“What the next years will bring I cannot predict; but I fear we shall not soon have repose.  It is not given to the world to be contented; the great are not such that there will be no abuse of power; the masses not such that, in hope of gradual improvement, they will be contented with a moderate condition.  Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things; but, as it is, there will always be a wavering hither and thither; one part must suffer while the other is at ease, envy and egotism will be always at work like bad demons, and party strife will be without end.

“The most reasonable way is for every one to follow his own vocation to which he has been born, and which he has learned, and to avoid hindering others from following theirs.  Let the shoemaker abide by his last, the peasant by his plough, and let the king know how to govern; for, this is also a business which must be learned, and with which no one should meddle who does not understand it.”

Returning to the French papers, Goethe said:  “The liberals may speak, for when they are reasonable we like to hear them; but with the royalists, who have the executive power in their hands, talking comes amiss—­they should act.  They may march troops, and behead and hang—­that is all right; but attacking opinions, and justifying their measures in public prints, does not become them.  If there were a public of kings, they might talk.

“For myself,” he continued, “I have always been a royalist.  I have let others babble, and have done as I saw fit.  I understood my course, and knew my own object.  If I committed a fault as a single individual, I could make it good again; but if I committed it jointly with three or four others, it would be impossible to make it good, for among many there are many opinions.”

Goethe was in excellent spirits today.  He showed me Frau von Spiegel’s album, in which he had written some very beautiful verses.  A place had been left open for him for two years, and he rejoiced at having been able to perform at last an old promise.  After I had read the “Poem to Frau von Spiegel,” I turned over the leaves of the book, in which I found many distinguished names.  On the very next page was a poem by Tiedge, written in the very spirit and style of his Urania.  “In a saucy mood,” said Goethe, “I was on the point of writing some verses beneath those; but I am glad I did not.  It would not have been the first time that, by rash expressions, I had repelled good people, and spoiled the effect of my best works.

“However,” continued Goethe, “I have had to endure not a little from Tiedge’s Urania; for, at one time, nothing was sung and nothing was declaimed but this same Urania.  Wherever you went, you found Urania on the table. Urania and immortality were the topics of every conversation.  I would by no means dispense with the happiness of believing in a future existence, and, indeed, would