Moreover, I was intimately known to this noble society, having met them previously. The Prince, upon our first acquaintance, had asked me what I was then busy with; and the plan of my "Iphigenia" was so fresh in my recollection, that I was able one evening to relate it to them circumstantially. They entered into it; still, still I fancied I could observe that something livelier and wilder was expected of me.
It would be difficult to give an account of this day. How often has the cursory reading of a book, which irresistibly carries one with it, exercised the greatest influence on a man's whole life, and produced at once a decisive effect, which neither a second perusal nor earnest reflection can either strengthen or modify. This I experienced in the case of the "Sakuntala"; and do not great men affect us somewhat in the same way? A sail to Puzzuoli, little trips by land, cheerful walks through the most wonderful regions in the world! Beneath the purest sky the most treacherous soil; ruins of inconceivable opulence, oppressive, and saddening; boiling waters, clefts exhaling sulphur, rocks of slag defying vegetable life, bare forbidding tracts, and then at last on all sides the most luxuriant vegetation seizing every spot and cranny possible, running over every lifeless object, edging the lakes and brooks, and nourishing a glorious wood of oak on the brink of an ancient crater!
And thus one is driven backwards and forwards between nature and the history of nations; one wishes to meditate, and soon feels himself quite unfit for it. In the mean time, however, the living lives on merrily, with a joyousness which we too would share. Educated persons, belonging to the world and the world's ways, but warned by serious events, become, nevertheless, disposed for reflection. A boundless view of earth, sea, and sky,--and then called away to the side of a young and amiable lady, accustomed and delighted to receive homage.
Amidst all this giddy excitement, however, I failed not to make many notes. The future reduction of these will be greatly facilitated by the map we consulted on the spot, and by a hasty sketch of Tischbein's. To-day it is not possible for me to make the least addition to these.