"Shape?" I asked, astonished and a little hurt. "What shape are they to have?"
"Proper shape; the whole versification is wrong. Look here."
After that he began to read aloud and very slowly, making remarks in between the lines—such as: "There is a foot short in that line; and one foot too many in that one; in that other line the time goes too quick, and here again it goes too slow; the proper metre of the whole ought to be something like this." He read the poem over again, but put in the missing feet by syllables of his own invention, and left out what he thought too much. I had never in all my life heard anything like it, and listened to every word most attentively. After the quarter of an hour and a few minutes more had passed we parted, and I walked home filled with new ideas. As soon as I could find time I examined more of my verses and discovered the same unevenness in their construction.
When I met my friend out on the balcony (I am not sure whether accidentally or otherwise) a few days later, he handed me two books, a large one and a small one. "This one here is a grammar of the German language because—"and now he smiled a kind indulgent smile—"you can't spell your own language yet ... and this is a book on the construction of poems. It will tell you more clearly than I am able what you have to do, and what you must not do in writing your poems."
I thanked him very much for the books, but when I looked them through in the evening, I thought the German grammar most tedious, and the book on the "construction of verses" hopelessly unintelligible.
"It is impossible," I said to myself, "to write in accordance with these books; if I had to do it I simply could write no more." I put the books away, and wrote my poems in the same style as before. A whole week passed before I saw my friend again, and he asked me at once how I liked the books. I was rather ashamed to tell the truth about them and answered that they were all right.
"Did you write anything?"
I showed him my last poem. He read it very carefully and then returned it.
"The thoughts expressed in it are beautiful as they are always, and it is such a pity that you don't study the two books a little more."
"How do you know that?"