Without Lifting A Finger

Before all things I hastened to the Carità. I had found in Palladio's works that he had planned a monastic building here, in which he intended to represent a private residence of the rich and hospitable ancients. The plan, which was excellently drawn, both as a whole and in detail, gave me infinite delight, and I hoped to find a marvel. Alas! scarcely a tenth part of the edifice is finished. However, even this part is worthy of that heavenly genius. There is a completeness in the plan, and an accuracy in the execution, which I had never before witnessed. One ought to pass whole years in the contemplation of such a work. It seems to me that I have seen nothing grander, nothing more perfect, and I fancy that I am not mistaken.

In the church of the Eremitani I have seen pictures by Mantegna, one of the older painters, at which I am astonished. What a sharp, strict actuality is exhibited in these pictures! It is from this actuality, thoroughly true, not apparent, merely and falsely effective, and appealing solely to the imagination, but solid, pure, bright, elaborated, conscientious, delicate, and circumscribed—an actuality which had about it something severe, credulous, and laborious; it is from this, I say, that the later painters proceeded (as I remarked in the pictures of Titian), in order that by the liveliness of their own genius, the energy of their nature illumined at the same time by the mind of the predecessors, and exalted by their force, they might rise higher and higher, and elevated above the earth, produce forms that were heavenly indeed, but still true. Thus was art developed after the barbarous period.

How the Basilica of Palladio looks by the side of an old castellated kind of a building, dotted all over with windows of different sizes (whose removal, tower and all, the artist evidently contemplated),—it is impossible to describe—and besides I must now, by a strange effort, compress my own feelings, for, I too, alas! find here side by side both what I seek and what I fly from.

It causes us so agreeable a sensation to occupy ourselves with what we can only half do, that no person ought to find fault with the dilettante, when he is spending his time over an art which he can never learn; nor blame the artist if he chooses to pass out over the border of his own art, and amuse himself in some neighboring field.

Relationships are like chemical reactions: Her own position in Edward’s affection, Charlotte thought she could soon recover; and she settled it all, and laid it all out before herself so sensibly that she only strengthened herself more completely in her delusion, as if it were possible for them to return within their old limits,—as if a bond which had been violently broken could again be joined together as before.

“Now then,” interposed Edward, “till we see all this with our eyes, we will look upon the formula as an analogy, out of which we can devise a lesson for immediate use. You stand for A, Charlotte, and I am your B; really and truly I cling to you, I depend on you, and follow you, just as B does with A. C is obviously the captain, who at present is in some degree withdrawing me from you. So now it is only just that if you are not to be left to solitude, a D should be found for you, and that is unquestionably the amiable little lady, Ottilie. You will not hesitate any longer to send and fetch her.”

From Nerval's translation of  Faust: Two souls, alas, dwell within my breast, each wishing to be free from the other. The one, pining for love, grasps at the world with its bodily organs. A supernatural motion sweeps the other upward, far from the gloom below, towards the lofty realms of our ancestors.  

IMHO, other than Ein Brief , perhaps the best story in the slender NYRB selection. Apparently it's connected to Goethe's Conversations of German Refugees in a big way. From Joel Rothenberg's A NOTE ON THE SELECTION: "An Incident in the Life of Marshall de Bassompierre" incorporates material from Goethe's Conversations of German Refugees (1795). Hofmannsthal's failure to include an attribution in his story as first published in 1900 attracted some unfavorable notice at the time. Karl Kraus had this to say about the controversy: "What ignorant persons are calling plagiarism here is actually quotation." *If I can locate the related Goethe text I will post it.