The Life of Friedrich Schiller Part 3

'The Duke of Weimar was the first person to whom I disclosed myself.

His antic.i.p.ating goodness, and the declaration that he took an interest in my happiness, induced me to confess that this happiness depended on a union with your n.o.ble daughter; and he expressed his satisfaction at my choice. I have reason to hope that he will do more, should it come to the point of completing my happiness by this union.

'I shall add nothing farther: I know well that hundreds of others might afford your daughter a more splendid fate than I at this moment can promise her; but that any other _heart_ can be more worthy of her, I venture to deny. Your decision, which I look for with impatience and fearful expectation, will determine whether I may venture to write in person to your daughter. Fare you well, forever loved by-Your-

'FRIEDRICH SCHILLER.'

Concerning this proposal, we have no farther information to communicate; except that the parties did not marry, and did not cease being friends. That Schiller obtained the permission he concludes with requesting, appears from other sources. Three years afterwards, in writing to the same person, he alludes emphatically to his eldest daughter; and what is more ominous, _apologises_ for his silence to her. Schiller's situation at this period was such as to preclude the idea of present marriage; perhaps, in the prospect of it, _Laura_ and he commenced corresponding; and before the wished-for change of fortune had arrived, both of them, attracted to other objects, had lost one another in the vortex of life, and ceased to regard their finding one another as desirable.

Schiller's medical project, like many which he formed, never came to any issue. In moments of anxiety, amid the fluctuations of his lot, the thought of this profession floated through his mind, as of a distant stronghold, to which, in time of need, he might retire. But literature was too intimately interwoven with his dispositions and his habits to be seriously interfered with; it was only at brief intervals that the pleasure of pursuing it exclusively seemed overbalanced by its inconveniences. He needed a more certain income than poetry could yield him; but he wished to derive it from some pursuit less alien to his darling study. Medicine he never practised after leaving Stuttgard.

In the mean time, whatever he might afterwards resolve on, he determined to complete his _Carlos_, the half of which, composed a considerable time before, had lately been running the gauntlet of criticism in the _Thalia_.[13] With this for his chief occupation, Gohlis or Leipzig for his residence, and a circle of chosen friends for his entertainment, Schiller's days went happily along. His _Lied an die Freude_ (Song to Joy), one of his most spirited and beautiful lyrical productions, was composed here: it bespeaks a mind impetuous even in its gladness, and overflowing with warm and earnest emotions.

[Footnote 13: Wieland's rather harsh and not too judicious sentence on it may be seen at large in Gruber's _Wieland Geschildert_, B. ii. S. 571.]

But the love of change is grounded on the difference between antic.i.p.ation and reality, and dwells with man till the age when habit becomes stronger than desire, or antic.i.p.ation ceases to be hope.

Schiller did not find that his establishment at Leipzig, though pleasant while it lasted, would realise his ulterior views: he yielded to some of his 'alluring invitations,' and went to Dresden in the end of summer. Dresden contained many persons who admired him, more who admired his fame, and a few who loved himself. Among the latter, the Appellationsrath Korner deserves especial mention.[14] Schiller found a true friend in Korner, and made his house a home. He parted his time between Dresden and Loschwitz, near it, where that gentleman resided: it was here that _Don Carlos_, the printing of which was meanwhile proceeding at Leipzig, received its completion and last corrections.[15] It was published in 1786.

[Footnote 14: The well-written life, prefixed to the Stuttgard and Tubingen edition of Schiller's works, is by this Korner. The Theodor Korner, whose _Lyre and Sword_ became afterwards famous, was his son.]

[Footnote 15: In vol. x. of the Vienna edition of Schiller are some ludicrous verses, almost his sole attempt in the way of drollery, bearing a t.i.tle equivalent to this: 'To the Right Honourable the Board of Washers, the most humble Memorial of a downcast Tragic Poet, at Loschwitz;' of which Doering gives the following account. 'The first part of _Don Carlos_ being already printed, by Goschen, in Leipzig, the poet, pressed for the remainder, felt himself obliged to stay behind from an excursion which the Korner family were making, in a fine autumn day. Unluckily, the lady of the house, thinking Schiller was to go along with them, had locked all her cupboards and the cellar. Schiller found himself without meat or drink, or even wood for fuel; still farther exasperated by the dabbling of some washer-maids beneath his window, he produced these lines.' The poem is of the kind which cannot be translated; the first three stanzas are as follows:

"Die Wasche klatscht vor meiner Thur, Es plarrt die Kuchenzofe, Und mich, mich fuhrt das Flugelthier Zu Konig Philips Hofe.

Ich eile durch die Gallerie Mit schnellem Schritt, belausche Dort die Prinzessin Eboli Im sussen Liebesrausche.

Schon ruft das schone Weib: Triumph!

Schon hor' ich-Tod und Holle!

Was hor' ich-einen na.s.sen Strumpf Geworfen in die Welle."]

The story of Don Carlos seems peculiarly adapted for dramatists. The spectacle of a royal youth condemned to death by his father, of which happily our European annals furnish but another example, is among the most tragical that can be figured; the character of that youth, the intermixture of bigotry and jealousy, and love, with the other strong pa.s.sions, which brought on his fate, afford a combination of circ.u.mstances, affecting in themselves, and well calculated for the basis of deeply interesting fiction. Accordingly they have not been neglected: Carlos has often been the theme of poets; particularly since the time when his history, recorded by the Abbe St. Real, was exposed in more brilliant colours to the inspection of every writer, and almost of every reader.

The Abbe St. Real was a dexterous artist in that half-illicit species of composition, the historic novel: in the course of his operations, he lighted on these incidents; and, by filling-up according to his fancy, what historians had only sketched to him, by amplifying, beautifying, suppressing, and arranging, he worked the whole into a striking little narrative, distinguished by all the symmetry, the sparkling graces, the vigorous description, and keen thought, which characterise his other writings. This French Sall.u.s.t, as his countrymen have named him, has been of use to many dramatists. His _Conjuraison contre Venise_ furnished Otway with the outline of his best tragedy; _Epicaris_ has more than once appeared upon the stage; and _Don Carlos_ has been dramatised in almost all the languages of Europe. Besides Otway's _Carlos_ so famous at its first appearance, many tragedies on this subject have been written: most of them are gathered to their final rest; some are fast going thither; two bid fair to last for ages. Schiller and Alfieri have both drawn their plot from St. Real; the former has expanded and added; the latter has compressed and abbreviated.

Schiller's _Carlos_ is the first of his plays that bears the stamp of anything like full maturity. The opportunities he had enjoyed for extending his knowledge of men and things, the sedulous practice of the art of composition, the study of purer models, had not been without their full effect. Increase of years had done something for him; diligence had done much more. The ebullience of youth is now chastened into the steadfast energy of manhood; the wild enthusiast, that spurned at the errors of the world, has now become the enlightened moralist, that laments their necessity, or endeavours to find out their remedy. A corresponding alteration is visible in the external form of the work, in its plot and diction. The plot is contrived with great ingenuity, embodying the result of much study, both dramatic and historical. The language is blank verse, not prose, as in the former works; it is more careful and regular, less ambitious in its object, but more certain of attaining it. Schiller's mind had now reached its full stature: he felt and thought more justly; he could better express what he felt and thought.

The merit we noticed in _Fiesco_, the fidelity with which the scene of action is brought before us, is observable to a still greater degree in _Don Carlos_. The Spanish court in the end of the sixteenth century; its rigid, cold formalities; its cruel, bigoted, but proud-spirited grandees; its inquisitors and priests; and Philip, its head, the epitome at once of its good and its bad qualities, in all his complex interests, are exhibited with wonderful distinctness and address. Nor is it at the surface or the outward movements alone that we look; we are taught the mechanism of their characters, as well as shown it in action. The stony-hearted Despot himself must have been an object of peculiar study to the author. Narrow in his understanding, dead in his affections, from his birth the lord of Europe, Philip has existed all his days above men, not among them. Locked up within himself, a stranger to every generous and kindly emotion, his gloomy spirit has had no employment but to strengthen or increase its own elevation, no pleasure but to gratify its own self-will. Superst.i.tion, harmonising with these native tendencies, has added to their force, but scarcely to their hatefulness: it lends them a sort of sacredness in his own eyes, and even a sort of horrid dignity in ours. Philip is not without a certain greatness, the greatness of unlimited external power, and of a will relentless in its dictates, guided by principles, false, but consistent and unalterable. The scene of his existence is haggard, stern and desolate; but it is all his own, and he seems fitted for it. We hate him and fear him; but the poet has taken care to secure him from contempt.

The contrast both of his father's fortune and character are those of Carlos. Few situations of a more affecting kind can be imagined, than the situation of this young, generous and ill-fated prince. From boyhood his heart had been bent on mighty things; he had looked upon the royal grandeur that awaited his maturer years, only as the means of realising those projects for the good of men, which his beneficent soul was ever busied with. His father's dispositions, and the temper of the court, which admitted no development of such ideas, had given the charm of concealment to his feelings; his life had been in prospect; and we are the more attached to him, that deserving to be glorious and happy, he had but expected to be either. Bright days, however, seemed approaching; shut out from the communion of the Albas and Domingos, among whom he lived a stranger, the communion of another and far dearer object was to be granted him; Elizabeth's love seemed to make him independent even of the future, which it painted with still richer hues. But in a moment she is taken from him by the most terrible of all visitations; his bride becomes his mother; and the stroke that deprives him of her, while it ruins him forever, is more deadly, because it cannot be complained of without sacrilege, and cannot be altered by the power of Fate itself. Carlos, as the poet represents him, calls forth our tenderest sympathies. His soul seems once to have been rich and glorious, like the garden of Eden; but the desert-wind has pa.s.sed over it, and smitten it with perpetual blight.

Despair has overshadowed all the fair visions of his youth; or if he hopes, it is but the gleam of delirium, which something sterner than even duty extinguishes in the cold darkness of death. His energy survives but to vent itself in wild gusts of reckless pa.s.sion, or aimless indignation. There is a touching poignancy in his expression of the bitter melancholy that oppresses him, in the fixedness of misery with which he looks upon the faded dreams of former years, or the fierce ebullitions and dreary pauses of resolution, which now prompts him to retrieve what he has lost, now withers into powerlessness, as nature and reason tell him that it cannot, must not be retrieved.

Elizabeth, no less moving and attractive, is also depicted with masterly skill. If she returns the pa.s.sion of her amiable and once betrothed lover, we but guess at the fact; for so horrible a thought has never once been whispered to her own gentle and spotless mind. Yet her heart bleeds for Carlos; and we see that did not the most sacred feelings of humanity forbid her, there is no sacrifice she would not make to restore his peace of mind. By her soothing influence she strives to calm the agony of his spirit; by her mild winning eloquence she would persuade him that for Don Carlos other objects must remain, when his hopes of personal felicity have been cut off; she would change his love for her into love for the millions of human beings whose destiny depends on his. A meek vestal, yet with the prudence of a queen, and the courage of a matron, with every graceful and generous quality of womanhood harmoniously blended in her nature, she lives in a scene that is foreign to her; the happiness she should have had is beside her, the misery she must endure is around her; yet she utters no regret, gives way to no complaint, but seeks to draw from duty itself a compensation for the cureless evil which duty has inflicted.

Many tragic queens are more imposing and majestic than this Elizabeth of Schiller; but there is none who rules over us with a sway so soft and feminine, none whom we feel so much disposed to love as well as reverence.

The virtues of Elizabeth are heightened by comparison with the principles and actions of her attendant, the Princess Eboli. The character of Eboli is full of pomp and profession; magnanimity and devotedness are on her tongue, some shadow of them even floats in her imagination; but they are not rooted in her heart; pride, selfishness, unlawful pa.s.sion are the only inmates there. Her lofty boastings of generosity are soon forgotten when the success of her attachment to Carlos becomes hopeless; the fervour of a selfish love once extinguished in her bosom, she regards the object of it with none but vulgar feelings. Virtue no longer according with interest, she ceases to be virtuous; from a rejected mistress the transition to a jealous spy is with her natural and easy. Yet we do not hate the Princess: there is a seductive warmth and grace about her character, which makes us lament her vices rather than condemn them. The poet has drawn her at once false and fair.

In delineating Eboli and Philip, Schiller seems as if struggling against the current of his nature; our feelings towards them are hardly so severe as he intended; their words and deeds, at least those of the latter, are wicked and repulsive enough; but we still have a kind of latent persuasion that they meant better than they spoke or acted. With the Marquis of Posa, he had a more genial task. This Posa, we can easily perceive, is the representative of Schiller himself. The ardent love of men, which forms his ruling pa.s.sion, was likewise the constant feeling of his author; the glowing eloquence with which he advocates the cause of truth, and justice, and humanity, was such as Schiller too would have employed in similar circ.u.mstances. In some respects, Posa is the chief character of the piece; there is a preeminent magnificence in his object, and in the faculties and feelings with which he follows it. Of a splendid intellect, and a daring devoted heart, his powers are all combined upon a single purpose. Even his friendship for Carlos, grounded on the likeness of their minds, and faithful as it is, yet seems to merge in this paramount emotion, zeal for the universal interests of man. Aiming, with all his force of thought and action, to advance the happiness and best rights of his fellow-creatures; pursuing this n.o.ble aim with the skill and dignity which it deserves, his mind is at once unwearied, earnest and serene. He is another Carlos, but somewhat older, more experienced, and never crossed in hopeless love. There is a calm strength in Posa, which no accident of fortune can shake. Whether cheering the forlorn Carlos into new activity; whether lifting up his voice in the ear of tyrants and inquisitors, or taking leave of life amid his vast unexecuted schemes, there is the same sedate magnanimity, the same fearless composure: when the fatal bullet strikes him, he dies with the concerns of others, not his own, upon his lips. He is a reformer, the perfection of reformers; not a revolutionist, but a prudent though determined improver. His enthusiasm does not burst forth in violence, but in manly and enlightened energy; his eloquence is not more moving to the heart than his lofty philosophy is convincing to the head. There is a majestic vastness of thought in his precepts, which recommends them to the mind independently of the beauty of their dress. Few pa.s.sages of poetry are more spirit-stirring than his last message to Carlos, through the Queen. The certainty of death seems to surround his spirit with a kind of martyr glory; he is kindled into transport, and speaks with a commanding power. The pathetic wisdom of the line, 'Tell him, that when he is a man, he must reverence the dreams of his youth,' has often been admired: that scene has many such.

The interview with Philip is not less excellent. There is something so striking in the idea of confronting the cold solitary tyrant with 'the only man in all his states that does not need him;' of raising the voice of true manhood for once within the gloomy chambers of thraldom and priestcraft, that we can forgive the stretch of poetic license by which it is effected. Philip and Posa are antipodes in all respects.

Philip thinks his new instructor is 'a Protestant;' a charge which Posa rebuts with calm dignity, his object not being separation and contention, but union and peaceful gradual improvement. Posa seems to understand the character of Philip better; not attempting to awaken in his sterile heart any feeling for real glory, or the interests of his fellow-men, he attacks his selfishness and pride, represents to him the intrinsic meanness and misery of a throne, however decked with advent.i.tious pomp, if built on servitude, and isolated from the sympathies and interests of others.

We translate the entire scene; though not by any means the best, it is among the fittest for extraction of any in the piece. Posa has been sent for by the King, and is waiting in a chamber of the palace to know what is required of him; the King enters, unperceived by Posa, whose attention is directed to a picture on the wall:

ACT III. SCENE X.

The KING and MARQUIS DE POSA.

[_The latter, on noticing the King, advances towards him, and kneels, then rises, and waits without any symptom of embarra.s.sment._]

KING. [_looks at him with surprise_].

We have met before, then?

MAR. No.

KING. You did my crown Some service: wherefore have you shunn'd my thanks?

Our memory is besieged by crowds of suitors; Omniscient is none but He in Heaven.

You should have sought my looks: why did you not?

MAR. 'Tis scarcely yet two days, your Majesty, Since I returned to Spain.

KING. I am not used To be my servants' debtor; ask of me Some favour.

MAR. I enjoy the laws.

KING. That right The very murd'rer has.

MAR. And how much more The honest citizen!-Sire, I'm content.

KING [_aside_]. Much self-respect indeed, and lofty daring!

But this was to be looked for: I would have My Spaniards haughty; better that the cup Should overflow than not be full.-I hear You left my service, Marquis.

MAR. Making way For men more worthy, I withdrew.

KING. 'Tis wrong: When spirits such as yours play truant, My state must suffer. You conceive, perhaps, Some post unworthy of your merits Might be offer'd you?

MAR. No, Sire, I cannot doubt But that a judge so skilful, and experienced In the gifts of men, has at a glance discover'd Wherein I might do him service, wherein not.

I feel with humble grat.i.tude the favour, With which your Majesty is loading me By thoughts so lofty: yet I can- [_He stops._

KING. You pause?

MAR. Sire, at the moment I am scarce prepar'd To speak, in phrases of a Spanish subject, What as a citizen o' th' world I've thought.

Truth is, in parting from the Court forever, I held myself discharged from all necessity Of troubling it with reasons for my absence.

KING. Are your reasons bad, then? Dare you not risk Disclosing them?

MAR. My life, and joyfully, Were scope allow'd me to disclose them _all_.

'Tis not myself but Truth that I endanger, Should the King refuse me a full hearing.

Your anger or contempt I fain would shun; But forced to choose between them, I had rather Seem to you a man deserving punishment Than pity.