Note 11 — JOURNAL. (continued 2)

I have lately read Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. In that wonderful analysis of the first work of our master-mind by his German peer, all has been said upon this subject that the most philosophical reason, or poetical imagination, can suggest; and who that has read it can forget that most appropriate and beautiful simile, wherein Hamlet's mind is likened to an acorn planted in a porcelain vase—the seed becomes living—the roots expand—and the fragile vessel bursts into a thousand shivers!