Book excerpt: Excerpt from Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. 3 of 3: From the German; Travels Goethe was destined, as his father had been, forithe pro fassion of law; and in due time, he went successively to Leipzig and Strasburg, to prepare for, and to undertake, the study of it. But his quick, impassioned, and discursive mind, impressed by the most varied impulses, was con tinually diverging into many provinces remote enough from this his appointed occupation; for which, as was naturally to be expected, he had never shown any pre ference; though, from time to time, he had not failed to prosecute, with fits of resolute diligence, the tasks pre scribed by it. In 1771, he obtained his degree; but if the form of his outward life might now seem clear and de termined, his inward world was still in a state of uproar and disorder. The ambition of wealth and official celebrity would not seize him with due force: a thousand vague purposes, and vehement wishes, and brightest and blackest forecastings, were conflicting within him; for a strong spirit was here struggling to body itself forth from the most discordant elements: and what was at last to rise as a fair universe of thought still rolled as a dim and wasteful chaos. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.