received your first letter I at once sat down to write to
you; but verily your two following letters have come to me, in the
midst of my truly worldly occupations, like two voices from another
world to which I can do naught but listen. Pray continue to refresh
and to encourage me! Your suggestions will enable me to finish the
Eighth Book as soon as I am able again to take it in hand. I already
possess the means to satisfy nearly every one of your suggestions, by
which, moreover, even to my mind, the whole work becomes more
connected at the points in question, and both truer and more pleasing.
Do not become weary of telling me your opinion frankly, and keep the
book a week longer. What you require of _Cellini_ I shall meanwhile
push forward; I shall also give you a sketch of what I still think of
doing to my Eighth Book, and hence the last transcript shall be out of
our hands by the beginning of August.

Your letters are now my sole recreation, and you must know how
grateful I am to you for having so unexpectedly set my mind at ease
about so many points. Farewell, and give my kind greetings to your
dear wife.

* * * * *

GOETHE _to_ SCHILLER

March 18, 1799.

I congratulate you with all my heart upon having finished your work;
it has given me particular satisfaction, although I have, so to say,
but tasted the outside of it, and that on a most disturbed morning.
For stage purposes it is quite sufficiently developed; the new
motives, which I did not know of, are very good and to the point.

If, at some future time, you could cut off a little from _The
Piccolomini_, both pieces would be a priceless gift to the German
stage, and they would have to be given throughout many a long year.

The last piece has, it is true, this great merit, that everything
ceases to be political and becomes of purely human interest; nay, the
historical element itself is but a light veil through which we have
the purely human element shining forth. The effect upon the mind is
neither interfered with nor disturbed.

I would certainly close with the monologue by the Princess, for it is,
in any case, left to the imagination as to what becomes of her. It
might perhaps be well, eventually, to have the Equerry introduced in
the first piece.

The close of the whole with the address of the letter is, in reality,
frightening, especially considering the tender state of one's feelings
at the moment. It is doubtless