ituede. By her oral reports about Schiller, whom she herself several
times visited at Bauerbach, his Parents were more soothed than by his
own somewhat excited Letters. With reference to this magnanimous
service of friendship, Schiller wrote to her at Stuttgart in February
1783: "A Letter to my Parents is getting on its way; yet, much as I
had to speak of you, I have said nothing whatever" (from prudent
motives) "of your late appearance here, or of the joyful moments of
our conversation together. You yourself still, therefore, have all
that to tell, and you will presumably find a pair of attentive
hearers." Frau von Wolzogen ventured also to apply to a high court
lady, Countess von Hohenheim' (Duke's _finale_ in the _illicit_ way,
whom he at length wedded), 'personally favourable to Schiller, and to
direct her attention, before all, upon the heavy-laden Parents. Nor
was this without effect. For the Countess's persuasion seems
essentially to have contributed to the result that Duke Karl, out of
respect for the deserving Father, left the evasion of his own Pupil
unpunished.

'It must, therefore, have appeared to the still-agitated Mother, who
reverenced the Frau von Wolzogen as her helpful guardian, a flagrant
piece of ingratitude, when she learnt that her Son was allowing
himself to be led into a passionate love for the blooming young
Daughter of his Benefactress. She grieved and mourned in secret to see
him exposed to new storms; foreseeing clearly, in this passion, a
ready cause for his removal from Bauerbach. To such agitations her
body was no longer equal; a creeping, eating misery undermined her
health. She wrote to her Son at Mannheim, with a soft shadow of
reproof, that in this year, since his absence, she had become ten
years older in health and looks. Not long after, she had actually to
take to bed, because of painful cramps, which, proceeding from the
stomach, spread themselves over breast, head, back and loins. The
medicines which the Son, upon express account of symptoms by the
Father, prescribed for her, had no effect. By degrees, indeed, these
cramps abated or left-off; but she tottered about in a state of
sickness, years long: the suffering mind would not let the body come
to strength. For though her true heart was filled with a pious love,
which hopes all, believes and suffers all, yet she was neither blind
to the faults of her Son, nor indifferent to the thought of seeing her
Family's good repute and we