and, in a word, became her adorer. It could not long remain unknown to him that she could give him nothing but friendship; and her conduct toward him was admirable. Our coincidence of taste, and a closer acquaintance with each other, formed between him and me the closest bond of friendship. Meanwhile, although he was forced to renounce all hope in relation to Lottchen, and did renounce it, yet he could not, with all his philosophy and natural pride, so far master himself as completely to repress his inclination. And he has

qualities which might make him dangerous to a woman, especially to one of susceptibility and taste. But Lottchen knew how to treat him so as not to encourage vain hope, and yet make him admire her manner toward him. His peace of mind suffered: there were many remarkable scenes, in which Lottchen's behaviour heightened my regard for her; and he also became more precious to me as a friend; but I was often inwardly astonished that love can make such strange creatures even of the strongest and otherwise the most self-sustained men. I pitied him, and had many inward struggles; for, on the one hand, I thought that I might not be in a position to make Lottchen so happy as he would make her; but, on the other hand, I could not endure the thought of losing her. The latter feeling conquered, and in Lottchen I have never once been able to perceive a shadow of the same conflict."

Another extract will place this conflict in its true light: "I am under no further engagement to Lottchen than that under which an honourable man stands when he gives a young woman the preference above all others, makes known that he desires the like feeling from her, and when she gives it, receives from her not only this but a complete acquiescence. This I consider quite enough to bind an honourable man, especially when such a relation lasts several years. But in my case there is this in addition, that Lottchen and

I have expressly declared ourselves, and still do so with pleasure, without any oaths and asseverations." This absence of any legal tie between them must have made Kestner's position far more trying. It gives a higher idea both of his generous forbearance and of the fascination exercised by Goethe: for what a position! and how much nobility on all sides was necessary to prevent petty jealousies ending in a violent rupture! Certain it is that the greatest intimacy and the most affectionate feelings were kept up without disturbance. Confident in the honour of his friend and the truth of his mistress, Kestner never spoiled the relation by a hint of jealousy. Goethe was constantly in Lotte's house, where his arrival was a jubilee to the children, who seized hold of him, as children always take loving possession of those who are indulgent to them, and forced him to tell them stories. It is a pleasant sight to see Goethe with children; he always shows such hearty fondness for them; and these brothers and sisters of Lotte were doubly endeared to him because they belonged to her.

One other figure in this Wetzlar set arrests our attention it is that of a handsome blonde youth, with soft blue eyes and a settled melancholy expression. His name is Jerusalem, and he is the son of the venerable Abbot of Riddagshausen.1 He is here attached as secretary to the Brunswick Legation, a colleague, therefore, of Von Goué. He is deeply read in English literature, and has had the honour of Lessing's friendship; a friendship subsequently expressed in the following terms, when Lessing, acting as his editor, wrote the preface to his Philosophical Essays: "When he came to Wolfenbüttel he gave me his friendship. I did not enjoy it long, but I cannot easily name one

1 No Catholic, as this title might seem to imply, but a Protestant; his abbey, secularised two centuries before, yielded him only a title and revenues.

who in so short a space of time excited in me more affection. It is true I only learned to know one side of his nature, but it was the side which explains all the rest. It was the desire for clear knowledge; the talent to follow truth to its last consequences; the spirit of cold observation; but an ardent spirit not to be intimidated by truth. . . . How sensitive, how warm, how active this young inquirer was, how true a man among men, is better known to more intimate friends." The Essays which these words introduce are five in number; the titles are given below.1

The melancholy of his disposition led him to think much of suicide, which he defended on speculative grounds. And this melancholy, and these meditations, were deepened by an unhappy passion for the wife of one of his friends. The issue of that passion we shall have to narrate in a future chapter. For the present it is enough to indicate the presence of this youth. among the circle of Goethe's acquaintances. They saw but little of each other, owing to the retiring sensitiveness of Jerusalem; probably the same cause had kept them asunder years before in Leipsic, where they were fellow students; but their acquaintance furnished Goethe with materials which he was afterward to use in his novel.

Jerusalem's unhappy passion and Goethe's unhappy passion, one would think, must have been a bond of union between them; but in truth Goethe's passion can scarcely have been called "unhappy" - it was rather a delicious uneasiness. Love in the profound, absorbing sense it was not. It was an imaginative passion, in which the poet was more implicated than the man. Lotte excited his imagination; her beauty,

1 I. Dass die Sprache dem ersten Menschen durch Wunder nicht mitgetheilt sein kann. II. Ueber die Natur und den Ursprung der allgemeinen und abstrakten Begriffe. III. Ueber die Freiheit. IV. Ueber die Mendelssohn'sche Theorie vom sinnlichen Vergnügen. V. Ueber die vermischten Empfindungen.

her serene gaiety, her affectionate manners, charmed him; the romance of his position heightened the charm, by giving an unconscious security to his feelings. I am persuaded that if Lotte had been free, he would have fled from her as he fled from Frederika. In saying this, however, I do not mean that the impossibility of obtaining her gave him any comfort. He was restless, impatient, and, in a certain sense, unhappy. He believed himself to be desperately in love with her, when in truth he was only in love with the indulgence of the emotions he excited; a paradox which will be no mystery to those acquainted with the poetic temperament.

Thus passed the summer. In August he made a little excursion to Giessen, to see Professor Höpfner, one of the active writers in the Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen. Characteristically he calls on the professor incognito, presenting himself as a shy, awkward student; which, as Höpfner only knows him through correspondence, is facile enough. The comic scene ends by his jumping into the professor's arms, exclaiming, “I am Goethe!" In Giessen he found Merck. He persuaded him to return to Wetzlar, to be introduced to Lotte. Merck came; but so far from undervaluing her, as the very inaccurate account in the Autobiography would have us understand, Merck wrote to a friend: "J'ai trouvé aussi l'amie de Goethe, cette fille dont il parle avec tant d'enthousiasme dans toutes ses lettres. Elle mérite réellement tout ce qu'il pourra dire du bien sur son compte." He exasperated Goethe by preferring the "Juno form" of one of her friends, and pointing her out as the more worthy of attention, because she was disengaged. That Goethe should have been offended, was in the order of things; but in the retrospective glance which he gave to this period in his old.

1

1 "Briefe aus dem Freundeskreise von Goethe, Herder, Merck,"

p. 59.

age, he ought to have detected the really friendly spirit animating Merck; he ought not to have likened him to Mephistopheles; the more so as Merck's representations were really effectual, and hastened the dénouement. Every day made Goethe's position less tenable. At last he consented to tear himself away, and accompany Merck in a trip down the Rhine. It was time. Whatever factitious element there may have been in his romance, the situation was full of danger; indulgence in such emotions would have created at last a real and desperate passion; there was safety but in flight.

Merck left Wetzlar, having arranged that Goethe should join him at Coblentz. The following extracts from Kestner's Diary will remind the reader of Goethe's departure from Leipsic without saying adieu to Käthchen. His dislike of "scenes" made him shrink from those emotions of leave-taking usually so eagerly sought by lovers.

"Sept. 10, 1772. To-day Doctor Goethe dined with me in the garden; I did not know that it was the last time. In the evening Doctor Goethe came to the teutsche Haus. He, Lottchen, and I, had a remarkable conversation about the future state; about going away and returning, etc., which was not begun by him, but by Lottchen. We agreed that the one who died first should, if he could, give information to the living, about the conditions of the other life. Goethe was quite cast down, for he knew that the next morning he was to go."

"Sept. 11, 1772. This morning at seven o'clock Goethe set off without taking leave. He sent me a note with some books. He had long said that about this time he would make a journey to Coblentz, where the paymaster of the forces, Merck, awaited him, and that he would say no good-byes, but set off suddenly. So I had expected it. But that I was, notwithstanding, unprepared for it, I have felt felt deep in my soul.