others who were themselves in the same dilemma,--all
these were circumstances of consideration, experience, and observation,
which seemed to prove that one could not be happy continually in one's
present position." Undoubtedly also the importance of this step was not
all underrated: quiet deliberation lasted long, and a secret wavering
between eligible parties was frequent. Therefore in general the matter
was left to a benevolent Providence; and an accidental meeting, or the
pressing recommendation of a certain person, was still always
considered as a sign from above.

Those who so thought, were then the spiritual leaders of the
people, the scholars and followers of Leibnitz, Thomasius, and
Wolf,--estimable, good, and perhaps very learned men; and also the
maidens and wives of the best families. It was certainly an ancient
German custom to subordinate the individual; in this most important
concern of life, to the judgment and interests of the family;
undoubtedly marriage was considered more especially the great business
of life which was to be arranged with strict adherence to duty, and not
according to the delusive ideas of the fancy. But these sober, sensible
views were beginning in 1750 to give way to the higher requirements of
the individual Already were men inclined to indulge themselves with a
richer mental life and greater independence. When Caroline Lucius
modestly but firmly declined the offered hand of the Precentor of
Thomas's Church, Gellert felt a little ashamed that he had judged his
correspondent by the ordinary criterion, and in his letters afterwards
a sincere respect may be observed.

But, however frequently the wooing was deficient in the magic of the
most beautiful of earthly passions, the marriages, as far as we can
judge, were not on that account the less happy. That one must suit
oneself in life is a very popular rule of wisdom. The man who proposed
to share a respectable position and a certain income with the object of
his choice, offered her much, according to the views of that time; she
was to show her gratitude by unceasing faithful service, and to lighten
his arduous, laborious life--nay, already had a more exalted feeling
taken root in the souls of women, which we may well call the poetry of
home. The amount of knowledge acquired by a German woman was on the
whole small. If people of rank could not spell, this may be explained
by the fluctuations in education between French and German,--by