As the result of his experience at Wetzlar, he was filled with a new
inspiration, which, though it did not immediately find utterance, left
him no repose till it was embodied in a work in which the man and the
artist in him equally found deliverance. That the conception came to
him shortly after his leaving Wetzlar we have conclusive evidence. In
the beginning of November, 1772, after his return to Frankfort from
Wetzlar, he received the news that a youth named Jerusalem, a casual
acquaintance of his own,[127] had committed suicide as the result of
an unhappy love adventure. Instantly, Goethe tells us in his
Autobiography, the plan of _Werther_ shaped itself in his mind; and
his contemporary letters bear out the statement. Immediately on
receiving the news of Jerusalem's death, he wrote to Kestner for a
detailed account of all the circumstances, and he made a careful copy
of the information with which Kestner supplied him. In point of fact,
it was not till after more than a year that _Werther_ came to
fruition, but that he was in labour with the portentous birth all its
lineaments were to show.
[Footnote 127: Goethe had made Jerusalem's acquaintance in Leipzig.
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