cartoons, and this sight was for me a very decided influence,
for I became acquainted with the true and the perfect on a large scale.

_IV.--Fascinating Friendship_

The most important event at this period, and one that was to have the
weightiest consequences for me, was my meeting with Herder. He
accompanied on his travels the Prince of Holstein-Eutin, who was in a
melancholy state of mind, and had come with him to Strasburg. Herder was
singular, both in his personal appearance and also in his demeanour. He
had somewhat of softness in his manner, which was very suitable and
becoming, without being exactly easy. I was of a very confiding
disposition, and with Herder especially I had no secrets; but from one
of his habits--a spirit of contradiction--I had much to endure.

Herder could be charmingly prepossessing and brilliant, but he could
just as easily turn an ill-humoured side forward. He resolved to stay in
Strasburg because of a complaint in one of his eyes of the most
irritating nature, which required a tedious and uncertain operation, the
tear-bag being closed below. Therefore he separated from the prince and
removed into lodgings of his own for the purpose of the operation. He
confided to me that he intended to compete for a prize offered at Berlin
for the best treatise on the origin of language. His work, written in a
very neat hand, was nearly completed. During the troublesome and painful
cure he lost none of his vivacity, but he became less and less amiable.
He could not write a note to ask for anything without scoffing rudely
and bitterly, generally in sardonic verse.

Herder contributed much to my culture, yet he destroyed my enjoyment of
much that I had loved before, and especially blamed me in the strongest
manner for the pleasure I took in Ovid's "Metamorphoses." I most
carefully concealed from him my interest in certain subjects which had
rooted themselves within me, and were little by little moulding
themselves into poetic form. These were "Goetz von Berlichingen" and
"Faust." Of my poetical labours, I believe I laid before him "The
Accomplices," but I do not recollect that on this account I received
from him either correction or encouragement.

At this epoch of my life took place a singular episode. During a
delightful tour in beautiful Alsace, round about the Vosges, I and two
fellow-students halted for a time at the house of a Protestant
clergyman, pastor in Sesenheim. I had visited the fami