Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/215

Rh incident averts this last fearful calamity from the two sisters. This situation, if only I can succeed in working it out well, will probably furnish a scene unequalled for grandeur or pathos by any that has yet been produced on the stage. But where is man to get time and hands for such a work, even if the spirit be willing?

As I feel myself at present somewhat oppressed with such a flood of thoughts of the good and desirable, I cannot help reminding my friends of a dream which I had about a year ago, and which appeared to me to be highly significant. I dreamed, forsooth, that I had been sailing about in a little boat, and had landed on a fertile and richly cultivated island of which I had a consciousness that it bred the most beautiful pheasants in the world. I bargained, I thought, with the people of the island for some of these birds; and they killed and brought them to me in great numbers. They were pheasants, indeed; but as, in dreams, all things are generally changed and modified, they seemed to have long, richly coloured tails, like the loveliest birds-of-paradise, and with eyes like those of the peacock. Bringing them to me by scores, they arranged them in the boat so skilfully, with the heads inwards, the long, variegated feathers of the tail hanging outward, as to form in the bright sunshine the most glorious pile conceivable, and so large as scarcely to leave room enough in the bow and the stern for the rower and the steersman. As with this load the boat made its way through the tranquil waters, I named to myself the friends among whom I should like to distribute those variegated treasures. At last, arriving in a spacious harbour, I was almost lost among great and many-masted vessels, as I mounted deck after deck in order to discover a place where I might safely run my little boat ashore.

Such dreamy visions have a charm; inasmuch as,