One
theme on which Goethe spoke with enthusiasm, it is interesting to
note, was Spinoza and his writings, but, as his talk is reported by
Lavater, there was no hint in it of the profound change which the
study of Spinoza had effected in him. It was to the man and not the
thinker that he paid his reverential tribute--to the purity,
simplicity, and high wisdom of his life. But Goethe's own literary
preoccupations appear to have been the chief subject of their talk. He
spoke of a play on Julius Caesar on which he was engaged, and which
remained one of his many abortive ambitions; he read passages from
_Der Ewige Jude_, "a singular thing in doggerel verse," Lavater calls
it; recited a romance translated from the Scots dialect; and narrated
for Lavater's benefit the whole story of the Iliad, reading passages
of the poem from a Latin translation. The memorable day was not to be
repeated. At Ems, as at Frankfort, Lavater was taken possession of by
a throng of worshippers, and the state of his own affairs at home
afforded Goethe an excuse for leaving him.
By a curious coincidence, shortly after Goethe's return, there arrived
another prophet in Frankfort--also, like Lavater, out on a mission of
his own.
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