Goethe's literary essays · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
II (1820)
In my article on “Urteilsworte französischer Kritiker,” a large number of unfavorable epithets used by French critics were set off against a scanty number of favorable words. In connection with this, the _Vrai Liberal_ of February 4, 1819, lodges a complaint against me and accuses me of an injustice towards the French nation. It does this with so much civility and charm as to make me ashamed of myself, were it not for the fact that behind my presentation of those words there lay a secret, which I hasten to reveal to it and to my readers at this time. I admit without hesitation that the Brussels correspondent of the _Vrai Liberal_ is quite right when he points out how among the words of censure which I gave there appear many peculiar ones which one would not exactly expect; and in addition, that in the list of favorable words, several are lacking which ought to occur to every one. In order to explain this, and make the story clearer, I shall relate how I was induced to make this particular list. When Herr von Grimm forty years ago achieved an honorable entrance into Parisian society, at that time extraordinarily talented and intellectual, and was recognized practically as a member of this distinguished company, he decided to send a written bulletin of literary and other interesting matters to princely personages and wealthy people in Germany, in order to entertain them, for a considerable remuneration, with the characteristic life of Paris circles, in regard to which they were curious in the outside world, because they could well consider Paris as the centre of the cultured world. These letters were to contain not merely news; but the best works of Diderot, _The Nun_, _Jacques the Fatalist_, etc., were by degrees inserted in such small portions that curiosity, attention, and eagerness were kept alive from number to number.
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