y a part. On
certain important matters, also, he expresses himself only to few, and
does not willingly disturb others in their ideas. He certainly hates
scepticism, and strives after truth and settled conviction on certain
subjects of the first importance; believes even that he has already
attained conviction on the most important; but, so far as I have
observed, this is not the case. He does not go to church; not even to
communion, and he prays seldom. For, says he, I am not hypocrite
enough for that. At times he seems at rest with regard to certain
subjects; at other times, however, very far from being so. He
reverences the Christian religion, but not as our theologians present
it. He believes in a future life and a better state of existence. He
strives after truth, and yet attaches more importance to feeling than
to demonstration as the test of it. He has already accomplished much;
has many acquirements and much reading, but has thought and reasoned
still more. He has mainly devoted himself to _belles lettres_ and the
fine arts, or rather to all branches of knowledge, only not to the
so-called bread-winning ones. I wished to describe him, but to do so I
should run to too great length, for he is one of whom there is a great
deal to be said. _In one word, he is a very remarkable man._"[126]

[Footnote 126: Kestner's characterisation of Goethe will be found in
Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. pp. 21-3.]

CHAPTER VIII

AFTER WETZLAR

1772--1773

In _Goetz von Berlichingen_ Goethe had given expression to the ideals
and emotions he had brought with him from Strassburg; Shakespeare and
the memory of Friederike had been the main impulses to its production.
As the result of his experience at Wetzlar, he was filled with a new
inspiration, which, though it did not immediately find utterance, left
him no repose till it was embodied in a work in which the man and the
artist in him equally found deliverance. That the conception came to
him shortly after his leaving Wetzlar we have conclusive evidence. In
the beginning of November, 1772, after his return to Frankfort from
Wetzlar, he received the news that a youth named Jerusalem, a casual
acquaintance of his own,[127] had committed suicide as the result of
an unhappy love adventure. Instantly, Goethe tells us in his
Autobiography, the plan of _Werther_ shaped itself in his mind; and
his contemporary letters bear out the statement. Immediately on
receiving the news of Jerus