“Homer,” writes Werther, “has been superseded in my heart by the divine Ossian.  Through what a world does this angelic bard carry me!  With him I wander over barren wastes and frightful wilds; surrounded by whirlwinds and hurricanes, trace by the feeble light of the moon the shades of our noble ancestors; hear from the mountainous heights, intermingled with the roaring of waves and cataracts, their plaintive tones stealing from cavernous recesses; while the pensive monody of some love-stricken maiden, who heaves her departing sighs over the moss-clad grave of the warrior by whom she was adored, makes up the inarticulate concert.  I trace this bard, with his silver locks, as he wanders in the valley and explores the footsteps of his fathers.  Alas! no vestige remains but their tombs.  His thought then hangs on the silver moon, as her sinking beams play upon the rippling main; and the remembrance of deeds past and gone recurs to the hero’s mind—­deeds of times when he gloried in the approach of danger, and emulation nerved his whole frame; when the pale orb shone upon his bark, laden with the spoils of his enemy, and illuminated his triumphant return.  When I see depicted on his countenance a bosom full of woe; when I behold his heroic greatness sinking into the grave, and he exclaims, as he throws a glance at the cold sod which is to lie upon him:  ’Hither will the traveler who is sensible of my worth bend his weary steps, and seek the soul-enlivening bard, the illustrious son of Fingal; his foot will tread upon my tomb, but his eyes shall never behold me’; at this time it is, my dear friend, that, like some renowned and chivalrous knight, I could instantly draw my sword; rescue my prince from a long, irksome existence of languor and pain; and then finish by plunging the weapon into my own breast, that I might accompany the demi-god whom my hand had emancipated."[28]

In his last interview with Charlotte, Werther, who had already determined upon suicide, reads aloud to her, from “The Songs of Selma,” “that tender passage wherein Armin deplores the loss of his beloved daughter.  ’Alone on the sea-beat rocks, my daughter was heard to complain.  Frequent and loud were her cries.  What could her father do?  All night I stood on the shore.  I saw her by the faint beam of the moon,’” etc.  The reading is interrupted by a mutual flood of tears.  “They traced the similitude of their own misfortune in this unhappy tale. . .  The pointed allusion of those words to the situation of Werther rushed with all the electric rapidity of lightning to the inmost recesses of his soul.”