solution
which commends itself to all parties. Fernando impartially embraces
both ladies, and Caecilie's concluding remark is: "We are thine!"[206]

[Footnote 206: In deference to the general opinion that this ending
was immoral, Goethe, in a later form of the play, makes Fernando shoot
himself.]

Such is the play which, in a bad English translation that did not
mitigate its absurdities, provoked the wit of the _Anti-Jacobin_.[207]
In Fernando, the central figure of the play, we are, of course, to
recognise Goethe himself,[208] and in no other of his dramas has he
presented a less attractive character. Weislingen, Clavigo, and
Werther have all their redeeming qualities, but Fernando is an
emotional egotist incapable of any worthy motive, and it is the most
serious blemish in the play, even in view of the factitious world in
which it moves, that he is made the adored idol of two such different
women as Caecilie and Stella. The situation, as Goethe himself tells
us, was suggested by the relations of Swift to Stella and Vanessa, but
he did not need to go so far afield for a motive. In the world around
him he was familiar both with the creed and the practice which the
conclusion of the play approves. As we have seen, it was openly held
by enlightened and moral persons that marriage, as being a mere
contract, was incompatible with a true union of souls, and that such a
union was only to be found in irresponsible relations. In the case of
his friend Fritz Jacobi, whose character and talents had all his
admiration, he had a practical illustration of the creed; for Jacobi
had a wife and also a friend (his step-aunt Johanna Fahlmer) in whom
he found a more responsive recipient of his emotions. But it is rather
in Goethe's own character and experience that we are to look for the
origin of _Stella_; it is in truth an analytic presentment of what he
had himself known and felt. As we have seen, one object was incapable
of engrossing all his affections; while he was paying court to Lili,
his wandering desires went out to the fair correspondent who had
evinced such interest in his troubles and aspirations. It would seem
that he required two types of woman such as he has depicted in
_Stella_ to satisfy at once his mind and heart: a Caecilie who inspired
him with respect as well as affection, and a Stella whose
self-abandonment left his passions their free course.

[Footnote 207: _Stella_ and other German plays are wittily parodied i