Hermann remains behind to woo the maiden he loves. He is, however, deterred by seeing that she wears an engagement ring, and simply asks whether she will come with him and help his mother in her housewifely duties. She supposes that he wishes to engage her as a servant, and, on this understanding, frankly accepts his offer. Then they walk back together, and by the time they reach the pear-tree the landscape is lighted by the full moon, while heavy masses of clouds, betokening the approach of a storm, gather over the sky. They enter the house together, and after an animated scene, during which Dorothea--while thunder is heard to crash--tells her history, all is brought to a satisfactory end by the happy union of the lovers. The substance of this story is contained in an old pamphlet describing the adventures of a group of Protestant exiles who were expelled from the archbishopric of Salzburg in 1731. The tale, however, owes its charm, not to the bare facts of which it consists, but to the life breathed into them by Goethe’s art. In old age he said that “Hermann und Dorothea” was the only one of his greater poems which he could still read with pleasure, and it is certainly as near perfection as any of his creations. The central figure is Dorothea, and we readily understand her sway over Hermann, for she combines strength with tenderness, and acts nobly, not from a sense of duty merely, but because she is impelled by the instincts of a true and generous spirit. There is a striking fitness between her vigorous, handsome form and her frank and wholesome character; and we feel that of such stuff the women are made who keep a nation’s life sound and pure. Hermann, who has not, like Dorothea, been disciplined by hard experience, is less independent, but he has qualities which, when he is fully matured, will give his character the firmness of outline possessed by that of the wife he has won. Already he has courage to be true to his own choice, and he awakens our sympathy by the depth and ardour of his love. His mother’s gentleness is finely contrasted with the rough, worldly, but not essentially unkind disposition of his father; and the wise, good pastor, and the gossiping, self-important druggist help to bring out one another’s peculiarities by the differences of their modes of thought and feeling. Goethe never pauses to call our attention to this or that element of the tale; all is stir and movement, and the imagination is excited to form for itself a series of graphic pictures and to combine them into a living whole. The story advances so simply and naturally that it carries us on with growing interest to the end, and its significance is deepened by the vast world-movement of which we are continually reminded by the presence of the emigrants. The antique form of the poem is in perfect keeping with the theme as Goethe conceives it. His hexameters flow lightly and freely, and aid rather than hamper the harmonious development of his ideas.