They even raise the question whether his passion for her
were really so consuming as in his old age he declared it to have
been. They at least speak a very different language from that of the
simple lyrics in which he expressed his love for Friederike Brion. Yet
when we turn to his correspondence, written on the inspiration of the
moment, we find all the indications of a genuinely distracted lover.
During the month of March we are to believe that he underwent all the
pangs of a passionate wooer. Surrounded by numerous admirers, Lili was
difficult of access, and apparently took some pleasure in reminding
him that he was only one among others.[211] "Oh! if I did not compose
dramas," he wrote on the 6th to his confidant the Countess, "I should
be shipwrecked." A few days of unalloyed bliss he did enjoy, and the
length at which he records them in his Autobiography shows that they
remained a vivid memory with him. In the course of the month Lili
spent some time with an uncle at Offenbach on the Main, and, joining
her there, Goethe found her all that his heart could wish. "Take the
girl to your heart; it will be good for you both," he wrote out of his
bliss to his other female confidant, Johanna Fahlmer.
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