Schiller was also about to follow, but Hölzel gently pushed him back. “It is not necessary for you to accompany us, Mr. Schiller. What has the poet to do with such matters, and why should you waste your precious time? We can attend to our money matters without you; and I am not willing that this harpy of a printer should any longer remain in your presence.”
“My dear friend,” exclaimed Schiller, with emotion, “what a kind, noble fellow you are, and how well it becomes you to do good and generous actions in this simple, unostentatious manner! You have freed me from a heavy burden to-day, and relieved my soul of much care; and if my next drama succeeds well, you can say to yourself that you are the cause, and that you have helped me in my work!”
“Great help, indeed,” laughed the architect. “I can build a pretty good house, but of your theatrical pieces I know nothing at all; and no one would believe me if I should say I had helped Frederick Schiller in his tragedies. Nor is it necessary that they should. Only keep a kind remembrance of me in your heart, that is renown enough for me, although men should hear nothing about the poor architect, Hölzel.”
“My friend,” said Schiller, in an earnest, solemn voice, “if I am really a poet, and the German nation at some future day recognizes, loves, and honors me as such, you also will not be forgotten, and men will keep your name in good remembrance; for what a good man does in love and kindness to a poet, is not lost. Children and grandchildren will praise his good action, as if he had done it to themselves, and will call him the nation’s benefactor, because he was the poet’s benefactor. May this be your reward, my friend! I wish this for your sake and for my own. And now go, for my heart is filled with tears, and I feel them rushing to my eyes!”
Hölzel had already passed out, and gently closed the door, and did not hear these last words. No one saw Schiller’s gushing tears; no one heard the sobs which escaped his breast; no one witnessed the struggle with himself, with the humiliations, sorrows, and distress of life; no ear heard him complain sadly of want and poverty, the only inheritance of the German poet!
But Frederick Schiller’s soul of fire soon rose above such considerations. His glance, which had before been tearfully directed to the present, now pierced the future; and he saw on the distant heights, on the temple of renown, inscribed in golden letters, the name FREDERICK SCHILLER.
“I am a poet,” he cried, exultingly, “and more ‘by the grace of God’ than kings or princes are. If earth belongs to them, heaven is mine. While they are regaled at golden tables, I am feasted at the table of the gods with ambrosia and nectar! What matter, if poets are beggars on earth—if they are not possessed of riches? They should not complain. Have they not the God-given capital of mind and poetry intrusted to them, that it may bear interest in their works? And, though the man must sometimes hunger, a bountiful repast awaits the poet on the heights of Olympus! With this thought I will console myself,” he added, in a loud voice, “and will proclaim it to others for their consolation. I will write a poem on this subject, and its name shall be, ‘The Partition of the Earth!’”
He walked to the table, and noted this title in his diary with a few hasty strokes of the pen.
He now wished to return to his tragedy. But the Muses had been driven from this consecrated ground by discordant earthly sounds, and were now not disposed to return at his bidding, and the poet’s thoughts lacked buoyancy and enthusiasm.
“It is useless,” exclaimed Schiller, throwing his pen aside. “The tears wrung from my heart by earthly sorrow have extinguished the heavenly fire, and all is cold within me! Where shall I find the holy, soul-kindling spark?”