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Goethe to Zelter Weimar, 6th June, 1825.

I cannot conclude without again referring to that over-charged music; but everything, dear Friend, nowadays is ultra, everything perpetually transcendent in thought as in action. No one knows himself any longer, no one understands the element in which he moves and works, no one the subject which he is treating. Pure simplicity is out of the question; of simplifiers we have enough. Young people are excited much too early, and then carried away in the whirl of the time. Wealth and rapidity are what the world admires, and what everyone strives to attain. Railways, quick mails, steamships, and every possible kind of facility in the way of communication are what the educated world has in view, that it may over-educate itself, and thereby continue in a state of mediocrity. And it is, moreover, the result of universality, that a mediocre culture should become common; this is the aim of Bible Societies, of the Lancasterian method of instruction, and I know not what besides.

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1:04 PM · Jun 18, 2020·Twitter Web App