telling them that while he guessed | dressing himself to the merchant, and their purpose, he was far from wishing to me, "Heaven has inspired me with to put any obstacles in the way of such exiles for conscience' sake, but, on the contrary, admired the zeal which made them prefer their faith to their fortune. Thus, having gained their confidence, he made them acquainted with us, and we all supped together, after they had besought us to say and do nothing which might cause the people at the hotel to suspect them. We could not but be amused at the oddity of our situation, and made some observations on the ways of Providence which sometimes permits truth and error to produce very similar effects. Each party, of course, considered itself in possession of the truth, and this afforded us some amusement. The merchant and his family were giving up their country to enjoy in ours the free exercise of their religion, whilst we were seeking religious liberty in theirs. For, if religion were not the first motive in our emigration, it was at the bottom of our resolution to seek an asylum in France. Thus our object, though one party was Catholic, and the other Protestant, was precisely the same; but our views on religion were so different, that one party or the other could not but be decidedly wrong, so that in making one of the greatest sacrifices man can make for liberty of conscience, either they or we were doing what was useless and in error. an idea which may be to both of you of great advantage. You have left lands in Ireland, — monsieur has left a house and grounds near Paris, why should you not make an exchange? In this way you will each save something. I presume neither party will make any difficulty as to the relative value of the two pieces of property, and I feel sure that when your motives for exiling yourselves from your respective countries shall be known to those in power, you will easily secure protection which will put you in possession of your property. Draw up deeds of sale, or deeds of gift, and a little favor in high places will do the rest." The merchant agreed at once, M. des Pesses having assured him that I had left property in Ireland, and I trusted to the assurance of the same gentleman as to his. We drew up the two deeds in the most legal forms, and we parted, mutually pleased with the transaction. I shall never forget the name of the excellent man to whom our family was indebted for its first home in France. He was called M. de Lézeau. The esteem we felt for him, and the interest with which he had inspired us, caused us to linger a week in Dieppe until we had seen him leave France in safety. I was much astonished, when the time came for our departure, to hear M. des Pesses say that he intended to go with us as far as Paris, while his mate could take his ship round to her destination. I made little opposition to this, nothing more than was necessary before accepting a great piece of civility, for I felt that he might be very useful to us, especially in getting possession of the country house deeded to us by M. Lézeau. But his zeal in our service, and his reluctance to leave us, opened my eyes to something else, which till then had never entered my mind. Monsieur des Pesses must be in love with Rose ! We parted with fervent aspirations for each other's conversion, but before our party broke up M. des Pesses asked the merchant if he had been so fortunate as to put his property in safety. He replied that the principal part of what he owned was in goods and ready money. Thus he had sent both over to England, but, fearing to draw suspicion on himself, he had not returned, before he left, to sell a pretty little country house he owned not far from Paris, which would probably be seized This discovery did not displease me; on by his Catholic relations as soon as on the contrary, I had all along expected they should discover his escape from that Rose's beauty and other advanFrance. tages would procure her a good hus"Heaven," cried M. des Pesses, ad- band in France soon after our arrival, and it seemed to me that Providence | book, called "Die Geschichte von den had already sent us this good fortune. vier Heymonskindern." This popular M. des Pesses seemed all that she could wish for; his way of spending money proved that he was rich, and though his birth was not equal to that of Rose, the position of our affairs, and the fact of our being foreigners, made it easy to overlook this inequality. old story was well known to Goethe and to his mother. Aja was the gentle sister of Charlemagne, the much-enduring wife of the fierce and stalwart Count Heymon of Dordone, and the proud mother of the hero Reinold. It was sufficiently applicable to the Frau Rath to serve as a caressing name given by filial fondness. The resemblance between the two Frau Ajas may not, at first sight, be very striking; but when we come to consider more curiously, there is a sufficient similarity between certain of their good and kindly qualities, and in certain of their outward circumstances, to explain the application of the name of Charles's tender sister to the wife of the Frankfort Rath and to the mother of Goethe. The first Frau Aja, and her later namesake, was the mother of a hero. The second Frau Aja was always peace-loving and joy-giving; was always happiest when making happiness for others. The original was only a moderately happy wife, but was also a most devoted mother. The wife of Heymon was sorrowful; and the So I was well satisfied to look on at his attentions to my sister. My two brothers, who also saw what I did, felt the same. We agreed that the suit of M. des Pesses was an excellent thing. At Rouen we had reason to think more highly of him than ever, for he introduced us to a number of people of high standing who had been his father's friends and his own. From them we learned by skilful questioning that he was very well off, and if not exactly of a noble family, that his people enjoyed great consideration in their own part of the country, and had long held high rank as merchants and professional men. We also received letters at Rouen from persons of the highest influence and consideration in Paris, to whom M. des Pesses had written concerning our exchange of property with M. de Lézeau. These gentlemen mother of Goethe was glad, cheerful, offered to use all their influence at court to put me in possession. From The Nineteenth Century. BY H. SCHUTZ WILSON. joyous. Herein is a point of dissimilarity; but caressing names are conferred in the "little language 99 of affection, rather in tenderness and in jest than in wisdom or gravity. They need not be too exact in their symbolic suitability. Goethe had a somewhat harsh and frigid father, who was without gaiety or liveliness, and was not THE admirers of Goethe, who have, gifted with humor, imagination, invenhowever, known her only through hints tion. From such a father it was necesand glimpses, have yet learned to love sary to hide the dear delicious hours of his dear, bright mother, and would, no blissful intimacy, hours winged with doubt, care for a fuller record of her story and with song, which were passed life and picture of her character than furtively between the glad young could hitherto be presented. Among mother and her gifted boy. "Wahrheit the archives in Weimar a number of und Dichtung" contains a delightful letters from Frau Aja have been found, picture of the early relations between and printed by the Goethe Society; the child Goethe and his mother. How and these letters enable me to attempt the boy looked forward to the happy the present sketch. Many readers will time when his bright, sunny young like to know whence comes the pet mother would tell him stories, gay, tenname of Frau Aja. The original oc- der, and romantic, which she herself curs in an old German cheap chap-invented so ingeniously, and related so graphically! Mother and son were | landlady of the inn Zum Weidenhoff, at young together. Frankfort. Goethe's father, the upThe sustained stateliness of Goethe's right but pedantic, was thirty-eight daily life, in his riper years, his dignity when he married Fräulein Textor, who of bearing, came to him from his was but seventeen when she became father; but such qualities were soft- his wife. Hers was not a love-match, ened by the sympathy, insight, love, nor was there, nor could there be, animation, invention, which he owed strong sympathy between a husband to his good, wise, charming mother. and wife who differed as widely in To the end of her days this dear lady character as they did in years. The retained her appellation of Frau Aja; couple had six children. Goethe, born and in some of her latest letters to him 1749, was the eldest; and his sister she still called her son by that fond Cornelia, born 1750, was the second. name (as she writes it) of Häschelhans, Cornelia was the companion and intiwhich may be imperfectly rendered as mate of Goethe during childhood and "Darling Jack.” 1 And the once little youth. She married Schlosser in 1773, Häschelhans or Hätschelhan, who, in and died 1777. The other four chilhis impressionable childish years lis-dren of Goethe's parents all died in tened so eagerly at his mother's knee to so many fair and fanciful stories, became himself a story-teller, on the grandest scale, ripened into the famous poet who wrote "Faust," and so many other great works which the world will not willingly let die. When his writings came from Weimar to Frankfurt, the fond, proud mother must have recognized with a singular thrill of tenderness and joy the glorious fruition of those qualities which she had done so much to implant and to develop in the childhood of her renowned and lov-to her grandson August von Goethe. ing son. It may be here in place to recapitulate briefly the leading external facts and dates connected with the life of our glad, genial Frau Aja. infancy, one only, Hermann Jakob, living seven years in this world. Goethe's father died in 1782. The Christkindlein brings various gifts to different people, and a Christmas gift which he brought to the Goethe Society was a collection of letters given to the society by the Frau Grossherzogin Sophie von Sachsen. This collection comprises some two hundred and nine letters written by the Frau Aja to her great son, to his love Chris-tiane Vulpius, afterwards his wife, and The dates of these letters range from 1780 to 1808. Fragments only of these letters were known before the present publication; and the very few that had been previously printed were, in no Katharina Elisabetha Textor - Tex- single instance, perfectly, or even cortor is Weber Latinized was born on rectly given. The Goethe Society's the 19th of February, 1731, and died on collection may, therefore, be looked on the 13th of September, 1808. Her as the original publication of these father was an imperial councillor of interesting letters; and it seems well Frankfurt. On the 20th of August, worth while to make gleanings from 1748, Katharina Elisabetha married these naïve epistles of the mother of the father of Goethe, Johann Caspar Goethe. The letters embrace private Goethe, born on the 31st of July, 1710. life and public events; they deal with Johann Caspar was the son of a social life and with the theatre in journeyman tailor, who married, as Frankfort; they are the genuine out-his second wife, Cornelia Schellhorn, 1 "Darling Jack" is not a translation, but a mere rough attempt to find an equivalent for Hatschelhans. Such epithets, coined in the playfulness of great love, cannot easily be translated; and it is possible that a happier equivalent might be found. "Spoiled Jack" might be admissible. "Pampered Jack" or "Pet Jack" might do. pourings of a most fond, kindly heart; and they reveal a character, painted unconsciously, and with no view to publicity, which is sacred in its serene and cheerful piety; tender in its family love, true in friendship, full of the pure joy of life, and always bright, clever, affectionate, sincere. These full letters; and it took, it seems, three letters teach us to know better, and to days to pass between Frankfurt and love more, the good and delightful Weimar. In her first letter Frau Aja strikes Frau Aja. Frau Aja was not, as she herself the keynote of a quality which distincomplains, well educated, though she taught herself much. In her childhood girls were not taught much in Germany, and Frau Aja had never learned to spell, or to construct a sentence properly. Her orthography is comically defective; but her style is the very woman herself. Frau Aja always cheers and elevates us, by encouraging uns freun und fröhlich seyn. guished her during all her life. This was her faith; a faith childlike in its simplicity, mature in its strength, intensity, and firmness of conviction. She says: "As God has been so good to us we rejoice in this earthly life after our fashion, and as we can manage to do it." Again, in June, 1781, she writes: "I am no heroine, but, with Chilian, I hold life to be a fair thing." which one lives and breathes in continual anxiety; the whole district of Speyer, Worms, Mainz, is now unsafe. Gott mag es lencken, ich weiss nichts." On the 14th of December it is "no joke to be in Frankfurt; Custine, it is expected, may appear before it; and so long as Mainz is not in German power the Frankfurters live in fear and dread." Hessians, one officer and two privates, are quartered on Frau Rath, and she had to feed them, which she finds very inconvenient. Between 1781 and 1792 there is a The first of the letters is dated the great gap in the letters; and this gap 23rd of March, 1780. The Frau Rath covers the time, the sorrows, and the was then living in the rather stately cares of widowhood. On the 4th of burgher mansion in the Hirschgraben, December, 1792, it is recorded that which her husband had almost rebuilt," the Hessians have ocubirt our city, in adding greatly both to its splendor and its comfort. In this well-known and memorable house, still visited by so many pilgrims from every part of the cultured world, Goethe himself was born on the 28th of August, 1749. In 1780 Goethe's mother was fifty years of age. Her husband died in 1782. Goethe had quitted Frankfurt for Weimar in 1775; and from that date mother and son dwelt apart, meeting only when the poet could revisit his native city. The Duchess Amalia wished that Frau Aja should come to live at Weimar; but Goethe objected. There is something rather pathetic in the separation of such a mother and such a son; but the natural affection and soul intimacy between them were but little diminished by distance; the letters before us prove that Frau Aja and her Hätschelhans remained throughout her life on the old footing of cordiality, of esteem, of love. There was one change of circumstance; as the son lived and worked he became great and famous, and the fond, proud mother had the rare delight of feeling, reflected upon her life, the admiration and respect with which the ever-growing name of Goethe was surrounded. We must not forget the slowness of the post, and the difficulties of travelling, in those old days. It was then worth while to write long, She lives in anxious expectation of the evil things that may happen in that dreadful time; but she has courage, owing to her belief that the God who has protected her so far will continue to care for her. In 1793 she complains of all the incredible annoyances of Einquartirung · annoyances which she was often to suffer under in the future. She has now two officers and two privates, and must always keep fire going, though wood is so dear. Nevertheless, she thinks of New Year's presents for Weimar. She prefers French to German inmates. She has always been a lover of order and decency; but the German soldiers smoke tobacco all day long in her rooms. The terrors of war surround the brave German widow; but she feels well, and is even happy. In April, 1793, the theatre of war draws near to her city, and she appre- and Frankfurt swarms with ardent volhends a Bombartement. In June she unteers. Merchants' sons stand in the sees and hears every day nothing but ranks side by side with tailors and shoeBomppen, cannon-balls, sick, wounded, makers. Butchers are without shirts, and prisoners. Cannonading goes on having given theirs for the wounded in all day, and is particularly noticeable at the hospitals. Gott muss ja das benight. She excuses herself for dwell- lohnen. (God will reward them.) All ing so much on one horrid theme, but the other imperial free cities must, she will send sweetmeats and toys to Wei- says, hide their heads when compared mar for little August. On the 25th of with nobly devoted Frankfurt; and all June, 1793, she receives with joy these good deeds spring from the heart twelve copies of the "Bürgergene- and mind of the people, and are not rahl," and awaits in excitement the re-requisitioned, or required by superior sult of the siege of Mainz. On the 8th of July she wishes that she could make all men glad and happy, and then it would be well with herself. Schlosser has lost his Julie, a dear little child. Grandmamma is very sorry, and suffers from the great heat. She signs, "Thy thee-loving mother, Goethe." The breast of the good Frau Rath exuberated with human kindness. She writes to her great son to help a poor student of theology, who is modest and worthy, but cannot afford to pay for his commons. To help such a person, she says, brings a blessing with it; and she does not appeal in vain to Goethe. In November, 1793, we find the first mention of the sale of the old house in the Hirschgraben; a house full of so many memories to Frau Aja; a house in which she had spent her married life; a house sacred to the birth, the childhood, and the youth of her surviving son and daughter. She wants a smaller dwelling, in which to pass her remaining years. We learn that, in the same year and month, Mozart's "Zauberflöte" had been given eighteen times, with ever full houses and with brilliant success. "No one will admit that he has not heard it." Mechanics, gardeners, even the Sachsenhäuser - every one goes to hear the charming opera. Das hat Geld eingetragen! (That has brought money to the theatre.) She will not buy a toy model of the infamous guillotine. The horrors of war still impend over Frankfurt, and she is delighted with the public and patriotic spirit evinced by the burghers. Every week three thousand florins are collected for the brave German troops, powers. Schlosser and Goethe approve all the steps taken by the Frau Rath for the sale of her house and wines. She thinks the enemy will not again be allowed to harm Frankfurt; as regards that, "I have faith in God, and he has something to say in the matter. I am convinced that God will not desert us." But in January, 1794, a panic scare spread all through Frankfurt. In that dreadful year the fancies of men had become morbid, and every horror was feared. All who can, fiud refuge in flight; but, thanks be to God for it, all this wirr-warr does not cause the brave lady one sad hour. She waits composedly, and trusts, and hopes. She greatly dislikes the ohne Hoszen, as she calls the sans-culottes; and she much prefers a German waltz to a French carmagnole. "We cannot lay hold of the spokes of the wheel of fate without being ground to powder," but we can suffer and be still, and we can record that the "Zauberflöte" has been given twenty-four times to crowded houses, and has brought in twenty-two thousand florius. She sends maize and chestnuts to Weimar, and manages always to let flow her steady stream of gifts to son, to grandson, and to daughter-in-law. The old house is sold, and the cheery widow wants to find a dwelling in the Rossmarkt, or horse market, and will find such a place in despite of all the ohne Hoszen. And now comes the new houseFrau Aja's last house in Frankfurt, or in this world. It is on that side of the Rossmarkt which has a view down the whole Zeil, and it enjoys the sun of |