The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller Part 9

It is clear that, notwithstanding experiences which might have embittered a less genial nature, Schiller was in no danger of becoming a misanthrope. For him the throng upon the street was not the madding crowd of the English poet, nor the 'cursed race' of Frederick the Great, but an inspiration; a spectacle to keep the heart warm and foster the sense of brotherhood. He felt the need of men, however shabbily they might treat him. And men enough were at hand; for the Leipzig fair was then on, and the town was full of strangers who were eager to gape at the author of 'The Robbers', to be introduced to him, to invite him here and there. So for a week he floated with the current of casual dissipation and then, caught for an hour by a refluent eddy of lonesomeness,--four parts of the pentamerous clover-leaf were paired lovers,--he penned a missive which might have changed much in his future career: He sent to Christian Schwan a formal proposal for the hand of Margarete. With characteristic optimism he urged that fortune had at last turned favorably. He had good prospects. He proposed to work hard upon 'Don Carlos' and the _Thalia_, and meanwhile quietly to return to medicine. Wherefore he now made bold to express a hope that he had long cherished but had not dared to utter.

The sequelae of this wooing have never been cleared up in detail.

Schiller's letter as preserved bears a marginal note by Schwan to the effect that Laura in the poem 'Resignation' was no other than his eldest daughter. 'I gave her this letter to read', the note says, 'and told Schiller to apply directly to her. Why nothing came of the affair has remained a riddle to me. Happy my daughter would not have been with Schiller.' The annotation is not dated. The identification of Laura with Margarete is obviously wrong. Was Schwan's memory also at fault? Did he imagine, long after the fact, that he had actually taken what must have seemed to him, when Schiller had become a famous poet, the reasonable course to have pursued? Did he withhold the letter too long and then show it? Or was Margarete herself disinclined,--piqued perhaps by Schiller's neglect of her, or by his pa.s.sion for Charlotte von Kalb? Or did Schiller's own courage fail him after he had received a hint of favor? A letter to Korner, written May 7, tells of pleasant news from Mannheim, and shortly afterward a rumor was in circulation that Schiller was about to marry a rich wife. The probability is that neither party was more than half inclined to the match. The blue flame perished naturally for lack of fuel.

Early in May, following the custom of well-to-do Leipzigers, Schiller sought refuge from the incipient summer heat of the city by taking rooms in the suburban village (such it was then) of Gohlis. Here, in a little second-story chamber, which was provided with an infinitesimal bed-room, he lived some four months,--happy months, in the main, even If the famous 'Song to Joy', which local tradition ascribes to this time and place, was in fact written a little later in Dresden. Various friends were at hand. Besides Huber there was Goschen, with whom he was soon on terms of intimacy. The Stock sisters,--'our dear girls', as he calls them in a letter to the absent Korner,--had likewise quartered themselves in Gohlis; and so had Dr. Albrecht and his wife, Sophie, the actress. These with one or two others were enough for converse and for jollity; and there were merry evenings, with wine and talk, and cards and skittles and nonsense. Though ordinarily he 'joked wi' difficulty', Schiller could be jovial enough in a company of congenial spirits.

Nevertheless there was but little of the bohemian about him. That dignified seriousness which pervades all his later writings, and gave to Goethe the impression of a man dwelling habitually above the plane of vulgar things, was beginning even now to characterize him as a social being.

While living at Gohlis he received a visit from Moritz, the man who had written so savagely of 'Cabal and Love'. If ever an author has been justified in giving the cut direct to a pestilent reviewer, this was the occasion. But Schiller received his visitor with suave courtesy; an interchange of views followed and the two men parted with embraces and protestations of friendly esteem. Schiller was not a good hater, except of hate. His nature craved love and friendship. He was eager to learn of his critics and could not long cherish resentment over an honest expression of opinion. Besides this he had now come to feel that his early writings were anything but invulnerable.

Notwithstanding his promise of steady industry, Schiller accomplished but little during his sojourn at Gohlis. It was the old story: There were too many distractions, too many confusing images of what might be done. The scheme of an antidote to 'The Robbers', in the shape of a moral sequel, gradually dropped out of view, along with the medical studies. The _Thalia_, originally planned with reference to the public at Mannheim, refused to bear transplanting to another soil without a season of wilting. Instead of ma.n.u.script for the second number, Goschen was obliged to content himself for several months with excuses for postponement. And as for 'Don Carlos', the conception had so changed with the lapse of time that its author felt at a loss how to manage It.

The play, with its wonderful pair of dreamers, was waiting for the inspiration of a real friendship at Dresden.

Long before they met in the body Schiller and Korner had given expression to their mutual trust in language of romantic enthusiasm. On the 2nd of May Korner wrote at length of his own life, character and aspirations. The letter reveals a n.o.ble nature conscious of an exceptional indebtedness to fortune and eager to pay the debt by solid work for mankind, but lacking the ability to decide and execute. Korner evidently felt that he was in some danger of becoming an intellectual Sybarite, and he hoped that Schiller's example would save him from this danger by spurring him to literary effort. In his reply Schiller expresses his admiration of a character to whom fortune's favor means not, as for most men, the opportunity of enjoyment, but the duty of more strenuous living; then he sends a jubilant G.o.dspeed to the 'dear wanderer who wishes to accompany him in such faithful, brotherly fashion on his romantic journey to truth, fame and happiness.' The letter continues:

I now feel realized in us what as poet I but prophetically imagined.

Brotherhood of spirits is the most infallible key to wisdom.

Separately we can do nothing.... Do not fear from this time forth for the endless duration of our friendship. Its materials are the fundamental impulses of the human soul. Its territory is eternity; its _non plus ultra_ the G.o.dhead.

Then, as if momentarily abashed by his own extravagance of expression, he protests that his _Schwarmerei_, if such it be, is nothing but a 'joyful paroxysm antic.i.p.ating our future greatness'. For his part, he would not 'exchange one such moment for the highest triumph of cold reason'. Enthusiasm, he declares, is the greatest thing in life.

The two men did not see each other until July, when a meeting was arranged at an interjacent village, to which Schiller rode out with the Leipzig friends. The next day he wrote a letter to Korner, who had returned to Dresden, describing an incident of the return journey,--a letter so full of instruction with regard to the Schiller of this period that it deserves to be quoted at some length:

Somehow we came to speak of plans for the future. My heart grew warm. It was not idle dreaming. I had a solid philosophic a.s.surance of that which I saw lying before me in the glorious perspective of time. In a melting mood of shame, such as does not depress but rouses to manly effort, I looked back into the past, which I had misused through the most unfortunate waste of energy. I felt that nature had endowed me with powers on a bold plan, and that her intention with me (perhaps a great intention) had so far been defeated. Half of this failure was due to the insane method of my education, and the adverse humor of fate; the other and larger half, however, to myself. Deeply, my best of friends, did I feel all that, and in the general fiery ferment of my emotions, head and heart united in a Herculean vow to make good the past and begin anew the n.o.ble race to the highest goal. My feeling became eloquent and imparted itself to the others with electric power. O how beautiful, how divine, is the contact of two souls that meet on the way to divinity! Thus far not a syllable had been spoken of you, but I read your name in Huber's eyes and involuntarily it came to my lips. Our eyes met and our holy purpose fused with our holy friendship. It was a mute hand-clasp--to remain faithful to the resolution of this moment; to spur each other on to the goal, to admonish and encourage, and not to halt save at the bourne where human greatness ends.... Our conversation had taken this turn when we got out for breakfast. We found wine in the inn, and your health was drunk. We looked at each other silently; our mood was that of solemn worship and each one of us had tears in his eyes, which he tried to keep back.... I thought of the beginning of the eucharist: 'Do this as often as ye drink in memory of me.' I heard the organ and stood before the altar. Suddenly I remembered that, it was your birthday.

Unwittingly we had celebrated it with a holy rite. Dearest friend, had you seen your glorification in our faces, heard it in our tear-choked voices, at that moment you would have forgotten even your betrothed; you would have envied no happy mortal under the sun.

Heaven has strangely brought us together, but in our friendship it shall have wrought a miracle. Dim foreboding led me to expect much, very much of you, when I first decided to come to Leipzig; but Providence has more than fulfilled the promise, and has vouchsafed to me in your arms a happiness of which I could not form an image.

It tends to provoke a smile to read on in this letter and find It suddenly turning from such ecstasies to a straightforward confession that the writer is embarra.s.sed for lack of ready cash. He had met with disappointments. The Mannheim people had not treated him handsomely, the subscribers to the _Thalia_ were delinquent, and so forth. Could not Goschen be persuaded to undertake a new and authentic edition of the published plays and to advance a sum of money on the prospects? Korner's reply was prompt and characteristic. He enclosed a draft for current expenses, promised more against the time of need and bade his friend have no further solicitude about money. He knew very well, so he averred with politic delicacy, that Schiller could easily earn enough by working for money; but for a year at least he was to let himself be relieved of that degrading necessity. They would keep an account and all should be paid back with interest in the time of abundance; but for the present no more of pecuniary anxieties! Schiller, to whose brief experience in a selfish world this sort of conduct was something new, replied that he would not entrench himself in a false pride, as the great Rousseau had done on a similar occasion, but would accept the generous offer; this being the best possible expression of his grat.i.tude. Korner was pleased to have the business settled by letter. 'I have always despised money', he wrote, 'to a degree that it disgusts me to talk about it with souls that are dear to me. I attach no importance to actions that are natural to people of our sort, and which you would perform for me were the conditions reversed.'

It was now arranged that after Korner's marriage Schiller should make his home in Dresden. The eagerly awaited migration took place in September, and Schiller entered the Saxon capital, which was to be his home for the next two years, in a flutter of joyous antic.i.p.ation. The Korners quartered him in their charming suburban cottage at Loschwitz, in the loveliest region he had known since his childhood. The guest, who had seen but little of the quiet joys of domestic life and was now received on the footing of an adopted brother, felt very happy. His intercourse with Korner gave him the very kind of intellectual stimulus that he most needed. Korner was at this time the more solid character of the two. He had seen more of the world. While capable of warm affection and strong enthusiasm, he had adopted, a profession which inevitably gave to his thoughts a practical bent. Besides this he had taken up the study of Kant with great earnestness and was thereby more than ever disposed to see all questions in the white light of pure reason. He was thus the very man to pour a cool Mephistophelean spray upon Schiller's emotional fervors. One can easily imagine the general drift of the philosophical discussions that took place during the lengthening evenings of September, 1785, when we find Schiller expressing himself to the absent Huber in such language as this:

The boyhood of our minds is now over, I imagine, and likewise the honeymoon of our friendship. Let our hearts now cleave to each other in manly affection, gush little and feel much; plan little and act the more fruitfully. Enthusiasm and ideals have sunk incredibly in my estimation. As a rule we make the mistake of estimating the future from a momentary feeling of enhanced power, and painting things in the color of our transient exaltation of feeling. I praise enthusiasm, and love the divine ethereal power of kindling to a great resolution. It pertains to the better man, but it is not all of him.

But life at Loschwitz was not lived altogether in the upper alt.i.tudes of solemn philosophy. From this period dates the well-known 'Pet.i.tion',--one of the few glints of playful humor to be found among Schiller's poems. He had been left alone one day with 'Don Carlos', and he found his meditations disturbed by the operations of the washerwoman.

The result was a string of humorous stanzas bewailing the fate of a poet who is compelled by his vocation to fix his mind upon the love ecstasies of Princess Eboli, and listen at the same time to the swashy music of the wash-tub:

I feel my love-lorn lady's hurt, My fancy waxes hotter; I hear,--the sound of sock and shirt A-swishing in the water.

Vanished the dream--the faery chimes-- My Princess, pax vobisc.u.m!

The devil take these wash-day rimes, I will no longer risk 'em.

When the Korners occupied their winter residence in the city, Schiller found rooms hard by, and was presently joined by Huber, who had secured a position in the diplomatic service. The time was now ripe for that jubilant song, more frequently set to music than any other of Schiller's poems, wherein we are introduced to a mystic brotherhood, worshiping in fiery intoxication at the shrine of the celestial priestess, Joy, whose other name is Sympathy. A mystic brotherhood; yet not an exclusive one, since the fraternal kiss is--freely offered to every mortal on the round earth who has found one soul to love. The lines glorify Joy, just as the odes to Laura had previously glorified Love, as a mystic attraction pervading all nature and leading up to G.o.d; as that which holds the stars in their course, inspires the searcher after truth, sustains the martyr and gives a pledge of immortality. Wherefore the millions are exhorted to endure patiently for the better world that is coming, when a great G.o.d will reward. Anger and vengeance are to be forgotten, and our mortal foe forgiven. After these rapturous strophes, culminating in a health to the good Spirit above, one is just a little surprised to hear the singer urge, with unabated ardor, a purely militant ideal of life,--firm courage in heavy trial, succor to the oppressed, manly pride in the presence of kings, and death to the brood of liars. A final strophe, urging grace to the criminal on the scaffold, general forgiveness of sinners and the abolition of h.e.l.l, was rejected by Schiller, who later characterized the song as a 'bad poem'. The 'Song to Joy' sprang from n.o.ble sentiment and has the genuine lyric afflatus; but its author had not yet emerged from that nebulous youthful sentimentalism according to which joy, sympathy, love, friendship, virtue, happiness, G.o.d, were all very much the same thing. And the thought is a trifle incoherent. If the good Spirit above the stars is to pardon everybody, what becomes of the incentive to a militant life? Why should one strive and cry and get into a feaze about tyrants and liars?

The 'Song to Joy', with music by Korner, was published in the second number of the _Thalia_, which, after hanging fire for months, finally appeared in February, 1786. It contained also the poems 'Radicalism of Pa.s.sion' and 'Resignation', and a fresh installment of 'Don Carlos'. Of the prose contributions the most important was the story, 'The Criminal from Disgrace', later called 'The Criminal from Lost Honor'. It was based upon a true story, got from Professor Abel in Stuttgart, concerning the life and death of a notorious Suabian robber, named Schwan, who was put to death in 1760. Schiller changed the name to Christian Wolf and built out of the ugly facts a strumous tale of criminal psychology,--the autopsy of a depraved soul, as he called it.

His hero is a sort of vulgarized Karl Moor; that is, an enemy of society who might have been its friend if things had not happened so and so. The successive steps of his descent from mild resentment to malignant fury, libertinism and crime, and the reaction of his own increasing depravity upon his own mind, are described in a manner which is fairly interesting from a literary point of view, whatever a modern expert criminologist might think of it. The _crux_ of the ever difficult problem,--the precise division of responsibility between society and the wretch whom it spews out of its mouth,--is brought clearly into view, but without any attempt at an exact solution. The tale is not a homily, but an object-lesson designed to show how things go. It is too slight an affair to be worthy of extended comment, but it shows Schiller becoming interested in the psychological a.n.a.lysis of conduct. Moral goodness and badness are beginning to appear less simple concepts, and the tangle of human motive more intricate, than he had supposed.

Along with these contributions there also appeared in the second number of the _Thalia_ a translation of the 'Precis Historique', prefixed by Mercier to his recently published 'Portrait de Philippe Second'. The 'portrait' itself was a dramatic picture, in fifty-two scenes, without division into acts. The work of Mercier, who paints the Spanish king in the darkest possible colors, furnished a few hints for 'Don Carlos', but its influence was not very great. What chiefly concerns us here is to note Schiller's awakening interest in historical studies. In the spring of 1786, during an absence of the Korners which deprived him of his wonted inspiration, he found himself unable to work. Letter after letter tells of laziness and mental vacuity. As he could do nothing else he took to desultory reading, and this did not satisfy him. 'Really', he wrote on the 15th of April:

Really I must turn over a new leaf with my reading. I feel with pain, that I still have such an astonishing amount to learn; that I must sow In order to reap.... History is becoming dearer to me every day. I have this week read a history of the Thirty Years' War, and my head is still quite feverish from it. That this epoch of the greatest national misery should have been at the same time the most brilliant epoch of human power! What a number of great men came forth from this night! I could wish that for the ten years past I had done nothing but study history. I believe I should have become a very different fellow. Do you think I shall yet be able to make up for lost time?

One sees from this language by what particular hook the study of history had taken hold of Schiller's mind, and what kind of profit he was promising himself from further reading. He was interested in the evolution of great men. For him, as for the poets always, from Homer down, history resolved itself into the doings of the leaders.

For the time being, however, the new zeal seems to have been a mere flash in the pan, that set nothing in motion. Nor was Korner able, for some time to come, to induce his friend to make a serious study of Kant's 'Critique', though every third word between them was of philosophy. Nevertheless their philosophic debates did bear literary fruit. The third number of the _Thalia_, which came out in May, contained the first installment of the 'Philosophical Letters', a fict.i.tious correspondence between two friends, Julius and Raphael, who have arrived by different routes at the same way of thinking, and are resolved to tell the world how it all came about. Julius is Schiller; Raphael is Korner, who actually contributed one of the later letters. We learn that Julius was pa.s.sing through a spiritual crisis. He was happy but he had not reflected. The little world of his rapturous emotions sufficed him. Now, however, Raphael has enlightened his mind, made him a citizen of the world and taught him to comprehend the all-sufficient majesty of reason; but he has won enlightenment at the expense of peace.

He is miserable and demands back his soul. Raphael rebukes him gently for his faint-heartedness and asks for a history of his thinking. So Julius rummages through his papers and sends on a somewhat elaborate 'Theosophy of Julius',--a sort of _precis_, it would seem, of Schiller's earlier views. It is religious mysticism set forth with warm eloquence.

The universe is a thought of G.o.d. The highest aim of thinking is to read the divine plan. All spirits are attracted by perfection. The supreme perfection is G.o.d, of whom love is an emanation. Love is gain; hate is loss; pardon, the recovery of lost property; misanthropy a prolonged suicide; egoism the utmost poverty. If every man loved all mankind, every man would possess the world. If we comprehend perfection it becomes ours. If we plant beauty and joy, beauty and joy shall we reap.

If we think clearly we shall love fervently.

To this 'theosophy' Julius adds a few comments, evidently of later origin, which show that he has now become aware of its intellectual inadequacy. Still he does not repudiate it. He thinks it may do for a doctrine, if one's nature is adapted to it.--Herewith, so far as Schiller was concerned, the 'Philosophic Letters' came to an end; but in the spring of 1788, Korner surprised him with a letter by Raphael, which is, philosophically speaking, by far the best of the entire collection.

But this book is not concerned with the writings of Korner.

Ere the third number of the _Thalia_ appeared it had become evident that the enterprise would not be profitable, and its perplexed editor was in doubt whether to continue it. He finally decided to go on. When the fourth number came out, early in 1787, it contained the beginning of a novel, 'The Ghostseer', wherein a mysterious Sicilian, and a still more mysterious Armenian, dog the footsteps of a German Prince von ---- living at Venice, and do various things suggesting a connection with occult powers. The first installment of the story broke off at a very exciting point,--just when the Sicilian has produced his amazing ghost-scene, but has not yet been unmasked as a vulgar fraud. Schiller evidently began the novel in no very strenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the popular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry which had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. So he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had no definite plan and did not himself know where he would bring up. The literary merits of 'The Ghostseer', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose fiction, will come up for consideration in connection with the conclusion, or rather the continuation, which he published some two years later, when he had left Dresden to seek his fortune in Weimar.

Even now the necessity of seeking his fortune somewhere was daily becoming more imperious. The _Thalia_ did not pay, though the critics spoke well of it, and he could not live forever upon Korner's friendly advances of money. The sense of his dependence often galled him; and yet when a proposal, in itself highly attractive, came to him from a distant city, he could not pluck up courage to leave his friend. Friedrich Schroder, the greatest German actor of the time, wished to draw him to Hamburg. Schiller looked up to Schroder with genuine admiration and speculatively promised himself great gain from a.s.sociation with 'the one man in Germany who could realize all his ideas of art.' In Mannheim,--so he wrote in October, 1786,--he had lost all his enthusiasm for the theater; it was now beginning to revive, but he shuddered at the treatment to which playwrights were exposed by theatrical people.

Moreover he was living at Dresden 'in the bosom of a family to which he had become necessary'. So nothing came of the negotiations except the preparation of a stage version of 'Don Carlos' for the Hamburg theater.

An amusing glimpse of domestic conditions in the Korner household is afforded by Schiller's dramatic skit, ent.i.tled 'Korner's Forenoon'. It belongs apparently to the year 1787, but was not published until 1862.

The busy councillor of the Dresden Consistory sees a little leisure before him and squares off at his desk for a solid forenoon's work. He begins by ordering his man to shave him. Then he is interrupted by a procession of callers,--Schiller, in various roles, and Minna, and Dorchen, and Professor Becker and others--who keep the stream of babble flowing until one o'clock. Korner is too late for the consistory and all that he has accomplished is to get shaved. The piece is a slight affair, but there is enough of solemn fun in it to make one wish that its author had seen fit to work his lighter vein more frequently.

About the time when this facetious bagatelle was penned, or a little earlier perhaps, Schiller became the hero of a comedy in real life. In the winter of 1787 he attended a masked ball where he met 'a pretty domino--a plump voluptuous maiden,--who fascinated him. Her name was Henriette von Arnim. He followed up the acquaintance and was soon quite seriously interested. As the Arnim family did not enjoy the best of reputations, the Korners were annoyed at Schiller's seeming lack of connoisseurship in women. They contrived to let him know that on the evenings when Henriette was not at home to him she was at home to a certain earthy Count Waldstein, or to a certain jew banker, as the case might be. This was painful, but not immediately decisive, and miserable days ensued. In the spring he was persuaded to try a few weeks' outing in the country. Here he was at first frightfully lonesome,--a dejected Robinson Crusoe, who could neither work nor amuse himself. To his pathetic demands for reading-matter his friends replied with malicious humor by sending him Goethe's 'Werther' and Laclos's 'Liaisons Dangereuses'. After a while the Arnims followed him, but presently the count came also; and then the course of true love, thus awkwardly bifurcated, was more troubled than ever. After Henriette's return to Dresden there was an interchange of letters, wherein love fought a losing battle with doubt and suspicion.

This half-year of amatory perturbation was of course unfavorable to literary labor. No further numbers of the _Thalia_ appeared, and 'The Misanthrope', a new play of excellent promise, made no progress. But 'Don Carlos' did at last get itself completed--after a fashion. It was published early in the summer. And now, with this burden lifted, the time seemed to have arrived for carrying out the long-cherished plan of a visit to Weimar. Who could tell what might come of it? Korner was just as loyal as ever, but he was also wise enough to respect his friend's longing for a more a.s.sured and less dependent existence. And so in July Schiller set out for Thuringen,--to be seen no more in Dresden save as an occasional visitor. But the letters he wrote to the n.o.ble-minded friend who had done and been so much for him const.i.tute, for several years to come, our best source of information concerning his outward fortune and his inner history. Before we follow him to Weimar, however, it will be in order to consider the play which remains as the most important achievement of his Dresden period.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 64: Letter of March 25, 1785.]

CHAPTER IX

Don Carlos

Arm in Arm mit dir, So fordr' ich mein Jahrhundert in die Schranken.

_'Don Carlos'_.

With the publication of 'Don Carlos' Schiller's literary reputation entered upon a new phase. Hitherto he had been known as a playwright in whom the pa.s.sion for strong effects often obscured the sense of artistic fitness. Of his dramatic power there could be no doubt, but had he the higher gift of the great poet? Would he ever be able to clothe his conceptions in a form that would appeal permanently to the general heart because of high and rare artistic excellence? Doubts of this kind were quite justifiable up to the year 1787, but they were set at rest by 'Don Carlos'. However vulnerable it may be as a poetic totality, it has pa.s.sages that are magnificent. Its sonorous verse, wedded to a lofty argument and freighted with the n.o.blest idealism of the century, made sure its author's t.i.tle to a place in the Walhalla of the poets.

Except 'Wallenstein' no other work of Schiller cost him such long and strenuous toil. 'Don Carlos', like Goethe's 'Faust', is a stratified deposit. The time that went to the making of it, only four years in all, was comparatively short, but it was for Schiller a time of rapid change; and the play, intensely subjective from the first, partic.i.p.ated in the ripening process. The result is a certain lack of artistic congruity.

Schiller himself, always his own best critic, felt this and frankly admitted it in the first of his 'Letters upon Don Carlos'.

It may be [he wrote] that in the first [three] acts I have aroused expectations which the last do not fulfill. St. Real's novel, perhaps also my own remarks upon it in the first number of the _Thalia_, may have suggested to the reader a standpoint from which the work can no longer be regarded. During the period of elaboration, which on account of divers interruptions was a pretty long time, much changed within myself.... What had mainly attracted me at first, attracted me less later on, and at last hardly at all.

New ideas that came into my mind crowded out the earlier ones.

Carlos himself had declined in my favor, for no other reason perhaps than that I had outgrown him, and for the opposite reason the Marquis of Posa had taken his place. So it came about that I brought a very different heart to the fourth and fifth acts. Yet the first three were already in the hands of the public, and the plan of the whole could not be recast; I had either to suppress the piece entirely (for which very few of my readers would have thanked me), or else to fit the second half to the first as best I could.

Let us look somewhat closely at the process of evolution here alluded to in general terms.

The original impulse came from a work of romantic fiction, the 'Dom Carlos' of St. Real, which was first read by Schiller in the summer of 1782 and drew from him the comment that the story 'deserved the brush of a dramatist'. St. Real's novel begins by telling how Charles the Fifth arranged, just before his abdication, that his grandson Carlos should some day marry Elizabeth of Valois: and how afterwards Philip determined to take the French princess for his own wife instead of leaving her to his son. Meanwhile, however, by much gazing at the picture of his betrothed, young Carlos had learned to love her, and she in turn had conceived for him a 'disposition to love rather than a veritable pa.s.sion'. Arrived at the Spanish court the young queen wins all hearts; even the white-haired Philip falls in love with her, though he treats her with stately reserve in the presence of others and surrounds her with the restraints of Spanish etiquette. Thus the queen comes to feel that she possesses 'only the body of her husband, his soul being filled with the designs of his ambition and the meditation of his policy'. As for Carlos, his love-lorn eyes soon betray to her how it is with him, but she can only pity him, though she secretly returns his love, for she is as virtuous as she is beautiful.

Not so the Princess Eboli, wife of Ruy Gomez, the tutor of Carlos.