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 manuscript for the second number, Göschen 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 Körner had given expression to their mutual trust in language of romantic enthusiasm. On the 2nd of May Körner wrote at length of his own life, character and aspirations. The letter reveals a noble 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. Körner 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 Godspeed 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 Godhead.
Then, as if momentarily abashed by his own extravagance of expression, he protests that his Schwärmerei, if such it be, is nothing but a 'joyful paroxysm anticipating 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 Körner, 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 assurance 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 noble 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 embarrassed 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 Göschen be persuaded to undertake a new and authentic edition of the published plays and to advance a sum of money on the prospects? Körner'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 gratitude. 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 Körner'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 anticipation. The Körners 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 Körner gave him the very kind of intellectual stimulus that he most needed. Körner 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 altitudes of solemn philosophy. From this period dates the well-known 'Petition',—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: