48 GOETHE'S 'FAKBENLEHEE. ' 



dipped into it so far as to make myself acquainted 

 with its style, its logic, and its general aim ; but having 

 done this I laid it aside as something which jarred upon 

 my conception of Goethe's grandeur. The mind will- 

 ingly rounds off the image which it venerates, and only 

 acknowledges with reluctance that it is on any side in- 

 complete ; and believing that Goethe in the ' Farben- 

 lehre' was wrong in his intellectual, and perverse in his 

 moral judgments seeing above all things that he had 

 forsaken the lofty impersonal calm which was his chief 

 characteristic, and which had entered into my concep- 

 tion of the god-like in literature I abandoned the 

 * Farbenlehre,' and looked up to Goethe on that side 

 where his greatness was uncontested and supreme. 



But in the month of May 1878 Mr. Carlyle did me 

 the honour of calling upon me twice ; and not being 

 at home at the time, I visited him in Chelsea soon 

 afterwards. He was then in his eighty-third year, and 

 looking in his solemn fashion towards that portal to 

 which we are all so rapidly hastening, he remembered 

 his friends. He then presented to me, as ' a farewell 

 gift,' the two octavo volumes of letterpress, and the 

 single folio volume, consisting in great part of coloured 

 diagrams, which are here before you. Exactly half a 

 century ago these volumes were sent by Goethe to Mr. 

 Carlyle. They embrace the ' Farbenlehre ' a title 

 which may be translated, though not well translated, 

 4 Theory of Colours ' and they are accompanied by a 

 long letter, or rather catalogue, from Goethe himself, 

 dated June 14, 1830, a little less than two years before 

 his death. My illustrious friend wished me to examine 

 the book, with a view of setting forth what it really 

 contained. This year for the first time I have been able 

 to comply with the desire of Mr. Carlyle ; and as I knew 

 that your wish would coincide with his, as to the pro- 

 priety of making some attempt to weigh the merits of 



