Schiller’s Character

Physically, Schiller was tall and strongly boned, but unmuscular and lean; his body wasted under the energy of a spirit too keen for it.  His face was pale, the cheeks and temples hollow, the chin projecting, the nose aquiline, his hair inclined to auburn.  Withal his countenance was attractive, and had a certain manly beauty.  To judge from his portraits, his face expressed the features of his mind:  it is mildness tempering strength; fiery ardour shining through clouds of suffering and disappointment; it is at once meek, tender, unpretending and heroic.

In his dress and manner, as in all things, he was plain and unaffected.  Among strangers, shy and retiring; in his own family, or among his friends, he was kind-hearted, free and gay as a little child.  His looks as he walked were constantly bent on the ground, so that he often failed to notice a passing acquaintance.

Schiller’s mind was grand by nature, and cultivated by the assiduous study of a life-time.  It is not the predominating force of any one faculty that impresses us, but the general force of all.  His intellect seems powerful and vast, rather than quick or keen; for he is not notable for wit, though his fancy is ever prompt with his metaphors, illustrations and comparisons.  Perhaps his greatest faculty was a half poetical, half philosophical imagination, a faculty teeming with magnificence and brilliancy; now adorning a stately pyramid of scientific speculation; now brooding over the abysses of thought and feeling, till thoughts and feelings, else unutterable, were embodied in expressive forms.

Combined with these intellectual faculties was that vehemence of temperament which is necessary for their full development.  Schiller’s heart was at once fiery and tender; impetuous, soft, affectionate, his enthusiasm clothed the universe with grandeur, and sent his spirit forth to explore its secrets and mingle warmly in its interests.  Thus poetry in Schiller was not one but many gifts.  It was, what true poetry is always, the quintessence of general mental riches, the purified result of strong thought and conception, and of refined as well as powerful emotion.

His works exhibit rather extraordinary strength than extraordinary fineness or versatility.  His power of dramatic imitation is perhaps never of the highest; and in its best state, it is further limited to a certain range of characters.  It is with the grave, the earnest, the exalted, the affectionate, the mournful that he succeeds; he is not destitute of humour, but neither is he rich in it.

The sentiments which animated Schiller’s poetry were converted into principles of conduct; his actions were as blameless as his writings were pure.  He was unsullied by meanness, unsubdued by the difficulties or allurements of life.  With the world, in fact, he had not much to do; without effort, he dwelt apart from it; its prizes were not the wealth which could enrich him.  Wishing not to seem, but to be, envy was a feeling of which he knew little, even before he rose above its level.  To all men he was humane and sympathising; among his friends, open-hearted, generous, helpful; in his family tender, kind, sportive.  Schiller gives a fine example of the German character; he has all its good qualities.