this riddle, roses burst forth which spring alike from sadness and joy.
Yes, thou art right, prophet: I shall yet with light heart struggle up
through jest and mirth; I shall weary myself with struggling as I did in
my childhood (ah, it seems as if it were but yesterday!) when with the
exuberance of joy I wandered through the blossoming fields, pulling up
the flowers by the roots and throwing them into the water. But I wish to
seek rest in a warm, firm earnestness, and there at hand standest thou,
smiling prophet!

I say to thee yet once more: Whoever in this wide world understands what
is passing within me, who, am so restful in thee, so silent, so
unwavering in my feeling? I could, like the mountains, bear nights and
days in the past without disturbing thee in thy reflections! And yet
when at times the wind bears the fragrance and the germs together from
the blossoming world up to the mountain heights, they will be
intoxicated with delight as I was yesterday. Then I loved the world,
then I was as glad as a gushing, murmuring spring in which the sun for
the first time shines.

Farewell, sublime one who blindest and intimidatest me! From this steep
rock upon which my love has in life-danger ventured, I cannot clamber
down. I cannot think of descending, for I should break my neck in
the attempt.

BETTINA'S LAST MEETING WITH GOETHE

From a Letter to her Niece in 1824, first published in 1896

IN THE evening I was alone again with Goethe. Had any one observed us,
he would have had something to tell to posterity. Goethe's peculiarities