entioned the peculiar
situations in this elegy, where, with so few strokes and in so narrow a
space, all is so well delineated that we think we see the whole life and
domestic environment of the persons engaged in the action. "What you
have described," said I, "appears as true as if you had worked from
actual experience."

"I am glad it seems so to you," said Goethe. "There are, however, few
men who have imagination for the truth of reality; most prefer strange
countries and circumstances, of which they know nothing, and by which
their imagination may be cultivated, oddly enough.

"Then there are others who cling altogether to reality, and, as they
wholly want the poetic spirit, are too severe in their requisitions. For
instance, in this elegy, some would have had me give Alexis a servant to
carry his bundle, never thinking that all that was poetic and idyllic in
the situation would thus have been destroyed."

From _Alexis and Dora_, the conversation then turned to _Wilhelm
Meister_. "There are odd critics in this world," said Goethe; "they
blamed me for letting the hero of this novel live so much in bad
company; but by this very circumstance that I considered this so-called
bad company as a vase into which I could put everything I had to say
about good society, I gained a poetical body, and a varied one into the
bargain. Had I, on the contrary, delineated good society by the
so-called good society, nobody would have read the book.

"In the seeming trivialities of _Wilhelm Meister_, there is always
something higher at bottom, and nothing is required but eyes, knowledge
of the world, and power of comprehension to perceive the great in the
small. For those who are without such qualities, let it suffice to
receive the picture of life as real life."

Goethe then showed me a very interesting English work, which illustrated
all Shakespeare in copper plates. Each page embraced, in six small
designs, one piece with some verses written beneath, so that the leading
idea and the most important situations of each work were brought before
the eyes. All these immortal tragedies and comedies thus passed before
the mind like processions of masks.

"It is even terrifying," said Goethe, "to look through these little
pictures. Thus are we first made to feel the infinite wealth and
grandeur of Shakespeare. There is no motive in human life which he has
not exhibited and expressed! And all with what ease and freedom!

"But we cannot