r, sometimes of extravagance and folly. This third period
in Schiller's life is not marked by any great literary achievements. It
would be almost a blank were it not for the "Don Carlos," which he wrote
during his stay near Dresden, between 1785-87. His "Fiesco" and "Cabale
und Liebe," though they came out after his flight from Stuttgard, had been
conceived before, and they were only repeated protests, in the form of
tragedies, against the tyranny of rulers and the despotism of society.
They show no advance in the growth of Schiller's mind. Yet that mind,
though less productive than might have been expected, was growing as every
mind grows between the years of twenty and thirty; and it was growing
chiefly through contact with men. We must make full allowance for the
powerful influence exercised at that time by the literature of the day (by
the writings of Herder, Lessing, and Goethe), and by political events,
such as the French Revolution. But if we watch Schiller's career
carefully, we see that his character was chiefly moulded by his
intercourse with men. His life was rich in friendships, and what mainly
upheld him in his struggles and dangers was the sympathy of several
high-born and high-minded persons, in whom the ideals of his own mind
seemed to have found their fullest realization.

Next to our faith in God, there is nothing so essential to the healthy
growth of our whole being as an unshaken faith in man. This faith in man
is the great feature in Schiller's character, and he owes it to a kind
Providence which brought him in contact with such noble natures as Frau
von Wolzogen, Koerner, Dalberg; in later years with his wife; with the Duke
of Weimar, the Prince of Augustenburg, and lastly with Goethe. There was
at that time a powerful tension in the minds of men, and particularly of
the higher classes, which led them to do things which at other times men
only aspire to do. The impulses of a most exalted morality--a morality
which is so apt to end in mere declamation and deceit--were not only felt
by them, but obeyed and carried out. Frau von Wolzogen, knowing nothing of
Schiller except that he had been at the same school with her son, received
the exiled poet, though fully aware that by doing so she might have
displeased the Duke and blasted her fortunes and those of her children.
Schiller preserved the tenderest attachment to this motherly friend
through life, and his letters to her display a most charming innocenc