umor. "It is a good thing," said he, "that all is already in print, and
I shall go on printing as long as I have anything to say against false
doctrine, and those who disseminate it.

"We have now excellent men rising up in natural science," he continued,
after a pause, "and I am glad to see them. Others begin well, but
afterwards fall off; their predominating subjectivity leads them astray.
Others, again, set too much value on facts, and collect an infinite
number, by which nothing is proved. On the whole, there is a want of
originating mind to penetrate back to the original phenomena, and master
the particulars that make their appearance."

A short visit interrupted our discourse, but when we were again alone
the conversation returned to poetry, and I told Goethe that I had of
late been once more studying his little poems, and had dwelt especially
upon two of them, viz., the ballad[20] about the children and the old
man, and the "Happy Couple" (_die gluecklichen Gatten_).

"I myself set some value on these two poems," said Goethe, "although the
German public have hitherto not been able to make much out of them."

"In the ballad," I said, "a very copious subject is brought into a very
limited compass, by means of all sorts of poetical forms and artifices,
among which I especially praise the expedient of making the old man tell
the children's past history down to the point where the present moment
comes in, and the rest is developed before our eyes."

"I carried the ballad a long time about in my head," said Goethe,
"before I wrote it down. Whole years of reflection are comprised in it,
and I made three or four trials before I could reduce it to its present
shape."

"The poem of the 'Happy Couple,'" continued Goethe, "is likewise rich in
_motives_; whole landscapes and passages of human life appear in it,
warmed by the sunlight of a charming spring sky, which is diffused over
the whole."

"I have always liked that poem," said Goethe, "and I am glad that you
have regarded it with particular interest. The ending of the whole
pleasantry with a double christening is, I think, pretty enough."

We then came to the _Buergergeneral_ (Citizengeneral); with respect to
which I said that I had been lately reading this piece with an
Englishman, and that we had both felt the strongest desire to see it
represented on the stage. "As far as the spirit of the work is
concerned," said I, "there is nothing antiquated about it; and