ed with an all-comprehending spirit; skilled, as if by
personal experience, in all the modes of human passion and opinion;
therefore, tolerant of all; peaceful, collected; fighting for no class
of men or principles; rather looking on the world, and the various
battles waging in it, with the quiet eye of one already reconciled to
the futility of their issues; but pouring over all the forms of
many-coloured life the light of a deep and subtle intellect, and the
decorations of an overflowing fancy; and allowing men and things of
every shape and hue to have their own free scope in his conception, as
they have it in the world where Providence has placed them. The other
is earnest, devoted; struggling with a thousand mighty projects of
improvement; feeling more intensely as he feels more narrowly;
rejecting vehemently, choosing vehemently; at war with the one half of
things, in love with the other half; hence dissatisfied, impetuous,
without internal rest, and scarcely conceiving the possibility of such
a state. Apart from the difference of their opinions and mental
culture, Shakspeare and Milton seem to have stood in some such
relation as this to each other, in regard to the primary structure of
their minds. So likewise, in many points, was it with Goethe and
Schiller. The external circumstances of the two were, moreover, such
as to augment their several peculiarities. Goethe was in his
thirty-ninth year; and had long since found his proper rank and
settlement in life. Schiller was ten years younger, and still without
a fixed destiny; on both of which accounts, his fundamental scheme of
thought, the principles by which he judged and acted, and maintained
his individuality, although they might be settled, were less likely to
be sobered and matured. In these circumstances we can hardly wonder
that on Schiller's part the first impression was not very pleasant.
Goethe sat talking of Italy, and art, and travelling, and a thousand
other subjects, with that flow of brilliant and deep sense, sarcastic
humour, knowledge, fancy and good nature, which is said to render him
the best talker now alive.[18] Schiller looked at him in quite a
different mood; he felt his natural constraint increased under the
influence of a man so opposite in character, so potent in resources,
so singular and so expert in using them; a man whom he could not agree
with, and knew not how to contradict. Soon after their interview, he
thus writes:

'On the whole