Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/87

Rh an answer at once, and was charmed with her light, pretty, hearty hand. Contents and style were natural, good, amiable, as if they came from within; and thus the pleasing impression she had made upon me was ever kept up and renewed. I but too readily recalled to myself the endowments of her beautiful nature, and nurtured the hope that I should see her soon, and for a longer time.

There was now no more any need of an address from our good instructor. He had by those words, spoken at the right time, so completely cured me, that I had no particular inclination to see him and his patients again. The correspondence with Frederica became more animated. She invited me to a festival, to which also some friends from the other side of the Rhine would come. I was to make arrangements for a longer time. This I did by packing a stout portmanteau upon the diligence, and in a few hours I was in her presence. I found a large, merry party, took the father aside, and handed him the plan, at which he testified great delight. I talked over with him what I had thought while completing it. He was quite beside himself with joy, and especially praised the neatness of the drawing. This I had practised from my youth upwards, and had on this occasion taken especial pains, with the finest paper. But this pleasure was very soon marred for our good host, when, against my counsel, and in the joy of his heart, he laid the sketch before the company. Far from uttering the desired sympathy, some thought nothing at all of this precious work; others, who thought they knew something of the matter, made it still worse, blaming the sketch as not artistical, and, when the old man looked off for a moment, handled the clean sheets as if they were only so many rough draughts; while one, with the hard strokes of a lead-pencil, marked his plans of improvement on the fine paper in such a manner that a resto-