Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/320

 302 perils. Be assured that wherever I venture, there is no more danger than on the road to Belvedere. "The earth is the Lord's everywhere," may well be said in reference to such objects, I never seek adventure out of a mere rage for singularity; but because I am mostly cool, and can catch at a glance the peculiarities of any object, I may well do and venture more than many others. The passage to Sicily is anything but dangerous. A few days ago the frigate sailed for Palermo with a favourable breeze from the north, and leaving Capri on the right, has, no doubt, accomplished the voyage in six and thirty hours. In all such expeditions, one finds the danger to be far less in reality than, at a distance, one is apt to imagine.

Of earthquakes, there is not at present a vestige in Lower Italy. In the upper provinces, Rimini and its neighbourhood have lately suffered. Thus the earth has strange humours; and people talk of earthquakes here just as we do of wind and weather, and as in Thuringia they talk of conflagrations.

I am delighted to find that you are now familiar with the two editions of my "Iphigenia," but still more pleased should I be had you been more sensible of the difference between them. I know what I have done for it, and may well speak thereof : since I feel that I could make still further improvements. If it be a bliss to enjoy the good, it is still greater happiness to discern the better; for in art the best only is good enough.

March 5, 1787.

We spent the second Sunday of Lent in visiting church after church. As in Rome all is highly solemn, so here every hour is merry and cheerful. The Neapolitan school of painting, too, can only be understood in Naples. One is astonished to see the whole front of a church painted from top to bottom. Over the door of one, Christ is driving out of the temple the