generation of the day had already undermined itself, and its members
now burst forth individually with their exaggerated demands, unsatisfied
passions and imaginary sufferings.[6] And in estimating the influences
which had prepared the way for this mental disposition, Goethe
emphasizes the influence of English literature. Young's "Night
Thoughts," Gray's "Elegy," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," even "Hamlet"
and his monologues haunted all minds. "Everyone knew the principal
passages by heart, and everyone believed he had a right to be just as
melancholy as the Prince of Denmark, even though he had seen no ghost
and had no royal father to avenge." Finally Ossian had provided an
eminently suitable setting,--under the darkly lowering sky the endless
gray heath, peopled with the shadowy forms of departed heroes and
withered maidens. To quote the substance of Goethe's criticism:[7] Amid
such influences and surroundings, occupied with fads and studies of this
sort, lacking all incentive from without to any important activity and
confronted by the sole prospect of having to drag out a humdrum
existence, men began to reflect with a sort of sullen exultation upon
the possibility of departing this life at will, and to find in this
thought a scant amelioration of the ills and tedium of the times. This
disposition was so general that "Werther" itself exerted a powerful
influence, because it everywhere struck a responsive chord and publicly
and tangibly exhibited the true inwardness of a morbid youthful
illusion.[8]

Nor did the dawning nineteenth century bring relief. No other period of
Prussian history, says Heinrich von Treitschke,[9] is wrapped in so deep
a gloom as the first decade of the reign of Frederick William III. It
was a time rich in hidden intellectual forces, and yet it bore the stamp
of that uninspired Philistinism which is so abundantly evidenced by the
barren commonplace character of its architecture and art. Genius there