Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/184

164 sonated the most important French prelate. After his academical course, he had employed himself in political and state affairs, and directed even his travels to that end. He greatly esteemed me, and often conversed with me on matters which chiefly interested him. I was with him when he wrote his "Illustration of the Golden Bull," when he managed to explain to me very clearly the worth and dignity of that document. My imagination was led back by it to those wild and unquiet times; so that I could not forbear representing what he related historically, as if it were present, by pictures of characters and circumstances, and often by mimicry. In this he took great delight, and by his applause excited me to repetition.

I had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of Moses, and then of the "Æneid" and Ovid's "Metamorphoses." I now did the same thing with the "Golden Bull," and often provoked my patron to a smile, when I quite seriously and unexpectedly exclaimed, "Omne regnum in se divisum desolabitur; nam principes ejus facti sunt socii furum." The knowing man shook his head, smiling, and said doubtingly, "What times those must have been, when, at a grand diet, the emperor had such words published in the face of his princes!"

There was a great charm in Von Olenschlager's society. He received little company, but was strongly inclined to intellectual amusement, and induced us young people from time to time to perform a play; for such exercises were deemed particularly useful to the young. We acted "Canute" by Schlegel, in which the part of the king was assigned to me, Elfrida to my sister, and Ulfo to the younger son of the family. We