called her, whom he tormented with his jealousy until she lost
patience and broke off the intimacy, was also responsible for his
first play, _Die Laune des Verliebten_, or _The Lover's Wayward
Humor_. It is a pretty one-act pastoral in alexandrine verse, the
theme being the punishment of an over-jealous lover. What is mainly
significant in these Leipzig poetizings is the fact that they grew out
of genuine experience. Goethe had resolved to drop his ambitious
projects, such as _Belshazzar_, and coin his own real thoughts and
feelings into verse. Thus early he was led into the way of poetic
"confession."

In the summer of 1768 he was suddenly prostrated by a grave
illness--an internal hemorrhage which was at first thought to portend
consumption. Pale and languid he returned to his father's house, and
for several months it was uncertain whether he was to live or die.
During this period of seclusion he became deeply interested in magic,
alchemy, astrology, cabalism, and all that sort of thing. He even set
up a kind of alchemist's laboratory to search experimentally for the
panacea. Out of these abstruse studies grew Faust's wonderful dream of
an ecstatic spirit-life to be attained by natural magic. Of course the
menace of impending death drew his thoughts in the direction of
religion. Among the intimate friends of the family was the devout
Susanna von Klettenberg, one of the leading spirits in a local
conventicle of the Moravian Brethren. This lady--afterwards
immortalized as the "beautiful soul" of _Wilhelm Meister_--tried to
have the sick youth make his peace with God in her way, that is, by
accepting Christ as an ever-present personal saviour. While he never
would admit a conviction of sin he envied the calm of the saintly
maiden and was so far converted that he attended the meetings of the
Brethren, took part in their communion service, and for a while spoke