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

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