The Life of Friedrich Schiller

PART SECOND.

[1783-1790.]

If to know wisdom were to practise it; if fame brought true dignity and peace of mind; or happiness consisted in nourishing the intellect with its appropriate food and surrounding the imagination with ideal beauty, a literary life would be the most enviable which the lot of this world affords. But the truth is far otherwise. The Man of Letters has no immutable, all-conquering volition, more than other men; to understand and to perform are two very different things with him as with every one. His fame rarely exerts a favourable influence on his dignity of character, and never on his peace of mind: its glitter is external, for the eyes of others; within, it is but the aliment of unrest, the oil cast upon the ever-gnawing fire of ambition, quickening into fresh vehemence the blaze which it stills for a moment. Moreover, this Man of Letters is not wholly made of spirit, but of clay and spirit mixed: his thinking faculties may be nobly trained and exercised, but he must have affections as well as thoughts to make him happy, and food and raiment must be given him or he dies. Far from being the most enviable, his way of life is perhaps, among the many modes by which an ardent mind endeavours to express its activity, the most thickly beset with suffering and degradation. Look at the biography of authors! Except the Newgate Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the history of man. The calamities of these people are a fertile topic; and too often their faults and vices have kept pace with their calamities. Nor is it difficult to see how this has happened. Talent of any sort is generally accompanied with a peculiar fineness of sensibility; of genius this is the most essential constituent; and life in any shape has sorrows enough for hearts so formed. The employments of literature sharpen this natural tendency; the vexations that accompany them frequently exasperate it into morbid soreness. The cares and toils of literature are the business of life; its delights are too ethereal and too transient to furnish that perennial flow of satisfaction, coarse but plenteous and substantial, of which happiness in this world of ours is made. The most finished efforts of the mind give it little pleasure, frequently they give it pain; for men's aims are ever far beyond their strength. And the outward recompense of these undertakings, the distinction they confer, is of still smaller value: the desire for it is insatiable even when successful; and when baffled, it issues in jealousy and envy, and every pitiful and painful feeling. So keen a temperament with so little to restrain or satisfy, so much to distress or tempt it, produces contradictions which few are adequate to reconcile. Hence the unhappiness of literary men, hence their faults and follies.

Thus literature is apt to form a dangerous and discontenting occupation even for the amateur. But for him whose rank and worldly comforts depend on it, who does not live to write, but writes to live, its difficulties and perils are fearfully increased. Few spectacles are more afflicting than that of such a man, so gifted and so fated, so jostled and tossed to and fro in the rude bustle of life, the buffetings of which he is so little fitted to endure. Cherishing, it may be, the loftiest thoughts, and clogged with the meanest wants; of pure and holy purposes, yet ever driven from the straight path by the pressure of necessity, or the impulse of passion; thirsting for glory, and frequently in want of daily bread; hovering between the empyrean of his fancy and the squalid desert of reality; cramped and foiled in his most strenuous exertions; dissatisfied with his best performances, disgusted with his fortune, this Man of Letters too often spends his weary days in conflicts with obscure misery: harassed, chagrined, debased, or maddened; the victim at once of tragedy and farce; the last forlorn outpost in the war of Mind against Matter. Many are the noble souls that have perished bitterly, with their tasks unfinished, under these corroding woes! Some in utter famine, like Otway; some in dark insanity, like Cowper and Collins; some, like Chatterton, have sought out a more stern quietus, and turning their indignant steps away from a world which refused them welcome, have taken refuge in that strong Fortress, where poverty and cold neglect, and the thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to, could not reach them any more.

Yet among these men are to be found the brightest specimens and the chief benefactors of mankind! It is they that keep awake the finer parts of our souls; that give us better aims than power or pleasure, and withstand the total sovereignty of Mammon in this earth. They are the vanguard in the march of mind; the intellectual Backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought and the activity of their happier brethren. Pity that from all their conquests, so rich in benefit to others, themselves should reap so little! But it is vain to murmur. They are volunteers in this cause; they weighed the charms of it against the perils: and they must abide the results of their decision, as all must. The hardships of the course they follow are formidable, but not all inevitable; and to such as pursue it rightly, it is not without its great rewards. If an author's life is more agitated and more painful than that of others, it may also be made more spirit-stirring and exalted: fortune may render him unhappy; it is only himself that can make him despicable. The history of genius has, in fact, its bright side as well as its dark. And if it is distressing to survey the misery, and what is worse, the debasement of so many gifted men, it is doubly cheering on the other hand to reflect on the few, who, amid the temptations and sorrows to which life in all its provinces and most in theirs is liable, have travelled through it in calm and virtuous majesty, and are now hallowed in our memories, not less for their conduct than their writings. Such men are the flower of this lower world: to such alone can the epithet of great be applied with its true emphasis. There is a congruity in their proceedings which one loves to contemplate: 'he who would write heroic poems, should make his whole life a heroic poem.'

So thought our Milton; and, what was more difficult, he acted so. To Milton, the moral king of authors, a heroic multitude, out of many ages and countries, might be joined; a 'cloud of witnesses,' that encompass the true literary man throughout his pilgrimage, inspiring him to lofty emulation, cheering his solitary thoughts with hope, teaching him to struggle, to endure, to conquer difficulties, or, in failure and heavy sufferings, to

To this august series, in his own degree, the name of Schiller may be added.

Schiller lived in more peaceful times than Milton; his history is less distinguished by obstacles surmounted, or sacrifices made to principle; yet he had his share of trials to encounter; and the admirers of his writings need not feel ashamed of the way in which he bore it. One virtue, the parent of many others, and the most essential of any, in his circumstances, he possessed in a supreme degree; he was devoted with entire and unchanging ardour to the cause he had embarked in. The extent of his natural endowments might have served, with a less eager character, as an excuse for long periods of indolence, broken only by fits of casual exertion: with him it was but a new incitement to improve and develop them. The Ideal Man that lay within him, the image of himself as he should be, was formed upon a strict and curious standard; and to reach this constantly approached and constantly receding emblem of perfection, was the unwearied effort of his life. This crowning principle of conduct, never ceasing to inspire his energetic mind, introduced a consistency into his actions, a firm coherence into his character, which the changeful condition of his history rendered of peculiar importance. His resources, his place of residence, his associates, his worldly prospects, might vary as they pleased; this purpose did not vary; it was ever present with him to nerve every better faculty of his head and heart, to invest the chequered vicissitudes of his fortune with a dignity derived from himself. The zeal of his nature overcame the temptations to that loitering and indecision, that fluctuation between sloth and consuming toil, that infirmity of resolution, with all its tormenting and enfeebling consequences, to which a literary man, working as he does at a solitary task, uncalled for by any pressing tangible demand, and to be recompensed by distant and dubious advantage, is especially exposed. Unity of aim, aided by ordinary vigour of character, will generally insure perseverance; a quality not ranked among the cardinal virtues, but as essential as any of them to the proper conduct of life. Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness: with men of quick minds, to whom it is especially pernicious, this habit is commonly the fruit of many disappointments and schemes oft baffled; and men fail in their schemes not so much from the want of strength as from the ill-direction of it. The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something: the strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continual falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock; the hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind. Few men have applied more steadfastly to the business of their life, or been more resolutely diligent than Schiller.

The profession of theatrical poet was, in his present circumstances, particularly favourable to the maintenance of this wholesome state of mind. In the fulfilment of its duties, while he gratified his own dearest predilections, he was likewise warmly seconded by the prevailing taste of the public. The interest excited by the stage, and the importance attached to everything connected with it, are greater in Germany than in any other part of Europe, not excepting France, or even Paris. Nor, as in Paris, is the stage in German towns considered merely as a mental recreation, an elegant and pleasant mode of filling up the vacancy of tedious evenings: in Germany, it has the advantage of being comparatively new; and its exhibitions are directed to a class of minds attuned to a far higher pitch of feeling. The Germans are accused of a proneness to amplify and systematise, to admire with excess, and to find, in whatever calls forth their applause, an epitome of a thousand excellencies, which no one else can discover in it. Their discussions on the theatre do certainly give colour to this charge. Nothing, at least to an English reader, can appear more disproportionate than the influence they impute to the stage, and the quantity of anxious investigation they devote to its concerns.

With us, the question about the moral tendency of theatrical amusements is now very generally consigned to the meditation of debating clubs, and speculative societies of young men under age; with our neighbours it is a weighty subject of inquiry for minds of almost the highest order. With us, the stage is considered as a harmless pastime, wholesome because it occupies the man by occupying his mental, not his sensual faculties; one of the many departments of fictitious representation; perhaps the most exciting, but also the most transitory; sometimes hurtful, generally beneficial, just as the rest are; entitled to no peculiar regard, and far inferior in its effect to many others which have no special apparatus for their application. The Germans, on the contrary, talk of it as of some new organ for refining the hearts and minds of men; a sort of lay pulpit, the worthy ally of the sacred one, and perhaps even better fitted to exalt some of our nobler feelings; because its objects are much more varied, and because it speaks to us through many avenues, addressing the eye by its pomp and decorations, the ear by its harmonies, and the heart and imagination by its poetical embellishments, and heroic acts and sentiments. Influences still more mysterious are hinted at, if not directly announced. An idea seems to lurk obscurely at the bottom of certain of their abstruse and elaborate speculations, as if the stage were destined to replace some of those sublime illusions which the progress of reason is fast driving from the earth; as if its pageantry, and allegories, and figurative shadowing-forth of things, might supply men's nature with much of that quickening nourishment which we once derived from the superstitions and mythologies of darker ages. Viewing the matter in this light, they proceed in the management of it with all due earnestness. Hence their minute and painful investigations of the origin of dramatic emotion, of its various kinds and degrees; their subdivisions of romantic and heroic and romantico-heroic, and the other endless jargon that encumbers their critical writings. The zeal of the people corresponds with that of their instructors. The want of more important public interests naturally contributes still farther to the prominence of this, the discussion of which is not forbidden, or sure to be without effect. Literature attracts nearly all the powerful thought that circulates in Germany; and the theatre is the great nucleus of German literature.

It was to be expected that Schiller would participate in a feeling so universal, and so accordant with his own wishes and prospects. The theatre of Mannheim was at that period one of the best in Germany; he felt proud of the share which he had in conducting it, and exerted himself with his usual alacrity in promoting its various objects. Connected with the duties of his office, was the more personal duty of improving his own faculties, and extending his knowledge of the art which he had engaged to cultivate. He read much, and studied more. The perusal of Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and the other French classics, could not be without advantage to one whose exuberance of power, and defect of taste, were the only faults he had ever been reproached with; and the sounder ideas thus acquired, he was constantly busy in exemplifying by attempts of his own. His projected translations from Shakspeare and the French were postponed for the present: indeed, except in the instance of Macbeth, they were never finished: his Conradin von Schwaben, and a second part of the Robbers, were likewise abandoned: but a number of minor undertakings sufficiently evinced his diligence: and Don Carlos, which he had now seriously commenced, was occupying all his poetical faculties.

Another matter he had much at heart was the setting forth of a periodical work, devoted to the concerns of the stage. In this enterprise, Schiller had expected the patronage and coöperation of the German Society, of which he was a member. It did not strike him that any other motive than a genuine love of art, and zeal for its advancement, could have induced men to join such a body. But the zeal of the German Society was more according to knowledge than that of their new associate: they listened with approving ear to his vivid representations, and wide-spreading projects, but declined taking any part in the execution of them. Dalberg alone seemed willing to support him. Mortified, but not disheartened by their coldness, Schiller reckoned up his means of succeeding without them. The plan of his work was contracted within narrower limits; he determined to commence it on his own resources. After much delay, the first number of the Rheinische Thalia, enriched by three acts of Don Carlos, appeared in 1785. It was continued, with one short interruption, till 1794. The main purpose of the work being the furtherance of dramatic art, and the extension and improvement of the public taste for such entertainments, its chief contents are easy to be guessed at; theatrical criticisms, essays on the nature of the stage, its history in various countries, its moral and intellectual effects, and the best methods of producing them. A part of the publication was open to poetry and miscellaneous discussion.

Meditating so many subjects so assiduously, Schiller knew not what it was to be unemployed. Yet the task of composing dramatic varieties, of training players, and deliberating in the theatrical senate, or even of expressing philosophically his opinions on these points, could not wholly occupy such a mind as his. There were times when, notwithstanding his own prior habits, and all the vaunting of dramaturgists, he felt that their scenic glories were but an empty show, a lying refuge, where there was no abiding rest for the soul. His eager spirit turned away from their paltry world of pasteboard, to dwell among the deep and serious interests of the living world of men. The Thalia, besides its dramatic speculations and performances, contains several of his poems, which indicate that his attention, though officially directed elsewhither, was alive to all the common concerns of humanity; that he looked on life not more as a writer than as a man. The Laura, whom he celebrates, was not a vision of the mind; but a living fair one, whom he saw daily, and loved in the secrecy of his heart. His Gruppe aus dem Tartarus (Group from Tartarus), his Kindesmörderinn (Infanticide), are products of a mind brooding over dark and mysterious things. While improving in the art of poetry, in the capability of uttering his thoughts in the form best adapted to express them, he was likewise improving in the more valuable art of thought itself; and applying it not only to the business of the imagination, but also to those profound and solemn inquiries, which every reasonable mortal is called to engage with.