Her whole being was before me; I continually felt the want of her; and, which is worse, I could not forgive myself my own unhappiness." We may ascribe it either to delicacy of feeling or to the consideration that their further intercourse was undesirable, that he ceased to communicate directly with her.

A drawing by his own hand, which he thought would give her pleasure, he sends to her through Salzmann, who is requested to accompany it with or without a note, as he thinks best.

Through the same hands he sends to her a play (_Goetz von Berlichingen_), in which a lover plays a sorry part, and adds the comment that "Friederike will find herself to some extent consoled if the faithless one is poisoned." But the profoundest source of his unrest was neither the distastefulness of Frankfort society nor his remorse for his conduct to Friederike.

It was his concern with his own life and what he was to make of it.

It is this concern that gives interest to his letters of the period which otherwise possess little intrinsic value, either in substance or form.