“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.
As the German public was filled with rapture for the suicidal love-hero Werther, it now worshipped the suicidal robber-hero Charles Moor: while love then excited its transports, liberty and the rights of humanity were now the objects of its enthusiasm.
And the poet Schiller added fuel to the flames of this enthusiasm. A new tragedy, the theme of which was liberty, “Fiesco,” soon followed his “Robbers;” and the sensation which it caused was still to be surpassed by that excited throughout all Germany by his third tragedy, “Louise Müllerin, or Intrigues and Love.” This was, at the same time, an exaltation of noble love, and of the proud human heart, and a condemnation and denunciation of the established prejudices which arrogantly recognized nobility and gentle birth as conferring prerogatives and privileges.
“The Robbers,” “Fiesco,” and “Louise Müllerin,” these were the flaring torches of the revolution which in Germany was to work out its ends in the minds of men, as it had done in a more material manner, in France, on their bodies. In France royalty and the nobility were conducted to the guillotine, in Germany they were pilloried in public opinion by the prince and court marshal in “Intrigues and Love.”
Goethe had given the German public the ideal of love—Schiller gave them the ideal of liberty. And the poet of “The Robbers” was as warmly enshrined in the heart of the German people as the poet of “Werther” had been.
But alas! the admiration and enthusiasm of the German public shows itself in words and praises, but not in deeds in material proofs. True, the Germans give their poets a portion of their hearts, but not a portion of their fortune.
Schiller had given the Germans his three tragedies; they had made their triumphal march over every stage in Germany; but Schiller had nevertheless remained the poor poet, whose only possession was the invisible laurel-wreath which adorned his noble brow, accorded him by the German people.
His countless admirers saw him in their inspired thoughts with his youthful head entwined with laurel, and would, no doubt, have been horrified if they could have seen him in his dressing-gown, the nightcap pulled down over the laurel, stooping in front of his iron stove and endeavoring to rekindle the coals with his breath, in order that his coffee might be warmed a little.
But it was a vain endeavor. The fire was almost out, the coals glowed but faintly, and the poet’s breath was not strong enough to renew the flame.
“All in vain,” sighed Schiller, replacing the coffee-pot on the ashes, with a disconsolate shrug of the shoulders; “where there is no fuel, there can be no fire.”
He slowly arose from his kneeling position, and, his hands folded behind his back, walked with rapid strides to and fro in his little chamber. The dimly-burning tallow-candle which stood on the table, covered with papers and books, flared up whenever he passed, and illuminated, for the moment, the large rugged figure and the pale countenance, with the high forehead and light-blue eyes. At first this countenance wore a gloomy, troubled look. But by degrees it assumed another expression; and soon the flaring light showed in this dingy little room the features of an inspired poet, with sparkling eyes, and an exulting smile.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, in a loud voice, “yes, it shall be so! I will append this scene to the third act, and it must be the loftiest and grandest of the entire tragedy. Not to Prince Carlos or to the queen shall Posa proclaim his sublime ideas of liberty and his plans for the happiness of the people. No, he shall hurl them in the face of the tyrant, of King Philip himself. With the lightning of his words he shall warm this rock of tyranny, and unseal the spring of inspiration in the breast of the man-despising, bigoted ruler, and make the waters of human love play joyfully! Oh, ye eternal gods, give me words, fire my thoughts, and give wings to my inspiration, that I may be able to give expression, in a flow of rapture and poetry, to that which now fills my whole soul!”
He rushed to his table and threw himself with such violence into his old stool that it groaned and cracked beneath him. But Schiller paid no attention to this; his whole soul was in his work, his whole heart was filled with enthusiasm and delight. His hand flew over the paper, his smile brightened, his countenance became more radiant. At times he dictated to himself in a loud, energetic voice, the words which his flying pen conveyed to the paper, that they might henceforth to all eternity be indelibly imprinted in the hearts of his readers. But Schiller was not thinking of his readers, nor of the possible effect of his words; he thought only of his work. There was no room in his soul but for poetry, for the sublime and lofty scene which he wished to add to his tragedy. “Oh,” he now exclaimed, his pen speeding like an arrow over the rustling paper, “oh, could the combined eloquence of all the thousands who are interested in this lofty hour, but tremble on my lips, to fan the spark which I feel into a flame! Abandon this unnatural idolatry that destroys us. Be our model of the eternal and the true, and—”
A severe and painful cough interrupted the enraptured poet; he was compelled to discontinue his recitation; the pen faltered in his quivering hand; and from the sublime realms of the ideal, bodily pain recalled the poet to reality. He let fall the pen, the arrow which the gods had bestowed, to enable him to divide the clouds of prejudice and throw open to enraptured humanity the heaven of poetry—he let fall the pen, and raised his hand to his trembling, panting breast.
“How it pains, how it pricks!” he groaned. “Is it not as if the tyrant Philip had thrust his dagger into the breast of poor Posa, in the anger of his offended majesty, and—”
Another attack of coughing silenced him, and resounded through the quiet solitary chamber. The sound struck upon his ear so dismally that he cast a hasty glance behind him into the gloomy space, as if looking for the ghost which had uttered such dreary tones.
“If this continues, I am hardly repaid for having fled from my tyrannical duke,” murmured Schiller. “Truly I had better have remained and served out my poor miserable existence as regimental surgeon, than cough my life out as a German, that is, as a hungry poet.”
But as he said this, his lips quivered, and self-reproach was depicted in his countenance.
“Be still,” he exclaimed, “be still! Shame upon you, Schiller, for uttering such unmanly, cowardly words! You a poet, Frederick Schiller? you are not even a man! You aspire to ascend the heights of Parnassus, and sink down disheartened and discouraged when an evil annoys you on the way, and admonishes you that you are only a man, a mortal who aspires to climb to the seat of the gods. If you are a poet, Frederick Schiller, remember that the gods are watching over you, and that they will not cruelly abandon you before the goal is half achieved.
“No,” he exclaimed in a loud voice, raising his head, and looking upward, “no, the gods will not abandon me! They will give me strength and health and a long life, that I may accomplish the task which my soul and mind and heart tell me is required at my hands. No, Parnassus stands before me, and I will climb it!” His beaming eye glanced upward in ecstasy and saw not the low dusty ceiling, the want and indigence by which he was surrounded. He gazed into immensity; the low ceiling opened to his view, and through it “he saw the heavens and the countenance of the blessed!”
A loud noise in the street awakened him from his trance. It was the watchman