ever, the poet went, a day or two afterwards, and spent
several days with the young princes, as their guest. This
was his first contact with men of high rank.

In the following May he hears with joy that Lotte is a
mother, and that her boy is to be called Wolfgang, after
him; and on the 16th of June he writes to Lotte: 'I will
soon send you a friend who has much resemblance to me,
and hope you will receive him well; he is named Werther,
and is and was but that he must himself explain.'

Whoever has followed the history thus far, moving on the secure ground of contemporary document, will see how vague and inaccurate is the account of the composi tion of Werther given by its author, in his retrospective glance at the period. It was not originated by the news of Jerusalem's death. It was not originated by growing despair at the loss of Charlotte. It was not originated by tormenting thoughts of self-destruction. It was not to free himself from suicide that he wrote this story of suicide. All these several threads were woven into its woof; but the rigor of dates forces us to the conviction that Werther, although taken from his experience, was not written while that experience was being lived. Indeed, the true philosophy of art would, à priori, lead us to the conviction that, although he cleared his 'bosom of the perilous stuff' by moulding this perilous stuff into a work of art, he must have essentially outlived the storm before he painted it, conquered his passion, and subdued the rebellious thoughts, before he could make them plastic to his purpose. poet cannot see to write when his eyes are full of tears; cannot sing when his breast is swollen with sighs, and sobs choke utterance. He must rise superior to his grief before he can sublimate his grief in song. master, not a slave; he wields his passion, he is not hur

The

C

k

be

The artist is a

al

m

ried along by it; he possesses, and is not possessed. Art enshrines the great sadness of the world, but is itself not sad. The storm of passion weeps itself away, and the heavy clouds roll off in quiet masses, to make room for the sun, which, shining through, touches them to beauty with its rays. While pain is in its newness it is pain, and nothing else; it is not Art, but Feeling. Goethe could not write Werther before he had outlived Wertherism. It may have been, as he says, a general confession,' and a confession which brought him certain relief; but we do not confess until we have repented, and we do not repent until we have outlived the error.

6

Werther was written rapidly. I completely isolated myself,' he says; nay, prohibited the visits of my friends, and put aside everything that did not immediately belong to the subject. Under such circumstances, and under so many preparations in secret, I wrote it in four weeks, without any scheme of the whole, or treatment of any part being previously put on paper.' It is of this seclusion Merck writes: Le grand succès que son drame a eu lui tourne un peu la tête. Il se détache de tous ses amis, et n'existe que dans les compositions qu'il prépare pour le public.'

In September 1774 he wrote to Lotte, sending her a copy of Werther: Lotte, how dear this little book is to me thou wilt feel in reading it, and this copy is as dear to me as if it were the only one in the world. Thou must have it, Lotte; I have kissed it a hundred times; have kept it locked up that no one might touch it. O, Lotte ! And I beg thee let no one except Meyers see it yet; it will be published at the Leipsic fair. I wish each to read it alone, thou alone, - Kestner alone,—and each to write me a little word about it. Lotte, adieu, Lotte!'

Let us now take a glance at this work, which startled Europe, and which for a long while was all that Europe knew of Goethe.*

† Scott in prefacing his translation of Götz, says: "It was written by the elegant author of the Sorrows of Werther."

Wertherism. 875 d. aph 197.

LaNaija #II 224, 535

CHAPTER V.

WERTHER.

Aujourdhui l'homme désire immensément, mais il veut faiblement. In these words Guizot has written an epigraph for Werther, a book composed out of a double history, the history of its author's experience, and the history of one of his friends.

The story of Jerusalem, whom we saw in the Wetzlar circle, furnished Goethe with the machinery by which to introduce his own experience. He took many of the details from Kestner's long letter, sent shortly after the catastrophe: the letter may therefore be here abridged, as an introduction to the novel. Jerusalem, melancholy by temperament, was unhappy during the whole of his Wetzlar residence. He had been denied admittance into the high diplomatic society to which his position gave him claims; he had been in unpleasant relations with his ambassador, whose secretary he was; and he had fallen in love with the wife of his friend. Thus oppressed, he shunned company, was fond of long moonlight walks, and once lost himself in the wood, wandering about the whole night. But he was solitary, even in his grief, told none of his friends the causes of his melancholy, and solaced himself with novels the wretched novels of that day. To these he added all the tragedies he could get hold of;

VOL. I.

19

English writers, especially the gloomy writers; and vari ous philosophical works. He wrote also essays, one on suicide, a subject which greatly occupied him. Mendelssohn's Phadon was his favorite work.* When the rumor reached Wetzlar of Goué's suicide, he said that Goué was not a fit man for such a deed, but defended the act as an act. A few days before his own unhappy end he was talking with Schleimitz about suicide, and said, 'It must be a bad look out, however, if the shot were not to take effect!' The rest of the narrative must be told in Kestner's own words, the simple circumstantial style best fitting such a history.

'Last Tuesday he comes with a discontented look to Kielmansegge, who was ill. The latter asks him how he is ? "Better than I like to be." He also that day talked a good deal about love, which he had never done before; and then about the Frankfurter Zeitung, which had for some time pleased him more than usual. In the afternoon (Tuesday) he goes to Secretary H.'s. Until eight o'clock in the evening they play tarock together. Annchen Brandt was also there; Jerusalem accompanied her home. As they walk, Jerusalem often strikes his forehead, gloomily and repeatedly says: "If one were but dead,if one were but in heaven!" Annchen joked him about it; he bargains for a place by her side in heaven, and at parting he says: "It is agreed, then, that I shall have a place by you in heaven."

'On Wednesday, as there were great doings at the Crown Prince, and everybody invited everybody, he went there to dinner, though he generally dined at home, and he brought Secretary H. with him. He did not behave

* Goethe it will be remembered, made in Strasburg an analysis of this work, contrasting it with Plato's.