astray, can never justify the Son in taking up as an injury what the
Father has said out of love, out of consideration and experience of
his own, and meant only for his Son's good. As to what concerns those
300 gulden, every one, alas, who knows my position here, knows that it
cannot be possible for me to have even 50 gulden, not to speak of 300,
before me in store; and that I should borrow such a sum, to the still
farther disadvantage of my other children, for a Son, who of the much
that he has promised me has been able to perform so little,--there,
for certain, were I an unjust Father." Farther on, the old man takes
him up on another side, a private family affair. Schiller had,
directly and through others, in reference to the prospect of a
marriage between his elder Sister Christophine and his friend Reinwald
the Court Librarian of Meiningen, expressed himself in a doubting
manner, and thereby delayed the settlement of this affair. In regard
to which his Father tells him:

"And now I have something to remark in respect of thy Sister. As thou,
my Son, partly straight out, and partly through Frau von Kalb, hast
pictured Reinwald in a way to deter both me and thy Sister in
counselling and negotiating in the way we intended, the affair seems
to have become quite retrograde: for Reinwald, these two months past,
has not written a word more. Whether thou, my Son, didst well to
hinder a match not unsuitable for the age, and the narrow pecuniary
circumstances of thy Sister, God, who sees into futurity, knows. As I
am now sixty-one years of age, and can leave little fortune when I
die; and as thou, my Son, how happily soever thy hopes be fulfilled,
wilt yet have to struggle, years long, to get out of these present
embarrassments, and arrange thyself suitably; and as, after that, thy
own probable marriage will always require thee to have more thy own
advantages in view, than to be able to trouble thyself much about
those of thy Sisters;--it would not, all things considered, have been
ill if Christophine had got a settlement. She would quite certainly,
with her apparent regard for Reinwald, have been able to fit herself
into his ways and him; all the better as she, God be thanked, is not
yet smit with ambition, and the wish for great things, and can suit
herself to all conditions."

The Reinwald marriage did take place by and by, in spite of Schiller
Junior's doubts; and had not Christophine been the paragon of Wives,
might ha