The Life of Friedrich Schiller Part 11

THEKLA. Was _his_ bed made of down, When the horses' hoofs went o'er him?

NEU. O Heaven!

And then the many Swedish posts! They will not Let us pa.s.s.

THEKLA. Are they not men? Misfortune Pa.s.ses free through all the earth.

NEU. So far! So-

THEKLA. Does the pilgrim count the miles, when journeying To the distant shrine of grace?

NEU. How shall we Even get out of Eger?

THEKLA. Gold opens gates.

Go! Do go!

NEU. If they should recognise us?

THEKLA. In a fugitive despairing woman No one will look to meet with Friedland's daughter.

NEU. And where shall we get horses for our flight?

THEKLA. My Equerry will find them. Go and call him.

NEU. Will he venture without his master's knowledge?

THEKLA. He will, I tell thee. Go! O, linger not!

NEU. Ah! And what will your mother do when you Are vanish'd?

THEKLA [_recollecting this, and gazing with a look of anguish_].

O my mother!

NEU. Your good mother!

She has already had so much to suffer.

Must this last heaviest stroke too fall on her?

THEKLA. I cannot help it. Go, I prithee, go!

NEU. Think well what you are doing.

THEKLA. All is thought That can be thought, already.

NEU. _Were_ we there, What would you do?

THEKLA. G.o.d will direct me, there.

NEU. Your heart is full of trouble: O my lady!

This way leads _not_ to peace.

THEKLA. To that deep peace Which he has found. O, hasten! Go! No words!

There is some force, I know not what to call it, Pulls me irresistibly, and drags me On to his grave: there I shall find some solace Instantly; the strangling band of sorrow Will be loosen'd; tears will flow. O, hasten!

Long time ago we might have been o' th' road.

No rest for me till I have fled these walls: They fall upon me, some dark power repels me From them-Ha! What's this? The chamber's filling With pale gaunt shapes! No room is left for me!

More! more! The crowding spectres press on me, And push me forth from this accursed house.

NEU. You frighten me, my lady: I dare stay No longer; quickly I'll call Rosenberg.

SCENE XII.

THEKLA.

It is his spirit calls me! 'Tis the host Of faithful souls that sacrificed themselves In fiery vengeance for him. They upbraid me For this loit'ring: _they_ in death forsook him not, Who in their life had led them; their rude hearts Were capable of this: and _I_ can live?

No! No! That laurel-garland which they laid Upon his bier was twined for both of us!

What is this life without the light of love?

I cast it from me, since its worth is gone.

Yes, when we found and lov'd each other, life Was something! Glittering lay before me The golden morn: I had two hours of Heaven.

Thou stoodest at the threshold of the scene Of busy life; with timid steps I cross'd it: How fair it lay in solemn shade and sheen!

And thou beside me, like some angel, posted To lead me out of childhood's fairy land On to life's glancing summit, hand in hand!

My first thought was of joy no tongue can tell, My first look on _thy_ spotless spirit fell.

[_She sinks into a reverie, then with signs of horror proceeds._

And Fate put forth his hand: inexorable, cold, My friend it grasp'd and clutch'd with iron hold, And-under th' hoofs of their wild horses hurl'd: Such is the lot of loveliness i' th' world!

Thekla has yet another pang to encounter; the parting with her mother: but she persists in her determination, and goes forth, to die beside her lover's grave. The heart-rending emotions, which this amiable creature has to undergo, are described with an almost painful effect: the fate of Max and Thekla might draw tears from the eyes of a stoic.

Less tender, but not less sublimely poetical, is the fate of Wallenstein himself. We do not pity Wallenstein; even in ruin he seems too great for pity. His daughter having vanished like a fair vision from the scene, we look forward to Wallenstein's inevitable fate with little feeling save expectant awe:

This kingly Wallenstein, whene'er he falls, Will drag a world to ruin down with him; And as a s.h.i.+p that in the midst of ocean Catches fire, and s.h.i.+v'ring springs into the air, And in a moment scatters between sea and sky The crew it bore, so will he hurry to destruction Ev'ry one whose fate was join'd with his.

Yet still there is some touch of pathos in his gloomy fall; some visitings of nature in the austere grandeur of his slowly-coming, but inevitable and annihilating doom. The last scene of his life is among the finest which poetry can boast of. Thekla's death is still unknown to him; but he thinks of Max, and almost weeps. He looks at the stars: dim shadows of superst.i.tious dread pa.s.s fitfully across his spirit, as he views these fountains of light, and compares their glorious and enduring existence with the fleeting troubled life of man. The strong spirit of his sister is subdued by dark forebodings; omens are against him; his astrologer entreats, one of the relenting conspirators entreats, his own feelings call upon him, to watch and beware. But he refuses to let the resolution of his mind be overmastered; he casts away these warnings, and goes cheerfully to sleep, with dreams of hope about his pillow, unconscious that the javelins are already grasped which will send him to his long and dreamless sleep. The death of Wallenstein does not cause tears; but it is perhaps the most high-wrought scene of the play. A shade of horror, of fateful dreariness, hangs over it, and gives additional effect to the fire of that brilliant poetry, which glows in every line of it. Except in _Macbeth_ or the conclusion of _Oth.e.l.lo_, we know not where to match it. Schiller's genius is of a kind much narrower than Shakspeare's; but in his own peculiar province, the exciting of lofty, earnest, strong emotion, he admits of no superior. Others are finer, more piercing, varied, thrilling, in their influence: Schiller, in his finest mood, is overwhelming.

This tragedy of _Wallenstein_, published at the close of the eighteenth century, may safely be rated as the greatest dramatic work of which that century can boast. France never rose into the sphere of Schiller, even in the days of her Corneille: nor can our own country, since the times of Elizabeth, name any dramatist to be compared with him in general strength of mind, and feeling, and acquired accomplishment. About the time of _Wallenstein's_ appearance, we of this gifted land were shuddering at _The Castle Spectre_! Germany, indeed, boasts of Goethe: and on some rare occasions, it must be owned that Goethe has shown talents of a higher order than are here manifested; but he has made no equally regular or powerful exertion of them: _Faust_ is but a careless effusion compared with _Wallenstein_.

The latter is in truth a vast and magnificent work. What an a.s.semblage of images, ideas, emotions, disposed in the most felicitous and impressive order! We have conquerors, statesmen, ambitious generals, marauding soldiers, heroes, and heroines, all acting and feeling as they would in nature, all faithfully depicted, yet all embellished by the spirit of poetry, and all made conducive to heighten one paramount impression, our sympathy with the three chief characters of the piece.[35]

[Footnote 35: _Wallenstein_ has been translated into French by M. Benjamin Constant; and the last two parts of it have been faithfully rendered into English by Mr. Coleridge. As to the French version, we know nothing, save that it is an _improved_ one; but that little is enough: Schiller, as a dramatist, improved by M. Constant, is a spectacle we feel no wish to witness. Mr. Coleridge's translation is also, as a whole, unknown to us: but judging from many large specimens, we should p.r.o.nounce it, excepting Sotheby's _Oberon_, to be the best, indeed the only sufferable, translation from the German with which our literature has yet been enriched.]

Soon after the publication of _Wallenstein_, Schiller once more changed his abode. The 'mountain air of Jena' was conceived by his physicians to be prejudicial in disorders of the lungs; and partly in consequence of this opinion, he determined henceforth to spend his winters in Weimar. Perhaps a weightier reason in favour of this new arrangement was the opportunity it gave him of being near the theatre, a constant attendance on which, now that he had once more become a dramatist, seemed highly useful for his farther improvement. The summer he, for several years, continued still to spend in Jena; to which, especially its beautiful environs, he declared himself particularly attached. His little garden-house was still his place of study during summer; till at last he settled constantly at Weimar.

Even then he used frequently to visit Jena; to which there was a fresh attraction in later years, when Goethe chose it for his residence, which, we understand, it still occasionally is. With Goethe he often stayed for months.

This change of place produced little change in Schiller's habits or employment: he was now as formerly in the pay of the Duke of Weimar; now as formerly engaged in dramatic composition as the great object of his life. What the amount of his pension was, we know not: that the Prince behaved to him in a princely manner, we have proof sufficient.

Four years before, when invited to the University of Tubingen, Schiller had received a promise, that, in case of sickness or any other cause preventing the continuance of his literary labour, his salary should be doubled. It was actually increased on occasion of the present removal; and again still farther in 1804, some advantageous offers being made to him from Berlin. Schiller seems to have been, what he might have wished to be, neither poor nor rich: his simple unostentatious economy went on without embarra.s.sment: and this was all that he required. To avoid pecuniary perplexities was constantly among his aims: to ama.s.s wealth, never. We ought also to add that, in 1802, by the voluntary solicitation of the Duke, he was enn.o.bled; a fact which we mention, for his sake by whose kindness this honour was procured; not for the sake of Schiller, who accepted it with grat.i.tude, but had neither needed nor desired it.