hough it is so
extensively spread. _Werther_ made an epoch because it appeared--not
because it appeared at a certain time. There is in every period so much
unexpressed sorrow--so much secret discontent and disgust for life, and,
in single individuals, there are so many disagreements with the
world--so many conflicts between their natures and civil regulations,
that _Werther_ would make an epoch even if it appeared today for the
first time."

"You are quite right," said Goethe; "it is on that account that the book
to this day influences youth of a certain age, as it did formerly. It
was scarcely necessary for me to deduce my own youthful dejection from
the general influence of my time, and from the reading of a few English
authors. Rather was it owing to individual and immediate circumstances
which touched me to the quick, and gave me a great deal of trouble, and
indeed brought me into that frame of mind which produced _Werther_. I
had lived, loved, and suffered much--that was it."

"On considering more closely the much-talked-of _Werther_ period, we
discover that it does not belong to the course of universal culture, but
to the career of life in every individual, who, with an innate free
natural instinct, must accommodate himself to the narrow limits of an
antiquated world. Obstructed fortune, restrained activity, unfulfilled
wishes, are not the calamities of any particular time, but those of
every individual man; and it would be bad, indeed, if every one had not,
once in his life, known a time when Werther seemed as if it had been
written for him alone."

_Sunday, January_ 4.--Today, after dinner, Goethe went through a
portfolio, containing some works of Raphael, with me. He often busies
himself with Raphael, in order to keep up a constant intercourse with
that which is best, and to accustom himself to muse upon the thoughts of
a great man. At the same time, it gives him pleasure to introduce me to
such things.

We afterwards spoke about the _Divan_[10]--especially about the "book of
ill-humor," in which much is poured forth that he carried in his heart
against his enemies.

"If I have, however," continued he, "been very moderate: if I had
uttered all that vexed me or gave me trouble, the few pages would soon
have swelled to a volume.

"People were never thoroughly contented with me, but always wished me
otherwise than it has pleased God to make me. They were also seldom
contented with my productions. When I ha