efulness can only be reciprocal, and it will
be a pleasure to me to unfold to you at leisure what your conversation
has been to me; how I, too, regard those days as an epoch in my life,
and how contented I feel in having gone on my way without any
particular encouragement; for it seems to me that, after so unexpected
a meeting, we cannot but wander on in life together. I have always
prized the frank and rare earnestness which is displayed in all that
you have written and done, and I may now claim to be made acquainted
by yourself with the course taken by your own mind, more especially
during these latter years. If we make it clear to each other to which
point we have thus far attained, the better able we shall be to work
on together without interruption.

All that relates to myself I will gladly communicate to you; for,
being fully conscious that my undertaking far exceeds the measure of
human capabilities and their earthly duration, I should like to
deposit many things with you, and thereby not only preserve them but
give them life.

Of what great advantage your sympathy will be to me you will yourself
soon perceive, when, upon a closer acquaintance, you discover in me a
kind of obscurity and hesitation which I cannot entirely master,
although distinctly aware of their existence. Such phenomena, however,
are often found in our natures, and we quietly submit to them as long
as they do not become too tyrannical.

I hope to be able to spend some time with you soon, when we shall talk
over many things.

Unfortunately, a few weeks before receiving your proposal, I had given
my novel to Unger,[67] and the first proof sheets have already come to
hand. I have more than once thought, during these last days, that it
would have been very suitable for your periodical. It is the only
thing I have by me of any size, and is a kind of problematical work
such as the good Germans like.

I will send the first Book as soon as I get all the proof sheets. It
is so long since it was written that, in the actual sense of the word,
I may be said to be only the editor.

[Illustration:

The highest aim he reached
on soaring pinion
Closely allied to all we value most
Thus honor him! What life but
scantily
To Genius yields, in full shall
give Posterity.

Goethe on Schiller.]

If, among my projects, there were anything that would serve the
purpose you mention, we should, I think, easily