124 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS " destitute of faith, yet terrified at scepticism," and he returned to his home in 1768, discouraged and physically broken down. But a year and a half of the regularity of home life, quite different from his Bohemian courses at the university a life inspired by his mother's and his sister's love and a physical life sustained by a home diet which was so much better than a student's fare, wholly restore^ him, and in April, 1770, he went to the Univer- sity of Strasburg, not far from Frankfort, now with the real purpose of studying jurisprudence. He was nearly twenty-one years old, in stature rather above the middle size, and because his presence was imposing he was generally spoken of as tall ; but he was not really a tall man, but gave this impression by his erect carriage and because his bust was large. Long before he was celebrated, he was called an Apollo. At Leipsic he had led the life of a boy. At Strasburg he knew men and en- tered on the interests of a man. Herder was there, whose reputation as a man of letters and a scholar, in after times, was to be in that great second class which would have been the first class but that there Goethe reigned alone. Herder was at Strasburg to undergo an operation for the benefit of his eyes. Goethe made his acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, and Herder's influence on the young Apollo was of the very best. Goethe remained in Strasburg from April, 1770, till August, 1 771. He made the acquaintance of Frederike Brion, whose father was pastor of the little village of Sesenheim. Frederike was a fair, sweet girl of sixteen, and Goethe was for the time deeply interested in her ; but she was to him little more than a child, and when he left Strasbourg she was soon forgotten. But she never forgot, and years after died unwedded. Goethe was now writing, with the versatility and the enthusiasm which marked all his literary work. Some- thing or somebody acquainted him with the history of Goetz von Berlichingen, a name then little known, to which this young student has given its distinction. We do not understand Goethe nor the enthusiasm with which Germany wel- comed his earliest printed work, if we do not see how it was connected with the hatred of conventionalism and of mere authority, which in the German language was called Sturm und Drang* In after life Goethe had none too much of en- thusiasm for radical reformers. But as a young man, he breathed the atmosphere of his time. In the same way, in the year 1773, Schiller, a boy only fourteen years old, was writing verses, which in 1778 he wrought into "The Robbers," appealing to all the enthusiasm for liberty in young Germany. In the years which we are following, the young men of America were solv- ing the political questions and preparing for the military struggles of the Ameri- can Revolution. France was in the glow of hope which made even Louis XVI. himself suppose that a golden age was come again for Frenchmen. In England the protest against form and authority showed itself in signs as easily read as the letters of Junius and the Wilkes riots in London. The autocracy attempted by poor George III., in an attempt which cost him America, was only the most
- No one has translated this phrase well into English. Mrs. Humphry Ward suggests " storm and stress."
Drang is the origin of our word throng, and implies the pressure, rush, and common purpose of a crowd.
