YET another great conception stirred Goethe’s imagination at Frankfort—the conception of “Faust.” With the Faust legend he had long been familiar, and in “Die Mitschuldigen” he had made one of the characters compare himself with Dr. Faust. During his residence at Leipsic, however, he was too inexperienced to have even a faint conception of the deep meanings that lay hid beneath the surface of the story. It was at Strasburg that he began to realize the vast possibilities of the subject. There he thought of it often and profoundly, and it continued to fascinate him after his return to Frankfort. In 1774—or perhaps 1773—he began to write the drama with which, of all his works, his name is most intimately associated. He worked at it, at intervals, until he quitted Frankfort; he made several references to it in his letters; and to some of his friends he read passages in which he thought they might be interested.