• Do young man in the world.' you tell me to avoid the house, Emilia ?' he asked. 'Yes,' she said; but not on my own account. When you had gone the other day, I had the cards cut for you; and the same answer was given thrice. You were surrounded by friends, and all sorts of good fortune; but the ladies kept aloof from you : my poor sister stood furthest of all. One other constantly came near to you; but never close; for a third person, a man, always came between. I will confess that I thought I was myself this second lady; and now you will understand my advice. I have promised myself to another, and until now I loved him more than any one. Yet your presence might become more dangerous to me than it has been; and then what a position would be yours between two sisters, one of whom you would have made miserable by your affection, and the other by your coldness.' She held out her hand and bade him farewell; she then led him to the door; and in token that it was to be their last meeting she threw herself upon his bosom and kissed him tenderly. Just as he had put his arms round her, a side door flew open, and her sister rushed in' in a night dress,' crying, 'You shall not be the only one to take leave of him!' Emilia released him. Lucinda took him in her arms, pressed her black locks against his cheeks; remained thus for some time, and then drawing back looked him earnestly in the face. He took her hand, and tried to muster some kind expressions to soothe her; but she turned away, walked passionately up and down the room, and then threw herself in great agitation into a corner of the sofa. Emilia went up to her, but was violently repulsed and a scene ensued, which had in it, says the principal performer, nothing really theatrical, although it could only be represented on the stage by an actor of sensibility. Lucinda poured forth reproaches against her

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sister. This,' said she, is not the first heart beating for me that you have wheedled away. Was it not so with the one now betrothed to you, while I looked on and bore it ? I, only, know the tears it cost me; and now you would rob me of this one. How many would you manage to keep at once? I am frank and easy-tempered, and all think they understand me at once, and may slight me. You are secret and quiet, and make people wonder at what may be concealed behind: there is nothing there but a cold, selfish heart, sacrificing everything to itself.' Emilia seated herself by her sister, and remained silent while Lucinda, growing more excited, began to betray matters not quite proper for him to hear. Emilia made a sign to him to withdraw. But Lucinda caught the sound, sprang towards him, and then remained lost in thought. 'I know that I have lost you,' she said: 'I claim you no more; - but neither shall you have him.' So saying, she grasped him wildly by the head with her hands thrust. among his hair, pressed her face to his and kissed him repeatedly on the mouth. Now fear my curse! Woe upon woe, for ever and ever, to her who for the first time after me kisses these lips! Dare to sport with him now! Heaven hears my curse! while you may!'

And you, begone, begone

He hurried from the house never to return. Is not this narrative like a scene in a novel? The excited little

French woman the bewildered poet the old fortuneteller, and the dry old dancing master, faintly sketched, in the background, are the sort of figures a novelist would delight in.

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CHAPTER VI.

HERDER AND FREDERIKA.

ONE thing very noticeable in this Strasburg period is the thoroughly German culture it gave him. In those days culture was mostly classical and French. Classical studies had never exercised much influence over him, and indeed throughout his career he approached antiquity more through Art than through the Greek and Roman writers. To the French, on the other hand, he owed a great deal, both of direction and material. A revival of the old German nationality was, however, actively agitated at this epoch. Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Shakespeare and Ossian were the rivals opposed to France. A feeling of national pride gave its momentum to this change in taste. Gothic art began to be considered the true art of modern times.

At the table d'hôte our friends, all German, not only banished the French language, but made a point of being in every way unlike the French. French literature was ridiculed, as affected, insincere, unnatural. The truth, homely strength, and simplicity of the German character were set against this literature of courtiers. Goethe had been dabbling in mediæval studies, had been awe-struck by the cathedral, had been inspired by Shakespeare, and had seen Lessing's iconoclastic wit scattering the pretensions of French poetry. Moreover he had read the

biography of Götz von Berlichingen, and the picture of that Titan in an age of anarchy had so impressed itself upon him, that the conception of a dramatic reproduction of it had grown up in his mind. Faust also lay there as a germ. The legend of that wonder-worker especially attracted him. Like him, too, I had swept the circle of science, and had early learned its vanity; like him I had trodden various paths, always returning unsatisfied.' The studies of alchemy, medicine, jurisprudence, philosophy and theology, which had so long engaged him, must have made him feel quite a personal interest in the old Faust legend; but to have carried this legend about with him implies also a strong mediæval tendency.

In such a mood the acquaintance with Herder was of great importance. Herder was five years his senior, and had already created a name for himself. He came to Strasburg with an eye-disease, which obliged him to remain there the whole winter, during the cure. Goethe, charmed with this new vigorous intellect, attended on him during the operation, and sat with him morning and evening during his convalescence, listening to the wisdom which fell from those lips, as a pupil listens to a muchloved master. Great was the contrast between the two men, yet the difference did not separate them. Herder was decided, clear, pedagogic; knowing his own aims, and fond of communicating his ideas. Goethe was sceptical and inquiring. Herder rude, sarcastic and bitter; Goethe amiable and infinitely tolerant. The bitterness which repelled so many friends from Herder, could not repel Goethe; it was a peculiarity of his to be at all times. able to learn from antagonistic natures; meeting them on the common ground of sympathy, he avoided those subjects on which inevitably they must clash. It is somewhat curious, that although Herder took a great liking to his

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young friend, and was grateful for his kind attentions, he seems to have had no suspicion of his genius. The only fragment we have of that period, which gives us a hint of his opinion, is in a letter to his bride, dated Feb. 1772: 'Goethe is really a good fellow, only somewhat light and sparrow-like, for which I incessantly reproach him. He was almost the only one who visited me during my illness in Strasburg whom I saw with pleasure; and I believe I influenced him in more ways than one to his advantage.' His own colossal conceit may have stood between Goethe and himself; or he may have been too conscious of his young friend's defects to think much of his genius. Herder loved only the abstract and ideal in men and things, and was forever criticizing and complaining of the individual, because it did not realize his ideal standard. What Gervinus says of Herder's relation to Lessing, namely, that he loved him when he considered him as a whole, but could never cease plaguing him about details, holds good also of his relation to Goethe through life. Goethe had little of that love of mankind in the abstract, which to Herder, and so many others, seems the substitute for individual love, which animates philanthropists who are sincere in their philanthropy, even when they are bad husbands, bad fathers, bad, brothers, and bad friends. He had instead of this the most overflowing love for individual men. His concrete and affectionate nature was more attracted to men than to abstractions. Those who do not

* Nur etwas leicht und Spatzenmässig: I translate the phrase, leaving the reader to interpret it, for twenty Germans have given twenty different meanings to the word 'sparrow-like,' some referring to the chattering of sparrows, others to the boldness of sparrows, others to the curiosity of sparrows, and others to the libertine character of sparrows. Whether Herder meant gay, volatile, forward, careless, or amorous, I cannot decide.