"I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They
produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that
sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into
the lowest dejection. In the 'Sorrows of Werter,' besides the
interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are
canvassed, and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been
to me obscure subjects, that I found in it a never-ending source
of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners
it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which
had for their object something out of self, accorded well with
my experience among my protectors, and with the wants which were
for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a
more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his
character contained no pretension, but it sunk deep. The
disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me
with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the
case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose
extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it.
"As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own
feelings and condition. I found myself similar, yet at the same
time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read, and
to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathised with, and
partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind; I was
dependent on none, and related to none. 'The path of my
departure was free;' and there was none to lament my
annihilation. My person was hideous, and my stature gigantic?
What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?
What was my destination? These questions continually recurred,
but I was unable to solve them.