saw him entangled in a new
affair of the heart of another nature than those which had preceded
it, and resulting in a mental turmoil that drove him to seek
deliverance in a new field of life and action. There were other
incidents and other experiences that moved him less or more during
this period of his career, but it is in connection with these three
central events that his character and his genius are presented in
their fullest light, and are best known to the world.

We have it on Goethe's own testimony that, on his return from
Strassburg to Frankfort, he was healthier in body and more composed in
mind than on his return from Leipzig two years before. Still, he adds,
he was conscious of a sense of tension in his nature which implied
that his mind had not completely recovered its normal balance. So he
writes in his Autobiography, and his contemporary letters fully bear
out his memories of the period. He certainly returned from Strassburg
with a more satisfactory record than from Leipzig. He had actually
completed the necessary legal studies, and was now Licentiate of Laws.
His _Disputation_ had won the approval of his father, who was even
prepared to go to the expense of publishing it. In his son's purely
literary efforts during his Strassburg sojourn, also, he showed an
undisguised pleasure, and he would evidently have been quite content
to have seen him combine eminence in his profession with distinction
in literature. When Goethe, therefore, immediately on his arrival in
the paternal home, took the necessary steps to qualify himself for
legal practice, it seemed that the father's ambition for his wayward
son was at length about to be realised.[96] But the apparent
reconciliation of their respective aims was based on no cordial
understanding, and the son, it is evident, made no special effort to
adapt himself to his father's idiosyncrasies. An incident he himself
relates curiously illustrates his careless disregard of the
conventions of the family home. On his way from Strassburg he picked
up a boy-harper who had interested him, and seriously thought of
making him a member of the household. The reconciling mother realised
the absurdity of lodging in the mansion of an Imperial Rath a
strolling musician, who would have to earn his living by daily visits
to the taverns of the town, and she met her son's good-humoured whim
by finding a home for the boy in more fitting quarters. These noble
Bohemian humours of his son,