The plunge into the "exact" physical sciences, from which he had expected so much, proved disappointing. The boundaries of experimental research were soon reached by his penetrative imagination. He had a passion for facts, but he could not, like the typical man of science, content himself with systematised classification of things observable. His speculative writings are studded with allusions to scientific theories, and show an extensive knowledge of the history of chemistry and botany, of the facts of astronomy, geology, and zoology. He garnered the fruits of nineteenth-century science with the pleasure of the true dilettante, and having tasted them, declared them insipid. The imaginative processes of his mind continued where those of others stop; he passed from the visible to the occult, from rigid induction to extravagant fancy. Beyond the uttermost limits of science he came to see another world, in which chemistry became alchemy, astronomy astrology, physics the servant of magic, and the form of man the tool of mighty forces. He became a student of magnetism, hypnotism, telepathy, spiritism, of the secret knowledge which has persisted throughout the ages as the pearl within the oyster. Whilst literary Berlin was acclaiming Strindberg as the naturalistic playwright, his mind was centred on the hyperchemical speculations which later on found expression in his _Antibarbarus I or the Psychology of Sulphur or All is in All_, and in _Sylva Sylvarum_. Whilst wings of imagination were lifting him to new planes of thought, there was a sudden jerk on the chain which bound him to earth. He fell in love. The ideal woman had again appeared, now in the person of Fräulein Frida Uhl, a young Austrian girl, daughter of Hofrath Friedrich Uhl, in Vienna. They became engaged, and art-loving Berlin was one day surprised to see Strindberg escorting his fiancee to the National Gallery. He was attired in the fashionable apparel of the Berlin dandy. A check suit of a large pattern, a short yellow overcoat, a garish tie, a grotesque walking-stick, and an immaculate silk hat which, according to the account given by Gustaf Uddgren, retained its place with difficulty on the leonine mane, gave him an appearance of unwonted worldliness. They were married in April, 1893, and spent the honeymoon at Gravesend. An injunction had meanwhile been granted against the German edition of _The Confession of a Fool_, and Strindberg returned to Berlin in order to appear before the Court in the action which followed. The prosecution failed. Strindberg and his wife spent the winter at her father's country place at Armstädten, on the Danube, where he returned to his esoteric studies, and wrote his _Antibarbarus_. In August, 1894, Strindberg went to Paris. His wife had accompanied him, and left their child in Austria. The tie was now irksome to him; _les hautes études_ and not woman had again become the mistress of his soul. In November he sent his wife back to her parents.