Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/146

128 myself still possess poetical epistles full of uncommon boldness, force, and Swift-like gall, which are highly remarkable from their original views of persons and things, but are at the same time written with such wounding power, that I could not publish them, even at present, but must either destroy them, or preserve them for posterity as striking documents of the secret discord in our literature. However, the fact, that in all his labours he went to work negatively and destructively, was unpleasant to himself; and he often declared that he envied me that innocent love of setting forth a subject which arose from the pleasure I took, both in the original and the imitation.

For the rest, his literary dilettantism would have been rather useful than injurious to him, if he had not felt an irresistible impulse to enter also into the technical and mercantile department. For when he once began to curse his faculties, and was beside himself that he could not, with sufficient genius, satisfy his claims to a practical talent, he gave up now plastic art, now poetry, and thought of mercantile and manufacturing undertakings, which were to bring in money while they afforded him amusement.

In Darmstadt there was, besides, a society of very cultivated men. Privy Councillor von Hesse, Minister of the Landgrave, Professor Petersen, Rector Wenck, and others, were the naturalised persons whose worth attracted by turns many neighbours from other parts, and many travellers through the city. The wife of the privy councillor and her sister, Demoiselle Flachsland, were ladies of uncommon merit and talents; the latter, who was betrothed to Herder, being doubly interesting from her own qualities, and her attachment to so excellent a man.

How much I was animated and advanced by this circle is not to be expressed. They liked to hear me read to them my works, either completed or begun: