to our
best minds. I have myself suffered from this error. What have I not
dropped into the well! The present must assert its rights, and so the
poet will and should give out what presses on him. But if one has a
great work in his head, it expels everything else and deprives life for
the time of all comfort. If as to the whole you err, all time and
trouble are lost. But if the poet daily grasps the present, treating
with fresh sentiment what it offers, he always makes sure of something
good. If sometimes he does not succeed, at any rate he has lost nothing.
The world is so great and rich, and life is so manifold, that occasions
for poems are never lacking. But they must all be poems for special
occasions (_Gelegenheitsgedichte_). All my poems are thus suggested by
incidents in real life. I attach no value to poems snatched out of the
air. You know Furnstein, the so-called poet of nature? He has written
the most fascinating poem possible on hop-culture. I have suggested to
him that he should write songs on handicrafts, especially a weaver's
song, for he has spent his life from youth amongst such folk, and he
understands the subject through and through."

_February_ 24, 1824. At one to-day I went to Goethe's. He showed me a
short critique he had written on Byron's "Cain," which I read with much
interest. "We see," said he, "how the defectiveness of ecclesiastical
dogmas affects such a mind as Byron's, and how by such a piece he seeks
to emancipate himself from doctrine which has been thrust on him. Truly
the English clergy will not thank him, but I shall wonder whether he
will not proceed to treat Bible subjects, not letting slip such topics
as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah."

_II.--Philosophical Discussions_

_February_ 25, 1824. Goethe was in high spirits at table. He showed me
Frau von Spiegel's album, in which he had written some very beautiful
verses. For two years a place had been left open for him, and he was
delighted that at length he had been able to fulfil an old promise.
Noticing on another page of the album a poem by Tiedge in the style of
his "Urania," Goethe observed that he had suffered considerably from
Tiedge's "Urania," for at one time nothing else was sung and recited.
Said he, "Wherever you went, you found 'Urania' on the table, and that
poem and immortality were the subjects of every conversation. By no
means would I lose the happiness of believing in a future existence, and
indeed I