Truly a strange sight, this long, thin figure in the gray-yellow flannel gown, a pointed nightcap on his head, stooping before the stove and occupying himself with a coffee-pot! If the admirers of the tragic poet Schiller could have seen him in this position, they would never have believed that the young man in this miserable apparel—the long, lean, angular figure, with the bony, homely face and yellow hair, loosed from the confinement of the queue, and falling in dishevelled masses over his sunken cheeks—that this man was the author of the three tragedies which for the last few years had filled all Germany with astonishment, admiration, and terror. Like the column of fire, harbinger of a new era, they towered on the grave of the old, licking the heavens with tongues of flame.
About ten years before, Goethe’s “Sufferings of Young Werther” had flooded Germany with great enthusiasm. This wonderful book, half romance, half reality, had pierced the hearts of all like lightning—as if these hearts had been but tinder awaiting ignition and destruction at the touch of this eloquence, this passion of love, and revelling in destruction by such heavenly agents! In the impassioned and excited state of the public mind, Goethe’s “Werner” had been received by the youth of Germany—yes, of all Europe—as a revelation of the spirit of the universe, as a proclaiming angel. On bended knees and in ecstatic devotion they listened to the heavenly voice which aroused their hearts from sleep with the holy sirocco of passion, and awakened them out of the tameness of prose to the passion and vehemence of poetry; to the blissful pain of unsatisfied longing and heaven-achieving love.
And now, when the excited minds had hardly quieted down, when the dazzled eyes had hardly become accustomed to the heavenly effulgence shed upon them by “Werther”—now, after scarcely ten years, another wonder occurred, another of the stormy, impassioned periods, of which Klinger had been the father and creator, with his soul-stirring dramas, had given birth to a new genius, and a new light was diffused over Germany.
In the year 1774 Goethe had published his romance, “Sufferings of Young Werther.” Carried away with sympathy by his lofty enthusiasm, all Germany—yes, all Europe—applauded and hailed him as the wonderful poet who had embodied the sorrows and pangs which agitate the heart and soul of each individual, in a sublime symphony, in which every sigh and every thought of suffering, weeping, rejoicing, and exulting humanity, found expression. Schiller’s first tragedy, “The Robbers,” was produced upon the stage for the first time in 1782; and its effects and results were of the most vast and enduring character.
Goethe, with his “Werner,” had imbued all hearts with enthusiasm for love and feeling; Schiller, with his “Robbers,” filled all hearts with yearnings after liberty and hatred of tyranny. The personal grandeur and freedom of man were idealized in the noble robber Charles Moor, and, not only was this magnanimous robber the hero of all young girls, but the hearts of all the young men were filled with abhorrence of and contempt for the tyrants who had compelled this high-minded man to flee to the Bohemian forests and become a robber in order to escape the galling chains of subserviency to princes.
Enthusiasm for this champion of liberty, this robber, Charles Moor, at the same time imbued all with detestation of tyrants.
The lion-rampant which was to be seen on the printed copies of “The Robbers,” and which bore the motto “In Tyrannos,” was only a representation of the German people, who, moved to the core by Schiller’s tragedy, and made conscious of the worth and dignity of man, asserted itself in its majesty against tyranny.
“Had I been present at the creation of the world as God,” said a German prince at that time, “and had I foreseen that ‘The Robbers’ would be written in this world, I would never have created it.”
In a German city where “The Robbers” was produced on the stage, the performance had so powerful an effect on the minds of the youth, that twelve young men formed the plan of fleeing secretly from the houses of their parents to the Bohemian forests, in order to make up a band of robbers. All the preparations had been made, and the twelve juvenile robbers had agreed to meet on the following night at a designated place outside the city gate; when one of the young heroes, in giving his mother a last good-night kiss, could no longer restrain his tears, and in this manner led to the discovery of the great secret and the prevention of the plan by the arrest of the youthful band of aspirants.