cation are perhaps a little too fantastic for widespread application. For the rest, the remnant of our interest in Lothario and Natalie is dissipated hopelessly. Lothario, who after his own youthful travels has settled down on his estates, emphasizing his intention to remain there by the assertion that "here, or nowhere, is America," sets out again, presumably for an establishment in Pennsylvania. With him goes Natalie, who is doubtless weary of waiting for such an abstraction in the way of lover as William. In place of Natalie, we have a certain Hersilie, a copy of Natalie in fainter outlines, who comes into possession of the key to a certain casket, which casket, found by Felix, has been preserved by his father; from all which we may perhaps gather that Hersilie is to represent the undeserved blessing, to be exchanged for nothing in the world beside, which at the end of the "Apprenticeship" William assured us that he had found in Natalie. But our interest in Hersilie does not induce us to attempt to solve the enigma. Still less are we able to say whether the strange being Makarie, whose life is somehow associated with the movements of the planetary bodies of our solar system, and who at the time of our making her acquaintance is somewhere between the orbits of Mars and of Jupiter, whether Makarie represents merely a weird play of fancy, or whether there is wrapped up in her some transcendent mystery. When we encounter Philina, scissors in hand, preparing trousseaux for some of the walking ladies who so confuse the stage of Goethe's narration, we scarcely know whether to find it amusing or depressing. We had hoped, and indeed taken for granted, that marriage would steady her; but we should prefer to remember her as Philina.

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The best thing, as we think, in the "Travels," the really fresh and strong portion, is that which brings before us the life in the Swiss mountains, the spinning and the weaving, and the sketch of how this little life takes hold of the great world's activity; and the best of the short stories is that with which the book opens, which we have a sort of transcript of the holy family of Scripture, and in which the characterization of Joseph, and the description of his abode and labors, are alike delightful. On a small canvas Goethe's hand is often strong and true; on a broader and larger it wavers, and he loses himself.

From a consideration of Goethe's most famous work both in poetry and in prose, he would seem to have been a man of beginnings, incapable of rounding out a perfect and symmetrical whole.

We approach the "Elective Affinities," therefore, with more satisfaction, since we are at least not troubled with a sequel, with its harassing effect upon what has already been accomplished. As before, we can only regret that we are unable to give an outline of a work so famous, and within its author's limitations so powerful a one, - we must presume that the chief features of the story and the characterization are in the memory of the reader.

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Here, in verity, we have a sense of unity of construction, of the presence of a definite aim which the author has set before himself. We have this sense for a time, that is; the scheme is unfolded, and we are prepared for the development. It is then that we are lost in mazes truly Goethean. When, indeed, under the architect's loving hand, Ottilie's beautiful face looks down upon us in perfect semblance from the heaven in which he has placed her, we freely forgive him, for this exquisite touch, his retarding the action; and we tolerate the schoolmaster and his views upon education. Luciane we may presume to be introduced as a counterpoise to Ottilie, and she has a certain hold upon the narration, and claim upon the reader. Luciane, we may remark in passing, is a woman of the Philina type, not so unique indeed as Philina, as we have seen this last the centre of William Meister's life with the strolling company, but the family likeness is unmistakable. There is here no wavering in the characterization, Goethe's touch is as firm as it is crisp, his instinct is infallible; and Luciane and her following are at least a diversion. It is otherwise when there appears a traveling Englishman accompanied by a Begleiter, which Begleiter performs a scientific experiment, and narrates a tale after a fashion which we have become accustomed to in the "Travels" of William Meister. This Begleiter may be a trap for the unwary reader, for his experiment has for object the demonstrating that Ottilie's headache on the left side is caused by a peculiar relation which she sustains to the mineral world, and his tale is hung on to the main narration by a thread of statement that something similar had once happened to the captain. We are led to surmise as to the captain's previous entanglements, while a wild idea seizes us that this wondrous Begleiter may be able to eradicate Ottilie's propensity to headache on the left side, and by extension Edward's propensity to headache on the right side, thus destroying their disastrous affinity. But Englishman, Begleiter, scientific experiment, and tale, are only one of Goethe's curious longueurs.

In the "Elective Affinities," too, we find illustration of a view

already commented upon, that well-doing is not necessarily a stepping-stone and incentive to higher well-doing, but rather an excuse for indulgence; as when William, after prosecuting with diligence for a time his father's affairs, feels himself justified in loitering in the mountain town where he meets Philina. In similar manner we hear Edward arguing that since he has distinguished himself on the field of action, fulfilling an expectation long ago reasonably cherished of him, he has surely a right to such a trifle of indulgence as the putting away of a wife determinedly loyal, and the abandonment of a child whose sole crime is its resemblance to another than himself, for which crime he knows himself to be responsible in double measure. Having destroyed Ottilie's life, he pitifully follows her; and the point of all is, that Goethe seems quite satisfied with his dénouement as poetic justification.

The interest of the "Elective Affinities" centres strongly in Ottilie; though both Charlotte and Ottilie, in their hold upon us, are a distinct advance upon the women in "William Meister." Charlotte, who is of the type of Theresa in "William Meister," and whom we have liked all along for her brightness, her cleverness, her capacity for making the best of things, comes out strongly at the last; her disinterestedness, her genuine love for Ottilie, ennoble her, notwithstanding her temporary aberration; and she is perhaps, on the whole, the best of Goethe's female creations. But in Ottilie we have the nearest approach, among Goethe's creations, to ideal characterization, the nearest approach to a type that may be called Shakespearian. We say Shakespearian; of all characters that we remember in imaginative fiction, Ottiliethe ideal Ottilie, that is is the nearest to Byron's Haidee, alike in her gentleness, in the character of her influence over those about her, in her delight in loving, in the manner in which she rises toward the last, and in which, after the sudden flash, she sinks into a quiescence which is the beginning of the end. But in order to get at the ideal Ottilie, we have to divest her of a considerable accretion. Nowhere do we more deprecate the alloy with the gold, the chaff with the wheat, nowhere more than here do we regret that Goethe could not have kept his genius and his cleverness apart, at least so far as regards Ottilie. Left alone with Charlotte, after the captain's and Edward's departure, Ottilie realizes, upon her perception of Charlotte's fidelity, what the love means that she has been cherishing. She does not know of the agreement come to between Charlotte and Edward; she knows only that Edward has gone, whither or for what length of time

she has no notion. Could she know that he was happy, she would ask no more concerning him; but she has not even this consolation. As for her own life, it has no outlook; she is hemmed in on every side. In this unhappy case, it is well for Ottilie that her nature is a dutiful one, since to do her duty day by day is all that is possible to her. Ottilie has the gift of making those about her willing and faithful; the household waits upon her slightest sign; she is thus able to relieve her aunt of every vexation. The old gardener misses Edward, and she becomes his resource and chief adviser; at any hour Edward may return, though the hope, so natural a one, is no sooner breathed than it is despair for Ottilie.

We should be less than human, we feel, not to sympathize with Ottilie; but we cannot, there is an obstacle which is insuperable. This girl, of love and loving service all impact, keeps a Tagebuch, in which she writes down, La Rochefoucauld fashion, maxims and sentences upon life and character. A girl who could keep such a book ought, we feel, to be able to rise above the situation. The Tagebuch is a very singular outcome of Ottilie. Goethe assures us that this Tagebuch is like a note of color in a uniform, by which we may trace always Ottilie's inner life and thought. We could trace them much better without this identification. She is so overloaded with Tagebuch that the stream of our sympathy is turned aside, it will not flow over; water cannot run up hill. The maxims and sentences become so profound that even Goethe sees the impropriety of presuming them to be Ottilie's; he admits this, and suggests that since she could scarcely have originated them, she must have copied them from some source or other. A girl who could find mental diversion in such accumulation ought, we feel, to be able to swing herself clear; whereas Ottilie can only love, and her sole resource is that same duty day by day. At last we perceive the trick, notwithstanding the clever Goethe has so played upon us. The Tagebuch has nothing to do with Ottilie, with the Ottilie, that is, of his inner genius; it is only that Goethe, having this grist by him in his literary mill, sends it to market at chance opportunity, with very little consideration as to whether the burden is proportionate to the bearer. After this discovery, we do not trouble ourselves much about the Tagebuch, though we are glad when it ceases to be sandwiched in between the chapters of the narration.

Ottilie, meanwhile, must have grown upon her creator, notwithstanding that error of the Tagebuch; and we are glad when we

find her happy, in her day-by-day sense, in the new opportunity for love and service that comes to her. She dares not love Edward, yet her love cannot die within her at command. But she may love Edward's child, and upon this child is expended all the pentup ardor of her nature. The child, it will be remembered, a beautiful boy, resembles strikingly the captain, but with the eyes of Ottilie. We may remark that we might have realized that this child is in a certain subtle sense a child of sin, without the detailed narration our author seemed to think necessary. That the detail would be nothing with writers whom all the world finds corrupt, is not at all to the purpose; for we are dealing with a writer who is regarded preeminently as a teacher, and in whose works we are expected to find a lofty moral. This, however, we do not care to dwell upon. The necessity of Ottilie's loving nature is met in the child, to whom she is another and younger mother. The babe expands in her walks with him about the park, he develops in strength and beauty. The picture of Ottilie by the lakeside, as she sits quietly reading, the life of nature regarding her as it were with admiring interest, the babe slumbering by her side, is not the least charming in literature; and it is this calm which Edward's whirlwind of passion breaks in upon. In the boat with the dead child our commiseration for Ottilie is utter and entire, as she tries in vain to restore the little drenched creature she has rescued from the water; as, tearing aside her own garment, she presses the child to her very heart, in the hope to warm into it a life of her own; as, when all is unavailing, she throws herself upon her knees in the boat, her face toward heaven.

Thereafter, in conversation with Charlotte about her return to the school, we are startled by a sudden development in Ottilie of a mentality quite out of character; but we are pretty well accustomed by this time to this sort of ups and downs in Goethe. Ottilie has over-estimated her strength when she determined to attempt life by herself and unaided; and that the end has not been sufficiently forecast for her to be allowed to fade quietly out of life is among the vagaries of Goethe's genius the most inexplicable. Instead of such an end, we have the labored device of Nanny, of the penance Ottilie lays upon herself not to speak to those about her, of her withdrawal from the rest of the family, and of her death as brought about by voluntary starvation. We readily perceive that Charlotte, while entirely conscientious as mother, must none the less feel a sense of unacknowledged relief