entiments, which animated his poetry, were converted into principles
of conduct; his actions were as blameless as his writings were pure.
With his simple and high predilections, with his strong devotedness to
a noble cause, he contrived to steer through life, unsullied by its
meanness, unsubdued by any of its difficulties or allurements. With
the world, in fact, he had not much to do; without effort, he dwelt
apart from it; its prizes were not the wealth which could enrich him.
His great, almost his single aim, was to unfold his spiritual
faculties, to study and contemplate and improve their intellectual
creations. Bent upon this, with the steadfastness of an apostle, the
more sordid temptations of the world passed harmlessly over him.
Wishing not to seem, but to be, envy was a feeling of which he knew
but little, even before he rose above its level. Wealth or rank he
regarded as a means, not an end; his own humble fortune supplying him
with all the essential conveniences of life, the world had nothing
more that he chose to covet, nothing more that it could give him. He
was not rich; but his habits were simple, and, except by reason of his
sickness and its consequences, unexpensive. At all times he was far
above the meanness of self-interest, particularly in its meanest
shape, a love of money. Doering tells us, that a bookseller having
travelled from a distance expressly to offer him a higher price for
the copyright of _Wallenstein_, at that time in the press, and for
which he was on terms with Cotta of Tuebingen, Schiller answering,
"Cotta deals steadily with me, and I with him," sent away this new
merchant, without even the hope of a future bargain. The anecdote is
small; but it seems to paint the integrity of the man, careless of
pecuniary concerns in comparison with the strictest uprightness in his
conduct. In fact, his real wealth lay in being able to pursue his
darling studies, and to live in the sunshine of friendship and
domestic love. This he had always longed for; this he at last enjoyed.
And though sickness and many vexations annoyed him, the intrinsic
excellence of his nature chequered the darkest portions of their gloom
with an effulgence derived from himself. The ardour of his feelings,
tempered by benevolence, was equable and placid: his temper, though
overflowing with generous warmth, seems almost never to have shown any
hastiness or anger. To all men he was humane and sympathising; among
his friends, ope