or a king. "Now to Madame
Karschin," said Goethe to himself, as he hastened through the streets
in that direction. "The good woman has welcomed me with so many pretty
verses that I must make my acknowledgments, in spite of my decision to
keep the Berlin authors at a distance."

From Wilhelm Street, where Chodowiecki lived, to the tilt-yard, was not
far, and Goethe soon reached the old, antiquated house where the poetess
lived. After many questionings and inquiries at the lower stories
and more splendid apartments of the house, he found the abode of the
poetess, and climbed up the steep stairs to the slanting attic-room. The
dim light of a small window permitted Goethe to read upon a gray piece
of paper, pasted upon the door, 'Anna Louisa Karsch, German poetess.'
He knocked modestly at the door at first, then louder, and as the voices
within never ceased for a moment their animated conversation, he opened
it, and entered the obscure room.

"I will do it, sir," said the little woman sitting in the window-niche
near a table to a young man standing near her. "I will do it, though I
must tell you album writing is very common. But you must promise me to
return here, and let me see what Herr Rammler writes, and tell me what
he says about me. These are my conditions."

"Frau Karschin, I promise you, upon the word of honor of a German youth,
who can never lower himself to break his word."

"Very well! then I will write."

There was perfect silence. The youth watched the little, dry hand which
guided the pen, with a devotional mien, and Goethe with eager curiosity,
who, unobserved, stood like a suppliant at the door of the obscure
little room, the shabby furniture of which betrayed the narrow
circumstances of the German poetess. It harmonized with the occupant,
a little, bony, meagre figure, wearing a tight-fitting blue-flowered
chintz dress. Upon the gray hair, which, parted in the middle, encircled
the low forehead, was a cap, which had lost its whiteness and was,
therefore, more in harmony with the ruff about her yellow, thin neck.
Her sharp, angular features were redeemed by large, dark eyes, flashing
with marvellous brilliancy from under the thick, gray eyebrows, and
with quick, penetrating glances she sometimes turned them to the ceiling
thoughtfully as she wrote. "There, sir, is my poem," said she, laying
down the pen. "Listen:

'Govern your will;
If it hinders duty,
It fetters virtue;
Then env