I asked the question, whether the great effect produced by the appearance of Werther was really to be attributed to the period.  “I cannot,” said I, “reconcile to myself this view, though 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 had long exerted my whole soul to favor the world with a new work, it still desired that I should thank it into the bargain for considering the work endurable.  If any one praised me, I was not allowed, in self-congratulation, to receive it as a well-merited tribute; but people expected from me some modest expression, humbly setting forth the total unworthiness of my person and my work.  However, my nature opposed this; and I should have been a miserable hypocrite, if I had so tried to lie and dissemble.  Since I was strong enough to show myself in my whole truth, just as I felt, I was deemed proud, and am considered so to the present day.