SCHILLER to GOETHE

Jena, January 7, 1795.

Accept my best thanks for the copy of the novel you have sent me.  The feeling which penetrates and takes hold of me with increasing force the further I read on in this work, I cannot better express in words than by calling it a delicious, inward sense of comfort, a feeling of mental and bodily well-being, and I will vouch that this will be the effect produced upon all readers.

This sense of comfort I account for from the calm clearness, smoothness, and transparency which pervade the whole of your work, and which leave nothing to disturb or to dissatisfy the mind, and the mind is not more excited than is necessary to fan and maintain a joyous life.  Of the individual parts I shall say nothing till I have seen the Third Book, which I am looking forward to with longing.

I cannot express to you what a painful feeling it often is to me to pass from a work of this kind into one of a philosophical character.  In the former all is so joyous, so alive, so harmoniously evolved, and so true to human life; in the latter all is so stern, so rigid, abstract, and so extremely unnatural; for all nature is synthesis, and philosophy but antithesis.  I can, in fact, give proof of having been as true to nature in my speculations as is compatible with the idea of analysis; indeed, I have perhaps been more faithful to her than our Kantians would consider permissible or possible.  But still I am no less fully conscious of the infinite difference between Life and Reasoning, and cannot, in such melancholy moments, help perceiving a want in my own nature which in happier hours I am forced to think of only as a natural duality of the thing itself.  This much, however, is certain—­the poet is the only true man, and the best philosopher is but a caricature in comparison with him.

I need scarcely assure you that I am in the utmost anxiety to know what you have to say to my philosophy of the Beautiful.  As the Beautiful itself is derived from man as a whole, so my analysis of it is drawn from my own whole being, and I cannot but be deeply interested in knowing how this accords with yours.

Your presence here will be a source of nourishment both to my mind and my heart.  Especially great is my longing to enjoy some poetical works in common with you.

[Illustration:  Schiller on Goethe]

You promised to let me hear some of your epigrams when an opportunity occurred.  It would be a great and additional pleasure to me if this could be done during your approaching visit to Jena, as it is still very uncertain when I may be able to get to W.

Just as I am about to close comes the welcome continuation of your Meister.  A thousand thanks for it!

* * * * *

GOETHE to SCHILLER

Weimar, November 21, 1795.

Today I received twenty-one of Propertius’ elegies from Knebel and shall look them over carefully and then let the translator know where I find anything to object to; for, as he has given himself so much trouble, nothing ought, perhaps, to be altered without his sanction.