'Treuer Waechter Israels!

Dir sei Preis und Dank und Ehren;

Laut betend lob' ich Dich,

Dass es Erd' und Himmel hoeren' &c.]

'If, therefore, a certain otherwise accredited Witness calls him a

kind of crotchety, fantastic person, mostly brooding over strange

thoughts and enterprises, this can only have meant that Caspar

Schiller in earlier years appeared such, namely at the time when, as

incipient Surgeon at Marbach, he saw himself forced into a circle of

activity which corresponded neither to his inclination, strength nor

necessities.

'On the spiritual development of his Son this conscientious Father

employed his warmest interest and activities; and appears to have been

for some time assisted herein by a near relation, a certain Johann

Friedrich Schiller from Bittenfeld; the same who, as _Studiosus

Philosophiae_, was, in 1759, Godfather to the Boy. He is said to have

given the little Godson Fritz his first lessons in Writing,

Natural-History and Geography. A more effective assistance in this

matter the Father soon after met with on removing to Lorch.

'In the year 1765, the reigning Duke, Karl of Wuertemberg, sent Captain

Schiller as Recruiting Officer to the Imperial Free-Town

Schwaebish-Gmuend; with permission to live with his Family in the

nearest Wuertemberg place, the Village and Cloister of Lorch. Lorch

lies in a green meadow-ground, surrounded by beech-woods, at the foot

of a hill, which is crowned by the weird buildings of the Cloister,

where the Hohenstaufen graves are; opposite the Cloister and Hamlet,

rise the venerable ruins of Hohenstaufen itself, with a series of

hills; at the bottom winds the Rems,' a branch of the Neckar, 'towards

still fruitfuler regions. In this attractive rural spot the Schiller

Family resided for several years; and found from the pious and kindly

people of the Hamlet, and especially from a friend of the house,

Moser, the worthy Parish-Parson there, the kindliest reception. The

Schiller children soon felt themselves at home and happy in Lorch,

especially Fritz did, who, in the Parson's Son, Christoph Ferdinand

Moser, a soft gentle child, met with his first boy-friend. In this

worthy Parson's house he also received, along with the Parson's own

Sons, the first regular and accurate instruction in reading and

writing, as also in the elements of Latin and Greek. This arrangement

pleased and comforted Captain Schiller not a little: for the more

distinctly he, with his clear and candid character, recognised the

insufficiency of his own instruction and stock of knowledge, the more

impressively it lay on him that his Son should early acquire a good

foundation in Languages and Science, and learn something solid and

effective. What he could himself do in that particular he faithfully

did; bringing out, with this purpose, partly the grand historical

memorials of that neighbourhood, partly his own life-experiences, in

instructive and exciting dialogues with his children. He would point

out to the listening little pair the venerable remains of the

Hohenstaufen Ancestral Castle, or tell them of his own soldier-career.

He took the Boy with him into the Exercise Camp, to the Woodmen in the

Forest, and even into the farther-distant pleasure-castle of

Hohenheim; and thereby led their youthful imagination into many

changeful imaginings of life.[46]

[Footnote 46: _Saupe_, p. 11.]

'Externally little Fritz and his Sister were not like; Christophine

more resembling the Father, whilst Friedrich was the image of the

Mother. On the other hand, they had internally very much in common;

both possessed a lively apprehension for whatever was true, beautiful

or good. Both had a temper capable of enthusiasm, which early and

chiefly turned towards the sublime and grand: in short, the strings of

their souls were tuned on a cognate tone. Add to this, that both, in

the beautifulest, happiest period of their life, had been under the

sole care and direction of the pious genial Mother; and that Fritz, at

least till his sixth year, was exclusively limited to Christophine's

society, and had no other companion. They two had to be, and were, all

to each other. Christophine on this account stood nearer to her

Brother throughout all his life than the Sisters who were born later.

'In rural stillness, and in almost uninterrupted converse with

out-door nature, flowed by for Fritz and her the greatest part of

their childhood and youth. Especially dear to them was their abode in

this romantic region. Every hour that was free from teaching or other

task, they employed in roaming about in the neighbourhood; and they

knew no higher joy than a ramble into the neighbouring hills. In

particular they liked to make pilgrimages together to a chapel on the

Calvary Hill at Gmuend, a few miles off, to which the way was still

through the old monkish grief-stations, on to the Cloister of Lorch

noticed above. Often they would sit with closely-grasped hands, under

the thousand-years-old Linden, which stood on a projection before the

Cloister-walls, and seemed to whisper to them long-silent tales of

past ages. On these walks the hearts of the two clasped each other

ever closer and more firmly, and they faithfully shared their little

childish joys and sorrows. Christophine would bitterly weep when her

vivacious Brother had committed some small misdeed and was punished

for it. In such cases, she often enough confessed Fritz's faults as

her own, and was punished when she had in reality had no complicity in

them. It was with great sorrow that they two parted from their little

Paradise; and both of them always retained a great affection for Lorch

and its neighbourhood. Christophine, who lived to be ninety, often

even in her latter days looked back with tender affection to their

abode there.[47]

[Footnote 47: _Saupe_, pp. 106-108.]

'In his family-circle, the otherwise hard-mannered Father showed

always to Mother and Daughters the tenderest respect and the

affectionate tone which the heart suggests. Thus, if at table a dish

had chanced to be especially prepared for him, he would never eat of

it without first inviting the Daughters to be helped. As little could

he ever, in the long-run, withstand the requests of his gentle Wife;

so that not seldom she managed to soften his rough severity. The

Children learned to make use of this feature in his character; and

would thereby save themselves from the first outburst of his anger.

They confessed beforehand to the Mother their bits of misdoings, and

begged her to inflict the punishment, and prevent their falling into

the heavier paternal hand. Towards the Son again, whose moral

development his Father anxiously watched over, his wrath was at times

disarmed by touches of courage and fearlessness on the Boy's part.

Thus little Fritz, once on a visit at Hohenheim, in the house where

his Father was calling, and which formed part of the side-buildings of

the Castle, whilst his Father followed his business within doors, had,

unobserved, clambered out of a saloon-window, and undertaken a voyage

of discovery over the roofs. The Boy, who had been missed and

painfully sought after, was discovered just on the point of trying to

have a nearer view of the Lion's Head, by which one of the

roof-gutters discharges itself, when the terrified Father got eye on

him, and called out aloud. Cunning Fritz, however, stood motionless

where he was on the roof, till his Father's anger had stilled itself,

and pardon was promised him.'--Here farther is a vague anecdote made

authentic: 'Another time the little fellow was not to be found at the

evening meal, while, withal, there was a heavy thunderstorm in the

sky, and fiery bolts were blazing through the black clouds. He was

searched for in vain, all over the house; and at every new

thunder-clap the misery of his Parents increased. At last they found

him, not far from the house, on the top of the highest lime-tree,

which he was just preparing to descend, under the crashing of a very

loud peal. "In God's name, what hast thou been doing there?" cried the

agitated Father. "I wanted to know," answered Fritz, "where all that

fire in the sky was coming from!"

'Three full years the Schiller Family lived at Lorch; and this in

rather narrow circumstances, as the Father, though in the service of

his Prince, could not, during the whole of this time, receive the

smallest part of his pay, but had to live on the little savings he had

made during War-time. Not till 1768, after the most impressive

petitioning to the Duke, was he at last called away from his post of

Recruiting Officer, and transferred to the Garrison of Ludwigsburg,

where he, by little and little, squeezed out the pay owing him.

'Upon his removal, the Father's first care was to establish his little

Boy, now nine years old,--who, stirred-on probably by the impressions

he had got in the Parsonage at Lorch, and the visible wish of his

Parents, had decided for the Clerical Profession,--in the Latin school

at Ludwigsburg. This done, he made it his chief care that his Son's

progress should be swift and satisfying there. But on that side, Fritz

could never come up to his expectations, though the Teachers were well

enough contented. But out of school-time, Fritz was not so zealous and

diligent as could be wished; liked rather to spring about and sport in

the garden. The arid, stony, philological instruction of his teacher,

Johann Friedrich Jahn, who was a solid Latiner, and nothing more, was

not calculated to make a specially alluring impression on the clever

and lively Boy; thus it was nothing but the reverence and awe of his

Father that could drive him on to diligence.

'To this time belongs the oldest completely preserved Poem of

Schiller's; it is in the form of a little Hymn, in which, on

New-year's day 1769, the Boy, now hardly over nine years old, presents

to his Parents the wishes of the season. It may stand here by way of

glimpse into the position of the Son towards his Parents, especially

towards his Father.

MUCH-LOVED PARENTS.[48]

Parents, whom I lovingly honour,

Today my heart is full of thankfulness!

This Year may a gracious God increase

What is at all times your support!

The Lord, the Fountain of all joy,

Remain always your comfort and portion;

His Word be the nourishment of your heart,

And Jesus your wished-for salvation.

I thank you for all your proofs of love,

For all your care and patience;

My heart shall praise all your goodness,

And ever comfort itself in your favour.

Obedience, diligence and tender love

I promise you for this Year.

God send me only good inclinations,

And make true all my wishes! Amen.

1 January 1769. JOHANN FRIEDRICH SCHILLER.

[Footnote 48:

HERZGELIEBTE ELTERN.

_Eltern, die ich zaertlich ehre,

Mein Herz ist heut' voll Dankbarkeit!

Der treue Gott dies Jahr vermehre

Was Sie erquickt zu jeder Zeit!_

_Der Herr, die Quelle aller Freude,

Verbleibe stets Ihr Trost und Theil;_

_Sein Wort sei Ihres Herzens Weide,

Und Jesus Ihr erwunschtes Heil._

_Ich dank' von alle Liebes-Proben,

Von alle Sorgfalt und Geduld,

Mein Herz soll alle Guete loben,

Und troesten sich stets Ihrer Huld._

_Gehorsam, Fleiss und zarte Liebe

Verspreche ich auf dieses Jahr.

Der Herr schenk' mir nur gute Treibe,

Und mache all' mein Wunschen wahr. Amen._

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER.

_Den 1 Januarii Anno 1769._]

'According to the pious wish of their Son, this year, 1769, did bring

somewhat which "comforted" them. Captain Schiller, from of old a lover

of rural occupations, and skilful in gardening and nursery affairs,

had, at Ludwigsburg, laid-out for himself a little Nursery. It was

managed on the same principles which he afterwards made public in his

Book, _Die Baumzucht im Grossen_ (Neustrelitz, 1795, and second

edition, Giessen, 1806); and was prospering beautifully. The Duke, who

had noticed this, signified satisfaction in the thing; and he

appointed him, in 1770, to shift to his beautiful Forest-Castle, Die

Solituede, near Stuttgart, as overseer of all his Forest operations

there. Hereby to the active man was one of his dearest wishes

fulfilled; and a sphere of activity opened, corresponding to his

acquirements and his inclination. At Solituede, by the Duke's order, he

laid-out a Model Nursery for all Wuertemberg, which he managed with

perfect care and fidelity; and in this post he so completely satisfied

the expectations entertained of him, that his Prince by and by raised

him to the rank of Major.' He is reckoned to have raised from seeds,

and successfully planted, 60,000 trees, in discharge of this

function, which continued for the rest of his life.

'His Family, which already at Lorch, in 1766, had been increased by

the birth of a Daughter, Luise, waited but a short time in Ludwigsburg

till the Father brought them over to the new dwelling at Solituede.

Fritz, on the removal of his Parents, was given over as boarder to his

actual Teacher, the rigorous pedant Jahn; and remained yet two years

at the Latin school in Ludwigsburg. During this time, the lively, and

perhaps also sometimes mischievous Boy, was kept in the strictest

fetters; and, by the continual admonitions, exhortations, and manually

practical corrections of Father and of Teacher, not a little held down

and kept in fear. The fact, for instance, that he liked more the

potent Bible-words and pious songs of a Luther, a Paul Gerhard, and

Gellert, than he did the frozen lifeless catechism-drill of the

Ludwigsburg Institute, gave surly strait-laced Jahn occasion to lament

from time to time to the alarmed Parents, that "their Son had no

feeling whatever for religion." In this respect, however, the

otherwise so irritable Father easily satisfied himself, not only by

his own observations of an opposite tendency, but chiefly by stricter

investigation of one little incident that was reported to him. The

teacher of religion in the Latin school, Superintendent Zilling, whose

name is yet scornfully remembered, had once, in his dull awkwardness,

introduced even Solomon's Song as an element of nurture for his class;

and was droning out, in an old-fashioned way, his interpretation of it

as symbolical of the Christian Church and its Bridegroom Christ, when

he was, on the sudden, to his no small surprise and anger, interrupted

by the audible inquiry of little Schiller, "But was this Song, then,

actually sung to the Church?" Schiller Senior took the little heretic

to task for this rash act; and got as justification the innocent

question, "Has the Church really got teeth of ivory?" The Father was

enlightened enough to take the Boy's opposition for a natural

expression of sound human sense; nay, he could scarcely forbear a

laugh; whirled swiftly round, and murmured to himself, "Occasionally

she has Wolf's teeth." And so the thing was finished.[49]

[Footnote 49: _Saupe_, p. 18.]

'At Ludwigsburg Schiller and Christophine first saw a Theatre; where

at that time, in the sumptuous Duke's love of splendour, only pompous

operas and ballets were given. The first effect of this new enjoyment,

which Fritz and his Sister strove to repeat as often as they could,

was that at home, with little clipped and twisted paper dolls, they

set about representing scenes; and on Christophine's part it had the

more important result of awakening and nourishing, at an early age,

her aesthetic taste. Schiller considered her, ever after these youthful

sports, as a true and faithful companion in his poetic dreams and

attempts; and constantly not only told his Sister, whose silence on

such points could be perfect, of all that he secretly did in the way

of verse-making in the Karl's School,--which, as we shall see, he

entered in 1773,--but if possible brought it upon the scene with her.

Scenes from the lyrical operetta of _Semele_ were acted by Schiller

and Christophine, on those terms; which appears in a complete shape

for the first time in Schiller's _Anthology_, printed 1782.[50]

[Footnote 50: Ibid. p. 109.]

'So soon as Friedrich had gone through the Latin school at

Ludwigsburg, which was in 1772, he was, according to the standing

regulation, to enter one of the four Lower Cloister-schools; and go

through the farther curriculum for a Wuertemberg clergyman. But now

there came suddenly from the Duke to Captain Schiller an offer to take

his Son, who had been represented to him as a clever boy, into the new

Military Training-School, founded by his Highness at Solituede, in

1771; where he would be brought up, and taken charge of, free of cost.

'In the Schiller Family this offer caused great consternation and

painful embarrassment. The Father was grieved to be obliged to

sacrifice a long-cherished paternal plan to the whim of an arbitrary

ruler; and the Son felt himself cruelly hurt to be torn away so rudely

from his hope and inclination. Accordingly, how dangerous soever for

the position of the Family a declining of the Ducal grace might seem,

the straightforward Father ventured nevertheless to lay open to the

Duke, in a clear and distinct statement, how his purpose had always

been to devote his Son, in respect both of his inclination and his

hitherto studies, to the Clerical Profession; for which in the new

Training-School he could not be prepared. The Duke showed no anger at

this step of the elder Schiller's; but was just as little of intention

to let a capable and hopeful scholar, who was also the Son of one of

his Officers and Dependents, escape him. He simply, with brevity,

repeated his wish, and required the choice of another study, in which

the Boy would have a better career and outlook than in the Theological

Department. Nill they, will they, there was nothing for the Parents

but compliance with the so plainly intimated will of this Duke, on

whom their Family's welfare so much depended.

'Accordingly, 17th January 1773, Friedrich Schiller, then in his

fourteenth year, stept over to the Military Training-School at

Solituede.

'In September of the following year, Schiller's Parents had,

conformably to a fundamental law of the Institution, to acknowledge

and engage by a written Bond, "That their Son, in virtue of his

entrance into this Ducal Institution, did wholly devote himself to the

service of the Wuertemberg Ducal House; that he, without special Ducal

permission, was not empowered to go out of it; and that he had, with

his best care, to observe not only this, but all other regulations of

the Institute." By this time, indeed directly upon signature of this

strict Bond, young Schiller had begun to study Jurisprudence;--which,

however, when next year, 1775, the Training-School, raised now to be a

"Military Academy," had been transferred to Stuttgart, he either of

his own accord, or in consequence of a discourse and interview of the

Duke with his Father, exchanged for the Study of Medicine.

'From the time when Schiller entered this "Karl's School"' (Military

Academy, in official style), 'he was nearly altogether withdrawn from

any tutelage of his Father; for it was only to Mothers, and to Sisters

still under age, that the privilege of visiting their Sons and

Brothers, and this on the Sunday only, was granted: beyond this, the

Karl's Scholars, within their monastic cells, were cut off from family

and the world, by iron-doors and sentries guarding them. This rigorous

seclusion from actual life and all its friendly impressions, still

more the spiritual constraint of the Institution, excluding every free

activity, and all will of your own, appeared to the Son in a more

hateful light than to the Father, who, himself an old soldier, found

it quite according to order that the young people should be kept in

strict military discipline and subordination. What filled the Son with

bitter discontent and indignation, and at length brought him to a kind

of poetic outburst of revolution in the _Robbers_, therein the Father

saw only a wholesome regularity, and indispensable substitute for

paternal discipline. Transient complaints of individual teachers and

superiors little disturbed the Father's mind; for, on the whole, the

official testimonies concerning his Son were steadily favourable. The

Duke too treated young Schiller, whose talents had not escaped his

sharpness of insight, with particular goodwill, nay distinction. To

this Prince, used to the accurate discernment of spiritual gifts, the

complaints of certain Teachers, that Schiller's slow progress in

Jurisprudence proceeded from want of head, were of no weight whatever;

and he answered expressly, "Leave me that one alone; he will come to

something yet!" But that Schiller gave his main strength to what in

the Karl's School was a strictly forbidden object, to poetry namely,

this I believe was entirely hidden from his Father, or appeared to

him, on occasional small indications, the less questionable, as he saw

that, in spite of this, the Marketable-Sciences were not neglected.

'At the same age, viz. about twenty-two, at which Captain Schiller had

made his first military sally into the Netherlands and the

Austrian-Succession War, his Son issued from the Karl's School, 15th

December 1780; and was immediately appointed Regimental-Doctor at

Stuttgart; with a monthly pay of twenty-three gulden' (_2l. 6s.=11s._

and a fraction per week). 'With this appointment, Schiller had, as it

were, openly altogether outgrown all special paternal guardianship or

guidance; and was, from this time, treated by his Father as come to

majority, and standing on his own feet. If he came out, as frequently

happened, with a comrade to Solituede, he was heartily welcome there,

and the Father's looks often dwelt on him with visible satisfaction.

If in the conscientious and rigorous old man, with his instructive and

serious experiences of life, there might yet various anxieties and

doubts arise when he heard of the exuberantly genial ways of his

hopeful Son at Stuttgart, he still looked upon him with joyful pride,

in remarking how those so promising Karl's Scholars, who had entered

into the world along with him, recognised his superiority of mind, and

willingly ranked themselves under him. Nor could it be otherwise than

highly gratifying to his old heart to remark always with what deep

love the gifted Son constantly regarded his Parents and

Sisters.'[51]--Of Schiller's first procedures in Stuttgart, after his

emancipation from the Karl's School, and appointment as

Regimental-Surgeon, or rather of his general behaviour and way of life

there, which are said to have been somewhat wild, genially, or even

_un_genially extravagant, and to have involved him in many paltry

entanglements of debts, as one bad consequence,--there will be some

notice in the next Section, headed "_The Mother_." His Regimental

Doctorship, and stay in Stuttgart altogether, lasted twenty-two

months.

[Footnote 51: _Saupe_, p. 25.]

This is Schiller's bodily appearance, as it first presented itself to

an old School-fellow, who, after an interval of eighteen months, saw

him again on Parade, as Doctor of the Regiment Auge,--more to his

astonishment than admiration.

'Crushed into the stiff tasteless Old-Prussian Uniform; on each of

his temples three stiff rolls as if done with gypsum; the tiny

three-cocked hat scarcely covering his crown; so much the thicker the

long pigtail, with the slender neck crammed into a very narrow

horsehair stock; the felt put under the white spatterdashes, smirched

by traces of shoe-blacking, giving to the legs a bigger diameter than

the thighs, squeezed into their tight-fitting breeches, could boast

of. Hardly, or not at all, able to bend his knees, the whole man moved

like a stork.'

'The Poet's form,' says this Witness elsewhere, a bit of a dilettante

artist it seems, 'had somewhat the following appearance: Long straight

stature; long in the legs, long in the arms; pigeon-breasted; his neck

very long; something rigorously stiff; in gait and carriage not the

smallest elegance. His brow was broad; the nose thin, cartilaginous,

white of colour, springing out at a notably sharp angle, much bent,--a

parrot-nose, and very sharp in the point (according to Dannecker the

Sculptor, Schiller, who took snuff, had pulled it out so with his

hand). The red eyebrows, over the deep-lying dark-gray eyes, were bent

too close together at the nose, which gave him a pathetic expression.

The lips were thin, energetic; the under-lip protruding, as if pushed

forward by the inspiration of his feelings; the chin strong; cheeks

pale, rather hollow than full, freckly; the eyelids a little inflamed;

the bushy hair of the head dark red; the whole head rather ghostlike

than manlike, but impressive even in repose, and all expression when

Schiller declaimed. Neither the features nor the somewhat shrieky

voice could he subdue. Dannecker,' adds the satirical Witness, 'has

unsurpassably cut this head in marble for us.'[52]

[Footnote 52: Schwab, _Schiller's Leben_ (Stuttgart, 1841),

p. 68.]

'The publication of the _Robbers_' (Autumn 1781),--'which Schiller,

driven on by rage and desperation, had composed in the fetters of the

Karl's School,--raised him on the sudden to a phenomenon on which all

eyes in Stuttgart were turned. What, with careless exaggeration, he

had said to a friend some months before, on setting forth his _Elegy

on the Death of a Young Man_, "The thing has made my name hereabouts

more famous than twenty years of practice would have done; but it is a

name like that of him who burnt the Temple of Ephesus: God be merciful

to me a sinner!" might now with all seriousness be said of the

impression his _Robbers_ made on the harmless townsfolk of Stuttgart.

But how did Father Schiller at first take up this eccentric product of

his Son, which openly declared war on all existing order? Astonishment

and terror, anger and detestation, boundless anxiety, with touches of

admiration and pride, stormed alternately through the solid honest

man's paternal breast, as he saw the frank picture of a Prodigal Son

rolled out before him; and had to gaze into the most revolting deeps

of the passions and vices. Yet he felt himself irresistibly dragged

along by the uncommon vivacity of action in this wild Drama; and at

the same time powerfully attracted by the depth, the tenderness and

fulness of true feeling manifested in it: so that, at last, out of

those contradictory emotions of his, a clear admiration and pride for

his Son's bold and rich spirit maintained the upper hand. By

Schiller's friends and closer connections, especially by his Mother

and Sisters, all pains were of course taken to keep up this favourable

humour in the Father, and carefully to hide from him all

disadvantageous or disquieting tidings about the Piece and its

consequences and practical effects. Thus he heard sufficiently of the

huge excitement and noise which the _Robbers_ was making all over

Germany, and of the seductive approval which came streaming-in on the

youthful Poet, even out of distant provinces; but heard nothing either

of the Duke's offended and angry feelings over the _Robbers_, a

production horrible to him; nor of the Son's secret journeys to

Mannheim, and the next consequences of these' (his brief arrest,

namely), 'nor of the rumour circulating in spiteful quarters, that

this young Doctor was neglecting his own province of medicine, and

meaning to become a play-actor. How could the old man, in these

circumstances, have a thought that the _Robbers_ would be the loss of

Family and Country to his poor Fritz! And yet so it proved.

'Excited by all kinds of messagings, informings and insinuations, the

imperious Prince, in spite of his secret pleasure in this sudden

renown of his Pupil, could in no wise be persuaded to revoke or soften

his harsh Order, which "forbade the Poet henceforth, under pain of

military imprisonment, either to write anything poetic or to

communicate the same to foreign persons"' (non-Wuertembergers). In vain

were all attempts of Schiller to obtain his discharge from Military

Service and his "_Entschwaebung_" (Un-_Swabian_-ing); such petitions

had only for result new sharper rebukes and hard threatening

expressions, to which the mournful fate of Schubart in the Castle of

Hohenasperg[53] formed a too questionable background.

[Footnote 53: See Appendix ii. _infra_.]

'Thus by degrees there ripened in the strong soul of this young man

the determination to burst these laming fetters of his genius, by

flight from despotic Wuertemberg altogether; and, in some friendlier

country, gain for himself the freedom without which his spiritual

development was impossible. Only to one friend, who clung to him with

almost enthusiastic devotion, did he impart his secret. This was

Johann Andreas Streicher of Stuttgart, who intended to go next year to

Hamburg, and there, under Bach's guidance, study music; but declared

himself ready to accompany Schiller even now, since it had become

urgent. Except to this trustworthy friend, Schiller had imparted his

plan to his elder Sister Christophine alone; and she had not only

approved of the sad measure, but had undertaken also to prepare their

Mother for it. The Father naturally had to be kept dark on the

subject; all the more that, if need were, he might pledge his word as

an Officer that he had known nothing of his Son's intention.

'Schiller went out, in company of Madam Meier, Wife of the _Regisseur_

(Theatre-manager) at Mannheim, a native of Stuttgart, and of this

Streicher, one last time to Solituede, to have one more look of it and

of his dear ones there; especially to soothe and calm his Mother. On

the way, which they travelled on foot, Schiller kept up a continual

discourse about the Mannheim Theatre and its interests, without

betraying his secret to Madam Meier. The Father received these welcome

guests with frank joy; and gave to the conversation, which at first

hung rather embarrassed, a happy turn by getting into talk, with

cheery circumstantiality, of the grand Pleasure-Hunt, of the Play and

of the Illumination, which were to take place, in honour of the

Russian Grand-Prince, afterwards Czar Paul, and his Bride, the Duke of

Wuertemberg's Niece, on the 17th September instant, at Solituede. Far

other was the poor Mother's mood; she was on the edge of betraying

herself, in seeing the sad eyes of her Son; and she could not speak

for emotion. The presence of Streicher and a Stranger with whom the

elder Schiller was carrying on a, to him, attractive conversation,

permitted Mother and Son to withdraw speedily and unremarked. Not till

after an hour did Schiller reappear, alone now, to the company;

neither this circumstance, nor Schiller's expression of face, yet

striking the preoccupied Father. Though to the observant Streicher,

his wet red eyes betrayed how painful the parting must have been.

Gradually on the way back to Stuttgart, amid general talk of the

three, Schiller regained some composure and cheerfulness.

'The bitter sorrow of this hour of parting renewed itself yet once in

Schiller's soul, when on the flight itself, about midnight of the

17th. In effect it was these same festivities that had decided the

young men's time and scheme of journey; and under the sheltering noise

of which their plan was luckily executed. Towards midnight of the

above-said day, when the Castle of Solituede, with all its

surroundings, was beaming in full splendour of illumination, there

rolled past, almost rubbing elbows with it, the humble Schiller

Vehicle from Stuttgart, which bore the fugitive Poet with his true

Friend on their way. Schiller pointed out to his Friend the spot where

his Parents lived, and, with a half-suppressed sigh and a woe-begone

exclamation, "Oh, my Mother!" sank back upon his seat.'

Mannheim, the goal of their flight, is in Baden-Baden, under another

Sovereign; lies about 80 miles to N.W. of Stuttgart. Their dreary

journey lasted two days,--arrival not till deep in the night of the

second. Their united stock of money amounted to 51 gulden,--Schiller

23, Streicher 28,--5_l._ 6_s._ in all. Streicher subsequently squeezed

out from home 3_l._ more; and that appears to have been their

sum-total.[54]

[Footnote 54: Schwab, _Schiller's Leben_.]

'Great was the astonishment and great the wrath of the Father, when at

length he understood that his Son had broken the paternal, written

Bond, and withdrawn himself by flight from the Ducal Service. He

dreaded, not without reason, the heavy consequences of so rash an

action; and a thousand gnawing anxieties bestormed the heart of the

worthy man. Might not the Duke, in the first outburst of his

indignation, overwhelm forever the happiness of their Family, which

there was nothing but the income of his post that supported in humble

competence? And what a lot stood before the Son himself, if he were

caught in flight, or if, what was nowise improbable, his delivery back

was required and obtained? Sure enough, there had risen on the

otherwise serene heaven of the Schiller Family a threatening

thundercloud; which, any day, might discharge itself, bringing

destruction on their heads.

'The thing, however, passed away in merciful peace. Whatever may have

been the Duke's motives or inducements to let the matter, in spite of

his embitterment, silently drop,--whether his bright festal humour in

presence of those high kinsfolk, or the noble frankness with which the

Runaway first of all, to save his Family, had in a respectful missive,

dated from Mannheim, explained to his Princely Educator the necessity

of his flight; or the expectation, flattering to the Ducal pride, that

the future greatness of his Pupil might be a source of glory to him

and his Karl's-School: enough, on his part, there took place no kind

of hostile step against the Poet, and still less against his Family.

Captain Schiller again breathed freer when he saw himself delivered

from his most crushing anxiety on this side; but there remained still

a sharp sting in his wounded heart. His military feeling of honour was

painfully hurt by the thought that they might now look upon his Son

as a deserter; and withal the future of this voluntary Exile appeared

so uncertain and wavering, that it did not offer the smallest

justification of so great a risk. By degrees, however, instead of

anger and blame there rose in him the most sympathetic anxiety for the

poor Son's fate; to whom, from want of a free, firm and assuring

position in life, all manner of contradictions and difficulties must

needs arise.

'And Schiller did actually, at Mannheim, find himself in a bad and

difficult position. The Superintendent of the celebrated Mannheim

Theatre, the greatly powerful Imperial Baron von Dalberg, with whom

Schiller, since the bringing out of his _Robbers_, had stood in lively

correspondence, drew back when Schiller himself was here; and kept the

Poet at a distance as a political Fugitive; leaving him to shift as he

could. In vain had Schiller explained to him, in manly open words, his

economic straits, and begged from him a loan of 300 gulden' (30_l._)

'to pay therewith a pressing debt in Stuttgart, and drag himself

along, and try to get started in the world. Dalberg returned the

_Fiesco_, Schiller's new republican Tragedy, which had been sent him,

with the declaration that he could advance no money on the _Fiesco_ in

its present form; the Piece must first be remodelled to suit the

stage. During this remodelling, which the otherwise so passionately

vivid and hopeful Poet began without murmur, he lived entirely on the

journey-money that had been saved up by the faithful Streicher, who

would on no account leave him.'

What became of this good Streicher afterwards, I have inquired

considerably, but with very little success. On the total exhaustion of

their finance, Schiller and he had to part company,--Schiller for

refuge at Bauerbach, as will soon be seen. Streicher continued about

Mannheim, not as Schiller's fellow-lodger any longer, but always at

his hand, passionately eager to serve him with all his faculties by

night or by day; and they did not part finally till Schiller quitted

Mannheim, two years hence, for Leipzig. After which they never met

again. Streicher, in Mannheim, seems to have subsisted by his musical

talent; and to have had some connection with the theatre in that

capacity. In similar dim positions, with what shiftings, adventures

and vicissitudes is quite unknown to me, he long survived Schiller,

and, at least fifty years after these Mannheim struggles, wrote some

Book of bright and loving Reminiscences concerning him, the exact

_title_ of which I can nowhere find,--though passages from it are

copied by Biographer Schwab here and there. His affection for Schiller

is of the nature of worship rather, of constant adoration; and

probably formed the sunshine to poor Streicher's life. Schiller

nowhere mentions him in his writings or correspondences, after that

final parting at Mannheim, 1784.

'The necessities of the two Friends reached by and by such a height

that Schiller had to sell his Watch, although they had already for

several weeks been subsisting on loans. To all which now came

Dalberg's overwhelming message, that even this Remodelling of _Fiesco_

could not be serviceable; and of course could not have money paid for

it. Schiller thereupon, at once resolute what to do, walked off to the

worthy Bookseller Schwann,' with whom he was already on a trustful,

even grateful footing; 'and sold him his MS. at one louis-d'or the

sheet. At the same time, too, he recognised the necessity of quitting

Mannheim, and finding a new asylum in Saxony; seeing, withal, his

farther continuance here might be as dangerous for him as it was a

matter of apprehension to his Friends. For although the Duke of

Wuertemberg undertook nothing that was hostile to him, and his Family

at Solituede experienced no annoyance, yet the impetuous Prince might,

any day, take it into his head to have him put in prison. In the ever

livelier desire after a securely-hidden place of abode, where he might

execute in peace his poetic plans and enterprises, Schiller suddenly

took up an earlier purpose, which had been laid aside.

'In the Stuttgart time he had known Wilhelm von Wolzogen, by and by

his Brother-in-law' (they married two sisters), 'who, with three

Brothers, had been bred in the Karl's School. The two had, indeed,

during the academic time, Wolzogen being some years younger, had few

points of contact, and were not intimate. But now on the appearance of

the _Robbers_, Wolzogen took a cordial affection and enthusiasm for

the widely-celebrated Poet, and on closer acquaintance with Schiller,

also affected his Mother,--who, as Widow, for her three Sons' sake,

lived frequently at Stuttgart,--with a deep and zealous sympathy in

Schiller's fate. Schiller had, with a truly childlike trust, confided

himself to this excellent Lady, and after his Arrest,--a bitter

consequence of his secret visit to Mannheim,--had confessed to her his

purpose to run away. Frau von Wolzogen, who feared no sacrifice when

the question was of the fortune of her friends, had then offered him

her family mansion, Bauerbach, near Meiningen, as a place of refuge.

Schiller's notion had also been to fly thither; though, deceived by

false hopes, he changed that purpose. He now wrote at once to

Stuttgart, and announced to Frau von Wolzogen his wish to withdraw

for 'some time to Bauerbach.' To which, as is well known, the assent

was ready and zealous.

'Before quitting Mannheim, Schiller could not resist the longing wish,

to see his Parents yet one time; and wrote to them accordingly, 19

Nov. 1782, in visible haste and excitement:

"Best Parents,--As I am at present in Mannheim, and am to go

away forever in five days, I wished to prepare for myself

and you the one remaining satisfaction of seeing one another

once more. Today is the 19th, on the 21st you receive this

Letter;--if you therefore, without the least delay (that is

indispensable), leave Stuttgart, you might on the 22d be at

the Post-house in Bretten, which is about half way from

Mannheim, and where you would find me. I think it would be

best if Mamma and Christophine, under the pretext of going

to Ludwigsburg to Wolzogen, should make this journey. Take

the Frau Vischerin" (a Captain's Widow, sung of under the

name of "Laura," with whom he had last lodged in Stuttgart)

"and also Wolzogen with you, as I wish to speak with both of

them, perhaps for the last time, Wolzogen excepted. I will

give you a Karolin as journey-money; but not till I see you

at Bretten. By the prompt fulfilment of my Prayer, I will

perceive whether is still dear to you,

Your ever-grateful Son,

SCHILLER."'

From Mannheim, Bauerbach or Meiningen lies about 120 miles N.E.; and

from Stuttgart almost as far straight North. Bretten, 'a little town

on a hill, celebrated as Melancthon's Birthplace, his Father's house

still standing there,' is some 35 miles S.E. of Mannheim, and as far

N.W. from Stuttgart. From Mannheim, in this wise, it is not at all on

the road to Meiningen, though only a few miles more remote in direct

distance. Schiller's purpose had been, after this affectionate

interview, to turn at once leftward and make for Meiningen, by what

road or roads there were from Bretten thither. Schiller's poor guinea

(Karolin) was not needed on this occasion; the rendezvous at Bretten

being found impossible or inexpedient at the Stuttgart end of it. Our

Author continues:

'Although this meeting, on which the loving Son and Brother wished to

spend his last penny, did not take effect; yet this mournful longing

of his, evident from the Letter, and from the purpose itself, must

have touched the Father's heart with somewhat of a reconciliatory

feeling. Schiller Senior writes accordingly, 8 December 1782, the very

day after his Son's arrival at Bauerbach, to Bookseller Schwan in

Mannheim: "I have not noticed here the smallest symptom that his Ducal

Durchlaucht has any thought of having my Son searched for and

prosecuted; and indeed his post here has long since been filled up; a

circumstance which visibly indicates that they can do without him."

This Letter to Schwan concludes in the following words, which are

characteristic: "He (my Son) has, by his untimely withdrawal, against

the advice of his true friends, plunged himself into this difficult

position; and it will profit him in soul and body that he feel the

pain of it, and thereby become wiser for the future. I am not afraid,

however, that want of actual necessaries should come upon him, for in

such case I should feel myself obliged to lend a hand."

'And in effect Schiller, during his abode in Bauerbach, did once or

twice receive little subventions of money from his Father, although

never without earnest and not superfluous admonition to become more

frugal, and take better heed in laying-out his money. For economics

were, by Schiller's own confession, "not at all his talent; it cost

him less," he says, "to execute a whole conspiracy and tragedy-plot

than to adjust his scheme of housekeeping."--At this time it was never

the Father himself who wrote to Schiller, but always Christophine, by

his commission; and on the other hand, Schiller too never risked

writing directly to his Father, as he felt but too well how little on

his part had been done to justify the flight in his Father's eyes. He

writes accordingly, likewise on that 8th December 1782, to his

Publisher Schwan: "If you can accelerate the printing of my _Fiesco_,

you will very much oblige me by doing so. You know that nothing but

the prohibition to become an Author drove me out of the Wuertemberg

service. If I now, on this side, don't soon let my native country hear

of me, they will say the step I took was useless and without real

motive."

'In Bauerbach Schiller lived about eight months, under the name of

Doctor Ritter, unknown to everybody; and only the Court-Librarian,

Reinwald, in Meiningen, afterwards his Brother-in-law,' as we shall

see, 'in whom he found a solid friend, had been trusted by Frau von

Wolzogen with the name and true situation of the mysterious stranger.

The most of Schiller's time here was spent in dramatic labours,

enterprises and dreams. The outcome of all these were his third civic

Tragedy, _Louise Miller_, or _Kabale und Liebe_, which was finished in

February 1783, and the settling on _Don Carlos_ as a new tragic

subject. Many reasons, meanwhile, in the last eight months, had been

pushing Schiller into the determination to leave his asylum, and anew

turn towards Mannheim. A passionate, though unreturned attachment to

Charlotte von Wolzogen at that time filled Schiller's soul; and his

removal therefore must both to Frau von Wolzogen for her own and her

Daughter's sake, and to Schiller himself, have appeared desirable. It

was Frau von Wolzogen's own advice to him to go for a short time to

Mannheim, there to get into clear terms with Dalberg, who had again

begun corresponding with him: so, in July 1783, Schiller bade his

solitary, and, by this time dear and loved, abode a hasty adieu; and,

much contrary to fond hope, never saw it again.

'In September 1783, his bargainings with Dalberg had come to this

result, That for a fixed salary of 500 gulden,' 50_l._ a year, 'he was

appointed Theatre-Poet here. By this means, to use his own words, the

way was open to him gradually to pay-off a considerable portion of his

debts, and so escape from the drowning whirlpool, and remain an honest

man. Now, furthermore, he thought it permissible to show himself to

his Family with a certain composure of attitude; and opened

straightway a regular correspondence with his Parents again. And

Captain Schiller volunteers a stiff-starched but true and earnest

Letter to the Baron Dalberg himself; most humbly thanking that

gracious nobleman for such beneficent favour shown my poor Son; and

begs withal the far stranger favour that Dalberg would have the

extreme goodness to appoint the then inexperienced young man some true

friend who might help him to arrange his housekeeping, and in moral

things might be his Mentor!

'Soon after this, an intermittent fever threw the Poet on a sick-bed;

and lamed him above five weeks from all capacity of mental labour. Not

even in June of the following year was the disease quite overcome.

Visits, acquaintanceships, all kinds of amusements, and more than

anything else, over-hasty attempts at work, delayed his cure;--so that

his Father had a perfect right to bring before him his, Schiller's,

own blame in the matter: "That thou"' (_Er_, He; the then usual tone

towards servants and children) '"for eight whole months hast weltered

about with intermittent fever, surely that does little honour to thy

study of medicine; and thou wouldst, with great justice, have poured

the bitterest reproaches on any Patient who, in a case like thine, had

not held himself to the diet and regimen that were prescribed to

him!"--

'In Autumn 1783, there seized Schiller so irresistible a longing to

see his kindred again, that he repeatedly expressed to his Father the

great wish he had for a meeting, either at Mannheim or some other

place outside the Wuertemberg borders. To the fulfilment of this scheme

there were, however, in the sickness which his Mother had fallen into,

in the fettered position of the Father, and in the rigorously frugal

economies of the Family, insuperable obstacles. Whereupon his Father

made him the proposal, that he, Friedrich, either himself or by him,

the Captain, should apply to the Duke Karl's Serene Highness; and

petition him for permission to return to his country and kindred. As

Schiller to this answered nothing, Christophine time after time

pressingly repeated to him the Father's proposal. At the risk of again

angering his Father, Schiller gave, in his answer to Christophine, of

1st January 1784, the decisive declaration that his honour would

frightfully suffer if he, without connection with any other Prince,

without character and lasting means of support, after his forceful

withdrawal from Wuertemberg, should again show face there. "That my

Father," adds he, as ground of this refusal, "give his name to such a

petition can help me little; for every one will at once, so long as I

cannot make it plain that I no longer need the Duke of Wuertemberg,

suspect in a return, obtained on petition (by myself or by another is

all one), a desire to get settled in Wuertemberg again. Sister,

consider with serious attention these circumstances; for the happiness

of thy Brother may, by rash haste in this matter, suffer an incurable

wound. Great part of Germany knows of my relations to your Duke and of

the way I left him. People have interested themselves for me at the

expense of this Duke; how horribly would the respect of the public

(and on this depends my whole future fortune), how miserably would my

own honour sink by the suspicion that I had sought this return; that

my circumstances had forced me to repent my former step; that the

support which I had sought in the wide world had misgone, and I was

seeking it anew in my Birthland! The open manlike boldness, which I

showed in my forceful withdrawal, would get the name of a childish

outburst of mutiny, a stupid bit of impotent bluster, if I do not make

it good. Love for my dear ones, longing for my Fatherland might

perhaps excuse me in the heart of this or the other candid man; but

the world makes no account of all that.

"For the rest, if my Father is determined to do it, I cannot hinder

him; only this I say to thee, Sister, that in case even the Duke would

permit it, I will not show myself on Wuertemberg ground till I have at

least a character (for which object I shall zealously labour); and

that in case the Duke refuses, I shall not be able to restrain myself

from avenging the affront thereby put upon me by open fooleries

(_sottisen_) and expressions of myself in print."

'The intended Petition to the Duke was not drawn out,--and Father

Schiller overcame his anger on the matter; as, on closer consideration

of the Son's aversion to this step, he could not wholly disapprove

him. Yet he did not hide from Schiller Junior the steadfast wish that

he would in some way or other try to draw near to the Duke; at any

rate he, Father Schiller, "hoped to God that their parting would not

last forever; and that, in fine, he might still live to see his only

Son near him again."

'In Mannheim Schiller's financial position, in spite of his earnest

purpose to manage wisely, grew by degrees worse rather than better.

Owing to the many little expenses laid upon him by his connections in

society, his income would not suffice; and the cash-box was not seldom

run so low that he had not wherewithal to support himself next day. Of

assistance from home, with the rigorous income of his Father, which

scarcely amounted to 40_l._ a year, there could nothing be expected;

and over and above, the Father himself had, in this respect, very

clearly spoken his mind. "Parents and Sisters," said Schiller Senior,

"have as just a right as they have a confidence, in cases of

necessity, to expect help and support from a Son." To fill to

overflowing the measure of the Poet's economical distress, there now

stept forth suddenly some secret creditors of his in Stuttgart,

demanding immediate payment. Whereupon, in quick succession, there

came to Captain Schiller, to his great terror, two drafts from the

Son, requiring of him, the one 10_l._, the other 5_l._ The Captain,

after stern reflection, determined at last to be good for both

demands; but wrote to the Son that he only did so in order that his,

the Son's, labour might not be disturbed; and in the confident

anticipation that the Son, regardful of his poor Sisters and their bit

of portion, would not leave him in the lurch.

'But Schiller, whom still other debts in Stuttgart, unknown to his

Father, were pressing hard, could only repay the smaller of these

drafts; and thus the worthy Father saw himself compelled to pay the

larger, the 10_l._, out of the savings he had made for outfit of his

Daughters. Whereupon, as was not undeserved, he took his Son tightly

to task, and wrote to him: "As long as thou, my Son, shalt make thy

reckoning on resources that are still to come, and therefore are still

subject to chance and mischance, so long wilt thou continue in thy

mess of embarrassments. Furthermore, as long as thou thinkest, This

gulden or batzen (shilling or farthing) can't help me to get over it;

so long will thy debts become never the smaller: and, what were a

sorrow to me, thou wilt not be able, after a heavy labour of head got

done, to recreate thyself in the society of other good men. But,

withal, to make recreation-days of that kind more numerous than

work-days, that surely will not turn out well. Best Son, thy abode in

Bauerbach has been of that latter kind. _Hinc illae lacrymae!_ For these

thou art now suffering, and that not by accident. The embarrassment

thou now art in is verily a work of Higher Providence, to lead thee

off from too great trust in thy own force; to make thee soft and

contrite; that, laying aside all self-will, thou mayest follow more

the counsel of thy Father and other true friends; must meet every one

with due respectful courtesy and readiness to oblige; and become ever

more convinced that our most gracious Duke, in his restrictive plans,

meant well with thee; and that altogether thy position and outlooks

had now been better, hadst thou complied, and continued in thy

country. Many a time I find thou hast wayward humours, that make thee

to thy truest friend scarcely endurable; stiff ways which repel the

best-wishing man;--for example, when I sent thee my excellent old

friend Herr Amtmann Cramer from Altdorf near Speier, who had come to

Herr Hofrath Schwan's in the end of last year, thy reception of him

was altogether dry and stingy, though by my Letter I had given thee so

good an opportunity to seek the friendship of this honourable,

rational and influential man (who has no children of his own), and to

try whether he might not have been of help to thee. Thou wilt do well,

I think, to try and make good this fault on another opportunity."

'At the same time the old man repeatedly pressed him to return to

Medicine, and graduate in Heidelberg: "a theatre-poet in Germany," he

signified, "was but a small light; and as he, the Son, with all his

Three Pieces, had not made any footing for himself, what was to be

expected of the future ones, which might not be of equal strength!

Doctorship, on the other hand, would give him a sure income and

reputation as well."--Schiller himself was actually determined to

follow his Father's advice as to Medicine; but this project and others

of the same, which were sometimes taken up, went to nothing, now and

always, for want of money to begin with.

'Amid these old tormenting hindrances, affronts and embarrassments,

Schiller had also many joyful experiences, to which even his Father

was not wholly indifferent. To these belong, besides many others, his

reception into the _Kurpfaelzische Deutsche Gesellschaft_', German

Society of the Electoral Palatinate, 'of this year; which he himself

calls a great step for his establishment; as well as the stormy

applause with which his third Piece, _Kabale und Liebe_, came upon the

boards, in March following. His Father acknowledged receipt of this

latter Work with the words, "That I possess a copy of thy new Tragedy

I tell nobody; for I dare not, on account of certain passages, let any

one notice that it has pleased me." Nevertheless the Piece, as already

the _Robbers_ had done, came in Stuttgart also to the acting point;

and was received with loud approval. Schiller now, with new pleasure

and inspiration, laid hands on his _Don Carlos_; and with the happy

progress of this Work, there began for him a more confident temper of

mind, and a clearing-up of horizon and outlook; which henceforth only

transiently yielded to embarrassments in his outer life.

'Soon after this, however, there came upon him an unexpected event so

suddenly and painfully that, in his extremest excitement and misery,

he fairly hurt the feelings of his Father by unreasonable requirements

of him, and reproaches on their being refused. A principal Stuttgart

Cautioner of his, incessantly pressed upon by the stringent measures

of the creditors there, had fairly run off, saved himself by flight,

from Stuttgart, and been seized in Mannheim, and there put in jail.

Were not this Prisoner at once got out, Schiller's honour and peace of

conscience were at stake. And so, before his (properly Streicher's)

Landlord, the Architect Hoelzel, could get together the required 300

gulden, and save this unlucky friend, the half-desperate Poet had

written home, and begged from his Father that indispensable sum. And

on the Father's clear refusal, had answered him with a very unfilial

Letter. Not till after the lapse of seven weeks, did the Father reply;

in a Letter, which, as a luminous memorial of his faithful honest

father-heart and of his considerate just character as a man, deserves

insertion here:

"Very unwilling," writes he, "am I to proceed to the answering of thy

last Letter, 21st November of the past year; which I could rather wish

never to have read than now to taste again the bitterness contained

there. Not enough that thou, in the beginning of the said Letter, very

undeservedly reproachest me, as if I could and should have raised the

300 gulden for thee,--thou continuest to blame me, in a very painful

way, for my inquiries about thee on this occasion. Dear Son, the

relation between a good Father and his Son fallen into such a strait,

who, although gifted with many faculties of mind, is still, in all

that belongs to true greatness and contentment, much mistaken and

astray, can never justify the Son in taking up as an injury what the

Father has said out of love, out of consideration and experience of

his own, and meant only for his Son's good. As to what concerns those

300 gulden, every one, alas, who knows my position here, knows that it

cannot be possible for me to have even 50 gulden, not to speak of 300,

before me in store; and that I should borrow such a sum, to the still

farther disadvantage of my other children, for a Son, who of the much

that he has promised me has been able to perform so little,--there,

for certain, were I an unjust Father." Farther on, the old man takes

him up on another side, a private family affair. Schiller had,

directly and through others, in reference to the prospect of a

marriage between his elder Sister Christophine and his friend Reinwald

the Court Librarian of Meiningen, expressed himself in a doubting

manner, and thereby delayed the settlement of this affair. In regard

to which his Father tells him:

"And now I have something to remark in respect of thy Sister. As thou,

my Son, partly straight out, and partly through Frau von Kalb, hast

pictured Reinwald in a way to deter both me and thy Sister in

counselling and negotiating in the way we intended, the affair seems

to have become quite retrograde: for Reinwald, these two months past,

has not written a word more. Whether thou, my Son, didst well to

hinder a match not unsuitable for the age, and the narrow pecuniary

circumstances of thy Sister, God, who sees into futurity, knows. As I

am now sixty-one years of age, and can leave little fortune when I

die; and as thou, my Son, how happily soever thy hopes be fulfilled,

wilt yet have to struggle, years long, to get out of these present

embarrassments, and arrange thyself suitably; and as, after that, thy

own probable marriage will always require thee to have more thy own

advantages in view, than to be able to trouble thyself much about

those of thy Sisters;--it would not, all things considered, have been

ill if Christophine had got a settlement. She would quite certainly,

with her apparent regard for Reinwald, have been able to fit herself

into his ways and him; all the better as she, God be thanked, is not

yet smit with ambition, and the wish for great things, and can suit

herself to all conditions."

The Reinwald marriage did take place by and by, in spite of Schiller

Junior's doubts; and had not Christophine been the paragon of Wives,

might have ended very ill for all parties.

'After these incidents, Schiller bent his whole strength to disengage

himself from the crushing burden of his debts, and to attain the goal

marked out for him by his Parents' wishes,--an enduring settlement and

steady way of life. Two things essentially contributed to enliven his

activity, and brighten his prospects into the future. One was, the

original beginning, which falls in next June 1784, of his friendly

intimacy with the excellent Koerner; in whom he was to find not only

the first founder of his outer fortune in life, but also a kindred

spirit, and cordial friend such as he had never before had. The second

was, that he made, what shaped his future lot, acquaintance with Duke

Karl August of Weimar; who, after hearing him read the first act of

_Don Carlos_ at the Court of Darmstadt, had a long conversation with

the Poet, and officially, in consequence of the same, bestowed on him

the title of Rath. This new relation to a noble German Prince gave him

a certain standing-ground for the future; and at the same time

improved his present condition, by completely securing him in respect

of any risk from Wuertemberg. The now Schiller, as Court-Counsellor

(_Hofrath_) to the Duke of Weimar; distinguished in this way by a

Prince, who was acquainted with the Muses, and accustomed only to what

was excellent,--stept forth in much freer attitude, secure of his

position and himself, than the poor fugitive under ban of law had

done.

'Out of this, however, and the fact resulting from it, that he now

assumed a more decisive form of speech in the Periodical "_Thalia_"

founded by him, and therein spared the players as little as the

public, there grew for him so many and such irritating brabbles and

annoyances that he determined to quit his connection with the Theatre,

leave Mannheim altogether; and, at Leipzig with his new title of Rath,

to begin a new honourable career. So soon as the necessary moneys and

advices from his friend' (Koerner) had arrived, he repaired thither,

end of March 1785; and remained there all the summer. In October of

the same year, he followed his friend Koerner to Dresden; and found in

the family of this just-minded, clear-seeing man the purest and

warmest sympathy for himself and his fortunes. The year 1787 led him

at last to Weimar. But here too he had still long to struggle, under

the pressure of poverty and want of many things, while the world, in

ever-increasing admiration, was resounding with his name, till, in

1789, his longing for a civic existence, and therewith the intensest

wish of his Parents, was fulfilled.

'Inexpressible was the joy of the now elderly Father to see his

deeply-beloved Son, after so many roamings, mischances and battles, at

last settled as Professor in Jena; and soon thereafter, at the side of

an excellent Wife, happy at a hearth of his own. The economic

circumstances of the Son were now also shaped to the Father's

satisfaction. If his College salary was small, his literary labours,

added thereto, yielded him a sufficient income; his Wife moreover had

come to him quite fitted out, and her Mother had given all that

belongs to a household. "Our economical adjustment," writes Schiller

to his Father, some weeks after their marriage, "has fallen out,

beyond all my wishes, well; and the order, the dignity which I see

around me here serves greatly to exhilarate my mind. Could you but for

a moment get to me, you would rejoice at the happiness of your Son."

'Well satisfied and joyful of heart, from this time, the Father's eye

followed his Son's career of greatness and renown upon which the

admired Poet every year stepped onwards, powerfuler, and richer in

results, without ever, even transiently, becoming strange to his

Father's house and his kindred there. Quite otherwise, all letters of

the Son to Father and Mother bear the evident stamp of true-hearted,

grateful and pious filial love. He took, throughout, the heartiest

share in all, even the smallest, events that befell in his Father's

house; and in return communicated to his loved ones all of his own

history that could soothe and gratify them. Of this the following

Letter, written by him, 26th October 1791, on receipt of a case of

wine sent from home, furnishes a convincing proof:

"Dearest Father,--I have just returned with my dear Lotte

from Rudolstadt" (her native place), "where I was passing

part of my holidays; and find your Letter. Thousand thanks

for the thrice-welcome news you give me there, of the

improving health of our dear Mother, and of the general

welfare of you all. The conviction that it goes well with

you, and that none of my dear loved ones is suffering,

heightens for me the happiness which I enjoy here at the

side of my dear Lotte.

You are careful, even at this great distance, for your

children, and gladden our little household with gifts.

Heartiest thanks from us both for the Wine you have sent;

and with the earliest carriage-post the Reinwalds shall have

their share. Day after tomorrow we will celebrate your

Birthday as if you were present, and with our whole heart

drink your health.

Here I send you a little production of my pen, which may

perhaps give pleasure to my dear Mother and Sisters; for it

should be at least written for ladies. In the year 1790

Wieland edited the _Historical Calendar_, and in this of

1791 and in the 1792 that will follow, I have undertaken the

task. Insignificant as a _Calendar_ seems to be, it is that

kind of book which the Publishers can circulate the most

extensively, and which accordingly brings them the best

payment. To the Authors also they can, accordingly, offer

much more. For this Essay on the _Thirty-Years War_ they

have given me 80 Louis-d'or, and I have in the middle of my

Lectures written it in four weeks. Print, copperplates,

binding, Author's honorarium cost the Publisher 4,500

_reichsthaler_ (675_l._), and he counts on a sale of 7,000

copies or more.

"_28th._ Today," so he continues, after some remarks on a

good old friend of his Father's, written after

interruption,--"Today is your Birthday, dearest Father,

which we both celebrate with a pious joy that Heaven has

still preserved you sound and happy for us thus far. May

Heaven still watch over your dear life and your health, and

preserve your days to the latest age, that so your grateful

Son may be able to spread, with all the power he has, joy

and contentment over the evening of your life, and pay the

debts of filial duty to you!

"Farewell, my dearest Father; loving kisses to our dearest

Mother and my dear Sisters. We will soon write again.

"The Wine has arrived in good condition; once more receive

our hearty thanks.--Your grateful and obedient Son

"FRIEDRICH."

'In the beginning of this year (1791) the Poet had been seized with a

violent and dangerous affection of the chest. The immediate danger was

now over; but his bodily health was, for the rest of his life,

shattered to ruin, and required, for the time coming, especially for

the time just come, all manner of soft treatment and repose. The

worst, therefore, was to be feared if his friends and he could not

manage to place him, for the next few years, in a position freer from

economic cares than now. Unexpectedly, in this difficulty, help

appeared out of Denmark. Two warm admirers of Schiller's genius, the

then hereditary Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg' (Grandfather of the

Prince Christian now, 1872, conspicuous in our English Court), 'and

Count von Schimmelmann, offered the Poet a pension of 1,000 thalers'

(150_l._) 'for three years; and this with a fineness and delicacy of

manner, which touched the recipient more even than the offer itself

did, and moved him to immediate assent. The Pension was to remain a

secret; but how could Schiller prevail on himself to be silent of it

to his Parents? With tears of thankfulness the Parents received this

glad message; in their pious minds they gathered out of this the

beneficent conviction that their Son's heavy sorrows, and the danger

in which his life hung, had only been decreed by Providence to set in

its right light the love and veneration which he far and near enjoyed.

Schiller himself this altogether unexpected proof of tenderest

sympathy in his fate visibly cheered, and strengthened even in

health; at lowest, the strength of his spirit, which now felt itself

free from outward embarrassments, subdued under it the weakness of his

body.

'In the middle of the year 1793, the love of his native country, and

the longing after his kindred, became so lively in him that he

determined, with his Wife, to visit Swabia. He writes to Koerner: "The

Swabian, whom I thought I had altogether got done with, stirs himself

strongly in me; but indeed I have been eleven years parted from

Swabia; and Thueringen is not the country in which I can forget it." In

August he set out, and halted first in the then _Reichstadt_'

(Imperial Free-town) 'Heilbronn, where he found the friendliest

reception; and enjoyed the first indescribable emotion in seeing again

his Parents, Sisters and early friends. "My dear ones," writes he to

Koerner, 27th August, from Heilbronn, "I found well to do, and, as thou

canst suppose, greatly rejoiced to meet me again. My Father, in his

seventieth year, is the image of a healthy old age; and any one who

did not know his years would not count them above sixty. He is in

continual activity, and this it is which keeps him healthy and

youthful." In large draughts the robust old man enjoyed the pleasure,

long forborne, of gazing into the eyes of his Son, who now stood

before him a completed man. He knew not whether more to admire than

love him; for, in his whole appearance, and all his speeches and

doings, there stamped itself a powerful lofty spirit, a tender loving

heart, and a pure noble character. His youthful fire was softened, a

mild seriousness and a friendly dignity did not leave him even in

jest; instead of his old neglect in dress, there had come a dignified

elegance; and his lean figure and his pale face completed the

interest of his look. To this was yet added the almost wonderful gift

of conversation upon the objects that were dear to him, whenever he

was not borne down by attacks of illness.

'From Heilbronn, soon after his arrival, Schiller wrote to Duke Karl,

in the style of a grateful former Pupil, whom contradictory

circumstances had pushed away from his native country. He got no

answer from the Duke; but from Stuttgart friends he did get sure

tidings that the Duke, on receipt of this Letter, had publicly said,

if Schiller came into Wuertemberg Territory, he, the Duke, would take

no notice. To Schiller Senior, too, he had at the same time granted

the humble petition that he might have leave to visit his Son in

Heilbronn now and then.

'Under these circumstances, Schiller, perfectly secure, visited

Ludwigsburg and even Solituede, without, as he himself expressed it,

asking permission of the "Schwabenkoenig." And, in September, in the

near prospect of his Wife's confinement, he went altogether to

Ludwigsburg, where he was a good deal nearer to his kindred; and

moreover, in the clever Court-Doctor von Hoven, a friend of his youth,

hoped to find counsel, help and enjoyment. Soon after his removal,

Schiller had, in the birth of his eldest Son, Karl, the sweet

happiness of first paternal joy; and with delight saw fulfilled what

he had written to a friend shortly before his departure from Jena: "I

shall taste the joys of a Son and of a Father, and it will, between

these two feelings of Nature, go right well with me."

'The Duke, ill of gout, and perhaps feeling that death was nigh,

seemed to make a point of strictly ignoring Schiller; and laid not

the least hindrance in his way. On the contrary, he granted Schiller

Senior, on petition, the permission to make use of a certain Bath as

long as he liked; and this Bath lay so near Ludwigsburg that he could

not but think the meaning merely was, that the Father wished to be

nearer his Son. Absence was at once granted by the Duke, useful and

necessary as the elder Schiller always was to him at home. For the old

man, now Major Schiller, still carried on his overseeing of the Ducal

Gardens and Nurseries at Solituede, and his punctual diligence,

fidelity, intelligence and other excellences in that function had long

been recognised.

'In a few weeks after, 24th October 1793, Duke Karl died; and was, by

his illustrious Pupil, regarded as in some sort a paternal friend.

Schiller thought only of the great qualities of the deceased, and of

the good he had done him; not of the great faults which as Sovereign,

and as man, he had manifested. Only to his most familiar friend did he

write: "The death of old Herod has had no influence either on me or my

Family,--except indeed that all men who had immediately to do with

that Sovereign Herr, as my Father had, are glad now to have the

prospect of a man before them. That the new Duke is, in every good,

and also in every bad meaning of the word." Withal, however, his

Father, to whom naturally the favour of the new Duke, Ludwig Eugen,

was of importance, could not persuade Schiller to welcome him to the

Sovereignty with a poem. To Schiller's feelings it was unendurable to

awaken, for the sake of an external advantage from the new Lord, any

suspicions as if he welcomed the death of the old.'[55]

[Footnote 55: _Saupe_, p. 60.]

Christophine, Schiller's eldest Sister, whom he always loved the most,

was not here in Swabia;--long hundred miles away, poor Christophine,

with her sickly and gloomy Husband at Meiningen, these ten years

past!--but the younger two, Luise and Nanette, were with him, the

former daily at his hand. Luise was then twenty-seven, and is

described as an excellent domestic creature, amiable affectionate,

even enthusiastic; yet who at an early period though full of

admiration about her Brother and his affairs, had turned all her

faculties and tendencies upon domestic practicality, and the

satisfaction of being useful to her loved ones in their daily life and

wants.[56] 'Her element was altogether house-management; the aim of

her endeavour to attain the virtues by which she saw her pious Mother

made happy herself, in making others happy in the narrow in-door

kingdom. This quiet household vocation with its manifold labours and

its simple joys, was Luise's world; beyond which she needed nothing

and demanded nothing. From her Father she had inherited this feeling

for the practical, and this restless activity; from the Mother her

piety, compassion and kindliness; from both, the love of order,

regularity and contentment. Luise, in the weak state of Schiller's

Wife's health, was right glad to take charge of her Brother's

housekeeping; and, first at Heilbronn and then at Ludwigsburg, did it

to the complete satisfaction both of Brother and Sister-in-law.

Schiller himself gives to Koerner the grateful testimony, that she

"very well understands household management."

[Footnote 56: _Saupe_, p. 136 et seqq.]

'In this daily relation with her delicate and loving Brother, to whom

Luise looked up with a sort of timid adoration, he became ever dearer

to her; with a silent delight, she would often look into the soft

eyes of the great and wonderful man; from whose powerful spirit she

stood so distant, and to whose rich heart so near. All-too rapidly for

her flew-by the bright days of his abode in his homeland, and long she

looked after the vanished one with sad longing; and Schiller also felt

himself drawn closer to his Sister than before; by whose silent

faithful working his abode in Swabia had been made so smooth and

agreeable.'

Nanette he had, as will by and by appear, seen at Jena, on her

Mother's visit there, the year before;--with admiration and surprise

he then saw the little creature whom he had left a pretty child of

five years old, now become a blooming maiden, beautiful to eye and

heart, and had often thought of her since. She too was often in his

house, at present; a loved and interesting object always. She had been

a great success in the foreign Jena circle, last year; and had left

bright memories there. This is what Saupe says afterwards, of her

appearance at Jena, and now in Schiller's temporary Swabian home:

'She evinced the finest faculties of mind, and an uncommon receptivity

and docility, and soon became to all that got acquainted with her a

dear and precious object. To declaim passages from her Brother's Poems

was her greatest joy; she did her recitation well; and her Swabian

accent and naivety of manner gave her an additional charm for her new

relatives, and even exercised a beneficent influence on the Poet's own

feelings. With hearty pleasure his beaming eyes rested often on the

dear Swabian girl, who understood how to awaken in his heart the sweet

tones of childhood and home. "She is good," writes he of her to his

friend Koerner, "and it seems as if something could be made of her. She

is yet much the child of nature, and that is still the best she could

be, never having been able to acquire any reasonable culture." With

Schiller's abode in Swabia, from August 1793 till May 1794, Nanette

grew still closer to his heart, and in his enlivening and inspiring

neighbourhood her spirit and character shot out so many rich blossoms,

that Schiller on quitting his Father's house felt justified in the

fairest hopes for the future.' Just before her visit to Jena, Schiller

Senior writes to his Son: "It is a great pity for Nanette that I

cannot give her a better education. She has sense and talent and the

best of hearts; much too of my dear Fritz's turn of mind, as he will

himself see, and be able to judge."[57]

[Footnote 57: _Saupe_, pp. 149-50.]

'For the rest, on what childlike confidential terms Schiller lived

with his Parents at this time, one may see by the following Letter, of

8th November 1793, from Ludwigsburg:

"Right sorry am I, dearest Parents, that I shall not be able

to celebrate my Birthday, 11th November, along with you. But

I see well that good Papa cannot rightly risk just now to

leave Solituede at all,--a visit from the Duke being expected

there every day. On the whole, it does not altogether depend

on the day on which one is to be merry with loved souls; and

every day on which I can be where my dear Parents are shall

be festal and welcome to me like a Birthday.

"About the precious little one here Mamma is not to be

uneasy." (Here follow some more precise details about the

health of this little Gold Son; omitted.) "Of watching and

nursing he has no lack; that you may believe; and he is

indeed, a little leanness excepted, very lively and has a

good appetite.

"I have been, since I made an excursion to Stuttgart,

tolerably well; and have employed this favourable time to get

a little forward in my various employments which have been

lying waste so long. For this whole week, I have been very

diligent, and getting on briskly. This is also the cause that

I have not written to you. I am always supremely happy when I

am busy and my labour speeds.

"For your so precious Portrait I thank you a thousand times,

dearest Father: yet glad as I am to possess this memorial of

you, much gladder still am I that Providence has granted me

to have you yourself, and to live in your neighbourhood. But

we must profit better by this good time, and no longer make

such pauses before coming together again. If you once had

seen the Duke at Solituede and known how you stand with him,

there would be, I think, no difficulty in a short absence of

a few days, especially at this season of the year. I will

send up the carriage" (hired at Jena for the visit thither

and back) "at the very first opportunity, and leave it with

you, to be ready always when you can come.

"My and all our hearty and childlike salutations to you

both, and to the good Nane" (Nanette) "my brotherly

salutation.

"Hoping soon for a joyful meeting,--Your obedient Son,

"FRIEDRICH SCHILLER."

'In the new-year time 1794, Schiller spent several agreeable weeks in

Stuttgart; whither he had gone primarily on account of some family

matter which had required settling there. At least he informs his

friend Koerner, on the 17th March, from Stuttgart, "I hope to be not

quite useless to my Father here, though, from the connections in which

I stand, I can expect nothing for myself."

'By degrees, however, the sickly, often-ailing Poet began to long

again for a quiet, uniform way of life; and this feeling, daily

strengthened by the want of intellectual conversation, which had

become a necessary for him, grew at length so strong, that he, with an

alleviated heart, thought of departure from his Birth-land, and of

quitting his loved ones; glad that Providence had granted him again

to possess his Parents and Sisters for months long and to live in

their neighbourhood. He gathered himself into readiness for the

journey back; and returned, first to his original quarters at

Heilbronn, and, in May 1794, with Wife and Child, to Jena.

'Major Schiller, whom the joy to see his Son and Grandson seemed to

have made young again, lived with fresh pleasure in his idyllic

calling; and in free hours busied himself with writing down his

twenty-years experiences in the domain of garden- and tree-culture,--in

a Work, the printing and publication of which were got managed for him

by his renowned Son. In November 1794 he was informed that the young

Publisher of the first _Musen-Almanach_ had accepted his MS. for an

honorarium of twenty-four Karolins; and that the same was already gone

to press. Along with this, the good old Major was valued by his

Prince, and by all who knew him. His subordinates loved him as a just

impartial man; feared him, too, however, in his stringent love of

order. Wife and children showed him the most reverent regard and

tender love; but the Son was the ornament of his old age. He lived to

see the full renown of the Poet, and his close connection with Goethe,

through which he was to attain complete mastership and lasting

composure. With hands quivering for joy the old man grasped the MSS.

of his dear Son; which from Jena, _via_ Cotta's Stuttgart Warehouses,

were before all things transmitted to him. In a paper from his hand,

which is still in existence, there is found a touching expression of

thanks, That God had given him such a joy in his Son. "And Thou Being

of all beings," says he in the same, "to Thee did I pray, at the birth

of my one Son, that Thou wouldst supply to him in strength of

intellect and faculty what I, from want of learning, could not

furnish; and Thou hast heard me. Thanks to Thee, most merciful Being,

that Thou hast heard the prayer of a mortal!"

'Schiller had left his loved ones at Solituede whole and well; and with

the firm hope that he would see them all again. And the next-following

years did pass untroubled over the prosperous Family. But "ill-luck,"

as the proverb says, "comes with a long stride." In the Spring of

1796, when the French, under Jourdan and Moreau, had overrun South

Germany, there reached Schiller, on a sudden, alarming tidings from

Solituede. In the Austrian chief Hospital, which had been established

in the Castle there, an epidemic fever had broken out; and had visited

the Schiller Family among others. The youngest Daughter Nanette had

sunk under this pestilence, in the flower of her years; and whilst the

second Daughter Luise lay like to die of the same, the Father also was

laid bedrid with gout. For fear of infection, nobody except the

Doctors would risk himself at Solituede; and so the poor weakly Mother

stood forsaken there, and had, for months long, to bear alone the

whole burden of the household distress. Schiller felt it painfully

that he was unable to help his loved ones, in so terrible a posture of

affairs; and it cost him great effort to hide these feelings from his

friends. In his pain and anxiety, he turned himself at last to his

eldest Sister Christophine, Wife of Hofrath Reinwald in Meiningen; and

persuaded her to go to Solituede to comfort and support her people

there. Had not the true Sister-heart at once acceded to her Brother's

wishes, he had himself taken the firm determination to go in person to

Swabia, in the middle of May, and bring his Family away from

Solituede, and make arrangements for their nursing and accommodation.

The news of his Sister's setting-out relieved him of a great and

continual anxiety. "Heaven bless thee," writes he to her on the 6th

May, "for this proof of thy filial love." He earnestly entreats her to

prevent his dear Parents from delaying, out of thrift, any wholesome

means of improvement to their health; and declares himself ready, with

joy, to bear all costs, those of travelling included: she is to draw

on Cotta in Tuebingen for whatever money she needs. Her Husband also he

thanks, in a cordial Letter, for his consent to this journey of his

Wife.

'July 11, 1796, was born to the Poet, who had been in much trouble

about his own household for some time, his second Son, Ernst. Great

fears had been entertained for the Mother; which proving groundless,

the happy event lifted a heavy burden from his heart; and he again

took courage and hope. But soon after, on the 15th August, he writes

again to the faithful Koerner about his kinsfolk in Swabia: "From the

War we have not suffered so much; but all the more from the condition

of my Father, who, broken-down under an obstinate and painful disease,

is slowly wending towards death. How sad this fact is, thou mayest

think."

'Within few weeks after, 7th September 1796, the Father died; in his

seventy-third year, after a sick-bed of eight months. Though his

departure could not be reckoned other than a blessing, yet the good

Son was deeply shattered by the news of it. What his filially faithful

soul suffered, in these painful days, is touchingly imaged in two

Letters, which may here make a fitting close to this Life-sketch of

Schiller's Father. It was twelve days after his Father's death when he

wrote to his Brother-in-law, Reinwald, in Meiningen:

"Thou hast here news, dear Brother, of the release of our

good Father; which, much as it had to be expected, nay

wished, has deeply affected us all. The conclusion of so

long and withal so active a life is, even for bystanders, a

touching object: what must it be to those whom it so nearly

concerns? I have to tear myself away from thinking of this

painful loss, since it is my part to help the dear remaining

ones. It is a great comfort to thy Wife that she has been

able to continue and fulfil her daughterly duty till her

Father's last release. She would never have consoled

herself, had he died a few days after her departure home.

"Thou understandest how in the first days of this fatal

breach among us, while so many painful things storm-in upon

our good Mother, thy Christophine could not have left, even

had the Post been in free course. But this still remains

stopped, and we must wait the War-events on the Franconian,

Swabian and Palatinate borders. How much this absence of thy

Wife must afflict, I feel along with thee; but who can fight

against such a chain of inevitable destinies? Alas, public

and universal disorder rolls up into itself our private

events too, in the fatalest way.

"Thy Wife longs from her heart for home; and she only the

more deserves our regard that she, against her inclination

and her interest, resolved to be led only by the thought of

her filial duties. Now, however, she certainly will not

delay an hour longer with her return, the instant it can be

entered upon without danger and impossibility. Comfort her

too when thou writest to her; it grieves her to know thee

forsaken, and to have no power to help thee.

"Fare right well, dear Brother.--Thine,

SCHILLER."

'Nearly at the same time he wrote to his Mother:

"Grieved to the heart, I take up the pen to lament with you

and my dear Sisters the loss we have just sustained. In

truth, for a good while past I have expected nothing else:

but when the inevitable actually comes, it is always a sad

and overwhelming stroke. To think that one who was so dear

to us, whom we hung upon with the feelings of early

childhood, and also in later years were bound to by respect

and love, that such an object is gone from the world, that

with all our striving we cannot bring it back,--to think of

this is always something frightful. And when, like you, my

dearest best Mother, one has shared with the lost Friend and

Husband joy and sorrow for so many long years, the parting

is all the painfuler. Even when I look away from what the

good Father that is gone was to myself and to us all, I

cannot without mournful emotion contemplate the close of so

steadfast and active a life, which God continued to him so

long, in such soundness of body and mind, and which he

managed so honourably and well. Yes truly, it is not a small

thing to hold out so faithfully upon so long and toilsome a

course; and like him, in his seventy-third year, to part

from the world in so childlike and pure a mood. Might I but,

if it cost me all his sorrows, pass away from my life as

innocently as he from his! Life is so severe a trial; and

the advantages which Providence, in some respects, may have

granted me compared with him, are joined with so many

dangers for the heart and for its true peace!

"I will not attempt to comfort you and my dear Sisters. You

all feel, like me, how much we have lost; but you feel also

that Death alone could end these long sorrows. With our dear

Father it is now well; and we shall all follow him ere long.

Never shall the image of him fade from our hearts; and our

grief for him can only unite us still closer together.

"Five or six years ago it did not seem likely that you, my

dear ones, should, after such a loss, find a Friend in your

Brother,--that I should survive our dear Father. God has

ordered it otherwise; and He grants me the joy to feel that

I may still be something to you. How ready I am thereto, I

need not assure you. We all of us know one another in this

respect, and are our dear Father's not unworthy children."

This earnest and manful lamentation, which contains also a just

recognition of the object lamented, may serve to prove, think Saupe

and others, what is very evident, that Caspar Schiller, with his

stiff, military regulations, spirit of discipline and rugged, angular

ways, was, after all, the proper Father for a wide-flowing, sensitive,

enthusiastic, somewhat lawless Friedrich Schiller; and did

beneficently compress him into something of the shape necessary for

his task in this world.

II. THE MOTHER.

Of Schiller's Mother, Elisabetha Dorothea Kodweis, born at Marbach

1733, the preliminary particulars have been given above: That she was

the daughter of an Innkeeper, Woodmeasurer and Baker; prosperous in

the place when Schiller Senior first arrived there. We should have

added, what Saupe omits, that the young Surgeon boarded in their

house; and that by the term Woodmeasurer (_Holzmesser_, Measurer of

Wood) is signified an Official Person appointed not only to measure

and divide into portions the wood supplied as fuel from the Ducal or

Royal Forests, but to be responsible also for payment of the same. In

which latter capacity, Kodweis, as Father Schiller insinuates, was

rash, imprudent and unlucky, and at one time had like to have involved

that prudent, parsimonious Son-in-law in his disastrous economics. We

have also said what Elisabetha's comely looks were, and particular

features; pleasing and hopeful, more and more, to the strict young

Surgeon, daily observant of her and them.

'In her circle,' Saupe continues, 'she was thought by her early

playmates a kind of enthusiast; because she, with average faculties of

understanding combined deep feeling, true piety and love of Nature, a

talent for Music, nay even for Poetry. But perhaps it was the very

reverse qualities in her, the fact namely that what she wanted in

culture, and it may be also in clearness and sharpness of

understanding, was so richly compensated by warmth and lovingness of

character,--perhaps it was this which most attracted to her the heart

of her deeply-reasonable Husband. And never had he cause to repent his

choice. For she was, and remained, as is unanimously testified of her

by trustworthy witnesses, an unpretending, soft and dutiful Wife; and,

as all her Letters testify, had the tenderest mother-heart. She read a

good deal, even after her marriage, little as she had of time for

reading. Favourite Books with her were those on Natural History; but

she liked best of all to study the Biographies of famous men, or to

dwell in the spiritual poetising of an Utz, a Gellert and Klopstock.

She also liked, and in some measure had the power, to express her own

feelings in verses; which, with all their simplicity, show a sense for

rhythm and some expertness in diction. Here is one instance; her

salutation to the Husband who was her First-love, on New-year's day

1757, the ninth year of their as yet childless marriage:

O could I but have found forget-me-not in the Valley,

And roses beside it! Then had I plaited thee

In fragrant blossoms the garland for this New Year,

Which is still brighter to me than that of our Marriage was.

I grumble, in truth, that the cold North now governs us,

And every flowret's bud is freezing in the cold earth!

Yet one thing does not freeze, I mean my loving heart;

Thine that is, and shares with thee its joys and sorrows.[58]

[Footnote 58:

_'O haett ich doch im Thal Vergissmeinnicht gefunden

Und Rosen nebenbei! Dann hat' ich Dir gewunden

In Bluethenduft den Kranz zu diesem neuen Jahr,

Der schoener noch als der am Hochzeittage war._

_Ich zuerne, traun, dass itzt der kalte Nord regieret,

Und jedes Bluemchens Keim in kalter Erde frieret!

Doch eines frieret nicht, es ist mein liebend Herz;_

Dein _ist es, theilt mit Dir die Freuden und den Schmerz.'_]

'The Seven-Years War threw the young Wife into manifold anxiety and

agitation; especially since she had become a Mother, and in fear for

the life of her tenderly-loved Husband, had to tremble for the Father

of her children too. To this circumstance Christophine ascribes,

certainly with some ground, the world-important fact that her Brother

had a much weaker constitution than herself. He had in fact been

almost born in a camp. In late Autumn 1759, the Infantry Regiment of

Major-General Romann, in which Caspar Schiller was then a Lieutenant,

had, for sake of the Autumn Manoeuvres of the Wuertemberg Soldiery,

taken Camp in its native region. The Mother had thereupon set out from

Marbach to visit her long-absent Husband in the Camp; and it was in

his tent that she felt the first symptoms of her travail. She rapidly

hastened back to Marbach; and by good luck still reached her Father's

house in the Market-Place there, near by the great Fountain; where

she, on the 11th November, was delivered of a Boy. For almost four

years the little Friedrich with Christophine and Mother continued in

the house of the well-contented Grandparents (who had not yet fallen

poor), under her exclusive care. With self-sacrificing love and

careful fidelity, she nursed her little Boy; whose tender body had to

suffer not only from the common ailments of children, but was heavily

visited with fits of cramp. In a beautiful region, on the bosom of a

tender Mother, and in these first years far from the oversight of a

rigorous Father, the Child grew up, and unfolded himself under

cheerful and harmonious impressions.

'On the return of his Father from the War, little Fritz, now four

years old, was quite the image of his Mother; long-necked, freckled

and reddish-haired like her. It was the pious Mother's work, too,

that a feeling of religion, early and vivid, displayed itself in him.

The easily-receptive Boy was indeed keenly attentive to all that his

Father, in their Family-circle, read to them, and inexhaustible in

questions till he had rightly caught the meaning of it: but he

listened with most eagerness when his Father read passages from the

Bible, or vocally uttered them in prayer. "It was a touching sight,"

says his eldest Sister, "the expression of devotion on the dear little

Child's countenance. With its blue eyes directed towards Heaven, its

high-blond hair about the clear brow, and its fast-clasped little

hands. It was like an angel's head to look upon."

'With Father's return, the happy Mother conscientiously shared with

him the difficult and important business of bringing up their Son; and

both in union worked highly beneficially for his spiritual

development. The practical and rigorous Father directed his chief aim

to developing the Boy's intellect and character; the mild, pious,

poetic-minded Mother, on the other hand, strove for the ennobling

nurture of his temper and his imagination. It was almost exclusively

owing to her that his religious feeling, his tender sense of all that

was good and beautiful, his love of mankind, tolerance, and capability

of self-sacrifice, in the circle of his Sisters and playmates,

distinguished the Boy.

'On Sunday afternoons, when she went to walk with both the Children,

she was wont to explain to them the Church-Gospel of the day. "Once,"

so stands it in Christophine's Memorials, "when we two, as children,

had set out walking with dear Mamma to see our Grandparents, she took

the way from Ludwigsburg to Marbach, which leads straight over the

Hill, a walk of some four miles. It was a beautiful Easter Monday,

and our Mother related to us the history of the two Disciples to

whom, on their journey to Emmaus, Jesus had joined himself. Her speech

and narrative grew ever more inspired; and when we got upon the Hill,

we were all so much affected that we knelt down and prayed. This Hill

became a Tabor to us."

'At other times she entertained the children with fairy-tales and

magic histories. Already while in Lorch she had likewise led the Boy,

so far as his power of comprehension and her own knowledge permitted,

into the domains of German Poetry. Klopstock's _Messias_, Opitz's

Poems, Paul Gerhard's and Gellert's pious Songs, were made known to

him in this tender age, through his Mother; and were, for that reason,

doubly dear. At one time also the artless Mother made an attempt on

him with Hofmannswaldau;[59] but the sugary and windy tone of him hurt

the tender poet-feeling of the Boy. With smiling dislike he pushed the

Book away; and afterwards was wont to remark, when, at the new year,

rustic congratulants with their foolish rhymes would too liberally

present themselves, "Mother, there is a new Hofmannswaldau at the

door!" Thus did the excellent Mother guide forward the soul of her

docile Boy, with Bible-passages and Church-symbols, with tales,

histories and poems, into gradual form and stature. Never forgetting,

withal, to awaken and nourish his sense for the beauties of Nature.

Before long, Nature had become his dearest abode; and only love of

that could sometimes tempt him to little abridgments of school-hours.

Often, in the pretty region of Lorch, he wished the Sun goodnight in

open song; or with childish pathos summoned Stuttgart's Painters to

represent the wondrous formation and glorious colouring of the sunset

clouds. If, in such a humour, a poor man met him, his overflowing

little heart would impel him to the most active pity; and he liberally

gave away whatever he had by him and thought he could dispense with.

The Father, who, as above indicated, never could approve or even

endure such unreasonable giving-up of one's feelings to effeminate

impressions, was apt to intervene on these occasions, even with manual

punishment,--unless the Mother were at hand to plead the little

culprit off.

[Footnote 59: A once-celebrated Silesian of the 17th century,

distinguished for his blusterous exaggerations, numb-footed

caprioles, and tearing of a passion to rags;--now extinct.]