me happy."

(February 10, 1811, to Bettina von Arnim.)

139. "I would have gone to death, yes, ten times to death for
Goethe. Then, when I was in the height of my enthusiasm, I
thought out my 'Egmont' music. Goethe,--he lives and wants us all
to live with him. It is for that reason that he can be composed.
Nobody is so easily composed as he. But I do not like to compose
songs."

(To Rochlitz, in 1822, when Beethoven recalled Goethe's amiability
in Teplitz.)

140. "Goethe is too fond of the atmosphere of the court; fonder
than becomes a poet. There is little room for sport over the
absurdities of the virtuosi, when poets, who ought to be looked
upon as the foremost teachers of the nation, can forget
everything else in the enjoyment of court glitter."

(Franzensbrunn, August 9, 1812, to Gottfried Hartel of Leipzig.)

141. "When two persons like Goethe and I meet these grand folk
must be made to see what our sort consider great."

(August 15, 1812, in a description of how haughtily he, and how
humbly Goethe, had behaved in the presence of the Imperial court.)

142. "Since that summer in Carlsbad I read Goethe every day,--when
I read at all."