Werther ran to the gate of the town.  The guards, who knew him, let him pass in silence.  The night was dark and stormy, —­ it rained and snowed.  He reached his own door about eleven.  His servant, although seeing him enter the house without his hat, did not venture to say anything; and; as he undressed his master, he found that his clothes were wet.  His hat was afterward found on the point of a rock overhanging the valley; and it is inconceivable how he could have climbed to the summit on such a dark, tempestuous night without losing his life.

He retired to bed, and slept to a late hour.  The next morning his servant, upon being called to bring his coffee, found him writing.  He was adding, to Charlotte, what we here annex.

“For the last, last time I open these eyes.  Alas! they will behold the sun no more.  It is covered by a thick, impenetrable cloud.  Yes, Nature! put on mourning:  your child, your friend, your lover, draws near his end!  This thought, Charlotte, is without parallel; and yet it seems like a mysterious dream when I repeat —­ this is my last day!  The last!  Charlotte, no word can adequately express this thought.  The last!  To-day I stand erect in all my strength to-morrow, cold and stark, I shall lie extended upon the ground.  To die! what is death?  We do but dream in our discourse upon it.  I have seen many human beings die; but, so straitened is our feeble nature, we have no clear conception of the beginning or the end of our existence.  At this moment I am my own —­ or rather I am thine, thine, my adored! and the next we are parted, severed —­ perhaps for ever!  No, Charlotte, no!  How can I, how can you, be annihilated?  We exist.  What is annihilation?  A mere word, an unmeaning sound that fixes no impression on the mind.  Dead, Charlotte! laid in the cold earth, in the dark and narrow grave!  I had a friend once who was everything to me in early youth.  She died.  I followed her hearse; I stood by her grave when the coffin was lowered; and when I heard the creaking of the cords as they were loosened and drawn up, when the first shovelful of earth was thrown in, and the coffin returned a hollow sound, which grew fainter and fainter till all was completely covered over, I threw myself on the ground; my heart was smitten, grieved, shattered, rent —­ but I neither knew what had happened, nor what was to happen to me.  Death! the grave!  I understand not the words.  —­ Forgive, oh, forgive me!  Yesterday —­ ah, that day should have been the last of my life!  Thou angel! for the first time in my existence, I felt rapture glow within my inmost soul.  She loves, she loves me!  Still burns upon my lips the sacred fire they received from thine.  New torrents of delight overwhelm my soul.  Forgive me, oh, forgive!

“I knew that I was dear to you; I saw it in your first entrancing look, knew it by the first pressure of your hand; but when I was absent from you, when I saw Albert at your side, my doubts and fears returned.