His mother meanwhile, with her daughter Adèle, had left Hamburg and settled at Weimar, at that time the intellectual centre of Germany. Goethe was here the sun round which the lesser lights of the artistic and intellectual world revolved. At the age of forty, Johanna Schopenhauer had entered on a new life, and was finding scope and free development for untried capabilities. She played a prominent part in the social life of the place, and her receptions were remarkable for the circle she gathered round her. Goethe himself was a frequent visitor there. She also took part in the theatrical performances, which were so conspicuous a feature of the life at Weimar. With help and encouragement from Fernow, a distinguished scholar and {19} art critic, she began to write, and published with considerable popular success travel sketches, art biographies, and novels. Her daughter, in describing their life at Weimar, tells how her mother experienced ever fresh delight in intercourse with the famous men living there. "She was liked, her society was agreeable. Her pleasing manners made her house a centre of intellectual activity, where everyone felt at home, and freely contributed the best he had to bring." Besides Goethe, Schlegel, Grimm, Wieland and others were frequent guests under her roof. Freed from his hated bondage, Schopenhauer now left Hamburg and entered the gymnasium, or grammar school, at Gotha, but a lampoon on one of the masters was so resented that he was obliged to leave. He then came to Weimar, at his mother's suggestion, and worked at classics in the house of a well-known scholar, who had a real enthusiasm for all things Greek. Something of his spirit he communicated to his pupil, and the passion for Greek art and thought grew into a moulding principle in Schopenhauer's views of life and religion. At the same time that he was entering into the spirit of classical literature, he was cultivating his musical ability, and thus feeling his way towards a full and intense understanding of the art, which entered later with such significance into the development of his philosophy. He was striving to realise an ideal of the fullest and most complete culture, in which not only the life of thought, but also the life of art should find consummate satisfaction.