not been accustomed to leave people, countries and cities.")

200. "Permit me to beg for a continuance of your precious
friendship, and to ask you to accept mine for now and forever;
with an honest heart I vow it to you everlastingly. True it will
be of little use to you; but it will be the more durable and
honest for that reason. You know that the best and truest friends
are the poor. Rich people know nothing of friendship!--especially
those who are born rich and those who have become rich
fortuitously,--they are too often wrapped up completely in their
own luck! But there is nothing to fear from a man who has been
placed in advantageous circumstances, not through blind, but
deserved good fortune, through merit,--a man who did not lose
courage because of his first failures,--who remained true to his
religion and trust in God, was a good Christian and an honest man
and cherished and valued his true friend,--in a word,--a man who
has deserved better fortune--from such a man, there is nothing to
fear."

(Paris, August 7, 1778, to his friend Bullinger, in Salzburg, to
whom he felt beholden for the gentle and considerate way in which
he had broken the news of his mother's death to the family.)

201. "My friend, had I but the money which many a man who does
not deserve it wastes so miserably,--if I only had it! O, with
what joy would I not help you!--But, alas! those who can will
not, and those who would like to can not!"

(Paris, July 29, 1778, to Fridolin Weber, father of Constanze.
The letter was found but recently among some Goethe autographs.)