Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/254

236 scenery quite otherwise than the landscape-painter. He sees significant groups, and other graceful speaking objects, where another can see nothing; and so he happily contrives to catch up many a naïve trait of humanity,—it may be in children, peasants, mendicants, or other such beings of nature, or even in animals, which, with a few characteristic touches, he skilfully manages to portray, and thereby contributes much new and agreeable matter for our discussions.

When conversation is exhausted, some one also, by Hackert's direction, reads aloud Sulzer's Theory; for although, from a high point of view, it is impossible to rest contented with this work, nevertheless, as some one observed, it is so far satisfactory as it is calculated to exercise a favourable influence on minds less highly cultivated.

Nov. 17, 1786.

We are back again. During the night it rained in torrents amidst thunder and lightning: it still goes on raining, but is very warm withal.

As regards myself, however, it is only with few words that I can indicate the happiness of this day. I have seen the frescoes of Domenichino, in Andrea della Valle, and also the Farnese Gallery of Caraccios. Too much, forsooth, for months!—what, then, for a single day?

, Nov. 18, 1786.

It is again beautiful weather,—a bright, genial, warm day. I saw in the Farnesine Palace the story of Psyche, coloured copies of which have so long adorned my room, and then at St. Peter's, in Montorio, the Transfiguration by Raphael,—all well-known paintings, like friends one has made at a distance by means of letters, and sees for the first time face to face. To live with them, is, however, something quite different. Every genuine friendship and its opposite becomes immediately evident.