BOOK THE SIXTH. FRIENDSHIP WITH SCHILLER. 1794 to 1805. Für mich war es ein neuer Frühling, in welchem alles froh neben einander keimte, und aus aufgeschlossenen Samen und Zweigen hervorging,' 'Denn Er war unser! Mag das stoltze Wort Er mochte sich bei uns, im sichern Port GOETHE, OF SCHILLER. BOOK THE SIXTH. CHAPTER I. THE DIOSCURI. THERE are few nobler spectacles than the friendship of two great men; and the History of Literature presents nothing comparable to the friendship of Goethe and Schiller. The friendship of Montaigne and Etienne de la Boëtie was, perhaps, more passionate and entire ; but it was the union of two kindred natures, which from the first moment discovered their affinity, not the union of two rivals incessantly contrasted by partisans, and originally disposed to hold aloof from each other. Rivals they were, and are; natures in many respects directly antagonistic; chiefs of opposing camps, and brought into brotherly union only by what was highest in their natures and their aims. To look on these great rivals, was to see at once their profound dissimilarity. Goethe's beautiful head had the calm victorious grandeur of the Greek ideal; Schiller's the earnest beauty of a Christian looking towards the Future. The massive brow, and large-pupil eyes, — like those given by Raphael to the infant Christ, in the matchless Madonna di San Sisto, the strong and well-propor tense tioned features, lined indeed by thought and suffering, yet showing that thought and suffering have troubled, but not vanquished, the strong man, a certain healthy vigor in the brown skin, and an indescribable something which shines from out the face, make Goethe a striking contrast to Schiller, with his eager eyes, narrow brow, and intense, his irregular features lined by thought and suffering, and weakened by sickness. The one looks, the other looks out. Both are majestic; but one has the majesty of repose, the other of conflict. Goethe's frame is massive, imposing; he seems much taller than he is. Schiller's frame is disproportioned, he seems less than he is. Goethe holds himself stiffly erect; the long-necked Schiller walks like a camel.'* Goethe's chest is like the torso of the Theseus; Schiller's is bent, and has lost a lung. A similar difference is traceable in details. 'An air that was beneficial to Schiller acted on me like poison,' Goethe said to Eckermann. I called on him one day, and as I did not find him at home, I seated myself at his writing-table to note down various matters. I had not been seated long before I felt a strange indisposition steal over me, which gradually increased, until at last I nearly fainted. At first I did not know to what cause I should ascribe this wretched and to me unusual state, until I discovered that a dreadful odor issued from a drawer near me. When I opened it I found to my astonishment that it was full of rotten apples. I immediately went to the * This picturesque phrase was uttered by Tieck, the sculptor, to Rauch, from whom I heard it. Let me add that Schiller's brow is called in the text narrow,' in defiance of Dannecker's bust, with which I compared Schiller's skull, and found that the sculptor, as usual, had grossly departed from truth in his desire to idealize. Artists always believe they know better than Nature. window and inhaled the fresh air, by which I was instantly restored Meanwhile his wife came in, and told me that the drawer was always filled with rotten apples, because the scent was beneficial to Schiller, and he could not live or work without it.' As another and not unimportant detail, characterizing the healthy and unhealthy practice of literature, it may be added that Goethe wrote in the freshness of morning, entirely free from stimulus; Schiller worked in the feverish hours of night, stimulating his languid brain with coffee and champagne. In comparing one to a Greek ideal, the other to a Christian ideal, it has already been implied that one was the representative of Realism, the other of Idealism. Goethe has himself indicated the capital distinction between them: Schiller was animated with the idea of Freedom; Goethe, on the contrary, was animated with the idea of Nature. This distinction runs through their works. Schiller always pining for something greater than Nature, wishing to make men Demigods. Goethe always striving to let Nature have free development, and produce the highest forms of Humanity. The Fall of Man was to Schiller the happiest of all events, because thereby men fell away from pure instinct into conscious freedom, and with this sense of freedom came the possibility of Morality. To Goethe this seemed paying a price for Morality which was higher than Morality was worth; he had the ideal of a condition wherein Morality was unnecessary. Much as he might prize a good police, he prized still more a society in which a police would never be needed. But while the contrast between these two is the contrast of real and ideal, of objective and subjective tendencies, apparent when we consider the men in their totality, this is only true of them relatively to each other. To speak |