The Life of Friedrich Schiller Part 8

[Footnote 33: Doering, pp. 118-131.]

Had prudence been the dominant quality in Schiller's character, this practice would undoubtedly have been abandoned, or rather never taken up. It was an error so to waste his strength; but one of those which increase rather than diminish our respect; originating, as it did, in generous ardour for what was best and grandest, they must be cold censurers that can condemn it harshly. For ourselves, we but lament and honour this excess of zeal; its effects were mournful, but its origin was n.o.ble. Who can picture Schiller's feelings in this solitude, without partic.i.p.ating in some faint reflection of their grandeur! The toil-worn but devoted soul, alone, under the silent starry canopy of Night, offering up the troubled moments of existence on the altar of Eternity! For here the splendour that gleamed across the spirit of a mortal, transient as one of us, was made to be perpetual; these images and thoughts were to pa.s.s into other ages and distant lands; to glow in human hearts, when the heart that conceived them had long been mouldered into common dust. To the lovers of genius, this little garden-house might have been a place to visit as a chosen shrine; nor will they learn without regret that the walls of it, yielding to the hand of time, have already crumbled into ruin, and are now no longer to be traced. The piece of ground that it stood on is itself hallowed with a glory that is bright, pure and abiding; but the literary pilgrim could not have surveyed, without peculiar emotion, the simple chamber, in which Schiller wrote the _Reich der Schatten_, the _Spaziergang_, the _Ideal_, and the immortal scenes of _Wallenstein_.

The last-named work had cost him many an anxious, given him many a pleasant, hour. For seven years it had continued in a state of irregular, and oft-suspended progress; sometimes 'lying endless and formless' before him; sometimes on the point of being given up altogether. The mult.i.tude of ideas, which he wished to incorporate in the structure of the piece, r.e.t.a.r.ded him; and the difficulty of contenting his taste, respecting the manner of effecting this, r.e.t.a.r.ded him still more. In _Wallenstein_ he wished to embody the more enlarged notions which experience had given him of men, especially which history had given him of generals and statesmen; and while putting such characters in action, to represent whatever was, or could be made, poetical, in the stormy period of the Thirty-Years War. As he meditated on the subject, it continued to expand; in his fancy, it a.s.sumed successively a thousand forms; and after all due strictness of selection, such was still the extent of materials remaining on his hands, that he found it necessary to divide the play into three parts, distinct in their arrangements, but in truth forming a continuous drama of eleven acts. In this shape it was sent forth to the world, in 1799; a work of labour and persevering anxiety, but of anxiety and labour, as it then appeared, which had not been bestowed in vain.

_Wallenstein_ is by far the best performance he had yet produced; it merits a long chapter of criticism by itself; and a few hurried pages are all that we can spend on it.

As a porch to the great edifice stands Part first, ent.i.tled _Wallenstein's Camp_, a piece in one act. It paints, with much humour and graphical felicity, the manners of that rude tumultuous host which Wallenstein presided over, and had made the engine of his ambitious schemes. Schiller's early experience of a military life seems now to have stood him in good stead; his soldiers are delineated with the distinctness of actual observation; in rugged sharpness of feature, they sometimes remind us of Smollett's seamen. Here are all the wild lawless spirits of Europe a.s.sembled within the circuit of a single trench. Violent, tempestuous, unstable is the life they lead.

Ishmaelites, their hands against every man, and every man's hand against them; the instruments of rapine; tarnished with almost every vice, and knowing scarcely any virtue but those of reckless bravery and uncalculating obedience to their leader, their situation still presents some aspects which affect or amuse us; and these the poet has seized with his accustomed skill. Much of the cruelty and repulsive harshness of these soldiers, we are taught to forget in contemplating their forlorn houseless wanderings, and the practical magnanimity, with which even they contrive to wring from Fortune a tolerable scantling of enjoyment. Their manner of existence Wallenstein has, at an after period of the action, rather movingly expressed:

'Our life was but a battle and a march, And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless, We storm'd across the war-convulsed Earth.'

Still farther to soften the asperities of the scene, the dialogue is cast into a rude Hudibrastic metre, full of forced rhymes, and strange double-endings, with a rhythm ever changing, ever rough and lively, which might almost be compared to the hard, irregular, fluctuating sound of the regimental drum. In this ludicrous doggrel, with phrases and figures of a correspondent cast, homely, ridiculous, graphic, these men of service paint their hopes and doings. There are ranks and kinds among them; representatives of all the const.i.tuent parts of the motley mult.i.tude, which followed this prince of _Condottieri_. The solemn pedantry of the ancient Wachtmeister is faithfully given; no less so are the jocund ferocity and heedless daring of Holky's Jagers, or the iron courage and stern camp-philosophy of Pappenheim's Cuira.s.siers. Of the Jager the sole principle is military obedience; he does not reflect or calculate; his business is to do whatever he is ordered, and to enjoy whatever he can reach. 'Free wished I to live,'

he says,

'Free wished I to live, and easy and gay, And see something new on each new day; In the joys of the moment l.u.s.tily sharing, 'Bout the past or the future not thinking or caring: To the Kaiser, therefore, I sold my bacon, And by him good charge of the whole is taken.

Order me on 'mid the whistling fiery shot, Over the Rhine-stream rapid and roaring wide, A third of the troop must go to pot,- Without loss of time, I mount and ride; But farther, I beg very much, do you see, That in all things else you would leave me free.'

The Pappenheimer is an older man, more sedate and more indomitable; he has wandered over Europe, and gathered settled maxims of soldierly principle and soldierly privilege: he is not without a _rationale_ of life; the various professions of men have pa.s.sed in review before him, but no coat that he has seen has pleased him like his own 'steel doublet,' cased in which, it is his wish,

'Looking down on the world's poor restless scramble, Careless, through it, astride of his nag to ramble.'

Yet at times with this military stoicism there is blended a dash of homely pathos; he admits,

'This sword of ours is no plough or spade, You cannot delve or reap with the iron blade; For us there falls no seed, no corn-field grows, Neither home nor kindred the soldier knows: Wandering over the face of the earth, Warming his hands at another's hearth: From the pomp of towns he must onward roam; In the village-green with its cheerful game, In the mirth of the vintage or harvest-home, No part or lot can the soldier claim.

Tell me then, in the place of goods or pelf, What has he unless to honour himself?

Leave not even _this_ his own, what wonder The man should burn and kill and plunder?

But the camp of Wallenstein is fall of bustle as well as speculation; there are gamblers, peasants, sutlers, soldiers, recruits, capuchin friars, moving to and fro in restless pursuit of their several purposes. The sermon of the Capuchin is an unparalleled composition;[34] a medley of texts, puns, nicknames, and verbal logic, conglutinated by a stupid judgment, and a fiery catholic zeal. It seems to be delivered with great unction, and to find fit audience in the camp: towards the conclusion they rush upon him, and he narrowly escapes killing or ducking, for having ventured to glance a censure at the General. The soldiers themselves are jeering, wrangling, jostling; discussing their wishes and expectations; and, at last, they combine in a profound deliberation on the state of their affairs. A vague exaggerated outline of the coming events and personages is imaged to us in their coa.r.s.e conceptions. We dimly discover the precarious position of Wallenstein; the plots which threaten him, which he is meditating: we trace the leading qualities of the princ.i.p.al officers; and form a high estimate of the potent spirit which, binds this fierce discordant ma.s.s together, and seems to be the object of universal reverence where nothing else is revered.

[Footnote 34: Said to be by Goethe; the materials faithfully extracted from a real sermon (by the Jesuit Santa Clara) of the period it refers to.-There were various Jesuits Santa Clara, of that period: this is the _German_ one, Abraham by name; specimens of whose Sermons, a fervent kind of preaching-run-mad, have been reprinted in late years, for dilettante purposes, (_Note of 1845._)]

In the _Two Piccolomini_, the next division of the work, the generals for whom we have thus been prepared appear in person on the scene, and spread out before us their plots and counterplots; Wallenstein, through personal ambition and evil counsel, slowly resolving to revolt; and Octavio Piccolomini, in secret, undermining his influence among the leaders, and preparing for him that pit of ruin, into which, in the third Part, _Wallenstein's Death_, we see him sink with all his fortunes. The military spirit which pervades the former piece is here well sustained. The ruling motives of these captains and colonels are a little more refined, or more disguised, than those of the Cuira.s.siers and Jagers; but they are the same in substance; the love of present or future pleasure, of action, reputation, money, power; selfishness, but selfishness distinguished by a superficial external propriety, and gilded over with the splendour of military honour, of courage inflexible, yet light, cool and una.s.suming. These are not imaginary heroes, but genuine hired men of war: we do not love them; yet there is a pomp about their operations, which agreeably fills up the scene. This din of war, this clash of tumultuous conflicting interests, is felt as a suitable accompaniment to the affecting or commanding movements of the chief characters whom it envelops or obeys.

Of the individuals that figure in this world of war, Wallenstein himself, the strong Atlas which supports it all, is by far the most imposing. Wallenstein is the model of a high-souled, great, accomplished man, whose ruling pa.s.sion is ambition. He is daring to the utmost pitch of manhood; he is enthusiastic and vehement; but the fire of his soul burns hid beneath a deep stratum of prudence, guiding itself by calculations which extend to the extreme limits of his most minute concerns. This prudence, sometimes almost bordering on irresolution, forms the outward rind of his character, and for a while is the only quality which we discover in it. The immense influence which his genius appears to exert on every individual of his many followers, prepares us to expect a great man; and, when Wallenstein, after long delay and much forewarning, is in fine presented to us, we at first experience something like a disappointment. We find him, indeed, possessed of a staid grandeur; yet involved in mystery; wavering between two opinions; and, as it seems, with all his wisdom, blindly credulous in matters of the highest import. It is only when events have forced decision on him, that he rises in his native might, that his giant spirit stands unfolded in its strength before us;

'Night must it be, ere Friedland's star will beam:'

amid difficulties, darkness and impending ruin, at which the boldest of his followers grow pale, he himself is calm, and first in this awful crisis feels the serenity and conscious strength of his soul return. Wallenstein, in fact, though preeminent in power, both external and internal, of high intellect and commanding will, skilled in war and statesmans.h.i.+p beyond the best in Europe, the idol of sixty thousand fearless hearts, is not yet removed above our sympathy. We are united with him by feelings, which he reckons weak, though they belong to the most generous parts of his nature. His indecision partly takes its rise in the sensibilities of his heart, as well as in the caution of his judgment: his belief in astrology, which gives force and confirmation to this tendency, originates in some soft kindly emotions, and adds a new interest to the spirit of the warrior; it humbles him, to whom the earth is subject, before those mysterious Powers which weigh the destinies of man in their balance, in whose eyes the greatest and the least of mortals scarcely differ in littleness. Wallenstein's confidence in the friends.h.i.+p of Octavio, his disinterested love for Max Piccolomini, his paternal and brotherly kindness, are feelings which cast an affecting l.u.s.tre over the harsher, more heroic qualities wherewith they are combined. His treason to the Emperor is a crime, for which, provoked and tempted as he was, we do not greatly blame him; it is forgotten in our admiration of his n.o.bleness, or recollected only as a venial trespa.s.s. Schiller has succeeded well with Wallenstein, where it was not easy to succeed.

The truth of history has been but little violated; yet we are compelled to feel that Wallenstein, whose actions individually are trifling, unsuccessful, and unlawful, is a strong, sublime, commanding character; we look at him with interest, our concern at his fate is tinged with a shade of kindly pity.

In Octavio Piccolomini, his war-companion, we can find less fault, yet we take less pleasure. Octavio's qualities are chiefly negative: he rather walks by the letter of the moral law, than by its spirit; his conduct is externally correct, but there is no touch of generosity within. He is more of the courtier than of the soldier: his weapon is intrigue, not force. Believing firmly that 'whatever is, is best,' he distrusts all new and extraordinary things; he has no faith in human nature, and seems to be virtuous himself more by calculation than by impulse. We scarcely thank him for his loyalty; serving his Emperor, he ruins and betrays his friend: and, besides, though he does not own it, personal ambition is among his leading motives; he wishes to be general and prince, and Wallenstein is not only a traitor to his sovereign, but a bar to this advancement. It is true, Octavio does not personally tempt him towards his destruction; but neither does he warn him from it; and perhaps he knew that fresh temptation was superfluous. Wallenstein did not deserve such treatment from a man whom he had trusted as a brother, even though such confidence was blind, and guided by visions and starry omens. Octavio is a skilful, prudent, managing statesman; of the kind praised loudly, if not sincerely, by their friends, and detested deeply by their enemies. His object may be lawful or even laudable; but his ways are crooked; we dislike him but the more that we know not positively how to blame him.

Octavio Piccolomini and Wallenstein are, as it were, the two opposing forces by which this whole universe of military politics is kept in motion. The struggle of magnanimity and strength combined with treason, against cunning and apparent virtue, aided by law, gives rise to a series of great actions, which are here vividly presented to our view. We mingle in the clas.h.i.+ng interests of these men of war; we see them at their gorgeous festivals and stormy consultations, and partic.i.p.ate in the hopes or fears that agitate them. The subject had many capabilities; and Schiller has turned them all to profit. Our minds are kept alert by a constant succession of animating scenes of spectacle, dialogue, incident: the plot thickens and darkens as we advance; the interest deepens and deepens to the very end.

But among the tumults of this busy mult.i.tude, there are two forms of celestial beauty that solicit our attention, and whose destiny, involved with that of those around them, gives it an importance in our eyes which it could not otherwise have had. Max Piccolomini, Octavio's son, and Thekla, the daughter of Wallenstein, diffuse an ethereal radiance over all this tragedy; they call forth the finest feelings of the heart, where other feelings had already been aroused; they superadd to the stirring pomp of scenes, which had already kindled our imaginations, the enthusiasm of bright unworn humanity, 'the bloom of young desire, the purple light of love.' The history of Max and Thekla is not a rare one in poetry; but Schiller has treated it with a skill which is extremely rare. Both of them are represented as combining every excellence; their affection is instantaneous and unbounded; yet the coolest, most sceptical reader is forced to admire them, and believe in them.

Of Max we are taught from the first to form the highest expectations: the common soldiers and their captains speak of him as of a perfect hero; the Cuira.s.siers had, at Pappenheim's death, on the field of Lutzen, appointed him their colonel by unanimous election. His appearance answers these ideas: Max is the very spirit of honour, and integrity, and young ardour, personified. Though but pa.s.sing into maturer age, he has already seen and suffered much; but the experience of the man has not yet deadened or dulled the enthusiasm of the boy.

He has lived, since his very childhood, constantly amid the clang of war, and with few ideas but those of camps; yet here, by a native instinct, his heart has attracted to it all that was n.o.ble and graceful in the trade of arms, rejecting all that was repulsive or ferocious. He loves Wallenstein his patron, his gallant and majestic leader: he loves his present way of life, because it is one of peril and excitement, because he knows no other, but chiefly because his young unsullied spirit can shed a resplendent beauty over even the wastest region in the destiny of man. Yet though a soldier, and the bravest of soldiers, he is not this alone. He feels that there are fairer scenes in life, which these scenes of havoc and distress but deform or destroy; his first acquaintance with the Princess Thekla unveils to him another world, which till then he had not dreamed of; a land of peace and serene elysian felicity, the charms of which he paints with simple and unrivalled eloquence. Max is not more daring than affectionate; he is merciful and gentle, though his training has been under tents; modest and altogether unpretending, though young and universally admired. We conceive his aspect to be thoughtful but fervid, dauntless but mild: he is the very poetry of war, the essence of a youthful hero. We should have loved him anywhere; but here, amid barren scenes of strife and danger, he is doubly dear to us.

His first appearance wins our favour; his eloquence in sentiment prepares us to expect no common magnanimity in action. It is as follows: _Octavio_ and _Questenberg_ are consulting on affairs of state; _Max_ enters: he is just returned from convoying the _Princess Thekla_ and her mother, the daughter and the wife of _Friedland_, to the camp at Pilsen.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

MAX PICCOLOMINI, OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, QUESTENBERG.

MAX. 'Tis he himself! My father, welcome, welcome!

[_He embraces him: on turning round, he observes Questenberg, and draws coldly back._

Busied, I perceive? I will not interrupt you.

OCT. How now, Max? View this stranger better!

An old friend deserves regard and kindness; The Kaiser's messenger should be rever'd!

MAX. [_drily_] Von Questenberg! If it is good that brings you To our head-quarters, welcome!

QUEST. [_has taken his hand_] Nay, draw not Your hand away, Count Piccolomini!

Not on mine own account alone I grasp it, And nothing common will I say therewith.

Octavio, Max, Piccolomini! [_Taking both their hands._ Names of benignant solemn import! Never Can Austria's fortune fail while two such stars, To guide and guard her, gleam above our hosts.

MAX. You play it wrong, Sir Minister! To praise, I wot, you come not hither; to blame and censure You are come. Let me be no exception.

OCT. [_to Max._] He comes from Court, where every one is not So well contented with the Duke as here.

MAX. And what new fault have they to charge him with?

That he alone decides what he alone Can understand? Well! Should it not be so?

It should and must! This man was never made To ply and mould himself like wax to others: It goes against his heart; he cannot do it, He has the spirit of a ruler, and The station of a ruler. Well for us It is so! Few can rule themselves, can use Their wisdom wisely: happy for the whole Where there is one among them that can be A centre and a hold for many thousands; That can plant himself like a firm column, For the whole to lean on safely! Such a one Is Wallenstein; some other man might better Serve the Court, none else could serve the Army.

QUEST. The Army, truly!

MAX. And it is a pleasure To behold how all awakes and strengthens And revives around him; how men's faculties Come forth; their gifts grow plainer to themselves!

From each he can elicit his endowment, His peculiar power; and does it wisely; Leaving each to be the man he found him, Watching only that he always be so.

I' th' proper place: and thus he makes the talents Of all mankind his own.

QUEST. No one denies him Skill in men, and skill to use them. His fault is That in the ruler he forgets the servant, As if he had been born to be commander.

MAX. And is he not? By birth he is invested With all gifts for it, and with the farther gift Of finding scope to use them; of acquiring For the ruler's faculties the ruler's office.

QUEST. So that how far the rest of us have rights Or influence, if any, lies with Friedland?

MAX. He is no common person; he requires No common confidence: allow him s.p.a.ce; The proper limit he himself will set.

QUEST. The trial shows it!

MAX. Ay! Thus it is with them!

Still so! All frights them that has any depth; Nowhere are they at ease but in the shallows.