Yet, if we may judge
from a description of him some ten months after his arrival in
Leipzig, the chastening does not appear to have lessened his buoyant
self-confidence. The description is from the hand of a comrade of his
own in Frankfort, Horn by name, the son of a former chief magistrate
of the city. Horn, like Goethe, had come to study in Leipzig, and on
his arrival there, 1766, he thus (August, 1766) records his
impressions of Goethe to a common friend: "If you only saw him, you
would be either furious with rage or burst with laughing. It is beyond
me to understand how anyone can change so quickly. Besides being
arrogant, he is also a dandy, and his clothes, though fine, are in
such ridiculous taste that they attract the attention of the whole
university.[21] But he does not mind that a bit, and it is useless to
tell him of his follies.... He has acquired a gait which is simply
intolerable. Could you only see him!" Such was Horn's first impression
of his former comrade, but it is right to say that a few months later
he could tell the same correspondent that they had not lost a friend
in Goethe, who had still the same good heart and was as much a
philosopher and a moralist as ever.
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