It appears from a letter to the Bishop of Exeter, written by the unfortunate youth’s uncle, that he had been from infancy an exceedingly lively boy; between him and his parents the most glowing affection, as well as the most boundless confidence, existed; but the fatal poison of Socialism changed a confiding heart into a cold concentration of selfishness. After the verdict of the jury, the uncle declared aloud, before a crowded room, in a most vehement manner, that, were he in the presence of the Queen, he would proclaim Owen as the murderer of his nephew.
The indifference with which self-murder is looked at in Germany is to be ascribed in a great measure to the popular productions of that country. We are reluctant to denounce as undoubted causes of suicide the works of men of splendid talents; but in such a case it would be wrong, it would be criminal, to mince the matter, and plead any excuse for so detestable a work as Werter, which has unhinged the minds of thousands, before they were aware of its impoisoned and insidious tendency. That it is the work of a man of genius only makes its blackening influence the stronger; as the fascination of the style, and the intense interest of the narrative, operate like an infernal spell to smooth the road to self-destruction. Its leading theme is, that human passions, and particularly love, are immediately inspired by Heaven; and that it would be wrong—nay, that it is impossible—to resist them; and consequently, if a lover meets with disappointment, his only virtuous course is suicide, which is triumphantly catalogued among the virtues, as it was by the heathen morality of the ancients.
This work, together with Foscolo’s imitation of it, the “_Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis_,” and all publications of a similar character, ought to be repudiated by every sound thinking man. Resistance to the dictates of passion, when it prompts to crime and suicide, is a most deadly sin against Werterism; whilst, obeying the passions to the letter, even if they incite to criminal love or self-murder, gives to its disciple the stamp of one of the virtuous who have courageously braved the laws of good order, fearlessly dared to trample under foot all the commands of God and man, and stood forth as the redoubted champions of human supremacy and the glorious right of self-destruction. Such are the principles of the miscreants who wish to prove that suicide is a virtue; and, with the sentiments found in the pages of Werter, they rush headlong and unthinkingly into a deep and awful futurity.