"]

As in the case of his Leipzig period, Goethe's reminiscent account of
his present sojourn in Frankfort gives a somewhat different impression
of his main interests from that conveyed by his contemporary letters.
If we accept the testimony of his Autobiography, his attention was
mainly turned to religion and to chemical and cabbalistical studies;
from his correspondence, on the other hand, it would appear that his
thoughts at least occasionally ran on subjects that had little to do
with his spiritual welfare. At the same time, the apparent discrepancy
need not imply self-contradiction. The correspondents to whom his
letters were addressed were not persons specially interested in
religion or chemistry or the cabbala, and, of all men, Goethe was
least likely to be obsessed by any set of ideas to the exclusion of
all others. There can be little doubt, indeed, that during his year
and a half in Frankfort religion was a more predominant interest in
his life than at any other period; and the fact is sufficiently
explained by the circumstances in which he then found himself. From
the condition both of his mind and body he was disposed to
self-searching. Regret for the past was foreign to his nature; in his
mature judgment, indeed, such a feeling was resolutely to be checked
in the interest of healthy self-development. Yet in the retrospect of
his Leipzig days it seems to have crossed his mind that he might have
spent them more wisely. "O that I could recall the last two years and
a half,"[49] he wrote to Kaethchen Schoenkopf, and he warns a male
correspondent in Leipzig to "beware of dissoluteness."[50] And the
state of his health during the greater part of this time in Frankfort
was such as to strengthen this mood. Immediately after his return from
Leipzig he was threatened with pulmonary disease, and the state of his
digestion became such as to alarm himself and his friends. On December
7th he was attacked by a violent internal pain, and for some days
there were the gravest fears for his life. After two months'
confinement to his room there was a partial recovery, but it was not
till the spring of 1770 that his health was completely restored.

[Footnote 49: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 215.]

[Footnote 50: _Ib._ p. 217.]

But the truth is that Goethe's temporary preoccupation with religion
is only another illustration of his "chameleon" temperament. In gay
Leipzig he had promptly taken on the ways of a man about town; now