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The Sorrows of Young Werther · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

December 6.

How her image haunts me! Waking or asleep, she fills my entire

soul! Soon as I close my eyes, here, in my brain, where all the

nerves of vision are concentrated, her dark eyes are imprinted.

Here -- I do not know how to describe it; but, if I shut my eyes,

hers are immediately before me: dark as an abyss they open upon

me, and absorb my senses.

And what is man -- that boasted demigod? Do not his powers fail

when he most requires their use? And whether he soar in joy, or

sink in sorrow, is not his career in both inevitably arrested?

And, whilst he fondly dreams that he is grasping at infinity,

does he not feel compelled to return to a consciousness of his

cold, monotonous existence?