"[224] The parting of the brother and sister--and the
parting was to be for ever[225]--must have been with heavy misgivings
for both. To her brother alone had Cornelia been bound by any tender
tie; he alone of her family had understood and sympathised with her
singular temperament, and her greatest happiness had been derived from
following his career of brilliant promise and achievement. It must,
therefore, have been with dark forebodings that she saw before him the
possibility of a union which in her eyes must be fatal alike to his
peace of mind and the development of his genius. On his side, also,
Goethe must have parted from his sister with the sad conviction that
the gloom that lay upon her life could never be lifted. She had been
the one never-failing confidant equally of the troubles of his heart
and of his intellectual ambitions, and it was from her that in his
present distraction he had naturally sought sympathy and counsel. It
is with the tenderest touch that in his reminiscent record of this
their last meeting he depicts her "problematical" nature, and pays his
tribute to all that she had been to him.[226]
[Footnote 223: Goethe was known as the "Bear" or the "Huron" among his
friends.
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