In the last interview with Frederika nothing was said to indicate that the parting was final. Nevertheless, Goethe knew that it was so; and eight years passed before they saw one another again, and then they met simply as old friends. Frederika had never doubted that he proposed to make her his wife, and this had also been assumed by her family. At first the idea of marriage did not occur to Goethe. He thought only of the rapture he felt in her presence, of her sweetness, her grace, and her beauty. When at last he could not avoid reflecting on the consequences of having won a maiden’s affections, a prolonged and bitter struggle went on in his mind. That Frederika, if he had been prepared to marry, would have made him truly happy, he loved her too well to question; and he can hardly have supposed that it would have been very difficult to induce his father to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. But the thought of marriage was repugnant to him. What! bind himself for life at the very time when he was becoming conscious of his destiny--when it was essential to the unfolding of his genius that his individuality should have free play! Deeply as he loved Frederika, strongly as he felt the duty he owed her, this consideration gained the day. He must have freedom, let it cost what it might. Goethe never sought to justify his treatment of Frederika. For many a day he suffered the pang of a wounded conscience. His ultimate decision was right, for he had not reached a stage at which a happy marriage would have been possible; but he well knew that in a matter of such vast importance he ought not to have created an expectation that, from the nature of the case, was doomed to be disappointed. It can only be said that to a poet of his ardent temperament the power which had cast its spell over him was all but irresistible. Frederika herself, although she seemed to lose all in losing her lover, did not permanently resent the severance of the bond that connected them. She seems to have felt that deep causes had led to their separation. All her life she had a vivid remembrance of the beautiful romantic world in which they had for a while wandered together; and when attempts were made by new wooers to win her hand, her answer is said to have been, “The heart that Goethe has loved cannot belong to another.”