Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/286

262 all, the Greeks, for the sake of whose handsome forms and dignified costume I often went to the spot.

But this animating bustle was soon over; and now the city itself appeared before me, with its handsome, high, and uniform houses. It made a very good impression upon me; and it cannot be denied, that in general, but especially in the silent moments of Sundays and holidays, it has something imposing; and when in the moonlight the streets were half in shadow, half-illuminated, they often invited me to nocturnal promenades.

In the meantime, as compared with that to which I had hitherto been accustomed, this new state of affairs was by no means satisfactory. Leipzig calls up before the spectator no antique time: it is a new, recently elapsed epoch, testifying commercial activity, comfort, and wealth, which announces itself to us in these monuments. Yet quite to my taste were the houses, which to me seemed immense, and which, fronting two streets, and embracing a citizen-world within their large courtyards, built round with lofty walls, are like large castles, nay, even half-cities. In one of these strange places I quartered myself; namely, in the Bombshell Tavern (Feuerkugel), between the Old and the New Newmarket (Neumarkt). A couple of pleasant rooms looking out upon a courtyard, which, on account of the thoroughfare, was not without animation, were occupied by the bookseller Fleischer during the fair, and by me taken for the rest of the time at a moderate price. As a fellow lodger I found a theological student, who was deeply learned in his professional studies, a sound thinker, but poor, and suffering much from his eyes, which caused him great anxiety for the future. He had brought this affliction upon himself by his inordinate reading till the latest dusk of the evening, and even by moonlight, to save a little oil. Our old