Wtt^tHr'-utta-t CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOVVMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE DATE DUE The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026417885 The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller THE POEMS OF SCHILLER Translated into English by E. P. ARNOLD-FORSTER 360 pp. l2mo, $1.60 net. (Postage 12c.) A comprehensive edition of Schiller's poems, exclusive of his dramas, containing twelve more poems and eighty more brief epigrams, "votive tablets," etc., than the most popular previous translation. One of the highest authorities on German literature in America has advised the publishers that this translation is much better than any heretofore made, and as good as Taylor's "Faust," and that it imitates the original meter very successfully. Henry Holt & Co., New York The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller By Calvin Thomas Professor in Columbia University New York Henry Holt and Company 1906 Copyright, igoi, BY HENRY HOLT & CO. TO Eleanor Ellen ITbomas J^EtsElirte fcoutoe min, W.-f. CONTENTS CHAPTER I parentage and Scbooling PAOS Captain Schiller and his wife — Sojourn at Lorch — Traits of Friedrich's childhood — Removal to Ludwigsburg — Karl Eugen, Duke of Wurttemberg— Impressions from court, theater and school — Poetic beginnings — Duke Karl's change of heart — Franziska von Hohenheim — The Academy at Solitude — Schiller at the Academy — School exercises — From law to medicine — Early poems and orations — An ardent friend — Books read and their effect — Dramatic plans— Dissertation rejected — Gene- sis of ' The Robbers ' — Morbid melancholy — Release from the Academy — Value of the education received . . i CHAPTER n Zbe IRobbera General characterization — The Schubart story — Schiller and Schubart— The contrasted brothers— Comparison with Klinger and Leisewitz — Influence of Rousseau and Goethe — Unlike earlier attacks on the social order — Outlawry in the eighteenth century — The noble ban- dit in literature — Karl Moor's crazy ambition — His sentimentalism — Schiller's sympathy with his hero — Character of Franz-^Influence of Shakspere — Ethical attitude of Franz^-A dull villain — Character of Amalia — The subordinate outlaws — A powerful stage-play — Defects and merits 31 X Contents CHAPTER III Zbe Stuttgart ^eMcua FAGB Schiller's position at Stutto:art— Personal appearance— Convivial pleasures — Visits at Solitude — Revision of ' The Robbers ' for publication — The two prefaces— Re- ception of ' The Robbers '—A stage-version prepared for Dalberg — Changes in the stage-version — Popularity of the play — Medicus and poet — The ' Anthology ' of 1782 — Ciiaracter of Schiller's youthful verse — Various poems considered — The songs to Laura — Poetic promise of the ' Anthology ' — Journalistic enterprises — Schiller as a critic of himself — Quarrel with Duke Karl — The Swiss imbroglio — The duke implacable — Flight from Stuttgart 55 CHAPTER IV ttbe ConspiracB ot Jflesco at ©cnoa General characterization — The historical Fiesco — Influence of Rousseau — The conflicting authorities — Fact and fiction in the play — Not really a republican tragedy — Character of Fiesco — Of Verrina — Schiller's vacillation — Fiesco's inconsistency — Lack of historical lucidity — • The changed conclusion — Weak and strong points — Fiesco and the Moor — The female characters — Ex- travagant diction 80 CHAPTER V Zbe jFugitive in IblCing Reception at Mannheim — An elocutionary failure — ' Fiesco ' rejected by Dalberg— Refuge sought in Bauerbach — A new friend — Relations with outside world — Interest in Lotte von Wolzogen — Literary projects and employ- ments — Beginnings of ' Don Carlos ' — Friendly over- tures from Dalberg— Work upon ' Louise Miller ' — Jealousy and resignation — Flutterings of the heart — Departure from Bauerbach with new play completed. . 99 Contents xiii CHAPTER XI f)istocical TKIlcltings FACE Schiller's merit as a historian— Genesis of ' The Defection of the Netheriands ' — The author's self-confidence — His readableness — Freedom the animating idea — At- titude toward past and present — Position as a historian — ^Too little regard for the fact — First lecture at Jena — Influence of Kant — Theory of the Fall — The ' His- torical Memoirs ' — Inchoate Romanticism — ' History of the Thirty Years' War ' — Skill in narrating — Concep- tion of the war as a struggle for freedom — View of Gus- tav Adolf 228 CHAPTER XII 5)arft ©agg UBlitbln an& inaitbout A happy year — Disastrous illness in January, 1791 — Feud with Biirger — Interest in epic poetry — Second illness and desperate plight — Help from Denmark — Resolution to master Kant's philosophy — Visit to Suabia — Enter- prise of the Horen — Attitude toward the Revolution — Sympathy for Louis XVI. — Prediction of Napoleon — Made a citizen of the French Republic — Disgust with politics — Program of the Horen — Genius and vocation. 247 CHAPTER XIII Beetbetic MrltindS Value of philosophy to a poet— Goethe's opinion— Schiller's early philosophizing — The essays on Tragedy — Plan of ' Kallias' — Kant's aesthetics — Schiller's divergence from Kant — Beauty identified with freedom-in-the-appear- ■ ance — Explication of the theory — Essay on ' Winsome- ness and Dignity ' — Essay on ' The Sublime ' — Remarks on Schiller's general method — Letters to the Duke of Augustenburg — The ' Letters on ./Esthetic Education ' — Some minor papers — Essay on ' Naive and Senti- mental Poetry ' 263 xiv Gjntents CHAPTER XIV Zbe 6reat Duumvttate PAGS Goethe and Schiller — Six years of aloofness — Beginning of intimacy — The ' happy event' — Campaign for the con- quest of Goethe — Schiller on Goethe's genius — A friendly relation established — Comparison of the duum- virs — Fortunes of the Horen — Return to poetry — Sig- nificance of the essay on ' Naive and Sentimental Poetry ' — Goethe on Schiller's theory — Enemies assail .the Horen — The Xenia planned in retaliation — A mil- itant league formed — The fusillade of the Xenia — Effect of the Xenia — Return to the drama — Further relations of Goethe and Schiller 288 CHAPTER XV Xatec ipoems General character of Schiller's poetry — 'The Veiled Image at Sais ' — ' The Ideal and Life ' — Idealism of Goethe and Schiller — 'The Walk' — Poems of 1796 — 'Dignity of Women ' — ' The Eleusinian Festival ' — The ballads — Attitude toward the present — Lyrics of thought—' The Maiden's Lament ' — Popularity of Schiller's cultural poems — ' The Song of the Bell ' — Latest poems 308 CHAPTER XVI malletidtein General characterization — Preparatory studies — Difficulties of the subject— Study of Sophocles and Aristotle — Decision in favor of verse — Completion of the play — ' Wallenstein's Camp' — The historical Wallenstein — Schiller's artistic achievement — Character of the hero — His impressiveness — Effect of contrast — Octavio Piccolomini— Max Piccolomini— Max and Thekla — Lyrical passages— Absence of humor and irony 330 Gantents xv CHAPTER XVII Hint's Stuart PAGE Genesis of the play — Schiller's removal to Weimar — ' Mary Stuart ' characterized — The fundamental difficulty — Unhistorical inventions — Effect of these — The meeting of the queens — Character of Elizabeth — Romantic ten- dencies — Mary conceived as a purified sufferer — Pathos of the conclusion — Ugly portrait of Elizabeth ac- counted for — The historical background— Dramatic qualities — Character of Mortimer '. 354 CHAPTER XVIII Xlbe ffbuiii of Orleans Variety in Schiller's work — Genesis of 'The Maid of Or- leans ' — Schiller's Johanna — Miraculous elements — At- titude of the critics — Difficulty of the subject — Jo- hanna's tragic guilt — Her supernatural power — The scene with Lionel — Schiller's poetic intention— A drama of patriotism — The subordinate characters — Excellence of the composition 371 CHAPTER XIX Zbe 3Bvit)e of lUeBSinn Genesis of the play — General characterization — Disagree- ment of the critics — Relation to Sophocles — Substance of the plot — Ancients and moderns — Fate and respon- sibility — Schiller's invention — Un naturalness of the action — Strange conduct of Don Manuel, Beatrice and the mother — Lavish use of silence — Schiller's contempt of realism — Don Cesar's expiatory death the real tragedy — Use of the fate-idea — Apologia for the chorus — Poetic splendor 387 xvi Contents CHAPTER XX Wtlliam ^ell PACK ' Tell ' and ' The Robbers ' — General characterization — Gen- esis — Attention to local color — An interruption — Suc- cess on the stage — Tlie theme of ' Tell ' — A drama of freedom — The play intensely human — Goodness of the exposition — Departures from usual method — Character of Tell — The apple-shooting scene — The scene in the ' hollow way ' — Tell's long soliloquy — Introduction of Parricida — Bertha and Rudenz.. 405 CHAPTER XXI XLbe EnO.— "Dlnflnigbea iplags aiiO a&aptat(ons A Russian theme chosen — Berlin negotiations— Work on ' Demetrius ' — ' The Homage of the Arts ' — Last illness and death — The unfinished .' Demetrius ' — The histori- cal Dmitri — The original plan modified — Character of the hero — Poetic promise of ' Demetrius ' — ' Warbeck ' — 'The Princess of Celle ' — 'The Knights of Malta' — Other unfinished plays — Adaptation of 'Egmont' — Of 'Nathan the Wise'— Of ' Macbeth '—Of 'Turandot' — Interest in the French drama — Adaptations from the French , . . 423 CHAPTER XXII TTbe lDer6tct ot ©osteritB Schiller a national poet — His idealized personality — Esti- mate of Dannecker — Of Madame de Stael — Goethe's ' Epilogue '—Controversy over Goethe and Schiller — Attitude of Schlegel — Of Menzel — Goethe's loyalty to his friend — The mid-century epoch — Unreasonable criticism— Interesting prophecy of Gervinus— Schiller's Eesthetic idealism taften misunderstood — Schiller as a friend of the people— Partisan misconceptions — The enthusiasm of 1859 — Epoch of the philologejrs — Pres- ent opinion of Schiller — Conclusion 445 LIFE AND WORKS OF SCHILLER CHAPTER I parentage and Scboolfng Nur, Vater, mir Gesange. From the poem * £vening*f lyjb. When the Austrian War of Succession came to an end, in the year 1748, a certain young Suabian who had been campaigning in the Lowlands as army doctor was left temporarily without employment. The man's name was Johann Kaspar Schiller; he was of good plebeian stock and had lately been a barber's apprentice, — a lot that he had accepted reluctantly when the poverty of a widowed mother compelled him to shift for himself at an early age. Having served his time and learned the trade of the barber-surgeon, he had joined a Bavarian regiment of hussars. Finding him- self now suddenly at leisure, after the Peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, he mounted his horse and rode away to the land of his birth to visit his relations. Reaching Mar- bach — it was now the spring of 1 749-— he put up at the ' Golden Lion ' , an inn kept by a then prosperous baker named Kodweis. Here he fell in love with his landlord's daughter Dorothea, a girl of sixteen, and in the course of the summer married her. He was at' I 2 Parentage and Schooling this time about twenty-six years old. He now settled down in Marbach to practice his crude art, but the practice came to little and Kodweis soon lost his prop- erty in foolish speculation. So the quondam soldier fell out of humor with Marbach, went into the army again, and when the Seven Years' War broke out, in 1756, he took the field with a Wiirttemberg regiment to fight the King of Prussia. He soon reached the grade of lieutenant, in time that of captain ; fought and ran with his countrymen atLeuthen, floundered at peril of life in the swamps of Breslau and otherwise got his full share of the war's rough-and-tumble. From time to time, as the chance came to him, he visited his young wife in Marbach. These were the parents of the poet Schiller, who was born November 10, 1759, — ten years after Goethe, ten years before Napoleon. It is worth remembering that he who was to be in his way another great protestant came into the world on an anniversary of the birth of Luther. He was christened Johann Christoph Friedrich. The childhood of little Fritz unfolded amid con- ditions that must have given to life a rather somber aspect. After the close of the war Captain Schiller moved his little family to Lorch, a village some thirty miles east of Stuttgart, where he was employed by the Duke of Wiirttemberg in recruiting soldiers for mercenary service abroad. This hateful business, which was in due time to form a mark for one of the ■J sharp darts of ' Cabal and Love ' , seems to have been managed by him with a degree of tact and humanity; for he won the esteem of all with whom he had to do. Captain Schiller and his Wife 3 At home, being of a pious turn and setting great store by the formal exercises of religion, he presided over his household in the manner of an ancient patriarch. Between him and his son no very tender relation ever existed, though the poet of later years always revered his father's character. The child's affections clung rather to his mother, whom he grew up to resemble in form and feature and in traits of character. She was a woman of no intellectual pretensions, but worthy of honor for her qualities of heart.' Of education in the modern sense she had but little. Her few extant letters, written mostly in her later years, tell of a simple and lovable character, tenderly devoted to husband and children. Tradition credits her with a certain liking for feeble poets of the Uz and Gellert strain, but this probably did not amount to much. Her sphere of interest was the little world of family cares and affections. Her early married life had been darkened by manifold sorrows which she bore at first with pious resignation, becoming with the flight of time, however, more and more a borrower of trouble.^ At Lorch her trials were great, for Captain Schiller received no pay and the family felt the pinch of poverty. Here, then, was little room for that merry comradeship, with its Lust sum Fabulieren, which existed between the boy Goethe and his playmate mother at Frankfurt- on-the-Main. In after-time, nevertheless, Schiller was wont to look 'What is known of her has been put together by Ernst MtlUer, in " Schillers Mutter, ein Lebensbild ", Leipzig, 1894. ' "Unsere Mutter nahrt sich gleichsam von bestandiger Sorge", wrote hfr son to his sister in 1784. 4 Parentage and Schooling back upon the three years at Lorch as the happiest part of his childhood. The village is charmingly situated in the valley of the Rems, a tributary of the Neckar, and the region round about is historic ground. A short walk southward brings one to the Hohen- staufen, on whose summit once stood the ancestral seat of the famous Suabian dynasty, and close by Lorch is the Penedictine monastery in which a number of the Hohenstaufen monarchs are buried. Here was the romance of history right at hand, but we can hardly suppose that it meant much to the child. The Middle Ages were not yet in fashion even for adults, and little Fritz had other things to think of With his sister Christophine, two years older than himself, he was sent to the village school, where he proved so apt a pupil that his parents became ambitious for him and sent him to the village pastor, a man named Moser, to be taught "Latin. The child looked up to his august teacher and resolved to become himself some day a preacher of the word. Not much is known of Moser, but to judge from his namesake in 'The Robbers', where all passions and qualities are raised to the wth power, he must have been a man for whom the reproof of sinners was not only a professional duty but a personal pleasure. The plan of making their Fritz a man of God was eagerly embraced by the pious parents and became a settled family aspiration. The boy himself was very susceptible at this time to religious impressions. Sister Christophine carried with her through life a vivid memory of his appearance at family worship, when the captain would solemnly intone the rimed prayers that he him3elf h^d composed Traits of Fricdrich's Qiildhood s for a private ritual. 'It was a touching sight', she says in her recollections ' of this period, ' to see the reverent expression on the child's winsome face.'^The pious blue eyes lifted to heaven, the light yellow hair falling about his forehead, and the little hands folded in worship, suggested an angel's head in a picture.' From the same source we learn that Fritz was very fond of playing church, with himself in the role of preacher. Another reminiscence tells how he one day ran away from school and, having unexpectedly fallen under the paternal eye in his truancy, rushed home to his mother in tearful excitement, got the rod of correc- tion and besought her to give him his punishment before his sterner parent should arrive on the scene. Still another, from a somewhat later period, relates how the mother was once walking with her children and, told them a Bible story so touchingly that they all knelt down and prayed. This is about all that has come down concerning Schiller's early childhood. He may have seen the passion-play at Gmiind, but this is uncertain. In any case it only added one more to the religious impressions that already dominated his life. Toward the end of the year 1766, having exhausted his private resources at Lorch, Captain Schiller applied 1 As quoted by Schiller's sister-in-law, Karoline von Wolzogen, in her 'Life of Schiller', first published in 1830. The Baroness vnn Wolzogen quoted from a manuscript by Christophine, which was at that time in the family archives and has since been published in the Archiv fur Lit- tefaturgeschichte, I, 452. Christophine wrote down her recollections in order to counteract the false stories of Schiller's childhood which began to get into print soon after his death. Of this character, for example, is the oft-repeated tale of his climbing a tree during a thunder-storm in order to see where the lightning came from. This is an inve^iypp o£ 0?ml?r, bis ?arUest biographer, who inYeii{e4 much besides. 6 Parentage and Schooling for relief and was transferred to duty at Ludwigsburg, where the family remained under somewhat more tolerable conditions for about nine years. At Ludwigs- burg he began to interest himself in agriculture and forestry. In 1 769 he published certain ' Economic Contributions ', which exhibit him as a sensible, public- spirited man, eagerly bent upon improving the condi- tion of Suabian husbandry. In 1775, having become known as an expert in arboriculture, he was placed in charge of the ducal forests and nurseries at Castle Solitude, and there he spent the remainder of his days in peaceful and congenial activity. He died in 1796. For the impressionable Fritz one can hardly imagine a more momentous change of environment than this which took him from a quiet rural village to the garish Residenz of a licentious and extravagant prince. Karl Eugen,' Duke of Wiirttemberg, whom men have often called the curse, but the gods haply regard as the good genius, of Schiller's youth, came to power in 1744 at the age of sixteen. The three preceding years he had spent at the Prussian court, where Frederick the Second (not yet the Great) had taken a deep interest in him and tried 'to teach him serious views of a ruler's responsibility. But the youth had no stomach for the doctrine that he was in the world for the sake of Wurttemberg. Having come to his ducal throne pre- maturely, through the influence of the King of Prussia, he began well, but after a few years shook off the restraints of good advice and entered upon a course of autocratic folly that made Wiirttemberg a far-shining 1 An excellent account of him is to be found in Vol. 15 of " AUgemeine Deutsche Biographie ", Karl Eugen, Duke of Wiirttcmberg 7 example of the evils of absolutism under the Old Regime. Early in his reign he married a beautiful and high-minded princess of Bayreuth, but his prof- ligacy soon drove her back to the home of her parents. Then a succession of mistresses ruled his affections, while reckless adventurers in high place enjoyed his confidence and fleeced the people at pleasure. To gratify his passion for military display he began to raise unnecessary troops and to hire them out as mercenaries. In 1752 he agreed with the King of France, in con- sideration of a fixed annual subsidy, to supply six thousand soldiers on demand. The money thus obtained was mostly squandered upon his private vices and extravagances. On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War the French king demanded the promised troops ; and so it came about that the Suabian Protes- tants were compelled, in defiance of public sentiment, to make war against their co-religionists of Prussia. In the inglorious campaigns which followed, the Duke of Wiirttcmberg cut a rather sorry figure, but criticism only exasperated him. He promised another large body of troops to France, and the men were raised by harsh measures of conscription. The Estates of the duchy protested against this autocratic procedure, and, as Stuttgart sided with the opposition, the duke deter- mined to punish his unruly capital by removing his court to Ludwigsburg, where an ancestor of his, early in the century, had founded a city to match Versailles and serve the express purpose of a ' Trutz-Stuttgart '. The removal of the court to Ludwigsburg took place in 1764, three years before the Schiller family found a home there. From the first a purely artificial creation. 8 Parentage and Schooling the little city had been going backwards, but it now leaped into short-lived glory as the residence of a prodigal prince who was bent on amusing himself magnificently. The existing ducal palace was enlarged to huge dimensions and lavishly decorated. Great parks and gardens were laid out, the market-place was surrounded with arcades, and an opera-house was built, with a stage that could be extended into the open air so as to permit the spectacular evolution of real troops. Everything about the place was new and pretentious. The roomy streets and the would-be gorgeous palaces, flaunting their fresh coats of yellow and white stucco, teemed with officers in uniform, with blazing little potentates of the court and with high-born ladies in the puffs and frills of the rococo age. Here Karl Eugen gave himself up to his dream of glory, which was to rival the splendors of Versailles. He maintained a costly opera, procuring for it the most famous singers and dancers in Europe, and squandered immense sums upon ' Venetian nights ' and other gorgeous spectacles. For all this barbaric ostentation the people of Wiirttem - berg were expected to foot the bills. ' Fatherland ! ' said his Highness, when a protest was raised on behalf of the country, ' Bah ! I am the fatherland. ' Here it was, then, that the young Friedrich Schiller got his first childish impressions of the great world ; of sovereignty exercised that a few might strut in gay plumage while the many toiled to keep them in funds ; of state policies determined by wretched court in- trigues ; of natural rights trampled upon at the caprice of a prince or a prince's favorite. There is no record that the boy was trowbkd by these things at the time, Ludwigstxtrg Impressions 9 or looked upon them as anything else than a part of the world's natural order. It is a long way yet to President von Walter. The house occupied by Captain Schiller at Ludwigs- burg was situated close by the theater, to which the duke's officers had free admission. As a reward of industry little Fritz was allowed an occasional evening in front of the ' boards that signify the world ' . The performances, to be sure, were French and Italian operas, wherein the ballet-master, the machinist and the decorator vied with one another for the production of amazing spectacular effects. People went to stare and gasp — the language was of no importance. It was not exactly dramatic art, but from the boy's point of view it was no doubt magnificent. At any rate it made him at home in the dream-world of the imagina- tion, filled his mind with grandiose pictures and gave him his first rudimentary notions of stage effect. We are not surprised to learn, therefore, that in his home amusements playing theater now took the place of playing church. Sister Christophine was a faithful helper. A stage could be made of big books, and actors out of paper. When the puppet-show was out- grown, the young dramatist took to framing plays for living performers of his own age, — with a row of chairs for an audience, and himself as manager and pro- tagonist. Christophine relates that her brother's fondness for this sort of diversion lasted until he was thirteen years old. In the mean time, however, his chosen career was kept steadily in view. He was sent to the Latin school, from which, if his marks should be good, he Parentage and Schooling might hope to advance in about five years to one of the so-called convent schools of Wiirttemberg. After this his theological education would proceed for about nine years more at the expense of the state. The Ludwigs- burg school was a place in which the language of Cicero and the religion of Luther were thumped into the memory of boys by means of sticks applied to the skin. Fritz Schiller was a capable scholar, though none of his teachers ever called him, as in the case of the boy Lessing at Meissen, a horse that needed double fodder. The ordinary ration sufficed him, but he memorized his catechism and his hymns diligently, fussed faithfully over his Latin longs and shorts, and took his occasional thrashings with becoming fortitude. On one occasion we hear that he was flogged by mis- take and disdained to report the incident at home. Religious instruction consisted of mechanical repetition insisted on with brutal severity, — a mode of presenting divine things that must have contrasted painfully, for the sensitive boy, with his mother's simple religion of the heart. When it is added that he was often nagged and punished by a too exacting father, we get a not very sunny picture of our poet's boyhood. It is told,' and it may well be true, that he was subject to fits of moodiness, in which he would complain of his lot and brood gloomily over his prospects. Nevertheless a schoolmate ^ has left it on record that Schiller as a lad was normally high-spirited, a leader in sports as well as in study, and very steadfast in his friendships. ^ By Schiller's youthful friend Petersen, Morgenblatt, 1807; quoted by Weltrich, "Friedrich Schiller", I, 77, and by other biographers. * Wilhelm von Hoven, quoted by Karoline von Wolzogen. Poetic Beginnings n While at Ludwigsburg he read from the prescribed Latin authors, making the acquaintance of Ovid, Vergil and Horace, and in time won praise for his facility in writing Latin verses. Some of his school exercises have chanced to be preserved. The earliest, dated Jan. I, 1769, is a Latin translation in prose of some verses which seem to have been supplied by his teacher for the purpose. The handwriting and the Latin tell of faithful juvenile toil and moderate success — nothing more. Nor can we extract much biographic interest from the later distichs and carmina which he turned out at school festivals. Such things have flowed easily from the pen of many a bright schoolboy whom the bees of Hymettus failed to visit. According to Schiller's own testimony' his earliest attempt at German verse was made on the occasion of his confirmation, in April, 1772. On the day before the solemn ceremony he was playing about with his comrades in what seemed to his mother an all too worldly frame of mind. She rebuked him for his un- seasonable levity, whereat the youngster went into himself, as the Germans say, and poured out his sup- posed feelings in a string of verses so tender and soulful as to draw from his amazed father the exclamation: ' Fritz, are you going crazy .'' ' After such a beginning we are not surprised to learn that German poetry made its first strong appeal to him through the pious muse of Klopstock. His earliest more ambitious note is heard in a ' Hymn to the Sun ', written in his fourteenth year. It is the note of 1 As reported by his friend Co. .J^-fl^"^ti,jJoT. C{. Weltj-ich. p. 80, f'At nott.- — ^— ^ — '^ .- . V . ^ 'Jvprince to enjoy uanv^unnL^f 14 Parentage and Schooling supernal religious pathos. In rimeless lines of unequal length he celebrates the glory of God in the firmament, soars into celestial space and winds up with a vision of the last great cataclysm. All this is sufficiently Klopstockian, as is also the boyish dream of an epic about Moses, and of a tragedy to be called ' The Christians '. But the time came when our young psalmodist of Zion was to be pulled out of his predetermined course and made to sing another song. Were the overruling powers malign or benevolent.' Who shall say, re- membering the Greek proverb that a man is not edu- cated save by flaying ? Let us not pause to speculate, but proceed as quickly as may be across the interval that separates these innocent religious effusions from the opening of a great literary career with the cannon- shot of ' The Robbers '. About the year 1770 Duke Karl began to undergo a change of heart. Wearying at last of life's vanities and frivolities, the middle-aged sinner took up virtue and philanthropy, as if to show mankind that he too could be a benevolent father to his people. The new departure was due in part to the political success of the Estates in curbing his extravagance, but rather more, no doubt, to the personal influence of his mistress, Franziska von Hohenheim. This lady, whose maiden name was Bernerdin, had been given in marriage as a girl of sixteen to a worthless Baron von Leutrum, who misused her. Escaping from him with thoughts of divorce in her mind, she went to visit friends in Lud- wigisburg. Fierjj^,the.'*^*|ammable duke fell in love with ,fpr ,ir.^ -^-"Hoven, qub.vu by liaious resistance, carried her Franziska von Hohenheim ij, away to his castle. This was in 1772. Her divorce followed soon after, and she remained at court as the duke's favorite mistress. He presently procured for her an imperial title, that of Countess Hohenheim, and after the death of his duchess, in 1780, he married her. She was not beautiful or talented, but she possessed amiable qualities that made and kept her the object of Karl's honest affection. She knew how to humor his whims without crossing his stubborn will, and she chose to exert her influence in promoting humane en- terprises and leading her liege lord in the paths of virtuous frugality. On the whole, the people of Wiirt- temberg, who had suffered much from mistresses of a different ilk, had reason to bless their ruler's fondness for his amiable ' Franzele '. She was not unworthy to sit for the portrait of Lady Milford. An educational project, the founding of a school which later came to be known as the Karlschule, marks the beginning of the duke's career in his new role. He began very modestly in the year 1770 by gathering a few boys, the sons of officers, at his castle called Soli- tude, and undertaking to provide for their instruction in gardening and forestry. This Castle Solitude was itself an outcome of the same lordly mood that had led to the removal of the court to Ludwigsburg. It was situated on a wooded height some six miles west of Stuttgart. Here, by means of forced labor and at enormous expense, — and this was only one of many similar building enterprises, — he had cleared a site in the forest and erected a huge palace which, according to the inscription over the door, was to be ' devoted to tranquillity '. But how was a prince to enjoy tranquillity 14 Parentage and Schooling without the necessaries of life ? In a short time a score of other buildings, including an opera-house and a barracks, had sprung up about the castle in the woods, while an immense outlying tract had been converted into a park with exotic attractions in the style of the time. Here, then, was need of expert forestry — whence the opening of the school as aforesaid. Once started, it became the duke's special pet and pride. His im- mense energy had found a new fad — that of the school- master. He was bent on having a model training- school for the public service. In his own house, under his own eye, he proposed to mould the future servants of the state like potter's clay. In this way he would have them as he wanted them. To provide the clay for his experiment he began to look around for promis- ing boys, and thus his eye fell on Friedrich Schiller. Summoning the father and making some gracious in^- quiries, he offered to provide for the boy's education at the new school. The anxious captain, knowing that divinity was not to be on the program at Castle Soli- tude, sought to evade his sovereign's kindness by pleading that Fritz had set his heart upon the service of the church. The reply was that something else, law for example, would no doubt do as well. Resist- ance to the earthly Providence was not to be thought of by a man in Captain Schiller's position; and so the step was taken which deprived some Suabian flock of a shepherd and gave the world instead a great poet. It was on the 17th of January, 1773, that schoolboy Schiller, with disappointment in his heart, said farewell to his tearful mother and took his cold way up the long avenue which led from Ludwigsburg to Castle Soli- The Academy at Solitude 15 tude. According to the official record he arrived there with a chillblain, an eruption of the scalp, fourteen Latin books, and forty-three kreutzers in money. Soon afterwards his father signed a document whereby he renounced all control of the boy and left him in the hands of his prince. The school at Solitude had now come to be known as the Military Academy, and well it deserved its name. The duke himself was the supreme authority in large matters and in small. The nominal head, called the intendant, was a high military officer who had a sufficient detail of majors, captains and lower officers to assist him in maintaining discipline."! Under the eye of these military potentates the eleves, as they were called, — for the official language of the school was French, — lived and moved in accordance with a rigid routine. They rose at six and marched to the breakfast-room, where an overseer gave them their orders to pray, to eat, to pray again, and then to march back. Then there were lessons until one o'clock, when they prepared for the solemn function of dinner. Dressed in the prescribed uniform, — a blue coat with white breeches and waistcoat, a leather stock and a three-cornered hat, with pendent queue and at each temple four little puffs, — they marched to the dining-room and countermarched to their places. When his Highness gave the command, Dinez, mes- sieurs, they fell to and ate. From two to four there were lessons again, then exercise and study hours. At nine they were required to go to bed. There were no vacations and few holidays. Visits to and from parents were prohibited, and letters sent or received i6 Parentage and Schooling had to be submitted to the intendant. Books of a stirring character were proscribed, along with tobacco and toothsome edibles, and quarters were often searched for contraband articles. Whoso transgressed received a ' billet ', which he took to headquarters. Punish- ments were numerous, if not very severe, and were sometimes administered by his Highness in person. The duke wished his proteges to regard him as their father, but his system tended to the encouragement not so much of honest gratitude as of rank sycophancy. On occasion he could be very gracious and conde- scending, — would take the youngsters into his carriage, give them fatherly counsel, box their ears, suggest subjects for essays, offer himself as opponent at their disputations, and so forth. He was very proud of showing off the school to visitors. His birthday and Franziska's were festal occasions, at which he would distribute the prizes in person and allow the winners, if of gentle birth, to kiss his hand ; if commoners, to kiss the hem of his garment. A modern reader will be very ready with his criti- cism of these educational arrangements. The con- stant and petty surveillance, the deliberate alienation of boys from all ties of home and kindred, the system- atic training in duplicity and adulation, were certainly not well calculated for a school of manhood. Schiller himself, after his escape from the academy, was wont to speak very bitterly of the education that he had received there. Nevertheless the school had its good points, especially after the removal to Stuttgart, in 1775. Here it became a combination of university (minus the theological faculty) with a school of art, a school of Schiller at the Academy 17 technology and a military academy proper. Several of the professors were inspiring teachers who made friends of their students. The fame of the institution brought together promising young men from all parts of Germany and from foreign parts ; and several of them besides Schiller attained distinction in after-life.' There was thus intellectual comradeship of the very best kind. And there was much freedom in the choice of studies. But the solid merits of the academy were the growth of time ; in the beginning it was, for Schiller at least, mere chaos and misery. The boy grew rapidly into a lank, awkward youngster for whom the military disci- pline was a great hardship; he never got entirely rid of the stiff gait and ungainly bearing which resulted from these early struggles with the unattainable. Fre- quent illness led to a bad record on the books of the faculty. In ' conduite ' he made but a poor show- ing, and he was several times billeted for untidiness. In Latin and religion he got along fairly well, and in Greek he actually took a prize toward the end of the year 1773. But the Greek which procured him this distinction hardly went beyond the rudiments and was mostly brought with him from Ludwigsburg. For mathematics he had but little talent. His bitterest trial, however, came with the law studies which he was obliged to take up in his second year. A dry subject, a dull teacher and an immature, reluctant pupil made a hopeless combination. And so he got the name of a ' For example : Cuvier, Dannecker and the musician Zumsteeg. The pros and cons of the Karlschule are discussed very fully by Weltrich and also by Minor in their biographies of Schiller. 1 8 Parentage and Schooling dullard. During the whole of the year 1775 it is recorded that he was at the foot of his class. Two bits of writing have come down to give us a glimpse of the boy's mind during these two years of helpless floundering. A detestable practice of the school authorities required the pupils to criticise one another in moral disquisitions. On one occasion the duke gave out the theme : ' Who is the meanest among you ? ' Schiller did his task in Latin distichs which have been preserved. They show a healthy feeling for the odiousness of the business, but he cleverly shifts the responsibility to Dux serenissinius, who must of course know what is good for him. Then he proceeds to depict one Karl Kempff as the worst boy in school, — defraudans socios, rudis ignarusque , — but he hopes that the wretched sinner will yet mend his ways and become worthy of his gracious prince's favor. In a much longer prose document he portrays the characters of some two score schoolmates and finally his own. He begins modestly with a deprecatory address to his most gracious sovereign, without whose wise order he would never think of setting himself up as a judge of his fellows. The portraits are amusingly ponderous in style, but their substance is very creditable to their author's head and heart. Toward the end he burns more incense to the duke : ' This prince who has enabled my parents to do well by me ; this prince through whom God will attain his ends with me ; this father who wishes to make me happy, is and must be much more estimable to me than parents who depend upon his favor.' He frankly confesses his own short- comings : ' You will find me ', he writes, ' often over- Schiller's Estimate of Himself 19 hasty, often frivolous. You will hear that I am ob- stinate, passionate and impatient ; but you will also hear of my sincerity, my fidelity and my good heart' He owns that he has not thus far made the best use of his gifts, but he pleads illness in excuse. His gracious prince knows how eagerly he has taken up the study of the law and how happy he will be some day to enter the service of his country. But, he ventures to insinu- ate, he would be very much happier still if he could serve his country as a teacher of religion. The divinity was out of the question, but relief was at hand. Toward the end of 1775, having come to terms with the Stuttgart people, Duke Karl transferred his academy to more commodious quarters in the city. A department of medicine was added and Schiller gladly availed himself of the duke's permission to enroll in the new faculty. His professional studies were now more to his taste and he applied himself to them with sufficient zeal to make henceforth a decent though never a brilliant record. His heart was already else- where. For some time past he had been nourishing his soul on forbidden fijuit, — books that had to be smuggled in and were of course all the more seductive for that very reason. With a few intimates — Scharffen- stein, the Von Hovens and Petersen — he formed a sort of literary club which read and discussed things. What they read spurred them to imitation and to mutual criticism. Presently they commenced sending their productions to the magazines. Schiller began to indulge in pleasing dreams of literary fame ; and with this new-born confidence in himself there came, as his health improved, a firmer step, a more erect bearing 20 Parentage and Schooling and an increased energy of character. To be a poet by grace of God was better than the favor of princes. For some time, however, the youth's effusions gave little evidence of a divine call. His first poem to get into print was the one entitled ' Evening ', which ap- peared in Haug's Suabian Magaaiiic in the autumn of 1776. In irregular rimed verses — the rimes often very Suabian — we hear of sunset glories producing in the bard a divine ecstasy that carries him away through space. Then he returns to earth and hears in the voices of evening a general symphony of praise. It is still the Klopstockian strain of magniloquent religiosity, tem- pered somewhat by the influence of Haller. In ' The Conqueror', a poem published in 1777, the Klopstock- ian note is still more audible. The form is a pseudo- antique strophe such as Klopstock often used ; the substance a rhetorical denunciation of military ambition. The most awful curses are imprecated upon the head of the ruthless ' conqueror ', whose badness is portrayed in lurid images and wild syntax that fairly rack the German language. ^ No wonder that editor Haug cau- tioned the young poet against nonsense, obscurity and exaggerated metatheses. Nor is there much more of promise in the few occa- sional poems that have come down from Schiller's salad days in the academy. One of them was inspired by a visit of the emperor Joseph, whom our poet glorifies ' For example : Und mit offenem Schlund, welcher Gebirge schluckt, Ihn das Weltmeer mir nacli, — ihn mir der Orkus nach Durch die Hallen des Todes — Deinen Namen, Eroberer ! Early Poems and Orations 21 in strains almost too fervid for utterance.' The other two are birthday greetings to Franziska von Hohen- heim — effusions of ' gratitude ', as it is called. The gratitude purports to come, in one of the poems, from the ecole dcs demoiselles, which Franziska had founded as a feminine pendant to the academy. Schiller's verses, truth to tell, sound like rank fustian. The duke's mistress is glorified as a paragon of virtue. ' Her sweet name flies high on the wings of glory, her very glance promises immortality. Her life is the loveliest harmony, irradiated by a thousand virtuous deeds.' And so on. As poetic spokesman of the girls he pours out those ' Elysian feelings ' which he supposes them to cherish toward their kind and virtuous ' mother '. There are two or three extant school orations which likewise exhibit him in the role of a fervid eulogist. The rhetoric of them is very highfalutin, and the flattery would be nauseating if one did not remember that it was largely a matter of fashion. Custom required that a prince be addressed in the language of adula- tion, and nothing in that line was too extravagant for the taste of the time. As for Schiller, he had got the reputation of an orator and he only did what was ex- pected of him as the public representative of the school. Nor should we think too harshly of the duke for en- couraging the foolishness, since he too only conformed to the custom of the Old Regime. At the same time it is a pleasure to learn from certain well authenticated anecdotes that he and his eleves did not always live in ' Weltrich, p. 182, argues that the poem is spurious. The question is hard to decide. 2 2 Parentage and Schooling a fool's paradise of sycophancy. There is a story, vouched for by Weltrich, to the effect that Schiller, who had acquired fame as a mimic, was one day asked by the duke, with Franziska on his arm, to give an impromptu specimen of his powers by imitating his sovereign. The youth hesitated, but after some urging borrowed the duke's cane and proceeded to examine him. As his Highness did not answer well, Schiller ex- claimed : ' Oh, you are an ass ! ' Then he took Fran- ziska's arm and began to walk away with her. Seren- issimus looked on with mixed emotions, but only said : ' Come now, leave Franzele to me ! ' The young Schiller was nothing if not intense. When an emotion took possession of him it set him on fire, and the expression of it was like the eruption of a volcano. Toward the end of his course at the acad- emy he had a misunderstanding with his dear friend Scharffenstein, with whom he had sworn eternal broth- erhood. The result was a long letter of wild expostu- lation in this vein : What was the bond of our friendship ? Was it selfishness ? Was it frivolity .' Was it folly ? Was it an earthly, vulgar, or*a higher, immortal, celestial bond ? Speak ! Speak ! Oh, a friendship erected like ours might have endured through eter- nity. ... If you or I had died ten times, death should not have filched from us a single hour ! What a friendship that might have been ! And now ! Now ! What has become of it ? . . . Hear, Scharffenstein ! God is there ! God hears me and thee, and may God judge ! And so on for six mortal pages, octavo print. The modern cynic will smile at this ecstatic cultus of friend- ship, but let him at the same time recall the saying of Schiller's Reading at the Academy 23 Goethe that what makes the poet is a heart completely filled with one emotion.^ It is now time to glance at the really important phase of Schiller's youthful development — his reading. While his native Suabia, just then rather backward in literary matters, was still chewing the cud of pious conventionality, a prodigious ferment had begun in the outside world. What is called the ' Storm and Stress ' was under way. The spirit of revolt, which in France was preparing a political upheaval, was abroad in Ger- many, where it found expression in stormy or senti- mental plays and novels, — works composed on the principle that everything is permissible except the tame and the conventional. The productions of these young innovators differed widely from one another, but they had a common note in their vehement would-be natu- ralism. There were over-wrought pictures of daring sin and terrible punishment; novels and plays laying bare the misere of the social conflict; tragedies of in- surgent passion at war with conventional ideas; of true love crossed and done to death by the prejudice of caste. And so forth. How much of this literature fell into the hands of Schiller at the academy can not be told with perfect certainty, but it would seem that very little of it es- caped him. He read and was deeply touched by Ger- stenberg's ' Ugolino ', with its horrific picture of the agonies of starvation. He read the early writings of Goethe, of Leisewitz and of Klinger, and was touched by the woes of Miller's Siegwart. In ' Emilia Galotti ', with its drastic comment upon the infamies of princely ' "Gotz von Berlichingen", Act I. 24 Parentage and Schooling lust, he saw the subject of court Hfe in a light very dififerent from that in which it habitually appeared to the carefully guarded pupils of the Stuttgart academy. He became acquainted with Ossian, and the shadowy forms of the Celtic bard, big with their indefinable woe, increased the turmoil of his soul. Probably he read Rousseau more or less, though direct evidence of the fact is lacking. At any rate the air. was surcharged with Rousseauite feeling. Certainly he read Plutarch and Cervantes, and along with all these came Shak- spere,' to whom he was introduced — in the Wieland translation — by his favorite teacher, Abel. The effect of this reading upon the mind of Schiller was prodigious. It changed the native docility of his temper, weaned him completely from his seraphic pro- clivities and carried him with a rush into the mid- current of the literary revolution. There came a time when the young medical student, faithfully pursuing his routine and on festal occasions spouting fervid panegyrics of the noble Karl and the divine Franziska, was not altogether what he seemed to be. There was another Schiller, burning with literary ambition and privately engaged in forging a thunderbolt. ' The acquaintance began, it would seem, in 1775 or 1776. At first Schiller was repelled by Shakspere's 'coldness', — his intermixture of humor and buffoonery with pathos. Of tliis first impression he wrote many years later, in his essay on ' Naive and Sentimental Poetry ', as follows : " Durch die Bekanntschaft mit neueren Poeten verleitet, in den Wcrken den Dickter zuerst aufzusuchen, seineni Herzen zu begegnen . . . war es mir unertraglich, dasz der Poet sich hier gar nirgends fassen liesz und mir nirgends Rede stehen woUte. Mehrere Jahre hatte er meine ganze Verehrung, und war mein Studium, ehe ich sein Indi viduum lieb gewinnen konnte. Ich war noch nicht fahig, die Natur aus erster Hand zu verstehen." Earliest Dramatic Attempts 25 Two dramatic attempts preceded ' The Robbers '. The first had to do with Cosmo dei Medici; the second, called ' The Student of Nassau ', was based upon a newspaper story of suicide. Both were destroyed by their disgusted author, in what stage of progress we do not know. Still he was not discouraged; the tragic drama was clearly his field and he might succeed bet- ter the next time. But where to find a subject .'' His perplexity became so great that, as he said later, he would have given his last shirt for a good theme. Finally, in the year 1777, his friend Hoven drew his attention to a story by Schubart that had lately been published in the Suabian Magazine, — a story of a father and his two dissimilar sons, one of them frank and noble-minded but wild, the other a plausible mor- alist but at heart a scoundrel. Schiller took the hint and began to write, his interest being no doubt in- creased by the miserable fate of Schubart, who was then languishing in the Hohenasperg as the helpless victim of Karl Eugen's pusillanimous tyranny.' Just how much progress was made with ' The Rob- bers ' in the year 1777 is not known; probably not much, for Schiller soon decided to drop his literary pursuits for the present and devote himself closely to ' Schubart's crime was the utterance of a mild poetic lampoon to the effect that ' when Dionysius of Syracuse was compelled to go out of the tyranny business he became a Schulmeisterlein. ' He had also com- mented too frankly on the duke's relation to Franziska. Angered by these things Karl caused him to be tricked over the borders into Wtirt- temberg, seized, and without trial shut up in the dungeon of Hohenas- perg, where he was kept for ten years (1777-1787). Schiller visited him in November, 178 1, and was received with tears of joy as the author of ' The Robbers '. 26 Parentage and Schooling his medical studies. Perhaps he may have hoped by hard work to finish his course in four years in- stead of the expected five. At any rate he now bent to his toil and allowed the play to lie dormant in his mind. In 1779 he submitted a thesis on 'The Philos- ophy of Physiology ', but it was judged unfit for print. The professors condemned it variously as tedious, florid, obscure, and, worst of all, disrespectful toward recognized authorities such as Haller. In these judg- ments the duke concurred. He found that Eleve Schiller had said many fine things and in particular had shown much ' fire '. But the fire was too strong; it needed to be ' subdued ' by another year of study. It has usually been assumed by Schiller's biogra- phers that in his intense longing for liberty he was embittered by this disappointment, and that in his mood of wrath he now took up his neglected play and poured into it, hissing hot, the whole fury of his quar- rel with the world. There is, however, no evidence that he really hoped to win his release from the acad- emy in the year 1779, or that the thesis just spoken of was regarded as a graduation thesis.^ Neither his own letters nor those of his friends indicate that he was angry at being kept in school another year. Probably the critics have made too much out of this factor of personal disgruntlement. Schiller was a poetic artist, and his first play is much more than the wild expression of a plucked student's resentment. Nevertheless it is only natural to suppose that his proud and ambitious spirit chafed more or less under the requirements of an academic routine that his man- 1 Cf. Weltrich, I, 278. Genesis of The Robbers 27 hood had outgrown. That he succeeded after all, at the end of the year 1^779, in capturing a number of prizes and received them in the presence of Goethe and the Duke of Weimar, who happened just then to be visiting Stuttgart, could do but little to sweeten the bitter dose that had been prescribed for him. He now set about the preparation of a new thesis, and in the intervals of his professional occupation he worked with feverish energy upon 'The Robbers '. To gain time for writing he would often feign illness, and when the duke or an inspector surprised him would hide his manuscript in a big medical treatise kept at hand for the purpose. A few comrades who were in the secret eagerly watched the progress of his work and vocifer- ously applauded the scenes which he now and then read to them. One of these comrades has left it on record that in the excitement of composition Schiller would often stamp and snort and roar. — And thus it was, in the stolen hours of the night and driven by the demon that possessed him, that he bodied forth his titanic drama of revolt. It was virtually finished during the year 1780. In after-time Schiller reasoned himself into the conviction that art must be ' cheerful V but very little of cheerfulness went to the composition of ' The Robbers '. It was the disburthening of an op- pressed soul that suffered horribly at times from morbid^, melancholy — the chicken-pox of youthful genius. A ' letter of June, 1780, shows how he had battled with the specters of despair. Writing to Captain von Hoven, whose son had lately died, he says : ' "Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die Kunst." — Prologue to ' lValleti~ ttein'. 28 Parentage and Schooling A thousand times I envied your son as he was wrestling with death, and would have given up my life as calmly as I go to bed. I am not yet twenty-one years old, but I can tell you frankly that the world has no further charm for me. I have no delight in thinking of the world, and the day of my departure from the academy, which a few years ago would have been a day of festal joy, will not be able to force one happy smile from me. With each step, as I grow older, I lose more and more of my content- edness; and the nearer I come to the age of maturity, the more I could wish that I had died in childhood. This sounds gloomy enough, but the desperate mood did not last long. A number of medical reports writ- ten in the summer of 1780 indicate that Schiller was able to take the calm professional view of a case very similar to his own. A fellow-student named Gram- mont was afflicted with hypochondria, and Schiller was set to watch him. His analysis of the case is emi- nently sane. He finds it difficult to decide whether the young man's malady has its seat in the mind or in the bowels; whether too much brooding over hard problems has ruined his digestion and given him a headache, or whether a physical derangement has con- fused his ideas of duty and religion. He thinks there is a fair chance of curing the patient by means of medi- cine and good advice. — A youth who can talk thus of another's Weltschmerz is himself in no great danger from the malady. In November, 1780, he submitted a new thesis upon ' The Connection between Man's Animal and Spiritual Nature '. In this essay he considers the question whether, for the purposes of moral perfection, the body is to be regarded as the enemy and gaoler of the soul, or as its friend and coadjutor. The drift of his argu- Last Year at the Academy 29 ment is to show in detail the dependence of the spirit upon the flesh. Finding that philosophers have been unjust to the body, he comes to its rescue, — expound- ing good doctrine in an interesting though rather florid and unprofessional style. In the course of his philosophizing he perpetrates the sly joke of quoting from his own manuscript play and ascribing the words to an imaginary ' Life of Moor ', by one Krake. — Fur- ther comment upon the essay may be dispensed with,' seeing that Schiller as a medical man does not greatly interest us at the present time. Enough that it was accepted and procured him his release from bondage toward the close of the year. Afterwards, in the bitterness of his quarrel \\'ith the Duke of Wiirttemberg, Schiller took an altogether gloomy view of the training he had received at the Military Academy. He saw only the forcing process to which he had been subjected, the narrow life that had kept him from a knowledge of the world, and the petty restrictions that had prevented his love of poetry from developing in a sane and natural manner. How- ever, it is always the poet's fate to grow strong through his own gifts and his own trials; what schools of any kind can do for him or against him is of comparatively little moment. Had Schiller enjoyed in his youth the freedom of a real university, his literary career would no doubt have opened differently, and with another be- ginning the ^\•hole would have been different; but whether it would then have interested the world after a hundred years, as that of the real Schiller does, is a • Weltrich, I, 298 S., analyzes it and discusses its scientific value at some length. 3° Parentage and Schooling question for omniscience. Speaking humanly one can only say that the misguided paternalism of Karl Eugen in rousing the tiger proved a blessing in disguise. And the schooling itself was by no mekns so despicable. Schiller left the academy a good Latinist, though with but little Greek. He had learned to read French, if not English. He had dabbled in such philosophy as there was going and acquired an interest in the funda- mental problems. He had read not widely but in- tensely — ^which is always better. He had made a number of good friends. And not least important for his future career, he had had an excellent opportunity to observe the forms and usages of high life." ' Kuno Fischer, " Schiller-Schriften ", I, 139, has some very interest- ing remarks on this subject. "Woher gewann er [says Fischer], der Sohn eines Dorfbarbiers, . . . eine solche sichere und eingelebte An- schauung, ich mOchte sagen, Fiihlung furstlichen Wesens, wenn nicht Herzog Karl, ein Meister in der Kunst fUrstlichen ReprSsentierens, ihn zum Modell gedient hatte ? " CHAPTER II ttbe "Kobbers O iiber mich Narren, der ich wahnete die Welt durch Greuel zu verschonern und die Gesetze durch Gesetzlosigkeit aufrecht zu erhalten. — ' The Robbers '. After leaving the academy Schiller soon began to look about for a publisher of his precious manuscript. Not findirtg one he presently decided to borrow money and print the play at his own expense. It appeared in the spring of 1781, accompanied by a modest pref- ace in which the anonymous author Renounced his work unsuited to the stage but hoped it would_be_ac- ceptable as a moral contribution to literature. In less than a year it had been played with ever memorable success and ere long it was the talk of Germany. In dealing with ' The Robbers ' it has always been much easier to point out faults than to do justice. Schiller himself set the fashion of a drastic criticism which had the effect of advertising ' The Robbers ' as a violent youthful explosion containing more to be apologized for than to be admired. And indeed it is not a masterpiece of good taste. Upon an adult mind possessing some knowledge of the world's dramatic literature at its best, and particularly if the piece be read and not seen, Schiller's first play is very apt to produce the impression of a boyish extravaganza. The 3^ The Robbers sentimental bandit who nourishes his mighty soul on the blood of his fellow-men, and undertakes to right a private wrong by running amuck against society in another part of the world, is a figure upon which we decline to waste our sympathy. We have no place for him in our scheme of art unless it be in comic opera or in the penny dreadful. Emotionally we have lost touch with him as we have with Byron's Corsair. When he stalks across the serious stage and rages and fumes and wipes his bloody sword, we are inclined to smile or to yawn. As for the villain Franz, with his abysmal depravity, and Amalia, -with her witless sen- timentalism, we find it hard to take them seriously; they do not produce a good illusion. And then the whole style of the piece, the violent and ribald lan- guage, the savage action, the rant and swagger, the shooting and stabbing, — all this seems at first calcu- lated for the entertainment of young savages, and moves one to approve the oft-quoted mot of the Ger- man prince who said to Goethe: ' If I had been God and about to create the world, and had I foreseen that Schiller would write ' The Robbers ' in it, I should not have created it.'^ This is one side of the story. The other side is that ' The Robbers ' made an epoch in German dramatic literature. Not only is it the strongest and completest expression of the eighteenth-century storm and stress, but it proved a highly effective stage-play. Nor was its success ephemeral. Its author quickly outgrew it, but it maintained itself during the entire period of Ger- many's leadership in matters of dramatic art, and even ' Eckermann's "Gesprache mit Goethe", under date of Jan. 17, 1827. The Schubart Story 33 to-day it preserves much of its old vitality. It is true that when a modern audience assembles to see a per- formance of ' The Robbers ', they are not impelled solely by the intrinsic merits of the piece. Loyalty to the great dramatic poet of the nation plays its part. People think : Thus our Schiller began, — and they expect to make allowances. But when all such allow- ances are made, it remains true that ' The Robbers ' is a powerful stage-play which reveals in every scene the hand of the born dramatist. We may call it boy- ish if we will, but its boyishness is like that of ' Titus Andronicus '. Each is the work of a young giant who in learning the use of his hammer lays about him some- what wildly and makes a tremendous hubbub. But Thor is Thor, and such boys are not born every day. The starting-point of Schiller's invention was the conception of the two hostile brothers, and this he had from Schubart, although other writers, notably KHnger and Leisewitz, had already made use of it in dramatit productions! In the Schubart story* we hear of a nobleman with two sons, of whom the elder, Karl, is high-minded but dissolute, while the younger, Wil- helm, is a hypocritical zealot. Karl plays the role of the prodigal son and his excesses are duly reported at home by his brother. After a while the sinner repents and writes his father a remorseful letter, which is in- tercepted by Wilhelm. Then the older brother re- turns to the vicinity of his home and takes service with a poor farmer. Here it falls to his lot to rescue his ' The Schubart story is reprinted by Weltrich, I, p. 183 ff., who at- tempts to trace its provenience. It was njt entirely fiction. Cf. MitlOt, I, 298, to whom this chapter is indebted in many plaees, 34 The Robbers father from the hands of assassins. It turns out that the instigator of the murder was no other than Wil- helm. When the plot is discovered the magnanimous Karl entreats pardon for his vile brother. His prayer is granted, Wilhelm receives a share of the estate and all ends in happy tears. — In publishing the sketch Schubart recommended it to the geniuses of the day as an excellent foundation for a novel or a comedy. Here was a chance, he thought, to prove that the Germans, notwithstanding the servility of their pens, were not the spiritless race that foreigners saw in them; 'to show that we too, in spite of our oppressive forms of government, which permit only a condition of passivity, are men who have their passions and can act, no less than a Frenchman or a Briton.' He therefore cau- tioned any playwright who might try his hand upon the subject to lay the scene not in a foreign country but in contemporary Germany. We see here the thought that struck fire in the mind of young Schiller, whose bent was all for tragedy. If there was to be a proof that strong passion and bold action were still possible, notwithstanding the degen- eracy of the age, what better object could there be for the passion to wreak itself upon than the age itself.' If life had become vapid, and the German character servile and pusillanimous, here was the very field for a mad Ajax who should make havoc among the cowards and the pigmies. In Schubart's tragi-comedy there are no heroic passions whatever. Nothing is conceived in a large and bold way. The characters live and move throughout in the little world of their own selfish inter- estSr Such a piece, in which the penitent hero bends his Storm-and-Strcss Predecessors 35 back to the plow and weakly pardons an abominable crime, did not comport with Schiller's mood of fierce indignation. So he converted the story into a tragedy and turned Schubart's meek and forgiving prodigal into a terrible avenger of mankind. In the contrasted brothers we see what Minor' well enough calls the hot and cold passions. Karl is a hot- spur whose emotions are always keyed up to the high- est pitch; he is never calm and is incapable of sober reasoning. His boiling blood and his insensate ambi- tion are his only oracles. We may say that his mo- tives are lofty, but in trying to set the world right and make it conform to his perfervid dreams of justice and freedom, he becomes a madman and a criminal. Franz, on the other hand, represents the scheming intellect sundered from conscience and natural feeling. He is a monster of cool, calculating, hypocritical villainy. At the end he cowers in abject terror before the phan- tom conscience that he has reasoned out of existence in the first act. The portrait of the two brothers, as thus conceived, is crudely simple. There are no deli- cacies of shading, no subtleties of psychological analy- sis. In short. Robber Moor and his brother give the impression of having been made to a scheme rather than copied from nature. Nevertheless the scheme is conceived with superb audacity and executed with a dramatic power and insight that had never been sur- passed in Germany. To understand the furore created by ' The Robbers ' one should read two other storm-and-stress plays, by writers of no mean dramatic talent, which present the ' " Schiller, sein Leben und seine Werke," I, 299. 36 The Robbers same fundamental situation,^ — ' The Twins ', by Klin- ger, and ' Julius ofJTarentum ', by Leisewitz. Both these plays came out in the year 1776 and were evi- dently studied with care by Schiller. Both follow the timid example which had been set by Lessing of lay- ing the scene in a foreign land. Klinger gives us two brothers, Guelfo and Ferdinando, of whom neither the mother nor her physician can tell which was born first. But Ferdinando has always been treated as the elder, has enjoyed the favor of his father, risen to power and distinction and won the prize in love. He is of a noble and forgiving temper and plays only a subordinate part. The hero is Guelfo, who, like Schiller's Karl Moor, has read Plutarch and would fain do something great, like Brutus or Cassius. But he remains after all only a poor knight. His hand is unnerved and his heroic spirit paralyzed by the suspicion that he has been the life-long victim of a conspiracy; that he and not Fer- dinando is the elder brother. The whole interest of the play turns upon the portraiture of his morbid, in- sensate jealousy. In the fourth act he takes a morn- ing ride with his brother and murders him. Then he defiantly reports the deed at home and is himself slain by his father. 1 Bitter family feuds, and particularly the fiction of the hostile broth- ers, — with motives of rivalry, jealousy and hatred, with paternal curses and parricide and fratricide and filicide, — were just then a liter- ary fashion. It is worth noting in thie connection that J. M. R. Lenz published in 1776 a story entitled "Die beiden Alten", in which a son shuts up his father in a cellar and sends a man to kill him. But the man's lieart fails him and the prisoner escapes, — to reappear like a ghost among his kin. That Schiller read this story is at any rate think- aWe, though there is no diregt evi4ence of the fact, Comparison with Klingcr and Leisewitz 37 In ' Julius of Tarentum ' the younger brother, Guido, is, again, the man of action; a miles gloriosus who boasts of his strong arm. and dreams of glory. He looks with contempt and hatred upon his gentle, senti- mental brother Julius, who, though heir to the throne, prepares to renounce his career because he is thwarted in love. The girl Blanca, upon whom he has fixed his affections, is not deemed a suitable bride for him by his father and has been shut up in a convent. He de- termines to abduct her by night and flee with her to some romantic spot in the far north. In the execution of this purpose he is killed by his jealous brother Guido, who is then made to suffer death at the hands of his own father. In both these plays we have, as in ' The Robbers ', an aged father whose dynastic hopes center in an ex- cellent son; this son the object of mad jealousy on the part of a younger brother, and both brothers in love with the same girl. The plays exhibit talent of a high order, but talent that always falls short of genius. Psychical states are portrayed by means of talk, and the talk is big enough; but very little actually hap- pens. The mighty passions have to be taken largely upon trust and the conversation often drags. Dra- matic possibilities are not fully grasped, the situations are felt but not seen, and there is an obvious reluctance to make unusual demands upon the stage. Even Klinger, whose play of ' Storm and Stress ' gave a name to the whole contemporaryTS5v?meTlt in German literature, reads tamely enough in comparison with ' The Robbers '. But what is most noteworthy of all, Klinger and Leisewitz give ug §i!Pply dynastic trage- 38 The Robbers dies. In both the outlook is limited to the fortunes of a single house. In both we miss the great dramatist who looks upon life with a roving eye and intertwines his tale of private woe with the larger tangle of human destiny. This last is what the young Schiller did with mas- terly insight. He converted the dy^nastic tragedy of his predecessors into a tragedy of the_ social revolution; and his work has lived because we can hear in it the preliminary roar of the storm which was soon to burst in the streets of Paris.^ He laid his scene not in far-off Italy nor in the remote past, but in Germany and in the middle of the century which boasted of its enlight- ened philosophy and its excellent police regulations. Of the two brothers he took the sentimentalist for his hero, but made him at the same time a man of action, a man of heroic mould and a self-helper. The logic of Rousseau finds in Karl Moor a practical interpreter. What the Frenchman had preached concerning, the in- famies of civilization, the badness of society and poli- tics, the reign of injustice and unreason, the petty squabbles of the learned, the necessity of a return to nature, — all this seethes in the blood of Moor, but he does not content himself with indignant rhetoric or sentimental repining. He takes ^rms against the sea of troubles. Instead of an excellent youth pitifully done to death by a jealous brother, we get a towering ^ Cf. Minor, I, 300: "Die Rauber des jungen Schiller, welcher sich damals nicht einmal um den nordamerikanischen Freiheitskrieg, ge- schweige deiin um das gewitterschwUle Frankreich bekummerte, waren nur ein Symptom und eine Vorahnung ; eine Wirkung im Kleinen vor der groszen Katastrophe, " {"o &• r r s Influence of Rousseau and Goethe 39 idealist who is the moulder of his own fate. With sub- lime vfipiz he takes it upon himself to wield the aveng- ing bolts of Jove, but finds that Jove rejects his assist- ance. He errs disastrously in his judgment, like any short-sighted mortal, and his work goes all -agle)?. But when the end comes it is not depressing. We see no longer a revolting fratricide and the painful sacri- fice of virtue to the meanest of passions, but the verdict of the gods upon human presumption. In making his hero a defiant self-helper and sending him with sword in hand against the minions of the established order, Schiller was obviously influenced by the example of ' Gotz von Berlichingen '. Like Gotz, Karl Moor regards himself as the champion_oiffreedom agai nst the law, whicETs its~enemy. Both a re frien ds of the oppressed and haters of pedantry and pettifog- gery. Both fight like lions against tremendous odds. Both assume the leadership of a band of outlaws jvhom they cannot contjol, and thus become responsible for revolting crimes not foreseen or intended. But'along with these and other resemblances that might be pointed out there is an important difference. In the fourth act of the earlier play a Heilbronn Councillor says to Gotz : ' We owe no faith to a robber.' Whereat Gotz exclaims: 'If you did not wear the emperor's emblem, which I honor in the vilest counterfeit, you should take back that word or choke upon it. Mine is an honorable feud.' That is, the knight of the six- teenth century repudiates the name in which Karl Moor glories. Says Schiller's Pater in the second act: ' And you, pretty captain ! Duke of cutpurses ! King pf scQvndrels ! Great Mogul of all rogues under the 4° The Robbers sun ! ' To which Moor replies : ' Very true. Very true. Just proceed.' In comparison with such a dare- devil Goethe's hero seems to roar like a sucking dove. In his own mind Gotz never really burns the bridge behind him. He is at heart a loyalist who recognizes the emperor's claim to his allegiance. As a free im- perial knight he feels himself within his right under the feudal system. In resisting his enemies he does not set himself in opposition to governmental authority per se, but only to the abuse of authority by subordi- nates who disgrace their master and his. And in as- suming the leadership of the insurgent rabble he thinks to restrain their ferocity and thus earn the thanks of the supreme authority. — It remained for Schiller to convert this rude self-helper in the age of expiring feudalism into a savage anarchistjn the boastful age of enlightenment^ It was a bold idea to be conceived by a youth in a school where every third word was of virtue and phi- lanthropy. Not that there was anything particularly audacious in a strong presentation of the spirit of revolt. For some time past this spirit had been nourished by the writings of Rousseau and those who followed in his wake, until attacks upon the social order, in some phase of it, had come to be almost the staple of literature. But the attacks had not been very dangerous. Either they were veiled by a distant set- ting of the scene, or the indictment of the age was presented incidentally in connection with some lacri- mose tragedy of the individual. People had learned to sigh and weep that things should be so, but there the matter ended. The German princeling CQuld look on Earlier Attacks on the Social Order 41 with equanimity, assured that the rhetoric and the tears did not mean him, or that if they did it did not matter. In real life those who' felt themselves op- pressed by the civilization of Europe could emigrate, and they did emigrate in large numbers. This was one form of the return to nature. In literature, how- ever, the usual expedient was to let the hero chafe himself to death and go down, without striking a blow, before the irresistible tyranny of the established order. Schiller's hero is of another ilk. Romantic flight with his lady-love does not occur to him. Surrender to the wrong is out of the question. He finds another form for the return to nature and puts into practice the maxim, Here or nowhere is America. He stays and fights at the head of a troop of bandits. Thus the play which was originally to have been called ' The Lost Son ' became ' The Robbers '. In their way, then, Schiller's outlaws stand for the state of nature. They represent natural man rising in brute strength^ against the oppressions . of aT depraved society^ Such at least is Karl Moor's construction of the matter when he says to the Pater : ' Tell them that my business is retribution, that my trade is vengeance.' Under our modern development of the social sentiment we can hardly imagine a really high-minded youth setting out in such a Quixotic and fanatical enterprise. This feature of Schiller's plot, which has for us some- thing of the burlesque about it, has been taken more than any other to prove his inexperience of life. But the fact is that the thing was after all not so unthink- able. Outlawry on a large scale was by no means un- known, and the romance of outlawry was familiar in 42 The Robbers literature. The Thirty Years' War had famiHarized Germany with marauding bands who recognized no authority save that of their leader. Even in the eigh- teenth century the brigandage which was common in the Mediterranean countries continued to flourish in Southern Germany. As late as 1781, the very year in which ' The Robbers ' appeared, we hear of the cap- ture in Bavaria of a band of outlaws numbering nearly a thousand men. The year 1771 witnessed the exe- cution of the robber-chieftain Klostermayer, who, under the name of the Bavarian Hiesel, became the subject of an idealizing saga in which we recognize the essen- tial features of Karl Moor.* Schiller's main fiction was thus, in a sense, war- ranted by the facts ; and it gains further in artistic plausibility when we consider that the idealized bandit was already a familiar type in literature. The author of ' The Robbers ' was acquainted with Robin Hood, and he had probably read ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona ', in which the banished Valentine becomes the captain of a band of outlaws on condition that they "do no outrages on silly women or poor passengers ", and the outlaws reply that they " detest such vile, base prac- tices."^ He had also read, in 'Don Quixote', of the high-toned robber, Roque Guinart, who had more of compassion in his nature than cruelty. Cervantes makes Roque comment thus upon his mode of life : " Injuries which I could not brook and thirst for re- venge first led me into it contrary to my nature ; for the savage asperity of my present behavior is a dis- 1 Cf. Minor, I, 313 ff. " '' Act IV, scene i. The Noble Bandit in Literature 43 grace to my heart, which is gentle and humane." At the end of the episode Roque sends his captives away "admiring his generosity, his gallantry, and his ex- traordinary conduct, and looking upon him rather as an Alexander the Great than as a notorious robber." ' Here was a sufficient hint for a criminal in the grand style, who should imagine himself the spiritual con- gener of Plutarch's heroes. ' A singular Don Quixote whom we abominate and love, admire and pity ',. — such was Schiller's own for- mula for his first dramatic hero. From the standpoint of ordinary logic it must be admitted that Moor's motive for becoming a" rx)bber (the lying letter that he receives from Franz) is quite insufficient. He is duped too easily and should have known his brother better. He is too ready to give up everything dear to him, in- cluding the dear Amalia. ' I have no sweetheart any more ', is a weak surrender for a man of his heroic stamp. In any case the wrong that has been done him is a private ^Tcrng~that has nothing' to^ do with the constitution of society. One does not see how it is to be righted or how the world is to be purged of such baseness by killing and plundering people in the Bo- hemian Forest^ The only reply which our drama makes to this ob- jection is to be found in Moor's crazy ambition for dis- tinction. He has the 'great-man-mania'. What at- tracts him in the career of crime is not the wickedness but the bigness of it ; the opportunity of lifting himself above the common herd and sending his name down to posterity as that of a very extraordinary person. ' I ' " Don Quixote, " Chapter 89. 44 The Robbers loathe this ink-spattering century ', he says, ' when I read in my Plutarch of great men. ... I am to squeeze my body into a corset and lace up my will in laws. . . . Law has never made a^great man, but freedom hatches out colossi and extremes. O that the spirit of Hermann were still glowing in the ashes ! Place me at. the head of an army of fellows like myself, and Germany shall become a republic in comparison with_which Rome and Sparta A^ere nunneries.' Such monstrous egotism needs no motive, but only .aja_-0££Lasiori, for breaking with the order of civilizatipn. An occasion is furnished by the letter. But that which marks Karl Moor as a genuine child of Schiller's imagination and of the sentimental age is his combination of virile energy with soft-heartedness and true nobility of feeling. In all his robbings and burnings he does not become vulgarized like his com- rades. He imagines that he is engaged in a righteous work and has God on his side. For this reason he has a right to his melting moods, as, for example, in the famous and oft-praised scene on the Danube. This delicacy of feeling, which to an American or English- man is apt to seem absurd in a bandit-chief who is en- gaged in wholesale crime, is an essential part of Moor's character. It is this which, on German soil, gave to ' The Robbers ' tragic interest and insured its immor- tality. One sees all along that Moor is a wanderer in the dark, and one can sympathize with his purposes and his dreams while detesting his conduct. This makes him a heroic figure. And when the clearing-up' comes and he discovers that he has been the victim not of society but of an individual villain ; that his at- Karl Moor*s Sentimentalism 4S tempt to right wrongs by committing new wrongs, to enforce the laws by lawlessness, and to correct vio- lence by violence, was nothing but presumptuous and criminal folly, — when all this becomes clear to him, we have a tragic situation of the most pathetic character. This element of high tragic pathos was first given to a German drama by Schiller. It had not been given by Goethe and Lessing, nor was it in them to give it. This is why German tragedy in the true sense may be said to have its beginning in ' The Robbers '. That Schiller in a sense sympathized with his hero is undeniable. What gives vitality to the character is here as always the fact that the author looked into his own heart and then wrote. This, however, only means that the moods of Moor are veritable moods of Schiller, raised to a white heat and translated into action. The young student, dreaming the dreams of youth and pin- ing for freedom and action, had more than once felt his gorge rise to the choking-point as he found himself forced to plod on among the dull, oppressive, unheroic facts of life ; and those acts of official villainy^againat which Moor draws the sword he had_him.S£l£_se£n flourishing unavenged in his native Wurttemberg. But, on the other hand, he was never for a, moment insensi- ble to the moral hideousness and the tragic folly of Moor's conduct. It was to be sublime, but insane and calamitous nevertheless. One is justified in thinking, therefore, that Goedeke goes too far, or does not ex- press the truth felicitously, when he says that the author of ' The Robbers ' ' felt himself one ' with his hero.' He felt himself one with certain phases of ' " Grundrisz zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung", V, 19. 46 The Robbers Moor's thought and feeling ; for the rest, however, the robber-chieftain was to be abominated as well as ad- mired. There has been too much of the tendency to see in ' The Robbers ' only a personal document ; only a youth's incoherent cry for liberty. The piece is a work of art, duly calculated with reference to artistic effects. Turning now from the figure of Karl to that of his brother, one is struck at once with the artificiality of the portrait. We seem to have before us in Franz Moor the result of a deliberate effort to conceive the vilest possible travesty of human nature. Nothing here that was copied from nature, nothing that Schiller found in his own heart. It is all a brain-spun creation, born of his dramatic reading and of his studies in medicine and philosophy. In the first place we can observe that Franz is studiously contrasted with his brother. Karl is an idealist and a man of sentiment ; Franz is a materialist to whom the natural emotions of the heart are objecfs of cyhicaT derision. For Karl, who knows his Klopstock as well as his Plutarch, love is a transcendental dream foretelling a spiritual union in a world without end ; for Franz it is carnal appe- tite. Karl wears his heart upon his sleeve ; Franz is wily and hypocritical. The one is handsome and chivalrous, the other ill-favored and cruel. The jealous cadet who plots criminally against his more fortunate brother is common to both Leisewitz and Klinger, but in neither is he an intriguing villain. In ■ Julius of Tarentum ' Guido is really the more mas- terful man of the two. He despises his brother as a weakling and asserts no other claim than that of the The Portrait of Franz Moor 47 strongest. In Klinger's play, as we have seen, every- thing is made to turn upon Guide's cankering doubt of his brother's seniority. One gets the impression that if the doubt could be settled by indisputable evidence in favor of Ferdinando, there would be no casus belli ; the younger son would bow to the law of primogeni- ture and that would end the matter. Schiller, how- ever, felt the need of a bolder contrast to his hero. The ' sublime criminal ' required a colossal foil ; and as equality with the sword was out of the question, the most obvious recourse was to pit natural depravity against natural greatness ; scheming intellect against hot blood. — In working out his conception Schiller took counsel freely of Shakspere, whose name had now become for young Germany the symbol of all things great in dramatic writing. The first soliloquy of Franz Moor reminds one at once of Edmund in ' Lear ', though there is none of the kind of borrowing which makes easy prey for the philologist. Both villains covet the wealth and station of a preferred brother ; both make use of a specious obstetrical argument and both operate with forged letters. In general, however, the portrait of Franz was more influenced by Richard the Third than by Edmund, or lago, or any of the other Shak- sperian villains. Franz is the British Richard divested of his Shaksperian lordliness, transferred to a humbler sphere of action and provided with the mental outfit of an eighteenth-century philosophe, as seen by hostile critics. Both descant on their own deformity and confide to the public their villainous designs. But while Richard speaks in a tone of genial cynicism, as 48 The Robbers if his principal concern were only to bring a little vari- ety into the tameness of " these fair, well-spoken days ", the German villain solemnly turns himself inside out and regales us ad nauseam with the metaphysics of in- iquity. This is his mode of reasoning : Why did nature put upon me this burden of ugliness — this Laplander's nose, this Moorish mouth, these Hottentot eyes ? Death and destruction ! Why was she such a partisan ? — But no, I do her injustice. She gave us wit when she placed us nal. A valuable capi- tal for him that knows how to profit by it. — Conscience ? An ex- cellent scarecrow with which to frighten sparrows from cherry- trees. — Filial love ? Where is the obligation .'' Did my father beget me because he loved me ? Did he think of me at all 'i Is there anything holy in his gratification of carnal appetite ? Or shall I love him because he loves me ? That is mere vanity, the usual predilection of the artist for his own work. Such is the ethical attitude of Franz Moor, as we gather it from his first soliloquy. One sees that Schil- ler was concerned to portray a scoundrel who had read deeply and come to the conclusion that in a world like this there is no valid reason why a man should be virtuous. Evidently the author had himself breathed the mephitic air of eighteenth-century skepticism. His natural goodness of heart safeguarded him from cor- ruption, but it pleased him as artist to dip his pen in the blackest ink and draw the picture of the devil with whom he had wrestled in moments of solitary musing. In spite of his intellectual subtlety, however, Franz is a rather dull villain. His philosophical and physiolog- Franz Moor a Dull Villain 49 ical pedantry — for Schiller endows him lavishly with the special lore of the medical man — obfuscates his vision for the ordinary facts of human nature. He has upon the whole a more intelligible motive for his rascality than lago, but he is much less interesting, much less picturesque, for simple lack of mother-wit. What a woeful blunder, for example, is his attempt to win Amalia by HppiVting Vipr a1-«;pTit Invpr aL^C^LL]£."5^^ and with all manner of re volting details, tis th.e victim of the most loathsome of diseases j And \Khy should such a crafty schemer risk his neck and put himself in the hands of a dangerous "corilederatelbr the purpose of hastening by a few hours^ th^ demise of a childish old man who is already Jn his power.' And in his final agony of terror, when we should expect him to hide himself or try to escape^ how absurd that he should summon Pastor Moser merely for the purpose of arguing with him upon immortality and judgment ! We see that he is after all a wTetched coward who has merely cheated us into the belief that he has put away the superstitions of orthodox belief, while in reality they still linger in his blood. We miss in him the in- vincible sang-froid of villainy which might have given a touch of Shaksperian grandeur to his character. As it is, he is not grand, but pitiable and revolting. When he strangles himself with his hat-b and, one is quite, sat- isfied with the unheroic manner of his taking-off The subordinate characters of the piece are hardly worth discussing at any length. The elder Moor is a mere nonentity, — a dummy in a rocking-chair would have done as well. Evidently Schiller was concerned to make the way as easy as possible for the clumsy so The Robbers villainy of Franz. A more vigorous father, he may have felt, would have necessitated a more subtle and plausible intrigue, which would have diverted attention from the main issue of the contrasted sons. The heroine Amalia has always been recognized, and was immediately recognized by Schiller himself, as the weakest character in the play. But posterity's criticism is hardly that formulated by him, namely, that we miss in Amalia the ' gentle, suffering, pining thing — the maiden.' ' Of gentle, suffering, pining things there is no dearth in the German drama, and they were not in Schiller's line. Nearly all of his women are made of heroic stuff, and we honor him not the less for that. No one should blame Amalia for boxing the ears of Franz or drawing the sword upon him ; it is unlady- like conduct, but very good storm-and-stress realism. What one must deplore, however, is the general men- tal inadequacy that is paired with this spasmodic energy of scorn. Common sense is not the highest of dramatic qualities, but a modicum of it would have made Schil- ler's first heroine, to say the least, more interesting. She has no power of initiative and seems made only to be duped. Her inability to recognize her lover in the fourth act is a terrible strain upon one's patience. In- deed the whole love-affair between her and Karl is utterly un-human. What can one think, for example of a pair of ecstatically faithful lovers to whom it has evidently never occurred to write to each other ? Here, if anywhere, one recalls Schiller's oft-quoted observa- 1 Sammtliche Schriften, II, 365. Citations from Schiller refer, unless otherwise expressly indicated, to Goedeke's historico-critical edition in 15 vols. Stuttgart, 1867-1876. The Subordinate Characters s^ tion that he had attempted in ' The Robbers ' to depict human beings before he had seen any.' Aside from his acquaintance with Franziska von Hohenheim, and an occasional nearer view of the coy maidens of the ecole des demoiselles, the female sex and the grand passion were for him only bookish mysteries. Of the subordinate outlaws there are several whose portraits are very well drawn. Here Schiller was able to profit by the psychological observations he had made upon his comrades in the academy. There were no cutthroats there, but there were traits and exploits, animosities and fidelities, which only needed to be heated in the poetic crucible in order to befit the role of robbers in the Bohemian Forest. In particular we may guess that the blatherskite Jew, Spiegelberg, with his swaggering self-conceit and his bestial vulgarity, was copied to some extent from life, though nothing definite is known of his original. Taken as a whole the robbers form a picturesque company, each with his own character. Shakspere would probably have been content to say ' first robber ', ' second robber ', etc. ; but for Schiller, accustomed to the pose of leadership among his fellows, to company drill and to the weigh- ing of men according to their moral qualities, this was not enough. There had to be sheep and goats, classi- fied according to their loyalty. On the one hand, closest to the leader stand the devoted Roller, the sturdy Schweizer and the romantic idealist, Kosinsky ; on the other are the envious malcontent, Spiegelberg, and the wretched Schufterle. The others, less dis- tinctly characterized, represent the mass. ' Sammtliche Schriften, III, 5^0. 52 The Robbers It will now be in order to look at ' The Robbers ' a moment from the point of view of dramatic art.^ In a suppressed preface to the first edition Schiller expressed himself very contemptuously with regard to the stage, declaring that he had essayed a dramatized story and not a stage-play. He would not advise that his work be put upon the boards ; for the rabble of the theater would not understand him, would take him for an apologist of vice, and so forth. There seems no good reason to doubt the essential sincerity of these expres- sions, though their author quickly changed his tune when the staging of ' The Robbers ' became a practical question. In the heat of authorship, however, he had aimed at a literary rather than a dramatic triumph. His chief models were literary dramas. ' Gotz von Berlichingen ' had won its way into favor as a book for the reader. The dramatic works of Klinger, Lenz, Wagner and the like, were for the most part too extravagant and amorphous for representation, and Shakspere's day had not yet come. This being so, it is a fact of interest that ' The Rob- bers ' first captured the public as a stage-play, and that too in a very much modified version, from which all references to contemporary society had been expunged, the action having been dated back into the fifteenth century. This indicates that the initial success of the work was not due mainly to the social ' tendency ' which we see in it, but to its dramatic power. And the dramatic power is there. With but slender knowledge ' Cf. Bulthaupt, " Dramaturgic des Schauspiels," I, 209, who has some excellent remarks upon the dramatic qualities of the play and the histrionic problems connected with it. Dramatic Power of The Robbers 53 of the rules and the conventions, without ever having seen a moderately good play in his life, with little help save from the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, the young student had shown himself at a stroke the coming dramatist of his nation. Let us freely admit that he had not shown himself a master of dramatic craftsmanship. Faulty the piece no doubt is in several particulars. The soliloquies of Franz are too long-winded, and the same may be said of some of the robber-scenes. Spiegelberg's vulgar tongue is allowed to wag too freely. Contempt of quotidian probability is now and then carried so far as to produce an unintended effect of burlesque : as when the robbers, who are merely dissolute students from Leipzig, fight with twenty times their number of soldiers, lose one man and slay three hundred. Again, one does not quite see the moral necessity of honest Schweizer's killing himself, when he has the misfortune to find Franz dead. He has indeed promised to capture him or die in the attempt, but his promise was never meant to cover the case of the villain's suicide. Under the circumstances his shooting himself is mere' exuberance of dramatic bloodshed. But how absurd it would be to dwell upon these things as if they were serious defects ! Young Schiller undertook to Shaksperize. His parole was not to be the natural and the probable, but the extraordinary, the tremendous. Why then should he have been more timid than the author of ' Lear ' and ' Macbeth ' } One who is borne along by a whirlwind may be par- doned for ignoring the rules and the proprieties. Of course it is not intended to compare ' The Robbers ' 54 The Robbers with the riper works of Shakspere. That would be absurd, and yet no more absurd than to gird at Schiller for doing what we pardon or even admire in Shakspere. Like every great dramatist Schiller has an indefeasible right to demand that we take his point of view, make his assumptions and enter into the spirit of his creation. And when we do this, how magnificently he carries us along! What animation in the dialogue everywhere, and what fire in the robber-scenes ! From first to last the play fairly throbs with passion, and always with passion made visible. It is all action, all meant to be done and seen. Extravagant it is, no doubt; but while there are always hundreds of critics in the world who can see that and say it more or less cleverly, there is but one man in a century who can write such scenes. CHAPTER III Zbe Stuttgart /IBcOlcus So gewisz ich sein Werk verstehe, so musz er starke Dosen in Emeticis ebenso lieben als in ^stheticis, unci icli mSchte iiim lieber zelien Pferde als meine Frau zur Kur iibergeben. — Review of ' The Robbers ', 1^82. The career that opened before Schiller on his release from the academy, in December, 1780, turned out a wretched mockery of his hopes. He had, or supposed he had, the right to expect a decent position in the public service and a measure of liberty befitting a man who had served his time under tutelage. What his august master saw fit to mete out to him, however, was neither the one nor the other: he was stationed at Stuttgart as ' medicus ' to an ill-famed regiment consisting largely of invalids. His pay was eighteen florins a month — say seven or eight dollars. His duties consisted 'of routine visits to the hospital and daily appearance at parade, with reports upon the con- dition of the luckless patients whom he doctored savagely with drastic medicines. Withal he was required to wear a stiff, ungainly uniform which did not carry with it the distinction of an • officer ' and exposed him to the derision of his friends. A humble petition of Captain Schiller that his son be permitted 55 S6 The Stuttgart Medicus to wear the dress of a civilian and extend his prac- tice among the people of the city met with a curt refusal. Of Schiller's personal appearance at about this time we have two or three descriptions by friends who knew him well.' Putting them together we get a picture something like the following: He was about five feet and nine inches in height, erect of bearing and knock- kneed. He had reddish hair, a broad forehead, and bushy eyebrows which came close together over a long, thin, arched nose. He was near-sighted. His eyes, of a bluish-gray color, were usually inflamed, but very expressive when he spoke with animation. One friend credits him with an 'eagle's glance', another with an uncanny, demonic expression. He had a strong chin, a prominent under-lip, and sunken, freckled cheeks. Altogether his face and bearing told of immense energy. — One can imagine how the creator of Karl Moor must have felt in his new situation. The young lion had escaped from one cage into another that was even worse. Nevertheless the new life did not altogether preclude an occasional sip from the cup of earthly cheer. The young medicus found himself within easy reach of a number of jovial friends whom he had known at the academy. With one of these, a youth named Kappf, he hired a room of a certain Frau Vischer, a widow who was to become the muse of his high-keyed songs to Laura. The furniture consisted of a table and two benches. In one corner were usually to be seen a pile 1 The somewhat conflicting data are dubjected to a critical scrutiny by Weltrich, I, 323 fF. Visits at Castle Solitude 57 of potatoes and some plates. Here the friends feasted upon sausage and potato-salad of their own make, a bottle of wine being added if the host happened to be in funds. Sometimes there were convivial card-parties at a local inn, where more than enough wine was drunk and bills were run up that still remain unpaid. Tradi- tion tells of a military banquet from which our medicus had to be assisted home. A nobler pleasure incident to the new life was the opportunity of frequent visits to Castle Solitude. For eight years Schiller had been cut off from intercourse with his parents and sisters, save through the medium of officially inspected letters. Returning now at last he found his mother in frail health, but his father still vigorous and active. Sister Christophine had grown into a strong and self-reliant young woman, the main- stay of the household. She took an interest in litera- ture, loved her brother devotedly, had a sister's boundless ' faith in his genius, and now became his confidante and amanuensis. Another sister, Louise, had reached the age of fourteen, two others had died, and the youngest of all, Nanette, was now three years old. It was a happy, sensible, affectionate family- circle, in which the long-lost son and brother found sweet relief from the misere of Stuttgart. The only cloud in the sky was the mother's anxiety for the welfare of her son's soul, with the resulting necessity of replying somewhat disingenuously to her tender in- quiries into his religious condition. To his parents and sister the disgruntled medicus expressed freely his dis- appointment at the provision which the duke had made for him. A hard fate, indeed, to have studied seven 5 8 The Stuttgart Medicus years for the privilege of starving one's mind and body as an insignificant army doctor ! It was partly the hope of earning money that led him to seek a publisher for ' The Robbers '. Friend Petersen was exhorted to find one, if possible, and was promised whatever he could get for the piece over and above fifty florins. But Petersen had no luck and at last the ambitious author decided, as the author of ' Gotz ' had done before him, to print his drama at his own expense. The money that he borrowed for the purpose, on the security of a friend, involved him in debts that were to hang over him for years and cause him endless trouble. His plan once formed he began to take counsel with friends and revise his manuscript in the light of their criticisms. Even after the printing had begun, the revision continued. Things looked differently in the cold type of the proof-sheet, and he saw that he had occasionally gone too far in the direction of coarseness and extravagance. Thus the original draft had pro^ vided that Amalia should actually be sent to a convent, and that the furious Karl should appear with his robbers and threaten to convert the nunnery into a brothel unless his sweetheart should be delivered to him. This scene was condemned and the exploit given a more appropriate place among the f res gestae\ of Spiegelberg. In many places extravagant diction was toned down. The original preface, which was mainly occupied with a labored defence of the literary drama as against the stage-play, was rejected, and a new preface written which was devoted chiefly to moral considerations. The author here admitted that he had Publication of The Robbers S9 portrayed characters who would offend the virtuous, but insisted that he could not do otherwise if he was to copy nature, because in the real world virtue shines only in contrast with vice. He went on to say: He who makes it his object to overthrow vice^ and to avenge religion, morality and social law upon their enemies, must unveil vice in all its naked hideousness and bring it before the eyes of mankind in colossal size ; he must himself wander tem- porarily through its nocturnal labyrinths and must be able to force himself into states of feeling that revolt his soul by their unnatu- ralness. I may properly claim for my work, in view of its remark- able catastrophe, a place among moral books. Vice meets the end that befits it. The wanderer returns to the track of law. Virtue triumphs. Whoever is fair enough to read me through and try to understand me, from him I may expect, not that he admire the poet, but that he respect the right-minded man. This attempt to recommend ' The Robbers ' as a text-book in morality has now a curious sound. It is a safe guess that the young attorney for the defence wrote with his tongue in his cheek and an eye on the censor. The first edition, which appeared in May, 178 1, was styled a ' Schauspiel ' and bore the Hippocratic motto : Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrutn sanat; quae ferrum non sanat, ignis sanat. The author's name was not given and the work purported (fallaciously) to have been published at Frankfurt and Leipzig. The anonymity was not taken seriously, however, and the Stuttgart medicus soon found himself a bit of a literary lion. He was pointed out on the street as the man who had written ' The Robbers ' , and distinguished travellers began to call upon him. The reviewers mingled praise and blame, and the most thoughtful of 6o The Stuttgart Medicus them, one Timme, declared in the Erfurt Zeitung that here if anywhere was the coming Shakspere, — which was a httle wild from posterity's point of view, but not an unpleasant thing for a young author to read in a newspaper. Luckily for Schiller his work was not long left to make its way as ' mere literature ' Among those to whom he had sent the sheets was a Mannheim book- seller, named Schwan, who had an eye -for dramatic merit. Before Schwan had read many pages it came over him that here was a prize for the stage, and he hurried with it to Baron Dalberg, intendant of the Mannheim theater. Dalberg was easily convinced, — only the work would need to be radically revised. A complimentary letter was addressed to Schiller, pro- posing a stage version of ' The Robbers ' and offering to bring out future plays that he might write. Schiller was quite willing, notwithstanding his preface, and about the middle of August he addressed himself to his task. Profiting by the suggestions of Dalberg and the reviewers, he devoted six weeks to adding, subtracting, re-writing, and re-arranging, — a new masterpiece, he averred, would have cost him less labor. But Dalberg was not yet satisfied ; correspondence ensued about various points, Schiller showing himself very tractable, and it was not until the close of the year that the stage version was finally ready. It was played on the I2th of January, 1782, — its author having stolen away from Stuttgart to see the performance, — and scored an unheard-of success.' Shortly afterwards the new ver- ' Bulthaupt, I, 210, quotes from Pichler's history of the Mannheim theater the following account by an eye- witness : ' The theater was like a Stage Version of The Robbers 6i sion, in slightly modified form, was published by Schwan under the name of a ' Trauerspiel ' by Friedrich Schiller. The changes made in the new version do not reflect the free play of Schiller's dramatic instinct so much as his deferential attitude towards Dalberg. Thus we know that the most important of them all, the shifting of the action back into the age of expiring feudalism, was made reluctantly. Schiller felt, and had reason to feel, that the modernity of his drama was its very life- blood;^ for the squeamish Dalberg, however, the robbers in the age of Frederick the Great were a pain- ful anachronism. So they were put back three cen- turies and costumed in the style of the ' Ritterstiick '. Other less dubious changes were also made. Thus the long soliloquies of Franz and the ribald garrulities of Spiegelberg were reduced to more tolerable propor- tions. Robber Schwarz and Pastor Moser were omitted, and the bastard Hermann was vitalized into a person of some account by means of his counter-plot against Franz. The un-lyrical songs by which Schiller had mad-house, — rolling eyes, clenched fists, stamping feet and hoarse shrieks from the spectators. Strangers fell sobbing into each other's arms, and women staggered to the door at the point of fainting. There was a general dissolution, as in chaos, from the mists of which a new creation bursts forth.' This description is perhaps the best possible antidote to Matthew Arnold's fastidious observation that ' The Robbers ' is violent and tiresome. ^ In a letter of Dec. 12, 1781, to Dalberg, he admits the cogency of the objection to his horde of robbers ' in our enlightened century ' and virtually expresses regret that he had not himself, from the beginning, imagined an earlier date for the action. But he fears that to change the time, now that the piece is finished, will result in making it a monstrosi('_, , a 'crow with peacock's feathers'- 62 The Stuttgart Medicus set great store were dropped, and the catastrophe was so changed as to bring the two brothers finally face to face. The life of Schweizer was spared and Franz, instead of being torn limb from limb, was derisively pardoned by his great-souled brother and then, amid mocking laughter, thrust into the selfsame dungeon in which he had confined his father. Much against Schiller's will Amalia was made to kill herself with a dagger snatched from one of the outlaws, instead of receiving her death at the hands of her lover. The prodigious success of ' The Robbers ' upon the Mannheim stage, and upon other stages where it was soon produced in more or less garbled form, made the work famous. Famous and at the same time notorious. New editions, most of them pirated, began to appear, and a mania similar to the Werther-mania of the previous decade spread over Germany. The news- papers told of conspiring schoolboys whose heads had been turned toward a career of crime. A well-born youth who had essayed the role of Robin Hood near Strassburg and was hanged there in October, 1783, confessed suspiciously that he had been brought to his fate by the reading of bad books. The sedate authori- ties of Leipzig forbade the further performance of the play in their city because they had observed a sudden increase of burglary and petit larceny. An edition of 1782, which the publisher, possibly without Schiller's ■ knowledge, had adorned with a rampant lion and the motto In Tirannos, probably added to the vogue of the piece as a revolutionary document. A French translation appeared in 1785 and drew the attention of the turbulent Gauls to that ' Monsieur Gille ', who was Medicus and Poet 63 in time to receive the diploma of a French citizen. The first English translation dates from 1792. It is not difficult to imagine the emotions with which Schiller, now at the fervid age of twenty-two, returned to his post after that intoxicating visit to Mannheim, and, his ears still tingling with the thunderous plaudits of the theater and the complimentary babble of his new friends, resumed the dosing of his sick grenadiers in Stuttgart. For a while things went on very much as before. In order to better his position in a professional way, he formed the plan of taking his doctor's degree and then qualifying for a professorship in physiology. But from the first the poet in him prevailed more and more over the medical man. Soon after leaving the academy he had published a long elegy upon the death of a young friend named Weckerlin. It is a rebellious, declamatory poem, in which the pathos of untimely death is made the occasion for ventilating radical views as to the goodness of God and the con- solations of religion. Passages like the following show the young Schiller at his best as a poet: Liebe wird Dein Auge nie vergolden, Nie umhalsen Deine Braut wirst Du, Nie, wenn unsere Thranen stromweis roUten, Ewig, ewig, ewig sinkt Dein Auge zu.' For the rest, the death of Weckerlin is a ' discord on the great lute ', and a ' barbarous doom '. And yet, • ' ' Love gilds not for thee all the world with its glow, Never Bride in the clasp of thine irms shall repose ; Thou canst see not our tears, thoujh in torrents they flow. Those eyes m the calm of eter.iity close." — Bulwer's Translation. 64 The Stuttgart Medicus the poem continues, the dead youth has drawn the better lot; he will sleep calmly in his narrow house, unmindful of the wretched tragi-comedy going on above his head. So his friends are bidden ' to clap their hands and shout a loud plaudite'. As for a reunion, there will be one, but it will not be in the 'paradise of the rabble'. — In another poem dating from this period, ' The Chariot of Venus, ' the love-goddess is put on trial and castigated for her sins. Her havoc among the sons of men is described in half a hundred rhetorical stanzas which were evidently inspired by the genius of the clinic or the hospital, rather than by one of the sacred nine. Besides these poems a large number of others were written by Schiller during the year 1781, prior to the time when Dalberg's invitation caused him to turn his attention to the stage. It was of course important to acquaint the public with his l uoubr a ri efis, but poetry in large quantities was not an easily marketable com- modity. The usual mode of publication was the poetic ' almanac ' or ' calendar ', in which a number of am- bitious verse-makers would unite their wares in a single volume. Of such almanacs there were several in Germany and one at least in Suabia. It was edited by one Staudlin, a rival whom Schiller thought it would be both feasible and pleasant to outshine. So he sent out letters to his friends inviting contributions, and in due time there appeared, after a fresh outlay of borrowed money, an ' Anthology for the Year 1782 '. It con- sisted of some four-score poems, signed with all manner of intentionally misleading symbols and purporting to ' The Anthology of 1782 65 emanate from Tobolsko, in Siberia. Tlie l^st of the verses were the work of Schiller.^ Among the poems of the ' Anthology ' there are none that have become very popular, none that are capable of affording any very keen delight to the lover of poetry. One sees that their author's lyric gift was not of the highest order. What is heard is not so much the note of honest feeling as the effort of an active intellect, searching heaven and earth for clever and striking things to say. Instead of learning from the folk-song, Schiller had learned originally from Klop- stock ; and what he had learned was to pose and philosophize and invest fictitious sentiment with a maze of bewildering and. far-fetched imagery. Then he had lost sympathy with Klopstock's religiosity, had acquired a better opinion of the things of sense, and had had his introduction to doubt and disgust and rebellion. When now these moods sought expression in verse, the verse took the form of impassioned rhetoric. He sang not as the bird sings, but as a fervid youth sings who is eager to assert as strongly as possible his emancipation from conventional modes of thought and feeling. The poems of the ' Anthology ' are too numerous and in the main too unimportant for an exhaustive review; it must suffice to glance at a few of the more noteworthy. Several had been written at the academy and were now published with more or less of retouch- ' As different poems, undoubtedly Schiller's, were variously signed, and as many of his youthful effusions were excluded by him from the collec- tion of 1801, the sifting out of his share in the 'Anthology' and the ascription of the remaining poems to their proper authors are tasks of no small diffi?ulty. The critical student should cpns^ilt 'VVeltrich, I, 501 (f, 66 The Stuttgart Mcdicus ing. To this number, it would seem, belongs the one entitled ' The Glory of Creation ', which is a perfectly- serious and devout poem on the grandeur and beauty of the world. Along with this, however, we find another, entitled ' To God ', which tells of moods like those which had led Werther to characterize Nature as ' an eternally ruminating monster ' . It consists of five unrimed stanzas, all but one ending with an em- phatic ' Thou big thing '. Thou who didst summon earth and sky, And earth and sky came forth ; Who sayest the word and worlds arise, Who art thou, mighty thing ? big, amazingly big thing ! My head swims when I look ; 1 shudder and start back afraid And fall — upon my knees. These verses — the translation may hold up its head quite unabashed beside the original — hardly rise above the plane of doggerel ; they signify nothing except that their author has had his little quarrel with this best of all possible worlds and is not unwilling to shock people. Of far greater poetic interest are the verses entitled ' Rousseau ', whose neglected grave (he died in 1778) is made the point of departure for a vigorous denuncia- tion of the bigotry that had driven him from place to place and denied him peace among the living. The poem foresees a time when streams of blood shall flow for the honor of calling him son. There is no effort Poem on Rousseau 67 at portraiture, and no suggestion of any repellent or pitiable traits. ' We get not Byron's "self-torturing sophist ' ' , but a martyred sage who suffered and died at the hands of Christians, — ' he who makes out of Christians human beings '. Toward the end he is apostrophized as the ' Great Endurer ' , and bidden to leap joyously into Charon's boat and go tell the spirits about this ' dream of the war of frogs and mice, the hand-organ doodle-doodle of this life'.^ In this poem there is certainly no lack of that ' fire ' which Duke Karl found in Schiller's dissertation. Indeed fire abounds everywhere in his youthful versify- ing. He never contemplates, never dwells upon a temperate emotion. The poetry of common things and of the gentler feelings seems to have been non- existent for him. His imagination likes to occupy itself with the supernal, the stupendous, or else with the awful and the revolting. This is seen in the two poems ' Elysium ' and ' A Group from Tartarus ' ; the one aiming to portray a land of ineffable happiness, where sorrow has no name and the only pain is a gentle ecstasy, the other depicting the infinite misery of the inferno. In both there is a free blending of ' Schiller seems to have got his idea of Rousseau chiefly from H. P. Sturz's " Denkwttrdigkeiten von Johann Jakob Rousseau " (1779). The famous 'Confessions' did not begin to appear until 1781. Curiously enough our poem refers to Rousseau as ' suckled on the banks of the Seine ', and as having ' stood like a meteor on the banks of the Garonne'. ^ Geh, du Opfer dieses Trillingsdrachen, Hupfe freudig in den Todesnachen, Grosser Dulder, frank und frei ! Geh, erzahl' dort in der Geister Kreise Diesen Traum vom Krieg der FrOsch' und MSuse, Pieses Lebens Jahrmarktsdudelei. 68 The Stuttgart Medicus Christian with pagan conceptions, ' Elysium ' being put for heaven and ' Tartarus ' for hell. A similar blending is noticeable in many of the other poems, an- cient mythology being made to furnish forth the setting and the symbols of modern passion. So it is, for ex- ample, in the lyric operetta ' Semele ', the longest and most pretentious of the ' Anthology ' poems. It con- sists of two scenes in irregular verses, dealing with Jupiter's love for the mortal Semele and Juno's jealousy. Artistically it is much in need of the file, and its sustained note of passionate pathos hardly comports, perhaps, with the type of the operetta. Nevertheless it contains powerful passages and telling stage effects. One can see that the young student — ' Semele ' appears to have been written at the academy — had learned; through his occasional visits to the opera, how to manage a conventional theme and conventional ma- chinery in such a way as to startle and thrill. More noteworthy, for the characterization of the youthful Schiller, is the ode entitled ' Friendship ', which purports to be taken ' from the letters of Julius to Raphael, an unpublished novel '. In this poem we have not so much the expression of a real human affec- tion as a philosophy of friendship ; just as in the Laura poems we have a philosophy of love. The verses remind one immediately of Rousseau's saying that he was 'intoxicated with love ■^vithout an object'. Friendship is described as a mystic attraction of souls, identical with the attraction of gravitation. This it is which makes the beauty and the glory of the spiritual world. ' We are dead groups whw we h^te, gods ■when we loYe> ' Poem on Friendship 69 If in creation's All I stood alone, Souls would I dream into the senseless stone And kiss them in a fond embrace. Then we hear of a hierarchy of spirits, ascending ' from the Mongol to the Greek seer, who precedes the last of the seraphs ' ; and in this harmonious ring-dance of souls Raphael and Julius ' sweep onward to where time and space are submerged in the sea of eternal glory'. Other poems which rise above the general level are 'The Bad Monarchs', a poetic castigation (without mention of names) of the type of ruler perfectly ex- emplified by Duke Karl of Wurttemberg, up to about the year 1770; ' In a Battle ', a powerful description of the rage of combat, with all its sickening and inspir- ing details; 'The Pestilence', a gruesome tribute to the power of God as manifested in the horrors of the plague, and 'Count Eberhard the Quarreler', a patriotic battle-ballad in honor of a locally renowned Suabian fighter. Better than any of these, however, from a poetic point of view, is the ' Funeral Fantasy ', which was occasioned by the death of young Von Hoven in 1780. One may perhaps doubt the genuine- ness of the grief that could find expression in such a pomp of words, but there is no doubting the poetic power of pictures like this : Pale, at its ghastly noon, Pauses above the death-still wood the moon ; The night-sprite sighing, through the dim air stirs ; The clouds descend in rain ; Mourning, the wan stars wane, flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres ! 70 The Stuttgart Medicus Haggard as spectres, vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow. Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes on the Night below.' !.But the most famous and on the whole the most interesting of the effusions in the ' Anthology ' are the erotic verses addressed to Laura. Whether Schiller was humanly in love with his landlady, Frau Luise Vischer, is a rather futile question which German erudi- tion has argued pro and con these many years without coming to an inexpugnable conclusion. Probably he was not, though he may have thought that he was. If he had been we should have heard of it sooner or later in authentic prose. But she interested him as the first of her sex who had come under his close observa- tion. There were on his part the small gallantries of daily life, and on hers the responsiveness of a not very prudish widow quite willing to be adored. She played the piano. It was enough : the needy Petrarch had found a sufficient Laura — and never was a poet's goddess worshiped in such singular strains?^ We miss in them altogether that captivating simplicity which the young Goethe, and later the young Heine, caught from the songs of the people. Schiller is always in pursuit of the intense, the extraordinary, the ecstatic, and sometimes fails to impress through sheer super- abundance of the impressive. His imagination wanders between a wild sensuality, — so lubricious in its sugges- tions, now and then, as to occasion gossip to the effect that he had become a libertine, — and a sublimated phi- > Bulwer's translation, which is here particularly good. Songs to Laura 71 losophy based on Platonic conceptions of a prenatal existence, or upon Leibnitzian conceptions of a pre- established harmony. But while the Laura poems are sufficiently sensual, they are not sensuous ; or if they try to be, the sensuous element is unreal and un- imaginable. Some of them, with their overstrained vehemence of expression, their fervid and far-fetched tropes, their involved and sometimes obscure diction, are little more than intellectual puzzles : they so occupy the mind in the mere effort of comprehension that little room is left for any emotion whatever. They leave one altogether cold. A ' Fantasie to Laura ' identifies the rapturous passion with the force of gravitation which holds planets and systems in order. ' Blot it out from the mechanism of nature and the All bursts asunder in fragments; your worlds thunder into chaos; weep, Newtons, for their giant fall ! ' And then Laura's kiss! Aus den Schranken schwellen aJle Sehnen, Seine Ufer iiberwallt das Blut ; Korper will in Korper iibersturzen, Lodern Seelen in vereinter Glut.' When Laura plays the piano, her adorer stands there, one moment an exanimate statue, the next a disembodied spirit, — while the listening zephyrs murmur more softly in reverence. In a ' Reproach to Laura ' • " Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense. The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow ; Body to body rapt — and, charmed thence, Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow." ^-Bulvier's Translation. 72 The Stuttgart Medicus she is taxed with being the ruin of her lover's ambition. Because of her the ' giant has shriveled to a dwarf. She has 'blown away the mountains', that he had ' rolled up ' to the sunny heights of glory. In another poem, ' Mystery of Reminiscence ', we hear of a cosmic golden age in which Laura, one with her poet, was a part of the Godhead. One and yet two, they swept through space in unimaginable ecstasy. Some- how,— the point is not made very clear, — there came a great cataclysm and separated them. Now they are beautiful fragments of the God, evermore yearning to restore the lost unity: Darum Laura dieses Wutverlangen, Ewig Starr an deinen Mund zu hangen, Und die WoUust deinen Hauch zu trinken, In dein Wesen, wenn sich Blicke winken, Sterbend zu versinken.' Without lingering longer over the erotic poems of the 'Anthology', one may say that they are charac- terized, like 'The Robbers', by a fiery intensity of expression which, in the search after the sublime, XJ occasionally passes the bounds of good taste. Their author already has at his command a gorgeous poetic diction that is all his own. One is often amazed at, his mere command of words, the audacity of his Se^pasV'**^ the sweep of his imagination. But he does not con- vince. When at his best he only produces an impres- sion of magnificent feigning. The reader soon sees ' ' ' And therefore came to me the wish to woo thee — Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee; This made thy glances to my soul the link — fhis made me burn thy very breath to drink — My life in tUin? to sink," -^Bufvier's Translation. J: Poetic Promise of the Anthology 73 that, notwithstanding all the impassioned hyperboles, it is really intellectual poetry, — a youth philosophizing about his passion. And the philosophy is little more than a matter of fine-sounding but vacuous analogies that have no root in the facts of experience.' And so the poetry does not take hold of one. Nor does it charm with its music ; there is vigor and sweep and swing, but the subtler elements of melodious verse are lacking. These qualities of the youthful Schiller's poetry foretell that he will never be a great lyrist, but they promise well enough for the poetic tale. This promise is seen notably in the poem called ' The Infanticide '. It is a gruesome thing, with the pathos here and there overstrained, but what a power of vivid narration ! What a gift for the portraiture of frenzied passion ! For the rest, it should not go unrecorded that certain poems of the ' Anthology ' went altogether too far in the defiance of conventional morality. The study of medicine, combined with the ardor of youthful revolt and the seductions of a new bohemian life, had so sensualized the mind of Schiller that, for a brief period in his career, he found pleasure in exploiting the in- decent. It was but a passing phase, and not very bad at its worst. Still, if Heine, and the other emanci- pators of the flesh who came later, had felt the need of supporting their cause by an appeal to distinguished authority, they might have referred quite unabashed to the youthful sins of the idealist Schiller. » Concerning the pruvomonoe and the philosophic connection of the youthful Schiller's ideas of love and friendship the reader will do well to consult Kuno Fischer, " Schiller-Schriften ", I, 41 ff. 74 The Stuttgart Medicus Little notice was taken of the ' Anthology ' even in Suabia, and none at all, apparently, in the outside German world. The investment brought no immediate returns in fame or in money, and other experiments of a different character turned out but little better. As early as the spring of 178 1 Schiller had assumed the editorial charge of a would-be popular magazine intended to contribute to the ' benefit and pleasure ' of the Suabians. It was a weak provincial affair that soon died of inanition. The hack-work that Schiller did for it is of no biographical interest, save that it brought him into connection with Suabian writers and suggested to him that with a freer hand he might pro- duce a better journal. In the following year, accord- ingly, we find him starting, in conjunction with his friends Abel and Petersen, the Wirtemberg Repertory of Literature. It was to be a quarterly, and bore the ominous legend: ' at the expense of the editors '. To this journal Schiller contributed various essays and reviews which show that as a critic he had been influenced by Lessing, but had not acquired the knack of Lessing 's luminous and straightforward style. In a rather badly written paper on ' The Present Condition of the German Theater ' , he takes up a question which was destined to interest him later, — that of the relation of the drama to morality. He has no difficulty in showing that people are not deterred from the vices or impelled to the virtues that they see represented on the stage. But by far the most important of these contributions to the Repertory are two reviews (of course anonymous) of his own writings. In a long notice of ' The Robbers ' Schiller as a Critic of Himself 75 he discusses the work with a coolness that is simply amazing. His own child has become ^.(corpus vileyhat he has the nerve to dissect without the slightest tremor of parental sympathy. Nearly everything that a cen- tury's criticism has found to urge against the play, — the dubiousness of the entire invention, the impossi- bility of such a devil as Franz, the insipidity of Amalia and the old Count Moor, the faults of the diction and the barbarism of the action, — is here set forth with remorseless severity. The review closes with the facetious comment which appears at the head of this chapter. Not quite so caustic is the notice of the ' Anthology ', but it contains a significant ' admonition to our young poets ' to the effect that ' extravagance is not strength, that violation of the rules of taste and propriety is not boldness and originality, that fancy is not feeling, and high-flown rhetoric is not the talisman on which the arrows of criticism break and recoil '. Verily it is not given every young author to see himself thus clearly in the glass of criticism. We may guess, however, that these critical mystifications were not altogether free from the element of calculating humbug. Schiller knew full well that to be castigated in public would not be a bad thing for his budding reputation; and so, as no one else came forward to do the slashing, he did it himself. It is amusing to read that a Frankfurt correspondent was so pained by the review of ' The Robbers ' that he sent in a defence of the piece and was greatly surprised to learn that reviewer and author were one and the same person. These contributions to the Repertory appeared in the first two numbers ; before the third came out Schiller 76 The Stuttgart Medicus had turned his back for good and all upon his native Wurttemberg. Ever since that first visit to Mannheim he had felt drawn to the ' Greek climate of the Palati- nate '. On the 1st of April, 1782, we find him writing to Dalberg that it ' would be untrue were he to deny his growing inclination for the drama'. The letter goes on to say that he was then expecting to be very much occupied, for several months, with medical studies; but he hoped to finish a new play, ' Fiesco ', by the end of the year. Toward the end of May, taking advantage of the absence of the duke, he visited Mannheim again and saw a second representation of ' The Robbers ' Through the indiscreet gossip of the friends who accompanied him, the duke got wind of this unauthorized journey, ordered ' the deserter ' under arrest for two weeks, and forbade him all further inter- course with foreign parts. i_ Schiller made use of his enforced leisure to work upon ' Fiesco ', and to plan a third drama, ' Louise Miller ', which promised a chance of revenge upon the petty tyrant who sought to own him body and soul. After serving his time in the guard-house he wrote an urgent appeal to Dalberg, to rescue him from his intolerable situation by giving him employ- ment at Mannheim. But Dalberg, a fearsome and politic creature, had no mind to compromise himself by befriending a youth who had quarreled with the powerful duke of Wurttemberg. Schiller now began to think of running away, and his thoughts were soon quickened into resolution by fresh exasperations. , In the second act of ' The Robbers ' he had made Spiegelberg refer to the Swiss canton of the Grisons as Quarrel with the Duke of Wtirttemberg )i the ' Athens of modern scalawags. ' Tradition has it that the passage was a thrust at an unpopular Swiss overseer in the academy. It is probable, however, that it was in no way malicious, but merely a thought- less jest at the expense of a canton which had actually got a bad reputation for lax enforcement of the law. Be this as it may, the passage gave offence to a patriotic Swiss named Amstein, who aired his grievance in print and demanded a retraction. When Schiller paid no attention to this, Amstein appealed to one Walter, a fussy official living at Ludwigsburg. Walter took up the case of the traduced canton with great zeal, and brought it to the attention of the duke. The result was a summons to Schiller, a sharp reproof, and an order to write no more ' comedies ' . He was to confine himself strictly to medicine or he would be cashiered. Matters now came swiftly to a head. On Sep- tember I, 1782, Schiller addressed to his sovereign a very humble letter of remonstrance, setting forth that his authorship had added more than five hundred florins to his income,' and that this money was absolutely necessary for the prosecution of his studies; that he was winning reputation and thus bringing honor to the academy and to its illustrious founder, and so forth. The duke's reply was to threaten him with arrest in case he should write any more letters upon this subject. Schiller now resolved to take his fate in his own hands. Resistance and submission to the autocrat were alike out of the question; the only recourse was flight from Wurttemberg. ' Of course this roseate statement to his Highness took no account of his debts, which had not yet ^gun to be particularly pressing. 78 The Stuttgart Medicus In the days of German absolutism, this was a dan- gerous step to take. Technically he would be a deserter. He had reason to fear that he would not be allowed to make his way in the world by his own merit, unharmed and unhelped, but would be dogged by the malice of a despot and perhaps brought back to undergo the fate of Schubart. Worse still was the possibility that his father might be made to sufTer from the duke's anger. Nevertheless he resolved to take the risk. He made known his purpose to a very few friends, one of whom, Frau von Wolzogen, offered him her house in Bauerbach, in the event of his sometime needing a quiet refuge. Another friend, Andfeas Streicher, nobly offered to share his fortunes. Streicher, to whom we owe a classical account of this episode in Schiller's life, was a young musician living with his mother in Stuttgart. It had been planned that he should visit Hamburg in the near future, but he now persuaded his mother to advance him the money that was to have been devoted to his Journey, in order that he might accompany his beloved Schiller into exile. So the friends bided their time and meanwhile ' Fiesco ' rnade rapid progress. .Jhe wished-for opportunity came on the 22nd of September. The court was in a flutter Over the visit of a Russian prince for whose reception gteat prepara- tions had been made. In the general excitement Schiller counted upon getting away unobserved. So he bade a tearful farewell to his mother and sisters, who knew of the secret that had been kept away from the father for reasons of policy, and in the evening he drove out of Stuttgart with his friend Streicher, giving Flight from Stuttgart 79 to the guard the names of Dr. Ritter and Dr. WolfJ The friends set their faces northward towards Mann- heim. As they passed the briUiantly illuminated Castle Solitude, so Streicher relates, Schiller fell into a long revery. At last the exclamation ' My Mother ! ' told the tale of his thoughts. But the mood of sadness did not last long. Cheerful talk enlivened the journey, and when the two travellers crossed the boundary of the Palatinate Schiller was jubilant. He felt that he had entered a land of freedom and enlightenment, where art was esteemed and talent honored. He had with him, virtually complete, the manuscript of the new play upon which he had built illusory hopes. It will be in order to consider ' Fiesco ' before we follow its author into the vicissitudes of his exile. CHAPTER IV abc ConaptracB of jflcsco at (5enoa Ein Diadem erkampfen ist grosz ; es wegwerfen ist gottlich. ' Fiesco'. As we have seen, ' Fiesco ' was written during the summer and fall of 1782. The following winter, having been rejected by the Mannheim stage, it was published as a literary drama. This first edition bore the sub-title : ' A Republican Tragedy. ' There is a very general agreement that ' Fiesco ' is upon the whole the weakest of Schiller's plays. As a ' republican tragedy ' it is a disappointment, since its political import, though obvious enough to one acquainted with Schiller from other sources, is not brought out distinctly in the play itself. Neither the friend nor the enemy of republicanism, in any historical or human sense of the word, can derive the slightest edification from ' Fiesco.^ The political talk is vague and unpractical, and we get no clear idea of the con- tending forces. When the curtain goes down upon the chaos of intrigue, one is at a loss to know how one is expected to feel. And yet the play is full of powerful f scenes, developed with masterly dramatic skill. As a mere spectacle it rivals ' The Robbers ' , to which as a drama it is decidedly inferior. In general its defects .80 The Historical Fiesco 8i strike the reader more than the spectator. It is not the hand of the dramatist but the eye of the historian that is lacking. In other words the author, with all his seeming profundity of philosophic reflection, was sirhply not ripe for historical tragedy. The bare facts of Fiesco's conspiracy, related with as little ascription of motive as possible, are these : In the year 1528 Andrea Doria, who had won great dis- tinction as an admiral in the French service, but had now quarreled with the King of F"rance and hoisted the colors of Emperor Charles the Fifth, landed an expedition in Genoa and captured the city from the French. Historians agree that he could easily have made himself sovereign, but instead of doing so he restored the old aristocratic republic, thus winning for himself the enduring title of ' father and liberator of his country.' Although Doria was simply an influen- tial citizen of Genoa and enjoyed the general esteem of his countrymen, his prominence in the state gave rise to animosities among the noble families, and these were increased when he made his young and head- strong kinsman, Gianettino, his heir. In the year i 547 the malcontents found a leader in the person of Giovanni Ludovigi Fiesco, Count of Lavagna. Fiesco was young, handsome, rich and ambitious-— a dashing and unscrupulous cavalier. His first thought was to restore the French domination and make himself only a viceroy of the French king; but a Cellow conspirator, Verrina, persuaded him to seize for himself the sover- eign power to which his rank and talents entitled him. The conspiracy was carefully matured, Fiesco mean- while, to divert suspicion, acting 'the part of a giddy 82 The Gjnspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa spendthrift and man of fashion. On the night of January 2, 1547, the conspirators made their attack upon the city. Gianettino Doria was killed, but the aged Andrea made his escape. The success of Fiesco appeared to be complete, but as he was going on board a galley the gang-plank turned, he fell into the sea and his heavy armor bore him down. Without a leader the conspiracy instantly collapsed. On the following day Andrea returned and the Genoese republic went on as before. ' It was a hint from Rousseau that suggested to Schiller, during his last year in the academy, the idea of dramatizing this episode of Genoese history. In the German ' Memoirs of Rousseau ' by H. P. Sturz, re- ferred to in the preceding chapter, he found Rousseau quoted as follows : The reason why Plutarch wrote such noble biographies is that he never selected half-great men, such as exist by the thousands in quiet states, but grand exemplars of virtue or sublime crimi- nals. In modern history there is a man deserving of his brush, and that is Count Fiesco, whose training made him the very man to liberate his country from the rule of the Dorias. . . There was no other thought in his soul than to dethrone the usurper.' Here v/as a tempting theme for a young dramatist who had fedvhis own soul upon Plutarch, was enamored of ' greatness itiv whatever form, and had already tried his hand upon a [' sublime criminal. ' What could be better for his purpo,se than a daring conspiracy, led by 1 Schiller refers to the qi^'Oted passage in his rgWSff of ' The Robbers ', Schriften, II, 357. It has liiot been found in Rousseau's writings. Sturz drew from unpublished souj''ce5. Conflicting Sources 83 a Plutarchian hero who was at the same time a single- minded patriot ? In his earhest musings it is probable that Schiller accepted Rousseau's view of Fiesco at its face value, and when he began to consult the historians he found at first some support for his preconception. Among his sources was the ' Conjuration du Comte de Fiesque ', by De Retz; a book which was written, according to a somewhat doubtful tradition, when its author was but eighteen years old, and which, by its clever perversion of history and its subtle insinuation of revolutionary ideas, is said to have drawn from Richelieu the comment: ' There is a dangerous man ! ' ' In the sophisticated narrative of De Retz Fiesco appears as a modern Brutus, whose thought of personal aggrandizement was altogether subordinate to the thought of his country's welfare. He is made much better than he really was, and the two Dorias much worse. Further study of the subject, however, soon opened the eyes of Schiller to the other side of the question ; for in Robertson's ' Charles the Fifth ' he found Fiesco portrayed as an ambitious revolutionist who sought to overthrow the Dorias only in order that he might make himself the master of Genoa^ — in short as a Catilinej instead of a Brutus. The dramatic problem then turned from the first upon the character of Fiesco. In the ' Dramaturgic ' of Lessing the doctrine had been proclaimed that the dramatist is not bound by the so-called facts of history; that he may ^ On the character of De Retz's work, and its relation to the original of Mascardi, consult the Notes and Introduction by Chantelauze in Vol. V of the 'Grands Ecrivains ' edition of De Retz, p. 475 ff. v|4 The ConspiVacy of Ficsco at Genoa deal with them as suits his artistic purpose. But what was the purpose to be in this case ? Should it be a tragedy of austere patriotism going down against a relatively bad order too strong to be resisted, or a tragedy of corrupt ambition dashing itself to death against a relatively good order too strong to be over- thrown ? Either conception, if consistently worked out, might have sufficed for the groundwork of a good historical tragedy. What Schiller did, however, was to vacillate between the two, to blend them in a con- fusing way, and finally to let the interest of his play turn largely upon the hero's mental struggle between selfish ambition and unselfish patriotism. The Catiline conception required an avenger of Genoa, for it was evident ' that the accidental drowning of Fiesco in the moment of his triumph would never do in a play. It was necessary that his death appear as a punishment, a nemesis. So for the role of avenger Schiller invented a stern patriot to whom, without his- torical warrant, he gave the name of Verrina. Verrina is- the real Brutus. To furnish the conspirators with a definite grievance Gianettino was made to violate the helpless Bertha, who was then provided with an avenger in the person of the young Bourgognino. Leonora, the wife of Fiesco, is historical. Robertson relates that on the night of the uprising Fiesco went to take leave of his wife, ' ' whom he loved with ' It was evident, that is, to Schiller. In the dedication of ' Fiesco ' to Professor Abel he wrote : "Die wahre Katastrophe des Komplotts, worin der Graf durch einen unglQcklichen Zufall am Ziel seiner WUnsche zu Grunde geht, muszte durchaus verandert werden, denn die Natur des Dramas duldet den Finger des Ungefahrs oder der unmittelbaren Vorsehung nicht.'' Character of Schiller's Hero 85 tender affection." He found her " in all the anguish of uncertainty and fear ' ' ; and her terror was increased when she learned what was on foot. She endeavored by her tears and entreaties and her despair to divert him from his purpose. But in vain ; he left her with the exclamation : ' ' Farewell ! You shall either never see me more, or you shall behold to-morrow every- thing in Genoa subject to your power. ' ' On the other hand, the intrigue of Fiesco and Julia, the sister \ of Gianettino, is unhistorical. It was invented by Schiller as a part of the general scheme of duplicity and frivolity by which Fiesco should seek to quiet the suspicion of the Dorias. If this particular invention was upon the whole unfortunate — the matter will be discussed further on, — the same cannot be said of the Moor Hassan, who becomes Fiesco's factotum and ends his career on the gallows. The rascally Moor is the most picturesque figure and the most telling role in the whole piece. Schiller introduces Fiesco as a seemingly frivolous roue, flirting desperately with the Countess Julia, to the great torment of his wife Leonora. We soon see, however, that the frivolity is only a mask: he has a serious purpose and that purpose is to make himself master of Genoa. At first, indeed, he toys with the idea of a nobler fame. In a soliloquy at the end of the second act he exclaims : ' To conquer a diadem is grand; to throw it away is divine. Down, tyrant! Let Genoa be free and me be its happiest citizen ! ' But this mood does not long withstand the intoxication of power. To rule, to rule alone, to feel that Genoa owes everything to -him only, — this soon becomes his ^86 The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa all-absorbing ambition. At the last, when the revolu- tion has succeeded, he puts on the ducal purple and the people are ready to acquiesce in the new regime. But old Verrina is not so tractable. When he cannot prevail upon Fiesco to doff the hateful insignia, he pushes him into the sea and exclaims in disgust: 'I am going to Andrea ! ' Such a scheme, it is evident, does not provide for a ' republican tragedy ', except in a very loose sense. If we had a republican idealist pitting his strength against a tyrant and going down in the battle, either because of his adversary's superior strength or because of some weakness in his own character, that would be a tragedy of republicanism. In Schiller's play, however, the conflict is not of that character. At heart Fiesco is never a republican, though he sometimes takes his mouth full of fine republican phrases. His mainspring of action is not the welfare of Genoa, but his own aggrandizement. Old Andrea, whose power he plots to overthrow and whose magnanimity puts him to shame, is actually a better man than he. If he has a measure of our sympathy in his feud with the younger Doria, that is only because Gianettino is poftrayed as a vulgar brute deserving of nothing but the gallows. Politically there is little to choose between the two, so long as we regard virtue as consisting in an unselfish devotion to an ideal of republican liberty. The character of Fiesco being what it is, his final catastrophe produces no very clear impression. One does not see precisely what bearing it is to have on the political fortunes of Genoa. At first blush the con- clusion seems to mean that the state has been saved Character of Verrina 8 from the clutches of a tyrant who was about to subvei its liberties. But if we look at the matter in that ligh we have a tragedy, not of republicanism, but of th "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls o the other. ' ' With the usurper Fiesco, and the brut Gianettino, out of the way, the state returns to th good regimen of Andrea, who represents the onl republicanism then thinkable, democracy in the moder sense being nowhere in question. But it is doubtfv whether Schiller intends Fiesco to be thus fepp^atea The hot-blooded Italian has certain traits that wi sympathy ; and even his consuming ambition is so in vested with a glamour of romantic enthusiasm that i is difficult to reckon him among the dangerous tyrants If he is false to his better nature, we at any rate se that he has a better nature. One is thus tempted t regard Verrina's act as that of a madman who care more for form than for substance and sees dange where there is none. For Verrina, who plays the part of Brutus to hi country's Ca;sar and seems to represent the sternes type of republican virtue, is a repulsive fanatic. Th horrible curse that he pronounces upon his daughte when he hears that she has been outraged is significar at once for his character and for the young Schiller' notion of tragic pathos. Throwing a black veil ove her head he vociferates thus : Be blind ! Accursed be the air that fans your cheek ! Ai cursed be the sleep that refreshes you ! Accursed be evet human trace that is welcome to your misery ! Go down into th deepest dungeon of my house ! Moan ! Howl ! Drag out th time with your woe. Let your life be the slimy writhing of th 88 The G)nspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa dying worm, — the obstinate, crushing struggle between being and not-being. And this curse shall rest upon you until Gianet- tino has gasped out his last breath. After this it is difficult to look up to Verrina as a competent savior of society, however much one may- sympathize with him in his private feud. His cynical tacgStetsation at the end makes his previous conduct ridiculous. It seems to say that he has been partici- pating in a tragic farce which is now ended. One might almost get the impression that the whole play is only a satire upon republican clap-trap. Satire, however, was very far from Schiller's thoughts. His enthusiasm for liberty was much too genuine to permit any trifling with the sacred theme. There is no doubt that he began ' Fiesco ' supposing that it would prove a convenient setting for those in- spiring ideas of Jiberty_ which he had absorbed from the reading of ancient history and of modern revolutionary literature. They were vague and tumultuous ideas, which had very little relation to a definite theory of government, but he was very much in earnest with them, especially after his rasping experience with the Duke of Wiirttemberg. No one can mistake the autobiographic note in the speech of Bourgognino which closes the first act: ' I have long felt in my breast something that would not be satisfied. Now of a sudden I know what it was. (Springing up heroically) I have a tyrant.' But the young dramatist had not proceeded far before he discovered that his ideal requirement was out of tune with the facts. To repre- sent Fiesco as a would-be liberator of his country was impossible without a violent perversion of history for Ficsco's Inconsistency 89 which he was not prepared. Out of deference to his- tory he was led to abase his hero into something like a Catilinarian conspirator. But he could not give up the idea of a republican tragedy ; so he tried to save it by depicting his hero as a man who had it in him to become a noble liberator, but is corrupted by the ; dazzling lures of power and so led on to ruin. J There are those who regard Fiesco's inconsistency as an artistic complexity of motive going to show that Schiller had progressed in the knowledge of life and become aware that human heroism is apt to be more or less mixed with base alloy. One writer ' thinks it shows ' ' how intelligently he had studied the Italian Renaissance and how correctly he had grasped its spirit. ' ' But this is to give him a credit that he does not fully deserve. The simple truth is that ' Fiesco ' ^ was written very hastily and that its author had spent precious little time in studying the Italian Renaissance, though it must be admitted that he possessed a remark- able gift for visualizing the little that he had read. Complexity of motive is all very well, — very human and very Italian ; but the difficulty is that in this case it is not properly subordinated to a luminous dramatic idea. When a man's motives become so complex and contradictory that one does not know how to take him, he ceases to be available for the higher purposes of tragedy. That ' Fiesco ' produces this bewildering effect is due to the fact that the inner logic of the piece had not been fully and consistently thought out when the writing began. And this is not all. The author seems unable to '^ > • H. H. Boyesen, in his biography of Schiller, Chapter III, 90 The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa control and guide the unruly spirits whom he has conjured into life. There is no lucid grouping of historical forces. France, Germany and the Pope stand dimly in the background like mechanical pup- pets, and we never learn what they severally represent in relation to Genoese polities. Gianettino pulls a string and has a sanction for the wholesale murder of his countrymen. Fiesco pulls another string and gets men and galleys ad libitum. We do not see an in- telligible clash of great political ideas, but a wild mglee, in the outcome of which we have no reason to be particularly interested. It is all as little tragic as a back-country vendetta, or a factional fight in the halls of a modern parliament. How loosely the play is articulated, and how little of logical compulsion there is in the catastrophe, is shown with fatal clearness by Schiller's procedure in revising his work for the Mannheim stage. By a few strokes of the pen at the end he changed its entire character. In the original draft his vacillating mind had leaned more and more decisively towards the Catilinarian conception of his hero, and the book-ver- sion of 1783 was accordingly supplied with a motto from Sallust's 'Catiline.' The sentence runs: Nam- id f acinus imprimis ego m.em.orabile existimo, sceleris aiqiie periculi novitate. So the conspiracy was to be a /acinus and a scelus, and the hero, of course, another • exalted criminal ' in the style of Karl Moor. In the stage version we observe that the motto from Sallust has been dropped, and that while the title of ' tragedy ' (^Trauer spiel) is retained, the adjective ' republican ' is omitted. Furthermore, without any radical revision The Qianged Conclusion 91 of the preceding portraiture taken as a whole, a non- tragical conclusion has been substituted for the final catastrophe. Fiesco, hard pressed by the strenuous Verrina, declares that his heart has been right all along; only he was resolved that Genoa's freedom should be his work and his alone. So he breaks his scepter, concludes an eternal friendship with the amazed Verrina, and bids the people embrace their ' happiest fellow-citizen. ' Thus the original version, which had called itself a republican tragedy and was a tragedy without being republican, became a play which is truly republican without being called so, but is no longer a tragedy. This singular , volte-facd on the part of our dramatist has of course been the subject of infinite discussion. The most of the critics appear to regard it as a mis- take, to say the least. One of them, Bellermann,* surmises that Schiller made the change against his will to meet the views of Dalberg. But of this there is no clear proof; and surely we cannot suppose that Schiller would have consented even reluctantly to a change which he himself felt to be utterly absurd because a complete stultification of the preceding plot. He must have felt that the new ending was artistically at least possible. And so it is. It is with ' Fiesco ' sbmewhat as with the Bible : the conclusion that one reaches must '"Schillers Dramen," Berlin, 1898, I, iii fF. Bellermann, who defends through thick and thin the unity and consistency of the original ' Fiesco ', thinks that it is from first to last a tragedy of vaulting ambi- tion, — ^not a political play at all, but a character play, — and that no other idea ever entered Schiller's mind. But his argument is anything but convincing and he carefully refrains from all discussion of the tell- tale phrase, ' a republican tragedy '- 2 The Gjnspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa epend upon the particular texts that one selects for mphasis. If we accent certain passages and pass ghtly over others, we get the impression that it is a ■agedy of selfish ambition doomed to disaster. If we ccent a different set of passages, we are sure that it is drama of republican idealism, sorely tempted by utocratic ambition, but destined to triumph finally ver the baser motive. In the one view Verrina is virtuous patriot; in the other he is a mad fanatic 'ho does not understand the greatness of his chief, ifter Fiesco declares in soliloquy, — when a dramatic haracter is supposed to speak his real sentiments anywhere, — that it is far nobler to renounce a iadem than to win it, we are certainly justified in xpecting that he will seek the higher glory for him- ;lf Thus either ending is possible, and which the better is mainly a question of stage effect, [either is historical, and neither gives a republican •agedy. It would be pedantic indeed to have devoted so lany words to a mere matter of name. If a drama is ood it signifies but little what we call it, or whether its tie be exactly appropriate. In this case, however, re have to do with a vital defect and not merely with misnopier. A play may be good in different ways; nd what the preceding criticism is intended to bring ut is the fact that the strength of ' Fiesco ', such as it las, does not lie in the intellectual organization of the i^hole. The mind of Schiller, but little trained hitherto ipon historical studies, had not yet learned how to xtract a clear poetic essence from a confused medley if recorded facts and opinions. Nature had endowed Strong and Weak Points 93 him with a vivid imagination for details, but study had not yet fitted him to exercise in a large and luminous way the sovereignty of the artist. His facts confused him and pulled him this way and that. And so we miss in ' Fiesco ' that ' monumental fresco-painting ', as it has been called, which constitutes the charm of his riper historical dramas. But average play-goers are wont to bother their heads but little over these questions of higher artistic import which are apt to bulk so large before the mind of the literary critic. There are hundreds of literary dramas that are impossible or deadly dull upon the stage ; and conversely dramatic talent will often make an interesting play out of a succession of scenes that lead the philosophic mind now^hfeher. If ' Fiesco ' remains a fairly good stage-play, it is because the interest turns not upon its ultimate import, but upon its elaborate intrigue, its exciting situations and its general picturesqueness. The intrigue carries one along by its very audacity, notwithstanding that in the light of reason much of it appears rather absurd. Thus we wonder how a mere brute like Gianettino can have become such a power in the state right under the eyes of the wise and good Andrea, who is subject to no illusions with regard to him. No objection can be made to Fiesco 's mask of gayety and cynicism in the first two acts, for that is historical. But was it neces- sary for him to deceive and torture the wife to whom in the end he appears loyally devoted ? In any case it is clear that the exposition should have .hinted some- how at the true condition of affairs, for it is a good old rule that while the people on the stage may disguise hiS. i 4 The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa lemselves and befool one another as they will, the udience must be kept posted. As it is, there is no suggestion of make-believe in 'iesco's courting of Julia. When he exclaims in solil- quy that she loves him and he ' envies no god ', one justified in assuming that chivalrous devotion to is wife is not among his virtues. It is to be sup- osed, apparently, that he makes love to Julia in rder to be seen of men; but as a matter of fact othing comes of his flirtation except the torture of is wife. No one is deceived whom it was important )r him to deceive, and the whole incident serves only J put his character in a dubious light. Is this what chiller intended .'' Did he feel that his hot-blooded talian should not be made too much of an idealist in is relation to women .■' Did he wish it to be under- tood that Fiesco is honestly infatuated with the oluptuous Julia until he learns of her attempt to poison is wife .'' These are queries to which the play gives o very clear answer. So far as the conspiracy is oncerned the whole affair with Julia is rather badly lotivated. Still more dubious, from a rational point of view, is "iesco's relation to the Moor. That a man having irge political designs requiring secrecy and fidelity hould, on the spur oi the moment, choose as his con- dential agent a venal scoundrel who has just tried to lurder him, is, to say the least, a little improbable, lere Schiller was evidently trying to Shaksperize gain; trying, that is, to assert the poet's sovereign jrdship over the petty bonds of Philistine logic. The loor's frank exposition of the professional ethics of The Female Characters ,95 rascality, the dash with which he does his work, his ubiquitous serviceableness, and his rogue's humor make him a picturesque character and account for his having become on the stage the most popular figure in the piece ; but that Fiasco should be willing to trust him- self and his cause to such a scamp, and that such remarkable results should be achieved by the black man's kaleidoscopic activity, brings into the play an element of buffoonery that injures it on the serious side. The daring play of master and man excites a certain interest in their game, but it is impossible to care very much who wins. From a dramaturgic point of view, however, the Moor is a very useful invention, since Fiesco is thereby enabled to direct the whole conspiracy from his palace, and at the same time, in the person of his lieutenant, to be in every part of the city. Thus the action is concentrated and changes of scene are avoided. As a portrayer of female character the author of ' Fiesco ' has clearly made some progress since his first lame attempt in * The Robbers ', but the improvement is by no means dazzling. Both Leonora and Julia are singular creatures, and their unaccountableness is not of the right feminine kind that offers an attractive role to a good actress. Why should the Countess Fiesco, herself an aristocrat and a woman with heroic blood in her veins, submit so meekly in her own house to the coarse effrontery of the woman who has wronged her .■" We get the impression that she is only a crushed flower, — a helpless, wan-cheeked thing, with nothing womanly about her except her jealousy. And then, at the end, she suddenly develops into a heroine. 6 The Conspiracy of FiescO at Genoa i.nd what a strange heroine! No one will chide her )r resorting on the fatal night to the protection of male ttire, — a good enough Shaksperian device, — but how smarkable that a woman wandering crazily in the ark, and already sufficiently disguised, should borrow tell-tale cloak and a worse than useless sword from corpse that she happens to stumble upon ! No wonder that Schiller in revising for the stage decided D let Leonora live rather than provide for her death y such a stagy tour de force. In the stage version, owever, she does not reappear after-^he parting scene, nd so we are left to wonder why she was introduced tall. In Madame Julia we have a type of woman who was leant to be repulsive, and so far forth the young artist lust be admitted to have wrought successfully. She ; somewhat minutely described as a ' tall and plump ddow of twenty-five; a proud coquette, her beauty polled by its oddity; dazzling and not pleasing, and 'ith a wicked, cynical expression. ' That such a 'Oman should befool Fiesco and rejoice in her triumph ; quite thinkable, but her qualities are those which sually go with a certain amount of discretion. That be should suddenly lose her head and throw herself way in a voluptuous frenzy hardly comports with the I'pe. Nor is there anything in the inventory of her ualities that prepares us for her sudden assumption of le role of poisoner, when she is already, as she must appose, the mistress of the situation. In her alterca- on with Leonora in the second scene of Act II she ses a number of coarse expressions befitting a woman f vulgar birth, — wherein some of the critics see an Extravagant Diction 97 evidence of Schiller's unfamiliarity with the ways of refined ladies. It is quite possible, however, that we have to do instead with a realistic attempt to make her language match the essential vulgarity of her character. At any rate it is interesting to know that the scene was offensive to Schiller himself. He worked upon it with repugnance and was glad to be able to omit it entirely from the stage version.' In respect of its diction ' Fiesco ' is in no way essen- tially different from ' The Robbers ', albeit some have imagined that a faint improvement is discernible. There is the same tearing of passion to tatters, the same predilection for florid rhetoric in the sentimental passages, and for frenzied talk and action in passages of more violent emotion. When Fiesco discovers that he has killed his wife, he first thrashes about him furiously with his sword. Then he gnashes his teeth at God in heaven and expresses himself thus : ' If I only had His universe between my teeth, I feel in a mood to tear all nature into a grinning monster having the semblance of my pain. ' In his final expostulation with the would-be tyrant, Verrina delivers himself of this sentence: ' Had I too been such an honest dolt as not to recognize the rogue in you, Fiesco, by all the horrors of eternity, I would twist a cord out of my own intestines and throttle you with it, so that my fleeing soul should bespatter you with yeasty foam-bubbles. ' No wonder that critics and actors alike were offended by such insanity of rant and that Schiller himself soon saw the folly of it. He had got the idea that when a man is figuratively ' beside himself, the most effective > This appears from a letter of Sept, ag, 1783, tp Palberg. 8 The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa 'By to portray his state of feeling is to make him talk nd act like a veritable madman. He had yet to learn le profound wisdom, for poets as well as actors, of lamlet's rule to " acquire and beget, in the whirlwind f passion, a temperance that may give it smoothness. ' ' CHAPTER V Zbe jpugttfvc in "ffJlOfng Ich kann nicht Furstendiener sein. — • Don Carlos '. When Schiller arrived at Mannheim, in the latter part of September, 1782, he was soon made aware that he had reckoned badly on the ' Greek climate of the Palatinate'. The friends to whom he showed himself were shocked at the audacity of his conduct; they could only advise him to conciliate the Duke of Wiirt- temberg and meanwhile to keep out of sight. So he wrote another very humble letter to his sovereign, explaining the desperate circumstances that had led to his flight and offering to return on condition of being allowed to continue his authorship. This letter he sent to his general, Auge, asking his mediation. In due time Auge replied, advising him to return, as the duke was ' graciously minded. ' But this was not enough ; Schiller knew his man too well and had prob- ably never expected that his appeal would have any other effect than possibly to mollify the duke a little and thus avert trouble for Captain Schiller. The fugitive had fixed all his hopes on the produc- tion of ' Fiesco ' at the Mannheim theater. The manager, Meyer, was well disposed toward him, and it was soon arranged that Schiller should read his new play to a company of actors. The reading turned out 99 oo The Fugitive in Hiding dismal failure. One by one the distressed auditors nthdrew, wondering if what they heard was really the /ork of the same man who had written ' The Robbers '. :'he next day Meyer looked over the manuscript by limself and saw that it was not so bad after all ; it had nerely been murdered in the reading by its author's lad voice and extravagant declamation. But the ecision did not rest with the friendly Meyer ; it rested fith Dalberg, who was just then away from home, /[eanwhile, as reports came from Stuttgart to the effect hat Schiller's disappearance had caused a great sensa- ion and that there was talk of pursuit, or of a possible de- land for his extradition, the two friends thought it best ot to remain in Mannheim. Schiller did not actually elieve that the duke would pursue him, but there was o telling; it was best to be on the safe side. Accordingly ' Dr. Ritter ' and ' Dr. Wolf set out for "rankfurt. From there Schiller addressed a pathetic itter to Dalberg, setting forth that he was in great dis- -ess and asking for an advance of money against the rst performance of 'Fiesco'. But the cautious Dal- erg, who had just been in Stuttgart, replied coolly that Fiesco ' was unsuited to the stage and would need to e radically revised. So the luckless author, having no ther recourse, returned to the village of Oggersheim, in he vicinity of Mannheim, and there, with the faithful treicher to keep him company, he spent the next few reeks, partly upon the thankless revision of ' Fiesco ' nd partly upon ' Louise Miller', which interested him lore. Having done his best with ' Fiesco ' he sent it 3 Dalberg, who curtly refused it a second time. His lieatrical hopes thus completely baffled, Schiller Arrival at Bauerbach loi turned over his play to the bookseller Schwan, who gave him eleven louis d'ors for it and immediately published it as a book for the reader. In his extremity the exile now bethought him of the kind-hearted lady who had offered him an asylum in case of need. Frau Henriette von Wolzogen was a widow of humble means who had several sons in the academy at Stuttgart. She had conceived a liking for Schiller, and although there was some danger that her role of protectress might, if discovered, offend the Duke of Wiirttemberg, she did not hesitate to keep her word. The necessary arrangements were soon made, and late in November Schiller bade farewell to Streicher and set out for Bauerbach, a little village near Meinin- gen, to occupy the vacant cottage that had been placed at his disposal. He still kept the name of ' Dr. Ritter ', — not so much from the fear of arrest, prob- ably, as from a natural desire to remain in obscurity until he had won a position which would justify his flight in the eyes of the world, and more particularly of his father. While at Oggersheim he had occasionally sent out misleading letters, in which he spoke of journeys here and there, of remarkable prosperity and of brilliant prospects in Leipzig, Berlin and St. Peters- burg. But his family knew of his whereabouts, and before leaving the Palatinate he contrived a meeting with his mother and his sister Christophine, who drove over to a half-way village to see him. He arrived at Bauerbach on the 7th of December, and wrote thus to Streicher on the following day : ' At last I am here, happy and contented that I am actually ashore. I found everything in excess pf my wishes; needs no 02 The Fugitive in Hiding jnger trouble me, and no annoyances from outside hall disturb my poetic dreams and my idealistic illu- ions. ' — And in this quiet retreat, well supplied by the illagers with the necessaries of physical existence, he id actually find for the next seven months all that he ceded. There were books, friendship, leisure, peace, —until the peace was disturbed by a maiden's eyes. The books came from a man named Reinwald, who ras in charge of the ducal library at Meiningen and 3 whom Schiller, foreseeing his own need, had made aste to introduce himself. Reinwald was some twenty- A'O years older than Schiller, a bit of a poet and a man f some literary ambition ; but he had not got on well 1 the world. It was fated that he should marry !hristophine Schiller, become peevish and sour in the ourse of time and lose the respect of his brother-in- iw. For the present, however, he proved a very seful friend ; for he not only executed orders for books nd tobacco (Schiller had learned to smoke and take nuff), but he served as general intermediary between nie mysterious Dr. Ritter and the outside world, ichiller's nature craved friendship, and his imagination asily endowed Reinwald with the qualities of an ideal ompanion of the soul. After a while we find him siting in such a strain as this: Your visit the day before yesterday produced a glorious effect. feel my spirits renewed and a warmer life courses through all ly nerves. My situation in this solitude has drawn upon my 3ul the fate of stagnant water, which becomes foul unless it is ;irred up a little now and then. And I too hope to become ecessary to your heart.' 1 Letter of March, 1783 ; in "Schillers Briefe", editid by Jonas, Vol, page 101, Relations with Outside World 103 As for Reinwald, he had long since passed the effusive age, but it pleased him to receive the younger man's confidence. He wrote in his diary: 'To-day Schiller opened his heart to me, — a youth who has already been through the school of life, — and I found him worthy to be called my friend. I do not believe that I have given my confidence to an unworthy man. He has an extraordinary mind and I believe that Germany will some day name his name with pride.' — Which was not bad guessing in its way. Excepting Reinwald and the villagers Schiller saw at first but little of his fellow-mortals. Both on his own account and for the sake of Frau von Wolzogen he wished that the persons who saw him should not know who he was. So he continued to scatter false reports with a liberal hand : he had gone to Hannover, was going to London, to America, and so forth. In the mean time, with no thought of leaving his nest at Bauerbach, he devoted himself to his work. For the first time in his life he was the master of his own movements ; he had a chance to collect himself, to browse among his books, to meditate and to dream. And as for mankind in general, he felt that he had no cause to love it. ' With the warmest feeling ', so he wrote after a time, when the first bitterness had passed away, ' I had embraced half the world and found at last that I had in my arms a cold lump of ice. ' ' Withal the demands of work were imperious. He had risked everything upon his chances of literary success and it was necessary to win. He had broken for good and all with the Duke of Wiirttemberg and there was * J>tt?!: of Jan. 4, 178J, to Fr*ii von Wolzogen. 34 The Fugitive in Hiding othing to be hoped for in that quarter. At the sanle me, — and the fact is characteristic of his large- lindedness, — he resolved not to air his personal griev- nce. To Frau von Wolzogen, who had been dmonishing him never to forget his debt to the tuttgart Academy, he wrote : ' However it may be 'ith regard to that, you have my word that I will ever belittle the Duke of Wurttemberg. ' Toward the end of December the wintry dullness of is Bauerbach cottage was brightened by the arrival of :s owner and her daughter. Lotte von Wolzogen was blond school-girl who had not yet passed her seven- :enth birthday. The records do not credit her with xceptional beauty, but she was sufficiently good- 3oking and her demure girlish innocence appeared to chiller very lovable. Not that his plight was at all esperate ; he hardly knew his own mind and was in o position to make love to any maiden, least of all to ne with that menacing von in her name. Still he ked Fraulein Lotte very much, and the tenderness rhich now began to manifest itself in his letters to the lother must be credited in part to the daughter. Vere this not so we could hardly account for such xpressions as these, which are contained in a letter written after the ladies had left Bauerbach for a short ojourn in the neighboring Waldorf: ' Since your bsence I am stolen from myself. To feel a great and vely rapture is like looking at the sun ; it is still before ou long after you have turned away your face, and [le eye is blinded to all weaker rays. But I shall take reat care not to extinguish this agreeable illusion.' Ind again after they h?td left the Meiningen region for Literary Projects tc>i Stuttgart, with a promise to return in May : ' Dearest friend — a week behind me without you. So there is one of the fourteen got rid of. I could wish that time would put on its utmost speed until May, so as to move thereafter so much the more slowly. ' Such flutterings of the heart were not altogether favorable to that austere program of literary industry which the ambitious young dramatist had set for him- self. When a man is in love other things seem more or less negligible, and it takes resolution to steer a firm course. Schiller was resolute — by spells. In the first list of books ordered from Meiningen we find noted, along with works of Shakspere, Robertson, Hume and Lessing, 'that part of the Abbe St. Real's works which contains the history of Don Carlos of Spain.' From this we see that a second historical drama was already under way. At first, however, it was not ' Don Carlos ' that claimed the most attention, but ' Louise Miller ', which had made considerable progress in Oggersheim. By January 14, 1783, Schiller was able to pronounce the new play finished, though his letters show that the revision occupied him some time longer. Meanwhile we hear of other dramatic projects, — a ' Maria Stuart ' and a ' Friedrich Imhof ', whatever this last may have been. Nothing is known of it save that it was to deal with Jesuitical intrigue, the Inquisi- tion, religious fanaticism, the history of the Bastille, and the passion for gambling.' By the end of March he had decided, after long vacillation between these two themes, to drop both of them and proceed with ' Don Carlos'. ' Undated letter of March, 1783; " Schillers Briefe ", I, loi. o6 The Fugitive in Hiding He began in prose, identifying himself completely 'ith his hero and writing with joyous enthusiasm. A ;tter of April 14 to Reinwald deals at length with love nd friendship and their relation to poetic creation. l11 love, we read, is at bottom love of ourselves. We 26 in the beloved person the sundered elements of our wn being, and the soul yearns to perfect itself in the rocess of reunion. Thus love and friendship are of le nature of poetic imagination, — the waking into life f a pleasing illusion. Wherefore the poet must love is characters. He must not be the painter of his hero, ut rather his hero's sweetheart or bosom friend, 'hen he makes the application to Don Carlos in these 'ords : I must confess to you that in a sense he takes the place of my Afeetheart. I carry him in my heart, — ich schwarme mil ihm urch die Gegend um. . . . He shall have the soul of Shak- pere's Hamlet, the blood and nerves of Leisewitz's Julius, and is pulse from me. Besides that I shall make it my duty in this lay, in my picture of the Inquisition, to avenge outraged man- ind . . . and pierce to the heart a sort of men whom the agger of tragedy has hitherto only grazed. But the ' bosom friend ' of Don Carlos soon had his tioughts pulled in other directions. In the first place bere came, very unexpectedly, a sugary letter from )alberg. What led him to make fresh overtures to the lan whom, a few months before, he had treated so habbily, is not difficult to make out. He had become onvinced that there was after all nothing to be feared ■om the Duke of Wiirttemberg. Moreover, since tie peremptory rejection of ' Fiesco ' the Mannheim tieater had been doing a very poor business. What lore natural than that the shrewd intendant, with an Friendly Advances from Dalberg 107 eye to better houses, should bethink him of the pen that had written ' The Robbers ' ? From Schwan and from Streicher, who had remained in Mannheim, he knew of Schiller's address and occupation. So he wrote him a gracious letter, inquiring after his welfare and expressing particular interest in the new play. It was now Schiller's turn to be foxy. He replied that he was very well, and that as for the play, ' Louise Miller ', it was a tragedy with a copious admixture of satirical and comic elements that would probably render it quite unfit for the stage. Dalberg replied that the specified defects were merits, — he would like to see the manuscript. The upshot of the correspondence was that Schiller, who had been negotiating with a Leipzig publisher but had been unable to make an acceptable bargain for the publication of ' Louise Miller ', now determined to revise it for the stage and meet the views of Dalberg if possible. So about the middle of April he laid aside ' Don Carlos ' and, for the third time in his life, devoted himself to the irksome task of converting a literary drama into a stage-play. On the 3rd of May he wrote to Reinwald : My L. M. drives me out of bed at five o'clock in the morning. Here I sit now, sharpening pens and chewing thoughts. It is certain and true that compulsion clips the wings of the spirit. To write with such solicitude for the theater, so hastily because I am pressed for time, and yet without fault, is an art. But I feel that my ' Louise ' is a gainer. My Lady [Lady Milford in the play] interests me almost as much as my Dulcinea in Stutt- gart [Lotte von Wolzogen]. Ere the revision of the new tragedy was finished Dulcinea herself arrived in Bauerbach; an event to o8 The Fugitive in Hiding 'hich Schiller had looked forward with joyous palpita- ons and anxious forebodings. For back in March "rau von Wolzogen had written him that she and her aughter would be accompanied on their northward )urney by a certain Herr Winkelmann, a friend of the imily. Schiller at once divined the approach of a ival and wrote in great agitation that he would go to ierlin if Winkelmann came. In justification of his breat he made the ^iaplfeneus plea that his incognito ^as of the utmost importance to him, and that the iquisitive Winkelmann (whom he had known at the cademy) would be sure to blab. To this Frau von Volzogen sent some sort of soothing reply, hinting at tie eame time that she, the mother, would not interfere dth her daughter's choice. So Schiller resolved to tand his ground. The ladies arrived in the latter part f May and soon thereafter he was given to understand bat Lotte's affections were fixed upon the other man. "here was nothing for him now but the role of lofty ssignation. To his former schoolmate, Wilhelm von Volzogen, he wrote as follows: You have commended to me your Lotte, whom I know com- letely. I thank you for the great proof of your love. . . . lelieve me, my best of friends, I envy you this amiable sister, till just as if from the hands of the Creator, innocent, the fair- st, tenderest, most sensitive soul, and not yet a breath of the gen- ral corruption on the bright mirror of her nature, — thus I know our Lotte, and woe to him who brings a cloud over this inno- ent soul ! . . . Your mother has made me a confidant in a latter that may decide the fate of your Lotte and has told me owyou feel upon the subject. [It appears that Wilhelm disliked le young man.] I know Herr wHfff and . . . believe nie, he is ot unworthy of your sister. . . I really esteem him, though I Flutterings of the Heart 109 cannot at present be called his friend. He loves your Lotte and I know he loves her like a noble man, and your Lotte loves him like a girl that loves for the first time. But the foolish dreams were not so easily to be given their quietus, especially when he discovered that Lotte was only half in love with Winkelmann after all. Then there seemed hope for him and he surrendered himself freely to the intoxication of his little summer romance. What were the world and a poet's fame in comparison with happiness .'' Still he did not declare himself He often called Frau von Wolzogen ' mother ', and averred in letters that no son could love her better. Probably a word from her might have led to an engage- ment. But the word was not spoken. She was a sensible lady, who knew how to look into the future and to guard the welfare both of her daughter and of her protege. She saw that if he was to make his way in the world as a dramatist he must return to the world ; a prolongation of the Bauerbach idyl could lead to nothing but disappointment and unhappiness. Besides, his incognito had now become only a conventional fiction ; everybody knew who he was. One day, accordingly, as they were walking to- gether, she suggested that he pay a visit to Mannheim and see what could be done with Dalberg. He re- solved to follow her advice. Late in July he set out, promising himself and her a speedy return. But it was not so to be. Becoming absorbed in the business of a new career he continued, indeed, to think of her affectionately and to write to her, but at ever-increas- : ing intervals ; and after a few months Bauerbach and ! the Wolzogens were only a delightful memory. It is lo The Fugitive in Hiding ■ue that, after the lapse of nearly a year he one day 3ok it into his head to suggest to the mother that she ike him for a son-in-law. But the wooing went no irther. After all he had not really been in love with ,otte in particular so much as with an ideal of domestic liss. Shortly before his departure from Bauerbach there ad been some talk of his accompanying Reinwald on contemplated journey to Weimar, where he might lake the acquaintance of Karl August, Goethe and V^ieland. In his excellent little book upon Schiller, treicher expresses regret that his friend had not acted pon this suggestion instead of following the ' siren oice ' that led to the Palatinate. But it is difficult to ^^mpathize with this regret. He was not yet ripe for :e role that fate held in store for him in Thiiringen. lis education was to proceed yet a while longer by the rocess of flaying. He was to suffer and grow strong ; 3 battle further with the goblins of despair; to tread le quicksands of adversity and fight his way through 3 a firm footing among the sons of men. Who shall ly that it was not better so } The long-cherished hopes of a connection with the lannheim theater were destined this time to be ful- lled. In the course of a few weeks Schiller entered ito a contract which assured him, for a year at least, respectable status in society and opened a new hapter in his life. Before we take up that chapter, owever, it will be proper to consider the new play 'hich he had brought with him as a passport to Dal- erg's favor. Thus far he had called it by the name f its heroine, but when it was put upon the stage it A New Play Gimpleted m was rechristened, at the suggestion of the actor Iffland, and has ever since been known as ' Cabal and Love ' . The revision which he had undertaken, after the re- opening of correspondence with Dalberg, was even now not quite finished ; so that the final touches had to be given at Mannheim. It is probable that the political satire, which was based in part upon veritable history and contained transparent allusions to well-known per- sonages, was more or less toned down in deference to the wishes of Dalberg. Minor changes were also made at the behest of the actors. But while it was not played and not printed until the spring of 1784, it belongs in its substance and its spirit, not to the Mannheim period of Schiller's life, but to the period which he had spent in hiding. It is a freeman's comment upon high life as he had known it. Scrupulously enough Schiller kept the letter of his promise not to use his pen in belitthng the Duke of Wurttemberg. But the Wirt- schaft in Stuttgart was fair game, and there were other ways of masking a dramatic battery than to lay the scene in Italy. In ' Cabal and Love ' the reigning prince does not appear upon the stage. CHAPTER VI Cabal anO %ove Ich bin ein Edelmann — Lasz doch sehen, ob mein Adelbrief alter ist als der Risz zum unendlichen Weltall ; oder mein Wap- pen giiltiger ist als die Handschrift des Himmels in Louisens Augen : Dieses Weib ist fur diesen Mann. — ' Cabal and Love '. In ' Cabal and Love ' Schiller found again, as he had previously found in ' The Robbers ' , a thoroughly- congenial theme. More properly the theme found him, took possession of him and would not let him go, until the inner tumult had subsided and German litera- ture had been enriched with its most telling tragedy of the social conflict. ' Fiesco ' had proved a disappoint- ment; he had not been able to bring himself into perfect sympathy with the subject, and at the best his Italian conspiracy was a far-away matter. Now he set foot again upon his native heath and all went better. In spite of certain defects which led him to speak of it later as rather badly designed, ' Cabal and Love ' must be pronounced the most artistic and the most interest- ing of his early plays. It is the tragedy of two lovers, an honorable aristo- crat and a girl of humble birth, who are done to death through a vile intrigue which is dictated by the exigen- cies of an infamous political regime. By means of a compromising letter, which is not forged but extorted Beginnings of Bourgeois Tragedy 113 under duress, the lover is made to suspect his sweet- heart's fidelity; and she, though innocent, is prevented by scruples of conscience from undeceiving him. In a jealous fury he gives her poison and then partakes of it himself. The mischief is wrought not so much by the wickedness of the great, albeit that comes in for a share of the responsibility, as by the obstinate class prejudice, amounting^ a tragic superstition, of the heroine and her fatherrT Many of the details were taken over by Schiller from his predecessors ; but he so im- proved upon them, so vitalized the familiar conflicts and situations, and threw into his work such a power of genuine pathos, caught from the pathos of real life, that ' Cabal and Love ' still stands out as a notable document of the revolutionary epoch. The epoch pro- duced many bourgeois tragedies, but Schiller's is much the best of them all. Before we look at it more closely it will be worth while to glance at the history of the type in Germany. The tragedy of middle-class life first took root, as is well known, in England. It was in 1732 that Lillo brought upon the Drury Lane stage his acted tale of George Barnwell, the London 'prentice who is beguiled by a harlot, robs his master, kills his uncle and ends his career on the gallows, to the great grief of the doting Maria, his master's daughter. The prologue tells how the experiment was expected to strike the public of that day: The Tragic Muse sublime delights to show Princes distrest and scenes of royal woe ; In awful pomp majestic to relate The fall of nations or some hero's fate ; 14 Cabal and Love That scepter'd chiets may by example know The strange vicissitudes of things below. . . . Upon our stage indeed, with wished success, You've sometimes seen her in a humbler dress, Great only in distress. When she complains. In Southern's, Rowe's, or Otway's moving strains, The brilliant drops that fall from each bright eye The absent pomp with brighter gems supply. Forgive us then if we attempt to show In artless strains a tale of private woe. o it appears that ' Barnwell ' was something new, et not entirely new. The stately tragedy of solemn dification, at which no one was expected to weep, had Iready yielded a part of its sovereignty to the tragedy f distress. It occurred to Lillo that tears could be rawn for the woes of the middle class, which had been )oked upon as suitable only for comedy. The event roved that he had reckoned well : the ' ' brilliant rops ' ' fell copiously, the innovation crossed the hannel, and soon the bourgeois tragedy, — whence by n easy differentiation the lacrimose, pathetic, or ;rious comedy, — had entered upon its European career. The first German example was ' Miss Sara Samp- 3n ', written in 1755, wherein the daughter of a fond English squire is lured away from her home, like larissa Harlowe, by the profligate Mellefont, who - romises to marry her. The pair take lodgings at a )W London inn, where Mellefont finds pretexts for elaying the marriage ceremony. Presently his former listress, Marwood, appears — a proud and passionate oman of sin. She claims him as the mother of his hild, but having now found out what true love is he purns her. Bitter interviews follow, with spiteful Lessing's Experiment us recriminations and awful threats. Marwood tells her story to Sara and finally ends the tension by poisoning her, whereupon Mellefont commits suicide. In writing this play Lessing was in no way concerned with any social question. He constituted himself the champion of the bourgeoisie before the tribunal of Melpomene, but not before the conscience of mankind. The woes of hero and heroine are in no way related to class prejudice or to the great democratic upheaval of the century. Lessing's atmosphere is the moral and senti- mental atmosphere of Richardson, though his literary power is incomparably greater. ' Miss Sara Sampson ' did not long hold the stage, but its influence is discernible in subsequent develop- ments. The ' man between two women ' became a regular feature of the new domestic tragedy. In play after play we find a soulful, clinging, romantic creature — usually the title-heroine — set over against a full- blooded rival whose ways are ways of wantonness. Lessing himself repeated the group in ' Emilia Galotti ', which in its turn became the mother of a new brood. The tragedy of lawless passion le'd by an easy step to the tragedy of social conflict, which portrayed the depravity of princgsand^nobles in their relation to the common people, or called^ upon mankind to weep for the woes of lovexs„._sfiparated by the barriers of^ rank. In Germany the species was very timely. Nowhere else in Europe had the nobility so little to be proud of, and nowhere else was the pride of birth so stupidly intolerant. That fruitful theme of earlier and later poets, the love of nobleman for maid of low degree, had been lost in the age of gallantry, save in lubticiaus r 1 6 Cabal and Love ales of intrigue and seduction. The appalling dis- oluteness which characterized the French court during he first half of the eighteenth century, and was duly opied by the princelings of Germany, had poisoned he minds of high and low alike and led to a state of ffairs in which there was little room for a noble or even serious conception of love. Love was understood to le &©ftGUj^sG&Hee. If an aristocrat stooped to a bour- :eois girl, it was his affair and at the worst only an berration of taste ; her fate was of no importance. When the inevitable reaction set in, it took the form f a debauch of sentimentalism. The poetry of real assion came back into literature and people wept for )y to find that they had hearts. Love was no longer frivolous game played for the gratification of lust, but divine rapture of fathomless and ineffable import. It ^as now the era of the beautiful soul, of tender senti- lent, of virtuous transports and of endless talk about 11 these things. Love being natural, — a part of that ature to which the world was now resolved to return, —it was sacred, and superior to all human conventions, t belonged to the sphere of the rights of man. Its nemy was everywhere the corrupt heart and the worldly, calculating mind. Fortunately the new ecstasy ssociated itself with a strong enthusiasm for the sim- lification of life ; for the poetry of nature and of rustic mployments; for the sweetness of domestic affection, n Germany public sentiment had already been pre- ared for a certain idealization of the bourgeoisie. Enlightened rulers and publicists, here and there, were oming to feel that a virtuous yeomanry was the sure )undation of a state's welfare. Countless idyls and Rousseau and the Social GDnflict 117 pastorals and moralizing romances had thrown a nimbus of poetry about the simple virtues and humble employ- ments of the poor, and taught people to contrast these things with the corruption and artificiality of courts and cities. It was, however, the passionate eloquence of Rousseau which first gave to this contrast a revolu- tionary significance, and it was Rousseau who first stirred the reading world with a woeful tale of lovers separated by the prejudices of caste. In ' The New Heloise ' it is the lady who is the aristocrat. Julie d'Etange, the daughter of a baron, wishes to marry the untitled St. Preux, to whom in a transport of passion she has yielded up her honor. But the Baron d'Etange is an implacable stickler for rank and she is a dutiful daughter ; whence her mar- riage to the elderly infidel, Wolmar, and the well- known moral ending of the novel. The thought that concerns us here is best expressed by the enlightened English peer. Lord B., who thus expostulates with Baron d'Etange: Let us judge of the past by the present ; for two or three citizens who win distinction by honest means, a thousand knaves every day get their famihes ennobled. But to what end serves that nobility of which their descendants are so proud, unless it be to prove the robberies and infamy of their ancestor ? There are, I confess, a great number of bad men among the common people ; but the odds are always twenty to one against a gentle- man that he is descended from a scoundrel. ... In what con- sists then the honor of that nobility of which you are so proud ? How does it affect the glory ol one's country or the good of mankind ? A mortal enemy to liberty and the laws, what did it ever produce, in the most of those countries where it has flourished, but the power of tyranny and the oppression of the 8 Cabal and Love )ple ? Will you presume to boast, in a republic, of a rank Lt is destructive to virtue and humanity ? Of a rank that kes its boast of slavery and wherein men blush to be men ? ' This Is of course the language of passion and preju- ;e (it would not else be Rousseau), but there was ough of truth in it, as in the case of Rousseau's other vors, to rouse the revolutionary spirit. German ;rature began to teem with novels and plays which hibit the sufferings of some untitled hero or heroine the hands of a vicious aristocracy. The theme is jched upon in ' Werther ', but without becoming an portant issue. It appears in Wagner's ' Infanticide ', lerein a butcher's daughter, Evchen Humbrecht, is )lated by a titled officer, runs away from home in her ame, kills her child and is finally found by the sentant author of her disgrace. We meet it again Lenz's 'Private Tutor', the tragedy of a German , Preux who falls in love with his titled pupil and ihonors her, with the result that she too runs away m home and tries to commit suicide, while her lover his chagrin emasculates himself. These are grotesque gedies, not devoid of literary power, but devoid of jh sentiment and saturated with a woeful vulgarity. e cannot wonder that the high-minded Schiller should ve condemned Wagner s malodorous play as a ;diocre performance. His incentive came rather from immingen's ' Head of the House ', which in turn rries us back to Diderot. In the hands of Diderot, democrat, moralist and ostle of the genre honnete, it was natural that- the ima of class conflict should end happily. In his 1 'The New Heloise', Part I, letter 62. ' Diderot's Father of the Family 119 'Father of the Family', written in 1758 and first played in 1761, the contrast of high and low is vividly portrayed, but without bitterness. The aristocratic St. Albin d'Orbisson falls in love with a poor girl from the country who lives in an attic and earns her own living. Sophie's beauty and virtue make a man of him and he wishes to marry her, but is opposed by his kind-hearted, querulous father, who argues the case with him at great length, confronting passion with prudential common-sense. St. Albin is also opposed by his rich uncle, the Commandeur, from whom he has prospects. The uncle plots to get Sophie away by having her arrested, but is baffled by a counter-intrigue. Stormy scenes follow the revelation, and in the end it appears that Sophie is not a plebeian maiden at all, but the niece of the purse-proud Commandeur, who has neglected his poor relations. With the hterary and dramatic qualities of this play, its absence of humor an.d of sparkling dialogue, its tedious moralizing, its hollow pathos and its general relation to Diderot's dramatic theory, we are not here directly concerned. What is important to observe is that, as a contribution to the burning social question, its point is blunted by the fact that its heroine is not what she seems to be. The whole matter reduces to a brief misunderstanding in an aristocratic family. Villainy is thwarted, true love comes into its own, and the foundations of society remain as they were. Diderot's ' Father of the Family ' enjoyed a short vogue in France and Italy and met with considerable favor in Germany. Most noteworthy among minor German plays that were influenced by it is Gemmin- 20 Cabal and Love en's ' Head of the House'. Gemmingen was himself n aristocrat, a baron by title, who was born in 1755. ^fter studying law he settled in Mannheim, where he ecame deeply interested in the drama, so that in 1778 e was given the position of dramatist to the newly stablished 'national theater'. Two years later he rought out his ' Head of the House ' with great suc- ess. The piece is a pendant of Diderot's, but by no leans a slavish imitation. Gemmingen's ' head of the house ' is an upright rerman nobleman of the admirable sort, who returns ome after a long absence to find the affairs of is family very much deranged. His eldest son, Carl, has fallen madly in love with Lotte Wehrmann, he daughter of an impecunious artist, gotten her nth child, and promised to marry her when his father hall have returned and given his consent. The ounger son, Ferdinand, an officer, has taken to ;aming, lost heavily and has a duel on his hands. lis son-in-law, Monheim, has become infatuated with dazzling widow. Countess Amaldi, grown cold oward his wife Sophie, and the quarreling pair are ager for a divorce. The tangle is further complicated y the fact that Amaldi, an excellent match, is in love nth. Karl. The perplexed father sets at work with he tools of common sense and rational argument. He rges Karl to break with Lotte for his career's sake. The irresolute and dutiful Karl consents, saying nothing fLotte's approaching motherhood, and the rumor of is intended marriage to the countess is spread abroad. Vhen Lotte hears it she rushes to Amaldi and wildly emands her lover in the name of her unborn child. Gemmingen*s Head of the House 121 When the father hears the whole story he no longer thinks of rank but of honor. He bids Karl marry his true love and retire to the country, where, as overseer of a large estate, he will be less encumbered by a plebeian wife than in the career which had been planned for him. The magnanimous Amaldi furnishes the bride's dowry, the other domestic complications are easily adjusted and all ends happily. Dramatically Gemmingen's play is rather tame, though its literary merit is considerable. He had a fair measure of constructive skill, but very little of poetic impulse or of dramatic verve. His best scenes interest us more for their good sense than for any more stirring qualities. His nearest approach to a strong character is the paterfamilias himself, who is certainly much less "woolly and mawkish "^ than his pendant in Diderot. Next one may place the artist Wehrmann. Karl is a poor stick, Amaldi is rather colorless, and Lotte would be quite insipid but for her impending motherhood, on which everything is made to turn. Such as it was, however, the play excited the cordial admiration of Schiller, who read it soon after its ap- pearance. Very likely it may have suggested to him the thought of trying his own hand upon a drama in the bourgeois sphere, but it was not until July, 1782, — ^just after he had finished reading Wagner's ' Infanti- cide ' , — that the plan of ' Louise Miller ' began to take shape in his mind. Gemmingen's poor artist, Wehr- mann, became the poor fiddler. Miller, and the daughter Lotte was rechristened Louise. The aristocratic lover, Gemmingen's Karl, was named Ferdinand von ' The adjectives are John Morley's; "Diderot", Chap. VII, 2 2 Cabal and Love /alter, and Amaldi was converted into Lady Milford. •ne of Gemmingen's subordinate characters, the )ppish nobleman, Dromer, who goes about making ampliments to everybody, reappears in Schiller's play 3 the perfumed tale-bearer and exquisite ladies' man, hamberlain von Kalb. The places represented are iree in number and the same in both plays. Here, owever, the parallel ends. Instead of Gemmingen's igh-minded paterfamilias we have the rascally Presi- ent von Walter, who, with his tool Wurm, reminds ne of Lessing's Prince and Marinelli. And what is luch more important, the relation of the lovers is so ortrayed that we get the pure poetry of passion, such s it is, without any tinge of grossness. In its earliest phase Schiller's plan looked toward a filing tragi-comedy for the stage, with a plenty of ough humor and caustic satire at the expense of high-born fools and scoundrels '. As he worked, the lossibilities of his theme developed. An abstract nthusiasm for the rights of man was kindled by honest Dve of the common people, and by the lingering smart if a personal wrong, into a holy zeal of vengeance, 'resident Walter was painted in colors which were aken largely from the political history and the chronique candaleuse of the Wiirttemberg court. As this court lad its angel of light in soiled garments. Lady Milford \iA.s fitted out with the benevolent qualities of Franziska 'on Hohenheim; and as the portrait grew in firmness ts author fell in love with it, like the young Goethe vith his Adelheid. When he came to depict the ealousy of Ferdinand, he had the advantage of a per- onal acquaintance with the green-eyed monster. Thus Schiller's Debt to Predecessors 123 the play was extracted from the book of life, as Schiller had been able to read it, and that accounts for its vitality. But in his details he is nowhere less original. Not only in the general conception of important char- acters, but in particular scenes, situations, motives, contrasts and forms of expression, we can see the in- fluence of the literary tradition which he inherited. To show the exact nature and the full extent of this indebtedness would be a tedious undertaking, which would require pages of quotation from works whose chief interest now is that they served as quarry for Schiller. Three or four illustrations will suffice. Our play begins with a scene which at once recalls what was originally the opening scene of Wagner's ' Infanti- cide '. In both there is a blustering father, ^ — ^Lessing's Odoardo reduced to the bourgeois sphere, — discoursing with his silly wife upon the dangers that threaten their daughter -fco«i keepmg aristocratic company. In both the domestic thunderer expresses himself in rough, strong language, and is only made the more furious by his wife's efforts to allay his fears. In Wagner's next scene Magister Humbrecht comes to woo Evchen, just as Schiller's Wurm comes to woo Louise, and we hear that the girl's head has been turned by reading novels. Just so Louise, whose father can scarcely find words to express his detestation of the young baron's infernal, belletristic poison. When Wurm arrives at Miller's and asks for Louise, he is informed that she has just gone to church. 'Glad of that, glad of that', he replies, ' I shall have in her a pious Christian wife '. Here is a reminiscence of the scene in which Lessing's Count Appiani exclaims, on hearing that Emilia has 124 Cabal and Love just been at church : ' That is right ; I shall have in you a pious wife '. The devout heroine was a hardly less hackneyed figure in the dramatic literature of the time than the blustering father of whom Goethe com- plained.^ In Schiller's Louise we have the religious sentiment sublimated into something quite too seraphic for human nature's daily food. Her high-keyed sense of duty to God, her natural filial piety and her super- stitious reverence for the social order, combine to pro- duce in her a curious distraction which is the real source of the tragic conflict. She feels that her love is holy but that marriage would be sinful; and so she hesitates, responds to her lover's ardor with tremblings and solicitudes, knows not what to do, does the foolish thing and atones tragically for her weakness. Not before Schiller's time had this conflict between love and filial duty been so powerfully depicted, but it is found in Wagner's ' Remorse after the Deed ' (1775), wherein a coachman's daughter, Friederike Walz, is loved by the aristocratic Langen, who is opposed by his mother. Langen goes to his sweetheart, all courage and resolution. He is prepared, like Leisewitz's Julius, to defy his kin, renounce the lures of his rank and flee to the ends of the earth with ' Rikchen '. To which she replies: 'Langen, you are terrible. To marry with the curse of parents is to make one's whole pos- terity miserable'. So Louise replies to Ferdinand's similar entreaty: 'And be followed by your father's • " La premiere fois que je la vis, ce fut k I'figlise", — says Diderot's St. Albin, in recounting the beginning of his infatuation for Sophie. So with Faust and Margaret, and with Schiller's beautiful Greek lady in ' The Ghostseer '. Further Influence of Predecessors 125 curse! A curse, thoughtless man, which even mur- derers never utter in vain, and which Hke a ghost would pursue us fugitives mercilessly from sea to sea. ' In the sentimental novel 'Siegwart', the heroine, Therese, loves a young squire, not for his blue blood, but for the nobility of his heart. Like Louise she renounces her love for this life, and bids him farewell. In writing to him she describes a scene between her father and his : Your father came dashing into our yard with two huntsmen. ' Are you the ■ ? ' he called up to me. ' Is that Siegwart .' He's a scoundrel, if he knows it. He wants to seduce my son. And this, I suppose, is the nice creature (here he turned to me again) who has made a fool of him. A nice little animal, by my soul ! ' . . . My father, who can show heat when he is provoked, told him to stop calling such names ; that he was a decent man and I a decent girl. Here we seem to have the suggestion of the stirring scene in which the irate old fiddler threatens to throw President von Walter out of doors for insulting Louise. It would be very easy to give further examples of Schiller's talent for taking what suited his purpose, but such philology is not very profitable. After all, what one wishes to know is not where the architect got his materials, but what he made of them. And what he made was a play abounding in admirable scenes, but ending in a rather unsatisfactory manner. With even less violence to the inner logic of the piece than was necessary in the case of ' Fiesco ', ' Cabal and Love ' might have been given a happy ending. The whole tragedy hangs by a thread in the fifth act. Lady Milford has fled and is no longer a factor in the en- 26 Cabal and Love mglement. The wicked president has relented and ; ready to yield. Old Miller, released from prison, 2turns to his house and finds Louise brooding over er purpose of suicide. He preaches to her upon the in of self-destruction and pleads with her to give up er aristocratic lover. She promises. Then Ferdinand omes and demands an explanation of the fatal letter. i. word from her at this point, a momentary acces oi imple common sense, would undeceive him and end le whole difficulty. ' Of course she must not break her ath; and one cannot blame her sweet simplicity for ot taking refuge in the maxim that an oath given nder duress is not binding. But her oath merely ledges her to acknowledge the letter as her voluntary ct. There is no reason why she should not solemnly ssure Ferdinand of her innocence, tell him that they re the victims of a plot and send him to his father for n explanation. Nothing prevents her from speaking 1 time the words that she actually does speak after lie has taken the poison, but before she knows that she as taken it: 'A horrible fatality has confused the Ian - uage of our hearts. If I might open my mouth, Walter, could tell you things', etc. If, out of filial piety, Louise is minded to give up er lover, there is at any rate no reason why she tiould wish him to despise her forever. Every natural irlish instinct requires her to clear herself. That tie does not do this, but persists in a course which f all courses is the most unnatural, — seeing that she ow has nothing to fear from any source, — produces painful suspense which is anything but tragic. No kill of the actress can altogether save her from a cer- The Tragic Conclusion 127 tain appearance of fatuous weak-mindedness, or fore- stall the cynical conclusion that she dies chiefly in order that it may be fulfilled which was said unto him- self by the author, namely: I will write a tragedy. And yet such a conclusion would not be perfectly just to Schiller. It is true that he was all for tragedy and that a happy moral ending, in the vein of Diderot, would not have been to his taste. But this does not tell the whole story. The romantic lovers are sacri- , ficed in order that the guilty president and his vile accomplices may be brought to book and punished for their sins. The heart of the matter for Schiller was to free his mind with respect to the infamies of high life. It was this that tipped his pen with fire. Of course there are German critics who find Louise's conduct in this last scene quite 'inevitable' and full of a high tragic pathos. Thus Palleske says of her: Her anxious piety, her touching and indeed so intelligible devotion to her father, her lack of freedom, bring on her fate. A veil of mourning rests upon all she says. Heroic liberty of action, such as befits a Juliet, is made impossible to this girl by her birth in the bourgeoisie ; she has only the liberty to perish, not the courage to be happy. Of guilt there can be no question in this case : her anxiety, her filial devotion, are her whole guilt ; her virtue, her love for her father, become her ruin. Whoever thoroughly knows the bourgeoisie, which had yet to recover from these wounds,' will admit that this character is drawn with terrible truthfulness. ' " Schillers Leben und Werke ", 15. Aufl. (1900), p. 297. In earlier editions of Palleskef^ s work, which appeared originally in 1858-9, Louise was further characUrized as 'the crushed heart of the German people'; and the sentence, ' which had to recover from those wounds ', read : ' which is beginning to recover '. 28 Cabal and Love This, however, is putting too fine a point upon it; ; implies, when closely analyzed, that Schiller de- berately made his heroine a little stupid, — a view of er that hardly comports with the rest of the play, 'o say that she must die because she belongs to the ourgeoisie is mere moonshine, for common sense can ;adily find a number of escapes. She may cleave to er father and send her lover packing, after proper xplanations; or she may cleave to her lover in the Lce of her father's displeasure; or she may temporize 1 the hope of changing her father's mind. What she ctually does is to goad her lover into a frenzy by her ngular conduct and then come to her senses when it too late. The effect is to cast doubt upon the inten- ty of her supposed passion for Ferdinand. One gets le impression that her previous sentimental ecstasies 'ere not perfectly genuine ; that she does not really now what it is to be in love, or how to speak the veri- ible language of the heart. The truth seems to be that when Schiller wrote Cabal and Love', he had not progressed far enough 1 the knowledge of femininity to be able to draw a erfectly life-like portrait of a girl in Louise's station, he is a creature of the same order as Amalia and Le- nora, — a sentimental Sckzvdrmerin, very much lack- ig in character and mother-wit. From the first the xpression of her love does not ring perfectly true, ^e suspect her of phrase-making, — she is quite too thereal and ecstatic for a plain fiddler's daughter. To trace here of that homely poetic realism, — Gretchen t the wash-tub, or Lotte cutting bread and butter, -with which Goethe knew how to invest kis bourgeois Louise's Religious Sentimentalism 129 maidens. For aught we can learn from her discourse Schiller's Louise might be a princess, brought up on a diet of Klopstock's odes. That a girl, returning from church, should inquire of her parents if her lover has called, is quite in order. That she should then confess that thoughts of him have come between her and her Creator, is pardonable. But what are we to think when she goes on to say to her own parents : This little life of mine, oh that I might breathe it out into a soft caressing zephyr to cool his face ! This little flower of youth, were it but a violet, that he might step on it, and it might die modestly beneath his feet ! That would be enough for me, my father. . . . Not that I want him now. I renounce him for this life. But then, mother, then, when the barriers of rank are laid low ; when all the hateful wrappings of earthly station fall away from us, and men are only men, — I shall bring nothing with me save my innocence ; but, you know, father has so often said that pomp and splendid titles will be cheap when God comes, and that hearts will rise in price. Then I shall be rich. Then tears will be counted for triumphs, and beautiful thoughts instead of ancestry. I shall be aristocratic then, mother. What advantage will he have then over his sweetheart ? What can one think, indeed, except that this ^uper^ nal maiden has been reading Klopstock's famous ' Ode to Fanny'.' ^ Louise's passion, then, is no dangerous earthly flame, but a sentimental dream, a private revel in ecstatic emotion. We opine that she does not really need her lover, as a mortal entity, at all, and are prepared to ' One strophe runs : Dann wird ein Tag sein, den werd' ich auferstehn ! Dann wird ein Tag sein, den wirst du auferstehn ! Dann trennt kein Schicksal mehr die Seelen, Die du einander, Natur, bestimmtest. I30 Cabal and Love find her fearsome and irresolute in his presence. ' They are going to separate us,' she exclaims, as if she her- self had no voice in the matter, when really her own timidity is the great obstacle. She is no Gretchen, or Clarchen, ready to give all for love's sake and jump the consequences; still less is she a bourgeois Juliet, prepared to brave a family tempest provided only that her Romeo's bent be honorable, his purpose marriage. Those externalities of rank which she expects to drop out of sight in heaven loom up very large in her earthly field of vision. She fears her father's displeasure. She pretends to fear the ruin of her Ferdinand's career, albeit he assures her solemnly that she is of more im- portance to him than all else in the world. She is of the opinion that her marriage to a man with a von in his name and prospects in life would be ' the violation of a sanctuary'; would ' unjoint the social world and demolish the eternal, universal order '. Wherefore she is minded to renounce him. 'Let the vain, deluded girl ' — so she sighs — 'weep away her grief within lonely walls; no one will trouble himself about her tears, — empty and dead is my future, — but I shall still now and then take a smell at the withered nosegay of the past. ' — No wonder that before she reaches this awful climax, Ferdinand smashes the fiddle and bursts into laughter, y On the stage, the scene in which the agonized Louise , is compelled to write the compromising letter is one of the most effective in the piece; and yet how futile and absurd the whole intrigue would be if the conspirators were not able to count upon her being a goose ! One cannot blame her, of course, for doing that which ap- pears to be necessary in order to save her father's life. Louise as a Tragic Heroine 131 One may pardon to her distress the solemn oath that she will acknowledge the letter as her voluntary act. But if she were really in love with Ferdinand as she has pretended to be, how easy it would be for her, without violating her oath, to put him on his guard against the -trap that has been laid for him! In the scene with Lady Milford she appears as a pert little pharisee, caustic, sententious and philosophical beyond her years ; so that one wonders why a girl that knows so much should not know more. She herself has just cast her lover off, after meeting his passionate entreaties with cool prudential argument. In a stagy paroxysm of jealousy she resigns her Ferdinand to Lady Milford, warning her, however, that her bridal chamber will be haunted by the ghost of a suicide. But why should Louise wish to quit this life ? She has said farewell to Ferdinand, alleging that duty bids her remain and endure. She has chosen her part. All that separates her from her lover is her own chimerical sentiment of duty. Her virtue is intact. She has not the motive, say of Gemmingen's Lotte, for self-destruction. It is hard to take her seriously at this point, and we wonder that Lady Milford takes her seriously. Truth to tell, Louise makes a rather tame and un- interesting tragic heroine. Notwithstanding all her fervid phrases, she is essentially cold. Did Schiller intend this effect, or is it due to the fact that he could not have portrayed her differently ? Did it really spring from his limited observation of the feminine heart and of girlish ways, or from a deliberate artistic purpose to account adequately for Ferdinand's jealousy ? Had he taken a lesson from the maidenly reserve of Lotte 32 Cabal and Love on Wolzogen and the prudential scruples of her lother ? These are questions upon which one can only Deculate. As matters stand, the whole catastrophe is lade to hinge upon Ferdinand's suspicion. A little atience, a little faith in his sweetheart, would turn the ourse of fate. But her conduct makes faith difficult; D we understand his jealousy, but not so well his revious infatuation. He is in love with a beautiful Dul and a pair of forget-me-not eyes, but the presup- ositions are a little difficult. He is resolved to marry ,ouise for better or worse, — it is all understood, so far s he is concerned. Although there is no love-scene 1 the play, we do hear of precedent scenes of passionate slf-surrender (always within the limits of virtue). One annot help asking: Where were Louise's scruples len .' Was she ignorant of her father's prejudice or ssolved to brave it .'' Had she never reflected upon tie august foundations of the social order .■' Had she ssisted Ferdinand's suit and warned him that he must e content with a yearning friendship on earth and a nion of souls in heaven .'' None of these suppositions an be said to prepare us fully for her actual conduct 1 the play, where she appears all along as a helpless undle of tremors, vacillating between an alleged assion in which we do not fully believe and a sub- mated sense of duty that we cannot fully understand. In Ferdinand we have Schiller's favorite type of ragic hero, — the fervid young enthusiast whose alamity grows out of his own strenuous idealism. He i, however, a less weighty character than Karl Moor, r Carlos, or Max Piccolomini, because we see in him othing more than the infatuate lover> In their ca^e Character of Ferdinand 133 love is paired with the spirit of great enterprise; for him it is all in all, so far at least as the action of the play is concerned. His Louise sums up the entire macrocosm. If he thinks of doing anything in the world, it is only in order that he may marry her and live with her in a lover's paradise all his life. This is his way of talking : Let obstacles come between us like mountains ; I will make steps of them and fly to my Louise's arms. The storms of ad- verse fate shall inflate my feeling, danger shall only make my Louise the more charming. . . I will guard you as the dragon guards the subterraneous gold. Trust yourself to me. You need no other angel. I will throw myself between you and fate, receive every wound for you and catch for you every drop from the cup of joy. On this arm shall my Louise dance through life, etc. One can pardon some extravagance to a stage lover, since his intoxication is what makes him amiable. Who, for example, would abate a jot or tittle from the delicious nonsense of Romeo .' When he says that carrion flies may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand And steal immortal blessings from her lips, he seems to have expressed himself appropriately. There is no suggestion of mawkishness in his discourse. Our Ferdinand, however, is distinctly spoony. There went no poetic irony to his creation, and he has no saving sense of humor. He never seems, like Romeo, to be toying with hyperbole in an artistic spirit, but it is all dead earnest. Such a love-lorn youth must expect to recruit his admirers chiefly from the ranks of the very young. And yet there fire times, just as in 34 Cabal and Love he case of Karl Moor, when Ferdinand's rhetoric lecomes impressive from sheer titanic force. Thus I'hen he says to Louise, who has just been reminding lim of his prospects: ' I am a nobleman, — we will see, lowever, whether my patent of nobility is older than he ground-plan of the eternal universe ; whether my scutcheon is more valid than the hand-writing of eaven in Louise's eyes: This woman is for this man.' It is undoubtedly in the scenes with his father that ■"erdinand appears at his best. Here at least there is lanly vigor. The contrast between the wicked father nd the good son is, effectively brought out, although, s in the case of Karl and Franz Moor, it is carried eyond the limits of easy credibility. How unnatural I the relation of the pair ! One would think they had ever talked with each other before, and that each had ved in complete ignorance of the other's character nd inclinations. The father, by way of founding a laim to his son's grateful affection, declares that he as ' trodden the dangerous path to the heart of the rince ' and killed his predecessor, — all for the sake f his son. He admits that he is suffering the 'eternal ;orpion-stings of conscience ', and yet he expects erdinand to follow him without a whimper, and he is ngry when the young man indignantly renounces the sufruct of his father's crimes. Although Ferdinand a major in the army, his marriage with Lady Milford arranged for him as if he had no claim to be con- alted. The president blurts out his plan with brutal Darseness, and urges it in language which he knows ill rouse his son's anger. So when he appears in the [iller house he makes himself as odious as possible. President von Walter 135 Diplomacy and finesse are weapons not found in his armory, though he is a courtier and a successful poli- tician. He is simply a cynical brute in high office. In truth his conduct is so very inhuman as to convey an impression of burlesque. He seems copied from some ogre in a fairy tale. But if President von Walter appears now like a melo- dramatic caricature, it is partly because times have changed ; for Schiller was not without his models in the recent history of Wiirttemberg. During the period of Karl Eugen's worst recklessness — the decade beginning with 1755, — he was loyally abetted by two men, Rieger and Montmartin, who made themselves thoroughly odious. Rieger was a man of talent and knowledge, but without heart and without conscience. It was he who managed the cruel and lawless conscriptions whereby Duke Karl raised the desired troops for France,' Young men were simply taken wherever they could be found,- — pulled from their beds at night, or seized as they came from church, — and forced into the army under brutal conditions of service. Many a , Wiirttemberg family could have told a tale of barbarity essentially similar to that recounted by the lackey to Lady Milford in the second act of Schiller's play. Remorseless oppression of the people, for the purpose of raising money to be spent on the duke's costly whims, became the order of the day. Still more brutal and cynical in his methods than Rieger was Count Montmartin, who was made President of the State Council in 1758. A cunning and wicked intriguer, he lent himself without scruple to the gratifi- ' See above, page 7. 56 Cabal and Love ition of his master's lusts and caprices. The daughters r the land were unsafe from his machinations if they ad had the misfortune to attract the wanton eye of leir sovereign. In 1762, wishing to be rid of his owerful rival, Montmartin trumped up a charge that .ieger was engaged in treasonable correspondence with russia. The result was that Rieger was publicly dis- raced. Meeting him one day on parade the duke ngrily tore off his military order, struck him with his ine and then shut him up in the Hohentwiel, where e lay for four years without light, table, chair or bed. ti like manner the patriotic publicist, Moser, was im- risoned for five years, without trial and without sen- mce, because he had withheld his consent to the uke's high-handed proceedings. Such was the political system that had afflicted Viirttemberg during Schiller's childhood. It furnished im with his dramatic ' mythology ', as it has been ailed. The name may be allowed to pass, only it hould be remembered that this mythology was simply istory. The rapier-thrusts of the dramatist were not irected against wind-mills of the imagination, but gainst political infamies that make one's blood boil in be reading and that would have moved a more spirited leople to hang their rulers to the nearest tree. This hould be borne in mind by any one who, in the milder ight of a later and better era, is disposed to carp at Jchiller for caricaturing the nobility. He was not con- erned with aristocracy in general, but with the partic- ilar kakistocracy that had disgraced his native land. \nd all that he did was to exhibit it as it was, or lately lad been. CHAPTER VII Ubeatcr poet In /IBannbeim Die Schaubtihne ist mehr als jede andere offentliche Anstalt des Staats eine Schule der praktischen Weisheit, ein Wegweiser durch das biirgerliche Leben, ein unfehlbarer Schliissel zu den geheimsten Zugangen der menschlichen Seele. — Discourse on the Theater, 1784. Mannheim, famed for the geometric regularity of its streets, was in Schiller's day a city of about twenty thousand inhabitants. Since 1720 it had been the capital of the Bavarian Palatinate, and under the Elector Karl Theodor it had acquired some distinction as a nursery of the arts. We have seen that Schiller, coming thither from Suabia, imagined himself escaping from the land of the barbarians to the land of the Greeks. In the year 1777 the Upper and Lower Palatinate were united, and the Elector transferred his residence to Miinchen. For this withdrawal of the light of their ruler's countenance the Mannheimers were compensated in a measure by the establishment among them of a so-called National Theater. There was no German nation at the time, but there was a very general interest in the German drama. Lessing's famous experiment at Hamburg, though it turned out badly, had set people thinking. Playwrights and actors were learning to regard themselves no longer as purveyors of mere 38 Theater Poet in Mannheim musement, but as the dignified representatives of a oble art having boundless possibilities of influence, "he public was becoming interested in the principles f dramatic construction and in the criteria of excel- ;nce. Scholars were beginning to inquire whether the tage might not again become what it had been for the ncient Athenians. And so the way had been prepared )r a serious conception of the theater and for experi- lents like that at Mannheim. The management of the enterprise was placed in the ands of Baron Heribert von Dalberg, a young noble- lan (born in 1750), who had given no evidence of nusual fitness for such an office, but was a connoisseur nd a gentleman. He devoted himself zealously to his 'ork and soon made his theater famous. He was aurteous and hospitable, kept an eye open for promis- \g talent and enjoyed the role of Maecenas. His i^stem provided for regular meetings of his actors, at 'hich plays were discussed, reports rendered and rievances ventilated. For the rest he was not a man f ideas, but a follower of tradition. He disliked to ike risks and often missed the mark in his judgment f persons and of plays. He continued until 1803 to ct as intendant and occasionally tried his hand at ramatic composition, or the adaptation of a Shak- perian play. All told, his services were such that the lannheimers have deemed him worthy of a statue. Among the actors whom Baron Dalberg 's enterprise ad assembled at Mannheim were three or four of otable talent. Thus there was Iffland, of the same ^e as Schiller, who was destined to win fame as an :tor, playwright and manager. Like Diderot, Iffland Conditions at Mannheim 139 believed ardently in the moral mission of the drama. He was himself a man of character who had taken to the stage against the wish of his kinfolk, and now his hobby was to refine the language of the stage and to elevate the actor's profession. He was an industrious and thoughtful player, who gave careful attention to the little matters of mimicry and personation and seldom failed to please. Another was Beil, a greater actor in point of natural endowment, who relied more upon vigorous realism than upon studied refinements. Then there was Beck, who was at his best as a portrayer of youthful enthusiasm and sentiment. His nature was akin to Schiller's and a warm friendship sprang up between the two. When Schiller arrived in Mannheim, late in July, 1783, Dalberg was in Holland. There was nothing going on at the theater, and the sweltering town, deserted by such as could get away, was suffering from an epidemic of malarial fever. But the faithful Streicher was there and friend Meyer, the manager, and Schwan, the publisher, whose vivacious daughter, Margarete, gradually kindled in the heart of the new-comer another faint blue flame which he ultimately mistook for love. His first concern was to write to Frau von Wolzogen, who had loaned him money for his journey, a detailed report of his finances. He was the possessor of fifteen thalers, whereof he had reserved five for the return to Bauerbach. His friend Meyer had found him a nice place where, by dispensing with breakfast, he could eat, drink and lodge for about two thalers a week. Hair-dresser, washerwoman, postman and tobacconist would require, all told, one thaler. So he hoped to 40 Theater Poet in Mannheim eep afloat in the great world at least three weeks, and len, — back to his heart's home in Saxony! The ;tter continues : Oh, I shall long to be soon, soon, with you again ; and mean- hile, in the midst of my greatest distractions, I shall think of 3U, my dearest friend. I shall often break away from social ircles and, alone in my room, sadly dream myself back with you id weep. Continue, my dear, continue to be what you have een hitherto, my first and dearest friend ; and let us be, all by iirselves, an example of pure friendship. We will make each ther better and nobler. By mutual sympathy and the delicate e of beautiful emotions we will exhaust the joys of this life and : the last be proud of this our blameless league. Take no other iend into your heart. Mine remains yours unto death and syond that, if possible. One sees that the writer of this letter had lived quite )ng enough in his idyllic retirement, and that his bene- ictress had judged the case wisely. Es bildet em Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.' Ve who do not live in an epoch of emotional expan- on have the right to get what amusement we can out f this note of high-flown sentimentalism. At the ime time its instructive aspect should not be lost sight f. When a youth of twenty-three, battling with the ulgar prose of life, falls into such a tone in writing to middle-aged lady who has befriended him ; when he :ts his imagination brood upon the coming luxury of ;ars and of beautiful emotions ; when he is so pathet- ;ally eager to reign without a rival in the heart of his • A talent forms itself in solitude, ^ A character in the flowing tide of life. — Goethe's ' Tasso ', Arrangement with Dalberg 141 friend, and to assure her of his everlasting loyalty in the world to come, — how shall we expect him to express himself when he undertakes to speak the lan- guage of strong feeling in works of the imagination ? Evidently we must be prepared for all things in the way of sentimental extravagance. After two weeks of idle waiting Schiller was able to report that Dalberg had returned and was showing himself very friendly. The man was 'all fire ', — only it was gunpowder flame that would not last long. The genial intendant insisted that Schiller should by all means remain in Mannheim. ' Fiesco ', now in print as a tragedy, should be put upon the stage at once; ' Louise Miller ' should be taken under consideration, a performance of ' The Robbers ' be given for the author's special gratification, and so forth. At first Schiller was little disposed to bank upon this effusive kindness. His plans went no further than to effect a sale of the stage-rights of his two plays and then to return to Bauerbach. But the lures of Dalberg finally prevailed and in September he made a contract for a year's employment as dramatist of the Mannheim theater. He was to furnish one entirely new play, in addition to those he had on hand, and to have as com- pensation three hundred florins, the copyright of all the plays and the receipts of a single performance of each of them. For a moment the future looked tolerably bright. He saw in his mind's eye an assured income of more than twelve hundred florins, which would pro- vide amply for his needs and enable him to pay his debts. But his plans went all wrong. In the first place, 42 Theater Poet in Mannheim he pestilent fever, which he fought with giant doses f quinine, proved very intractable and held him 1 its grip for months. He was unable to work and :11 into a sort of mental coma. In a letter of Novem- ler 1 3 he describes himself as eating Peruvian bark like iread; and six weeks later he was still suffering from he effects of his unlucky midsummer plunge into the niasmatic air of Mannheim. In other ways, too, the lew situation proved a disappointment. Social demands ivolved him in expenditures far in excess of his modest alculations, while the intervals of relief from physical icapacity were filled with a hundred distractions which ;ft him no time for sustained mental effort. And o he drifted into the winter without accomplishing nything more notable than the final revision of Fiesco '. About this time he was elected a member of the o-called 'German Society', a learned body which njoyed the protection of the Elector. This little honor ras highly valued by Schiller, since it made him a itizen of the Palatinate and gave him an assured social tatus. On the other hand, his emergence into the ght of day as a respectable functionary was not with- ut its disadvantages, since his creditors now became nportunate. There were pressing duns from Stuttgart nd from Bauerbach, but the debtor could not pay. le became involved in a painful correspondence with is father, who had undertaken to guarantee a small ebt of his son provided that another larger one be paid and so. When this hope failed, the old captain lost atience and began to deal out counsel, reproof and 'arning with a lavish hand. He recommended his son Ficsco on the Stage 143 to save the pennies and live more economically; to return to medicine ; to marry a wife ; to remember his Creator, and so on. To all of which the perplexed Friedrich could only reply with fresh promises, excuses and recommendations of patience. In like manner he put off Frau von Wolzogen until she began to lose faith in him. A sharp letter from her brought him to his knees with a humble apology, but it was years before he could pay his debt to her. The first performance of ' Fiesco ', the adaptation of which to the stage had cost its author such a world of trouble, took place on the 12th of January, 1784. As played it differed a good deal from the published ver- sion, and not alone with respect to the catastrophe. Thus the painful episode of Bertha was worked over into something less revoltingly horrible. In the stage version, instead of being brutally violated, she is abducted by a tool of Gianettino, but rescued and restored to her home unharmed. With this change made it would seem as if there were less reason than ever for her being cursed and sent to a subterraneous prison- vault. Nevertheless Verrina ' s curse was allowed to remain, — chiefly, as one cannot help surmising, that the girl might be rescued with eclat in the fourth act. (The rescue scene in ' The Robbers ' had been a great success.) It has already been noted that the offensive quarrel between Julia and Leonora was omitted and that Leonora was allowed to live. And there were other such changes. Schiller had been impressed by an actor's criticism of his florid and violent lan- guage. He accordingly removed or toned down a few blemishes of this kind, but without making a radical 44 Theater Poet in Mannheim ^vision of the style. Even in the stage version there ; quite too much of rant and fustian. The Mannheimers took but little interest in ' Fiesco ', -it was too erudite for them, as Schiller explained to Leinwald some months later.' Republican liberty, he 'ent on to say, was in that region a sound without leaning; there was no Roman blood in the veins of le Pfalzer. In Berlin and Frankfurt, however, the iece had met with good success. We cannot blame chiller for trying to extract comfort from these bits f evidence that the prophet was not without honor ive in his own country, though we may question his nplication that republican ideas were jiist then less rife 1 the Palatinate than in Berlin and Frankfurt. The ict is that the lover of republican ideas must have been le very person to feel the keenest dissatisfaction with Fiesco '. Where it did succeed, its success was due ) causes having little to do with political sentiment, 'he Berlin triumph was equivocal, being the triumph ot so much of Schiller as of one Pliimicke, who took igh-handed liberties with the original text and made over, in both language and thought, so as to suit the iste of the Berlin actors. This northern version, thus iluted with the water of the Spree, was presently ublished by the enterprising pirate, Himburg, and roved a formidable rival of the genuine edition. The lay was tried at several theaters and with various ndings, — curiously enough Pliimicke made Fiesco ommit suicide in the moment of his triumph, — but it ever became really popular. It was translated into English in 1796, into French in 1799. > Letter of May 5, 1784. Theatrical Triumphs 145 Much more favorable was the reception given to ' Cabal and Love ' , which was first played at Mannheim on the 15th of April, 1784.^ The part of the lackey who describes the horrors attending the exportation of soldiers to America was omitted; the satire was too strong for the politic Dalberg, who had all along been troubled by Schiller's drastic treatment of princely iniquity and his obvious allusions to well-known persons. Even Schwan, who was delighted with ' Louise Miller ' from the first and readily undertook to publish it, described its author as an executioner. This time the Mannheimers had no difficulty of comprehension and they gave their applause unstintingly. After the great scene in the second act they rose and cheered vocifer- ously, — whereat Schiller bowed and felt very happy. ' His manner ', says honest Streicher, who has left a report of the memorable evening, ' his proud and noble bearing, showed that he had satisfied himself and was pleased to see his merit appreciated. ' A few days later the Mannheim players repeated their triumph at Frankfurt, where Schiller was lionized to his heart's content. ' Cabal and Love ' now quickly became a stage favorite. Within a few months it was played successfully at nearly all the more important theaters of Germany. Even Stuttgart fell into line, but the Duke of Wiirttemberg was not pleased, and a memorial of the nobility led to the prohibition of a second per- ^ But this performance was not the first in order of time. ' Cabal and Love ' had already been played on the 13th of April by Grossmann's company at Frankfurt. Grossmann was an intelligent theatrical man, who had conceived a liking for Schiller i only he wished that the ' dear fiery man ' would be a little more considerate of stage limitations. 46 Theater Poet in Mannheim ormance. At Braunschweig' it was tried with a happy nding, but this innovation, reasonable as it seems, ook no root. A badly garbled English translation by rimaeus appeared in 179S; a better one by Monk ^ewis, under the title of ' The Minister ', in 1797. A "rench translation by La Martelliere was hissed off the tage of the Theatre Frangais in 1801. From the Minerva press the new play got blame and iraise. One writer saw in it the same Schiller who ras already known as the ' painter of terrible scenes nd the creator of Shaksperian thoughts '. A Berlin ritic named Moritz, of whom we shall hear later, called lie piece a disgrace to the age and wondered how a lan could write and print such nonsense. The plot onsisted, he declared, of a simpleton's quarrel with 'rovidence over a stupid and affected girl. It was full f crass, ribald wit and senseless rodomantade. There 'ere a few scenes of which something might have been lade, but ' this writer converted everything into in- ated rubbish '. Some one taxed Moritz with undue ^verity, whereupon he returned to the attack, insisting lat this extravagant, blasphemous and vulgar diction, hich purported to be nature rude and strong, was in ;ality altogether unnatural.* And, to be candid, the critic was able to bring )gether an anthology of quotations which seemed like rather forcible indictment of Schiller's literary taste. /hat Moritz failed to see was that the bad taste was nly an excrescence growing upon a very vigorous ;ock. This was felt by another reviewer who declared ' Moritz's critique is reprinted in J. Braun's "Schiller und Goethe 1 Urteile ihrer Zeitgenossen ", I, 103. Discourse on the Theater 147 that high poetic genius shone forth from every scene of Schiller's works. Many years later Zelter, the friend of Goethe, bore witness to the electric effect of the play upon himself and the other excitable youth who saw it in the first days of its popularity. Like ' The Robbers ', it was a harbinger of the revolution. It seemed to voice the hitherto voiceless woe of the third estate ; and just because of that savage force which made it seem absurd to sedate minds, just because it rang out in such shrill and clangorous notes, it has continued to be heard. Good taste is a matter of fashion. It is never the most vital quality of literature. If any one should be tempted to think that Schiller's youthful ideals of the dramatic art were not sufficiently exalted, he should read the lecture given before the Mannheim German Society, in June, 1784, on the question : ' What can a good permanent theater really effect J ' It is an excellent, thoughtful essay, instinct with lofty idealism and at the same time full of sound observation. Setting out from the postulate that the highest aim of all institutions whatsoever is the further- ance of the general happiness, the paper discusses the theater as a public institution of the state. Its claims are examined, and the sphere and manner of its influ- ence discussed, along with those of religion and the laws. Probably too much is made out of the moral and educational utility of the stage, — so at least it will be apt to seem to an American or an Englishman, — but the familiar arguments, the validity of which is now generally recognized in Germany, are marshalled with a fine breadth of view and with many felicities of ex- pression. Toward the end there is a passage which [48 Theater Poet in Mannheim ihows that Schiller himself felt the shakiness of the itilitarian argument. He says : ' What I have tried o prove hitherto — that the stage exerts an essential nfluence upon morals and enlightenment — was doubt- ul ' ; and tlien he goes on to speak of a value not loubtful, namely, its value as a means of refined )leasure. This is the heart of the matter forever and ver; and one could hardly sum up the case more agely than Schiller does in the sentence : ' The stage ; the institution in which pleasure combines with in- truction, rest with mental effort, diversion with cul- ure ; where no power of the soul is put under tension 3 the detriment of any other, and no pleasure is njoyed to the damage of the community. ' The experience of Schiller at Mannheim illustrates le higher uses of adversity. Had he been well and appy, he might have written his third play, won the ood will of Dalberg and then stuck fast for years in le Palatinate; which would have been a misfortune )r him and for German letters. As it was, Mannheim radually became odious to him. He had no buoyancy f spirit. ' God knows I have not been happy here ', e wrote to Reinwald in May, 1784. His life was full f petty worries and distractions which weighted his nagination as with lead. As his year drew to an end e imagined that he had but to say the word to have is contract with the Mannheim theater renewed, but was not so ; Dalberg had quietly decided to get rid F him. From his point of view his poet had been a ad investment. Schiller had not kept his contract in le matter of the new play; he had done nothing but rocrastinate and make excuses. ' Don Carlos ' had Disappointments and Distractions 149 not even been begun. '^ There seemed to be no excuse for such dawdling, when a man like Iffland could always be relied upon to turn out a fairly acceptable play in a few weeks. No great wonder, therefore, that Dalberg lost faith in Schiller and concluded that he had exhausted his vein. Through a friend he sug- gested a return to medicine. Curiously enough Schiller grasped at the idea, pro- fessing that a" medical career was the one thing nearest his heart. He had long feared, so he wrote, that his inspiration would forsake him if he relied upon litera- ture for his living ; but if he could devote himself to it in the intervals of medical practice, good things might be hoped for. He accordingly proposed a renewal of the contract for another year, with the understanding that he devote himself principally to his medical studies to the end of qualifying for the doctor's degree; in the mean time he would undertake to produce one • great play ' and also to edit a dramatic journal. To this amazing proposal Dalberg paid no attention ; and when the 1st of September arrived Schiller's connection with the Mannheim theater came to an end. It was a troublous, harassing time for him, that summer of 1784, and the more since the woes of the distracted lover were added to those of the disappointed playwright and the impecunious debtor. A German savant observes that Schiller was not, like Goethe, a virtuoso in love. And so it certainly looks, albeit the difference might perhaps appear a little |,ess conspicuous if he had lived to a ripe old age and dressed up his recollections of youth in an autobiographical romance. He did not lack the data of experience, but without 50 Theater Poet in Mannheim le charm of the retrospective poetic treatment his arly love-affairs are not profoundly interesting. In le midst of his troubles it came over him that marriage light be the right thing for him ; and so, one day in une, 1784, he offered himself to Frau von Wolzogen )r a son-in-law. Nothing came of the suggestion; it ras only a passing tribute to the abstract goodness of latrimony. About a year later he made, with similar ssults, an argumentative bid for the hand' of Margarete chwan. On the aforementioned visit to Frankfurt he let Sophie Albrecht, a melancholy poetess who had ought relief from the tameness of her married life by oing upon the stage. Of her he wrote shortly after- wards : In the very first hours a firm and warm attachment sprang p between us ; our souls understood each other. I am glad nd proud that she loves me and that acquaintance with me lay perhaps make her happy. A heart fashioned altogether for iTmpathy, far above the pettiness of ordinary social circles, full f noble, pure feeling for truth and virtue, and admirable even 'here her sex is not usually so. I promise myself divine days 1 her immediate society.' But all these palpitations were as water unto wine 1 comparison with his unwholesome passion for Charlotte von Kalb, whom he also met first in the pring of 1784. This lady, after a lonely and loveless irlhood, in which she had been tossed about as an nwelcome incumbrance from one relation to another, ad lately man-ied a Baron von Kalb. Her heart ad no part in the marriage, which was arranged by ' From the letter of May 5, quoted above. Lover and Poet 151 her guardian. In the pursuit of his career her husband left her much to herself. She was an introspective creature, very changeable in her moods and passion- ately fond of music and poetry. In Schiller she found her affinity. He acted first as her guide about Mann- heim, then as her mentor in matters of literature. They saw much of each other; became intimately confidential and soon were treading a dangerous path, — though not so dangerous, peradventure, as has sometimes been inferred from the two poems, ' Radicalism of Passion ' and ' Resignation ', which belong to this period. In the first of these poems our old friend, the lover of Laura, who is supposed to have married another man in the year 1782, resolves to fight no longer the 'giant-battle of duty '. He apostrophizes Virtue and bids her take back the oath that she has extorted from him in a moment of weakness. He will no longer respect the scruples that restrained him when the pitying Laura was ready to give all. Her marriage vow was itself sinful, and the god of Virtue is a detest- able tyrant. In the other poem, which is a sort of antidote to the first, we hear of a poet, born in Arcadia, who surrendered his claim to earthly bliss on the promise of a reward in heaven. He gave up his all, even his Laura, to Virtue, though mockers called him a fool for believing in gods and immortality. At last he appears before the heavenly throne to claim his guerdon, but is told by an invisible genius that two flowers bloom for humanity, — Hope and Enjoyment. Who has the one must renounce the other. The high Faith that sustained him on earth was his sufficient reward and the fulfillment of Eternity's pledge. 52 Theater Poet in Mannheim Wer dieser Blumen eine brach, begehre Die andre Schwester nicht. Geniesze wer nicht glauben kann. Die Lehre 1st ewig wie die Welt. Wer glauben kann entbehre. Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht.' When these poems were published, in 1786, their uthor saw fit to caution the pubHc in a foot-note not mistake an ebuUition of passion for a system of ihilosophy, or the despair of an imaginary lover for he poet's confession of faith. Thus warned one should lot be too curious about the reality which is half evealed and half concealed by the verses. Enough hat it was not altogether a calm, Platonic sentiment, nd that the torment of it was a factor in that uneasi- ess which finally became a burning desire to escape •om Mannheim. And the fates were preparing a way. One day in June, when all was looking dark, ichiller received a packet containing an epistolary reeting, an embroidered letter-case and four portrait ketches. The letter was anonymous, but he presently iscovered that it came from Gottfried Korner, a young rivat-docent in Leipzig, who had united with three iends in sending this token of regard to a Suabian oet whom they had found reason to like. Schiller id not answer immediately and the skies grew darker till. His relations with the Mannheim theater were resently strained to the point of disgust by the pro- ' In Bulwer's translation : "He who has plucked the one, resigned must see The sister's forfeit bloom : Let Unbelief enjoy — Belief must be All to the chooser ; — the world's history Is the world's judgment doom. " Honored by the Duke of Weimar 153 ductiori of a farce in which he was satirized. He was in terrible straits for money. To have something to do, after he was set adrift by Dalberg, he decided to go ahead with his project of a dramatic journal. An attractive prospectus for the Rhenish Thalia was issued, and he began to prepare for the first number, which was to contain an installment of ' Don Carlos '. The advance subscriptions fell far short of his sanguine hopes. In these occupations the time passed until December. Then one day he penned an answer to the Leipzig letter. It was a turning-point in his destiny. A correspondence sprang up which presently convinced him that where these people were, there he must be. Toward the end of the year there came another glint of good-will from the north. The Duke of Weimar happened to be visiting at the neighboring Darmstadt, and through Frau von Kalb Schiller procured an in- troduction and an invitation to read the beginning of ' Don Carlos ' . The result was the title of Weimar Councillor. This was very pleasant indeed ; for while it put no florins in his purse, it gave him an honorable status in the German world. He had been cast off by a prince of the barbarians to be taken up by the prince of the Greeks ! Henceforth he was in a sense the col- league of Goethe and Wieland. He began to speak of the Duke of Weimar as his duke, and to indulge in day-dreams concerning the little city of the Muses in Thiiringen. _ For the rest there was an element of fate's amusing irony in the new title, seeing that he had just announced himself, in the prospectus of the Rhenish Thalia, as a literary free-lance who served no prince, but only the public. The announcement con- 54 Theater Poet in Mannheim ained a sketch of his life and a confession of his sins, -which he laid at the door of the Stuttgart Academy. The Robbers ', he declared, had cost him home and ountry ; but now he was free, and his heart swelled at he thought of wearing no other fetter than the verdict f the public, and appealing to no other throne than lie human soul. Owing to various delays the first number of the new jurnal did not appear until the spring of 1785, and by liat time Schiller was all ready for his flight northward, latters had continued to go badly with him. On the 2nd of February he wrote to Korner, ' in a nameless ppression of the heart ', as follows: I can stay no longer in Mannheim. For twelve days I have arried the decision about with me like a resolution to leave the 'orld. People, circumstances, earth and sky, are repulsive to le. I have not a soul to fill the void in my heart — not a friend, lan or woman ; and what might be dear to me is separated om me by conventions and circumstances. . . . Oh, my soul is thirst for new nourishment, for better people, for friendship, ffection and love. I must come to you ; must learn, in your nmediate society and in intimate relations with you, once more ) enjoy my own heart, and to bring my whole being to a livelier uoyancy. My poetic vein is stagnant ; my heart has dried up )ward my associations here. You must warm it again. With ou I shall be doubly, trebly, what 1 have been hitherto ; and lore than all that, my dearest friends, I shall be happy. I have ever been so yet. Weep for me that I must make this confes- on. I have not been happy ; for fame and admiration and all \e other concomitants of authorship do not weigh as much as ne moment of love and friendship. They starve the heart. To the worldly-wise such a perfervid sight-draft upon tie bank of love, made after a few weeks of epistolary cquaintance, will no doubt seem a little risky. One Escape from Mannheim is5 is reminded of Goethe's Tasso, impulsively offering his friendship to a cooler man and getting the reply: In Einem Augenblicke forderst du Was wohlbedachtig nur die Zeit gewahrt.' But this time Schiller's instinct had guided him aright. Korner was no Antonio, and he did not recoil even when he learned that his new friend was very much in need of money and would not be able to leave Mann- heim, unless a Leipzig publisher could be found who would take over his magazine and advance a few pounds upon its uncertain prospects. This was easily arranged, for Korner was well-to-do and had himself lately acquired an interest in the publishing business of Goschen at Leipzig. Goschen took the Thalia (dropping the ' Rhenish '), Schiller paid his more pressing debts, and early in April was on his way to Leipzig, panting for the new friends as the hart panteth after the water-brooks. ' Thou askest in a single moment that Which only time can give with cautious hand. CHAPTER VIII Zbe asoon of jFdenaebfp Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, Eines Freundes Freund zu sein, . . . Mische seinen Jubel ein. — • Son^ to Joy '. Gottfried K6rner, father of the more famous Theodor, was some three years older than Schiller and lelonged to an opulent and distinguished family. His ither was a high church dignitary, his mother the laughter of a well-to-do Leipzig merchant. The boy lad grown up under austere religious influences and hen drifted far in the direction of liberalism. After a niversity career devoted at first to the humanities and hen to law, he had travelled extensively in foreign ountries, and then returned to Leipzig, full of ambi- ion but undecided as to his future course. Here, in 778, he became acquainted with Minna Stock, the laughter of an engraver who had once been the teacher f Goethe. Stock died in 1773, leaving a widow and wo daughters to battle with poverty. The elder aughter, Dora, inherited something of her father's ivacious humor and artistic talent, while the younger nd handsomer, Minna, was of a more domestic temper. Vhen Korner fell in love with the amiable Minna and ashed to marry her, he met with opposition in his own imily, who thought that the ' engraver's mamsell ' The Leipzig Friends iS7 was not good enough for him. This little touch of adversity converted him from a gentleman of leisure and a browsing philosopher into a man with a purpose in life. He set about making himself independent of the family wealth. To this end he offered himself as a privat-docent in law at the Leipzig university. When this expedient failed him through lack of students, he began to practice and soon received an appointment which took him to Dresden. This in 1783. Dresden now became his official residence, but he made fre- quent visits to his betrothed in Leipzig, and during one of these his memorable letter to Schiller was indited. The other member of the quartette was Ludwig Huber, at that time the accepted lover of Dora Stock. Huber was three years younger than Schiller, — an im- pressionable youth, of some linguistic talent, who had his occasional promptings of. literary ambition. But his soarings were mere grasshopper flights; steady effort was not his affair and he lacked solid ability. A doting mother had watched and coddled him until in practical affairs he was comically' helpless. As the futility of his character became more apparent with the lapse of time, he lost the esteem of his friends, and the engagement with Dora Stock was broken off. So far as Schiller is concerned, the friendship of Huber was a passing episode of no particular importance. Early in the year 1785 Korner lost both his parents and found himself the possessor of a considerable for- tune. There was now no further obstacle to his mar- riage ; so the time was fixed for the wedding and he set about preparing a home for his bride. Thus it s8 The Bcx)n of Friendship ame about that when Schiller arrived in Leipzig, on le 17th of April, 1785, — mud, snow and inundations ad made the journey desperately tedious, — he did not t once meet the man whom he most cared to know, luber and the two ladies, who seem to have expected wild, dishevelled genius, were astonished to see a lild-eyed, bashful man, who bore little resemblance to larl Moor and needed time to thaw up. But the tranger soon felt at home. He had explained to luber minutely how he wished to live. He would no )nger keep his own establishment, — he could manage n entire dramatic conspiracy more easily than his own ousekeeping. At the same time he did not wish to ve alone. I need for my inward happiness [he wrote] a right true friend ho is always at hand like my angel ; to whom I can communi- ite my budding ideas and emotions in the moment of their irth, without writing letters or making visits. Even the trivial rcumstance that my friend lives outside my four walls ; that I lUst go through the street to reach him, that I must change my ress, or the like, kills the enjoyment of the moment. My train F thought is liable to be rent in pieces before I can get to him. . . I cannot live parterre, nor in the attic, and I should not like ) look out upon a churchyard. I love men and the thronging rowd. If I cannot arrange it so that we (I mean the five-parted over-leaf) may eat together, then I might resort to the table 'h5te of an inn, for I had rather fast than not dine in company.' It is clear that, notwithstanding experiences which light have embittered a less genial nature, Schiller 'as in no danger of becoming a misanthrope. For im the throng upon the street was not the madding rowd of the English poet, nor the ' cursed race ' of 1 Letter of March 25, 1785. A Proposal of Marriage 159 Frederick the Great, but an inspiration ; a spectacle to keep the heart warm and foster the sense of brother- hood. He felt the need of men, however shabbily they might treat him. And men enough were at hand; for the Leipzig fair was then on, and the town was full of strangers who were eager to gape at the author of ' The Robbers ', to be introduced to him, to invite him here and there. So for a week he floated with the current of casual dissipation and then, caught for an hour by a refluent eddy of lonesomeness, — four parts of the pentamerous clover-leaf were paired lovers, — ■ he penned a missive which might have changed much in his future career: He sent to Christian Schwan a formal proposal for the hand of Margarete. With characteristic optimism he urged that fortune had at last turned favorably. He had good prospects. He proposed to work hard upon ' Don Carlos ' and the Thalia, and meanwhile quietly to return to medicine. Wherefore he now made bold to express a hope that he had long cherished but had not dared to utter. The sequelae of this wooing have never been cleared up in detail. Schiller's letter as preserved bears a marginal note by Schwan to the effect that Laura in the poem ' Resignation ' was no other than his eldest daughter. ' I gave her this letter to read ', the note says, ' and told Schiller to apply directly to her. Why nothing came of the affair has remained a riddle to me. Happy my daughter would not have been with Schiller. ' The annotation is not dated. The identifi- cation of Laura with Margarete is obviously wrong. Was Schwan 's memory also at fault .? Did he imagine, long after the fact, that he had actually taken what 6o The Boon of Friendship lust have seemed to him, when Schiller had become famous poet, the reasonable course to have pursued ? )id he withhold the letter too long and then show it ? )r was Margarete herself disinclined, — piqued perhaps iy Schiller's neglect of her, or by his passion for 'harlotte von Kalb ? Or did Schiller's own courage lil him after he had received a hint of favor ? A letter Korner, written May 7, tells of pleasant news from iannheim, and shortly afterward a rumor was in cir- ulation that Schiller was about to marry a rich wife, "he probability is that neither party was more than alf inclined to the match. The blue flame perished aturally for lack of fuel. Early in May, following the custom of well-to-do .eipzigers, Schiller sought refuge from the incipient ummer heat of the city by taking rooins in the subur- an village (such it was then) of Gohlis. Here, in a ttle second-story chamber, which was provided with n infinitesimal bed-room, he lived some four months, —happy months, in the main, even if the famous Song to Joy ', which local tradition ascribes to this me and place, was in fact written a little later in )resden. Various friends were at hand. Besides luber there was Goschen, with whom he was soon on 2rms of intimacy. The Stock sisters, — ' our dear iris ', as he calls them in a letter to the absent Corner, — had likewise quartered themselves in Gohlis; nd so had Dr. Albrecht and his wife, Sophie, the ctress. These with one or two others were enough )r converse and for jollity; and there were merry venings, with wine and talk, and cards and skittles nd nonsense. Though ordinarily he 'joked wi' Sojourn at Gohlis i6i difficulty ', Schiller could be jovial enough in a com-' pany of congenial spirits. Nevertheless there was but little of the bohemian about him. That dignified seriousness which pervades all his later writings, and gave to Goethe the impression of a man dwelling habitually above the plane of vulgar things, was be- ginning even now to characterize him as a social being. While living at Gohlis he received a visit from Moritz, the man who had written so savagely of ' Cabal and Love '. If ever an author has been justified in giving the cut direct to a pestilent reviewer, this was the occasion. But Schiller received his visitor with suave courtesy ; an interchange of views followed and the two men parted with embraces and protestations of friendly esteem. Schiller was not a good hater, except of hate. His nature craved love and friendship. He was eager to learn of his critics and could not long cherish resentment over an honest expression of opinion. Besides this he had now come to feel that his early writings were anything but invulnerable. Notwithstanding his promise of steady industry, Schiller accomplished but little during his sojourn at Gohlis. It was the old story: There were too many distractions, too many confusing images of what might be done. The scheme of an antidote to ' The Robbers ', in the shape of a moral sequel, gradually dropped out of view, along with the medical studies. The Thalia^ originally planned with reference to the public at Mannheim, refused to bear transplanting to another soil without a season of wilting. Instead of manuscript for the second number, Goschen was obliged to content himself for several months with e^icuses for postpone- 1 62 The Boon of Friendship ment. And as for 'Don Carlos ', the conception had so changed with the lapse of time that its author felt at a loss how to manage it. The play, with its won- derful pair of dreamers, was waiting for the inspiration of a real friendship at Dresden. Long before they met in the body Schiller and Korner had given expression to their mutual trust in language of romantic enthusiasm. On the 2nd of May Korner wrote at length of his own life, character and aspirations. The letter reveals a noble nature con- scious of an exceptional indebtedness to fortune and eager to pay the debt by solid work for mankind, but lacking the ability to decide and execute. Korner evidently felt that he was in some danger of becoming an intellectual Sybarite, and he hoped that Schiller's example would save him from this danger by spurring him to literary effort. In his reply Schiller expresses his admiration of a character to whom fortune's favor means not, as for most men, the opportunity of enjoy- ment, but the duty of more strenuous living ; then he sends a jubilant Godspeed to the ' dear wanderer who wishes to accompany him in such faithful, brotherly fashion on his romantic journey to truth, fame and happiness.' The letter continues: I now feel realized in us what as poet I but prophetically imagined. Brotherhood of spirits is the most infallible key to wisdom. Separately we can do nothing. . . Do not fear from this time forth for the endless duration of our friendship. Its materials are the fundamental impulses of the human soul. Its territory is eternity ; its non plus ultra the Godhead. Tlien, as if momentarily abashed by his own extrava- gance of expression, he protests that his Schzvdnnerei, An Enthusiastic Letter 163 if such it be, is nothing but a ' joyful paroxysm antici- pating our future greatness '. For his part, he would not ' exchange one such moment for the highest triumph of cold reason '. Enthusiasm, he declares, is the greatest thing in life. The two men did not see each other until July, when a meeting was arranged at an interjacent village, to which Schiller rode out with the Leipzig friends. The next day he wrote a letter to Korner, who had returned to Dresden, describing an incident of the return journey, — a letter so full of instruction with regard to the Schiller of this period that it deserves to be quoted at some length : Somehow we came to speak of plans for the future. My heart grew warm. It was not idle dreaming. I had a solid philosophic assurance of that which I saw lying before me in the glorious perspective of time. In a melting mood of shame, such as does not depress but rouses to manly effort, I looked back into the past, which I had misused through the most unfortunate waste of energy. I felt that nature had endowed me with powers on a bold plan, and that her intention with me (perhaps a great inten- tion) had so far been defeated. Half of this failure was due to the insane method of my education, and the adverse humor of fate ; the other and larger half, however, to myself. Deeply, my best of friends, did I feel all that, and in the general fiery ferment of my emotions, head and heart united in a Herculean vow to make good the past and begin anew the noble race to the highest goal. My feeling became eloquent and imparted itself to the others with electric power. O how beautiful, how divine, is the con- tact of two souls that meet on the way to divinity ! Thus far not a syllable had been spoken of you, but I read your name in Huber's eyes and involuntarily it came to my lips. Our eyes met and our holy purpose fused with our holy friendship. It was a mute hand-clasp — to remain faithful to the resolution of this moment ; to spur each other on to the goal, to admonish 64 The Boon of Friendship id encourage, and not to halt save at the bourne where human reatness ends. . . . Our conversation had taken this turn when 'e got out for breakfast. We found wine in the inn, and your ealth was drunk. We looked at each other silently ; our mood 'as that of solemn worship and each one of us had tears in his yes, which he tried to keep back. ... I thought of the begin- ing of the eucharist : ' Do this as often as ye drink in memory f me.' I heard the organ and stood before the altar. Suddenly remembered that it was your birthday. Unwittingly we ad celebrated it with a holy rite. Dearest friend, had you seen our glorification in our faces, heard it in our tear-choked voices, t that moment you would have forgotten even your betrothed ; ou would have envied no happy mortal under the sun. Heaven as strangely brought us together, but in our friendship it shall ave wrought a miracle. Dim foreboding led me to expect luch, very much of you, when I first decided to come to Leip- g ; but Providence has more than fulfilled the promise, and has ouchsafed to me in your arms a happiness of which I could not )rm an image. It tends to provoke a smile to read on in this letter nd find it suddenly turning fi-om such ecstasies to a traightforward confession that the writer is embarrassed or lack of ready cash. He had met with disappoint- lents. The Mannheim people had not treated him andsomely, the subscribers to the Thalia were delin- [uent, and so forth. Could not Goschen be persuaded o undertake a new and authentic edition of the pub- Lshed plays and to advance a sum of money on the irospects f Korner's reply was prompt and charac- eristic. He enclosed a draft for current expenses, iromised more against the time of need and bade his riend have no further solicitude about money. He mew very well, so he averred with politic delicacy, bat Schiller could easily earn enough by working for With the new Friends in Dresden 165 money; but for a year at least he was to let himself be relieved of that degrading necessity. They would keep an account and all should be paid back with interest in the time of abundance ; but for the present no more of pecuniary anxieties! Schiller, to whose brief experience in a selfish world this sort of conduct was something new, replied that he would not entrench himself in a false pride, as the great Rousseau had done on a similar occasion, but would accept the generous offer; this being the best possible expression of his gratitude. Korner was pleased to have the business settled by letter. ' I have always despised money ', he wrote, ' to a degree that it disgusts me to talk about it with souls that are dear to me. I attach no importance to actions that are natural to people of our sort, and which you would perform for me were the conditions reversed. ' It was now arranged that after Korner's marriage Schiller should make his home in Dresden. The eagerly awaited migration took place in September, and Schiller entered the Saxon capital, which was to be his home for the next two years, in a flutter of joyous anticipation. The Korners quartered him in their charming suburban cottage at Loschwitz, in the loveliest region he had known since his childhood. The guest, who had seen but little of the quiet joys of domestic life and was now received on the footing of an adopted brother, felt very happy. His intercourse with Korner gave him the very kind of intellectual stimulus that he most needed. Korner was at this time the more solid character of the two. He had seen more of the world, While capable of warm affec- 66 The Boon of Friendship ion and strong enthusiasm, he had adopted a profes- ion which inevitably gave to his thoughts a practical lent. Besides this he had taken up the study of Kant fith great earnestness and was thereby more than ever isposed to see all questions in the white light of pure eason. He was thus the very man to pour a cool Mephistophelean spray upon Schiller's emotional fer- ors. One can easily imagine the general drift of the hilosophical discussions that took place during the sngthening evenings of September, 1785, when we nd Schiller expressing himself to the absent Huber in uch language as this: The boyhood of our minds is now over, I imagine, and like- dse the honeymoon of our friendship. Let our hearts now leave to each other in manly affection, gush httle and feel luch ; plan little and act the more fruitfully. Enthusiasm and leals have sunk incredibly in my estimation. As a rule we lake the mistake of estimating the future from a momentary :eling of enhanced power, and painting things in the color of ur transient exaltation of feeling. I praise enthusiasm, and love le divine ethereal power of kindling to a great resolution. It ertains to the better man, but it is not all of him. But life at Loschwitz was not lived altogether in the pper altitudes of solemn philosophy. From this eriod dates the well-known ' Petition ', — one of the ;w glints of playful humor to be found among Schiller's oems. He had been left alone one day with ' Don Carlos ', and he found his meditations disturbed by the perations of the washerwoman. The result was a tring of humorous stanzas bewailing the fate of a poet ^ho is compelled by his vocation to fix his mind upon de love ecstasies of Princess Eboli, and listen at the ame time to the swashy music of the wash-tub : The Song to Joy 167 I feel my love-lorn lady's hurt, My fancy waxes hotter; I hear, — the sound of sock and shirt A-swishing in the water. Vanished the dream — the faery chimes — My Princess, pax vobiscum ! The devil take these wash-day rimes, I will no longer risk 'em. When the Korners occupied their winter residence in the city, Schiller found rooms hard by, and was presently joined by Huber, who had secured a position in the diplomatic service. The time was now ripe for that jubilant song, more frequently set to music than any other of Schiller's poems, wherein we are intro- duced to a mystic brotherhood, worshiping in fiery intoxication at the shrine of the celestial priestess, Joy, whose other name is Sympathy. A mystic brother- hood ; yet not an exclusive one, since the fraternal kiss is freely offered to every mortal on the round earth who has found one soul to love. The lines glorify Joy, just as the odes to Laura had previously glorified Love, as a mystic attraction pervading all nature and leading up to God ; as that which holds the stars in their course, inspires the searcher after truth, sustains the martyr and gives a pledge of immortality. Where- fore the millions are exhorted to endure patiently for the better world that is coming, when a great God will reward. Anger and vengeance are to be forgotten, and our mortal foe forgiven. After these rapturous strophes, culminating in a health to the good Spirit above, one is just a little surprised to hear the singer urge, with unabated ardor, a purely militant ideal of 1 68 The Boon of Friendship life, — firm courage in heavy trial, succor to the oppressed, manly pride in the presence of kings, and death to the brood of liars. A final strophe, urging grace to the criminal on the scaffold, general forgive- ness of sinners and the abolition of hell, was rejected by Schiller, who later characterized the song as a ' bad poem '. The ' Song to Joy ' sprang from noble senti- ment and has the genuine lyric -a-matos ; but its author had not yet emerged from that nebulous youthful senti- mentalism according to which joy, sympathy, love, friendship, virtue, happiness, God, were all very. much the same thing. And the thought is a trifle incoherent. If the good Spirit above the stars is to pardon every- body, what becomes of the incentive to a militant life .'' Why should one strive and cry and get into a feaze about tyrants and liars .'' The ' Song to Joy ', with music by Korner, was published in the second number of the Thalia, which, after hanging fire for months, finally appeared in February, 1786. It contained also the poems ' Radi- calism of Passion ' and ' Resignation ', and a fresh installment of ' Don Carlos '. Of the prose contribu- tions the most important was the story, ' The Criminal from Disgrace ', later called ' The Criminal from Lost Honor '. It was based upon a true story, got from Professor Abel in Stuttgart, concerning the life and ieath of a notorious Suabian robber, named Schwan, ivho was put to death in 1760. Schiller changed the lame to Christian Wolf and built out of the ugly facts I [strumous' tale of criminal psychology, — the autopsy )f a depraved soul, as he called it. His hero is a sort )f vulgarized Karl Moor; that is, an enemy of society Quickened Interest in History 169 who might have been its friend if things had not hap- pened so and so. The successive steps of his descent from mild resentment to malignant fury, libertinism and crime, and the reaction of his own increasing depravity upon his own mind, are described in a manner which is fairly interesting from a literary point of view, whatever a modern expert criminologist might think of it. The crux of the ever difficult problem, — - the precise division of responsibility between society and the wretch whom it spews out of its mouth, — is brought clearly into view, but without any attempt at an exact solution. The tale is not a homily, but an object-lesson designed to show how things go. It is too slight an affair to be worthy of extended comment, but it shows Schiller becoming interested in the psychological analysis of conduct. Moral goodness and badness are beginning to appear less simple con- cepts, and the tangle of human motive more intricate, than he had supposed. Along with these contributions there also appeared in the second number of the Thalia a translation of the ' Precis Historique ', prefixed by Mercier to his recently published ' Portrait de Philippe Second '. The ' portrait ' itself was a dramatic picture, in fifty-two scenes, without division into acts. The work of Mercier, who paints the Spanish king in the darkest possible colors, furnished a few hints for ' Don Carlos ', but its influence was not very great. What chiefly concerns us here is to note Schiller's awakening interest in historical studies. In the spring of 1786, during an absence of the Korners which deprived him of his wonted inspiration, he found himself unable to 170 TKe Boon of Friendship work. Letter after letter tells of laziness and mental vacuity. As he could do nothing else he took to desultory reading, and this did not satisfy him. ' Really ', he wrote on the 15th of April: Really I must turn over a new leaf with my reading. I feel with pain that I still have such an astonishing amount to learn ; that I must sow in order to reap. . . . History is becoming dearer to me every day. I have this week read a history of the Thirty Years' War, and my head is still quite feverish from it. That this epoch of the greatest national misery should have been at the same time the most brilliant epoch of human power ! What a number of great men came forth from this night ! I could wish that for the ten years past I had done nothing but study history. I believe I should have become a very different fellow. Do you think I shall yet be able to make up for lost time ? One sees from this language by what particular hook the study of history had taken hold of Schiller's mind, and what kind of profit he was promising himself from further reading. He was interested in the evolution of great men. For him, as for the poets always, from Homer down, history resolved itself into the doings oi" the leaders. For the time being, however, the new zeal seems to have been a mere flash in the pan, that set nothing in motion. Nor was Korner able, for some time to come, to induce his friend to make a serious study of Kant's ' Critique ', though every third word between them was of philosophy. Nevertheless their philo- sophic debates did bear literary fruit. The third num- ber of the Thalia, which came out in May, contained the first installment of the ' Philosophical Letters ', a ficti- tious correspondence between two friends, Julius and Letters of Julius and Raphael 171 Raphael, who have arrived by different routes at the same way of thinking, and are resolved to tell the world how it all came about. Julius is Schiller; Raphael is Korner, who actually contributed one of the later letters. We learn that Julius was passing through a spiritual crisis. He was happy but he had not reflected. The little world of his rapturous emotions sufficed him. Now, however, Raphael has enlightened his mind, made him a citizen of the world and taught him to comprehend the all-sufficient majesty of reason ; but he has won enlightenment at the expense of peace. He is miserable and demands back his soul. Raphael rebukes him gently for his faint-heartedness and asks for a history of his thinking. So Julius rummages through his papers and sends on a somewhat elaborate ' The- osophy of Julius '. — a sort o{ precis, it would seem, of Schiller's earlier views. It is religious mysticism set forth with warm eloquence. The universe is a thought of God. The highest aim of thinking is to read the divine plan. All spirits are attracted by perfection. The supreme perfection is God, of whom love is an emanation. Love is gain; hate is loss; pardon, the recovery of lost property; misanthropy a prolonged suicide; egoism the utmost poverty. If every man loved all mankind, every man would possess the world. If we comprehend perfection it becomes ours. If we plant beauty and joy, beauty and joy shall we reap. If we think clearly we shall love fervently. To this ' theosophy ' Julius adds a few comments, evidently of later origin, which show that he has now become aware of its intellectual inadequacy. Still he does not repudiate it. He thinks it may do for a doc- 72 The Boon of Friendship rine, if one's nature is adapted to it. — Herewith, so ir as Schiller was concerned, the ' Philosophic Letters ' ame to an end; but in the spring of 1788, Korner urprised him with a letter by Raphael, which is, ihilosophically speaking, by far the best of the entire ollection. But this book is not concerned with the mtings of Korner. Ere the third number of the Thalia appeared it had ecome evident that the enterprise would not be profit- ble, and its perplexed editor was in doubt whether to ontinue it. He finally decided to go on. When the jurth number came out, early in 1787, it contained be beginning of a novel, ' The Ghostseer ', wherein a lysterious Sicilian, and a still more mysterious Armenian, dog the footsteps of a German Prince von * * living at Venice, and do various things suggest- ig a connection with occult powers. The first install- lent of the story broke off at a very exciting point, — ist when the Sicilian has produced his amazing ghost- cene, but has not yet been unmasked as a vulgar •aud. Schiller evidently began the novel in no very trenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the opular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry fhich had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. o he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had o definite plan and did not himself know where he ^ould bring up. The literary merits of ' The Ghost- ;er ', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose ction, will come up for consideration in connection 'ith the conclusion, or rather the continuation, which e published some two years later, when he had left )resden to seek his fortune in Weimar. A Dramatic Skit 173 Even now the necessity of seeking his fortune some- where was daily becoming- more imperious. The Thalia did not pay, though the critics spoke well of it, and he could not live forever upon Korner's friendly advances of money. The sense of his dependence often galled him; and yet when a proposal, in itself highly attractive, came to him from a distant city, he could not pluck up courage to leave his friend. Fried- rich Schroder, the greatest German actor of the time, wished to draw him to Hamburg. Schiller looked up to Schroder with genuine admiration and speculatively promised himself great gain from association with ' the one man in Germany who could realize all his ideas of art.' In Mannheim, — so he wrote in October, 1786, — he had lost all his enthusiasm for the theater ; it was now beginning to revive, but he shuddered at the treatment to which playwrights were exposed by theatrical people. Moreover he was living at Dresden ' in the bosom of a family to which he had become necessary'. So nothing came of the negotiations except the preparation of a stage version of ' Don Carlos ' for the Hamburg theater. An amusing glimpse of domestic conditions in the Korner household is afforded by Schiller's dramatic skit, entitled ' Korner's Forenoon '. It belongs ap- parently to the year 1787, but was not published until 1862. The busy councillor of the Dresden Consistory sees a little leisure before him and squares off at his desk for a solid forenoon's work. He begins by order- ing his man to shave him. Then he is interrupted by a procession of callers, — Schiller, in various roles, and Minna, and Dorchen, and Professor Becker and others, 74 The Bcran of Friendship —who keep the stream of babble flowing until one • 'clock. Korner is too late for the consistory and all hat he has accomplished is to get shaved. The piece 3 a slight affair, but there is enough of solemn fun in t to make one wish that its author had seen fit to work lis lighter vein more frequently. About the time when this facetious bagatelle was )enned, or a little earlier perhaps, Schiller became the lero of a comedy in real life. In the winter of 1787 le attended a masked ball where he met a pretty lomino— a plump voluptuous maiden — who fascinated lim. Her name was Henriette von Arnim. He fol- owed up the acquaintance and was soon quite seriously nterested. As the Arnim family did not enjoy the lest of reputations, the Korners were annoyed at Ichiller's seeming lack of connoisseurship in women. They contrived to let him know that on the evenings /hen Henriette was not at home to him she was at lome to a certain earthy Count Waldstein, or to a ertain Jew banker, as the case might be. This was lainful, but not immediately decisive, and miserable ays ensued. In the spring he was persuaded to try few weeks' outing in the country. Here he was at rst frightfully lonesome, — a dejected Robinson Crusoe, ^ho could neither work nor amuse himself. To his lathetic demands for reading-matter his friends replied ath malicious humor by sending him Goethe's Werther ' and Laclos's ' Liaisons Dangereuses '. ^fter a while the Arnims followed him, but presently le count came also ; and then the course of true love, lus awkwardly bifurcated, was more troubled than ver. After Henriette 's return to Dresden there was From Dresden to Weimar 175 an interchange of letters, wherein love fought a losing battle with doubt and suspicion. This half-year of amatory perturbation was of course unfavorable to literary labor. No further numbers of the Thalia appeared, and 'The Misanthrope ', a new play of excellent promise, made no progress. But ' Don Carlos ' did at last get itself completed — after a fashion. It was published early in the summer. And now, with this burden lifted, the time seemed to have arrived for carrying out the long-cherished plan of a visit to Weimar. Who could tell what might come of it } Korner was just as loyal as ever, but he was also wise enough to respect his friend's longing for a more assured and less dependent existence. And so in July Schiller set out for Thijringen, — to be seen no more in Dresden save as an occasional visitor. But the letters he wrote to the noble-minded friend who had done and been so much for him constitute, for several years to come, our best source of information concern- ing his outward fortune and his inner history. Before we follow him to Weimar, however, it will be in order to consider the play which remains as the most im- portant achievement of his Dresden period. CHAPTER IX 2>on Catlos Arm in Arm mit dir, So fordr ' Ich mein Jahrhundert in die Schranken. ' Don Carlos '. With the publication of 'Don Carlos' Schiller's iterary reputation entered upon a new phase. Hitherto le had been known as a playwright in whom the passion Dr strong effects often obscured the sense of artistic itness. Of his dramatic power there could be no loubt, but had he the higher gift of the great poet ? Vould he ever be able to clothe his conceptions in a arm that would appeal permanently to the general teart because of high and rare artistic excellence ? Doubts of this kind were quite justifiable up to the year 787, but they were set at rest by ' Don Carlos '. iowever vulnerable it may be as a poetic totality, it las passages that are magnificent. Its sonorous verse, I'edded to a lofty argument and freighted with the loblest idealism of the century, made sure its author's itle to a place in the Walhalla of the poets. Except ' Wallenstein ' no other work of Schiller ost him such long and strenuous toil. ' Don Carlos ', ike Goethe's 'Faust', is a stratified deposit. The ime that went to the making of it, only four years in 11, was comparatively short, but it was for Schiller a 176 Schiller's Explanation 177 time of rapid change; and the play, intensely subjec- tive from the first, participated in the ripening process. The result is a certain lack of artistic congruity. Schiller himself, always his own best critic, felt this and frankly admitted it in the first of his ' Letters upon Don Carlos '. It may be [he wrote] that in the first [three] acts I have aroused expectations which the last do not fulfill. St. Real's novel, perhaps also my own remarks upon it in the first number of the Thalia, may have suggested to the reader a standpoint from which the work can no longer be regarded. During the period of elaboration, which on account of divers interruptions was a pretty long time, much changed within myself. . . . What had mainly attracted me at first, attracted me less later on, and at last hardly at all. New ideas that came into my mind crowded out the earlier ones. Carlos himself had declined in my favor, I for no other reason perhaps than that I had outgrown him, and for the opposite reason the Marquis of Posa had taken his place. ; So it came about that I brought a very different heart to the fourth and fifth acts. Yet the first three were already in the hands of the public, and the plan of the whole could not be re- cast ; I had either to suppress the piece entirely (for which very few of my readers would have thanked me), or else to fit the second half to the first as best I could. Let us look somewhat closely at the process of evolution here alluded to in general terms. The original impulse came from a work of romantic fiction, the ' Dom Carlos ' of St. Real, which was first read by Schiller in the summer of 1782 and drew from him the comment that the story ' deserved the brush of a dramatist'. St. Real's novel begins by telling how Charles the Fifth arranged, just before his abdica- tion, that his grandson Carlos should some day marry 78 Don Carlos Elizabeth of Valois ; and how afterwards Philip deter- lined to take the French princess for his own wife istead of leaving her to his son. Meanwhile, how- ver, by much gazing at the picture of his betrothed, oung Carlos had learned to love her, and she in turn ad conceived for him a ' disposition to love rather than veritable passion '. Arrived at the Spanish court he young queen wins all hearts ; even the white-haired 'hilip falls in love with her, though he treats her with tately reserve in the presence of others and surrounds ler with the restraints of Spanish etiquette. Thus the [ueen comes to feel that she possesses ' only the body if her husband, his soul being filled with the designs if his ambition and the meditation of his policy ' . As Dr Carlos, his love-lorn eyes soon betray to her how ; is with him, but she can only pity him, though she ecretly returns his love, for she is as virtuous as she is leautiful. Not so the Princess Eboli, wife of Ruy Gomez, the utor of Carlos. Having tried to win the love of the :ing and found her designs thwarted by the queen's leauty, Eboli makes advances to Prince Carlos, who 2ts her know that he cannot love her and thus makes er angry. In this mood she bestows her favor upon lie king's half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, who 5 also enamored of the queen and has been watch- ig Carlos suspiciously. Having thus made enemies if Eboli and Don Juan, Carlos next draws upon him- elf the hatred of the powerful Duke of Alva, of Ruy iromez, and of the Inquisition. This he does by his utspoken criticism of their doings and his threats f punishment to be meted out to them when he St. Real's Dom Carlos 179 shall have become king. Anxious for their own future Alva and Ruy Gomez conspire together and cause suspicions of Carlos to be whispered in the ear of the king. At first Philip is not greatly excited. When Carlos, importuned by Count Egmont, asks for a commission to the Netherlands, Philip does not re- fuse, but declares that he will go too and share the peril of his son. This, however,- is a mere ruse to gain time. While they are waiting, the king meanwhile feigning illness, Carlos communicates freely with the queen through his bosom friend, the Marquis of Posa. Hearing of this intimacy the king now becomes really jealous, but of Posa not of Carlos. Maddened by sus- picion he has the marquis murdered on the street and employs Eboli to watch the queen. After this Carlos resolves upon independent action and begins to nego- tiate with the Netherlanders. His operations are watched and reported by his enemies, and just as he is about to leave Spain he is arrested. The king places his case before the Holy Office, which decrees that he must die. Being allowed to choose the man- ner of his death he opens his veins while bathing. With the actual Don Carlos, whose story bears but little resemblance to that of St. Real's hero, we are not particularly concerned. The French Abbe's drift is to exalt the French princess and to give a telling picture of a pair of high-minded lovers who are brought to their death by a complicate intrigue begotten of jealousy, political hatred and religious fanaticism. After the death of Carlos the queen is poisoned and then, one after the other, all the conspirators meet with poetic justice. "Ainsi", the Abbe concludes, io Don Carlos furent expiees les morts a jamais deplorables d'un rince magnanime, et de la plus belle et de la plus srtueuse princesse qui fut jamais. C'est ainsi que :urs ombres infortunees furent enfin pleinement ap- aisees par les funestes destinees de tous les complices e leur trepas." St. Real's novel was published in 1672 and has been favorite quarry of the dramatist. Of the plays of •tway (1676) and Campistron (1685) Schiller had no nowledge, nor did he receive any suggestions from le fierce and gloomy ' Filippo' of Alfieri, which ap- eared in 1783. He approached the subject in his wn way and his first thought was simply to dramatize it. Real, who is mainly interested in the love tragedy nd writes as a literary artist rather than as a political r religious pamphleteer. We possess a prose out- ne ^ of ' Don Carlos ', written probably at Bauerbach, ?hich shows exactly how the theme first bit into ichiller's mind. The exposition was to show the ecret passion of the lovers and the dangers threatening hem from the jealousy of Philip, the political hostility f the grandees and the malice of the slighted Eboli. n the third act the king would become madly suspi- ious and resolve upon his son's death. Then there .'as to be a gleam of hope : the ambition of Carlos /ould awaken and begin to prevail over his love, ifhile Posa would divert the king's suspicion to himself nd fall a sacrifice to friendship. Then a new danger i^ould arise : the king would discover Don Carlos in a eeming ' rebellion ', and decree his death. The dying leclaration of Carlos would prove his innocence and ' It is printed in SSmtliche Schriften, III, 180. The Original Plan iSi the king would be left alone to mourn the havoc he had wrought and to punish the conspirators who had deceived him. This sketch promises, it will be observed, not a political tragedy, but, as Schiller himself afterwards phrased it, a ' domestic tragedy in a royal household '. Springing up from the same soil and at the same time as ' Cabal and Love ', it was to be much the same sort of play. In both a pair of high-minded lovers be- longing together by natural affinity, but separated by artificial barriers ; the rights of passion battling in the one case with social prejudice, in the other with the law of Rome and the malice of courtiers ; in both a court plot against the lovers ; the hero beset by a fair sinner who receives him in her private room, lays siege to him, and is angered by the slighting of her love ; in both a tyrannical and headstrong father at enmity with his son. Of the political ideas which the world associates with ' Don Carlos ' there is here no , adumbration. We heai: nothing of the Netherlanders, I nor of the Inquisition, nor of the rights of man. Posa I is only a friend of Carlos, not the ambassador of _all mankind, and there is no room for his golden dreams of philanthropic statesmanship. And yet it is worth noticing that in three points (all in the third act) Schil- ler adds to his French source : Carlos's ambition was to waken and prevail over his love, Posa was to sacri- fice himself, and the lovers were to rise superior to their passion. However, no sooner did our playwright address himself seriously to his task than his imagination began to break over the bounds he had set for it. i82 Don Carlos Even at Bauerbach, as his letters 'show, his mind was occupied with the thought of ' avenging mankind ' by- scourging the gloomy despotism of Philip, the mon- strous cruelty of Alva, the dark intrigues of the Jesuits and the hideous crimes of the Inquisition. That he made any progress in the spring of 1783, further than to cogitate upon his general plan and to fall in love with his hero, is not probable ; nor do his Mannheim letters allude to 'Don Carlos' until June, 1784. In a letter of that date he assures Dalberg, — mindful of that good man's trials in connection with ' Cabal and Love ', — that the new play will be ' anything but a political piece '. Whatever could offend the feelings was to be strictly avoided. August 24 he writes that ' Don Carlos ' is a ' splendid subject ', especially for himself Four great characters, Carlos, Philip, the queen, and Alva (no mention of Posa) open before him a boundless field. He cannot forgive himself for having tried to shine in the bourgeois drama, where another may easily surpass him (this in allusion to Mand), whereas in historical tragedy he need fear no rival. He adds that he is now fairly master of the iambic form and that the verse cannot fail to impart splendor and dignity. So we see that by the end of his first year in Mann- heim Schiller had indeed undergone a change. The saeva indignatio of the dramatic pamphleteer had given way to the serener mood of the poetic artist This change would doubtless have come about under any circumstances, through the natural ripening of his mind and art, but it was hastened by the influence of Klein and Wieland, and by the example of Lessing's 'Nathan'. Anton von Klein, a Jesuit hel esprit liv- Ripening Influences 183 ing at Mannheim, was a steadfast champion of the regular heroic tragedy. He had written a searching review of ' The Robbers ', pointing out its many faults and -absurdities, but he recognized Schiller's talent and saw in him a man worth converting. At Mannheim a friendship sprang up between the two, and Schiller heard much talk about the superior merit of the noble poetic style, — a region of thought in which he had hitherto wandered but little. He had written thus far out of the fervor of his soul, and theory of any sort had touched him but little. From Rousseauite literature he had caught a fantastic conception of ' nature ', and this had led him to portray men and women who were scarcely more natural than those of Gottsched himself In the rush of feeling he had enlisted among the young revolutionists whose stormy and stressful tendency, curiously enough, was regarded as ' English '. And ndw he found that there was after all something to be said in favor of the classical French type. The ' anglo- maniacs ' were not in possession of the whole truth. Might there not be, perhaps, a tertium quid, — a German drama having a character of its own and combining the literary dignity and artistic finish of the French with the warmth and variety of the pseudo-English school 1 As if in answer to this query, Lessing's ' Nathan ', pub- lished in 1779, had already opened a vista of limitless possibilities. And ' Nathan ' was in blank verse. To this was added the influence of Wieland, who had lately published a series of ' Letters to a Young Poet V in which he read his contemporaries a lecture on the absurdity of their boasting over the French. He ' In tlie Teuts(he Merkur for October, 1782. 1 84 Don Carlos wanted to know where the German dramas were that could compare with the best works of Racine, Corneille and MoHere. He insisted that a perfect drama no less than a perfect epic must be in verse. Even rime in his opinion was indispensable. Such doctrine com- ing from a man of Wieland's immense authority in lit- erary matters could not fail to influence the groping mind of Schiller, though he could not stomach the de- mand for rime. The blank verse of Shakspere and Lessing seemed to promise best, and so he set about practicing upon it. At first the meter gave him great difficulty ; he could not subdue his strong passion and his wild tropes to the even tenor of the decapyllabic cadence. Then followed his decision to publish his play piecemeal in the Thalia, — an unfortunate decision as it proved. His hope was to profit betimes by what his critics might say. He was in a mood of boundless docility and boundless confidence in the public. Re- solved to write ' no verses that could not be submitted to the best heads in the nation ', he fondly imagined that the nation would be as eager to help him as he was eager to be helped. As a matter of fact he got but little assistance from the critic tribe, and his piecemeal publication only served to embarrass him when he came to the final redaction of the whole. |. In the short preface which introduced the first I installment to the public, Schiller ventured the opinion that the excellence of his tragedy would depend mainly upon his success in portraying the king. The situation of Carlos and the queen was interesting, he thought, but not tragically pathetic ; it would be difficult to create sympathy for them. If, however, King Philip was to Changes of Conception 185 be the center of tragic interest, it was evident that he could not be depicted, in accordance with a one-sided tradition, as a repellent monster. From these and other expressions in the same essay we can see that Schiller was growing cool toward his hero. He felt that the troubles of Carlos and the queen could not be re- garded under the Rousseauite scheme of natural pas- sion battling with odious convention, but that the passion was itself odious. He felt that a young prince, pining and whining and plunging himself into disaster all on account of an illicit and mawkish love for his stepmother, was not a very inspiring personage to be the hero of a great historical drama. The solution of the problem seemed for the moment to lie in a ' rescue ' of King Philip. So the love-tragedy in a royal house- hold began to take on more than ever the character of a political tragedy, the promise to Dalberg being quickly forgotten. When he began to publish, how- ever, his political program was still rather vague and negative ; it hardly went beyond the intention to be- stow an incidental scourging upon the enemies of man- kind in church and state. Then came the influence of Korner, the effect of which was to give great prominence to the character of Posa as a positive champion of the right, and to make him for a while the real hero of the play. There seems at first blush but little resemblance between the fanatical idealist of Schiller's imagination and the sensible Dresden lawyer, but the Korner strain in Posa is unmistakable. In his intercourse with Schiller he was evermore insisting on the importance of doing something for mankind. Enthusiasm, love, 1 86 Don Carlos friendship, sentiment of any kind, were valuable in his estimation only as sources of inspiration for telling activity. As matters of mere private ecstasy, of froth and foam rising and falling to no effect in the turmoil of the individual soul, they were for him objects of mild derision. And the idea that lay nearest his heart as a student of Kant was the idea of freedom. And so, as Schiller worked upon his play at Dresden, Posa was made the exponent of the new point of view. He became the teacher of the unripe Carlos, even as Korner had been the teacher of the unripe Schiller ; the subduer of unmanly emotionalism ; the apostle of renunciation ; the pointer of the way to great deeds ; the prophet of a free humanity to come. In the bril- liant light thus thrown upon Posa the other heroes were somewhat obscured. The poet's original love, Don Carlos, and his second love, Don Philip, had to make way for a third passion that was stronger than either of the others. The four installments of ' Don Carlos ' that were . printed in the Thalia, up to the end of 1786, comprised in all, three acts. They carried the action to the point where the king, lonely amid sycophants and deceivers, sighs for a ' man ' to counsel him. The great scene between Posa and Philip was yet to come in Act IV. The matter already in print contained more than four thousand verses, and several scenes had only been sketched in prose. At this rate it was evident that the play would reach twice the length of a regular tragedy and would be an impossibility on the stage. Schiller began to see that his impatience of stage restrictions and his subjective interest in certain situations had GDtnpIetion of the Pky 187 done him an evil turn. He had been deplorably long- winded. And just then came out a caustic review which showed him that he had committed other sins than those of prolixity.' Nevertheless he did not now have recourse to that drastic surgery whereby, in the edition of 1801, he reduced the unwieldy play to more manageable dimensions.* Without any radical revision of the part already in print, he completed the last two acts as best he could, with Minerva often unwilling. Posa was made to gain the king's confidence, to become seemingly omnipotent, and in the pride of his imagined strength to enter upon that desperate game of intrigue and double-dealing which involves himself and his cause and his helpless friend, Don Carlos, in final disaster. Thus St. Real's pathetic tale of love and intrigue had been left far behind, and out of it had come a trag- edy of amiable political idealism, growing insolent with self-confidence and losing touch with present realities in its dazzling dream of things to come. ^ ' The soul of Shakspere's Hamlet, the blood and //nerves of Leisewitz's Julius, the pulse of Schiller him- S^self ', — this, it will be recalled, was the original formula for the composition of Prince Carlos. But, alas, the soul of one of Shakspere's heroes is not so easily pur- loined, and Schiller did not succeed well in his pro- posed larceny. What we find is not the soul but the ' In the Neue Bibliothek der schdnen Wissemchaften, Vol. XXXII; reprinted by Braun, "Schiller und Goethe im' Urteile ihrer Zeitge- nossen '", I, 152 ff. 2 The fragments published in the Thalia contained 4140 lines ; the editio princeps oi 1787, 6283; the edition of 1801, this being the form in which the play is usually read, 5370. i88 Don Carlos situation of Hamlet : a young prince just returned from the university, — troubled by a strange melancholy, — a mystery to king and court, — beset by spies whom he sends packing, — visited by a dear academic friend, — called to a great work to which he feels himself un- equal, and so forth. The parallel is obvious, but it hardly goes beyond externalities. Nor does the por- trait of Carlos owe very much that is vital to Leisewitz. He gives us, to be sure, a love-sick prince whose illicit passion unnerves him, and like Carlos Julius has a friend who admonishes him to be a man. But there the resemblance ends ; he has not the strength to re- nounce and remains to the end a sentimental weakling. The truth is that the soul, pulse, blood and nerves of Carlos are simply Schiller's own. There is no other creation of his into which he put so much of himself. That feeling of dark despair and dead ambition to which Carlos gives expression in his first dialogue with Posa is but a poetic echo of actual experiences. I too have known a Carlos in my dreams Whose cheek flushed crimson when he heard the name Of Freedom. But that Carl is dead and buried, — sighs the Spanish prince. ' I might perhaps have be- come great, but fate took the field against me too early. . . . Love and esteem me for that which I might have become under more favorable stars ', — writes the actual Schiller.^ And just as Carlos throws him- self into the arms of Posa and thinks to find his all in friendship, so Schiller hoped ineffable things from Korner. Nowhere else in literature has the eigh- ' Letter to Reinwald April 14, 1783. Character of Carlos 189 teenth-century cult of friendship found such fervid, and in the main such noble, expression as in ' Don Carlos '. It may indeed be fairly objected that, in view of what is to come later, the Carlos of the first act is a little too soft even for the sentimental age. We are required to have faith in his heroic capacity for enterprises of great pith and moment. But after his first dialogue with Posa it is as difficult for the reader or spectator to trust him as it is for King Philip. His lacrimose raptures over so simple a thing as a youthful friend- ship ; his abject confession of despair and dependence ; his long-drawn-out revelation of a sick heart, and his morbid craving for sympathy in a passion which he himself feels to be abominable, — all this suggests a cankered soul of which there can be little hope. Hamlet greets the returning Horatio with the simple words : Sir, my good friend. I'll change that name with you. The corresponding passage in Schiller runs : Can it be ? Is't true ? Is't possible ? 'Tis really thou. I press thee to my heart and feel the beat Of thine omnipotent against my own. Now all is well again. — In this embrace The sickness of my soul is cured. I lie Upon my Roderick's neck. One does not see how such pitiful weakness is all at once to be converted into manly strength by the mere arrival of a friend ; wherefore that fine saying of Car- los which closes the first act. 19° Don Carlos Arm in arm with thee, I hurl defiance at my century, sounds a trifle bombastic. So again at his first meeting with Elizabeth, Carlos is distressingly mawkish. She pictures him, in pity- ing indignation, as succeeding to the throne, undoing his father's work and at last marrying herself. Then he exclaims in sudden horror : Accursed son ! Yes, it is over. Now 'Tis over. Now I see it all so clearly, and much more of the same purport. But how strange that he should have brooded for eight moons over his passion without ever having considered how it might appear to the object of it ! His talk here suggests a mental inadequacy which one is hardly prepared to see change all of a sudden into heroic resolution. To be sure it was a part of Schiller's design to represent in Carlos a process of evolution. Under the influence of manly friendship the puling senti- mentalist was to have his fiber toughened into the stuff that great men are made of; and so it was quite in order that he should appear at first as a weak- ling. But he is too much of a weakling, and the rea- son is that Schiller did not foresee the end from the beginning. He thought of Carlos originally as a hap- less youth having a sort of natural right to rebel. It was a part of the plan, moreover, that he should re- nounce and grow strong through renunciation. But this was to come later in the third act ; in the begin- ning he was to dally with the morbid passion which Carlos and Posa 191 was to be his tragic guilt. Now with this conception of the subject, the portrait of Carlos, just as we have 1 it, fits in very well ; but when the main interest of the ' play had become political, when the lawless love, had become of no account and the renunciation everything, — then it was surely an error to introduce Carlos in such a pitiful plight of soul that faith in him is next to impossible, and the next moment require us to accept him as a hero. In fine, one may well wish that Carlos had a little more of the soul of Hamlet, — leastwise of Hamlet's rough energy of character and saving sense of humor. But the time is past for thinking to dispose of Schiller by saying that he was no Shakspere. Enough that he was himself And nowhere was he more himself than in just this combination of infinite soft-heartedness with large manly ambition. When Carlos preaches to his father that ' tears are the eternal credential of humanity', he utters a genuine oracle of the senti- mental age. And when in the final scene he appears \ purified by suffering, master of his selfish passion and all intent upon that higher good of which he has caught a glimpse, he speaks again from the heart of Schiller. What a noble figure is Carlos in this last interview with his mother ! What matchless poetry in the ■ lines ! ^ And how genuinely, thrillingly tragic is the ending of the scene ! The teacher of Prince Carlos is the amazing Mar- . quis of Posa. In a cynical foot-note of the year 1845 Carlyle quotes, with seeming approval, Richter's com- parison of Posa to the tower of a light-house, — " high, far-shining, empty ". But what would Jean Paul have 192 Don Carlos had ? Is it not quite enough for a hght-house to be high and far-shining ? One does not see how its use- fulness would be enhanced by filling it with the beans and. bacon of practical politics. Here surely one must side with Schiller and never think of criticising him for not making his Posa an exponent of political ideas that belong to a later time. Every age has its dream. Ours is of a people to be made happy by democratic legislation ; Schiller's was of a people to be made happy by the personal goodness and enlightenment of the monarch. That the one dream, seen sub specie aeternitatis , is any more empty and fatuous than the other, would be very difficult to prove. The sentimental imagination of the eighteenth cen- tury was fond of dwelling upon the loneliness of the princely station. Standing above all other men, occu- pied habitually with weighty matters of state, sur- rounded by self-seeking flatterers and schemers, how was a ruler ever to hear the truth or to know the bless- edness of disinterested friendship 1 Awful fate to be thus cut off from tender human affection and compelled to tread the wine-press alone ! And if a prince should really find a friend, how fortunate for him and his sub- jects ! It was the simple theory of idealists under the Old Regime that the happiness of a people depended altogether upon the wisdom and goodness of the king ; and in an age when ' feeling was everything ' it was natural that goodness of the heart should count for more than mere sagacity. What the king was believed to need pre-eminently, was to keep alive his human sympathies ; and how could he do this better than by having some one to love and confide in .'' Qiaracter of Posa 193 So Schiller provides his Spanish prince with a friend. Our drama seems to wish to impute to Posa a lovable personality ; else how account for the spell that he casts over all three of the royal personages ?' Looked at closely, however, and judged by his con- duct rather than by his fine phrases, he appears any- thing but lovable. After his death it comes to light that he is deeply involved in a conspiracy for which the ordinary name is treason. He has been organizing a combination of European powers for the purpose of detaching the Netherlands by force from the Spanish crown. He returns to Spain as an arch-traitor, — with his pockets full of letters which if discovered would cost him his head. When one learns this and then thinks back in the light of this knowledge, his conduct throughout the play appears absolutely incon- ceivable ; so that one is driven to the conjecture that Schiller did not think of him all along as an out-and- out traitor, but added this touch at the last, along with others, for the purpose of accenting his character as a Quixotic madman. Up to the fourth act the impression produced by him is that of an amiable idealist, who has travelled 1 Kuno Fischer, " Schiller-Schriflen, "I, 217, observes; " Freilich bedarf die Schauspielkunst um diese Scene [the great scene between Posa and Philip] so magisch wirken zu lassen, wie das Genie des Dichters sie erzeugt und gestaltet hat, eines Posa, dem die Natur die seltensten Gaben verliehen. Jede seiner Bewegungen, jede Geberde, jeder Ton, ist Anmut und Wohlklang. Er (iberzeugt den KOnig nicht durch den Inhalt seiner Rede, er rUhrt ihn nicht durch seine Ideen, und doch gewinnt er ihn vOUig, weil er ihn persOnlich bezaubert." The natural effect of Schiller's words, however, is to give an impression that the king is moved not solely by Posa's personal charm, but in part by the idealism of his character. 194 Don Carlos extensively and acquired liberal ideas of government. He has been shocked by the regime of persecution and bloodshed in the Netherlands. He cares nothing for Protestantism as a creed, but he is an apostle of tolerance in the style of Frederick the Great. He returns to Spain intent upon securing for the Nether- lands not political independence through revolution, but freedom of thought under the Spanish crown ; and this he thinks to accomplish by procuring the stadhol- dership for Prince Carlos. Now this being the pre- supposition, it was a great thought of Schiller to bring his humane dreamer face to face with the somber despot, Philip the Second. Let it be granted that Posa's views of statesmanship, which belong to the Age of Enlightenment, could hardly have found lodgment in the brain of a chevalier of the i6th century. The thing is perhaps supposable only in poetry ; but there it is supposable enough, and Schiller need not have troubled himself to argue away the anachronism. It is the poet's prerogative to mask himself and his own age in the forms of the fictitious past. He will do it anyway, no matter how hard he may strive after his- torical verisimilitude. It is just as well, therefore, for him to throw away his scruples and stand boldly on his rights. From a dramaturgic point of view, indeed, the long political altercation between Posa and Philip is out of place ; it is magnificent, but it holds up the action to no purpose, and the play goes on as if it had not been. Schiller was evidently concerned to produce a pendant to the great scene in ' Nathan the Wise '. Saladin wants truth, Philip wants a man. Both the prophets Posa and the King 19s prepare themselves for their ordeal in a brief soliloquy. Both monarchs get their wish, and a friendly relation ensues. Both scenes are purple patches of didacti- cism, — the author preaching a sermon to his contem- poraries. Unfortunately Schiller did not have at hand a matchless fable to make his doctrine concrete and give it human interest. In places his language is abstract and difficult to follow, but taken as a whole the scene is admirable in its denotation of Posa's manly independence and humane philosophy. For a moment the marquis dreams of accomplishing his pur- pose by an appeal to the goodness and enlightenment of the king ; and into his appeal he pours all the eloquence of eighteenth-century humanitarianism. All that the literature of generations had garnered up ; all that lay on the heart of the young Schiller, in the way of fair hopes for mankind to be realized by humane and enlightened rulership, finds here immortal ex- pression through the mouth of Posa. And then what a revulsion in the last two acts ! The great scene of the third act leaves an impression that the world's affairs are not in such bad hands after all. Posa does not convince the king's mind, but he finds his heart and wins his confidence. One has the feeling that, if he bide his time and use some tact, he can accomplish all that he desires. But to our amazement he gives up the king and enters upon a desperate game of double-dealing in which he deceives everybody. He forms the plan of sending Carlos to the Nether- lands as the loader of a revolt. Of this plan he says nothing to his friend, nor does he tell him of his own new relation to the king. Instead he wraps himself 196 . Don Carlos in mystery and asks Carlos for his letter-case. This he turns over to the king, and gets a warrant for the arrest of Carlos. The young prince, suspecting quite reasonably that he has been betrayed, goes to Eboli for enlightenment. Here ^Posa finds him and draws his dagger upon the woman, as if she were the pos- sessor of some terrible secret, — which in fact she is not. Then he relents and arrests Carlos without ex- planation. He now writes a compromising letter which he knows will cause his own death. Then, after some delay, he goes to Carlos and tries to explain his strange conduct, and while he is telling his story the bullet of the king's assassin finds him. Carlos mourns the Great Departed as a pattern of unexampled heroic virtue, but one can have little sympathy with the panegyric, especially after one learns that Posa was a traitor fr-om the beginning. There would be little profit in discussing the last two acts of ' Don Carlos ' with respect to their inherent reasonableness. It is possible to frame an intelligible theory of Posa's conduct, but not one which is perfectly coherent, and least of all one which shall harmonize with the impression produced by the first three acts. There we have an amiable idealist, whom we can at ' least understand ; here a madman smitten, like Fiesco, with a mania for managing a large and dangerous in- trigue all in his own way, and accomplishing his ends by modes of action which seem to him heroic, but to the ordinary mind utterly preposterous. Thus he ac- counts for his failure to confide his plans to Carlos by saying that he was ' beguiled by false delicacy', — which seems to mean that his relation to the king was felt by Character of Philip 197 him as a breach of friendship. But how strange that a man with public ends in view should feel thus under the circumstances ! So too his self-sacrifice is nothing but heroic folly, since his death in no way betters the chances of Carlos for escape. The flight would have had a better chance of success had Posa omitted his heroics altogether and quietly planned to escape with his friend. In fine, we have to do here with entirely abnormal psychic processes. The reader and still more the spectator is bewildered by Posa, and does not know any better than Carlos and the king know how to take him.^ Turning now to the portrait of the king we find there too the traces of a wavering purpose. The original conception was dark as Erebus. In the first act, more especially in the first act as originally printed, the King of Spain is painfully suggestive of a wicked ogre swooping in upon a nursery of naughty children. Such an insanely jealous, swaggering, domineering, cruel fanatic is too loathsome to be interesting. Then came the thought, suggested partly by the reading of Brantome and Ferrera, of presenting Philip's character in a more favorable light and making him the center of tragic interest, — a thought which was neither given up nor consistently carried out. In October, 1785, Schiller wrote to Korner that he was reading Watson and that ' weighty reforms were threatening his own Philip and Alva.' The Rev. Robert Watson's history by no means idealizes Philip, but it credits him with ' Perhaps the best possible account of his death is that of Kuno Fischer, " Schiller-Schriflen ■', I, 215 : " Ei- op(?rt sich fUr ein welt- gescbichtUches Ideal, das er xdyllischtraumte,'' 198 Don Carlos sincerity, vigilance, penetration, self-control, adminis- trative capacity and a ' considerable share of sagacity ' in the choice of ministers and generals, — not an altogether mean list of kingly qualities. On the other hand, in Mercier's book ^ Philip appears as the embodi- ment of all those qualities which the Age of Enlighten- ment regarded as odious in a ruler. Thus, just as in the case of Fiesco, Schiller found himself pulled this way and that by his authorities ; and the result of his attempt to graft an impressive monarch upon the stock furnished by St. Real's jealous husband is a Philip who does not fully satisfy either the historic sense or the poetic imagination. For Schiller, of course, a truly great monarch needed to have a tender heart ; so Philip was given certain sentimental traits. He feels the loneliness of his sta- tion. In spite of his seeming coldness the pleading of Carlos for affection touches him, and he gives orders that henceforth his son is to stand nearer to the throne. For the purpose of exhibiting the king's magnanimity we have the anachronistic scene in which he is made to pardon Medina Sidonia for the loss of the great armada, — an event which happened twenty years later. Then he becomes suspicious of Domingo and Alva and longs for an honest man to tell him the truth. And when the man appears the king is most surpris- ingly open-minded. ' This fire ', he says to Posa, Is admirable. You would fain do good, Just how you do it, patriot and sage Can little care. ' See above, page 169. General Estimate 199 So Philip is a patriot and a sage, glowing with the holy fire of humanity ; and as such he even deigns to explain his policy and to enter into a contest of mag- nanimity with Posa. But the large-hearted monarch of whom we get a glimpse in this scene is soon reduced back to the jealous husband of St. Real, and his jeal- ousy is closely patterned upon that of Othello. The Philip of the last two acts is sometimes pitiable, some- times repulsive, never great. One is not very much surprised when he hires an assassin to kill Posa, in- stead of handing him over to the law. Of the remaining characters the queen is the most interesting. In. her Schiller for the first time depicts a woman convincingly. His Elizabeth is perhaps a shade too angelic, — she is an ideal figure like all his women, — but winsome she certainly is. One is a little startled by the readiness with which she approves Posa's treasonable plan of a revolution to be headed by Don Carlos, but in this play the sentiment of patriot- ism cuts no figure anywhere. The principal characters are all occupied with the idea of ' humanity ', and are not troubled by any scruples arising out of national feeling. Taken as a whole ' Don Carlos ' is too complicated , to yield an unalloyed artistic pleasure. It suffers from a lack of simplicity and concentration. There is material in it for two or three plays. The double in- , trigue of love and politics becomes toward the end very confusing. The confusion is increased by the unexpected turn given to the character of Posa, and reaches a climax when we learn from the Grand In- quisitor that he has been pulling all the strings froni 200 Don Carlos first to last, and that the entire tragedy was fore- ordained in the secret archives of the Holy Office. The unity of interest is marred by the fact that in the last two acts the real hero, Don Carlos, drops into the background as the helpless tool of the incalculable marquis. And Carlos, too, sometimes acts rather un- accountably ; for example, when he supposes that the wanton billet-doux signed ' E.' can come from the queen, of whose purity and high-mindedness he has just had convincing evidence. Then again his conduct toward the Princess Eboli in the love scene is very sin- gular, — one might say amazing. And there are some other such defects, which concern the stage more than the reader and which, by skillful acting and judicious excision, can be reduced to insignificant proportions. When well played ' Don Carlos ' produces a powerful impression. For the reader it is a noble poem con- taining a large ingredient of Schiller's best self CHAPTER X ancboreO in tCburfngta Ich musz ein Geschopf um mich haben, das mir gehSrt. Letter of 1788. The Weimar of Schiller's first acquaintance — he arrived there July 21, 1787 — consisted of a petty pro- vincial court plus an unsightly village. The inhab- itants numbered about six thousand. Of the space built over about one-third was occupied by the build- ings of the court, much of the outlying modern Wei- mar being then under water. The streets were narrow, muddy lanes, the houses plain and poor. And yet the sluggish little place, so unprepossessing in all material ways, was already beginning to assert that claim to glory which has since been conceded to it by all the world. Princely patronage of art and letters was by no means unknown elsewhere in Germany, but it was usually a matter of gracious condescension on the one side and grateful adulation on the other. Very differ- ent in Weimar, where Goethe was not only a member of the Council, but the duke's most intimate friend and trusted adviser. In his heart Karl August cared less for aesthetic matters than is often supposed, but his mother, the Dowager Duchess Amalie, patronized art for the real love of it. Poetry and music were as the 201 202 Anchored in Thuringia breath of life to her, and her taste in poetry had been trained by the greatest living master. Aside from Goethe, two other distinguished writers had found a home in Weimar. The kindly but changeable Wieland, not really one of the dii majores, but so regarded at the time, had lived there since 1772 ; Herder, much more nobly endowed, but less amiable and less popular, since 1776. At the time of Schiller's advent Goethe was still in Italy, whither he had gone the previous autumn to find relief from the miseries of duodecimo statesmanship. Karl August and the reigning Duchess Luise were also absent, but several minor notables of the court circle had remained ' in town ', and the dowager duchess was giving aesthetic teas as usual in h6r easily accessible ' castle ' at Tiefurt. Wieland and Herder were like- wise at home. On his arrival Schiller was taken charge of by the Baroness von Kalb, who was awaiting her soul's affinity with feverish eagerness. Her excitement at seeing him again amounted to a ' paroxysm ' which made her ill for a week. Then she grew better and her emotions gradually found the level of a friendliness too passionate to be called Platonic, but not sinful in the lower sense. As for Schiller, he devotedly let himself be loved and introduced to Weimar society, the pair making no concealment of their liking for each other. At first he felt some compunctions on account of the absent husband, who might be annoyed by gos- sip. It pleased him to observe, therefore, that in Weimar such a friendship was taken as a matter of course and treated with delicacy. ' ' Charlotte,' he ' Letter of July 28, 1787, to Korner. Introduction to Weimar 203 wrote to Korner, 'is a grand, exceptional, womanly- soul, a real study for me and worthy to occupy a greater mind than mine. With each forward step in our intercourse I discover in her new manifestations that surprise and delight me like beautiful spots in a broad landscape.' For several months he played this unwholesome role of cicisbeoHo Charlotte von Kalb. Then another and very different Charlotte crossed his path and quickly taught him the better way. The story of Schiller's gradual adjustment to the Weimar milieu is told very fully in his frequent letters to Korner. He called upon Herder and Wieland, and was received with ' amazing politeness ' by the one, with loquacious cordiality by the other. Herder knew nothing of his writings and regaled him with idolatrous talk about Goethe. Wieland knew all about him except that he had not yet seen ' Don Carlos ' ; criticised his early plays frankly as lacking in correct- ness and artistic finish, but expressed the utmost confi- dence in him nevertheless. He was received at Tiefurt, but did not like the dowager duchess : her mind, he reported, was very narrow ; nothing interested her but the sensuous. A few days later he heard that ' Don Carlos ' had been read to a select assembly at Tiefurt and had not made a good impression ; there had been caustic criticism of the piece, particularly the last two acts, and Wieland, who was present, had not stood up for it. This led to a coolness toward Wieland. By the end of three weeks Schiller had despaired of Weimar and was miserable. He thought of leaving the place in disgust. 204 Anchored in Thuringia In August he spent a week at Jena as the guest of Professor Reinhold, who was about to begin lectur- ing upon Kant and was predicting that after a cen- tury the Konigsberg philosopher would have a repu- tation like that of Jesus Christ. Reinhold's enthusiasm led Schiller to read some of Kant's shorter essays, among which a paper upon universal history gave him ' extraordinary satisfaction '. From Reinhold came also the assurance that it would be easy to secure a Jena professorship. The idea did not at once take hold of him in the sense of becoming a definite purpose, but it tallied with his inclination. His ex- perience with ' Don Carlos ' had left him in doubt whether the drama was after all his true vocation, and he had already begun to work fitfully upon a history of the Dutch Rebellion. So he decided to remain a little longer in Weimar and devote himself to historical writing ; and, this reso- lution formed, life at once began to open more pleas- antly before him. He saw that he had made the mistake of taking the Weimar magnates too seriously ; of imagining that they were all sitting in judgment upon him, and that it was of the greatest importance to win their favor. ' I begin to find life here quite toler- able ', he wrote early in September, ' and the secret of it — you will wonder that it did not occur to me be- fore — is not to bother my head about anybody.' And indeed he had no reason to be disgruntled. Herder was pleased with 'Don Carlos ' and came out in its favor before the aesthetic tribunal of Tiefurt. Wieland noticed it favorably in the Merkiir, spoke flatteringly of it in conversation and declared himself now con- New Literary Pursuits 205 vinced that Schiller's forte was the drama. Hence- forth the two men were fast friends and presently Schiller was toying with the thought of marrying Wieland's favorite daughter. ' I do not know the girl at all ', he wrote, ' but I would ask for her to-day if I thought I deserved her.' ' His scruple was that he was too much of a cosmopolitan to be permanently contented with ' these people '. A simple-minded, innocent girl of domestic proclivities would not be happy with him. The autumn passed in quiet work devoted mainly to his ' Defection of the Netherlands ' The Duke of Weimar came home for a few days towards the ist of October, but immediately went away again to Holland. Schiller did not even see him. Evidently there was nothing to be hoped for immediately in that quarter ; he would have to rely upon himself But he was now in demand. The Merkur was eager for contributions from his pen, and so was the Litter atur-Zeitung , whose extensive review factory had been shown him during his sojourn in Jena. Then there was the comatose Thalia, which he determined to revive after New Year's. In November he spent a few days at Meiningen, where his sister Christophine was now living as the wife of Reinwald. He saw Frau von Wolzogen and Lotte (who was about to be married), but Bauerbach had lost its charm. ' The old magic,' he wrote to Korner, ' had been blown away. I felt nothing. None of all the places that formerly made my solitude interesting had anything to say to me.' On his return ' Letter of Nov. 19, 1787. 2o6 ' Anchored in Thuringia fate was lurking for him at Rudolstadt, where his friend, Wilhelm von Wolzogen, introduced him to Frau von Lengefeld and her two daughters. ' Both creatures ', Schiller wrote, ' are attractive, without being beautiful and please me much. You find here con- siderable acquaintance with recent literature, also re- finement, feeling and intelligence. They play the piano well, which gave me a delightful evening.' The elder daughter, Karoline, was married unhappily to a Herr von Beulwitz, from whom she afterwards sepa- rated to marry Wilhelm von Wolzogen. She was a woman of much literary talent, which found employ- ment later in a novel, ' Agnes von Lilien ', and in her excellent memoir of Schiller. The other daughter was unmarried and bore the auspicious name of Charlotte. Lotte von Lengefeld, whose memory is cherished with idealizing tenderness by the Germans, was now twenty-one years old,- — a demurd maiden whose eyes spake more than her tongue. She had long since won the heart of the Baroness von Stein, who had intro- duced her at the Weimar court and held out to her the hope of becoming a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess Luise. Goethe was fond of her and did not omit to send her affectionate greetings from distant Italy. Some time before, she had spent a year with her mother and sister in Switzerland for the purpose of improving her French ; and on the way home, in the summer of 1784, the party had caught a glimpse of Schiller in Mannheim. Now the sisters were living in a sort of idyllic solitude at Rudolstadt, cut off from the great world, absorbed in their books, their music, and Charlotte von Lengefeld 207 the memories of that happy year in Switzerland. Karoline von Wolzogen writes, in speaking of this occasion : My sister was seemingly in every respect a desirable match for Schiller. She had a very winsome form and face. An ex- pression of purest goodness of heart enlivened her features, and her eyes flashed only truth and innocence. Thoughtful and susceptible to the good and the beautiful in life and in art, her whole nature was a beautiful harmony. Of even temper, but faithful and tenacious in her affections, she seemed created to enjoy the purest happiness. Making all needful allowance for the partiality of a sister, one cannot wonder that the visitor went on his way with the feeling that Rudolstadt might be a good place in which to spend the summer. The condition of his mind was certainly such as to facilitate the designs of Providence. In January, 1788, he wrote to Korner as follows : I am leading a miserable life, miserable through the condi- tion of my inner being. I must have >,jg thinking and feeling nobly, and the impot ' " 'iving only his idealized self, the anony P'*" '^ *"y f"% deeded to comment upon Burger's frequ " Hod taste, his crudities, indecen-. 2 5° Dark Days Within and Without cies and vulgar ding-dongs, and to refer these things with remorseless directness to personal defects. The criticism was just and had all the other merits save discretion and urbanity. Goethe was pleased with it before he knew who wrote it,' and eleven years later Schiller saw nothing in it to change. In writing it, as a matter of fact, he was only breaking the rod over his own early self; for in his Stuttgart ' Anthology ' he had committed nearly every sin for which now, from the serene heights of a better artistic insight, he casti- gated his victim. To poor Burger, whose life was just then bitter enough at the best, the review was a ter- rible blow. He at once published a reply, which is also very good reading in its way, but might have been made much more spicy had he known the name of his adversary. Schiller's final rejoinder added nothing of importance to the discussion.' This short digression leads naturally to another. While still at Weimar Schiller received a visit from Burger, and the two agreed to vie with each other in a translation from Vergil. Schiller chose for his ex- periment the eight-line stanza which he was proposing to use in an epic upon Frederick the Great. This ' Fredericiad ' was much on his mind in the spring of 1789. His plan was to center his story about some ominous juncture in Frederick's career (say the battle of Kollin), and write a poem which should exhibit in lightly-flowing stanzas the ' finest flower ' j^^fij^teenth- j he enjoye ' So, at least, Schiller states in a letter of N» Lotte he toCmey. ''The original review, together with Bcthing handson^chiller's rejoinder, are printed in Sfimmtliche SchrjJ[,gj. ^i Mainz Wl Interest in Epic Poetry 251 century civilization.' Albeit intensely modern it was to have the indispensable epic ' machinery '. Nothing came of the project, but a year later he was still rumi- nating upon it and declared that he should not be truly happy until he was again making verses. Instead of attempting an original epic, however, he now began to translate from the ^neid, and this light and congenial labor continued to occupy him for a year or more after the break-down of his health. He finally completed two books, the second and fourth. The translation is sonorous and otherwise readable, but it is not Vergil and does not produce the effect of Vergil. The breaking up of the matter into stanzas, each having a unity of its own, led to additions, omis- sions and perversions, — there are 2104 lines in the translation to 1509 in the original, — and substituted an interrupted romantic cadence for the stately con- tinuous roll of the hexameter. The opening lines of the second book will serve as well as any others to illustrate Schiller's method as a translator : Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant. Inde toro pater Aeneas sic orsus ab alto : ' Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem, Trojanas ut opes et lamentabile regnum Eruerint Danai; quaeque ipse miserrima vidi Et quorum pars magna fui." Schiller's version runs thus: Der ganze Saal war Ohr, jedweder Mund verschlossen, Und FUrst Aeneas, hingegossen 'The plan is very fully discussed in a letter of March lO, 1789, to KOrner. 252 Dark Days Within and Without Auf hohem Polstersitz, begann : Dein Wille, Konigin, macht Wunden wieder bluten, Die keine Sprache schildern kann : Wie Trojas Stadt verging in Feuerfluten, Den Jammer willst du wissen, die Gefahr, Wovon ich Zeuge, ach, und meisteiis Opfer war. As for the ' Fredericiad ' , it never got beyond the status of a plan. By November, 1791, Schiller had concluded that Gustav Adolf would be a better subject for an epic, — ^he could get up no enthusiasm for Unser Fritz and shrank from the ' gigantic labor of idealizing him '. Soon after this he seems to have dropped altogether the idea of writing an epic. In the spring of 1791, when he had grown strong enough to think of attacking the second installment of the 'Thirty Years' War', Schiller took up his abode in Rudolstadt; and there, in May, he was prostrated by a second illness which was worse than the first. His life was despaired of, he bade his friends farewell and the report went out from Jena that he was dead. After the crisis was past came weary weeks of lassitude and pain, with no possibility of writing or reading. In July he took the waters at Karlsbad, with some slight benefit. By autumn he was well enough to do the promised continuation of his history and to lay plans with Goschen for a New Thalia to begin with the next year. But he was now in desperate straits for money. His illness had been very costly and the cessation of work had brought a cessation of income. He was in debt to various friends, and the Duke of Weimar was too poor to help him. Saddest of all, his beloved wife's health was broken with anxiety and Help from Denmark 253 watching. ' It is a joy to me ', he wrote to Korner in October, ' even when I am busy, to think that she is near me. Her dear life and influence round about me, the childlike purity of her soul and the warmth of her love, give me a repose and serenity that would other- wise be impossible in my hypochondriac .condition. If we were only well we should need nothing else to live like the gods. ' It was a dark juncture, darker far than that of 1784, and now as then help came unexpectedly from afar. It came this time from Denmark. The Danish author Baggesen had visited Jena the previous year and returned home a fervid admirer of Schiller. At Copenhagen he had imparted his en- thusiasm to Count Schimmelmann and the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg, who, with their wives, pro- ceeded to found a sort of Schiller-sect. Full of the time's generous ardor for high and humane ideas, they were just about to give a rustic fete in honor of their great German poet, when the news of his death arrived. They met with heavy hearts and sang the ' Song to Joy ', with an added stanza by Baggesen, wherein they pledged themselves to ' be faithful to Schiller's spirit until they should meet above '. When they learned a little later that the author of the ' Song ' was alive, after all, and very much in need of money, the two noblemen immediately wrote him a joint letter, offering him, in language of admirable delicacy, a gift of a thousand thalers a year for three years, with no condi- tions whatever. He was simply to give himself needed rest and follow the bent of his mind, free from all anxiety. Should he choose to come to Copenhagen 254 Dark Days Within and Without they assured him that he would find loyal friends and admirers, and a position in the government service if he desired it. This timely windfall ' from the clouds ' put an end to the misery of distress about money. For the first time in his life Schiller found himself free to consult inclination in the forming of his plans and the disposi- tion of his time. Without hesitation he gratefully accepted the gift and resolved now at last to take up the study of Kant and fathom him, though it should require three years. A strange resolution, it would seem, for a sick poet! Many have judged it unwise and have deprecated that long immersion in Kantian metaphysic. But Schiller was the best judge of his own needs, and how he felt about the matter appears very clearly from a letter that he wrote to Korner a few months later: I am full of eagerness for some poetic task and particularly my pen is itching to be at ' Wallenstein.' Really it is only in art itself that I feel my strength. In theorizing I have to plague myself all the while about principles. There I am only a dilet- tante. But it is precisely for the sake of artistic creation that I wish to philosophize. Criticism must repair the damage it has done me. And it has done me great damage indeed ; for I miss in myself these many years that boldness, that living fire, that was mine before I knew a rule. Now I see myself in the act of creating and fashioning ; I observe the play of inspiration, and my imagination works less freely, since it is conscious of being watched. But if I once reach the point where artistic procedure becomes natural, like education for the well-nurtured man, then my fancy will get back its old freedom, and know no bounds but those of its own making. And so it was destined to be. His philosophic Visit to Suabia 255 studies, pursued with tireless zeal for a period of three or four years, gave him the self-assurance that he hoped for. They created for him at least, if not for all men everywhere, a poetical modus vivendi between natural impulse and artistic rule. ' Nature ' learned to wear the fetters of art without feeling them as fetters. At last he grew weary of theorizing ; but his later plays, produced in rapid succession, each unlike the other and all characterized by a remarkable imaginative breadth and freedom, bear witness to the quantity of artistic energy stored up during this period of artistic self- repression. A few words of biography will suffice for the goings and comings of this Kantian period, which was for Schiller a period of quiet study, eager discussion and laborious authorship. At first he continued to reside in Jena. Early in 1792 he started the New Thalia, and this he used for the publication of his earlier aesthetic lucubrations. With the perfunctory conclu- sion of the "^ Thirty Years' War', in September, his work as a historian virtually came to an end. He now began to lecture again, but gave only an aesthetic privatissimum in his own room. He went out of the house hardly five times during the whole winter, and when spring came his health was again very precarious. He now determined to try the effect upon body and soul of the milder climate of his native Suabia. He set out in August and took the precaution to halt in Heilbronn, not knowing what brutality the Duke of Wiirttemberg might still be capable of On receiving the blessed assurance that his Highness would ' ignore ' him, he continued on his way to Ludwigsburg, where 256 Dark Days Within and Without a son was born to him in September. He remained in Ludwigsburg during the winter in pleasant intercourse with his family and friends. In October Karl Eugen went to his reward. 'The death of the old Herod ', Schiller wrote to Korner, ' does not concern me or my family, except that all who have to do directly, like my father, with the head of the state, are glad that they now have a man before them. ' ' One of the first important official acts of the new duke was to abolish the Karlschule; but this did not happen until after Schiller had visited the scene of his former woes, in the role of distinguished son, and had received the enthusiastic plaudits of the four hundred students. It was here in Ludwigsburg that his ripest philosophic work, the ' Letters upon vEsthetic Educa- tion ', came into being. In the spring he spent some weeks in Stuttgart, where Dannecker began to model the famous bust that now adorns the Weimar library. In Stuttgart he made the acquaintance of the enterpris- ing publisher Cotta, who wished him to undertake the editorship of a great political journal. But another plan lay nearer to Schiller's heart, and before he left Suabia he had arranged with Cotta to edit a high-class ' On the other hand, Wilhelm von Hoven, who was with Schiller at the time, represents him as deeply touched by the death of Duke Karl and as expressing himself thus : "Da ruht er also, dieser rastlos thatig gewesene Mann. Er hatte grosze Fehler als Regent, grOszere als Mensch, aber die ersteren wurden von seinen groszen Eigenschaften weit tlberwogen, und das Andenken an die letzteren musz mit dem Toten begraben werden ; darum sage ich dir, wenn du, da er nun dort liegt, jetzt noch nachteilig von ihm sprechen hOrst, traue diesem Menschen nicht : er ist kein guter, wenigstens kein edler Mensch." Cf. Kuno Fischer, " Schiller-Schriften '', I, 153, and Karoline von Wolzogen, ' Schillers Leben", Achter Abschnitt. Plane for the Future 257 literary magazine to be known as Die Horen. In May, 1794, he returned to Jena, glad to have escaped at last from his dear, distracting fatherland and to be once more at home. His health had not improved, and he had now become reconciled in a measure to the doom of the invalid. But although he knew that the death - mark was upon him, the knowledge only spurred him to more eager activity.' He felt that he had a great work to do and that the time might be short. By this time his acquaintance with Humboldt had ripened into a warm friendship. ' What a life it will be ', he wrote to Korner, ' when you come here and complete the triad. Humboldt is for me an infinitely agreeable and at the same time useful acquaintance ; for in conversa- tion with him all my ideas move happily and move quickly. There is in his character a totality that is rarely seen and that, except in him, I have found only in you. ' After his return to Jena he lectured no more, but threw all his energy into the new journal. He pre- pared an alluring prospectus and invited the coopera- tion of all the best writers in Germany. Among these was Goethe, who sent a favorable reply. And thus began a correspondence which presently led, as all the world knows, to an ever memorable friendship. The activities centering in the Horen ushered in a new literary epoch, the epoch of Germany's brief leadership in modern literature. Thus the period of his Kantian studies, a time of 1 A letter of May 24, 1791, contains the brave words : " Ich habe mehr als einmal dem Tod ins Gesicht geseben, und mein Mut ist dadurch gestarkt worden." 2S8 Dark Days Within and Without tremendous political excitement in Europe, was for Schiller a quiet period of intense thinking and of eager debate with like-minded friends, upon the abstruse questions of aesthetic theory. The turmoil of the revo- lution affected him hardly at all. There was nothing of the democrat about him. With all his devotion to liberty and with all his poetic fondness for republican- ism, he remained at heart a devoted monarchist. All his life, nearly, he had lived with aristocrats, and he himself had the temper of an aristocrat. There is no evidence in his letters that he ever really sympathized with the French people, even during the early days of the revolution, in their practical program of ' liberty, equality and fraternity'. His notion of liberty was at no time a definite political concept, but always a rain- bow in the clouds, — something to rave and philosophize over. Of human brotherhood he had sung most affectingly in the 'Song to Joy', but it was only a poetic kiss that he had ready for all mankind. He would have been amazed if any plebeian stranger had proposed to take him at his word. As for equality, there is no evidence that it entered as a factor or an ideal into his scheme of man's better time to come. It was thus perfectly natural, when the proceedings were instituted against the ill-fated Louis the Sixteenth, that Schiller should take the part of the accused. The fierce determination of the French democracy to exact a reckoning from their sovereign, not so much for what he had done as for ages of accumulated wrong, appeared to him the very madness of injustice. In December, 1792, he planned to write a book or a pamphlet in defence of the king, and have it translated into French Schiller and the Revolution 259 for the purpose of influencing public opinion in Paris.' He seems actually to have begun the work, but the fate of the unlucky Bourbon was swifter than the pen of his German defender. Schiller's horror of the regicide knew no bounds. ' These two weeks past ', he wrote on February 8, 1793, 'I can read no more French papers, so disgusted am I with these wretched execu- tioners. ' The ensuing events of the Terror intensified this feeling. In speaking of the year 1793, Karoline von Wolzogen has this to say of her brother-in-law : He regarded the French Revolution as the effect of passion and not as a work of wisdom, which alone could produce true freedom. He admitted, indeed, that many ideas which had pre- viously been found only in books and in the heads of enlightened men, were now matters of public discussion ; but, he said, the real principles which must underlie a truly happy civil constitu- tion are not yet so common among men ; they are found (point- ing to a copy of Kant's ' Critique ' that lay on the table) nowhere else but here. The French Republic will cease as quickly as it ■has come into being. The republican constitution will give rise to a state of anarchy, and sooner or later a capable strong man will appear from some quarter and make himself master not only of France but also, perhaps, of a large part of Europe.' If this remarkable prediction of Napoleon is rightly reported and rightly dated by the Baroness von Wolzogen, one can hardly suppose that Schiller was very much elated when he read in a paper, towards the close of the year 1792, that he had been made an honorary citizen of the French Republic. Under a law passed in August of that year, — Van premier de la liberie, — the name and rights of a French citizen were ^ Letter of December 21, to KOrner. ' ' SchjUers Leben", Achter Abschnjtt. 26o Dark Days Within and Without bestowed upon a number of foreigners who had ' con- secrated their arms and their vigils to defending the cause of the people against the despotism of kings '. A motley band of heroes had been selected for this honor, ^ — the names of Washington and Wilberforce and Kosciusko being put to pickle in the same brine with those of Pestalozzi, J. H. Campe, Klopstock and Ana- charsis Cloots, — and the bill was about to pass when a deputy arose, — he must have been an Alsatian, — and ^^ proposed to add the name of M. Gille, publiciste allc- mand. The amendment was accepted, and a few weeks later Minister Roland transmitted to ' M. Gille ' an official diploma of French citizenship. It took the postal authorities of Germany some six years to deliver the letter, and when at last they succeeded, its recipi- ent was less than ever in a mood to be overjoyed at the well-meant distinction that had been conferred upon him by the French republicans. The progress of the Revolution appeared to Schiller' to endanger the higher interests of civilization. He was too close to it for a serenely impartial view. Had it been an occurrence of the sixteenth century, he would have been just the man to philosophize over it and to show that in this case, again, "the frenzy of the nations was the statesmanship of fate". As it was, the unrest of the people, and their increasing absorption in questions of mere politics, disgusted him. He felt that a counteragent was needed. And so, declining Cotta's offer anent the political journal, and thus leaving the famous Allgemeine Zeitung to begin its career a few years later under other hands, he chose instead to found the Horen, which was to exclude Genius and Vocation 261 politics altogether and induce people, if possible, to think of something else. He saw that the times were unpropitious for his enterprise, but felt that it was for that very reason the more urgently needed. In an- nouncing the Horen to the public in 1 795 he wrote : The more the minds of men are excited, shut in and subjugated by the narrow interests of the present, the more urgent is a gen- eral and higher interest in that which is purely human and superior to all influences of the time ; an interest which shall set men free again and unite the politically divided world under the banner of truth and beauty. This is the point of view from which the authors of the Horen wish it to be regarded. The journal is to be devoted to cheerful and passionless entertainment, and to offer the mind and heart of its readers, now angered and depressed by the events of the day, a pleasant diversion. In the midst of this political tumult it will form for the Muses and Graces a little intimate circle, from which everything will be banished that is stamped with the impure spirit of partisanship. Many a modern reader will be inclined, perhaps, to smile at this deliverance and to see in it a fatuous mis- judgment of the relative importance of things. The French Revolution versus a spray of aesthetic rose- water ! But we must not be too hasty. Posterity has no better criterion for judging great men than the criterion of service. And service is a question of voca- tion. As the matter is put by Goethe, who himself a little later took refuge from the misere of the Napoleonic epoch in the contemplative poetry of the Orient : ' Man may seek his higher destiny on earth or in heaven, in the present or in the future; yet for that reason he remains exposed to constant wavering within and to continual disturbance from without, until he once for all makes up his mind to declare that that is right 262 Dark Days Within and Without which is in accordance with his own nature. ' ' It was not in Schiller to be a political journalist or a pam- phleteer. In that field he would have wasted his splendid energy. He knew what he could do best; and it was well for his country and for the world that he chose to withdraw from the turmoil of the Revo- lution and prepare himself for ' Wallenstein ' and 'William Tell'. ' "Dichtung und Wahrheit", Elites Buch. CHAPTER XIII Beetbetic XQlcitings Es ist gewisz von keinem Sterblichen kein grSszeres Wort gesprochen als dieses Kantische, was zugleich der Inhalt seiner ganzen Philosophie ist : Bestimme dich aus dir selbst. Letter of ijgj. From a quotation in the preceding chapter we have seen what Schiller hoped for when he resolved to grapple with the Kantian philosophy. He was in pur- suit of that which would help him as a poet. He felt that a little philosophy had done him harm by quench- ing his inner fire and destroying his artistic spontaneity. The rules were continually coming between him and his creative impulses. His hope was that more philos- ophy would repair the damage by making the principles of art so clear and so familiar that they would become as second nature, and therefore cease to be felt as a clog or an interference. This expectation, looking at the matter a priori, was reasonable enough. Looking at it retrospectively, Goethe came to the conclusion, as is well known, that Schiller's philosophic bent had injured his poetry by teaching him to ' regard the idea as higher than all nature'. Goethe thought it 'depressing to see how such an extraordinarily gifted man had tormented him- self with philosophic modes of thought that could be 263 264 Aesthetic Writings of no use to him'.^ But this does not tell the whole story, notwithstanding the greatness of the authority. To assert that all philosophy is always harmful to a poet would be to assert the most patent nonsense. Goethe himself at one time found help and inspiration in Spinoza, the dryest and most abstract of thinkers;' and after all, ' nature ' comes off about as well in ' Wallenstein ' as in ' Faust '. It is a question of per- sonal endowment, of what the mind can assimilate and turn to account. There are many kinds of t"h^ poetic temper, the intellectual element blending variously with the emotional, the instinctive and the visional. For Schiller poetry was not ' somnambulism ', but a very deliberate process ; wherefore it was quite natural for him to expect that a season of philosophic study would be good for him. So he set out to fathom the laws of beauty; assuming, of course, that there must be such laws and that they must be, in some sense or other, laws of human nature. To follow him critically in all the by-ways of his theorizing would require a treatise; and the treatise would be dull reading, except, peradventure, to such as might be specially interested in the history of aesthetic discussion. In the end, too, it would shed but little light upon Schiller's later plays, which were in no sense the offspring of theory and were influenced only in a very general way by their author's previous philosophical studies. To understand the poet's development it is nowise necessary to lose one's self ' Eckermanns "GesprSche", under date of November 14, 1823. '' He also admitted that he himself had profited from the Study of Kant; cf. Eckermann, under date of April ii, 1827, Early Philosopliizing 265 with him in the Serbonian bog of metaphysic . On the other hand, it will be useful to know what the problems were that chiefly interested him, and to see how he attacked them and what conclusions he arrived at. With the soundness of his reasoning and the final value of his contributions to the literature of aesthetics we need hardly concern ourselves at all ; since the scientific questions involved are differently stated and differently approached at the present time.' The pre-Kantian stage of Schiller's aesthetic philoso- phy is of quite minor importance. He obtained his original stock of ideas at the Stuttgart academy from Ferguson's 'Institutes', as translated by Garve. In Ferguson, who rested strongly upon Shaftesbury, no line was drawn between the moral and the aesthetic domain. It was taught that all truth is beauty and that ' the most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth '. Perfection was made to depend on harmony and proportion ; and moral beauty upon the harmony of the individual soul with the general system of things. Wrong action was regarded as discord, imperfection. Virtue, being a disposition toward the general harmony, necessarily meant happiness. Thoughts of this kind, mixed up with vague ideas of a pre-established harmony, constituted the staple of Schiller's early philosophizing. The identity of the good, the true and the beautiful, was for him the highest of all generalizations, though more a matter of pious emotion than of close thinking. ' Schiller's aesthetic writings, and especially his relation to Kant, have been much discussed in recent years. For a list of the more important works consult the Appendix. 266 Aesthetic Writings Nor do we observe any noteworthy change of atti- tude in the minor philosophic writings, such as the letters of Julius and Raphael, and the second book of 'The Ghostseer ', — which he published prior to his acquaintance with Kant. In these it is always the moralist that speaks, and the great question is the bearing of skepticism on individual happiness. But by the end of his first year in Weimar the moralist had begun to retreat before the aesthetic philosopher. For the author of ' The Gods of Greece ' and ' The Art- ists ', it is evident that the beautiful has become the corner-stone of the temple. He saw before him all at once a new region that invited exploration. If art had played such a commanding role in the history of the world, it was evidently of the greatest import- ance to understand it. It was this feeling for the dignity of art, as the greatest of factors in human per- fectibility, that led him to devote the leisure afforded by his Danish pension to a thorough study of Kantian aesthetics. He began quite independently, as we have seen, with a course of lectures upon the theory of tragedy. The lectures were never published, but the cream of them is probably contained in two essays, ' On the Rational Basis of Pleasure in Tragic Themes ', and ' On the Tragic Art', which were contributed to the New Thalia in 1792. In the former Schiller first combats the idea that art has any higher aim than the giving of pleasure. Its aim, he argues, is not morality but ' free pleasure ' , the ' free ' meaning subject to no law but its own. If morality is made its final aim, it ceases to be ' free ' . Then the essay goes on to discuss The Essays on Tragedy 267 the crux of our feeling pleasure in painful representa- tions. All pleasure, we read, comes from the percep- tion of Zweckmdszigkeit, that is, the quality of being adapted to the furtherance of an end. Since man is meant to be happy and naturally seeks happiness, human suffering affects us primarily as a ' maladapta- tion ', and so gives us pain. But in this very pain our reason recognizes a higher ' adaptation ', since we are incited by it to activity. We know that it is good for us and for society; and so we take pleasure in our own pain. The total effect of tragedy depends upon the proportion in which this higher sense of adaptation is present. The important thing to notice in this argument is that aesthetic judgments are made to depend upon con- cepts of the mind. The reason, with its abstractions of ' fitness ' and what not, is regarded as the prior and the dominating factor. In the second of the two essays, however, we find a distinct recognition of the fact that emotional excitement may give pleasure in and of itself. Illustrations are brought in, — such as the passion for gaming and for dangerous adventure, and the general love of ghost stories and tales of crime, — which go to show that Schiller by no means overlooked the non-rational element in the pleasure afforded by tragedy. Neveitheless he seems to have attached very little importance to that element, for he goes on to observe that we know only two sources of pleasure, namely, the satisfaction of our bent for hap- piness {Glilckseligkeitstrieb'), and the fulfillment of moral laws. As the pleasure we take in acted or narrated suffering cannot proceed from the former, it 26§ Aesthetic Writings must spring from the latter and do its work by gratify- ing the 'bent for activity' {Thdtigkeitstrieb'), which is a moral bent. — After a long tussle with such hazy abstractions the essayist attempts a working definition and practical discussion of tragedy. This part of the essay is still eminently readable, but need not be analyzed here. Sufficient to say that Schiller regards the excitation of '^mpathy ' as the sole aim of tragedy. He has nothing to say of the Aristotelian ' fear ' or ' katharsis ' ; in fact he did not make the acquaintance of Aristotle until 1797.' It would be next in order to consider the lectures of 1792-93, but unluckily they are known only from the notes of a student.* As published in 1806 they bear the impress of Schiller's mind, but are too brief and summary to be counted among his works. They show that by 1793 he had come to feel at home in the field of aesthetic speculation. He had read Kant and Moritz and Burke, and was ready with his criticisms. In particular, he had found what he regarded as a weak point in the system of Kant, who had not only made no attempt to establish an objective criterion of beauty, but had summarily dismissed the whole problem as obviously hopeless. Schiller felt that, if this were so, there was no firm foundation anywhere, and all aesthetic judgments were reduced to a matter of taste, — which was of course a very unwelcome conclusion. In the belief that he had found the missing link he planned, ' An oft-repeated assertion to the contrary, which goes back to Karo- line von Wolzogen, "Schillers Leben ", Achter Abschnitt, is contra- dicted by a letter of Schiller to Goethe, written May 5, 1797. '^ They are reprinted in SSmmtliche Schriften, X, 41 ff. Kant's Aesthetics 269 toward the end of 1792, a treatise to be known as ' Kallias, or Concerning Beauty '. It was to take the form of a dialogue, to be written in a pleasing style, with a plenty of illustration, ^merits to which Kant could lay no claim, — and to review the whole history of aesthetic theorizing. This plan was finally given up, but a series of rather abstruse letters to Korner, beginning in January, I793i may be regarded as preparatory studies for the con- templated treatise. Schiller's idea was, evidently, to blaze a private trail through the jungle of Kantian theory, with Korner 's critical assistance, and then to return and convert the trail into an agreeable road for the general reader. In the end he chose a different form than that of the Socratic dialogue for the literary presentation of his doctrine, but what he wrote subse- quently was based partly at least upon conclusions that he had reached through his correspondence with Korner; wherefore it will be well to look a little more closely, at this point, into his quarrel with the Konigs- berg philosophy. As is well known, Kant placed the aesthetic faculty under the jurisdiction of the 'judgment', which he regarded as a sort of connecting link between the pure reason and the practical reason, that is, between cog- nition and volition. A judgment is teleologic, accord- ing to his scheme, if it implies a pre-existing notion to which the object is expected to conform ; it is aesthetic when pleasure or pain is produced directly by the object itself. In the good and the agreeable we have an interest, — we will the former and desire the latter. The beautiful, on the other hand, is that which pleases 2 70 Aesthetic Writings without appealing to any interest {interesseloses Wohl- gef alien). This is its character under the category of quality. Under that of quantity it is a universal pleasure; under that of relation, a form of adaptation {Zweckmdszigkeif), with no end present to the mind. Finally, under the fourth category — modality — it is 'necessary', being determined not by any objective criterion, but by the sensus communis of mankind, that is, their agreement in taste. For Kant, then, the whole matter of aesthetics is a subjective matter. He does not inquire what it is that makes objects beautiful, but how it is that we 'judge ' them to be beautiful. While his predecessors made the impression of the beautiful to depend upon objective attributes of form, proportion, harmony, completeness and the like, he insisted thatthe^ssence of beauty was to please without reference_to_any such intellectual concept whatever. His terminology was not very happy, since a judgment that has nothing to do with the intellect is not a judgment at all, but a feeling; nevertheless his system brought out clearly, — and this is perhaps his most important merit in the domain of aesthetics, — the necessity of distinguishing more sharply between the beautiful, on the' one hand, and the good and agreea,ble, on the other. But in expounding his central doctrine, that beauty canngt depend upon a mental concept, he is not quite consistent; for he recognizes ' adaptation ' as a form of beauty, and adaptation is a concept of the mind. To meet this difficulty he makes a distinction between free beauty (ypulchritudo vagd) and adherent beauty {pulchritudo adkcerens), the latter being mixed up with the good or Schiller's Divergence from Kant 271 the desirable. Even a generic or a normative concept was for him fatal to the idea of pure beauty. Thus pure beauty could not be affirmed of a horse, because one inevitably has in his mind an antecedent notion as to how a horse ought to look. Again, there could be no such thing as pure beauty, — at the best only adherent beauty, — in a moral action, since a moral action does not please in and of itself. At the same time Kant held that the highest use of beauty is to symbolize moral truth, and in illustrating the possi- bilities of this symbolism he indulged in some rather fanciful speculations. Now we can easily understand that Schiller, not- withstanding all his admiration of Kant and his prompt recognition of the far-reaching importance of Kant's doctrine, could not be perfectly satisfied with a philos- ophy which decreed that an arabesque is more beauti- ful than any woman, and that morality cannot be beautiful at all, except in some mystical poetic sense. Nor could he be content with Kant's sensus communis cBStheticus , which seemed to leave the beautiful finally a matter of taste. His mental attitude is clearly brought to view in a letter of February 9, 1793, to the Prince of Augustenburg. After speaking warmly of Kant's great service to philosophy, he describes thus the problem which Kant regarded as impossible of solution and which he himself, Schiller, was bold enough to attempt : When I consider how closely our feeling for the beautiful and the great is connected with the noblest part of our being, it is impossible for me to regard this feeling as a mere subjective play of the emotional faculty, capable of none but empirical 272 Aesthetic Writings rules. It seems to me that beauty too, as well as truth and right, must rest upon eternal foundations, and that the original laws of the reason must also be the laws of taste. It is true that the circumstance of our feeling beauty and not cognizing it seems to cut off all hope of our finding a universal law for it, because every judgment emanating from this source is a judg- ment of experience. As a rule people accept an explanation of beauty only because it harmonizes in particular cases with the verdict of feeling ; whereas, if there were really such a thing as the cognition of beauty from principles, we should trust the verdict of feeling because it coincides with our explanation of the beautiful. Instead of testing and correcting our feelings by means of principles, we test assthetic principles by our feelings. So then Schiller attacked his problem in the afore- mentioned letters to Korner and was soon able to announce his solution: Beauty is nothing else than freedom-in-the-appearance {Freiheit in der Erschei- nung) . To make clear the steps by which he arrived at that formula and the wealth of meaning that it containe 1 for him would require a fuller analysis of his argument than there is space for in this chapter. Sufifice it tn say that he now fully accepts the dogma of Kant that beauty cannot depend upon a mental concept, — the feeling of pleasure is the prior fact. At the same time he has an unshakable conviction that beauty must somehow fall under the laws of reason. He gets rid of the crux by taking the aesthetic faculty away from the jurisdiction of Kant's rather mysterious 'judgment ', and turning it over to the 'practical reason'. His argument is that the practical reason demands free- dom, just as the ' pure ' or theoretic reason demands rationality. Freedom is the form which the practical Theory of Beauty 273 reason instinctively applies upon presentation of an object. It is satisfied when, and only when, the object is free, autonomous, self-determined. He then pro- . pounds his theory that beauty is simply an analogon of moral freedom. On the presentation of an object the practical reason {i.e., the will) may banish for the time being all concepts of the pure reason, may assume complete control and ask no other question than whether the object is free, self-determined, autonomous. If, then, the object appears to be free, to follow no law but its own, the practical reason is satisfied; the effect is pleasurable and we call it beauty. Schiller is care- ful to point out that it is all a question of appearance: the object is not really free, — since freedom abides only in the supersensual world, — but the practical reason imputes or lends freedom to it. Hence beauty is free- dom in the appearance. In a letter of February 23, 1793, he applies his dogma to an exposition of the relation between nature and art. The problem of the artist in the representa- tion of an object, so the theory runs, is to convey a suggestion of freedom, that is, of not-being-determined- from-without. This he can only do by making the object appear to be determined from within, in other words, to follow its own law. It must have a law and obey it, while seeming to be free. The law of the object is what is disclosed by technique, which is thus the basis of our impression of freedom. Starting from Kant's saying that nature is beautiful when it looks like art, and art beautiful when it looks like nature, Schiller gives a large number of concrete illustrations of his theory. Thus a vase is beautiful when, without preju- 2 74 Aesthetic Writings dice to the vase-idea, it looks like a free play of nature. A birch is beautiful when it is tall and slender, an oak when it is crooked ; the shape in either case expressing the nature of the tree when it follows nature's law. ' Therefore ', he concludes his illustrations, ' the empire of taste is the empire of freedom ; the beautiful world of sense being the happiest symbol of what the moral world should be, and every beautiful object about me being a happy citizen who calls out: Be free like me.' It did not escape our theorist that his hard-won criterion of beauty was after all, apparently, an idea of the reason. He was however prepared to meet this difficulty and promised to do so in a future letter. But the aesthetic correspondence with Korner was not con- tinued beyond February. The project of the ' Kallias ' continued for some time longer to occupy Schiller's mind, but a fresh attack of illness intervened, and when he was again able to work he turned his mind to an essay upon ' Winsomeness and Dignity ' (Anmut und Wilrde). It was written in May and June, 1793, and printed soon afterwards in the New TJialia. In this essay we can observe a growing independence of thought and an amazing gift for the analysis of subtle impressions. In the main it is lucid enough, especially when one calls in the aid of the preceding letters to Korner; but portions are hard reading. To give the gist of it in a few words is next to impossible, because it is so largely taken up with superfine distinctions in the meaning of words for which our language has at best but rough equivalents. It will be recalled that Kant had denied pure beauty to the human form, on the ground that the human form Essay on Winsomeness and Dignity 275 expresses the moral dignity of human nature, which is an idea of the reason. Schiller was piqued by this dictum to test his theory of beauty on the human form. He begins, in a manner fitted to make old Homer smile, with a rationalizing account of the girdle of Venus, — the girdle which Venus lends to Juno when the latter wishes to excite the amorous desire of Jove. Venus, we are told, is pure beauty as it comes from the hand of nature. Her girdle makes her ' winsome '. So winsomeness is something distinct from beauty; something transferable, movable. It is then further defined as beauty of motion; as the special prerogative of man; as the element of beauty which is not given by nature but is produced by the object. The essay then goes on to make a distinction between architec- tonic and technical beauty. The former is defined as a beautiful presentation of the aims of nature, the latter as referring to the aims themselves. The aesthetic faculty is concerned with architechtonic beauty. In contemplation of an object it isolates the appearance and is affected by that alone, irrespective of any ideas of purpose or adaptation. At the same time the reason imputes freedom to the object, and when the object is a human form, this imputed freedom, whereby the object seems to assert its own autonomous per- sonality, this which is superadded to the beauty that nature creates by the law-governed adaptation of means to' ends, is winsomeness. — All of which seems to mean substantially this : That while Pygmalion's statue was still ivory it was beautiful; but when it became a woman with winsome ways she was winsome. Having demonstrated to his satisfaction that beauty 2 76 Aesthetic Writings is really compounded of two elements, first the sensuous pleasure caused by the play of personality, and secondly the rational gratification caused by the idea of adapta- tion to an end, Schiller takes up the questions of moral beauty and of the ideal of character. He deprecates Kant's strenuous insistence upon the categorical im- perative of duty. A man, he urges, must be free; and the slavery of duty is no better than any other slavery. Virtue is inclination to duty, and the ideal is to be found in the perfect equipoise of the sensuous and the rational nature; in other words, when ' thou shalt ' and ' I would ' pull steadily and harmoniously in the same direction. So he defines 'dignity' (Wiirde) as the expression of a lofty mind, just as winsomeness is the expression of a beautiful soul. Control of impulses by moral strength is intellectual freedom, and dignity is the visible expression of this freedom. Dignity is manifested rather in suffering {irados), winsomeness in behavior (JjQoi). Each acts as a check upon the other. We demand that virtue be winsome and that inclination be dignified, and where winsomeness and dignity are present in harmonious equipoise in the same person, there the expression of humanity is complete. In the essay just spoken of reference is made more than once to a contemplated ' Analytic of the Beauti- ful ', which was to clear up this and that. Instead of attempting a treatise, however, Schiller chose to go on settling his account with Kant through the medium of contributions to the New Thalia. Those published immediately (1793-4) were the essay 'On the Sub- lime', which included a special chapter 'On the Pathetic ' ; and ' Scattered Reflections on Various Essay on the Sublime 277 ^Esthetic Subjects ' . Two other papers of kindred import, dating from this period, were ;iot published until 1 80 1. These were: 'On the Artistic Use of the Vulgar and the Low', and a second disquisition 'On the Sublime '. Following Kant Schiller defines the sublime as the impression produced by an object which excites in man's sensuous nature a feeling of weakness and de- pendence, and at the same time in his rational nature a feeling of freedom and superiority. He objects, however, to the Kantian nomenclature. For the two kinds of sublime which Kant called the mathematical and the dynamic, he proposes the names of the theo- retical and the practical ; meaning by the former that which tends to overawe the mind, by the latter that which tends to overawe the feeling. Then follows a long and juiceless Begriffszergliederung, which may be passed over as containing little that is of impor- tance for the understanding of Schiller's individuality. At last he comes to the subject of tragic pathos, as the most important phase of the practical-sublime. Here he lays down the dogma that the final aim of art is the representation of the supersensuous. The....essenc; ff, of tragic pathos is declared to be„.^,^g^ r epresentat ion W "Tnoral superiority under the stress of suffering. The I'iSvd's sufienngs "musF seem to be real that Ae may obtain due credit for his moral triumph. In connection with this thought Schiller takes occasion to deride the genteel sufferers of the French classic tragedy and to commend the Greeks for their fidelity to nature. At the same time he utters his word of warning to those poets who think to gain their end merely by the 278 Aesthetic Writings spectacle of great suffering. The sensuous, he insists, has in itself no aesthetic value; it is the moral resist- ance that counts, and the suffering is needed only to show that there really was something to resist. The latter part of the essay is directed against those who would try the creations of the poet by the standards of the moral judgment. It is argued that the moral and the aesthetic spheres of interest are separate and dis- tinct. The poet is concerned with the latter. What he needs for his purpose is the manifestation of strength; whether the strength is put forth to a good or an evil purpose is, in itself, a matter of indifference. The poet cannot serve two masters. In all these discussions of the sublime and the pathetic, et cetera, Schiller exhibits a pathetically sublime faith in the possibility of settling the questions at issue by the analytic method. He writes as if the human mind were composed of air-tight compartments, wherein the various operations of reason, understand- ing, taste, feeling and what not, are carried on under immutable laws growing out of the nature of man. His philosophy is also dualistic. He regards ' man ' as consisting of two parts joined like the Siamese twins. The one part, sensuous man, which is like unto the animals, is a part of ' nature ' ; the other part, the rational man, which is dowered with the birth-right of ' freedom ', is outside of nature and above it. The untenableness of this conception has become since Schiller's time increasingly evident. Moreover, we have learned to look upon all things under the aspect of development and to know that man's reason, like the rest of him, is very much the creature of time and Letters to the Duke of Augustenburg 279 place. This being so, one finds it difficult, nowadays, to read the philosophic lucubrations of Schiller with that patience which their well-meant seriousness really deserves. Indeed he himself seems to have felt all along that there was some danger of his being carried too far away into the region of barren speculation ; wherefore it was necessary, as he thought, not only to present his ideas in a popular form, but also to prove their relevancy to the practical concerns of human life. It was with this thought in mind that he finally began, instead of the ' KaUias ', a series of letters to his benefactor, the Prince of Augustenburg. In a long letter of July 13, 1793, he explained his point of view. The political dream of the century, he declared, that is, the dream of recreating society upon a foundation of pure reason, had come to naught. ' Man ' had shown himself unfit for freedom. His chains removed, he stood revealed as a barbarian and a slave, — the slave of unruly passion. And this notwithstanding all that the century had done for the enlightenment of his mind ! Evidently the need of the hour and of the future was not so much enlightenment of the mind as disci- pline of the feelings. In a number of subsequent letters, admirable in style and spirit, Schiller set forth his theory of aesthetic education and his vision of the great good to be accomplished by it in the redemption of mankind from the dominion of the grosser passions. Objections were duly considered, especially the dis- couraging fact that, historically, aesthetic refinement has too often coincided with supineness of character and moral degeneracy. This consideration made it an 28o Aesthetic Writings important part of the problem to show how the dangers of aesthetic culture could best be counteracted. The letters to the Danish prince formed the basis of the 'Letters on Esthetic Education', which were published in 1795 in the Hore7i, and constitute the ripest and most pleasing expression of Schiller's aesthetic philosophy. In the first ten of the ' Letters ' he discusses the spirit of the age, for the purpose of showing that some sort of educational process is needed in order to fit mankind for the high calling of the freeman. The problem is to transform the state-ruled- by-force into a state-ruled-by-reason. To this end man must learn to resist and subdue the two inveterate enemies of his nobility, namely, the tyranny of sense which leads to savagery, and the inertness of mind which leads to barbarism. Schiller defines the savage as a man whose feelings control his principles, the barbarian as a man whose principles destroy his feel- ings. At present, he declares, the mass of men still oscillate between savagery and barbarism, but the man comtne il faut must establish and preserve a perfect equipoise between his sensuous and his rational nature. Whither shall he look for help .■' The state cannot aid him, for it treats him as if he had no reason ; nor can philosophy save him through the mere cultivation of the reason, for it treats him as if he had no feelings. His only redeemer is the aesthetic sense, the love of beauty. The ' Letters ' then take up the desperate task of showing how the aesthetic sense can do this wonderful work. Descending to the lowest nadir of abstraction, — Schiller calls it rising to the highest heights, — he Letters on Aesthetic Education 281 brings up two ultimate instincts or bents of mankind, to which he gives the appalling names of the ' thing- bent ' and the ' form-bent ' (Sachtrieb and Formtrieb). The former impels to a change of status, the latter to the preservation of personality. The one is satisfied with what is mutable and finite, the other demands the immutable and the rational. To harmonize these two instincts, to take care that neither gets the better of the other or invades the other's territory, is the problem of 'culture. For a driver of the ill-matched team Schiller calls in the Spieltrieb, or play-bent, which is only a new name for the aesthetic faculty. His idea is that in the moment of aesthetic contemplation the sensuous and the rational instinct both find their account. In the act of escaping from the serious pull of thought and feeling to a mental state which satisfies both without succumbing completely to either, he finds an analogy to the act of playing. At the same time he is careful to point out that this kind of play is different from the sports of common life. As he uses the word, it means surrender to the illusion of art. Play is thus the symbol of the highest self-realization. Only in playing is man completely man. The last ten letters are devoted to what Schiller, following Kant, calls ' melting beauty ' {schmelzende Schbnheit), which is opposed to 'energizing beauty' [energische Schonheii) . The former is the natural cor- rective to the emotional excess which leads to savagery, while the latter (the sublime, the stirring,) is the anti- dote to the mental inertness which leads to barbarism. It is admitted that the aesthetic state is perfectly neutral so far as concerns the influencing of the will . A good 282 Aesthetic Writings work of art should leave us in a state of lofty serenity and freedom of mind. If we find ourselves influenced to a particular course of action, that is a sure sign that the art was bad. Nevertheless, — and here lies the kernel of the whole discussion, so far as it bears upon education, — the zesthetic state is a necessary stage in the restoration of imperilled freedom. It is valuable morally simply because it is neutral ground. When a man is under the too exclusive domination of either principles or feelings, he is in danger of becoming a slave, and needs to be pulled back to the neutral belt of freedom, in order that he may start afresh. ' In a word ', says Schiller, ' there is no other way of making the sensuous man rational except by first making him aesthetic' Finally the ' Letters ' take up the evolution of man from the state of savagery and attempt to show argumentatively and in detail how his progress has been determined by the development of his aesthetic sense. Such are the ' Letters on .^Esthetic Education ', which Schiller regarded, in the year 1795, as a tract for the times. Years agone he had made Karl Moor talk of poisoning the ocean ; now he himself was think- ing to sweeten a poisoned ocean with a bottle of aesthetic syrup. We see that the gist of the whole matter is simply this : That sanity and refinement are pressing needs ; that good art makes for these things and in so doing makes indirectly for progress in right living and right thinking. This looks like a painfully small result to have been reached by such long and laborious logic-chopping; so that one is reminded of Carlyle's cynical observation that the end and aim of the Some Minor Papers 283 Kantian philosophy ' ' seem not to make abstruse things simple, but to make simple things abstruse". It is to be remarked, however, Ihat the real value of the ' Letters ' is not to be found in the logic-chopping, for which their author apologizes again and again; not in the " dreadful array of first principles, the forest huge of terminology and definitions, where the panting in- tellect of weaker men wanders as in pathless thickets and at length sinks powerless to the earth, oppressed with fatigue and suffocated with scholastic miasma"/ — but in the incidental flashes of luminous and sugges- tive comment. Having himself conquered the Kantian dialect and learned to write it, Schiller had little patience with those who supposed that philosophic truth could and should be set forth in the easy manner of a fireside yarn. It was to free his mind on this subject that he published, in one of the early numbers of the Horen, an essay ' On the Necessary Limits of the Beautiful '. Here the burden of his thought is that the philosopher, aiming at truth, must not yield to the seduction of trying to write beautifully. His concern is with fact and logic; imagination and feeling have no place in his domain. The lure of beauty may relax the mind and endanger truth, just as it may relax the will and endanger morality. This last thought contained the germ of his further essays, ' On the Dangers of .(Esthetic Culture ' and ' On the Moral Benefit of Esthetic Cul- ture '. These, however, are only an amplification of ideas contained in the ' Letters ' . There remain for consideration, to complete our 'Carlyle's " Life of Schiller'', page 137 (edition of 1845). 284 Aesthetic Writings survey of Schiller's philosophical writings, his short essay on Matthison's poems and his long disquisition upon ' Naive and Sentimental Poetry ' . In the review he discusses the subject of landscape poetry, thus touch- ing upon a question that had occupied Lessing in the ' Laokoon '. But instead of arguing like Lessing that detailed description of objects is necessarily out of place in poetry, Schiller defends it as capable in a high degree of giving pleasure. The poetic effectiveness of a description he finds to consist, first, in the truth- fulness of the description; secondly, in its power, analogous to that of music, to excite vague emotion; and finally, in its power to awaken ideas by the law of association. He distinguishes between ' true ' nature and ' actual ' nature. We arrive at true nature when we take away from actual nature whatever is acci- dental, peculiar or unnecessary. This process is pre- cisely what is described in one of the ' Kallias ' letters as ' idealization '. To idealize an object is, then, in Schiller's vocabu- lary, not to beautify it, or to make it in any way other than it is, but to portray the ' idea ' of it, that is, its essential truth, apart from all that is accidental or in- dividual. He lays down the general rule that poetry is only concerned with true (or ideal) nature in this sense ; never with actual (or historical) nature. ' Every individual man ', he declares, ' is fcy just so much less a man as he is an individual ; every mode of feeling is by just so much less necessary and purely human as it is peculiar to a particular person. The grand style consists in the rejection of all that is accidental and the pure expression of the necessary. ' Naive and Sentimental Poetry 285 Of the essay upon ' Naive and Sentimental Poetry ', contributed to the Horen in 1795, the first part is devoted to the ' Naive ', which is defined as nature in felt contrast with art. To be naive an action must not only be natural but must put us to shame by sug- gesting a contrast with our own sophisticated standards. From this it follows that our pleasure in the naive, being connected with an idea of the reason, is not purely aesthetic, but partly moral. The naivete of children appeals to us because they are what we were and what we should again become. They represent an ideal, a theophany. Though we may look down upon the childish, we can only look up to the child- like. A naive action always implies a triumph of nature over art : if it is unintentional (naive of surprise) we are amused; if deliberate (naive of character) we are touched. Genius is always naive. Both in its works and in social intercourse, it manifests the sim- plicity and directness of nature. It is modest because nature is modest; but cares nothing for decency, for decency is the offspring of corruption. It is sensible, but not shrewd. It expresses its loftiest and deepest thoughts with naive grace : they are divine oracles from the mouth of a child. These thoughts duly expounded, the essay goes on to consider the modern man's feeling for nature. This results, according to Schiller, from our imputing naivete to the non-rational world. We are conscious of having wandered away from the state of innocence, happiness and perfection. ' Nature ' represents this state to our imaginations; it is the voice of the mother calling us back home, or whispering to us of boundless 286 Aesthetic Writings happiness and perfection. Poetry which expresses this boundless longing for the ideal is ' sentimental ', while that which reflects nature herself, in some definite part or phase, is ' na'ive '. The naive poet w nature; the sentimental poet seeks a lost nature. The Greeks are prevailingly naive, the moderns prevailingly sentimen- tal, but neither in any exclusive sense. The words are to be understood as expressing only a mode of feeling. The same poet, the same poem, may be naive at one moment and sentimental at another. All sentimental poetry, then, is concerned with the dis- parity or contrast between reality and the ideal. If the poet is mainly interested in the real, we have, in the broad sense, satire, which may be pathetic or humorous. If he dwells more upon the ideal, we have elegiac poetry—elegiac in the narrower sense, if the ideal is conceived as a distant object of longing, idyllic if it is portrayed as a present reality. The second part of the essay is devoted to a review of the sentimental poets of modern Germany. In the third part the naive and sentimental poets are contrasted. The former, Schiller contends, is con- cerned with the definite, the latter with the infinite. From the realist we turn easily and with pleasure to actual life ; the idealist puts us for the moment out of humor with it. The one follows the laws of nature, the other those of reason. The one asks what a thing is good for, the other whether it is good. Withal, however, Schiller is careful to insist that even the naive poet, the realist, is properly concerned only with true nature, and not with actual nature. Everything that is, — for example, a violent outbreak of passion, — is Naive and Sentimental Poetry 287 actual nature ; but this is not true human nature, because that implies free self-determination. True human nature can never be anything but noble. ' What dis- gusting absurdities ', exclaims Schiller, — and the words might well be taken to heart by some of our modern naturalists — ' have resulted both in criticism and in practice from this confusion of true with actual nature ! What trivialities are permitted, yea even praised, because unfortunately they are actual nature ! ' It is a part of Schiller's theory that the true realist and the sane idealist must finally come together on common ground. CHAPTER XIV Zbe ©reat Duumvirate Nun kann ich aber hoffen, dasz wir, so viel von dem Wege noch iibrig sein mag, in Gemeinschaft durchwandeln werden, und mit um so groszerem Gewinn, da die letzten Gefahrten auf einer langen Reise sich immer am meisten zu sagen haben. Letter of i'jg4. The coupled names of Goethe and Schiller denote a literary epoch as well as a peculiarly inspiring per- sonal friendship. What a vista opens before the mind's eye when one thinks of all the influence that went out from them into the wide world during the nineteenth century! The visitor to Weimar who goes to look at Rietschel's famous statue in front of the theater has a sensation like that of standing at the source of a mighty river. Of course the men and their time have been greatly idealized ; like the sculptor, the imagination of posterity has lifted them above the level of the earth, joined their hands and given them the pose of far- seeing literary heroes. We think of each as increased by the whole strength of the other. As Herman Grimm puts it algebraically, the formula is not G -J- S, but G(-f S) + S(+ G).i And all this hits an essential truth, albeit the stu- dent of the documents — the letters and journals of the ' "Goethe", einundzwanzigste Vorlesung. 288 Goethe and Schiller 289 duumvirs, and of their friends and enemies — has great difficulty at times to imagine himself in an atmosphere of heroism. No nation, no public life of any account; a complete lack of interest, apparently, in taany matters that now bulk very large in the minds of men ; a small theater, equal to none but very modest demands; a few engravings and plaster-casts and paintings — many of them very poor — to serve as a basis for theories of art; a little optical apparatus, a few minerals and plants and bones, to aid in the advance- ment of science; everything material on a small scale, — this was Weimar a hundred years ago. Truly a restricted outlook upon this spacious world as it appears to us to-day! And then the duumvirs had their struggle with the infinitely little, and they fussed over this and that. This is especially true of Goethe. His journals produce upon the reader now and then not so much an impres- sion of glorious many-sidedness as of precious time wasted in futile puttering. But who shall dare to say that it was so in reality ? The genius of life tells every great man what he can do, and it is for posterity to accept him and understand him as he was, without complaint and without sophistication. What Goethe and Schiller did in the midst of all their other doings, was to set their stamp upon the culture of their time; to create a new ideal of letters and of life, and to enrich their country's literature with a number of masterpieces which have since furnished ' food and inspiration to countless rrvyriads. This is quite enough to justify a perennial curiosity concerning the details of their alliance. 290 The Great Duumvirate For six years the two men, though living as neigh- bors with many friends and many interests in common, had steadily held each other aloof. That they did so was Goethe's fault, at least in the beginning. We may be very sure that a friendly advance from him would have melted Schiller's animosity as the sun melts April snow. But he did not say the word. He looked upon Schiller as the spokesman of a new and perverse generation that knew not Joseph; and so he went his own way, serenely indifferent to the per- sonality of the man whose talent he had recognized by helping him to a Jena professorship. He paid some attention, it is true, to Schiller's philosophic writings, but what he read did not altogether please him. When the essay upon ' Winsomeness and Dignity ' came out, it seemed to him that Schiller, in his enthusiasm for freedom and self-determination, was inclined to lord it all too proudly over mother Nature. Goethe was no less interested in ' ideas ' than Schiller, but he had not the same fondness for abstract reasoning from mental premises. His starting-point was always the external fact, and he regarded ideas as possessing a sort of objective reality. His homage was paid to nature and the five senses; Schiller's to the deductive reason. Nevertheless, the whole trend of Schiller's aesthetic speculations brought him steadily nearer to Goethe's way of thinking. His intense Hellenism ; his insistence upon the immense importance of art as an element of culture; his fervid championship of art for art's sake; his practical identification of the ideal with the typical; his doctrine of genius in its relation to abstract dogma, I and above all his great earnestness, as of one striving Beginning of Intimacy 291 with all his powers towards the better light, — this and much more could not fail to meet Goethe's approval. And then came the great project of the Horen, which ! was to unite all the best writers of Germany in a cohimon effort for the advancement of letters and the elevation of the public taste. This was an opportunity not to be despised, for Goethe was at last beginning to be weary of his isolation at Weimar. Although at heart very desirous of exerting a large influence, he had well-nigh lost touch with the literary public. For four years he had done nothing worthy of his great name. People took little interest in his scientific studies, his ' Grosz-Cophta ', and his ' Citizen-Gen- eral '. He felt the need of rehabilitating himself So when he received Schiller's polite invitation anent the Horen, he accepted with alacrity; declaring himself ready not only to contribute, but to serve on the editorial committee. And a few days later, — it was on June 28, 1794, before he had seen Schiller or ex- changed further letters with him, — he wrote to Charlotte von Kalb that ' since the new epoch Schiller too was becoming more friendly and trustful towards us Weimarians ' ; whereat he rejoiced, ' hoping for much good from intercourse with him '. So we see that, as the matter then lay in Goethe's mind, it was Schiller who was the distant and distrustful party. Thus the way was all prepared for the ' Happy Event', as Goethe called it in an oft-quoted bit of reminiscence published many years later. It chanced that he and Schiller were both present at a meeting of naturalists in Jena. As they left the room together Schiller Jet f^ll a remark to the effect that such piece-. 292 The Great Duumvirate meal treatment of nature as they had been listening to was dull business for the layman. Goethe replied that there were experts who could not approve it either. Then he proceeded to explain his own views. They reached Schiller's house in earnest conversation, and Goethe went in to continue his demonstration with the aid of a drawing — probably of a typical plant. Schiller listened with seeming comprehension and then shook his head, saying: ' But that is not an experience; that is an idea. ' Goethe was disappointed, perplexed. All his labor had gone for naught, and the awful chasm was still yawning. He replied that he was glad if he had ideas without knowing it and could actually see them with his eyes. Schiller defended himself suavely as a good Kantian, and the men separated, each in a docile mood with respect to the other. Herman Grimm will have it that Schiller now en- tered upon a crafty campaign for the conquest of Goethe; and really the facts give some color to such a view, albeit, as we have seen, the battle was more than half won before a shot was fired. Schiller had his magazine very much at heart, and besides that he had always been a very sincere and ungrudging admirer of Goethe's poetic genius. Very likely he looked upon him as a weakling in philosophy. To talk of seeing ideas with the bodily eye ! Evidently there was no profit in bombarding such a man with syllogisms. But it might be useful to show that one understood him. So Schiller sat him down and wrote out, in the form of a letter, a little essay upon Goethe's individuality, attributing to him a wonderful intuition whereby he saw in advance all that philosophy could prove ; Schiller on Goethe's Genius 293 Minds of your sort seldom know how far they have advanced, and how little reason they have to borrow from philosophy, which can only learn from them. . . . For a long time, though at a considerable distance, I have been watching the course of your mind and noticing with ever-renewed admiration the way that you have marked out for yourself You seek the necessary in nature, but by the very hardest path, — a path which weaker minds would take good care not to attempt. You take all nature together, in order to get light upon the particular. In the totality of her manifestations you hope to find the rationale of the individual. . . . Had you been born a Greek or even an Italian, and thus surrounded from infancy with exquisite scenery and idealizing art, your way would have been infinitely short- ened, perhaps rendered unnecessary. ... As it was, having been born a German, you had to refashion the old inferior nature that was thrust upon your imagination, after the better pattern which your imagination had created ; and this could only be done by means of leading principles. But this logical direction which the reflecting mind is compelled to take does not tally well with the aesthetic direction of the creating mind. So you had another task ; just as you passed previously from intuition to abstraction, you had now to convert concepts back into intui- tions, and thoughts into feelings ; for only through these can genius create. For Goethe, whose nature really craved friendship hardly less than Schiller's, there was something very grateful in this frank homage combined with rare perspicacity. He saw that Schiller understood him or was at least concerned to understand him. With all their differences they were spiritual congeners, and much might be hoped for from this new connection. So he sent a very cordial reply to the man who had thus ' with friendly hand struck the balance of his existence ' ; averring that he too dated a new epoch from their meeting in Jena; expressing the hope that 294 The Great Duumvirate they might soon find opportunity for a further inter- change of views and that, having mutually cleared up their past course of thinking, they might proceed on their way together. A few weeks later Schiller spent two weeks as Goethe's guest in Weimar, where long discussions, spun out on one occasion from noon to midnight, begot a perfect understanding and laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship. It was a friendship based upon mutual respect and mutual need, full of high advantage on both sides and cherished loyally to the end. Between then and now many and many a writer has compared Goethe with Schiller and undertaken to reckon up the balance of their respective merit. The , task is not easy, even though the world is now well agreed that Goethe's was the rarer genius. No doubt he, much more than Schiller, was destined to be a bringer of light to the coming century; but the immense prestige of his name is due partly to the happy fate that gave him a long life and invested his old age with the glamour of literary kingship. If we compare the actual production of the two men during the eleven years of their association, it is not at all clear that the palm should be given to Goethe. The five plays of Schiller, with the ' Song of the Bell ', and the best of his shorter poems, will bear comparison very well, in the aggre- gate, with ' Wilhelm Meister ', 'Hermann and Doro- thea ', the ' Natural Daughter ' and those portions of ' Faust ' which were written at this time. Unques- tionably Goethe at his best was a far greater poet than Schiller ; but he was less steadily at his best, and his artistic conscience was more lax than Schiller's. He Comparison of Goethe and Schifler 295 envisaged life more largely and more truly, and he wrote with his eye upon the object. His nature inclined to placid contemplation; he was no orator, though something of a preacher. He did not care so much j to stir the depths of feeling as to inform and liberalize, t In his imagir\ative work he let himself go niit holdem Irren and preferred to avoid artificial surprises andl stagy contrasts. Wherefore his work is the more illuminative, the more suggestive, — he is the poet of ! the literary class. Schiller, on the other hand, was - an orator who never lost sight of the effect he wished j to produce. He worked more intensely, more V methodically, and was less dependent upon mood. ' He is thus the poet of those who care less for delicacy of workmanship than for sonorous diction, elevated sentiment and telling effects. There is room in the , world for both kinds of endowment. It is quite probable that Goethe and Schiller would sooner or later have come together in a friendly rela- tion even if the Horen had never been thought of; and in that case their friendship would have lacked the militant tinge that it presently took on. It was the magazine that leagued them together as allies against the forces of Philistia and made Thuringia the storm- center of a new literary movement. But for this it would probably never have occurred to any one to dub them ' the Dioscuri ' . Prior to the appearance of the first number, in January, 1795, the new journal had been well adver- tised. Cotta was prepared to spend money on it freely; the contributors were to be handsomely paid, and twenty-five of the best known writers in Germany 296 The Great Duumvirate had promised their cooperation. There was every reason to hope for a dashing success; and to make assurance doubly sure Schiller arranged for ' cooked ' reviews of the Horen to be paid for by its publisher. But when the time came to launch his enterprise the hopeful editor found himself left very • much in the lurch. ' Lord help me, or I perish,' he wrote ruefully to Korner, on December 29; 'Goethe does not wish to print his ' Elegies ' in the first number, Herder also prefers to wait, Fichte is busy with his lectures, Garve is sick, Engel lazy and the others do not answer. ' And so it came about that the first number of the Horen was largely made up of rather abstruse reading. Schiller did not fully realize that the philosophy on which he had been feeding with satisfaction for three years was not a palatable diet for the general literary public. He regarded his own ' Letters on Esthetic Education ' as a model of lucid popular exposition, — as indeed they are in comparison with Kant. But the number was further freighted with a deep-diving article by Fichte, while Goethe's poetic 'Epistle' in hexam- eters, and the beginning of his ' Conversations of German Emigres ', though in a lighter vein, were not of thrilling interest to seekers after entertainment. The public, which had expected something different, was disappointed; and when succeeding numbers brought further brain-racking profundities, there was a large ebullition of disgust. Gotta began to write of complaints and cancelled subscriptions; and ere long it looked as if the Horen would prove a big fiasco. Schiller, who should have been inured by this time to the consequences of editorial misjudgment, was dis- Fortunes of the Horen i^l gruntled, vexed. He began to feel that the German public was an indolent, long-eared beast that needed the education of the scourge rather than of aesthetic letters. He made some effort, it is true, to enliven his columns with more entertaining matter, but the abstruse, in prose and verse, continued to preponderate. By autumn he was minded to give up the whole under- taking, but was persuaded by Cotta to go on. Mean- while he had begun to grow weary of theorizing and to feel the homesickness of the poet. ' Wilhelm Meister ', as it began to issue from the press, excited his unbounded enthusiasm. 'I cannot tell you', he wrote to his new friend, I cannot tell you how painful it is to me oftentimes to turn from a work of this character to philosophy. There everything is so bright, so living, so harmonious and humanly true ; here everything is so strict, so rigid, so very unnatural. . . . This much is certain : the poet is the only true human being, and the best philosopher is only a caricature beside him. So, in the summer of 1795, he began once more to poetize, — ' not venturing out upon the high sea of in- vention ' , as he expressed it, ' but keeping close to the shore of philosophy '. In other words he wrote a number of philosophic poems, partly for the Horen and partly for the new poetic ' Almanac ' that he had undertaken to edit, in addition to the Horen. This return to poetry was a joy to him, notwithstanding the ill health which confined him to the house and cut him off from the exhilarations of the external world. It must never be forgotten that those philosophic poems are the effusions of a lonely thinker who was compelled to draw his inspiration from within, and was not 298 The Great Duumvirate entirely unaware of the fetters he had forged for him- self by his long addiction to philosophy. There was, however, one more subject, of literary as well as philosophic interest, which he was minded to treat before turning his back finally upon the arid wastes of theory, — the subject of realism versus idealism, or, as he decided to phrase it, of naive and sentimental poetry. This essay, published in 1796, was briefly analyzed in the last chapter. It marks the end of Schiller's one-sided glorification of the Greeks. In more than one passage he comes to the rescue of the modern poet — the sentimentalist — as the poet of the infinite, of the ideal. His contention is that while the realist may be the more admirable in a limited sphere, the idealist has a larger sphere, and his perfec- tion is a higher thing. This attempt of Schiller's to describe, in a scientific spirit, the different kinds of artistic endowment, and to do full justice to all, grew naturally out of his intercourse with Goethe. He admired Goethe more and more. The fifth book of ' Meister ' produced in him a ' veritable intoxication ' ; yet its quality was strikingly unlike that of ' Werther ' or ' Iphigenie ', and totally different from anything that he himself had done or could possibly do. Perhaps he may have been further influenced by A. W. Schlegel's sympathetic papers upon Dante, which had been pub- lished in the Horen and which revealed to him a new poetic genius of the highest order, yet not at all Homeric. So he wrote his famous disquisition, — next to Lessing's ' Laokoon ' the most thoughtful and the most influential piecq of criticism produced anywhere in the eighteenth century, — and endeavored to make Goethe on Schiller's Theory 299 it as readable as possible. Goethe, who read the manuscript in November, 1795, wrote of it thus: Since this theory treats me so well, nothing is more natural than that I should approve its principles and that its conclusions should seem to me correct. I should be more distrustful, how- ever, if I had not at first found myself in an attitude of opposi- tion to your views ; for it is not unknown to you that, from an excessive predilection for the ancient poets, I have often been unjust to the modern. According to your doctrine I can now be at one with myself, since I no longer need to contemn that which, under certain conditions, an irresistible impulse com- pelled me to produce ; and it is a very pleasant feeling to be not altogether dissatisfied with one's self and one's contemporaries. Thus the two men were drawn closer together in \ mutual sympathy and appreciation, and found in each other more and more a bulwark against the whips and scorns of hostile criticism. Of such criticism there was no lack. The Horcn was making enemies rapidly and had become, as Schiller put it, a veritable ecclesia militans. One Jakob in Halle made an assault upon Schiller's sesthetic writings. Dull old Nicolai in Berlin complained of the ravages of Kantism in German litera- ture. Pious souls like Stolberg were scandalized by the lubricity of Goethe's 'Elegies' and ' Wilhelm Meister '. The famous philologist, Wolf, pounced violently upon one of Herder's Homeric essays. Schiller had now fallen out with his old friend Goschen, who was a center of contemptuous opposition at Leipzig. And Goethe, too, had his quarrel with the world : he felt absurdly sore over the neglect by scientific men of his optical theories in opposition to Newton. Friendly voices were scarcely heard anywhere. There was little 300 The Great Duumvirate opportunity for indulging that pleasant emotion of ' being satisfied with one's contemporaries '. And so it came to pass that the two friends waxed wroth and determined to strike back. At first they thought of a withering review in the Horen, but this idea was given up in favor of another. Goethe had taken a great fancy to the ancient elegiac meter and for some time past it had been his favorite form of poetic expression. Schiller, originally a hater of the hexameter, had caught the fever from Goethe, and used the elegiac form in a number of poems. In December, 1795, Goethe suggested that they amuse themselves by making epigrams, in the style of Martial's ' Xenia ', upon the various journals against which they had a grudge, devoting a distich to each. His plan was that each should make a large number; then they would compare, select the best and publish them in the second volume of the 'Almanac '. Schiller was cap- tivated by the idea, and ' Xenia ' now became the order of the day. It was soon decided not to restrict them to the offensive journals, but to take a shot wher- ever there was a mark. Both conspirators took great delight in the proposed Teufelei, — it would be such sport to stir up the vermin and hear them buzz. They gave the milder 'Xenia' pet names such as 'jovial brethren ', ' little fellows ', ' teasing youngsters ', while the harsher ones were likened to stinging insects, or to the foxes of Samson : You with the blazing tails, away to Philistia, foxes ! Spoil the flourishing crops, crops of paper and ink. As Goethe was still preoccupied with ' Wilhelm Meister ', it happened at first that Schiller was the more A Militant League Formed 301 active in the production of these 'kitchen presents', especially such as had pepper in them. With the lapse of time Goethe's share increased. The two were fre- quently together, for days or weeks at a time, and the mass of Xenia grew rapidly. They determined to swell the number to a thousand and to give the collec- tion a sort of artistic completeness ; to make it, that is, a sort of general confession of faith. They agreed furthermore that they would publish the epigrams as a joint production and treat their separate authorship as an inviolable secret. As a matter of fact, some of them really were joint productions. One would sug- gest the idea or the title, and the other write the verses ; or one write the hexameter and the other the pentameter. During the first half of 1796 Schiller wrote little else than Xenia. By the arrival of summer the joint output amounted to nearly a thousand, but less than half that number found their way into the famous ' Xenia Almanac ' of 1797. Of these the targets were legion and the merit various. Some few of them were very good, others little short of atrocious, particularly in the matter of form. As for the general mass, their piquancy is not so great as to supen,nduc„e in the reader of to-day a dangerously violent ^a^htnnation. Neither Goethe nor Schiller can be credited with a large vein , of sparkling wit. Some of the Xenia are far-fetched and operose, while others sound rather vacuous. The . form of the monodistich was in itself a safeguard against diffuseness, but not against the equal peril of inanity. It would be impossible here to do more than glance at the personalities involved in this rather inglorious 302 The Great Duumvirate squabble. Many of the Xenia were personal pin- pricks. Thus several were directed against the musi- cian Reichardt, who, as editor of two journals, had shown strong sympathy with the Revolution. Goethe, the courtier, and Schiller, who had no democratic proclivities, came to the defense of the gentry thus : Aristocratical dogs will growl at beggars, but mark you How little democrat Spitz snaps at the stockings of silk. And again: Gentlemen, keep your seats ! for the curs but covet your places, Elegant places to hear all the other dogs bark. A whole broadside was aimed at the garrulous Nicolai, / who deserved a better fate. As the champion of lucidity and reasonableness he stood in reality for a very good cause, — no preachment more necessary in Germany then or since. But in his old age he had fallen a prey to the cacoethes scribendi; he insisted upon having his say about everything, yet his stock of ideas had long since run out. So he became the bogey of the Weimar-Jena people. The Xenia assailed him with frank brutality, thus : What is beyond your reach is bad, you think in your blindness. Yet whatever you touch, that you cover with dirt. Other objects of attack were the brothers Stolberg, for their narrow religiosity; Friedrich Schlegel, for his bumptious self-conceit; and various small fry for this and that peccadillo.' ' All the extant Xenia, nine hundred and twenty-six in number, — many of them previously unknown, — were published in 1893 by Erich Schmidt and Bernhard Suphan, with copious introduction and notes, as Volume 8 of the " Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschafl " in Weimar. The Fusillade of the Xenia 303 A large part of the epigrams, however, were of the ' tame ' variety, that is, stingless outgivings of a jocund humor, or grave pronunciamentos upon religion,' phi- losophy, art and so forth. The authors did not wish to appear before the world as mere executioners, but as men with a positive creed, comprising things to be loved as well as things to be hated. They pleaded for sanity, clearness and moderation, and frowned upon the fanatics, hypocrites, vulgarians and cranks. The well-known distich entitled ' My Creed ' is representa- tive of many which were directed against the spirit of blind partisanship: Which religion is mine ? Not one of the many you mention. ' Why ', do you venture to ask ? Too much religion, I say. Even virtue was to be cherished temperately, — with- out too much talk about it: Nothing so hateful as Vice, and all the more to be hated. Since because of it, now, Virtue is really a need. And so on in endless variety, on all sorts of subjects. Further illustration shall be dispensed with, seeing that the ancient distich is a poetic form for which the English language has, at the best, but little sympathy. In German it goes much better; and for Schiller in particular, with his natural love of antithesis, it proved a convenient setting for his opinions. The effect of the Xenia was to set literary Germany agog with curiosity. Two editions of the ' Almanac ' were quickly bought up and a third became necessary. There was iniinite guessing, speculating, interpreting, and among those who had been hit there was wailing 304 The Great Duumvirate and gnashing of teeth. A very few friends of Goethe and Schiller, such as Korner, Humboldt and Zelter, watched the commotion with solemn glee. Others were shocked or grieved at such a mode of warfare. Wieland mildly regretted that he had come off well in the Xenia, seeing that many other honest people had fared so badly. Herder was much more outspoken and declared that he hated the whole accursed species. The replies, protests and counter-attacks were legion, some in brutal belligerent prose, others in more or less clever Anti-xenia. Some of the latter were grossly abusive, and even indecent; a few contained very pretty home-thrusts, as when in allusion to a well-known poem of Schiller's he was advised to trouble himself less about the ' Dignity of Women ' and more about his own ; ' or where his ' Realm of Shades ' was declared to be so very shadowy that one could not see the shades for the shadow. ' But the best of all perhaps was the oft -quoted gem: In Weimar and in Jena they make hexameters Hke this, But the pentameters are even more excellent.' Historians of German literature are probably right in believing that the Xenia fusillade produced on the whole a salutary effect, although many of the objects of attack seem, at this date, to have been hardly worth ' Lasz doch die Frauen in Ruhe mit ihrer WUrde, und sorge Fur die deine, main Freund. Ihre bewahren sie schon. ' Nun, was denkt ihr vom Reiche der Schatten ? Es schattet und schattet 'Da.sz man vor Schatten umher nichts von den Schatten erkennt. ' In Weimar und in Jena macht man Hexameter wie der ; Aber die Pentameter sind doch noch excellenter. Effect of the Xenia 3°S the ammunition. l^But the explosion cleared the muggy- air like a thunder-storm and defined many an issue that it was well to have defined. Writers of every ilk were shaken out of their somnolence and compelled to look in the direction of Weimar ; and when it was a ques- tion of taking sides, where was the force that could hope to make headway against the combined strength of Goethe and Schiller .■' The odds were too great; there was nothing to do but to grumble a little and then — acquiesce in the new leadership. As for the Dioscuri, they had the wisdom to see that one sharp campaign was enough; that for the rest they could further the good cause much more effectively by admirable creation than by peppery epigrams. Prod a man for his bad taste or his foolish opinions, and you harden his heart and provoke him to retaliate ; give him something to admire, and you make him a friend in spite of himself. In the autumn of 1796 Schiller addressed himself to ' Wallenstein ', and from that time on dramatic poetry continued to be his chief concern. He led a quiet, laborious life, battling often with disease and depres- sion, but sustained by high resolution and finding joy enough in domestic affection and the fi-iendship of Goethe. The Horen lasted three years and then died an easy death by the mutual consent of editor and publisher. Of the ' Almanac ' five numbers appeared, beginning with 1796. In these small annual volumes a large part of Schiller's best poems were originally published. His work upon the ' Almanac ' was usually done in the summer, other activities being then tem- porarily laid aside. From the time of his connection 3o6 The Great Duumvirate with Cotta, who took over the ' Almanac ' after the first number had appeared, Schiller usually had money- enough for his needs. But his needs were very modest, the demands of social life in Jena — or even in Weimar under the fiercer but still not very fierce light of the court — being extremely simple. He had not to reckon with the Persian apparatus that disturbed the soul of Horace. The further relations of Goethe and Schiller, so far as they have any important bearing upon the works of the latter, will be touched on in subsequent chapters. Here let it be remarked in passing that their friendship was not, as it has sometimes been represented, a mere : relation of master and disciple. It was rather a spiritual ] copartnership of equals, each recognizing the other's strength, respecting the other's individuality and eager I to profit by discussion. In the beginning, it is true, Schiller looked up to Goethe as to a great and wise teacher who was to give everything and receive little or nothing in return. Every one will recall his saying that he was a mere poetic scalawag in comparison with Goethe. But it is worth remembering that this remark was made after the reading of ' Wilhelm Meister ', — a work which, notwithstanding his admiration, he criti- cised very sharply. And the justice of his criticism was admitted by Goethe ; whereupon Schiller drily observed in a letter to Korner that Goethe was a man who could be told a great deal of truth. As time passed, Schiller dropped the tone of humble docility and became more ; and more independent. If he deferred to the superior wisdom of Goethe in dealing with the plastic arts and with natural science, there were other matters, — phi- Further Relations of Goethe and Schiller 307 losophy, poetic theory and the dramatic art, — upon which he felt that he could speak as one having authority. And his authority was respected by Goethe, ; especially after the completion of ' Wallenstein '. Goethe saw that Schiller, along with his poetic gift, possessed a practical dramatic talent, — an eye for effect and a power of appealing to the general heart, — such as he, Goethe, could by no means claim for himself. And so the nominal director of the Weimar theater leaned heavily upon his friend and looked to him as the best hope of the German drama. CHAPTER XV Xatcr poems So fiihrt zu seiner Jugend Hiitten, Zu seiner Unschuld reinem Gliick, Vom fernen Ausland fremder Sitten Den Fluchtling der Gesang zuriick, In der Natur getreuen Armen Von kalten Regeln zu erwarmen. ' The Power of Song ' The dominant note of Schiller's later poetry is in- tellectual seriousness ; wherefore, if there be those for whom intellectual seriousness is not a quality of poetry at all, for them he has not written. The element of reflection is nearly always prominent in his verse, though there are a few of his poems, notably his best ballads, in which it is conspicuously lacking. What we usually hear is the man of culture commenting upon life, and everywhere he makes his appeal to universal sentiments. The spontaneity, or seeming spontaneity, of the great lyrists was no part of his gift. To catch a fleeting fancy, or some eccentricity of private emotion, and fix it in musical verse of a vague suggestiveness, was not in his line. If he had ever, like Heine, im- agined himself joining his sweetheart in the grave and defying the resurrection in a rapturous embrace, he would probably have thought it beneath his dignity to 308 Character of Schiller's Poetry 309 versify the whimsy. Of course his verse is self-revela- tion, without which poetry cannot be; but it is the revelation of a soul dwelling habitually in the upper altitudes of thought and emotion, and always assuming that fellow-mortals who care for poetry at all will be capable of a serious joy in the things of the mind. One may say that his art as a poet consists not so much in the direct expression of feeling in sensuous and passionate language, as in the transfiguration of thought by means of impassioned imagery. In his poems as elsewhere he is a good deal of a rhetorician, but he is never insincere. His verse came from the heart, only it was the expression of character and convictions rather than of moods and fancies. It seems intended to edify rather than to portray; to impress rather than to delight. Some of it, too, is occupied with ideal sentiments so abstract and sublimated as to possess but languid interest for normally constituted lovers of poetry. For a while, at least, after his return to poetry, he may fairly be said to have cared a little too much for the white radiance of eternity, and not quite enough for the colored reflection beneath the dome.^ This last observation has in view more particularly the poems he wrote in the year 1795, while still ' hugging the shore of philosophy '. Take for example ' The Veiled Image at Sais ', which tells in rather prosaic pentameters of an ardent ^oung^truth-seeker who is escorted by an Egyptian -hieroph"ant to a veiled ^ '* The One remains, the many change and pass. Heaven's light fiJrever shines, earth's shadows fly ; Life, like a dome of many-colored glass. Stains the white radiance of Eternity.'' — Shelley's "Admais''. 3IO Later Poems statue and told that whoso lifts the veil shall see the Truth, At the same time he is warned that the veil must not be lifted save by the consecrated hand of the priest himself. Moved by a curiosity which can hardly seem anything but laudable, — unless one is prepared to take the side of the sacerdotal humbug, — the young man returns in the night and raises the veil. In the morning he is found pale and unconscious at the foot of the statue. Soon afterwards he dies, leaving to mankind the message: Woe unto him who seeks the Truth through Guilt. This has an unctuous sound, and one gets a vague im- pression that the old story has been dressed up for the sake of some modern application. One is piqued to reflect upon it; but the more one reflects the more clearly one sees that there is no real instruction in it. But if there is no instruction, there is nothing at all; since the mysticism is of a kind that appeals solely to the intellect. Far more interesting is the poem which was at first called ' The Realm of Shades ' and later ' The Ideal and Life ', — a difficult production, which resembles ' The Artists ' in its suggestion of a voyage through the imponderable ether. We begin with the blessed gods in Olympus and end with the apotheosis of Her- cules; and the intervening stretch is like the vasty realm of the Mothers in ' Faust '. The poem is intel- lectual, in the sense that its theme is a concept of the mind, and its structure logical throiughout; yet every strophe is surcharged with feeling, and the diction pre- sents a marvelous wealth of imagery. It must be The Ideal and Life 3" conquered by study before it can yield any great pleasure; but the conquest once made, one finds a noble delight in the gorgeous coloring with which Schiller invests his idealistic rainbow in the clouds. Good critics, favorable to Schiller's genius, regard ' The Ideal and Life ' as the greatest of his philosophic poems and the most characteristic expression of his nature. He himself felt a sort of reverence for it. ' When you receive this letter ', he wrote to Humboldt, * put away everything that is profane and read this poem in solemn quiet. ' And Humboldt replied : ' How shall I thank you for the indescribable pleasure that your poem has given me .' Since the day on which I received it, it has in the truest sense possessed me ; I have read nothing else, have scarcely thought of anything else. ' The general drift of the wonderfully pregnant verses is that man attains peace only by renouncing the things of sense and living in the realm of shades, that is, among eternal ideals. Here he is free — like the gods. The Weavers of the Web — the Fates — but sway The matter and the things of clay ; Safe from each change that Time to Matter gives, Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day, The Form, the Archetype, serenely lives. Wouldst thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing ? Cast from thee Earth, the bitter and the real. High from this cramped and dungeon being, spring Into the Realm of the Ideal. ' Throughout the poem ' Beauty ' is put for ' the Ideal ' ; and we get a reflex of the philosophic doctrine that ' Bulwer's Translation. 312 Later Poems only the aesthetic faculty can resolve the eternal con- flict between the sensuous and the rational man. Life is and must be struggle, that being its very essence ; but by taking refuge in the Realm of the Ideal, man anticipates his apotheosis. There he escapes from the tyranny of the flesh and the bondage of nature's law. The misery of struggle and defeat no longer vexes him. The warring forces are reconciled and he sees their conflict under the aspect of eternal beauty. Thus, like the new-born god, Alcides, taking leave of the terres- trial battle-ground, he mounts into heaven, while the nightmare of the earthly life ' sinks and sinks and sinks '. Behold him spring Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing, And the dull matter that confined before Sinks downward, downward, downward, as a dream ! Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul, And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream. Fills for a God the bowl.' All this may seem, at first blush, to attach excessive importance to the attainment of inward peace and harmony, — as if one's private comfort were the greatest thing in life. It seems to recommend a quietistic, con- templative life; for how else shall one escape from the actual into the ideal .'' Nevertheless it would be a great mistake to read into the poem anything like a recom- mendation of quietism. The ultimate goal is described in terms which suggest now the mythology of Homer, now the Platonic realm of ideals, and again the Chris- tian heaven; but however the blessed existence is ' Bulwer's Translation. Idealism of Goethe and Schiller 313 imaged, it is always thought of as attainable only through a strenuous grapple with the realities of this life. Thus the essential spirit of the poem is the spirit of energetic, hopeful endeavor. Its doctrine is, to quote the words of Kuno Francke, that ' ' only through work are we delivered from the slavery of the senses ' ' ; that ' ' the very trials and sufferings of mankind bring out its divine nature and insure its ultimate transition ^o an existence of ideal harmony and beauty ".' The doctrine, in its essence, was dear to Goethe, as well as to Schiller, and takes us into the holy-of-holies of their joint philosophy. What else did Goethe mean by his oft-reiterated preachment of renunciation, and Iby his well-known verses about ' weaning oneself from ^ the half and living resolutely in the whole, the good and the beautiful ' ? In his excellent book upon Diderot Mr, John Morley speaks somewhere of ' ' that affecta- tion of culture with which the great Goethe infected part of the world ". Let it not be forgotten, however, in our latter-day contempt of culture, that the Weimar poets were great workers, and also, in their way, great fighters. They did not turn their attention — at least not directly — to the crushing of the Infamous, nor to any battle against social or political wrong. They fought rather for sanity, for good ^rt, for philosophy; for those things which go to enrich and broaden the life of the individual. It was a good fight, — the best which, at their time, with their gifts, they could possi- bly have engaged in. Schiller's fervid verses, recommending an escape from the bondage of sense to the free realm of the ' " Social Forces in German Literature ", p. 376, 314 Later Poems mind, correspond of course to nothing that is humanly feasible. The shackles of the flesli are upon us and there is no way to get rid of them. It is only an ideal, a poet's dream. Nevertheless the subject has a prac- tical aspect which is definable in plain prose. It is found in the following passage from Goethe; ' We put one passion in place of another ; employments, dilet- tantisms, amusements, hobbies, — we try them all through to the end only to cry out at last that all is vanity. No one is horrified at this false, this blasphemous saying ; indeed it is thought to be wise and irrefutable. But there are a few persons who, antici- pating such intolerable feelings, in order to avoid all partial resignations, resign themselves universally once for all. Such persons convince themselves with regard to the eternal, neces- sary, law-governed order of things, and seek to acquire ideas which are indestructible and are only confirmed by the contem- plation of that which is transient.' Other poems of the year 1 795 were ' The Partition of the Earth ' , wherein Zeus takes pity on the portion- less poet by giving him a perpetual entree to the celestial court; the mUdly humorous ' Deeds of the Philosopher ', a bit of persiflage on the art of proving what everybody knows, and also several pieces in the elegiac form. Of these last the weightiest is the one at first called simply 'Elegy', and later 'The Walk'. Just as Goethe had used the elegiac meter for his reminiscences of Rome, so Schiller employs it for his impressions of such small travel as fate permitted him, — a summer- time walk in field or forest. The verses will bear comparison very well with the ' Roman Elegies '. ' " Dichtung und Wahrheit ", sechzehntes Buch. The Walk 31S Instead of paintings, statues, marble palaces and the troublesome Amor, we have the aspects of nature, — the music of bird and bee, and the toil of the hus- bandman 'not yet awakened to freedom'. As our sauntering poet comes in sight of a city, — the locus of the poem is the neighborhood of Jena, with reminiscent and imaginative touches here and there, — he is moved to reflections upon the more eager life of the towns- people. This leads to a retrospective survey of the origins of civilization, — of agriculture, the mechanical crafts, trade, letters, art, science and the social senti- ments. Then the darker side of the picture is devel- oped, — the evils, inhumanities, corruptions and vices of civilized life. For some time the wanderer pursues his way completely lost in these sad contemplations ; then suddenly he returns to the present and finds himself alone with nature, from whose ' pure altar ' he receives back again the joyousness of youth. Thus the poem ends, like 'The Ideal and Life ', upon an idyllic note; the one pointing forward, beyond the warfare of life, to an unimaginable Elysitr-n, the other pointing backward to a happy golden age of which Mother Nature is the living reminder: Ever the will of man is changing the rule and the purpose, Ever the genius of life alters the form of his deed. But in eternal youth, in ever varying beauty, Thou, O Mother of Men, keepest the ancient law. . . . Under the selfsame blue, over the same old green. Wander together the near, and wander the far-away races. And old Homer's sun, lo! it shines on us now. The inner form of ' The Walk ' — loving contempla- tion of nature, giving rise to general reflections upon 3i6 Later Poems life — is essentially Goethean ; one may safely regard it as a conscious experiment in Goethe's manner. As such it is very good indeed, although its exotic meter has stood in the way of its attaining the popularity of the ballads and the ' Song of the Bell '. ' The Walk ' and ' The Ideal and Life ' are the noblest gifts of Schiller's didactic muse. Y. Coming now to the poems of the year 1796, and regarding them first in a general way as a group by themselves, we can observe that Schiller has made progress in weaning himself from abstract modes of thought. The stanzas entitled ' The Power of Song ' tell of a fugitive in strange lands lured back to warm himself in the embrace of nature from the chill of ' cold rules '. Another reminds the metaphysician, who boasts of the great height to which he has climbed, that his altitude can do nothing for him except give him a view of the valley below. ' Pegasus in Harness ' is a humorous -apologue intended to enforce the truth that the winged horse is of no use for drudgery and exhibits his proper mettle only when ridden by a poet. Of much greater interest than any of these is ' The Ideals '. Here the middle-aged poet recalls the fervid dreams of his youth and thinks of them under the image of airy sprites attending his rushing chariot, like the Hours in Guido's picture. Midway in his course he finds that they have all dropped away, save Friendship and Work, — Friendship that lovingly shares the bur- dens of life, and Work that only brings grains of sand one by one to the Builder, Yet from the debt-book of the ages Erases minutes, days and years. Dignity of Women 317 Most noteworthy in this group, however, is unques- tionably that famous tribute to womanhood which goes by the name of ' Dignity of Women '. /Looked at with the scientific eye it is sheer gyneolatry, — the chivalrous sentiment inflated with poetic wind, like a bubble, to the utmost possible degree of iridescent tenuityj Man is depicted as a wild creature, ever tossing on the sea of passion, or chasing phantoms in the empyrean. Reckless and vehement, he lives by the law of force, or, at the best, by the law of reason and logic. Woman, on the other hand, follows the better light of feeling and gently lures the daring wanderer back to present realities. In her little sphere of intuition she is richer and freer than he in his boundless kingdom of thought and imagination. Her sovereignty is that of a child or an angel, making always for peace, gentleness and goodness. — All of which is extremely interesting as a classical expression of an old-fashioned sentiment that good men used once to believe in. Schiller believed in it ardently, and one loves him none the less for that. The most cogent objection to his verses is their generality. For ' man ' it is necessary to read ' Friedrich Schiller ', and for ' woman ', his wife. In its metrical form the poem attempts to express the lovableness of the ' eternal-womanly ' by means of a lightly flowing dactylic measure, while a heavier trochaic cadence is employed to denote the nature of man: Ehret die Frauen ! Sie flechten und weben Himmlische Rosen ins irdische Leben, Flechten der Liebe begluckendes Band. . , . 3i8 Later Poems Ewig aus der Wahrheit Schranken Schweift des Marines wilde Kraft, Und die irren Tritte wanken Auf dem Meer der Leidenschaft.' Such a scheme, in the hands of a Schiller, leads in- evitably to a crescendo of rhetorical contrasts, which in the end sound somewhat flighty and forced. The poem was an object of ridicule to the Romanticists, and the elder Schlegel wrote a saucy parody of the first two strophes.^ The few poems that found a place in the ' Almanac ' of 1797, along with the luxuriant crop of Xenia, are relatively unimportant. The difference between the sexes, a subject which Wilhelm von Humboldt had discussed in the Horen, was expounded anew by Schiller in distichs. It is very much the same story as the ' Dignity of Women ', the distich form lending itself beautifully to those antitheses which were Schiller's delight. Then there was a poetic riddle, called ' The Maiden from Afar ', — a slight affair, but pretty in its ' Bulwer translates the lines, somewhat lamely, thus : Honour to Woman ! To her it is given To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven ! All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir. . . . From the bounds of Truth careering, Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps, With each hasty impulse veering Down to Passion's troubled deeps. ' Ehret die Frauen ! Sie stricken die Strtlmpfe, Wollig und warm, zu durchwaten die Sumpfe, Flicken zerriss'ne Pantalons aus. . . . Doch der Mann, der tolpelhafte, Find't am Zarten nicht Geschmack ; Zum gegohrnen Gerstensafte Raucht er immerfort Taback. The Eleusinian Festival 319 way; a 'Lament of Ceres', in trochaic tetrameters, and a ' Dithyramb ' , wherein a poet is visited by all the Olympian gods and cheered with a draught of Hebe's joy-giving nectar. These classicizing poems, which purport to express modern feeling in the terms of Greek mythology, sound now a little hollow and conventional. The vein had been worked to excess even in Schiller's day, and it is no wonder that the Romanticists pined for something new. The best of them all is ' The Eleusinian Festival', called originally 'Song of the Citizen ', in which Schiller returns to his favorite theme — the origin and progress of civilized society. The climactic thought of the twenty-seven sonorous stanzas is contained in the Kantian oracle of Ceres: Freiheit liebt das Tier der Wuste, Frei im Ather herrscht der Gott, Ihrer Brust gewalt'ge Liiste Zahmet das Naturgebot ; Doch der Mensch, in ihrer Mitte, Soil sich an den Menschen reihn, Und allein durch seine Sitte Kann er frei und machtig sein.' In the spring of the year 1797, as ' Hermann and Dorothea ' was approaching completion, Goethe and Schiller were led to an interchange of views concerning ' " In the waste the Beast is free, And the God upon his throne ! Unto each the curb must be But the nature each doth own. Yet the Man — betwixt the two- Must to man allied belong ; Only law and Custom thro* Is the Mortal free and strong." — Bulvier's Translation. 320 Later Poems the distinctive qualities of epic poetry. Their discus- sion begot an interest in the kindred type of the ballad, which may be regarded as a miniature epic in a lyrical form. The result was that both poets began to make ballads for the next year's ' Almanac '. Schiller con- tributed five: ' The Diver ', ' The Ring of Polycrates ', ' The Cranes of Ibycus ', ' The Errand at the Furnace * and ' The Knight of Toggenburg '. In subsequent years he wrote three others : ' The Pledge ', ' Hero and Leander ' and ' The Count of Hapsburg '. To these may be added ' The Glove ', which was not called a ballad because not written in uniform stanzas, and ' The Fight with the Dragon ' , which was called a ' romanza '. These poems, taken as a whole, owe nothing' what- ever to the folk-song. The popular ballad, which had once fascinated Goethe and Herder and Burger, and the Gottingen poets generally, seems never to have appealed to Schiller in any notable degree. If we except 'The Count of Hapsburg', his ballad themes are all exotic, that is, they do not deal with German legend or history or superstition. The suggestions came generally from out-of-the-way reading, and in one or two cases his exact source has not been cer- tainly identified. The tales have no odor of the soil, no local color. They make no use of the supernatural, the gruesome or the uncanny. They are not wild roses, but jaqueminots cultivated with an aesthetic end in view. Their aroma is distinctly literary, and they are all eminently serious. Not a smile is provided for in the whole list. There is no element of mystery about them. The passions and sentiments illustrated The Ballads 321 are of the universal kind. And just as vague, uncanny and bizarre feelings play no part, so there is no resort to verbal tricks, such as meaningless repetitions, or onomatopoetic jingles. The language is dignified and classical. Their great merit is the vivid and strong imaginative coloring with which situations and actions are portrayed. While in no sense folk-songs, they have always been great favorites with the German people. In ' The Diver ' the stress falls upon the portraiture of the raging deep and its awful horrors. It is a rhetorical Prachtstuck, which has done good service to many an elocutionist and declaiming schoolboy. Schiller himself had never seen the sea, nor any body of water remotely resembling the Charybdis of the poem. Observation, as he humbly confessed, had given him nothing more awesome than a mill-dam, — the rest was Homeric and imaginative ; wherefore it no doubt gratified him when Goethe reported from Schaffhausen, after a visit to the cataract, that the line Und es wallet, und siedet, und brauset, und zischt, was scientifically correct. ' The Glove ' merely versi- fi£s a simple incident of a brave knight whose courage is put to an inhuman test by his lady-love ; he brings her glove from among the 'horrible cats', and then contemptuously cuts her acquaintance. In these two, the earliest of the ballads, description of the situation preponderates over the epic element, and there is no ' idea ' except to narrate an extraordinarily brave action. In ' The Ring of Polycrates ' one can discern progress in the mastery of the ballad form, though the subject was none of the best. Based upon a story in 322 Later Poems Herodotus, it is a poetic setting of the ancient idea that excessive good fortune provokes the anger of the gods and portends disaster. Strangely enough Schiller's poem breaks off with the recovery of the ring from the fish's belly, and the consequent warning and departure of the Egyptian guest. One would expect an addi- tional stanza or two, showing how the forebodings of Amasis were presently realized. Much better than any of the foregoing is ' The Cranes of I bye us '. In the composition of this ballad Goethe took a deep interest, giving several suggestions which were adopted by Schiller to the great advantage of the poem. The Greek legend does not explain, or explains variously, just why the murderers in the theater call out the name of Ibycus when they see the cranes flying over. Schiller supposes that the spectacle just then going on was a solemn chorus of the Eumenides. Thus the unaccountable exclamation of the murderers is connected with the mysterious power of the avenging Furies. It is this use of the nemesis idea that makes the merit of the ballad. ' The Knight of Toggenburg ' is a sentimental tale of romantic love, while ' The Pledge ' — a captivating and powerful version of the Damon and Pythias story — is a heroic ballad of loyal friendship. ' The Errand at the Furnace ', wherein a spiteful tale-bearer meets the horrible fate he has prepared for the innocent and devout Fridolin, — may be styled a ballad of pious edification. Here, as a critic observes, Schiller pur- posely essays a tone of childlike naivete which was foreign to his nature.' ' The Battle with the Dragon ' I Otto Hariiack. " Schilkr'', page 274, Attitude toward the Present 323 has for its theme the moral majesty of self-conquest. With ' The Cranes of Ibycus ' and ' The Pledge ', it forms a triad which may be regarded as* the choicest fruitage of Schiller's interest in the ballad. The later ones, ' The Count of Hapsburg ' and ' Hero and Leander ', are no less finished in the matter of form, but have more of a lyric tinge. We see that as a balladist Schiller got his inspiration mainly from two sources: the traditions of Greek antiquity and the traditions of chivalrous romance. He dwelt habitually in the idealisms of the past, and his controlling purpose was to make these idealisms live again in stirring poetic pictures. The present time, with its fierce national conflicts, the larger mean- ing of which was not yet apparent, seemed to him barbarous and depressing. In the prologue to ' Wal- lenstein ', it is true, he was able to survey the situation with a calm artistic eye and to see in the ' solemn close of the century ' a period in which ' reality is becoming poetry '. But this is an isolated deliverance. His habitual mood was one of aversion, from which he sought relief by an escape into the kingdom of the mind. Thus, in some stanzas on the opening of the new century, he laments that the English-French war has overspread sea and land and left no place on earth for ' ten happy mortals '. Then he bids the friend to whom the verses are addressed take refuge in the holy temple of the heart, seeing that Freedom and Beauty dwell only in dreamland. A similar sentiment finds expression in ' The Words of Illusion ' , published in 1 801, as a sort of pendant to the earlier 'Words of Faith '■ The words of faith are Freedom, Virtue and 324 Later Poems God. Men are exhorted to cling steadfastly to these eternal verities, whereof only the heart gives knowl- edge. The other poem is directed against the super- stition of believing in a golden age, or in any external realization of the right, the good and the true. The final stanza runs : And so, noble soul, forget not the law. And to the true faith be leal ; What ear never heard and eye never saw. The Beautiful, the True, they are real. Look not without, as the fool may do ; It is in thee and ever created anew. These last-named poems belong to a type which the Germans sometimes call the ' lyric of thought ', — a name which is fairly appopriate to a goodly number of Schiller's shorter effusions. Other examples — to mention a few of the best — are ' Light and Warmth ', 'Breadth and Depth' and 'Hope'. They might be called lyrics of culture, since they regard the perfection of the individual, — the equipoise of heart and head, steadfast seriousness as opposed to showy sciolism, the preservation of hope and faith, — as a noble object of emotion. They are not intellectual in the opprobrious sense of the word as applied to poetry; they are suffused with warm feeling and their language is simple and natural. On the other hand they «r^ argumentative: they state propositions and draw conclusions the value of which must in the end be gauged by the mind. For this reason one who has no sympathy with Schiller's idealism, — one who either never felt it or has lost it in the stress of life, — will not be touched by these poems, b.yt will regard them as hollow, Yet they are no more The Maiden's Lament 325 hollow than the lyrics of Goethe or Heine or Shelley, though the illusion of sincerity is less perfect than in the work of these great lyrists. A pure lyric effusion, of the kind that seems to sing itself without help or let from the brooding philosopher, was not often attempted by Schiller. Perhaps his very best achievement in this sort is ' The Maiden's Lament ', of which the first two stanzas, translated as closely as possible with reference to both substance and form, run as follows: The oak-wood moans, the clouds float o'er, *• The maiden sits by the green sea-shore. The waves are breaking with might, with might. And she breathes out a sigh in the gloom of the night. And her eyes are dim with weeping. ' My heart is dead, the world is naught, It brings nothing more to my longing thought, I have lived and loved, — earth's fortune was mine. Thou Holy One, take this child of thine, Take her back into thine own keeping.' ' Such verses, and one might adduce further the admirable songs in ' WiUiam Tell ' , show that Schiller had in him, when he could find it and let it have its ' Der Eichwald brauset, die Wolken ziehn. Das Magdlein sitzet an Ufers Gran, Es bricht sich die Welle mit Macht, mit Macht, Und sie seufzt hinaus in die finstere Nacht, Das Auge von Weinen getrllbet. "Das Herz ist gestorben, die Welt ist leer, Und weiter giebt sie dem Wunsche nichts mehr. Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zuriick, Ich habe genossen das irdische GlUck, Icb habe gelebt und geliebet," 326 ^ Later Poems way, a lyric gift of a high order. As a rule, however, when he attempted to sing, the attempt resulted in a philosophic evaluation of the feelings expressed. Thus in his well-known 'Punch Song', he is mainly con- cerned with the ethical symbolism of the four elements, — the lemon-juice, the sugar, the water and the spirits. In other cases he suggests an allegorical symbolism, and leaves the reader puzzling over an intellectual query that may or may not be worth puzzling over. Examples are ' The Maiden from Afar ' , ' The Youth at the Brook ', ' The Mountain Song '. He even wrote a number of professed poetic riddles, — which may be" left without commentary to those who like that sort of poetry. The cultural poems of Schiller have always enjoyed a high degree of popularity. A large number of his lines and couplets have become familiar quotations that come readily to the tongue or pen of the educated German. There is probably no modern poet who has taken a deeper hold upon the intellectual life of his countrymen. This is partly attributable to the fact that his idealistic sentiments a,ppeal especially to the youthful. No poet that ever lived is better adapted to the needs of the school ; none more infallibly safe and inspiring to the young of both sexes. For the riper mind and the larger experience his oracles are apt to lose somewhat of their impressiveness ; for it is not to be denied that his poetry at its best is seldom supremely good. The divine spark that fuses rare thought and waiting expression in the white heat of the imagination and gives one the sense of artistic perfection is not often there. His verse is never cold, never trivial; but The Song of the Bell 327 it does lack artistic distinction. Its highest claim is to give expression to the maxims of a ripe culture in tuneful verses and pleasing imagery that impress them- selves readily upon the general heart. This is what he does in the most famous of all his poems, ' The Song of the Bell '. It is not great poetry, but it is a pleasing production which well deserves its popularity. ' The Song of the Bell ' was first given to the world in the ' Almanac ' of 1 800, after several years of in- cubation. Its germ-idea is similar to that of the ' Punch Song ' j that is, we have a mechanical process, — in the one case the mixing of a glass of punch, in the other the casting of a bell, — accompanied at its various stages by reflections of an ethical character. The bell- founder is an idealist with a feeling for the dignity of man and of man's handiwork. As he orders his workmen to perform the successive operations involved in the casting of a bell, he delivers, from the depths of his larger experience, a little homily, suggested, in each case, by the present stage of the labor. The master's orders are given in a lively trochaic measure, while the homilies move at a slower gait in iambic lines of varying length. The fiction is handled with scrupulous attention to technical details, and is made to yield at the same time a series of easy and natural starting-points for a poetic review of life from the cradle to the grave. The great charm of the ' Song ' lies in its vivid pic- tures of the epochs, pursuits and occurrences which constitute the joy and the woe of life for an ordinary industrious burgher. Childhood and youth; the pas- sion of the lover, sobering into the steadfast love of the 328 Later Poems husband ; the busy toil of the married pair in field and household ; the delight of accumulation and possession ; the calamity of fire that destroys the labor of years ; the blessedness of peaceful industry; the horrors of revolutionary fanaticism ; the benediction of civic con- cord, — these are the themes that are brought before us in a series of stirring pictures that are irresistibly fascinating. To have felt and expressed so admirably the poetry of every-day life, and that at the very time when the Romanticists were beginning to fill the air with noise about the prosaic dullness of the present time as compared with the Middle Ages, was a great achievement, and all the greater as Schiller himself had not remained unaffected by the Romantic doctrine. He could Hellenize and philosophize, and, on occasion, he could Romanticize ; but ' The Song of the Bell ' shows how deeply, after all, his feeling was rooted in the life of the German people. The ' Almanac ' for 1 800 was the last volume that appeared, and after the removal of this exigency Schiller's lyrical production diminished. His best strength was devoted to his plays, which in themselves, however, cpntain a large lyric element. The choral parts of ' The Bride of Messina ' show the final phase of his art in its perfection. Like these, the few inde- pendent poems written by him during the last years of his life are characterized by great beauty of diction and of rhythmic cadence, but in their substance they hardly compare with the best of his previous work. Most noteworthy are ' Cassandra ', devoted to the pathos of foreseeing calamity without being able to prevent it, and ' The Festival of Victory ', wherein the Greek, Latest Poems 329 heroes, assembled for departure after the sack of Troy, discourse amiably and profoundly upon the finer issues of life. In some of the shorter and more subjective poems there is discernible a note of sadness, as of a drooping spirit unreconciled, after all, to the stress of this earthly existence. This is heard, for example, in ' Longing ' and ' The Pilgrim '. But from such sporadic utterances no large inference should be drawn respect- ing Schiller's mental history. They proceeded from a sick man whose days were numbered. CHAPTER XVI Xmallenetein So hab' ich Mit eignem Netz verderblich mich umstrickt, Und nur Gewaltthat kann es reiszend losen. ' Wallenstein '. The great play which signalizes the return of Schiller to dramatic poetry must be accounted upon the whole his masterpiece. To be sure it is less popular than ' Tell ' and less immediately ''effective than ' Mary Stuart '. It has not the romantic soulfulness of ' The Maid of Orleans ', nor the splendid diction of ' The Bride of Messina '. On the stage, too, its effectiveness is somewhat impaired by its great length. But in the imaginative power whereby history is made into drama ; in the triumph of artistic genius over a vast and refractory mass of material, and in the skill with which the character of the hero is conceived and denoted, ' Wallenstein ' is unrivaled. Well might Goethe pro- nounce it ' so great that nothing could be compared with it '. Its chief figure is by far the stateliest and most impressive of German tragic heroes. Since the completion of ' Don Carlos ' Schiller had written nothing of any moment in the dramatic form. For nine years he had been occupied with historical' and philosophic studies which he himself regarded as 330 Preparatory Studies 331 ,1 preparatory to some new and nobler flight of artistic creation. Of course he had been aware all along, none better than he, that great poetry cometh not by theoriz- ing ; that theory could have at the best only a general regulative value. At the same time, with the example of Leasing before him, he could not but feel that this regulative value might be very great. And so he had gone resolutely on his way, even after the dread truth had come home to him that he had not long to live and might never be able to reap the fruit of what he was sowing. He had studied certain epochs of history very care- fully and had acquired a deeper insight into that tangled interplay of inward motive and outward cir- cumstance which determines the course of events. Philosophy had only deepened his early conviction that man's dignity, his heroism, consists in his free self- determination ; but who knew better than he the infinite pathos of the battle between ' will ' and ' must ' .' He had become familiar with the spirit and the technique of the Greek drama and learned to admire its simple and stately architecture. Latterly, however, he had been drawn toward the moderns and had found in the expression of the modern spirit — with all its idealisms, its heights and depths and mysteries of feeling — a higher artistic goal than antiquity had ever imagined. Finally, his association with Goethe had taught him the importance of looking fairly at life and portraying it not indeed just as it is, but in its essential human spirit. This, for him, was to idealize. Two themes had been suggested by his historical studies, and both had haunted his thoughts for years, 332 Wallenstein — 'The Knights of Malta' and 'Wallenstein '. The former, if his plan had been carried out, would have yielded a play of the classical type, with few characters and a severely simple structure. In the final balancing of the two subjects ' Wallenstein ' prevailed, no doubt because it seemed in advance the easier and the more promising. It pointed to a familiar field where history itself had already shaped in the rough a stupendous and fascinating tragedy. To reproduce the form and pressure of the Thirty Years' War, at one of its most exciting moments, was an alluring problem to a dramatist who had written a history of the struggle, and who had always felt that his strength lay in the historical drama. Serious musings upon ' Wallenstein ' began, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1796. ' The first great problem was, of course, the general plan of the piece, — how to select, dispose and concentrate. To quicken his imagination Schiller commenced reading again upon the history of the period and soon perceived that what he already knew would be quite inadequate; that it would be necessary to go over the whole ground anew and more thoroughly. He found the material dry, chaotic and abstract; in short, lacking in nearly all the poetic elements which he would have thought in- dispensable a few years before. He could not treat it in his earlier manner. He had no love for any of his personages except Max and Thekla, whom he had invented for the purpose of infusing a little warm blood 1 Let it be said once for all (to avoid frequent references), that the following account of the genesis of ' Wallenstein ' is based upon Schiller's letters — chiefly to KOrner and to Goethe— beginning in November, 1796. Difficulties of tlie Subject 333 into an action which would otherwise have been domi- nated altogether by the cold passions of ambition, vindictiveness and fear. Wallenstein was not great or noble; at best he could only be made terrible. The basis of his power was his army, and this — so it seemed to Schiller at first — was too large and complex a thing to be effectively portrayed. Then, too, his enterprise failed chiefly because of bad management, and he him- self rather than fate was to blame for his catastrophe. This Schiller regarded as the weak point of the whole subject; but he took some comfort from the example of 'Macbeth'. Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, he worked at his task with great eagerness, feeling that just such a subject as ' Wallenstein ' would prove the crucial test of his powers. His old theory that love is what makes the artist was now completely outgrown, and he was gratified to observe that he had learned to keep himself out of his work. So much for the influ- ence of Goethe, to whom he wrote, in November, 1796, as follows : With the general spirit of my work you will probably be satis- fied. I might almost say that the subject does not interest me at all. I have never combined such coolness toward my theme with such a warmth of feeling for my work. My principal character, and the most of my subordinate characters, I have treated up to this time with the pure love of the artist. After some hesitation between prose and verse he began in prose, being led thereto partly by the advice of Wilhelm von Humboldt and partly by his own desire to produce this time an acceptable stage-play. His 334 Wallenstein progress was at first very slow. There was endless reading to be done and endless rumination over the plot. In the winter season, with its close confinement and its lowered vitality, the invalid could accomplish but little. He fixed his hopes longingly upon the return of spring and decided to buy a house with a garden, so that he could muse and write in the open air. In May, 1797, the purchase was made, but by this time work on ' Wallenstein ' had completely stag- nated and other interests were at the fore. He was back among the Greeks. Renewed study of Sophocles, particularly of the ' Trachinise ' and the ' Philoctetes ', had convinced him that everything hinges' upon the invention of a poetic fable. To quote again from a letter to Goethe : The modern poet wrestles laboriously and anxiously with ac- cidental and subordinate matters and, in his effort to be very realistic, loads himself down with the vacuous and the trivial. Thus he runs a risk of losing the deep-lying truth which consti- tutes the real nature of the poetical. He would fain imitate an actual occurrence, and does not consider that a poetic repre- sentation can never coincide with actuality, because it is abso- lutely true. A little later he took up the study of Aristotle's ' Poetics ' and was delighted to find that the dread Rhadamanthus was after all so very liberal and sensi- ble. He had now reached a firm footing and was not to be dislodged even by Aristotle, whose whole body of doctrine, as he did not fail to observe, was deduced empirically from concrete specimens of a particular type of play. It could not be canonical for all the world, but it was very instructive. Schiller was glad that he Decision in Favor of Verse 335 had finally discovered Aristotle, but glad also that he had never read him before. On returning to ' Wallenstein ' in October, after the summer claims of the ' Almanac ' had been satisfied, he noticed that what he had written was characterized by a certain dryness. It was evident that, in his strenuous effort to avoid his besetting sin of rhetoric, he was in danger of becoming trivial. He had still a sustaining faith in the goodness of his subject, but the great problem would be to make it poetical. It was necessary to find the middle way between the rhetorical and the prosaic. The practical result of these cogita- tions was a decision to write ' Wallenstein ' in verse. In versifying the completed scenes he found himself, so he wrote to Goethe, before a different tribunal. Much that had seemed very good in prose would not do at all; for verse tended to invest everything with an imaginative nimbus which rendered triviality and mere logic intolerable. But the new form brought with it a new danger — that of prolixity. It was necessary that the exposition account for Wallenstein 's conduct by exhibiting the sources of his power. This meant a dramatic picture of his wild and irresponsible soldatesca. The theme was boundless and Schiller was a facile verse-maker. Ere long he reported ruefully to Goethe that his first act was already longer than three acts of ' Iphigenie ' . He was in doubt whether his friend had not infected him with a ' certain epic spirit ' which tended to diffuseness. In his embarrassment of riches he decided to give the preliminary picture the form of a dramatic prologue having but a loose connection with the play 336 Wallenstein proper, which was still conceived as a five-act tragedy. During the winter of 1797-8 he worked as he could, steadily upborne by the friendly encouragement of Goethe. When summer arrived the last two acts were still unfinished, and the first three had grown to por- tentous dimensions. It was now that he decided to divide his unmanageable tragedy into two parts, ' The . Piccolomini ' and ' Wallenstein 's Death ' ; his idea being that 'The Piccolomini', preceded by the dramatic prologue, which was now christened ' Wallenstein 's Camp ', would fill up an evening and prepare the way for the real tragedy of ' Wallenstein 's Defection and Death '. This plan, involving a reconstruction of the whole, was carried out in the ensuing months. At the urgent request of Goethe, preparations were made to reopen the newly-renovated Weimar theater with a performance of the ' Camp ' alone. As the piece was too short for this purpose, Schiller hastily amplified it to a sufficient size and wrote for it a noble prologue, which ranks among the best of his poems. When played at Weimar, in October, 1798, the 'Camp ' was well received as a picturesque novelty, but that was all. It gave no clew to what was coming, and there was nothing in it to stir the depths of human nature. ' The Piccolomini ' was completed in December and put upon the Weimar stage, under Schiller's personal direction, on January 30, 1799. As then performed it included two acts of ' Wallenstein 's Death '. The first performance was a great success. The Weimarians, with Goethe at their head, were enthusiastic; and Schiller, who had of late known but little of popular favor, found himself suddenly invested with a new Completion of the Play 337 renown. He was pleased, elated; from this time on he felt sure of his vocation as dramatic poet. Return- ing to Jena he applied himself steadily to ' Wallenstein's Death ', completing it finally in March. It was first played on the 20th of April, preceded at short inter- vals by the 'Camp' and 'The Piccolomini '. And great indeed was the poet's triumph, now that his achievement could be judged as a whole. He had given his best after years of preparation, and the world saw at once that it was very good. The animosities aroused by the Xenia lingered for a while in a few small minds, but it was of no use to fight genius with the missiles of petty malice. The Germans had accepted Schiller as their great dramatist. To form a right estimate of ' Wallenstein ' one must first look at it in a large way, remembering that struc- turally it forms a class all by itself. The name 'trilogy', in the technical sense of the Greeks, does not apply to it, seeing that the ' Camp ' is not an in- tegral part of the whole, but a dramatic prelude in an entirely different key. In a loose sense, to be sure, it forms a part of the exposition ; but it can be omitted entirely, if one chooses, since everything technically necessary to be known is repeated in ' The Piccolo- mini '. Its characters are different and nothing is said or done that is vitally related to the ensuing compli- cation. Its purpose is to show the nature of Wallen- stein's soldiers and the grounds of their attachment to their commander. Their loyalty is of course the great factor in Wallenstein's position; it is because he relies upon their fidelity that he dares to dally with the thought of treason. But this fidelity of theirs, their 338 Waflenstein sturdy esprit du corps, their unwillingness to be sepa- rated, could have been indicated in a scene, or in the report of a messenger; in fact it is indicated in the memorial which they place in the hands of Max Pic- colomini. The • Camp ', then, with its eleven-hundred verses, is to be regarded as a military genre-picture, elaborated for its own sake into an independent piece. As a prelude it transports us into the milieu of the tragedy, but without anywhere striking its key-note ; for the tragedy is intensely serious, while the^ note of the ' Camp ', — notwithstanding an undertone of seriousness without which it could not have been the work of Schiller, — is that of jovial humor. And the poet's scheme required just this effect in the prelude. One can hardly assent, therefore, to the suggestion of Harnack ' that it would have been well if the sentiment of loyalty to the emperor had been made more promi- nent and given a more worthy champion than the stolid Tiefenbachers, who have nothing to say. Had this been attempted it must have led to an adumbration of the coming tragic conflict, — which is what Schiller wished to avoid. He wished that spectator and reader should accept the prelude as a thing of its own kind, complete in itself. It was for this reason that he gave it a distinctive meter, having convinced himself that meter of some kind was essential if h^e would avoid banality. With a wise instinct he chose the old free- and-easy tetrameter, which Goethe had used with ex- cellent effect in some of his early plays. In German this meter lends itself beautifully to the bluff, off"-hand 1 "Schiller", p. 286. Wallenstein's Camp 339 discourse of soldiers. It gives an illusion of realism while preserving the effect of poetry. Particularly admirable is the art with which Schiller has contrived to denote the motley variety of human types gathered under Wallenstein's banner, while giving to each of his figures a fairly distinct individuality. With a little study of costume a painter could paint them all. There is the wretched Peasant, who has been reduced to beggary and is willing to retrieve his fortunes by gambling with loaded dice ; the sagacious Sergeant, who always knows more than other people, and prides himself upon ' the fine touch and the right tone ' that can only be acquired near the person of the commander; the depraved Chasseur, who glories in fighting for its own sake, cares not for whom or what, and objects to discipline ; the philosophic Cuirasseur, who argues for a higher ideal and pities the woes of the producing class, but cannot help matters; and the fiery Capuchin, who pronounces his wordy anathema against the whole godless crowd. What a picturesque assem- bly they make and how admirably they bring out the lights and shadows of the Wallenstein regime! One wonders how an invalid recluse, a bookish philosopher like Schiller, should ever have been able to write such scenes. The total effect of the prelude is to put one in a very good humor with the personages who figure there. One indeed feels sub-consciously that they are detest- able —not a whit better than the angry friar paints them. One sympathizes intellectually with his fierce denunciation and pities the land that is exposed to such a scourge. And yet — such is the poetic glamour thrown 340 Wallenstein over them — feelings of this kind never become domi- nant. It is like the squalid slums of a great city, when seen through the sun-lit morning mist. The reality is horrible, revolting. The soul of the philanthropist is pained — but not so the eye of the artist. Schiller contrives that we see his vagabonds with the artistic eye and are drawn to them by their very picturesque- ness. We quickly impute to them more virtue than their ways betoken ; and when in their lusty final song they break out in a strain of lofty idealism : Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein, Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein, one is hardly conscious of the incongruity. The dramatic fable devised by Schiller for the tragedy proper carries us back to the winter of 1634. Events extending over several months are concentrated by poetic fiat into the four days preceding the assassina- tion of Wallenstein, which took place on the 25th of February. The prominent characters fall into two groups, — the abettors of Wallenstein in his treason, emd the imperialists who work his ruin. The first group consists of historical personages, mainly officers, whom he had bound to him by one or another tie of selfish interest. Foremost among these are Illo, the Count and Countess Terzky, and General Butler, who turns against his chief and becomes the agent of his taking-off. The central figure of the other group is Octavio Piccolomini, whom Schiller converts from a young officer of thirty into an elderly man with a grown-up son. Octavio, in reality the trusted agent of the emperor, is regarded by Wallenstein with a The Historical Wallenstein 341 superstitious infatuation as his own most faithful friend. Between these two groups stand the ingenuous lovers, Max and Thekla, imaginary characters who can make their perfect peace with neither side and are done to death in a pathetic struggle between love and duty. As we have already seen, Schiller found it no easy task to mould the historical Wallenstein into a satis • factory tragic hero. The character was lacking in nobility. To be sure it was not necessary to make him out an infamous traitor; for his character, his motives, the measure of his guilt, were subjects of debate among the historians, and the evidence was, as it still is, inconclusive. It was therefore quite within the license of a dramatic poet to take the part of Wal- lenstein, so far at least as to throw into strong light all the palliating circumstances that could be urged in his favor. Such were, for example, that he was a prince of the empire and as such had a right to conduct negotiations and to make peace ; that he wished to give rest to a torn and bleeding German)'; that he had been ignobly treated by the House of Austria, and so forth. By laying stress upon these things and passing lightly over others, it was easily possible to save Wal- lenstein from the detestation that is wont to associate itself with the idea of a traitor. But for an interesting tragic hero it is not enough to fall short of infamy. He must have some sort of dis- tinction. He must be a towering personality. One does not go to the theater to be convinced in a moral or political argument, but to be carried along with a rush of feeling, for which the old term sympathy is perhaps as good a name as any other. A magnificent 342 Waflenstein criminal will serve the purpose very well, as Schiller had discovered in his early years, but he must be magnificent. Now it was precisely this element of greatness that was lacking in the character of the his- torical Wallenstein. No lofty idealism of any kind could be imputed to him. He was not a religious zealot, like Cromwell or Gustav Adolf, nor was he a strenuous German patriot, like Frederick the Great. He was not even a great soldier; for while, as the head of a great host of marauding mercenaries, he made himself the scourge and the terror of Germany, he never won a decisive .battle against an equal enemy. The history of his fighting is largely a history of futilities. And when he formed the plan of a separate peace, — a plan which if promptly and vigorously executed might possibly have succeeded and have caused him to be numbered with the benefactors of Europe, — he dallied with the thought until it was too late, fell into the pit which he had digged for himself, and, in trying to flounder out, met his death at the hands of an assassin who had a grudge against him. Thus even his death was pitiful rather than tragic. It does not appear to be the work of that high Nemesis which Schiller noticed as dominating the career of Shakspere's Richard the Third. To have succeeded as Schiller did succeed, in the face of such difficulties, is a memorable triumph of the poetic art. By purely aesthetic means, without any appeal to political or religious passion, without requir- ing us to take sides in any debatable cause, but simply by the skill and subtlety of his drawing, he has invested Wallenstein with an impressiveness such as belongs The Figure of the Hero 343 only to the great creations of the great tragic poets. His overruling trait is ambition ; and in the denotation of this, as of his whole relation to the Countess Terzky, the influence of ' Macbeth ' is obvious. And yet he is very far from being a copy of Shakspere's hero, or a mere embodiment of ambition. On the contrary, he is the most complicated of all Schiller's creations, and the most difficult to portray on the stage in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. As a good critic observes, he is ' fascinating and repulsive, admirable and contemptible, fantastic and cunning, cautious and frivolous, a mighty organizer and a helpless child, false and true, touching and terrible, a mixture of all possi- ble qualities, and yet a unity, a totality '.' The promise of the Prologue is admirably fulfilled : But art shall show him in his human form And bring him nearer to your eyes and hearts ; She sees the man in all the stress of life, And for the greater portion of his guilt She blames the working of malignant stars. The last two lines, be it observed, 'involve much more than a mere allusion to Wallenstein's superstitious belief in astrology. Schiller's idea, schooled as he had been for years upon Sophocles and Shakspere, was to blend the fate-tragedy of the ancients with the modern tragedy of character. The two things were not incompatible, since in a broad view of the matter a man's character is his fate. It is to be observed also that the peculiar effect of Greek tragedy does not depend upon the way in which the external '7'0?/)a was conceived, but upon the fact that the hero seems to be 1 Bulthaupt, "Dramaturgic des Schauspiels", I, 288. 344 Wallenstein battling, and wa:s by the audience known to be battling, against the inevitable. The situation is not what he supposes, and the event will not be what he intends. He is the subject of an illusion, an infatuation ; and this arrj is the principal factor in the tragic effect. ' Now Wallenstein 's Ikrri takes the form of a blind and overweening self-conceit. He has the ' great-man- mania ' hardly less than Karl Moor. Accustomed to follow his own light, to command and to be obeyed, and to look with contempt upon the interference of priests and courtiers in the business of war, he thinks himself omnipotent. There is no power that he fears save that of the stars ; and even that he imagines he can bend to his will by studious attention to astrologic portents. He has found it possible to raise and maintain a great army by taking good care of his officers and men ; and appealing thus constantly to the lower motives of human nature, he comes to think at last that there are no others. When the Swede Wrangel suggests a sus- picion of his Chancellor that it ' might be an easier thing to create out of nothing an army of sixty thousand men than to lead a sixtieth part of them into an act of treachery', Wallenstein replies: 'Your Chancellor judges like a Swede and a Protestant. ' And when he finds that this sentiment of loyalty — die Treue, one of the most ancient and powerful of motives — is still a real force in human affairs, he can only account for it as a curious superstition : ' Notwithstanding frequent references to occult powers and overruling destiny, the Greek idea of fate is quite foreign to "Wallenstein". It is essentially a modern character-drama. Cf. Fielitz, " Studien zu Schillers Dramen ", page 9 ff. Wallenstein*s Impressiveness 34s 'Tis not the embodiment of living strength That makes the truly terrible. It is The vulgar brood of all the yesterdays, The eternally recurring commonplace, That was and therefore is and hence will be. For man is fashioned of the trivial And customary use he names his nurse.' It would seem as if such a blind and superstitious self-worshiper could have but little chance of winning sympathy, and the less chance for the reason that he really does nothing in the play to justify his grand airs. His mighty deeds are a matter of hearsay. We are obliged to take his greatness on trust, as something growing out of the past. And yet Schiller contrives, with splendid artistic cunning, that we do take him from first to last at his own estimate. His assumption of superiority appears perfectly reasonable ; and even in the ticklish astrological scenes, about which Schiller himself was in doubt until reassured by Goethe, he never becomes ridiculous. His belief in destiny and his unctuous palaver about the occult connection of events do not detract from his dignity. One under- stands that his oracles are fallacious, that it is all a humbug; but so perfect is the illusion that instead of smiling one mentally associates him with other men undoubtedly great, — -men like Csesar, Cromwell and ' Nicht was lebendig, kraftvoU sich verkttndigt, 1st das gefahrlich Furchtbare. Das ganz Gemeine ist's, das ewig Gestrige, Was immer war und immer wiederkehrt, Und morgan gilt, weil's haute hat gegolten ! Denn aus Gemeinem ist dar Mensch gemacht, Und die Gewohnheit nannt er seina'Amme. 346 Wallenstein Napoleon, — who were haunted by more or less similar hallucinations. This is effected, in part at least, by bringing Wal- lenstein into contrast with vulgar and commmonplace natures. In the presence of a real hero he would be a pigmy, — even under the searchlight of the ardent young Max his effulgence pales somewhat, — but sur- rounded by the lUos, the Terzkys, Isolanis and the rest of them, he is a moral and intellectual giant. One does not wish to belong to their company or to believe in their arguments ; and so when they urge him to act one is quite prepared to credit the mysterious oracles which assure him that the time is not yet ripe. Thus even his indecision, — most damning of weaknesses in a great soldier, — does not seem to belittle him. One enters into the spirit of his self-defense, is half inclined to believe in his innocence and to sympathize with him, when the psychological moment arrives and the capture of Sesina compels him to translate a traitorous thought into a traitorous deed. And even after this, when he stands forth as a declared traitor; while his trusted friends are secretly turning against him, and his un- suspected enemies are quietly plotting his doom; when, with a futile energy, he is making the plans that are yet, as he believes, to leave him master of the situation; and when, finally, in his bereavement and isolation, he is brought to face his miserable fate, ■ — everywhere he looms up as a grand figure. Schiller has taken good care that one shall not think of his treason or of his weakness, but rather of his imposing personality. That Wallenstein produces such an impression is Octavio Piccolomini 347 largely due to the character of his chief antagonist. Octavio Piccolomini is certainly one of Schiller's most notable minor studies. It is he who stands for the cause of loyalty to which one naturally leans ; but he is so portrayed that one soon distrusts and in the end almost despises him. And yet he is no villain of the extreme type so dear to Schiller in his early years. Octavio 's conduct and his sentiments are technically correct. He is a faithful servant of the empire, a far- sighted and energetic commander and an affectionate father. The groundwork of his character seems much better entitled to sympathy than that of Wallenstein. In the play, however, from the moment we hear of the secret order making him temporary commander-in- chief, we begin to suspect that he too is playing a game for profit. And when he lays his secret plans against Wallenstein, while openly appearing as his friend; when he craftily works upon the vanity of Butler, and instils into Butler's small soul the poison of a murderous hate, one is not drawn to the cause which needs such championship. Rationally and before the bar of politics, Octavio's conduct is unimpeachable. He does his duty in baffling a powerful trairor in the most effective way. It is not his fault that Wallenstein is deceived in him, and noth- ing requires that he go and undeceive him. He resorts to no tricks, he feigns no sentiments that are not his. He but tells the truth to Butler in regard to the ancient matter of the title. It is no part of his plan that Butler shall murder his former chief. And when Wallenstein falls, not so much because of his present treason as because of his former duplicity, Octavio is technically- 348 Wallenstein guiltless of the deed. And yet so skillfully is the por- trait drawn, so subtly are the lights and shadows managed, that when the curtain falls one is little dis- posed to sympathize with him in his triumph. There is a world of ironical pathos in those last words of the play: ' To Prince Piccolomini '. A very important element in the impression pro- duced by Octavio, as also in that produced by Wallen- stein himself, is the fact that we are made to try them not at the bar of worldly ethics, but before the tribunal of the heart as represented by the young idealist, Max. It is a weak criticism of Wallenstein which objects to the love-story or regards it as a mere concession to the sentimental demands of the average play-goer. For the reason just stated it must rather be looked upon as a vital element of the plot. No doubt the play can be imagined without it and would in that case be more in accordance with history. But what a relatively cold affair it would be ! The tragedy of the lovers is an im- portant part of the Nemesis that follows Wallenstein from the moment of his taking the fateful step. It is this which makes in no small degree the real impres- sivenesB of his final isolation. Without it we should see in Wallenstein a masterful spirit, like Macbeth, playing fast and loose with the higher law and meeting an ignoble fate at the hands of enemies meaner than himself. In a sense the moral law would be vindicated, but how much more effective is the vindication when this masterful spirit first makes havoc of all that should be dearest to him as a man ! It is quite true that the figure of Max, like that of Posa, is out of harmony with the general milieu. Max Piccolomini 349 Schiller was a lover of contrast, and in his skillful use of it lies a large part of his effectiveness as a play- wright. To a certain extent his contrasts are made to order; that is, they proceed from the vision of the artist calculating an effect, rather than from the observation of life as it is. Partisans of realism tell us that this propensity is a weakness, a fault; and such it is, beyond question, whenever it leads to forced and stagy con- trasts. But surely no general indictment can lie against Schiller for taking advantage of a principle which is perfectly legitimate in itself and has been em- ployed more or less freely by the dramatists of all ages, including realists like Ibsen and Hauptmann. After all life does reallj; offer contrasts of character as glaring as any that poet ever imagined, only they are not apt to be found in juxtaposition. The artist, however, has a perfect right to juxtapose them if it suits his purpose ; that is, if it will really enhance the effect that he wishes to produce. If ever he departs too far from the familiar verities of life, he pays the penalty; for the judicious, instead of being thrilled by his pathos (or whatever it may be), are annoyed by his artificiality. This is the whole law of the matter, so far as its general aspect is concerned. As for Max Piccolomini, he is a perfectly thinkable character — in the time of the Thirty Years' War or at any other time. There is nothing supernal about him; he is simply the type of a brave and honorable young soldier who tries to walk by the higher law of conscience. There are always such men in the world, and Schiller cannot be blamed for locating one in the camp of Wallenstein, though history omitted to hand 35° Wallenstein down his name. It is perhaps a little surprising that such a youngster as Max should be in command of the great Pappenheim's regiment; that, however, is a part of the presupposition which one must mentally adjust as best one can. Within the limits of the play every- thing follows naturally. As a soldier he loves his commander and sides with him instinctively against the courtiers and politicians. His enthusiasm increases the ' mighty suggestion ' that goes out from Wallenstein ; one feels that the object of such idolatry from such a worshiper must indeed be great. In the love-scenes Max is always a man, — no trace here of sentimental weakness, or of any leaning to Quixotic folly. In his relation to Wallenstein, to Octavio, and to Thekla, his character is firmly and naturally drawn. And when his great disillusionment comes and he is forced to choose between love and duty, he makes a man's choice and his career ends as it must end — in a tragic drama. The drawing of the female characters in ' Wallen- stein ' bears witness, like all the rest of the play, to the ripening power of the years that had intervened since the writing of ' Don Carlos '. That indefinable some- thing that infects the earlier heroines of Schiller and gives them an air of sentimental futility, or else of schematic unnaturalness, has disappeared. The Countess Terzky, in particular, is a strong portrait which one can admire without reservation. As for Thekla, while her essence is an all-absorbing love for Max, she has at the same time a will and an energy of resolution which make her the worthy daughter of her father. Upon the whole she is the most lovable Max and Thekia 351 of all the heroines of Schiller. It is her tragedy of the heart which renders ' Wallenstein ' perennially interest- ing to the young. And this is much ; for does not Goethe's shrewd Merry- Andrew declare that the great object of dramatic art is to please the young, — that die Werdenden are the very ones to be considered .■' ' It is true that critics, speaking more for die Gewor- denen, have often objected that the love-story in ' Wallenstein ' is unduly expanded and that the lines have here and there, for a historical tragedy, rather too much of a sentimental, lyrical coloring. In the first of these objections, at any rate, there is some force. It was Schiller's personal fondness for his pair of lovers that led him to spin out his material until it became necessary to divide it into two plays of five acts each. This, from a dramatic point of view, was unfortunate, albeit the reader who knows the entire work will hardly find it in his heart to wish that any portion of it had remained unwritten. Properly speaking, the entire ' Piccolomini ' should constitute the first two acts of a five-act tragedy. It has no distinct unity of its own, but it takes an entire evening with what is properly the exposition and the entanglement of a play relating to Wallenstein's defection and death. The result of a separate performance is that the climax of what should be the third act — Wallenstein's momentous decision — comes right at the beginning of the second evening, ' Dann sammelt sich der Jugend schOnste Blute Vor eurem Spiel und lauscht der Offenbarung, Dann sauget jedes zartliche Gemiite Aus eurem Werk sich melanchol'sche Nahrung. . . . Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen ; Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein. — ' Faust'- 3S2 Wallenstein and is thus not adequately led up to, save as one carries over the impressions of a preceding occasion. The effect is like that of dividing any other play between the second and the third act. One could vi^ish, therefore, that Schiller had seen fit in his later years to prepare a stage version which would have made it possible to present the entire play in a single evening. It would have been a difficult task, — hope- less for an ordinary theatrical man working by the process of excision, — but for Schiller it would have been possible. And if he had attempted it, we may be quite certain that the love-story would have been very much abbreviated. As regards the lyrical and softly-sentimental pas- sages, the cogency of the critical objection is not so clear. Any opinion grounded upon an abstract theory of historical tragedy as such can have but little weight. Schiller had no models for ' Wallenstein ' ; and if he had had, there is always more merit in finding new paths than in following the old. Historical tragedy without tender sentiment is possible, but it presupposes a public politically awake and an author upborne and inspired by a vigorous national life. Schiller could appeal to no such public, and his instinct told him that a play based upon cold passions must itself be cold. So he chose to sentimentalize history, at the expense of detracting somewhat from its dignity, rather than to make frigid plays which no one would care to see or to read. And if we grant a raison d'etre to the senti- mentalized historical drama, no fault can reasonably be found with lyrical passages like that at the end of the third act of ' The Piccolomini '. Schiller found the SchiDer's Method 353 soliloquy at hand as an accepted convention of the stage and he converted it occasionally into a lyric monologue, as Goethe had done before him in ' Iphi- genie ' and 'Faust'. This, looked toward opera, toward Romanticism, toward a ijj^xture of types; but it was effective as a! mode of portraying states of feeling. The lyric monologue is of course out of tune with the modern naturalistic dogma, but so is Hamlet's solilo- quy. And then it must be remembered that the naturalistic dogma was no part of Schiller's creed. A noteworthy characteristic of ' Wallenstein ' , as of all the plays that followed it, is its pervading serious- ness. Humor plays no part. There are no Dogberries or grave-diggers, no quips or quibbles. Schiller had but little of the far-famed quality of 'irony '. It did not lie in his nature to take a position aloof from the moving panorama of life and depict it impassively as it runs, with its sharp contrasts of grave and gay, of high and low. He is always a part of the world that he creates. For the other and higher method, as exem- plified by Shakspere and also by Goethe in ' Wilhelm Meister', he showed a keen appreciation, and for a little while he imagined that he himself was catching the trick. That he did not altogether deceive himself is abundantly proved by ' Wallenstein's Camp '. After that, however, the ingrained seriousness of his tempera- ment reasserted itself with all-controlling power. The gift of humor was not denied him, but the use of it in a grave drama was repugnant to his sense of style. In this respect he was more a disciple of the French and of the Greeks than of Shakspere, CHAPTER XVII JBatB Stuart Wohlthatig heilend nahet mir der Tod, Der ernste Freund ! Mit seinen schwarzen Fliigeln Bedeckt er meine Schmach — den Menschen adelt, Den tiefstgesunkenen das letzte Schicksal. — ' Mary Stuart'. After the completion of ' Wallenstein ', in the spring of 1 799, Schiller was not long in selecting a new dramatic theme. The unwonted leisure was irksome to him, so that he felt like one living in -a vacuum. At first, being weary of war and politics, he was minded to try his hand upon something altogether imaginary, some unhistorical drama of passion. But the aversion to history and the balancing of attractions did not last long. On the 26th of April he wrote to Goethe as follows: I have turned my attention to a political episode of Queen Elizabeth's reign and have begun to study the trial of Mary Stuart. One or two first-rate tragic motives suggested them- selves straightway, and these have given me great faith in the subject, which incontestably has much to recommend it. It seems to be especially adapted to the Euripidean method, which consists in the completest possible development of a situation ; for I see a possibility of making a side issue out of the trial, and beginning the tragedy directly with the condemnation. This time the historical orientation proceeded very rapidly. By the 4th of June he was ready to begin the Removal to Weimar 355 first act, which formed his principal occupation during the next two months. From a letter to Goethe, written June 1 8, it is clear that he was then thinking especially of the danger of sentimentalizing his heroine. She was to excite sympathy, of course, but, so he averred, it was not to be of the tender, personal kind that moves to tears. It was to be her fate to experience and to arouse vehement passions, but only the nurse was to 'feel any tenderness for her'. As we shall see, he did not remain entirely faithful to this early conception of Mary's character. In August, the second act was completed and the third begun. Then came a long interruption, occasioned by the demands of the 'Almanac', the dangerous illness of Frau Schiller, — a lingering puerperal fever following the birth of her third child, Caroline, on the nth of October, — and finally by the distractions incident to a change of residence. For Schiller had now decided to make his winter home in Weimar, so that he might be near the theater. He was heart and soul in the business of play-making, and looked forward to devot- ing the next six years of Ifis life to that kind of work. To Korner he did not confide his new plan at first, though he wrote of it often to Goethe. The removal to Weimar took place early in Decem- ber, having been made possible by an increase of stipend amounting to two hundred thalers. In grant- ing this increase Karl August intimated that it might be of advantage to Schiller as a dramatic poet if he were to take the Weirnar.ians into his confidence and discuss his plays with them. 'What is to influence society ', he sagely remarked, ' can be better fashioned 3s6 Mary Stuart in society than in isolation ' ; and he added a very gracious expression of his own personal friendliness. Schiller thus found himself once more virtually a theater poet. The Weimar stage, with its little and large problems, became the focus of his activity. As a good repertory was of prime importance, much of his time went to the making of translations and adapta- tions. Thus he began a version of Shakspere's ' Mac- beth ', and had not finished it when he was again prostrated by a fresh and dangerous attack of his malady. After the completion of ' Macbeth ', in the spring of 1800, he returned to ' Mary Stuart ', but found his progress impeded by manifold interruptions. To escape these he retired to the quiet of Ettersburg, and there, early in June, he finished his tragedy of the Scottish queen. A few days later, June 14, it was played at Weimar, and from that time to this it has been one of the accepted favorites of the stage. One who saw the second performance has left it on record that the spectators unanimously declared it to be ' the most beautiful tragedy ever represented on the German boards '. Madame de Stael characterized it as the most moving and methodical of all German tragedies. Schiller conceives Mary Queen of Scots as a beautiful sinner who has repented. Her sins are grievous and she does not deny or extenuate them. But they are in the distant past; so far as the present is concerned, she is in the right. She has come to England seeking an asylum, but instead of being treated as a queen she has been confined in one prison after another and finally brought to Fotheringay, wher? sjie k subjected The Fundamental Difficulty 357 to petty indignities and denied the consolations of the Catholic religion. She has been charged with a crime of which she declares herself innocent, has been brought to trial before a commission of judges whose jurisdiction she indignantly repudiates, and has even been denied the common right to confront the witnesses testifying against her. At the opening of the play she does not yet know the verdict of the court. This is the substance of Schiller's masterly exposi- tio n ; and the effect of it. upon the reader nr gpprf3tr.r who ha s not prejudged the case, is to create an attitud e of compassion for the prisoner^ But the sympathy that one feels for the passive victim of political or legal injustice is not the kind which Schiller regarded as Uragic '. There had to be some sort of 'guilt ', and it was also necessary that this guilt should grow out of the free act of the individual. But what was to be done with a helpless captive who was not free to shape her own fate ? From the above-quoted letter to Goethe, of April 26, 1799, it is inferable that Schiller at first thought of representing the trial of Mary. He soon saw, however, that this would make the effect of the drama turn upon political, religious and legal con- siderations of an abstruse and doubtful character. It would be with the play as it always had been with the historical controversy: the devout Catholic would regard Queen Mary as the victim of brutal tyranny, while the Protestant would think her deserving of her fate. Schiller did not wish to take sides boldly in a partisan controversy, but to make a tragedy the effect of which should grow out o f universal human emotions. So he felt happy when a ' possibility ' occurred to him 358 Mary Stuart of dispensing altogether with the trial and beginning with the last three days of Mary's life. I .- The expedient that had suggested itself to him in- /volved three unhistorical inventions: first, an attempt I to escape, in which Mary and her cause would become J involved in the guilt of the murderous fanatic, Mortimer; secondly, a supposititious love for Leicester, who would use his influence with Elizabeth to bring about a meet- ing of the two queens ; and, finally, the meeting itself, in which Mary's long pent-up passion would get the better of her and betray her into a deadly insult of her rival. After this her fate would appear inevitable and incurred by her own act. This concentration of the action brought with it certain other departures from history which are of minor importance. Mary was beheaded in February, 1587, in -Me. forty-fifth year.ef- Jier_ag&. At the time of her death her captivity in England had lasted about nineteen years. In order to account for the infatuation of Mortimer and the still lingering passion of Leicester, our drama imagines her some twenty years younger than she actually was.' As thus made over by Schiller, Queen Mary is a pathetic rather than a tragically imposing figure. She appeals, after all, to the sentimental side of human nature and does not produce that effect of tragic sub- limity which is produced by ' Wallenstein '. The sympathy that she excites is like that one feels for a martyr. We see in her a royal religieuse who is perse- cuted by powerful and contemptible enemies and is ' In a letter to Iffland, written June 22, 1800, Schiller directed that his Queen Elizabeth be represented as a woman thirty years old, Mary as twentv-five. Effect of Schiller's Fictions 359 unable to help herself. Her death is decreed from the beginning and there is no way of averting it. The object of fierce contentions on the part of others, she herself does nothing, and can do nothing, to change the predestined course of events. She is never placed, as the real tragic hero must be, before an alternative where the decision is big with fate. When the end comes there is nothing to do but let her renounce all earthly passion and face the headsman as a purified saint. So far as she is concerned, there is no action at all, but only the dramatic development of a situation.' For, after all, the expedients just spoken of do not hit the mark exactly, in the sense of making the heroine responsible for her own fate. They bring in some new and exciting complications, which, however, do not affect the course of events at all. The catastrophe would have been just the same without them. This, nevertheless, is something that one does not see until we reach the end and look back. Before the two queens come together it seems as if the meeting might be a turning-point in Mary's fate; and this appearance is all that Schiller aimed at. In a letter to Goethe he spoke of this scene as ' impossible ', and he was curious to know what success he had had with it. By this he meant, seemingly, that the futility of the scene, as affecting Mary's fate, was predetermined by the nature', of the subject.^ Mary was to die; it was impossible to ) ' The thought is expressed thus by Hamack, "Schiller", page 324 : " Der eigentliche tragische Konflikt, der den Helden vor grosze Ent- scheidungen stellt und endlich in sein Verliangnis hinabreiszt, /Mt in 'Maria Stuart'. Die gefar.gene KOnigin befindet sich im Konflikt mit ihrer unwUrdigen ^uszeren Lage, aber nicht mit sich selbst.'' ' Compare, however, Fielitz, " Studien zu Schillers Dramen ", page 49. 360 Mary Stuart make Elizabeth pardon her or treat her claims with indulgence. And yet it was necessary to create the illusion of great possibilities hanging upon this inter- view of the two queens. This was a very pretty problem for a playwright, and the skill with which it is solved by Schiller is the most admirable feature of the whole piece. The scene is not great dramatic poetry, for there is too little of subtlety in it, — we are simply placed between light and darkness, as one critic says, — but it is the perfection of telling workmanship for the stage. The preparation for the scene begins back in the first act, where Mary declares to Mortimer that Leicester is the only living man who can effect her release. When she produces her picture and sends it to him for a token of her love, we begin to share her premonition that something may indeed be hoped for if her cause is taken up by the powerful favorite of EHzabeth. The lyric passages at the beginning of the third act fix attention altogether upon Mary's longing for mere physical freedom. There is no room for the suspicion that she wishes to use her liberty for any political pur- pose whatever. She appears as a noble sufferer whose whole being is absorbed in the delirious joy of breath- ing once more the free air of heaven. She surmises rightly that her unwonted liberty to walk in the park is due to Leicester, and she imagines that greater favors are in store for her: They mean to enlarge the confines of my prison, By little favors to lead up to greater, Until at last I see the face of him Whose hand shftU set ine freie forevermpr?, Meeting of the Queens 361 And the hope seems reasonable. May not the queen of England — so one is inclined to speculate —be moved to pity ? May she not be persuaded that policy is on the side of mercy ? May she not at least postpone the execution of the death-sentence and gradually in- crease her prisoner's liberty ? When Elizabeth appears it is quickly made evident that these hopes are vain. Mary humbles herself to no purpose. Her enemy, a consummate hypocrite herself, sees in her self-abasement nothing but hypoc- risy. Marys earnest pleading, her offer to renounce all for the boon of freedom, are met with bitter taunts and accusations which culminate in the galling insult: To be the general beauty, it would seem, One needs but to be everybody's beauty. Then Mary loses her self-control and throws discretion to the winds. In a wild outburst of passionate hate she accuses Elizabeth of secret incontinence and calls her bastard and usurper. Thus she triumphs in the war of words, for her enemy retreats in speechless amazement ; but therp is no more room for hope in the clemency of Elizabeth. The prisoner's fate is sealed even without the murderous attempt of the fanatic Sauvage. It must be repeated that the whole famous scene is better contrived for the groundlings in a theater than for the lover of great dramatic poetry. Mary's cres- cendo of feeling, from humble supplication to reckless defiance, gives an excellent opportunity for a tragic actrfcss, but the whole thing is rather crass. Tht effect is produced by confronting Mary with a vain and spite- ful -tewHagant bearing the name of the great English 362 Mary Stuart queen. One could wish, not only in the interest of historical truth, the obligation of which Schiller denied, but also in the interest of poetic beauty, the obligation of which he regarded as paramount, that Elizabeth had been painted here in less repulsive colors. She might have been allowed to show a trace of human, or even of womanly, feeling. She might have been represented as touched for the moment by Mary's entreaty, and as holding out to her some small hope of life and liberty, under conditions which it would have been reasonable to discuss. If she had been so portrayed and then later brought back to a sterner mood by the attempt upon her own life and the discovery of Mortimer's con- spiracy, the final result would have been just the same ; the meeting of the two queens would have served even better the dramatic purpose which it was meant to serve, and we should have had from it a noble poetic effect instead of a crass theatrical effect. The pathos of Mary's position would have been increased, because it would have been made evident that, whatever her own inner thoughts and purposes might be, she was a standing menace to the English monarchy. Thus her death would have appeared in the play what it was in fact, — a measure of high political expediency with which petty female spite had nothing to do. It is natural to raise the query whether these consid- erations, which are so obvious and are of the very kind that would have appealed to Schiller, were overlooked by him or were set aside for reasons of his own. Virtually he takes the Catholic side of the controversy. The ugly traits of Mary's character, while we cannot say that they are concealed with partisan intent, are Romantic Tendencies 363 so wrought into the picture that they do not impress the imagination as ugly at all. They are consigned to the dim Hmbo of the past and have the effect of winning for her that sympathy which human nature is always ready to bestow, in art if not in life, upon the Magdalen type. On the other hand, the ignoble traits of Queen Elizabeth are brought into the foreground and made the most of, while her great qualities are hardly more than adumbrated in the picture. The result is a canonization and a caricature; and one cannot help wondering how Schiller was brought thereto, when it would seem that his Protestant sym- pathies, as we have known him hitherto, should have led him in the contrary direction. The key to the riddle is, no doubt, that he had begun to feel the influence of the Romantic movement, which was well under way when ' Mary Stuart ' was written. The influence is difficult to prove, because Schiller always maintained ostensibly a very cool and critical attitude toward the efforts of the new school. His relations with its leaders were not intimate, and one of them at least, the younger Schlegel, was his particular aversion. Nevertheless he read their works; and while he always professed to be but little edified, there is abundant evidence that his ideas of literary art were considerably affected by the new propaganda. So, too, Goethe was never a partisan of the Romanti- cists, and he often spoke derisively of them; yet when he published the Second Part of ' Faust ', the world saw that he had learned from them all there was to be learned. An author is not always most influenced by that which he consciously approves. 3^4 Mary Stuart As for Schiller there was much in common between him and the Romanticists. He had worked out an aesthetic religion which completely satisfied him. In religious dogma of any kind he had ceased to take a practical interest. His ethical ideal was an ideal of har- mony, of equipoise. His critical studies had cured him of his one-sided Hellenism, and his historical studies had taught him that the Middle Ages wefe-ftet-wit4i€Hit t-h«ir own peculiar greatness. It was thus natural enough that the Catholicizing drift of the Romantic school should appeal to his aesthetic sympathies. When a man of poetic temper drifts away from his theological moorings and becomes indifferent to positive dogma, he is apt to value the historical religions according to their aesthetic qualities. That is best which has the most warmth and color and makes the strongest appeal to the imagination. It is along this line of reflection that we must seek the explanation of Schiller's Catholicizing tendency in 'Mary Stuart'. Her creed, if reduced to dogma, would have offended his intellect, just as her political claims would have been rejected by his historical judg- ment. But he saw in her character that which could be poetically transmuted into a type of the noble sufferer, burdened with remorse, fated to contend with injustice, and betrayed by her own rebellious nature ; but triumphing at last in the peaceful assurance that her death is the divinely appointed expiation of her sins. The drama was to represent a process of inward purification, — the attainment, after fierce storms and buffetings, of a calm haven for the soul. Queen Mary was to appear at last as the embodiment of all the Pathos of the Conclusion 3^5 qualities that seem most noble and enviable in one who ' ' feels the winnowing wings of death ' ' . And of this idea what better dramatic setting can be imagined than the ceremony of confession and absolution in accord- ance with the forms of the Catholic Church ? The solemn searching of the heart gives to Mary's character a saintly dignity, as of one already beatified, and invests the whole scene with an incomparable pathos.' Swinburne makes his Mary declare, in angry scorn of woman's weakness, that Even in death, As in the extremest evil of all our lives, We can but curse or pray, but prate and weep, And all our wrath is wind that works no wreck. And all our fire as water. Schiller's Mary meets her fate in a nobler mood. She sees in death the ' solemn friend ' who comes to lift the ancient burden from her soul. Not only does she for- give and bless her enemies, but she sees in the very injustice of her death a part of the divine benediction : God deems me fit, through this unmerited death. To expiate my heavy guilt oi yore. Such a sentiment, it must be admitted, is rather too sublimated to harmonize perfectly with the political complications that precede. We seem to have come suddenly into another world; and so we have in truth, — the world of medieval mysticism. That which begins > Even Macaulay, who was certainly not the man to be captivated by anything in the scene save its poetry, thought the "Fotheringay scenes in the fifth act . . . equal to anything dramatic that had been pro- duced in Europe since Shakspere." — Trevelyan, "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay ", 11, 182. 366 Mary Stuart as a drama of conflicting political passions, ends as a drama of mystical edification. The rationalist does not see how the divine order can be vindicated by the triumph of gross injustice; nevertheless he recognizes that the ways of God are inscrutable, and he knows that such ideas, of the winning of peace through blood- atonement, were once intensely real to the Christian world. Schiller requires the rationalist to return in his imagination to this time and place himself in the emotional milieu of the medieval church. R eturning now, in the light of these considerations, to the famous quarrel-scene in the third act, we see t hat a m ore favorable portrait of Elizabeth, while it would have had the advantage pointpd nut , wm^ld have weakened the final effe ct which Schiller wished to pro- duce, it was necessary that Mary appear as the victim of injustice in order that her saintly triumph might shine with the p ^reater luster.. Moreover, Mary's outburst of passion, for which there would have been no room if her enemy had been given a nobler charac- ter, was needed in order to make her earlier sins credible. Without that scene we should have difficulty in believing that so excellent a lady could ever have committed those crimes of hot blood which weigh upon her soul. All this means that a noble-minded Eliza- beth would not have fallen in with Schiller's artistic idea, but it hardly justifies him in making her the monster that she appears. In making her heartless he might at least have left her head in the possession of ordinary common sense. Her off-hand employment of the stranger, Mortimer, as an assassin; her stagy signing of the death-warrant, after a speech indicating The Historical Background 367 that she acts from pusillanimous motives of personal spite; her silly comedy with Davison about the execu- tion of the death-sentence ; her coquettish airs with the wretched Leicester, — these are repulsive touches which are difficult to justify on any sesthetic grounds, and the total effect of which approaches perilously near to caricature. ' Mary Stuart ' may be described, then, as a tragedy of self-conquest in the presence of an undeserved death. The stage climax is the meeting of the two queens in the third act, but the psychological climax occurs in 1 the fifth act, when Queen Mary gives up her hopes of freedom and of life and welcomes the ' solemn friend ' who is to lift the burden from her soul. In working out this conception Schiller did not trouble himself greatly about the historical verisimilitude of his chief personages. One who looks for the real Mary, Eliza- beth, Burleigh and Leicester, will not find them in his pages. The principal figures are drawn with less im- partiality than in ' Wallenstein ', the subjective presence of the author is more noticeable. And yet, looked at in a large way, the play is an excellent piece of his- torical fresco-painting. The whole spirit of the time with its warring passions, its intrigues of fanaticism, is vividly and powerfully brought before us. The author's partisanship is aesthetic only, not religious or political. The many counts in the long indictment of Queetf Mary, the motives and arguments of the English government, even the higher traits of Queen Elizabeth, are all brought out in the course of the play. Nothing of importance is neglected, and the whole complicated situation is made admirably clear. The historical 368 Mary Stuart background, with its luminous vistas of European poli- tics, really leaves very little to be desired. Masterly, too, in the main, is the constructive skill with which all this history is brought to view in a dramatic action concentrated into the last three days of Queen Mary's life. The great difficulty which always besets the 'drama of the ripe situation', — to use a modern phrase for a thing as old as Euripides, — is the difficulty of explaining the past without forcing the dialogue into unnatural channels ; in other words, of orienting the public without seeming to have that object in view. As regards this merit of good crafts- manship, ' Mary Stuart ' is here and there vulnerable. For example : in the fourth scene of the first act, the nurse, Hannah Kennedy, recounts to her mistress at great length the latter's past sins and sufferings, describing her motives, her infatuation, her heart-burn- ings and much else that the queen must know far better than any one else in the world. Such passages, obviously intended for the instruction of the audience, were permitted by the traditions of the drama, but they are bad for the illusion. In ' Wallenstein ' they are much less noticeable, — a fact which indicates that Schiller was now disposed to make his labor easier by availing himself of conventional privileges. In most respects, however, the technique of ' Mary Stuart ' is excellent. The scenes are lively, varied and very rarely too long. Everything is well articulated. Dramatic interest is not sacrificed to any sort of private enthusiasm or special pleading. One who reads the history of Mary Queen of Scots in any good historian, and endeavors to follow the Character of Mortimer 369 maze of intrigues, uprisings, plots, assassinations and what not, is impressed by no other characteristic of the age more strongly than by its complete dissociation of religion from humane ethics. The religion of love to one's neighbor, though the neighbor be an enemy, had become a fierce fanaticism which scrupled at nothing and recognized no fealty higher than the supposed secular interest of the church. In his ' Mary Stuart in Scotland ' Bjornson makes the queen put to Bothwell the question : ' You are surely no gloomy Protestant, you are certainly a Catholic, are you not .'' ' To which Bothwell replies : ' As for myself, I have never really figured up the difference, but I have noticed that there are hypocrites on both sides. ' For the modern man this is an eminently natural point of view, and we might have expected, from all we know of Schiller, that he would introduce into his play some representa- tive of this sentiment. Or if not that, we might have expected some representative of the religion of love. Instead of either we have a romantic youth who has forsworn the Protestant creed on purely assthetic grounds. Mortimer is on the whole the most interesting of the subordinate characters. He was obviously sug- gested by Babington, but the coarse fanatic of history was too repulsive for a proper champion of Schiller's idealized heroine. So the name was changed, and we get an imaginary youth who has been intoxicated by the glamour of the Catholic forms as he has seen them at Rome. The description of Mortimer's conversion, — his sudden resolve to abjure the dismal, art-hating religion of the incorporeal word, and to go over to 37° Mary Stuart \ the communion of the joyous, — is one of the telling J declamatory passages of the play. With the sentiment \ expressed Schiller can have had, in the bottom of his \heart, but little sympathy; but his artistic nature had ibegun to respond to the Romantic propaganda. For the rest, Mortimer is not a very convincing creation. One is a little surprised that a youth who purports to be so very soft-hearted, so very susceptible to the religion of the beautiful, should undertake so jauntily / the role of murderer. As for his amorous passion, that is credible enough if, in accordance with Schiller's direction, we think of Queen Mary as twenty-five years old. But in that case one's imagination has difficulty with that perspective of years which have accumulated the ancient burden of guilt. CHAPTER XVIII tTbc /IliatO of Orleans Die SchSnheit ist fiir ein gliickliches Geschlecht ; ein un- gluckliches musz man erhaben zu riihren suchen. — Letter of July 26, 1800. It was well observed by Wilhelm von Humboldt that Schiller's' plays are not repetitions of the same thing, such as talent is wont to produce when it has once met with a success, but the productions of a spirit that ever kept wrestling anew with the demands of art. With each fresh attempt he essayed a really new theme, and taken as a whole his works exhibit a remarkable variety of substance. Each one has its own indi- viduality, its own atmosphere. And he himself wished that this should be so ; it was a part of his study to avoid repeating himself. ' One must not become the slave of any general concept', — so he wrote to Goethe in July, 1800, — ' but have the courage to invent a new form for each new matter and keep the type-idea flexible in one^s mind. ' These words were penned with direct reference to ' The Maid of Orleans ', which was begun very soon after the completion of 'Mary Stuart'. Whether Schiller then had in mind all those elements which subsequently led to the sub-title, ' a romantic tragedy ', 371 372 The Maid of Orleans is not at all certain; it would be natural to surmise that he may have thought at first of a drama within the lines of authentic tradition. However, we know very little in detail about the genesis of this particular play. The letter just quoted tells of the usual initial difficulty in concentrating the action, the interesting occurrences being so widely separated in time and place. Later letters hardly do more than occasionally to report progress; they do not discuss artistic questions, nor give any information as to books read. Three acts were finished by mid-winter, and the whole on the 15th of April, 1 80 1. Schiller had now learned his routine; he felt confidence in himself and went ahead in his own way, with but little discussion of his plans. What he finally gave to the world is a tragedy in which he pro- ceeds still further along the path of romantic idealiza- tion, — proceeds indeed so far that one can no longer follow him without some rather serious misgivings. The French peasant girl becomes an ambassadress of heaven, gifted with second sight and the power of working miracles. She not only leads the French troops in battle, but she herself fights with a magic sword and kills English soldiers with the ruthlessness of a veteran in slaughter. Through it all, however, she is supposed to remain a tender-hearted and lovable maiden, such as the highest officers of France may wish to marry. By the command of the Holy Virgin, from whom her mission and power derive, she is bound to refrain from all earthly love. A momentary tender- ness for the English general, Lionel, which leads her to spare his life, presents itself to her conscience as an infraction of the divine command. She is overwhelmed Schifler's Johanna 373 with remorse and loses all her power. Arm and soul are paralyzed. Taxed by her superstitious father with witchcraft, she cannot find speech to defend herself and imagines that a thunder-clap is heaven s testimony against her. Then she wanders about as a helpless and disgraced fugitive and is captured by English soldiers. With fettered hands she is compelled to witness a new battle, in which her countrymen, deprived of her aid, are about to be worsted. But through adversity she has been purged of her sin. Her self-confidence returns, and with it her miraculous power. By the efficacy of prayer she breaks her chains and rushes into the fray. Her reappearance brings victory to the French arms, but she herself is mortally wounded and dies in glory on the battle-field. It is evident that such a conception carries us back into the dreamland of pious romance. It presupposes a world in which things did not happen as they happen now ; in which the incredible is assumed to be real and the course of events is shaped by miracle. To be sure, miracle is but sparingly used in the dramatic action itself, and the totality of the play is only a little more wonderful than the jVIaid's actual history as given by authentic records. Johanna's vision of the Virgin is merely described retrospectively and is parallel to the ' Voices of the historical Joan. So too her recognition of the King, whom she has never seen before; her reading of his mind ; her wonderful influence over the French army, and much more of the kind, are part of a well-authenticated tradition with which the skeptical mind must make its peace as best it can. And the feat is not altogether easy. The modern rationalist will 374 The Maid of Orleans say, and is no doubt right in saying, that if we knew all the pertinent facts accurately from first to last, the Maid's story would fit perfectly into our scheme of scientific knowledge and would appear no more mys- terious than other stories of obsession, genius and devotion. Still the fact remains that upon ordinary human nature, without regard to religious preposses- sions, the record of the Maid's life, as brought out at her trial, makes an impression of the marvelous. This is quite enough for the purposes of a dramatic poe't. But when Schiller introduces a magic sword ; when he makes his heroine talk with a ghost upon the battle- field, and break her heavy fetters by the power of prayer; and when we not merely hear these things reported, but see them, —then we are clearly in the realm of pure miracle. Schiller's ultra-romantic treatment of the Maid's story has often been sharply criticised, even by those who are in the main friendly to his genius; while those who are not friendly have always seen in it the com- plete flowering of his worst tendencies. Critics have debated at great length the question whether he was 'justified' in introducing the supernatural at all. They have fallen back upon the ghost in ' Hamlet ' for a precedent and have tried to illuminate the subject with the light of Lessing's famous comparison of Shakspere's ghost with Voltaire's in ' Semiramis '. Others have been shocked by Schiller's bold departure from history at the close. On a first reading of ' The Maid of Orleans ', Macaulay recorded in his journal an opinion that " the last act was absurd beyond descrip- tion. Schiller might just as well have made Wallen- Attitude of the Critics 375 stein dethrone the emperor and reign himself over Germany — or Mary become Queen of England and cut off Elizabeth's head — as make Joan fall in the moment of victory. ' ' * Now opinions of this kind have a certain interest for the student of literature, but it is best not to take them too seriously. A dramatist is ' justified ' if his inten- tion is good and he succeeds in it. The proof of the pudding is not in the cook's recipe. If any dramatist in the wide world chooses, for reasons of his own, to experiment with an imaginary reversal of the verdict of history, there is no abstract reason why he should not do so. It is just as well, as Schiller said, to ' keep the type-idea flexible in one's mind', — especially when we know that his experiment was received with ecstasy at its first performance and has ever since held its place in the affection of German play-goers. They are not troubled by its irrationalitiee, but receive them with pious awe, as- Schiller intended. For the reader, too, ' The Maid of Orleans ' has a deep and perennial fascination. Theorize about it as we may, it is a great popular classic, which has exerted an enormous educa- tive influence and proves how thoroughly its author knew the heart of the German people. It is perfectly safe to conjecture, even without docu- mentary evidence, that when Schiller began to think of Joan the Maid as the possible heroine of a tragedy, his first perplexity related to the question of her ' guilt ' . This was for him an indispensable ingredient of the tragic, whatever later theorists may think of it. • Trevelyan, " The Life and letters of Lord Macaulay ", II, 249. 376 The Maid of Orleans Althougn, as we have seen, he contemned the bondage of general concepts, he never came to the point of imagining a tragedy without 'tragic guilt'. But the story of Joan offers no suggestion of guilt in any sense whatever, — she was the innocent victim of groveling superstition playing into the hands of insane political hate. For modern sentiment, Catholic and Protestant alike, and quite independently of the view one may take of her claims to divine illumination, her death at the stake was simply a horrible and revolting wrong. In comparison with those who put her to death she was an angel of light. To follow the lines of history here was for Schiller unthinkable, since the end would have been a mad fatality, leaving no room for any feeling of acquiescence in the wise ordering of the world. If the story of Joan was to yield a tragedy at all, it was necessary to have recourse to some bold invention which should bring her fate into harmony with the central Tightness of things.' Schiller solves the problem in the terms of religious mysticism : he endows his Johanna with a supernatural ' According to Bottiger, whose statements are not always trustworthy in matters of detail, Schiller said to him in November, 1801, that he bad at one time planned three different plays on the subject of the Maid of Orleans, and that he would have executed all three if he had had time. One of these was to have been a historical tragedy, with Johanna dying at the stake in Rouen. — This can hardly mean anything more than that Schiller was in doubt for a while as to the best treatment of his theme. Tlie idea of his actually making three different plays on the same sub- ject is quite too preposterous. His promise, in a letter of March I, 1802, that jy he should write a second 'Maid of Orleans', Goschen should publish it, is only an authorls playful ' jollying ' of a friendly publisher. The passage from Bottiger is quoted at length by Boxberger in his Introduction to ' The Maid of Orleans ' (KUrschners Deutsche National-Litteratur, Vol. CXXII, second part, page 211). Johanna's Tragic Guilt 377 power dependent upon her renunciation of earthly love, and then makes her fall in love contrary to the divine command. In one of her lonely vigils under the ' holy oak ' the Virgin appears to her and bids her go forth and destroy the enemies of her country and crown the king at Rheims. When Johanna asks how a gentle girl can hope to accomplish such a work, Mary replies, A maiden chaste Can bring to pass all glorious things on earth If only she renounces earthly love. Thus far we are close enough to tradition ; for the historical Joan, who habitually called herself the Maid, knew very well that love and marriage would be fatal to her mission. Moreover, the idea of a non-natural power attaching to the state of virginity is sufficiently familiar both to Christian and to Pagan story. From this conception it is no very far cry to the idea that the very thought of love, bringing with it a sense of guilt, might cause an impairment of the maiden's divinely bestowed strength. These are mystical ideas, but the mysticism is of a kind familiar to the imagination of medieval Europe and therefore quite permissible to a poet who had set out to romanticize. If, therefore, Schiller had made his heroine fall in love in human fashion, and had then connected this lapse from virginal ideality a little more clearly with the final catastrophe, there could be no reasonable objection to his funda- mental idea, and we should have, probably, the best imaginative basis for a romantic tragedy on the story of Joan of Arc. One has no right to play the rational- ist in such a matter and argue that falling in love is no 378 The Maid of Orleans sin and cannot be felt as a sin by the modern mind. It can be so felt by the modern imagination, and that is quite enough. As the play stands, however, it must be allowed that the demand made upon the imagination is quite too severe. The love-incident is preposterous in itself and a mere episode at that, serving no purpose finally but that of a picturesque contrast. It is a sort of thing which one can put up with very well in a romantic opera, but not so well in a serious drama. To begin with, Schiller makes his heroine a supernatural being. His Johanna is not a peasant girl who imagines herself the bearer of a divine mission, and by the human qualities of purity, bravery, devotion and self-confidence, exerts a seemingly magic influence upon the French army, — but she is actually endowed with superhuman powers. She carries a charmed sword which, against her will, guides itself miraculously in her hand to the work of slaughter. No enemy can withstand her. To all Englishmen she is incarnate Death. In the full frenzy of combat she meets Lionel — for the first time. They fight and she strikes his sword from his hand. Then, as he closes with her, she seizes his plume from behind, lifts his helmet and draws her sword to cut off his head. As his comely face is bared her heart fails her, her arm sinks and the whole mischief is done. No wonder that an early critic objected to a tragedy turning thus upon the weak fastening of a helmet ! It is difficult to justify such a scene upon any theory of poetic art. The romantic drama since Schiller's time has served up many a greater marvel than this; but it produces a truly poetic effect only by keeping The Scene with Lionel 379 within the limits of tradition. The poet who deals with Siegfried and Brunhilde, or with Lohengrin or Faust, may very properly require us to accept the miracles which pertain in each case to the saga. But such a being as Schiller's Johanna is found in no saga; she is a purely arbitrary creation. A very thoughtful German critic, Bellermann, attempts to defend our love-episode by showing how Schiller took good care in the preced- ing scenes to depict his heroine as susceptible to the tender emotions of her sex ; in other words, to depict her as a maiden who might conceivably love and be loved. But earthly maidens do not suddenly fall in love with their mortal enemies upon the battle-field; and when a celestial amazon like Johanna does so, one can only imagine that she has been mysteriously for- saken by her Protectress in the skies. In that case, however, the fault lies with heaven. It is really qijite futile to discuss the artistic reasonableness of this scene, since Johanna's supernatural character takes her out- side the range of human psychology. If one likes it and is touched by it, very well ; but a prudent poet might well have had some regard for the very large number of people who would find such a scene ridic- ulous rather than touching. One could wish, in fine, that Schiller had omitted his disturbing supernaturalism altogether. If it was necessary that his heroine fall in love, one could wish that he had let her affections fasten humanly upon the good Raimond or some other honest Frenchman. And he might well have spared us the Black Knight, — that revenant ghost of Talbot, who comes to frighten Johanna but does not succeed, and whose function in 380 The Maid of Orleans the economy of the play remains in the end somewhat mysterious. Had he left out these things, the real greatness of the play would have suffered not a whit, and the artistic idea which kindled his imagination would have found a no less noble expression. That idea was to reproduce the spirit of the epoch which saw the birth of French patriotism. He wished to bring before his rationalizing contemporaries a picture of the Middle Ages as a time when, to quote the words of a recent American writer, ' ' life was lived passion- ately and imaginatively under haunted heavens ".' What thoughts were agitating him at the very time when 'The Maid of Orleans ' was taking shape in his mind can be seen from an interesting letter which he wrote to a certain Professor Siivern, who had favored him with a critique of ' Wallenstein '. Schiller answered under date of July 26, 1800, and one para- graph of his reply runs as follows : I share your unconditional admiration of the Sophoclean trag- edy, but it was a phenomenon of its time, which cannot come again. It was the living product of a definite, individual pres- ent ; to force it as a standard and a pattern upon an entirely different epoch would be to kill rather than to quicken art, which must always come into being and do its work as a living dynamic influence. Our tragedy, if we had such a thing, has to wrestle with the time's impotence, laziness and lack of character, and with a vulgar mental habit. It must therefore exhibit force and character. It must endeavor to stir and uplift the feelings, but not to resolve them into calm. Beauty is for a happy race ; an unhappy race one must seek to move by sublimity. These words, which contain implicitly the whole Romantic confession of faith, give the right point of ' Lewis E. Gates, "Studies and Appreciations." Schiller's Poetic Intention 381 view from which to judge ' The Maid of Orleans ' . Schiller felt that the need of the hour was to escape from the banality of conventional ideas and feel the thrill of sympathy with great, overmastering emotions. To-day this seems a very simple and obvious matter, because we have learned to think of the imaginative appeal of poetry as the corner-stone of the temple. But a hundred years ago the outlook was different. Notwithstanding the revolt which Goethe and Schiller had themselves led against the self-complacent rational- ism of the century, the old spirit was still potent even in Germany, where the reaction first gathered force. Among the intellectual classes religion had well-nigh ceased to be reckoned with as a mystic passion of the soul. Several decades of tolerance, — practically an excellent method for keeping the sectaries from one another's throats, — had produced a public sentiment which looked with mild contempt upon all religious fervors. When Schleiermacher published his famous ' Discourses on Religion ', in the year 1799, he addressed them ' to the cultivated among its despisers ', — which was only his phrase for what we should call the general public. Nor was the case very different with respect to another mystic passion, which derives from the tribal instinct of the primitive savage and which the civilized man calls patriotism. The lesson of Frederick the Great had not been entirely forgotten, but it was lying inert, — waiting to be kindled into fiery zeal by the humiliations of Jena and Tilsit and Wagram. Schiller was no mystic, nor was he, in our narrow sense, a patriot; but he had a poet's feeling for the sublimity 382 The Maid of Orleans of great and passionate devotion. He was a man of the eighteenth century, and as thinker he understood full well its imperishable claims to honor ; but as poet it was not for him to fall into that cynical, vulgarizing drift which had led the greatest Frenchman of his day to make Joan of Arc the butt of his lewd wit. Voltaire saw in her one of the pious frauds of that Infamous he was bent on crushing ; for her national mission he had little feeling, because of his fixed idea that nothing good could have come from the ages of superstition.' Schiller saw in her, and was the first great poet to see what all the world sees now, the heroic deliverer of her country from a hated foreign invader. And so he threw down the gauntlet to his century and lifted the ludibrium of the French wits to the pedestal of an inspired savior of France. It was a great deed of poetry ; in the presence of which a right-minded critic, after duly airing his little complaints, as critics must, will be disposed to doff his hat and say Bravo! Well might Schiller declare in the stanzas entitled ' The Maid of Orleans ' : The world brooks not nobility, — disdaining, Defaming, smirching, goes its vulgar gait ; — But fear thou not, true hearts are still remaining. To love thee for the heart that made thee great. In its inmost essence, then, ' The Maid of Orleans ' is a drama of patriotism. It is Johanna's love of country that gives her a measure of human interest, in spite of the supernaturalism that invests her. Were she not thus the representative of a passion that is intensely real, and that has come to be regarded, for. ' Compare Morley's " Voltaire '', Chapter III. A Drama of Patriotism 383 better or for worse, as preeminently noble, she would now possess but very languid interest for the sublunary mind. Her mystical attributes and her unthinkable love-affair would place her beyond the range of natural sympathy. As it is, one is made to forget, or at least to pass lightly over, everything else but her love for France. She wins favor by her patriotic devotion, and when the end comes one thinks of her under the familiar rubric of the hero dying for his country. The episode with Lionel and the humiliation of the Cathedral scene have all been forgotten, and one does not mentally connect these things with Johanna's death in any way whatsoever. Her death is sufficiently pro- vided for from the beginning in her own fatalistic prevision : Johanna goes and never shall return. It must be admitted that a heroine who excites interest chiefly by virtue of her patriotic sentiments and the bravery of her conduct does not represent the highest type of poetic creation. The muse will always lend virtue and bravery to any common poetaster for the mere asking ; but she does not so readily vouchsafe a convincing semblance of complex human nature. A distinctly human Johanna, with a definite girlish individuality and a character all her own, — such as Goethe might have given us had he turned his thoughts in that direction, — would have been a higher and a more difficult achievement than the schematic creature of Schiller's imagination. Such a Johanna, however, would hardly be thinkable on the stage: the final horror of her fate would be intolerable in the visible 384 The Maict of Orleans representation, while to Itave it unrepresented would be to admit the reasonableness of Schiller's departure from history. Shall we then take refuge in the posi- tion that the Maid's story is not adapted to dramatic treatment at all ? Such a position is at once rendered absurd by the perennial popularity and effectiveness of Schiller's play. Until some great realistic poet shall prove the contrary by deeds, the mere critic is certainly justified in holding that, whatever may be thought of his love-episode, the ghost and the miraculous escape from bondage, the general requirements of the theme are best met by Schiller's romantic treatment. Turning from the heroine to the other characters, one finds but little that invites discussion. Johanna is the central sun of the system, and in the romantic light that goes out from her the others seem rather pale and uninteresting. Father Thibaut impresses one in the Prologue as a little too refined, intelligent and far- sighted for the role of besotted superstition and mis- understanding which he subsequently plays in the cathedral scene. La Hire and the Duke of Burgundy and the Bastard of Orleans, who preserves only a sug- gestion of the rugged soldier that once bore his name, are there only to illustrate the divine magic of the Maid. Two of them wish to marry her, and when we add the Englishman, Lionel, and the French peasant, Raimond, we have a quartet of lovers. Verily the little god Cupido would seem to be something too prominent and ubiquitous for a military drama. His- tory required that the Dauphin should be a weakling, and such he is in the play; but he too is romanticized through his devotion to the tender and soulful Agnes. The Subordinate Qiaracters 385 More strongly drawn, if not exactly more lifelike, than any of these, are the sensual old fury, Isabeau, and the English general, Talbot, whose fierce valedic- tory to this folly-ridden earth is deservedly famous : Soon it is over, and to earth go back — To earth and the eternal sun — the atoms Erstwhile combined in me for pain and joy. And of the mighty Talbot, whose renown But now filled all the world, nothing remains Except a handful of light dust. So ends The life of man — and all we bear away, As booty from the battle of existence, Is comprehension of its nothingness And sovereign contempt of all the ends That seemed exalted and desirable. In short, the characters of ' The Maid of Orleans ' leave much to be desired on the score of verisimilitude. > One has the feeling all along, as in the case of Goethe's ' Helena ', of being in an artificial world made to order by an imaginative fiat. To enjoy the play it is neces- sary to put aside one's rationalism and surrender one- self to the illusion one knows that the author wishes to produce. ' Tl^e Maid of Orleans ' does not compel the surrender like ' Wallenstein ' ; one must meet the poet half-way. That done, however, everything is in order, for the technique of the play is faultless. It is not easy to point to a better piece of dramatic exposition than the scenes which precede the appearance of Johanna in the French army. The Prologue is perhaps a trifle too long, but serves admirably to give the tragic key- note, by picturing the shepherd-girl of Dom Remi leading a life apart from that of her family, given to strange brooding, and at last reeeiving the sign frpjn I 386 The Maid of Orleans Heaven, which she prophetically feels to be the call of death. And then the desperate plight of France ; the helpless weakness of the king; the disgust and dis- couragement of the generals ; and after this the news of a long unwonted victory, followed quickly by the appearance of Johanna and the magic change of the military situation, — how vividly it is all brought before one ! And what a fine scene is that at the end of the second act, in which Burgundy is won over! One who is not touched by this portion of the play ; who does not return to it with ever-renewed pleasure after each sojourn in the choking air of naturalism, is — to state the case as gently as possible — unfortunately endowed. CHAPTER XIX Zbe JBride of ^eesina Das Leben ist der Giiter hochstes nicht, Der Ubel grosztes aber ist die Schuld. •TAe Bride of Messina'. After the completion of ' The Maid of Orleans ', in the spring of 1801, Schiller found himself once more the unhappy victim of leisure. A new task was needed to make life tolerable, but what should it be ? ' At my time of life ' , he remarked in a letter to Korner, ' the choice of a subject is far more difficult ; the levity of mind which enables one to decide so quickly in one's youth is no longer there, and the love, without which there can be no poetic creation, is harder to arouse.' Ere long, having a mind to try his hand upon a tragedy in ' the strictest Greek form ' , he was musing upon that which in time came to be known as ' The Bride of Messina ' . For the present, however, and for some time to come, he did not advance beyond very general plan- ning. In the summer he spent several weeks with Korner in Dresden, during which literary labor was suspended. After his return to Weimar, in September, he found the conditions without and within unfavorable to a serious creative effort, so he undertook a German version of Gozzi's 'Turandot'. This occupied him 387 388 The Bride of Messina until January, 1802. Then it was a question whether his next theme should be ' The Knights of Malta ', or ' Warbeck ', or ' William Tell ', the last having begun to interest him because of a persistent rumor that he was working upon a play of that name. But none of the four projects carried the day immediately, and the winter and spring passed without bringing a decision. He began to be worried over the ' spirit of distraction ' that had come upon him. In August, however, the long vacillation came to an end, and ' The Bride of Messina ' began to take shape on paper. He found it more instructive than any of his previous works. It was also, he remarked in a letter, a more grateful task to amplify a small matter than to condense a large one. Once begun, the composition proceeded very steadily, — but little disturbed by the arrival, one day in November, of a patent of nobility from the chancellery of the Holy Roman Empire, — until the end was reached, in February, 1803. The play may be described as an attempt to treat a medieval romantic theme in such a manner as to convey a suggestion of Greek tragedy. Although written with enthusiasm it is not the bearer of any heartfelt message and must be regarded as a study of theory rather than of life. The highly artificial plot does not reflect any past or present verities of human existence upon the planet earth. Nor can we call the play an imitation of the Greeks, its general atmosphere being anything but Greek. The dialogue is not written in classical trimeters, but in the modern pentameter; while the speaking chorus, divided into two warring factions and going aboiit her^ arjd there as the seen? changes, ha? General Qiaracterization 389 little resemblance to anything found in the Greek drama. On the other hand, there is a chorus, and there are dreams which take the place of oracles. There is also a further suggestion of the antique in the pervading fatalism of the piece. Of all Schiller's works ' The Bride of Messina ' has been the most variously judged by the critics. Some have seen in it the very perfection of art, others the climax of artificiality. Schiller himself reported, after seeing it performed- at Weimar, in 1803, that he had ' received for the first time the impression of true tragedy '. There is also an authentic record to the effect that Goethe was inexpressibly delighted with it and declared that ' by this production the boards had been consecrated to higher things '. Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that nothing could surpass the majesty of the play, and Korner assigned it a high rank among Schiller's productions. On the other hand it was spoken of by the satellites of the disgruntled Herder as a ' singular fata morgana, and a ' shocking mon- strosity ' ; while F. H. Jacobi characterized it as a ' disgusting spook made by mixing heaven and hell '. And these discordant voices, in all their vehemence of expression, have been echoed by later critics ; so that in the case of this particular drama, as Bellermann observes, it is hardly possible to speak of a settled average opinion. On one point, nevertheless, there is very general agreement: namely, that the diction of the choruses is magnificent in its kind. Nothing finer in German poetry anywhere. From the outset critical discussion of ' The Bride of Me§§ina ' has turned mainly upon its antique ?kments, 39° The Bride of Messina that is, upon its chorus and its treatment of the fate- idea. There has been endless comparison of Sophocles' ' King CEdipus ' and endless logomachy about free- will and predestination in their relation to guilt. And such discussion is pertinent, because we have Schiller's own word that he wished to vie with Sophocles. An oft-quoted passage from a letter to Wilhelm von Hum- boldt runs as follows: My first attempt at a tragedy in the strict form will give you pleasure. From it you will be able to judge whether I could have carried off a prize as a coatemporary of Sophocles. I do not forget that you have called me the most modern of modern poets, and have thus thought of me in the sharpest contrast to everything that is styled antique. I should thus have reason to be doubly pleased if I could wrest from you the admission that I have been able to make even this strange spirit my own. At first blush this looks like an abandonment of the position stated so clearly and emphatically in the letter to Siivern (page 380). In reality, however, it is not so. Schiller was not concerned to imitate Sophocles, nor to revive an ancient form with pedantic rigor. He was as far as possible from a one-sided worship of the Greeks. His reference to his ' strict form ' hardly means more than is implied in simplicity of plot, few- ness of characters and observance of the unities. He did not write ' The Bride of Messina ' in any doctrinaire spirit, — either to reform the German drama, or to furnish a model for imitation. The play is simply an aesthetic experiment; a tentative excursion into a field confessedly 'strange '. What Schiller wished was to produce upon a modern audience, by an original treat- ment of a medieval theme, a tragic effect similar to that which, as he supposed, must have been produced upon Substance of the Plot 391 an Athenian audience by a play of Sophocles, — more especially by the ' King CEdipus '. For the groundwork of his tragedy he resorted to the well-worn fiction of the hostile brothers, giving it this form: Two princes grow up in mutual hatred, but are finally reconciled through the influence of their mother. Both fall in love, each without the other's knowledge, with a young woman of whose family they know nothing, arid who is in reality their sister. One day the younger prince finds the object of his passion in the arms of his brother, who has just learned the secret of the girl's birth. Instantly the old hate blazes up anew, and in a paroxysm of blind rage Don Cesar kills his brother. Then, when he discovers the whole truth, he expiates his crime by a voluntary death. — In this scheme, it will be observed, the salient point is the fratricide committed in a sudden frenzy of passion: everything else leads up to this or grows out of it. From a modern point of view the crime is adequately accounted for by the character of Don Cesar; but if the story was to be given a Sophoclean coloring it was necessary that the horrors appear as the necessary evolution of ineluctable fate. In employing the fate-idea for dramatic purposes the Greek poet had, in the first place, the great advantage of a definite mythological tradition which was known to everybody. In ' the second place, he wrote for people who still believed in oracles and received them seriously as credible manifestations of divine foreknowl- edge. Again, he could count on a living belief in the hereditary character of guilt: the belief that a good man, leading his life without evil intent, might be led 392 The Bride of Messina to commit horrible and revolting acts because of some ancient taint in his blood; or because the gods, in their inscrutable government of the world, had decreed that he should thus sin and suffer. Just how far the Greek conception of moral responsibility differed in a general way from the modern, is a trite question which need not be gone into here. Suffice it to say that the difference has often been too broadly and too sharply stated. Not all Greek tragedies were tragedies of fate, — indeed it was a saying of Schiller that tlie ' King CEdipus ' constitutes a genus by itself — nor is there any definite unitary conception which can be described as ' modern ' for the purpose of a contrast. After all, that which affects us in tragedy is very much the same as that which affected the Greeks, namely, the sense of life's overruling mystery. And whether we refer the happenings of life to an all-wise Providence, or to a scientific order which is so because it is so, they remain alike incommensurable with our ethical feeling. The bullet of a crazed fanatic, or a lethal germ in a glass of water, may end the noblest career in horrible suffering. In the drama, it is true, we prefer that no use be made of such mad calamities and that what befalls a man shall at least seem to grow out of his character. But then a man's character is the effect of a hundred subtle causes which began their operation in part before he was born ; so that there is an element of essential truth in the saying that char- acter is fate. We have become aware that there is a sense in which it is exactly true that the sins of the father are visited upon the children. In short, modern thought ha^ jiot tended to cleaf Fate and Responsibility 393 up but rather to deepen the mystery of life in its rela- tion to antecedent conditions; of fate in its relation to desert. Our common sense, as embodied in law, treats a man as responsible for the good or evil that he per- sonally intends. This is no doubt an excellent practical rule, without which society could hardly exist at all ; but looked at philosophically it does not really touch the heart of the great mystery which is the theme of ' King CEdipus ' and of ' The Bride of Messina '. The young CEdipus, while living at Corinth with his foster- father, Polybus, whom he supposes to be his real father, is told by the oracle that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. What should he do .'' Com- mit suicide in order to stultify the oracle, or resolve to kill no man and to marry no woman .'' The story imputes to him no blame for doing neither of these things. He acts as a man would act who sees himself confronted by an evitable danger. He leaves Corinth, but the very step that he takes to avoid his fate brings it surely to pass. He meets a stranger in the road. A quarrel arises over the question of passing, — a quarrel as to the merit of which the legend is silent. CEdipus kills his antagonist, and that antagonist is his father. Then he delivers Thebes from the scourge of the Sphinx and receives the hand of Queen Jocasta as his due reward. He has forgotten the oracle, or imagines that he has eluded his foreordained fate by leaving Corinth ; but the oracle has fulfilled itself, as the spectator knew from the beginning that it would. The interest of the tragedy turns largely upon the overwhelming remorse of CEdipus and Jocasta when they discover the truth. 39 + The Bride of Messina To match these conditions Schiller requires us to imagine a medieval prince of Messina reigning at some indefinite time in the Middle Ages. While his two sons are yet children he has a dream in which he sees two laurel-trees growing out of his marriage-bed, and between them a lily which changes to flame and con- sumes his house. An Arabian astrologer, for whom he has a heathenish partiality, interprets the dream as meaning that a daughter yet to be born will cause the destruction of his dynasty. So when a daughter is born he orders her put to death. But the mother has also had her dream, ^ — ^of a lion and an eagle bringing their bloody prey in sweet concord to a little child playing on the grass. A pious Christian monk explains this dream as meaning that a daughter will unite the quarrelsome sons in passionate love. So the queen saves the life of her new-born child and has her secretly brought up in a convent not far from Messina. As long as the father lives the hostile brothers are restrained from fighting, but when he dies their feud breaks out in open war. Each surrounds himself with retainers, Messina is torn by factional strife, and there is danger from external enemies. Citizens implore the mother to effect a reconciliation, failing which they threaten a revolution. At last she succeeds in arranging a peace- ful meeting in her presence. Such is Schiller's presupposition, — a singular blend of Christianity and paganism, such as at once gives, difficulty to the imagination. A prince reigning under a Christian order of things, in a city of churches and convents, yet willing to murder his child on account of a dream interpreted to him by an Arab soothsayer, Unnaturalness of the Action 393 is not a very plausible invention. And the same may be said of much that follows. In half-a-dozen places the tragedy would come to an untimely end did not one or another of the characters conveniently refrain from doing or saying what a human being would in- evitably do or say under the circumstances. Beatrice grows up in the convent without taking vows and is kept in ignorance of her lineage. Though her mother longs for her, she never sees her, and communicates with her only through the old servant, Diego. Such conduct is perhaps intelligible during the life of the king, but with him out of the way one would expect the mother to take her daughter home without a moment's delay. Instead of that she waits two months, merely sending word to Beatrice to prepare for some unnamed change of fortune. She also keeps the secret from her sons during these two months, without any sufficient reason. When questioned on the subject by Don Cesar in the play, she makes the bitter feud of the brothers her excuse: How could I place your sister here atwixt Your bare and reeking swords ? In your fierce rage You would not hearken to a mother's voice ; And could I have brought her, the pledge of peace, The anchor of my every dearest hope, To be perchance the victim of your strife ? But this is strange logic. One does not see at all how the sister's life would have been imperiled; and if she was to be the pledge of peace, — as the mother's dream seemed to foretell, — then there was the best of reasons for bringing her home at the earliest possible moment. And then how singularly Don Manuel behaves! 396 The Bride of Messina He is the elder son, and as such must be heir to the throne ; but of that we hear nothing in the play. He falls in love with Beatrice, sees her often during a period of months, and secures from her a promise of marriage; but he never tells her who he is, nor does he ask her a question about her own lineage. When she tells him of an old man who comes to her occa- sionally as messenger from her unknown family, and who has at last bidden her prepare for a change of abode, he makes no attempt to see the stranger and find out whither his bride is to be taken. For such conduct he can have no possible reason, but Schiller has one ; for were Don Manuel once to set eyes on the old family servant, Diego, a clearing-up would of course be inevitable. Instead of doing the one natural thing, Don Manuel abducts his sweetheart during the night, with her consent, and takes her to a garden in Messina. There he leaves her alone to await his coming, — a singular thing for a prince to do with his bride, but necessary to the tragedy. More dubious still is the remarkable silence of Beatrice when she is exposed to the stormy wooing of Don Cesar in the garden. The fiction is that he has caught a glimpse of her two months before, on the occasion of his father's funeral, and has since been constantly searching for her. Having now found her, through one of his spies, he makes love to her jubilantly through sixty lines of text, but she answers never a syllable and lets him go away in supposed triumph. A bare word from her, such as a woman could not help saying under the circumstances, would end the complication, since it would send Don Cesar away Singular Conduct of the Mother 397 baffled; and then there would be no occasion for his returning to the garden a Httle later. Maidenly fright and consternation cannot account rationally for such behavior; one sees that she holds her tongue because to set it in motion would be dramaturgically disastrous. But the climax of unnaturalness is reached in the scene between the queen and her two sons, when old Diego reports that Beatrice has been abducted from the convent — presumbly by Moorish corsairs. The distracted mother urges her sons to go at once to the rescue of their sister. But here a difficulty presents itself. If the brothers are to have the faintest chance of finding their sister, it is clearly of the first importance that they know something about her, and particularly that they know where she has been kept in hiding. Now this knowledge can be safely imparted to Don Cesar but not to Don Manuel. So Don Cesar is made to rush away hotly, at all adventure, without the slightest clew of any kind,^-the reason being that it would not do for him to hear that which Diego is about to tell. The younger brother thus conveniently out of the way, Don Manuel, who has begun to suspect the truth, implores his mother to tell him where the lost Beatrice has been concealed. Evidently the only natural part for the mother is to answer the question. But that would not do; so she interrupts him and urges him away with such senseless exclamations as ' Fly to action!' 'Follow your brother's example!' ' Behold my tears ! ' And when at last he succeeds in bringing out the fateful inquiry, she only answers : The bowels of earth were not a safer refuge ! 398 The Bride of Messina Then Don Manuel ceases to press his question and stands quietly by while Diego tells his remorseful story of Beatrice's visit to the church on the day of her father's funeral. Strangely enough this recital sug- gests to Don Manuel the hopeful suspicion that his sister and his sweetheart may, after all, not be the same person ; so he rushes away to question Beatrice, when he must know that his mother is the one person in the world who can best resolve his doubts. Then, when he is gone, Don Cesar comes back, and the mother very calmly proceeds to give him the all-im- portant information which she has just withheld from Don Manuel. Such is the device, of convenient silence at critical points where speech would be natural but ruinous, by which Schiller leads up to his climax. There is no other play of his, early or late, the entanglement of which is so palpably artificial; so like a child's house of cards, built up with bated, breath lest a breath should topple it over. According to Bottiger, Schiller once took note of what some critic had remarked upon this lavish use of silence in ' The Bride of Messina ' and expressed surprise that any one could so misconceive him. He went on to say, if we Can trust Bottiger, that it is ' precisely in this closing of the mouth at critical moments, when a saving word might rend the iron net of fate, that the unevadable and demonic power of evil-brooding destiny manifests itself most clearly and sends a gruesome shudder of awe through every spec- tator. ' This is certainly a good defense if we, assume that the great object of dramatic poetry is to exhibit the working-out of some abstract scheme of mysterious Schifler's Contempt of Realism 399 fate. Under that hypothesis one has no right to com- plain if the characters are treated like puppets, — pulled hither and thither in unnatural directions and made to speak when they should be silent, and to be silent when they should speak. If one finds the scheme impressive, one will think of that, get his thrill of awe and be thankful. But it is somewhat different if one holds that the verities of human nature are more inter- esting than any scheme, and that the great object of the serious drama should be to exhibit human beings ' in the stress of life. One who takes that view will wish, while recognizing the great qualities of ' The Bride of Messina ' , that its author had not gone quite so far in his contempt of realism. For, after all, the highest law of the drama is the law of psychological truth, which requires that the charac- ters be humanly conceivable and act as human beings would act under the circumstances imagined. This law is not kept in ' The Bride of Messina ', with the result that the first three acts fall short of the effect that they are intended to produce. It is different with the fourth act. There everything is in order, and the simple and noble impressiveness of the tragedy leaves nothing to be desired. And it is an interesting fact that this impressiveness depends only in a slight degree upon the fulfillment of the old dreams and prophecies. To be sure they are fulfilled ; but we are not required to put faith in the inspiration either of the Arab sooth- sayer or of the Christian monk. Their vaticinations might be mere fallible guess-work ; Don Cesar might live and give them the lie, so far as any external constraint is concerned. But he himself feels that the 400 The Bride of Messina heavy hand of fate is upon him and that continued life would be intolerable. The whole pathos of the tragedy- is transferred to the inner being of the surviving brother, and one feels that his self-destruction proceeds from the law of his own nature, and not from any fatalistic necessity that is laid upon him. The truth would seem to be that the fate-idea, while of course it must be taken into consideration in any careful estimate of ' The Bride of Messina ', has been made a little too prominent by many of the critics. What the spectator sees, says one writer who is in the main an admirable expounder of Schiller, is ' ' gigantic Fate striding over the stage. He sees a wild, tyran- nical race, burdened with ancestral guilt, turning against its own flesh and blood. . . . He is made to feel that the self-destruction of this race is nothing accidental, that it is a divine visitation, a judgment of eternal justice pronounced against usurpation and law- lessness, that it means the birth of a new spiritual order out of doom and death. ' ' ' But is this what is actually seen .' Is it not rather true that Schiller makes but little out of the matter of ancestral guilt .' We hear, it is true, that the old prince was of an alien stock that had won the sovereignty of Messina with the sword and held it by force. But this is no very appalling crime as the world goes, and especially as the world went in the Middle Ages. One hardly thinks of William of Normandy, for example, as a revolting criminal deserving of the divine wrath. Then we hear, too, that the old prince had appropriated to him- ' Kuno Francke, ' ' Social Forces in German Literature, " page 394. Use of the Fate-Idea 401 self a wife who was 'his father's choice'. But the whole matter is disposed of in two or three choral lines which leave not even a clear, much less a strong im- pression. There are no data for an ethical judgment. We are not told wherein the superior right of the father consisted. For aught we know the son may have had the better claim, and the father's curse may have been only the impotent scolding of a disappointed dotard. It is difficult to see anything here which can rationally warrant eternal justice in extirpating the race. And when we pass from the presuppositions to the play itself, we see that none of the characters except Don Cesar does anything seriously blameworthy. If then it were clearly the central purpose of Schiller to justify the moral government of the world, or to exhibit the workings of an august Fate in itself worthy of reverence, we should have to admit that he has missed the mark ; for the fate that he represents is not worthy of. reverence at all. But what is the central fact of the play, as seen by the unsophisticated spec- tator who has never read the Greek poets nor heard of the house of Labdacus ? Evidently it is the murder expiated by a voluntary death. A high-minded youth knowingly kills his brother in a moment of blind rage, because he thinks that his brother has deceived him. When he learns the truth, and learns also of the old dreams and prophecies, he feels thkt he too must die. Here is the real tragedy, — in the resolution of Don Cesar and his steadfast adherence to it in the face of his mother's and his sister's entreaties. The appa- ratus of dreams and prophecies and fate is meant to work upon the mind of Don Cesar rather than upon 402 The Bride of Messina that of the spectator. Superstition adds to the burden of his remorse until it becomes unbearable and death appears the only road to peace: Dying I bring to naught the ancient curse, A free death only breaks the chain of fate. In a prefatory essay upon ' The Use of the Chorus in Tragedy ' Schiller defended his innovation and incidentally set his heel upon the head of the serpent of naturalism. True art, he insisted, must have a higher aim than to produce ,ij; illusion of the actual. Its object is not to divert men with a momentary dream of freedom, but to make them truly free by awakening and developing the power of imaginative objectivation. Nature itself being only an idea of the mind, and not something that appears to the senses, art must be ideal in order to represent the reality of nature. To demand upon the stage an illusion of the actual is absurd, since dramatic art rests entirely upon ideal conventions of one kind or another. Therefore, so the argument goes on, it was well when a poetic diction was substituted for the prose of every-day life, and the next great step is to reintroduce the chorus and thereby ' declare war openly and honestly against naturalism in art ' . The chorus is likened to a ' living wall which tragedy builds about itself in order completely to shut out the actual world and to preserve for itself its ideal domain, its poetic freedom '. In consonance with these ideas we have a chorus divided into two parts, one consisting of the elderly re- tainers of Don Manuel, the other of the younger re- tainers of Don Cesar. These two semi-choruses take Apologia for the Chorus 403 a certain part in the action. On the one hand they are Hke the materialized shadows of their respective leaders, having no will of their own. When the brothers compose their feud and embrace each other, the semi-choruses do likewise, — which comes peril- ously near to the ridiculous. On the other hand the semi-choruses have a horizon of their own and per- form, to a certain extent, the old function of the ideal spectator. They comment in sonorous strains upon present, past and future, and upon the high matters of life and death and fate. Schiller's argument on the use of the chorus, while interesting in its way, does not now sound very con- vincing; perhaps because we have come to have lesa faith than he had in the possibility of settling such questions by abstract reasoning. Forms of art spring out of local and temporal conditions ; they have their exits and their entrances. Now and then a reversion to some earlier form may prove acceptable, but in general it can have only a curious or antiquarian interest. The man of reading, who knows his Greek poets, will be glad to have seen once or twice in his life a genuine Greek play, — preferably in the Greek language, with all the accessories as perfect as possible. Next to that he will enjoy a perfect imitation, like the first portion of Goethe's ' Helena '. But just in pro- portion as he is permeated by the Greek spirit he will feel the spuriousness of Schiller's so-called chorus. For the effect of the Greek chorus depended not so much upon the meaning of the words as upon the sen- suous charm of the music and the dance. To sacrifice these is to sacrifice that which is most vital and leave 404 The Bride of Messina only the simulacrum of a chorus. Some small effects in the line of the picturesque can be achieved by means of costuming, marching and grouping, but the rest can be nothing but elocution, — a frosty appeal to the ethical sense, offered as a surrogate for the witchery of song and rhythmic motion. One may be pardoned for thinking that a good ballet would have served the purpose better. The reader of the play, however, is not disturbed by any considerations of this kind. For him the choruses are simply poetry, — admirable poetry, for the most pa!rt, in Schiller's very best vein. What a wealth of imagery and what a splendor of varying rhythms! And how cunningly the gorgeous diction twines itself, like ivy about a bare wall, concealing the nakedness of commonplace and giving an effect of noble senten- tious wisdom ! This is and must remain the great value of ' The Bride of Messina ', — to delight the reader with the charm of its style. Schiller's plea for the chorus passed unheeded save by the philologists. His example was not imitated ; indeed he himself probably had no serious hope that it would be. On the other hand, there did spring up in the next two decades a most luxuriant crop of so-called fate-tragedies, which, with their horrors, banalities and puerilities, soon brought the species into contempt and made it fair game for the telling satire of Platen. The fashion, — ■ a thoroughly bad fashion in the main, — was undoubtedly set by ' The Bride of Messina ' ; but we cannot make^ Schiller answerable for the hair-raising and blood- curdling inventions of Werner, Houwald, Milliner, Grillparzer and Heine. CHAPTER XX •KUtlUam ttcll Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder. Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegeniibersteht ; Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegeben. ' William Tell '. Schiller's last play, like his first, was inspired by the Goddess of Freedom, but what a difference between the wild-eyed bacchante of the earlier day and the decorous muse of ' William Tell ' ! There the frenzied revolt of a young idealist against chimerical wrongs of the social order; here a handful of farmers, rising sanely in the might of union and appealing to the old order against intolerable oppression. There the tragedy of an individual madman ; here the triumph of a laud- able patriotism. ' Tell ' is a fresh illustration of its author's versa- tility, for nothing more different from its immediate predecessors could easily be imagined. It is also the most thoroughly human among his plays, and the only one that does not end upon a tragic note. Finally it is the most popular, though the most loosely articu- lated, — a fact that shows how little the permanent interest and classical prestige of a dramatic production 405 4o6 William Tell depend upon its satisfying the ideal demands of critical theory. It was noted casually in the preceding chapter that rumor began to be occupied with speculations about Schiller's ' Tell ' before he had seriously thought of writing a play on the subject. In the summer of 1797 Goethe had revisited Switzerland and brought baclc with him the idea of a narrative poem about William Tell. He discussed the matter with Schiller, inciden- tally telling him much about the Forest Cantons. Possibly he may have suggested, in the presence of a mutual friend, that the theme had dramatic possibili- ties,— which would account sufficiently for the aforesaid rumor. Finding his supposed plan the subject of curious gossip, Schiller was led to look more closely into the subject. He read Tschudi's ' Chronicon ' and found it Homeric and Herodotean in its simple straight- forwardness. The legend fascinated him and he began to see in it the material of a popular drama that should take the theatrical world by storm. He was eager for such a triumph, and the more so because ' The Bride of Messina ', as staged by Iffland in Berlin, had met only with an equivocal success: many were pleased, but there was a plenty of adverse comment. Iffland was now the director of the Royal Prussian Theater, and thus in a position to serve the interests of Schiller, whom he devotedly admired. It was therefore worth while for a man who had chosen to be a dramatic poet, and whose income depended upon his popularity, to forego further experimentation with unfamiliar art-forms and set about supplying that which would interest average human nature. Attention to Local Color 407 Work began in the spring of 1803 and proceeded very steadily during the ensuing months. The letters of the period express unbounded confidence in the nascent play. It was to be a ' powerful thing which should shake the theaters of Germany ', and a ' genuine folk-play for the entire public '. Honest Tschudi con- tinued to be the great source, but other writers were read and excerpted. Schiller took infinite pains with his local color, noting down from the books all sorts of minutiae that might aid his imagination. Take for illustration the following jottings from Fasi and Schleuchzer, two of his subsidiary authorities : There are mountains that consist entirely of ice. — Firnenj they shine hke glass and get their isolated conical shape from the process of melting in the summer. — Clouds form in the mountain- gorges and attach themselves to the rocks ; herefrom prognosti- cation of the weather. — View from on high when one stands above the clouds. The landscape seems to lie before one like a great lake, from which islands stand forth. — In the summer, cascades everywhere in the mountains. — Chamois graze in flocks, the picket ( Vorgeis) piping in case of danger. — Weather signs : Swallows fly low, aquatic birds dive, sheep graze eagerly, dogs paw up the earth, fish leap from the water. ' The gray gov- ernor of the valley ( Thalvogf) is coming ' ; when this or that mountain puts on a cap, then drop the scythe and take the rake. — Peculiarity of a certain lake that it draws to itself per- sons sleeping on its bank. A large amount of such conscientious note-taking, aided by a marvelous power of visualization, and sup- plemented also by what Goethe could tell from per- sonal observation, resulted in a remarkably vivid and accurate local color. A letter of Schiller's written in December, 1803, tells of a purpose to go to Switzerland 4o8 William Tell before he should print his play. The plan was not carried out, but if it had been there would have been little to change; for 'William Tell ' reads throughout like the work of one thoroughly familiar with Swiss character, topography and folk-lore. There is not a slip of any importance in the entire play. Of course the conspiring farmers are idealized and their enemies are diabolized ; but all this is so in the saga. Schiller had to deal with a patriotic myth, and he made no attempt to go behind the romantic veil of tradition ; his purpose being simply to present the poetic essence of the saga as handed down by Tschudi. And he succeeded admirably. So far as the Swiss people are concerned, he well deserves the memorial they have placed in his honor upon the Mythenstein, near the legendary birth-place of their national independence. Toward the close of the year 1803 came an inter- ruption, Weimar society being thrown into a flutter by the visit of Madame de Stael, now on her famous tour of inspection. It was of course fitting that Schiller, as a local lion, should take his part in entertaining^ her; but the voluble lady was an Erscheinimg new to his experience, and with his imperfect command of collo- quial French he was hard put to it to bear up against the torrent of her conversation. He measured her very correctly at their first meeting, when they fell into an argument on the merits of the French drama. ' For what we call poetry', he wrote to Goethe, 'she has no sense ' ; nevertheless he gave her full credit for her great qualities, in especial for a good sense amounting to genius. And she in turn was pleased with the serious German who argued with her in lame French, Success on the Stage 4^9 not as one caring to hold his own in a conversational fencing-match, but as one wishing to convince her of important truths in which he really believed. It must have been an interesting occasion in a small way, this first rencontre between Schiller and the lady who was afterwards to speak of him so nobly and withal so justly in her celebrated book about Germany. Madame de Stael's sojourn in Weimar lasted some ten weeks, her portentous gift of speech becoming gradually more and more irksome to Schiller and Goethe. The social gayeties occasioned by her presence caused some retar- dation in the progress of ' William Tell ', but on Feb- ruary 18, 1804, it was completed, and two days later the final installment was despatched to the waiting Iffland. How eagerly he was waiting may be inferred from the language used by him after perusal of the first act, which had been sent him a month earlier : I have read, devoured, bent my knee ; and my heart, my tears, my rushing blood, have paid ecstatic homage to your spirit, to your heart. Oh more ! Soon, soon, more ! Pages, scraps- - whatever you can send ! I tender hand and heart to your genius.' What a work ! What wealth, force, poetic beauty and irresistible power ! God keep you ! Amen. These high-keyed expectations were not disap- pointed. The first performances of 'Tell', in the spring of 1804, were received with prodigious enthu- siasm, and ever since then it has been a prime favorite of the German stage. It has no characters that can be called great, as Wallenstein is great, no complexity of plot, no thrilling surprises ; and as for its psychology, a fairy tale could hardly be more simple. That which 410 William Tell has endeared it to the Germans is its picturesqueness and its passionate zeal for freedom. The theme of ' Tell ' is the successful revolt of the Forest Cantons against their governors. Three actions that have no necessary connection with one another — the conspiracy of the cantons, the private feud of Tell and Gessler, and the love-affair of Rudenz and Bertha — are carried along together in such a way that all find their natural conclusion in the final celebration of victory. This feature of the play has often been criticized as impairing its unity; and certainly, from the conventional point of view the objection has some force. ' Tell ' is a play without a preponderating hero. We may say that it has three heroes, or rather five, since among the conspirators interest is pretty evenly distributed between Stauffacher, Melchthal and Walther Fiirst. But in reality the hero is the Swiss people considered as a unit. Stauffacher and the other con- spirators interest us as representatives of a suffering population. To portray the suffering and the termina- tion of it through sturdy self-help is the central purpose of the play. This it is which gives it an essential unity, notwithstanding the three separate actions. The theme is an inspiring one, and the modern world owes Schiller an immense debt for presenting it in austere simplicity, unincumbered with any dubious or disturbing philosophy. One cannot help loving so good a lover of freedom ; for the sentiment does honor to human nature, notwithstanding some latter-day indications that it is going out of fashion. It may not be the highest and holiest of enthusiasms for the indi- vidual, — we give our best homage rather to self-sur- A Drama of Freedom 4" render, ^but if any political emotion is worthy of a lasting reverence, it is that one which attaches men to the motherland and leads them to stand together against an alien oppressor. Sometimes it may be well, in God's long providence, that a weak or a back- ward people should be absorbed or ruled by a stronger power; but the sentiment which leads it to fight against absorption or subjugation is none the less admirable. And when the foreign domination is reckless and inhuman, standing for nothing but vindictive malice and the greed of empire; and when the victims of the misrule are strong in the simple virtues of the poor, we have the case in its most appealing aspect. This is the case that is presented in ' William Tell ', — the most notable drama in modern literature upon the theme of national resistance to foreign tyranny. Its influence in Germany as a classic of political free- dom — during the Napoleonic era and later, when it was a question of setting a limit to domestic absolu- tism — has been immense. And there is really no danger of its losing its potency; for it appeals to a sentiment which, while it may wax and wane with the movements of the Zeitgeist, is now wrought into the heart-fiber of all the occidental nations, and not least of all — contrary to an opinion widely accepted in this country — of the Germans. The uppermost thought of Schiller, then, was to win sympathy for freedom and the rights of man; yet in ' William Tell ' we have nothing to do with any species of cloud-born idealism. The bearers of the message are not fantastic dreamers, like Posa; they do not call themselves ambassadors of all mankind, or citizens of 4t2 William Tell the centuries to come. They are a plain, practical folk, whose wishes do not fly far afield and who attempt nothing that they cannot carry through. They are not in the least given to fighting for the sake of fight- ing; on the contrary, the thought of bloodshed is abhorrent to them. All they wish is to be allowed to pursue their peaceful, partriarchal industries, as their fathers did before them, under laws of their own devis- ing. But things have come to such a pass that their lives, their property and the honor of their women are not safe from the malice, cupidity and lust of their rulers. And even under such conditions the thought, of a radical revolution does not occur to them : they do not rise against the overlordship of the emperor, but only against the brutal tyranny of the governors who disgrace him. Their final triumph opens no other vista of change than that, in the future, another emperor will send them better governors. Thus the upshot of the whole revolution is simply a provisional demonstration of Stauffacher's proposition that 'tyran- nical power has a limit '. This seems, at first, like a rather lame vindication of the sacred majesty of freedom, especially when we reflect that the whole question at issue is not a question of independence at all, but merely whether the cantons will give up their Reichsiinmittelbarkeit , — and with it certain old customs to which they are attached, — in order to become vassals of the House of Hapsburg. Were they willing to do that, — so it is said by Rossel- mann at the Riitli meeting, — all their troubles would end forthwith; the cruel governors would deal kindly with them, would ' fondle ' them. If this is so, — and The Play intensely Human 413 other passages confirm the saying of the priest Rossel- mann, — then it is patent that the conduct of Gessler is not the aimless brutality of a brute, but a policy deliberately pursued for the purpose of terrorizing the cantons into an acceptance of Hapsburg overlordship. And this in turn throws its own light on the character of Gessler. Only a blockhead would try to gain such an end in such away. This, however, is only another way of saying what has often been pointed out, that Gessler is simply a fairy-tale tyrant, copied very closely from Tschudi; a sort of typical bad man, whom the saga, after inventing him out of nothing, has made as black as possible in order the more clearly and strongly to justify the revolt. And yet, in the play, Gessler never becomes entirely ridiculous; he does not seem a caricature of humanity, — perhaps because his- tory teems with governors and viceroys who have exercised their little brief authority very much in his spirit, even if they have failed to commit his par- ticular atrocities. These last considerations are meant to light up the fact that the effect of the play does not, after all, depend mainly upon its vindication of any political doctrine. We are nowhere in the region of abstrac- tions. The sympathy that one feels for the insurgents is in no sort political, but purely human; it is of the same kind that one might feel for a community of Hindu ryots in their efforts to rid themselves of a man- eating tiger. Only in the play this sympathy is very much intensified by the picturesque lovableness of the afflicted population. It is here, in the picture of land and people, that Schiller's mature art, which had 414 William Tell brought him to a sovereign mastery of stage effects, may be said to win its greatest triumph. One may describe his method, fairly if somewhat paradoxically, as that of romantic realism. What a masterpiece of exposition we have in the opening scenes! The beautiful lake, at precisely its most fascinating point; the fisher-boy, all careless of the great world, singing his pretty song of the smiling but treacherous water; the herdsman and the hunter, announcing themselves above on the rocks in characteristic songs, and then conversing for a moment about the weather and their employments; the sudden arrival of Baumgarten with his tale of wrong and vengeance ; the storm on the lake, and the hurried dialogue between the cautious fisherman and the stout-hearted Tell, who ' does what he cannot help doing ' ; the building of the hatef il Zwing-Uri; the death of the slater and Bertha's curse; the grief and fury of young Melchthal, and, finally, the solemn covenant for life and death of the three leaders, — what variety and animation are here, and what a wealth of realistic detail ! And how perfectly convinc- ing it all is, — not a false note anywhere, nor a note that is held too long ! Well might Goethe characterize this exposition as ' a complete piece in itself and withal an excellent one '. The first act of ' Tell ' is one of the best first acts in all dramatic literature. It is quite true that the exposition seems to promise somewhat more than is afterwards fulfilled. One who is familiar with Schiller's usual method naturally expects that something will come of the rescue of Baumgarten; but nothing does come of it except to throw a side-light upon the general situation and to Method of tKe Exposition 41 S bring out the character of Tell. Again, one expects to see more of Dame Gertrud, the ' wise daughter of noble Iberg '. One looks for her to reappear under circumstances that shall give her something important to do and shall put her sagacity and courage to the test. It is not the habit of Schiller to introduce such weighty personages at the beginning of a play and then drop them. To understand him in this instance one has but to remember that his hero is always the Swiss people. The Stauffachers, as a shining example of thrift and virtue ; their dignified and influential position in the community ; their fine new house that has roused the venomous jealousy of Gessler, — all this is part of the situation, and it is the situation that counts. And how superbly the picture is completed by the meeting at the Riitli! Such an old-fashioned parliament, held of necessity under the stars and in the darkness of night, but with all possible regard to the ancient forms, was not only a novel and a picturesque idea in itself, but it was the best device which could possibly be imagined for bringing sharply into view the whole character of the Swiss, in its winsome, patriarchal sim- plicity. Here again, however, we have a radical departure from Schiller's usual method; for what is actually done at this seemingly important meeting is, after all, in itself rather insignificant, and without direct influence upon the subsequent course of events. The conspira- tors decide to do nothing immediately, but to wait for a favorable opportunity during the Christmas season, some seven or eight weeks ahead. This determination obviously involves a halt in the dramatic action, so far 41 6 William Tell as the conspiracy is concerned. In dealing with this diiificulty, Schiller departs from his ordinary method of concentration and allows himself to be guided by the epical character of Tschudi's narrative. The result is that we have, somewhat as in Goethe's ' Gotz von Berlichingen ', a succession of dramatic pictures, rather than a drama bound together by a severe logic. In the third and fourth acts we hear no more of the con- spirators, — aside from some expressions of regret for the delay, — and attention is concentrated upon Tell, who has hitherto taken no part except to rescue Baum- garten and to refuse his cooperation at the Rutli, on the ground that he is not the man for a confab, and that ' the strong man is mightiest alone '. The character of Tell, as depicted by Schiller, has been the subject of much criticism, the strictures relat- ing more particularly to his shooting the apple from his son's head, and then to his subsequent assassination of Gessler. There is an oft-quoted opinion of Bismarck, which may be quoted again, since it expresses so well a thought that has no doubt occurred, some time or other, to most readers and spectators of the play. Busch makes Bismarck say, under date of October 25, 1870: It would have been more natural and more noble, according to my ideas, if, instead ot shooting at the boy, whom the best of archers might hit instead of the apple, he had killed the governor on the spot. That would have been righteous wrath at a cruel demand. I do not like his hiding and lurking ; that does not befit a hero — not even a bushwhacker. Undoubtedly such conduct as is here suggested for Tell would be more 'heroic ', in accordance with our Character of the Hero 417 conventional ideas of heroisnn. And the thing would have been dramatically feasible. We can imagine Tell, for example, as making sham preparations to shoot at the apple and then suddenly sending his arrow through the heart of his enemy; and we can also imagine a further management of the scene such that Tell should escape with his boy. Thus everything would be accomplished on the public square at Altorf, in full face of the enemy, which is subsequently accom- plished from the secure ambush by the ' hollow way ' near Kiissnacht. Such conduct would have been ' heroic ' , but the obvious objection to it is that it would have destroyed the very heart of the saga, which it was not for Schiller to make over but to render dramatically plausible. It may be urged, perhaps, that a poet who had made Joan of Arc die in glory on the battle-field need not have been so punctilious in following the exact line ofTschudi's story. But the cases are not exactly parallel. There the alternative was a scene of unmitigated and revolting horror, which would have destroyed the effect of the tragedy ; here it was simply a question of when Gessler should be killed with an arrow. To make Tell do just what the saga makes him do, and do it without forfeiting sympathy, was a delicate problem, which may well have fascinated Schiller, who is surely the last man in the world to be accused of holding tame views as to 'heroism '. At any rate he must have felt that a Tell who should not shoot at the apple and hit it would be simply no Tell at all. . One who looks closely at the famous scene will not fail to see that it is very cleverly constructed and that 4i8 William Tefl every objection which has been urged against it is really met in the text. In the first place, Tell is not, and was never meant for, a hero of the conventional sort. There is no element of Quixotry about him. He is a plain man, of limited horizon and small gift of speech. Public affairs do not particularly interest him. He is a hardy mountaineer, with a strong trust in his own strength and resourcefulness; a good oarsman and a great shot with the crossbow; but he makes no fuss about these things. Let it be repeated that he is not foolhardy. The dangers of the mountain, which bulk so large in the imagination of his wife, are simply the familiar element of the life that he loves. He treats her timorous apprehensions with the good-natured coolness of a man who knows how to take care of him- self. He is affectionate, but not a bit sentimental. All this makes an eminently natural and consistent character. Now what must such a character do when required, under penalty of death, by a brutal tyrant whose power is absolute, to hit an apple on his son's head ? Naturally his first thought is of the child, and he tries to escape by offering his own life. The reply is that he must shoot or die wM his child. Thus there is no recourse ; to refuse to shoot at all is worse than to shoot and miss. If he kill Gessler on the spot, — and we must suppose that the thought occurs to him, — he will expose not only himself but his child and his wife and children at home to the fury of the troopers. The only safety lies in making a successful shot. And after all Tell knows that he can make it; it is only a question of nerve, and he has the nerve if he can only find it. And here The Scene in the Hollow Way 4«9 comes in an important touch which is not in Tschudi — the fearless confidence of Walther Tell in his father's marksmanship. The effect of this is to touch the pride of the bowman, to clear his eye, and to steady his hand. It is also a familiar fact that, with strong natures, a terrible danger, with just one chance of escape, may produce a moment of perfect self-control while the chance is taken. The whole scene, in addition to its effectiveness on the stage, is psychologically true to life. With all deference to the great qualities of the first Chancellor of the German Empire, one must insist that Schiller was a better playwright than he and found precisely the best solution to his dramatic problem. And so of the later scene in the ' hollow way ' ; there is nothing wrong with it, unless it be the great length of the soliloquy. The killing of an enemy from an ambush, without giving him a chance for his life, is of course somewhat repugnant to our ideas of chivalry. We think of it instinctively as the deed of a savage, and not of a man with a pure heart and a good cause. But it must be remembered that such ideas are them- selves conventional, and that we have in ' Tell ' a reversion to primitive conditions in which ' man stands over against man '. Gessler has forfeited all right to chivalrous treatment, and Tell is no knight engaged in fighting out a gentleman's feud. What is he to do.' For himself, perhaps, he might take the chances of a fugitive in the mountains, but he cannot leave his wife and children exposed to Gessler 's vengeful malice. There is no law to which he can appeal, the only law of the land being Gessler 's will. In such a situation, 42P William TeU clearly, there is no place for refined and chivalrous compunctions, or for ethical hair-splitting. Tell does what he must do. He is in the position of a man pro- tecting his family from a savage or a dangerous beast, and is not called upon to risk his own life needlessly. Every reader of the old saga instinctively justifies him. His conduct is not noble or heroic, but natural and right. if this is so, however, there would seem to be no pressing need of his long soliloquy. He being ex proposito a man of few words, his sudden volubility is a little surprising, though it should be duly noticed that the. soliloquy is not a self-defense. There is no casuistry in it. Tell does not argue the case with himself, like one in doubt about the rightness of his conduct. That is as clear as day to him, and he never wavers for a moment. But he has time to think while waiting, and his soliloquy is only his thinking made audible. Delivered with even a slight excess of declamatory fervor, the lines are ridiculously out of keeping with Tell's character; but they can be spoken so as to seem at least tolerably natural, — as natural, perhaps, as any soliloquy. And this is true, let it be remarked in passing, of many and many a passage in Schiller. To some extent, very certainly, his reputa- tion as a rhetorician is due to the histrionic spouting of lines that do not need to be spouted. To some extent, but not entirely ; for even in ' Tell ' his old fondness tor absurdly extravagant forms of expression sometimes reasserted itself. Thus what can one make of a plain fisherman who talks in this wise about a rainstorm ? Introduction of Johannes Parricida 421 Rage on, ye winds ! Flame down, ye lightning-bolts ! Burst open, clouds ! Pour out, ye drenching streams Of heaven, and drown the land ! Annihilate r the very germ the unborn brood of men ! Ye furious elements, assert your lordship ! Ye bears, ye ancient wolves o' the wilderness. Come back again ! The land belongs to you. Who cares to live in it bereft of freedom ! The most serious blemish in ' William Tell ' is the introduction of Johannes Parricida in the fifth act, — an idea which Goethe attributed to feminine influence of some sort.' The effect of it is to convert the rugged, manly Tell of the preceding acts into a sanctimonious Pharisee with whom one can have little sympathy. No doubt there is a moral difference between his act and that of Parricida, but it is a difference which one does not wish to hear Tell himself dilate upon. Seeing that the murdered emperor was solely responsible for the brutal governors and thus indirectly for all the woes of Switzerland ; and seeing, too, that his death is the only guarantee we have at the end that the killing of Gessler will do any good, and not simply have the effect to bring down upon the land, including Tell and his family, the vengeance of some still more fiendish successor, — considering all this, one would rather not hear those horrified ejaculations of Tell about the pollution of the murderer's presence. They 1 See Eckermann's "Gesprache", under date of March i6, 1831. What Goethe there says, however, is in flat contradiction of the follow- ing passage contained in a letter of Schiller to Iffland, written April 14, 1804: "Auch Goethe ist mit mir (Iberzeugt, dasz ohne jenen Monolog und ohne die persOnliche Erscheinung deg Parricida der Tell sich gar nicbt batte denken lassen." 42 2 William TcII may produce a certain stagy effect of contrast, but the effect was not worth producing at the expense of Tell's character. As for the love-story in ' WiUiam Tell ', it is hardly of sufficient weight to merit extended discussion. Both Bertha and Rudenz are rather tamely and conven- tionally drawn, to meet the need of a pair of romantic lovers; they evidently cost their creator no very strenuous communings with the Genius of Art. Their private affair of the heart has nothing to do with the Tell episode and is but loosely related to the popular uprising. Their absence would not be very seriously felt in the drama, save that one would not like to miss Attinghausen as a picturesque representative of the old patriarchal nobility. The two scenes in which he appears are in themselves admirable. CHAPTER XXI XLbe 3Bn6.— 'Clnfinfsbet* plage, ttranelatlona an& a&aptations Es stiirzt ihn mitten in der Bahn, Es reiszt ihn fort vom voUen Leben. ■ William Tele'. Our story of Schiller's life draws to a close. After the completion of ' William Tell ' his tireless energy of production found its next theme in the story of Dmitri, the reputed son of Ivan the Terrible. Just how and whence the suggestion came to him is unknown, but the connection of things is patent enough in a general way. Far-reaching intrigues in high life had always had a fascination for him, and recent studies undertaken for ' Warbeck ' had interested him in the type of the pretender whose kingly bearing seems to betoken kingly blood. In a work upon Russia, — a land which had been brought closer to the Schiller household by the appointment of Wilhelm von Wolzo- gen as Weimarian envoy to the Czar, — he read anew the history of the ' false Dmitri ', and was struck by its dramatic capabilities. In 'Warbeck ' he had thought to portray a pretender who knew that his claims were fraudulent; in Dmitri he found one who believed in himself. The psychological problem, and the idea of conquering an entirely new territory for the German 423 424 Unfinished Plays and Adaptations drama, attracted him strongly, and he set about the laborious task of self-orientation. Ere long, however, there came an interruption which, for a while, seemed to promise a momentous change in the tenor of his life. Iffland wished to lure him to Berlin and had intimated that the Prussian government might be disposed to offer inducements. Schiller was not entirely averse to the idea; at least he thought it worth while to reconnoitre. So, toward the end of April, 1804, he set out with wife and children for the Prussian capital, where he was received with the greatest cordiality. The king and queen of Prussia, to whom he was presented, were very gracious, and it was all decidedly pleasant. So at least he thought and so his wife pretended to think, — keeping down for her husband's sake the dismay which a daughter of fair Thuringia could not help feeling at the thought of making a home on the flat banks of the Spree. After a fortnight Schiller returned to Weimar and was presently invited by the Prussian minister, Beyme, to name his terms. Now came the rub ; for he did not really wish to leave Weimar. He had taken deep root there and his affections clung to the place for the sake of Goethe and a few other friends. On the other hand, his stipend was but four hundred thalers, and his other sources of income were by no means such as to free him from anxiety about the future of his family. Feeling that it was his duty to better his position if possible, he laid his case before Karl August, who promptly doubled his stipend. After this it was virtually impossible for him to leave Weimar. Unwill- ing nevertheless to renounce the Berlin prospects The Homage of the Arts 42 S altogether, he wrote to Beyme that for a consideration of two thousand thalers annually he would reside a few months of each year in Berlin. To this proposition Beyme made no answer. Possibly he thought the price too high for a fractional poet. Pending these futile negotiations Schiller worked with great zest upon ' Demetrius ', — reading, excerpt- ing, examining maps and pictures, schematizing, balancing possibilities, and so forth. But again he was interrupted ; first by an unusually severe illness, which brought him to death's door and left him for weeks in a condition of helpless languor, and then by the distractions incident to the arrival of the hereditary Prince of Weimar with his Russian bride, Maria Paulovna. Golden reports had preceded this princess, who was expected to reach Weimar in November, and preparations were made to welcome her with distin- guished honors. For some reason Goethe, in his capacity of director of the theater, remained inactive amid the general flutter until a few days before the great event, when he besought Schiller to come to the rescue. The result was ' The Homage of the Arts ', called by its author a ' prologue ' . We have a rustic scene in which country-folk plant an orange-tree and invoke the blessing of pagan divinities. The Genius of Art appears, and with him the seven goddesses: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Poetry, Music, Dance and Drama. Genius asks for an explana- tion of the tree-planting, and is told by the rustics that it is an act of homage to their new queen, who has come from high imperial halls to live in their humble valley. They wish to bind her to them by keeping her reminded 42 6 Unfinished Plays and Adaptations of home. On hearing this Genius assures them that the queen will not find all things strange in her new home : old friends are there after all. Then he leads forward his seven goddesses, who explain themselves and say pretty things about Russia. ' The Homage of the Arts ' is in no sense a weighty production, but its graceful verse and well-turned compliments had the desired effect. Maria Paulovna was pleased with it. The reaction from these Russophile festivities fell heavily upon Schiller and he became gradually weaker. Unequal to creative effort he undertook a translation of Racine's ' Phedre ' in German pentameters and finished it about the middle of January, 1 805 . After this he threw himself with great energy upon ' Deme- trius ', but it was the final flicker of a dying flame. In February came a fresh prostration, and it was then evident that the end was near. Nevertheless he worked on for a few weeks longer with feverish eager- ness. On the evening of April 29, he went to the theater. After the play was over, the young Voss,- — a son of the poet, who had attached himself warmly to Schiller during these latest years, — came to him to attend him home. He found him in a violent fever, which soon led to exhaustion and delirium. This time the strong will of the sufferer and the eager offices of wife and physician proved unavailing. He lingered on a few days longer, now and then in his delirium reciting disconnected verse or scraps of Latin, until the end came, on the afl;ernoon of the 9th of May. Three days later, between twelve and one o'clock at night, the body of the dead man was borne by a little group of friends through the silent and deserted streets of Death of Schiller 427 Weimar, and lowered into a vault in the churchyard of St. James. There it remained until 1826, when the remains were exhumed and, after some curious vicissi- tudes, were placed in an oaken coffin and deposited in the ducal mausoleum, where they now rest near those of Goethe and Karl August.'' The death of Schiller made many mourners. Goethe, who had himself been very ill, wrote to a friend in Berlin: 'I thought to lose myself, and now I lose a friend, and with him the half of my existence.' From every hand came tokens of sympathy for the widow. Maria Paulovna asked for the privilege of caring for the children. Queen Luise of Prussia sent a message of heartfelt condolence. Cotta, whose business rela- tions with Schiller had given rise to a warm personal affection, made generous offers of financial aid. As for the nation at large, however, it can hardly be said that much notice was taken of the event. Schiller had led a secluded life, had been but little in the public eye, and his personality was known to but few. What should the passing of a single dreamer signify in the stirring epoch of Austerlitz and Jena ? Not many knew that one of the real immortals had ceased to ' In the year 1805 it was still usual at Weimar to have the bodies of the dead borne to the grave in the night by hired workmen. On the death of Schiller the burgomaster gave orders in accordance with the custom, and it was with some difficulty that friends of the dead man succeeded in displacing the guild on which the lot had fallen and secur- ing for themselves the privilege of acting as bearers. While lying in the old churchyard the bones of Schiller became commingled with others in the vault, so that the proper reassembling of his mortal framework, in the year 1826, was a matter of some perplexity. For a while the skull was exhibited in the court library, where it called forth Goethe's well-known poem. ^ I 42S Unfinished Plays and Adaptations breathe, — one whose figure would loom up larger and larger in receding time, like a high mountain in the receding distance. But leaving this subject, of Schiller's subsequent influence and reputation, for discussion in the conclud- ing chapter, let us now turn to a brief survey of his unfinished plays and of his more important work as translator and adapter. And first, ' Demetrius ' , of which one may say, as Schiller said of the Faust-fragment of 1790, that it is the torso of a Hercules. Such extant portions as had reached something like a final form in verse tell of a tragedy that bade fair to rank with ' Wallenstein ', perhaps to surpass 'Wallenstein', in dramatic power and psychological interest. The completed portions pertain mainly to the first two acts ; for the rest we have an immense mass of schemes, arguments, excerpts and collectanea. To read through this material, par- ticularly the various schemes laboriously written out in numberless revisions, conveys at first an impression of over-solicitude, as if erudition and logical analysis were being relied upon to take the place of slackening inspiration. The moment one turns to the finished scenes, however, one sees that the poetic spring was still flowing in full measure ; and one is amazed at the creative power which could still, with death knocking at the door, so swiftly and so surely fashion great poetry out of dull and contradictory books. The story of the false Demetrius had been familiar to Schiller from his youth, but there is no evidence that he ever thought of dramatizing it until the year 1802, when we hear of an intended drama to be called The Historical Dmitri 429 ' The Massacre at Moscow ' Just as before in the cases of Fiasco and Wallenstein, he found here a notable conspirator whose character and motives were tlie subject of dispute among the historians. The more usual view was that Demetrius was an escaped monk who gave himself out as the son of Ivan the Terrible, having either himself invented the fraud or else taken upon himself a role that was suggested to him by some one else. On the other hand, there were those who regarded him as the genuine son of Ivan and thus entitled to the throne which he conquered from the usurper, Boris Gudunoff, in the year 1605. Fraudulent pretender, or genuine Czar of the blood of Rurik, — this was the great question. With a fine dramatic intuition Schiller conceived a third possibility, namely, that Demetrius, though not in reality Ivan's son, fully believed himself to be such until he had triumphed, and then, though undeceived, went on his calamitous way as a tyrant because he could not turn back. His first thought was to begin with a scene at Sambor in Galicia, wherein the escaped monk Grischka, tarry- ing at the house of Mnischek in complete ignorance of his high birth, but given none the less to ambitious dreaming, should be made known as Ivan's son, Demetrius, supposed to have been murdered sixteen years before at the instigation of Boris. Several scenes, interesting in their way but somewhat lacking in horizon, were elaborated in accordance with this idea. Then, however, the plan was modified and it was decided to begin directly with a session of the Polish parliament at Cracow, at which Demetrius should appear and triumphantly assert his claims before King 430 Unfinished Plays and Adaptations Sigismund and the assembled nobles. This scene, though left imperfect here and there, is certainly one of the best that ever came from Schiller's pen. As usual we have a bit of world-drama, for the element out of which the action grows is the national antipathy of Poles and Russians. And what an interesting figure is the young Demetrius, confronting all the pomp and power with the easy dignity of one born to kingship, and carrying the parliament with him by dint of his own self-confidence and royal bearing. He is essen- tially a new creation, unlike any of Schiller's other youthful heroes, though a certain family resemblance is of course discernible. Ambition of power is the great mainspring of his character, and he is as unscrupulous as Napoleon. Nevertheless he has his sentimental and his ethical promptings, and the whole basis of his con- duct in this' first part of the play is his perfect confidence that he is the son of Ivan. It is thus ever to be regretted that Schiller did not live to write the later scenes in which Demetrius, on the eve of his triumphant entry into Moscow, should be approached by the fabricatoi' doli and told the true story of his vulgar birth. Here, just as in the ' CEdipus Rex ', was a stupendous tragic fate, unconnected with any conscious guilt and growing entirely out of the circumstances. What should Demetrius do .■' What he was to say we know from a prose sketch which runs as follows: You [addressed to the fabricator doli, who appears in the manuscript as X] have pierced the heart of my life, you have taken from me my faith in myself. Away, Courage and Hope ! Away, joyous self-confidence ! I am caught in a lie. I am at Poetic Promise of Demetrius 431 variance with myself. I am an enemy of mankind. I and truth are parted forever ! What ? Shall I undeceive the people ? Unmask myself as a deceiver ? — I must go forward. I must stand firm, and yet I can do it no longer in the strength of inward conviction. Murder and blood must maintain me in my position. How shall I meet the Czarina ? How shall I enter Moscow amid the plaudits of the people, with this lie in my heart ? One sees from this whither Schiller's idea was tend- ing. From the time that Demetrius is undeceived his character changes. The youth who, with truth on his side, had it in him to become a great and wise ruler, breaks with the moral law and becomes a Mac- beth, or a Richard the Third. His course from this time on is flecked with blood and dishonored by treachery and tyranny. As Czar he excites the hatred of the Russians by his impolitic contempt of their customs. His Poles are insolent and trouble begins to brew about him. Finally there is an uprising against him and he falls — the victim of his own v/Spis. Had Schiller been permitted by fate to complete ' Demetrius ' , we should have had, it is safe to say, the most impressive of all his heroes, with the possible exception of Wallenstein. And we should have had also, in all probability, the very best of his historical tragedies; for his plan had provided for an unusually large number of highly promising scenes. The pic- turesque Polish parliament, with its tumultuous ending ; the first meeting of Demetrius with his reputed inother ; the scene with the fabricator dolt; the triumphal entry \ into Moscow ; Demetrius as Czar in the Kremlin ; his love intrigues with Axinia and his perfunctory marriage to Marina ; the final gathering and bursting of the storm 432 Unfinished Plays and Adaptations of indignation, — all this would have been wrought into a dramatic masterpiece of the first order. Like ' Demetrius ' in having a royal pretender for a hero, but unlike it in every other respect, is the play which was to have been called ' Warbeck '. To this subject Schiller's attention was drawn in the summer of 1799, while reading English history in Rapin de Thoyras. During the ensuing years he took it up repeatedly, but each time dropped it in favor of some Other theme. At the time of his death he left ' War- beck ' material sufficient to make eighty-four pages of octavo print. The most of this material consists of prose schemes, but there are also several hundred verses, some of them complete, others with lacunae, great or small. By a close study of these data one can make out the general character of the proposed play and the essential lineaments of the more important characters. The play was not to have been a tragedy, and it would have owed to history hardly anything more than its milieu and a few names. The plan was something like this: About the year 1492 there turns up at Brussels, at the court of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, a young man calling himself Warbeck. He is ignorant of his own birth, and does not suppose himself to be of royal blood, but he has a strong resemblance to Edward the Fourth of England. Being herself of York blood and wishing to make trouble for the Tudor king, Henry the Seventh, Margaret persuades the stranger to pre- tend that he is the son of Edward the Fourth, — one of the two boys supposed to have been murdered in the tower by Richard of Gloucester. He consents to the Plan of Warbeck 433 fraud and speedily acquires a following as pretender to the English throne. In reality Margaret despises him and merely wishes to use him as a tool, but it soon appears that Warbeck is a man of character who insists on playing his assumed role in a manner worthy of an English sovereign. Preparations are made for an invasion of England to assert his claim. Meanwhile Warbeck falls in love with Adelaide, a princess of Brittany, for whom the imperious Margaret has other designs. Presently a man named Simnel appears, asserting fraudulently that he is a son of the fourth Edward. He and Warbeck fight a duel and Simnel is killed. Then the real Edward Plantagenet appears, with a convincing story of his own wonderful escape from the executioner in the Tower. A murderous plot is concocted against the boy's life, but he is saved by Warbeck, who acknowledges him as his rightful king. All this time Warbeck has supposed himself to be acting a part of pure fraud ; and as he is really a man of honor, and in love with an amiable princess, the role of deceit has become increasingly hateful to him. At last, however, the old Earl of Kildare arrives, and from the depths of his superior knowledge makes it plain that Warbeck is in truth a natural son of Edward the Fourth. Thus all ends romantically and we have no adumbration of that later scene of the year ■ 1499, when Perkin Warbeck was drawn and quartered at Tyburn. From this plan it is clear that the principal stress was to fall on the character of Warbeck, conceived as a high-minded youth entangled in an odious lie. To quote Schiller's exact words: 'The problem of the 434 Unfinished Plays and Adaptations piece is to carry him (Warbeck) ever deeper into situa- tions in which his deceit brings him to despair, and to let his natural truthfulness increase as the circum- stances force him to deception.' To arouse sympathy for such a character would have been, to say the least, a difficult task ; one cannot wonder that Schiller was perplexed by it. The schemes indicate that his main reliance was the love-story, which would have been very prominent. Of the other characters, the most important, probably, was the Duchess Margaret, con- ceived as a selfish, overbearing, heartless creature, in sharp contrast with the romantic Adelaide. On the whole, judging from such imperfect data as we possess, one must regard ' Warbeck ' as a far less powerful and promising design than ' Demetrius '. Contemporaneous with ' Warbeck ' and 'Demetrius ', and broadly similar to them in that it was to deal with a political adventurer and to present an elaborate pic- ture of intrigue in high life, is the plan of a play which was at first called ' Count Konigsmark '. The subject occupied the thoughts of Schiller for some little time in the summer of 1804, until it was dropped in favor of ' Demetrius '. Count Konigsmark was a nobleman who was murdered in the year 1694, at the court of Duke George I. , of Hannover, in consequence of a sup- posed criminal relation with the Duchess Sophia, a princess of the house of Celle. As he mused upon the dramatic possibilities of the story, Schiller became less interested in Konigsmark and more in the compromised duchess; so the name of the piece was changed to ' The Princess of Celle '. From his extant notes and sketches one can make out that the heroine was con- The Knights of Malta 435 ceived, like Mary Stuart, as a noble sufferer. She is a virtuous lady who is given in marriage for political reasons to an unloved and licentious duke, whose mistresses insult her. In her misery she makes a friend of the chivalrous but inflammable Konigsmark. Their relation excites suspicion, Konigsmark is murdered and the duchess sent to prison, — disgraced but inno- cent. In prison she finds peace of soul, just as Mary Stuart finds it in the presence of death. Much older than any of these plans and entirely different from them, is that of the ' Knights of Malta ', which dates back to the year 1788. While pursuing his studies for ' Don Carlos ' Schiller had become greatly interested in the story of La Valette's heroic defense of Malta in 1 565 . It seemed to him to promise well for a tragedy in the Greek style, — with a chorus, a simple plot and few characters. He began work upon it, but was soon diverted by his historical studies. In subsequent years, however, he returned to ' The Knights of Malta ' from time to time, and as late as 1803 was strongly minded to attempt the completion of the work. During these fifteen years the plan underwent various changes. Although certain aspects of the subject made it very attractive to Schiller, he felt from the first that it lacked the ' salient point ' of a good tragedy. The extant data show him working tentatively with one idea after another, without ever finding exactly what he wanted. This being so, it is hardly worth while to go minutely into the history of his plans and perplexities. ' The Knights of Malta ' was to have been a poetic tragedy of heroic devotion, friendship and self-sacri- 43