Goethe’s Gallantry
One evening Wieland was reading aloud to a large company, assembled at the country house of the Dowager Duchess Amelia of Tiefurth. The reigning Duke, who had been out hunting, came in during the reading, found the room too warm and opened one of the windows. Some ladies thinly clad sat close to it. Goethe observing that they suffered, tiptoed to the window and shut it softly. The Duke turning around, saw that some one had resisted his wish. “Who has shut the window, that I opened?” he asked the servants, but not one dared to mention the culprit. Goethe however, stepped forward and with an arch gravity said: “Your Highness has the power of life and death over all your subjects. Upon me let judgment and sentence be pronounced.” The Duke laughed, but the window was not opened again.