My great concern has been with the works of Schiller--to interpret them as the expression of an interesting individuality and an interesting epoch. It is now some twenty years since I first came under the Weimarian spell, and during that time my feeling for Schiller has undergone vicissitudes not unlike those described by Brahm in a passage quoted at the very end of this volume. At no time, indeed, could I truthfully have called myself a "Schiller-hater", but there was a time, certainly, when it seemed to me that he was very much overestimated by his countrymen; when my mind was very hospitable to demonstrations of his artistic shortcoming. Time has brought a different temper, and this book is the child of what I deem the wiser disposition. For the poet who wins the heart of a great people and holds it for a century is right; there is nothing more to be said, so far as concerns his title to renown. The creative achievement is far more precious and important than any possible criticism of it. This does not mean that in dealing with such a poet the critic is in duty bound to abdicate his lower function and to let his scruples melt away in the warm water of a friendly partisanship; it means only that he will be best occupied, speaking generally, in a conscientious attempt to see the man as he was, to "experience the savor of him", and to understand the national temperament to which he has endeared himself. This, I hope, defines sufficiently the spirit in which I have written. In discussing the plays I have endeavored to deal with them in a large way, laying hold of each where it is most interesting, and not caring to be either systematic or exhaustive. Questions of minute and technical scholarship, such as have their proper place in a learned monograph, or in the introduction and notes to an edition of the text, have been avoided on principle. Everywhere--even in the difficult thirteenth chapter--my aim has been to disengage and bring clearly into view the essential, distinctive character of Schiller's work; and where I have had to fear either that the professional scholar would frown at my sins of omission, or that the mere lover of literature would yawn at my sins of commission, I have boldly accepted the first-named horn of the dilemma. New York, Nov. 6, 1901. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Parentage and Schooling Captain Schiller and his wife--Sojourn at Lorch--Traits of Friedrich's childhood--Removal to Ludwigsburg--Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg--Impressions from court, theater and school--Poetic beginnings--Duke Karl's change of heart--Franziska von Hohenheim--The Academy at Solitude--Schiller at the Academy--School exercises--From law to medicine--Early poems and orations--An ardent friend--Books read and their effect--Dramatic plans--Dissertation rejected--Genesis of 'The Robbers'--Morbid melancholy--Release from the Academy--Value of the education received. CHAPTER II The Robbers