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Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life
Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: riage, because she secretly cherishes a preconceived attachment. At the professional lectures, I was often absorbed in inventing scenes and acts for a new dra... more »ma. I sincerely tried to fix my attention on what was before me, but with small success. I really thought of nothing but poetry and art, and the higher human culture to attain which I had for years longed to be at the University. Heeren was the person who did most for me during this first year at the University. His clear enunciation of his opinions in ethnography and history made his lectures delightful to me. I never left one without being penetrated with the highest admiration for this illustrious man. Next year I proceeded in a really reasonable manner, by setting aside entirely the study of jurisprudence, one too important to be made subordinate to others, and which I could not bring myself to regard as my principal object. I devoted much of my time to philology, and was now as largely indebted to Dissen, as I had been the year before to Heeren. I not only received from his lectures the sort of food my mind most needed and desired,—not only received from him the clearest and most important instructions as to my future works, — but I had the happiness of becoming acquainted with this excellent man, and of receiving from him, in private, guidance and encouragement. My daily intercourse with the best minds among the students, our conversations on the noblest subjects during our walks and late at night, were to me invaluable, and exercised a most favorable influence on the development of my faculties. The end of my pecuniary means drew near. But I felt, that, during the past months, I had accumulated daily new treasures of knowledge; and to heap more together, without learning by practice how to apply it, woul...« less