, and, during the
months that followed, her image and that of Lotte Buff alternately
distracted his susceptibilities. Byron declared that he was capable of
only one passion at a time, but Goethe was always capable of at least
two. The other characteristic equally distinguishes Goethe from
Werther. "I turn in upon myself," Werther writes, "and find a
world--but a world of presentiments and of dim desires, not a world of
definite outlines and of living force." Of a "living force" in himself
Goethe was never wholly unconscious; the record of his creative
efforts during the months that followed his leaving Wetzlar are
sufficient evidence of the fact. The intellectual side of his
nature--the impulse to know or to create--kept in check the emotional,
and proved his safeguard in more crises than the Wertherian period
during which, by his own testimony, he so narrowly escaped shipwreck.

The imprint of Goethe's character and genius which _Werther_ made on
the mind of his contemporaries was never effaced during his lifetime,
and was even a source of embarrassment to him in his future
development. For years after its appearance he found it necessary to
travel _incognito_ to avoid being pointed at as "the author of
_Werther_"; and in the case of each of his subsequent productions the
reading public had a feeling of disappointment that they were not
receiving what they expected from the writer who had once so
profoundly moved them. In truth, probably no book ever given to the
world has made such an instantaneous, profound, and general sensation
as _Werther_. The effect of _Goetz von Berlichingen_ had as yet been
confined to Germany; on the publication of _Werther_ its author became
a European figure in the world of letters. In Germany _Werther_ was
hawked about as a chap-book; within three years three translations
appeared in France, and five years after its publication it was
translated into English. The dress worn by Werther (borrowed from
England), consisting of a blue coat, yellow vest, yellow hose, and
top-boots, became the fashion of the day and was sported even in
Paris.

Opinion in Germany had been divided on _Goetz von Berlichingen_, but
the conflicting judgments on that work had turned only on questions of
dramatic propriety. The questions raised by _Werther_, on the other
hand, appeared to many to concern the very foundations of morality and
of human responsibility. Suicide, it was indignantly clamoured, was
sophistic