an exceptional case to conclude with
what is terrible after having exhausted all that was capable of
rousing fear and pity.

I shall not add more, and can but say that I am delighted at the
prospect of enjoying this work with you. I hope still to be able to
start on Thursday. You shall know for certain on Wednesday; we will
then read the play together, and I intend then to enjoy it in a
thoroughly composed state of mind.

Farewell; take a rest now and let us both begin a new life during the
vacation. My kind greetings to your dear wife, and think of me.

I do not intend, just yet, to boast of the work extorted from the
Muses; it is still a great question whether it is worth anything; in
any case, however, it may be regarded as preparatory.

* * * * *

SCHILLER _to_ GOETHE

Jena, March 19, 1799.

I have for long dreaded the moment when I should be rid of my work,
much as I wished for the time to come; and, in fact, I do feel my
present freedom to be worse than the state of bondage I have hitherto
been in. The mass which has formerly drawn and held me to it has now
gone, and I feel as if I were hanging indefinitely in empty space. At
the same time I feel also as if it were absolutely impossible for me
ever to produce anything again; I shall not be at rest till I once
more have my thoughts turned to some definite subject, with hope and
inclination in view. When I again have some definite object before me,
I shall be rid of the feeling of restlessness which at present is also
drawing me off from smaller things I have in hand. When you come I
mean to lay before you some tragic materials of my own invention, in
order that I may not, in the first instance, make a mistake as regards
subject. Inclination and necessity draw me toward subjects of pure
fancy, not to historical ones, and toward such in which the interest
is of a purely sentimental and human character; for of soldiers,
heroes, and commanders, I am now heartily tired.

How I envy you your present activity--your latest! You are standing on
the purest and sublimest poetic ground, in the most beautiful world of
definite figures where everything is ready-made or can be re-made. You
are, so to say, living in the home of poetry and being waited upon by
the gods. During these last days I have again been looking into
Homer, and there have read of the visit of Thetis to Vulcan with
immense pleasure. There is, in the graceful description