But also that other vicious subjectiveness, that vice of the
time, infected him also. We are provoked with his Olympian
self-complacency, the patronizing air with which he vouchsafes to
tolerate the genius and performances of other mortals, "the good
Hiller," "our excellent Kant," "the friendly Wieland," &c. &c. There
is a good letter from Wieland to Merck, in which Wieland relates that
Goethe read to a select party his journal of a tour in Switzerland
with the Grand Duke, and their passage through Valois and over the
St. Gothard. "It was," says Wieland, "as good as Xenophon's
Anabasis. The piece is one of his most masterly productions, and is
thought and written with the greatness peculiar to him. The fair
hearers were enthusiastic at the nature in this piece; I liked the
sly art in the composition, whereof they saw nothing, still better.
It is a true poem, so concealed is the art too. But what most
remarkably in this as in all his other works distinguishes him from
Homer and Shakspeare, is, that the Me, the _Ille ego_, everywhere
glimmers through, although without any boasting and with an infinite
fineness.
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