gorgeous spectacles. For all this barbaric ostentation the people of
Wuerttemberg were expected to foot the bills. 'Fatherland!' said his
Highness, when a protest was raised on behalf of the country, 'Bah! I am
the fatherland.'

Here it was, then, that the young Friedrich Schiller got his first
childish impressions of the great world; of sovereignty exercised that a
few might strut in gay plumage while the many toiled to keep them in
funds; of state policies determined by wretched court intrigues; of
natural rights trampled upon at the caprice of a prince or a prince's
favorite. There is no record that the boy was troubled by these things
at the time, or looked upon them as anything else than a part of the
world's natural order. It is a long way yet to President von Walter.

The house occupied by Captain Schiller at Ludwigsburg was situated close
by the theater, to which the duke's officers had free admission. As a
reward of industry little Fritz was allowed an occasional evening in
front of the 'boards that signify the world'. The performances, to be
sure, were French and Italian operas, wherein the ballet-master, the
machinist and the decorator vied with one another for the production of
amazing spectacular effects. People went to stare and gasp--the language
was of no importance. It was not exactly dramatic art, but from the
boy's point of view it was no doubt magnificent. At any rate it made him
at home in the dream-world of the imagination, filled his mind with
grandiose pictures and gave him his first rudimentary notions of stage
effect. We are not surprised to learn, therefore, that in his home
amusements playing theater now took the place of playing church. Sister
Christophine was a faithful helper. A stage could be made of big books,
and actors out of paper. When the puppet-show was outgrown, the young
dramatist took to framing plays for living performers of his own