Most specific and important of all
his gains from his association with the Frankfort community, however,
was that from it directly emerged what is universally regarded as his
greatest creative effort--the First Part of Faust. The conception of
that work was closely associated with the chemical experiments and
cabbalistic studies suggested by his intercourse with Fraeulein von
Klettenberg and her circle, and not only suggested but carried out on
the foundation that had thus been laid.[53]
[Footnote 53: Yet at a later date he would seem to have regarded his
mystical studies as among the errors of his youth. In his _Tagebuch_,
under date August 7th, 1779, he writes as follows, and the passage may
be taken as a commentary on the whole period of his life with which we
are dealing: "Stiller Rueckblick auf's Leben auf die Verworrenheit
Betriebsamkeit, Wissbegierde der Jugend, wie sie ueberall
herumschweift, um etwas Befriedigendes zu finden. Wie ich besonders in
[Transcriber's Note: corrected error "im"] Geheimnissen, dunklen
imaginativen Verhaeltissen eine Wollust gefunden habe."]
As has been said, Goethe's contemporary letters addressed from
Frankfort to his friends bring a different side of his life before us
from that presented in the Autobiography.
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