Tuesday, August 13, 2002

I'm transferring notes from a piece of paper, one step from being refuse, to the electronic media! Having just jumped from the michaeldouglas.blogspot I will proceed with the Goethe/Lange Werther quotes: Stir within me sensations of love, joy, rapture and delight, which I already possess, though otherwise dormant. I must already possess them for you to be able to make me feel them, because you cannot make happy he who stands before you cold and indifferent. -- that's quite a paraphrase. Werther was leaving the company of a prince to return to his principle obsession/love interest, the married Charlotte (She gives me access to all I possess.).

Here are some of his problems with the prince:

And now, here he is, talking only of things which he has either read or heard of, and always from the point of view from which they have been represented by others, it's The Prince!

I lose patience when, glowing with imagination, I express my feelings about art and nature and he, thinking to be especially understanding, spoils everything with his cliches!

Finally, "I have heard of a noble race of horses that instinctively bite open a vein when they are hot and exhausted by a long run, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein to gain everlasting liberty for myself."

(Paraphrases and quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), translated by Victor Lange (1949).