Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/279

Rh princess—has had a great deal to do; for she has kept me close at work when I wished to be seeing sights.

I often think of our worthy friend, who had long determined upon a grand tour which one might well term a voyage of discovery. After he had studied and economised several years with a view to this object, he took it in his head to carry off the daughter of a noble house, thinking it was all one.

With no less of criminality, I determined to take Iphigenia with me to Carlsbad. I will now briefly enumerate the places where I held special converse with her.

When I had left behind me the Brenner, I took her out of my large portmanteau, and placed her by my side. At the Lago di Garda, while the strong south wind drove the waves on the beach, and where I was at least as much alone as my heroine on the coast of Tauris, I drew the first outlines, which afterward I filled up at Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, but above all, and most diligently, at Venice. After this, however, the work came to a standstill: for I hit upon a new design, viz., of writing an Iphigenia at Delphi, which I should have immediately carried into execution, but for the distractions of my young, and for a feeling of duty toward the older, play.

In Rome, however, I went on with it, and proceeded with tolerable steadiness. Every evening before I went to sleep I prepared myself for my morning's task, which was resumed immediately I awoke. My way of proceeding was quite simple: I calmly wrote down the play, and tried the melody line by line, and period by period. What has been thus produced, you shall soon judge of. For my part, doing this work, I have learned more than I have done. With the play itself there shall follow some further remarks.

To speak again of church matters, I must tell you that on the night of Christmas Day we wandered about