Delphi Collected Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe \(Illustrated\) pdfdrive com

AUGUST 15.

There can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as love. I

observe that  Charlotte  could  not lose  me  without  a pang,  and  the  very  children

have but one wish; that is, that I should visit them again tomorrow. I went this

afternoon  to  tune  Charlotte’s  piano.  But  I  could  not  do  it,  for  the  little  ones

insisted  on  my  telling  them  a  story;  and  Charlotte  herself  urged  me  to  satisfy

them. I waited upon them at tea, and they are now as fully contented with me as

with Charlotte; and I told them my very best tale of the princess who was waited

upon by dwarfs. I improve myself by this exercise, and am quite surprised at the

impression  my  stories  create.  If  I  sometimes  invent  an  incident  which  I  forget

upon  the  next  narration,  they  remind  one  directly  that  the  story  was  different

before; so that I now endeavour to relate with exactness the same anecdote in the

same monotonous tone, which never changes. I find by this, how much an author

injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical

point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that

we  believe  the  most  incredible  things;  and,  once  they  are  engraved  upon  the

memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.