Further, there came into my hands, during the time of my imprisonment, a
bad translation of an abridgment of the Zendavesta. The discovery [in
these ancient Persian Scriptures] of similar life-truths to our own, and
yet coupled with a quite separate religious standpoint from ours,
aroused my attention, and gave some feeling of universality to my life
and thought; this, however, disappeared as quickly as it had come.
By the beginning of the summer term in 1801 I was at length set free
from arrest. I at once left Jena and my academical career, and returned
to my father's house. I was just nineteen years old. It was but natural
that I should enter my parents' house with heavy heart, overclouded
soul, and oppressed mind. But spring warmed and awakened all nature once
more, and recalled to life, too, my slumbering desire for better things.
As yet I had busied myself but little with German literature, and the
names of Schiller, Goethe, Wieland, and the rest I now, for the first
time, began to learn. In this, too, it was with me as in so many other
things; any mental influence that came before me I had either to fully
interweave with my inner life, or else altogether to forego its
acquisition.
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