ng and most admired member. It consisted of a group of
men and women associated with the Court at Darmstadt, whose bond of
union was the cult of sensibility as the rising generation of Germany
had learned it from Rousseau, Richardson, and Sterne. They went by the
name of the _Gemeinschaft der Heiligen_, and the fervours of the
community were at least those of genuine votaries. So far as Goethe is
concerned, it was in three of the priestesses, one of them Caroline
Flachsland, the betrothed of Herder, that he found the attraction of
the society. For the youth who two years later was to give classic
expression to the cult of sensibility in his _Werther_, his
intercourse with these ladies of Darmstadt was an appropriate
schooling. For their sensibilities were boundless, and they did not
shrink from giving them expression. Caroline relates to her future
husband how one night in the woods she fell on her knees at sight of
the moon and arranged some glow-worms in her hair so that their loves
might not be disturbed. On one occasion when Merck and Goethe met two
of the coterie, one of them embraced Merck with kisses and the other
fell upon his breast. Goethe was not a youth to be indifferent to such
favours, and the attentions of Caroline were such as to disquiet
Herder and to occasion an estrangement between the two friends which
lasted for nearly two years.

[Footnote 109: It was Schlosser who had made Goethe and Merck
acquainted. Herder, to whom Merck was known, had been a previous
intermediary.]

From the effusive Caroline herself we learn the impression Goethe made
on the precious circle. "A few days ago" (in the beginning of March,
1772), she writes to Herder, "I made the acquaintance of your friend
Goethe and Herr Schlosser.... Goethe is such a good-hearted, lively
creature, without any parade of learning, and has made such a to-do
with Merck's children that my heart has quite gone out to him.... The
second afternoon we spent in a pleasant stroll and over a bowl of
punch in our house. We were not sentimental, but very merry, and
Goethe and I danced a minuette to the piano. Thereafter he recited an
excellent ballad of yours [the Scottish ballad _Edward_, translated by
Herder]." On the occasion of a later visit (April) of Goethe to
Darmstadt, she again writes to Herder: "Our Goethe has come on foot
from Frankfort[110] on a visit to Merck. We have been together every
day, and once, when we had gone together into the wood,