ngs, how many live? Perhaps one or another of them may be sung by a
pretty girl to the piano; but among the people, properly so called, they
have no sound. With what sensations must I remember the time when
passages from Tasso were sung to me by Italian fishermen!

"We Germans are of yesterday. We have indeed been properly cultivated
for a century; but a few centuries more must still elapse before so much
mind and elevated culture will become universal amongst our people that
they will appreciate beauty like the Greeks, that they will be inspired
by a beautiful song, and that it will be said of them 'it is long since
they were barbarians.'"

_Tuesday, December 16_.--I dined today with Goethe alone, in his
work-room. We talked on various literary topics.

"The Germans," said he, "cannot cease to be Philistines. They are now
squabbling about some verses, which are printed both in Schiller's works
and mine, and fancy it is important to ascertain which really belong to
Schiller and which to me; as if anything could be gained by such
investigation--as if the existence of such things were not enough.
Friends, such as Schiller and I, intimate for years, with the same
interests, in habits of daily intercourse, and under reciprocal
obligations, live so completely in each other that it is hardly possible
to decide to which of the two the particular thoughts belong.

"We have made many distiches together; sometimes I gave the thought, and
Schiller made the verse; sometimes the contrary was the case; sometimes
he made one line, and I the other. What matters the mine and thine? One
must be a thorough Philistine, indeed, to attach the slightest
importance to the solution of such questions."

"Something similar," said I, "often happens in the literary world, when
people, for instance, doubt the originality of this or that celebrated
man, and seek to trace out the sources from whence he obtained his
cultivation."

"That is very ridiculous," said Goethe; "we might as well question a
strong man about the oxen, sheep, and swine, which he has eaten, and
which have given him strength.

"We are indeed born with faculties; but we owe our development to a
thousand influences of the great world, from which we appropriate to
ourselves what we can, and what is suitable to us. I owe much to the
Greeks and French; I am infinitely indebted to Shakespeare, Sterne, and
Goldsmith; but in saying this I do not show the sources of my culture;
that