Such flutterings of the heart were not altogether favorable to that austere program of literary industry which the ambitious young dramatist had set for himself. 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, 1785, 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 Inquisition, religious fanaticism, the history of the Bastille, and the passion for gambling.[50] 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'.

He began in prose, identifying himself completely with his hero and writing with joyous enthusiasm. A letter of April 14 to Reinwald deals at length with love and friendship and their relation to poetic creation. All love, we read, is at bottom love of ourselves. We see in the beloved person the sundered elements of our own being, and the soul yearns to perfect itself in the process of reunion. Thus love and friendship are of the nature of poetic imagination,—the waking into life of a pleasing illusion. Wherefore the poet must love his characters. He must not be the painter of his hero, but rather his hero's sweetheart or bosom friend. Then he makes the application to Don Carlos in these words:

I must confess to you that in a sense he takes the place of my sweetheart, I carry him in my heart,—ich schwaerme mit ihm durch die Gegend um.... He shall have the soul of Shakspere's Hamlet, the blood and nerves of Leisewitz's Julius, and his pulse from me. Besides that I shall make it my duty in this play, in my picture of the Inquisition, to avenge outraged mankind ... and pierce to the heart a sort of men whom the dagger of tragedy has hitherto only grazed.

But the 'bosom friend' of Don Carlos soon had his thoughts pulled in other directions. In the first place there came, very unexpectedly, a sugary letter from Dalberg. What led him to make fresh overtures to the man whom, a few months before, he had treated so shabbily, is not difficult to make out. He had become convinced that there was after all nothing to be feared from the Duke of Wuerttemberg. Moreover, since the peremptory rejection of 'Fiesco' the Mannheim theater had been doing a very poor business. What more natural than that the shrewd intendant, with an 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 Stuttgart [Lotte von Wolzogen].

Ere the revision of the new tragedy was finished Dulcinea herself arrived in Bauerbach; an event to which Schiller had looked forward with joyous palpitations and anxious forebodings. For back in March Frau von Wolzogen had written him that she and her daughter would be accompanied on their northward journey by a certain Herr Winkelmann, a friend of the family. Schiller at once divined the approach of a rival and wrote in great agitation that he would go to Berlin if Winkelmann came. In justification of his threat he made the diaphanous plea that his incognito was of the utmost importance to him, and that the inquisitive Winkelmann (whom he had known at the academy) would be sure to blab. To this Frau von Wolzogen sent some sort of soothing reply, hinting at the same time that she, the mother, would not interfere with her daughter's choice. So Schiller resolved to stand his ground. The ladies arrived in the latter part of May and soon thereafter he was given to understand that Lotte's affections were fixed upon the other man. There was nothing for him now but the role of lofty resignation. To his former schoolmate, Wilhelm von Wolzogen, he wrote as follows:

You have commended to me your Lotte, whom I know completely, I thank you for the great proof of your love.... Believe me, my best of friends, I envy you this amiable sister. Still just as if from the hands of the Creator, innocent, the fairest, tenderest, most sensitive soul, and not yet a breath of the general corruption on the bright mirror of her nature,—thus I know your Lotte, and woe to him who brings a cloud over this innocent soul!... Your mother has made me a confidant in a matter that may decide the fate of your Lotte and has told me how you feel upon the subject. [It appears that Wilhelm disliked the young man,] I know Herr W—n and ... believe me, he is not unworthy of your sister.... I really esteem him, though I 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 engagement. 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 together, she suggested that he pay a visit to Mannheim and see what could be done with Dalberg. He resolved 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-increasing intervals; and after a few months Bauerbach and the Wolzogens were only a delightful memory. It is true that after the lapse of nearly a year he one day took it into his head to suggest to the mother that she take him for a son-in-law. But the wooing went no further. After all he had not really been in love with Lotte in particular so much as with an ideal of domestic bliss.

Shortly before his departure from Bauerbach there had been some talk of his accompanying Reinwald on a contemplated journey to Weimar, where he might make the acquaintance of Karl August, Goethe and Wieland. In his excellent little book upon Schiller, Streicher expresses regret that his friend had not acted upon this suggestion instead of following the 'siren voice' that led to the Palatinate. But it is difficult to sympathize with this regret. He was not yet ripe for the role that fate held in store for him in Thueringen. His education was to proceed yet a while longer by the process of flaying. He was to suffer and grow strong; to battle further with the goblins of despair; to tread the quicksands of adversity and fight his way through to a firm footing among the sons of men. Who shall say that it was not better so?

The long-cherished hopes of a connection with the Mannheim theater were destined this time to be fulfilled. In the course of a few weeks Schiller entered into a contract which assured him, for a year at least, a respectable status in society and opened a new chapter in his life. Before we take up that chapter, however, it will be proper to consider the new play which he had brought with him as a passport to Dalberg's favor. Thus far he had called it by the name of its heroine, but when it was put upon the stage it 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 reopening 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 personages, 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 belittling the Duke of Wuerttemberg. But the Wirtschaft 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: Letter of March, 1783; in "Schillers Briefe", edited by Jonas, Vol. I, page 101.]

[Footnote 49: Letter of Jan. 4, 1783, to Frau von Wolzogen. ]

[Footnote 50: Undated letter of March, 1783; "Schillers Briefe", I, 101.]



CHAPTER VI

Cabal and Love

Ich bin ein Edelmann—Lasz doch sehen, ob mein Adelbrief aelter ist als der Risz zum unendlichen Weltall; oder mein Wappen gueltiger ist als die Handschrift des Himmels in Louisens Augen: Dieses Weib ist fuer 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 literature had been enriched with its most telling tragedy of the social conflict. 'Fiesco' had proved a disappointment; 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 interesting of his early plays.

It is the tragedy of two lovers, an honorable aristocrat and a girl of humble birth, who are done to death through a vile intrigue which is dictated by the exigencies of an infamous political regime. By means of a compromising letter, which is not forged but extorted under duress, the lover is made to suspect his sweetheart'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 to a tragic superstition, of the heroine and her father. Many of the details were taken over by Schiller from his predecessors; but he so improved 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 produced 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; That scepter'd chiefs 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.

So it appears that 'Barnwell' was something new, yet not entirely new. The stately tragedy of solemn edification, at which no one was expected to weep, had already yielded a part of its sovereignty to the tragedy of distress. It occurred to Lillo that tears could be drawn for the woes of the middle class, which had been looked upon as suitable only for comedy. The event proved that he had reckoned well: the "brilliant drops" fell copiously, the innovation crossed the Channel, and soon the bourgeois tragedy,—whence by an easy differentiation the lacrimose, pathetic, or serious comedy,—had entered upon its European career.

The first German example was 'Miss Sara Sampson', written in 1755, wherein the daughter of a fond English squire is lured away from her home, like Clarissa Harlowe, by the profligate Mellefont, who promises to marry her. The pair take lodgings at a low London inn, where Mellefont finds pretexts for delaying the marriage ceremony. Presently his former mistress, Marwood, appears—a proud and passionate woman of sin. She claims him as the mother of his child, but having now found out what true love is he spurns her. Bitter interviews follow, with, spiteful 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 sentimental 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 developments. 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 led by an easy step to the tragedy of social conflict, which portrayed the depravity of princes and nobles in their relation to the common people, or called upon mankind to weep for the woes of lovers separated 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 lubricious tales of intrigue and seduction. The appalling dissoluteness which characterized the French court during the first half of the eighteenth century, and was duly copied by the princelings of Germany, had poisoned the minds of high and low alike and led to a state of affairs in which there was little room for a noble or even a serious conception of love. Love was understood to be concupiscence. If an aristocrat stooped to a bourgeois girl, it was his affair and at the worst only an aberration of taste; her fate was of no importance.

When the inevitable reaction set in, it took the form of a debauch of sentimentalism. The poetry of real passion came back into literature and people wept for joy to find that they had hearts. Love was no longer a frivolous game played for the gratification of lust, but a divine rapture of fathomless and ineffable import. It was now the era of the beautiful soul, of tender sentiment, of virtuous transports and of endless talk about all these things. Love being natural,—a part of that nature to which the world was now resolved to return,—it was sacred, and superior to all human conventions. It belonged to the sphere of the rights of man. Its enemy was everywhere the corrupt heart and the worldly, calculating mind. Fortunately the new ecstasy associated itself with a strong enthusiasm for the simplification of life; for the poetry of nature and of rustic employments; for the sweetness of domestic affection. In Germany public sentiment had already been prepared for a certain idealization of the bourgeoisie. Enlightened rulers and publicists, here and there, were coming to feel that a virtuous yeomanry was the sure foundation of a state's welfare. Countless idyls and pastorals and moralizing romances had thrown a nimbus of poetry about the simple virtues and humble employments 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 revolutionary 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 marriage 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 families 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 gentleman that he is descended from a scoundrel.... In what consists then the honor of that nobility of which you are so proud? How does it affect the glory of 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 people? Will you presume to boast, in a republic, of a rank that Is destructive to virtue and humanity? Of a rank that makes its boast of slavery and wherein men blush to be men?[51]

This is of course the language of passion and prejudice (it would not else be Rousseau), but there was enough of truth in it, as in the case of Rousseau's other fervors, to rouse the revolutionary spirit. German literature began to teem with novels and plays which exhibit the sufferings of some untitled hero or heroine at the hands of a vicious aristocracy. The theme is touched upon in 'Werther', but without becoming an Important issue. It appears in Wagner's 'Infanticide', wherein a butcher's daughter, Evchen Humbrecht, is violated by a titled officer, runs away from home in her shame, kills her child and is finally found by the repentant author of her disgrace. We meet it again in Lenz's 'Private Tutor', the tragedy of a German St. Preux who falls in love with his titled pupil and dishonors her, with the result that she too runs away from home and tries to commit suicide, while her lover in his chagrin emasculates himself. These are grotesque tragedies, not devoid of literary power, but devoid of high sentiment and saturated with a woeful vulgarity. We cannot wonder that the high-minded Schiller should have condemned Wagner's malodorous play as a mediocre performance. His incentive came rather from Gemmingen's 'Head of the House', which in turn carries us back to Diderot.

In the hands of Diderot, democrat, moralist and apostle of the genre honnete, it was natural that the drama of class conflict should end happily. In his '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 literary and dramatic qualities of this play, its absence of humor and 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 Gemmingen's 'Head of the House'. Gemmingen was himself an aristocrat, a baron by title, who was born in 1755. After studying law he settled in Mannheim, where he became deeply interested in the drama, so that in 1778 he was given the position of dramatist to the newly established 'national theater'. Two years later he brought out his 'Head of the House' with great success. The piece is a pendant of Diderot's, but by no means a slavish imitation.

Gemmingen's 'head of the house' is an upright German nobleman of the admirable sort, who returns home after a long absence to find the affairs of his family very much deranged. His eldest son, Karl, has fallen madly in love with Lotte Wehrmann, the daughter of an impecunious artist, gotten her with child, and promised to marry her when his father shall have returned and given his consent. The younger son, Ferdinand, an officer, has taken to gaming, lost heavily and has a duel on his hands. His son-in-law, Monheim, has become infatuated with a dazzling widow, Countess Amaldi, grown cold toward his wife Sophie, and the quarreling pair are eager for a divorce. The tangle is further complicated by the fact that Amaldi, an excellent match, is in love with Karl. The perplexed father sets at work with the tools of common sense and rational argument. He urges Karl to break with Lotte for his career's sake. The irresolute and dutiful Karl consents, saying nothing of Lotte's approaching motherhood, and the rumor of his intended marriage to the countess is spread abroad. When Lotte hears it she rushes to Amaldi and wildly demands her lover in the name of her unborn child. 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"[52] 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 appearance. 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 'Infanticide',—that the plan of 'Louise Miller' began to take shape in his mind. Gemmingen's poor artist, Wehrmann, became the poor fiddler, Miller, and the daughter Lotte was rechristened Louise. The aristocratic lover, Gemmingen's Karl, was named Ferdinand von Walter, and Amaldi was converted into Lady Milford. One of Gemmingen's subordinate characters, the foppish nobleman, Dromer, who goes about making compliments to everybody, reappears in Schiller's play as the perfumed tale-bearer and exquisite ladies' man, Chamberlain von Kalb. The places represented are three in number and the same in both plays. Here, however, the parallel ends. Instead of Gemmingen's high-minded paterfamilias we have the rascally President von Walter, who, with his tool Wurm, reminds one of Lessing's Prince and Marinelli. And what is much more important, the relation of the lovers is so portrayed that we get the pure poetry of passion, such as it is, without any tinge of grossness.

In its earliest phase Schiller's plan looked toward a telling tragi-comedy for the stage, with a plenty of rough humor and caustic satire at the expense of 'high-born fools and scoundrels'. As he worked, the possibilities of his theme developed. An abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man was kindled by honest love of the common people, and by the lingering smart of a personal wrong, into a holy zeal of vengeance. President Walter was painted in colors which were taken largely from the political history and the chronique scandaleuse of the Wuerttemberg court. As this court had its angel of light in soiled garments, Lady Milford was fitted out with the benevolent qualities of Franziska von Hohenheim; and as the portrait grew In firmness its author fell in love with it, like the young Goethe with his Adelheid. When he came to depict the jealousy of Ferdinand, he had the advantage of a personal acquaintance with the green-eyed monster. Thus 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 characters, but in particular scenes, situations, motives, contrasts and forms of expression, we can see the influence 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 'Infanticide'. 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 from keeping 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 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 complained.[53] 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 superstitious reverence for the social order, combine to produce 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 posterity miserable'. So Louise replies to Ferdinand's similar entreaty: 'And be followed by your father's curse! A curse, thoughtless man, which even murderers never utter in vain, and which like 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 entanglement. The wicked president has relented and is ready to yield. Old Miller, released from prison, returns to his house and finds Louise brooding over her purpose of suicide. He preaches to her upon the sin of self-destruction and pleads with her to give up her aristocratic lover. She promises. Then Ferdinand comes and demands an explanation of the fatal letter. A word from her at this point, a momentary acces or simple common sense, would undeceive him and end the whole difficulty. Of course she must not break her oath; and one cannot blame her sweet simplicity for not taking refuge in the maxim that an oath given under duress is not binding. But her oath merely pledges her to acknowledge the letter as her voluntary act. There is no reason why she should not solemnly assure Ferdinand of her innocence, tell him that they are the victims of a plot and send him to his father for an explanation. Nothing prevents her from speaking in time the words that she actually does speak after she has taken the poison, but before she knows that she has taken it: 'A horrible fatality has confused the language of our hearts. If I might open my mouth, Walter, I could tell you things', etc.

If, out of filial piety, Louise is minded to give up her lover, there is at any rate no reason why she should wish him to despise her forever. Every natural girlish instinct requires her to clear herself. That she does not do this, but persists in a course which of all courses is the most unnatural,—seeing that she now has nothing to fear from any source,—produces a painful suspense which is anything but tragic. No skill of the actress can altogether save her from a certain appearance of fatuous weak-mindedness, or forestall the cynical conclusion that she dies chiefly in order that it may be fulfilled which was said unto himself 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 sacrificed 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,[54] will admit that this character is drawn with terrible truthfulness.

This, however, is putting too fine a point upon it; it implies, when closely analyzed, that Schiller deliberately made his heroine a little stupid,—a view of her that hardly comports with the rest of the play. To say that she must die because she belongs to the bourgeoisie is mere moonshine, for common sense can readily find a number of escapes. She may cleave to her father and send her lover packing, after proper explanations; or she may cleave to her lover in the face of her father's displeasure; or she may temporize in the hope of changing her father's mind. What she actually does is to goad her lover into a frenzy by her singular conduct and then come to her senses when it is too late. The effect is to cast doubt upon the intensity of her supposed passion for Ferdinand. One gets the impression that her previous sentimental ecstasies were not perfectly genuine; that she does not really know what it is to be in love, or how to speak the veritable language of the heart.

The truth seems to be that when Schiller wrote 'Cabal and Love', he had not progressed far enough in the knowledge of femininity to be able to draw a perfectly life-like portrait of a girl in Louise's station. She is a creature of the same order as Amalia and Leonora,—a sentimental Schwaermerin, very much lacking in character and mother-wit. From the first the expression of her love does not ring perfectly true. We suspect her of phrase-making,—she is quite too ethereal and ecstatic for a plain fiddler's daughter. No trace here of that homely poetic realism,—Gretchen at the wash-tub, or Lotte cutting bread and butter,—with which Goethe knew how to invest his bourgeois 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 supernal maiden has been reading Klopstock's famous 'Ode to Fanny'?[55]

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 find her fearsome and irresolute in his presence. 'They are going to separate us,' she exclaims, as if she herself had no voice in the matter, when really her own timidity is the great obstacle. She is no Gretchen, or Claerchen, 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 importance 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.

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 appears to be necessary in order to save her father's life. 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 uninteresting 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 von Wolzogen and the prudential scruples of her mother? These are questions upon which one can only speculate. As matters stand, the whole catastrophe is made to hinge upon Ferdinand's suspicion. A little patience, a little faith in his sweetheart, would turn the course of fate. But her conduct makes faith difficult; so we understand his jealousy, but not so well his previous infatuation. He is in love with a beautiful soul and a pair of forget-me-not eyes, but the presuppositions are a little difficult. He is resolved to marry Louise for better or worse,—it is all understood, so far as he is concerned. Although there is no love-scene in the play, we do hear of precedent scenes of passionate self-surrender (always within the limits of virtue). One cannot help asking: Where were Louise's scruples then? Was she ignorant of her father's prejudice or resolved to brave it? Had she never reflected upon the august foundations of the social order? Had she resisted Ferdinand's suit and warned him that he must be content with a yearning friendship on earth and a union of souls in heaven? None of these suppositions can be said to prepare us fully for her actual conduct in the play, where she appears all along as a helpless bundle of tremors, vacillating between an alleged passion in which we do not fully believe and a sublimated sense of duty that we cannot fully understand.

In Ferdinand we have Schiller's favorite type of tragic hero,—the fervid young enthusiast whose calamity grows out of his own strenuous idealism. He is, however, a less weighty character than Karl Moor, or Carlos, or Max Piccolomini, because we see in him nothing more than the infatuate lover. In their case 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 adverse 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 are times, just as in the case of Karl Moor, when Ferdinand's rhetoric becomes impressive from sheer titanic force. Thus when he says to Louise, who has just been reminding him of his prospects: 'I am a nobleman,—we will see, however, whether my patent of nobility is older than the ground-plan of the eternal universe; whether my escutcheon is more valid than the hand-writing of heaven in Louise's eyes: This woman is for this man.'

It is undoubtedly in the scenes with his father that Ferdinand appears at his best. Here at least there is manly vigor. The contrast between the wicked father and the good son is effectively brought out, although, as in the case of Karl and Franz Moor, it is carried beyond the limits of easy credibility. How unnatural is the relation of the pair! One would think they had never talked with each other before, and that each had lived in complete ignorance of the other's character and inclinations. The father, by way of founding a claim to his son's grateful affection, declares that he has 'trodden the dangerous path to the heart of the prince' and killed his predecessor,—all for the sake of his son. He admits that he is suffering the 'eternal scorpion-stings of conscience,' and yet he expects Ferdinand to follow him without a whimper, and he is angry when the young man indignantly renounces the usufruct of his father's crimes. Although Ferdinand is a major in the army, his marriage with Lady Milford is arranged for him as if he had no claim to be consulted. The president blurts out his plan with brutal coarseness, and urges it in language which he knows will rouse his son's anger. So when he appears in the Miller house he makes himself as odious as possible. Diplomacy and finesse are weapons not found in his armory, though he is a courtier and a successful politician. 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 melodramatic caricature, it is partly because times have changed; for Schiller was not without his models in the recent history of Wuerttemberg. 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.[56] 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 Wuerttemberg 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 gratification of his master's lusts and caprices. The daughters of the land were unsafe from his machinations if they had had the misfortune to attract the wanton eye of their sovereign. In 1762, wishing to be rid of his powerful rival, Montmartin trumped up a charge that Rieger was engaged in treasonable correspondence with Prussia. The result was that Rieger was publicly disgraced. Meeting him one day on parade the duke angrily tore off his military order, struck him with his cane and then shut him up in the Hohentwiel, where he lay for four years without light, table, chair or bed. In like manner the patriotic publicist, Moser, was imprisoned for five years, without trial and without sentence, because he had withheld his consent to the duke's high-handed proceedings.

Such was the political system that had afflicted Wuerttemberg during Schiller's childhood. It furnished him with his dramatic 'mythology', as it has been called. The name may be allowed to pass, only it should be remembered that this mythology was simply history. The rapier-thrusts of the dramatist were not directed against wind-mills of the imagination, but against political infamies that make one's blood boil in the reading and that would have moved a more spirited people to hang their rulers to the nearest tree. This should be borne in mind by any one who, in the milder light of a later and better era, is disposed to carp at Schiller for caricaturing the nobility. He was not concerned with aristocracy in general, but with the particular kakistocracy that had disgraced his native land. And all that he did was to exhibit it as it was, or lately had been.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: 'The New Heloise', Part 1, letter 62.]

[Footnote 52: The adjectives are John Morley's; "Diderot", Chap. VII.]

[Footnote 53: "La premiere fois que je la vis, ce fut a l'eglise",—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'.]

[Footnote 54: "Schillers Leben und Werke", 15. Aufl. (1900), p. 297. In earlier editions of Palleske's work, which appeared originally in 1858-9, Louise was further characterized as 'the crushed heart of the German people'; and the sentence, 'which had to recover from those wounds', read: 'which is beginning to recover'.]

[Footnote 55: 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.]

[Footnote 56: See above, page 7.]



CHAPTER VII

Theater Poet in Mannheim

Die Schaubuehne ist mehr als jede andere oeffentliche Anstalt des Staats eine Schule der praktischen Weisheit, ein Wegweiser, durch das buergerliche Leben, ein unfehlbarer Schluessel zu den geheimsten Zugaengen 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 Muenchen. 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 amusement, but as the dignified representatives of a noble art having boundless possibilities of influence. The public was becoming interested in the principles of dramatic construction and in the criteria of excellence. Scholars were beginning to inquire whether the stage might not again become what it had been for the ancient Athenians. And so the way had been prepared for a serious conception of the theater and for experiments like that at Mannheim.

The management of the enterprise was placed in the hands of Baron Heribert von Dalberg, a young nobleman (born in 1750), who had given no evidence of unusual fitness for such an office, but was a connoisseur and a gentleman. He devoted himself zealously to his work and soon made his theater famous. He was courteous and hospitable, kept an eye open for promising talent and enjoyed the role of Maecenas. His system provided for regular meetings of his actors, at which plays were discussed, reports rendered and grievances ventilated. For the rest he was not a man of ideas, but a follower of tradition. He disliked to take risks and often missed the mark in his judgment of persons and of plays. He continued until 1803 to act as intendant and occasionally tried his hand at dramatic composition, or the adaptation of a Shaksperian play, All told, his services were such that the Mannheiniers have deemed him worthy of a statue.

Among the actors whom Baron Dalberg's enterprise had assembled at Mannheim were three or four of notable talent. Thus there was Iffland, of the same age as Schiller, who was destined to win fame as an actor, playwright and manager. Like Diderot, Iffland 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 keep afloat in the great world at least three weeks, and then,—back to his heart's home in Saxony! The letter continues:

Oh, I shall long to be soon, soon, with you again; and meanwhile, in the midst of my greatest distractions, I shall think of you, my dearest friend. I shall often break away from social circles and, alone in my room, sadly dream myself back with you and weep. Continue, my dear, continue to be what you have been hitherto, my first and dearest friend; and let us be, all by ourselves, an example of pure friendship. We will make each other better and nobler. By mutual sympathy and the delicate tie of beautiful emotions we will exhaust the joys of this life and at the last be proud of this our blameless league. Take no other friend into your heart. Mine remains yours unto death and beyond that, if possible.

One sees that the writer of this letter had lived quite long enough in his idyllic retirement, and that his benefactress had judged the case wisely.

Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.[57]

We who do not live in an epoch of emotional expansion have the right to get what amusement we can out of this note of high-flown sentimentalism. At the same time its instructive aspect should not be lost sight of. When a youth of twenty-three, battling with the vulgar prose of life, falls into such a tone in writing to a middle-aged lady who has befriended him; when he lets his imagination brood upon the coming luxury of tears and of beautiful emotions; when he is so pathetically eager to reign without a rival in the heart of his 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 language 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 compensation 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 provide amply for his needs and enable him to pay his debts.

But his plans went all wrong. In the first place, the pestilent fever, which he fought with giant doses of quinine, proved very intractable and held him in its grip for months. He was unable to work and fell into a sort of mental coma. In a letter of November 13 he describes himself as eating Peruvian bark like bread; and six weeks later he was still suffering from the effects of his unlucky midsummer plunge into the miasmatic air of Mannheim. In other ways, too, the new situation proved a disappointment. Social demands involved him in expenditures far in excess of his modest calculations, while the intervals of relief from physical incapacity were filled with a hundred distractions which left him no time for sustained mental effort. And so he drifted into the winter without accomplishing anything more notable than the final revision of 'Fiesco'.

About this time he was elected a member of the so-called 'German Society', a learned body which enjoyed the protection of the Elector. This little honor was highly valued by Schiller, since it made him a citizen of the Palatinate and gave him an assured social status. On the other hand, his emergence into the light of day as a respectable functionary was not without its disadvantages, since his creditors now became importunate. There were pressing duns from Stuttgart and from Bauerbach, but the debtor could not pay. He became involved in a painful correspondence with his father, who had undertaken to guarantee a small debt of his son provided that another larger one be paid so and so. When this hope failed, the old captain lost patience and began to deal out counsel, reproof and warning with a lavish hand. He recommended his son 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 version, 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 language. He accordingly removed or toned down a few blemishes of this kind, but without making a radical revision of the style. Even in the stage version there is 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 Reinwald some months later.[58] Republican liberty, he went on to say, was in that region a sound without meaning; there was no Roman blood in the veins of the Pfaelzer. In Berlin and Frankfurt, however, the piece had met with good success. We cannot blame Schiller for trying to extract comfort from these bits of evidence that the prophet was not without honor save in his own country, though we may question his implication that republican ideas were just then less rife in the Palatinate than in Berlin and Frankfurt. The fact is that the lover of republican ideas must have been the very person to feel the keenest dissatisfaction with 'Fiesco.' Where it did succeed, its success was due to causes having little to do with political sentiment. The Berlin triumph was equivocal, being the triumph not so much of Schiller as of one Pluemicke, who took high-handed liberties with the original text and made it over, in both language and thought, so as to suit the taste of the Berlin actors. This northern version, thus diluted with the water of the Spree, was presently published by the enterprising pirate, Himburg, and proved a formidable rival of the genuine edition. The play was tried at several theaters and with various endings,—curiously enough Pluemicke made Fiesco commit suicide in the moment of his triumph,—but it never became really popular. It was translated into English in 1796, into French in 1799.

Much more favorable was the reception given to 'Cabal and Love', which was first played at Mannheim on the 15th of April, 1784.[59] 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 vociferously,—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 Wuerttemberg was not pleased, and a memorial of the nobility led to the prohibition of a second performance. At Braunschweig It was tried with a happy ending, but this innovation, reasonable as it seems, took no root. A badly garbled English translation by Timaeus appeared in 1795; a better one by Monk Lewis, under the title of 'The Minister', in 1797. A French translation by La Martelliere was hissed off the stage of the Theatre Francais in 1801.

From the Minerva press the new play got blame and praise. One writer saw in it the same Schiller who was already known as the 'painter of terrible scenes and the creator of Shaksperian thoughts'. A Berlin critic named Moritz, of whom we shall hear later, called the piece a disgrace to the age and wondered how a man could write and print such nonsense. The plot consisted, he declared, of a simpleton's quarrel with Providence over a stupid and affected girl. It was full of crass, ribald wit and senseless rodomantade. There were a few scenes of which something might have been made, but 'this writer converted everything into inflated rubbish'. Some one taxed Moritz with undue severity, whereupon he returned to the attack, insisting that this extravagant, blasphemous and vulgar diction, which purported to be nature rude and strong, was in reality altogether unnatural.[60]

And, to be candid, the critic was able to bring together an anthology of quotations which seemed like a rather forcible indictment of Schiller's literary taste. What Moritz failed to see was that the bad taste was only an excrescence growing upon a very vigorous stock. This was felt by another reviewer who declared 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?' 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 furtherance 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 influence 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 expression. Toward the end there is a passage which shows that Schiller himself felt the shakiness of the utilitarian argument. He says: 'What I have tried to prove hitherto—that the stage exerts an essential influence upon morals and enlightenment—was doubtful'; and then he goes on to speak of a value not doubtful, namely, its value as a means of refined pleasure. This is the heart of the matter forever and ever; and one could hardly sum up the case more sagely than Schiller does in the sentence: 'The stage is the institution in which pleasure combines with instruction, rest with mental effort, diversion with culture; where no power of the soul is put under tension to the detriment of any other, and no pleasure is enjoyed to the damage of the community,'

The experience of Schiller at Mannheim illustrates the higher uses of adversity. Had he been well and happy, he might have written his third play, won the good will of Dalberg and then stuck fast for years in the Palatinate; which would have been a misfortune for him and for German letters. As it was, Mannheim gradually became odious to him. He had no buoyancy of spirit. 'God knows I have not been happy here', he wrote to Reinwald in May, 1784. His life was full of petty worries and distractions which weighted his imagination as with lead. As his year drew to an end he imagined that he had but to say the word to have his contract with the Mannheim theater renewed, but it was not so; Dalberg had quietly decided to get rid of him. From his point of view his poet had been a bad investment. Schiller had not kept his contract in the matter of the new play; he had done nothing but procrastinate and make excuses. 'Don Carlos' had 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 suggested a return to medicine.

Curiously enough Schiller grasped at the idea, professing 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 literature 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 less 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 the charm of the retrospective poetic treatment his early love-affairs are not profoundly interesting. In the midst of his troubles it came over him that marriage might be the right thing for him; and so, one day in June, 1784, he offered himself to Frau von Wolzogen for a son-in-law. Nothing came of the suggestion; it was only a passing tribute to the abstract goodness of matrimony. About a year later he made, with similar results, an argumentative bid for the hand of Margarete Schwan. On the aforementioned visit to Frankfurt he met Sophie Albrecht, a melancholy poetess who had sought relief from the tameness of her married life by going upon the stage. Of her he wrote shortly afterwards:

In the very first hours a firm and warm attachment sprang up between us; our souls understood each other. I am glad and proud that she loves me and that acquaintance with me may perhaps make her happy. A heart fashioned altogether for sympathy, far above the pettiness of ordinary social circles, full of noble, pure feeling for truth and virtue, and admirable even where her sex is not usually so. I promise myself divine days in her immediate society.[61]

But all these palpitations were as water unto wine in comparison with his unwholesome passion for Charlotte von Kalb, whom he also met first in the spring of 1784. This lady, after a lonely and loveless girlhood, in which she had been tossed about as an unwelcome incumbrance from one relation to another, had lately married a Baron von Kalb. Her heart had no part in the marriage, which was arranged by 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 passionately fond of music and poetry. In Schiller she found her affinity. He acted first as her guide about Mannheim, 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 detestable 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.

Wer dieser Blumen eine brach, begehre Die andre Schwester nicht. Geniesze wer nicht glauben kann. Die Lehre Ist ewig wie die Welt. Wer glauben kann entbehre. Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht.[62]

When these poems were published, in 1786, their author saw fit to caution the public in a foot-note not to mistake an ebullition of passion for a system of philosophy, or the despair of an imaginary lover for the poet's confession of faith. Thus warned one should not be too curious about the reality which is half revealed and half concealed by the verses. Enough that it was not altogether a calm, Platonic sentiment, and that the torment of it was a factor in that uneasiness which finally became a burning desire to escape from Mannheim. And the fates were preparing a way.

One day in June, when all was looking dark, Schiller received a packet containing an epistolary greeting, an embroidered letter-case and four portrait sketches. The letter was anonymous, but he presently discovered that it came from Gottfried Koerner, a young privat-docent in Leipzig, who had united with three friends in sending this token of regard to a Suabian poet whom they had found reason to like. Schiller did not answer immediately and the skies grew darker still. His relations with the Mannheim theater were presently strained to the point of disgust by the production 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 introduction 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 colleague 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 Thueringen. 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 contained 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 country; but now he was free, and his heart swelled at the thought of wearing no other fetter than the verdict of the public, and appealing to no other throne than the human soul.

Owing to various delays the first number of the new journal did not appear until the spring of 1785, and by that time Schiller was all ready for his flight northward. Matters had continued to go badly with him. On the 22nd of February he wrote to Korner, 'in a nameless oppression of the heart', as follows:

I can stay no longer in Mannheim. For twelve days I have carried the decision about with me like a resolution to leave the world. People, circumstances, earth and sky, are repulsive to me. I have not a soul to fill the void in my heart—not a friend, man or woman; and what might be dear to me is separated from me by conventions and circumstances.... Oh, my soul is athirst for new nourishment, for better people, for friendship, affection and love. I must come to you; must learn, in your immediate society and in intimate relations with you, once more to enjoy my own heart, and to bring my whole being to a livelier buoyancy. My poetic vein is stagnant; my heart has dried up toward my associations here. You must warm it again. With you I shall be doubly, trebly, what I have been hitherto; and more than all that, my dearest friends, I shall be happy. I have never been so yet. Weep for me that I must make this confession. I have not been happy; for fame and admiration and all the other concomitants of authorship do not weigh as much as one moment of love and friendship. They starve the heart.

To the worldly-wise such a perfervid sight-draft upon the bank of love, made after a few weeks of epistolary acquaintance, will no doubt seem a little risky. One is reminded of Goethe's Tasso, impulsively offering his friendship to a cooler man and getting the reply:

In Einem Augenblicke forderst du Was wohlbedaechtig nur die Zeit gewaehrt.[63]

But this time Schiller's instinct had guided him aright. Koerner 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 Mannheim, 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 Goeschen at Leipzig. Goeschen 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 57:

A talent forms itself in solitude, A character in the flowing tide of life. —_Goethes 'Tasso'.]

[Footnote 58: Letter of May 5, 1784.]

[Footnote 59: 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; only he wished that the 'dear fiery man' would be a little more considerate of stage limitations.]

[Footnote 60: Moritz's critique is reprinted in J. Braun's "Schiller und Goethe im Urteile ihrer Zeitgenossen", I, 103.]

[Footnote 61: From the letter of May 5, quoted above.]

[Footnote 62: 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."]

[Footnote 63:

Thou askest in a single moment that Which only time can give with cautious hand.]



CHAPTER VIII

The Boon of Friendship

Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,... Mische seinen Jubel ein. —'Song to Joy'.

Gottfried Koerner, father of the more famous Theodor, was some three years older than Schiller and belonged to an opulent and distinguished family. His father was a high church dignitary, his mother the daughter of a well-to-do Leipzig merchant. The boy had grown up under austere religious influences and then drifted far in the direction of liberalism. After a university career devoted at first to the humanities and then to law, he had travelled extensively in foreign countries, and then returned to Leipzig, full of ambition but undecided as to his future course. Here, in 1778, he became acquainted with Minna Stock, the daughter of an engraver who had once been the teacher of Goethe. Stock died in 1773, leaving a widow and two daughters to battle with poverty. The elder daughter, Dora, inherited something of her father's vivacious humor and artistic talent, while the younger and handsomer, Minna, was of a more domestic temper. When Koerner fell in love with the amiable Minna and wished to marry her, he met with opposition in his own family, who thought that the 'engraver's mamsell' 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 frequent 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 impressionable 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 Koerner lost both his parents and found himself the possessor of a considerable fortune. There was now no further obstacle to his marriage; so the time was fixed for the wedding and he set about preparing a home for his bride. Thus it came about that when Schiller arrived in Leipzig, on the 17th of April, 1785,—mud, snow and inundations had made the journey desperately tedious,—he did not at once meet the man whom he most cared to know. Huber and the two ladies, who seem to have expected a wild, dishevelled genius, were astonished to see a mild-eyed, bashful man, who bore little resemblance to Karl Moor and needed time to thaw up. But the stranger soon felt at home. He had explained to Huber minutely how he wished to live. He would no longer keep his own establishment,—he could manage an entire dramatic conspiracy more easily than his own housekeeping. At the same time he did not wish to live alone.

I need for my inward happiness [he wrote] a right, true friend who is always at hand like my angel; to whom I can communicate my budding ideas and emotions in the moment of their birth, without writing letters or making visits. Even the trivial circumstance that my friend lives outside my four walls; that I must go through the street to reach him, that I must change my dress, or the like, kills the enjoyment of the moment. My train of 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 to look out upon a churchyard. I love men and the thronging crowd. If I cannot arrange it so that we (I mean the five-parted clover-leaf) may eat together, then I might resort to the table d'hote of an inn, for I had rather fast than not dine in company.[64]

It is clear that, notwithstanding experiences which might have embittered a less genial nature, Schiller was in no danger of becoming a misanthrope. For him the throng upon the street was not the madding crowd of the English poet, nor the 'cursed race' of Frederick the Great, but an inspiration; a spectacle to keep the heart warm and foster the sense of brotherhood. 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 identification 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 must have seemed to him, when Schiller had become a famous poet, the reasonable course to have pursued? Did he withhold the letter too long and then show it? Or was Margarete herself disinclined,—piqued perhaps by Schiller's neglect of her, or by his passion for Charlotte von Kalb? Or did Schiller's own courage fail him after he had received a hint of favor? A letter to Koerner, written May 7, tells of pleasant news from Mannheim, and shortly afterward a rumor was in circulation that Schiller was about to marry a rich wife. The probability is that neither party was more than half inclined to the match. The blue flame perished naturally for lack of fuel.

Early in May, following the custom of well-to-do Leipzigers, Schiller sought refuge from the incipient summer heat of the city by taking rooms in the suburban village (such it was then) of Gohlis. Here, in a little second-story chamber, which was provided with an 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 time and place, was in fact written a little later in Dresden. Various friends were at hand. Besides Huber there was Goeschen, with whom he was soon on terms of intimacy. The Stock sisters,—'our dear girls', as he calls them in a letter to the absent Korner,—had likewise quartered themselves in Gohlis; and so had Dr. Albrecht and his wife, Sophie, the actress. These with one or two others were enough for converse and for jollity; and there were merry evenings, with wine and talk, and cards and skittles and nonsense. Though ordinarily he 'joked wi' difficulty', Schiller could be jovial enough in a company 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 beginning 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, Goeschen was obliged to content himself for several months with excuses for postponement. 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 wonderful pair of dreamers, was waiting for the inspiration of a real friendship at Dresden.

Long before they met in the body Schiller and Koerner had given expression to their mutual trust in language of romantic enthusiasm. On the 2nd of May Koerner wrote at length of his own life, character and aspirations. The letter reveals a noble nature conscious 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. Koerner 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 enjoyment, 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.

Then, as if momentarily abashed by his own extravagance of expression, he protests that his Schwaermerei, if such it be, is nothing but a 'joyful paroxysm anticipating 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 Koerner, 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 intention) 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 contact 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 and encourage, and not to halt save at the bourne where human greatness ends.... Our conversation had taken this turn when we got out for breakfast. We found wine in the inn, and your health was drunk. We looked at each other silently; our mood was that of solemn worship and each one of us had tears in his eyes, which he tried to keep back.... I thought of the beginning of the eucharist: 'Do this as often as ye drink in memory of me.' I heard the organ and stood before the altar. Suddenly I remembered that, it was your birthday. Unwittingly we had celebrated it with a holy rite. Dearest friend, had you seen your glorification in our faces, heard it in our tear-choked voices, at that moment you would have forgotten even your betrothed; you would have envied no happy mortal under the sun. Heaven has strangely brought us together, but in our friendship it shall have wrought a miracle. Dim foreboding led me to expect much, very much of you, when I first decided to come to Leipzig; but Providence has more than fulfilled the promise, and has vouchsafed to me in your arms a happiness of which I could not form an image.