The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry from My Own Life · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Preface to the Fourth Part

23 of 28 · 1 min of reading

Preface. In treating a life's story, progressing in many different ways, like this which we have ventured to undertake, it is necessary, in order to be intelligible and readable, that some parts of it, connected in time should be separated, whilst others which can only be understood by a connected treatment must be brought together: and the whole be so arranged in sections that the reader inspecting it intelligently may form an opinion on it, and appropriate a good deal for his own use.

We open the present volume with this reflexion, that it may help to justify our mode of proceeding: and we add the request that our readers will note that the narrative here continued does not exactly fit on to the end of the preceding book, though the intention is to gather up again the main threads one by one, and to bring on the personages as well as the thoughts and actions in a virtually complete sequence.

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End of part 23 of 28