PREFACE


I have wished to give a trustworthy account of Schiller and his works on
a scale large enough to permit the doing of something like justice to
his great name, but not so large as in itself to kill all hope and
chance of readableness. By a trustworthy account I mean one that is
accurate in the matters of fact and sane in the matters of judgment.
That there is room for an English book thus conceived will be readily
granted, I imagine, by all those who know. At any rate Schiller is one
of those writers of whom a new appreciation, from time to time, will
always be in order.

I have thought it important that my work, while taking due note of
recent German scholarship, should rest throughout on fresh and
independent study. Accordingly, among all the many books that have aided
me more or less, I have had in hand most often, next to the works of
Schiller, the collection of his letters, as admirably edited by Jonas.
Among the German biographers I owe the most to Minor, Weltrich and
Brahm, for the period covered by their several works; for the later
years, to Wychgram and Harnack. Earlier biographers, notably Hoffmeister
and Palleske, have also been found helpful here and there.

Of course I have not flattered myself, in writing of a man whose
uneventful career has repeatedly been explored in every nook and cranny,
with any hope of adding materially to the tale of mere fact. One who
gleans after Minor and Weltrich and Wychgram will find little but chaff,
and I have tried to avoid the garnering of chaff. One of my chief