The plays to which Goethe refers in this letter form part of his intellectual and emotional history during the period of his relations to Lili. In themselves these plays have little merit, and, had they come from the hand of some minor poet, they would deservedly have passed into oblivion, but as part of his biography they call for some notice. The first of them, _Erwin und Elmire_, is a sufficiently trivial vaudeville, and appears to have been begun in the autumn of 1773.[203] He must have retouched it in January--February (1775), however, as it contains distinct suggestions of his experiences with the Schoenemann family. As he himself tells us in his Autobiography, the piece was suggested by Goldsmith's ballad, _Edwin and Angelina_, and both the choice and handling of the subject illustrate his remark in the foregoing letter regarding the fugitive nature of the various things which he threw off at this time.[204] There are four characters,--Olimpia and her daughter Elmire, Bernardo, a friend of the family, and Erwin, Elmire's lover. Elmire plays the part of capricious coquette with such effect that she drives her despairing lover to hide himself from the world and to retreat to a hermitage which he constructs for himself in the neighbouring wilds. Elmire now realises her hard-heartedness, and exhibits such symptoms of distress as to waken the concern of her mother and Bernardo. Bernardo, however, is in Erwin's secret, and contrives to bring the two lovers together and to effect a happy reconciliation, to the satisfaction of all parties--the mother included. The play was dedicated to Lili in the following lines:-- Den kleinen Strauss, den ich dir binde, Pflueckt' ich aus diesem Herzen hier; Nimm ihn gefaellig auf, Belinde! Der kleine Strauss, er ist von mir. This posy that I bind for thee I cull'd it from my very heart; This little posy, 'tis from me; Take it, Belinda, in good part. [Footnote 203: _Ib._ p. 113.] [Footnote 204: He says of the piece that it cost him "little expenditure of mind and feeling." _Ib._]