“I wish I only knew whether it were a man, or whether the god Apollo has really appeared to me in human form,” sighed Conrector Moritz, as he paced his room—a strange, gloomy apartment, quite in keeping with the singular occupant—gray walls, with Greek apothegms inscribed upon them in large letters—dirty windows, pasted over with strips of paper; high, open book-shelves, containing several hundred books, some neatly arranged, others thrown together in confusion. In the midst of a chaos of books and papers stood a colossal bust of the Apollo-Belvedere upon a table near the window, the whiteness and beauty of which were in singular contrast, to the dust and disorder which surrounded it.

At the back of the room was an open wardrobe, filled with gay-colored garments. A beautiful carpet of brilliant colors covered the middle of the dirty floor, and upon this paced to and fro the strange occupant of this strange room, Philip Charles Moritz, conrector of the college attached to the Gray Monastery. There was no trace of the bearing and demeanor which distinguished him at the parade at Potsdam yesterday—no trace of the young elegant, dressed in the latest fashion. To-day he wore a white garment, of no particular style, tied at the neck with a red ribbon (full sleeves, buttoned at the wrist with lace-cuffs); and, falling from the shoulders in scanty folds to just below the knees, it displayed his bare legs, and his feet shod with red sandals.

His hair was unpowdered, and not tied in a cue, according to the fashion, but hung in its natural brown color, flowing quite loosely, merely confined by a red ribbon wound in among his curls, and hanging down in short bows at each temple like the frontlet of the old Romans. Thus, in this singular costume, belonging half to old Adam, and half to the old Romans, Philip Moritz walked back and forth upon the carpet, ruminating upon the beaming beauty of the stranger whose acquaintance he had so recently made, and whom he could not banish from his thoughts. “What wicked demon induced me to go to Potsdam yesterday?” said he to himself. “I who hate mankind, and believe that they are all of vulgar, ordinary material, yield to the longing for society, and am driven again into the world.”

A loud knocking at the door interrupted this soliloquy, and the door opened at the commanding “Come in!”

“It is he, it is Apollo,” cried Moritz, joyfully. “Come in, sir, come in—I have awaited you with the most ardent desire.”

Moritz rushed to the young gentleman, who had just closed the door, and whose beautiful, proud face lighted up with a smile at the singular apparition before him. “Pardon me, I disturb you, sir; you were about to make your toilet. Permit me to return after you have dressed.”

“You are mistaken,” cried Moritz, eagerly. “You find me in my usual home-dress—I like my ease and freedom, and I am of opinion that mankind will never be happy and contented until they return to their natural state, wearing no more clothing, but glorying in the beauty which bountiful Nature has bestowed upon her most loved and chosen subjects.”

“Sir,” cried the other, laughing, “then benevolent Nature should adapt her climate accordingly, and relieve her dear creatures from the inclination to take cold.”

“You may be right,” said Moritz, earnestly, “but we will not quarrel about it. Will you not keep your promise to reveal to me your name?”

“Tell me your own once more. Tell me if this youth, whom I see before me in this ideal dress, is the same modest young man whom I met at the parade yesterday, and who presented himself as Philip Moritz? Then please to inform me whether you are the Philip Moritz who wrote a spirited and cordial letter to Johann Wolfgang Goethe some years since about the tragedy of ‘Stella,’ the representation of which had been forbidden at that time?”

“Yes, I am the same Philip Moritz, who wrote to the poet Goethe to prove to him, with the most heart-felt sympathy, that we are not all such stupid fellows in Berlin as Nicolai, who pronounced the tragedy ‘Stella’ immoral; that it is only, as Goethe himself called it, ‘a play for lovers.’”

“And will you not be kind enough to tell me what response the poet made to your amiable letter?”

“Proud and amiable at the same time, most gracefully he answered me, but not with words. He sent me his tragedy ‘Stella’ bound in rose-colored satin. [Footnote: “Goethe in Berlin,”—Sketches from his life at the anniversary of his one hundredth birthday.] See there! it is before the bust of Apollo on my writing-table, where it has lain for three years!”

“What did he write to you at the same time?”

“Nothing—why should he? Was not the book sufficient answer?”

“Did he write nothing? Permit me to say to you that Goethe behaved like a brute and an ass to you!”

“Sir,” cried Moritz, angrily, “I forbid you to speak of my favorite in so unbecoming a manner in my room!”

“Sir,” cried the other, “you dare not forbid me. I insist upon it that that man is sometimes a brute and an ass! I can penitently acknowledge it to you, dear Moritz, for I am Johann Wolfgang Goethe himself!”

“You, you are Goethe!” shouted Moritz, as he seized him with both hands, drawing him toward the window, and gazing at him with the greatest enthusiasm and delight. “Yes, yes,” he shouted, “you are either Apollo or Goethe! The gods are not so stupid as to return to this miserable world, so you must be Goethe. No other man would dare to sport such a godlike face as you do, you favorite of the gods!”

He then loosed his hold upon the smiling poet, and sprang to the writing-table. “Listen, Apollo,” he cried, with wild joy. “Goethe is here, thy dear son is here! Hurrah! long live Goethe!”

He took the rose-colored little book, and shouting tossed it to the ceiling, and sprang about like a mad bacchant, and finally threw himself upon the carpet, rolling over and over like a frolicksome, good-natured child upon its nurse’s lap.

Goethe laughed aloud. “What are you doing, dear Moritz? What does this mean?” he asked.

Moritz stopped a moment, looking up to Goethe with a face beaming with joy. “I cannot better express my happiness. Language is too feeble—too poor!”

“If that is the case, then I will join you,” said Goethe, throwing himself upon the carpet, rolling and tumbling about. [Footnote: This scene which I relate, and which Teichman also mentions in his “Leaves of Memory of Goethe in Berlin,” has been often related to me by Ludwig Tieck exactly in this manner. Teichman believes it was the poet Burman. But I remember distinctly that Ludwig Tieck told me that it was the eccentric savant, Philip Moritz, with whom Goethe made the acquaintance in this original manner.—The Authoress.]

All at once Moritz jumped up without saying a word, rushed to the wardrobe, dressed himself in modest attire in a few moments, and presented himself to Goethe, who rose from the carpet quite astounded at the sudden metamorphosis. Then he seized his three-cornered hat to go out, when Goethe held him fast.

“You are not going into the street, sir! You forget that your hair is flying about as if unloosed by a divine madness.”

“Sir, people are quite accustomed to see me in a strange costume, and the most of them think me crazy.”

“You are aware that insane people believe that they only are sane, and that reasonable people are insane. You will grant me that it is much more like a crazy person to strew his hair with flour, and tie it up in that ridiculous cue, than to wear it as God made it, uncombed and unparted, as I do my beautiful hair, and for which they call me crazy! But, for Heaven’s sake, where are you going?” asked Goethe, struggling to retain him.

“I am going to trumpet through every street in Berlin that the author of ‘Werther,’ of ‘Clavigo,’ of ‘Gotz von Berlichingen,’ of ‘Stella,’ of the most beautiful poems, is in my humble apartment. I will call in all the little poets and savants of Berlin; I will drag Mammler, Nicolai, Engel, Spaulding, Gedicke, Plumicke, Karschin, and Burman here. They shall all come to see Wolfgang Goethe, and adore him. The insignificant poets shall pay homage to thee, the true poet, the favorite of Apollo.”

“My dear Moritz, if you leave me for that, I will run away, and you will trouble yourself in vain.”

“Impossible; you will be my prisoner until I return. I shall lock you in, and you cannot escape by the window, as I fortunately live on the third story.”

“But I shall not wait to be looked in,” answered Goethe, slightly annoyed. “I came to see you, and if you run away I shall go also, and I advise you not to try to prevent me.” His voice resounded through the apartment, growing louder as he spoke, his cheeks flushed, and his high, commanding brow contracted.

“Jupiter Tonans!” cried Moritz, regarding him, “you are truly Jupiter Tonans in person, and I bow before you and obey your command. I shall remain to worship you, and gaze at you.”

“And it may be possible to speak in a reasonable manner to me,” said Goethe, coaxingly. “Away with sentimentality and odors of incense! We are no sybarites, to feed on sweet-meats and cakes; but we are men who have a noble aim in view, attained only by a thorny path. Our eyes must remain fixed upon the goal, and nothing must divert them from it.”

“What is the aim that we should strive for?” asked Moritz, his whole being suddenly changing, and his manner expressing the greatest depression and sadness.

Goethe smiled. “How can you ask, as if you did not know it yourself. Self-knowledge should be our first aim! The ancient philosophers were wise to have inscribed over the entrances to their temples, ‘Know thyself,’ in order to remind all approaching, to examine themselves before they entered the halls of the gods. Is not the human heart equally a temple? only the demons and the gods strive together therein, unfortunately. To drive the former out, and give place to the latter, should be our aim; and when once purified, and room is given for good deeds and great achievements, we shall not rest satisfied simply to conquer, but rise with gladness to build altars upon those places which we have freed from the demons; for that, we must steadily keep in view truth and reality, and not hide them with a black veil, or array them in party-colored rags. Our ideas must be clear about the consequences of things, that we may not be like those foolish men who drink wine every evening and complain of headache every morning, resorting to preventives.”

Did Goethe know the struggles and dissensions which rent the heart of the young man to whom he spoke? Had his searching eyes read the secrets which were hidden in that darkened soul? He regarded him as he spoke with so much commiseration that Moritz’s heart softened under the genial influence of sympathy and kindness. A convulsive trembling seized him, his cheeks were burning red, and his features expressed the struggle within. Suddenly he burst into tears. “I am very, very wretched,” he sighed, with a voice suffocated by weeping, and sank upon a chair, sobbing aloud, and covering his face with his hands.

Goethe approached him, and laid his hand gently upon his shoulder. “Why are you so miserable? Is there any human being who can help you?” he kindly inquired.

“Yes,” sobbed Moritz; “there are those who could, but they will not, and I am lost. I stand upon the brink of a precipice, with Insanity staring at me, grinning and showing her teeth. I know it, but cannot retreat. I wear the mask of madness to conceal my careworn face. Your divine eyes could not be deceived. You have not mistaken the caricature for the true face. You have penetrated beneath the gay tatters, and have seen the misery which sought to hide itself there.”

“I saw it, and I bewailed it, as a friend pities a friend whom he would willingly aid if he only knew how to do it.”

“No one can help me,” sighed Moritz, shaking his head mournfully. “I am lost, irremediably lost!”

“No one is lost who will save himself. He who is wrecked by a storm and tossed upon the raging sea, ought to be upon the watch for a plank by which he can save himself. He must keep his eyes open, and not let his arms hang idly; for if he allows himself to be swallowed up he becomes a self-murderer, who, like Erostratus, destroyed the holy temple, and gained eternal fame through eternal shame.”

“What are you saying?” cried Moritz, “you, the author of ‘Werther,’ of that immortal work which has drunk the tears of the whole world, and has become the Holy Testament for unhappy souls!”

“Rather say for lovers,” replied Goethe, “and add also those troubled spirits who think themselves poetical when they whine and howl; who cry over misfortune if Fate denies them the toy which their vanity, their ambition, or their amorousness, had chosen. Do not burden me with what I am not guilty of; do not say that wine is a poison, because it is not good for the sick. It is intended for well people; it animates and inspires them to fresh vigor. Now please to consider yourself well, and not ill.”

“I am ill, indeed I am ill,” sighed Moritz. “Oh! continue to regard me with those eyes, which shine like stars into my benighted soul. I feel like one who has long wandered through the desert, his feet burnt with the sand, his hair scorched with the sun, and, exhausted with hunger and thirst, feels death approaching. Suddenly he discovers a green oasis, and a being with outstretched arms calling to him with a soft, angel-like voice: ‘Come, save thyself in my arms; feel that thou art not alone in the desert, for I am with thee, and will sustain thee!’”

“And I say it to you from the bottom of my heart,” said Goethe, affectionately. “Yes, here is one, who is only too happy to aid you, who can sympathize with every sorrow, because he has himself felt it in his own breast, who may even say of himself, like Ovid: ‘Nothing human is strange to me.’ If I can aid you, say so, and I will willingly do it.”

“No, you cannot,” murmured Moritz.

“At least confide your grief to me; that is an alleviation.”

“Oh, how kind and generous you are!” Moritz said, pressing the hand of his new-made friend to his bosom. “How much good it does me to listen to you, and look at your beautiful face! I believed myself steeled against every thing that could happen to mortals; that the fool which I would be had killed within me the higher man. I was almost proud to have succeeded in deceiving men; that they mistook my grotesque mask for my real face; that they point the finger at me, and laugh, saying to each other: ‘That is a fool, an original, whom Nature herself has chosen as a kind of court fool to society.’ No one has understood the cry of distress of my soul. Those who laughed at the comical fellow by day, little dreamed of the anguish and misery in which he sighed away the night.”

“You not only wrong yourself, but you wrong mankind,” said Goethe, kindly. “In the world, and in literature, you bear an honored name; every one of education is familiar with your excellent work on ‘Prosody of the German Language’—has read also your spirited Journey to England. You have no right to ask that one should separate the kernel from the shell in hastily passing by. If you surround yourself with a wall bedaubed with caricatures, you cannot expect that people will look behind what seems an entrance to a puppet-show, to find holy temples, blooming gardens, or a church-yard filled with graves.”

“That is just what I resemble,” said Moritz, with a melancholy air. “From the depths of my soul it seems so. Nothing but buried hopes, murdered ideals, and wishes trodden under foot. From childhood I have exerted myself against circumstances; I have striven my whole life—a pledge of my being against unpropitious Fate. Although the son of a poor tradesman, Nature had given me a thirst for knowledge, a love for science and art. On account of it I passed for a stupid idler in the family, who would not contribute to his own support. Occupation with books was accounted idleness and laziness by my father. I was driven to work with blows and ill-treatment; and, that I might the sooner equal my father as a good shoemaker, I was bound to the stool near his own. During the long, fearful days I was forced to sit and draw the pitched, offensive thread through the leather, and when my arms were lame, and sank weary at my side, then I was invigorated to renewed exertion with blows. Finally, with the courage of despair, I fled from this life of torture. Unacquainted with the world, and inexperienced, I hoped for the sympathy of men, but in vain. No one would relieve or assist me! Days and weeks long I have wandered around in the forest adjoining our little village, and lived like the animals, upon roots and herbs. Yet I was happy! I had taken with me in my flight two books which I had received as prizes, in the happy days that my father permitted me to go to the Latin school. The decision of the teacher that I was created for a scholar, so terrified my father, that he took me from the school, to turn the embryo savant, who would be good for nothing, into a shoemaker, who might earn his bread. My two darling books remained to me. In the forest solitude I read Ovid and Virgil until I had memorized them, and recited them aloud, in pathetic tones, for my own amusement. To-day I recall those weeks in the forest stillness as the happiest, purest, and most beautiful of my life.”

“And they undoubtedly are,” said Goethe, kindly. “The return to Nature is the return to one’s self. Who will be an able, vigorous man and remain so, must, above all things, live in and with Nature.”

“But oh! this happy life did not long continue,” sighed Moritz. “My father discovered my retreat, and came with sheriffs and bailiffs to seize me like a criminal—like a wild animal. With my hands bound, I was brought back in broad day, amid the jeers of street boys. Permit me to pass in silence the degradation, the torture which followed. I became a burden to myself, and longed for death. The ill-treatment of my father finally revived my courage to run away the second time. I went to a large town near by, and decided to earn my living rather than return to my father. To fulfil the prophecy of my teacher was my ambition. The privations that I endured, the life I led, I will not recount to you. I performed the most menial service, and worked months like a beast of burden. For want of a shelter, I slept in deserted yards and tumble-down houses. Upon a piece of bread and a drink of water I lived, saving, with miserly greediness, the money which I earned as messenger or day-laborer. At the end of a year, I had earned sufficient to buy an old suit of clothes at a second-hand clothing-store, and present myself to the director of the Gymnasium, imploring him to receive me as pupil. Bitterly weeping, I opened my heart to him, and disclosed the torture of my sad life as a child, and begged him to give me the opportunity to educate myself. He repulsed me with scorn, and threatened to give me over to the police, as a runaway, as a vagabond, and beggar. ‘I am no beggar!’ I cried, vehemently, ‘I will be under obligation to no one. I have money to pay for two years in advance, and during this time I shall be able to earn sufficient to pay for the succeeding two years.’ This softened the anger of the crabbed director; he was friendly and kind, and promised me his assistance.”

“Poor boy!” sighed Goethe. “So young, and yet forced to learn that there is a power to which not only kings and princes, but mind must bow; to which science and art have submitted, as to their Maecenas! This power opened the doors of the Gymnasium to you.”

“It was even thus. The director took pity upon me, and permitted me to enter upon my studies at once; he did more, he assured my future. Oh, he was a humane and kind man! When he learned that I possessed nothing but the little sum to which the drops of blood of a year’s toil still clung, then—”

“He returned it to you,” interrupted Goethe, kindly.

“No, he offered me board, lodging, and clothing, during my course at the Gymnasium.”

“That was well,” cried Goethe. “Tell me the name of this honorable man, that I may meet him and extend to him my hand.”

A troubled smile spread over Philip’s face. “Permit me for the time being to conceal the name,” he replied. “I received the generous proposal gratefully, and asked, deeply moved, if there were no services which I could return for so much kindness and generosity. It proved that there were, and the director made them known to me. He was unmarried, hence the necessity of men’s service. I should be society for him—be a companion, in fact; I should do what every grateful son would do for his father—help him dress, keep his room in order, and prepare his breakfast.”

“That meant that you should be his servant!” cried Goethe, indignant.

“Only in the morning,” replied Moritz, smiling. “Evenings and nights I should have the honor to be his amanuensis; I should look over the studies of the scholars, and correct their exercises; and when I had made sufficient progress, it should be my duty to give two hours to different classes, and I should read aloud or play cards with the director on leisure evenings. Besides, I was obliged to promise never to leave the house without his permission; never to speak to, or hold intercourse with, any one outside the hours of instruction. All these conditions were written down, and signed by both parties, as if a business contract.”

“A transaction by which a human soul was bargained for!” thundered Goethe. “Reveal to me, now, the name of this trader of souls, that I may expose him to public shame!”

“He died a year since,” replied Moritz, softened. “God summoned him to judgment. When the physician announced to him that the cancer was incurable, when he felt death approaching, he sent for me, and begged my forgiveness, with tears and deep contrition. I forgave him, so let me cease to recall the life I passed with him. By the sweat of my brow I was compelled to serve him; for seven long years I was his slave. I sold myself for the sake of knowledge, I was consoled by progress. I was the servant, companion, jester, and slave of my tyrant, but I was also the disciple, the priest of learning. In my own room my chains fell off. In the lonely night-watches I communed with the great, the immortal spirits of Horace, Virgil, and even the proud Caesar, and the divine Homer. Those solitary but happy hours of the night are never to be forgotten, never to be portrayed; they refreshed me for the trials of the day, and enabled me to endure them! At the close of seven years I was prepared to enter the university, and the bargain between my master and myself was also at an end. Freed from my tyrant, I bent my steps toward Frankfort University, to feel my liberty enchained anew. For seven years I had been the slave of the director; now I became the slave of poverty, forced to labor to live! Oh, I cannot recall those scenes! Suffice it to say, that during one year I had no fixed abode, never tasted warm food. But it is passed—I have conquered! After years of struggle, of exertion, of silent misery, only relieved by my stolen hours of blissful study, I gained my reward. I was free! My examination passed, I was honored with the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts. After many intervening events, I was appointed conrector of the college attached to the Gray Monastery, which position now supports me.”

“God be praised, I breathe freely!” answered Goethe, with one of those sunny smiles which, in a moment of joyful excitement, lighted up his face. “I feel like one shipwrecked, who has, at last, reached a safe harbor. I rejoice in your rescue as if it were my own. Now you are safe. You have reached the port, and in the quiet happiness of your own library you will win new laurels. Why, then, still dispirited and unhappy? The past, with its sorrows and humiliations, is forgotten, the present is satisfactory, and the future is full of hope for you.”

“Full of misery is the present,” cried Philip, angrily, “and filled with despair I glance at the future. You do not see it with your divine eyes, you do not perceive it, poet with the sympathetic soul. You, too, thought that Philip Moritz had only a head for the sciences, and forgot that he had a heart to love. I tell you that he has a warm, affectionate heart, torn with grief and all the tortures of jealousy; that disappointed happiness maddens him. I was not created to be happy, and my whole being longs for happiness. Oh! I would willingly give my life for one day by the side of the one I love.”

“Do not trifle,” said Goethe, angrily. “He who has striven and struggled as you have, dare not offer, for any woman, however beautiful and seductive, to yield his life, which has been destined to a higher aim than mere success in love. Perhaps you think that God has infused a ray of His intelligence into the mind of man, created him immortal, and breathed upon him with His world-creating breath only, to make him happy, and find that happiness in love! No! my friend, God has given to man like faculties with Himself, and inspired him, that he might be a worthy representative of Him upon the earth; that he should prove, in his life, that he is not only the blossom, but the fruit also, of God’s creation. Love is to man the perfume of his existence. She may intoxicate him for a while, may inspire him to poetical effusions, to great deeds, even; but he should hesitate to let her become his mistress, to let her be the tyrant of his existence. If she would enchain him, he must tear himself away, even if he tear out his own heart. Man possesses that which is more ennobling than mere feeling; he has intellect—soul.”

“Ah!” cried Moritz, “it is easy to see that you have never loved madly, despairingly. You have never seen the woman whom you adore, and who perhaps reciprocates your passion, forced to marry another.”

A shadow flitted over Goethe’s brow, and the flashing brilliancy of his eyes was changed to gloomy sadness. Gently, but quickly, he laid his hand upon Moritz’s shoulder, saying: “In this hour, when two souls are revealed to each other, will I acknowledge to you that which I have never spoken of. I, too, love a woman, who loves me, and yet can never be mine, for she is married to another. I love this sweet woman as I have never loved a mortal being. For years my existence has belonged to her, she has been the centre of all my thoughts. It would seem to me as if the earth were without a sun, heaven without a God, if she should vanish from life. I even bless the torture which her prudery, her alternate coldness and friendliness cause me, as it comes from her, from the highest bliss of feeling. This passion has swept through my soul, as if uniting in itself all my youthful loves, till, like a torrent, ever renewing itself, ever moving onward, it has become the highway of my future. Upon this stream floats the bark laden with all my happiness, fame, and poetry. The palaces which my fancy creates rise upon its shore. Every zephyr, however slight, makes me tremble. Every cloud which overshadows the brow of my beloved, sweeps like a tempest over my own. I live upon her smile. A kind word falling from her lips makes me happy for days; and when she turns away from me with coldness and indifference, I feel like one driven about as Orestes by the Furies.”

“You really are in love!” cried Moritz. “I will take back what I have said. You, the chosen of the gods, know all the human heart can suffer, even unhappy love.”

Almost angry, and with hesitation, Goethe answered him: “I do not call this passion of mine an unhappy one, for in the very perception of it lies happiness. We are only wretched when we lose self-control. To this point Love shall never lead me. She yields me the highest delight, but she shall never bring me to self-destruction. Grief for her may, like a destructive whirlwind, crush every blossom of my heart; but she shall never destroy me. The man, the poet, must stand higher than the lover; for where the latter is about to yield to despair, the former will rise, and, with the defiance of Prometheus, challenge the gods to recognize the godlike similitude, that man can rise superior to sorrow, never despairing, never cursing Fate if all the rosy dreams of youth are not realities, but with upturned gaze stride over the waste places of life, consoling himself with the thought that only magnanimous souls can suffer and conquer magnanimously. Vanquished grief brings us nearer to the immortal, and gradually bears us from this vale of sorrow up to the brighter heights, nearer to God—the earth with her petty confusion lying like a worthless tool at our feet!”

“It is heavenly to be able to say that, and divine to perceive it,” cried Moritz, bursting into tears. “The miseries of life chain me to the dust, and do not permit me to mount to the heights which a hero like Goethe reaches victorious. It is indeed sublime to conquer one’s self, and be willing to resign the happiness which flees us. But see how weak I am—I cannot do it! I can never give up the one I love. It seems as if I could move heaven and earth to conquer at last, and that I must die if I do not succeed—die like Werther.”

Goethe’s eyes flashed with anger, and with heightened color he exclaimed: “You all repeat the same litany—do not make me answerable for all your weaknesses, and blame poor Werther for the creations of your own imagination. I, who am the author of Werther, am free from this abominable sentimentality. Why cannot others be, who only read what I have conceived? But pardon my violence,” he continued, with a milder voice and gentler manner. “Never did an author create a work which brought him at the same time so great fame and bitter reproach as this work has brought to me. ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ have indeed been transformed into the sorrows of young Goethe, and I even fear that old Goethe will have to suffer for it. I have spoken to you as a friend to a friend: cherish my words, take them to heart, and arise from the dust; shake off the self-strewn ashes from your head. Enter again as a brave champion the combat of life—summon to your aid cunning, power, prudence, and audacity, to conquer your love. Whether you succeed or not, then you aim at the greatest of battles—that of mind over matter—then remember my farewell words. From the power which binds all men he frees himself who conquers himself.—Farewell! If ever you need the encouragement of a friend, if ever a sympathizing soul is necessary to you, come to Weimar; sympathy and appreciation shall never fail you there.”

“Oh! I will surely go,” answered Moritz, deeply moved, and pressing heartily Goethe’s offered hand.

“One thing more I have to say to you: Live much with Nature; accustom yourself to regard the sparrow, the flower, or the stone, as worthy of your attention as the wonderful phoenix or the monuments of the ancients with their illegible inscriptions. To walk with Nature is balsam for a weary soul; gently touched by her soft hands, the recovery is most rapid. I have experienced it, and do experience it daily. Now, once more, farewell; in the true sense of the word fare-thee-well! I wish that I could help you in other ways than by mere kind words. It pains me indeed that I can render you no other aid or hope. You alone can do what none other can do for you.—Farewell!”

He turned, and motioning to Moritz not to follow him, almost flew down the stairs into the street. Drawing a long breath, he stood leaning against the door, gazing at the crowd—at the busy passers-by—some merrily chatting with their companions, others with earnest mien and in busy haste. No one seemed to care for him, no one looked at him. If by chance they glanced at him, Johann Wolfgang Goethe was of no more consequence to them than any other honest citizen in a neighboring doorway.

Without perhaps acknowledging it to himself, Goethe was a little vexed that no one observed him; that the weather-maker from Weimar, who was accustomed to be greeted there, and everywhere, indeed, with smiles and bows, should here in Berlin be only an ordinary mortal—a stranger among strangers. “I would not live here,” said he, as he walked slowly down the street. “What are men in great cities but grains of sand, now blown together and then asunder? There is no individuality, one is only a unit in the mass! But it is well occasionally to look into such a kaleidoscope, and admire the play of colors, which I have done, and with a glad heart I will now fly home to all my friends—to you, beloved one—to you, Charlotte!”