It would be very easy to give further examples of Schiller's talent for taking what suited his purpose, but such philology is not very profitable. After all, what one wishes to know is not where the architect got his materials, but what he made of them. And what he made was a play abounding in admirable scenes, but ending in a rather unsatisfactory manner. With even less violence to the inner logic of the piece than was necessary in the case of 'Fiesco', 'Cabal and Love' might have been given a happy ending. The whole tragedy hangs by a thread in the fifth act. Lady Milford has fled and is no longer a factor in the entanglement. The wicked president has relented and is ready to yield. Old Miller, released from prison, returns to his house and finds Louise brooding over her purpose of suicide. He preaches to her upon the sin of self-destruction and pleads with her to give up her aristocratic lover. She promises. Then Ferdinand comes and demands an explanation of the fatal letter. A word from her at this point, a momentary _accès_ or simple common sense, would undeceive him and end the whole difficulty. Of course she must not break her oath; and one cannot blame her sweet simplicity for not taking refuge in the maxim that an oath given under duress is not binding. But her oath merely pledges her to acknowledge the letter as her voluntary act. There is no reason why she should not solemnly assure Ferdinand of her innocence, tell him that they are the victims of a plot and send him to his father for an explanation. Nothing prevents her from speaking in time the words that she actually does speak after she has taken the poison, but before she knows that she has taken it: 'A horrible fatality has confused the language of our hearts. If I might open my mouth, Walter, I could tell you things', etc. If, out of filial piety, Louise is minded to give up her lover, there is at any rate no reason why she should wish him to despise her forever. Every natural girlish instinct requires her to clear herself. That she does not do this, but persists in a course which of all courses is the most unnatural,--seeing that she now has nothing to fear from any source,--produces a painful suspense which is anything but tragic. No skill of the actress can altogether save her from a certain appearance of fatuous weak-mindedness, or forestall the cynical conclusion that she dies chiefly in order that it may be fulfilled which was said unto himself by the author, namely: I will write a tragedy.