The Life of Friedrich Schiller Part 12

The official services expected of him in return for so much kindness seem to have been slight, if any. Chiefly or altogether of his own accord, he appears to have applied himself to a close inspection of the theatre, and to have shared with Goethe the task of superintending its concerns. The rehearsals of new pieces commonly took place at the house of one of these friends; they consulted together on all such subjects, frankly and copiously. Schiller was not slow to profit by the means of improvement thus afforded him; in the mechanical details of his art he grew more skilful: by a constant observation of the stage, he became more acquainted with its capabilities and its laws.

It was not long till, with his characteristic expansiveness of enterprise, he set about turning this new knowledge to account. In conjunction with Goethe, he remodelled his own _Don Carlos_ and his friend's _Count Egmont_, altering both according to his latest views of scenic propriety. It was farther intended to treat, in the same manner, the whole series of leading German plays, and thus to produce a national stock of dramatic pieces, formed according to the best rules; a vast project, in which some progress continued to be made, though other labours often interrupted it. For the present, Schiller was engaged with his _Maria Stuart_: it appeared in 1800.

This tragedy will not detain us long. It is upon a subject, the incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to its primitive n.o.bleness, by sufferings, devotion and death, is the object of _Maria Stuart_. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction pervading it; a looking backward on objects of remorse, around on imprisonment, and forward on the grave. Its object is undoubtedly attained. We are forced to pardon and to love the heroine; she is beautiful, and miserable, and lofty-minded; and her crimes, however dark, have been expiated by long years of weeping and woe. Considering also that they were the fruit not of calculation, but of pa.s.sion acting on a heart not dead, though blinded for a time, to their enormity, they seem less hateful than the cold premeditated villany of which she is the victim.

Elizabeth is selfish, heartless, envious; she violates no law, but she has no virtue, and she lives triumphant: her arid, artificial character serves by contrast to heighten our sympathy with her warm-hearted, forlorn, ill-fated rival. These two Queens, particularly Mary, are well delineated: their respective qualities are vividly brought out, and the feelings they were meant to excite arise within us. There is also Mortimer, a fierce, impetuous, impa.s.sioned lover; driven onward chiefly by the heat of his blood, but still interesting by his vehemence and unbounded daring. The dialogue, moreover, has many beauties; there are scenes which have merited peculiar commendation. Of this kind is the interview between the Queens; and more especially the first entrance of Mary, when, after long seclusion, she is once more permitted to behold the cheerful sky. In the joy of a momentary freedom, she forgets that she is still a captive; she addresses the clouds, the 'sailors of the air, who 'are not subjects of Elizabeth,' and bids them carry tidings of her to the hearts that love her in other lands. Without doubt, in all that he intended, Schiller has succeeded; _Maria Stuart_ is a beautiful tragedy; it would have formed the glory of a meaner man, but it cannot materially alter his. Compared with _Wallenstein_, its purpose is narrow, and its result is common. We have no manners or true historical delineation. The figure of the English court is not given; and Elizabeth is depicted more like one of the French Medici, than like our own politic, capricious, coquettish, imperious, yet on the whole true-hearted, 'good Queen Bess.' With abundant proofs of genius, this tragedy produces a comparatively small effect, especially on English readers. We have already wept enough for Mary Stuart, both over prose and verse; and the persons likely to be deeply touched with the moral or the interest of her story, as it is recorded here, are rather a separate cla.s.s than men in general. Madame de Stael, we observe, is her princ.i.p.al admirer.

Next year, Schiller took possession of a province more peculiarly his own: in 1801, appeared his _Maid of Orleans_ (_Jungfrau von Orleans_); the first hint of which was suggested to him by a series of doc.u.ments, relating to the sentence of Jeanne d'Arc, and its reversal, first published about this time by De l'Averdy of the _Academie des Inscriptions_. Schiller had been moved in perusing them: this tragedy gave voice to his feelings.

Considered as an object of poetry or history, Jeanne d'Arc, the most singular personage of modern times, presents a character capable of being viewed under a great variety of aspects, and with a corresponding variety of emotions. To the English of her own age, bigoted in their creed, and baffled by her prowess, she appeared inspired by the Devil, and was naturally burnt as a sorceress. In this light, too, she is painted in the poems of Shakspeare. To Voltaire, again, whose trade it was to war with every kind of superst.i.tion, this child of fanatic ardour seemed no better than a moonstruck zealot; and the people who followed her, and believed in her, something worse than lunatics. The glory of what she had achieved was forgotten, when the means of achieving it were recollected; and the Maid of Orleans was deemed the fit subject of a poem, the wittiest and most profligate for which literature has to blush. Our ill.u.s.trious _Don Juan_ hides his head when contrasted with Voltaire's _Pucelle_: Juan's biographer, with all his zeal, is but an innocent, and a novice, by the side of this arch-scorner.

Such a manner of considering the Maid of Orleans is evidently not the right one. Feelings so deep and earnest as hers can never be an object of ridicule: whoever pursues a purpose of any sort with such fervid devotedness, is ent.i.tled to awaken emotions, at least of a serious kind, in the hearts of others. Enthusiasm puts on a different shape in every different age: always in some degree sublime, often it is dangerous; its very essence is a tendency to error and exaggeration; yet it is the fundamental quality of strong souls; the true n.o.bility of blood, in which all greatness of thought or action has its rise.

_Quicquid vult valde vult_ is ever the first and surest test of mental capability. This peasant girl, who felt within her such fiery vehemence of resolution, that she could subdue the minds of kings and captains to her will, and lead armies on to battle, conquering, till her country was cleared of its invaders, must evidently have possessed the elements of a majestic character. Benevolent feelings, sublime ideas, and above all an overpowering will, are here indubitably marked. Nor does the form, which her activity a.s.sumed, seem less adapted for displaying these qualities, than many other forms in which we praise them. The gorgeous inspirations of the Catholic religion are as real as the phantom of posthumous renown; the love of our native soil is as laudable as ambition, or the principle of military honour.

Jeanne d'Arc must have been a creature of shadowy yet far-glancing dreams, of unutterable feelings, of 'thoughts that wandered through Eternity.' Who can tell the trials and the triumphs, the splendours and the terrors, of which her simple spirit was the scene! 'Heartless, sneering, G.o.d-forgetting French!' as old Suwarrow called them,-they are not worthy of this n.o.ble maiden. Hers were errors, but errors which a generous soul alone could have committed, and which generous souls would have done more than pardon. Her darkness and delusions were of the understanding only; they but make the radiance of her heart more touching and apparent; as clouds are gilded by the orient light into something more beautiful than azure itself.

It is under this aspect that Schiller has contemplated the Maid of Orleans, and endeavoured to make us contemplate her. For the latter purpose, it appears that more than one plan had occurred to him. His first idea was, to represent Joanna, and the times she lived in, as they actually were: to exhibit the superst.i.tion, ferocity, and wretchedness of the period, in all their aggravation; and to show us this patriotic and religious enthusiast beautifying the tempestuous scene by her presence; swaying the fierce pa.s.sions of her countrymen; directing their fury against the invaders of France; till at length, forsaken and condemned to die, she perished at the stake, retaining the same steadfast and lofty faith, which had enn.o.bled and redeemed the errors of her life, and was now to glorify the ignominy of her death. This project, after much deliberation, he relinquished, as too difficult. By a new mode of management, much of the homeliness and rude horror, that defaced and enc.u.mbered the reality, is thrown away.

The Dauphin is not here a voluptuous weakling, nor is his court the centre of vice and cruelty and imbecility: the misery of the time is touched but lightly, and the Maid of Arc herself is invested with a certain faint degree of mysterious dignity, ultimately represented as being in truth a preternatural gift; though whether preternatural, and if so, whether sent from above or from below, neither we nor she, except by faith, are absolutely sure, till the conclusion.

The propriety of this arrangement is liable to question; indeed, it has been more than questioned. But external blemishes are lost in the intrinsic grandeur of the piece: the spirit of Joanna is presented to us with an exalting and pathetic force sufficient to make us blind to far greater improprieties. Joanna is a pure creation, of half-celestial origin, combining the mild charms of female loveliness with the awful majesty of a prophetess, and a sacrifice doomed to perish for her country. She resembled, in Schiller's view, the Iphigenia of the Greeks; and as such, in some respects, he has treated her.

The woes and desolation of the land have kindled in Joanna's keen and fervent heart a fire, which the loneliness of her life, and her deep feelings of religion, have nourished and fanned into a holy flame. She sits in solitude with her flocks, beside the mountain chapel of the Virgin, under the ancient Druid oak, a wizard spot, the haunt of evil spirits as well as of good; and visions are revealed to her such as human eyes behold not. It seems the force of her own spirit, expressing its feelings in forms which react upon itself. The strength of her impulses persuades her that she is called from on high to deliver her native France; the intensity of her own faith persuades others; she goes forth on her mission; all bends to the fiery vehemence of her will; she is inspired because she thinks herself so.

There is something beautiful and moving in the aspect of a n.o.ble enthusiasm, fostered in the secret soul, amid obstructions and depressions, and at length bursting forth with an overwhelming force to accomplish its appointed end: the impediments which long hid it are now become testimonies of its power; the very ignorance, and meanness, and error, which still in part adhere to it, increase our sympathy without diminishing our admiration; it seems the triumph, hardly contested, and not wholly carried, but still the triumph, of Mind over Fate, of human volition over material necessity.

All this Schiller felt, and has presented with even more than his usual skill. The secret mechanism of Joanna's mind is concealed from us in a dim religious obscurity; but its active movements are distinct; we behold the lofty heroism of her feelings; she affects us to the very heart. The quiet, devout innocence of her early years, when she lived silent, shrouded in herself, meek and kindly though not communing with others, makes us love her: the celestial splendour which illuminates her after-life adds reverence to our love. Her words and actions combine an overpowering force with a calm unpretending dignity: we seem to understand how they must have carried in their favour the universal conviction. Joanna is the most n.o.ble being in tragedy. We figure her with her slender lovely form, her mild but spirit-speaking countenance; 'beautiful and terrible;' bearing the banner of the Virgin before the hosts of her country; travelling in the strength of a rapt soul; irresistible by faith; 'the lowly herdsmaid,' greater in the grandeur of her simple spirit than the kings and queens of this world. Yet her breast is not entirely insensible to human feeling, nor her faith never liable to waver. When that inexorable vengeance, which had shut her ear against the voice of mercy to the enemies of France, is suspended at the sight of Lionel, and her heart experiences the first touch of mortal affection, a baleful cloud overspreads the serene of her mind; it seems as if Heaven had forsaken her, or from the beginning permitted demons or earthly dreams to deceive her. The agony of her spirit, involved in endless and horrid labyrinths of doubt, is powerfully portrayed. She has crowned the king at Rheims; and all is joy, and pomp, and jubilee, and almost adoration of Joanna: but Joanna's thoughts are not of joy.

The sight of her poor but kind and true-hearted sisters in the crowd, moves her to the soul. Amid the tumult and magnificence of this royal pageant, she sinks into a reverie; her small native dale of Arc, between its quiet hills, rises on her mind's eye, with its straw-roofed huts, and its clear greensward; where the sun is even then shining so brightly, and the sky is so blue, and all is so calm and motherly and safe. She sighs for the peace of that sequestered home; then shudders to think that she shall never see it more. Accused of witchcraft, by her own ascetic melancholic father, she utters no word of denial to the charge; for her heart is dark, it is tarnished by earthly love, she dare not raise her thoughts to Heaven. Parted from her sisters; cast out with horror by the people she had lately saved from despair, she wanders forth, desolate, forlorn, not knowing whither. Yet she does not sink under this sore trial: as she suffers from without, and is forsaken of men, her mind grows clear and strong, her confidence returns. She is now more firmly fixed in our admiration than before; tenderness is united to our other feelings; and her faith has been proved by sharp vicissitudes. Her countrymen recognise their error; Joanna closes her career by a glorious death; we take farewell of her in a solemn mood of heroic pity.

Joanna is the animating principle of this tragedy; the scenes employed in developing her character and feelings const.i.tute its great charm.

Yet there are other personages in it, that leave a distinct and pleasing impression of themselves in our memory. Agnes Sorel, the soft, languishing, generous mistress of the Dauphin, relieves and heightens by comparison the sterner beauty of the Maid. Dunois, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Orleans, the lover of Joanna, is a blunt, frank, sagacious soldier, and well described. And Talbot, the gray veteran, delineates his dark, unbelieving, indomitable soul, by a few slight but expressive touches: he sternly pa.s.ses down to the land, as he thinks, of utter nothingness, contemptuous even of the fate that destroys him, and

'On the soil of France he sleeps, as does A hero on the shield he would not quit.'

A few scattered extracts may in part exhibit some of these inferior personages to our readers, though they can afford us no impression of the Maid herself. Joanna's character, like every finished piece of art, to be judged of must be seen in all its bearings. It is not in parts, but as a whole, that the delineation moves us; by light and manifold touches, it works upon our hearts, till they melt before it into that mild rapture, free alike from the violence and the impurities of Nature, which it is the highest triumph of the Artist to communicate.

ACT III. SCENE IV.

[_The_ Dauphin Charles, _with his suite: afterwards_ Joanna. _She is in armour, but without her helmet; and wears a garland in her hair._

DUNOIS [_steps forward_].

My heart made choice of her while she was lowly; This new honour raises not her merit Or my love. Here, in the presence of my King And of this holy Archbishop, I offer her My hand and princely rank, if she regard me As worthy to be hers.

CHARLES. Resistless Maid, Thou addest miracle to miracle!

Henceforward I believe that nothing is Impossible to thee. Thou hast subdued This haughty spirit, that till now defied Th' omnipotence of Love.

LA HIRE [_steps forward_]. If I mistake not Joanna's form of mind, what most adorns her Is her modest heart. The rev'rence of the great She merits; but her thoughts will never rise So high. She strives not after giddy splendours: The true affection of a faithful soul Contents her, and the still, sequester'd lot Which with this hand I offer her.

CHARLES. Thou too, La Hire? Two valiant suitors, equal in Heroic virtue and renown of war!

-Wilt thou, that hast united my dominions, Soften'd my opposers, part my firmest friends?

Both may not gain thee, each deserving thee: Speak, then! Thy heart must here be arbiter.

AGNES SOREL [_approaches_].

Joanna is embarra.s.s'd and surprised; I see the bashful crimson tinge her cheeks.

Let her have time to ask her heart, to open Her clos'd bosom in trustful confidence With me. The moment is arriv'd when I In sisterly communion also may Approach the rigorous Maid, and offer her The solace of my faithful, silent breast.

First let us women sit in secret judgment On this matter that concerns us; then expect What we shall have decided.

CHARLES [_about to go_]. Be it so, then!

JOANNA. Not so, Sire! 'Twas not the embarra.s.sment Of virgin shame that dy'd my cheeks in crimson: To this lady I have nothing to confide, Which I need blush to speak of before men.

Much am I honour'd by the preference Of these two n.o.ble Knights; but it was not To chase vain worldly grandeurs, that I left The shepherd moors; not in my hair to bind The bridal garland, that I girt myself With warlike armour. To far other work Am I appointed: and the spotless virgin Alone can do it. I am the soldier Of the G.o.d of Battles; to no living man Can I be wife.

ARCHBISHOP. As kindly help to man Was woman born; and in obeying Nature She best obeys and reverences Heaven.

When the command of G.o.d who summon'd thee To battle is fulfull'd, thou wilt lay down Thy weapons, and return to that soft s.e.x Which thou deny'st, which is not call'd to do The b.l.o.o.d.y work of war.

JOANNA. Father, as yet I know not how the Spirit will direct me: When the needful time comes round, His voice Will not be silent, and I will obey it.

For the present, I am bid complete the task.

He gave me. My sov'reign's brow is yet uncrown'd, His head unwetted by the holy oil, He is not yet a King.

CHARLES. We are journeying Towards Rheims.

JOANNA. Let us not linger by the way.

Our foes are busy round us, shutting up Thy pa.s.sage: I will lead thee through them all.

DUNOIS. And when the work shall be fulfill'd, when we Have marched in triumph into Rheims, Will not Joanna then-

JOANNA. If G.o.d see meet That I return with life and vict'ry from These broils, my task is ended, and the herdsmaid Has nothing more to do in her King's palace.

CHARLES [_taking her hand_].

It is the Spirit's voice impels thee now, And Love is mute in thy inspired bosom.

Believe me, it will not be always mute!

Our swords will rest; and Victory will lead Meek Peace by th' hand, and Joy will come again To ev'ry breast, and softer feelings waken In every heart: in thy heart also waken; And tears of sweetest longing wilt thou weep, Such as thine eyes have never shed. This heart, Now fill'd by Heav'n, will softly open To some terrestrial heart. Thou hast begun By blessing thousands; but thou wilt conclude By blessing one.

JOANNA. Dauphin! Art thou weary Of the heavenly vision, that thou seekest To deface its chosen vessel, wouldst degrade To common dust the Maid whom G.o.d has sent thee?

Ye blind of heart! O ye of little faith!

Heaven's brightness is about you, before your eyes Unveils its wonders; and ye see in me Nought but a woman. Dare a woman, think ye, Clothe herself in iron harness, and mingle In the wreck of battle? Woe, woe to me, If bearing in my hand th' avenging sword Of G.o.d, I bore in my vain heart a love To earthly man! Woe to me! It were better That I never had been born. No more, No more of this! Unless ye would awake the wrath Of HIM that dwells in me! The eye of man Desiring me is an abomination And a horror.

CHARLES. Cease! 'Tis vain to urge her.

JOANNA. Bid the trumpets sound! This loit'ring grieves And hara.s.ses me. Something chases me From sloth, and drives me forth to do my mission, Stern beck'ning me to my appointed doom.

SCENE V.

A KNIGHT [_in haste_].

CHARLES. How now?

KNIGHT. The enemy has pa.s.s'd the Marne; Is forming as for battle.

JOANNA [_as if inspired_]. Arms and battle!

My soul has cast away its bonds! To arms!