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"What is it you're reading there, my dear? phoo, I've cut myself with this razor; the man's a cheat that sold it me, but I have not paid him for it yet: what is it you're reading there? did you hear me asking you, my dear?" "The Sorrows of Werter," replies my lady, as well as I could hear. "I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy," says my master, joking like.
For /Werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed in every part of the world, till better light dawned on them, or at worst, exhausted Nature laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labour.
You sit by the fireside and read your leisurely "Times," and you feel a tranquil enjoyment. You like it better than the "Sorrows of Werter," but you do not like it a twentieth part as much as you once liked the "Sorrows of Werter." You would be interested in meeting the man who wrote that brilliant and slashing leader; but you would not regard him with speechless awe, as something more than human.
As for Alice's incredulous attitude towards the revelation of his identity, he did not mentally accuse her of treating him as either a liar or a madman. On reflection he persuaded himself that she regarded the story as a bad joke, as one of his impulsive, capricious essays in the absurd. Thus the march of evolution was apparently arrested in Werter Road during three whole days.
A little later on, the man who had called himself Rivers, but whose real name, according to his papers, was Werter, was shot. "That Nancarrow is a useful man," said Colonel Sapsworth to the General, not long after, when they were discussing the situation. "He certainly seems to have behaved very well," was the General's response. "I have had my eye upon him for weeks," said the Colonel.
Three years afterward, Durer entered the office of the Emperor's secretary. Later, he became, himself, private secretary. Later still, he received a barony and a handsome estate. So much for the prophecies, so much for the secret influence of the Counsellor Werter! Durer was on the highway paved with gold; but he forgot his father, and he forgot his mother, too.
Rousseau, it has been said, never really loved any woman but his own Julie; I have lately been tempted to think that Olivia never really loved any man but St. Preux. Werter, perhaps, and some other German heroes, might dispute her heart even with St. But how can a plain Englishman hope to reach "The high sublime of deep absurd?"
Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in London. Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were as common in it as lamp-posts.
'But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little certainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of /Berlichingen/ and /Werter/, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals of a great change in modern literature.
To the same dark wayward mood, which, in /Werter/, pours itself forth in bitter wailings over human life; and, in /Berlichingen/, appears as a fond and sad looking back into the Past, belong various other productions of Goethe's; for example, the /Mitschuldigen/, and the first idea of Faust, which, however, was not realized in actual composition till a calmer period of his history.
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