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possible. My soul often revolts at the anticipation of punishment in
cases where I am satisfied that my actions are reasonable." The
masters of the academy had a difficult task to subdue the spirit of
such a youth, and it was fortunate for literature that they did not
succeed. The poet's wings would not be clipped, and in spite of the
restrictions by which he was surrounded, Schiller pursued his
imaginative course, and found time to feed upon the poetry he adored.
To Klopstock's works he was specially indebted; that poet's "Messiah"
and Virgil's "Aeneid" may be said to have been the first solid stones
in the foundation upon which his fame was to rest. There were, it is
true, but slight traces of originality in a poem he wrote at this
period, the hero of which was the prophet Moses, and it was due to the
religious sentiment by which he was powerfully affected through
Klopstock's works, that he chose such a subject. It had been decided
that the church was to be his career, but he soon abandoned the idea,
and transferred his affections to medicine, which he studied
assiduously, without neglecting the groove to which his genius was
leading him by slow but sure steps. Gerstenberg's great tragedy,
"Ugolino," fell by chance into his hands, and gave him a new impetus;
"Goetz von Berlichingen" fascinated him; and then came a revelation
from a greater poet than all. Shakespeare, whose works he loved and
revered with passionate ardor, and to emulate whom was perhaps the
greatest ambition of his life. He was seventeen when he first saw
himself in print. He wrote a poem called "Evening," which he sent to
Haug's "Swabian Magazine;" it possessed no particular merit, and was
chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to the works he had read and
admired; but the editor spoke of it in terms of praise, and predicted
that its author would become an honor to Germany. He wrote in secret,
and was already busy sketching "The Robbers," and writing scenes in
that famous drama; he and his young friends used to meet clandestinely
and declaim their compositions, concealing their manuscripts when
their rooms were searched and inspected by the ushers and masters. He
suffered intensely in his friendships, and his letters breathed rather
the spirit of a man who had lived to see his fondest idols shattered,
than that of a youth who had scarcely reached his spring-time. In his
criticisms upon himself he was unsparingly harsh, and long after "The
Robbers"