as if suspended
by her outstretched hands. Oh, it was quite vain to seek any longer. It
must be enchantment, and the door had disappeared. An indefinable dream
crept over Thusnelda, and she was cast down. For the first time a jest
failed her trembling lips, and she wept with anguish. Yes, she, the
keen, mordant, jesting little woman, prayed and implored her Maker
to unloose her from the enchantment, and permit her to find the
long-sought-for entrance. But praying was in vain, the door was not to
be found, it was witch craft, and she must submit to it. The rustling
and moving her arms frightened her now, and when she walked the darkness
prevented her seeing if any one followed her; so she crouched upon
the floor, yielding to the unavoidable necessity passing the night
there--the night of enchantment and witchery.[Footnote: See Lewes' "Life
and Writings of Goethe," vol. 1., p. 408.]

Not alone for Fraulein Goechhausen was this beautiful May-night of
sad experience with witches. There were other places at Weimar. In the
neighborhood of the ducal park, in the midst of green-meadows, stood a
simple little cottage. Near it flowed the Ilm, spanned by three bridges,
all closed by gates, so that no one could reach the cottage without the
occupant's consent. It was as secure as a fortress or an island of the
sea, and distinctly visible even in the night, its white walls rising
against the dark perspective of the park. This is the poet's Eldorado,
his paradise, presented to Wolfgang Goethe by his friend the Duke
Charles Augustus. It was late as the possessor wound his way toward his
Tusculum, as he familiarly called it, and, more attracted by the aspect
of the heavens than by sleep, sought the balcony, to gaze at the dark
mass of clouds chasing each other like armies in retreat and pursuit;
one moment veiling the moon, at another revealing her full disk, and
soon again covering the earth with dark shadows, until the lightning
flashed down in snaky windings, making the darkness momentarily visible
with her lurid glare. It was a glorious spectacle for the intuitive,
sympathetic soul of the poet, and he yielded to its influence with
delight. He heard the voice of God in the rolling of the thunder, and
sought to comprehend the unutterable, and understand it in this poetical
sense. Voices spake to him in the rushing of the storm, the sighing of
the trees, and the rustling of the foliage. The storm passed quickly, a
profound quiet and s