When we confronted her, she gave us a hasty, incoherent explanation.

I fled, but he purſu’d (though more, it ſeems, Inflam’d with luſt then rage) and ſwifter far, Me overtook his mother all diſmaid, And in embraces forcible and foule Ingendring with me, of that rape begot Theſe yelling Monſters that with ceaſleſs cry Surround me, as thou ſawſt[…]

His gossiply (rather feline) letters, which have many often highly entertaining anecdotes about his friends and contemporaries, provide an invaluable guide to the manners and interests of the 18th century.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Goethesque.