1805.

[Illustration: SCHILLER AT THE COURT OF WEIMAR]

No attempt can here be made at a general estimate of Schiller's
dramatic genius. The serious poetic drama, such as he wrote in his
later years, is no longer in favor anywhere. In Germany, as in our own
land, the temper of the time is on the whole hostile to that form of
art. We demand, very properly, a drama attuned to the life of the
present; one occupied, as we say, with living issues. Yet Schiller is
very popular on the German stage. After the lapse of a century, and
notwithstanding the fact that he _seems_ to speak to us from the
clouds, he holds his own. Why is this? It is partly because of a
quality of his art that has been called his "monumental
fresco-painting"; that is, his strong and luminous portraiture of the
great historic forces that have shaped the destiny of nations. These
forces are matters of the spirit, of the inner life; and they persist
from age to age, but little affected by the changing fashion of the
theatre. The reader of Schiller soon comes to feel that he deals with
issues that are alive because they are immortal.

Another important factor in his classicity is the suggestion that goes
out from his idealized personality. German sentiment has set him on a
high pedestal and made a hero of him, so that his word is not exactly
as another man's word. Something of this was felt by those about him
even in his lifetime. Says Karoline von Wolzogen: "High seriousness
and the winsome grace of a pure and noble soul were always present in
Schiller's conversation; in listening to him one walked as among the
changeless stars of heaven and the flowers of earth." This is the
tribute of a partial friend, but it describes very well the impression