There is the same waywardness, there are the same irresponsible sallies which made him such a difficult lover.

If we are to take him seriously, he still suffered from the pangs of rejected love and regretted that his former relations to Kaethchen had not continued.

"A lover to whom his love will not listen," he writes, "is by many degrees not so unfortunate as one who has been cast off; the former still retains hope and has at least no fear of being hated; the other, yes, the other, who has once experienced what it is to be cast out of a heart which once was his, gladly avoids thinking, not to say speaking, of it."[57] When this passage was written (June, 1769) he had received the news that Kaethchen was betrothed to another.

In a final letter addressed to her (January 23rd, 1770) occur these characteristic words: "You are still the same loveable girl, and you will also be a loveable wife.

And I, I shall remain Goethe.