es which had lately been employing, and were again soon to employ
him. At times, he might be seen floating on the river in a gondola,
feasting himself with the loveliness of earth and sky. He delighted
most to be there when tempests were abroad; his unquiet spirit found a
solace in the expression of his own unrest on the face of Nature;
danger lent a charm to his situation; he felt in harmony with the
scene, when the rack was sweeping stormfully across the heavens, and
the forests were sounding in the breeze, and the river was rolling its
chafed waters into wild eddying heaps.

Yet before the darkness summoned him exclusively to his tasks,
Schiller commonly devoted a portion of his day to the pleasures of
society. Could he have found enjoyment in the flatteries of admiring
hospitality, his present fame would have procured them for him in
abundance. But these things were not to Schiller's taste. His opinion
of the 'flesh-flies' of Leipzig we have already seen: he retained the
same sentiments throughout all his life. The idea of being what we
call a _lion_ is offensive enough to any man, of not more than common
vanity, or less than common understanding; it was doubly offensive to
him. His pride and his modesty alike forbade it. The delicacy of his
nature, aggravated into shyness by his education and his habits,
rendered situations of display more than usually painful to him; the
_digito praetereuntium_ was a sort of celebration he was far from
coveting. In the circles of fashion he appeared unwillingly, and
seldom to advantage: their glitter and parade were foreign to his
disposition; their strict ceremonial cramped the play of his mind.
Hemmed in, as by invisible fences, among the intricate barriers of
etiquette, so feeble, so inviolable, he felt constrained and helpless;
alternately chagrined and indignant. It was the giant among pigmies;
Gulliver, in Lilliput, tied down by a thousand packthreads. But there
were more congenial minds, with whom he could associate; more familiar
scenes, in which he found the pleasures he was seeking. Here Schiller
was himself; frank, unembarrassed, pliant to the humour of the hour.
His conversation was delightful, abounding at once in rare and simple
charms. Besides the intellectual riches which it carried with it,
there was that flow of kindliness and unaffected good humour, which
can render dulness itself agreeable. Schiller had many friends in
Dresden, who loved him as a man, while the