ABSTRACT
Having broadened his experience with prophets, uncouth and tender, with his talented friends and with pietists, and with a visit from the great Klop-stock - with whom he discussed skating, Klopstock emphatically recommending the low, flat Dutch skates - Goethe finds his way, in Frankfurt as well, into social circles very different from those in which his parents move. His father, the Councillor, the private gentleman, does not mix with the Frankfurt élite. The son has fewer scruples. He dresses very fashionably, in his blue-trimmed tail-coat from Lyon. He is a celebrated author, and the friend of other celebrities. In spite of this the patricians and sons of the great banking families do not really regard him as their equal; they know about the tailor and wine merchant grandfather. None the less he has now become a well-known personality. A friend introduces him to the Schònemanns, one of the foremost banking families in the town and reputedly very rich. They live in great style and entertain lavishly, and at their receptions the gambling is for fairly high stakes. There is music, both serious and gay, as well as dancing.
