Excerpt from The Auto-Biography of Goethe, Truth and Poetry, Vol. 1 of 2: From My Life
We have now collected, dear friend, more than twelve parts of your poetical works, and on reading them through, find a good deal that is familiar to us, and a good deal that is unfa miliar, while much that has been forgotten is revived by the collection. These twelve volumes, standing before us, in uniform edition, we cannot refrain from regarding as a whole, which readily suggests throughout some image of the nu thor and his capabilities. But it cannot be denied, consider ing the vigour with which he began his literary career, and the length of time that has since elapsed, that a dozen little volumes seem insuficient results. Nor can we conceal, in respect to particq works, that the most of them have been produced under special incitements, and reflect certain external objects, as well as the distinct steps of your inward culture, and the various temporary moral and esthetic max ims and convictions that prevail in them. As a whole, however, these productions remain without connection, and it is often hard to believe that they have come from the same writer.
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