s.

Winter and summer, age and youth, seemed with him to be engaged in a
perpetual strife and change; nevertheless, it was admirable in him, when
from seventy to eighty years old, that youth always recovered the
ascendancy; those autumnal and wintry days I have indicated were only
rare exceptions.

His self-control was great--nay, it formed a prominent peculiarity in
his character. It was akin to that lofty deliberation (_Besonnenheit_)
through which he always succeeded in mastering his material, and giving
his single works that artistical finish which we admire in them. Through
the same quality he was often concise and circumspect, not only in many
of his writings, but also in his oral expressions. When, however, in
happy moments, a more powerful demon[7] was active within him, and that
self-control abandoned him, his discourse rolled forth with youthful
impetuosity, like a mountain cataract. In such moments he expressed what
was best and greatest in his abundant nature, and such moments are to be
understood when his earlier friends say of him, that his spoken words
were better than those which he wrote and printed. Thus Marmontel said
of Diderot, that whoever knew him from his writings only knew him but
half; but that as soon as he became animated in actual conversation he
was incomparable, and irresistibly carried his hearers along.

* * * * *

1823

_Weimar, June 10.[8]--I arrived here a few days ago, but did not see
Goethe till today. He received me with great cordiality; and the
impression he made on me was such, that I consider this day as one of
the happiest in my life.

Yesterday, when I called to inquire, he fixed today at twelve o'clock as
the time when he would be glad to see me. I went at the appointed time,
and found a servant waiting for me, preparing to conduct me to him.

The interior of the house made a very pleasant impression upon me;
without being showy, everything was extremely simple and noble; even the
casts from antique statues, placed upon the stairs, indicated Goethe's
especial partiality for plastic art, and for Grecian antiquity. I saw
several ladies moving busily about in the lower part of the house, and
one of Ottilie's beautiful boys, who came familiarly up to me, and
looked fixedly in my face.

After I had cast a glance around, I ascended the stairs, with the very
talkative servant, to the first floor.

He opened a room, on the threshold of which