Even before he went away from Weimar at all, the letters were incessant, often trivial, and sometimes made up of homely details of eating and drinking, but loving always. The reader who remembers Charlotte cutting bread and butter will not be shocked at the poet eloquently begging his true love to send him a sausage. All the years of his life in the Gartenhaus are intimately associated with her. The whole spot speaks of her. She was doubtless the grand passion of his life. But even this wore itself out, and after his absence in Italy he never seemed to feel the full ardor of his former love. He returned to Weimar still grateful to her for the happiness she had given, still feeling for her a sincere affection, but retaining little of the passion which for ten years she had inspired. The feeling seemed to have died a natural death. It is not recorded that she had ever really shared his fervor, but she greatly resented his defection, and considered him ungrateful and disloyal to the end. It was about this time that he first made the acquaintance of Christine Vulpius, who afterwards became his wife. She was the daughter of one of those men whose drunkenness slowly but surely brings a whole family to want. She was at this time very young. He thought her beautiful, and, although uneducated, she had a quick wit, a lively spirit, a loving heart, and great aptitude for domestic duties. She had no social position, and is often spoken of as his servant. Although never really occupying that position, her standing was not much above that plane. She fascinated Goethe as so many young faces had done before, and it seemed to be a thraldom of the mind as well as of the senses. There are few poems in any language which approach the passionate gratitude of those in which he recalls the happiness she gave him. George Henry Lewes in his life of the poet has this passage, which will be read with peculiar interest, considering his own relations with the highest genius of her day, George Eliot. He says:--