Albert Kinross

“ Riviere's death, when he looked round again, had given him his freedom. In that disordered life there had been sanity as well as folly. Davidson was left by will a sufficient sum to meet all future needs. It was securely invested, but he could not touch the capital, or mortgage this income in advance. A child might have despoiled him, and Riviere knew that and had provided against it.
When the old landmarks go, a man is driven in upon himself, and from his own resources he must create the morrow. So, in this hour of need, Davidson turned to Weimar. ”

“ He must have come to her like a tired child, finding in her immense sanity, her perfect health, her superb tolerance, the peace which one may find in nature. In the end he married her; it is she who is now his wife. And as to the Bistrams? His simplicity, his honesty, had won even them; and to-day the baroness—the baron is dead—to-day the baroness regards him as a son. I saw the grave where Minna lies buried. I went with him one day when he put flowers upon it.
And now I am back again in London, while Davidson stays on, fixed there, anchored. ”

“ Sex is conspirator enough, the arch-plotter, dramaturge.
She must have had her hours of fear, urgings to confession, falterings, questionings, never put plainly, never quite faced. She would not name the day; she had accepted him, but she prolonged the wooing. Often she struggled, arguing against herself: he should marry somebody stronger, richer, with more health. ”

“ Indeed, I felt it, too; but, then, I argued, it was their nature, their way, and may have been born with their fine pride and their penuriousness, for Weimar is a city of the proud and poor. Leave out its memories, its significance, and you are among a people that has not yielded, that will not budge. No one dares jostle them, or trouble them with the irreverent word; the wit and the parvenu are alike excluded from this tremulous hospitality. But what was Davidson, an Englishman, doing with them? ”

“ Hard as a stone new from the lapidary, and as smooth, is one reading. But the man was different; one has but to take the Elegies, or else Eckermann. There was warmth behind the polish, there was a heart, volcanic. And so I had ended my pilgrimage at this great shrine, to me the greatest.
I lingered, and I found a fellow-worshiper. He might have been the cause of this delay. It may be guessed that one has a curiosity and often a weakness when one finds a passion shared or the same complaint. Patients discuss their symptoms; so we discussed Goethe. He was Davidson's mania and mine. ”

“ There is one who is outstanding. Linda von Essen was not too young a woman; old enough, indeed, to live in an apartment of her own with a maid. She was an orphan, she was independent, rich for Weimar. ”

“ There was no one to warn him. He knew nothing of these people. Perhaps he might have guessed that they were poor and desperately placed, but a man in love is generous. The whole world swims in sunshine, in an optimism. ”

“ Now, such a man requires children like himself, who will continue the line and its prosperity. Davidson was earmarked for this purpose—the selling of ironmongery and its manufacture, its distribution over continents. ”