/Meister/ for its prosaic, mechanical, economical, coldhearted,
altogether Utilitarian character. We English again call Goethe a mystic;
so difficult is it to please all parties! But the good, deep, noble
Novalis made the fairest amends; for notwithstanding all this, Tieck
tells us, if we remember rightly, he continually returned to
/Meister/, and could not but peruse and reperuse it.

Goethe's /Wanderjahre/ was published in his seventy-second year;
/Werter/ in his twenty-fifth; thus in passing between these two
works, and over /Meister's Lehrjahre/ which stands nearly midway,
we have glanced over a space of almost fifty years, including within
them, of course, whatever was most important in his public or private
history. By means of these quotations, so diverse in their tone, we
meant to make it visible that a great change had taken place in the
moral disposition of the man; a change from inward imprisonment, doubt
and discontent, into freedom, belief and clear activity; such a change
as, in our opinion, must take place, more or less consciously, in every
character that, especially in these times, attains to spiritual manhood,
and in characters possessing any thoughtfulness and sensibility, will
seldom take place without a too painful consciousness, without bitter
conflicts, in which the character itself is too often maimed and
impoverished, and which end too often not in victory, but in defeat, or
fatal compromise with the enemy. Too often, we may well say; for though
many gird on the harness, few bear it warrior-like; still fewer put it
off with triumph. Among our own poets, Byron was almost the only man we
saw faithfully and manfully struggling, to the end, in this cause; and
he died while the victory was still doubtful, or at best, only beginning
to be gained. We have already stated our opinion, that Goethe's success
in this matter has been more complete than that of any other man in his
age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he may almost be called the only