Goethe was unconscious of its warning. Throughout his sojourn in Naples he seems to have thought that Tischbein in Naples was the same as Tischbein in Rome. Of some persons it is true that change of sky works no change of soul. Oddly enough, Goethe reckoned himself among the changeable. In one of his letters he calls himself ‘quite an altered man,’ and asserts that he is given over to ‘a sort of intoxicated self-forgetfulness’--a condition to which his letters testify not at all. In a later bulletin he is nearer the mark: ‘Were I not impelled by the German spirit, and desire to learn and do rather than to enjoy, I should tarry a little longer in this school of a light-hearted and happy life, and try to profit by it still more.’ A truly priceless passage, this, with a solemnity transcending logic--as who should say, ‘Were I not so thoroughly German, I should be thoroughly German.’ Tischbein was of less stern stuff, and it is clear that Naples fostered in him a lightness which Rome had repressed. Goethe says that he himself puzzled the people in Neapolitan society: ‘Tischbein pleases them far better. This evening he hastily painted some heads of the size of life, and about these they disported themselves as strangely as the New Zealanders at the sight of a ship of war.’ One feels that but for Goethe’s presence Tischbein would have cut New Zealand capers too. A week later he did an utterly astounding thing. He told Goethe that he would not be accompanying him to Sicily. He did not, of course, say ‘The novelty of your greatness has worn off. Your solemnity oppresses me. Be off, and leave me to enjoy myself in Naples-on-Sea--Naples, the Queen of Watering Places!’ He spoke of work which he had undertaken, and recommended as travelling companion for Goethe a young man of the name of Kniep.