Finally, my own character and designs lost all romantic
interest, and I felt vulgarized, profaned, forsaken,--though
obliged to smile brightly and talk wisely all the while. But
these clouds at length passed away.
'And now let me try to tell you what has been done. To one
class I taught the German language, and thought it good
success, when, at the end of three months, they could read
twenty pages of German at a lesson, and very well. This
class, of course, was not interesting, except in the way of
observation and analysis of language.
'With more advanced pupils I read, in twenty-four weeks,
Schiller's Don Carlos, Artists, and Song of the Bell, besides
giving a sort of general lecture on Schiller; Goethe's Hermann
and Dorothea, Goetz von Berlichingen, Iphigenia, first part of
Faust,--three weeks of thorough study this, as valuable to me
as to them,--and Clavigo,--thus comprehending samples of
all his efforts in poetry, and bringing forward some of his
prominent opinions; Lessing's Nathan, Minna, Emilia Galeotti;
parts of Tieck's Phantasus, and nearly the whole first volume
of Richter's Titan.
'With the Italian class, I read parts of Tasso, Petrarch--whom
they came to almost adore,--Ariosto, Alfieri, and the whole
hundred cantos of the Divina Commedia, with the aid of the
fine Athenaeum copy, Flaxman's designs, and all the best
commentaries.
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