But the person who had the strongest effect on Goethe's mental
development was Adam Frederick Oeser, at this time director of the
academy of arts in Leipsic.

Goethe, from his earliest years, was never without a passion, and at
Leipsic his passion was Kitty Schoenkopf, the Aennchen of the
autobiography, the daughter of the host at whose house he dined. She
often teased him with her inconstant ways, and to this experience is due
his first drama, "Die Laune des Verliebten," "Lovers' Quarrels," as it
may be styled. A deeper chord is struck in "Die Mitschuldigen" (The
Fellow Sinners), which forms a dismal and forbidding picture both of the
time and of the experiences of the youth who wrote it. He had an
opportunity of establishing his principles of taste during a short visit
at Dresden, in which he devoted himself to the pictures and the
antiques. The end of Goethe's stay at Leipsic was saddened by illness.
One morning at the beginning of the summer he was awakened by a violent
hemorrhage. For several days he hung between life and death, and after
that his recovery was slow. He left Leipsic far from well on August 28,
1768.

Goethe made an enforced stay of a year and a half. It was perhaps the
least happy part of his life. His cure proceeded slowly, and he had
several relapses. His family relations were not pleasant. His father
showed but little sympathy with his aspirations for universal culture,
and could imagine no career for him but that of a successful jurist. His
sister had grown somewhat harsh and cold during his absence. Goethe's
mother was always the same to him--a bright, genial, sympathetic friend.
Goethe, during his illness, received great attention from Fraeulein von
Klettenberg, a friend of his mother's, a pietist of the Moravian school.
She initiated him into the mystical writings of those abstracted saints,