Thanks to the influences under which he was brought by Herder, Goethe, during his residence at Strasburg, experienced a great intellectual awakening. He did not accept any body of doctrines as a complete and final expression of truth. On the contrary, the supreme service done to him by Herder was that in regard to things of the mind he was delivered from subservience to external authority. He now began to look out upon the world with his own eyes, and to test opinions by the free exercise of his own judgment. He had met Herder at the very moment when he needed, and was capable of responding to, the stimulus of an original mind at a stage of development more advanced than his own. When he parted from his teacher, it was no longer necessary for him to sit at the feet of a master. He had learned that great achievements were possible only if, like the poets into whose secrets he was penetrating, he brought himself into direct contact with the facts of the world, and trusted absolutely to the inherent impulses and laws of his own intellectual and imaginative powers. During the period in which he was deriving fresh ideal impulses from Herder, Goethe was drinking deep draughts of the sweetest joys of the actual world. In the autumn of 1770 he rode with his friend Weyland to the pretty Alsatian village, Sesenheim, where Weyland wished to visit Pastor Brion, whose wife was related by marriage to one of his half-sisters. As they approached the quaint old parsonage, standing with its quiet garden in a well-wooded country, Goethe’s restless spirit could not but feel the soothing influence of a scene at once so beautiful and so peaceful. Pastor Brion, a most amiable and hospitable clergyman, had four daughters, one of whom was married, while three lived with their parents. There was also a son about eight years old. A simpler, happier family did not exist, and we cannot wonder that Goethe (not, as he afterwards thought, on his first visit, for he then knew nothing of Goldsmith) sometimes compared it to the family of the Vicar of Wakefield. Some whim made him present himself in disguise, but he soon appeared in his real character; and as he was pleasantly received, he at once felt at home. The youngest daughter was not old enough to interest Goethe. The others were Salomea, who was about his own age, and Frederika, who was in her nineteenth or twentieth year. Frederika had a slender, graceful figure, with rich masses of fair hair, dark-blue eyes, and finely modelled features. She was rather delicate, but had a fresh appearance, due to the sweet, wholesome air of the country. Behind her coy and maidenly manner were hidden possibilities of deep and passionate devotion, and her charm was made all the more alluring by the contrast she presented to her robust and outspoken elder sister.