I have been reading a translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea, and this priggishness is the finest of its kin that I can call to mind. Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe's Wilhelm Meister that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I have been reading a translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea, and this priggishness is the finest of its kin that I can call to mind. Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe's Wilhelm Meister that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German." in the context of "Samuel Butler to Eliza Savage (6 November 1874), quoted in Letters between Samuel Butler and E.M.A. Savage, 1871–1885 (1935)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.