"[26] This
is not the tone of an ardent lover speaking of his mistress, and it is
evident that Cornelia was not the confidant of his real relations to
Kaethchen, which, indeed, would have been as distasteful to her as to
their father. In another letter, addressed to her in the following
August, he is not more frank. There he tells her that Annette is now
his muse, and that, as Herodotus names the books of his History after
the nine muses, so he has given the name of Annette to a collection of
twelve poetical pieces, magnificently copied in manuscript.[27] But,
he significantly adds, Annette had no more to do with his poetry than
the Muses had to do with the History of Herodotus.[28] To what extent
this statement expressed the truth we shall presently see.
[Footnote 26: _Ib._ p. 86. The passage is in French.]
[Footnote 27: This was the work of Behrisch, who was a virtuoso in
calligraphy.]
[Footnote 28: _Werke, Briefe_, i. 96-7.]
In October, 1767, Goethe resumed his correspondence with Behrisch, and
it is in this part of it that we have the fullest revelation of his
state of mind during the last year of his residence in Leipzig.
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