Affinities" was the only one of his larger | for "happiness" which the most of us productions in which he was conscious of know and think so reasonable. Acknowlhaving aimed at representing an idea. edging (rightly or wrongly) the marriage This idea the sanctity of the marriage bond to be the foundation of our moral bond - was one which the experience and and civil existence, "the basis and the the observation of many years had borne apex of all civilization," and not daring of in upon him. His own early manhood had his own accord to leave the place he found been full of joys and illusions to the brim, himself standing on and go back to savage and these had ended in the sudden, and life (being, in fact, thoroughly well-bred), what the world called ill-assorted, connec- he set over against any such longings the tion with the mother of his children. This conviction that there is hardly one sufficonnection, begun in the flesh, was indeed cient reason why husband and wife should one which bystanders could not but call separate the human state, in joy and ill-assorted; but he himself, not thinking sorrow, being set so high that it is not that he had formed an ideal union, and possible to reckon up what a married sure that his own share in it was not void couple owe to each other, "an infinite debt of offence, found it very bearable. He that can be paid only in eternity." He loved Christiane from first to last, and she acknowledged to the full the debt that he returned his love. She was not a help himself owed to his Christiane. At a time meet for him, but she did help him to the when outsiders had long begun to shudder best of her power, and he knew it. Still, at the notion of her being in any sense standing as he did in full sight of the old called "Goethe's wife," the ecclesiastical age that was near, it is very likely that the sanction was given to their union. When vision of a thousand might-have-beens she died, ten years afterwards, he mourned passed before him often enough. Just in for her very bitterly. It is this tragedy those years the beauty of many younger of wedlock-a tragedy, for his part in women, the charms of some lovely girls, which he himself would have been very may have given a point to such yearnings; far from claiming any merit or distinction, but the world outside noticed only a height- as though he had acted it well, or as ened calmness of bearing, and the objects though some strange thing had happened of his liking-Sylvia Ziegesar, Bettina to him; a tragedy, in the very intenseness Brentano, Pauline Gotter, and others of the individual misery which it renders, were delighted with his fatherly fondness. symbolical of the pain that is common to The culminating point is very likely to be man; a tragedy, like all real ones, mixed found in his love for Minna Herzlieb. It with many joys and pleasures — it is this was, as has already been said, the period which has been shown to us in the "Wahlin which it had become the fashion for verwandtschaften.” persons of genius to handle the marriage bond as some ladies in argument will handle a bracelet-taking it off and putting it on again at every turn in the great argument of life, with a fidgetty doubt whether the action would be thought graceful or gauche. Our friend Zachary Werner, at the time of his visit to Jena, had been divorced from three wives! It might not be easy exactly to say what the age and its vagaries had to do with the poet's work. Perhaps they may have dragged him to the doing of it, as the spread canvas will quicken the painter to begin his picture. Be this as it may, in " The Elective Affinities a picture for all ages came to sight, the very truthfulness of which goads the most of us unused to look at either ourselves or others in plain broad daylight to say, it is not truthful. It was another of the unburdenings of the author's soul; this time the throwing off of a weight that had been growing for with caution. In this case she has perhaps changed twenty years and more. He, too, in many the words, but the meaning sounds like Goethe's meansilent hours, had known the same longingsing. "No one," he says himself, "will fail to recognize here a deep and passionate wound, which in the process of healing shrinks from closing; a heart that dreads being cured. This novel, like Pandora,' expresses thé sentiment of privation, and in many respects cost its author dear." Writing to Bettina he says: "In unravelling these harsh fates the poet was deeply moved; he bore his share of sorrow. As so much that is sad dies the death of transitoriness unmourned for, the poet had set before himself the task of gathering into this one fiction, as into a burial urn, the tears for much that had slipped through his grasp." After these and other words of his own, it seems difficult to put "The Elective Affinities" into the same class of fiction with Werther, or to maintain that the whole tale sprung out of the one episode of the author's love for Minna Herz Any quotation from Bettina is of course to be taken lieb. No one will deny that in the author's imagination Minna sat as model to the Ottilie of the book, though even then it is likely that some of the features were borrowed elsewhere. In the epithets that he lavishes on Ottilie, the "dear," the "good," the "fair," the "glorious," the "heavenly" child, may be shadowed not only the love he bore to his own creation, but the love he had borne to its original. We will quote here, but without all comment, a passage from Sulpiz Boissérée's journal a passage which has been a bone of much contention. On the 6th of October, 1815, Goethe and Boissérée had driven together from Frankfort to Heidelberg, and Boissérée says: " We happened to talk of The Elective Affinities.' Goethe laid stress on his having brought on the catastrophe rapidly and without any break. The stars had come out. He spoke of his relation to Ottilie: how he had loved her, and how unhappy she had made him. He became at last almost enigmatical and full of presentiments in what he said. Now and then he recited a merry line. And so, tired, irritable, half-tull of presentiments, half-asleep, by splendid starlight, and in keen cold, we arrived at Heidelberg. Minna Herzlieb staid at Züllichau for more than four years. She refused several offers of marriage which were made to her. In answer to her own report of one of these, Frau Frommann wrote to her: to a teacher in a gymnasium in Berlin. As his intended wife she returned to Jena in the autumn of 1812. But she had acted without consulting her heart, and had promised more than she could fulfil. Her delight at reaching "home" again, and her indifference to everything else, are expressed in a letter to Herr Frommann, who was not in Jena at the time : — Here I am, sitting beside mother and Allwina, and writing to you! It is impossible for me to think seriously of anything that lies on the outside of this circle. I am delighted beyond description. How happy I am beside mother, beside my beloved sister Allwina! How I feel anew that I have grown round the hearts of you all! How is it possible that I could wander about so long amongst strangers? Thank God that I am here. The overflowing delight in the old surroundings was fatal to the engagement she had made. Her betrothed followed her to Jena not long after, but was received with such coldness that he himself saw that no good could come from pushing his suit. He drew back, and she was free again. She lived on in the home of her girlhood, loving and loved. Something is said about other offers of marriage that were made to her, and one in particular that she was disposed to accept; but they came to nothing. Stahr, as was already said, has made out that Goethe's and Minna's "love" for each other-passionate, poetic, all-absorbing-endured through a long term of years, making the one wretched and throw|ing a halo round the other. He does not tell us how at last it died away, neither does he offer any proofs for what he says. On the contrary he complains that all the sources of information have been kept back. We might rest content with answering, "The thing is not possible." In that case we should have to ask those readers who do not know much about Our word for Goethe to take this. You know I consider the person happy who reflects, comes to a conviction, and acts accordingly. You have done so, and happy you! I do not blame you in the least. When the heart always says no, it is a hazardous game to oppose it. It was a good thing that you could not ask my advice; I should have referred you to yourself and your own heart. I always liked J, and esteemed him for his out-andout upright character; I was very fond of his sister, and had nothing to object to in his mother, so you might have fancied that you could read in my eyes a wish that your heart might not always say no. I am very glad, I" Goethe," says Hermann Grimm, “is a tell you again, and I only beg you will have no mountain-chain, all the slopes and hollows, scruples behindhand. the heights and depths, of which have been accurately explored and measured;" but it is not possible for every one to have the results of these explorings at command -the knowledge which gives us a right to say, "The story flies in the face of all that we have ever learned about the character of Goethe, its strength and its weakness, and is to be disbelieved." But those who ought to know, and whose word we take, tell us that there are no "sources of information " to keep back. Goethe's "love" for Minna ended, doubtless, very quickly After a while an offer was made to which she said yes. It came from a young Silesian student of good family, between whom and Minna an attachment had sprung up. But the young man's mother, when written to, refused her consent, and Minna, with her usual conscientiousness, at once broke off the engagement.* Some time afterwards she again engaged herself, this time * What Stahr adds, viz., that the young gentleman fell in the War of Independence, is not true. indeed. At all events it was laid to rest, as so much else had been in like fashion, when he drew the figure of Ottilie in "The Elective Affinities." But that did not hinder his liking to get news about her for many years, perhaps as long as he lived: of his friendship for her there are traces in plenty. power of understanding the writings of their poet-prince." Now there is no room for concealment, and her after-history awakens our sympathy, as the history of any human being will do for whom we have once felt a liking. Professor Walch, of Jena, had twice made an offer of marriage to Minna, and had twice been refused, when, on a third application in the spring of 1821, he was accepted. He was a professor of jurisprudence, the descendant of a long line of learned ancestors, who had filled chairs in the university. He was himself a man of On her birthday, the 22nd of May, in the year 1817, he gave her a copy of the edition of his poems of 1815, and wrote four lines on the fly-leaf, saying that "if she found old acquaintances in the book, she would perhaps recognize herself." The two sonnets before mentioned, which were writ-learning and of very good standing, and, ten for her, are wanting in this edition they were added in a later one - but there were, doubtless, features of Minchen's to be found in many of the poems, features not now recognizable. The fact of the gift and of the dedication is to some a tell-tale evidence of love enduring for ten years. Others think that the dedication in particular is evidence of just the contrary; on which point it would be in vain to argue. It is fair, however, to remind readers that it was no uncommon thing for Goethe to give presents, birthday and other, or to write stanzas to ladies, young and old. 66 moreover, very well off in his worldly circumstances. But he was twenty years older than Minna, who was then thirtytwo. He was, we are told, strikingly ugly and awkward and undignified, and, it is added, pedantic and narrow-minded. No more strangely contrasted couple could well have been put together. Nobody knows why she pledged her word to him. The courtship, or rather the state of betrothal, was so unhappy a one, the bride's aversion was so marked, that three weeks before the wedding both Frau Frommann and Walch himself urged her rather to break off the engagement than fulfil it against her liking. But she stuck to her purpose. Her natural indecision of character seems at first sight to have been wanting on this occasion, and to have given place to a determination most ill-timed and ominous. But if we could look deeper, perhaps we should find that it was that very indecision that made her shrink back from the bold and resolute step of a breach of engagement. The marriage took place in September 1821, and very soon afterwards the unhappy wife left her husband's house and went back to her relations in Züllichau. The pleasant home of her girlhood, in the very same town with her own "home," could no longer be open to her. And this, if we mistake not, is all that is to be told about Goethe and Minna Herzlieb. The sad story of Minna's later life does not belong to literature. She herself, with her shrinking from the eye of strangers, could not bear that anything should be said about her in print. She enjoined on all around her absolute silence in respect of herself. When Mr. Lewes' "Life of Goethe " became known in Germany, she gave no contradiction to the statement that she had lived to be a happy wife," and she allowed no one else to contradict it. After she was dead, survivors fondly cherishing her memory, perhaps with some awe felt for one whom the Lord had stricken, kept the silence unbroken. Even what has now been told It may have been not long after this might never have become known had not that some sort of mental disorder first attacks been made on the memory of per- showed itself. It was neither severe nor sons no longer able to speak for them-abiding, but it came back. Some time selves. A statement of everything in the afterwards she returned to her husband. order in which it happened was the best Friends did their best to bring the parted way to ward off such attacks. As for that couple together, Minna's own sense of which follows, Minna's friends have been duty impelled her, her longing for Jena indignantly upbraided for "hiding the drew her, and at a distance her husband truth," as though the world had a right to did not seem so disagreeable to her. She be undeceived when it believed Minna's wrote him friendly letters, and she came marriage to have been a happy one. It back to him. But it would not do. She seems very natural that these friends was torn to pieces by her antipathy, should have thought the mistake "one not and fled to her brother again with a materially hurtful to the German nation's fresh attack of her disorder. Yet in years following she tried the same experi- | Minna at once engaged in conversation about ment again and again, always with the the time spent by her in Jena. She was then same result. She who was so gentle and bordering on seventy, but her tall slim figure, loving towards everybody else, could not bear even to be near her husband. Whilst one of these trials was going on, she wrote to a friend:- "It is dreadful, but when I am at work in my own room, and I hear Walch's voice in the passage, even if I know that he is not coming to me, I tremble from head to foot." Of course, her horror and her infirmity often showed themselves in ways that it is needless to dwell on,- symptoms that in their uncertain coming and going were grievously harrowing at the time to those who doated on the sufferer. When ten years had passed, the experiments were given up, and the ill-assorted couple remained separated. A divorce was talked of, but neither of the two would take the first step. Walch died in 1853. Her disorder, repeatedly coming on, was so distressing that her friends several times sought help for her away from home. On one occasion she came back seemingly quite cured. After her brother's death, her sister-in-law and she kept house together in Züllichau. And when her husband was dead, she came every other year for several months to her fosterbrother's house in Jena. The parents who had cared and sorrowed for her were in their graves, but clinging and clung to she found a loving welcome still. A third generation was growing up; in their hearts her memory is enshrined to this day as a thing beautiful and much beloved. After the death of her sister-in-law in 1864, her old disorder returned with such violence that it was found necessary to take her to a hospital for the insane at Görlitz. There she died on the 10th of July, 1865. We add here a translation of the greater part of a letter written by Herr von Loeper, in Berlin, giving an account of a visit paid by him to Minna Herzlieb: It was on the 6th of August, 1857, that I, then in Züllichau on business, on a hot afternoon, sought out the shady house on the Grünberg road, in the first floor of which the widowed Frau Walch lived with her sister-inlaw, the widowed Frau Herzlieb. Unluckily, just before my arrival, a party of ladies had assembled themselves in the comfortable, furnished rooms, and their presence made it necessary for me to shorten my visit. Both ladies received me with extreme kindness, and her blooming complexion, and the ease of her Un Mr. and Miss Frommann, on the other hand, say they do not believe Minna ever walked with Goethe. It does not strike us that the sonnet "Wachsthum" in well-particular bears on Minna. It might be hard to understand why she appropriated it to herself; but for the fact that, as will be seen, she possessed it in his handBettina writing. Most likely he had given it to her. von Arnim has been much laughed at for appropriating to herself sonnets of Goethe's. Yet, as we now know, Frau Frommann died in 1830; her husband fol- she had at least one of thein in her possession, is lowed her in 1837. Goethe's handwriting. she rose and, stepping briskly, fetched from the next room the volume of poems referred to. I copied on a piece of paper, which she gave me, the dedication strophe of May 22, 1817 which, at the time of my visit, was not known to have been addressed to Minna. As I turned over the leaves of the book, our conversation fell on many of the poems contained in it, and I saw that she was quite at home in them, knew a number of them by heart, and, when I quoted a line, could supply the rest. Her honest brown eyes were nearly always covered by their long lashes, and though she entered on the conversation gracefully and delicately, she was, on the whole, reserved and bashful-almost like a young girl. Her sister-in-law, who was in the room the whole time, put an end to the conversation, as the recollections seemed to excite Minna, and the rest of the party were waiting for the hostesses. At that time I knew nothing about Minna's mental malady, consideration for which, doubtless, guided the conduct of the sister-in-law. to Minna, and asked her to lend me the vol teristic words: wish. Great as the worth is that the book has for me, monize well with her saying to Loeper that she possessed no writing of Goethe's but the lines in the book. These and other discrepancies will not surprise any one who has found out by experience, how little trust can be put in the evidence from memory given by women of the finest affections and most delicate feelings. ANDREW HAMILTON. From Blackwood's Magazine. LEFT-HANDED ELSA. IX. "You have not told me yet," said the lady, with her brightest smile, "if I really have the honour of speaking with Herr Max Brendel? But you need not tell me -you have a painter's eyes. I am come, I was about to say, to thank in person the young artist who has honoured me by stak ing his earliest success upon the merits of Afterwards, at the time of the preparations for the Goethe Exhibition in Berlin, I wrote ume. She refused, in the following charac-my poor features. Let me be the warmest, if not the first, in my congratulations. I saw your work in the Rath-haus- I misSIR, By my absence from Züllichau prevented from sooner answering your letter, I could not till to- took it for a Titian, and I ought to know. day beg your indulgence for my inability, yielding, as II assure you that my friends from Munich do, to the propensities known to you, to fulfil your were glowing with your praises: you will the contribution to your great and magnificent under- hear from them again before long. Meantaking would be but small. For this reason it will be while, let me be your first patron, if you easy for you to judge mildly of my seeming disobliging don't object to my taking a title that honness. Thus hoping, with many regards, yours, MINNA WALCH HERZLIEB. ours me more than you. The old castle must have a gallery, and I long to inaugu rate my reign there with the first picture of the already great, the future famous master, Max Brendel. Set your own value upon me, and let myself be my own." Züllichau, April 27th, 1861. Neither was her picture to be obtained for the exhibition. By her will, Minna Herzlieb left to Allwina Frommann a sealed parcel. The bulk of its contents consisted of Miss Frommann's own portrait, in a frame, and her and her mother's letters to Minna, tied up in a bundle. Alongside of these were some autograph sonnets of Zachary Wer ner's. - There were three things of Goethe's: first, a drawing of his; second, a dried flower, folded in paper, on which, in Minna's hand, was written "With great deliberation, and no doubt, with many fine thoughts in his inmost soul, plucked by the dear old gentleman, in our blue room, in a familiar circle of few persons, on the 20th of June 1807;1 third, the sonnet, Wachsthum," in Goethe's handwriting, but without the four first lines, which had been clipped off; underneath it was the date, “13th December 1807, midnight.” 66 The date on the dried flower is a wrong one. In June 1807, Goethe was not in Jena, but in Carlsbad. Minna's having the sonnet in her possession does not har At first he thought that the vision of the mirror must have taken substance; but her mention of the old castle showed her to be only the newly-arrived foreign baroness of Herr Elias. If so, in spite of the startling coincidence, she was real flesh and blood, and not the fetch of a phantom: and in that case he might be bold enough to use his tongue. He bowed. "I am Max Brendel, gracious lady. For your praise, I will not try to thank you. The face came to me - I know not how-but it was yours, and how could I fail to succeed when so inspired? Never did I paint like that before - never, something tells me, shall I be able to paint like that again." Now that his tongue was loosed, it seemed quite natural to find himself talking to one whose face and form had filled his heart and mind for so long, and who, though a stranger, was already his most familiar friend. Even her voice was too much in harmony with her |