“Herr Goethe is waiting—shall he enter?” asked the servant.
The philosopher raised his head. “No,” cried he, loudly. “No! tell him you were mistaken. I am not at home.”
The old servant looked quite frightened at his master—the first time he had heard an untruth from him. “What shall I say, sir?”
“Say no,” cried Moses, very excited and ill-humored. “Say that I am not at home—that I am out.”
With a determined, defiant manner the philosopher seated himself to work upon his new book, “Jerusalem,” saying to himself, “I am right to send him away; he waited too long, is too late.” [Footnote: From Ludwig Tieck I learned this anecdote, and he assured me that Moses Mendelssohn told it to him.—See “Goethe in Berlin, Leaves of Memory,” p. 6.—The Authoress.]
CHAPTER XVIII. FAREWELL TO BERLIN.
“What is the matter, my dear Wolf?” cried the duke, as Goethe returned from his visits. “What mean those shadows upon your brow? Have the cursed beaux-esprits in Berlin annoyed and tortured you?”
“No, duke, I—” and suddenly stopping, he burst into a loud ringing laugh, and sprang about the room, bounding up and down, shouting, “Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the philosophers, vivat the philosophers!”
“They shall live—live—live,’’ shouted the duke!