The Life of Friedrich Schiller | Page 6

his lexicons and
grammars, and insipid tasks, with an artificial composure; but his spirit
pined within him like a captive's, when he looked forth into the
cheerful world, or recollected the affection of parents, the hopes and
frolicsome enjoyments of past years. The misery he endured in this
severe and lonely mode of existence strengthened or produced in him a
habit of constraint and shyness, which clung to his character through
life.
The study of Law, for which he had never felt any predilection,
naturally grew in his mind to be the representative of all these evils,
and his distaste for it went on increasing. On this point he made no
secret of his feelings. One of the exercises, yearly prescribed to every
scholar, was a written delineation of his own character, according to his
own views of it, to be delivered publicly at an appointed time: Schiller,
on the first of these exhibitions, ventured to state his persuasion, that he
was not made to be a jurist, but called rather by his inclinations and
faculties to the clerical profession. This statement, of course, produced
no effect; he was forced to continue the accustomed course, and his
dislike for Law kept fast approaching to absolute disgust. In 1775, he
was fortunate enough to get it relinquished, though at the expense of
adopting another employment, for which, in different circumstances, he
would hardly have declared himself. The study of Medicine, for which
a new institution was about this time added to the Stuttgard school, had
no attractions for Schiller: he accepted it only as a galling servitude in
exchange for one more galling. His mind was bent on higher objects;
and he still felt all his present vexations aggravated by the thought, that

his fairest expectations from the future had been sacrificed to worldly
convenience, and the humblest necessities of life.
Meanwhile the youth was waxing into manhood, and the fetters of
discipline lay heavier on him, as his powers grew stronger, and his eyes
became open to the stirring and variegated interests of the world, now
unfolding itself to him under new and more glowing colours. As yet he
contemplated the scene only from afar, and it seemed but the more
gorgeous on that account. He longed to mingle in its busy current, and
delighted to view the image of its movements in his favourite poets and
historians. Plutarch and Shakspeare;[4] the writings of Klopstock,
Lessing, Garve, Herder, Gerstenberg, Goethe, and a multitude of others,
which marked the dawning literature of Germany, he had studied with a
secret avidity: they gave him vague ideas of men and life, or awakened
in him splendid visions of literary glory. Klopstock's Messias,
combined with his own religious tendencies, had early turned him to
sacred poetry: before the end of his fourteenth year, he had finished
what he called an 'epic poem,' entitled Moses. The extraordinary
popularity of Gerstenberg's Ugolino, and Goethe's Götz von
Berlichingen, next directed his attention to the drama; and as
admiration in a mind like his, full of blind activity and nameless
aspirings, naturally issues in imitation, he plunged with equal ardour
into this new subject, and produced his first tragedy, Cosmo von
Medicis, some fragments of which he retained and inserted in his
Robbers. A mass of minor performances, preserved among his papers,
or published in the Magazines of the time, serve sufficiently to show
that his mind had already dimly discovered its destination, and was
striving with a restless vehemence to reach it, in spite of every obstacle.
[Footnote 4: The feeling produced in him by Shakspeare he described
long afterwards: it throws light on the general state of his temper and
tastes. 'When I first, at a very early age,' he says, 'became acquainted
with this poet, I felt indignant at his coldness, his hardness of heart,
which permitted him in the most melting pathos to utter jests,--to mar,
by the introduction of a fool, the soul-searching scenes of Hamlet, Lear,
and other pieces; which now kept him still where my sensibilities
hastened forward, now drove him carelessly, onward where I would so

gladly have lingered * * He was the object of my reverence and zealous
study for years before I could love himself. I was not yet capable of
comprehending Nature at first-hand: I had but learned to admire her
image, reflected in the understanding, and put in order by rules.' Werke,
Bd. viii 2, p. 77.]
Such obstacles were in his case neither few nor small. Schiller felt the
mortifying truth, that to arrive at the ideal world, he must first gain a
footing in the real; that he might entertain high thoughts and longings,
might reverence the beauties of nature and grandeur of mind, but was
born to toil for his daily bread. Poetry he