From: The Dial, Vol. III, No. III (Jan. 1843)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1843 Boston
WE are desirous to attract attention to this little volume, as few persons seem to have observed its appearance, and it is of a character to bring pleasure to almost any reader.
A brief yet sufficient account of its contents is given in the introduction.
“These Letters will be interesting to the admirers of Schiller, as showing him in his youth, struggling with the adverse circumstances that surrounded him, and displaying without disguise the true workings of his heart. They are written to persons from whom he had no reserve. Perhaps a higher opinion of his genius might be derived from his more finished works; but from none could we learn so well to know intimately the great poet, as when we see him, as here in the spring-time of his ardent feelings, among those nearest and dearest to him. The Letters close with his marriage, and the ideas scattered through them have a youthful freshness that more than compensates for any want of reflection they may display, and a charm peculiarly attractive to any one who loves to search into the hidden recesses of a great soul.”
It is easy to admire and love Schiller; no man need sacrifice his self-love to do so. His character had no intricate windings, no hidden vales, or caves, whether of beauty or terror. It was simple, powerful, affectionate, heroic, fit for the life of a citizen or patriotic bard.
Still, though he never gives us a clue into the world of mysteries, of causes, he is always clear and interesting. It is very pleasant to turn over another page of his history, and see his thoughts presented to us in his usual frank and direct fashion. It is refreshing in a world of half feelings, of tedious subterfuges, to greet one like Schiller, whom any man may feel at liberty to love. He might be our next-door neighbor; we could go and see him when we pleased, we should not fear to intrude; he would tell us if we were not wanted.
But heroes, though they may he eloquent, are not practical. Schiller was not. The inspiration of his works is in their lofty sentiment and aspiration; the subtle, fashioning spirit of poetry was unknown to him. It is pleasant to see how simple and citizen-like his views of life were. On the subject of marriage it is perhaps a little surprising that the hard of Max and Thekla was not more ideal, even at the earliest age. The charm of these two fair beings, indeed, is in their pure, and unspotted innocence. Still the spell of a preexistent harmony seems upon them, and we cannot well conceive of Thekla’s finding another Max. But Schiller, with his views, might have married any amiable woman, and gone about the world, like many another respectable person, seeking not a love, but a wife.
It is surprising, too, to see him write with a sort of shame of an attachment from which he had recovered. One would expect from a character like Schiller’s, the steadfast strength to feel that its past stages, however extravagant and imperfect, had been necessary to its growth, and by giving it vent, had raised him above the passion he now could criticise.
Of friendship his views read more nobly. I know not that we can find any passage that deserves better to be laid to heart than the following, where in few words are shown the union of pride, modesty, and tenderness, natural to a great, but also human, being.
“Your last letter has placed an imperishable memento of you in my heart. You arc the noble man, whom I have so long wanted, and who is wanting to possess me with all my weaknesses and blighted virtues; for he will bear with the former, and honor the latter with tears. I am not what I certainly might have become. I might perhaps have been great, but fate struggled too early against me. You esteem and love me for that which I might perhaps have become under better stars, and you respect in me the intention that Providence has thwarted.”
This is the trust of soul to soul which goes deepest. But he understood other stages or sorts of friendship, as shown in the very next letter, to another person.
“I find the ways of Heaven strange in this; eight years we were obliged to be together and were indifferent; now we are separated, and have become important to each other. Which of us two could then, even in prospect, have divined the hidden threads, that should once and forever draw us so firmly together?—but perhaps even this mutual eatran1ement was the work of a wiser Providence, that we should know each other first, when we were worthy to be known, Both of us, yet unformed, would have too soon observed too many weaknesses in one another, and might never have become warmed to each other. Esteem is the only unfailing bond of friendship, und this we had both of us to earn. In every way we have now arrived at this end, and find ourselves here with delight. You have taken the first step, and I blush before you. I have always understood lees how to acquire friends, than when acquired, to retain.”
The effect of his enforced and outward toils on Schiller, are more visible here than in letters of a later date. With him, as with others, came uses from uncongenial labor, infusing salt and steel, hardening the fibre, and assaying the ore of his thoughts, by repression and delay. Materials, too, that he would not of himself have collected, when once beneath his eye, became a new thread for his web. But though some of this is well, too much may perfect the character but stifle the genius. The hand that has to hold the plough too long, becomes too stiff and clumsy for the lyre or pen. Those who cannot give up their natural dower, who want to accomplish the task nature assigned them, and steal from the night what the day refuses, pay with their lives for their soul, truly the price of blood, and so did Schiller. His character was too fervent and earnest to take things easily, or skim over the surface of any mode of life, and so he suffered, and died early. But we do not mourn for him as for many others, for the tree had borne some of its proper fruit, if not as much as it might under more favorable circumstances. It is impossible to set a bound to what he might have accomplished, had his great and steady impulses been seconded by firmer health, and length of days, yet, in the eighteen volumes of his works, and in his letters, we possess more than we shall easily learn how to prize.
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