ing with grotesque serenades or torchlight sledgings thus passed many of his days; not to mention flirtations, balls, *masquerades, concerts and verse-writing. The muse was, however, somewhat silent, though Hans Sachs' poetische Sendung, Lila, some charming lyrics, and the dramas and operas written for the occasion, forbid the accusation of idleness. He was storing up materials.

Faust, Egmont, Tasso, Iphigenia and Meister were germinating.

As

The muse was silent, but was the soul inactive? these strange and variegated scenes passed before his eyes, was he a mere actor, and not also a spectator? Let his works answer. To some indeed it has seemed as if in thus lowering great faculties to the composition of slight operas and festive pieces, Goethe was faithless to his mission, false to his own genius. This is but a repetition of Merck's exclamation against Clavigo, and may be answered from the same point of view. Herder thought that the Chosen One should devote himself to great works. This is the pedantry of a man of letters who can conceive no other aim than the production of great works. But Goethe needed to live as well as to write. Life is multiplied and rendered infinite by Feeling and Knowledge. He sought both to feel and to know. The great works he has written works vast in conception, austerely grand in execution, the fruits of earnest toil and lonely self-seclusion ought to shield him now from any charge of wasting his time on frivolities, though to Herder and Merck such a point of view was denied.

It was his real artistic nature and genuine poetic mobility which made him scatter with so prodigal a hand the trifles which distressed his friends. Poetry was the melodious i voice breathing from his entire manhood, not a profession, not an act of duty It was an impulse; the sounding

chords of his poetic nature vibrated to every touch, grave and stately, sweet and impassioned, delicate and humorous. He wrote not for Fame. He wrote not for Pence. He wrote poetry because he had lived it; and sang as the bird sings on its bough. Open to every impression, touched to ravishment by beauty, he sang whatever at the moment filled him with delight now trilling a careless snatch of melody, now a simple ballad, now a majestic hymn ascending from the depths of his soul on incensebearing rhythms, and now a grave quiet chaunt, slow with its rich burden of meanings. Men in whom the productive activity is great cannot be restrained from throwing off trifles, as the plant throws off buds beside the expanded flowers. Michael Angelo carved the Moses and painted the Last Judgment, but did he not also lend his masterhand to the cutting of graceful cameos?

CHAPTER VII.

MANY-COLORED THREADS.

HITHERTO our narrative of this Weimar period has moved mainly among generalities, for only by such means could a picture of his life be painted. Now, as we advance further, it is necessary to separate the threads of his career from those of others with which it was so inwoven.

It has already been noted, that he began to tire of the follies and extravagancies of the first months. In this year, 1777, he was quiet in his Garden-house, occupied with drawing, poetry, botany, and the one constant occupation of his heart — love for the Frau von Stein. Love and ambition were the guides which led him through the labyrinth of the court. Amid those motley scenes, amid those swiftly-succeeding pleasures, Voices, sorrowing Voices of the Past, made themselves audible above the din, and recalled the vast hopes which once had given energy to his aims; and these reverberations of an Ambition once so cherished, arrested and rebuked him, like the deep murmurs of some solemn bass moving slowly through the showering caprices of a sportive melody.

The quiet influence exercised by the Frau von Stein is visible in every page of his letters. As far as I can divine the state of things, in the absence of her letters, I fancy she coquetted with him; when he showed any disposition to throw off her yoke, when his manner seemed to imply

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less warmth, she lured him back with tenderness; and vexed him with unexpected coldness when she had drawn him once more to her feet. You reproach me,' he writes, with alternations in my love. It is not true but it is well that I do not every day feel how utterly I love you.' Again: 'I cannot conceive why the main ingredients of your feeling have lately been Doubt and want of Belief. But it is certainly true that one who did not hold firm his affection might have that affection doubted away, just as a man may be persuaded that he is pale and ill.' That she tormented him with these coquettish doubts is but too evident; and yet when he is away from her, she writes to tell him he is become dearer! Yes, my treasure!' he replies, "I believe you when you say your love increases for me during absence. When away, you love the idea you have formed of me; but when present, that idea is often disturbed by my folly and madness. . I love you better when present than when absent: hence I conclude my love is truer than yours.' At times he seems himself to have doubted whether he really loved her, or only loved the delight of her presence.

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With these doubts mingles another element, his Ambition to do something which will make him worthy of her. In spite of his popularity, in spite of his genius, he has not subdued her heart, but only agitated it. He endeavors, by devotion, to succeed. Thus Love and Ambition play into each other's hands, and keep him in a seclusion which astonishes and pains several of those who could never have enough of his company.

In the June of this year, his solitude was visited by one of the agitations he could least withstand the death of his only sister, Cornelia. Sorrows and Dreams, is the significant entry of the following day in his Journal.

It was about this time that he undertook the care of

Peter Imbaumgarten, a Swiss peasant boy, the protégé of his friend, Baron Lindau. The Baron dying, left Peter once more without protection. Goethe, whose heart was open to all, especially to children, gladly undertook to continue the Baron's care; and as we have seen him sending home an Italian image-boy to his mother at Frankfurt, as Wilhelm Meister undertakes the care of Mignon and Felix, so does this 'cold' Goethe add love to charity, and become a father to the fatherless.

The autumn tints were beginning to mingle their red and yellow with the dark and solemn firs of the Ilmenau mountains, and Goethe and the Duke could not long keep away from the loved spot, where poetical and practical schemes occupied the day, and many a wild prank startled the night. There they danced with peasant girls till early dawn; the net result of which was a swelled face, forcing Goethe to lay up.

On his return to Weimar, he. was distressed by the receipt of one of the many letters which Werther drew upon him. He had made sentimentality poetical; it soon became a fashion. Many were the melancholy youths who poured forth their sorrows to him, demanding sympathy and consolation. Nothing could be more antipathetic to his clear and healthy nature. It made him ashamed of his Werther. It made him merciless to all Wertherism. To relieve himself of the annoyance, he commenced the satirical extravaganza of the Triumph der Empfindsamkeit. Very significant, however, of the unalterable kindliness of his disposition is the fact, that although these sentimentalities had to him only a painful or a ludicrous aspect, he did not suffer his repugnance to the malady to destroy his sympathy for the patient. There is a proof of this in the episode he narrates of his

Harz Journey, made in No