The Life of Friedrich Schiller Part 22

'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 Korner: "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 Thuringen 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 Korner, 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 n.o.ble 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Wurtemberg Territory, he, the Duke, would take no notice. To Schiller Senior, too, he had at the same time granted the humble pet.i.tion that he might have leave to visit his Son in Heilbronn now and then.

'Under these circ.u.mstances, Schiller, perfectly secure, visited Ludwigsburg and even Solitude, without, as he himself expressed it, asking permission of the "Schwabenkonig." 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 pet.i.tion, 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 Solitude, 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 ill.u.s.trious 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, compa.s.sion 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 Korner 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 pa.s.sages from her Brother's Poems was her greatest joy; she did her recitation well; and her Swabian accent and navety 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 Korner, "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 Solitude 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 appet.i.te.

"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 Solitude 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 Korner, 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 G.o.d 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 Solitude whole and well; and with the firm hope that he would see them all again. And the next-following years did pa.s.s 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 Solitude. 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, n.o.body except the Doctors would risk himself at Solitude; 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 Solitude 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 Solitude, 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 Tubingen 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 Korner 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 G.o.d 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, pa.s.s 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. G.o.d 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 a.s.sure 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 hatt ich doch im Thal Vergissmeinnicht gefunden Und Rosen nebenbei! Dann hat' ich Dir gewunden In Bluthenduft den Kranz zu diesem neuen Jahr, Der schoner noch als der am Hochzeittage war._