The Sorrows of Young Werther (40) by J.W. von Goethe

The Sorrows of Young Werther (40) by J.W. von Goethe

MARCH 24.

I have tendered my resignation to the court. I hope it will be accepted,
and you will forgive me for not having previously consulted you. It
is necessary I should leave this place. I know all you will urge me to
stay, and therefore I beg you will soften this news to my mother. I am
unable to do anything for myself: how, then, should I be competent to
assist others? It will afflict her that I should have interrupted that
career which would have made me first a privy councillor, and then
minister, and that I should look behind me, in place of advancing. Argue
as you will, combine all the reasons which should have induced me
to remain, I am going: that is sufficient. But, that you may not be
ignorant of my destination, I may mention that the Prince of–is here.
He is much pleased with my company; and, having heard of my intention
to resign, he has invited me to his country house, to pass the spring
months with him. I shall be left completely my own master; and, as we
agree on all subjects but one, I shall try my fortune, and accompany
him.

APRIL 19.

Thanks for both your letters. I delayed my reply, and withheld this
letter, till I should obtain an answer from the court. I feared my
mother might apply to the minister to defeat my purpose. But my request
is granted, my resignation is accepted. I shall not recount with what
reluctance it was accorded, nor relate what the minister has written:
you would only renew your lamentations. The crown prince has sent me
a present of five and twenty ducats; and, indeed, such goodness has
affected me to tears. For this reason I shall not require from my mother
the money for which I lately applied.

MAY 5.

I leave this place to-morrow; and, as my native place is only six miles
from the high road, I intend to visit it once more, and recall the happy
dreams of my childhood. I shall enter at the same gate through which
I came with my mother, when, after my father’s death, she left that
delightful retreat to immure herself in your melancholy town. Adieu, my
dear friend: you shall hear of my future career.

MAY 9.

I have paid my visit to my native place with all the devotion of a
pilgrim, and have experienced many unexpected emotions. Near the great
elm tree, which is a quarter of a league from the village, I got out of
the carriage, and sent it on before, that alone, and on foot, I might
enjoy vividly and heartily all the pleasure of my recollections. I stood
there under that same elm which was formerly the term and object of my
walks. How things have since changed! Then, in happy ignorance, I sighed
for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and
enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that
wide world, O my friend, how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful
plans have I brought back!

As I contemplated the mountains which lay stretched out before me, I
thought how often they had been the object of my dearest desires. Here
used I to sit for hours together with my eyes bent upon them, ardently
longing to wander in the shade of those woods, to lose myself in those
valleys, which form so delightful an object in the distance. With what
reluctance did I leave this charming spot; when my hour of recreation
was over, and my leave of absence expired! I drew near to the village:
all the well-known old summerhouses and gardens were recognised again; I
disliked the new ones, and all other alterations which had taken place.
I entered the village, and all my former feelings returned. I cannot,
my dear friend, enter into details, charming as were my sensations:
they would be dull in the narration. I had intended to lodge in the
market-place, near our old house. As soon as I entered, I perceived that
the schoolroom, where our childhood had been taught by that good old
woman, was converted into a shop. I called to mind the sorrow, the
heaviness, the tears, and oppression of heart, which I experienced in
that confinement. Every step produced some particular impression. A
pilgrim in the Holy Land does not meet so many spots pregnant with
tender recollections, and his soul is hardly moved with greater
devotion. One incident will serve for illustration. I followed the
course of a stream to a farm, formerly a delightful walk of mine, and
paused at the spot, where, when boys, we used to amuse ourselves making
ducks and drakes upon the water. I recollected so well how I used
formerly to watch the course of that same stream, following it with
inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it was to
pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the
water continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became
bewildered by the contemplation of an invisible distance. Exactly such,
my dear friend, so happy and so confined, were the thoughts of our good
ancestors. Their feelings and their poetry were fresh as childhood.
And, when Ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth,
his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt, and mysterious. Of what
importance is it that I have learned, with every schoolboy, that the
world is round? Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less
for his final repose.

I am at present with the prince at his hunting lodge. He is a man with
whom one can live happily. He is honest and unaffected. There are,
however, some strange characters about him, whom I cannot at all
understand. They do not seem vicious, and yet they do not carry the
appearance of thoroughly honest men. Sometimes I am disposed to believe
them honest, and yet I cannot persuade myself to confide in them. It
grieves me to hear the prince occasionally talk of things which he has
only read or heard of, and always with the same view in which they have
been represented by others.

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I
am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our
strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one
else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther) by J.W. von Goethe. Translated by R.D. Boylan.
To be continued

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