guarded her, as a father would,
from its dangers. But, above all, he was profoundly interested in the
spectacle of her young, original, unveiled soul. The electric soil of
her brain teemed with a miraculous efflorescence, on which he never
tired of gazing. It was to him like sitting apart in some still
place, and watching the secret forces and workings of nature,
reflected in a small mirror. Thus Bettine writes from the strange
fullness of her mind, in mystic language, to Goethe's mother: "Would
that I sat, a beggar-child, before his door, and took a piece of
bread from his hand, and that he knew, by my glance, of what spirit I
am the child. Then would he draw me nigh to him, and cover me with
his cloak, that I might be warm. I know he would never bid me go
again. I should wander in the house, and no one would know who I was
nor whence I came; and years would pass, and life would pass, and in
his features the whole world would be reflected to me, and I should
not need to learn any thing more." And Goethe replies, "Your dear
letters bestow on me so much that is delightful, that they may justly
precede all else: they give me a succession of holidays, whose return
always blesses me anew. Write to me all that passes in your mind.
Farewell. Be ever near me, and continue to refresh me." Mont Blanc
stoops, with all his snows, to kiss the rosy vale nestling at his
feet. Goethe, in the course of his life, stood in the most intimate
relations with a large number of the rarest women. Few men have ever
appreciated female character so well. No one has exhibited their
virtues, and pleaded their cause with a more impressive combination
of insight, sympathy, and veneration.

His many sins towards women deserve severe condemnation and rebuke;
but it is an outrageous wrong towards his noble genius to limit
attention, as so many critics do, to that aspect of the case. The
wondering love and study which Frederike, Lili, and others drew from
him; the religious admiration and awed curiosity evoked in him by the
spiritual Fraulein von Klettenburg, "over whom," as he said, "in her
invalid loneliness, the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove;" the
respectful affection, gratitude, and homage commanded by the
extraordinary merits of his lofty and endeared friends, the Duchess
Amelia, and the Grand Duchess Louise--all bore fruits in his
experience and his works. The revelations they made, the examples
they set, the lessons they taught, the noble sugge