"This reflection," Georg
Jacobi comments, "made a profound impression on our stranger,"[184]
and the impression must have been abiding, since in no passage of his
Autobiography does he recall more vividly the emotions of a vanished
time.
[Footnote 184: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 45.]
The evening of the day they spent in Cologne is noted both by Goethe
and Fritz Jacobi as marking a point in their intellectual development.
The inn in which they were quartered overlooked the Rhine, the murmur
of whose moonlit waters was attuned to the sentiments that had been
evoked in the course of the day. In the prospect of their near parting
all three were disposed to confidential self-revelations, and the
conversation ran on themes regarding which they had all thought and
felt much--on poetry, religion, and philosophy. As usual with him when
he was in congenial company, Goethe freely declaimed such pieces of
verse as happened at the time to be interesting him--the verses on
this occasion being Scottish ballads and two poems of his own, _Der
Koenig von Thule_, and _Der untreue Knabe_. In philosophy the talk
turned mainly on Spinoza, of whom Goethe spoke "unforgettably.
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