ities" of the French drama, like the plays of
Shakespeare, whom all the young Germans were reading with enthusiasm;
and the action passes from place to place, and from year to year, just
as the author chooses. The whole tendency of the drama is
revolutionary, and as _Goetz_ dies, his last words are: "Freedom!
Freedom!" His wife cries, "Only above, above with thee! The world is a
prison-house." His sister says, "Gallant and gentle! Woe to this age
that has lost thee!" And the last words of the play are: "And woe to
the future that cannot know thee."

With such an appeal to all the fresh young life of Germany, the young
author comes before the world. His play is received with enthusiasm
and, at the first step, his genius is recognized by his countrymen.

Before it was published, he had returned to Frankfort, having in a way
satisfied his father's wishes by his legal studies, and his career for
his future calling is to begin in a residence at Weslar. This was the
seat of the Court of Appeal of the old German Empire. How far justice
was really promoted, may be seen from the single statement that, while
the docket of cases was twenty thousand behindhand in 1772, only sixty
decisions were made in a year. In what was called praxis or practice,
the young Goethe was placed in a "circumlocution office" like Weslar.
There is something ludicrous in the position, so absurd is it. To take
Schiller's capital figure, it is indeed Pegasus in harness.

It happened that in this formal residence, he became intimately
acquainted with Charlotte Buff and a young man named Kestner, to whom
she was betrothed. They were fond of him, he of them, and he shared in
the hospitalities of their new home after they were married. In the
simple life of Kestner and Charlotte Buff and in the suicide of a
young man named Jerusalem, whom they all knew, he found the details
for the picture of life described in his celebrated novel called the
"Sorrows of Young Werther," the novel most remarkable perhaps of
modern times, if its influence on literature and society be regarded.

In the characters of the book, Werther, Lotte, and Albert show traits
which were at once recognized as belonging to Goethe, Charlotte Buff,
and Kestner. But it must not be understood that the intricate
"elective affinities" of the novel really describe the personal
relations of the three. To young readers it may be said that the
transfer of the scientific term "elective affinity," from