A few weeks after his arrival at Weimar, Goethe was walking one day in the Park when he was approached by a girl of about twenty-three, of a humble position in life. Her name was Christiane Vulpius. She had brought with her a petition from her brother, who, after studying at Jena, had betaken himself to literature, and thought that Goethe might be willing to help him. Goethe read the paper, but was far more interested in the messenger than in the message. Christiane, although not tall, had a good figure and a fresh pretty face, with an honest, frank, lively expression in her fine blue eyes. Goethe was charmed with her, and the result was that she became his wife. At this stage their hands were not formally joined in a church, but from the beginning he never thought of their union as other than a true marriage. Much idle gossip has been printed to Christiane’s disadvantage--for the most part an echo of the tittle-tattle of the Weimar Court, the ladies of which could not bear to think of Goethe as the husband of a woman who did not belong to their own class. In reality she was a good and most loyal wife, and retained to the last the warm love of her husband, who was never happier than in her presence. When he was from home he sent her long letters, all of which she kept as her most sacred possessions. He talked to her freely about his great botanical discovery, and did not find that the subject was beyond her intelligence; and when he intrusted her with important private business, she displayed, in attending to it, decision, good sense, and good feeling. She ruled his household, too, as he liked it to be ruled, firmly, yet with kindness and discretion. His mother received Christiane cordially as her “dear daughter.” For some time Goethe and Christiane lived in seclusion in his house in the Park, but their union could not long be kept secret. When it became known, Frau von Stein was furious. She was about to visit the Rhenish baths, and before starting she addressed to him a letter so bitter in its tone that he could not answer it for some weeks. For the time the break between them was complete. Afterwards they became good friends again, but never, of course, on the old intimate terms. Frau von Stein had the sympathy of all the Court ladies, with, however, one notable exception, the Duchess, who understood Goethe too well to speak of him harshly or uncharitably.