In the extremity of what was to be his most passionate experience in Strassburg, it was to Salzmann that he poured forth all the tumult of his passion, and the very act of laying bare his heart to such a counsellor was a suggestion of the necessity of a certain measure of self-control.

In connection with Goethe's relations to Salzmann we have also to note what is true of his relations to everyone at whose feet he chose for the time to sit.

When a youth of eighteen he had written to Behrisch, a man of thirty, on terms of perfect equality.

He was now a little over twenty, and Salzmann was approaching fifty and a man of the stamp we have seen, yet in Goethe's letters to him there is no trace of the modest diffidence with which a youth usually addresses his seniors.

A forward self-confidence, which some found objectionable, was in fact a characteristic of his youth and early manhood which is noticed by more than one observer.