Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/144

126 where the greatest order prevailed: there I have never found him otherwise than cheerful and sympathising. In a more numerous society, too, he showed himself agreeable and entertaining; for his mind, by extensive reading, was adorned with all the beauty of antiquity. He did not, on occasion, disdain to increase the social pleasures by agreeable Latin poems; and I still possess several sportive distiches which he wrote under some portraits drawn by me of strange and generally known Frankfort caricatures. Often I consulted with him as to the course of life and business I was now commencing; and, if an hundredfold inclinations and passions had not torn me from this path, he would have been my surest guide.

Nearer to me, in point of age, was his brother George, who had again returned from Treptow, from the service of the Duke Eugene of Würtemberg. While he had advanced in knowledge of the world and in practical talent, he had not remained behindhand in a survey of German and foreign literature. He liked, as before, to write in all languages, but did not further excite me in this respect, as I devoted myself exclusively to German, and only cultivated other languages so far as to enable me, in some measure, to read the best authors in the original. His honesty showed itself the same as ever; nay, his acquaintance with the world may have occasioned him to adhere with more severity and even obstinacy to his well-meaning views.

Through these two friends, I very soon became acquainted with Merck, to whom I had not been unfavourably announced by Herder, from Strasburg. This strange man, who had the greatest influence on my life, was a native of Darmstadt. Of his early education I can say but little. After finishing his studies, he conducted a young man to Switzerland, where he remained for some time, and came back married. When I made his acquaintance, he was military