this, so believe it. For the sake
Of such forbearance; for your having kept
Ideas, embraced with such devotion, secret
Up to this present moment, for the sake
Of that reserve, young man, I will forget
That I have learned them, and how I learned them.
Arise. The headlong youth I will set right,
Not as his sovereign, but as his senior.
I will, because I will. So! bane itself,
I find, in generous natures may become
Ennobled into something better. But
Beware my Inquisition! It would grieve me
If you--

MAR. Would it? would it?

KING [_gazing at him, and lost in surprise_].
Such a mortal
Till this hour I never saw. No, Marquis!
No! You do me wrong. To you I will not
Be a Nero, not to you. _All_ happiness
Shall not be blighted by me: you yourself
Shall be permitted to remain a man
Beside me.

MAR. [_quickly_] And my fellow-subjects, Sire?
Oh, not for _me_, not _my_ cause was I pleading.
And your subjects, Sire?

KING. You see so clearly
How posterity will judge of me; yourself
Shall teach it how I treated men so soon
As I had found one.

MAR. O Sire! in being
The most just of kings, at the same instant
Be not the most unjust! In your Flanders
Are many thousands worthier than I.
'Tis but yourself,--shall I confess it, Sire?--
That under this mild form first truly see
What freedom is.

KING [_with softened earnestness_].
Young man, no more of this.
Far differently will you think of men,
When you have seen and studied them as I have.
Yet our first meeting must not be our last;
How shall I try to make you mine?

MAR. Sire, let me
Continue as I am. What good were it
To you, if I like others were corrupted?

KING. This pride I will not suffer. From this moment
You are in my service. No remonstrance!
I will have it so. * * * * *

Had the character of Posa been drawn ten years later, it would have
been imputed, as all things are, to the 'French Revolution;' and
Schiller himself perhaps might have been called a Jacobin. Happily, as
matters stand, there is room for no such imputation. It is pleasing to
behold in Posa the deliberate expression of a great and good man's
sentiments on these ever-agitated subjects: a noble monument,
embodying the liberal ideas of his age, in a form beautified by his
own genius, and lasting as its other products.[16]

[Footnote 16: Jean Paul nevertheless, not without some show
of reason,