So it was in the case of Merck, as Goethe's references to him in his Autobiography and elsewhere clearly imply.

In Merck there was apparently a mixture of conflicting elements which made him a mystery to his friends, and his suicide at the age of fifty points to something morbid in his nature.

Of his real goodness of heart and of his genuine admiration for what he considered worthy of it, his own reported sayings and the testimony of others leave us in no doubt.

Recording his impression of Goethe after a few interviews, he wrote: "I begin to have a real affection for Goethe.

He is a man after my own heart, as I have found few." On the other hand, there were traits in him which Goethe did not scruple to call Mephistophelian--an opinion shared even by Goethe's mother, whose nature it was to see the best side of men and things.