philosopher (v. Goné, a great genius), a Stoic philosopher (v. Kielmansegg) and a cross between the two (Dr. König), and he really enjoyed himself .”
With Seidel [Goethe’s valet] in 1783: “Once he rang in the middle of the night, and when I came into his room he had rolled his iron trundle bed from the farthest end of
the room up to the window and was watching the sky. ‘Haven’t you seen anything in the sky?’ he asked me, and when I denied this, ‘Then just run to the guardroom
and ask the sentry whether he saw anything.’ I ran there; but the sentry had seen nothing, which I reported to my master, who was still lying in the same position fixedly
regarding the sky. ‘Listen,’ he then said to me, ‘this is an important moment. Either we are having an earthquake at this very instant or we shall have one.’ And now I
had to sit down on his bed and he showed me what signs had led him to this conclusion.” (Messina earthquake.)
A geological walk with von Trebra (September 1783) through underbrush and rocks. Goethe in front.
To Herder’s wife in 1788. Among other things he said also that before he left Rome he cried like a child every day for fourteen days. The way Herder’s wife watched
him in order to report everything to her husband in Italy. Goethe shows great concern for Herder in the presence of his wife.
14 September, 1794, from eleven-thirty, when Schiller got dressed, until eleven o’clock, Goethe spent the time without interruption in literary consultation with Schiller,
and often so.
David Veit, 19 October, 1794, Jewish kind of observation, therefore so easy to understand, as though it had happened yesterday.
In the evening in Weimar, Der Diener zweier Herrn was acted quite nicely, to my surprise. Goethe was also in the theater, and indeed, as always, in the
section reserved for the nobility. In the middle of the play he leaves this section—which he is supposed to do very seldom—sits down, as long as he could not speak to
me, behind me (so the ladies beside me said) and as soon as the act is over comes forward, bows to me with extreme courtesy, and begins on a quite intimate
tone…brief remarks and replies about the play…Thereupon he falls silent for a moment; meanwhile I forget that he is the director of the theater and say, “They’re
acting it quite nicely too.” He still keeps looking straight ahead, and so in my stupidity—but really in a frame of mind which I cannot analyze—I say once more, “They
are acting quite nicely.” At that moment he bows to me, but really as courteously as the first time, and he is gone! Have I insulted him or not?…You really won’t
believe how distressed I still am, regardless of the fact that I already have the assurance from Humboldt, who now knows him well, that he often leaves in this sudden
manner, and Humboldt has undertaken to speak to him about me once again.
Another time they were speaking about Maimon: “I kept mterrupting a good deal and often came to his assistance; for usually there are many words he cannot recall
and he keeps making faces.”
1796. Goethe recites Hermann’s conversations with his mother at the pear tree in first half of September. He wept. “Thus one melts over one’s own coals,” he said,
while drying his tears.
“The wide wooden parapet of the old gentleman’s box.” Goethe sometimes liked to have a supply of cold food and wine ready in his box, more for the other
people—residents and friends of importance whom he not infrequently received there.
Performance of Schlegel’s Alarcos in 1802. “In the middle of the orchestra Goethe, serious and solemn, throning in his tall armchair.” The audience becomes restless,
finally at one passage a roar of laughter, the whole house shakes. “But only for a moment, in a trice Goethe jumped up, with thunderous voice and threatening gestures
shouted, Silence, Silence, and it worked like a charm. In an instant the tumult subsided and the unhappy Alarcos went on to the end with no further disturbance, but also