He certainly returned from Strassburg with a more satisfactory record than from Leipzig.

He had actually completed the necessary legal studies, and was now Licentiate of Laws.
His _Disputation_ had won the approval of his father, who was even prepared to go to the expense of publishing it.

In his son's purely literary efforts during his Strassburg sojourn, also, he showed an undisguised pleasure, and he would evidently have been quite content to have seen him combine eminence in his profession with distinction in literature.

When Goethe, therefore, immediately on his arrival in the paternal home, took the necessary steps to qualify himself for legal practice, it seemed that the father's ambition for his wayward son was at length about to be realised.[96] But the apparent reconciliation of their respective aims was based on no cordial understanding, and the son, it is evident, made no special effort to adapt himself to his father's idiosyncrasies.

An incident he himself relates curiously illustrates his careless disregard of the conventions of the family home.