The Life of Friedrich Schiller

'In this daily relation with her delicate and loving Brother, to whom Luise looked up with a sort of timid adoration, he became ever dearer to her; with a silent delight, she would often look into the soft eyes of the great and wonderful man; from whose powerful spirit she stood so distant, and to whose rich heart so near. All-too rapidly for her flew-by the bright days of his abode in his homeland, and long she looked after the vanished one with sad longing; and Schiller also felt himself drawn closer to his Sister than before; by whose silent faithful working his abode in Swabia had been made so smooth and agreeable.'

Nanette he had, as will by and by appear, seen at Jena, on her Mother's visit there, the year before;—with admiration and surprise he then saw the little creature whom he had left a pretty child of five years old, now become a blooming maiden, beautiful to eye and heart, and had often thought of her since. She too was often in his house, at present; a loved and interesting object always. She had been a great success in the foreign Jena circle, last year; and had left bright memories there. This is what Saupe says afterwards, of her appearance at Jena, and now in Schiller's temporary Swabian home:

'She evinced the finest faculties of mind, and an uncommon receptivity and docility, and soon became to all that got acquainted with her a dear and precious object. To declaim passages from her Brother's Poems was her greatest joy; she did her recitation well; and her Swabian accent and naïvety of manner gave her an additional charm for her new relatives, and even exercised a beneficent influence on the Poet's own feelings. With hearty pleasure his beaming eyes rested often on the dear Swabian girl, who understood how to awaken in his heart the sweet tones of childhood and home. "She is good," writes he of her to his friend Körner, "and it seems as if something could be made of her. She is yet much the child of nature, and that is still the best she could be, never having been able to acquire any reasonable culture." With Schiller's abode in Swabia, from August 1793 till May 1794, Nanette grew still closer to his heart, and in his enlivening and inspiring neighbourhood her spirit and character shot out so many rich blossoms, that Schiller on quitting his Father's house felt justified in the fairest hopes for the future.' Just before her visit to Jena, Schiller Senior writes to his Son: "It is a great pity for Nanette that I cannot give her a better education. She has sense and talent and the best of hearts; much too of my dear Fritz's turn of mind, as he will himself see, and be able to judge."57

'For the rest, on what childlike confidential terms Schiller lived with his Parents at this time, one may see by the following Letter, of 8th November 1793, from Ludwigsburg:

"Right sorry am I, dearest Parents, that I shall not be able to celebrate my Birthday, 11th November, along with you. But I see well that good Papa cannot rightly risk just now to leave Solitüde at all,—a visit from the Duke being expected there every day. On the whole, it does not altogether depend on the day on which one is to be merry with loved souls; and every day on which I can be where my dear Parents are shall be festal and welcome to me like a Birthday.

"About the precious little one here Mamma is not to be uneasy." (Here follow some more precise details about the health of this little Gold Son; omitted.) "Of watching and nursing he has no lack; that you may believe; and he is indeed, a little leanness excepted, very lively and has a good appetite.

"I have been, since I made an excursion to Stuttgart, tolerably well; and have employed this favourable time to get a little forward in my various employments which have been lying waste so long. For this whole week, I have been very diligent, and getting on briskly. This is also the cause that I have not written to you. I am always supremely happy when I am busy and my labour speeds.

"For your so precious Portrait I thank you a thousand times, dearest Father: yet glad as I am to possess this memorial of you, much gladder still am I that Providence has granted me to have you yourself, and to live in your neighbourhood. But we must profit better by this good time, and no longer make such pauses before coming together again. If you once had seen the Duke at Solitüde and known how you stand with him, there would be, I think, no difficulty in a short absence of a few days, especially at this season of the year. I will send up the carriage" (hired at Jena for the visit thither and back) "at the very first opportunity, and leave it with you, to be ready always when you can come.

"My and all our hearty and childlike salutations to you both, and to the good Nane" (Nanette) "my brotherly salutation.

"Hoping soon for a joyful meeting,—Your obedient Son,

"Friedrich Schiller."

'In the new-year time 1794, Schiller spent several agreeable weeks in Stuttgart; whither he had gone primarily on account of some family matter which had required settling there. At least he informs his friend Körner, on the 17th March, from Stuttgart, "I hope to be not quite useless to my Father here, though, from the connections in which I stand, I can expect nothing for myself."

'By degrees, however, the sickly, often-ailing Poet began to long again for a quiet, uniform way of life; and this feeling, daily strengthened by the want of intellectual conversation, which had become a necessary for him, grew at length so strong, that he, with an alleviated heart, thought of departure from his Birth-land, and of quitting his loved ones; glad that Providence had granted him again to possess his Parents and Sisters for months long and to live in their neighbourhood. He gathered himself into readiness for the journey back; and returned, first to his original quarters at Heilbronn, and, in May 1794, with Wife and Child, to Jena.

'Major Schiller, whom the joy to see his Son and Grandson seemed to have made young again, lived with fresh pleasure in his idyllic calling; and in free hours busied himself with writing down his twenty-years experiences in the domain of garden- and tree-culture,—in a Work, the printing and publication of which were got managed for him by his renowned Son. In November 1794 he was informed that the young Publisher of the first Musen-Almanach had accepted his MS. for an honorarium of twenty-four Karolins; and that the same was already gone to press. Along with this, the good old Major was valued by his Prince, and by all who knew him. His subordinates loved him as a just impartial man; feared him, too, however, in his stringent love of order. Wife and children showed him the most reverent regard and tender love; but the Son was the ornament of his old age. He lived to see the full renown of the Poet, and his close connection with Goethe, through which he was to attain complete mastership and lasting composure. With hands quivering for joy the old man grasped the MSS. of his dear Son; which from Jena, viâ Cotta's Stuttgart Warehouses, were before all things transmitted to him. In a paper from his hand, which is still in existence, there is found a touching expression of thanks, That God had given him such a joy in his Son. "And Thou Being of all beings," says he in the same, "to Thee did I pray, at the birth of my one Son, that Thou wouldst supply to him in strength of intellect and faculty what I, from want of learning, could not furnish; and Thou hast heard me. Thanks to Thee, most merciful Being, that Thou hast heard the prayer of a mortal!"

'Schiller had left his loved ones at Solitüde whole and well; and with the firm hope that he would see them all again. And the next-following years did pass untroubled over the prosperous Family. But "ill-luck," as the proverb says, "comes with a long stride." In the Spring of 1796, when the French, under Jourdan and Moreau, had overrun South Germany, there reached Schiller, on a sudden, alarming tidings from Solitüde. In the Austrian chief Hospital, which had been established in the Castle there, an epidemic fever had broken out; and had visited the Schiller Family among others. The youngest Daughter Nanette had sunk under this pestilence, in the flower of her years; and whilst the second Daughter Luise lay like to die of the same, the Father also was laid bedrid with gout. For fear of infection, nobody except the Doctors would risk himself at Solitüde; and so the poor weakly Mother stood forsaken there, and had, for months long, to bear alone the whole burden of the household distress. Schiller felt it painfully that he was unable to help his loved ones, in so terrible a posture of affairs; and it cost him great effort to hide these feelings from his friends. In his pain and anxiety, he turned himself at last to his eldest Sister Christophine, Wife of Hofrath Reinwald in Meiningen; and persuaded her to go to Solitüde to comfort and support her people there. Had not the true Sister-heart at once acceded to her Brother's wishes, he had himself taken the firm determination to go in person to Swabia, in the middle of May, and bring his Family away from Solitüde, and make arrangements for their nursing and accommodation. The news of his Sister's setting-out relieved him of a great and continual anxiety. "Heaven bless thee," writes he to her on the 6th May, "for this proof of thy filial love." He earnestly entreats her to prevent his dear Parents from delaying, out of thrift, any wholesome means of improvement to their health; and declares himself ready, with joy, to bear all costs, those of travelling included: she is to draw on Cotta in Tübingen for whatever money she needs. Her Husband also he thanks, in a cordial Letter, for his consent to this journey of his Wife.

'July 11, 1796, was born to the Poet, who had been in much trouble about his own household for some time, his second Son, Ernst. Great fears had been entertained for the Mother; which proving groundless, the happy event lifted a heavy burden from his heart; and he again took courage and hope. But soon after, on the 15th August, he writes again to the faithful Körner about his kinsfolk in Swabia: "From the War we have not suffered so much; but all the more from the condition of my Father, who, broken-down under an obstinate and painful disease, is slowly wending towards death. How sad this fact is, thou mayest think."

'Within few weeks after, 7th September 1796, the Father died; in his seventy-third year, after a sick-bed of eight months. Though his departure could not be reckoned other than a blessing, yet the good Son was deeply shattered by the news of it. What his filially faithful soul suffered, in these painful days, is touchingly imaged in two Letters, which may here make a fitting close to this Life-sketch of Schiller's Father. It was twelve days after his Father's death when he wrote to his Brother-in-law, Reinwald, in Meiningen:

"Thou hast here news, dear Brother, of the release of our good Father; which, much as it had to be expected, nay wished, has deeply affected us all. The conclusion of so long and withal so active a life is, even for bystanders, a touching object: what must it be to those whom it so nearly concerns? I have to tear myself away from thinking of this painful loss, since it is my part to help the dear remaining ones. It is a great comfort to thy Wife that she has been able to continue and fulfil her daughterly duty till her Father's last release. She would never have consoled herself, had he died a few days after her departure home.

"Thou understandest how in the first days of this fatal breach among us, while so many painful things storm-in upon our good Mother, thy Christophine could not have left, even had the Post been in free course. But this still remains stopped, and we must wait the War-events on the Franconian, Swabian and Palatinate borders. How much this absence of thy Wife must afflict, I feel along with thee; but who can fight against such a chain of inevitable destinies? Alas, public and universal disorder rolls up into itself our private events too, in the fatalest way.

"Thy Wife longs from her heart for home; and she only the more deserves our regard that she, against her inclination and her interest, resolved to be led only by the thought of her filial duties. Now, however, she certainly will not delay an hour longer with her return, the instant it can be entered upon without danger and impossibility. Comfort her too when thou writest to her; it grieves her to know thee forsaken, and to have no power to help thee.

"Fare right well, dear Brother.—Thine,

Schiller."

'Nearly at the same time he wrote to his Mother:

"Grieved to the heart, I take up the pen to lament with you and my dear Sisters the loss we have just sustained. In truth, for a good while past I have expected nothing else: but when the inevitable actually comes, it is always a sad and overwhelming stroke. To think that one who was so dear to us, whom we hung upon with the feelings of early childhood, and also in later years were bound to by respect and love, that such an object is gone from the world, that with all our striving we cannot bring it back,—to think of this is always something frightful. And when, like you, my dearest best Mother, one has shared with the lost Friend and Husband joy and sorrow for so many long years, the parting is all the painfuler. Even when I look away from what the good Father that is gone was to myself and to us all, I cannot without mournful emotion contemplate the close of so steadfast and active a life, which God continued to him so long, in such soundness of body and mind, and which he managed so honourably and well. Yes truly, it is not a small thing to hold out so faithfully upon so long and toilsome a course; and like him, in his seventy-third year, to part from the world in so childlike and pure a mood. Might I but, if it cost me all his sorrows, pass away from my life as innocently as he from his! Life is so severe a trial; and the advantages which Providence, in some respects, may have granted me compared with him, are joined with so many dangers for the heart and for its true peace!

"I will not attempt to comfort you and my dear Sisters. You all feel, like me, how much we have lost; but you feel also that Death alone could end these long sorrows. With our dear Father it is now well; and we shall all follow him ere long. Never shall the image of him fade from our hearts; and our grief for him can only unite us still closer together.

"Five or six years ago it did not seem likely that you, my dear ones, should, after such a loss, find a Friend in your Brother,—that I should survive our dear Father. God has ordered it otherwise; and He grants me the joy to feel that I may still be something to you. How ready I am thereto, I need not assure you. We all of us know one another in this respect, and are our dear Father's not unworthy children."

This earnest and manful lamentation, which contains also a just recognition of the object lamented, may serve to prove, think Saupe and others, what is very evident, that Caspar Schiller, with his stiff, military regulations, spirit of discipline and rugged, angular ways, was, after all, the proper Father for a wide-flowing, sensitive, enthusiastic, somewhat lawless Friedrich Schiller; and did beneficently compress him into something of the shape necessary for his task in this world.

II. THE MOTHER

Of Schiller's Mother, Elisabetha Dorothea Kodweis, born at Marbach 1733, the preliminary particulars have been given above: That she was the daughter of an Innkeeper, Woodmeasurer and Baker; prosperous in the place when Schiller Senior first arrived there. We should have added, what Saupe omits, that the young Surgeon boarded in their house; and that by the term Woodmeasurer (Holzmesser, Measurer of Wood) is signified an Official Person appointed not only to measure and divide into portions the wood supplied as fuel from the Ducal or Royal Forests, but to be responsible also for payment of the same. In which latter capacity, Kodweis, as Father Schiller insinuates, was rash, imprudent and unlucky, and at one time had like to have involved that prudent, parsimonious Son-in-law in his disastrous economics. We have also said what Elisabetha's comely looks were, and particular features; pleasing and hopeful, more and more, to the strict young Surgeon, daily observant of her and them.

'In her circle,' Saupe continues, 'she was thought by her early playmates a kind of enthusiast; because she, with average faculties of understanding combined deep feeling, true piety and love of Nature, a talent for Music, nay even for Poetry. But perhaps it was the very reverse qualities in her, the fact namely that what she wanted in culture, and it may be also in clearness and sharpness of understanding, was so richly compensated by warmth and lovingness of character,—perhaps it was this which most attracted to her the heart of her deeply-reasonable Husband. And never had he cause to repent his choice. For she was, and remained, as is unanimously testified of her by trustworthy witnesses, an unpretending, soft and dutiful Wife; and, as all her Letters testify, had the tenderest mother-heart. She read a good deal, even after her marriage, little as she had of time for reading. Favourite Books with her were those on Natural History; but she liked best of all to study the Biographies of famous men, or to dwell in the spiritual poetising of an Utz, a Gellert and Klopstock. She also liked, and in some measure had the power, to express her own feelings in verses; which, with all their simplicity, show a sense for rhythm and some expertness in diction. Here is one instance; her salutation to the Husband who was her First-love, on New-year's day 1757, the ninth year of their as yet childless marriage:

O could I but have found forget-me-not in the Valley,And roses beside it! Then had I plaited theeIn fragrant blossoms the garland for this New Year,Which is still brighter to me than that of our Marriage was.I grumble, in truth, that the cold North now governs us,And every flowret's bud is freezing in the cold earth!Yet one thing does not freeze, I mean my loving heart;Thine that is, and shares with thee its joys and sorrows.58

'The Seven-Years War threw the young Wife into manifold anxiety and agitation; especially since she had become a Mother, and in fear for the life of her tenderly-loved Husband, had to tremble for the Father of her children too. To this circumstance Christophine ascribes, certainly with some ground, the world-important fact that her Brother had a much weaker constitution than herself. He had in fact been almost born in a camp. In late Autumn 1759, the Infantry Regiment of Major-General Romann, in which Caspar Schiller was then a Lieutenant, had, for sake of the Autumn Manœuvres of the Würtemberg Soldiery, taken Camp in its native region. The Mother had thereupon set out from Marbach to visit her long-absent Husband in the Camp; and it was in his tent that she felt the first symptoms of her travail. She rapidly hastened back to Marbach; and by good luck still reached her Father's house in the Market-Place there, near by the great Fountain; where she, on the 11th November, was delivered of a Boy. For almost four years the little Friedrich with Christophine and Mother continued in the house of the well-contented Grandparents (who had not yet fallen poor), under her exclusive care. With self-sacrificing love and careful fidelity, she nursed her little Boy; whose tender body had to suffer not only from the common ailments of children, but was heavily visited with fits of cramp. In a beautiful region, on the bosom of a tender Mother, and in these first years far from the oversight of a rigorous Father, the Child grew up, and unfolded himself under cheerful and harmonious impressions.

'On the return of his Father from the War, little Fritz, now four years old, was quite the image of his Mother; long-necked, freckled and reddish-haired like her. It was the pious Mother's work, too, that a feeling of religion, early and vivid, displayed itself in him. The easily-receptive Boy was indeed keenly attentive to all that his Father, in their Family-circle, read to them, and inexhaustible in questions till he had rightly caught the meaning of it: but he listened with most eagerness when his Father read passages from the Bible, or vocally uttered them in prayer. "It was a touching sight," says his eldest Sister, "the expression of devotion on the dear little Child's countenance. With its blue eyes directed towards Heaven, its high-blond hair about the clear brow, and its fast-clasped little hands. It was like an angel's head to look upon."

'With Father's return, the happy Mother conscientiously shared with him the difficult and important business of bringing up their Son; and both in union worked highly beneficially for his spiritual development. The practical and rigorous Father directed his chief aim to developing the Boy's intellect and character; the mild, pious, poetic-minded Mother, on the other hand, strove for the ennobling nurture of his temper and his imagination. It was almost exclusively owing to her that his religious feeling, his tender sense of all that was good and beautiful, his love of mankind, tolerance, and capability of self-sacrifice, in the circle of his Sisters and playmates, distinguished the Boy.

'On Sunday afternoons, when she went to walk with both the Children, she was wont to explain to them the Church-Gospel of the day. "Once," so stands it in Christophine's Memorials, "when we two, as children, had set out walking with dear Mamma to see our Grandparents, she took the way from Ludwigsburg to Marbach, which leads straight over the Hill, a walk of some four miles. It was a beautiful Easter Monday, and our Mother related to us the history of the two Disciples to whom, on their journey to Emmaus, Jesus had joined himself. Her speech and narrative grew ever more inspired; and when we got upon the Hill, we were all so much affected that we knelt down and prayed. This Hill became a Tabor to us."

'At other times she entertained the children with fairy-tales and magic histories. Already while in Lorch she had likewise led the Boy, so far as his power of comprehension and her own knowledge permitted, into the domains of German Poetry. Klopstock's Messias, Opitz's Poems, Paul Gerhard's and Gellert's pious Songs, were made known to him in this tender age, through his Mother; and were, for that reason, doubly dear. At one time also the artless Mother made an attempt on him with Hofmannswaldau;59 but the sugary and windy tone of him hurt the tender poet-feeling of the Boy. With smiling dislike he pushed the Book away; and afterwards was wont to remark, when, at the new year, rustic congratulants with their foolish rhymes would too liberally present themselves, "Mother, there is a new Hofmannswaldau at the door!" Thus did the excellent Mother guide forward the soul of her docile Boy, with Bible-passages and Church-symbols, with tales, histories and poems, into gradual form and stature. Never forgetting, withal, to awaken and nourish his sense for the beauties of Nature. Before long, Nature had become his dearest abode; and only love of that could sometimes tempt him to little abridgments of school-hours. Often, in the pretty region of Lorch, he wished the Sun goodnight in open song; or with childish pathos summoned Stuttgart's Painters to represent the wondrous formation and glorious colouring of the sunset clouds. If, in such a humour, a poor man met him, his overflowing little heart would impel him to the most active pity; and he liberally gave away whatever he had by him and thought he could dispense with. The Father, who, as above indicated, never could approve or even endure such unreasonable giving-up of one's feelings to effeminate impressions, was apt to intervene on these occasions, even with manual punishment,—unless the Mother were at hand to plead the little culprit off.

'But nothing did the Mother forward with more eagerness, by every opportunity, than the kindling inclination of her Son to become a Preacher; which even showed itself in his sports. Mother or Sister had to put a little cowl on his head, and pin round him by way of surplice a bit of black apron; then would he mount a chair and begin earnestly to preach; ranging together in his own way, not without some traces of coherency, all that he had retained from teaching and church-visiting in this kind, and interweaving it with verses of songs. The Mother, who listened attentively and with silent joy, put a higher meaning into this childish play; and, in thought, saw her Son already stand in the Pulpit, and work, rich in blessings, in a spiritual office. The spiritual profession was at that time greatly esteemed, and gave promise of an honourable existence. Add to this, that the course of studies settled for young Würtemberg Theologians not only offered important pecuniary furtherances and advantages, but also morally the fewest dangers. And thus the prudent and withal pious Father, too, saw no reason to object to this inclination of the Son and wish of the Mother.