“Almost at first sight there sprang up, on Winckelmann’s side, an attachment as romantic, emotional and passionate as love. In a letter to his friend he said, ‘From the first moment an indescribable attraction towards you, excited by something more than form and feature, caused me to catch an echo of that harmony which passes human understanding and which is the music of the everlasting concord of things.... I was aware of the deep consent of our spirits, the instant I saw you.’ And in a later letter: ‘No name by which I might call you would be sweet enough or sufficient for my love; all that I could say would be far too feeble to give utterance to my heart and soul. Truly friendship came from heaven and was not created by mere human impulses.... My one friend, I love you more than any living thing, and time nor chance nor age can ever lessen this love.” _Ludwig Frey_, _Der Eros und die Kunst_, _Leipzig_, 1898, p. 211. [Sidenote: _Goethe on Winckelmann_] Goethe, that universal genius, has some excellent thoughts on this subject; speaking of Winckelmann he says:— “The affinities of human beings in Antiquity give evidence of an important distinction between ancient and modern times. The relation to women, which among us has become so tender and full of meaning, hardly aspired in those days beyond the limits of vulgar necessity. The relation of parents to their children seems in some respects to have been tenderer. More to them than all other feelings was the friendship between persons of the male sex (though female friends too, like Chloris and Thyia, were inseparable, even in Hades). In these cases of union between two youths, the passionate fulfilment of loving duties, the joys of inseparableness, the devotion of one for the other, the unavoided companionship in death, fill us with astonishment; indeed one feels oneself ashamed when poets, historians, philosophers and orators overwhelm us with legends, anecdotes, sentiments and ideas, containing such meaning and feeling. Winckelmann felt himself _born_ for a friendship of this kind—not only as capable of it, but in the highest degree in need of it; he became conscious of his true self only under the form of friendship.” _Goethe on Winckelmann_. [Sidenote: _Poem by Goethe_] Some of Goethe’s poems further illustrate this subject. In the Saki Nameh of his West-Oestlichen Divan he has followed the style of a certain class of Persian love-songs. The following poem is from a Cupbearer to his Master:— “In the market-place appearing None thy Poet-fame dispute; I too gladly hear thy singing, I too hearken when thou’rt mute. Yet I love thee, when thou printest Kisses not to be forgot, Best of all, for words may perish, But a kiss lives on in thought. Rhymes on rhymes fair meaning carry, Thoughts to think bring deeper joy; Sing to other folk, but tarry Silent with thy serving-boy.”