“Hermann and Dorothea,” said he, “is almost the only one of my larger poems which still satisfies me; I can never read it without strong interest.  I love it best in the Latin translation; there it seems to me nobler, and as if it had returned to its original form.”

Wilhelm Meister was often a subject of discourse.  “Schiller blamed me for interweaving tragic elements which do not belong to the novel.  Yet he was wrong, as we all know.  In his letters to me, there are most important views and opinions with respect to Wilhelm Meister.  But this work is one of the most incalculable productions; I myself can scarcely be said to have the key to it.  People seek a central point, and that is hard, and not even right.  I should think a rich, manifold life, brought close to our eyes, would be enough in itself, without any express tendency, which, after all, is only for the intellect.  But if anything of the sort is insisted upon, it will perhaps be found in the words which Frederic, at the end, addresses to the hero, when he says—­’Thou seem’st to me like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father’s asses, and found a kingdom.’  Keep only to this; for, in fact, the whole work seems to say nothing more than that man, despite all his follies and errors, being led by a higher hand, reaches some happy goal at last.”

We then talked of the high degree of culture which, during the last fifty years, had become general among the middle classes of Germany, and Goethe ascribed the merit of this not so much to Lessing as to Herder and Wieland.  “Lessing,” said he, “was of the very highest understanding, and only one equally great could truly learn of him.  To a half faculty he was dangerous.”  He mentioned a journalist who had formed himself on Lessing, and at the end of the last century had played a part indeed, but far from a noble one, because he was so inferior to his great predecessor.

“All Upper Germany,” said he, “is indebted to Wieland for its style.  It has learned much from him; and the capability of expressing itself correctly is not the least.”

On mentioning the Xenien,[15] he especially praised those of Schiller, which he called sharp and biting, while he called his own innocent and trivial.

“The Thierkreis (Zodiac), which is by Schiller,” said he, “I always read with admiration.  The good effects which the Xenien had upon the German literature of their time are beyond calculation.”  Many persons against whom the Xenien were directed, were mentioned on this occasion, but their names have escaped my memory.

After we had read and talked over the manuscript to the end of the year 1800, interrupted by these and innumerable other observations from Goethe, he put aside the papers, and had a little supper placed at one end of the table at which we were sitting.  We partook of it, but Goethe did not touch a morsel; indeed, I have never seen him eat in the evening.  He sat down with us, filled our glasses, snuffed the candles, and intellectually regaled us with the most agreeable conversation.  His remembrance of Schiller was so lively, that the conversation during the latter part of the evening was devoted to him alone.