“Your feeling of the position is very correct,” said Goethe; “indeed, I have doubted whether I ought not to put some verses into the mouth of Mephistopheles as he goes to Wagner, and the Homunculus is still in a state of formation, so that his cooperation may be expressed and rendered plain to the reader.

“It would do no harm,” said I.  “Yet this is intimated by the words with which Mephistopheles closes the scene—­

  Am Ende hangen wir doch ab
  Von Creaturen die wir machten.

  We are dependent after all,
  On creatures that we make.”

“True,” said Goethe, “that would be almost enough for the attentive; but I will think about some additional verses.”

“But,” said I, “those concluding words are very great, and will not easily be penetrated to their full extent.”

“I think,” said Goethe, “I have given them a bone to pick.  A father who has six sons is a lost man, let him do what he may.  Kings and ministers, too, who have raised many persons to high places, may have something to think about from their own experience.”

Faust’s dream about Leda again came into my head, and I regarded this as a most important feature in the composition.

“It is wonderful to me,” said I, “how the several parts of such a work bear upon, perfect, and sustain one another!  By this dream of Leda, Helena gains its proper foundation.  There we have a constant allusion to swans and the child of a swan; but here we have the act itself, and when we come afterwards to Helena, with the sensible impression of such a situation, how much more clear and perfect does all appear!”

Goethe said I was right, and was pleased that I remarked this.

“Thus you will see,” said he, “that in these earlier acts the chords of the classic and romantic are constantly struck, so that, as on a rising ground, where both forms of poetry are brought out, and in some sort balance each other, we may ascend to ‘Helena.’

“The French,” continued Goethe, “now begin to think justly of these matters.  Both classic and romantic, say they, are equally good.  The only point is to use these forms with judgment, and to be capable of excellence.  You can be absurd in both, and then one is as worthless as the other.  This, I think, is rational enough, and may content us for a while.”

* * * * *

1830.

Sunday, March 14.—­This evening at Goethe’s.  He showed me all the treasures, now put in order, from the chest which he had received from David, and with the unpacking of which I had found him occupied some days ago.  The plaster medallions, with the profiles of the principal young poets of France, he had laid in order side by side upon tables.  On this occasion, he spoke once more of the extraordinary talent of David, which was as great in conception as in execution.  He also showed me a number of the newest works, which had been presented to him, through the medium of David, as gifts from the most distinguished men of the romantic school.  I saw works by St. Veuve, Ballanche, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Alfred de Vigny, Jules Janin, and others.