Note 66 — WRITTEN IN THE BLANK PAGE OF THE SORROWS OF WERTER.[66]

It is said, the characters of Werter, Charlotte, and Albert, the disastrous passion of the former, and the terrible event it produced, were real, together with nearly all the sentiments in Werter’s letters; heightened, no doubt, in the powers of eloquence, bypassing through the pen of the celebrated German novelist. There has been much ridiculous cant about the fancied immorality of these interesting volumes. The long miseries and tragic death of Werter, breathe an awful warning against imitating his error, and evince the fatal power of indulging an hopeless passion, even for a most amiable object, to blast the destiny, and to render fruitless all the virtues of a naturally generous and good young man. Absurd censurers are angry that he is not made despicable, because he was criminally indiscreet. They are incensed that his woes excite compassion. With equal justice, Othello might be deemed an immoral play, because we cannot with-hold our esteem and pity from the man, who, giving way to suspicious appearances, murders his innocent wife. Werter, by giving way to his affection for an engaged woman, though without the least design to seduce her, renders his own existence insupportable. There is no temptation to copy the conduct of either character; therefore neither the play, nor the novel, can justly be taxed with having an immoral tendency. The light of moral warning breaks out stronger, from beneath the shades in such characters, than from the unmingled brightness of those, who are represented faultless, or at least exempt from any very marked error.