The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Whatever reverence Schiller entertained for Dalberg as a critic and a patron, and however ready to adopt his alterations when they seemed judicious, it is plain, from various passages of these extracts, that in regard to writing, he had also firm persuasions of his own, and conscientiousness enough to adhere to them while they continued such. In regard to the conducting of his life, his views as yet were far less clear. The following fragments serve to trace him from the first exhibition of his play at Mannheim to his flight from Stuttgard:

'Stuttgard, 17th January 1782.

'I here in writing repeat my warmest thanks for the courtesies received from your Excellency, for your attention to my slender efforts, for the dignity and splendour you bestowed upon my piece, for all your Excellency did to exalt its little merits and hide its weaknesses by the greatest outlay of theatric art. The shortness of my stay at Mannheim would not allow me to go into details respecting the play or its representation; and as I could not say all, my time being meted out to me so sparingly, I thought it better to say absolutely nothing. I observed much, I learned much; and I believe, if Germany shall ever find in me a true dramatic poet, I must reckon the date of my commencement from the past week.' *  *  *

'Stuttgard, 24th May 1782.

*  *  * 'My impatient wish to see the piece played a second time, and the absence of my Sovereign favouring that purpose, have induced me, with some ladies and male friends as full of curiosity respecting Dalberg's theatre and Robbers as myself, to undertake a little journey to Mannheim, which we are to set about tomorrow. As this is the principal aim of our journey, and to me a more perfect enjoyment of my play is an exceedingly important object, especially since this would put it in my power to set about Fiesco under better auspices, I make it my earnest request of your Excellency, if possible, to procure me this enjoyment on Tuesday the 28th current.' *  *  *

'Stuttgard, 4th June 1782.

'The satisfaction I enjoyed at Mannheim in such copious fulness, I have paid, since my return, by this epidemical disorder, which has made me till today entirely unfit to thank your Excellency for so much regard and kindness. And yet I am forced almost to repent the happiest journey of my life; for by a truly mortifying contrast of Mannheim with my native country, it has pained me so much, that Stuttgard and all Swabian scenes are become intolerable to me. Unhappier than I am can no one be. I have feeling enough of my bad condition, perhaps also feeling enough of my meriting a better; and in both points of view but one prospect of relief.

'May I dare to cast myself into your arms, my generous benefactor? I know how soon your noble heart inflames when sympathy and humanity appeal to it; I know how strong your courage is to undertake a noble action, and how warm your zeal to finish it. My new friends in Mannheim, whose respect for you is boundless, told me this: but their assurance was not necessary; I myself in that hour of your time, which I had the happiness exclusively to enjoy, read in your countenance far more than they had told me. It is this which makes me bold to give myself without reserve to you, to put my whole fate into your hands, and look to you for the happiness of my life. As yet I am little or nothing. In this Arctic Zone of taste, I shall never grow to anything, unless happier stars and a Grecian climate warm me into genuine poetry. Need I say more, to expect from Dalberg all support?

'Your Excellency gave me every hope to this effect; the squeeze of the hand that sealed your promise, I shall forever feel. If your Excellency will adopt the two or three hints I have subjoined, and use them in a letter to the Duke, I have no very great misgivings as to the result.

'And now with a burning heart, I repeat the request, the soul of all this letter. Could you look into the interior of my soul, could you see what feelings agitate it, could I paint to you in proper colours how my spirit strains against the grievances of my condition, you would not, I know you would not, delay one hour the aid which an application from you to the Duke might procure me.

'Again I throw myself into your arms, and wish nothing more than soon, very soon, to have it in my power to show by personal exertions in your service, the reverence with which I could devote to you myself and all that I am.'

The 'hints' above alluded to, are given in a separate enclosure, the main part of which is this:

'I earnestly desire that you could secure my union with the Mannheim Theatre for a specified period (which at your request might be lengthened), at the end of which I might again belong to the Duke. It will thus have the air rather of an excursion than a final abdication of my country, and will not strike them so ungraciously. In this case, however, it would be useful to suggest that means of practising and studying medicine might be afforded me at Mannheim. This will be peculiarly necessary, lest they sham, and higgle about letting me away.'

'Stuttgard, 15th July 1782.

'My long silence must have almost drawn upon me the reproach of folly from your Excellency, especially as I have not only delayed answering your last kind letter, but also retained the two books by me. All this was occasioned by a harassing affair which I have had to do with here. Your Excellency will doubtless be surprised when you learn that, for my last journey to you, I have been confined a fortnight under arrest. Everything was punctually communicated to the Duke. On this matter I have had an interview with him.

'If your Excellency think my prospects of coming to you anywise attainable, my only prayer is to accelerate the fulfilment of them. The reason why I now wish this with double earnestness, is one which I dare trust no whisper of to paper. This alone I can declare for certain, that within a month or two, if I have not the happiness of being with you, there will remain no further hope of my ever being there. Ere that time, I shall be forced to take a step, which will render it impossible for me to stay at Mannheim.' *  *  *

The next two extracts are from letters to another correspondent. Doering quotes them without name or date: their purport sufficiently points out their place.

'I must haste to get away from this: in the end they might find me an apartment in the Hohenasperg, as they have found the honest and ill-fated Schubart. They talk of better culture that I need. It is possible enough, they might cultivate me differently in Hohenasperg: but I had rather try to make shift with what culture I have got, or may still get, by my unassisted efforts. This at least I owe to no one but my own free choice, and volition that disdains constraint.'

'In regard to those affairs, concerning which they wish to put my spirit under wardship, I have long reckoned my minority to be concluded. The best of it is, that one can cast away such clumsy manacles: me at least they shall not fetter.'

[No date.]

'Your Excellency will have learned from my friends at Mannheim, what the history of my affairs was up to your arrival, which unhappily I could not wait for. When I tell you that I am flying my country, I have painted my whole fortune. But the worst is yet behind. I have not the necessary means of setting my mishap at defiance. For the sake of safety, I had to withdraw from Stuttgard with the utmost speed, at the time of the Prince's arrival. Thus were my economical arrangements suddenly snapped asunder: I could not even pay my debts. My hopes had been set on a removal to Mannheim; there I trusted, by your Excellency's assistance, that my new play might not only have cleared me of debt, but have permanently put me into better circumstances. All this was frustrated by the necessity for hastening my removal. I went empty away; empty in purse and hope. I blush at being forced to make such disclosures to you; though I know they do not disgrace me. Sad enough for me to see realised in myself the hateful saying, that mental growth and full stature are things denied to every Swabian!

'If my former conduct, if all that your Excellency knows of my character, inspires you with confidence in my love of honour, permit me frankly to ask your assistance. Pressingly as I now need the profit I expect from my Fiesco, it will be impossible for me to have the piece in readiness before three weeks: my heart was oppressed; the feeling of my own situation drove me back from my poetic dreams. But if at the specified period, I could make the play not only ready, but, as I also hope, worthy, I take courage from that persuasion, respectfully to ask that your Excellency would be so obliging as advance for me the price that will then become due. I need it now, perhaps more than I shall ever do again throughout my life. I had near 200 florins of debt in Stuttgard, which I could not pay. I may confess to you, that this gives me more uneasiness than anything about my future destiny. I shall have no rest till I am free on that side.

'In eight days, too, my travelling purse will be exhausted. It is yet utterly impossible for me to labour with my mind. In my hand, therefore, are at present no resources.

'My actual situation being clear enough from what I have already said, I hold it needless to afflict your Excellency with any importuning picture of my want. Speedy aid is all that I can now think of or wish. Herr Meyer has been requested to communicate your Excellency's resolution to me, and to save you from the task of writing to me in person at all. With peculiar respect, I call myself,' &c.

It is pleasing to record that the humble aid so earnestly and modestly solicited by Schiller, was afforded him; and that he never forgot to love the man who had afforded it; who had assisted him, when assistance was of such essential value. In the first fervour of his gratitude, for this and other favours, the poet warmly declared that 'he owed all, all to Dalberg;' and in a state of society where Patronage, as Miss Edgeworth has observed, directly the antipodes of Mercy, is in general 'twice cursed,' cursing him that gives and him that takes, it says not a little for the character both of the obliged and the obliger in the present instance, that neither of them ever ceased to remember their connexion with pleasure. Schiller's first play had been introduced to the Stage by Dalberg, and his last was dedicated to him.69 The venerable critic, in his eighty-third year, must have received with a calm joy the tragedy of Tell, accompanied by an address so full of kindness and respect: it must have gratified him to think that the youth who was once his, and had now become the world's, could, after long experience, still say of him,

And fearlessly to thee may Tell be shown,For every noble feeling is thy own.

Except this early correspondence, very few of Schiller's letters have been given to the world.70 In Doering's Appendix, we have found one written six years after the poet's voluntary exile, and agreeably contrasted in its purport with the agitation and despondency of that unhappy period. We translate it for the sake of those who, along with us, regret that while the world is deluged with insipid correspondences, and 'pictures of mind' that were not worth drawing, the correspondence of a man who never wrote unwisely should lie mouldering in private repositories, ere long to be irretrievably destroyed; that the 'picture of a mind' who was among the conscript fathers of the human race should still be left so vague and dim. This letter is addressed to Schwann, during Schiller's first residence in Weimar: it has already been referred to in the Text.

'Weimar, 2d May 1788.

'You apologise for your long silence to spare me the pain of an apology. I feel this kindness, and thank you for it. You do not impute my silence to decay of friendship; a proof that you have read my heart more justly than my evil conscience allowed me to hope. Continue to believe that the memory of you lives ineffaceably in my mind, and needs not to be brightened up by the routine of visits, or letters of assurance. So no more of this.

'The peace and calmness of existence which breathes throughout your letter, gives me joy; I who am yet drifting to and fro between wind and waves, am forced to envy you that uniformity, that health of soul and body. To me also in time it will be granted, as a recompense for labours I have yet to undergo.

'I have now been in Weimar nearly three quarters of a year: after finishing my Carlos, I at last accomplished this long-projected journey. To speak honestly, I cannot say but that I am exceedingly contented with the place; and my reasons are not difficult to see.

'The utmost political tranquillity and freedom, a very tolerable disposition in the people, little constraint in social intercourse, a select circle of interesting persons and thinking heads, the respect paid to literary diligence: add to this the unexpensiveness to me of such a town as Weimar. Why should I not be satisfied?

'With Wieland I am pretty intimate, and to him I must attribute no small influence on my present happiness; for I like him, and have reason to believe that he likes me in return. My intercourse with Herder is more limited, though I esteem him highly as a writer and a man. It is the caprice of chance alone which causes this; for we opened our acquaintance under happy enough omens. Besides, I have not always time to act according to my likings. With Bode no one can be very friendly. I know not whether you think here as I do. Goethe is still but expected out of Italy. The Duchess Dowager is a lady of sense and talent, in whose society one does not feel constrained.

'I thank you for your tidings of the fate of Carlos on your stage. To speak candidly, my hopes of its success on any stage were not high; and I know my reasons. It is but fair that the Goddess of the Theatre avenge herself on me, for the little gallantry with which I was inspired in writing. In the mean time, though Carlos prove a never so decided failure on the stage, I engage for it, our public shall see it ten times acted, before they understand and fully estimate the merit that should counterbalance its defects. When one has seen the beauty of a work, and not till then, I think one is entitled to pronounce on its deformity. I hear, however, that the second representation succeeded better than the first. This arises either from the changes made upon the piece by Dalberg, or from the fact, that on a second view, the public comprehended certain things, which on a first, they—did not comprehend.

'For the rest, no one can be more satisfied than I am that Carlos, from causes honourable as well as causes dishonorable to it, is no speculation for the stage. Its very length were enough to banish it. Nor was it out of confidence or self-love that I forced the piece on such a trial; perhaps out of self-interest rather. If in the affair my vanity played any part, it was in this, that I thought the work had solid stuff in it sufficient to outweigh its sorry fortune on the boards.

'The present of your portrait gives me true pleasure. I think it a striking likeness; that of Schubart a little less so, though this opinion may proceed from my faulty memory as much as from the faultiness of Lobauer's drawing. The engraver merits all attention and encouragement; what I can do for the extension of his good repute shall not be wanting.

'To your dear children present my warmest love. At Wieland's I hear much and often of your eldest daughter; there in a few days she has won no little estimation and affection. Do I still hold any place in her remembrance? Indeed, I ought to blush, that by my long silence I so ill deserve it.

'That you are going to my dear native country, and will not pass my Father without seeing him, was most welcome news to me. The Swabians are a good people; this I more and more discover, the more I grow acquainted with the other provinces of Germany. To my family you will be cordially welcome. Will you take a pack of compliments from me to them? Salute my Father in my name; to my Mother and my Sisters your daughter will take my kiss.'

'And with these hearty words,' as Doering says, 'we shall conclude this paper.'

NO. 5. PAGE 114.

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOETHE

The history of Schiller's first intercourse with Goethe has been recorded by the latter in a paper published a few years ago in the Morphologie, a periodical work, which we believe he still occasionally continues, or purposes to continue. The paper is entitled Happy Incident; and may be found in Part I. Volume 1 (pp. 90-96) of the work referred to. The introductory portion of it we have inserted in the text at page 109; the remainder, relating to certain scientific matters, and anticipating some facts of our narrative, we judged it better to reserve for the Appendix. After mentioning the publication of Don Carlos, and adding that 'each continued to go on his way apart,' he proceeds:

'His Essay on Grace and Dignity was yet less of a kind to reconcile me. The Philosophy of Kant, which exalts the dignity of mind so highly, while appearing to restrict it, Schiller had joyfully embraced: it unfolded the extraordinary qualities which Nature had implanted in him; and in the lively feeling of freedom and self-direction, he showed himself unthankful to the Great Mother, who surely had not acted like a step-dame towards him. Instead of viewing her as self-subsisting, as producing with a living force, and according to appointed laws, alike the highest and the lowest of her works, he took her up under the aspect of some empirical native qualities of the human mind. Certain harsh passages I could even directly apply to myself: they exhibited my confession of faith in a false light; and I felt that if written without particular attention to me, they were still worse; for in that case, the vast chasm which lay between us gaped but so much the more distinctly.

'There was no union to be dreamed of. Even the mild persuasion of Dalberg, who valued Schiller as he ought, was fruitless: indeed the reasons I set forth against any project of a union were difficult to contradict. No one could deny that between two spiritual antipodes there was more intervening than a simple diameter of the sphere: antipodes of that sort act as a sort of poles, and so can never coalesce. But that some relation may exist between them will appear from what follows.

'Schiller went to live at Jena, where I still continued unacquainted with him. About this time Batsch had set in motion a Society for Natural History, aided by some handsome collections, and an extensive apparatus. I used to attend their periodical meetings: one day I found Schiller there; we happened to go out together; some discourse arose between us. He appeared to take an interest in what had been exhibited; but observed, with great acuteness and good sense, and much to my satisfaction, that such a disconnected way of treating Nature was by no means grateful to the exoteric, who desired to penetrate her mysteries.

'I answered, that perhaps the initiated themselves were never rightly at their ease in it, and that there surely was another way of representing Nature, not separated and disunited, but active and alive, and expanding from the whole into the parts. On this point he requested explanations, but did not hide his doubts; he would not allow that such a mode, as I was recommending, had been already pointed out by experiment.

'We reached his house; the talk induced me to go in. I then expounded to him with as much vivacity as possible, the Metamorphosis of Plants,71 drawing out on paper, with many characteristic strokes, a symbolic Plant for him, as I proceeded. He heard and saw all this with much interest and distinct comprehension; but when I had done, he shook his head and said: "This is no experiment, this is an idea." I stopped with some degree of irritation; for the point which separated us was most luminously marked by this expression. The opinions in Dignity and Grace again occurred to me; the old grudge was just awakening; but I smothered it, and merely said: "I was happy to find that I had got ideas without knowing it, nay that I saw them before my eyes."

'Schiller had much more prudence and dexterity of management than I: he was also thinking of his periodical the Horen, about this time, and of course rather wished to attract than repel me. Accordingly he answered me like an accomplished Kantite; and as my stiff necked Realism gave occasion to many contradictions, much battling took place between us, and at last a truce, in which neither party would consent to yield the victory, but each held himself invincible. Positions like the following grieved me to the very soul: How can there ever be an experiment that shall correspond with an idea? The specific quality of an idea is, that no experiment can reach it or agree with it. Yet if he held as an idea the same thing which I looked upon as an experiment, there must certainly, I thought, be some community between us, some ground whereon both of us might meet! The first step was now taken; Schiller's attractive power was great, he held all firmly to him that came within his reach: I expressed an interest in his purposes, and promised to give out in the Horen many notions that were lying in my head; his wife, whom I had loved and valued since her childhood, did her part to strengthen our reciprocal intelligence; all friends on both sides rejoiced in it; and thus by means of that mighty and interminable controversy between object and subject, we two concluded an alliance, which remained unbroken, and produced much benefit to ourselves and others.'

The friendship of Schiller and Goethe forms so delightful a chapter in their history, that we long for more and more details respecting it. Sincerity, true estimation of each other's merit, true sympathy in each other's character and purposes appear to have formed the basis of it, and maintained it unimpaired to the end. Goethe, we are told, was minute and sedulous in his attention to Schiller, whom he venerated as a good man and sympathised with as an afflicted one: when in mixed companies together, he constantly endeavoured to draw out the stores of his modest and retiring friend; or to guard his sick and sensitive mind from annoyances that might have irritated him; now softening, now exciting conversation, guiding it with the address of a gifted and polished man, or lashing out of it with the scorpion-whip of his satire much that would have vexed the more soft and simple spirit of the valetudinarian. These are things which it is good to think of: it is good to know that there are literary men, who have other principles besides vanity; who can divide the approbation of their fellow mortals, without quarrelling over the lots; who in their solicitude about their 'fame' do not forget the common charities of nature, in exchange for which the 'fame' of most authors were but a poor bargain.

NO. 4. PAGE 125.

DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS

As a specimen of Schiller's historical style, we have extracted a few scenes from his masterly description of the Battle of Lützen. The whole forms a picture, executed in the spirit of Salvator; and though this is but a fragment, the importance of the figure represented in it will perhaps counterbalance that deficiency.

'At last the dreaded morning dawned; but a thick fog, which lay brooding over all the field, delayed the attack till noon. Kneeling in front of his lines, the King offered up his devotions; the whole army, at the same moment, dropping on their right knees, uplifted a moving hymn, and the field-music accompanied their singing. The King then mounted his horse; dressed in a jerkin of buff, with a surtout (for a late wound hindered him from wearing armour), he rode through the ranks, rousing the courage of his troops to a cheerful confidence, which his own forecasting bosom contradicted. God with us was the battle-word of the Swedes; that of the Imperialists was Jesus Maria. About eleven o'clock, the fog began to break, and Wallenstein's lines became visible. At the same time, too, were seen the flames of Lützen, which the Duke had ordered to be set on fire, that he might not be outflanked on this side. At length the signal pealed; the horse dashed forward on the enemy; the infantry advanced against his trenches.