that it is well with her, and yet to be
so sorrowful all the time."

His Dominus, or Lord Kaethe, as he liked to call his wife in letters to
his friends, had soon developed into a capable manager. And she had no
slight troubles: little children, her husband often in poor health, a
number of boarders--teachers and poor students--her house always open,
seldom lacking scholarly or noble guests, and, with all that, scanty
means and a husband who preferred giving to receiving, and who once,
in his zeal, when she was in bed with a young child, even seized the
silver baptismal presents of the child in order to give alms. Luther,
in 1527, for instance, could not afford even eight gulden for his
former prior and friend Briesger. He writes to him sadly: "Three
silver cups (wedding presents) are pawned for fifty gulden, the fourth
is sold. The year has brought one hundred gulden of debts. Lucas
Kranach will not go security for me any more, lest I ruin myself
completely." Sometimes Luther refuses presents, even those which his
prince offers him: but it seems that regard for his wife and children
gave him in later years some sense of economy. When he died his estate
amounted to some eight or nine thousand gulden, comprising, among
other things, a little country place, a large garden, and two houses.
This was surely in large part Frau Kaethe's doing. By the way in which
Luther treats her we see how happy his household was. When he made
allusions to the ready tongue of women he had little right to do so,
for he himself was not by any means a man who could be called
reticent. When she showed her joy at being able to bring to table all
kinds of fish from the little pond in her garden, the Doctor, for his
part, was deeply pleased but did not fail to add a pleasant discourse
on the happiness of contentment. Or when on one occasion she became
impatient at the reading of the Psalter, and gave him to understand
that she had heard enough about saints--that she read a good deal
every day and could talk enough about them too--that God only desired
her to act like them; then the Doctor, in reply to this sensible
answer, sighed and said, "Thus begins discontent at God's word. There
will be nothing but new books coming out, and the Scriptures will be
again thrown into the corner." But the firm alliance of these two good
people was for a long time not without its secret sorrow. We can only
surmise the suffering of the wife's soul when, even as lat