nted by myself; but a transitory glance at the
number and extent of the changes I have made, will, I trust,
be sufficient to excuse me. Add to this, that a contagious
epidemic was at work in our military Hospital, which, of
course, interfered very often with my _otia poetica_. After
finishing my work, I may assure you I could engage with less
effort of mind, and certainly with far more contentment, to
compose a new piece, than to undergo the labour I have just
concluded. The task was complicated and tedious. Here I had
to correct an error, which naturally was rooted in the very
groundwork of the play; there perhaps to sacrifice a beauty
to the limits of the stage, the humour of the pit, the
stupidity of the gallery, or some such sorrowful convention;
and I need not tell you, that as in nature, so on the stage,
an idea, an emotion, can have only one suitable expression,
one proper tone. A single alteration in a trait of character
may give a new tendency to the whole personage, and,
consequently, to his actions, and the mechanism of the piece
which depends on them.

'In the original, the Robbers are exhibited in strong
contrast with each other; and I dare maintain that it is
difficult to draw half a dozen robbers in strong contrast,
without in some of them offending the delicacy of the stage.
In my first conception of the piece, I excluded the idea of
its ever being represented in a theatre; hence came it that
Franz was planned as a _reasoning_ villain; a plan which,
though it may content the thinking Reader, cannot fail to vex
and weary the Spectator, who does not come to think, and who
wants not philosophy, but action.

'In the new edition, I could not overturn this arrangement
without breaking-down the whole economy of the piece.
Accordingly I can predict, with tolerable certainty, that
Franz when he appears on the stage, will not play the part
which he has played with the reader. And, at all events, the
rushing stream of the action will hurry the spectator over
all the finer shadings, and rob him of a third part of the
whole character.

'Karl von Moor might chance to form an era on the stage;
except a few speculations, which, however, work as
indispensable colours in the general picture, he is all
action, all visibl