pale-gray feeble life.”
As they spoke, the sun shone through the lofty windows, and the
sound of their words was lost in a gentle murmur; an infinite surmise 73
permeated every shape, a tender warmth spread over them all, and a
wondrous song of nature rose from the deepest silence. Human voices
were heard nearby, the great folding doors leading in from the garden
were opened, and a few travelers sat down on the steps of the broad
staircase, in the shadow of the building. The charming landscape lay in
a lovely radiance before them, and in the background the eye lost itself
in blue mountain heights. Friendly children brought all manner of food
and drink, and soon a lively discourse began among the travelers.
“To everything that man undertakes,” said one of them finally, “he
must give his undivided attention, his self; once he has done this, mirac-
ulously thoughts arise, or new kinds of perceptions, which appear to be
nothing more than delicate, abrupt movements of a colored pencil, or
strange contractions and figurations of an elastic liquid. From the point
where he has transfixed the impression, they spread in all directions
with a living mobility and carry his self with them. Often he can stop this
movement at the outset by dividing his attention or letting it wander at 75
random, for thoughts seem to be nothing other than emanations and
effects which the self induces all around it in that elastic medium, or the
refractions of the self in that medium, or in general a strange game that
the waves of this ocean play with the rigidity of concentration. Strange
to say, it is only through this play that man becomes aware of his unique-
ness, his specific freedom; it seems to him then as though he were wak-
ing from a deep sleep, as though he had just begun to be at home in the
universe, as though the light of day had just broken in upon his inner
world. It seems to him the highest achievement if, without disturbing
this play, he can carry on the ordinary business of the senses, if he can
feel and think at once. Thereby both types of perception gain: the outer
world becomes transparent and the inner world becomes varied and
meaningful; thus man finds himself in an ardent, living state between
two worlds, enjoying the most perfect freedom and the most joyous
sense of power. It is natural that man should attempt to perpetuate this
state and extend it to the whole sum of his impressions; that he does not 77
grow weary of pursuing these associations between the two worlds and
delving into their laws, their sympathies and their antipathies.The epit-
ome of what stirs our feeling is called nature, hence nature stands in an
immediate relation to the functions of our body that we call senses.
Unknown and mysterious relations within our body cause us to sur-
mise unknown and mysterious states in nature; nature is a community
of the marvelous, into which we are initiated by our body, and which we
learn to know in the measure of our body’s faculties and abilities. The
question arises, whether we can learn to understand the nature of
natures through this specific nature, and to what degree our ideas and
the intensity of our attention are determined by it, or else determine it,
thus snatching it away from nature and perhaps destroying its delicate
flexibility. Clearly, these inner relations, these faculties of our body must
first of all be studied, before we can hope to answer this question and
penetrate the nature of things. It might also be thought, however, that
we must have extensive practice in thinking, before trying our mettle on 79
the inner structure of our body and applying its intellect to an under-
standing of nature; and indeed, once we had this practice, nothing
would be more natural than to call on every possible process of thought,
to acquire nimbleness and lightness in this craft, to pass from one
process to another, to combine them and subdivide them in innumer-
able ways. To this end, we should have to scrutinize all our impressions,
and closely observe the play of thoughts thus engendered, and should
this in turn give rise to more new thoughts, examine them too. Thus
little by little we should learn their mechanism and, through frequent
repetition, learn to distinguish and remember the processes that are
consistently bound up with each impression. Once we had evolved
thought processes to serve as nature’s code, the deciphering would
become increasingly simple and our power over the movement and gen-
eration of thoughts would enable us to produce natural ideas and natu-
ral compositions even without any preceding real impression, and then
the ultimate end would be attained.” 81
“It seems venturesome,” said another, “to attempt to compose nature
from its outward forces and manifestations, to represent it now as a
gigantic fire, now as a wonderfully constructed waterfall, now as a dual-
ity or a triad, or as some other weird force. More conceivably, it is the
product of an inscrutable harmony among infinitely various essences, a
miraculous bond with the spirit world, the point at which innumerable
worlds touch and are joined.”
“Let it be venturesome,” said a third; “the more haphazardly the dar-
ing fisherman’s net is woven, the better his catch. Let us merely encour-
age each man to go as far as he can and praise each man who spins a
mesh of new fantasy around things. Is it not the well-constructed sys-
tems that will give the future natural geographer the bearings for his
great map of nature? He will compare these systems, and it is this com-
parison that will give us our first knowledge of the strange country. The
knowledge of nature, however, will still be an infinitely different thing
from its interpretation. The true decipherer will perhaps succeed in set-
ting several natural forces in motion at once to produce beautiful and 83
useful phenomena; he will know how to improvise on nature as on a
great instrument, and nevertheless, he will not understand nature. This
is the gift of the historian of nature, the seer of time, who, familiar with
the history of nature and knowing the universe, this higher theater
of natural history, perceives nature’s meanings and heralds them in
prophecy. This province is still unknown, a holy field. Only divine emis-
saries have let fall disjointed words concerning this highest of sciences,
and the surprising thing is that these prescient minds have allowed this
surmise to escape them and have debased nature to the level of a uni-
form machine, without past and future. Everything divine has a his-
tory; can it be that nature, the one totality by which man can measure
himself, should not be bound together in a history, or — and this is the
same thing — that it should have no spirit? Nature would not be nature
if it had no spirit, it would not be the unique counterpart to mankind,
not the indispensable answer to this mysterious question, or the ques-
tion to this never-ending answer.” 85
“Only the poets have felt what nature can be to mankind,” began a
handsome youth, “and in this connection it can once more be said that
the humanity in them is in the most perfect diffusion, and that conse-
quently through their mirrored clarity and mobility each impression is
communicated on all sides in its infinite variations. They find every-
thing in nature. To them alone its soul remains no stranger, and not in
vain do they seek all the ecstasies of the golden age in its presence. For
them nature has all the variety of an infinite soul, and more than the
cleverest, most alive of men, it astounds us with ingenious turns and
fancies, with correspondences and deviations, with grandiose ideas
and trifling whimsies. So inexhaustible is nature’s fantasy, that no one
will seek its company in vain. It has power to beautify, animate, con-
firm, and even though an unconscious, unmeaning mechanism seems
to govern the part, the eye that looks deeper discerns a wonderful sym-
pathy with the human heart in concurrences and in the sequence of iso-
lated accidents. The wind is a movement of the air; it can spring from 87
various outward causes, but is it not more to the lonely, yearning heart
when it comes murmuring, blowing from places beloved, when with a
thousand dark, melancholy sounds it seems to melt a silent grief into a
deep, melodious sigh? And in the youthful, unassuming green of mead-
ows in spring, does the young lover not see his whole flowery heart
expressed with enchanting truth? And has the luxuriance of a spirit
seeking contentment in wine, ever appeared with greater joy and vigor
than in a glistening, full-blown cluster of grapes, hiding amid broad
leaves? Poets are accused of exaggeration and at best forgiven for their
unreal images; without looking closer, people ascribe to poet’s fancy
the miraculous nature that sees and hears things which others do not
hear and see, whose tender madness governs the real world at will; but
to me it seems that the poets do not exaggerate nearly enough, since
they content themselves with darkly surmising the magic of nature’s
language and with playing on fancy as a child might play with his father’s
magic wand. They do not know what forces they have as vassals, what 89
worlds are bound to obey them. Is it not true that stones and woods are
obedient to music, that under the spell of music they serve man’s will
like house-pets? — Is it not true that the loveliest flowers bloom for the
beloved, and delight in adorning her? Does the sky not grow blue for
her and the sea turn smooth? Is it not true that all nature, as well as face
and gesture, color and pulse, expresses the emotion of each one of
the wonderful higher beings we call men? Does the cliff not become a
unique Thou, whenever I speak to it? And what am I but the stream,
when I look sadly down into its waters and lose my thoughts in its flow?
Only a tranquil, sensuous spirit will understand the world of plants,
only a high-spirited child or a savage will understand beasts. — Whether
anyone has ever understood the stones and the stars, I do not know, but
if so, he must surely have been a noble creature. Only those statues that
have come down to us from a lost age of mankind’s glory, are illumined
by so deep a spirit, so rare an understanding of the stone world; they
cover the sensitive beholder with a rind of stone that seems to grow 91
inward. The sublime has power to petrify, hence we should not be sur-
prised at the sublime in nature or its influence, or fail to know where to
seek it. Might nature not have turned to stone at the sight of God? Or
from fear at the advent of man?”
At these words the first speaker sank into deep thoughts, the distant
mountains took color, and a soft, familiar evening descended upon the
countryside.After a long silence he was heard to say: “In order to under-
stand nature, we must allow nature to be born inwardly in its full
sequence. In this undertaking, we must be led entirely by the divine
yearning for beings that are like us, we must seek out the conditions
under which it is possible to question them, for truly, all nature is intel-
ligible only as an instrument and medium for the communication of
rational beings. The thinking man returns to the original function of
his existence, to creative contemplation, to the point, where knowledge
and creation were united in a wondrous mutual tie, to that creative
moment of true enjoyment, of inward self-conception. If he immerses 93
himself entirely in the contemplation of this primaeval phenomenon,
the history of the creation of nature unfolds before him in newly emerg-
ing times and spaces like a tale that never ends, and the fixed point that
crystallizes in the infinite fluid becomes for him a new revelation of the
genius of love, a new bond between the Thou and the I. A meticulous
account of this inward universal history is the true theory of nature. The
relations within his thought world and its harmony with the universe
will give rise to a philosophical system that will be the faithful picture
and formula of the universe. But the art of pure contemplation, of cre-
ative metaphysics, is difficult, requiring earnest, unremitting thought
and strict self-discipline, and the reward will not be the applause of his
trouble-shunning contemporaries, but only the joy of knowing and
being awake, a closer contact with the universe.”
“Yes,” said the second, “nothing is so marvelous as the great simul-
taneity of nature. Everywhere nature seems wholly present. In the flame
of a lamp all natural forces are active, and thus it manifests itself and 95
transforms itself everywhere, gathers together leaves, blossoms and
fruits, and in the midst of time it is present, past and future at once; who
knows towards what unique kind of distance it also tends, and whether
this system of nature is not merely a sun in the universe, connected with
it by bands, by a light, by an attraction and influences, which first be-
come more clearly perceptible in our spirit and then, gathering from it,
diffuse the spirit of the universe over this nature and distribute the spirit
of this nature among other systems of nature.”
“If the thinker,” spoke the third, “rightly turns artist and takes the
active road, if by adroit use of his spiritual movements he endeavors to
reduce the universe to a simple, apparently enigmatic figure, if, as one
might say, he lets nature dance and copies its movements in words, the
lover of nature cannot but admire this bold undertaking and delight in
the flowering of this human gift. It is fitting that the artist should set
activity uppermost, for his essence is to act and create with knowledge
and will, and his art is ability to use his instrument for every purpose, to 97
reproduce the world in his own way; therefore the principle of his world
is activity and his world is his art. Here again nature can be seen in new
glory and only the unthinking man casts away with contempt the illeg-
ible, strangely mixed words. Thankfully, the priest lays this exalted new
instrument of measurement on the altar beside the magnetic needle,
which never goes astray and has guided innumerable ships across the
pathless oceans to the coasts and harbors of home. Aside from the
thinker, however, there remain other friends of knowledge, who are not
eminently devoted to creation through thought and hence, having no
vocation for this art, prefer to become pupils of nature, who find their
joy in learning rather than in teaching, in experiencing rather than in
making, in receiving rather than in giving. Some are industrious, confi-
dent in the omnipresence and bosom kinship of nature; hence con-
vinced in advance of the imperfection and continuity of all separate
things, they closely examine some random phenomenon; with steady
gaze they hold fast its spirit as it undergoes transformations into a 99
thousand shapes; holding by this thread, they penetrate every secret
nook and cranny of the secret workshop in order to map these laby-
rinthine ways in their entirety. By the time they complete this arduous
labor, a higher spirit has come over them unawares, and then it is an
easy matter for them to discuss the map as it lies before them and plot a
path for every seeker. Immeasurable gain blesses their painstaking
labor, and the outline of their map will coincide surprisingly with the
system of the thinker, whom they will involuntarily have consoled, it
would seem, with living proof of his abstract theorems. The idlest
among them live in childlike expectation, waiting to receive the knowl-
edge of nature that is useful to them from higher beings who they fer-
vidly venerate. In this short life, they have no desire to devote their time
and attention to work that would take them away from the service of
love. Living in piety, they strive only to win love and impart love, uncon-
cerned over the great drama of forces, calmly resigned to their destiny
in this realm of power, for they are devoutly aware that they cannot be 101
parted from the beings they love, and nature stirs them only as an image
and property of those beings. What need have these happy souls to
know? They have chosen the better part; they are pure flames of love; in
this earthly world they abide only on the pinnacles of the temples, or
else, on battered ships at sea, they are blazing symbols of heaven’s
superabundant fire. Often in blessed hours these loving children per-
ceive glorious secrets of nature and reveal them in unknowing simplic-
ity.The scientist follows their steps and gathers every treasure they have
let fall in their innocence and joy, the poet, filled with sympathy, does
homage to their love, and seeks in his songs to transplant this love, this
germ of the golden age, into other times and lands.”
“Whose heart does not leap with joy,” cried the youth with glittering
eye, “when the innermost life of nature invades him in all its fullness!
When the overpowering emotion for which language has no other name
than love, expands within him like an all-dissolving vapor and, trem-
bling with sweet fear, he sinks into the dark, alluring heart of nature, 103
consumes his poor personality in the crashing waves of lust, and noth-
ing remains but a focus of infinite procreative force, a yawning vortex in
an immense ocean? What is the flame that is manifested everywhere? A
fervent embrace, whose sweet fruits fall like sensuous dew. Water, first-
born child of airy fusions, cannot deny its voluptuous origin and reveals
itself an element of love, and of its mixture with divine omnipotence on
earth. Not without truth have ancient sages sought the origin of things
in water, and indeed, they spoke of a water more exalted than sea and
well water. A water in which only primal fluidity is manifested, as it is
manifested in liquid metal; therefore should men revere it always as
divine. How few up to now have immersed themselves in the mysteries
of fluidity, and there are some in whose drunken soul this surmise of the
highest enjoyment and the highest life has never wakened. In thirst this
world soul is revealed, this immense longing for liquefaction. The
intoxicated feel only too well the celestial delight of the liquid element,
and ultimately all pleasant sensations are multiform flowings and stir- 105
rings of those primaeval waters in us. Even sleep is nothing but the high
tide of that invisible world sea, and waking is the ebb tide. How many
men stand by the rivers that make drunk and fail to hear the lullaby
of the motherly waters or to enjoy the entrancing play of their never-
ending waves! In the golden age we lived like these waves; in variegated
clouds, those floating seas and springs of life on earth, the generations
of mankind loved and procreated in never-ending games, they were vis-
ited by the children of heaven, and only in that great event which holy
sages call the deluge, was this flowering world submerged; a hostile
being hurled down the earth, and a few men were left in the alien world,
washed up on the crags of the new mountains. How strange that pre-
cisely the most sacred and charming manifestations of nature should be
in the hands of such dead men as scientists incline to be. These phe-
nomena whose potency calls forth nature’s creation, phenomena which
should be a secret of lovers, a mystery of higher mankind, are shame-
lessly and senselessly evoked by unfeeling minds, which will never 107
know what miracles their retorts contain. Only poets should deal in the
fluid element and be empowered to speak of it to ardent youth; then
laboratories would be temples, and with new love men would honor and
take pride in their flame and their rivers. How fortunate would cities
laved by the ocean or a great river once more call themselves, and every
source would again be a sanctuary of love, an abode of learned, saga-
cious men. That is why nothing holds greater lure for children than fire
and water; every stream promises to carry them into the flowery dis-
tance, into places more beautiful than home. It is not mere reflection if
the sky lies in the water, it is a tender affinity, a symbol of kinship, and if
unfulfilled desire yearns for infinite heights, happy love likes to sink
into bottomless depths. But it is useless to teach and preach nature. A
man born blind cannot learn to see, though you may speak to him for-
ever of colors and lights and distant shapes. No one will fathom nature
who possesses no sense of nature, no inward organ for creating and
dividing nature, who does not, as though spontaneously, recognize and 109
distinguish nature everywhere, who does not with an inborn creative
joy, a rich and fervent kinship with all things, mingle with all of nature’s
creatures through the medium of feeling, who does not feel his way into
them. He who has a sound and practiced sense of nature enjoys nature
by studying it and takes delight in its infinite variety, its inexhaustible
joy, and has no need to be disturbed in his pleasures by useless words. It
seems to him rather that a man cannot be too much alone with nature,
cannot speak of her tenderly enough, cannot be attentive and undis-
turbed enough in his contemplation of her. In nature he feels as though
in the arms of his chaste bride, and only to her does he confide the intu-
itions to which he has attained in sweet hours of intimacy. Happy I call
this son, this darling of nature, whom she permits to behold her in her
duality, as a power that engenders and bears, and in her unity, as an end-
less, everlasting marriage. His life will be a plenitude of all pleasures, a
voluptuous chain, and his religion will be the real, the true naturalism.”
During this last discourse, the teacher with his novices had 111
approached the company. The travelers stood up and greeted him rev-
erently. A cool freshness issued from the dark arbors, spreading over
the open space and the stairs. The teacher sent for one of those rare glit-
tering stones called rubies, and a bright red light was diffused over
faces and garments. Soon a friendly communication was woven among
them. While music was heard from the distance and a cooling flame
from crystal goblets poured into the lips of the company, the strangers
related strange memories of their travels. Filled with yearning and with
thirst for knowledge, they had gone out to seek traces of that lost
primaeval race, whose degenerate and barbarous remnants the men of
the present appear to be, and to whose lofty learning they seem to owe
their most important knowledge and implements. They had been lured
above all by that sacred language that had been the glittering bond
between those kingly men and the inhabitants of the regions above the
earth, and some precious words of which, according to countless leg-
ends, were known to a few fortunate sages among our ancestors. Their 113
speech was a wondrous song, its irresistible tones penetrated deep into
the inwardness of nature and split it apart. Each of their names seemed
to be the key to the soul of each thing in nature. With creative power
these vibrations called forth all images of the world’s phenomena, and
the life of the universe can rightly be said to have been an eternal dia-
logue of a thousand voices; for in the language of those men all forces,
all modes of action seemed miraculously united. To seek out the ruins
of this language, or at least all reports concerning it, had been one of the
main purposes of their journey, and the call of antiquity had drawn
them also to Sais. Here, from the learned clerks of the temple archives,
they hoped to obtain important reports, and perhaps even to find indi-
cations in the great collections of every kind. They asked the teacher for
leave to spend the night in the temple and to attend his classes for sev-
eral days. Their request was granted, and they were filled with delight at
how, from the treasure of his knowledge, the teacher accompanied
their tales with various remarks and spun out a number of graceful and 115
instructive little stories and recollections. At last he proceeded to the
craft of his old age, to arouse, exercise and sharpen a differentiated
sense of nature in young minds, to combine it with other gifts and pro-
duce higher blossoms and fruits.
“To be a prophet of nature is a sacred and beautiful office,” said the
teacher. “Not the mere breadth and system of knowledge, not the gift of
relating this knowledge easily and purely to familiar concepts and expe-
rience and of exchanging the peculiar, strange-sounding words for
common expressions, not even the skill of a rich imagination at order-
ing the manifestations of nature into easily understood, apt and illumi-
nating pictures which either strain and satisfy the senses by charm of
composition and richness of content, or delight the spirit with pro-
found meaning — all this is not the essential requirement of a prophet
of nature. For him who is concerned with something other than nature,
this is perhaps enough; but he who is filled with profound yearning for
nature, who seeks everything in nature and is, in a manner of speaking, 117
a sensitive instrument of its secret action, will take for his teacher and
guide to nature only the man who speaks of her with worship and faith,
whose discourse has the wondrous, inimitable penetration and inher-
ency by which true gospels, true prophecies are known. The inborn tal-
ent of this natural soul must be sustained and developed from child-
hood by unremitting toil, by solitude and silence (for excess of speech is
not compatible with unremitting alertness), by a childlike nature and
indefatigable patience. No one can tell how long it will take a man to
learn nature’s secrets. Some fortunates have attained this knowledge
early, some in advanced old age. A true inquirer never grows old, every
eternal yearning lies outside the term of life, and the more the outer
husk fades, the brighter, clearer and richer grows the kernel. Nor does
this gift attach to outward beauty or strength or intelligence or any
human quality. In every walk of life, among all ages and races, in all
epochs and under every reach of heaven, there have been men selected
by nature as her favorites, and endowed with inner conception. Often 119
these men seemed simpler and more awkward than others and spent
their whole life covered by the darkness of the herd. Indeed it is a great
rarity to find true understanding of nature accompanied by great elo-
quence, cleverness and a noble bearing, since commonly it goes hand in
hand with simple words, an upright mind, and an unassuming charac-
ter. This sense seems to develop most easily and frequently in the work-
shops of artisans and artists, and in those occupations such as farming,
seafaring, cattle-breeding, mining, in which men are in constant con-
tact and struggle with nature. Every art demands an understanding of
the means needed to achieve a desired end, to produce a given effect and
phenomenon, and in skill at selecting and handling these means; there-
fore, he who feels an inner calling to impart the understanding of nature
to other men, to develop and cultivate this gift in men, must first give
careful regard to the natural causes of this development and endeavor
to learn the elements of this art from nature. Having thus gained an
insight he will devise a system based on experiment, analysis and com- 121
parison whereby these means may be applied by any individual; this sys-
tem will become like second nature to him and then he will embark with
enthusiasm upon his rewarding task. Only such a man can rightly be
called a teacher of nature, since every other mere naturalist will, like
some natural event, only awaken a sense of nature by accident and
sympathy.”
 Drawings

Portrait of Novalis, 1949. 4. Familiarity. 1927.

André Masson familiäres, 277
frontispiece Ink on paper mounted on board
30.5cm x 45.8cm
1. Mask. 1919. (Location unknown)
Maske, 76 123
Oil on paper mounted on board 5. The Little One Must Harvest. 1928.
19cm x 15.2cm der Kleine muss ernten, 123
(Location unknown) Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
29.5cm x 44.5cm
2. Insect Eaters. 1926. Private Collection, Switzerland
Insectenfressende, 93
Ink on paper mounted on board 6. The Little Tree. 1926.
24.5/24.9cm x 30.4/30.7cm das Bäumchen, 97
(Location unknown) Ink on paper mounted on board
23.8cm x 30.5cm
3. Battle with the Sea Serpent. 1925. Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne
Kampf mit der Seeschlange, 243
Ink on paper mounted on board 7. The Large Dome. 1927.
17.2cm x 31.3cm die grosse Kuppel, 43
Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
26.9cm x 30.3/30.6cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
 8. Interrelationship of the Plants. 1915. 13. Completed. 1927.
Wechselbeziehungen der Pflanzen, 97 vollbracht, 153
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper mounted on board
13.2cm x 12cm 25cm x 46cm
(Location unknown) (Location unknown)

9. Realm of the Curtain. 1925. 14. Study (Regarding Outer-Inner Space,

Reich des Vorhanges, 249 Hammered). 1931.
Ink on paper mounted on board Studie (aussen= innen räumlichesbetreffend,
30.3/30.6cm x 27/26.3cm gehämmert), 139
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Pencil on paper mounted on board
124 21cm x 32.9cm
10. Concert on the Branch. 1921. Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Konzert auf dem Zweig, 188
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 15. Wind-born Seeds. 1925.
28.2cm x 22cm Flugsamen, 230
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Ink on paper mounted on board
21.3/21.1cm x 36.1cm
11. Prickly Current, First Stage. 1928. Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Stachelströmung ersten Stadiums, 115
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 16. Rough Wind on the 8th of May. 1928.
45.3/45.6cm x 60.3cm grober Wind am 8. Mai, 105
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
30.2cm x 45.2cm
12. Jewelled in Spite of It. 1928. Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne
trotzdem geschmückt, 26
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 17. Play on the Water. 1925.
29.2cm x 30.5cm Spiel auf dem Wasser
Private Collection, United States
of America
18. Landing Stage. 1913. 23. (Rain). 1927.
Landungsbrücke, 15 Regen, 59
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
15.2cm x 23cm 30.2cm x 46.5cm
Private Collection, United States Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Art Museum
of America
24. Children’s Playground. 1932.
19. Town of Cathedrals. 1927. Kinderspielplatz, 97
Stadt der Katedralen, 58 Ink on paper with [Randeleiste] mounted
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board on board
30.5cm x 46.4cm 30.5cm x 48.5cm
Museum and Cultural Center, Private Collection, Switzerland 125
Wellesley College, gift of Mrs.
Robert C. Osborn 25. Design for the realm of Plants, Earth and
Air. 1920.
20. Hermaphrodite and unisexual. 1915. Zeichnung zu Pflanzen Erd und Luftreich, 205
Zwitter und eingeschlechtige, 111 Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
Ink on paper mounted on board 22.4cm x 18.6cm
14.2/14.7cm x 21.5/22cm Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Private Collection, Switzerland
26. Figure Script. 1925.
21. Wandering Animals. 1928. Figurenschrift, 125
Tiere auf Wanderung, 118 Ink on paper mounted on board
Ink on paper mounted on board 11.5cm x 20.4cm
22.5cm x 50.5cm E.W.K., Bern
(Location unknown)
27. Scene with the Running Woman. 1925.
22. Landscape with the Saint. 1927. d. Scene mit der Laufenden, 247
Landschaft mit der Heiligen, 99 Ink on paper mounted on board
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 21.9/21cm x 28.8cm
20cm x 30.5cm Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Private Collection, Switzerland
 28. Toys. 1927 Extended loan and promised gift of the
Spielzeug, 113 Carl Djerassi Trust II
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board Copyright Artists Rights Society (ARS),
20.5cm x 30.2cm New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Private Collection, Canada
33. Botanical Monument. 1928.
29. Fertilized. 1927. botanisches Monument, 177
befruchtet, 278 Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 26.5/27cm x 30.4cm
30.1cm x 45.5cm Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne
126 34. Ships in the Lock. 1928.
30. Clear-cut. 1931. Schiffe in der Schleüse, 40
Baumschlag, 265 Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
Ink on paper mounted on board 29.6/30.3cm x 45.1/45.5cm
24.2/24.5cm x 30.7cm Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
35. Organ Mountain. 1934.
31. Astrological Charlatans. 1921. Orgelberg, 75
Astrologische Charlatane, 163 Ink on paper mounted on board
Ink on paper mounted on board 22cm x 32cm
11cm x 18.5cm Private Collection, Switzerland
Private Collection, United States
of America 36. The Thoughts. 1917.
Die Gedanken, 122
32. Birthday Child. 1925. Ink and watercolor on paper mounted
Geburtstagskind, 123 on board
Ink on paper mounted on board 16cm x 24cm
11cm x 10.1cm Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
37. Finds. 1935. 42. Oh, the Passions! 1928.
Funde, 123 ja, die Leidenschaften! 116
Pencil on glue-primed paper on board Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
20.9cm x 32.9cm 27.3/27.7cm x 45.4cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art

38. Dreamlike. 1930. 43. Suburb of Beride. 1927.

traumhaftes, 81 Vorort von Beride, 54
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
25.2/25.4cm x 30.7cm 29.6cm x 31cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
127
39. Activity on the Coastal Town. 1927. 44. Demony. 1925.
Aktivität d. Seestadt, 216 Daemonie, 204
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board Ink on paper mounted on board
30cm x 46.5cm 24.7/25.1cm x 55.4cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art

40. Drawing for the Battle Scene of the 45. Small Scene with the Monster. 1925.
Seafarer. 1923. kleine Scene mit dem Ungeheuer, 246
Zeichnung zur Kampfscene des Seefahrers, 208 Ink on paper mounted on board
Pencil on paper mounted on board 20cm x 23.9cm
23.4/23.7cm x 35/34.4cm Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
46. Lake Landscape with the Celestial Body.
41. The Way from Unklaich to China. 1920. 1920.
Der Weg von Unklaich nach China, 153 Seelandschaft mit der Himmelskörper, 166
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper collage mounted on board
18.6cm x 28.2cm 12.7cm x 28.1cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
 47. Temperaments. 1927. 52. Beride (Water Town). 1927.
Temperamente, 281 Beride (Wasserstadt), 51
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
30/30.4cm x 45.2/45.5cm 16.3/16.7cm x 22.1/22.4cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art

48. Demons Before the Entrance. 1926. 53. The Beetle. 1925.
Dämonen vor dem Eingang, 10 der Käfer, 237
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper mounted on board
13.8cm x 31.4cm 29.5cm x 24.4/24.6cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
128
49. Drawing with the Fermata. 1918. 54. Abstract Writing. 1931.
Zeichnung mit der Fermate, 209 abstracte Schrift, 284
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper mounted on board
15.9cm x 24.4cm 8.4cm x 21.9cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art

50. Comedy. 1921. 55. Cheerful Spook. 1927.

Komödie, 109 heiterer Spuk, 308
Pencil and ink on paper collage mounted Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
on board 38.8/39.1cm x 28.3/28.9cm
a) 22.3cm x 15.8cm b) 22.3cm x 13cm Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
Private Collection, Canada
56. Horticulture. 1925.
51. Connection and Fruits. 1927. Gartenbau, 164
Zusammenhang und Früchte, 276 Ink on paper mounted on board
Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board 14.5cm x 18.5cm
30.2/30.4cm x 45.5cm Private Collection, Canada
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art
57. Under the Earth. 1929. 59. Rock-cut Temple. 1927.
unter der Erde, 302 Felsentempel, 61
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper mounted on board
24cm x 22.5cm 30.4cm x 46.4cm
(Location unknown) Rosengart Collection Museum, Lucerne

58. Flight from Oneself (First Stage). 1931. 60. The Jewel. 1928.
Flucht vor sich (erstes Stadium), 25 der Schmuck, 25
Ink on paper mounted on board Ink on paper with glue, mounted on board
41.8/42.2cm x 58/58.2cm 20.3cm x 29.8cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Bern Museum of Art Private Collection, United States
of America 129