Part 1

This etext was prepared by Michael Pullen, globaltraveler5565@yahoo.com with proofreading and correction by Dr. Mary Cicora, mcicora@yahoo.com.

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hamburg Edition, Volume 6

First Book

May 4, 1771

How glad I am to be gone! Dearest friend, what is the heart of man! To leave you, whom I love so dearly, from whom I was inseparable, and to be glad of it! I know you forgive me. Were not my other attachments chosen by fate precisely to torment a heart like mine? Poor Leonore! And yet I was innocent. Could I help it that, while the wilful charms of her sister afforded me pleasant entertainment, a passion formed itself in the poor heart? And yet—am I wholly innocent? Did I not nourish her feelings? Did I not take delight myself in the perfectly true expressions of nature, which so often made us laugh, ludicrous though they were? Did I not—oh, what is man, that he may complain of himself! I will, dear friend, I promise you, I will improve, will no longer chew over again the least evil that fate sets before us, as I have always done; I will enjoy the present, and the past shall be past to me. Surely you are right, dearest, there would be less sorrow among men, if they did not—God knows why they are made so!—occupy themselves with such eagerness of imagination in calling back the memory of past ills, rather than endure an indifferent present.

Be so good as to tell my mother that I am conducting her business in the best manner, and shall give her news of it soon. I have spoken with my aunt, and by no means found the wicked woman in her that they make of her at home. She is a lively, impetuous woman with the best of hearts. I laid before her my mother's complaints about the withheld share of the inheritance; she told me her reasons, causes, and the conditions under which she would be ready to give up everything, and more than we asked—in short, I do not wish to write of it now; tell my mother all will go well. And in this little business, my dear, I have again found that misunderstandings and indolence perhaps cause more errors in the world than cunning and malice. At least the two latter are certainly rarer.

Besides, I am getting on very well here. Solitude is a precious balm to my heart in this paradisiacal region, and this season of youth warms with full abundance my often shuddering heart. Every tree, every hedge is a bouquet of blossoms, and one might wish to become a May-bug, to float about in the sea of fragrances and be able to find all one's nourishment therein.

The town itself is unpleasant, but all around it there is an inexpressible beauty of nature. This moved the late Count of M. to lay out a garden on one of the hills, which cross one another with the fairest variety and form the loveliest valleys. The garden is simple, and one feels at once upon entering that not a scientific gardener, but a feeling heart drew the plan, that wished to enjoy itself here. Many a tear have I wept to the departed in the ruined little arbor, which was his favorite spot and is mine also. Soon I shall be master of the garden; the gardener is attached to me, only these few days, and he will not fare ill by it.

May 10

A wondrous serenity has taken possession of my whole soul, like the sweet spring mornings which I enjoy with all my heart. I am alone and rejoice in my life in this region, which is created for such souls as mine. I am so happy, my dearest, so wholly sunk in the feeling of calm existence, that my art suffers thereby. I could not draw now, not a stroke, and was never a greater painter than in these moments. When the beloved valley steams about me, and the high sun rests on the surface of the impenetrable darkness of my forest, and only single rays steal into the inner sanctuary, when I then lie in the tall grass by the falling brook, and nearer to the earth a thousand manifold little grasses become remarkable to me; when I feel the teeming of the little world among the blades, the innumerable, unfathomable shapes of the worms, the gnats closer to my heart, and feel the presence of the Almighty, who created us in His image, the breath of the All-Loving, who bears and sustains us in eternal bliss floating; my friend! When then it grows dim before my eyes, and the world around me and heaven rest wholly in my soul like the form of a beloved—then I often long and think: ah, could you express this again, could you breathe into the paper what lives so full, so warm within you, that it might become the mirror of your soul, as your soul is the mirror of the infinite God!—my friend—but I perish thereby, I sink under the power of the glory of these apparitions.

I know not whether deceiving spirits hover about this region, or whether it is the warm, heavenly fancy in my heart that makes all around me so paradisiacal. There is, just before the town, a well, a well to which I am bound as Melusine with her sisters.—You go down a little hill and find yourself before an arch, where some twenty steps descend, where at the bottom the clearest water springs from marble rock. The little wall that makes the enclosure above, the tall trees that cover the place all around, the coolness of the spot; all this has something so attractive, so eerie. Not a day passes that I do not sit there an hour. There the girls from the town come and fetch water, the most harmless occupation and the most needful, which formerly the daughters of kings themselves performed. When I sit there, the patriarchal idea lives so vividly about me, how they, all the forefathers, made acquaintance at the well and wooed, and how beneficent spirits hover about the wells and springs. Oh, he must never, after a heavy summer-day's walk, have refreshed himself at the coolness of the well, who cannot feel this with me.

May 13

You ask whether you shall send me my books?—dear, I beg you for God's sake, spare me them! I will no longer be guided, encouraged, inflamed; this heart storms enough out of itself; I need a lullaby, and that I have found in full measure in my Homer. How often I lull my rebellious blood to rest, for so unequal, so restless you have seen nothing like this heart. Dear! Need I tell you that, who have so often borne the burden of seeing me pass from sorrow to excess and from sweet melancholy to destructive passion? Also I treat my little heart like a sick child; every wish is granted it. Do not tell that further; there are people who would take it ill of me.

May 15

The humble people of the place already know me and love me, especially the children. A sad observation I have made. When at first I joined them, asking them friendly about this and that, some believed I meant to mock them, and dismissed me even roughly. I let that not vex me; only I felt, most vividly, what I have often observed: people of some standing will always keep themselves in cold distance from the common folk, as if they believed they would lose by approaching; and then there are runaways and ill jesters, who seem to condescend, to make their arrogance the more keenly felt by the poor people.

I know well that we are not equal, nor can be; but I hold that he who thinks he must keep away from the so-called rabble to maintain respect, is as blameworthy as a coward who hides from his enemy because he fears to be overcome.

Lately I came to the well and found a young servant-girl who had set her vessel on the lowest step and looked about to see if no companion would come to help her lift it onto her head. I stepped down and looked at her.—"Shall I help you, miss?" said I.—she turned red all over.—"Oh no, sir!" said she.—"No ceremony."—she set her collar straight, and I helped her. She thanked me and went up.

May 17

I have made various acquaintances, but found no society yet. I know not what attractive quality I must have for people; so many of them like me and attach themselves to me, and then it pains me when our way goes together only a short stretch. If you ask how the people are here, I must tell you: as everywhere! It is a monotonous thing with mankind. Most spend the greater part of their time in order to live, and the little that remains to them of freedom so alarms them, that they seek all means to get rid of it. Oh, destiny of man!

But a right good sort of people! When I sometimes forget myself, sometimes enjoy with them the pleasures still granted to man, to make merry at a neatly set table with all openness and ingenuousness, to arrange a drive, a dance at the right time, and the like, that has a quite good effect on me; only I must not take it into my head that so many other powers rest within me, which all moulder unused and which I must carefully conceal. Ah, that constricts the whole heart so.—And yet! To be misunderstood is the fate of such as we.

Ah, that the friend of my youth is gone, ah, that I ever knew her!—I would say: you are a fool! You seek what is not to be found here below! But I had her, I felt the heart, the great soul, in whose presence I seemed to myself more than I was, because I was all that I could be. Good God! Did there remain a single power of my soul unused? Could I not, before her, unfold the whole wondrous feeling with which my heart embraces nature? Was not our intercourse an eternal weaving of the finest sensibility, the sharpest wit, whose modifications, even to rudeness, were all stamped with the seal of genius? And now.—ah, her years, which she had before me, led her earlier to the grave than me. Never shall I forget her, never her firm mind and her divine patience.

A few days ago I met a young V., an open fellow, with a very happy cast of features. He has just come from the academies, thinks himself not precisely wise, but believes yet that he knows more than others. Also he was diligent, as I notice from various signs; in short, he has pretty knowledge. When he heard that I drew much and knew Greek (two meteors in these parts), he turned to me and aired much learning, from Batteux to Wood, from de Piles to Winckelmann, and assured me he had read Sulzer's Theory, the first part, quite through and possessed a manuscript of Heyne on the study of antiquity. I let that pass.

I have also made acquaintance with a worthy man, the princely bailiff, an open, ingenuous man. They say it is a joy to the soul to see him among his children, of whom he has nine; especially they make much ado about his eldest daughter. He has invited me to him, and I will visit him one of these days. He lives at a princely hunting-lodge, an hour and a half from here, to which he received permission to move after the death of his wife, since the stay here in the town and in the bailiff's house pained him too much.

Otherwise some distorted originals have crossed my path, in whom all is intolerable, most intolerable the show of friendship.

Farewell! The letter will please you, it is quite historical.

May 22

That the life of man is but a dream has occurred to many, and this feeling too always wanders with me. When I look at the limitation in which the active and searching powers of man are confined; when I see how all efficacy runs to gaining the satisfaction of needs, which again have no purpose but to prolong our poor existence, and then, that all reassurance about certain points of inquiry is but a dreaming resignation, since one paints the walls, between which one sits imprisoned, with colorful shapes and bright prospects—all this, Wilhelm, makes me silent. I return into myself, and find a world! Rather in presentiment and dark desire than in representation and living force. And then all swims before my senses, and I smile then so dreamingly onward into the world.

That children do not know why they will, in that all the deeply learned school- and court-masters agree; but that also grown-ups, like children, stagger about on this earth and, like them, know not whence they come and whither they go, act equally little according to true ends, are ruled equally by biscuit and cake and birch-rods: that no one likes to believe, and methinks one can grasp it with one's hands.

I confess to you gladly, for I know what you might say to me hereupon, that those are the happiest who, like children, live from day to day, drag their dolls about, put them on and off and creep with great respect about the drawer where mama has locked up the sugar-bread, and, when they finally seize the desired, devour it with full cheeks and cry: "more!"—those are happy creatures. Also those are well off, who give their rag-occupations or indeed their passions splendid titles and set them down to the human race as giant operations for its salvation and welfare.—Blessed is he who can be so! But he who in his humility recognizes where all this tends, who sees how neatly every citizen, well off, knows to trim his little garden into a paradise, and how undauntedly also the unfortunate plods on under his burden, and all are equally interested to see the light of this sun one minute longer—yes, he is still and forms also his world out of himself and is also happy, because he is a man. And then, however limited he is, he yet always holds in his heart the sweet feeling of freedom, and that he can leave this prison whenever he will.

May 26

You know from of old my way of building myself up, of pitching myself a hut somewhere on a familiar spot and lodging there with all retirement. Here too I have again come upon a place that attracted me.

About an hour from the town lies a place they call Wahlheim. The situation on a hill is very interesting, and when one goes out on the footpath to the village at the top, one overlooks the whole valley at once. A good hostess, complaisant and lively in her age, serves wine, beer, coffee; and what surpasses all else are two lindens, which with their outspread [branches cover the little square before the church, enclosed all around with peasant houses, barns and farmyards. So familiar, so secret a spot I have rarely found, and thither I have my little table brought from the inn and my chair, drink my coffee there and read my Homer. The first time, as by chance I came under the lindens on a fine afternoon, I found the spot so lonely. All was in the fields; only a boy of about four years sat on the ground and held another, about half a year old, sitting between his feet before him, with both arms against his breast, so that he served it for a kind of chair and, notwithstanding the liveliness with which he looked about with his black eyes, sat quite still. The sight delighted me: I sat down on a plough that stood opposite, and drew the brotherly posture with much delight. I added the nearest fence, a barn-door and some broken cart-wheels, all just as they stood behind one another, and found after an hour that I had made a well-ordered, very interesting drawing, without adding the least of my own. That confirmed me in my resolve, henceforth to keep solely to nature. She alone is infinitely rich, and she alone forms the great artist. Much may be said for the advantage of rules, about as much as one can say in praise of civil society. A man who forms himself by them will never produce anything insipid and bad, just as one who lets himself be modelled by laws and decorum can never become an intolerable neighbor, never a remarkable villain; but on the other hand all rule, say what one will, destroys the true feeling of nature and the true expression of it! Tell me: 'that is too harsh! It only restricts, prunes the rank vines' etc.—good friend, shall I give you a comparison? It is with this as with love. A young heart hangs wholly on a girl, spends every hour of his day with her, wastes all his strength, all his means, to express to her every moment that he gives himself wholly to her. And then came a philistine, a man in public office, and said to him: 'fine young sir! To love is human, only you must love humanly! Divide your hours, the one to work, and dedicate the hours of recreation to your girl. Calculate your means, and what remains to you of your necessities, of that I do not forbid you to make her a gift, only not too often, say on her birthday and name-day' etc.—if the man follows, there is a useful young man, and I would myself advise every prince to put him on a board; only with his love it is at an end, and, if he is an artist, with his art. Oh my friends! Why does the stream of genius so seldom break forth, so seldom rush in high floods and shake your astonished soul?—dear friends, there dwell the composed gentlemen on both banks, whose garden-houses, tulip-beds and cabbage-fields would go to ruin, who therefore know in time, with dikes and diversions, to ward off the threatening danger.

May 27

I have, as I see, fallen into rapture, into similes and declamation, and forgotten thereby to tell you what further became of the children. I sat, wholly sunk in painterly feeling, which my yesterday's sheet very fragmentarily sets forth, on my plough well two hours. Then towards evening a young woman comes upon the children, who in the meantime had not stirred, with a basket on her arm, and calls from afar: "Philips, you are quite good."—She greeted me, I thanked her, stood up, stepped nearer and asked her if she were mother of the children? She answered yes, and while she gave the eldest half a roll, she took up the little one and kissed it with all motherly love.—"I," said she, "gave my Philips the little one to hold and went into the town with my eldest, to fetch white bread and sugar and an earthen porridge-pan."—I saw all that in the basket, whose lid had fallen off.—"I will cook a little soup for my Hans (that was the name of the youngest) for the evening; the loose bird, the big one, broke the pan yesterday, when he quarrelled with Philips about the scrape of the mush."—I asked after the eldest, and scarcely had she told me that he was chasing about the meadow with a few geese, than he came running and brought the second a hazel-switch. I conversed further with the woman and learned that she was the schoolmaster's daughter, and that her husband had made a journey into Switzerland, to fetch the inheritance of a cousin.—"They meant to cheat him of it," said she, "and answered not his letters; so he went himself. If only no misfortune has befallen him, I hear nothing of him."—It was hard for me to part from the woman, gave each of the children a kreuzer, and also gave her one for the youngest, to bring him a roll for the soup, when she went into the town, and so we parted.

I tell you, my treasure, when my senses will hold no longer, the sight of such a creature, who goes her narrow circle of existence in happy composure, helps herself from day to day, sees the leaves fall and thinks nothing thereby but that winter comes, soothes all the tumult.

Since then I am often out there. The children are quite used to me, they get sugar when I drink coffee, and share the bread-and-butter and sour milk with me in the evening. On Sundays the kreuzer is never lacking, and if I am not there after the prayer-hour, the hostess has order to pay it out.

They are familiar, tell me all sorts of things, and particularly I delight in their passions and simple outbursts of desire, when more children from the village gather.

It cost me much trouble to take from the mother her anxiety that they might incommode the gentleman.

May 30

What I told you lately of painting holds certainly also of poetry; it is only that one recognize the excellent and dare to speak it out, and that is, to be sure, much said in few words. I had today a scene which, purely copied, would give the finest idyll in the world; yet what is poetry, scene and idyll? Must it always be carved and polished, if we are to take part in a natural phenomenon?

If you expect much lofty and noble from this beginning, you are again ill deceived; it is nothing but a peasant lad, who has carried me away into this lively sympathy. I shall, as usual, tell it badly, and you will, as usual, I think, find me exaggerated; it is again Wahlheim, and always Wahlheim, that produces these rarities.

There was a company outside under the lindens, to drink coffee. Because it did not quite suit me, I stayed behind under a pretext.

A peasant lad came out of a neighboring house and busied himself setting something right on the plough which I had drawn lately. Since his manner pleased me, I spoke to him, asked after his circumstances, we were soon acquainted and, as usually happens to me with this sort of people, soon familiar. He told me that he was in service with a widow and was kept very well by her. He spoke so much of her and praised her in such wise, that I soon could perceive he was attached to her with body and soul. She was no longer young, he said, she had been ill-treated by her first husband, would not marry again, and from his tale it shone forth so noticeably how beautiful, how charming she was to him, how much he wished that she might choose him, to blot out the memory of the faults of her first husband, that I must repeat word for word, to make visible to you the pure inclination, the love and fidelity of this man. Yes, I should need the gift of the greatest poet, to be able to present to you at once the expression of his gestures, the harmony of his voice, the secret fire of his glances. No, no words express the tenderness that was in his whole being and expression; all I could bring forward again is but clumsy. Particularly it moved me, how he feared I might think unevenly of his relation to her and doubt her good conduct. How charming it was, when he spoke of her figure, of her body, which without youthful charms drew and bound him forcibly to itself, I can only repeat in my inmost soul. I have in my life not seen this urgent desire and the hot, longing yearning in this purity, nay, I can say, not thought and dreamt it in this purity. Do not scold me, when I tell you that at the memory of this innocence and truth my inmost soul glows, and that the image of this fidelity and tenderness pursues me everywhere, and that I, as if myself inflamed thereby, thirst and languish.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”