nd muffled in a cloak, enjoying the effect which the
sentence would produce on Egmont. Thus Alva was to show himself
insatiable in revenge and malice. I, however, protested, and prevented
the apparition. He was a great, odd man.

"Every week he became different and more finished; each time that I saw
him, he seemed to me to have advanced in learning and judgment. His
letters are the fairest memorials of him which I possess, and they are
also among the most excellent of his writings. His last letter I
preserve as a sacred relic, among my treasures." He rose and fetched it.
"See and read it," said he; giving it to me.

It was a very fine letter, written in a bold hand. It contained an
opinion of Goethe's notes to "Rameau's Nephew," which exhibit French
literature at that time, and which he had given Schiller to look over. I
read the letter aloud to Riemer.

"You see," said Goethe, "how apt and consistent is his judgment, and
that the handwriting nowhere betrays any trace of weakness. He was a
splendid man, and went from us in all the fulness of his strength. This
letter is dated the 24th of April, 1805. Schiller died on the 9th of
May."

We looked at the letter by turns, and were pleased both with the clear
style and the fine handwriting. Goethe bestowed several other words of
affectionate reminiscence upon his friend, until it was nearly eleven
o'clock, and we departed.

* * * * *

_Wednesday, October_ 15.--I found Goethe in a very elevated mood this
evening, and had the pleasure of hearing from him many significant
remarks. We talked about the state of the newest literature, when Goethe
expressed himself as follows:

"Deficiency of character in individual investigators and writers is," he
said, "the source of all the evils of our newest literature.

"In criticism, especially, this defect produces mischief to the world,
for it either diffuses the false instead of the true, or by a pitiful
truth deprives us of something great, that would be better.

"Till lately, the world believed in the heroism of a Lucretia--of a
Mucius Scaevola--and suffered itself, by this belief, to be warmed and
inspired. But now comes your historical criticism, and says that those
persons never lived, but are to be regarded as fables and fictions,
divined by the great mind of the Romans. What are we to do with so
pitiful a truth? If the Romans were great enough to invent such stories,
we should at least be