At first the trio agreed to keep their momentous secret from _chère mère_. Schiller was poor and his prospects all uncertain. When he began, in the fall of 1789, to give lectures that were to be paid for, he found that his income from students' fees would be insignificant. Lotte had but a slender portion, and then there was that dreadful _von_ in her name. To meet this difficulty Schiller procured the title of 'Hofrat' from the Duke of Meiningen. Then he laid the case before Karl August of Weimar, who was very sympathetic but also very poor. The best he could do was to promise shamefacedly a pittance of two hundred thalers by way of professorial salary. This, with love, was enough. In one of the noblest letters he ever wrote Schiller now addressed himself to _chère mère_ who made no objections; and on the 22nd of February, 1790, the impecunious Hofrat Professor Schiller and his courageous, aristocratic sweetheart were married. The work of Schiller in the historical field will be considered by itself in the next chapter. Before passing on to that subject, however, let us glance at the more important of the minor writings produced during the period just traversed. In 'The Gods of Greece' he strikes with almost clangorous emphasis the note of pagan aestheticism. The poem sees the world under the aspect of the Beautiful and regards that as its most important aspect. The Greek religion, we hear, peopled earth and sky and sea with lovely forms that gave warmth and color to life and fed the imagination with sensuous poetry. Nature appeared living, spiritual. Rock and stream and tree had each its tale to tell, its tale of passionate personal history. The gods were near, intelligible, sympathetic; and divine gifts were more precious for being shared by the giver. And as the gods were more human, so man was more divine. In comparison our modern monotheism is cold, abstract, mechanical. Instead of a radiant Apollo, we have the law of gravitation. We have lost the many fair gods of old to enrich One who is remote, unfathomable, self-sufficient. Where art thou, beauteous world of story? Fair morning of a vanished day! Alas! the magic of thine ancient glory Lives only in the poet's lay.[75]