a child, driven by his emotions rather than his intellect. He berates himself for his addiction to lamentation. He states again, "I promise I shall improve, and will not keep on chewing over some morsel of misfortune doled out by fate, as I always have done (25)." Werther childishly desires the unattainable (Lotte). In his letter to Wilhelm of October 30th, he justifies this unreasonable pursuit. "Do not children reach out for everything that attracts them?The why should not I? (98)." The object of his desire is aware of this and points it out to him: "I fear, I very much fear that what makes the desire to possess me so attractive is its very impossibility (115)." Werther preaches what he doesn't practice. He abhors ill-humour, but is possessed by it himself when he cannot triumph. In admiration he says of Albert, "He seems to be almost free of ill-humour, which as you know is the human evil I loathe above all others (57)." He argues vehemently: "Is not ill-humour in fact our own inner displeasure at our own unworthiness, a feeling of discontent with ourselves, which is always related to envy, which in turn is stirred up by foolish vanity? (49)." He calls ill-humour ". . .a kind of indolence (48)", yet he himself succumbs to what he disdains. After his attempt to save a murderer fails he ". . . sank all the more deeply into a state of inactivity and pain (110)." In ruminating about his life he feel that his misery is a ". . . vindication of inactivity (111)." Falling deeper into depression, he becomes what he hates, an ill-humoured man.Werther is obsessed by his infatuation for Lotte. He expresses this complete fixation in his letter of December 6th: How her figure haunts me! Waking or dreaming, she fills my entire soul! Here in my head, in my mind's eye, I see her dark eyes the moment I close my own. Here!I do not know how to put it. The second I close my eyes I see hers before me, deep as an ocean or an abyss, and they ...
