Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/237

Rh begins when a man once sees with his own eyes all that before he has but partially heard or read of. All the dreams of my youth I now behold realised before me. The subjects of the first engravings I ever remember seeing (several views of Rome were hung up in an anteroom of my father's house) stand bodily before my sight, and all that I had long been acquainted with through paintings or drawings, engravings or woodcuts, plaster casts and cork models, are here collectively presented to my eye. Wherever I go I find some old acquaintance in this new world. It is all just as I had thought it, and yet all is new. And just the same might I remark of my own observations and my own ideas. I have not gained any new thoughts; but the older ones have become so defined, so vivid, and so coherent, that they may almost pass for new ones.

When Pygmalion's Elisa, which he had shaped entirely in accordance with his wishes, and to which he had given as much of truth and nature as an artist can, moved at last toward him, and said, "It is I!"—how different was the living form from the chiselled stone!

In a moral sense, too, how salutary it is for me to live awhile among a wholly sensual people, of whom so much has been said and written, and of whom every stranger judges according to the standard he brings with him. I can excuse every one who blames and reproaches them. They stand too far apart from us, and for a stranger to associate with them is difficult and expensive.

Nov. 3, 1786.

One of the chief motives with which I had deluded myself for hurrying to Rome was the Festival of All Saints; for I thought within myself, if Rome pays so much honour to a single saint, what will she not show to them all! But I was under a mistake. The