by a translation of "Wahlverwandschaften." My English self was horrified at such a bold suggestion, although my German self appreciates the moral purposes of the book.'

In her correspondence with Mrs Austin, Ottilie reveals herself as impetuous, wild, unstable, giving full rein to her instinctive coquetry. Contemporaries who were her intimate friends have described her as one whose mind was governed by imagination alone, whose emotions knew no restraint. Such also did she appear; her eyes sparkled sometimes with an uncanny but bewitching gleam, her cheeks burned with unsated passion. Hers was a wild and thwarted nature. Thus it was her famous father-in-law rather than her mediocre husband who had fallen under her fiery influence. To Goethe, the father, Ottilie seemed a fascinating enigma, and they lived together in spiritual union. To Goethe, the son, the comparatively insignificant son of the infinitely great father, she was a wife like many another. Her husband had no understanding for the volcanic fires glowing within her; Ottilie lived beside him but not with him. Her marriage, which was not a marriage of souls, turned her into a cynic; and, in the light of her own unhappy experience, she defined the soul of a man as a ragoût consisting of a large portion of egoism and three times as much vanity, with a good slice of calculation, called common sense, the whole seasoned with a taste of intellect. But, far above the mists engendered by her experiences, she perceived the spirit of Goethe enthroned in sovereign magnificence. To her he was, as it were, the spirit of God hovering over the waters of a tumultuous world.

After her husband's death (1830), Ottilie continued to live in Goethe's house at Weimar with her two sons Walther and Wolf and her youngest child, the delightful Alma. This mode of life lasted for another two years until the death of the great poet. Now, indeed, her heart was desolate. Her existence seemed to her to have lost its purpose. She no longer lived in the world but in the memory of her father-in-law; whoever, like Sarah Austin, honoured him, was honoured by her, and the aim of her life was to contribute to his fame.

Sarah Austin regarded all the members of the Vol. 239.--No. 474.

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Weimar circle as her affinities. The Chancellor, Friedrich von Müller, was a Weimarer' par excellence. By his intervention with Napoleon I, he had saved the threatened independence of the Grand-Duchy, and he also had been one of Goethe's intimate friends. He wrote to Mrs Austin in April 1836 :

"The intelligent homage which you have paid to Goethe's memory, the deep comprehension of the qualities of this great man, with which you have made your countrymen better acquainted, gives you an indisputable claim to the gratitude and regard of all Germans, but to mine in particular, since you have honoured my small contributions to the study of Goethe's character by binding them in the garland which your noble hands have dedicated to his departed spirit.'

He informed her of the coming publication of Eckermann's Conversations,' from which Goethe's inner life and endeavour will shine as from a faithful mirror.' He enclosed in his letter an autograph of Goethe's-'a page which will not attain its full value until the tender perception of such a soul as yours has endowed it with a peculiar interest.' He concludes with the words:

'We at Weimar cannot abandon the hope that your travels on the Continent will lead you to our quiet valley, where indeed you will find not only great memories, but also a faithful band of worshippers, who have long desired to make your acquaintance in person.'

After the death of Goethe, the 'Weimarer' had, so far as possible, transferred their allegiance to Ottilie. But Ottilie's restless spirit often drove her from Weimar. Vienna is also intimately connected with the name Goethe; long before Vienna had erected a memorial to the poet, the soil of that city had received one whom Goethe had taken many times upon his knee, and on whose brow his hand had lain in benediction. Alma von

Goethe, the granddaughter of the immortal poet, lies in Viennese soil. When we stand by her grave, our thoughts recur to her mother Ottilie, who, unable after Goethe's death to endure Weimar, built her nest in Vienna. After a short sojourn in Frankfurt, she settled there in 1839; and it was there that her youngest child died. Henceforward clouds obscured Ottilie's horizon. In 1845, in her endeavour to forget her unhappy lot, she

journeyed to Italy. But Italy brought her no relief. She visited many cities-Venice, Rome, and Naples-that seemed to her as woeful as her own spirit. Eventually she settled once more in Weimar, so as to be close to the remains of the great man. She died there on Oct. 26, 1872, and was buried beside her mother in the family vault in the cemetery there. Thus she lies far away from husband August, far also from Alma, and close to the Olympian, from the overflowing measure of whose giant intellect she had quaffed so deeply.

Sarah Austin had predeceased Ottilie by five years. Her literary energies had not been concentrated solely upon the sun of Weimar. She had gazed with pleasure also at other stars in the German firmament. She was as much at home in military Prussia as in Goethe's belaurelled province. In Weimar it was the fashion to squander enthusiasm in every direction and to lose sight of the unimportant question of the welfare of the German people. At Bonn, on the other hand, not only the Prussian but the German flag also was borne aloft; and the standard-bearer was Ernst Moriz Arndt, patriot, scholar, and poet. At Bonn, Mrs Austin became acquainted with the cream of the intellectual life of Prussia. She could no more have forgotten 'Father Arndt'than she could have failed to remember Father Rhine.' From one of Arndt's letters to her sounds the voice of a good old German conscience.' His speech was energetic and compact like himself; and, as he laid store by vigorous language, he took pleasure also in making it the object of his reflexions. Thus, to Sarah Austin, he writes:

'Bonn, the 26th of the Storm-month, 1842. 'You have been so kind as to write me a charming letter in my own language, in which the only mistake was that you thought yourself obliged to compliment it. This German language of ours is, indeed, a stubborn rascal, but you have learned how to ride and control the wild steed. You were so kind, too, as to ask for news of an old man like myself. Who am I? A lonely bird, a voice crying in the wilderness, which is heard by few and the echoes of which will soon die away when my grave has been made. No matter, we are building up the divine edifice in various ways, each according to his nature, and we must rejoice in the glorious work, although

individually we may only swarm about it like gnats or flies; for it can only be given to a few immortals to leave their imprint upon it. If I have any merit, it is that I have had some understanding of the greatness of my nation and of the secrets of its nature and speech. . .

From Bonn she proceeded to Berlin. Among the brilliant women whose acquaintance she made there may be mentioned Fanny Lewald. A letter from Oldenburg, the home of her future husband Adolph Stahr, betrays that sharp, masculine precision which pervaded Fanny's actions. In this letter Fanny raised a protest against the excessively high esteem in which Gräfin Ida Hahn-Hahn was held by Sarah Austin. The latter had been so biased as to compare the capricious convert, who had exchanged temperate Protestantism for the incense-laden atmosphere of Rome, with George Sand. A year previously, however, Fanny Lewald had ridiculed the Gräfin's affectations and exaggeratedly aristocratic bearing in an anonymous novel called 'Diogena.' She now endeavoured to moderate Mrs Austin's enthusiasm for this curious saint who combined life in society with mystic love. At the same time she indulged in a character-study of Bettina von Arnim, who at that time had cast her spell over the society of Berlin.

'Oldenburg, Feb. 13, 1848.

As regards one point I am in disagreement with you, that is, in the comparison you draw between George Sand and Gräfin Hahn-Hahn, whose ways lie far asunder. Whatever George Sand's personal life may be, at any rate she is a woman capable of great and generous impulses, with a warm feeling for humanity and a deep understanding of her time and her countrymen. With such qualities as these one may err, but the errors of a George Sand are instructive and in my opinion not comparable with the allures of a Gräfin Hahn-Hahn. Indeed, it seems to me that we should use our utmost endeavour not to look at people in the mass, but to admit the right of every individual to follow the path of life suited to his peculiarities and to act as he chooses, so long as he does not transgress the rights of others. So I must admit that one of my greatest wishes is to see George Sand, although I have not a trace of the modern rage for celebrities. So little is that the case with me that, although I have lived for years in Berlin, I never made any attempt to

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know Bettina until she herself called on me this autumn. At her first visit she remained with me more than three hours, and, although I disliked her restless manners, yet she is capable of really prophetic utterances, she is a genuine poet, even in conversation, and-the greatest proof of her worth-she has brought up her three daughters and three sons admirably. The sons are held up as models of energetic, philanthropic land-owners and adore their mother. She

is a noble, kind-hearted woman, whose philanthropy is guided by common sense.'

Besides Niebuhr and Arndt, Mrs Austin made friends at Bonn with that connoisseur of ancient philosophies, Christian August Brandis. The latter had an unconquerable dislike for Varnhagen von Ense, husband of the brilliant Rahel von Varnhagen, whose niece, Ludmilla Assing, had just published a further collection of letters from the inexhaustible mass of literary gossip and garbage which her uncle had left behind him. Brandis gave vent to his feelings on this subject in the following letter to Mrs Austin:

'March 7, 1860.

'A melancholy literary event has lately occurred, namely the appearance of Alexander von Humboldt's letters to Varnhagen von Ense. Our great naturalist was weak enough to overestimate Varnhagen von Ense's talent for glib delineation, and to make this unprincipled man the recipient, in notes and interviews, of outbursts of bitter feeling, and to give him many interesting letters addressed to himself from highly-placed people, such as Metternich, etc., for the sake of the autographs. Varnhagen's niece has now published these notes and letters, together with the memoranda of conversations with Humboldt; but there can be no doubt that Varnhagen had already prepared all this for publication. I hope this shameful work, which lays bare Humboldt's weaknesses in so melancholy a form, will never be translated into English.'

Sarah Austin had also exchanged a number of letters with Alexander von Humboldt. This occurred when, after her translation of Ranke's 'Popes' had met with such a brilliant reception, she entertained the idea of translating Humboldt's Ansichten der Natur' into English. But, perhaps because he was a courtier, it seemed as though she could not feel altogether in