When I think how rich and full were the communications by which he made me so happy for a period of nine years, and now observe how small a part I have retained in writing, I seem to myself like a child who, endeavoring to catch the refreshing spring shower with open hands, finds that the greater part of it runs through his fingers.

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I think that these conversations not only contain many valuable explanations and instructions on science, art, and practical life, but that these sketches of Goethe, taken directly from life, will be especially serviceable in completing the portrait which each reader may have formed of Goethe from his manifold works.

Still, I am far from imagining that the whole internal Goethe is here adequately portrayed.  We may, with propriety, compare this extraordinary mind and man to a many-sided diamond, which in each direction shines with a different hue.  And as, under different circumstances and with different persons, he became another being, so I, too, can only say, in a very modest sense, this is my Goethe.

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[Illustration:  GOETHE’S STUDY]

My relation to him was peculiar, and of a very intimate kind:  it was that of the scholar to the master; of the son to the father; of the poor in culture to the rich in culture.  He drew me into his own circle, and let me participate in the mental and bodily enjoyments of a higher state of existence.  Sometimes I saw him but once a week, when I visited him in the evening; sometimes every day, when I had the happiness to dine with him either alone or in company.  His conversation was as varied as his works.  He was always the same, and always different.  Now he was occupied by some great idea, and his words flowed forth rich and inexhaustible; they were often like a garden in spring where all is in blossom, and where one is so dazzled by the general brilliancy that one does not think of gathering a nosegay.  At other times, on the contrary, he was taciturn and laconic, as if a cloud pressed upon his soul; nay, there were days when it seemed as if he were filled with icy coldness, and a keen wind was sweeping over plains of frost and snow.  When one saw him again he was again like a smiling summer’s day, when all the warblers of the wood joyously greet us from hedges and bushes, when the cuckoo’s voice resounds through the blue sky, and the brook ripples through flowery meadows.  Then it was a pleasure to hear him; his presence then had a beneficial influence, and the heart expanded at his words.

Winter and summer, age and youth, seemed with him to be engaged in a perpetual strife and change; nevertheless, it was admirable in him, when from seventy to eighty years old, that youth always recovered the ascendancy; those autumnal and wintry days I have indicated were only rare exceptions.