_ about Novalis,--"the good Novalis," as
you call him after Mr. Carlyle. He is, indeed, _good_, most
enlightened, yet most pure; every link of his experience
framed--no, _beaten_--from the tried gold.

'I have read, thoroughly, only two of his pieces, "Die
Lehrlinge zu Sais," and "Heinrich von Ofterdingen." From the
former I have only brought away piecemeal impressions, but the
plan and treatment of the latter, I believe, I understand. It
describes the development of poetry in a mind; and with this
several other developments are connected. I think I shall tell
you all I know about it, some quiet time after your return,
but if not, will certainly keep a Novalis-journal for you some
favorable season, when I live regularly for a fort night.'

* * * * *

'_June_, 1833.--I return Lessing. I could hardly get through
Miss Sampson. E. Galeotti is good in the same way as
Minna. Well-conceived and sustained characters, interesting
situations, but never that profound knowledge of human nature,
those minute beauties, and delicate vivifying traits, which
lead on so in the writings of some authors, who may be
nameless. I think him easily followed; strong, but not deep.'

* * * * *

'_May_, 1833.--_Groton_.--I think you are wrong in applying
your artistical ideas to occasional poetry. An epic, a drama,
must have a fixed form in the mind of the poet from the first;
and copious draughts of ambrosia quaffed in the heaven of
thought, soft fanning gales and bright light from the outward
world, give muscle and bloom,--that is, give life,--to this
skeleton. But all occasional poems must be moods, and can a
mood have a form fixed and perfect, more than a wave of the
sea?'

* * * * *

'Three or four afternoons I have passed very happily at my
beloved haunt in the wood, reading Goethe's "Second Residence
in Rome." Your pencil-marks show that you have been before me.
I shut the book each time with an earnest desire to live as
he did,--always to have some engrossing object of pursuit.
I sympathize deeply with a mind in that state. While mine is
being used up by ounces, I wish pailfuls might be poured into
it. I am dejected and uneasy when I see no results from my
daily existence, but I am suffocated