ot at all, is far worse than that of
sometimes judging wrong. Besides, once accustomed to attend strictly
to the operations of his genius, and rigorously to try its products,
such a man as Schiller could not fail in time to discover what was
false in the principles by which he tried them, and consequently, in
the end, to retain the benefits of this procedure without its evils.
There is doubtless a purism in taste, a rigid fantastical demand of
perfection, a horror at approaching the limits of impropriety, which
obstructs the free impulse of the faculties, and if excessive, would
altogether deaden them. But the excess on the other side is much more
frequent, and, for high endowments, infinitely more pernicious. After
the strongest efforts, there may be little realised; without strong
efforts, there must be little. That too much care does hurt in any of
our tasks is a doctrine so flattering to indolence, that we ought to
receive it with extreme caution. In works impressed with the stamp of
true genius, their quality, not their extent, is what we value: a dull
man may spend his lifetime writing little; better so than writing
much; but a man of powerful mind is liable to no such danger. Of all
our authors, Gray is perhaps the only one that from fastidiousness of
taste has written less than he should have done: there are thousands
that have erred the other way. What would a Spanish reader give, had
Lope de Vega composed a hundred times as little, and that little a
hundred times as well!

Schiller's own ideas on these points appear to be sufficiently sound:
they are sketched in the following extract of a letter, interesting
also as a record of his purposes and intellectual condition at this
period:

'Criticism must now make good to me the damage she herself has done.
And damaged me she most certainly has; for the boldness, the living
glow which I felt before a rule was known to me, have for several
years been wanting. I now _see_ myself _create_ and _form_: I watch
the play of inspiration; and my fancy, knowing she is not without
witnesses of her movements, no longer moves with equal freedom. I
hope, however, ultimately to advance so far that _art_ shall become a
second _nature_, as polished manners are to well-bred men; then
Imagination will regain her former freedom, and submit to none but
voluntary limitations.'

Schiller's subsequent writings are the best proof that in these
expectations he had not miscalculated.