For their sensibilities were boundless, and they did not shrink from giving them expression.

Caroline relates to her future husband how one night in the woods she fell on her knees at sight of the moon and arranged some glow-worms in her hair so that their loves might not be disturbed.

On one occasion when Merck and Goethe met two of the coterie, one of them embraced Merck with kisses and the other fell upon his breast.

Goethe was not a youth to be indifferent to such favours, and the attentions of Caroline were such as to disquiet Herder and to occasion an estrangement between the two friends which lasted for nearly two years.
[Footnote 109: It was Schlosser who had made Goethe and Merck acquainted.

Herder, to whom Merck was known, had been a previous intermediary.] From the effusive Caroline herself we learn the impression Goethe made on the precious circle.