When his children, young Frederick and his sisters, were growing up, their father read to them their morning and evening prayers; and so fond was the boy of the Old and New Testament stories that he would often leave his games in order to be present at his father's readings. In 1765 the family left Marbach on the Neckar. The father was ordered by the Duke of Wurtemberg to Lorch, a place on the frontier, where he had to act as recruiting officer. His son received his education in the house of a clergyman, began Latin at six, Greek at seven; and as far as we are able to see, he neither seems to have considered himself, nor to have been considered by his masters, as very superior to other boys. He was a good boy, tenderly attached to his parents, fond of games, and regular at school. There are but two marked features which we have an opportunity of watching in him as [pg 080] a boy. He knew no fear, and he was full of the warmest sympathy for others. The first quality secured him the respect, the second the love, of those with whom he came in contact. His parents, who were poor, had great difficulty in restraining his generosity. He would give away his school-books and the very buckles off his shoes. Both his fearlessness and universal sympathy are remarkable through the whole of his after-life. Not even his enemies could point out one trait of cowardice or selfishness in anything he ever did, or said, or wrote. There are some pertinent remarks on the combination of these two qualities, sympathy with others and courage, by the author of “Friends in Council.”
“If greatness,” he writes, “can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to consist in courage and in openness of mind and soul. These qualities may not seem at first to be so potent. But see what growth there is in them. The education of a man of open mind is never ended. Then with openness of soul a man sees some way into all other souls that come near him, feels with them, has their experience, is in himself a people. Sympathy is the universal solvent. Nothing is understood without it.... Add courage to this openness, and you have a man who can own himself in the wrong, can forgive, can trust, can adventure, can, in short, use all the means that insight and sympathy endow him with.”
A plucky and warm-hearted boy, under the care of an honest, brave, and intelligent father and a tender and religious mother,—this is all we know and care to know about Schiller during the first ten years of his life. In the year 1768 there begins a new period in the life of Schiller. His father was settled at Ludwigsburg, the ordinary residence of the reigning Duke of Wurtemberg, the Duke Charles. This man was destined to exercise a decisive influence on Schiller's character. Like many German sovereigns in the middle of [pg 081] the last century, Duke Charles of Wurtemberg had felt the influence of those liberal ideas which had found so powerful an utterance in the works of the French and English philosophers of the eighteenth century. The philosophy which in France was smiled at by kings and statesmen, while it roused the people to insurrection and regicide, produced in Germany a deeper impression on the minds of the sovereigns and ruling classes than of the people. In the time of Frederick the Great and Joseph II. it became fashionable among sovereigns to profess Liberalism, and to work for the enlightenment of the human race. It is true that this liberal policy was generally carried out in a rather despotic way, and people were emancipated and enlightened very much as the ancient Saxons were converted by Charlemagne. We have an instance of this in the case of Schiller. Duke Charles had founded an institution where orphans and the sons of poor officers were educated free of expense. He had been informed that young Schiller was a promising boy, and likely to reflect credit on his new institution, and he proceeded without further inquiry to place him on the list of his protégés, assigning to him a place at his military school. It was useless for the father to remonstrate, and explain to the Duke that his son had a decided inclination for the Church. Schiller was sent to the Academy in 1773, and ordered to study law. The young student could not but see that an injustice had been done him, and the irritation which it caused was felt by him all the more deeply because it would have been dangerous to give expression to his feelings. The result was that he made no progress in the subjects which he had been commanded to study. In 1775 he was allowed to give up law, not, however, to [pg 082] return to theology, but to begin the study of medicine. But medicine, though at first it seemed more attractive, failed, like law, to call forth his full energies. In the mean time another interference on the part of the Duke proved even more abortive, and to a certain extent determined the path which Schiller's genius was to take in life. The Duke had prohibited all German classics at his Academy; the boys, nevertheless, succeeded in forming a secret library, and Schiller read the works of Klopstock, Klinger, Lessing, Goethe, and Wieland's translations of Shakespeare with rapture, no doubt somewhat increased by the dangers he braved in gaining access to these treasures. In 1780, the same year in which he passed his examination and received the appointment of regimental surgeon, Schiller wrote his first tragedy, “The Robbers.” His taste for dramatic poetry had been roused partly by Goethe's “Goetz von Berlichingen” and Shakespeare's plays, partly by his visits to the theatre, which, under the patronage of the Duke, was then in a very flourishing state. The choice of the subject of his first dramatic composition was influenced by the circumstances of his youth. His poetical sympathy for a character such as Karl Moor, a man who sets at defiance all the laws of God and man, can only be accounted for by the revulsion of feeling produced on his boyish mind by the strict military discipline to which all the pupils at the Academy were subjected. His sense of right and wrong was strong enough to make him paint his hero as a monster, and to make him inflict on him the punishment he merited. But the young poet could not resist the temptation of throwing a brighter light on the redeeming points in the character of a robber and murderer by pointedly placing him [pg 083] in contrast with the even darker shades of hypocritical respectability and saintliness in the picture of his brother Franz. The language in which Schiller paints his characters is powerful, but it is often wild and even coarse. The Duke did not approve of his former protégé; the very title-page of “The Robbers” was enough to offend his Serene Highness,—it contained a rising lion, with the motto “In tyrannos.” The Duke gave a warning to the young military surgeon, and when, soon after, he heard of his going secretly to Mannheim to be present at the first performance of his play, he ordered him to be put under military arrest. All these vexations Schiller endured, because he knew full well there was no escape from the favors of his royal protector. But when at last he was ordered never to publish again except on medical subjects, and to submit all his poetical compositions to the Duke's censorship, this proved too much for our young poet. His ambition had been roused. He had sat at Mannheim a young man of twenty, unknown, amid an audience of men and women who listened with rapturous applause to his own thoughts and words. That evening at the theatre of Mannheim had been a decisive evening,—it was an epoch in the history of his life; he had felt his power and the calling of his genius; he had perceived, though in a dim distance, the course he had to run and the laurels he had to gain. When he saw that the humor of the Duke was not likely to improve, he fled from a place where his wings were clipped and his voice silenced. Now, this flight from one small German town to another may seem a matter of very little consequence at present. But in Schiller's time it was a matter of life and death. German sovereigns were accustomed [pg 084] to look upon their subjects as their property. Without even the show of a trial the poet Schubart had been condemned to life-long confinement by this same Duke Charles. Schiller, in fleeing his benefactor's dominions, had not only thrown away all his chances in life, but he had placed his safety and the safety of his family in extreme danger. It was a bold, perhaps a reckless step. But whatever we may think of it in a moral point of view, as historians we must look upon it as the Hegira in the life of the poet.
Schiller was now a man of one or two and twenty, thrown upon the world penniless, with nothing to depend on but his brains. The next ten years were hard years for him; they were years of unsettledness, sometimes of penury and despair, sometimes of extravagance and folly. This third period in Schiller's life is not marked by any great literary achievements. It would be almost a blank were it not for the “Don Carlos,” which he wrote during his stay near Dresden, between 1785-87. His “Fiesco” and “Cabale und Liebe,” though they came out after his flight from Stuttgard, had been conceived before, and they were only repeated protests, in the form of tragedies, against the tyranny of rulers and the despotism of society. They show no advance in the growth of Schiller's mind. Yet that mind, though less productive than might have been expected, was growing as every mind grows between the years of twenty and thirty; and it was growing chiefly through contact with men. We must make full allowance for the powerful influence exercised at that time by the literature of the day (by the writings of Herder, Lessing, and Goethe), and by political events, such as the French Revolution. But if we watch Schiller's career carefully, we see that his [pg 085] character was chiefly moulded by his intercourse with men. His life was rich in friendships, and what mainly upheld him in his struggles and dangers was the sympathy of several high-born and high-minded persons, in whom the ideals of his own mind seemed to have found their fullest realization.
Next to our faith in God, there is nothing so essential to the healthy growth of our whole being as an unshaken faith in man. This faith in man is the great feature in Schiller's character, and he owes it to a kind Providence which brought him in contact with such noble natures as Frau von Wolzogen, Körner, Dalberg; in later years with his wife; with the Duke of Weimar, the Prince of Augustenburg, and lastly with Goethe. There was at that time a powerful tension in the minds of men, and particularly of the higher classes, which led them to do things which at other times men only aspire to do. The impulses of a most exalted morality—a morality which is so apt to end in mere declamation and deceit—were not only felt by them, but obeyed and carried out. Frau von Wolzogen, knowing nothing of Schiller except that he had been at the same school with her son, received the exiled poet, though fully aware that by doing so she might have displeased the Duke and blasted her fortunes and those of her children. Schiller preserved the tenderest attachment to this motherly friend through life, and his letters to her display a most charming innocence and purity of mind.
Another friend was Körner, a young lawyer living at Leipzig, and afterwards at Dresden—a man who had himself to earn his bread. He had learned to love Schiller from his writings; he received him at his house, a perfect stranger, and shared with the poor [pg 086] poet his moderate income with a generosity worthy of a prince. He, too, remained his friend through life; his son was Theodore Körner, the poet of “Lyre and Sword,” who fell fighting as a volunteer for his country against French invaders.
A third friend and patron of Schiller was Dalberg. He was the coadjutor, and was to have been the successor, of the Elector of Hesse, then an ecclesiastical Electorate. His rank was that of a reigning prince, and he was made afterwards by Napoleon Fürst-Primas—Prince Primate—of the Confederation of the Rhine. But it was not his station, his wealth, and influence, it was his mind and heart which made him the friend of Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Wieland, Jean Paul, and all the most eminent intellects of his time. It is refreshing to read the letters of this Prince. Though they belong to a later period of Schiller's life, a few passages may here be quoted in order to characterize his friend and patron. Dalberg had promised Schiller a pension of 4,000 florins (not 4,000 thalers, as M. Regnier asserts) as soon as he should succeed to the Electorate, and Schiller in return had asked him for some hints with regard to his own future literary occupations. The Prince answers: “Your letter has delighted me. To be remembered by a man of your heart and mind is a true joy to me. I do not venture to determine what Schiller's comprehensive and vivifying genius is to undertake. But may I be allowed to humbly express a wish that spirits endowed with the powers of giants should ask themselves, ‘How can I be most useful to mankind?’ This inquiry, I think, leads most surely to immortality, and the rewards of a peaceful conscience. May you enjoy the purest happiness, and think sometimes of your [pg 087] friend and servant, Dalberg.” When Schiller was hesitating between history and dramatic poetry, Dalberg's keen eye discovered at once that the stage was Schiller's calling, and that there his influence would be most beneficial. Schiller seemed to think that a professorial chair in a German university was a more honorable position than that of a poet. Dalberg writes: “Influence on mankind” (for this he knew to be Schiller's highest ambition) “depends on the vigor and strength which a man throws into his works. Thucydides and Xenophon would not deny that poets like Sophocles and Horace have had at least as much influence on the world as they themselves.” When the French invasion threatened the ruin of Germany and the downfall of the German sovereigns, Dalberg writes again, in 1796, with perfect serenity: “True courage must never fail! The friends of virtue and truth ought now to act and speak all the more vigorously and straightforwardly. In the end, what you, excellent friend, have so beautifully said in your ‘Ideals’ remains true: ‘The diligence of the righteous works slowly but surely, and friendship is soothing comfort. It is only when I hope to be hereafter of assistance to my friends that I wish for a better fate.’ ” The society and friendship of such men, who are rare in all countries and in all ages, served to keep up in Schiller's mind those ideal notions of mankind which he had first imbibed from his own heart, and from the works of philosophers. They find expression in all his writings, but are most eloquently described in his “Don Carlos.” We should like to give some extracts from the dialogue between King Philip and the Marquis Posa; but our space is precious, and hardly allows us to do more than just to glance at those other friends [pg 088] and companions whose nobility of mind and generosity of heart left so deep an impress on the poet's soul.
The name of Karl August, the Duke of Weimar, has acquired such a world-wide celebrity as the friend of Goethe and Schiller that we need not dwell long on his relation to our poet. As early as 1784 Schiller was introduced to him at Darmstadt, where he was invited to court to read some scenes of his “Don Carlos.” The Duke gave him then the title of “Rath,” and from the year 1787, when Schiller first settled at Weimar, to the time of his death, in 1804, he remained his firm friend. The friendship of the Prince was returned by the poet, who, in the days of his glory, declined several advantageous offers from Vienna and other places, and remained at the court of Weimar, satisfied with the small salary which that great Duke was able to give him.
There was but one other Prince whose bounty Schiller accepted, and his name deserves to be mentioned, not so much for his act of generosity as for the sentiment which prompted it. In 1792, when Schiller was ill and unable to write, he received a letter from the Hereditary Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg and from Count Schimmelmann. We quote from the letter:—
“Your shattered health, we hear, requires rest, but your circumstances do not allow it. Will you grudge us the pleasure of enabling you to enjoy that rest? We offer you for three years an annual present of 1,000 thalers. Accept this offer, noble man. Let not our titles induce you to decline it. We know what they are worth; we know no pride but that of being men, citizens of that great republic which comprises more than the life of single generations, more than the limits of this globe. You have to deal with men,—your brothers,—not with proud princes, who, by this employment of their wealth, would fain indulge but in a more refined kind of pride.”