Farewell, my beloved, my esteemed friend!  I am deeply moved when I think that that which we otherwise look for and rarely find in the far distance of favored antiquity lies so close to me in you.  You need no longer be astonished that there are so few who are capable or worthy of understanding you.  The wonderful naturalness, truth, and fluency of your description hide from the common herd of critics every thought of the difficulty, of the grandness of your art, and those who are capable of following the artist, who perceive the means by which the effects have been produced, will feel themselves so averse, so hostile toward the genial power which they there see in action, and find their needy selves in such straits, that they will angrily thrust the work from them, while in their hearts—­though with de mauvaise grace—­they are certain to be your liveliest worshippers.

* * * * *

GOETHE to SCHILLER Weimar, July 5, 1796.

As soon as I received your first letter I at once sat down to write to you; but verily your two following letters have come to me, in the midst of my truly worldly occupations, like two voices from another world to which I can do naught but listen.  Pray continue to refresh and to encourage me!  Your suggestions will enable me to finish the Eighth Book as soon as I am able again to take it in hand.  I already possess the means to satisfy nearly every one of your suggestions, by which, moreover, even to my mind, the whole work becomes more connected at the points in question, and both truer and more pleasing.  Do not become weary of telling me your opinion frankly, and keep the book a week longer.  What you require of Cellini I shall meanwhile push forward; I shall also give you a sketch of what I still think of doing to my Eighth Book, and hence the last transcript shall be out of our hands by the beginning of August.

Your letters are now my sole recreation, and you must know how grateful I am to you for having so unexpectedly set my mind at ease about so many points.  Farewell, and give my kind greetings to your dear wife.

* * * * *

GOETHE to SCHILLER

March 18, 1799.

I congratulate you with all my heart upon having finished your work; it has given me particular satisfaction, although I have, so to say, but tasted the outside of it, and that on a most disturbed morning.  For stage purposes it is quite sufficiently developed; the new motives, which I did not know of, are very good and to the point.

If, at some future time, you could cut off a little from The Piccolomini, both pieces would be a priceless gift to the German stage, and they would have to be given throughout many a long year.

The last piece has, it is true, this great merit, that everything ceases to be political and becomes of purely human interest; nay, the historical element itself is but a light veil through which we have the purely human element shining forth.  The effect upon the mind is neither interfered with nor disturbed.