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Ehmals verlor mein fliegender Blick in des Lebens
Künftiges sich, und ich schuf dann, was mir Wunsch war,
Fast zu Wirklichkeit: seine Freuden
Hatte das schöne Phantom!

Denn das Gesetz der Mäßigung wurd' ihm gegeben,
Wurde gethan mit der Strenge, die zu Hofnung
Leitet: aber der Wunsch ist dann selbst
Thor, wenn er Hofnung verdient.

Freue dich deß, das da ist! so sagt' ich mir öfter,
Als dem Getäusch ich es zuließ mir zu ...

Mein Vater war ein Kaufmann. (My father was a merchant.)

With such a simple sentence starts one of the most uncommon and surprising classics, a book that Nietzsche ranked amongst the best of German literature:

Wenn man von Goethes Schriften absieht und namentlich von Goethes Unterhaltungen mit Eckermann, dem besten deutschen Buche, das es gibt: was bleibt eigentlich von der deutschen Prosa-Literatur übrig, das es verdiente, wieder und wieder gelesen zu werden? Lichtenbergs

...

Although I usually browse the web in German, every now and then I come across a good English page, so I thought I could share some links with you of more or less bibliomanic content.

Bibliodyssey, a blog about Book art and Book illustrations;
Bookshelf, yet another blog. One of my favourite bookshelves is The Bookman.
Writer's Rooms and Literary Stamps are two other pages worth visiting.

A new approach to literature - Earth viewed from books - and the ...

Only a few days ago I returned home from a longer sojourn, and - as usual - after the joy of being home again, the little sadness of leaving the new impressions and acquaintances behind and the strains of travelling had vanished, a certain emptiness found its way into my mindset and I was in a position of having already accustomed diffidently to old habits again but having not quite yet arrived with my thoughts often going back to what shall now become another travel memoir...in this state of mind ...