According to
Schiller she "can never have been beautiful," and in a letter to Koerner
the latter says: "They say that their relationship (Goethe's and
Charlotte von Stein's) is absolutely pure and irreproachable." It was a
great mistake ever to regard this relationship as anything but a purely
spiritual one; Goethe never felt any passion for Charlotte; he called
her "his sister," the "guide of his soul"; he told her of his little
love-affairs and was never jealous of her husband. The following are a
few typical passages culled from his letters, arranged chronologically:
"My only love whom I can love without torment!" Then, quite in the
spirit of the _dolce stil nuovo_: "Your soul, in which thousands believe
in order to win happiness," "The purest, truest and most beautiful
relationship which (with the exception of my sister) ever existed
between me and any woman." "The relationship between us is so strange
and sacred, that I strongly felt, on that occasion, that it cannot be
expressed in words, that men cannot realise it.
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