Of the remaining characters the queen is the most interesting. In her Schiller for the first time depicts a woman convincingly. His Elizabeth is perhaps a shade too angelic,--she is an ideal figure like all his women,--but winsome she certainly is. One is a little startled by the readiness with which she approves Posa's treasonable plan of a revolution to be headed by Don Carlos, but in this play the sentiment of patriotism cuts no figure anywhere. The principal characters are all occupied with the idea of 'humanity', and are not troubled by any scruples arising out of national feeling. Taken as a whole 'Don Carlos' is too complicated to yield an unalloyed artistic pleasure. It suffers from a lack of simplicity and concentration. There is material in it for two or three plays. The double intrigue of love and politics becomes toward the end very confusing. The confusion is increased by the unexpected turn given to the character of Posa, and reaches a climax when we learn from the Grand Inquisitor that _he_ has been pulling all the strings from first to last, and that the entire tragedy was foreordained in the secret archives of the Holy Office. The unity of interest is marred by the fact that in the last two acts the real hero, Don Carlos, drops into the background as the helpless tool of the incalculable marquis. And Carlos, too, sometimes acts rather unaccountably; for example, when he supposes that the wanton _billet-doux_ signed 'E.' can come from the queen, of whose purity and high-mindedness he has just had convincing evidence. Then again his conduct toward the Princess Eboli in the love scene is very singular,--one might say amazing. And there are some other such defects, which concern the stage more than the reader and which, by skillful acting and judicious excision, can be reduced to insignificant proportions. When well played 'Don Carlos' produces a powerful impression. For the reader it is a noble poem containing a large ingredient of Schiller's best self. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 65: It is printed in Sämtliche Schriften, III, 180.] [Footnote 66: In the _Teutsche Merkur_ for October, 1782.] [Footnote 67: In the _Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften_, Vol. XXXII; reprinted by Braun, "Schiller und Goethe im Urteile ihrer Zeitgenossen", I, 152 ff.] [Footnote 68: The fragments published in the _Thalia_ contained 4140 lines; the _editio princeps_ of 1787, 6283; the edition of 1801, this being the form in which the play is usually read, 5370.] [Footnote 69: Letter to Reinwald April 14, 1783.]