ced,
observed; but certainly in his explanations he was over-hasty.

But is it not just the same with us to-day? Experience does not fail us,
but we lack serenity of mind, whereby alone experience becomes clear,
true, lasting, and useful. Look at the theory of light and colour as
interpreted before my very eyes by Professor Fries of Jena. It is a
series of superficial conclusions, such as expositors and theorists have
been guilty of for more than a century. I care to say nothing more in
public about this; but write it I will. Some truthful mind will one day
grasp it.

_Weimar, April_ 18, 1827. Madame Catalini has scented out a few of our
extra groschen, and I begrudge her them. Too much is too much! She makes
no preparation for leaving us, for she has still to ring the changes on
a couple of old-new transmogrified airs, which she might just as well
grind out gratis. After all, what are two thousand of our thalers, when
we get "God save the King" into the bargain?

It is truly a pity. What a voice! A golden dish with common mushrooms in
it! And we--one almost swears at oneself--to admire what is execrable!
It is incredible! An unreasoning beast would mourn at it. It is an
actually impossible state of things. An Italian turkey-hen comes to
Germany, where are academies and high schools, and old students and
young professors sit listening while she sings in English the airs of
the German Handel. What a disgrace if that is to be reckoned an honour!
In the heart of Germany, too!

_Weimar, December_ 25, 1829. Lately by accident I fell in with "The
Vicar of Wakefield" and felt constrained to read it again from beginning
to end, impelled not a little by the lively consciousness of all that I
have owed to the author for the last seventy years. It would not be
possible to estimate the influence of Goldsmith and Sterne, exercised on
me just at the chief point of my development. This high, benevolent
irony, this gentleness to all opposition, this equanimity under every
change, and whatever else all the kindred virtues may be called--such
things were a most admirable training for me, and surely these are the
sentiments which, in the end, lead us back from all the mistaken paths
of life. By the way, it is strange that Yorick should incline rather to
that which has no form, while Goldsmith is all form, as I myself aspired
to be when the worthy Germans had convinced themselves that the
peculiarity of true humour is to have no form.