Here I send you a little production of my pen, which may perhaps give pleasure to my dear Mother and Sisters; for it should be at least written for ladies. In the year 1790 Wieland edited the Historical Calendar, and in this of 1791 and in the 1792 that will follow, I have undertaken the task. Insignificant as a Calendar seems to be, it is that kind of book which the Publishers can circulate the most extensively, and which accordingly brings them the best payment. To the Authors also they can, accordingly, offer much more. For this Essay on the Thirty-Years War they have given me 80 Louis-d'or, and I have in the middle of my Lectures written it in four weeks. Print, copperplates, binding, Author's honorarium cost the Publisher 4,500 reichsthaler (675l.), and he counts on a sale of 7,000 copies or more.
"28th. Today," so he continues, after some remarks on a good old friend of his Father's, written after interruption,—"Today is your Birthday, dearest Father, which we both celebrate with a pious joy that Heaven has still preserved you sound and happy for us thus far. May Heaven still watch over your dear life and your health, and preserve your days to the latest age, that so your grateful Son may be able to spread, with all the power he has, joy and contentment over the evening of your life, and pay the debts of filial duty to you!
"Farewell, my dearest Father; loving kisses to our dearest Mother and my dear Sisters. We will soon write again.
"The Wine has arrived in good condition; once more receive our hearty thanks.—Your grateful and obedient Son
"Friedrich."
'In the beginning of this year (1791) the Poet had been seized with a violent and dangerous affection of the chest. The immediate danger was now over; but his bodily health was, for the rest of his life, shattered to ruin, and required, for the time coming, especially for the time just come, all manner of soft treatment and repose. The worst, therefore, was to be feared if his friends and he could not manage to place him, for the next few years, in a position freer from economic cares than now. Unexpectedly, in this difficulty, help appeared out of Denmark. Two warm admirers of Schiller's genius, the then hereditary Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg' (Grandfather of the Prince Christian now, 1872, conspicuous in our English Court), 'and Count von Schimmelmann, offered the Poet a pension of 1,000 thalers' (150l.) 'for three years; and this with a fineness and delicacy of manner, which touched the recipient more even than the offer itself did, and moved him to immediate assent. The Pension was to remain a secret; but how could Schiller prevail on himself to be silent of it to his Parents? With tears of thankfulness the Parents received this glad message; in their pious minds they gathered out of this the beneficent conviction that their Son's heavy sorrows, and the danger in which his life hung, had only been decreed by Providence to set in its right light the love and veneration which he far and near enjoyed. Schiller himself this altogether unexpected proof of tenderest sympathy in his fate visibly cheered, and strengthened even in health; at lowest, the strength of his spirit, which now felt itself free from outward embarrassments, subdued under it the weakness of his body.
'In the middle of the year 1793, the love of his native country, and the longing after his kindred, became so lively in him that he determined, with his Wife, to visit Swabia. He writes to Körner: "The Swabian, whom I thought I had altogether got done with, stirs himself strongly in me; but indeed I have been eleven years parted from Swabia; and Thüringen is not the country in which I can forget it." In August he set out, and halted first in the then Reichstadt' (Imperial Free-town) 'Heilbronn, where he found the friendliest reception; and enjoyed the first indescribable emotion in seeing again his Parents, Sisters and early friends. "My dear ones," writes he to Körner, 27th August, from Heilbronn, "I found well to do, and, as thou canst suppose, greatly rejoiced to meet me again. My Father, in his seventieth year, is the image of a healthy old age; and any one who did not know his years would not count them above sixty. He is in continual activity, and this it is which keeps him healthy and youthful." In large draughts the robust old man enjoyed the pleasure, long forborne, of gazing into the eyes of his Son, who now stood before him a completed man. He knew not whether more to admire than love him; for, in his whole appearance, and all his speeches and doings, there stamped itself a powerful lofty spirit, a tender loving heart, and a pure noble character. His youthful fire was softened, a mild seriousness and a friendly dignity did not leave him even in jest; instead of his old neglect in dress, there had come a dignified elegance; and his lean figure and his pale face completed the interest of his look. To this was yet added the almost wonderful gift of conversation upon the objects that were dear to him, whenever he was not borne down by attacks of illness.
'From Heilbronn, soon after his arrival, Schiller wrote to Duke Karl, in the style of a grateful former Pupil, whom contradictory circumstances had pushed away from his native country. He got no answer from the Duke; but from Stuttgart friends he did get sure tidings that the Duke, on receipt of this Letter, had publicly said, if Schiller came into Würtemberg Territory, he, the Duke, would take no notice. To Schiller Senior, too, he had at the same time granted the humble petition that he might have leave to visit his Son in Heilbronn now and then.
'Under these circumstances, Schiller, perfectly secure, visited Ludwigsburg and even Solitüde, without, as he himself expressed it, asking permission of the "Schwabenkönig." And, in September, in the near prospect of his Wife's confinement, he went altogether to Ludwigsburg, where he was a good deal nearer to his kindred; and moreover, in the clever Court-Doctor von Hoven, a friend of his youth, hoped to find counsel, help and enjoyment. Soon after his removal, Schiller had, in the birth of his eldest Son, Karl, the sweet happiness of first paternal joy; and with delight saw fulfilled what he had written to a friend shortly before his departure from Jena: "I shall taste the joys of a Son and of a Father, and it will, between these two feelings of Nature, go right well with me."
'The Duke, ill of gout, and perhaps feeling that death was nigh, seemed to make a point of strictly ignoring Schiller; and laid not the least hindrance in his way. On the contrary, he granted Schiller Senior, on petition, the permission to make use of a certain Bath as long as he liked; and this Bath lay so near Ludwigsburg that he could not but think the meaning merely was, that the Father wished to be nearer his Son. Absence was at once granted by the Duke, useful and necessary as the elder Schiller always was to him at home. For the old man, now Major Schiller, still carried on his overseeing of the Ducal Gardens and Nurseries at Solitüde, and his punctual diligence, fidelity, intelligence and other excellences in that function had long been recognised.