_ For these
thou art now suffering, and that not by accident. The embarrassment
thou now art in is verily a work of Higher Providence, to lead thee
off from too great trust in thy own force; to make thee soft and
contrite; that, laying aside all self-will, thou mayest follow more
the counsel of thy Father and other true friends; must meet every one
with due respectful courtesy and readiness to oblige; and become ever
more convinced that our most gracious Duke, in his restrictive plans,
meant well with thee; and that altogether thy position and outlooks
had now been better, hadst thou complied, and continued in thy
country. Many a time I find thou hast wayward humours, that make thee
to thy truest friend scarcely endurable; stiff ways which repel the
best-wishing man;--for example, when I sent thee my excellent old
friend Herr Amtmann Cramer from Altdorf near Speier, who had come to
Herr Hofrath Schwan's in the end of last year, thy reception of him
was altogether dry and stingy, though by my Letter I had given thee so
good an opportunity to seek the friendship of this honourable,
rational and influential man (who has no children of his own), and to
try whether he might not have been of help to thee. Thou wilt do well,
I think, to try and make good this fault on another opportunity."

'At the same time the old man repeatedly pressed him to return to
Medicine, and graduate in Heidelberg: "a theatre-poet in Germany," he
signified, "was but a small light; and as he, the Son, with all his
Three Pieces, had not made any footing for himself, what was to be
expected of the future ones, which might not be of equal strength!
Doctorship, on the other hand, would give him a sure income and
reputation as well."--Schiller himself was actually determined to
follow his Father's advice as to Medicine; but this project and others
of the same, which were sometimes taken up, went to nothing, now and
always, for want of money to begin with.

'Amid these old tormenting hindrances, affronts and embarrassments,
Schiller had also many joyful experiences, to which even his Father
was not wholly indifferent. To these belong, besides many others, his
reception into the _Kurpfaelzische Deutsche Gesellschaft_', German
Society of the Electoral Palatinate, 'of this year; which he himself
calls a great step for his establishment; as well as the stormy
applause with which his third Piece, _Kabale und Liebe_, came upon the
boards, in March following. H