But  for  an  interesting  tragic  hero  it  is  not  enough  to
fall  short  of  infamy.  He  must  have  some  sort  of  dis-
tinction. He  must  be  a  towering  personality.  One
does  not  go  to  the  theater  to  be  convinced  in  a  moral
or  political  argument,  but  to  be  carried  along  with  a
rush  of  feeling,  for  which  the  old  term  sympathy  is
perhaps  as  good  a  name  as  any  other.     A  magnificent


342  Waflenstein

criminal  will  serve  the  purpose  very  well,  as  Schiller
had  discovered  in  his  early  years,  but  he  must  be
magnificent.  Now  it  was  precisely  this  element  of
greatness  that  was  lacking  in  the  character  of  the  his-
torical Wallenstein.  No  lofty  idealism  of  any  kind
could  be  imputed  to  him.  He  was  not  a  religious
zealot,  like  Cromwell  or  Gustav  Adolf,  nor  was  he  a
strenuous  German  patriot,  like  Frederick  the  Great.
He  was  not  even  a  great  soldier;  for  while,  as  the  head
of  a  great  host  of  marauding  mercenaries,  he  made
himself  the  scourge  and  the  terror  of  Germany,  he
never  won  a  decisive  .battle  against  an  equal  enemy.
The  history  of  his  fighting  is  largely  a  history  of
futilities.  And  when  he  formed  the  plan  of  a  separate
peace, — a  plan  which  if  promptly  and  vigorously
executed  might  possibly  have  succeeded  and  have
caused  him  to  be  numbered  with  the  benefactors  of
Europe, — he  dallied  with  the  thought  until  it  was  too
late,  fell  into  the  pit  which  he  had  digged  for  himself,
and,  in  trying  to  flounder  out,  met  his  death  at  the
hands  of  an  assassin  who  had  a  grudge  against  him.
