IV. LIFE OF SCHILLER.[10]

The hundredth anniversary of the birthday of Schiller, which, according to the accounts published in the German newspapers, seems to have been celebrated in most parts of the civilized, nay, even the uncivilized world, is an event in some respects unprecedented in the literary annals of the human race. A nation honors herself by honoring her sons, and it is but natural that in Germany every town and village should have vied in doing honor to the memory of one of their greatest poets. The letters which have reached us from every German capital relate no more than what we expected. There were meetings and feastings, balls and theatrical representations. The veteran philologist, Jacob Grimm, addressed the Berlin Academy on the occasion in a soul-stirring oration; the directors of the Imperial Press at Vienna seized the opportunity to publish a splendid album, or “Schillerbuch,” [pg 075] in honor of the poet; unlimited eloquence was poured forth by professors and academicians; school children recited Schiller's ballads; the German students shouted the most popular of his songs; nor did the ladies of Germany fail in paying their tribute of gratitude to him who, since the days of the Minnesängers, had been the most eloquent herald of female grace and dignity. In the evening torch processions might be seen marching through the streets, bonfires were lighted on the neighboring hills, houses were illuminated, and even the solitary darkness of the windows of the Papal Nuncio at Vienna added to the lustre of the day.[11] In every place where Schiller had spent some years of his life, local recollections were revived and perpetuated by tablets and monuments. The most touching account of all came from the small village of Cleversulzbach. On the village cemetery, or, as it is called in German, the “God's-acre,” there stands a tombstone, and on it the simple inscription, “Schiller's Mother.” On the morning of her son's birthday the poor people of the village were gathered together round that grave, singing one of their sacred hymns, and planting a lime-tree in the soil which covers the heart that loved him best.

But the commemoration of Schiller's birthday was not confined to his native country. We have seen, in the German papers, letters from St. Petersburg and Lisbon, from Venice, Rome, and Florence, from Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Christiana, from Warsaw and Odessa, from Jassy and Bucharest, from Constantinople, Algiers, and Smyrna, and lately from America and Australia, all describing the festive gatherings which were suggested, no doubt, by Schiller's cosmopolitan [pg 076] countrymen, but joined in most cheerfully by all the nations of the globe. Poets of higher rank than Schiller—Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe—have never aroused such world-wide sympathies; and it is not without interest to inquire into the causes which have secured to Schiller this universal popularity. However superlative the praises which have lately been heaped on Schiller's poetry by those who cannot praise except in superlatives, we believe that it was not the poet, but the man, to whom the world has paid this unprecedented tribute of love and admiration. After reading Schiller's works we must read Schiller's life,—the greatest of all his works. It is a life not unknown to the English public, for it has been written by Carlyle. The last festivities, however, have given birth to several new biographies. Palleske's “Life of Schiller” has met with such success in Germany that it well deserved the honor which it has lately received at the hands of Lady Wallace, and under the special patronage of the Queen, of being translated into English. Another very careful and lucid account of the poet's life is due to the pen of a member of the French Institute, M. A. Regnier, the distinguished tutor of the Comte de Paris.

In reading these lives, together with the voluminous literature which is intended to illustrate the character of the German poet, we frequently felt inclined to ask one question, to which none of Schiller's biographers has returned a satisfactory answer: “What were the peculiar circumstances which brought out in Germany, and in the second half of the eighteenth century, a man of the moral character, and a poet of the creative genius, of Schiller?” Granted that he was endowed by nature with the highest talents, how did he grow [pg 077] to be a poet, such as we know him, different from all other German poets, and yet in thought, feeling, and language the most truly German of all the poets of Germany? Are we reduced to appeal to the mysterious working of an unknown power, if we wish to explain to ourselves why, in the same country and at the same time, poetical genius assumed such different forms as are seen in the writings of Schiller and Goethe? Is it to be ascribed to what is called individuality, a word which in truth explains nothing; or is it possible for the historian and psychologist to discover the hidden influences which act on the growing mind, and produce that striking variety of poetical genius which we admire in the works of contemporaneous poets, such as Schiller and Goethe in Germany, or Wordsworth and Byron in England? Men grow not only from within, but also from without. We know that a poet is born,—poeta nascitur,—but we also know that his character must be formed; the seed is given, but the furrow must be ploughed in which it is to grow; and the same grain which, if thrown on cultivated soil, springs into fullness and vigor, will dwindle away, stunted and broken, if cast upon shallow and untilled land. There are certain events in the life of every man which fashion and stamp his character; they may seem small and unimportant in themselves, but they are great and important to each of us; they mark that slight bend where two lines which had been running parallel begin to diverge, never to meet again. The Greeks call such events epochs, i.e. halts.

We halt for a moment, we look about and wonder, and then choose our further way in life. It is the duty of biographers to discover such epochs, such halting-points, in the lives of their heroes; and we shall [pg 078] endeavor to do the same in the life of Schiller by watching the various influences which determined the direction of his genius at different periods of his poetical career.

The period of Schiller's childhood is generally described with great detail by his biographers. We are told who his ancestors were. I believe they were bakers. We are informed that his mother possessed in her trousseau, among other things, four pairs of stockings,—three of cotton, one of wool. There are also long discussions on the exact date of his birth. We hear a great deal of early signs of genius, or rather, we should say, of things done and said by most children, but invested with extraordinary significance if remembered of the childhood of great men. To tell the truth, we can find nothing very important in what we thus learn of the early years of Schiller, nor does the poet himself in later years dwell much on the recollections of his dawning mind. If we must look for some determinating influences during the childhood of Schiller, they are chiefly to be found in the character of his father. The father was not what we should call a well-educated man. He had been brought up as a barber and surgeon; had joined a Bavarian regiment in 1745, during the Austrian war of succession; and had acted as a non-commissioned officer, and, when occasion required, as a chaplain. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle he had married the daughter of an innkeeper. He was a brave man, a God-fearing man, and, as is not unfrequently the case with half-educated people, a man very fond of reading. What he had failed to attain himself, he wished to see realized in his only son. The following prayer was found among the papers of the father: “And Thou, Being of all beings, [pg 079] I have asked Thee after the birth of my only son, that Thou wouldst add to his powers of intellect what I from deficient instruction was unable to attain. Thou hast heard me. Thanks be to Thee, bounteous Being, that Thou heedest the prayers of mortals.” A man of this stamp of mind would be sure to exercise his own peculiar influence on his children. He would make them look on life, not as a mere profession, where the son has only to follow in the steps of his father; his children would early become familiar with such ideas as “making one's way in life,” and would look forward to a steep path rather than to a beaten track. Their thoughts would dwell on the future at a time when other children live in the present only, and an adventurous spirit would be roused, without which no great work has ever been conceived and carried out.