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, 6 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. 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.

CHAPTER V.

THE GARTENHAUS.

THE visitor may still read the inscription, at once homage and souvenir, by which Goethe connected the happy hours of love with the happy hours of active solitude passed in his Garden House in the Park. Fitly is the place dedicated to the Frau von Stein. The whole spot speaks of her. Here are the flower-beds from which almost every morning flowers, with the dew still on them, came with letters, as fresh and beautiful, to greet the beloved. Here are the beds from which came the asparagus he was so proud to send her. Here is the orchard in which grew the fruit so often sent. which he dreamt of her; here the room in which he worked, while her image hovered around him. The house stands within twenty minutes' walk from the house where she lived, separated by clusters of noble trees.

Here is the room in

If the reader turns back to the description of the Park (page 325), he will ascertain the position of this Gartenhaus. Originally it belonged to Bertuch. One day when the Duke was earnestly pressing Goethe to take up his residence at Weimar, the poet (who then lived in the Jägerhaus in the Belvedere Allée), undecided as to whether he should go or remain, let fall, among other excuses, the want of a quiet bit of land, where his taste for gardening could be indulged. Bertuch, for example, is

very comfortable; if I had but such a bit of ground as that!' Hereupon the Duke, very characteristically, goes to Bertuch, and without periphrasis, says, 'I must have your garden.' Bertuch starts: 'But your highness 'But me no buts,' replies the young prince; I can't help you. Goethe wants it, and unless we give it to him we shall never keep him here; it is the only way to secure him.' This reason would probably not have been so cogent with Bertuch, had not the Duke excused the despotism of his act by giving in exchange a much more valuable house and grounds. In a few days Goethe received the Garden House as the gift of his princely friend.

It is charmingly situated, and, although of modest pretensions, is one of the most enviable houses in Weimar. The Ilm runs through the meadows which front it. The town, although so near, is completely shut out from view by the thick-growing trees. The solitude is absolute, broken only by the occasional sound of the church clock, the music from the barracks, and the screaming of the peacocks spreading their superb beauty in the park. So fond was Goethe of this house, that winter and summer he lived there for seven years; and when in 1782, the Duke made him a present of the house in the Frauenplan, he could not prevail upon himself to sell the Gartenhaus, but continued to make it a favorite retreat. Often when he chose to be alone and undisturbed, he locked all the gates of the bridges which led from the town to his house, so that, as Wieland complained, no one could get at him except by aid of picklock and crowbar.

It was here, in this little garden, he studied the development of plants, and made many of those experiments and observations which have given him a high rank among the Discoverers in Science. It was here the poet escaped from court. It was here the lover was happy in his love.