unate help to native genius, when native
genius finds itself in such surroundings. In the imperial councillor's
house his son had every comfort. He was surrounded by pictures books,
medals, and other works of art. His reasonable wishes could all be
gratified. And he knew none of the hardships which, if they are
sometimes the stimulus of genius, more often make its penance.

To his mother he seems to have owed more of the qualities which have
made him distinguished. He says himself that his love of story-telling
came from her, and his happy disposition. She taught him how he could
find the good which is in everyone, and her own habit was to leave
people's vices to the God who made them. Much more than this, Goethe
had at home the blessing, which cannot be overestimated, of the
presence of a sister who shared in his tastes, who joined in his
studies, and whom he loved with a passionate affection. He could pour
out his enthusiasms to her; she poured out hers to him. So that both
of them were blessed through their childhood in that greatest of
blessings, a happy home.

He was a precocious boy, and his father and mother both observed his
remarkable abilities. There was no lack of good teachers in Frankfort,
and he was well trained in the classics in early life. He also studied
Hebrew at the same time, having the advantage of the instruction of
learned Jews who lived in Frankfort. There never was any question but
that he should go to the university. His father's wish was that he
should enter upon the career of what he would have called
jurisprudence. With this view some of the younger Goethe's earlier
studies were conducted. But, before he was old enough to take any very
decided steps in the profession of law, his determination to follow a
wider literary career became so evident that the plan of jurisprudence
was eventually entirely abandoned.

When he was sixteen years old he went to Leipsic, and entered at the
university there, in the month of October, 1765. The university was
classed in the "Four Nations," as they were called--the Misnian, the
Saxon, the Bavarian, and the Polish. Goethe was from Frankfort, and
was classed as a Bavarian. His father left him wide freedom in the
choice of subjects and teachers, and though he attended some lectures
which bore on subjects of jurisprudence, he was more interested in the
wider range of natural science and of general literature. It would
seem that he learned more from the peopl