old of the Weimar
set, whose taste was controlled by Goethe and Schiller. But "Hesperus"
made a great noise, and these warders of the German Valhalla were
obliged to open the door just a crack, in order to reconnoitre the
pretentious arrival. Goethe first called the attention of Schiller to
the book, sending him a copy while he was at Jena, in 1795. Schiller
recognized at once its power and geniality, but was disposed to regard
it as a literary oddity, whose grotesque build and want of finish rather
depreciated the rich cargo,--at least, did not bring it handsomely into
port. The first book of "Wilhelm Meister" had appeared the year before,
and that was more acceptable to Schiller, who had cooled off after
writing his "Robbers," and was looking out for the true theory of poetry
and art. He and Goethe concluded that "Hesperus" was worth liking,
though it was a great pity the author had not better taste; he ought to
come up and live with them, in an aesthetic atmosphere, where he could
find and admire his superiors, and have his great crude gems ground
down to brilliant facets. Schiller said it was the book of a lonely and
isolated man. It was, indeed.

But it was a book which represented, far more profoundly and healthily
than Schiller's "Robbers," that revolt of men of genius against every
species of finical prescription, in literature and society, which
ushered in the new age of Germany. And it expresses with uncalculating
sincerity all the natural emotions which a century of pedantry and
Gallic affectation had been crowding out of books and men. It was a
charge at the point of the pen upon the dapper flunkeys who were keeping
the door of the German future; the brawny breast, breathing deep with
the struggle, and pouring out great volumes of feeling, burst through
the restraints of the time. He cleared a place, and called all men to
stand close to his beating heart, and almost furiously pressed them
there, that they might feel what a thing friendship was and the ideal
life of the soul. And as he held them, his face grew broad and deep with
humor; men looked into it and saw themselves, all the real good and the
absurdly conventional which they had, and there was a great jubilation
at the genial sight. And it was as if a lot of porters followed him,
overloaded with quaint and curious knowledge gathered from books of
travel, of medicine, of history, metaphysics, and biography, which they
dumped without much concert, but j