God's grace? Has he not as much right to the lamb as the pigeon to the
pea which she finds in the dust? If the pigeon by chance sees the eagle
with his lamb, she cries, 'Zeter! mordio!' with the pea in her own bill,
as if she were in a position to judge the eagle."

"A beautiful picture," cried Goethe, joyfully--"a picture that would
inspire me to indite a poem."

"Write one, and call it for a souvenir 'The Eagle and the Dove.' Make it
a reality, my eagle youth, bear off the white lamb to your eyry, and let
the world, with its affected morality, say what it likes. How can
you bear to see the one you love at the side of another man? Tell me,
confess to me, is not the beautiful Charlotte von Stein your beloved?"

"Not in the sense you mean, duke, not in the vulgar sense of the word. I
love her, I adore her, with a pure and holy sentiment. I would not that
Charlotte should have cause to blush before her children on my account.
She would be desecrated to me if I, in my inmost soul, could imagine the
blush of shame upon her cheek, or that her eye could brighten at other
than great, beautiful, and noble acts. I adore her, and to me she is the
ideal of the purest and sweetest womanhood. I rejoice that she is as she
is, like clear mountain crystal--transparent and so brightly pure, that
one could mirror himself therein. She stands above all other women,
and to her belong all my thoughts, and would, even if I were wedded to
another. To me she is the most beautiful of the beautiful, the purest of
the pure, the most graceful of the graceful, and all my thoughts are in
perfect harmony with hers. Now, duke, if it is agreeable to you, knowing
my feelings, to call Charlotte von Stein my beloved, she is so in the
most elevated sense of the word."

"Ah! you poets, you poets," sighed the duke, smiling.

"A streak of madness in you all, though I will grant that it is divine."

"Say rather that Whit-Sunday comes to us every day, and the divine
Spirit descends daily upon us poets, and causes us to speak in unknown
tongues."

"I will say that you are the god Apollo descended from heaven, and with
gods one may not dare to dispute. They act differently in their sphere
than we mortals upon earth. I will be contented if our ways cross from
time to time, and we can once in a while walk on together a good piece
the way of life in friendship and harmony. If it would please my Wolf,
I propose to turn toward beloved Weimar, the dear place, ha