[5] To Chancellor von Müller Goethe said: "Mein Vater war ein tüchtiger Mann, aber freilich fehlte ihm Gewandtheit und Beweglichkeit des Geistes."
[6] Writing to her grandchild, Goethe's mother says: "Dein lieber Vater hat mir nie Kummer oder Verdruss verursacht."
[7] When the son of Frau von Stein was about to visit her, Goethe wrote: "Da sie nicht so ernsthaft ist wie ich, so wirst du dich besser bei ihr befinden."
[8] Goethe's letters addressed to Cornelia from Leipzig, when he was in his eighteenth year, are in the tone at once of an affectionate brother and of a schoolmaster. Their subsequent relations to each other will appear in the sequel.
[9] It was doubtless due to the absence of strict drill in his youth that Goethe, as he himself tells us, never acquired the art of punctuating his own writings.
[10] Goethe said of himself that he had no "grammatical vein."
[11] With reference to what he says of his Biblical studies he wrote as follows to a correspondent (January 30th, 1812): "Dass Sie meine asiatischen Weltanfänge so freundlich aufnehmen, ist mir von grossem Wert. Es schlingt sich die daher für mich gewonnene Kultur durch mein ganzes Leben...."
[12] His remark to Eckermann (1828) is well known: "Meine Sachen können nicht populär werden; wer daran denkt und dafür strebt, ist in einem Irrthum."
[13] So Weislingen (in Götz von Berlichingen), whom Goethe meant to be a double of himself, says: "Ich bin ein Chamaeleon."
[14] All Goethe's boyish productions that have been preserved will be found in Der junge Goethe, Neue Ausgabe in sechs Bänden besorgt von Max Morris, Leipzig, 1909.