The 'Camp', then, with its eleven-hundred verses, is to be regarded as a military genre-picture, elaborated for its own sake into an independent piece. As a prelude it transports us into the _milieu_ of the tragedy, but without anywhere striking its key-note; for the tragedy is intensely serious, while the note of the 'Camp',--notwithstanding an undertone of seriousness without which it could not have been the work of Schiller,--is that of jovial humor. And the poet's scheme required just this effect in the prelude. One can hardly assent, therefore, to the suggestion of Harnack[114] that it would have been well if the sentiment of loyalty to the emperor had been made more prominent and given a more worthy champion than the stolid Tiefenbachers, who have nothing to say. Had this been attempted it must have led to an adumbration of the coming tragic conflict,--which is what Schiller wished to avoid. He wished that spectator and reader should accept the prelude as a thing of its own kind, complete in itself. It was for this reason that he gave it a distinctive meter, having convinced himself that meter of some kind was essential if he would avoid banality. With a wise instinct he chose the old free-and-easy tetrameter, which Goethe had used with excellent effect in some of his early plays. In German this meter lends itself beautifully to the bluff, off-hand discourse of soldiers. It gives an illusion of realism while preserving the effect of poetry. Particularly admirable is the art with which Schiller has contrived to denote the motley variety of human types gathered under Wallenstein's banner, while giving to each of his figures a fairly distinct individuality. With a little study of costume a painter could paint them all. There is the wretched Peasant, who has been reduced to beggary and is willing to retrieve his fortunes by gambling with loaded dice; the sagacious Sergeant, who always knows more than other people, and prides himself upon 'the fine touch and the right tone' that can only be acquired near the person of the commander; the depraved Chasseur, who glories in fighting for its own sake, cares not for whom or what, and objects to discipline; the philosophic Cuirasseur, who argues for a higher ideal and pities the woes of the producing class, but cannot help matters; and the fiery Capuchin, who pronounces his wordy anathema against the whole godless crowd. What a picturesque assembly they make and how admirably they bring out the lights and shadows of the Wallenstein régime! One wonders how an invalid recluse, a bookish philosopher like Schiller, should ever have been able to write such scenes.