and with my whole heart; and
thank him again for all the love he has shown our departed
Mother.

"Your true Brother,

"SCHILLER."

'Soon after this Letter, he received from Frankh, his Brother-in-law,
the confirmation of his sad anticipations. From his answer to Frankh
we extract the following passage: "May Heaven repay with rich interest
the dear Departed One all that she has suffered in life, and done for
her children! Of a truth she deserved to have loving children; for she
was a good Daughter to her suffering necessitous Parents; and the
childlike solicitude she always had for them well deserved the like
from us. You, my dear Brother-in-law, have shared the assiduous care
of my Sister for Her that is gone; and acquired thereby the justest
claim upon my brotherly love. Alas, you had already given your
spiritual support and filial service to my late Father, and taken on
yourself the duties of his absent Son. How cordially I thank you!
Never shall I think of my departed Mother without, at the same time,
blessing the memory of him who alleviated so kindly the last days of
her life." He then signifies the wish to have, from the effects of his
dear Mother, something that, without other worth, will remain a
continual memorial of her. And was in effect heartily obliged to his
Brother, who sent him a ring which had been hers. "It is the most
precious thing that he could have chosen for me," writes he to Luise;
"and I will keep it as a sacred inheritance." Painfully had it touched
him, withal, that the day of his entering his new house at Weimar had
been the death-day of his Mother. He noticed this singular
coincidence, as if in mournful presentiment of his own early decease,
as a singular concatenation of events by the hand of Destiny.

'A Tree and a plain stone Cross, with the greatly-comprehensive short
inscription, "Here rests Schiller's Mother," now mark her grave in
Clever-Sulzbach Churchyard.'

III. THE SISTERS.

Saupe has a separate Chapter on each of the three Sisters of Schiller;
but most of what concerns them, especially in relation to their
Brother, has been introduced incidentally above. Besides which,
Saupe's flowing pages are too long for our space; so that instead of
translating, henceforth, we shall have mainly to compile from Saupe
and others, and faithfully abridge.

_Christophine (born 4 Sept. 1757; married 'June 1786;' died 31 August
1847)._[61]