c law, and Gellert, professor of literature. The reverence with
which Gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary.

Much has been written about the condition of German literature at that
time. I need only state how it stood towards me. The literary epoch in
which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition.
Foreign influences had previously predominated, but in this epoch the
German sense of freedom and joy began to stir itself. Goettsched,
Lessing, Haller, and, above all, Wieland, had produced works of genius.
The venerable Bengel had procured a decided reception for his labours on
the Revelation of St. John, from the fact that he was known as an
intelligent, upright, God-fearing, blameless man. Deep minds are
compelled to live in the past as well as the future.

Plunging into literature on my own account, I at this period wrote the
oldest of my extant dramatic labours, "The Lover's Caprice," following
it with "The Accomplices." I had seen already many families ruined by
bankruptcies, divorces, vice, murders, burglaries, and poisonings, and,
young as I was, I had often, in such cases, lent a hand for help and
preservation. Accordingly, these pieces were written from an elevated
point of view, without my having been aware of it. But they could find
no favour on the German stage.

My health had become somewhat impaired, though I did not think I should
soon become apprehensive about my life. I had brought with me from home
a certain touch of hypochondria, and a chronic pain in my breast,
induced by a fall from horseback, perceptibly increased, and made me
dejected. By an unfortunate diet I destroyed my powers of digestion, so
that I experienced great uneasiness, yet without being able to embrace a
resolution for a more rational mode of life. Besides the epoch of the
cold-water bath, the hard bed slightly covered, and other follies
unconditionally recommended, had begun, in consequence of some
misunderstood suggestions of Rousseau, under the idea of bringing us
nearer to nature and delivering us from the corruption of morals.

One night I awoke with a violent hemorrhage, and for several days I
wavered between life and death. Recovery was slow, but nature helped me,
and I appeared to have become another man, for I had gained a greater
cheerfulness of mind than I had known for a long time, and I was
rejoiced to feel my inner self at liberty. But what particularly set me
up at this time w