Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 13.djvu/325

LIFE AND WORKS OF GOETHE 291 stake being half a gulden. The duchess staked dollars and half-louis, played generously and lost. But as she was glad to dance, she did not play long. She danced with every mask who invited her, and stayed tiU nearly three o'clock, when almost every one had gone home." The same writer also speaks of another Ee- doute : " The duchess appeared en reine grecqiie, a very beautiful costume, which suited her well. The ball was very brilhant ; some students from Jena were there. At the last ball of the season, the duchess sent me one of her own Savoyard dresses, and I was frisS and dressed like a woman by the Countess von Görtz's maid. The young count was likewise dressed as a woman, and we went to court so, dined there, and drove thence to the ball, which lasted till six o'clock." This pleasure-loving duchess, who knew so well how to manage her kingdom, cared little for the dignities of her state. According to Wieland, she lived sometimes in student fashion, especially at Belvedere, where stu- dent-songs, not always the most decorous, rang joyously through the moonlit gardens. Driving once with seven friends in a hay-cart from Tiefurt, and overtaken by a storm, she made no more ado but drew over her light clothing Wieland's greatcoat, and in that costume drove on. Her letters, especially those to Goethe's mother, several of which I have seen, have great heartiness, and the most complete absence of anything hke for- mality. In one of them, I remember, she apologises for not having written for some time, not from want of friendship, but lack of news : to show that she has been thinking of Frau Aja, she sends her a pair of garters worked by herself. " Ziehe Frau Aja ! " she writes on another occasion, " my joy at the receipt of your letter is not easily described, nor will I attempt it, for true feelings are too sacred to be set down in black and white. You know, dear mother, what you are to me,