impressions Goethe made upon
his seniors like Lavater and Fritz Jacobi; how he struck his more
youthful acquaintances is recorded by two of them--both poets of some
promise who had attracted attention by their contempt of
conventionalities. It will be seen that their language shows that
Goethe's own exuberant style in his correspondence of the period was
not peculiar to himself. The first to come was H.C. Boie, an ardent
worshipper of Klopstock, and one of the heroes of the _Sturm und
Drang_. "I have had a superlative, delightful day," Boie records, "a
whole day spent alone and uninterrupted with Goethe--Goethe whose
heart is as great and noble as his mind! The day passes my
description." The other visitor, F.A. Werthes, who comprehensively
worshipped both Klopstock and Wieland, leaves Boie behind in the
exuberance of his impressions. "This Goethe," he wrote to Fritz
Jacobi, "of whom from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof
and from the going down thereof to its rising I should like to speak
and stammer and rhapsodise with you ... this Goethe has, as it were,
transcended all the ideals I had ever conceived of the direct feeling
and observation of a great genius. Never could I have so well
explained and sympathised with the feelings of the disciples on the
way to Emmaus when they said: 'Did not our heart burn within us while
He talked with us by the way?' Let us make of him our Lord Christ for
evermore, and let me be the least of His disciples. He has spoken so
much and so excellently with me; words of eternal life which, so long
as I live, shall be my articles of faith."[194] Apart from its
relation to Goethe, it will be seen that Werthes' letter is a document
of the time, bringing before us, as it does, the strained and
distorted sentiment, sufficiently apparent in Goethe himself, but
which he, almost alone of the youths of his generation, was strong
enough to hold in check.

[Footnote 194: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 46.]

In the following month (December) Goethe received still another
visit--a visit which was directly to lead to the most decisive event
in his life. As he was sitting one evening in his own room, a stranger
was ushered in, whom in the dusk he mistook for Fritz Jacobi. The
stranger was Major von Knebel, who had served in the Prussian army,
but was now on a tour with the young princes of Weimar, Carl August
and Constantin, to the latter of whom he was acting as tutor. Knebel
was keenly inter