Thursday, February 13, 2025

Diary of Lucy Larcom, November 27, 1860

Since I came to Beverly I have been looking over "Wilhelm Meister" for the first time. I am disappointed in it, and have little respect for Goethe as a man, great as was his genius. Great thoughts he had, and they shine like constellations through the book; artistic, no doubt he was, but everything that relates to principle or right feeling is terribly chaotic, it seems to me. And Wilhelm is an embodiment of high-strung selfishness, under a cloak of generosity and spontaneous good feeling. If I could despise any man, it would be such a one as he.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 78

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