source for this quote by Goethe on Schiller's death?

[landofnowhere]

Dear DW friends,

While reading the Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, I came across this quote attributed to Goethe on the occasion of Schiller's death:

"It is good for us that he was taken in the fulness in the splendour of life, for mortals rest in our memory as they were when they left the earth. Therefore it is that Achilles remains with us, an ever-dying youth."

Can anyone help me find the original source for this?

Thanks,
landofnowhere

Comments

[selenak]

Bearing in mind this memoir is a mid to late 19th century book (right?), I bet that if it’s a real quote, it’s from Eckermann’s “Conversations with Goethe”, which mid to late 19th century folk interested in Goethe read religiously. Obviously modelled on Boswell’s Johnson biography and very much wanting to be it, but failing to be so. I always feel mean when being critical of Eckers who did devote huge parts of his life to Goethe at the expense of his own, but Johnson is only half the reason why Boswell’s book became such a classic - Boswell really could write and had a gift for finding or creating fun and interesting situations, even if they made him look ridiculous (and he was quite aware they did), as long as they got a reaction out of the celebrity he was interviewing. See also his diaries. Eckermann, not being an 18th century Georgian but a 19th century Biedermeier type, would have never interviewed Goethe’s servants about Goethe’s sex life (yep, Boswell did that re: Johnson), and his Goethe therefore sounds constantly like he’s posing for a monument

Now, if you’re after slashy quotes from Goethe abourt Schiller and vice versa from their actual letters (both to each other and to other people), I years ago wrote an entire post on that subject: https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/127192.html