Excerpt from The Wisdom of Goethe It was my desire in putting this little work before the public to leave the great poet to state his own case, and to make that impression on the unbiassed reader which words of true wisdom flowing into the soul, like healthy breezes into free lungs, natu rally make. But I soon became aware that, in the case of Goethe, few unbiassed readers were likely to be found on this Side of the Channel; and I could not conceal from myself the fact that the good impression to be made by the Wise words of the preacher might be seriously neutralised by the bad impression they entertained of his character. If it has been the good fortune of some great men to have had their virtues brought forward into the foreground, studiously dressed out and magnified, while their vices are cast into the shade and for. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.