following his career of brilliant promise and achievement. It must,
therefore, have been with dark forebodings that she saw before him the
possibility of a union which in her eyes must be fatal alike to his
peace of mind and the development of his genius. On his side, also,
Goethe must have parted from his sister with the sad conviction that
the gloom that lay upon her life could never be lifted. She had been
the one never-failing confidant equally of the troubles of his heart
and of his intellectual ambitions, and it was from her that in his
present distraction he had naturally sought sympathy and counsel. It
is with the tenderest touch that in his reminiscent record of this
their last meeting he depicts her "problematical" nature, and pays his
tribute to all that she had been to him.[226]

[Footnote 223: Goethe was known as the "Bear" or the "Huron" among his
friends.]

[Footnote 224: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 266.]

[Footnote 225: Cornelia died in June, 1777, when Goethe was settled in
Weimar.]

[Footnote 226: On Cornelia's death he wrote to his mother: "Mit meiner
Schwester ist mir so eine starcke Wurzel die mich an der Erde hielt
abgehauen worden, dass die Aeste von oben, die davon Nahrung haben,
auch absterben muessen."]

It had been Goethe's original intention to end his travels with the
visit to his sister, but, as their main object was as far off as ever,
he decided to rejoin his late companions and to accompany them to
Switzerland. By way of Schaffhausen they proceeded to Zurich, where
Goethe's first act was to seek Lavater. Their talk during his stay in
Zurich mainly turned on Lavater's great work on Physiognomy, to which
Goethe had continuously contributed by help and counsel, though from
the first he was sceptical of its scientific value. Their intercourse
was as cordial as it had been in the previous year, and Lavater was
subjugated more than ever by the personality of Goethe. "Who can think
more differently than Goethe and I," he wrote to Wieland, who was
still suspicious of his youthful adversary, "and yet we are devoted to
each other.... You will be astonished at the man who unites the fury
of the lion with the gentleness of the lamb. I have seen no one at
once firmer in purpose and more easily led.... Goethe is the most
lovable, most affable, most charming of fellows."[227]

[Footnote 227: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 59. Goethe made Lavater the
victim of one of the practical jokes which he was in the