On the whole, _I_ is a very serviceable pronoun; and equally its complement in consciousness is serviceable. Welcome, Ego, to your place! The feeling of Self is the nominative, the _naming_ case, in the syntax of consciousness. But, as, by the rules of grammar, the nominative is to be made the _subject_ of a verb, so in the grammar of growth this self-feeling is subjected to the grand _verbum_, the action and total significance of one's existence.
Bring it out, then, clearly, pronounce it with due distinctness and force, that it may be clearly and definitely subjected.
Nature attends to that. She secures the nominative in her spiritual syntax. And so there is a period in earlier life when this feeling of self is getting pronounced. _Very_ pronounced it is sometimes, a little severe in its emphasis upon delicate ears. And, indeed, if it come without adjective, without gentle qualification, almost any hearer must confess that he has known sounds more musical.
In Wilhelm it is sweetly qualified with love and imagination. It appears in luxuriant dreams of the poet's life,--of him who is not merely a pen-poet, but a living lyric, a poet in heart and soul. "And this life of true glory," cries the heart of Wilhelm, "may be mine, _mine_!" A gentle and magnanimous egoism, but still an egoism. But the due subjection of this self-feeling will come duly; in the qualifications that even now make it lovely the sure promise of that is contained.
Fourth in order appears a much prettier figure, namely, Philanthropy, the loving desire to serve man. It is, indeed, at first, sufficiently sweeping and ambitious. No half-way work, no boy's play here! He will regenerate the race; he will ennoble humanity, without sparing one caitiff of them all; he will establish it on some perpetual mount of transfiguration; and all by the magic of stage effect. No boy's play!
All this, too, is noble and vital. With exquisite appreciation Goethe depicts it, seeing well how vital it is in essence,--seeing, too, how vapory it is in form. Who knows better than he that to crave service, and to crave it in love, and to crave it without limit, is of the very substance of all that enriches man? To whomsoever this divine longing is foreign all the profound uses of life are foreign; he is barren as beach-sand.