world. Her pretty fingers had turned over many a serious book; and she knew how to gather honey from weeds. With moral deficiencies, which this history will betray, she was to all acquaintances a perfectly charming woman; and retained her charm even in old age, as many living witnesses testify. Some years after her first acquaintance with Goethe, Schiller thus writes of her to his friend Körner: She is really a genuine, interesting person, and I quite understand what has attached Goethe to her. Beautiful she can never have been; but her countenance has a soft earnestness, and a quite peculiar openness. A healthy understanding, truth and feeling, lie in her nature. She has more than a thousand letters from Goethe; and from Italy he writes to her every week. They say the connection is perfectly pure and blameless.'

It was at Pyrmont that Goethe first saw the Frau von Stein's portrait, and was three nights sleepless in consequence of Zimmermann's description of her. In sending her that flattering detail, Zimmermann added, he will assuredly come to Weimar to see you.' Under her portrait Goethe wrote, 'What a glorious poem it would be to see how the world mirrors itself in this soul! She sees the world as it is, and yet withal sees it through the medium of love; hence sweetness is the dominant expression.' In her reply to Zimmermann, she begs to hear more about Goethe, and intimates her desire to see him. This calls forth a reply that she has no idea of the danger of his magical presence.' Such dangers pretty women ́gladly run into, especially when, like Charlotte von Stein, they are perfect mistresses of themselves.

Tearing himself away from Lili, his heart still trembling from the agitations of a victory over its desires, he saw this charming woman. The earth continues warm long after the sun has glided below the horizon; and the

heart continues warm some time after the departure of its sun. Goethe was therefore prepared to fall desperately in love with one who viewed all things through the medium of love.' And there is considerable interest in noting the kind of idol now selected. Hitherto he has been captivated only by very young girls, whose youth, beauty, and girlishness, were the charms to his wandering fancy; but now he is fascinated by a woman, a woman of rank and elegance, a woman of culture and experience, a woman who, instead of abandoning herself to the charm of his affection, knew how, without descending from her pedestal, to keep the flame alive. The others loved him, - showed him their love,—and were forgotten. She contrived to keep him in the pleasant fever of hope, made herself necessary to him, made her love an aim, and kept him in the excitement of one

'Who never is, but always to be blest.'

Considering the state of society and opinion at that period, and considering moreover that, according to her son's narrative, her husband was scarcely seen in his own home more than once a week, and that no pretence of affection existed between them, we can understand how Goethe's notorious passion for her excited sympathy in Weimar. Not a word of blame escaped any one on this subject. They saw a lover whose mistress gave him just enough encouragement to keep him eager in pursuit, and who knew how to check him when that eagerness would press on too far. In his early letters to her there are sudden outbreaks and reserves; sometimes the affectionate thou escapes, and the next day, perhaps even in the next sentence, the prescribed you returns. These letters follow almost daily. So early as January, 1776, this significant phrase escapes: 'Adieu, angel! I shall never become

more prudent; and have to thank God for it. Adieu! and yet it grieves me that I love thee so- and precisely thee!'

Here is an answer, apparently, to something she has written (for unhappily we have none of her letters: she had taken the precaution to demand her letters back from him, and burnt them, carefully preserving his!):

'Wherefore must I plague thee! dearest creature ! Wherefore deceive myself and plague thee! We can

be nothing to each other, and yet are too much to each other. Believe me thou art in all things one with me but because I see things as they are it makes me mad! Good night, angel, and good morning. I will see thee no Only . . . Thou knowest all . . . My heart is ... All I can say is mere folly. In future I shall see thee as men see the stars.' A few days after, he writes, 'Adieu, dear sister, since it must be so.'

more

I select the following as indicating the tone:

1st May. To-day I shall not see you. Your presence yesterday made so wonderful an impression on me, that I know not as yet whether I am well or ill from it. Adieu, dearest lady.'

1st May. Evening. Thou art right to make me a saint, that is to say, to remove me from thy heart. Holy as thou art, I cannot make thee a saint. To-morrow, therefore Well, I will not see thee. Good night!'

On the 24th May, a passionate letter reveals that she had written or spoken to him in a decided tone about ' appearances' and the 'world':

'So the purest, most beautiful, truest relation I ever had to a woman, except to my sister, that also must be disturbed! I was prepared for it; but I suffered infinitely on account of the past and the future, and of the poor child thus consecrated in sorrow. I will not see you;

your presence would make me sad. If I am not to live with you, your love will help me no more than the love of those absent, in which I am so rich. Presence, in the moment of need, discerns, alleviates and strengthens. The absent comes with the hose when the fire is extinguished and all for the sake of the world! The world, which can be nothing to me, will not let thee be anything to me. You know not what you do. . . The hand of one in solitude who hears not the voice of love, presses hard where it rests. Adieu, best of women!

25th May. You are always the same, always infinite love and goodness. Forgive me if I make you suffer. I will learn to bear my suffering alone.'

'2d June. Adieu. Love me as ever, I will come seldomer and write seldomer.'

'4th June. Here, dear lady, is the tribute. I will see if I can keep my resolution not to come. You are not quite safe with me. Yesterday there were again some moments in which I truly felt how I love you.'

6th June. So you could do me the unkindness of remaining away yesterday. Truly what you do must be right in my eyes!! But it made me sad.'

7th June. You are a darling to have told me all! When one loves one should tell everything. Dearest angel, and I have again three words which will set you at rest, but only words from me to thee! I shall come to-day.'

She was forced to quit Weimar for a while. • Dearest lady,' he writes, 'I dare not think you are going away on Tuesday, and that you will be away from me six months. For what avails all else? It is presence alone which influences, consoles and edifies! even though it sometimes torments - torment is the sunshower of love.'

Here is a curious passage: Last night as I lay in my

bed half asleep, Philip brought me a letter; half stupefied, I read that Lili is betrothed!! I turn round and fall asleep. How I pray that fate may act so by me in the right moment. Dear angel, good night.'

One more extract. extract. Oh Oh! you have a way of giving pain which is like that of destiny, which admits of no complaint, however it may grieve.

In a little while the tone grows more subdued. Just as the tone of his behavior in Weimar, after the first wild weeks, became softened to a lower key, so in these letters we see, after a while, fewer passionate outbreaks, fewer interjections, and no more thou's. But love warms them still. The letters are incessant, and show an incessant preoccupation. Certain sentimental readers will be shocked, perhaps, to find so many details about eating and drinking; but when they remember Charlotte cutting bread and butter, they may understand the author of Werther eloquently begging his beloved to send him a sausage.