ed beliefs; but
there was never a shade of alienation between them. "Bid him adieu,"
was her last message to him through his mother; "I have held him very
dear."[196] Take it as we may, it is the singular fact that by none
was Goethe regarded with more affectionate esteem than by the two
pious mystics, Jung Stilling and Fraeulein von Klettenberg.

[Footnote 196: _Ib._ p. 370.]

CHAPTER XIII

LILI SCHOeNEMANN

1775

To the year 1775 belongs the third critical period of Goethe's last
years in Frankfort. The autumn of 1771 following his return from
Strassburg had been the first of these periods, and was signalised by
_Goetz von Berlichingen_, the product of his contrition for Friederike
and of the inspiration of Shakespeare. In the summer and autumn of
1772 came the Wetzlar episode, which found expression in _Werther_;
and in the opening weeks of 1775 begins the third period of crisis,
the issue of which was to be his final leave-taking of Frankfort.

On an evening near the close of 1774 or at the beginning of 1775, a
friend introduced Goethe to a house in Frankfort which during the next
nine months was to be the centre of his thoughts and emotions. There
was a crowd of guests, but Goethe's attention became fixed on a girl
seated at a piano, and playing, as he informs us, with grace and
facility. The house was that of Frau Schoenemann, the widow of a rich
banker, and the girl who had excited Goethe's interest was her only
daughter, Anna Elisabeth, known by the pet name of Lili--the name by
which she is designated in Goethe's own references to her. The
musician having risen, Goethe exchanged a few polite compliments with
her, and when he took his leave for the evening, the mother expressed
the wish that he would soon repeat his visit, the daughter at the same
time indicating that his presence would not be disagreeable to her.

The houses of the Goethes and the Schoenemanns were only some hundred
paces apart, but there had hitherto been no intercourse between the
two families, and the reason for this isolation is a significant fact
in the relations between Goethe and Lili that were to follow. The
Schoenemanns moved in a social circle which was rigidly closed to the
burgher element in the city, and, when Frau Schoenemann gave Goethe the
_entree_ to her house, it was because he was an exceptional member of
the class to which he belonged. In making the acquaintance of the
Schoenemanns, therefore, he had already