g effects than this. At
Rudolstadt, where he stayed for a time on occasion of this journey, he
met with a new friend. It was here that he first saw the Fraeulein
Lengefeld, a lady whose attractions made him loth to leave
Rudolstadt, and eager to return.

Next year he did return; he lived from May till November there or in
the neighbourhood. He was busy as usual, and he visited the Lengefeld
family almost every day. Schiller's views on marriage, his longing for
'a civic and domestic existence,' we already know. 'To be united with
a person,' he had said, 'that shares our sorrows and our joys, that
responds to our feelings, that moulds herself so pliantly, so closely
to our humours; reposing on her calm and warm affection, to relax our
spirit from a thousand distractions, a thousand wild wishes and
tumultuous passions; to dream away all the bitterness of fortune, in
the bosom of domestic enjoyment; this the true delight of life.' Some
years had elapsed since he expressed these sentiments, which time had
confirmed, not weakened: the presence of the Fraeulein Lengefeld awoke
them into fresh activity. He loved this lady; the return of love, with
which she honoured him, diffused a sunshine over all his troubled
world; and, if the wish of being hers excited more impatient thoughts
about the settlement of his condition, it also gave him fresh strength
to attain it. He was full of occupation, while in Rudolstadt; ardent,
serious, but not unhappy. His literary projects were proceeding as
before; and, besides the enjoyment of virtuous love, he had that of
intercourse with many worthy and some kindred minds.

Among these, the chief in all respects was Goethe. It was during his
present visit, that Schiller first met with this illustrious person;
concerning whom, both by reading and report, his expectations had been
raised so high. No two men, both of exalted genius, could be possessed
of more different sorts of excellence, than the two that were now
brought together, in a large company of their mutual friends. The
English reader may form some approximate conception of the contrast,
by figuring an interview between Shakspeare and Milton. How gifted,
how diverse in their gifts! The mind of the one plays calmly, in its
capricious and inimitable graces, over all the provinces of human
interest; the other concentrates powers as vast, but far less various,
on a few subjects; the one is catholic, the other is sectarian. The
first is endow