I asked him if he was engaged on any literary labour at present. He said he was thinking of writing a poem on the subject of Dr. Faustus, and that he had indeed already written fragments of it. I expressed my surprise that he should choose a subject which he had himself told me had already been used by a multitude of writers. He then smiled, and said:
“Everything has been thought and everything has been said already. What we have to do is to think it and to say it again. The Greeks,” he went on, “never bothered themselves to search for new subjects. They wrote new plays on old themes. Likewise many generations of painters found sufficient subject-matter in the Madonna and Child. I mean,” he said, “to follow their example. Dr. Faustus shall be for me what the Madonna and Child were to them.”
We separated at the gate, after a most pleasant conversation. Herr Müller expressed a wish to see me again, and he told me that he was staying with an artist called Tishbein.
January 6.
I received this morning your letter dated December 18. I shall stay here until the Carnival, and then to Naples, where, they say, Vesuvius is in eruption. The German artist whom I met the other day turns out to be a celebrity. His real name is Goethe, and he is the author of “The Sorrows of Werther,” a book which you have probably not read, but of which you must certainly have heard, for it created a considerable stir about (I think) twelve years ago.
HEINE IN PARIS
Fragment of an unpublished letter from Lady G—— to Lord C——
Paris, 183—.
My dear Uncle H——,
We arrived in Paris last night.... (Here I omit a passage regarding the children of a family some of whom still survive.) Last night we spent a very agreeable evening at Madame Jaubert’s. There were a great many people present, for we had been invited to meet the celebrated Bellini. There were many people I did not know, and many others who were introduced to me whose names did not reach me. Signor Bellini himself came early. His appearance is charming; he is just like a fat child, pink and white, amiable and good-natured, and not in the least conceited or pretentious. Soon afterwards Prince and Princess Belgiojoso arrived. This was the first time I had set eyes on the Princess. Her beauty and the grace of her person have not, indeed, been exaggerated. She resembles a classical statue, but her face has an expression which recalls later and more romantic times. Her features are regular, but there is something mysterious and rather strange about her face and her dark orbs. Her hair is like ebony, but her skin is very white, and she smiles with a kind of wearied look, as though she were a Chinese idol. Her hands and her hair are most beautiful, and she walks into a room as if there could not be the slightest doubt that she is the most beautiful woman there. And this is true, although perhaps she is too slender. She was elegantly dressed in violet velvet, trimmed with fur, which showed her graceful figure and disappeared in the folds of a black skirt; she wore a black lace mantilla, which she took off when she came into the room. She talks well, and her voice is musical, but, at the same time, it has a cold ring like a crystal glass being tapped. Of course one could not help seeing that she was agreeable and accomplished, but I could not restrain a wicked wish to see her dethroned from her pedestal. It is impossible to say that she gives herself airs, but at the same time there is something irritating about her beauty.