agree as to the most
appropriate form to put it in, and there should be no delay in my
working it out. Farewell, and remember me to your circle.

* * * * *

SCHILLER _to_ GOETHE

Jena, August 31, 1794.

On my return from Weissenfels, where I met my friend Koerner from
Dresden, I received your last letter but one, the contents of which
pleased me for two reasons; for I perceive from it that the view I
took of your mind coincides with your own feelings, and that you were
not displeased with the candor with which I allowed my heart to
express itself. Our acquaintance, although it comes late, awakens in
me many a delightful hope, and is to me another proof of how much
better it often is to let chance have its way than to forestall it
with too much officiousness. Great as my desire always was to become
more closely acquainted with you than is possible between the spirit
of a writer and his most attentive reader, I now clearly see that the
very different paths upon which you and I have moved could not, with
any advantage to ourselves, have brought us together sooner than at
the present time. I now hope, however, that we may travel over the
rest of our life's way together, and, moreover, do this with more than
usual advantage to each other, inasmuch as the last travelers who join
company on a long journey have always the most to say to each other.

Do not expect to find any great store of ideas in me; this is what I
shall find in you. My need and endeavor are to make much out of
little, and, when you once come to know my poverty in all so-called
acquired knowledge, you will perhaps find that I have sometimes
succeeded in doing this; for, the circle of my ideas being small, I
can the more rapidly and the more frequently run through it; for that
very reason I can use my small resources with more effect, and can, by
means of form, produce that variety which is wanting in the
subject-matter. You strive to simplify your great world of ideas; I
seek variety for my small means. You have to govern a whole realm, I
but a somewhat numerous family of ideas, which I would be heartily
glad to be able to extend into a little world.

Your mind works intuitively to an extraordinary degree, and all your
thinking powers appear, as it were, to have come to an agreement with
your imagination to be their common representative. In reality, this
is the most that a man can make of himself if only he succeeds in