In the pessimistic period of his life, Goethe often cherished the idea of suicide. In his biography he relates that at this time he used to have, by his bedside, a poisoned dagger, and that he had repeatedly tried to plunge it in his bosom. Of these times he wrote to his friend Zelter[191]—“I know what it has cost me in effort to resist the waves of death.” The suicide which was the subject of the end of his romance made a deep impression upon him. Although he overcame his passion for Charlotte, his view of life remained tinged with pessimism for many years; in a note-book of 1773, for instance, he wrote “I am not made for this world.”[192] These words are the more striking as they date from a period when exact ideas regarding the adaptation of the organism and the character to the environment did not exist. Goethe, with his too delicate sensibility, felt himself out of harmony with his environment. It is very interesting to trace Goethe’s subsequent development and the transformation of a youthful pessimist into a convinced optimist. Goethe found a remedy for his crises of grief in work, poetical creation and love. He declared that the mere describing his woes on paper brought assuagement. The tears that they shed console women and children; and the poetry in which he expresses his suffering consoles the poet. Goethe’s romance with Charlotte was not quite at an end when he found himself ready to love her sister Helen. He wrote to Kestner in December, 1772:—“I was about to ask you if Helen had arrived, when I got the letter telling me of her return.” “To judge from her portrait she must be charming, even more charming than Charlotte. Well, I am free and I am thirsting for love.” “I am here at Frankfort again with new plans and new dreams, and all will be well if I find someone to love.” Soon afterwards, in another letter to Kestner, he wrote:—“Tell Charlotte that I have found here a girl whom I love with all my heart; if I wanted to marry, I should choose her before anyone else.” As he had not yet realised his true vocation, Goethe became a court minister at Weimar. He devoted himself to his duties with an enthusiasm that carried him far beyond the usual affairs of state. He wished to deepen his knowledge of such administrative problems as the construction of roads and the management of mines, and he studied geology and mineralogy with a real zest. Forest administration and agriculture led him seriously into botany, and as he had the direction of a school of design, he thought it necessary to learn anatomy. Such varied work gave him a real taste for science. It was no longer the superficial interest that characterised his work at Leipzig and Strassburg but a true devotion which led him to important discoveries, some of which have become classic.