"Well then, such strengthening reading during the last Joseph years was provided by two books: Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Goethe's Faust—a perplexing combination; but each of the two heterogeneous works has its particular function as a stimulant, and in the connection it was a pleasure for me to know that Goethe had held Sterne in very high esteem, and had called him one of the finest intellects who had ever lived."