But even this love affair, which went as far as a betrothal, came to nothing,--Goethe drawing back at the last through a pretended or real fear that he could not support the lady in the style she had been accustomed to; though it is more reasonable to believe that his usual repugnance to marriage overcame all the fervor of his love, and made him feel a real relief when the whole affair was over. This was just previous to his removal to Weimar at the invitation of Carl August, and it was there that the remainder of his life-drama was enacted. Soon after his arrival there he made the acquaintance of the Frau Von Stein. She was the wife of the Master of Horse at Weimar, and Goethe, who had now passed thirty years of age, for the first time loved a mature woman. She was the mother of seven children and was thirty-three years old. With moral deficiencies which were securely covered up, she was a thoroughly charming woman, and retained her charm even to old age. She was said to have remarked when asked if she would be presented to Goethe, "With all my heart. I have heard as much about him as I ever did about Heaven, and I feel a deal more curiosity about him." She completely ensnared his heart, and held it in undisputed sway for more than ten years; which, considering his proverbial inconstancy, speaks very highly for her charms. The connection was well known and perfectly understood at Weimar, and appears to have caused no scandal. The love on Goethe's part seemed to have begun even before seeing her; as it is recorded that at Pyrmont he first saw her portrait, and was three nights sleepless in consequence. And when he came to see her, instead of a raw girl such as he had hitherto fancied, he found an elegant woman of the world, whose culture and experience had a singular fascination for him, tired as he was of immaturity and overfondness. She sang well, played well, sketched well, talked well, and showed her appreciation of the poet, not like a gushing girl, but with the delicate tact of a woman of the world. Some years after her first acquaintance with Goethe, Schiller thus writes to his friend Körner:-- "She is really a genuinely interesting person, and I quite understand what has attached Goethe to her. Beautiful she can never have been, but her countenance has a soft earnestness and a quite peculiar openness. A healthy understanding, truth, and feeling lie in her nature. She has more than a thousand letters from Goethe, and from Italy he writes her every week. They say the connection is perfectly pure and blameless."