"Generally," said Goethe, "you will perceive that Mephistopheles appears to disadvantage beside the Homunculus, who is like him in clearness of intellect, and so much superior to him in his tendency to the beautiful and to a useful activity. He styles him cousin; for such spiritual beings as this Homunculus, not yet saddened and limited by a thorough assumption of humanity, were classed with the demons, and thus there is a sort of relationship between the two."
"Certainly," said I, "Mephistopheles appears here in a subordinate situation; yet I cannot help thinking that he has had a secret influence on the production of the Homunculus. We have known him in this way before; and, indeed, in the 'Helena' he always appears as a being secretly working. Thus he again elevates himself with regard to the whole, and in his lofty repose he can well afford to put up with a little in particulars."
"Your feeling of the position is very correct," said Goethe; "indeed, I have doubted whether I ought not to put some verses into the mouth of Mephistopheles as he goes to Wagner, and the Homunculus is still in a state of formation, so that his cooperation may be expressed and rendered plain to the reader.
"It would do no harm," said I. "Yet this is intimated by the words with which Mephistopheles closes the scene—
Am Ende hangen wir doch ab
Von Creaturen die wir machten.
We are dependent after all,
On creatures that we make."
"True," said Goethe, "that would be almost enough for the attentive; but
I will think about some additional verses."
"But," said I, "those concluding words are very great, and will not easily be penetrated to their full extent."
"I think," said Goethe, "I have given them a bone to pick. A father who has six sons is a lost man, let him do what he may. Kings and ministers, too, who have raised many persons to high places, may have something to think about from their own experience."
Faust's dream about Leda again came into my head, and I regarded this as a most important feature in the composition.