In the fantastic plans of
foreign travel continually passing through his mind, to Egypt, for
instance, and to France, there seems always to be rather a wistful sense
of something lost to be regained, than the desire of discovering anything
new. Goethe has told us how, in his eagerness actually to handle the
antique, he became interested in the insignificant vestiges of it which
the neighbourhood of Strasburg contained. So we hear of Winckelmann's
boyish antiquarian wanderings among the ugly Brandenburg sandhills. Such
a conformity between himself and Winckelmann, Goethe would have gladly
noted.
At twenty- one he enters the University at Halle, to study theology, as
his friends desire; instead, he becomes the enthusiastic translator of
Herodotus. The condition of Greek learning in German schools and
universities had fallen, and there were no professors at Halle who could
satisfy his sharp, intellectual craving. Of his professional education he
always speaks with scorn, claiming to have been his own teacher from
first to last.
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