e Rose bluehn,
Wenn sie der Sonne Herrlichkeit erkennte!]

CHAPTER III

AT HOME IN FRANKFORT

SEPTEMBER, 1768--APRIL, 1770

On August 28th, 1768, Goethe left Leipzig after a residence of nearly
three years. He had gone to Leipzig in the spirit of a prisoner
released from his gaol; he left it in the spirit of one returning to
durance. In his Autobiography he has described the depressing
conditions under which he re-entered his father's house. In body and
mind he had found that in "accursed Leipzig one burns out as quickly
as a bad torch." In body he was a broken man. One night in the
beginning of August he had been seized with a violent hemorrhage, and
for some weeks his life hung by a thread. In his Autobiography he
assigns various reasons for his illness. As the result of an accident
on his journey from Frankfort to Leipzig he had strained the ligaments
of his chest, and the mischief was aggravated by a subsequent fall
from his horse; he had suffered from the fumes of the acids he had
inhaled in the process of etching; he had ruined his digestion by
drinking coffee and heavy beer; and, in accordance with the precepts
of Rousseau, he had adopted a _regime_ which proved too severe for his
enfeebled constitution. So he wrote in his old age, but his
contemporary letters leave us in little doubt regarding the cause of
his breakdown. He had, in fact, during the latter part of his sojourn
in Leipzig lived the life of the average German student of his day. He
had fought a duel, and had been wounded in the arm; he had drunk more
than was good for him, and we have seen that he had followed other
courses not conducive to his bodily health.

His mental condition was equally unsatisfactory. There was not a
friend, he tells us, whom at one time or another he had not annoyed by
his caprice, or offended by his "morbid spirit of contradiction" and
sullen avoidance of intercourse. All through his life Goethe seems to
have tried his friends by his variable humours,[47] but it was seldom
that he completely alienated them, and he gratefully records how in
his present stricken condition they rallied to his side, and put him
to shame by their assiduous attentions. One of these friends, Langer
by name, who had succeeded Behrisch as tutor to the young Count, he
specially mentions as helping to give a new turn to his thoughts.
Langer was religiously disposed, and found in Goethe, now in a mood to
receive them, a sympathetic