Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07
SCHILLER Died 100 YEARS ago:
HIS NAME and FAME IMMORTAL

Wherever the literature Of the fatherland
celebrations will be held this week In honor Of
the centenary Of the death of Germany's best
loved poet-the story Of his hardsiips and
loves and successes.
Throughout the whole of the 9th of May
1905. the bestowed poet In Germany lay
dying in the south-looking bedroom at
Weimar. Gentle sleep had followed the de-
lrtum of earlier hours, then brief few
moments of waking in which the last fare
wells were spoken. Then slumber again,
from which the passing genius reused long
enough to say: MANY things are growing
plain and clear to me- Then sleep once
more-and from that there came no waking.
So Johann Christoph Friedrich Won Schil-
Ter crossed over into the great beyond. This
poet whom Carlyle called the apostle of
the sublime and beautiful"-this good man
whom Madame de Stael wrote down as
'the best Of friends and the best Of hus-
bands"-this son of the fatherland who
yields place to none of his fellows in the
hearts Of the German people-died at forty
six. just when his intellectual powers were
at their ripest-died from his own criminal
neglect Of himself. Much has been writ
ten of his excessive drinking believing as
he did that inspiration came to him only
when he exceeded; much has been told of
the amount of black coffee he would drink
in single evening but these things were
but details in that whole disregard for self
especially for reasonable sleep-which
amounted to little less than suicide.
A century ago Schillers name was writ
ten below those of Goethe and Luther. To-
day those others are still acknowledged his
intellectual superiors, but German love goes
out to none as to 1.-The endeared Schiller
So, now at the centenary of his passing,
world will mark the day in affettionate
honor. All Germany celebrates his fame
in a score Of fitting ways, Wurtemburg, his
native state, setting by an entire month for
his recalling. In Switzerland and northern
Italy, at Rome, and Paris, and Madrid, and
Brussels. and London, here in the United
States in half the greater cities and in most
of it's academic centers from two days to
six are to be devoted to such concerts and
dramatic representations and parades and
addresses as best may commemorate the
name Of him who departed this life on May
y, 1890. A man In whose honor world
celebrates on the one hundredth anniyer-
sary of his death Is not dead.
On November 10, 1859. on the centenary
of the poets birth, though Germany was
then still political nonentity, with union
under one flag seeming far indeed in dim
future, the unanimity with which the day
was celebrated wherever German speech
had reached, irrespective of all political
division. was remarkable. The forty-six
years since then have seen millions more OF
his works sold than OF any other writer OF
the fatherland. His poems are to be found
humble, by Rhine or Hudson, Danube or
Mississippi. His dramas are performed on
every German-Speaking stage, and they al
ways draw" Quotations from Schiller are
more often used and better understood by
Germans than are those from Shakespeare
In the Notwithstanding world. The last
thing native German will forget will be
the Schiller ballads which he learned when
boy at school. In these things live the
truest reward of the man who Is recalled
today and tomorrow and Tuesday.
Friedrich Won Schiller was the man need
ed by his times. The early years Of the
eighteenth century in German literature
unreclaimed and without promise for the
future: barren arena. in which insipid writ
ers paraded the emptiness Of court sermons.
sycophantish dedications and dull birthday
odes. Then had come Bodmer and Klop-
stock and Wieland and the brothers Schle-
gel, revivifying and uplifting, and then that
worldwide intellectual awakening which
followed close In the bloody train of the
French revolution. To Germany, as to
France and England a4d Italy and Holland,
1t brought revolution in thought well
as in political externals, and In the father
land Schiller, with the warm heartbeats OF
his overmastering love of freedom. became
its main organ.
AS described by those who knew and loved
him, he must have looked the part he
played. Tall and of a strong. bony build,
though never muscular and always too lean,
his lofty forehead and aquiline nose bespoke
the mans high purpose and mental attain
ments. while mouth of pure Grecian
beauty told Enthusiastically of tenderness and
consideration. His look of contemplative
sensibility was even saddening In its effect