converse with these pleasant spirits,
becomes accustomed and compelled to think itself better and nobler. What
more would you have? and, altogether, what higher praise could be given
to a poet?"

"He is excellent, unquestionably!" returned I. "You know how I loved him
for years, and can imagine how it gratifies me to hear you speak of him
thus. But if I must say which of his songs I prefer, his amatory poems
please me more than his political, in which the particular references
and allusions are not always clear to me."

"That happens to be your case," returned Goethe; "the political poems
were not written for you; but ask the French, and they will tell you
what is good in them. Besides, a political poem, under the most
fortunate circumstances, is to be looked upon only as the organ of a
single nation, and, in most cases, only as the organ of a single party;
but it is seized with enthusiasm by this nation and this party when it
is good. Again, a political poem should always be looked upon as the
mere result of a certain state of the times; which passes by, and with
respect to succeeding times takes from the poem the value which it
derived from the subject. As for Beranger, his was no hard task. Paris
is France. All the important interests of his great country are
concentrated in the capital, and there have their proper life and their
proper echo. Besides, in most of his political songs he is by no means
to be regarded as the mere organ of a single party; on the contrary, the
things against which he writes are for the most part of so universal and
national an interest, that the poet is almost always heard as a great
_voice_ of the people. With us, in Germany, such a thing is not
possible. We have no city, nay, we have no country, of which we could
decidedly say--_Here is Germany_! If we inquire in Vienna, the answer
is--this is Austria! and if in Berlin, the answer is--this is Prussia!
Only sixteen years ago, when we tried to get rid of the French, was
Germany everywhere. Then a political poet could have had an universal
effect; but there was no need of one! The universal necessity, and the
universal feeling of disgrace, had seized upon the nation like something
daemonic; the inspiring fire which the poet might have kindled was
already burning everywhere of its own accord. Still, I will not deny
that Arndt, Koerner, and Rueckert, have had some effect."

"You have been reproached," remarked I, rather inconsiderately, "f