enewed effort to find among extant monuments a trace of those of
which descriptions have come down to us. Philostrati were again the
order of the day, and as to the statues, I believe that I have got on
the track of the Olympian Zeus, on which so many preliminary studies
have already been made, and also on that of the Hera of Samos, the
Doryphorus of Polycletes, and especially on that of the Cow of Myron and
of the bull that carried Europa. Meyer, whose history of ancient art,
now written in a fair copy, furnished the chief inspiration, takes a
lively interest, since both his doubt and his agreement are invariably
well-founded.

And thus I shall now close for this time, in the hope of soon seeing
something from your dear hand once more.

* * * * *

GOETHE TO WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Tennstaedt, September 1, 1816. The great work to which you, dearest
friend, have devoted a large portion of your life, could not have
reached me at a better time; it finds me here in Tennstaedt, a little
provincial Thuringian bathing town which is probably not entirely
unknown to you. Here I have now been for five weeks, and alone, since my
friend Meyer left me.

Here, at first, I indulged in a cursory reading both of the introduction
and of the drama[30] itself, to my no small edification; and inasmuch as
I am now, for the second time, enjoying the details together with the
whole, I will no longer withhold my thanks for this gift.

For even though one sympathetically concerns one's self with all the
praiseworthy and with all the good that the most ancient and the most
modern times afford, nevertheless, such a pre-ancient giant figure,
formed like a prodigy, appears amazing to us, and we must collect all
our senses to stand over against it in an attitude even approximately
worthy of it. At such a moment there is no doubt that here the work of
all works of art is seen, or, in more moderate language, a model of the
highest type. That we now can control this easily is our indebtedness to
you; and continuous thanks must fervently reward your efforts, though in
themselves they bring their own reward.

This drama has always been to me one of those most worthy of
consideration, and through your interest it has been made accessible
earlier than the rest. But, more than ever, the texture of this primeval
tapestry now seems most marvelous to me; past, present, and future are
so happily interwoven that the reader him