Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/411

Rh merry over these mimicries. The poems also which I had composed in Leipzig were already too poor for me; and they seemed to me cold, dry, and, in respect of all that was meant to express the state of the human heart or mind, too superficial. This induced me, now that I was to leave my father's house once more, and go to a second university, again to decree a great high auto-da-fé against my labours. Several commenced plays, some of which had reached the third or the fourth act, while others had only the plot fully made out, together with many other poems, letters, and papers, were given over to the fire: and scarcely anything was spared except the manuscript by Behrisch, "Die Laune des Verliebten" and "Die Mitschuldigen," which latter play I constantly went on improving with peculiar affection; and, as the piece was already complete, I again worked over the plot, to make it more bustling and intelligible. Lessing, in the first two acts of his "Minna," had set up an unattainable model of the way in which a drama should be developed; and nothing was to me of greater importance than to thoroughly enter into his meaning and views.

The recital of whatever moved, excited, and occupied me at this time, is already circumstantial enough; but I must nevertheless recur to that interest with which supersensuous things had inspired me, of which I, once for all, so far as might be possible, undertook to form some notion.

I experienced a great influence from an important work that fell into my hands: it was Arnold's "History of the Church and of Heretics." This man is not merely a reflective historian, but at the same time pious and feeling. His sentiments chimed in very well with mine; and what particularly delighted me in his work was, that I received a more favourable notion of many heretics, who had been hitherto represented to me as mad or impious. The spirit of con-