Note 46 — Chapter III · ToC

"I remember hearing him (Wordsworth) say that 'Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough.' The remark is striking and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but its maker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right; Goethe's poetry is not inevitable; not inevitable enough."—Preface to "Poems of Wordsworth," chosen and edited by Matthew Arnold.