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A SCHILLER-PEST. 47
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
4 .» » —. — Debut Led It 1782 Ged Was , ...
that perhaps a hundred years hence , when my dust shall have been long blown awaymy memory may yet be blessed and tears water
my grave ; then , I rejoice in my poet-calling , and can be at peace with God and my oft-times hard afflictions . "
Some two hours having seen the completion of the grand cereof the daythe greater part of the company adjourned to the
mony , adjoining theatre , where , after a prologue , pronounced by a personation of Germania in honour of him whose memory was so
specially connected with that spot , the Drama of " Wallenstein " was performedand the " Song of the Bell" represented in a
suc-, cession of tableaux . In this last , the foreground was occupied throughout bthe forge where the bell was being cast ,- —its master
y and its workmen , —very little action being , however , assigned to these . The Master recited in character the whole of the song , with the
exception of those parts assigned to a maiden , who supported the second part in the story . At each appropriate pause a curtain was
raised to disclose a tableau illustrative of the thought dwelt on in the Song , when the poet pictures the scenes suggested by the yet
forming bell . These were seven in number : — " The Betrothal , " " The House-mother" " The Fire" " The Burial , " " The Harvest
Home" and " The Bridal , . " Then , as the scene closes in the human story , the end too of the casting comes , and the bell rises from its
deep , cavern , lustrous and golden , to be , crowned with rose-wreaths , in a flood of electric liht poured from above .
In the evening , the g whole town was a mass of illuminations . Transparencies and coloured lamps were everywhere ; lines of tiny
flame ran along almost every window , —the gas-jets being , however , very few . Inscriptions and scrolls came out in bold relief , —sometimes
laboriously ornate , sometimes touchingly simple , —as for instance , over the fruit-market : —" Schiller Du Sanger des Volksleb ewig
, in Herzen des Volkes . " To me , perhaps , the most interesting trophy of all was one of the actual play-bills of that " new drama , "
to be acted on Jan . 17 , ( 1784 _, preserved , probably , by some mere chance , but now regarded as a sacred relic .
Bengal fires burnt on the Schiller-Platz , as it was now proudly called , and the same brilliant coloured light attracted a crowd
round a private house where the noble bust was shrined amid a balcony of plants and flowers of rare beauty . There _y _/ as nothing
in the illuminations which is not far surpassed at any rejoicing in London or Paristhough the leafy decorations were certainly
more tasteful and effective , than British fingers would ever have contrived ; but what was to me above any gas-jet or grand device ,
was the hearty loving national enthusiasm that in the poorest house lit at least a saucer-full of oil in the window-sill to do honour to
him wlio , however he may be honoured in other lands , receives his
proudest title from those who so fondly call him the People's Poet .
A Schiller-Pest. 47
A SCHILLER-PEST . 47
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 2, 1863, page 47, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_02031863/page/47/
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