About this time Weimar became the home of Johanna Schopenhauer, the novelist, the mother of one of the most illustrious philosophers of the modern world. She was very bright and clever, and had an intense admiration for Goethe. “He is,” she wrote, “the most perfect being I know, even in appearance. A tall, fine figure, which holds itself erect, very carefully clad, always in black or quite dark blue, the hair tastefully dressed and powdered, as becomes his age, and a splendid face with two lustrous brown eyes, which are at once mild and penetrating.” Goethe was grateful to Frau Schopenhauer for receiving his wife with the respect that was her due. Not every woman of her standing was equally considerate. A few years after Goethe’s death a strange book took the world by surprise--Bettina von Arnim’s “Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde” (“Goethe’s Correspondence with a Child”). Bettina was the daughter of Goethe’s old friend Maximiliane Brentano. While still a very young girl she fancied that there was some resemblance between herself and Mignon; and, as Mignon loved Wilhelm Meister, so she loved Goethe. In 1807, when she was about twenty-two, she came to Weimar, and soon gave evidence of her remarkable passion, which was, of course, an affair rather of the fancy than of the heart. Goethe talked with her kindly, but took care that her enthusiasm should be kept within reasonable bounds. Some years afterwards (in 1811) Bettina married the poet Arnim. She had the bad taste to insult Christiane, who very properly responded by forbidding her to enter Goethe’s house again. To Bettina’s surprise, he energetically supported his wife’s decision. There was nothing about which he was so sensitive as the treatment accorded to his wife, and Bettina had to reconcile herself to the discovery that in her relation to Goethe she was, in comparison with the woman whom she had held in such low esteem, of very little importance. The letters published after his death, and attributed to him, are in reality as much Bettina’s work as Goethe’s.