The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller | Page 7

often
nagged and punished by a too exacting father, we get a not very sunny
picture of our poet's boyhood. It is told,[5] and it may well be true, that
he was subject to fits of moodiness, in which he would complain of his
lot and brood gloomily over his prospects. Nevertheless a schoolmate[6]
has left it on record that Schiller as a lad was normally high-spirited, a
leader in sports as well as in study, and very steadfast in his
friendships.
While at Ludwigsburg he read from the prescribed Latin authors,
making the acquaintance of Ovid, Vergil and Horace, and in time won
praise for his facility in writing Latin verses. Some of his school
exercises have chanced to be preserved. The earliest, dated Jan. 1, 1769,
is a Latin translation in prose of some verses which seem to have been
supplied by his teacher for the purpose. The handwriting and the Latin
tell of faithful juvenile toil and moderate success--nothing more. Nor
can we extract much biographic interest from the later distichs and
carmina which he turned out at school festivals. Such things have
flowed easily from the pen of many a bright schoolboy whom the bees
of Hymettus failed to visit.
According, to Schiller's own testimony[7] his earliest attempt at
German verse was made on the occasion of his confirmation, in April,
1772. On the day before the solemn ceremony he was playing about
with his comrades in what seemed to his mother an all too worldly
frame of mind. She rebuked him for his unseasonable levity, whereat
the youngster went into himself, as the Germans say, and poured out
his supposed feelings in a string of verses so tender and soulful as to
draw from his amazed father the exclamation: 'Fritz, are you going
crazy?'
After such a beginning we are not surprised to learn that German poetry

made its first strong appeal to him through the pious muse of Klopstock.
His earliest more ambitious note is heard in a 'Hymn to the Sun',
written in his fourteenth year. It is the note of supernal religious pathos.
In rimeless lines of unequal length he celebrates the glory of God in the
firmament, soars into celestial space and winds up with a vision of the
last great cataclysm. All this is sufficiently Klopstockian, as is also the
boyish dream of an epic about Moses, and of a tragedy to be called 'The
Christians'.
But the time came when our young psalmodist of Zion was to be pulled
out of his predetermined course and made to sing another song. Were
the overruling powers malign or benevolent? Who shall say,
remembering the Greek proverb that a man is not educated save by
flaying? Let us not pause to speculate; but proceed as quickly as may
be across the interval that separates these innocent religious effusions
from the opening of a great literary career with the cannon-shot of 'The
Robbers'.
About the year 1770 Duke Karl began to undergo a change of heart.
Wearying at last of life's vanities and frivolities, the middle-aged sinner
took up virtue and philanthropy, as if to show mankind that he too
could be a benevolent father to his people. The new departure was due
in part to the political success of the Estates in curbing his extravagance,
but rather more, no doubt, to the personal influence of his mistress,
Franziska von Hohenheim. This lady, whose maiden name was
Bernerdin, had been given in marriage as a girl of sixteen to a worthless
Baron von Leutrum, who misused her. Escaping from him with
thoughts of divorce in her mind, she went to visit friends in
Ludwigsburg. Here the inflammable duke fell in love with her, and,
after a not very tedious resistance, carried her away to his castle. This
was in 1772. Her divorce followed soon after, and she remained at
court as the duke's favorite mistress. He presently procured for her an
imperial title, that of Countess Hohenheim, and after the death of his
duchess, in 1780, he married her. She was not beautiful or talented, but
she possessed amiable qualities that made and kept her the object of
Karl's honest affection. She knew how to humor his whims without
crossing his stubborn will, and she chose to exert her influence in

promoting humane enterprises and leading her liege lord in the paths of
virtuous frugality. On the whole, the people of Württemberg, who had
suffered much from mistresses of a different ilk, had reason to bless
their ruler's fondness for his amiable 'Franzele'. She was not unworthy
to sit for the portrait of Lady Milford.
An educational project, the founding of a school which later came to be
known as the Karlschule, marks the beginning of the duke's career in
his new rôle. He began