Leipsic again; in the meantime I think of going to France to see what French life is, and learn the French language. So you can imagine what a charming man I shall be when I return to you. It often occurs to me, that it would be a laughable affair, if, in spite of all my projects, I were to die before Easter. In that case I would order a gravestone for myself in Leipsic churchyard, that at least every year on St. John's day you might visit the figure of St. John and my grave. What do you think?'

In a

To celebrate his recovery, Rath Moritz gave a great party, at which all the Frankfurt friends assembled. little while, however, another illness came to lay the poet low; and, worse than all, there came the news from Leipsic that Käthchen was engaged to a Dr. Kanne, whom Goethe had introduced to her. This forever decided his restlessness about her. Here is a letter from him.

A dream last night has reminded me that I owe you an answer. Not that I had entirely forgotten it, not that I never think of you: no, my dear friend, every day says something of you and of my faults. But it is strange, and it is an experience which perhaps you also know, the remembrance of the absent, though not extinguished by time, is veiled. The distractions of our life, acquaintance with new objects, in short every change in our circumstances, do to our hearts what smoke and dirt do to a picture, they make the delicate touches quite undiscernable, and in such a way that one does not know how it comes to pass. A thousand things remind me of you; I see your image a thousand times, but as faintly, and often with as little emotion, as if I thought of some one quite strange to me; it often recurs to me that I owe you an answer, without my feeling the slightest impulse to write to you. Now, when I read your kind letter, which

is already some months old, and see your friendship and your solicitude for one so unworthy, I am shocked at myself, and for the first time feel what a change has taken place in my heart, that I can be without joy at that which formerly would have lifted me up to heaven. Forgive me this! Can one blame an unfortunate man because he is unable to rejoice? My wretchedness has made me dead to the good which still remains to me. My body is restored, but my mind is still uncured. I am in dull, inactive repose; that is not happiness. And in this quietude my imagination is so stagnant, that I can no longer picture to myself what was once dearest to me. It is only in a dream that my heart often appears to me as it is, only a dream is capable of recalling to me the sweet images, of so recalling them, as to reanimate my feelings; I have already told you that you are indebted to a dream for this letter. I saw you, I was with you; how it was, is too strange for me to relate to you. In one word, you were married. Is that true? I took up your kind letter, and it agrees with the time; if it is true, O may that be the beginning of your happiness!

'When I think of this disinterestedly, how does it rejoice me to know that you, my best friend, you, before every other who envied you and fancied herself better than you, are in the arms of a worthy husband; to know that you are happy, and freed from every annoyance to which a single state, and especially your single state, was exposed! I thank my dream that it has vividly depicted your happiness to me, and the happiness of your husband, and his reward for having made you happy. Obtain me his friendship in virtue of your being my friend, for you must have all things in common, even including friends. If I may believe my dream we shall see each other again, but I hope not so very quickly, and for my part I shall try to

defer its fulfilment; if, indeed, a man can undertake anything in opposition to destiny. Formerly I wrote to you somewhat enigmatically about what was to become of me. Now I may say more plainly that I am about to change my place of residence, and move farther from you. Nothing will any more remind me of Leipsic, except, perhaps, a restless dream; no friend who comes from thence; no letter. And yet I perceive that this will be no help to me. Patience, time, and distance will do that which nothing else can do; they will annihilate every unpleasant impression, and give us back our friendship, with contentment, with life, so that after a series of years we may see each other again with altogether different eyes, but with the same heart. Within a quarter of a year you shall have another letter from me, which will tell you of my destination and the time of my departure, and which can once more say to superfluity what I have already said a thousand times. I entreat you not to answer me any more; if you have anything more to say to me, let me know it through a friend. This is a melancholy entreaty, my best! you, the only one of all her sex, whom I cannot call friend, for that is an insignificant title compared with what I feel. I wish not to see your writing again, just as I wish not to hear your voice; it is painful enough for me that my dreams are so busy. You shall have one more letter; that promise I will sacredly keep, and so pay a part of my debts; the rest you must forgive me.'

To round off this story, the following extract may be given from the last letter which has been preserved of those he wrote to her. It is dated Frankfurt, January, 1770.

That I live peacefully is all that I can say to you of myself, and vigorously and healthily and industriously, for I have no woman in my head. Horn and I are still

good friends, but, so it happens in the world, he has his thoughts and ways, and I have my thoughts and ways, and so a week passes and we scarcely see each other once. But, everything considered, I am at last tired of Frankfurt, and at the end of March I shall leave it. I must not yet go to you, I perceive; for if I came at Easter you could not be married. And Käthchen Schönkopf I will not see again, if I am not to see her otherwise than so. At the end of March, therefore, I go to Strasburg; if you care to know that, as I believe you do. Will you write to me to Strasburg also? You will play me no trick. For, Käthchen Schönkopf, now I know perfectly that a letter from you is as dear to me as from any hand in the world. You were always a sweet girl, and will be a sweet woman. And I, I shall remain Goethe. You know what that means. If I name my name, I name my whole self, and you know that so long as I have known you I have lived only as part of you.'

Sic transit! So fall away the young blossoms of love which have not the force to ripen into fruit. 'The most

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loveable heart,' he writes to Käthchen, with a certain bitter humor, is that which loves the most readily; but that which easily loves also easily forgets.' It was his case; he could not live without some one to love, but his mobile nature soon dried the tears wrung from him by her loss.

Turning once more to his domestic condition, we find him in cold, unpleasant relations with his father, who had almost excited the hatred of his other child, Cornelia, by the stern, pedantic, pedagogic way in which he treated her. The old man continued to busy himself with the writing of his travels in Italy, and with instructing his daughter. She, who was of a restless, excitable, almost morbid disposition, secretly rebelled against his tyranny, and made her brother the confidant of all her griefs. The

poor mother had a terrible time of it, trying to pacify the children, and to stand between them and their father.

Very noticeable is one detail recorded by him. He had fallen ill again: this time with a stomach disorder, which no therapeutic treatment in the power of Frankfurt medicine seemed to mitigate. The family physician was one of those duped dupers who still stood to the great promises of Alchemy. It was whispered that he had in his possession a marvellous panacea, which was only to be employed in times of greatest need, and of which, indeed, no one dared openly speak. Frau Aja, trembling for her son, besought him to employ this mysterious salt. He consented. The patient recovered, and belief in the physician's skill became more complete. Not only was the poet thus restored once more to health, he was also thereby led to the study of Alchemy, and, as he narrates, employed himself in researches after the virgin earth.' In the little study of that house in the Hirsch-graben, he collected his glasses and retorts, and following the directions of authorities, sought for a time to penetrate the mystery which then seemed penetrable. Through these pursuits

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he was induced to read not only Theophrastus, Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and other alchemists, but also the more serviceable Chemical Compendium of Boerhaave, whose 'Aphorisms' greatly delighted him. These studies were preparations for Faust.

Renewed intercourse with Fräulein von Klettenberg, together with much theological and philosophical reading, brought Religion into prominence in his thoughts. He has given a sketch of the sort of Neoplatonic Christianity into which his thoughts moulded themselves; but as this sketch was written so very many years after the period to which it relates, one cannot well accept its authenticity. For biographic purposes it is enough to indicate that beside