she was one of those women who do not inspire
ardent passion, but who give general pleasure. So he chose to say in
the retrospect, but neither his contemporary words nor actions permit
us to believe that his feeling to Lotte was merely a calm regard. In
the case of Lotte his situation was materially different from what it
had been in the case of Friederike. He had no rival in his relations
to Friederike; in his relations to Lotte he had one. Shortly after
their first meeting he learned that Lotte was already betrothed,
though the fact was not known to the world. The successful wooer was
Johann Christian Kestner, a native of Hanover, and a Secretary of
Legation settled in Wetzlar. Kestner was at every point the antithesis
of his intruding rival. He was calm, deliberate, unimaginative, yet
conspicuously a man of insight and character, with a fund of good
sense and good temper, on which the situation made a large draft.
"Kestner must be a very good man," was the frequent remark of Merck's
wife in view of the relations of the three parties to each other, and
Kestner's own words prove it. It is in his Letters and Diary that we
have the closest glimpse of all three, and all that he says of
himself, of Lotte, and of Goethe, shows a tact and good feeling that
inspire esteem.

[Footnote 124: This is the expression of Kestner, Lotte's betrothed.]

After their first meeting at the ball, according to Goethe's own
testimony, he became Lotte's constant attendant. "Soon he could not
endure her absence." In her home he made himself the idol of the
children; in the beautiful surrounding country they were inseparable
companions--Kestner, when his avocations permitted, occasionally
joining them. "So through the splendid summer," he records, "they
lived a true German idyll." But the testimony of Kestner shows that
the idyll was not without its discords. Goethe, he says, "with all his
philosophy and his natural pride, had not such self-control as wholly
to restrain his inclination.... His peace of mind suffered," and
"there were various notable scenes," though Lotte showed herself a
model of discretion. The situation was, in fact, an impossible one,
and Goethe came to see it. Several times he made the effort to break
his bonds and flee, but it was not till the beginning of September
that he took the decisive step. Equally from his own and Kestner's
account of the circumstances of his flight we receive the impression
that his relation to