Conversations With Goethe

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    November 13, 1823

    I was walking home from the theatre with Goethe this evening when we saw a small boy in a plum-colored waistcoat. Youth, Goethe said, is the silky apple butter on the good brown bread of possibility.

    December 9, 1823

    Goethe had sent me an invitation to dinner. As I entered his sitting room I found him warming his hands before a cheerful fire. We discussed the meal to e at some length, for the planning of it had been an occasion of earhought to him and he was in quite good spirits about the anticipated results, whicluded sweetbreads prepared in the French manner with celery root and paprika. Food, said Goethe, is the topmost taper on the golden delabrum of existence.

    January 11, 1824

    Dinner aloh Goethe. Goethe said, "I will now fide to you some of my ideas about musiething I have been sidering for many years. You will have hat although certain members of the animal kingdom make a kind of music -- one speaks of the song of birds, does o? -- no animal known to us takes part in what may be termed an anized musical performance. Man alone does that. I have wondered about crickets -- whether their evening caight be .９9ｌib?sidered in this light, as a species of performance, albeit one of little significe to our ears. I have asked Humboldt about it, and Humboldt replied that he thought not, that it is merely a sort of ti the part of crickets. The great point here, the point that I may choose to enlarge upon in some future work, is not that the members of the animal kingdom do not unite wholeheartedly in this musical way but that mao the eternal fort and glory of his soul."

    Music, Goethe said, is the frozen tapio the ice chest of History.

    March 22, 1824

    Goethe had been desirous of making the acquaintance of a young Englishman, a Lieutenant Whitby, then in Weimar on business. I ducted this gentleman to Goethes house, where Goethe greeted us most cordially and offered us wine and biscuits. English, he said, was a wholly splendid language, which had given him the deepest pleasure over many<q>藏书网</q> years. He had mastered it early, he told us, in order to be able to savor the felicities and tragic depths of Shakespeare, with whom no author in the world, before or since, could rightfully be pared. We were in a most pleasant mood and tio talk about the aplishments of the young Englishmans trymen until quite late. The English, Goethe said in parting, are the shining brown varnish on the sad chiffonier of civilization. Lieutenant Whitby blushed most noticeably.

    April 7, 1824

    Wheered Goethes house at noon, a ed parcel was standing in the foyer. &quot;And what do you imagihis may be?&quot; asked Goethe with a smile. I could not for the life of me fathom what the parcel might tain, for it was most oddly shaped. Goethe explaihat it was a sculpture, a gift from his friend van den Broot, ..he Dutch artist. He uned the package with the utmost care, and I was seized with admiratiohe noble figure within was revealed: a representation, in bronze, of a young woman dressed as Diana, her bow bent and an arrow oring. We marveled together at the perfe of form and fineness of detail, most of all at the indefinable aura of spirituality which radiated from the work. &quot;Truly astonishing!&quot; Goethe exclaimed, and I hasteo agree. Art, Goethe said, is the four per t i on the municipal bond of life. He was very pleased with this remark aed it several times.

    June 18, 1824

    Goethe had been having great difficulties with a particular actress at the theatre, a person who ceived that her own notion of how her role was to be played was superior to Goethes. &quot;It is not enough,&quot; he said, sighing, &quot;that I have mimed every gesture for the poor creature, that nothing has bee unexplored in this character I myself have created, willed into being. She persists in what she terms her interpretation, which is ruining the play.&quot; He went on to discuss the sorrows of managing a theatre, even the fi, and the exhaustiail that must be atteo, every jot and tittle, if the performances are to be fit for a discriminating public. Actors, he said, are the Scotch weevils in the salt pork of ho effort. I loved him more than ever, and we parted with an affeate handshake.

    September 1, 1824

    Today Goethe inveighed against certain critics who had, he said, pletely misuood Lessing. He spoke movingly about how such obtuseness had partially embittered Lessings last years, and speculated that . was because Lessing was both critid dramatist that the attacks had been of more than usual ferocity. Critics, Goethe said, are the cracked mirror in the grand ballroom of the creative spirit. No, I said, they were, rather, the extra baggage on the great cabriolet of ceptual progress. &quot;Eckermann,&quot; said Goethe, &quot;shut up.&quot;

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