She is one of the pleasantest figures in German literature, and one standing out with greater vividness than almost any other.  Her simple, hearty, joyous, and affectionate nature endeared her to all.  She was the delight of children, the favourite of poets and princes.  To the last retaining her enthusiasm and simplicity, mingled with great shrewdness and knowledge of character, “Frau Aja,” as they christened her, was at once grave and hearty, dignified and simple.  She had read most of the best German and Italian authors, had picked up considerable desultory information, and had that “mother wit” which so often in women and poets seems to render culture superfluous, their rapid intuitions anticipating the tardy conclusions of experience.  Her letters are full of spirit:  not always strictly grammatical; not irreproachable in orthography; but vigorous and vivacious.  After a lengthened interview with her, an enthusiast exclaimed, “Now do I understand how Goethe has become the man he is!” Wieland, Merck, Buerger, Madame de Stael, Karl August, and other great people sought her acquaintance.  The Duchess Amalia corresponded with her as with an intimate friend; and her letters were welcomed eagerly at the Weimar Court.  She was married at seventeen to a man for whom she had no love, and was only eighteen when the poet was born.  This, instead of making her prematurely old, seems to have perpetuated her girlhood.  “I and my Wolfgang,” she said, “have always held fast to each other, because we were both young together.”  To him she transmitted her love of story-telling, her animal spirits, her love of everything which bore the stamp of distinctive individuality, and her love of seeing happy faces around her.  “Order and quiet,” she says in one of her charming letters to Freiherr von Stein, “are my principal characteristics.  Hence I despatch at once whatever I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him.  When all has returned to its proper state, then I defy any one to surpass me in good humour.”  Her heartiness and tolerance are the causes, she thinks, why every one likes her.  “I am fond of people, and that every one feels directly—­young and old.  I pass without pretension through the world, and that gratifies men.  I never bemoralise any one—­always seek out the good that is in them, and leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to round off the angles.  In this way I make myself happy and comfortable.”  Who does not recognise the son in those accents?  The kindliest of men inherited his loving, happy nature from the heartiest of women.

WHERE—­AND OH!  WHERE?
[Sidenote:  Henry S. Leigh]

  Where are the times when—­miles away
    From the din and the dust of cities—­
  Alexis left his lambs to play,
  And wooed some shepherdess half the day
    With pretty and plaintive ditties?

  Where are the pastures daisy-strewn
    And the flocks that lived in clover;
  The Zephyrs that caught the pastoral tune
  And carried away the notes as soon
    As ever the notes were over?