This parting is hard beyond measure. It is strange to know
she is certainly in peace and that it is well with her, and yet to be
so sorrowful all the time."
His Dominus, or Lord Kaethe, as he liked to call his wife in letters to
his friends, had soon developed into a capable manager. And she had no
slight troubles: little children, her husband often in poor health, a
number of boarders--teachers and poor students--her house always open,
seldom lacking scholarly or noble guests, and, with all that, scanty
means and a husband who preferred giving to receiving, and who once,
in his zeal, when she was in bed with a young child, even seized the
silver baptismal presents of the child in order to give alms. Luther,
in 1527, for instance, could not afford even eight gulden for his
former prior and friend Briesger. He writes to him sadly: "Three
silver cups (wedding presents) are pawned for fifty gulden, the fourth
is sold. The year has brought one hundred gulden of debts. Lucas
Kranach will not go security for me any more, lest I ruin myself
completely." Sometimes Luther refuses presents, even those which his
prince offers him: but it seems that regard for his wife and children
gave him in later years some sense of economy. When he died his estate
amounted to some eight or nine thousand gulden, comprising, among
other things, a little country place, a large garden, and two houses.
This was surely in large part Frau Kaethe's doing. By the way in which
Luther treats her we see how happy his household was.
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