sive acquaintance with the
world. But you will see what light comes to you.

"'Tasso,' on the other hand, lies far nearer to the common feeling of
mankind, and the elaboration of its form is favourable to an easier
understanding of it. What is chiefly needed for reading 'Tasso' is that
one should be no longer a child, and should not have been deprived of
good society."

_October_ 15, 1825. I found Goethe this evening in a very elevated mood,
and had the happiness of hearing from him many significant observations.
Concerning the state of the newest literature, he said, "Want of
character in individual investigators and writers is the source of all
the evils in our most recent literature. Till now the world believed in
the heroism of Lucretia and of Mucius Scaevola, and allowed itself thus
to be stimulated and inspired. But now comes historical criticism, and
says that those persons never lived, but are to be regarded as fables
and fictions, imagined by the great mind of the Romans. What are we to
do with so pitiful a truth? And if the Romans were great enough to
invent such stories, we should at least be great enough to believe
them."

_December_ 25, 1825. I found Goethe alone this evening, and passed with
him some delightful hours. The conversation at one time turned on Byron,
especially on the disadvantage at which he appears when compared with
the innocent cheerfulness of Shakespeare, and on the frequent and
usually not unmerited blame which he drew on himself by his manifold
works of negation. Said Goethe, "If Byron had had the opportunity of
working off all the opposition that was in him, by delivering many
strong speeches in parliament, he would have been far purer as a poet.
But as he scarcely ever spoke in parliament, he kept in his heart all
that he felt against his nation, and no other means than poetical
expression of his sentiments remained to him. I could therefore style a
great part of his works of negation suppressed parliamentary speeches,
and I think the characterisation would suit them well."

_IV.--"Faust" and Victor Hugo_

_May_ 6, 1827. At a dinner-party at Goethe's, after conversation on
certain poems, he said, "The Germans are certainly strange people. They
make life much more burdensome to themselves than they ought by their
deep thoughts and ideas, which they seek everywhere and fix on
everything. Only have the courage to surrender yourself to your
impressions, permit yourself to be mov