[219] Biedermann, op. cit. i. 55.
[220] According to Goethe, Count Haugnitz was the only one of the four who showed any sense of propriety.
[221] It was at this time that Merck gave his famous definition of Goethe's genius. See above, p. [135].
[222] The Urfaust.
[223] Goethe was known as the "Bear" or the "Huron" among his friends.
[224] Werke, Briefe, ii. 266.
[225] Cornelia died in June, 1777, when Goethe was settled in Weimar.
[226] On Cornelia's death he wrote to his mother: "Mit meiner Schwester ist mir so eine starcke Wurzel die mich an der Erde hielt abgehauen worden, dass die Aeste von oben, die davon Nahrung haben, auch absterben müssen."
[227] Biedermann, op. cit. i. 59. Goethe made Lavater the victim of one of the practical jokes which he was in the habit of playing on his friends. Seeing an unfinished sermon of Lavater on his desk, he completed it during the absence of Lavater, who, in ignorance of the addition, preached the whole sermon as his own.—Ib. p. 58.
[228] According to a tradition in the Passavant family, it was Goethe, not Passavant, who was so eager to descend into Italy.—Biedermann, op. cit. i. 58.