y beguiles
Into fault-finding.'"

"Oh, how beautiful, cried the young man, enraptured. "I thank you a
thousand times for those glorious words, and they shall henceforth be
the guiding star of my existence."

"Go to Professor Rammler, and: then return and show me what he writes,
for I am convinced--. Oh, Heavens! there is a stranger," she cried, as
she discovered Goethe, who had remained standing by the door.

"Yes, a stranger," said Goethe, smiling, and approaching, as the happy
possessor of the album withdrew--"a stranger would not leave Berlin
without visiting the German poetess."

"And without verses in your album; is it not so? I have become the
fashion, and if I could only live by immortalizing myself in your
albums, I should be free from care. Now I have divined it--you wish an
autograph?"

"No! only a good word, and a friendly shake of the hand, for I possess
a poem and a letter which the good Frau Karschin sent me at Weimar some
six months since, written by herself."

"Is it Goethe?" she cried, clasping her hands in astonishment. "The poet
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the renowned author of the work which--"

"Cost you many tears," broke in Goethe, laughing. "I beg you spare me
these phrases, which follow me upon my journey as the Furies Orestes.
I know that 'Werther' has become the favorite of the reading public; he
has opened all the tear-ducts and made all lovers of moonlight as
soft as a swaddling-cloth. I could punish myself for having written
'Werther.'"

Frau Karschin laughed aloud. "That is glorious! You please me! You are
a famous poet and a genius, for only geniuses can revise and ridicule
themselves. Welcome, Germany's greatest poet, welcome to the attic of
the poetess! There is the good word which you would have, and here is
the hand. Did you think it worth while to visit poor Karschin? I am
rejoiced at it, for I see that they accused you unjustly of arrogance
and pride!"

"Do they accuse me of it?" asked Goethe, smiling. "Can the Berlin poets
and authors never forgive me that I live at a court, and am honored with
the favor of a prince?"

"They would willingly forgive you if they had the power to push you one
side, and take your place. They are angry with you, because they envy
you and are not accustomed to be esteemed. Our prince and ruler, as
great a hero and king as he otherwise is, cares little for German
poetry, and for all he would care, the Berlin authors might starve,
one and a