Read "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I must write to you from this place, my dear Charlotte, from a small room in a country inn, where I have taken shelter from a severe storm. During my whole residence in that wretched place D -- , where I lived amongst strangers, -- strangers, indeed, to this heart, -- I never at any time felt the smallest inclination to correspond with you; but in this cottage, in this retirement, in this solitude, with the snow and hail beating against my lattice-pane, you are my first thought. The instant I entered, your figure rose up before me, and the remembrance! O my Charlotte, the sacred, tender remembrance! Gracious Heaven! restore to me the happy moment of our first acquaintance.
Could you but see me, my dear Charlotte, in the whirl of dissipation, -- how my senses are dried up, but my heart is at no time full. I enjoy no single moment of happiness: all is vain -- nothing touches me. I stand, as it were, before the raree-show: I see the little puppets move, and I ask whether it is not an optical illusion. I am amused with these puppets, or, rather, I am myself one of them: but, when I sometimes grasp my neighbour's hand, I feel that it is not natural; and I withdraw mine with a shudder. In the evening I say I will enjoy the next morning's sunrise, and yet I remain in bed: in the day I promise to ramble by moonlight; and I, nevertheless, remain at home. I know not why I rise, nor why I go to sleep.