In May, 1772, he went to Wetzlar, where, during a residence of three months, he passed through another emotional experience which, two years later, found expression in _Werther_, of still more resounding notoriety than _Goetz_.

The opening of 1775 saw him entangled in a new affair of the heart of another nature than those which had preceded it, and resulting in a mental turmoil that drove him to seek deliverance in a new field of life and action.

There were other incidents and other experiences that moved him less or more during this period of his career, but it is in connection with these three central events that his character and his genius are presented in their fullest light, and are best known to the world.
We have it on Goethe's own testimony that, on his return from Strassburg to Frankfort, he was healthier in body and more composed in mind than on his return from Leipzig two years before.

Still, he adds, he was conscious of a sense of tension in his nature which implied that his mind had not completely recovered its normal balance.

So he writes in his Autobiography, and his contemporary letters fully bear out his memories of the period.