onfusion in Lavater's narrative.]

Among the guests who were present at the same motley gathering was the
third distinguished personage whose acquaintance Goethe made during
these memorable weeks. This was Fritz Jacobi, one of the interesting
figures in the history of German thought, alike by his personal
character and the nature of his speculations. Goethe and he had common
friends before they met, but their relations had been such as to make
their meeting a matter of some delicacy. Goethe had satirised the
poetry of Jacobi's brother Georg, and in his correspondence even
vehemently expressed his dislike to the characters of both brothers as
he had been led to conceive them. Three women--Sophie von la Roche,
Johanna Fahlmer, the aunt of the Jacobis, and Betty Jacobi, their
sister, all of whom Goethe counted among his friends--had endeavoured
to effect a reconciliation between Goethe and the two brothers, but
eventually it was Goethe's own impulsive good nature that led to their
meeting. The Jacobis lived in Duesseldorf, and the morning after his
arrival in the town he called at their house, but found that Fritz had
gone to Pempelfort, a place in the neighbourhood where he had an
estate. Goethe at once set out for Pempelfort, and in a letter to the
wife of Fritz he characteristically describes the circumstances of the
meeting. "It was glorious that you did not happen to be in Duesseldorf
and that I did what my simple heart prompted me. Without introduction,
without being marshalled in, without excuses, just dropping straight
from heaven before Fritz Jacobi! And he and I, and I and he! And,
before a sisterly look had done the preliminaries, we were already
what we were bound to be and could be."[183]

[Footnote 183: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 180.]

Fritz Jacobi possessed a combination of qualities that were expressly
fitted to impress Goethe at the period when they met. Handsome in
person, and with the polished manners of a man of the world, he
conjoined a practical talent for business with a passionate interest
in all questions touching human destiny. About six years Goethe's
senior, he was, on Goethe's own testimony, far ahead of him in the
domain of philosophical thought. After Herder, Jacobi was indeed the
most stimulating personality Goethe had met. While his intercourse
with Lavater and Basedow had been only a source of entertainment, from
Jacobi he received a stimulus which opened up new depths of thought
and feeling