Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/270

252 convinced of its necessity, I have devoted myself to the task; and the more I am obliged to renounce my former self, the more delighted I am. I am like an architect who has begun to build a tower, but finds he has laid a bad foundation: he becomes aware of the fact betimes, and willingly goes to work to pull down all that he has raised above the earth; having done so, he proceeds to enlarge his ground plan, and now rejoices to anticipate the undoubted stability of his future building. Heaven grant that, on my return, the moral consequences may be discernible of all that this living in a wider world has effected within me! For, in sooth, the moral sense as well as the artistic is undergoing a great change.

Doctor Münter is here on his return from his tour in Sicily,—an energetic, vehement man. What objects he may have, I cannot tell. He will reach you in May, and has much to tell you. He has been travelling in Italy two years. He is disgusted with the Italians, who have not paid due respect to the weighty letters of recommendation which were to have opened him many an archive, many a private library; so that he is far from having accomplished his object.

He has collected some beautiful coins, and possesses, he tells me, a manuscript which reduces numismatics to as precise a system of characteristics as the Linnæan system of botany. Herder, he says, knows still more about it: probably a transcript of it will be permitted. To do something of the kind is certainly possible; and, if well done, it will be truly valuable: and we must, sooner or later, enter seriously into this branch of learning.

Dec. 25, 1786.

I am now beginning to revisit the principal sights of Rome: in such second views, our first amazement generally dies away into more of sympathy and a purer perception of the true value of the objects. In order