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The Thalia did not pay, though the critics spoke well of it, and he could not live forever upon Koerner's friendly advances of money. The sense of his dependence often galled him; and yet when a proposal, in itself highly attractive, came to him from a distant city, he could not pluck up courage to leave his friend.
Could not Goeschen be persuaded to undertake a new and authentic edition of the published plays and to advance a sum of money on the prospects? Koerner's reply was prompt and characteristic. He enclosed a draft for current expenses, promised more against the time of need and bade his friend have no further solicitude about money.
He was moved to write a number of patriotic songs from Koerner's "Leier und Schwert." These choruses for men were sung throughout the Fatherland, as they still are sung.
An amusing glimpse of domestic conditions in the Koerner household is afforded by Schiller's dramatic skit, entitled 'Koerner's Forenoon'. It belongs apparently to the year 1787, but was not published until 1862. The busy councillor of the Dresden Consistory sees a little leisure before him and squares off at his desk for a solid forenoon's work. He begins by ordering his man to shave him.
'I have always despised money', he wrote, 'to a degree that it disgusts me to talk about it with souls that are dear to me. I attach no importance to actions that are natural to people of our sort, and which you would perform for me were the conditions reversed. It was now arranged that after Koerner's marriage Schiller should make his home in Dresden.
Schiller's idea was, evidently, to blaze a private trail through the jungle of Kantian theory, with Koerner's critical assistance, and then to return and convert the trail into an agreeable road for the general reader.
One Sunday afternoon in the late winter a reporter took me to visit a so-called anarchist sunday school, several of which were to be found on the northwest side of the city. The young man in charge was of the German student type, and his face flushed with enthusiasm as he led the children singing one of Koerner's poems.
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