maiden, least of all to one with that menacing _von_ in her name. Still
he liked Fraeulein Lotte very much, and the tenderness which now began to
manifest itself in his letters to the mother must be credited in part to
the daughter. Were this not so we could hardly account for such
expressions as these, which are contained in a letter written after the
ladies had left Bauerbach for a short sojourn in the neighboring
Waldorf: 'Since your absence I am stolen from myself. To feel a great
and lively rapture is like looking at the sun; it is still before you
long after you have turned away your face, and the eye is blinded to all
weaker rays. But I shall take great care not to extinguish this
agreeable illusion.' And again after they had left the Meiningen region
for Stuttgart, with a promise to return in May: 'Dearest friend--a week
behind me without you. So there is one of the fourteen got rid of. I
could wish that time would put on its utmost speed until May, so as to
move thereafter so much the more slowly.'

Such flutterings of the heart were not altogether favorable to that
austere program of literary industry which the ambitious young
dramatist had set for himself. When a man is in love other things seem
more or less negligible, and it takes resolution to steer a firm
course. Schiller was resolute--by spells. In the first list of books
ordered from Meiningen we find noted, along with works of Shakspere,
Robertson, Hume and Lessing, 'that part of the Abbe St. Real's works
which contains the history of Don Carlos of Spain.' From this we see
that a second historical drama was already under way. At first,
however, it was not 'Don Carlos' that claimed the most attention, but
'Louise Miller ', which had made considerable progress in Oggersheim.
By January 14, 1785, Schiller was able to pronounce the new play
finished, though his letters show that the revision occupied him some
time longer. Meanwhile we hear of other dramatic projects,--a 'Maria