The girl in question was Kaethchen (or, as Goethe calls her in his
Autobiography, Aennchen) Schoenkopf, the daughter of a wineseller and
lodging-house keeper in Leipzig, whose wife, we are informed, belonged
to a "patrician" family in Frankfort. As described by Horn, she was
"well-grown though not tall, with a round, pleasant face, though not
particularly pretty, and with an open, gentle, and engaging air"; and
in a letter to his sister Goethe gives the further information that
she had a "good heart, not bewildered with too much reading," and that
her spelling was dubious. And it may be noted in passing that Goethe
apparently had a preference for women who were not sophisticated with
letters, as was notably shown in the case of the woman whom he
eventually made his wife.
It was on April 26th, 1766, that he first made the declaration of his
passion, so that, when Horn wrote, we are to suppose that its course
was in full tide.[22] But now, as always, Goethe had room for two
objects in his affections. On October 1st, 1766, he wrote letters to
two friends, in the second of which he expressed his passion for
Kaethchen, and in the first an equally ardent emotion for another
maiden who had crossed his path in Frankfort.
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