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66
Great Writers.”
EDITED BY
PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.
LIFE OF HEINE.
LIFE
OF
HEINRICH HEINE
BY
WILLIAM SHARP
=
LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE
NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER
TORONTO: W. J. GAGE & CO.
1888
(All rights reserved.)
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Heine's "Memoirs ;" the decade preceding his birth; political
events during his childhood; the Jews of Central Europe;
Heine and the French invasion of Russia; the Juden-
Schmerz; French proclivities and satire of the Germans;
his cosmopolitanism; his three-fold nature
CHAPTER I.
"Die
Heine born at Düsseldorf, December 13, 1799; his relatives;
christened "Harry"; incidents of childhood; French
tambour, Le Grand; early metrical exercises;
Grenadiere"; Heine and Béranger;
"Don Quixote";
boyhood reminiscences; first romance; Sefchen (Josepha),
the niece of an executioner's widow; earliest published
lyrics
CHAPTER II.
The question of Heine's vocation; a banker's clerk at Frank-
fürt; wretchedness in Frankfürt; at Düsseldorf; reads
omnivorously; probably at this time that he came to know
Sefchen ; in 1816 goes to Hamburg as employé in the
house of his rich uncle, Salomon Heine; hatred of Ham-
burg; appearance and personal traits; his Cousin Amalie;
9
• 13
6
CONTENTS.
sets up in business; presumed proposal to, and rejection
by, Amalie Heine; decided that he shall study for the
law; leaves Hamburg, 1819; uncle promises an annual
allowance; leaves hopefully; Düsseldorf; early lyrics;
embryo fame; contributions to The Hamburg Watchman,
&c. ; goes to Bonn University, 1819; Augustus Schlegel
Simrock and Hundeshagen; romanticism; "Junge Leiden”
lyrics; matriculation; in 1820 goes to Beul; life at Göt-
tingen; is rusticated; Berlin in 1820-1; Moses Moser;
the Varnhagens; E. Gans; Hegel; publications in the
Gesellschafter; issue in book-form; Heine's mental state
at this time; appearance and demeanour; Scott's literary
influence; the Neo-Romantic movement; "Buch der
Lieder"; "Ratcliff"; "Almansor"; "Lyrisches Inter-
mezzo
>>
PAGE
35
CHAPTER III.
Heine's heedlessness of health; nervous headaches: joins his
parents at Lüneburg, 1823; reputation; goes to Cuxhaven
for health; arrives in Hamburg; interview with his Uncle
Salomon; "Die Heimkehr "; temporary quarrel with
uncle; stay by the North Sea; love of the sea; "Heimkehr"
sea-lyrics; leaves Cuxhaven; at Lüneburg; returns to
Göttingen; the "Rabbi von Bacharach "; flying visit to
Berlin; calls on Immermann at Magdeburg; hailed in
Berlin as the German Byron; Göttingen; "Faust" project;
tour through Hartz district in summer of 1824; meeting
with Goethe; the "Harzreise
CHAPTER IV.
Heine at Göttingen in 1824-5; despondency; question of
his apostasy; is baptized; his examination; on July 20th
makes doctorial speech; Norderney (Book ii., "Reise-
bilder"); Hamburg; Heine and his Uncle Salomon;
becomes acquainted with future publisher, Julius Campe;
publication in book-form of first series of "Reisebilder,"
May, 1826; "Die Nordsee" lyrics; Norderney again;
romantic episode; Lüneburg; "Reisebilder "; goes to
Hamburg to arrange with Campe; new "Reisebilder "
62
CONTENTS.
7
volume; "Buch Le Grand"; "The Book of Ideas";
Professor Saalfield; in April, 1827, goes to London; great
success of second series of "Reisebilder"; volume inter-
dicted in North Germany; his elation
CHAPTER V.
Heine's "English Fragments"; London; Ramsgate; la belle
Irlandaise; poetic memoranda; on August 8, 1827,
leaves England; Hamburg; angry interview with uncle;
assistant-editorship
(C
of the Allgemeinen Politischen
Annalen"; meets his Cousin Amalie, now Frau Fried-
lander; in autumn of 1827 goes to Munich; Ludwig Börne
at Frankfurt; illness at Munich; cessation of the "Poli-
tischen Annalen"; in July, 1828, starts for Italy, Genoa,
Leghorn, and Bagni di Lucca ; begins “Italien” book of
"Reisebilder"; Florence; is overcome by longing to see
his father; hurriedly starts northward; learns that his
father is dead; spends winter of 1829 in Hamburg and
Potsdam; "Italian Sketches;" despondency; Heligoland;
publication of "Italien" book of the "Reisebilder"; ex-
citement caused by it; Prussia considered unsafe for him
Ileine at this time; in 1830 goes to Waldsbeck in Holstein;
studies literature of French Revolution; Heligoland; hears
of Revolution of July; joy, elation, and hopes; disillusion;
so-called "Jew-Riot "; Paris his inevitable goal; winter
and spring passed in Hamburg; on May 3rd, 1831, enters
Paris, the "New Jerusalem "
CHAPTER VI.
Life in Paris; writes for German papers; a spendthrift of
health; literary and artistic acquaintances; dissipations ;
Mathilde Crescence Mirat; marriage in 1841 on eve of the
Borne duel; book on Börne; debts accumulate; appeal to
Salomon Heine; secret pension from French Government ;
arrangement with Campe the publisher; Gautier's account
of Heine; various literary works in prose and verse; in
1841 goes to Hamburg to visit his mother;
"Neue
Gedichte"; "Deutschland; Ei Wintermärchen its
PAGE
86
109
8
CONTENTS.
satire, recklessness, and poetry; returns to Paris, 1843;
growing ill-health; death of Salomon Heine; disappoint-
ment as to legacy; paralysis sets in; arrangement with
heirs; Heine's miserable condition; last visit to free
Nature," July, 1846; terrible infirmities; courage; mental
vigour; his Will; dreadful sufferings (1847-8); Revolu-
tion of '48; slight improvement in health; goes out for
last time; emotions before Venus of Milo; significance of
this last visit; doomed to mattress-grave
CHAPTER VII.
In summer of 1848 Heine taken to Passy; returns to Paris;
sufferings in winter of 1848-9; visitors; ultimate solitude;
case taken in hand by Dr. Gruby; some improvement;
sufferings in 1850-1; Romancero" volume; "Der
Doktor Faust," sold for £240 as libretto for ballet; "The
Gods in Exile"; rumoured conversion from infidelity;
cynical explanations; "Letzte Gedichte" and "Geständ-
nissë," 1852-4; "Die Passionsblume"; Posthumous
Poems; "Bimini"; this poem Heine's epicedion
CHAPTER VIII.
Cholera-epidemic of 1854; Heine moved to Batignolles; in
Champs Elysées; Heine's joy at seeing trees once more;
composes "Early Memoirs"; in autumn of 1855 visited
by La Mouche (Camille Selden); their friendship; her
"Last Days of Heine"; Heine and his mother; suffer-
ings increase; indomitable spirit; irony and wit; state
terrible; last words; death, on 17th of February, 1856;
buried at Montmartre; summary of Heine's genius
INDEX
PAGE
134
. 169
. 183
•
213
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE
HE comparatively recent publication of Heine's
fragmentary Memoirs-not those which he him-
self tells us he destroyed, but the biographical record
which, rather more than a year before his death, he
commenced at the instigation of a friend-has thrown a
flood of light not only upon the childhood of the poet,
but upon the influences which moulded him and the
sources to which we may trace certain idiosyncrasies of
his genius. In 1867 his enthusiastic biographer, Adolf
Strodtmann,¹ brought together all the then available
material relative to the boyhood of Heine, and it was
taken for granted that nothing had escaped the industry
of his research. Moreover, Heine has himself through
out his writings been so prolific of hints and statements
concerning his early life that even without the new light
of the Memoirs there was no poverty of detail. But in
these late "Confessions" we learn for the first time what
were the most immediate and most potent factors in the
From whose "Heine's Leben und Werke " Mr. Stigand's and
other briefer accounts in English derive their data.
10
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
mental and, to some extent, spiritual development of the
poet whose extraordinarily complex genius has been to
many the source of as much confusion as of intellectual
stimulus, of as much bewilderment as charm.
Heine was born on the eve of the nineteenth century,
and if we glance no further back than the decade pre-
ceding his birth, it will easily be seen at what a crucial
period in European history he first saw the light. The
long despotism which had held the greater part of the
Continent in bondage was rapidly undergoing disintegra-
tion, not, as history has proved, to the triumph of demo-
cratic freedom, but more or less in that direction.
The nearer we are to history the more impressive are
its superficial aspects, and, though the sensibility of
childhood to purely extraneous influences must neces-
sarily be very limited, they may be far from impotent in
degree. Before his tenth year Heine was a practically im-
perceptive onlooker amid great events; indeed it may be
said that the Spirit of Revolution breathed upon him from
his very birth. The first French Empire had been.
founded, the famous Code Napoleon promulgated.
1806 saw the dissolution of the inchoate German Empire,
and the founding of the Rhine Confederation. Battle
after battle had quelled the most militant of the German
States. The violation of national rights had become the
order of the day. Finland was divorced from Sweden;
the Tyrol was subdued; Spain had been overrun; and
Holland was annexed. The one bright outlook for
humanity amid all this bloodshed and bloodthirst, this
insane violence and criminal debauchery of potentates,
this scornful rape of the liberties of the people, was the
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
11
abolition of the traffic in slaves. It was a slight thing to
bleeding Europe, but it brought comfort to many brave
souls, appearing, as it did, as a rainbow above the blood-
red horizon of the immediate future. Patriots could not
but dream that a greater abolition of even more igno-
minious slavery would follow in time, and among these
dreamers were none more ardent than the oppressed
Jews of Central Europe. Heine was a little seven-
year-old Jew when the slave-trade was proclaimed
illegal, and even then, as we now know, he was aware
that the stain of Israel was deeper than that which was
the inheritance of the children of Esau.
Although at the time only in his twelfth year, Heine
was not too young to be deeply impressed by the news
of the disastrous ending of the French Invasion of Russia.
The flames of burning Moscow cast so fierce a gleam
across all Europe, from the Volga to the sea-quays of the
Loire, that even in the humble town of Düsseldorf there
was a little Jewish schoolboy who trembled when he
heard of the thousands dying daily amidst the snows,
and whose heart was filled with awe at the thought of
the silent brooding emperor riding solitarily on his white
horse, a more vivid and terrible reality than that other
Rider upon a white steed drawn by good Master Albrecht
Dürer nigh upon three centuries gone by, which often the
´little Heinrich had looked at fearfully in his uncle's print
collection. One of the most touching passages in the
"Reisebilder" is that describing the return march
through Düsseldorf of a miserable remnant of one of
Napoleon's crack regiments of Grenadiers, and how
among them young Heine recognized the French
12
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
tambour, Le Grand, who had been the idol of his earliest
childish romance.
Still a child was he, as I have said, when he first learned
that "Jew" and "Pariah" were in the Germany of his day
very nearly synonymous terms; and ere he had outgrown
his boyhood he had come to suffer that bitter heart-com-
plaint of his race, that Juden-Schmerz, that Grief of Israel,
which is the most pathetic and the most terrible of all
national sorrows. In his own words, "The history of the
Jews is tragical; and yet if one were to write about this
tragedy he would be laughed at. This is the most tragic
of all." Of him even more than of Moses Mendelssohn
might Kayserling's words be quoted: "Every page of his-
tory reminded him of the suffering and the spoliation
which his kindred had through centuries patiently borne,
and of his own homelessness.”
Heine has often been blamed by the more ignorant or
more prejudiced of his countrymen for his French pro-
clivities, and for his unsparing satire of the Germans and
most things Teutonic. But while it is advisable to re-
member that the French and not the Germans were
dominant in the Rhine provinces at the time of the poet's
boyhood, the only thing that is of moment now is that
he was essentially one of the men of no nationality. The
greatest of German lyric poets, he was otherwise a typical
cosmopolitan. There was nothing parochial in his type
any more than in his genius. As has been well-remarked
of him, his nature embraced the remotest eras:
soul he was an early Hebrew; in spirit an ancient
Greek; in mind a republican of the nineteenth century.
in
LIFE OF HEINE.
“I
CHAPTER I.
WILL write of Heine; of the poet whose genius
has torn up the treaties of Vienna, and carried the
boundaries of France to the Rhine; of that tearful
trifler, that sardonic sentimentalist, that strange, sad,
significant fellow, who laughs at old legends over his wine,
and shudders beneath the black Lürlei-rocks in the
twilight. I will write of him, not only because he is
strange, sad, and significant, nor because he tears up
treaties, and quizzes Kaiser and Vaterland, and parodies
the songs of Israel by the waters of the Seine-but
because the music of his melodies 'beats time to nothing
in my brain' to-day; because, in this sweet Rhenish
weather, I have first learned how exquisite is his singing,
how subtle and how true is the rhythm of his genius."
Thus wrote, some thirty-five years ago, from Oberwesel-
am-Rhein, an anonymous critic and in this spirit.
should the biographer or student of Germany's fore-
most singer approach the subject of the poet's life and
14
LIFE OF
works.
In Heine's many-sidedness there is somewhere
fascination for every one; in his songs there is music for
all.
A well-known passage in the "Italien " book of the
"Reisebilder" sets forth that the author first saw the light
on the opening day of the present century. It is sufficiently
clear that Heine had no intention to mislead his readers:
he simply wished to make a good point. "I am eighteen ;
how old are you?" asks the fair Francesca whom the
susceptible poet encounters at Lucca; and for answer
she hears that her admirer was born on the morning of
New Year's Day, 1800. "There," joins in Francesca's
friend, the Marquis Christoforo, "have I not always told
you that he was one of the first men of the century?" 1
As a matter of fact Heine was born in a small one-storied
house in the Bolkerstrasse of Düsseldorf-am-Rhein, on
the 13th of December, 1799. This house is still in exist-
ence, and, as No. 53, Bolkerstrasse, is occupied by a
stationer; but save as the birthplace of the poet it has
little interest, for the romance of his childhood was not
under the parental roof-moreover, the Heine family
moved to a larger house across the street when Heinrich
was in his eleventh or twelfth year.
The Heines were Jewish through both the male and
I
• Curiously enough neither Heine nor any of the biographers,
commentators, or essayists who have quoted or alluded to this
passage, seems to have realized that the remark is in fact a pointless
one. The year 1800 was, of course, not the first year of the nine-
teenth century but the last year of the eighteenth. To have been
one of the first men of the century Heine should have been born on
the 1st of January, 1801.
HEINE.
15
•
female lines. About the middle of the eighteenth century
the daughter of one Meyer Schamschen Popert married a
small dealer or petty merchant called Heymann Heine,
and bore her husband six sons, only the second and third
of whom have any interest for the biographer of the poet.
Heymann's third child, Salomon, became one of the
wealthiest men in Germany, and known far and wide as
the Jew-prince of Hamburg. He married a Goldschmidt,
and lived in ever-increasing prosperity until his death
near the close of 1844. This Salomon had six children,
of whom Amalie (Heine's first love) was the fourth;
to the others it is not necessary to allude meanwhile,
though the heirs of Salomon Heine were, as will be seen
later on, responsible for much of the mental and physical
misery which prostrated the poct in the last decade of
his life. Samson, the second son of Heymann Heine,
had little of the shrewdness and energy of his brothers,
Isaac and Salomon; his tastes were aesthetic, and his
sympathies neither Jewish nor German. He was an
amiable and handsome young man, and by his personal
attractions, and a passion for the flute, was able to gain as
wife the daughter of a well-to-do physician of Jewish race,
the courtly Dr. Simon von Geldern of Düsseldorf.
The easy-going, æsthetically-inclined Samson Heine
and the energetic, exceptionally well-educated and intel-
lectual Betty von Geldern set up housekeeping together
in the Bolkerstrasse of the old Rhenish town. There, in
due course, four children were born to them, of whom
the eldest was Heinrich. Thereafter came Gustav, Char-
lotte, and Maximilian.
Gustav, like his elder brother, inherited the intellectual
16
LIFE OF
bias, and in maturity found scope for his mental energies
as founder and editor of what is still a foremost Viennese
newspaper; Maximilian followed the example of his uncle
and became a physician, and ultimately achieved a good
position in St. Petersburg, whither he had gone to court
fortune; while Charlotte married in early life a Hamburg
merchant named Moritz Embden, and had a daughter
who afterwards became the Princess Della Rocca. The
three persons who had most to do with Heine's mental
development were his mother, his uncle, Simon von
Geldern, and his father.
It is indubitable that the romance appertaining to the
Geldern family (for the elder Simon's father had been a
strange and picturesque figure, and deeply impressed the
boyish imagination of his great grandson) materially
affected the future poet. To his father's kith and kin,
his Sippen und Magen, as he spoke of them, Heine
rarely alluded. But, as he shrewdly remarks, his
paternal grandfather must have been something more
than "
a little Jew with a big beard" to have been able
to woo and win the daughter of the rich Hamburg banker
Popert, "the extraordinarily beautiful woman" who died
in the year of her famous grandson's birth.
It has been the habit of biographers of Heine to
speak slightingly of his father-to regard him, as Mr.
Stigand does, as a man of small mental endowments,
or, like another critic, "as a weak, foolish, and vulgar
emancipated' Jew." Vulgar, Samson Heine certainly
was not. In appearance he was handsome, and in
manners refined: he was, indeed, as his son says, the
inheritor of his mother's great beauty. Though Madame
HEINE.
17
¿
Heine was of a more energetic and intellectual nature than
her husband, and Simon von Geldern indubitably in most
respects the latter's superior, Heine loved neither so well
as his father. In the "Memoirs" he expressly states that
his father was of all human beings the one whom he had
most loved; that even after the lapse of more than twenty-
five years he could barely realize that he had actually lost
him; and asserts that scarcely a single night had passed
wherein he had had no thought of him who had so long
before departed from life. It is absurd, therefore, in the
face of these direct statements and the unmistakable
kindly affection pervading the Reminiscences, to assert
that Samson Heine was a mere nonentity, without recog-
nizable influence upon his son. It was from his father,
and not from his mother, that Heinrich inherited his
love of music, of art, of æsthetic surroundings, of per-
sonal daintiness: indeed it would seem that it is the
poet who owes most to his father and the intellectual
gymnast who derives from his mother.
Heine is emphatic upon the dominant influence
of his mother in his intellectual development. She
had, he tells us, very high-flown ideas with regard to
him, to which all her educational plans had reference.
"She played the chief part in the history of my develop-
ment; she made the programme of all my studies; and
even before my birth began her plans for my education."
Like many intellectual speculators, however, Madame
Heine found that she had reckoned without idiosyn-
crasies stronger than theoretical arrangements; and one
by one her aerial castles came toppling to the ground.
She was a woman of great energy of character, and of
2
18
LIFE OF
exceptional mental culture; though curiously undeveloped
æsthetically for one who had had visions of romance in
her girlhood, and had allowed the siren-note of a hand-
some young Jew's flute to win her thoughts from pelf and
social position. Her religious belief was a severe Deism,
which (so says Heine) was well adapted to the prevailing
drift of her reasoning. She was a disciple of Voltaire and
Rousseau, and had for hobby the science of education.
When yet a young girl she was obliged to read Latin
Dissertations and other learned publications aloud.
to her father, and often, her son remarks, astonished
the old man by her questions. She had a horror of
imagination, and for romantic legends and superstitious
folk-lore entertained a supreme contempt ¹
I
On the other hand, she was of an unselfish nature.
Though in some things penurious, she was mainly
so only with regard to her own person, and she could
even be extravagant in her charity and liberality to
others. Her eldest son never forgot the debt he owed to
her. On that dreadful mattress-grave where his last few
years pitiably held death at bay, he expressed himself fer-
vently on the sacrifices she had made on his behalf: and
well he might, for when he was studying at Bonn and his
I
"Her reason and her sentiment were thoroughly healthy, and
it was not from her that I inherited fanciful and romantic inclinations.
As I have mentioned already, she had a perfect dread of poetry,
took from me any romance that she might find in my hands, did not
permit me to visit the theatre, forbade me to take part in popular
amusements, watched over my acquaintances, scolded the maid-
servants when they told ghost stories in my presence-in short,
she did everything to guard me against superstition and poetical
fancies."-H. II.
HEINE.
19
father's fortune was almost swept away, Madame Heine
sold her necklace, earrings, and other valuable and
treasured jewelry in order to secure for her son a living´´
during the unremunerative period of university study.
But valuable as was his mother's influence in his
mental development, the strong literary bias which, as
early as his twelfth year, began to manifest itself, was
mainly due to his uncle, Simon von Geldern. This
"Uncle Simon " was a man of marked individuality,
strange in appearance as well as eccentric in his views.
Chief among his hobbies was that of authorship. With
an idea in his brain and a pen in his hand he was at the
Gate of Paradise; when he could write finis to the neat
formal manuscript, his rapture was of the peaceful joy of
those who have entered in. But notwithstanding his
"stiff court style," and frequent pedantry of subject,
Simon von Geldern's example had direct effect upon his
nephew. Still more important was his unrestricted loan
of books of all kinds, and his permission to Heinrich to
seclude himself in a certain wonderful garret, of which,
and his day-dreams there, Heine gives in his "Memoirs"
a most picturesque account.
((
Those familiar with the poet's autobiographical allusions
will recollect how often he is "Harry" rather than
Heinrich" or "Henri." And the eldest-born of Sam-
son and Elizabeth Heine was actually christened Harry
-not, as he points out, in avoidance of the "almost
scurrilous native diminutives of Heinrich," but in honour
of one of his father's friends, an English gentleman who
acted as his correspondent in Liverpool. But though the
poet always liked to be called Harry, the name was in
20
LIFE OF
his childhood the source of bitter annoyance, as he
amusingly narrates in the "Memoirs."
Heine's childhood was a mixture of romance, amuse-
ment, torment, and schoolboy ennui. When not in
Noah's
But
school he would be in the haunted garret at
Ark," as his Uncle Simon's house was locally called;
when not playing with other children on the Schloss-
Platz, he would be fraternizing with the French soldiery;
when not in mischief he would be lying adream in the
castle gardens, or wandering about with a vague wonder
in his heart and a yearning for he knew not what.
with all his love of mischief and his high spirits, he does
not seem to have cared much for the delights of ordinary
boyhood; no doubt the grandson of "a little Jew with a
big beard" was held in even greater contempt from the
fact that he was weak enough to occasionally expend his
pocket-money in the purchase, "from the hard-hearted
country-lads," of larks and linnets, thrushes and black-
birds, with the sole object of their liberation. Not that
his spare cash was never spent upon more mundane
objects. The various accounts in the "Reisebilder" and
the "Memoirs" of his school experiences are very enter-
taining and most wittily told. What tortures he suffered
from verbs! The only distinction which Herr Samson's
first-born could discern between the verba irregularia
and the verba regularia was that the former were more
frightfully difficult, and in consequence involved far more
floggings. The school was in a Franciscan convent, and
in the dank cloisters adjoining the room wherein the lads
of Düsseldorf suffered such mental and physical pains
there used to hang a great crucifix of grey wood. Before
HEINE.
21
this image-the grim carving of which, with the bleeding
eyes that stared with mournful persistency, long con-
tinued to haunt his dreams, Heine often prostrated him-
self in agonized prayer, imploring, "O thou poor Deity,
once tortured like myself, if it be possible, grant that I
may remember the verba irregularia !"
But even the irregular Latin verbs were not so terrible
as Greek. "Of Greek I cannot trust myself to speak.
The monks of the Middle Ages were not altogether
wrong when they pronounced Greek to be an invention.
of the devil. God knows the woes it caused me. With
Hebrew I fared better, for I always had a strong liking
for the Jews, though to this very hour they crucify my
good name. But even in Hebrew I could not get on so
well as my watch, which was on intimate terms with the
pawnbrokers, and thus picked up much of the manners
and customs of the Jews. . . For some of my German
I was indebted to Professor Schramm, who wrote a work
on everlasting peace, and in whose class we were always
at fisticuffs." But it was in the French class that he
made most progress.
The teacher was an eccentric
Abbé D'Aulnoi (or Daunoi, as Heine, probably forget-
fully, alludes to him in his Memoirs) "with elastic
features and a brown wig, who capered about when
he was giving a lecture on his 'Art Poétique' and his
'Histoire Allemande.' If the irregular verbs were
more difficult, the French alexandrines were not less
distressful. These metrical crimes Heine never could
forgive. The French alexandrine was to him a metre that
must surely have been invented by Procrustes—a perfect
straight-jacket for thoughts which, considering their
22
LIFE OF
>>
tameness, stand in no need of such bondage! Often,
even upon his mattress-bed, he thought with horror of
the time when he had to translate into French alexandrines
the address of Caiaphas to the Sanhedrin from the hexa-
meters of Klopstock's "Messiah !
"God pardon
me! I cursed the world, and the foreign oppressors who
wanted to impose their versification upon us! I might
have been willing to die for France, but to make French
verses-never!" Even in the ordinary French lesson,
where he felt more at ease, there were pitfalls into
which he fell. In the third book of the "Reisebilder
he relates one now famous episode. "I remember, as if
it were yesterday, the trouble I got into over Religion.
Six times, at least, I was asked, 'Henri, what is the
French for der Glaube (Faith)?' and six times I answered,
each time with a greater burst of tears, le crédit,' and
the seventh time my questioner, turning purple with rage,
shouted 'It is la religion,' and a rain of blows followed;
and all my schoolfellows burst out laughing." But once
away from the school in the Franciscans' convent, what
delight it was to join the French tambour who was quar-
tered upon the Heine household-the small, nervous,
fiercely-mustachioed, fiery-eyed drummer of Grenadiers,
"who looked like a very devil, and yet was such an
angelic character." How gladly Master Harry polished
the veteran's buttons and pipe-clayed his waistcoat; how
eagerly he listened to the instruction his idol occasionally
chose to impart! For though Monsieur Le Grand knew
only a little broken German, he could convey much
essential information by means of his drumming. Thus
when his young questioner would ask the meaning of
HEINE.
23
"Liberté," he would beat the "Marseillaise," and would
be understood; to explain "Égalité" he would play,
t
'Ça ira, ça ira . . . les aristos à la lanterne!" where-
upon his meaning became clear. Once Le Grand
wanted to explain the word Germany, and so he beat a
primitive simple measure which is often played at fairs
for dogs to dance to, the tune of "Dumm, Dummı,
Dumm" (stupid); whereat Heinrich was angry, but—
understood him.
Day by day his martial ardour and enthusiasm for
Napoleon increased. He would lie on the grass in the
palace gardens listening to Le Grand's drumming, and
seeing in vision the Emperor crossing the Simplon, with
the eagles screaming above the glaciers-the Emperor
clasping the standard on the Bridge of Lodi-the Em
peror in his grey cloak at Marengo-the Emperor on
horseback at the Battle of the Pyramids amid smoke and
barbaric Mamelukes the Emperor at Austerlitz, at
Jena, at Eylau, at Wagram !
"But what were my feelings," he exclaims in the
"Book of Ideas," "when I saw him at last with my own
eyes-O beatific vision !-himself, the Emperor." It was
indeed an eventful day for all Düsseldorf when the great
captain rode into the town in his simple majesty. How
the green allées became glorified with the splendid uni-
forms of the staff, how the air seemed to palpitate with
the fanfares of a hundred silver trumpets! But as for
Napoleon himself, "he wore his plain green uniform and
his world-famous cap, and rode carelessly, with a loose
seat, his beautiful white palfrey, whose neck he often
patted goodnaturedly with his right hand. His face
24
LIFE OF
was of the same hue that we see in marble busts of
Greek and Roman: the features wore the same expres-
sion of calm dignity that the ancients have, and on them
was written, 'Thou shalt have none other God but me.'”
The Napoleon glamour never quite left Heine, though
in after years he found himself a leader in an army who
knew not the autocrat of old, who indeed loathed his
name as that of a renegade and traitor. But to him he
was ever the great captain, the man of might, the child
of Destiny: the greatest of all men who had been born
in latter days-a sinner beyond reckoning, yet hero
beyond praise. Yet to him the man always was the
man. "I never praise the dead," he remarks in the
"Italien" section of the "Reisebilder," "but the soul
of a man of which the deed is only a garment; history,
in fact, is nothing more than the old wardrobe of the
soul of humanity."
This imperial fervour, nourished as it was by his com-
panionship with Le Grand and by endless rumour of
great and mighty deeds, influenced the budding poet as
well as the enthusiastic boy. He began to write odes
and lyrics, which, though probably worthless, helped to
clear his mind and exercise his metrical dexterity, re-
markable from the outset. It was when still a boy,
indeed, that he wrote a lyric which, when published, was
soon everywhere caught up-"The Grenadiers." Though
so simple and pathetic a poem, I have encountered no
metrical translation of it which at all conveys the beauty
of the original-indeed it seems to me to have been one
of the least fortunate of Heine's lyrical poems in respect
of translation.
HEINE.
25
Once again he saw Napoleon, on the occasion of the
Imperial review of the Grenadiers cre they set forth on
their march to Russia: once again he was fascinated by
that marble face, and that calm, inscrutable gaze. But
now he had to bid farewell to Monsieur Le Grand, who
marched away proudly drumming, for was not the Em-
peror about to put the seal upon his greatness?
The tenth chapter of the third book of the "Reise-
bilder" is devoted to the account of how Heine saw Le
Grand again. He was no longer a child, but a youth—
though more in thoughts and perhaps in manner than in
years: and his heart was sad with the dire tale that had
come of the perishing of La Grande Armée amid the
steppes of Russia and the frozen waters of the Beresina.¹
It is to this episode that we owe "The Two Grenadiers,"
in connection wherewith it should be borne in mind
that the author did not write from the imitative impulse
excited by the French Napoleonic poets, as has been
asserted, but entirely spontaneously. "Die Grenadiere"
was composed in 1815, at which time Béranger had not.
written his analogous poems "Le Vieux Drapeau," "Le
Vieux Sergent," &c.
The books which most affected Heine's boyish imagi-
nation were "Don Quixote," Sterne's “Sentimental
Journey," and "Gulliver's Travels." Upon these, and
upon the Rhine legends, the writings of a few of the
romantic poets of his time, and the folk-songs of Sefchen
• Readers unfamiliar with German should consult pages 150-155
of Mr. Storr's admirable version of the "Travel-Pictures" (the
"Reisebilder") in Bohn's Series: better still, they should obtain
the volume.
26
LIFE OF
(about whom I shall have something to say presently),
his swift and robust fancy fed and mightily developed.
In his thirty-seventh year he wrote an introduction to an
édition de luxe of the great work of Cervantes, wherein he
gives a charming picture of his boyhood and of his secret
reading haunt in the Avenue of Sighs in the old Schloss-
garten of Düsseldorf. But the biographer who dwells over-
long upon childish records, however interesting they may
be to him and even to his readers, almost inevitably comes
to lay too great stress upon what is more or less general
to all childhood. Rare indeed are the instances where
any really exceptional deeds and sayings distinguish the
childhood of men or women of genius from the infancy
of other people: what is advisable is to commemorate
only what is genuinely characteristic. Therefore I need.
not enlarge upon the childhood of Heine. One or two
important episodes, however, yet remain to be chronicled.
The poetic descriptions of boyhood-remembrances to
be found in the first part of "The Florentine Nights"
must not be taken as autobiographical; but the narrative
is not wholly fictitious, and we may accept as genuine
the account of the strange feeling of oppression, awkward
bashfulness, and vague fear that waylaid the boy-poet
when, in an old garden, he came upon the supine statue
of a Greek goddess, and stared upon the white, finely-
chiselled bosom, shining forth from the high grasses which
environed it: and of how he visited the carven yet life-
like loveliness again by moonlight, and, while a sweet,
shuddering sensation flowed through him, pressed his
lips against the cold lips of marble with wild and pas-
sionate tenderness.
HEINE.
27
The most romantic episode in Heine's boyhood and
early youth was the outcome of a disagreeable incident.
The boy whom he most hated was forced one day to kiss
his hand, while this Jupp Flader's grandmother (over-
come by Herr Heine's munificence) praised little Harry's
beauty to the skies. To avert the disasters invited by
such exaggerated adulation, "Nurse Tippel" supersti-
tiously insisted upon Harry's going with her to a woman
who had the reputation of a sorceress-a disreputable
creature known as "Die Göchin," as having come from
Goch and having been the wife of the public executioner
who had dwelt there. Heinrich went, and was duly
anointed against malfortune. At first he was simply
disgusted and perhaps a little awed, but still he returned.
occasionally, and by the time he was sixteen he paid fre-
quent visits to the abode of "Die Göchin," attracted
thither not by the mysteries of sorcery, but by "a magic
stronger than that of all the bombastic Latin philtraria."
This attraction was a niece of "Die Meisterin "—as the
executioner's widow was also called-a beautiful girl of
sixteen, but so developed physically as to appear four or
five years older: tall and slender in figure, small waisted
as one of the quadroons of the West Indies, and in her
tightly clinging dress "like a statue in a wet garment."
Even when describing this lovely Jewess after long years
of sturm und drang, Heine waxed eloquent. "No marble
statue, however, could compete with her in beauty," he
writes in his Memoirs, "and every one of her move-
ments revealed the rhythm of her body, I might even say,
the music of her soul. None of the daughters of Niobe
had a more finely-cut face. Its colour, just as that of her
28
LIFE OF
skin in general, was of a changing white. Her great,
deep-dark eyes looked as if they had just pronounced a
riddle and were waiting quietly for an answer, while
the mouth with its strongly-curved bow and oblong
teeth, white as ivory, seemed to say: You are stupid, and
never will be able to guess it." Her hair was of an
extraordinary red; perfectly blood-red Heine calls it,
and mentions how when it was tied in long locks under
her chin it was as though blood were welling forth from
her throat in red streams. Moreover, the voice of
Josepha, or, as she was generally called, Sefchen (or "Red.
Sefchen "), had in timbre a strange resemblance to that
of her young lover. Often when she spoke under any
excitement he was startled, thinking that he heard his
own voice; while her song was wont to recall dreams in
which he heard himself singing in the same manner and
in tones identical.
Sefchen knew many fugitive old songs, and to these
young Heine listened eagerly. Once when she was sing-
ing a weird märchen her emotion overcame her, and in
quick response the tears rose to her listener's eyes: in
another moment they had fallen sobbing into each other's
arms, where they remained for almost an hour, speaking
not a word but looking at each other passionately and
sympathetically, as it were through a veil of tears. After-
wards, Sefchen copied for her friend the stanzas that had
broken down the last barrier between them—not in ink,
but in her own blood. One is inevitably reminded of
the most dramatic episode in the "Divina Commedia,”
though Sefchen was more fortunate than Francesca in
that no knife-thrust abruptly climaxed the ecstasy of her
HEINE.
29
passion. All the girl's relations on the male side were or
had been executioners, and the ignominy of her kindred
left a stain upon her of which she was keenly conscious.
She knew that she was shunned by most reputable folk,
and she in turn avoided company. There was, too, a
certain wildness about her that, along with the vague
and terrible shadow of the sword which seemed to haunt
her life and thought and very presence, had a sombre
fascination for Heine. She was hardly human at times,
it seemed to him, with her dreamy and mysterious.
thoughts, and an occasional obstinacy and unreasoning
perversity. Even in her dreams, as she once told him,
she did not commune with human beings, for she dreamed
only of animals. Surely lovers never knew the rapture
of the first kiss in stranger circumstances than those
wherein Heine for the first time laid his lips against
"the haughty mouth" of "Red Sefchen." She had
been telling him some weird experiences of her girlhood,
with particular allusion to a sword which her grand-
father had buried with fantastic nocturnal ceremonies.
This weapon had been used in a hundred executions,
and thereafter had to be put away for is it not known
that a sword which has drunk blood five-score times
acquires a horrible personality, that a lust for slaying
possesses it, a thirst and torment that can only be
appeased in like manner as are the lusts and passions of
humanity-by the oblivion of the grave? It was not
until after the death of Josepha's grandfather that "Die
Göchin" heard from her niece of this buried sword,
whereupon she had at once hastened to the spot and
disinterred it. One day, importunate in the absence of
30
LIFE OF
“Die Meisterin,” Heine urged Sefchen to let him see
the weapon. She assented without a word, and speedily
stepped back from an adjoining room with the gigantic
sword, which, notwithstanding her thin arms, she swung
powerfully, while she chanted half-threateningly, half-
roguishly, some words from the song already alluded to-
"Say, wish you to hang on the lofty tree?
Or wish you to swim in the dark blue sea?
Or would you kiss the naked sword
Given to us by our Lord?"
Her companion answered in the same melody: "I will
kiss the naked sword "-adding immediately, "And I
will kiss little Red Sefchen." Sefchen did not dare to
resist lest she might harm him with the fatal steel
(athirst as the hundred-deaths blade would be for blood),
and so she had to permit her lover's arms "around her
fine form, and his kiss upon her haughty mouth."
I have spoken of Heine as Sefchen's lover, but as a
matter of fact he was ignorant of aught of passion till
this kiss unloosed the bonds that held in leash his un-
conscious desire. The kiss itself, he asserts, was not
from any tender feeling so much as out of defiance to
society and all its obscure prejudices, mockery at the
blood-stained weapon of the law, and at the infamy
commonly attached to any one who voluntarily came in
contact with the odious executioner-brood. But here it is
the Heine of forty years later who speaks, the Heine
who never forgot his métier of defiance and ridicule of
the conventionalities, not the sixteen-year-old budding
poet fired with imagination and the electric ardour of
HEINE.
31
adolescence. It was not the latter, we may be sure, who
thought of society and its prejudices when the sight of
Sefchen's beauty suddenly sent his hot blood leaping
through his veins; no kiss of protest was it that Sefchen's
"haughty mouth" knew-nothing less than the first
impulsive embrace of newly-awakened desire. That it
opened the gates of passion Heine admits. Having
kissed, he was at the same moment aware of the fiery
breath of love.
We hear no more of Josepha after this. With discreet
silence her lover simply acknowledges his first passion as
only a prelude to the tragedies of his later life. It was
but a case of Romeo in love with Rosalind ere he had
met his Juliet. In love, he remarks, there is—as in the
Catholic religion—a preliminary purgatory in which one
may become accustomed to being roasted ere one enters
the real, everlasting hell!
It is not difficult to realize how potent the influence
of Sefchen must have been upon such a youth. The
romance and mystery of the strange girl's life must
necessarily have fascinated him, while there can be no
doubt that her lore of Volkslieder and Märchen first
awakened in him a love for that kind of poetry; that
this was so, indeed, he expressly states. In the
Memoirs he alludes to his earliest published poems,
the "Traumbilder" ("Dream Pictures "), as having a
kind of gloomy colouring and even cruelty, "just like
that attachment to Sefchen, which threw its blood-red
shadows over my young life and thoughts." These early
poems of Heine's are very remarkable, not only for their
imaginative quality and technical excellence, but for
32
LIFE OF
their individual ncte and their subtlety of metrical
music.
Among the "Dream Pictures" the most imaginative
are those written in the author's sixteenth and seventeenth
years, either for Sefchen or under her direct influence;
particularly should mention be made of "Ein Traum,
gar seltsam schauerlich" ("A Dream of Fearful Mystery"),
"Im süssen Traum, bei stiller Nacht " ("In happy sleep,
in stilly night "), "Nun hast du das Kaufgeld" ("Thou
now hast the money "), "Was treibt und tobt mein tolles
Blut" ("Headlong madness stirs my blood "), "Ich kam
von meiner Herrin Haus" ("I came from the house of
my mistress"), "Ich lag und schlief, und schlief recht
mild" ("I was asleep, and calmly slept "), and “Da hab'
ich viel blasse Leichen," &c. (" Oft have I conjured pale
spectres").
I would fain give an English rendering of "Ein Traum,
gar seltsam schauerlich," but the poem is overlong for
present quotation. It contains some remarkably beauti-
ful writing. It was no mere versifier who saw in vision
the fair garden with its sunlit spaces, waving greenery,
rapture of birds, and "thousand-tinted flowers" with their
"balsamic odours," in whose midst—by a marble fountain
a beautiful maiden stooped and laved a garment of
white cloth, while in a sweet but strange voice she sang
Flow, flow, water flow,
Wash the linen white as snow
till she gave answer to his question, “who that robe of
white shall wear?".
HEINE.
32
"De ready soon' she sang aloud
'I wash for thee thy dying shroud!'
And scarcely had the words been said,
Like wreaths of mist the vision fled."
Nor could any other than an imaginative poet have
delineated that weirder scene in the wild and gloomy
wood where, amid the interlacing arm-like boughs of
huge and ancient trees, the dreamer imagines himself
standing and listening intently; suddenly the inter-
mittent heavy stroke of a woodcutter is heard far-off, and
through brake and thicket the visionary forces his way
till he gains an open space :—
There, in the middle of the wood,
A mighty oak-tree towering stood ;
And there the wondrous maid I see,—
She hews the knotted old oak-tree.
Stroke follows stroke, as, swift and strong,
She swings her axe, and sings her song:
Blade, blade, broad and bright,
Hew the oaken plank aright".
nor knows he till he has questioned the maiden, that she
hews the planks of his coffin. Once, again, he sees the
maid upon a lonely and barren waste, singing a wild
song with the refrain,
Spade, spade, sharp and strong,
Dig the grave deep and long
and knows that he shall not see her any more, for his
weird is nigh fulfilment.
Again, I should have liked to quote the uncanny
"Bride and Bridegroom" poem ("Was treibt und tobt
3
34
LIFE OF HEINE.
mein tolles Blut?") where the dreamer sees a marriage
feast, but in the bride recognizes his own beloved; how
the bridegroom gives, her a cup of wine, but "Woe! my
crimson blood she drank ;" and how the apple which she
takes and in return gives to her lord, who with his knife
severs it in twain, is nought else than his heart.
Thus before Heine left his native place, and the dearly-
loved haunts by the Düssel and the Rhine, to begin the
battle of life, he knew that he had "the bird in the
heart," and that no ordinary song was his, or that which
he knew would come in the fulness of time.
W
CHAPTER II.
HEN Madame Heine realized, after the down-
fall of Napoleon, that there was no longer an
opening in the military profession for her eldest son, she |
was sorely exercised as to how to help the hand of
Providence. The Rector Schallmeyer, who presided at
the Lycée, and was a friend of the Heines, urged that
his clever pupil should be educated as an ecclesiastic
with a view to his ultimately becoming an abbé. But
though Heinrich in later life relished the idea-for he
thought that as an unattached abbé he could comfortably
have served both God and Mammon-neither he nor his
shrewd mother considered the rector's project favourably.
As for the profession of medicine, Heine would have
none of it. His métier, as time was to prove, was not to
wound people with lances but with verbal poniards-
much more agonizing instruments than those kept in
leathern cases. In the administration of black draught
he would probably have proved an empirical fraud: in
the application of biting satire he was without a rival.
Finally, after some tears and remonstrances, Herr
Heine's first-born was convinced that he had no option
36
LIFE OF
but to yield to his parents' wish that he should enter
upon commerce as a banker's clerk at Frankfürt-am-
Rhein.
And now the time came for the sixteen-year-old boy to
learn the humiliation and misery of being a Jew. The
taunts and jeers of his schoolmates had been but gnat-
bites after all; he had then been a child, and had
thought only of his own insulted dignity-now he was to
realize that his people were still Pariahs in some parts of
Christendom, and that there was bitter cause for the
hatred of the Israelites against the Gentiles. As if lepers,
the Jews of Frankfürt were compelled to live within the
gloomy and dirty precincts of the Ghetto, where, upon
Sundays, they were confined from dawn till midnight;
and if any Jew ventured upon one of the public pro-
menades he would be hurried from the thoroughfare
like some unclean creature or rabid dog. A hundred
insults awaited the son of Israel at every corner; he was
robbed, wronged, and grossly illtreated whether he was
in the wrong or in the right. No wonder, then, that young
Heine, proud by nature and resentful against even the
shadow of tyranny in any guise, hated Frankfürt, felt
all the latent Jewish enthusiasm stir within him, and
became determined at any cost to escape from the
degradation which enveloped or threatened so many of
his race. When we remember "Jehuda Ben Halévy,"
and the "Rabbi von Bacharach," we cannot consider
that this Frankfürt experience was a mere worthless
episode of wretchedness for the young poet, though
none can wonder that to him it always so appeared.
After some seven or eight weeks of residence in the
HEINE.
37
Ghetto he left Frankfürt behind him with the heartfelt
wish that he might never set foot again within its gates.
Some months went idly by at Düsseldorf, wherein
Heine read omnivorously, though mainly in the domain
of romance. Sterne and Scott were his favourite foreign ›
authors, though in poetry he mostly imitated Arndt and
Brentano. It was most likely at this time that he came
to regard Sefchen in other than the aspect of a child;
but we have no definite record as to this, and can only
indulge in surmise based upon natural probabilities.
At last, in the early autumn of 1816, the question of his
vocation was solved by a suggestion on the part of his
Hamburg uncle. Salomon Heine was by common consent
the "genius" of the Heine connection-that is, he was
lucky far beyond the average in business, so much so that
if he but washed his hands in a jet of water it immediately
became an outflow from the Pactolian fount. A cross-
grained, boorish, but not ungenerous or unkindly man,
he did a great deal of good in an autocratic way; and
though scrupulously hard in money-bargains, was wont to
open his purse to quite a crowd of related and connected
beneficiaries. Ultimately he became the richest banker
in Germany, and even in the second decade of the
century was known as the wealthiest Jew in Hamburg.
It was thought a great thing, therefore, in the Heine
household in the Bolkerstrasse of Düsseldorf, when
Harry was despatched to the German Liverpool to begin
life in earnest as an employé in the "house" of Uncle
Salomon.
For nearly three years he remained in the gloomy
commercial city, which, though infinitely preferable to
38
LIFE OF
Frankfürt, seemed to him a town of automata, machinery,
and grim facts, with nothing of what makes life beautiful.
As for himself, he was soon to find something that made
life show brightly enough in perspective, though this did
not affect his feelings towards Hamburg and its citizens.
Sorely he missed the Rhineland; resentfully he endured
the northern chill and gloom. Had Heine been a
Neapolitan he might have made an excellent lazarone;
but as he was a commercial clerk in Hamburg he was
forced to take refuge in the land whereto the lamp
of his genius led him, and wherefrom he returned daily
with a new thought in his mind or a new song upon his
lips.
At this time he began to develope that love of dainty
refinement in dress (his enemies of course called it
foppishness) which characterized him through most of his
life; and altogether he seems to have been a comely
youngster. Fine linen and lace ruffles he specially
affected, and he was the better able to indulge himself in
this respect from the fact that he abhorred smoking, and
was so moderate a drinker that it is recorded of him he
never tasted beer until he went to Paris. He was slight
in figure, about five feet eight in height, delicately featured,
with straight finely shaped nose, good but sensuous lips,
an expression at once of reserve and of good-humoured
cynicism, blue eyes that could look dreamy or fiery by
rapid transitions, and hands and feet more like those of a
woman than of a man. His quickness of sympathy, in-
tellectual alertness, and incandescent wit made him a
charming companion when he was in a genial mood;
while his cynical smile, his satire, his stiletto speech
HEINE.
39
made him dreaded by more mentally cumbrous in-
dividuals who consciously or unwittingly gave him offence."
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Heinrich
Heine, though only a clerk (and anything but an indus-
trious apprentice !), made an impression upon his lovely
cousin Amalie. As for himself, love seems to have come
to him like the dusk in "The Ancient Mariner "—in
one stride.
Sefchen was forgotten, and all other visions.
became phantasmal. The fair golden-haired girl, who
was only a year younger than himself, but whose beauty
was so developed, involuntarily bound him at once to
hopeless thraldom; though if he had prophetically per-
ceived the misery and life-long heartache which lay in
the train of his passion he would have fled verdammtes
Hamburg, as mariners the rock of the Death Siren.
Heine himself has made so few direct allusions to this
passionate dream of his youth and scarcely less passionate.
regret of his manhood, and the whole matter is so veiled
in obscurity, that the biographer would be unwise who
dogmatized upon the main point at issue-whether
Amalie Heine ever really loved and practically betrothed
herself to her cousin, or whether she played with his affec-
tion for lack of more amusing entertainment; whether, if
love did exist between both, Heine was sufficiently scrupu-
lous of the obligations of such love; or whether, if Amalie
never realized the ardour and depth of his feelings, he
was not in great measure to blame therefor.
Although he met with considerable kindness at his
uncle's hands, he was always more or less of a black
goat among the very white and fleecy sheep of the Salo
mon Heine entourage. Probably he was aware that any
40
LIFE OF
definite engagement of himself and Amalie would not
be entertained for a moment, or not until his business
prospects were so promising as to satisfy every one con-
cerned—an epoch which he knew would commence with
the occurrence of the Greek Kalends. It was probably
with a desperate desire to prove himself a "possible"
suitor that, when he found he was making no headway in
his uncle's business, he set up for himself under the title
of "H. Heine and Co." As was to be expected, the
experiment was absolutely unsuccessful. But ere this he
seems to have committed himself to Amalie, and by
some too prompt and eager declaration to have alarmed
or perhaps repelled her. There is an interesting letter,
which bears the date of 27th of October, 1816, but is not
included among his collected writings and correspond-
ence, addressed to a friend in Düsseldorf named Christian
Sethe. This lengthy epistle-a very remarkable letter
from so youthful a correspondent-is mostly taken up
with wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Byronic fashion,
and with sentimental emotion after the manner of that
most wearisome of young men, the love-lorn Werther; but
in it there are some direct and genuine utterances.
may gather from it that he by no means saw Amalie
regularly, or at any rate frequently, for, after a Wertherian
passage about long years of feverish yearning, the torture
of hell, and the wailing of the damned, he exclaims,
"But to be near her, and yet often for long long weeks to
pine in vain for a sight of her, one's sole happiness on
earth," &c., &c. Again, we gather that Amalie was un-
sympathetic to his poetry, for he remarks: "It wounds me
deeply, too, that she for whom alone I sung, that she
We
HEINE.
41
should have snubbed my songs in so cruel and cold-' -
blooded a fashion, and have played me such a shrewd
turn in this respect." Finally, there is the distinct
assertion of the repulsion of his suit; for "I have the
clearest, the most irrefragable grounds for believing that
I am wholly indifferent to her." That this important
letter is not misleading as to date-which in the absence.
of corroborative facts it would almost certainly be-is
assured from its endorsement by Christian Sethe-
"accepi den 23 Nov., 1816."
It would appear, however, that the fair maiden who
caused him such sufferings was not uniformly unkind : for
if she never read, nor even listened patiently to his poems,
she allowed him to dream that his heart's desire might
possibly be some day accomplished. It was this dream,
this vision, that made Hamburg bearable to him; this,
and the growing conviction that he was slowly qualifying
himself for that literary life which was his hope.
As was inevitable, Uncle Salomon at last realized that
his nephew from Düsseldorf was unfit for a mercantile
career-that he was, in a word, as the old merchant
curtly but pityingly described him, the fool of the family.
So the "fool" was informed one day that his prospects
of success in business were as unlikely as his marriage to
the King's daughter; and that the sooner he made some
effort in another direction the better it would be for him
and all concerned. It was nigh upon midsummer, and
Heine was in his nineteenth year: so he probably
received his uncle's admonitions with secret joy, even
before he guessed their real import. Nothing could
well be worse than continued residence in verdammtes
42
LIFE OF
Hamburg, and gladly would he become a sailor on the
Baltic, or emigrate, or enlist, or do anything that would
remove him from the hated town, wherefrom, but for
Amalie, he would long since have fled. It was, there-
fore, with pleasure that he heard from Herr Salomon
of the parental and avuncular plans for his welfare.
He was to go to Bonn, and there become a student
of law, to the end that he might become Doctor Juris;
but with the stipulation that he was to return to Ham-
burg, as soon as he had taken his degree, and there
court fame and fortune as an advocate. This plan
involved his conversion to Christianity, or its profession;
for no Jew might presume to administer Teutonic
wisdom, or plead for or against a Christian in the liberal
courts of Germany. To this, however, neither Uncle
Salomon nor Samson Heine and his wife saw any objec-
tions; for their faith was of that adjustable order that
could, like the beggar's cloak, be worn with either side
outward as might be convenient. The point was not
unduly emphasized; as a business man, Herr Salomon
would not have condescended to enlarge upon so trifling
an incidental matter as a change of religion, when
material interests were at stake.
So one summer's day in 1819 the merchant-banker
said good-bye to "the scapegrace," and in so doing
handed him the first instalment of the annual "assist-
'ance" of five hundred thalers, which he had promised to
allow his nephew in addition to the amount the latter's
parents had agreed to disburse for the same purpose;
and "the fool of a boy" replied politely, and protested
with all the usual arrogant complacency of youth; and
HEINE.
43
then, with a last look at the house where Amalie dwelt,
and with his box more full of books and manuscripts.
than of worldly vanities, set gladly forth for the golden.
Rhineland. Notwithstanding many "snubbings," and a
frequent coldness and tantalizing reticence, on the part of
Amalie, he seems to have departed in perfect confidence
that she would hearken to no other suitor, and that when
he next appeared at his uncle's house with all his legal
honours it would be as the betrothed husband of his
cousin.
The next two or three months at Düsseldorf were
among the pleasantest in Heine's youth. His love for
the Rhineland intensified, and in the intervals of his
Latin and other studies preliminary to his college-career
he had many opportunities of enjoyment. Moreover he
was already, in a small way, of some repute. In the early
decades of the century there was not, in Germany at any
rate, such a multiplicity of bardlings as now covers the
civilized world; and a youngster who had his lucubrations
accepted in the Sentinel, or the Gazette, or the Post, was
immediately looked upon by his relatives with anxiety-
for would not the gods be jealous, and take the youth
unto themselves ere the bloom of his adolescence had
faded? Genius, fortunately, is as deceptive as heart-
complaint: were it more prevalent it would doubtless
prove as virulent among the young as consumption.
However, like measles, it is harmless enough when in a
mild form, and when the patient is in his or her teens.
Thus it was that Heine found himself spoken of as a
poet on the strength of rumour, and to a certain extent on
account of the Arndt and Uhland-like contributions to the
44
LIFE OF
Hamburg Watchman and other prints.
Many a dream
he dreamt in those green alleys in the Schloss gardens,
or when wandering with his friend and fellow-student,
'Joseph Neunzig, along the banks of the Düssel; and
when the time came for him to leave for Bonn he was
far more occupied with attempted rivalry of his favourite
poets than eager for the mysteries of the Pandects.
>>
Heine arrived in Bonn just in time to participate in
the last of the Student-Guild demonstrations which the
Prussian Government-the pettiest and least liberal that
ever held sway in Europe-had determined to suppress.
Among a crowd of enthusiastic youths, he ascended the
Drachenfels by torchlight, and by the side of the huge
bonfire lit upon the summit drank confusion to the foes
of Germany. A sonnet among his "Early Poems
("The Night-Watch on the Drachenfels ") commemo-
rates this event; but after a vivid depicture of the scene
he
very characteristically concludes that the consumma-
tion of his patriotic fervour was an exceedingly bad cold.
At that time Bonn was the Oxford of the Germanic
States. Not only were many famous men--including
Augustus von Schlegel, the critic, philosopher, philologist,
poet, and dramatist-professors of its faculties, but there
were also among the students an earnestness and zeal
which ultimately bore worthy results.
The Romantic spirit was then flowing through all that
was best in the collective genius of Germany, and fore-
most among the intellectual stimulators of his time was
the chief of the romanticists, Schlegel. His wide culture
unlocked the doors of many treasures, and not only
Shakespeare and Calderon, but the stirring epic poetry
HEINE.
45
""
of young Europe, and even something of the riches of
the East, were by him made available to all who would
When Heine went to Bonn, "the immaculate Augustus
was at the height of his fame, and the young poet wor-
shipped the Herr Professor with an ardour only inferior
to that of his Napoleonic passion There is no doubt a
to Schlegel's strong influence upon Heine; and from one
of the disciple's sonnets to his master-as well as from
other sources-it is clear that the famous Romanticist
took an interest in and directly encouraged his youthful
admirer.
But Heine had other acquaintances at Bonn who
exercised a more or less important influence upon his
mental development. Chief among these were two
fellow students named Simrock and Hundeshagen, the
latter of whom was also his private tutor.
Even as a
youth Simrock had made an enthusiastic study of Old
German literature, and as Hundeshagen was equally
versed in medieval æsthetic history, Heine could not
have had better guides and comrades in his poetic pil-
grimage. The "Nibelungen- Lied" was at that time the
absorbing topic. Schlegel lectured upon its manifold
beauties; students annotated and wrote upon it; poets
imitated or derived from it. With the "Nibelungen-
Lied," the "Chanson de Roland,” and other relics of the
Carlovingian Cycle, and “Ossian," all attracting the at-
tention, admiration, and argument of literary Europe, it
would have been strange if the intellectual and eager
band of young men at Bonn had not responded to the
Romantic war cry. As for Heine, he for a time identified
himself heart and soul with the Romantic Renascence,
46
LIFE OF
although at no period did he lose aught of individuality.
Even in his criticisms of so universally criticized works
as the "Nibelungen-Lied" he was entirely original. The
language of which it is composed, he wrote long after he
had left Bonn, "is of stone, and the verses are little
rhymed blocks of granite: here and there out of the
crevices red flowers peep forth like the oozings of blood,
or the long ivy trickles over it like green tears."
Nearly all his comrades were "poets," and in such a
hotbed of simmering talents anything quintessential
speedily found its way to the surface. To the delight
and admiration of his friends, Heine's "Junge Leiden"
came swift upon each other, and a few intimates spread
the rumour of the fine quality of a play in progress which
in due time would astonish the world under the title of
Almansor."
Having (notwithstanding an exercise of satirical by-play
which might have caused trouble had not the fates been
propitious) early in December adequately passed his
examination, he duly matriculated as a student in law and
general science. From the very outset, however, he took
little or no interest in legal study, and treated it very much
as the Irish peasant takes care of his pig-by leaving it
to take care of itself.
When the ensuing summer arrived at last, and the time
came for professors and students to disperse whitherso-
ever they would, Heine bade good-bye to his comrades,
and with his small amount of luggage, and a large accu-
mulation of manuscript, migrated to the pretty little village
of Beul on the opposite side of the Rhine. Here he
continued to study, not the "Institutes " and the
HEINE.
47
"Pandects," but all sorts and conditions of poets, ancient
and modern; and here, instead of annotations, notes,
and college exercises, he devoted his leisure to verse-
writing and further scenes of "Almansor."
Just as the swallows were wheeling and shooting round
the old church spire of Beul and over the blue waters of
the Rhine ere their southward migration, the young
student-poet suddenly determined to act upon advice
which seems to have been given him from Düsseldorf or
Hamburg, and to change his quarters from literary and
fascinating Bonn to erudite and sedate Göttingen. It
cannot have been altogether voluntarily that, knapsack
on back, he tramped north-westward through Westphalia
to "respectable Hanover," though doubtless the prospect
of change and intellectual variety had its fascination.
At Göttingen he greatly missed the literary atmosphere
to which he had been accustomed at Bonn, but in the
friendly interest of the justly famous Sartorius he found!
some compensation. He had not been a week in the
decayed old town ere he perceived the parochialism
and absurdity of the general routine of life, and as
Heine could never refrain from satire when anything was
disagreeable to him, his keen eyes took note of all the
susceptibilities and shortcomings of the place and its
inhabitants. Readers of the "Harzreise" will know to
what amusing use he put those experiences. But if the
literary and social fascinations of Bonn were adverse to
legal studies, scarcely less so were the rigid pedantry and
stupidity of the educational methods at Göttingen. v
Heine laboured through his duties very perfunctorily,
and devoted much more time to "Almansor" than to
Gaius or Justinian.
48
LIFE OF
In any case the young poet-student would probably
have left "Georgia Augusta," as the university was called
after its founder, George II. of England, at the end of the
winter term; but his departure was settled for him by an
official decree of rustication. Indifferent as he was to
the purse-proud and family-proud noodles of the student
clubs, and careful as he was to avoid disputes with
strangers, he one day found a quarrel forced upon him
by an arrogant Junker. The latter had dogmatized.
offensively upon the Student's Code of Honour, which
Heine had in turn scornfully alluded to as leges barba-
rorum: and the upshot was that, after a gross insult which
he could not overlook, Heine challenged his adversary to
a duel with pistols. The affair was nipped in the bud by
the rumour of it having reached the authorities. The
Junker and his seconds were sentenced to a brief term
of imprisonment, and the more innocent, though as
challenger more officially reprehensible, party received
consilium abeundi.
Here, then, was a golden opportunity to betake him-
self to Berlin, and one that he determined not to let slip.
Berlin, dull, pedantic, a baby city swathed in red tape, as
it was, was yet at that time the centre of the keenest intel-
lectual life of Germany. True, Goethe, emperor in the
world of letters, held his court elsewhere and abominated
the Prussian capital, yet Hegel, Fouqué, Varnhagen von
Ense, Chamisso, Willibald Alexis, Edward Gans, Grabbe,
Franz Bopp, and many others famous in philosophy,
science, and belles lettres rendered Berlin the German
London of the day. For this intellectual life Heine was
athirst, and moreover he was anxious to come to some
HEINE.
49
arrangement about the publication of his poetical writings.
Again, he felt certain that in Berlin he would make much
swifter progress with his law studies; and, finally, he was
eager to make use of the introductions which had been
promised him by Schlegel and others, particularly those
to the Varnhagens, whose salon was then the foremost
place of literary meeting in Germany.
Almost from the first day of his arrival in the Prussian
capital things began to go well with him. At the houses
of the Varnhagens and of Elisa von Hohenhausen he
met every one of intellectual repute, and formed friend-
ships which were of immediate as well as ultimate value.
One of the most valuable of his introductions, however,
was, curiously enough, from his Hamburg uncle. This
was to a Jewish merchant named Moses Moser, who,
although deeply engaged in business, was a man of ex-
ceptional culture and intellectual attainments. A disciple
of Hegel, he was yet as familiar with belles lettres as with
philosophy; and, though a metaphysician, was also a
shrewd man of the world. What mattered much to
Heine was that Moser moved in the best literary circles
of Berlin, and that from the outset he did his best
to serve his young acquaintance. The two remained
lifelong friends; and much of our knowledge of the
mental experiences of the poet is derived from the long
and frequent letters which in youth and manhood he
addressed to his friend. Moser soon gauged Heine's
nature, and his advice and help were often to the point.
So well aware was he of his comrade's whimsicality, that
he received in all good humour letters which assured him
that his correspondent did not like him because he was a
4
50
LIFE OF
magazine of virtue, or because he knew "Spanish and
Syriac and Hegelian, English, Arabic, and Hindostani," or
because he had lent the writer his money and even his
overcoat, or because of his anxiety and interests for "my
welfare," and so forth, but simply on account of “ a silly
trick of manner I have noticed in you, and an absurd
expression that escapes you.”
No longer, as at Göttingen, bored by professorial
pedantry, Heine now attended the various classes at the
Berlin University. Even the law lectures were no longer
provocative of deadly ennui-but then the professor was
no other than Edward Gans, the brilliant Jewish convert
whom Hegel considered his most promising disciple.
Under the influence of Gans, Heine rapidly acquired a
keen philosophical interest in jurispudence, and he even
projected, and to some extent proceeded with, a legal treatise
upon the historical public law of the Middle Ages. Like
many another ambitious scheme from the same fertile
but inconsequent brain, this treatise came to naught.
He also attended the lectures of Niebuhr upon Roman
history, of Bock upon classical antiquities, and of Nean-
der upon theology. These eminent professors were by
no means all the famous men whom Berlin University
could then boast. Bopp, the great philologist, lectured
upon comparative philology; Von der Hagen upon early
German literature; and Wolff upon the ancient literature
of Greece. None, however, had greater influence upon
Heine than Hegel. It was not until many years after he
had left Germany that he admitted the extent and
depth of this influence. The personality of the great
philosopher, however, did not attract him. Hegel's con-
HEINE.
51
versation, he says in his "Confessions," was chiefly a
kind of monologue sighed forth spasmodically and with
a monotonous voice. Alluding to his impressions after
the first lecture he heard the philosopher deliver, he
writes: "I saw how Hegel with his comico-serious face
sat as a brood hen on the fatal eggs (atheism) and I
heard his cackling; to speak fairly I seldom understood
him, and only at last by subsequent recollections did I
arrive at an understanding of his words. I believe he
did not desire to be understood, and hence his involved
fashion of exposition." From the "Confessions" also I
may quote, in connection with Hegel, another and more
famous passage.
"One beautiful starlit night, Hegel
stood with me at an open window. I, being a young
man of twenty-two, and having just eaten well and drunk.
my coffee, spoke with enthusiasm of the stars, and called
them the abodes of the blest. But the master muttered
to himself, 'The stars! Hm! hm! The stars are only a
brilliant eruption on the firmament.' 'What!' cried I,
'then is there no blissful spot above, where virtue is
rewarded after death?' But he, glaring at me with his
pale eyes, remarked, sneeringly, 'So you want a bonus
because you have supported your sick mother and re-
frained from poisoning your brother?""
There was one house in Berlin where all that was
worthiest in the society of the capital at that time fre-
quently met. At this hospitable salon no political or
religious differences were allowed to interfere with intel-
lectual and social intercourse, and here it was that Heine
spent many of his happiest hours. The hosts were
Varnhagen von Ense and his wife Rahel. The latter
52
LIFE OF
was the most cultured woman in Germany, and was a
person of infinite charm. Heine, like almost every one
who came in contact with her, was fascinated by her
sympathetic insight, her grace of demeanour and diction,
her geniality and nobility of nature. All his life he never
ceased to look upon Rahel Varnhagen as the noblest
woman of her period. Varnhagen himself exercised
much the same potent attraction upon those who were
admitted to his intimacy. While a thorough man of the
world, he was an ardent liberal, and an enthusiast in the
cause of the people. As a writer upon military history
he was the friend of the Court party, and so was able to
exert considerable influence in many directions. He
and his wife were from first to last staunch friends of the
young poet, and did him good service in divers ways.
Through the Varnhagens he came to know and be
intimate with Rahel's only rival as the Madame Réca-
mier of Berlin, the Baroness Elisa von Hohenhausen.
At this lady's house, where he met nearly all the poets
and writers of the day, he was always welcome. The
Baroness believed in him as the German Byron, and was
never happier than when he would consent to read aloud
some of his poems, or passages from his MS. tragedies,
"Almansor" and "Ratcliff."
Ere Heine had left Göttingen he had endeavoured to
arrange with Brockhaus of Leipzig for the publication
of a small volume of poems-an invitation which that
gentleman had declined with the customary polite thanks.
Through Varnhagen, however, an offer reached him from
the editor of the chief literary paper, the "Gesellschafter,"
and very thankfully the young poet agreed that a series
HEINE.
53
of his verses should appear in Herr Gubitz's columns.
It was in May that they first saw the light, and although
the circulation of the "Gesellschafter" was comparatively
very limited, the poems attracted immediate attention
from the literary world on account of their simplicity and
genuine lyric lilt. So pleased was the proprietor of the
paper that he offered to publish Heine's verses in book
form, and in the course of the summer the little volume
appeared. The appreciation it encountered was em-
phatic, and the name of Heine was spread abroad: one
editor of a poetical record even included him among the
leading younger poets. It did not bring any cash to the
author, but it procured him-what was then of great
importance-a definite position. From many authors,
moreover, he received welcome and encouragement.
Perhaps nothing in this way pleased him more than a
letter from Baron de la Motte Fouqué, the author of
"Undine," which, along with the most cordial expres-
sions, warned the young poet against undue dalliance
with grotesque or exaggeratedly gloomy subjects. Heine
replied in a letter breathing admiration and gratitude in
every line, nor did he ever forget the warm words which
were voluntarily sent to him by the veteran writer.
Notwithstanding the pleasant society in which he
mixed, his many literary projects, and his improving
prospects, Heine would seem to have been by no means
so happy at this period as his biographers have made
out. In an inscription to Rahel Varnhagen in a copy of
his maiden volume, he alludes to her patient sympathy
with "the poor, sick, bitter, morose, poetic, and unen-
durable man," and elsewhere he mentions his prevalent
54
LIFE OF
despondency. He had, however, the genuine poetic
temperament of swift respondence to the mood of what-
ever companion he might be with, and of intense
susceptibility to all extraneous influences. Thus to
some he appeared a gay, careless, and somewhat dissi-
pated youth; to others a sombre enthusiast; to others,
again, as a student "sicklied o'er with a pale cast of
thought;" and to many as a brilliant conversationalist
and charming companion. His cousin, Hermann Schiff,
has recorded of him that he was at this time somewhat
taciturn in general demeanour, though animated in the
presence of ladies; that he spoke with a light voice and
in a deliberate and rather monotonous tone; and that in
appearance he was slender and youthful, with face pale
and smooth as an olive, though with a prevalent look of
fatigue. Among other than distinctly literary acquaint-
ances with whom Heine became intimate in Berlin was
his loyal friend of after days, Count Eugen von Breza.
It was in the country residence in Posen of this com-
panion that he spent some pleasant weeks in the summer
of 1822.
At this period the dominant literary influence in
Berlin was that of Sir Walter Scott. That of Byron had
waned somewhat: that of Goethe had become more and
more exclusive. The songs and poems of Schiller,
Uhland, Chamisso, and other poets had lost something
of their stimulus through familiarity, and the Romantic
epoch was in its decadence. The Neo-Romantic move-
ment was at hand, but till Heine's voice became a power
it had few results. Great as was Heine's admiration for
Scott, he could not but regret that a true outflow of
HEINE.
55
appreciation should have ended in a mere fashionable
and unreflecting craze. That Lessing and Goethe, two
of the greatest literary factors of the modern world,
should be neglected for a foreign romancist, however
eminent, seemed to him a dismal prognostication for Ger-
man literature. Nevertheless it was undoubtedly under
the more or less direct influence of Scott, of the foreign
wave of Romantic sentiment led by the great Scottish
poet-novelist, that he wrote his tragedies "Almansor"
and "Ratcliff."
Even the repute, however, which Heine gained by the
first part of the "Book of Songs" did not suffice to help
his tragedies over the quicksands of stage-representation.
To these two plays I shall return presently: meanwhile
a few words must be devoted to the poems.
The title of the first cycle of "The Book of Songs"
(Buch der Lieder) is "Youthful Sorrows" (Junge Leiden).
It consists of the Dream-Pictures (Traumbilder); nine
Songs (Lieder); twenty Romances (Romanzen); and
thirteen sonnets-one addressed to Schlegel, two to the
poet's mother, and the other ten, under the title "Fresco
Sonnets," to Christian Sethe.
a
In the eleventh poem of the third section, "The
Minnesingers" (Die Minnesänger), there occurs
quatrain which may be taken as indicative of Heine's
early poetic bias: "Phantasy is the Minnesinger's eager
steed; Art is his shield; and Song is his sword." Phantasy
is the spirit which animates most of his early poems; a
fancy now grotesque and weird, now delicate and gracious,
anon cynical and bizarre, or exquisitely pathetic. His
actual song-motive is the heart-wound without which,
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LIFE OF
as he says in this Minnesinger-poem, the true poet can-
not sing sweetliest. The Dream-Pictures, the Sefchen
poems as they might be called by a biographer, have
been already alluded to. They are powerful and
imaginative exercises, but in form are imitative and,
indeed, are essentially to some extent derivative. Yet
they are none the less original and idiosyncratic ; from
the bent of mind of which they are indices Heine,
moreover, never wholly diverged. There is nothing
among the writings of the Romantic poets superior to that
weird dream-poem wherein the narrator sees the maiden
washing his shroud, again swinging her axe as she hews.
his coffin, and yet again singing-
Spade, spade, sharp and strong,
Dig the grave deep and long,"
as out upon the lonely moor she delves the sods that are
soon to rest above his body.
"Traumbilder" there is an
Amalie's treatment of him.
In the third of these
allusion to his cousin
Probably this poem was
written in the summer of 1821, just before the publica-
tion of the book; it would be about this time that Heine
must have heard of the prospective marriage of his cousin,
an event which occurred in August.¹
In this brief poem the "Todeswund," the mortal
heart-hurt of the Minnesinger, is only too evident. The
few Lieder are sweet and graceful, but are not specially
distinctive. Among the Romances the longest and most
I Under the title "Der Glückwunsch" (Congratulations) it
appeared in the Hamburg Abendzeitung, signed “H. Heine,
Berlin."
HEINE.
57
impressive is the legend of "Don Rodrigo." The sombre
"Mountain Echo," through its fine musical setting, is
well known in this country, as well as by Mr. Bowring's
admirable translation.
After "Don Rodrigo" ("Donna Clara, Donna Clara "),
and the gloomy and impressive "Belshazzar," the
Romances" conclude with two pleasant pieces, "On
Hearing a Lady Sing an Old Ballad," and the cynically
humorous “When the Spring comes with the Sunshine."
The sonnets, though they lack the exquisite form of those
of Heine's one-time enemy Platen, are strong and vigorous
exercises in a metrical mould alien to the poet's essenti-
ally lyrical genius. The two addressed to his mother are
full of genuine affection, but there is more of Heine in
the Fresco Series. One of these might serve as a modi-
fied "apologia pro vitâ suâ.”
"I laugh, too, at the apes that look so wise,
And swell themselves to arbiters of thought;
I laugh, too, at the craven good-for-nought,
Who with his poisoned steel in ambush lies.
For when Good Fortune's wreath of Life's best flowers
Is smitten by the hand of adverse Fate,
And shattered at our feet lies all forlorn ;
And when the heart within the breast is torn,
Torn, broken, cleft in twain, and desolate—
Why, shrill, ironic laughter still is ours!
(Trs. by J. Ackerlos).
Neither of Heine's tragedies had any success: upon
the stage they had none at all. "Ratcliff" was never
even put upon the boards, and "Almansor" (partly, it
must be admitted, owing to a miscarriage of local preju-
dice which arose from a similarity of surnames) was hissed
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LIFE OF
unmercifully at Brunswick Theatre on the one and only
night of its production. Neither is without merit;
Almansor," indeed, seems to me at any rate a very
much finer production than it does to Mr. Stigand and
other English commentators. The only adequate essay
upon this play is that by Saint-René Taillandier, to
which I would recommend all who wish to know more
about "Almansor" and "Ratcliff."
Fatalistic dramas (Schicksals Dramen) were the vogue
about 1820, and no doubt Heine was biassed by the
prevalent taste. But the real germinal influence which
resulted in "Ratcliff" was that of Sir Walter Scott: in
form this earliest drama took after Schiller's "Robbers."
It is strange to us to read in a German play of a young
Scottish nobleman called Ratcliff: of MacGregor, and
Duncan, and Macdonald, and Douglas, of Edward and
Betty, and of William and Maria. The hero, consumed
with a hopeless passion for the fair Maria, goes to
London, and with an expedition that would have de
lighted a Carolinian rake, gets quit of his substance,
takes to highway robbery, and generally misbehaves
himself. He kills his rivals in love in an ingenious
if bloody fashion, ultimately elopes with the repentant.
Maria, but, on interception, stabs that sentimental
damsel, performs the same deed upon his last remain-
ing rival, and finally commits the happy despatch by
means of a handy pistol. With all its crudities and in-
congruities, however, it is not devoid of some striking
passages. Notwithstanding Heine's self-asserted pos-
ession of "that wonderful intuition which renders an
objective reality quite unessential to the poet," his
HEINE.
59
knowledge of British life and of the proprieties of
nomenclature are very, very vague.
“Almansor " is in every way a superior composition.
The scene is laid in Spain in the fifteenth century, some
years after the fall of Granada. Almansor is the last
remaining scion of a noble Moorish family, and his affec-
tions are centred upon a beautiful girl named Zuleinia.
Death and madness, murder and passion, are the factors
here as in "Ratcliff," but the movement is more digni-
fied, the action more dramatic, the background more
picturesque in itself and much more deftly wrought.
Heine knew the aesthetic and dramatic value of inci-
dental strains of wild or pathetic music, and as in "Rat-
cliff" he introduced with effect the refrain of a weird
Scottish ballad, so in "Almansor" the harp-player strikes
an ominous note at a crucial moment. Ignorant of
imminent doom at the hands of the infuriated moun-
taineers—for Pedrillo has not yet startled the company
with his shrill scream of terror, "Allah, have pity upon
us! Jesus, Mary, Joseph! We are lost! They come !
They come !"-Ali calls upon the attendants to afford
amusement to the guests. The harp-player thereupon
sings the following song, of which I only attempt a prose
translation -
"In the court of the Alhambra stand erect twelve great marble
lions: and near by is a mighty basin of purest alabaster.
Low within this basin float roses in full bloom, wondrous of hue.
red, red are they with the blood of the many knights who have made
merry at Granada.”
These plays are poems in dramatic form rather than
60
LIFE OF
tragedies in the stage acceptation of the term. Heine
called them tragedies just as Goethe so designated the
first and second parts of "Faust"; but they are rather
symphonies where divers tunes blend and interfuse.
There is a prefatory dedicatory note to "Almansor,"
wherein the author writes: "Do not consider that this
poem which I inscribe to you is absolutely fantastic. I
would have you note that it is by turns calmly epical or
violently dramatic. Here and there, betwixt the epi-
sodes, blooms many a lyric flower with fragrant heart.
The whole is written, as the saying is, from my heart."
The psychical interest of these two plays is that they indi-
cate the precise moment when Heine quitted the poetic
fraternity of the Romanticists without having yet rejected
the garb of the brethren, in order to follow the pioneer
and revolutionary army of the age. Henceforth the iron
is in the soul of the singer.
Between the publication of "Ratcliff” and “Alman-
sor" Heine had written a number of lyrics: and in
allusion to this circumstance he gave them the collective
title "Lyrisches Intermezzo." This "Lyrical Interlude "
might be called the "Wood of Love": the dawn, the
noon, the decline of love's day amid the songs of birds
and the erst joyous and then sad and ominous voices of
the winds among the trees-all are here. The poems
and snatches of song-fragmentary, and yet each as
exquisitely complete as a nocturne by Chopin or a
Swedish folkstrain by Grieg-are sixty-five in number.
It is quite impracticable to attempt to do justice to
this fascinating "Interlude" by mere expressions of
admiration. One can but say that none could read these
HEINE.
C1
brief lyrics without recognizing that no such singer had
ever before so charmed the German car, and that not even
Burns lilted a sweeter and more irresponsible note.
Many of the pieces are known wherever Germans con-
gregate, for they have been set to music perhaps equally
'imperishable: such, to mention a few, are "Im wunder-
schönen Monat Mai," "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh',"
"Lehn deine Wang' an meine Wang'," "Auf Flügeln
des Gesanges," "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam.” 1
The briefer and more irresponsible these lyrics, the
more untranslatable are they. That of the Pine and
Palm has been oftener translated into English than any
other of Heine's poems. I have selected Miss Bessie
Craigmyle's version as the one that seemed to me best.
"A Pine-tree standeth lonely
On a far Norland height,
It slumbereth, while around it
The snow falls thick and white.
And of a Palm it dreameth,
That, in a southern land,
Lonely and silent standeth
Amid the scorching sand."
It would be impossible for any poet to more exquisitely
express the vague informulate yearning of the soul than
Heine has done in this flawless lyric. Only Shelley,
among all the plaintive choir who have sung with their
"breast up-till a thorne," could so have given voice to his
secret pain.
I
1. In the wondrously-lovely month of May. 2. When I look
into thine eyes. 3. Lean thy cheek against my cheek. 4. On the
wings of song. 5. A Pine-tree standeth lonely.
1
BUT
CHAPTER III.
UT for the great sorrow of the marriage of his
Geliebte that deep wound which never wholly
healed-Heine's two years in Berlin were among the
pleasantest of his life. Intellectually as well as physically
he lived every moment. Had he, indeed, been more
chary of abandon to the manifold excitements and
pleasures which lay in wait for him, he would probably
have saved himself much after-bitterness and pain.
But at last the nervous headaches which had com-
menced in childhood became more frequent and more
intolerable. He realized that a change was necessary;
nor did he disguise from himself the fact that he was
doing nothing towards adoption of a definite profession.
By this time, moreover, his family was in straitened
circumstances. His parents had had to leave Düssel-
dorf, and had ultimately settled in the dull little town
of Lüneburg, where they lived partly on their own small
capital, and partly on the assistance given by Salomon
Heine. Here Heinrich determined to go for awhile, to
recoup his strength and to think over his prospects.
When he left Berlin about the beginning of May, 1823,
LIFE OF HEINE.
63
it was with anything but a lightsome heart. Departure
signified the renunciation for a time of the society which
had meant so much to him, of the friends in whom he
had so delighted, of the literary stimulus which had been
so invaluable. Moreover, he was now no longer a no-
body-merely a clever Jewish youth with creditable.
introductions. He had made his mark, not less surely
though limitedly. As the author of the promising and in
many ways remarkable "Young Sorrows," and of the in
every sense noteworthy "Lyrical Interlude," of "Rat-
cliff," and of "Almansor," he had gained a foremost
place among the youngest writers of Germany. His
repute had not spread throughout the country, though in
the Rhineland he was known not only as a poet, but as a
Berlin correspondent and as an able and fearless reviewer.
It did not render the home-going more enticing in pros-
pect that his writings met with little or no appreciation
from his relatives; even his mother lamented that her
Harry was not in some reputable trade or honourable
profession.
At Lüneburg a deep depression settled upon him. He
could not then see his way to making a living by litera-
ture; he had the utmost aversion from business; and for
the profession of medicine he was not capable; while for
that of the law, for which he cared little, it would be
necessary to discard the Jewish faith and embrace Chris-
tianity. From the outset Heine disliked the idea of
apostasy, yet he could not but be influenced by the
urgent parental and avuncular advice which almost daily
admonished him to look to "the main chance," particu-
larly as in Berlin he had seen examples of conversion
64
LIFE OF
among the most able of the Jews who there fought their
hard fight against Prussian prejudice and bigotry.
More and more fascinating became the idea of a migra-
tion to Paris, but, alas, the wherewithal necessary to begin.
life in an alien land was not forthcoming.
It was
economy that kept Heine so long in Lüneburg. Even
the correspondence with the Varnhagens and other valued
Berlin friends, and the inexhaustible kindness of his
friend Moser in sending him books, periodicals, news-
papers, and all the literary gossip of the day, proved
insufficient to dispel the despondency which came upon
him in the City of Ennui, as he called the stagnant capital
of the old Duchy.
Even physically the change from Berlin wrought little
good. It became evident to every one that he was
ailing, and he met with no opposition from his father
when he declared that get to the bracing sea-air he must,
as otherwise he should soon be unfit for legal or any
other studies. When this determination was backed up
by medical advice, it was agreed that he should go to
Cuxhaven for a few weeks. But how to get the needful
funds? Heine had not saved a farthing, had, indeed,
left a few small debts in Berlin: so he determined to
make another application to his uncle, and in person.
It was with feelings of poignant regret and remem-
brance that the young poet found himself once more in
hated Hamburg, the city of his first passion, the place
where Amalie had won his love, played with it, and dis-
carded it as an outworn toy. Greatly to his chagrin he
encountered his uncle Salomon just as the latter was
about to leave Hamburg on some business journey. The
HEINE.
65
old banker was impatient, and would not listen to expla
nations or give advice; however, he briefly promised
that the allowance of four hundred thalers (£60) should
be continued quarterly, and in addition handed “the
scapegrace" the sum of ten louis d'or wherewith to be-
take himself to Cuxhaven.
Heine lingered in Hamburg for a day or two, all the
time tantalized and fascinated by, though wretched in,
the renascence of his old emotions. Through the day-
light hours he wandered listlessly about, thinking of
Amalie, now with tears, now with bitter upbraidings.
Sometimes he would meet one of the family-connection
who would sncer at the "stupid one of the family” and
at his prospects, his "poetry stuff" and his literary aims,
but who went away with an unpleasant smarting of the
moral hide, for Heinrich's wit had now become as keen
as a razor and his satire as bitter as gall, and he never
lost an opportunity of stinging comment or scathing
sarcasm.
The poetical outcome of this visit was the series of
passionately sad songs forming part of that section of the
'Buch der Lieder" known as the "Heimkehr” (the
Home-Coming, the Return)-the genuine outflow of a
heart filled with sorrow and bitterness. From his letters
to Moser and other friends it can be seen that he suffered
even more than is manifest in his verse; and it is quite
certain that the love-poems of the "Heimkehr" were
not mere "literary agonies," as one of the poet's enemies
publicly urged. The most pathetic of these snatches of
song, for they are seldom more than three or four verses,
and sometimes consist merely of a quatrain, are Nos. 23
5
66
LIFE OF
A
("Ich stand in dunkeln Traümen ”—“ In a sad reverie I
stood"), 26 ("Mir träumte," &c.-"I dreamt; and mourn-
fully shone the moon"), 31 ("Deine weissen Lilienfin-
ger" "O thy snow-white lily-fingers "), 46 ("Herz,
mein Herz, sei nicht beklommen ""O heart, my heart,
be not o'ercome "), and 49 ("Wenn ich auf dem Lager
liege ""When on my couch I'm lying"). Frequently,
however, there is a note of cynical bravado or of mockery,
as in No. 6 ("Als ich auf der Reise zufällig "). In this
lyric-little better than doggerel, poetically considered—
he records how he came upon his sweetheart's family,
and how they welcomed him, and complimented him upon
his looks although he had grown dead-white with sudden
pain; how he asked after their aunts and cousins and
many a tiresome friend, and even for the little puppy
that he had been wont to caress; and how then, as if he
had just called her existence to mind, he inquired after
his married sweetheart, and learned that she had just
become a mother-whereupon he begged them to convey
to her his congratulations and heart's-greetings. The
lyric suddenly becomes poetry. The last two quatrains.
describe how "the little sister" tells the fate of the puppy
when grown to doghood, and how, as she speaks, the
poet suddenly secs in her smile and in her dark eyes the
vision of his lost love. No translation can adequately
convey, to the reader ignorant of German, the pathos, the
haunting melancholy of those hopeless little love-
songs.
The fresh salt breezes of the
temporary cure, and Heine took
North Sea wrought a
long walks along the
Cuxhaven sand-dunes, bathed, sailed, and generally
HEINE.
67
enjoyed himself without having to pay the penalty of in-
sufferable headaches. It would have been a period of
unalloyed content but for the love-memory which gnawed
at his heart, which forced again and again to his lips
songs sad and hauntingly sweet, or cynically bitter and.
reckless: but for this, and one other serious worry of a pe-
cuniary nature. The latter was a quarrel with his uncle on
a breach of agreement, but after much resentment on both
sides Herr Salomon was at last convinced that he was in
the wrong. To make amends for his assertions to the
contrary, the old man finally wrote and agreed to pay his
nephew one hundred louis d'or (£80) for another year,
that is, for the year 1824.
The outcome of this unpleasant affair was a determina-
tion on Heine's part to free himself as soon as possible
from the state of dependency upon his uncle which was
so distasteful to him; he would even voluntarily agree to
apostasy, or to anything in reason, in order to gain a
livelihood. In this strain he wrote to his friend Moser,
who gave him in return wise counsel against precipitancy
and petulance, and particularly urged him to be more
heedful in the exercise of his biting wit.
(C
But otherwise how delightful it was at Cuxhaven! What
a revelation the sea was to the young poet! From the
very first day when he saw it in solitary majesty (for the
salt water he had seen from Hamburg was a mere mer-
cantile fluid") his heart responded to its music, its sig-
nificance, its mystery. Eye, nor ear, nor mind ever tired
by those sandy dunes, that pebbled strand, those weed-
haunted shallows, those ceaseless waves, that rhythmic
unending utterance so full of meaning and yet so inex-
68
LIFE OF
plicable; that broad expanse of moving waters whereon
great ships passed with every wind, and wherefrom at
sunrise and sundown the brown-sailed fishing smacks
made for the havens along the shore; where at night the
moon laid her Jacob's-ladder to dreamland and the stars
trailed serpentine scintillations from deep to deep; where
there was peace, and rest, and inspiration, forgetfulness
or calm amelioration of past sorrows, phantasmal visions,
exhilarating desires, hopes, determinations.
""
From that time onward the passion for the sea entered
into Heine's being, and became a part of, a motive force
in, his genius. He loved it as no German poet had ever
done before him, as not even any English poet, with the
exceptions of Shelley and Byron, had loved it. He was
not to write his finest sea poems till he went to Norderney,
but even this first visit to the North Coast was eventful in
song. It is the sea music that makes "Die Heimkehr
so fascinating a volume, this and the sad songs to which
it forms so rich an under-melody: the sea music of "Wir
sassen am Fischerhause" ("We sat in the fisherman's
cottage, and gazed upon the sea"), "Du schönes Fischer-
mädchen" ("Thou lovely fisher-maiden "), "Der Mond
ist aufgegangen" ("The moon is risen "), "Der Sturm
spielt auf zum Tanze" ("The storm strikes up its dance
song"), "Der Abend kommt gezogen" ("The twilight
falls: mists veil the sea"), and "Das Meer erglänzte weit
hinaus" ("The sea yet shone with sunset gleams").
Sometimes the passion of his love rises irresistibly, as
where, in one of the sea poems, he suddenly breaks out
into and concludes with-
HEINE.
69
"To your bosom take my head,
Soul and body I surrender !
Sing me dead, caress me dead,
Drain my life with kisses tender.”
Of all the songs in the "Heimkehr" the most
familiar are, "Du schönes Fischermädchen" and "Die
Lorelei," the Water Fay of the Rhine.
The latter,
indeed, is probably the most widely known of all
It has been translated into every
Heine's poems.
European and several Asiatic languages, and has been
set to music scores of times by German, English, French,
and Russian composers. As a poem it is as typical of
its author's genius as any short single example could be:
the touch of pathos, the poetic atmosphere, the romantic
feeling, and, as much as anything else, the sudden note
of mockery-as if the poct were laughing sardonically
at having so deeply enlisted the reader's sympathies--
all reveal the real Heine. This lyric could hardly have
been written by any poet of Heine's time save Goethe
or Uhland. But Goethe would have shuddered at the
closing discord as something entirely alien to the calm
of true art; while the most charming of sentimentalists
could never have sung of so pretty a romance with such
a disillusioning “aside.”
"Du schönes Fischermädchen" is a lyric sung all the
world over. It is, morever, so typical of a kind of poetry
wherein its author has never been equalled, much less
surpassed, that room must be found for an English
version of it. On the whole the best translation which
I have encountered is that by Mr. Stigand, though it may
very properly be objected that "And many pretty pearls,
70
LIFE OF
my love," is not quite the same thing as "Und manche
schöne Perle "-schöne having a much finer significance.
than is conveyed by "pretty."
"Come, fairest fisher-maiden, here,
Put, put thy skiff to land;
Come close to me and sit thee down,
And prattle hand in hand.
Oh, lay thy head upon my heart,
Have not such fear of me;
Thou trustest day by day thyself
Unto the wild, wild sea.
My heart is like the sea, it hath
Its storm, and ebb, and flow ;
And many pretty pearls, my love,
Rest in its depths below."
Some of the contents of the "Heimkehr" volume
were printed in the spring of the following year (1825)
in the "Gesellschafter," and the whole cycle was in-
cluded later on in "The Book of Songs." The col-
lection includes the blank verse "Götterdämmerung ”
("The Twilight of the Gods "), a fragment that seems.
to me to have been overrated by some critics, as it
is derivative and might have been written by almost
any of the poets of the German Romantic school;
"Ratcliff" and "Almansor," respectively in blank verse
and in unrhymed octosyllabic quatrains (not to be con-
fused with the poetic dramas bearing the same titles);
and "Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar" ("The Pilgrimage to
Kevlaar"). For heroic blank verse Heine had little
original faculty, and, to judge from the sparsity of his
HEINE.
71
The lyrical
Even such
poems in this metre, but slight inclination.
impulse was at all times dominant with him.
excellent exercises-characteristic, moreover, as they are
to a considerable degree-as "Götterdämmerung" and
"Ratcliff," not only show that in this measure he is
hardly at his ease, but that it does not suit his swift and
wayward, his impulsive and fantastically irregular genius.
On the other hand, there is convincing proof, even in
the "Buch der Lieder," that he was in no wise dependent
upon rhyme. Some of his finest as well as longest
poetical productions are in blank verse cast in octosyl-
labic trochaic quatrains, or in the irregular measures of the
North Sea Cycle. In the fine poem entitled “ Donna
Clara "-where, I think, it is hypercritical to discover
Heine's passion for Amalie-the poet has given vent to
that bitter irony which was so often with him an over-
mastering impulse. "The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar" is a
pathetic poem, of a beauty so spiritual as scarcely to be
characteristic of the genius of its author.
When the six weeks at Cuxhaven had come to an end,
Heine found himself in Hamburg again en route for
Lüneburg. His original idea of mooting to his uncle his
project of a migration to Paris was, he realized, now im-
practicable: had he even hinted at such a thing the wrath
of the old banker would have been extreme. So there was
nothing for it but to return to Göttingen in due course,
and there endeavour to obtain the degree of a doctor of
law. For the legal profession Heine felt his unfitness ;
still, anything would be better than continued depend-
ence upon his uncle's charity. Moreover, there was
always the chance of an official appointment (through
72
LIFE OF
influence, after his formal conversion) or even of a pro-
fessorate. As for the return to the University of Göttin-
gen, he knew that he would probably make more way with
his studies in that dreary resort than at Berlin, or even
than at Bonn.
The three ensuing months were spent with his family
at Lüneburg, not voluntarily, but for lack of funds, as the
new allowance from his uncle was not to take effect till
after the New Year.
It was near the close of the third week in January,
1824, that Heine left Lüneburg for Göttingen, where he
arrived on the 22nd, and by the end of the month was
again a student in the famous Hanoverian university.
The spring of 1824 was passed mainly in close study,
varied with exercises in imaginative prose and poetry,
the most important of which was the (uncompleted)
romance, "Rabbi von Bacharach," that powerful and
picturesque fragment which was one of the most con-
scious outcomes of its author's "Juden-Schmerz."
In March he paid a flying visit to Berlin, where he
enjoyed himself mightily for a brief space, and sniffed
the entrancing fragrance of literary fame. On his way
thither he halted at Magdeburg, in order to make the
personal acquaintance of Immermann, whom at that
time he considered to be the most poetic of all German
poets, and with whom he had entered into a kind of
literary league. In the Berlin salon of Elisa von Hohen-
hausen he was greeted as the German Byron; and
though he had the good sense and discrimination to
laugh at an obviously absurd comparison-absurd if for
nothing else than the marked distinction between the
ޕ
HEINE.
73
impulsive but inartistic poetry of the great English-
man and his own essentially artistic, though incom-
parably simple music, was not insusceptible to the
implied flattery, particularly as Byron was the one
foreign poet with whom he found himself in entire
sympathy. He had read all his writings with avidity,
and had even translated into German certain favourite
pieces. It was with no ordinary regret, therefore, that
-shortly after his return to Göttingen-he heard of
the death of the great poet at Missolonghi. It came
upon him as a personal shock. "Byron was the only
man to whom I felt myself related," he wrote, “and we
may well have had a good deal of resemblance in many
things."
Once back in Göttingen he worked steadily at the
Pandects and literature of a like uninspiring kind, com-
bined with ardent study of Jewish history and rabbinical
lore, in particular relation to his Jewish romance which
by this time had taken great hold upon his imagination.
Among the innumerable schemes which were born of his
fertile brain was another Faust poem, but, fortunately, he
finally discarded the idea—the fulfilment of which would
as certainly have been as maleficent for him in his life-
time as it would probably have been to his hurt in that
hereafter of which he dreamed.
When the summer heats arrived Heine slipped a knap-
sack upon his back, and set off upon a pedestrian excursion
—a memorable trip to him for the pleasure and ultimate
profit and fame it brought him, and to all his admirers.
because the outcome of it was the immediately popular
"Harzreise" ("The Hartz Tour ").
74
LIFE OF
In this, the most generally appreciated of all Heine's
prose writings, we have a series of brilliant scenes depicted
in matchless fashion, with a shrewdness of observation,
an exuberance of animal spirits, and a subtlety and keen-
ness of wit, which even now appeal to readers as some-
thing uniquely charming, and fifty years ago came as a
revelation to the German world ignorant of the blithe
grace and flexibility wherewith its literary prose could
become animated under the touch of a master.
It has often been a subject for curious comment that
Heine did not tell any of his friends, not even his good
angel Moser, about his meeting with Goethe, when he
passed through Weimar. But this encounter (which
Heine afterwards described at the end of the first book
of “The Romantic School,") was so disappointing to the
younger poet that he plainly preferred to hide his chagrin
in discreet silence. It was, moreover, rather agreeable to
him to be able to pique Moser's curiosity. To have
nothing more to say about Weimar, then the chosen
home of Teutonic "sweetness and light," or of its high-
priest, than "the beer at Weimar is really first rate,” was
a refined form of torment for his Goethe-worshipping
friend. That it was evasive, Moser must have been well
aware, for he knew that his friend was so un-German-like
as to relish neither beer nor tobacco. Later on he alluded
to the letter just quoted, and in the answer thereto Heine
wrote as follows:
1st July, 1825.
"By my silence about Goethe-my conversation with him at
Weimar, and all the friendly and condescending words he addressed
to me--you have, I assure you, lost nothing. It was only as the
tenement that once held so much glorious life, only for the past,
T
HEINE.
75
that he interested me.
He excited in me a melancholy feeling, and
I have grown to like him better since I have felt for him. But at
bottom Goethe and I are opposite natures, and mutually repel-
lent. He is essentially a man on whom life sits easily, who looks
on enjoyment of life as the highest good, and though at times
he has glimpses and vague feelings of the ideal life, and expresses
them in his poems, yet he has never comprehended, much less lived
it. I, on the contrary, am essentially an enthusiast, that is, so in-
spired by the ideal as to be ready to offer myself up for it, and even
prompted to let myself be absorbed by it. But, as a fact, I have
caught at the enjoyments of life and found pleasure in them; whence
the fierce struggle that goes on in me between my clear reason,
which approves the enjoyments of life and rejects the devotion of
self-sacrifice as a folly, and my enthusiasm, which is always rising up
and laying violent hands on me, and trying to drag me down again
to her ancient solitary realm; up I ought perhaps rather to say, for
it is still a grave question whether the enthusiast who gives up his
life for the idea does not, in a single moment, live more and feel
more happiness than Herr von Goethe in his six-and-seventieth year
of egotistic tranquillity."
As a matter of fact, Heine had looked forward to the
interview with keen anticipations of pleasure. He would
meet the king of German Song not as a subject, but as a
prince of a native though unallied dynasty, with whom,
moreover, lay the chances of inheritance to supreme
honours when the throne should become vacant. His
songs were already known and sung throughout the
land: great things were expected of him; and there
were even critics of repute who did not hesitate to pro-
nounce him the second of living German poets. Never-
theless he had no wish to rely solely on his reputation.
Before he left Göttingen, he had, time after time, re-
hearsed appropriate speeches and telling points wherewith
to charm the serene old man who was so accustomed to
76
LIFE OF
clevernesses that he would all the more readily appreciate
anything really brilliant. Alas, for the vanity of human
hopes-and particularly for the vanity of young poets!
When the long anticipated hour arrived, and the prince
stood before the king, all the clever speeches, telling
points, and brilliant allusions vanished and left the mind
a hopeless blank. A prolonged pause-a curious smile.
on the marble-like face of Goethe-and then at last the
most brilliant and promising of the younger men of
genius spoke:
"The plums on the road between Jena and Weimar
are perhaps the most excellent that I have ever tasted!"
:
Heine has not recorded how long it took after this
humiliating anti-climax ere the ice was broken but it is
certain that Goethe was kindly and appreciative, if not
sympathetic. It is indubitable that, as Heine remarks
in the letter to Moser quoted above, the natures of the
two poets were opposite, and in some respects mutually
repellent. It is equally clear from the same letter that
the younger did not, at the time at any rate, fully under-
stand the elder writer: and there is certainly something.
amusing in the most sensuous of German poets pourtray-
ing himself as the renunciative idealist, the man whose
enthusiasm impels him to sacrifice his life for the idea—
though, as Mr. Storr aptly remarks, "We must bear in
mind that he is pouring out his confidences to his most
intimate friend, whom he is telling, not what he is, but
what he would be." This letter has, however, great idio-
syncratic value, and, with all its schwärmerei, may be
regarded as a genuine index to the real nature of the
poet who all his life delighted to cast dust in the eyes of
HEINE.
77
friends and foes alike-so profusely as sometimes to
obscure his own self-vision. If there were aspects of
Goethe's genius which his younger rival did not duly
appreciate or even understand, it is not less obvious that
the serenest of modern poets failed to comprehend the
author of the "Buch der Lieder." "He has all gifts except
love," was Goethe's sententious comment to Eckermann
shortly after that German Boswell had settled at Weimar
as his secretary: "he loves his readers and his fellow
poets as little as himself, and thus one is tempted to
apply to him the saying of the apostle, 'Though I speak
with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.'
There is indubitable reason for Goethe's criticism, but
he never became sufficiently acquainted with Heine to
perceive that the cynicism and mockery were as the
bitter rind to the fruit whose deep-set core was fresh and
sweet. At heart, the sweetest singer of Germany was as
manly as Burns, as blithe as Béranger: but life meant
for him Protest, and the deafness of the world to protest
invited cynical recklessness; and burning pain and light-
some emotions, passionate hopes and wayward impulses,
wrought havoc of the fair dreams and purest aspirations
of early youth.
In Heine's bitterness, however, there was often some-
thing of common poverty of spirit. Oftenest he swung
his sharp-edged sword of satire not as an assassin or as a
swashbuckler, but as an enthusiastic and reckless icono-
clast: occasionally, however, he snatched up a club, and
flourished it with all the clumsy violence of the typical
Junker. There is nothing but personal resentment in his
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expressed opinion of Goethe's remarks about himself,
although the shaft was by no means devoid of at least a
feather of truth.
Some of the poems and odd portions of "The Hartz
Tour" were written during the excursion, but it was not
tentatively concluded until November, when the author
sent it to his friends in Hamburg as 'an amusement for
the women-folk." Later on he sent it to the "Gesell-
schafter."
Interesting and amusing to the readers of the "Gesell-
schafter" as it was, however, "The Hartz Tour" was by
no means the brilliant production it was when published
in book form as part of the first volume of the "Reise-
bilder" (the "Travel-Pictures"). Besides having been
thoroughly revised, the later version had the advantage
of the famous Brocken phantasy and the inimitable intro-
ductory caricature of Göttingen and its university. It is
suggestive, however, of the difficulties of a literary career
-when the reputation that has been gained is for high-
class work, and particularly if for poetry-that Heine
received only fifty louis d'or for the copyright of a book
that for fifty years proved a source of considerable income
to Herr Campe and his firm.
I need not long delay over this fascinating section of
Heine's work: the "Travel-Pictures" are so well known,
and a version scarcely less delightful in most respects than
the original is procurable for a small sum.¹
The "Harzreise" is more or less illumined by the
I Mr. Francis Storr's "Travel-Pictures: and the Romantic
School."
HEINE.
79
radiance of poetry-by, at least, the happy sunshine of
youth, which is not so very far from being the same
thing. Not only are the "Berg-idyllen," the hill songs,
scattered through the record very delightful: the prose
is often like that fabled bird born of the embrace of Sea
and Sky, that bright creature of azure plumes, who, when-
ever its heart swelled with rapture, became for a brief
while as a living sapphire. Appropriately enough, a
lyric opens the blithe chronicle.
"Away with the false
atmosphere of 'society' and the ennui of civilization :
hurrah for the liberal mountain air, the cloud-shadowed
hill-sides, the torrents and cool streams, the voices
of the winds and the songs of birds"-this is what
the lyrical opening of the "Harzreise amounts to.
Here are the first lines of prose-which, with those that
follow in the original, caused a hearty laugh throughout
solemn Germany, unaccustomed to have its ears tickled
with lightsome wit; a hearty laugh everywhere save in
Göttingen, where amazement and indignation alternately
prevailed, till they merged in profound disgust at the
blasphemer.
;)
"The town of Göttingen, so celebrated for its sausages and uni-
versity, belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains 999 inhabited
houses, various churches, a lying-in hospital, an observatory, a uni-
versity prison, a library, and a Town Hall Tavern, where the beer
is excellent. The stream that flows past the town is the Leine, and
serves in the summer for bathing. The water is very cold, and in
some places it is so broad that Ponto had to take a really good run
to clear it. The town itself is pretty, and presents the most agree-
able aspect-when we have turned our backs upon it! . . . The
inhabitants of Göttingen may be roughly classified under the heads
of student, professor, philistine, and brute; but between these four
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LIFE OF
•
•
estates there is no clearly marked distinction. The most important
class are the brutes.
The Göttingen philistines must be
numerous as the sand, or rather as the flakes of scum on the sea-
shore; indeed, when I see them in the morning, with their white
bills and dirty faces, I can hardly conceive how God can ever have
created such a pack of rascals. . . . It is my painful duty to take
my friend, the author of the Topography of Göttingen, to task for
not expressly and emphatically contradicting the current scandal
about the big fect of Göttingen women. Indeed, I have been
occupied for some time past with a serious refutation of this heresy,
and with this express object have joined a class of comparative
anatomy, made extracts from the rarest volumes of the library, stood
in the Weenderstrasse for hours at a spell studying the feet of the
ladies as they walked by; and in the exhaustive treatise which em-
bodies the result of these studies, I treat of (1) feet in general, (2)
feet in the Old World, (3) elephants' feet, (4) the feet of Göttingen
women, and (5) if I can obtain paper of sufficient size, I will add
some copperplate facsimiles of the Göttingen female foot."
At Osterode, as he narrates further on, he had a dream
so apposite that we may be sure it was not all a dream :
therein, as in Paris many a bitter year later, he flung
himself at the feet of the carven Goddess of Beauty and
with enraptured eyes drank in the symmetry and im
mortal loveliness of her blessed body: "Hellenic calm
possessed my senses, and over my head, as in benedic-
tion, Apollo poured his sweetest strains." He awoke
with music still ringing in his ears, to find that it was the
bells of the cows being driven to pasture. Having
quaffed his coffee he started afresh by the Klausthal road,
and from one of the first heights looked back once again
at sunlit Osterode, with its red roofs peeping from the
green fir-forest like a moss-rose. Near Lerrbach the
hills grew steeper. "Beneath, the fir-forests waved like
a green ocean, and, above, the white clouds sailed along
HEINE.
81
the blue sky. The wildness of the landscape was toned
down and tamed, as it were, by its uniformity and
simplicity. Nature, like a good poet, will have no violent
transitions. And, like a great poet, Nature produces
the greatest effects with the fewest materials-sun, trees,
flowers, water, and love: that is all. If, indeed, the last
is wanting in the heart of the beholder, the whole is a
poor enough picture, and the sun is only so many miles
in diameter, and the trees are good for fire-wood, and
the flowers are classified by the number of their stamens,
and the water is-wet." In this brief passage Heine,
more or less unconsciously, refutes a false accusation and
utters a self-condemnation. His emphasis upon love in
its broad sense-whether or not it be a new thought
stimulated by some germane remark from Goethe-shows
how well aware he was of the secret of the poet's heart,
and how extreme was the verdict of the author of
"Faust" upon his younger comrade. On the other
hand, "Nature, like a good poet, will have no violent
transitions," comes strangely from the poet who more
than any other indulges in what Nature is asserted to
avoid.
At Klausthal the pedestrian rested
awhile in order to visit the smelting works and the silver
mines, of which he gives a picturesque description which
is all the more effective from the fine note of human
pathos wherewith it concludes.
Heine, however, is no guide-book chronicler. Those
who expected a record of facts and industrial statistics.
must have been wofully disappointed. Of Osterode.
all he has to say is that it has x houses, y inhabitants,
including souls; and the only information anent the
6
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LIFE OF
route to Goslar is that "I got there somehow, but I can't
say how."
Goslar, with its pavements as rough as the hexameters
of the Berlin poetasters, proved to be a dull place,
though a romantic love episode made the evening pass
as though it had been spent in the Golden Isles.
Till late into the night thereafter he sat looking out
upon the moonlit Rammelsberg. Love and moonlight!
Thoughts of happy havens for the soul, of long vistas in
immortality, naturally thronged upon the young man.
But in his record thereof there is something of the bitter
humour of the already-quoted episode of his conversa-
tion with Hegel concerning the stars. "Immortality!
beautiful thought! Who first imagined thee? Was it
some Nuremberg shopkeeper, who, with white nightcap.
on head and white porcelain pipe in jaw, sat some warm
summer's evening before his shop-door, and comfortably
mused how pleasant it would be if this would only last
for ever-pipe and breath never going out, to vegetate
on for all eternity? . . . . Love! Immortality! My
bosom grew suddenly so hot that I fancied that the
geographers must have misplaced the equator, and that
it ran straight through my heart!"
A charming description of the mines will be remem-
bered by all who have read the "Harzreise." For one
evening Heine lodged with the friend of the Klausthal
miner with whom he foregathered; and to his short stay
in the pleasant miner-household we owe the lovely series
of lyrics which he wrote about the father and his zither,
the mother at her spinning-wheel, and the bluc-eyed
mädchen with her shy whispered confidences. Outside
HEINE.
83
the hillside-shieling the moonbeams fall upon the fells
and the craggy heights, and the night-wind comes and
goes with its vagrant melodies; but within all is still and
dreamful notwithstanding zither and spinning-wheel.
"Tis the right hour, 'tis the right spot!
Would you marvel greatly, dear,
If I now the right word uttered,
At this instant, standing here?
If I speak that word, the midnight
With the throes of dayspring quakes ;
Stream and forest echo louder,
And the haunted mountain wakes.
Zither's twang and elfin carols
From the mountain fissures ring,
And the forest burgeons, maddened
With untimely birth of spring;
Burgeons into magic blossoms,
Fan-like foliage, flowers bright;
Breathes in myriad scents its passion,
Quickened by the season's might.
Roses like red flames upstarting
Shoot from out the wild turmoil,
Lilics rear their crystal pillars
Heavenward from th' enchanted soil." I
I would fain quote the beautiful description of the
Brocken, but that is impracticable. At the summit the
traveller came upon the Brocken Inn (Brockenhaus),
and was surprised to find it full. However, he managed
¹ These quatrains are from Mr. Francis Storr's charming render
ing of the "Berg-Idyllen."
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LIFE OF
to obtain "a room the size of a closet, where a young
merchant, who looked like an emetic powder in a long
brown wrapper, had already established himself."
The wild account of the student's carouse would also
have to be given in fuil to do it justice, as also, again,
the much-admired description of the fount of the rippling,
splashing, hill-stream, the Ilse, and of the beech and
birch-clad Ilsenthal. The well-known lyric commencing
"I am the Princess Ilse
And I dwell in Ilsenstein,
embodies something of the music of "the laughing spirit
of Ilsenthal."
Then follow some practical hints about the Upper and
Lower Hartz, and a further expatiation upon the dancing
Ilse and green Ilsenthal: and then the "Harzreise" con-
cludes with the sudden passionate outcry of a wounded
love. I can print but a condensation of it.
"To-day is the first of May. Like an ocean of life Spring over-
floods the earth; the white blossom-foam hangs on the trees; all is
bathed in a hazy glow. . . . It is the first of May, and I think of
thee, fair Ilse-or shall I call thee A (Amalie), my favourite
name? . .. Green everywhere, the colour of hope. Everywhere
miracles are working, flowers bursting into blossom, and my heart,
too, will blossom again. My heart, too, is a flower-a strange,
rare flower-no modest violet, no laughing rose, no pure lily, no
simple flower that fades to-day to bloom again to-morrow. No,
this heart is, rather, like one of those monstrous outlandish flowers
from the forests of Brazil, which are said to blossom only once in
a century. I remember as a boy seeing such a flower. We heard
in the night a crack like a pistol-shot-it was the aloe blossoming.
Next morning I saw to my astonishment that the low horny plant
with its funny broad jagged leaves had now shot up, and bore on
HEINE.
85
its head a glorious flower like a crown.
We children were too
small to look down on it, but from a wooden stand we peered down
on the open calyx, and gazed at the spikes of gold, and inhaled the
strange odours that issued from it.
"Yes, A————, not often and not lightly does this heart blossom—
to the best of my recollection it has blossomed but once. . . .
.. And
however splendid the promise of its opening blossom, I fancy that
from want of sunlight and warmth it must have shrivelled miserably,
if it was not actually shattered by a dark wintry blast. But now
it stirs again, and shoots in my breast, and if you suddenly hear a
report-fear not, silly girl, I have not shot myself--but my love is
bursting the bud, and is shooting up in lyric flashes, in immortal
dithyrambs, in ebullience of song.
"But if this lofty love is too high for thee, girl, set thyself at ease
and mount the wooden stand, and look down on the blossoming of
my heart.'
(C
This brief account of, and the few excerpts from, the
Harzreise," will afford some idea of the freshness and
beauty of the original: in order to understand, however,
the full extent of this charm it is necessary to know
German, not only for the sake of the clear-cut, nervous
style of the narrative itself, but also so as to comprehend
what a new direction was thereby given to the national
literary prose. The whole of the "Reisebilder" is
brilliantly written, but the "Harzreise" must, in many
respects, be held the most important section, for it was
at once pioneer and leader in a new realm.
CHAPTER IV.
HE winter and spring of 1824-5 were spent by
Heine at Göttingen, mainly in university studies.
In his leisure hours he revised the "Harzreise,” and
wrote freely though fragmentarily both in prose and verse.
As midsummer drew nigh, a deep oppression settled
upon him. This was not due, or at any rate not mainly
due, to any manner of poetic nostalgia, or even to the
headaches which rendered so many hours of the spring
days abhorrent to him; but to the imminence of that
act upon which he had often brooded-his conversion to
Christianity.
Even if I had the inclination, or this were the place,
to discuss this matter of apostasy in all its complex
detail, it would be impracticable to give here anything
like an adequate summary of all the "pros and cons."
A small volume upon the subject might easily be made
from Heine's own writings-from his voluminous corre-
spondence, his essays and prose compositions, and even
from his poems. But it is easy to realize that far too
much foolish disputation has already been expended
upon an act which, at its worst, was involuntary so far as
LIFE OF HEINE.
87
personal choice was concerned, and had several potent
arguments in its favour.
Heine was proud of the splendid past of his race;
proud of its vigour and intensity; its indomitable
patience; its reticence in dark days, its exuberance in
happier seasons; proud of its highest achievements and
of its loftiest aspirations. In his heart brooded ever the
Juden-Schmerz, the "great sorrow of Israel." The accu-
mulated bitterness of centuries was often with him:
and a deep resentment against the long tyranny of the
ages wrought havoc with his " emancipated" sympathies.
On the other hand, the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry,
the gross aspirations, the impotent mental indolence,
of the lower Jewish classes in Germany, filled him with
angry impatience, when not actually with disgust. The
Jew-German, the hybrid who clung to all that was worth-
less in Israelitism and imitated or adopted what was
mean and vulgar among the Teuton Gentiles, was his
abhorrence. Like the Mr. McTavish who preferred his
whiskey neat and the water any time that might be
convenient, he liked the genuine Jew but did not relish
the amalgam. From his boyhood he had learned that
to be a Jew probably meant social degradation and
many hardships; that to be a Gentile signified such
lordship over circumstances as might be in the power
of the individual to attain. Father, mother, uncle,
relatives, and friends both Christian and Hebraic, had
persistently pointed out to him that not only worldly
advantage, but duty (that poor, insulted, daily-tortured
word), should impel him to a decision in conformity with
their advice. Heine was much too intelligent not to
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LIFE OF
perceive the cynical materialism which lay behind all the
delicately-veiled hypocrisy of the "duty" plea, but he
was forced to recognize the justice of two points that,
in accordance with German law, he could not as a Jew
follow any of the liberal professions (except that of
medicine, for which he had no capacity); and that he
had availed himself of his uncle's generosity to the
express end that he should, when the time came, take
his degree of doctor of law-which could not be done
without a prior separation from the Israelitish persuasion.
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that Heine had had
no religious training worth the name. His father had
been indifferent to all save the letter of Judaism; his
mother had never disguised the fact that she was a
philosophical Deist of the Voltairean school. Early left
to understand that Reason was the sole arbiter amid the
turbulence of creeds, the young poet very naturally came
to believe that the religious profession of the individual
was a matter of no importance, since Jew and Christian,
Deist and Atheist, Agnostic and Mystic lived much the
same lives, had much the same virtues and vices, enjoyed
or suffered from much the same woes or pleasures, and
lived comfortably or uncomfortably with much the same
ideals. It was a case of sauve qui peut-but the salva-
tion to be sought was immunity from the ills of life, and
not enfranchisement from the wrath of any gods that be.
It is to Heine's credit that, in these circumstances, he
was, both before and after his "conversion," torn this
way and that by conflicting emotions; that he despised
the law, but even more those who yielded to its demands;
that he scorned, even while he fulfilled, his own act.
HEINE.
89
Two years ere he nominally became a
Protestant and
a Lutheran to boot," he wrote as follows to his friend
Moser: "As you may imagine, the question of baptism
is much discussed here. No one of the family is against.
it except myself: and this self is a very obstinate person.
You know enough of my ways of thinking to be able to
infer that baptism to me is an act of indifference, that
I set no great store by it as a symbol, and that the power
to defend the rights of my unhappy brethren is likely to
weigh more with me. Notwithstanding, I consider it a
degradation and a stain upon my honour to submit to
baptism in order to qualify myself for State employment
in Prussia. I really don't know how I shall get out of
this fatal dilemma. I shall end by turning Catholic in
desperation, and hanging myself. We are living in evil
times; rogues take the lead, and our leaders must turn
rogues. I understand very well now the words of the
Psalmist, 'Give me my daily bread that I may not
blaspheme Thy name.' My principles are not in the
least influenced by the thought of wealth or poverty, but
my actions unfortunately are. Yes, Heinrich Heine is
very small. In fact, little M- is greater than I.
This is no jest, but my soberest, grimmest earnest."
Later on, in a letter of even greater bitterness, the follow-
ing passage occurs: "Solon said that no man should be
counted happy before his death, and one may add that
no one before he dies should be reckoned an honest
man. I am glad that old Friedländer and Bendavid are
old and will soon die, so that they at least are safe, and
our times will not be open to the reproach that they
have not produced one blameless character. Forgive
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LIFE OF
me my ill-humour, most of it is directed against myself.
I often get up at night and stand before the looking-
glass and rail at myself."
It is indisputable that Heine would have had the sym-
pathy of all high-minded persons if at any cost he had
refused to debase himself by a lie. Later on he had to go
to Paris; true, he might have gone earlier and trusted to
his intellectual powers—or have starved. But he did
not; and we have to look upon his action as impartially
as may be. In no country has his apostasy been so
condemned as in England. We are-of course—such a
deeply religious and spiritual people that the material
way of looking at life is abhorrent to us; we would never
let material interests clash with our noble principles. To
benighted foreigners it does sometimes seem as if the
upholders of the opium trade, the despoilers of the weak,
the land-grabbers par excellence, laid a little too much
stress on their immaculate motives in the conduct of
individual and national life—but of course that is Con-
tinental prejudice and envy. Still there are some among
us so un-British as to believe that nine-tenths of our
fellow countrymen would promptly have acted in the
same way as did Heine, had they been German Jews
early in the present century. The only distinction would
have been that the apostasy would have caused little
spiritual disturbance before, and none at all after, the
event.
It is quite certain that Heine did not discard Judaism
out of any spirit of mockery. He had little religious
belief-as things were, how could he have much, or any?
—and, on the whole, what disturbed him most was the
HEINE.
91
apparent severance from his race, the desertion from a
cause rather than from a creed. When the irrevocable
act had been performed, his eyes were opened to its
worst aspects. He commenced to pay the penalty from
the outset. To his enemies he was always the "Jew":
to loyal Israelites he was the apostate: to Christians—
German Christians-he was a man and a brother, in
the same way as a negro convert is a fellow-citizen of a
Louisianian or South Carolinian. He endured his self-
inflicted hurt with lifelong regret, and, to his credit, never
sought to palliate his mistake.
It amounts to this: Heine's hand was forced; he
yielded against his better judgment; he fulfilled his duty
to his relatives, as they and he conceived it; and as
he had not then a Deity to consult, he did not take
Providence into account. That he acted reprehensibly
may be admitted freely: that his action warrants abuse
of him as a cynical mocker, as a sinner of sinners, is as
absurd as it is hypocritical.
It was in later life, when the spirit of raillery had become
the dominant impulse, that he treated the question with
that mocking laugh with the sob below it which still
sounds through literature distinct from every other voice.
As co-religionists the Jews were, he declared, "an ac-
cursed generation (ein Urübelvolk), which came from
Egypt, the land of crocodiles and priestcraft, and brought
with them, besides skin diseases and the vessels of gold
and silver that they stole, a so-called positive religion and
a so-called church."
In a note to his "Latest Poems and Thoughts," he gives
a different and a more whimsical account of his reasons
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LIFE OF
for apostasy:
That I became a Christian is the fault
of those Saxons who changed sides so suddenly at
Leipzig; or else of Napoleon who need never have gone
to Russia; or of the schoolmaster who taught him geo-
graphy at Brienne, and neglected to tell him that it was
very cold at Moscow in winter. If Montalembert
became minister and could drive me away from Paris, I
would turn Catholic; Paris vaut bien une messe." But
between the Heine of Paris and the Heine of Göttingen
there is a very marked distinction.
It was on June 28, 1825, that Heine went to Heili-
genstadt (a small Prussian town not far from Göttin-
gen), and there, in the house of the clergyman of the
place, was baptised as a Lutheran Protestant. It was on
this occasion that he formally renounced his birth name
Harry for that of Heinrich-or, more exactly, for those
of Christian Johann Heinrich.
He had now nothing to keep him in Göttingen save
the matters of his doctorial degree. In the spring he
had, in accordance with custom, sent in his Latin Petition
along with a German letter addressed to the faculty. In
the latter he had set forth very frankly that though for
six years he had been nominally studying law he had
allowed his preference for literature to occupy much of
his time, although at Göttingen jurisprudence had carried
the day. He also alluded to "the persistent headache"
which had afflicted him for two years, and had so mate-
rially interfered with his duties. It was with a sinking
heart that he addressed his "Petition" to the Dean of
the Faculty, the crabbed old Professor Hugo: and while
he never expected to issue from the examination bril-
HEINE.
93
liantly, he much feared that his efforts would prove dis-
astrously unsuccessful. Early in May the dreaded
examination came off, and Heine just managed to avoid
failure. Though he only took a third class, the Rubicon
was crossed-and the main object of his university
studies was achieved. It was between "Examinations "
and degree-day that the formal conversion from Judaism
took place at Heiligenstadt. When, on July 20th, the
doctorial candidates had to display their Latinity to the
best possible advantage, Heine came off but indifferently
well-one mistake in the use of caput, indeed, caused
much amusement to the audience and chagrin to himself.
What, however, removed any sting was the kindly eulo-
gium pronounced upon the young poet by Professor Hugo,
an eulogium which included an allusion to Heine's poetic
rank as only inferior to that of Goethe. After the cere-
mony the gruff old Dean said some pleasant things to
the young doctor-of-law, and invited him to a ride and
thereafter to supper. Formerly Heine had written of
Hugo as an obtuse and grumpy old pedant: when he
wrote to Moser after degree-day he remarked, "I find,
therefore, that Gans is wrong when he speaks slightingly
of Hugo. Hugo is one of the greatest men of our country!"
Although Salomon Heine was pleased that his dummer
nephew had at last taken his degree and was now in a
position to make his way in life, he refused to grant any
further definite allowance. On the other hand, he
recognized that Heinrich's health was not assured, and
he agreed that the young "doctor" should have a
thorough holiday by the sea-side ere attempting to settle
down in Hamburg.
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LIFE OF
Heine yearned for the sea, not merely on account of
its curative effect upon him, but because his passion
for it was deep and permanent. He was now anxious to
go to some more northern and more ocean-girdled place
than Cuxhaven, and finally settled upon Norderney, an
island off the coast of Holland. Although it was the
resort of numerous Hanoverian families, there were many
opportunities for any one who might desire solitude and
simplicity of life.
The charming Book ii. of the "Reisebilder" ("Nor-
derney") describes Heine's way of living and what
occupied him mentally at this time. Lyrics are not
interspersed in its pages as in the "Harzreise," probably
because so many were then inspired by the sea that they
would have crowded out the prose altogether. It was at
Norderney that he wrote the first part of his beautiful
and unique cycle of sea poems, twenty-two in number,
collectively entitled "Die Nordsee" ("The North Sea ")
-to which further allusion will be made later on.
The Norderney volume is as admirably written as
it is interesting. There are two or three good trans-
lations of it (none better than Mr. Storr's), and all
lovers of Heine's poetry, particularly of his sea poetry,
should read what he has to say about the island and
his stay there. But it is well worth perusal, apart
from its descriptive interest, for the numerous poetic
passages which render its pages so fascinating. Some
of its sayings have passed into the currency of stock
phrases: e.g., "The human spirit has its rights, which
are eternal, and will not be hemmed in by dogmas, or
* Although written in 1825-6, not published till 1828.
I
HEINE.
95
"Works
rocked to sleep by the lullaby of church bells :"
of genius are immutable and immortal, while criticism
shifts and changes. Criticism expresses the current views
of the time being, and only appeals to that time; and
unless it is itself, in some measure, a work of art, it dies
with its age:"- "No true genius will suffer any one to
prescribe the paths it should follow, nor can any critic
presume to indicate its probable course."
"}
It is in "Norderney" that occur the fine sayings con-
cerning Sir Walter Scott-particularly that of the more
or less unconscious pathos, "the dominant note in his
romances the note that has sent a thrill of pain through
the world." Scott's "History of Napoleon Buonaparte
he alludes to almost with more pity than scorn, as “a
blasphemy in twelve volumes." Although Heine's ad-
miration of Napoleon was excessive, and his hatred of
England to some extent crude and incomprehensive, it
must not be overlooked that everywhere save in England
his views concerning the relative greatness of Wellington
and Napoleon are more or less thoroughly endorsed.
Heine gave such free rein to his satire in "Norderney"
that, especially in Hanover, he was heartily abused in
turn. As in the instance of Autommarchi, Napoleon's
physician, "a stiletto, rather than a style," would be
the right word to use at times for his language. The
Hanoverian and Prussian aristocrats did not relish free-
dom of speech, and for such licence of withering satire
they would fain have repaid its author with an award
similar to that granted to the unfortunate Bonnivard
of Chillon.
He often looked back longingly to the time spent at
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LIFE OF
Norderney. For the most part it was occupied in long
rambles by the seashore; in sailing to and fro in a small
boat, at the will of the tides or light winds--when his
chief enjoyment, as it was with Shelley, was to lie on his
back and look up at the drifting clouds-or in making
more ambitious marine excursions. In the evenings he
would wander along the moonlit sand-dunes, and live and
move for the time being in an enchanted world of nixies
and all manner of strange sea-creatures; or, when the
autumnal rains swept from the sea, he would sit in
some fisherman's hut and, while the fire gleamed and
flickered and the shadows sprang to and fro, would
listen to the weird or romantic legends he loved so well.
It was a happy season, and a fruitful one. He did not
wholly escape from the Hanoverian society which came to
Norderney for the bathing season, for a friend of the
Varnhagens, the Princess of Solms-Lich, insisted upon
showing off "her poet" to all her friends. However,
Heine-after recovery from a sudden, ardent, and very
brief “passion”—soon separated himself from his un-
congenial environment, and betook himself again to his
small boat, his lonely sand-dunes, and the rude cottages
of his fisher friends.
After a short stay with his parents in Lüneburg—a
visit memorable to him for the friendship he then formed
with a life-long intimate, Rudolf Christiani - he once
more took up residence in Hamburg, with the purpose
of making a living there in his legal capacity.
But his hatred of Hamburg increased rather than
diminished with familiarity. The life, the city, the cus-
toms and manners of the citizens, all were abhorrent to
HEINE.
97
him. As long as he lived he never ceased to anathema-
tise "that cursed Hamburg." His dire despondency
was increased by the dislike of some of his relatives, the
hostility of others, the gruff closefistedness of his uncle,
the taunts of apostasy levelled against him by Christians
who resented even a converted Jew, and by Jews who
hated a varnished Christian, and by such pettinesses of
animosity and uncharitableness as he never found else-
where.
Uncle Salomon did not know what to make of his
nephew. Report spoke of him as a true and even as a
great lyric poet, as a possible rival to Goethe, Schiller,
and Uhland; but as the old merchant bitterly remarked,
if Heinrich had only shown ordinary cleverness he
would never have had to take to "making books" for
a living.
One outcome of this residence in Hamburg was ac-
quaintance, and ultimately business-relations, with the
publisher, Julius Campe. The latter was in early middle
age, and the most pushing and independent of all Ger-
man publishers: on the other hand, he was certainly
not of a liberal disposition so far as monetary outlay was
concerned. He was quick to perceive that Heine was a
man of exceptional mark, and it was under his auspices
that in May (1826) the first portion of the "Reisebilder "
saw the light. The "Reisebilder " ("Travel-Pictures") as
then published comprised the "Harzreise "-which had
already appeared in the "Gesellschafter "—the cycle of
poems called “The Return Home" (" Die Heimkehr "),
five legendary poems, and the first section of the “ North
Sea Poems." Heine, or possibly Campe, considered
7
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LIFE OF
that it would be wiser to postpone publication of
"Norderney," with its Napoleonic acclaims and anti-
Hanoverian tirades, until the less "dangerous" first por-
tion of the "Reisebilder" should create a demand for
future work by the author.
The book was an immediate success, and every week
its reputation grew. From the outset every one was
charmed with "The Hartz Tour," and with most of the
lyrics, although there was for long a protest against the
new and, as many thought, uncouth verse embodied in
the "North Sea" cycle. There were not wanting critics,
however, who recognized that at last Heine had fulfilled
to some extent the promise of his youth, and that in
power, beauty, and, above all, in distinction, the "Nord-
see" was unrivalled in German poetry. These North
Sea poems must be read in the original, and even then
their perusal should be from the German standpoint.
Heine was aware of their inadequacy as sea poems;
but, as he explained to his friend, Adolf Stahr, what good
would it have been to have written what no one would
have understood? In 1825 the sea was as unfamiliar to
most Germans as were submarine wonders to schoolboys
ere the advent of Jules Verne. It was necessary that he
should be intelligible: and to be intelligible he had per-
force to dwell upon ordinary aspects and interpret only
the public music of the sea. Now it is different. Steam
has rendered solitude almost as scarce as a just man.
Every one knows the sea, and if Nereus still abide in its
depths he probably resents the vulgar familiarity where-
with his once inviolable realm is now daily insulted.
But in Heine's days such familiarity was rare; and as for
HEINE.
99
assumed love, it was non-existent, because then conven-
tionality had not demanded sentiment in speaking of
"the uncomfortable water-way dignified by the name.
of Ocean."
The North Sea poems are written in irregular blank
verse: they are, however, most resonant and musical-
filled, as it were, with the robust harmonies which con-
veyed the unembodied song-breaths to the poet as he
wandered by the wave-swept shores of Norderney.
Those who are unable to read the originals cannot do
better, if they be familiar with French, than become
acquainted with the "Nord-see" through the delightful
version in rhythmic prose of Gérard de Nerval. There
have been various renderings of a few or of all the North
Sea poems by English and American translators, but
while some of these have reproduced in no slight
measure the beauty of thought and diction which
characterizes the originals, hardly any adequately convey
the simple and yet subtle music which makes Heine's
own strains so enchanting. The following translation,
however, is at once literal and poetic, and will convey to
the English reader a good idea both of the manner and
substance of the original.
FRIEDEN.
Hoch am Himmel stand die Sonne,
Von weissen wolken umwogt;
Das Meer war still:
PEACE.
High in the heavens stood the sun
Cradled in snowy clouds ;
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LIFE OF
The sea was still :
And musing I lay at the helm of the ship,
Dreamily musing,—and half in waking
And half in slumber, I gazed upon Christ,
The Saviour of man.
In streaming and snowy garment
He wandered, giant-great,
Over land and sea ;
His head reached high to the heavens,
His hands he stretched out in blessing
Over land and sea ;
And as a heart in his bosom
Bore he the sun,
The sun all ruddy and flaming,
And the ruddy and flaming sunny-heart
Shed its beams of mercy
And its beauteous, bliss-giving light,
Lighting and warming
Over land and sea.
Sounds of bells were solemnly drawing
Here and there, like swans were drawing
By rosy bands the gliding ship,
And drew it sportively tow'rd the green shore,
Where men were dwelling, in high and turreted
O'erhanging town.
O blessing of peace! How still the town!
Hush'd was the hollow sound
Of busy and sweltering trade,
And through the clean and echoing streets
Were passing men in white attire,
Palm-branches bearing,
And when two chanced to meet
They viewed cach other with inward intelligence,
And trembling, in love and sweet denial,
Kissed on the forehead each other,
And gazed up on high
At the Saviour's sunny-heart,
HEINE.
101
Which, glad and atoningly,
Beam'd down its ruddy blood,
And three times blest, thus spake they :
"Praised be Jesu Christ!"*
I should have liked, also, to quote the stirring “Ocean-
Greeting," with its splendid choric effects—
"Thalatta! Thalatta!
Sei mir gegrüszt, du ewiges Meer!"
("Thalatta! Thalatta! Be of me greeted, Ocean eternal!")
Again and again the mocking note so characteristic of
Heine breaks the spell of lovely lines. In the Byronic.
"Die Nacht am Strande" ("Night on the Beach ") the
sombre stranger passes from the storm-swept shore to a
fisherman's cottage, where a fischermädchen sits by the
flickering fire. The stranger casts his cloak from him,
and declaims quite in the manner of Lara or other
Byronic gentry of impassioned temperaments, but thus
concludes :-
"Eut stand not amazed, my child, any longer
At my divinity,
But give me some tea with hot rum, I beseech you,
For it's cold outside,
I This version of one of Heine's loveliest poems is by Edgar
A. Bowring. The original was ruined in effect by the cynical
and unpoetic rhymed appendix, which was published along with
it in 1826. That it should stand by itself, however, is not only
demanded by the imperative voice of poetic art, but has been
decided by Heine himself, for when the complete "Buch der Lieder"
was issued (1828), "Peace" appeared in its solemn beauty without
the useless and essentially vulgar mockery to which in a foolish
moment the author had previously yielded.
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LIFE OF
And on such a raw night
Even we shiver, we gods eternal,
And easily catch we most heavenly colds,
And coughs divinely immortal."
I am tempted to quote two more short poems, "Reini-
gung" ("Cleansing ") and "Fragen " ("Questions "),
mainly because both are eminently Heinesque, and the
first because it was also the direct outcome of the poet's
wounded heart and wounded conscience; but I can only
find room for the second, which, in common with the few
lines just given, is the translation of Mrs. Freiligräth
Kroëker, the daughter of Freiligräth.
FRAGEN ("Questions ").
Am Meer, am wusten, nächtlichen Meer,
Steht ein Yüngling-Mann.
By the sea, the dreary nocturnal sea,
Standeth a Stripling,
His breast full of sorrow, his head full of doubt,
And with gloomy lips he asks of the waters:
"Oh, solve me the Riddle of Life,
That harrowing, world-old riddle,
Whereon many heads have pondered and brooded;
Heads in caps hieroglyph-scribbled,
Heads in turbans, and heads in black beavers,
Heads periwigged, and a thousand others,
Poor aching human heads-
Tell me what signifies Man!
Whence has he come? And whither goes he?
Who dwells up in the golden stars?"
The waves they murmur their endless babble,
The wind it blows, and the clouds they wander,
The stars they glitter coldly indifferent-
And a fool waits for an answer.
HEINE.
103
The final impression made by "Die Nordsee," how-
ever, is not one of mockery or bitterness, but of pathetic
sadness and solemn beauty. We are ever reminded
of the poet's love for the windy dunes fringed by "the
deep-voiced neighbouring ocean," and are haunted by
his echoes of the sea's music. "I love it as my own
soul," he cries; "I often feel as if the sea must be my
soul. And as in the sea there are hidden water-plants,
which come to the surface only at the moment they
blossom, and sink again the moment that they fade, so at
times there float up from the depths of my soul wondrous
flowers of fancy which gleam and bloom and die."
Two months after the publication of the "Reise-
bilder," that is, about the end of July, Heine again
went to Norderney for his health's sake, and doubtless
also because he found the unbroken continuation of his
Hamburg life intolerable. Here, as in the previous
early autumn, he enjoyed and greatly benefited by his
stay in the island. Once again he spent the long August
days in lying idly in his drifting boat, for hours watching
the movement of the clouds overhead or gazing down
into the green depths below him, rapt in fanciful dreams.
of buried cities, of strange sea creatures, of shy nereids
and perilous nixen or, when the golden September
moon rose over the North Sea, wandered till long past
midnight along the wave-echoing sand-dunes. It was a
period of keen intellectual stimulus. Innumerable sub-
jects for treatment in prose and verse haunted him from
waking till sleep-among other themes was his "Faust,"
which he had not yet determined to discard—and daily
the irresistible lyrical impulse rose like an intoxicant in
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LIFE OF
his heart and brain, and, as it were, burgeoned forth in
blossom-snatches of song and flawless flowers of verse.
Yet he was seldom free from the despondency which
for many months past had caused life to be so full of
ennui to him. A deep discontent, an irritation, a hesi-
tant determination-these and other moods rendered
him distraught and weary. Though he enjoyed himself
less than on his previous visit, though "the pretty women.
were not so pretty as in 1825,” nor was even the sea so
romantic, he realized that the fault was with his own dis-
position. From the bathing he received marked good,
and his headaches became more infrequent and much
less violent. Nor, though disenchantment seemed the
order of the day, was he altogether without those
passionate illusions which come only to the enthusiasts
of life. One moonlit night he walked by the sea along
with a beautiful girl: no word was spoken, but hand in
hand they wandered vaguely onward. "There was but
one deep look, and the sea made music to it. The moon
seemed to shine to show me that some glorious things
existed yet for me in the world." This romantic "inter-
lude," however, came to nothing-if we can so speak of
an episode that left the bright glamour of romance
over a day of youth, a light that died not from memory
through all the weariness and suffering of the years that
followed.
Towards the end of September, Heine returned to his
parents' home in Lüneburg, this time by way of Bremen.
What to do he knew not, though he had quite made up
his mind not to attempt a legal or any other career in
Hamburg. His wish to leave Germany grew stronger,
HEINE.
105
and moreover it coincided with advice from the Varn-
hagens, Moser, and other disinterested friends. As he
bitterly remarked, Germany was no place for a Jew-
even a converted Jew. His literary prospects were suffi-
ciently good to enable him to feel assured of an actual
living, at any rate for a time; but he naturally feared
that if he exiled himself, especially if he took up per-
manent residence in Paris, he would give further cause of
offence to relatives, friends, and encmies, and render his
pen a very untrustworthy bread-winner.
The last quarter of the year was mainly occupied in
the writing and revision of the contents of the second
volume of the "Reisebilder." For some time past the
idea of a visit to England, or rather to London, had
taken possession of him, and he determined that if he
could come to a satisfactory arrangement with Campe he
would fulfil his desire while it was practicable. In
January (1827) he was, accordingly, again in Hamburg,
but it was not until April that he found himself able to
sail for the Thames-an event which occurred on the
very day when the second series of the "Reisebilder "
was published.
The volume consisted of the already described "Nor-
derney," and of a third book called "Buch Le Grand,”
(after the Napoleonic drummer Le Grand, who made
such an impression upon the author as a lad in Düssel
dorf at the time of the French occupation), besides the
second cycle of the North Sea poems, and some letters.
"The Book of Ideas " is the collective title of that por-
tion of the "Reisebilder" which comprises the "Buch Le
Grand." It contains some very able, witty, and eloquent
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LIFE OF
writing, as well as much interesting autobiographical
matter, but it is in point of construction inferior to the
"Harzreise" or "Norderney." More than any other
composition by Heine it shows the influence of Sterne,
but even here, I think, his indebtedness is of a very
vague kind. Upon much of the book I have already
drawn when dealing with the poet's youth. In this "Book
of Ideas" is the famous tirade against England for her
"fell hospitality" to Napoleon, and the prophecy as
to her humiliation in the fulness of time: an exag-
gerated and wayward impulse which the author himself
laughed at in later life. The "motive" of the book
would seem to be the cynical weariness and bitterness
hinted at in the motto which is again and again quoted—
"She was lovable, and he loved her; but he was not
loveable, and she loved him not." In no other of his
writings is Heine's love of abstract phantasy more remark-
able than in some portions of "The Book of Ideas." Let
the curious read, for instance, the fourth chapter, "The
Flowers of the Brenta"; or the fifth, with its strange
blending of Oriental and German sentimentalism; or the
sixteenth, with its fantastic love episode; or that other
episode in chapter eighteen of Laura and the knight. A
fantastic dalliance with beautiful words, for often it is no
more than this, is one characteristic of Heine's genius:
the following is an example to the point-
"
'An enchanted nightingale is sitting on a branch of el coral in
calm ocean, singing a song of the loves of my ancestors; pearls
peep curiously from their shells, strange water flowers shiver with
emotion, wise sea snails with iridescent china-towers on their backs
crawl out to listen, sea-roses blush with confusion, yellow star-
HEINE.
107
fish and myriad-hued jellyfish stir and stretch themselves-all is
alive and agape " (chap. v.).
One of the wittiest things ever said by Heine concludes
the ninth chapter, that upon the death of Napoleon at
St. Helena. Here, as was the bitter humourist's wont,
he not only made a clever point, but paid off an old
score against a pedantic professor who had, moreover,
often given him deep offence by his sneers against
and hatred of the great Emperor.
""
Strange," remarks Heine as he pulls himself up after
a burst of fiery eloquence, "strange, the three greatest
adversaries of the Emperor have already found an awful
fate. Londonderry cut his throat; Louis XVIII. rotted
on his throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still professor at
Göttingen."
The poet was in London when he heard from his
friend Varnhagen of the immense sensation his book.
had caused. Almost immediately upon publication the
Government had issued an interdict against its sale in
Prussia, Hanover, or any of the North German States,
not only on account of its Napoleonic fervour, but from '.
its outspokenness and dangerous licence of wit. This
public prohibition, however, increased the demand, and
ere long it was privily circulated in every corner of Ger-
many. The literary world was at once fascinated by its
power, and alarmed at what course the new comet would
take, perhaps one that would prove so great as to
extinguish every lesser light; while the general public
stood pleased, but agape.
Naturally the author was elated at the success of the
"Reisebilder." Admiration of the North Sea poems,
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LIFE OF HEINE.
delight in "Norderney," doubt or abuse anent "The Book
of Ideas"—all went to increase his reputation, and to
make his voice a power in Germany. Already he had
a considerable audience; now he could be sure that
for whatever he might have to say there would thence-
forth be no lack of audience. "If I preserve my health,”
he wrote to Moser, from London, "I can now do much.
I have now a far-sounding voice. You shall hear it
many a time thundering against the beadles of thought
and the oppressors of holiest rights." To use his own
phrase, Heine now definitely enlisted himself as "a
champion of the Holy Ghost."
CHAPTER V.
HERE has been among us, at different times, such
THE
an absurd outcry against that portion of Heine's
"Reisebilder" known as the "English Fragments," that
it is difficult to approach the subject without undue bias.
one way or another. One would think that Heine's
satirical shafts against Frenchmen or Germans were mere,
unadorned truths, whereas anything spoken against Eng-
land must of necessity be due to prejudice or envy! Or
again, are we not nationally apt, to say the least of it, to
be oblivious to the fact that we have ourselves long
mercilessly ridiculed foreigners of all races? As some
"" His
anonymous writer upon Heine once remarked,
ridicule of English awkwardness is as merciless as
English ridicule of German awkwardness."
I do not intend to dwell upon these "English Frag-
ments”—not merely because such dilation would be
more or less controversial, but also because Heine
visited England at a time with which we have nothing
to do. Whether he found it as delectable as the city
of Haroun al Raschid, or as foul as the native quarters
of Calcutta, cannot matter to us, since the London of
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LIFE OF
to-day and its present inhabitants have undergone such.
essential changes. These threescore years have wrought
a vital improvement in the South-English; they have
made a great step-they have advanced from pigheaded-
ness to mere insular obstinacy.
It will depend upon the knowledge and sympathies of
the reader whether he be amused or offended by Heine's
remarks upon England and the English. As one of his
readers I may state that I see little or nothing to disagree
from in his scathing criticisms: where I think he has
gone astray is in his blindness to the better aspects of
our social and national life, to our counterbalancing
good qualities. It must be borne in mind, both by
those who sympathize with and those who resent Heine's
opinions, that he was not, at the time of his visit, well
fitted to judge, so that his views, whether congratulatory
or unfavourable, can have no real weight one way or the
other. He arrived in anything but good health; his
prospects were the reverse of brilliant; his pecuniary
position was only temporarily assured; he could not
speak English, although he could read it; trouble and
suspense were then in the air, and all earnest folk were
heavily preoccupied ; and the weather was wretched.
Heine had any thoughts of "Merry England"—and he
had read Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, at least in
part-he might well have been disgusted; a cold east
wind swept the Strand from end to end, the roadways
were thick with slush, and overhead the smut-stained
snows drizzled and dripped. Could even a philosopher,
much less a poet, be expected to be cheerful and to take
sanguine views in these circumstances? No wonder that
If
HEINE.
111
Heine exclaimed, "Send a philosopher to London, but
no poet. . . . This downright earnestness of all things,
this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this
moroseness even in pleasure, this exaggerated London,
smothers the imagination and rends the heart." -
The best and wittiest remark in the "English Frag-
ments" is that anent Liberty. 'An Englishman loves
Freedom as he loves his lawfully-wedded wife; he
regards her as a possession, and, if he does not treat her
with special tenderness, yet if need be he knows how to
defend her. A Frenchman loves Freedom as he does
his chosen bride; he will commit a thousand follies for
her sake. A German loves Freedom as he does his old
grandmother. And yet, after all, no one can ever tell
how things may turn out. The grumpy Englishman, in
an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of some day putting
a rope round her neck. The inconstant Frenchman may
become unfaithful to his adored mistress, and be seen
fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. But the
German will never quite abandon his old grandmother;
he will always keep for her a nook by the chimney-
corner, where she can tell her fairy tales to the listening
children."
About mid-June Heine went to Ramsgate. The sea
wind and bracing Kentish air wrought great benefit to
his nerves and general condition, and (as was the wont
of this susceptible poet) he found time in the fortnight
he was there to make love. The object of his inflam-
mable affections was a blithe and beautiful Irlandaise,
I
During his stay in London Heine lodged at No. 32, Craven
Street, Strand.
f
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LIFE OF
she who afterwards figures so prominently in the fourth
("Italien ") book of the "Reisebilder."
Among the poems he projected at this time was one to
be called "Ramsgate." The outline of it is interesting
as a model recipe in what Lord Lytton calls the cuisine à
la Heine.
"RAMSGATE.
"A great chalk cliff, like a woman's white bosom, upheaves
itself from out the sea, and the lovesick sca yearningly clings about
it, and sportively caresses it in the strong embrace of his wavy
arms. On that white cliff a high town stands, and there, on a high
balcony, is standing a beautiful woman, and she plays delightful
melodies on a Spanish guitar.
"Under the balcony stands a German poet; and as the charming
melodies float down to him, his spirit involuntarily accompanies
them, and the words burst from him:
"O were I now yon wild sea, thou
Yon rock, round which his wild waves flow!'
"Our German poet, however, did not sing these words, he only
thought them. In the first place, he had no voice; in the second
place, he was timid. When that same evening he walked by the
side of the beautiful woman along the seashore, he was as silent as
the dumb.
"The waves wildly press against the white stone-bosom, and over
the water the moon throws her long beam, like a golden bridge to
the Land of Promise."
Lord Lytton is very severe upon Heine for having
in this and other instances, "committed emotions to
memory for future use." It is true that, as Goethe said,
emotions are like oysters and should be enjoyed fresh,
since they will not bear keeping; also, so far, "that the
natural language of wit and passion is surely one of
spontaneous response to the challenge of the passing
HEINE.
113
moment." But surely remembered excitement may be as
keen- as it may even be more subtle, more rarefied
—as at the "psychical moment." Poetry, as one of our
own greatest poets has said, is "emotion remembered in
tranquillity ;" and if Wordsworth had written "poetry is
emotion emotionally remembered," few, I presume, would
have disagreed from the dictum. What distinction is
there between noting down at the moment some scenic
effect or brilliant expression, some lovely or impressive.
phase or transient aspect of human or external life, and
commemorating at some indefinite later date the emotion
wherewith such fortunate rainbow-glimpses were observed?
Many poets have taken heed of their emotions, as well as
of their observations, for “possible future use”; and it
might well be that the critical inquirer would find that more
poems of high quality-excepting short lyrics-have been
thus produced than as the immediate outcome of strong
feeling within the pristine duration of the latter. It is
possible, it is often inevitable, for the poet to experience the
poetic emotion without capacity for immediate adequate {
expression; and in such an instance is it not well to con-
serve the impression till the emotion become rhythmic?
A few treasured words, a single word even, may be suffi-
cient to call to mind a fair company of thoughts and
visions without which record everything might have.
passed into oblivion. Heine, though in a sense the most
impulsively lyrical of modern poets, did not disdain
"memoranda ”—very wisely, I think, with all due defer-
ence to Lord Lytton. Here is one other example,¹ this
time commended by Lord Lytton for its beauty.
¹ Both are from the "Letzte Gedichte und Gedanken" ("Last
Poems and Thoughts"), 1869.
8
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LIFE OF
"BEFORE A CATHEDRAL.
"Beim Anblick eines Domes.
"Six hundred years wert thou a-building; and now, in a single
moment, dost thou enjoy repose, after a labour of six centuries. As the
waves of ocean, so around thee have flowed the generations of man-
kind, and yet no stone of thine has been shaken. This mausoleum
of Catholicism, which it built for itself whilst yet alive, is the stony
husk of an extinct sentiment. (The bells that strike the hours,
above, ironically.) All within this stone house once flourished, a
living word. But all within is the word now dead. It is only out-
side that it yet lives, in the stony rind."
The poet remained in London for a few weeks after
his return from Ramsgate, and on the 8th of August, the
day upon which Canning died, he brought to an end his
only visit to this country. When he took his departure
it was with a very slightly modified opinion of our
many shortcomings. The nation might be a great one,
and doubtless had many fine qualities, but he could not
endure "the genuine British narrowness" (echtbrittische
Beschränktheit), while, for purposes of speech, our very
language was to him but der Zischlaut des Egoismus—the
"hiss of egoism."
He did not, however, return straight to Hamburg,
but, to the surprise of his German acquaintances, who
thought he would shirk the company of those whom
he had satirized so scathingly, suddenly made his re-
appearance at Norderney. The island, however, was too
full, and, as he craved for rest and quiet, he betook him-
self to the neighbouring isle of Wangerode, for a fort-
night's repose ere his return to Hamburg.
The first incident that occurred in the latter city was
an angry interview between Salomon Heine and his
HEINE.
115
"incorrigible fool of a nephew." When the latter set out
for London his uncle, besides having paid his travelling
expenses, gave him a letter of credit on Rothschild for
£400 this, however, he explained, was a mere matter
of form; it was not to be looked upon as a negotiable
draft; it was meant, in a word, to give weight to Herr
Salomon's letter of introduction and its request for
courteous assistance for Heinrich in the ways of pleasure
and instruction. A few days after Master Heinrich had
arrived in London, however, he had duly presented for
payment this "formal" letter. With part of the money
he had cleared off his German debts; a goodly sum he
had kept for "present and imminent expenses"; and the
remainder he had sent to his friend Varnhagen von Ense
in trust for him against the tolerably certain day of need.
Heine really seems to have believed that his uncle intended
the money for him ultimately, and that his warning only
signified precautionary advice. Very wrothful was the
old banker when he learned what had happened. When
"the incorrigible" called at the office he was met with
furious reproaches, to which he listened quietly with an
aggravating, mocking air. To the culminating "empty-
headed do-nothing, will you never be good for anything
but to throw money out of the window?" he replied,
with an audacious insolence that staggered the great
banker-"My dear uncle, did you really expect not to
have to pay for the honour of bearing my name?"
Heine had now definitely made up his mind that even
if he did not migrate to Paris, he would not attempt to
practise the legal profession in Hamburg. Yet he could
give no satisfactory reply to his uncle as to what he
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would do, and so naturally wroth was Herr Salomon
at what he considered reprehensible idleness, that he
threatened all manner of repudiations. Moreover a
rumour came to the old man's ears that his nephew had
fallen deeply in love with the beautiful actress Teresa
Pache, and although he found that Heine was not really
entangled, though certainly intimate, with the lovely
"Star of Sevilla," he the more vehemently urged him to
adopt whatever business or profession he liked, so long
as he settled to "a reputable course of life." It was
while attending to the proofs of the "Buch der Lieder "
that, through the good offices of Varnhagen von Ense,
Heine received an offer from Baron Cotta, the famous
Munich publisher. This offer was that the poet should
join the irregular staff of the "Morgenblatt," and assist in
the editing of the "Allgemeinen Politischen Annalen;"
and, of course, it was gladly accepted.
""
Ere he left Hamburg he underwent a painful experience.
One day he called at his uncle's house, and there met
once more his cousin Amalie. Although the wife of
Herr Friedlander and the mother of two children, and in
some respects a somewhat passée young woman of seven
and twenty, she still had much of the old charm for her
lover. There were no reproaches, no "indiscretions
they met, and they parted. That is all we know. Pro-
bably Frau Friedlander had a transient sentimental
sensation, until her attention was attracted by her hus-
band or one of her little girls; as for Heine, he went
forth from Hamburg feeling that the world "smelt of
dried-up violets."
In the chill autumnal weather the poet travelled south-
HEINE.
117
ward At Lüneburg he stopped for a few days with his
parents; nor when he bade them good-bye had he any
foreboding of the fact that he would never again see his
father. His mother was proud of his literary success;
his prose she understood, his poetry she condoned. At
the same time she shook her head in remonstrance at her
eldest-born's waywardness-in three years he would be
thirty, and yet he was without any assured income or
even definite prospects. From Göttingen, which the
author of the "Harzreise" must have entered with a
curious sensation, but where he spent a pleasant flying
visit to his friend Sartorius, he journeyed along bleak
and muddy roads to Cassel. Here he met the brothers
Grimm; but what makes his brief sojourn in Cassel so
noteworthy is that it was on that occasion Ludwig Grimm,
the youngest of the three brothers, and an able engraver
of portraits, made a likeness in profile of the poet-the
only profile portrait of Heine that exists. But much
more really memorable were the three days that he spent
with Ludwig Börne at Frankfürt-am-Main.
Börne was a passionate enthusiast, of a type far too
emphatic to suit the Hellenic temperament of the author
of the "Buch der Lieder." The two men, indeed, were
of radically opposite nature. Despite his Jewish blood,
Heine to a great extent was, as he himself declared, a
Hellene, a modern Pagan: Börne, on the other hand,
was a typical Israelite. The poet was intensely sensuous
and keenly realistic, alert for all emotions and experiences
however perilous, exquisitely alive to the beautiful where-
soever and howsoever it might be manifested: whereas
the patriot-politician and author was ascetic in his habits
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LIFE OF
and tastes, of a fiery and spiritual earnestness, mystical
in matters of religious belief, and inclined to despise all
men dominated by what is called the artistic tempera-
ment. Each, however, enjoyed the other's company for
the three days of Heine's sojourn in Frankfürt, although
the poet realized ere he left that Börne's somewhat
sombre nature had resented his too markedly serene
indifference to what the older man considered vital
questions, and, even more, his delicate but too rapier-
like persiflage.
Had he foreseen the outcome of the
acquaintanceship, he would have avoided Frankfürt as a
place accursed.
Incompatibility of climate and constitution has played
almost as many sorry tricks upon sanguine folk as that
other incompatibility which is so familiar a plea in the
divorce courts. From the outset, it is true, Heine feared
the effects of the harsh winter air of Munich upon his
far from robust state of health,-so much so that, not-
withstanding Baron Cotta's liberal offers, he would not
undertake to remain longer than six months. That his
fears were well founded is evident from the fact that not
long after his advent into the Bavarian capital he fell
seriously ill. For Heine's sake it is much to be regretted
that Munich proved so absolutely unsuitable: had it been
otherwise, he would probably have settled in that city,
and prospered. It was then, under the liberal régime of
King Ludwig, the Athens of Germany; and, moreover,
the poet was favourably received not only by the Cottas
and their friends, and by acquaintances of the Varnhagens
and other Berlin intimates of old days, but also, on
account of his literary fame, by the aristocratic society
HEINE.
119
of the place. There was no lack of opportunity of work,
and Baron Cotta—a good and just as well as most able
man-was liberal in all his money dealings.
As soon as he recovered from his severe indisposition,
Heine set to work at his editorial and journalistic labours;
and in his spare hours spent much time in the picture
galleries, which even then made Munich so famous. A
keen sympathy with and insight into what was worthy in
art was one of his distinctive characteristics, and his letters
and articles from Paris show how discriminative and just
a critic he was. He also went out much in society,
and altogether enjoyed himself greatly. He was in the
temporary possession of ample means; and though "there
were only five and a half men in Munich who read,” he
took pleasure in their company, and still more in that of
the light-hearted artist fraternity. As usual-" wonder-.
fully pleasant relations with women, only they are neither
profitable to my health nor to my work."
When the summer came round, Heine would probably
have risked another winter in Bavaria and signed a new
agreement with Cotta; but it unfortunately happened
that the "Political Annals" came to a sudden untimely
end, and that the editor-in-chief doubted if he could
collaborate again with his late comrade even if the pro-
prietor set the journal on its legs once more. So the
poet-journalist determined to take advantage of the oppor-
tunity and make a trip to North Italy, and this he set
about doing with the less hesitation since he knew that
influential friends, both at King Ludwig's court and in
Berlin, were endeavouring to procure him a remunerative
professorship. It would, certainly, have been a strange
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LIFE OF
by-play of Fate if Heinc had become a professor—a pro-
´fessor, above all, at Göttingen! But no, it is impossible
to think of "Professor Heine," the sedate colleague of
the immortal Saalfeld !
Heine had another object in going to Italy besides
recreation and instruction. He wished to obtain new
effects for the third and concluding series of his "Travel
Pictures." "This third series,” he wrote to Moser, “shall
be a man of war, far more fearfully equipped; the can-
nons shall be of greater calibre, and I have discovered
quite a new powder for them. Neither shall it carry so
much ballast as its predecessor."
So one day in the middle of July, 1828, accompanied
by his brother Maximilian (who had come to Munich to
study medicine, and was glad of the opportunity of
spending a brief holiday in the Tyrol with Heinrich), he
set forth for that south for which he had so often yearned.
In nothing was he more a Hellene than in his love for
flooding sunshine and glowing colour, for his physical
respondence to the combined fire and indolence of the
Latin or Greck. The Orient and the South: the very
words had magic for him. He discovered himself to be
kin to Saadi and Firdusi, to Sappho and Anacreon, to
Catullus and Theocritus.
At Innsbrück the brothers parted, and the elder was
speedily on his way to Italy. At first the weather was
wretched, but as he drove through the South Tyrol, the
glory of July was upon the land. We can imagine the
poet lying back in his post-chaise, looking ever eagerly
southward, and perhaps humming the exquisite lyric of
Goethe's, "The land where the citrons bloom." In his
HEINE.
121
"Italien" he has described how he entered Italy, the
ancient town of Trent, as in a dream. From Trent he
journeyed to Verona, of which he has given a charming
record; and thence went by Brescia, Milan, and the battle-
field of Marengo to Genoa. How his soul thrilled, he
tells us, when the postillion suddenly informed him that
they were travelling over the scene of Napoleon's great
victory! The thought of war called to his mind the
spiritual grandeur of that conflict of man with his
mightiest hereditary enemy-Death: and from this he
passes on to say that he would fain be remembered as a
soldier for humanity rather than as a mere singer of sweet
songs. "Poetry," he records, "has always been with me
only a sacred plaything, a consecrated instrument as it
were. I have ever placed but slight value upon poetic
fame, and my future repute troubles me not at all. But
if ye will do me honour, lay a sword upon my coffin, for
I was an intrepid soldier in the war of the liberation of
humanity."
From Genoa he proceeded by sea to Leghorn, and
thence by diligence to the Baths of Lucca, among whose
chestnut woods he remained for four gay and delightful
weeks. Charming female companionship, including that
of the "bright-eyed, wild-spirited" Irish lady whom he'
had met at Ramsgate, and a love affair whether
imaginary or partly true it is impossible to say—with the
ballerina Francesca, made the hours when he was not
riding in the forest or strolling by the torrent-courses
pass speedily. At other times he kept himself to his
room, and wrote some of his Italian sketches for trans-
mission to Baron Cotta for insertion in the "Morgenblatt,"
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LIFE OF
prior to their publication in book form as the third series
of "Reisebilder." We have no such fascinating record
of Heine's stay at the Bagni di Lucca as of that of
Shelley, who ten years before the advent of the German
poet made these high Tuscan forests for ever dear to the
lovers of our sweetest singer; but readers of the last book
of the "Reisebilder" will remember the amusing inci-
dents therein set forth. One has but to think of Shelley
and of Heine at Lucca in order to realize what an
immense difference there is between mere sympathetic
admiration and love: one may enjoy, sympathize with,
take endless delight in Heine, but one cannot love him.
He belongs to that elfin race of whom it is told that they
are so charming they can love nothing or no one much
save themselves, and who, when they are wooed by other
denizens of Faerie, pretend to listen and then vanish and
rouse the hill-slopes with their mocking echo-laughter
From the Bagni di Lucca the poet went to Florence,
with which he was delighted beyond measure. The
literary outcome of this visit was the well-known fantastic
but brilliant "Florentine Nights." In Florence he worked
steadily at his "Italian Sketches," and ere long posted the
several chapters to Cotta. Meanwhile he waited anxiously
for news from Munich anent the expected professorship,
but none came. The Minister Schenk had forgotten his
promises, or possibly Court influences (including, it may
be, that of an offended princess who had asked Heine
to take coffee with her, but who had been somewhat
arrogantly snubbed by the poet) had been brought to
bear upon King Ludwig towards an adverse decision.
While filled with angry impatience, Heine was suddenly
HEINE.
123
seized with an intense longing to see his father.
He
could not account for what almost amounted to a fore-
boding, for during his six weeks' stay in Florence no ill
news had come from Hamburg, whither his parents had
moved in the summer; yet he could not restrain his
apprehensive anxiety. Having hastily made the necessary
arrangements, he suddenly set off northward. At Verona
he was startled to find his presentiments well founded,
for there a letter awaited him informing him that his
father was dangerously ill, and adding that he would learn
further news at Würzburg. At that town he heard of his
father's death from paralysis on the 2nd of December,
and of his burial in the Jewish cemetery at Altona.
Heine's grief was not only deep, but, as I have had
occasion to remark earlier in this book, life-long. Below
all his love-affairs, below his self-love, below his Hellenic
lust of life and his Judaic passion for human rights,
below every other sentiment lay, deep but unsullied, his
love for the genial, kindly, vain, and unfortunate man
who was his father. He admired and reverenced his
mother, and his affection for her was strong and tender:
but he loved his father.
It was a sad ending to what in a letter to Frederika
Roberts he alludes as the most splendid year of his
life and the outlook was not the pleasanter from the
fact that, as he had learned while hurriedly passing
through Munich, the professorship he had looked for was
definitely denied him.
After a short stay with his widowed mother in Ham-
burg he went to Berlin, and in April to Potsdam, where
he seems to have lived a retired and melancholy life,
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LIFE OF
:
though at work upon the "Italian Sketches" for book-form
publication. He had temporarily lost heart, and was
indifferent to what fate had in store for him but what
he felt most strongly was a growing resentment against
the hardship, for one like himself, of life in Prussia.
His health, moreover, became more and more uncertain,
and the headaches from which he had so long inter-
mittently suffered, grew more frequent and harassing: so
that when August arrived he determined once more to
seek the sea-cure. This time he went to Heligoland,
where he remained two months, and then went to Ham-
burg refreshed and strengthened by the sea-bathing and
the bracing air.
It was January (1830) ere the last book of the
"Reisebilder " made its appearance. These “Italian
Sketches" were discussed throughout Germany, and even
in France, Austria, and Russia: everywhere the scandal
was considered too great, and yet everywhere every one
sought the book. It was, of course, officially interdicted.
in Prussia, a matter which rather helped its sale than other-
wise. It was pronounced the most brilliant, the wittiest,
the most entertaining, the most immoral, the coarsest,
the most dangerous, the most revolutionary, the most
atheistical book that any German author had ever printed.
In the main the first five epithets are unreservedly apt.
There is no doubt but that the "Italian Sketches" did Heine
more harm than good. It is true they added enormously
to his reputation, and made him more than ever a power
among the sons of men; but portions of them raised up
such anger and hatred, and even among his friends such
indignation and sorrow, that in consequence he endured
HEINE.
125
a life-long hurt. What saved and saves the book is its
fine enthusiasm for humanity, its daring assertion of
rights, its insight and prognostications,-this, and the wit
and extreme beauty of much of the writing. But in parts
it is vulgarly coarse and stupid, and occasionally even the
style is slovenly. A gross error in taste and judgment was
made in the savage attack upon Count Platen. Platen
was a poet of considerable standing, though not much
more than an accomplished verse-writer, and had un-
justifiably attacked Heine: the latter was not a man to
forget an enemy, and though he might not always draw
the stiletto at the moment, it would simply be because
the blade was not sufficiently poisoned. Still, even far
greater aggravation would not have excused the attack
at the end of the Lucca chapters, where the assailant,
hyena-like, worries, drags through the mud and slime,
and finally rends to pieces his helpless prey. The outcry
against this abuse of critical warfare was as genuine as it
was universal, and in after years Heine deeply regretted
the misdeed. His own admission is that "Platen might
have been a great poct, if he had only had a breath of
poetry in him that he possessed everything needful-
pride, irritability, poverty, debts, knowledge-everything
with the exception of poetry in a word, he had
thoroughly learned the art of poetic cookery-he wanted
nothing but meat and fire to be able to cook. Still, that
does not justify the attack I made upon him."
The weak point even in the finest portions of the
"Italian Sketches" is that they are the words of a highly-
wrought emotionalist, rather than of a thinker. It is
true that poetic perception may perceive and foretell
+
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LIFE OF
the undiscovered country before it is traversed by the
intellectual pioneer: but such vision is apt to be accom-
panied with much delusive glamour. Had Heine known
something of Italian, his residence in North Italy would
doubtless have been more eventful for him and for us:
but in the main he seems to have been susceptible only
to the sensuous aspects of that unequalled background
of history. It is when he alludes to Freedom that his
sympathy is touched to the quick, that his insight is swift
and penetrative, that his enthusiasm becomes passionate.
I have the less hesitation in passing by without detailed
account the charming "Florentine Nights" from the fact
that a tolerable English translation is procurable at a
nominal price; but even upon the other chapters of the
"Italian Sketches" though, so far as I am aware, no
English rendering of them has yet been made, I cannot
now dwell. I shall, however, have occasion in the con-
cluding chapter of this volume to allude to some of the
most memorable sayings of Heine, in connection with
religion and politics, which are to be found in the last
book of the "Reisebilder."
From Heligoland Heine went to Hamburg, for he had
reason to fear that if he sojourned in Prussia he would
ere long find himself in the official building at Spandau
allotted, indiscriminately, to blood-stained criminals and
political free-lances. Moreover, after his recent literary.
escapade, he did not relish the idea of the cold shoulder
which would greet him even in the Varnhagen circle in
Berlin.
There is a very ample and graphic record of him at
this time by August Lewald, in the latter's "Aquarelle aus
HEINE.
127
dem Leben." Lewald alludes to his delicacy, the marked
tendency of blood to the head, the severe frontal pains,
his sensitiveness to sounds (even a clock ticking by night,
rendered him sleepless and, next day, ill), and his in-
difference and despondency. Another acquaintance,
Ludolf Wienbarg, has recorded the circumstance that
Heine, during his Hamburg stay, always seemed like a
delayed traveller: months after his arrival he had not
wholly unpacked his portmanteau, and altogether was as
one who had reached a halting-place for a night, and
meant to resume his journey next day.
A miserable period it was he spent in Hamburg, and
at last it became insupportable. In the carly spring of
1830 he left the hated city for a Holstein village called
Wandsbeck, where he could be sure of quiet and leisure,
and where he hoped the beneficent influence of April
would work him weal. By a curious coincidence—when
it is recalled what happened in France a year and a
quarter later he became absorbed in the study of the
literature of the French Revolution. To a friend he
wrote that for the last ten days he had spoken to no one
but Thiers and dem lieben Gott, and that he was deep in
the perusal of the "History" of the one author, and in the
Bible of the other.
In June he crossed from Holstein to the little isle of
Heligoland, for the sake of the sea-bathing. One morn.
ing, after one of his sleepless nights from excess of
vicarious suffering, with his mind full of the passions
I
¹ We have Wienbarg's testimony to the fact that Heine was so
overwrought by the story of the Gironde and the insatiable Guillo-
tine, that his health materially suffered. Mignet's "History" sucked
his strength away as though it had been a vampire.
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LIFE OF
0
and high hopes which accompanied the greatest event
in modern European history, he was thunderstruck by
the news of the Revolution of July. He hurled aside.
the book he chanced to be reading, and in a moment
Mignet and Thiers and everything he had been studying
in his island solitude-the Bible, Homer, Treatises upon
Witchcraft, the "History of the Jews," Warnefrid's
"Lombards were swept from his mind. He seized
the newspapers, "seething hot intelligence from the Con-
tinent. They were sunbeams wrapped up in printer's
paper, and they inflamed my soul into the wildest con-
flagration. It was as though I would set on fire the
whole ocean up to the North Pole with the glow of
enthusiasm and the wild joy which blazed up in me. I
ran like a lunatic about the whole house, and kissed first
our stout hostess, and then her amiable sea-wolf." On
the roth he again wrote exultantly: "Gone is my yearn-
ing for repose.
I know now once more what I will, what
I shall, what I must do. I am the son of the Revolu-
tion. I will crown my head for the fight of death.
I am all joy and song, all sword and flame!" Here
speaks Heine, the passionate soldier in the War of
Liberation: and it is Heine the poet who writes, “Child
as I am, touching individual events occupy me more than
the whole story in all its significance. Oh could I but
see the dog Medor, who sat till death by the grave
•
•
of his master in the court of the Louvre !"
A week or so later he was at Cuxhaven on the return
journey to Hamburg. His exultation is even more
effervescent than of yore; it bubbles up and seethes and
overflows, as though the fount of joy were inexhaustible.
HEINE.
129
Even in Hamburg, he hears, the people laugh and rejoice
at the great event, the tricolour flaunts everywhere, from
the mast-heads in the docks to the breasts of the rotund
dames at the theatre, and in the streets the strains of the
Marseillaise drown the cries even of the fishwives. Much
of this imaginary jubilation did not exist, though no
doubt Heine, in common with many other ardent liberals,
believed in it. It betrays a sanguine nature indeed, that
one who had known many disappointments, and whose
knowledge of history was so considerable, could still, at
the age of thirty, believe in the enfranchisement of the
nations of Europe because of a revolution in Paris. The
great deeds of July, he declares, will find an echo in the
steppes of the Baschkirs as well as among the mountains
of Andalusia; and "I see already how the Neapolitan
holds his maccaroni and the Irishman his potatoes in
his mouth, when the news reaches them: Punchinello is
capable of seizing the sword, and Paddy, perhaps, of
making a bull at which the Englishman will have no
desire to laugh."
Hamburg had invariably acted upon the poet as an
unwelcome douche: and, notwithstanding the Three Days.
of July, there was on the occasion of this visit to be no
exception to the rule. He had been in the city about a
fortnight, and had been effectively disenchanted, so far
as the liberalism of the citizens was concerned, when
suddenly the finishing touch to his hatred of Hamburg
and its inhabitants was given by what the populace, and
even the authorities, called the Judenkrawall, the Jew.
Riot, but which was nothing more nor less than a brutal
and cowardly harrying of the unfortunate Israelitish
9
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LIFE OF
community. This shameful episode made Heine's heart
sick with disgust and anger, that fanned the flame of
what was a lifelong resentment. Now more than ever
he thought of migration to Paris, that "new Jerusalem
beyond the Rhine-Jordan, separating the sacred land of
Freedom from the land of the Philistines." There, at
least, "the arrogance of kings and the snarling of priests"
would beat against deaf ears. He had at last reluctantly
become assured that the fruits of the revolution had
come to nought in Germany; that, at best, some seed
had fallen which might in due time satisfy the sanguine.
In France he would be able to see the advent of the tide
that was bubbling and seething even in squire-ridden
England and in priest-driven Italy.
For a long time past Heine had brooded upon expa-
triation. The thought was bitter to him, for, after all, he
was a German. He was a dreamer of dreams, a singer
of sweet songs, and he had no wish to eat the bread of
exile or to scale the steps of alien patrons-much less to
consort with all the political lions, jackals, and magpies,
among whom he would inevitably find himself in Paris.
To Italy? Alas, before every citron-tree would stand an
Austrian sentinel. To Vienna? There the agents of
Prussia and Russia were as ubiquitous and as potent as
in Berlin. As for Munich, that was no longer feasible.
To England, with "its hell of fogs," where he "would
not even hang in effigy, much more live in person"?
No, that would be worse than death; it would be to
remain continually in articulo mortis. To America?
I
Ι
"When I was introduced to the Governor of Heligoland, the
wooden Englishman stood motionless before me for a few minutes
HEINE.
131
That would be even worse, for it was further away-
"that frightful dungeon of freedom, where the invisible
chains gall still more painfully than the visible ones at
home, and where the most repulsive of all tyrants, the
mob, exercises its coarse dominion."
The many letters to Varnhagen von Ense written at
this period afford ample evidence of the perturbation of
spirit in which Heine spent day and night. But the
"pressure of the times," alluded to in the appendical
note written to his supplement to the "Reisebilder "
(Nov. 1830), was upon him, and Paris was as inevitably
his goal as is the vortex to the drifting boat in the neigh-
bourhood of the whirlpool. The Spirit of Freedom
beckoned, and there was no resistance to that red-
capped Lorelei. In Germany this breath of freedom
had indeed blown out a few night-lamps here and there,
so that the red curtains of several thrones took fire, and
golden crowns grew hot under blazing night-caps ; but
"already the old catch-poles are bringing out the fire-
buckets and smell around all the more suspiciously, and
forge all the more firmly their secret chains, and I mark
well that a still thicker prison vault is being invisibly
arched over the German people." Like Kunz von der
Rosen, the faithful fool of the Emperor Maximilian, the
without speaking a word, and involuntarily the idea came into my
head to look at him from behind, to see if somebody had forgotten
to wind him up. In fact, out of every Englishman there is engen-
dered a certain gas, the carbonic acid of ennui; and this I have
observed not only in England, where the air is heavy with it, but in
southern countries, where the travelling Englishman goes about in
isolation, and the grey aureole of ennui which surrounds his head is
sharply visible in the sunny blue air."
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poet had shaken his head in such mad earnest over
his country's distress that the fool's bells had fallen from
his cap, and tears had usurped laughter.
It was time to take a decisive step, even if, despite all,
the heart should receive its death-wound in expatria-
tion.
When, twenty years later, Heine described his depar-
ture from Germany and advent into Paris, he did so with
the cynical laugh which had long become so natural to
him. About the time of the July Revolution he had
grown quite tired of his existence, he relates in the
"Confessions" (1853-4), and required some recreation.
Ilis native air struck him as unwholesome. Moreover,
he had made the acquaintance of an old Berlin lawyer,
who had incidentally mentioned that the irons worn by
political prisoners in the fortress of Spandau were very
cold and heavy as ornaments, particularly in the un-
warmed cells in winter time; that no oysters were
obtainable there, and that even meat was very rare,
while there was no other kind of fowl but flies, which
had a habit of making the soup more substantial by
falling into it. So, as he had need of recreation, and as
Spandau was too far from the sea for one to obtain
oysters, and as he did not care for fly broth and disliked
iron fetters, he thought he would take the advice of a
genial commercial traveller from Paris, who assured him
that there the populace did little else than drink cham-
pagne and sing the Marseillaise.
On May-Day he crossed the Rhine, and, as he could
not obtain a glimpse of the puzzled old river-god, uncer-
tain as the latter was whether his waters were French or
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Prussian, the traveller dropped his visiting-card into the
stream and trusted to its safe transmission.
It was on the 2nd of May, 1831, that Heinrich
Heine entered the country of his adoption, and on the
following day he beheld the city of his desire, his new
Jerusalem. The first thing he noticed was that Liberté,
Egalité, Fraternité had been erased from the street
corners. Honeymoons, as he philosophically remarks,
fly so quickly.
CHAPTER VI.
HE first business of a wearied poet is amusement;
so thought Heine. And what endless amusement
there was in the parade of the boulevards and the
thronged by-streets: how vivid the life, how animated
every citizen! How charming it was, moreover, to be
met everywhere with courtesy; to accidentally stumble
against a wayfarer, and not thereupon be greeted with a
curse à la Berlin, or a grumble à la Londres. If some one
jostled him, he says, without immediate apology, he felt
sure it must be a fellow-countryman; and if a pretty
woman looked a little sour, she had either eaten sauer-
kraut or could read Klopstock in the original. The
weather was magnificent, and Paris was in the plenitude
of her beauty; no wonder that the spirits of the sensitive
poet rose as swiftly as a child's laughter, and that his
heart beat the quicker. To improve his rusty fluency in
French diction he spent half an hour in the Passage de
l'Opéra with a pretty flower-girl. He found this method
of tuition so charming that he had frequent resort to it,
for even after he knew French as well as a countryman,
he had no doubt there were still Parisian nuances to be
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135
acquired. He was thirty; he had hopes; he had money;
and he was in Paris; therefore he was happy. He saw
everything in a golden glamour, and everything and every
one seemed in a conspiracy to flatter his delight. For a
time he inhaled with rapture the intoxicating aroma of
life; like most men of his temperament and calling he
inhaled too long and too deeply.
Many days were spent in sight-seeing, and a good
many more in becoming naturalised to Parisian life.
Ere long, however, Heine began to write for the "Allge-
meine Zeitung," and other German papers, those charming
Parisian letters which delighted his over-Rhine readers,
and even now may be read with an enjoyment quite apart
from their very distinct historical value. He was wel-
comed among his literary brethren, and, indeed, every-
where found hospitality; so that no better "Paris
Correspondent" could have been obtained by any
foreign journal. Moreover, for the first few months, his
health was so markedly better that even his headaches
became, as it were, reminiscent in their character.
Altogether he was so well content that he wrote to a
friend: "If any one asks how I am, say 'Like a fish in
water,' or, rather, say that when a fish in the sea asks
another how he is, the reply is, 'Like Heine in Paris.'”
As there is not space here for even a condensed account
of Heine's doings and dissipations during the first period
of his Parisian residence, it must suffice to say that he
speedily became a Parisian of the Parisians. Perhaps
he knew that he was becoming a spendthrift of life's most
valuable treasure, but, gambler-like, he expected that for
him the "red" would always turn up.
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Never did poet set foot in a new land with so many
and such valuable introductions. So amply furnished
was he, indeed, with these missives that he might well
have exclaimed that he was more highly esteemed and
recommended on his departure from his native country
than ever he was while within its borders. He bore
letters (fruitful of benefit, as it proved) not only to great
financial celebrities like Rothschild-whom, as he wittily
says, he came to know quite famillionairement-but to
many eminent authors, artists, and musicians. Among
the latter he frequently encountered Mendelssohn, and
was intimate with Rossini and Meyerbeer; artists innu-
merable he met and associated with; and among the
French and German authors and other celebrities whose
acquaintanceship he enjoyed were Lafayette, Balzac,
Victor Hugo, George Sand, Théophile Gautier, Michelet,
Dumas, Sainte-Beuve, A. de Musset, Quinet, Victor
Bohain, Gérard de Nerval, Ludwig Börne, Schlegel, Hum-
boldt, and many others resident and migratory. It was not
long before his Berlin and Munich æsthetic training stood
him in good stead. Although it is impracticable to dwell
here on the very large body of Heine's prose writings
dealing with art criticism and music criticism, it may be
stated that some of his most brilliant and able work is to
be found therein-writing so brilliant and so able that it
was welcomed by thousands of readers in both France
and Germany.
To all intents Heine now became a Parisian-not a
Frenchman, as his Teutonic enemies declared, but a
Parisian. From this time forth he seldom left that
charmante Lutèce he loved even more than the Angé-
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137
liques, Dianes, and Hortenses, and other ladies of the
Passage des Panoramas chronicled in the "New Poems"
(Neue Gedichte), upon whom he expended so much time,
money, and, alas, health. Even a sojourn by the sea at
Boulogne did not invigorate the constitution which so
short a period as three months had definitely under-
mined.¹
It was after his return from Boulogne-sur-Mer that
Heine was captivated by the extreme beauty and charm
of a young girl named Mathilde Crescence Mirat. The
attraction was mutual; but by agreement on either side
they waived formalities: in other words, to use the phrase
of the Quartier Latin, they married au treizième arron-
dissement This beautiful, uneducated, unintellectual,
yet infinitely charming and loyal Parisienne was the good
angel of Heine's later years. She did not understand
him, but she loved him; he was not the great poet, the
famous author to her she could not even bring herself
to read his verses when she accidentally discovered that
he was a poet—but only the witty, perverse, and lovable
Henri. As for Heine himself-though he sometimes.
laughed at her follies, he was ever loyal and loving.
Upon the eve of the famous duel arising out of the
Ludwig Börne episode, the young people walked one day
to St. Sulpice and were there made man and wife in the
ordinary fashion, an act, however, which was in no way
* Readers unfamiliar with German should not fail to make the
acquaintance of the volumes entitled "Lutèce," "Allemands et
Français,' " "De La France," "De L'Allemagne," and the “ Cor-
respondence," in the Ocuvres Complètes published by Calmann Lévy
(16 vols.).
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LIFE OF
due to any scruple entertained by either, but to a natural
desire on Heine's part that, in the event of his death, his
life-partner should not be left unprovided for.
Although the Börne incident occupied a prolonged
period of Heine's later life, and was the source of infinite
annoyance to himself and others, it is unnecessary to
dwell upon it here in full detail. Briefly it may be sum-
marized thus: Ludwig Börne had no sympathy with the
poet's sensuous and purely artistic temperament, and hist
apparent lack of enthusiasm in many matters dear to
the German refugees then congregated in Paris, while his
sombre nature was roused by Heine's satirical shafts
against his own countrymen. With all his vigour he set
himself to attack and damage his quondam friend, not
merely from personal animosity, but from genuine con-
viction that patriotism demanded such a course of action.
Both were right, and each was wrong. Börne was an
enthusiast of fire, that cannot but consume, progress, and
keep on consuming: Heine was an enthusiast of wind,
that bloweth where it listeth. Börne saw the goal, and
his life was spent in passionate endeavour to reach it:
Heine also saw the goal, but in his heart of hearts was
not quite sure if its gates were of gold or of tinsel, and
in any case he was so much amused by the tragi-comedy
of the race that he often preferred to sit by the wayside
and laugh till the bitter tears came into his eyes-and
then begin to laugh again.
From the time of the publication of Börne's "Letters
from Paris" until three years after the patriot's death
Heine maintained a dignified silence. He let injustice
grow to calumny and calumny become grossest libel: his
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139
""
only answer to the accusations of his fellow-republicans
and reformers on either side of the Rhine was to open
his purse more unrestrainedly than ever to any German
applicant, and to give the most disinterested assistance to
any needy or distraught friend, acquaintance, or stranger.
Nevertheless, the wound gangrened. Probably if the
poet's health had not grown so much worse he would
have had more control, but suddenly his restraint gave
way, and he published his "Ludwig Börne: A Memoir."
With much superficial impartiality his barbed remarks
were too often tipped with mortal poison. What was
worse was his stooping to shameful defamation of the
private character of one whom he had called his friend,
and of that of the lady to whom the latter's "Letters
had been addressed. It was the husband of this lady
who, a year after the publication of the "Memoir,"
challenged the author to mortal duel. It is true that
Heine ultimately offered a spontaneous apology to the
lady whom he had so inexcusably assailed, and that he
caused all the libellous passages to be expunged: unfor-
tunately, if one throw a stone through a stranger's bed-
room-windows it is not sufficient restitution to voluntarily
pay the glazier's bill. There is no palliation for Heine's
conduct, and the indignation which it caused, both in
Germany and in France, was amply deserved. It was
not only that his attack was the very quintessence of
wormwood; his having stooped to gross personalities
could not be condoned.
This episode belongs to 1841. In the preceding
decade Heine's work was mainly journalistic, for the
great part consisting of the artistic and musical criticism
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LİFE OF
to which allusion has already been made. Ill health,
ever growing worse, debts, enmities, and violent German
attacks upon him by Wolfgang Menzel and other jackals
of inferior aggressive power, but in effect almost equally
harassing, had, latterly at least, more than counterbalanced.
the multiform pleasures of his Bohemian life.
With all his faculty of fascination he was constantly
estranging friends. It was as though a million spirits of
satire possessed him, and whenever he opened his mouth
one leapt forth and became verbally tangible. As the
generality of people prefer to read or hear about pos-
sessed individuals rather than to come in contact with
them in the flesh, it is no wonder that when Heine gave
greeting with his right hand and pinched agonizingly
with his left, acquaintances fought shy of him. Even
in matters of opinion many of his friends, particularly
of the Börne type, could make nothing of him. They
never knew where he stood. He repudiated Judaism, he
repudiated Christianity, he repudiated St. Simonism, he
repudiated Deism, he repudiated Atheism; a republican,
he repudiated monarchism, and thereupon repudiated
most republicans, apparently on the ground that they
were indifferent as to change of linen and smelt of garlic;
a soldier in the liberation of humanity, he preferred to
do his marching by deputy, and allowed himself frequent
and unrestricted furloughs. In a word, he was, as they
say across the border, no canny."
(6
So far as means went, the poet and his wife would have
been fairly comfortable if the coin which came to the
household had not been of the kind that burns holes in
pockets. Since Heine had taken up residence in Paris,
HEINE.
141
his Uncle Salomon, convinced that his nephew was an
irretrievable black sheep so far as his following any
reputable business was concerned, had agreed to make
him an annual allowance of 4,000 francs (£160). The
annual income made by the poet-journalist himself
averaged about 3,000 francs. Unfortunately, a yearly
income of from £250 to £300 is not a superabundant
one for two young people without an idea of thrift, and
still less so when the purse-strings are constantly being
tugged by impecunious and importunate acquaintances.
Debts accumulated, and the outlook became black when
a considerable amount of money which had been
deposited with a friend went to look for the shadow of
the wind In his extremity Heine appealed to his uncle,
but was met with a decisive refusal. Heedlessly, but
recklessly, and, as it proved, unfortunately, he then had
recourse to the secret fund expended, for political though,
unformulated purposes, by the French Government upon
refugees of all nationalities. Of course this circumstance
ultimately became known, and involved much savage abuse
and malicious misrepresentation; but, though Heine's
action was not an altogether defensible one, it is quite
clear that he never undertook any obligation in con-
sideration of the small pension bestowed upon him, or
even that any was required of him.
I
Although injudicious living had played havoc with
Heine's never robust health, he was still, within the first
decade of his Parisian life, comely and even blithe of
In 1837 Heine came to an arrangement with his publisher
Campe, whereby, in consideration of the sum of 20,000 francs
down, he made over the copyright of his works for eleven years.
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LIFE OF
aspect. There is extant a touched-up but fairly accurate
depicture of him by Theóphile Gautier, in which the
immortal "gentleman with the waistcoats" alludes to the
poet as having the appearance of robust health, as being,
indeed, nothing short of a German Apollo. Beardless,
moustacheless, whiskerless, his face was "full and round,
but of an elegant mould," and under his abundant blonde
hair was (C the marble tablet of his forehead," and blue
eyes which sparkled with light and inspiration. Another
decade or so, and the "German Apollo" was to shrink
to a wan, shrivelled, and suffering creature.
So early as the second year of his stay in Paris, Heine
commenced his celebrated essays upon the History of
Religion and Philosophy in Germany, and upon the
Romantic School. These in part, in the first instance,
appeared in the Europe Littéraire and in the Revue des
Deux Mondes, and were afterwards enlarged, translated,
and published in book-form. He took pleasure in
writing these valuable, witty, and able literary records,
for he knew that they would not, like most of his other
work composed in Paris, have to undergo remorseless
mutilation at the hands of the official censors throughout
Germany.
Even "The Romantic School," brilliant and interesting
as it is, cannot be compared in value with any volume
of Heine's verse. He was above all things the poet.
One of his flawless Lieder is worth many pages of his
best prose; but apart from this there are two vital draw-
backs to the permanent attraction of the latter-the
ephemeral nature of the substantive value of much of it,
and the more or less fragmentary treatment of even the
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143
1
most ambiticus subjects. In a sense, indeed, the “Ger-
man Religion and Philosophy" and "The Romantic
School" are just as much fragments as the unfinished
tale of "The Rabbi von Bacharach." In length they do
not exceed some of those old Quarterly articles which De
Quincey, and other giants of the pen, used to let loose
upon the heads of our grandfathers; in vigorous con-、
cision and balanced judgment they are less weighty; and
in scope they are far less complete. They are not suffi-
ciently octopus-like. Their tentacles do not spread far
enough in all directions equally, nor grasp sufficiently
firmly that which is behind or all that lies collaterally.
Yet they are compositions so full of knowledge, insight,
understanding, frequent sympathy, and wit-and, withal,
are written with a charm of style and a purity and direct--
ness of diction altogether unsurpassed in German
literature, even by Goethe or Lessing-that at present
the day of their oblivion is much more likely to be in the
Greek Kalends than in any period within the prophetical
ken of the most astute critic.
These "German" essays excited even at the time of
their serial appearance much admiration. Readers
wondered what manner of man this was who sang the
sweetest songs in the Teuton tongue, whose tenderness
and pathos were so subtle and whose virulence so extreme,
and who wrote as a Parisian of the Parisians, as delicately
as Gérard de Nerval, and with a polished grace scarcely
inferior to that of Théophile Gautier. As has been well
said of him, he would seem to be at once a grandson of
Goethe and of Voltaire.
In his philosophical essay readers hailed with delight
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a style that was lucid and exact, incisive and not intricate.
The most abstract proposition became in his presentment
easily intelligible, for where clarity of comprehension and
ordinary methods of illustration failed to elucidate such
proposition aright, he had recourse to sure and pene-
trative wit. Take, for instance, his account of Fichte's
"Ego" and of his "objective" and "subjective":
"Fichte requires the mind to observe itself whilst in
activity. Thought shall listen to itself while it is thinking,
even while it is getting warmer and warmer, and at last
becomes a thought. This reminds us of the ape who
sits by the fireplace and cooks his own tail, asserting
that the true science of cookery consists not only in
objective cookery, but also in being subjectively conscious
of being cooked.”
This work is " a history"—a well-marshalled historical
account, it might perhaps better be termed of German
religion and philosophy from Luther, through Kant, to
Hegel; and its leading motive may be defined as an
apologia for Pantheism—not so much a later Spinozan as
a St. Simonian Pantheism, akin indeed to that of the
"God-intoxicated " Spinoza himself, the outcome of the
inevitable disintegration at the bases of Christianity and
Protestantism—of their structure and encumbrances, that
is, not of their vital fundamental idea. Voltaire himself,
he asserts, could injure only the perishable body of
Christianity, not its unassailable soul, that inviolate and
immortal idea. Heine had no narrow view of Protes-
tantism, as, indeed, might have been expected of the
man who wrote of the Bible as the most sacred book of
humanity, and of the Virgin Mary as the fairest flower of
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145
poesy. Protestantism, in his view, is not merely the
intellectual and spiritual protest of religious enthusiasts
against effete dogmas; it is the protest of light against dark-
ness, of joy against gloom, of the flesh against phantasm,
of life against death. Leo X. himself was a Protestant.
"As they protested at Wittemburg in Latin prose, so they pro-
tested at Rome in colour, in stone, and ottave rime. Or do not the
powerful marble figures of Michael Angelo, the laughing faces of
Giulio Romano's nymphs, and the intoxicated delight in life of
Ludovico's verses, make a Protestant antithesis to the languishing
melancholy of Catholicism? The painters of Italy engaged in far
more effective polemics than did the Saxon theologians. The
blooming flesh-tints upon the paintings of Titian are all Protestant-
ism. The graces of his Venus are more real Theses than those
which the German monk fixed on the church-door of Wittemburg."
This short extract will show at once the strength and
weakness of Heine's method. He sympathises with the
spirit, but not as spirit with spirit, rather as the flesh
with its intangible partner in our mortal inheritance.
The drift of his argument is just, but there is sophis-
tication in the remark that the painters of Italy engaged
in far more effective polemics than did the Saxon theo-
logians. Titian's flesh-tints may be Protestantism; but
this method of theses-making can speedily be reduced to
absurdity. The first Italian who took to the warm
dram-drinking of the north instead of the thin mockery
of Chianti of his native village would be a Protestant ;
the genius who substituted the seductive waltz in place
of the sedate minuet; the individual who invented the
umbrella as a shelter against the heaven-sent rain; the
gentleman who slew an organ-grinder as a practical
ΙΟ
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LIFE OF
demonstration of his horror of the savagery of civiliza-
tion—these, and the like, would also be Protestants.
There is none the less, of course, an obvious truth under-
lying the last three sentences of the passage quoted
above; but the commonplace as to half-truths immedi-
ately suggests itself. It is but fair to add that Heine
immediately proceeds to do ample justice to Luther, "to
' whom we owe the preservation of our noblest good, and
by whose merits we live to-day." The great Lutheran
hymn, "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott," he aptly terms
the Marseillaise of the Reformation. Ultimately he
discarded the pure universalistic theory of Spinoza as
completely as he did Christianity, but for the philosopher
himself and the spirit of his teaching he had ever the
greatest admiration. "In reading Spinoza," he says,
"there scizes us a feeling as when we behold nature in
vital repose. A forest of towering thoughts, whose green
summits are in wavelike motion whilst the immovable
trunks are rooted in the everlasting earth. There comes
a certain breeze from his writings which is inexplicable.
We feel, as it were, the light breath of the future." It
was his sympathy with Spinoza's pantheistic philosophy
that biassed him in the direction of that of Saint Simon,
then promulgated by Enfantin. In the Saint Simonian
religion of humanity he found much to attract him
besides the semblance of his own opinions. Enfantin, in
fact, became for a time his hero, and it was to him that
his "History of Religion and Philosophy" was dedicated
—as was but fitting, since it was at Enfantin's suggestion
that it was written. Shortly before his death, Heine with-
drew the dedication, for it had become an anachronism.
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147
The "liberation war of humanity" had collapsed, so far,
at any rate, as Enfantin and his fellow martyrs were
concerned. These martyrs no longer bore a cross, unless
it were, as Heine remarked, the cross of the Legion of
Honour.
It is true that Heine himself fell away from the ranks,
but can one read the long story of official and individual
malice and wrong done to him-from the Governmental
prohibition against not only what he had written, but
against all he might write, to the ceaseless and slanderous
rancour of Wolfgang Menzel and his associates—can one
read this record and not realize how only too likely must
failure be the end of all? "I am possessed with a very
passion for peace," he writes, after a return of the chronic
misery he suffered from official censorship and inimical
misrepresentation. Alas! there was to be no peace.
With the years with the months rather-came added
bitterness and disappointment, and therewith cynical
laughter that laughed at itself and would fain have sobbed,
were it not that sobs would have opened the flood-gates
of tears.
The other portion of "Germany" is the most able of
all Heine's critical writings. Entitled "The Romantic
School," it is a searching examination, a sympathetic and
yet unsparing account of the German poets of Romanticism.
It is one of the best-known works of his in this country
and in America, and so I need not dwell upon it here in
detail. To begin to quote from such a composition is
dangerous; one is led from flower to flower like an
insatiable butterfly. Not only is it full of witty and
shrewd remarks, but, particularly in the opening pages, it
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-
contains many fine epigrammatic dicta; for example,
"Christianity, by inculcating hound-like humility and
angelic patience, has proved the surest support of
despotism;"—" Men cannot now be put off with promis-
sory notes upon heaven; they now claim as their in-
alienable birthright the enjoyment of this earth;"
"The
very secret of Christianity, which at once attracts and
repels us, is the deification of suffering." After a brief
dissertation upon the poems and poets of the Middle
Ages, and a comparison of them with those of Greece and
Rome, and upon the allied arts of music and architecture,
the author brings the reader to Lessing, to whom he
alludes as the literary Arminius who freed the German
stage from a foreign yoke. It is with no surprise we
read that in all German literature Lessing is the author
whom Heine most admires and loves; and after Lessing,
Herder. The history of literature he compares to a
great morgue, wherein each of us searches for dead
friends or relatives. When, amidst multitudes of vulgar
corpses, Heine caught sight of Lessing or Herder, with
their human face divine, his heart beat, nor could he
pass by without a parting kiss upon the pale lips of the
beloved dead. Goethe, the Schlegels, Tieck, Schiller,
and all the minor lights of Romanticism, are duly dis-
cussed. In Book iii. there is a charming account of
that fascinating collection of folk-songs, "The Boy's
Wonder Horn" (or Magic Horn), the joint production of
Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim, a work that
Heine says he cannot praise too highly, as containing
the very quintessence of the national genius, and as
having exercised so important an influence on the
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149
lyric poets of the Romantic school. Everywhere in it
there is a faint fragrance as of the German lindens, the
favourite tree of the Germans, because the linden leaf is
shaped like a heart-an observation Heine once heard
made by a German poet, his favourite poet-himself!
A few pages further on occur the famous passages about
German and French ghosts: how a French ghost is
almost inconceivable; how French ghosts, if they do
exist, must be very good company; how, if there are
Parisian ghosts, there must also be ghostly réunions, a
ghosts' café, and even an "organ" called, say, The Paris
Ghost Review. Finally, the writer is convinced that the
ghosts of Paris must have a much merrier time of it than
ever have living Germans.
The remainder of "The Romantic School" is occupied
with Heine's contemporaries, men of "The Young
Germany" school, like Laube and Gutzkow, and elders.
such as Fouqué and Uhland. In this section also the
curious may delve for wise and witty sayings, and be
well rewarded for their labour. How true this is: At
bottom all men are doctrinaires; they have always a
doctrine at hand as an authority for all their likes and
dislikes;" or this,
or this, "In the heart of a nation's writers
there lies the image of a nation's future."
Among other prose writings which followed within the
ensuing decade are the completed "Florentine Nights"
(fragmentary in their nominal completion, be it noted);
"The Suabian School," an indifferent satirical production;
"Shakespeare's Maids and Matrons," a study of the
heroines in the plays of the great dramatist; the frag-
mentary “Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski,” and
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་
the critical æsthetic papers collectively entitled "The
Salon."
In the preface to the last named, written at Havre-de-
Grâce, there is another of those fine passages about the
sea," with its drowned empires and forgotten lores, ever
listening along all the coasts of the world with a thou-
sand billowy ears," which come not infrequently and
always with electric effect upon the readers of both his
prose and verse. The essays in æsthetic criticism should
be read for their witty and picturesque asides; but it is
appropriate in any case to remark here that Heine's art
criticism may be read by all, free as it is from technicalities
and art jargon.
The Schnabelewopski Memoirs, though not in Heine's
best form, and frequently too reckless in expression, con-
tain some memorable and many characteristic passages.
The hero and his six fellow-sojourners at "The Red Cow"
of Leyden were a Rabelaisian company. The plenitude
and variety of the daily dinner depended upon the ardour.
of the handsome Pole's amour with the fat hostess.
When the roast was particularly bad they would argue
concerning the existence of God. "The Lord, however,
had always a majority. Only three of the seven were
atheistically inclined, and even they would allow them-
selves to be convinced if they had good cheese for desert.'
"Herr Schnabelewopski " believes that the reason why
the Jews seem to have been so scurvily treated by
Jehovah is that they knew Him in His first crude deistic
state, and daily remind Him in their synagogues of His
former obscure and merely national rank! The Jews, he
pertinently adds, have always been the Swiss Guards
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of Deism. It was from a subsequent passage that Mr.
Mallock would seem to have derived the wittiest remark
in his "New Republic," that where Mr. Saunders announces
the thrilling fact that the housemaid has with a sponge
inadvertently obliterated his newly written "Disproof of
God's existence": for Schnabelewopski narrates how
once, during his friend Simson's absence, the chamber-
maid removed his soiled linen to send it to "the wash," to
his intense chagrin, as with it went to the oblivion of the
bath-tub all his MS. "Evidences for the Immortality of
the Soul." It was this same little Simson who, in reply
to the atheistical Dricksen, remarked that he had once
at Frankfürt seen a clock that did not believe in a
clockmaker-it was made of pinchbeck, and kept time
wretchedly an argument which might have signalized a
triumph had not Dricksen threatened he would show
that such a clock could at least strike. In this fantastic
fragment Heine's second self is also displayed, however.
One example must suffice.
:
"Our posterity will shudder when once they read what a ghostly
existence we have led, and how the human nature in us was divided,
and only the one half really lived. Our era-and it begins at the
Cross of Christ-will sometime be regarded as humanity's great
hypochondriacal period. . . . And yet what sweet dreams have we
not dreamed! Our healthy descendants will scarcely be able to
comprehend it. From around us vanished all the splendours of the
universe, and we found them again in our inmost consciousness; the
fragrance of the crushed rose and the sweetest songs of the affrighted
nightingale have fled for refuge into our souls."
Although not published till 1846, the famous-though
out of Germany little understood-satirical poem en-
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titled "Atta Troll" was commenced in 1841, a time
when the enmity in Germany against Heine was at fever
heat-so great an émeute, he declares, that he could never
have imagined Germany could have produced so many
rotten apples as were then pitched at his head. This
poem, or rather this versified polemic, is in unrhymed
quatrains of a trochaic metre, and is of great length; it
is partitioned into twenty-seven chapters, and occupies no
less than one hundred and twelve pages in the "Collected
Works." It is sub-titled "A Summer Night's Dream,"
though the final word seems curiously inapposite for a
poem wherein the author is vivaciously alert. Its motive
is the exposure and castigation of the political shams
and evils of the day, and of the pretentious absurdities
of the scribes known as the tendency poets, "artists who
took freedom and the work of liberation as the subject
of their verse, and were mostly limited, fettered spirits,
Philistines, who wore pigtails under the red cap of
liberty." Much of "Atta Troll" (the name is that of
the bear who escapes to his native wilds after long cap-
tivity among men, and whose ruminations, grumbles, and
advice to his bearlings constitute most of the poem)
would probably be pointless to the ordinary reader of
to-day. The allusions are generally remote and temporal,
and even the humour is too essentially Teutonic to affect
the blither fancy of less sedate races than the North
Germans. It is impossible to give any idea of the poem
by quotation, for the chapters are chains and the quatrains
are links individually connected. It is suggestive to note
Heine's own opinion of it, an opinion which betrays the
act that, shrewd as the poet was, he misapprehended
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153
the artistic value of that which after all was but the
passionate metrical expression of what should have been
written in prose. In a letter to his publisher, Campe, he
alluded to it as a politico-romantic poem calculated to
give a death blow to the prosaic, bombastic, tendency-
poetry. "You know," he adds, "that I am not in the
habit of boasting, but I am this time certain that I have
composed a work which will make more furore than the
most popular brochure, and will yet have a permanent
value as a work of classic poetry. . . . I wrote it in the
capricious dreamy fashion of the Romantic school in
which I passed my pleasantest years." True, no doubt,
that "By the eternal Gods, there was need then of some
defence of the inalienable right of the spirit:" but
polemical writing, valuable as it is, seldom consists with
artistic beauty. There is probably, however, not another
modern poet of any country, with the exception of Byron,
who could have so ably blent satire, criticism of life and
literature, extravaganza, and poetry, as Heine has done in
"Atta Troll;" but to assert that it will have a permanent
value as a work of classic poetry is to claim too much.
It will long, perhaps always, have a value for the literary
student it is already slipping away from the cognizance
of the ordinary German reading world. The literary
critic is at all times apt to consider as commonly
interesting that which is fascinating to himself, but it is
clear from the history of literature that argumentative
and polemical poetry reaches its perihelion either at
once or within the immediate period of its appearance;
that, to vary the metaphor, when the commotion caused
by the stone-splash has in great part moderated, the gaze
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of the crowd is attracted elsewhere, howsoever those who
admire the stone-thrower linger to watch the slowly sub-
siding ripples and widening circles upon the surface of
the water.
A year after the composition of "Atta Troll," Heine
suddenly made up his mind to journey to Hamburg to
see his old mother. His reverent love for the "old
woman at the Dammthor" is one of his finest traits; and
one of the most charming of the lyrics in the "Neue
Gedichte," called "Night Thoughts," (Nachtgedanken,
"Zeitgedichte, No. 24 ") is based upon this affection.
The visit was in many respects a sad one. Twelve
years had greatly aged the dignified and proud old
lady, and, moreover, she had suffered in the terrible fire
which in 1842 laid waste so great a part of Hamburg.
She was rejoiced, however, to see her beloved son once
more, and to hear all about his brilliant Paris life, about
Mathilde, and about the truth and falsehood of all she
heard and read about her Heinrich as an author. The
letters which Heine at this time wrote to his wife-his
"Treasure," his "Nonotte," his "Heart's Joy," or, as he
poetically calls her in the last poem of the "Neue
Gedichte," schön wie der Morgen, "beautiful as morning"
are among the most charming ever written by a poet
to wife or mistress.
The visit lasted for some weeks, till well on in Decem-
ber, and seems to have been a pleasant enough episode
in its way, as now the celebrated author was a man to be
made much of, one that not even the great Salomon
could distinguish any longer as the fool of the family.
"Atta Troll" had been the floodgate to a new outburst
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155
of poetry. After years of literary warfare, brilliant but
desultory journalism, and the fine prose productions
already alluded to, Heine's spiritual ennui gave way before
a fierce lyrical impulse: that the epithet is not an exag-
gerated one will be admitted by all familiar with the
New Poems and particularly with the daring satire of
such poems as "The Emperor of China," or the "New
Alexander," or the wild and despairful cynicism of out-
cries like "Verkehrte Welt" (Topsy-Turvydom).
In 1844 the "Neue Gedichte" were published, with
the satirical "Deutschland"-the outcome of the poet's
journey to Hamburg in the preceding year-appended
thereto. The "Neue Gedichte" are partitioned into five
main sections: "New Spring," with forty-four lyrics;
"Verschiedene " ("Dead Sea Fruit" would perhaps be
the best English equivalent for this untranslatable word),
with seventy-six, thus sub-sectioned-"Seraphine" (15),
"Angélique" (9), "Diane (3), "Hortense " (6),
“Clarisse" (5), "Yolande and Marie” (4),
(4), “Emma
(6), "Tannhauser" (3), "Songs of Creation" (Schöp-
fungslieder) (7), "Frederika" (3), "Katherine" (9),
"Abroad" (In der Fremde) (3), and "Tragedy" (3):
thereafter into "Romances," twenty-four in number;
"Miscellaneous," consisting of ten pieces; and twenty-
four "Poems of the Times."
No wonder, with so many Seraphines, Angéliques, and
Dianes, that the jealous little heart of Mathilde rebelled,
and demanded of its lord whether he had the face to
protest loyalty to his Nonotte again in the face of all
these disgraceful love poems! Heine laughingly assured
her that poets must not always be taken seriously, and
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that, moreover, he would repent and sing no love-songs
henceforth to any one save his "frisky Kitling." It must
be admitted that no wife could be expected to relish the
poem to Diane, commencing Diese schönen Gliedermassen,
or that to Hortense of "the sweet delicious laughter," or,
worse still, that to Katherine beginning Ich liebe solche
weisse Glieder, which reads like a German "episode " by
the author of the Fleurs du Mal.
The most poetical portion of this book is the "New
Spring," where the short Lieder are mainly lyrics of a
moment's yearning or a moment's sadness or joy: sweet,
irresponsible carols of song such as Heine wrote no more
in the bitterness of his later years. In the other sections
there is also much of the music of the lindens and the
nightingales, with the voice of the sea ever and anon,—
many a charming song and romantic ballad; but yet the
poet does not surpass his earlier poems, nor is there in
the collection anything supremely memorable. Although
much of it is hallowed of the light of love—of "shadowy
love and shadowy kisses "—there is a frequent coarseness
that is neither wit nor poetry, but simply dross amongst
the gold.
The "Wintermärchen " ("The Winter's Tale "), entitled
Deutschland," is a poem of about the same length as
"Atta Troll," but written in rhymed quatrains. Not-
withstanding its vigorous satire, it rewon many of the
author's forfeited friends and gained over a host of
admirers. Heine was here the German poet beyond
cavil. Below the banter, below the recklessness, the
beating of a wayward but generous heart could be heard.
Official and conservative Germany was furious, but the
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157
mass of the nationalists in the best sense of the word
hailed this stirring voice in the wilderness, and welcomed
the return of the most redoubtable free lance among
their exiled countrymen. Here we see the poet as the
liberator, the wielder of that sword whose might, if not
whose prowess, he undoubtedly somewhat over-esti-
mated and one cannot refrain at times from the wish
that this "soldier in the liberation war of Humanity," as
he called himself, could have died in the heat of the
conflict, with his generous war-cry upon his lips.
"The Winter's Tale" is nominally an account of the
author's journey from the German frontiers to Hamburg,
and of what struck him as worthy of note in that city
after his long absence. The most brilliant portions of
it are those describing the writer's interview with the
Emperor Barbarossa in the cavern of Kyffhausen, and his
encounter and subsequent tête-à-tête with Hammonia,
the goddess of the mercantile capital of North Germany.
There is a good deal of farce mixed up with the satire,
and a good deal of coarseness in the farce; but the wit
is pungent and searching, and all the more so from the
fact that its object was deserving of any quantity of
forked lightning. As in "Atta Troll," there are, among
the shining silver, not only several lodes of dross, but also
streaks of virgin gold. It is curious to find the unadul-
terate ore in such company; for the beauty that leavens
"Atta Troll" and " Germany" is of a kind alien to
satiric comedy, presenting indeed, as it does, a combina-
tion only discernible to a like extent in Aristophanes.
At the same time I must admit that I find myself unable
to rank the literary quality of "Deutschland" so highly
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as do many critics. It is interesting, it is valuable, it is
witty, and it has occasional flashes of poetry; but it is
not a poem in the sense that a critic should accept.
That it will long be readable is not a test of its poetic
worth, any more than that a painting, such as
"The
Derby Day," is high art because its interest for most
people will long endure. From a literary point of view
its real value is its Rabelaisian vigour, its Rabelaisian
extravagance, combined with what may be called its
pointedness.
It was with anything but a light heart that Heine re-
turned to Paris. True, he was glad to be again in his be-
loved New Jerusalem, to be with his vivacious Nonotte, to
have the brilliant company which meant so much to him;
but his health had of late steadily declined, his nervous
headaches had become more frequent, prolonged, and
harassing, and his pecuniary affairs were more involved
and precarious than he allowed himself to fully realize.
It was no half-imaginary surrender of health under
which he suffered. So far back as seven years prior to
his Hamburg visit (that is, in 1837) he had complained
of an intermittent but violent pain in the eyes. For a
time he thought it due to the inflammation of some
local nerve, but ultimately he learned that blindness was
- imminent through a predisposition to atrophy of the optic
nerve. Under the treatment of a famous specialist, how-
ever, the infirmity was not only arrested, but ameliorated,
and it is possible that the ill might not have proved
irremediable had it not been for the disastrous news
which, not long after his return to Paris, came to him
from Hamburg. Death had suddenly summoned the rich
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159
millionaire Salomon Heine; but though his nephew was
genuinely sorry for the rough and obstinate, but kindly,
old banker, he could not but feel somewhat anxious as to
what disposition concerning him would be found in Herr
Salomon's will. That he would not be left unprovided for
was certain; but to what extent his crowning indebted-
ness would amount was a source of anxious speculation.
A certain sum (about £190 per annum, with half to his
wife in the event of her surviving him) had been definitely
and solemnly promised, and upon this, at any rate, he
might count. He was not kept long in suspense. Ere
New Year's Day he learned that nothing save a small 1975
money present came to him by his uncle's will: but what
was worse was a simultaneous announcement from his
cousin, Karl Heine, the chief legatee, to the effect that
he did not intend either to pay the legacy which his
father had promised to Heinrich or to continue the
annual allowance which the latter had enjoyed since his
settlement in Paris.
Coming at the time it did, the shock was a fatal one.
Much of the poet's misery and suffering may be attributed
to the action of the mean-spirited hound who turned
upon his friend and comrade of olden days-upon one,
moreover, who had nursed him through an attack of
cholera, at the risk of his own life, and at a time when
every one with means fled from Hamburg as a city
accursed. For the sake of adding a few more coins to
his already excessive hoard, Karl Heine proved false to
the bond of kinship and disloyal to the trust of a friend.
It is unfortunate that men of his type generally flourish ·
to the cynically minded, their very existence is damnatory
!
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LIFE OF
evidence as to the hollowness of the time-worn platitudes.
anent righteousness and welfare.
The injustice, the meanness, and the hypocrisy of his
cousin Karl caused a serious relapse in Heine's health. All
the skill of his physician availed not against the increase
of a stealthy sort of creeping paralysis. The sight in the
left eye dimmed till it became obscured, and the paralyzed
eyelid fell over it like a cordless curtain shutting off a
dark room. The other eyelid was also affected, although
it was not till a little later that it also yielded to the
disease. The poet could not at first credit the baseness
of his cousin; but when he found that Karl was backed
up by all the money-grubbing tribe of relatives, and that
he was not even to have his "present" of cash down, un-
less he would engage never to write a word that could be
offensive to the susceptibilities of any of his family, hist
wrath and indignation knew no bounds. Daily his ex-
citement intensified, and it soon became evident to his
friends that the very fervour of his emotions betrayed a
morbid condition of health.
Heine was not the man to submit to base fraud in what-
soever legal guise it might present itself. He determined.
to fight for his promised inheritance with all his might,
not so much for himself as on account of his wife who,
if he should die ere long, he knew would be left penniless.
Even if he had to contest the matter in the law courts he
would not shrink from the dubious ordeal: he had his
deceased uncle's letters and his friend Meyerbeer's
evidence to substantiate his claims, and for ill or weal he
girt himself together for the struggle. The one bright
spot in the affair is the generous action of Meyerbeer,
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161
who not only freely testified in writing as to the justness
of Heine's position, but himself offered to recoup the
poet for the loss he had sustained.
It is unnecessary to dwell here upon this momentous
but painful episode; it must suffice to chronicle its final
phase. Partly owing to the generous advocacy of the
poet's friends, Ferdinand Lassalle and Varnhagen von
Ense, partly to as near an approach to shame as a man
like Karl Heine could experience, partly to the fear of the
Hamburg connection that the injured man might take
a terrible revenge in the Memoirs upon which he was
reported to be engaged, and partly to fear of the
threatened appeal to the law courts, the pension was
ultimately paid. The final arrangement, however, grossly
unjust and inadequate as it was, was not concluded till
1847, by which time the poet's health had become a
wreck.
In the spring of 1846, the man whom Théophile
Gautier had described as a "German Apollo" was a con-
firmed invalid. Not only was one eye wholly closed,
and the sight of the other dimmed (the lid of which,
moreover, so drooped that Heine had to raise it with his
finger whenever he wished to look at any one or inspect
an object), but his lips had lost all sensitiveness and his
heart, as he himself pathetically said, felt bound as by an
iron frost. It became impossible for him to read long at
a time-six minutes, indeed, he specifies as his limit:
though he managed to write his letters and short poems
or fragmentary pieces without secretarial aid.
Ere long
it became necessary for him to employ an amanuensis,
though he never became reconciled to the performance
II
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of his literary work by dictation. The pen in hand was
to him as the touching of an electric bell: the pen
absent, the creative impulse halted and flagged for lack
of its accustomed medium of transmission.
Even the high spirits of Mathilde gave way for a time
under the complication of disasters that happened about
this time. It is a sad picture that the poet draws in a
letter to a friend, wherein he relates that not only had
the palate also succumbed to paralysis-so that all he
ate tasted like earth-but that the insensitiveness of his
lips had become so pronounced that even kissing had no
effect upon them. "I sit whole nights long silent by
the side of the fire with my wife. Quelle conversation
allemande,' she says, sometimes with a sigh."
In the autumns of the preceding years, Heine had
always sought the neighbourhood of the sea, in the old
quest for health and refreshment. He and his wife
generally went to the coast either of Normandy or of
Brittany, and those who may be familiar with his
epistolary and journalistic writings will endorse the state-
ment that a new and valuable series of "Travel Pictures"
might be compiled therefrom. Once he went south,
to Marseilles ; but the city jarred upon him unendurably.
It was, he declared, but a French translation of Hamburg,
and the latter he could not stand even in a translation.
But in the summer of this sad year of 1845, he had
no heart for any distant journey. Towards the close of
the winter there was a slight apparent improvement, and
the poet thought not only of journeying to Berlin in
order to consult a famous specialist, but of going to
Hamburg so as to come to some personal arrangement
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163
:
with his cousin Karl. The second project came to
nought and as for the former, Heine was warned from
an influential source that unless he wished to spend the
remainder of his days in the prison at Spandau he should
not set foot on Prussian soil. It was in vain that
Humboldt used his personal influence with the king;
his intercession simply brought upon him a hint to
attend to his own affairs.
Early in January (1846) Heine wrote to Varnhagen a
letter of heart-broken weariness and indignation, but
that he was not wholly without hope of recovery may be
inferred from one or two remarks. "If the paralysis,
which like an iron band presses my chest together,
should decrease, my old energy will again bestir itself.
... Yes, I am sick unto death, but my soul has not
suffered mortal hurt. It is a drooping and an athirst, but
not yet withered flower, which still has its roots firmly
planted in the ground of Truth and Love." Ere the
spring was past the malady had made further progress:
the fingers had lost sensitiveness, and one foot had
become so lame that Heine had to hobble along with a
stick. In a brief while even this partial independence
was to be withdrawn from him. In July he went to
Barèges having to be carried over the mountain roads.
in a litter owing to the pain caused by the movement of
a coach. It was his last visit to the "free Nature" he
loved so well, and the picturesque descriptions which he
sent to the Allgemeine Zeitung show that his pen had
lost nothing of its cunning though the fingers that guided
it were feeble and slack.
At first the sunshine and hill air wrought favourably
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i
upon his nerves, but ere long the inevitable relapse came,
and he returned to Paris much worse than when he had
gone. The mysterious pains had greatly increased, and
it had become evident that somewhat more terrible than
paralysis had taken possession of the enfeebled frame.
But as the body died the mind more gloriously effloresced,
like that fantastic flower of Borneo which displays its
richest blooms as the stem rots slowly to the root. New
ideas, fresh impulses, creative instincts arose within him:
his mental horizon widened, the atmosphere became
more rarefied, the perspectives more alluring and more
vast.
Moreover, his courage gave not way: he braced him-
self not only resignedly, but hercically, for the inevitable
conflict with destiny. That he would be driven from
point to point and finally overcome he well knew; but
he would not yield. "I shall perhaps while away a year
or two of pitiful agony. Now, that is nothing to me;
that is the business of the eternal gods. Dying,
indeed, is something to shudder at, but not death, if
indeed death exist. Death is, perhaps, the last supersti-
tion."
•
In the autumn-on his return from Barèges he had
taken apartments at No. 41, Faubourg Poissonnière-he
did not expect to live longer than a year at most. In
the will he made at this time he left everything to "my
wife, Mathilde Crescence Heine, née Mirat, who, as true.
and loyal as she is beautiful, has cheered my existence."
After full directions and messages he bids farewell to
his "noble and high-hearted mother," and concludes:
"Farewell, thou German fatherland, land of riddles and
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165
sorrows-farewell, ye kindly French people, whom I have
loved so much."
It had long been one of Heine's leading motives,
that of the reconciliation, the mutual understanding of
and sympathy with each other, of France and Germany.
To this end he had consciously laboured, and, as his
name was at last of magic import in both countries, he
hoped that even these last testamentary words might
bring forth good results. It was about this time that
he wrote to his friend Laube urging him to pay his
promised visit soon, as otherwise—as he grimly puts it-
he would find a very quiet man indeed. He added the
advice that if Laube should not find him at "No. 41,"
he was to look for him at the Cemetery of Montmartre-
not at that of Père-la-Chaise, which was too noisy to be.
pleasant!
When Laube did arrive, in the spring of 1847, there
was no longer the least vestige of hope. The invalid
himself saw through the well-meant consolations of the
physicians, and clearly perceived nothing save a pitiable
and slow martyrdom. He read all the medical treatises
upon the subject he could procure, and was thus able
to prognosticate every terrible symptom of his disease,
which the doctors had found to be consumption of the
spinal marrow: his studies, moreover, he declared would
be useful to him hereafter, for he would be able to give
lectures in heaven upon the incapacity of earthly doctors;
in the treatment of spinal complaints.
The best accounts of this sad period of Heine's life
are the records by Alfred Meissner and Madame Stahr
(Fanny Lewald).
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LIFE OF
!
The sufferings of the poet became terrible: the fire
of an undying fever scorched his veins, the frosts of a
living death cramped his muscles, "unborn agonies"
took possession of his racked nerves. With bent body,
half-blind, lame, without senses of smell or taste, with
hands unable to guide the pen save for a few roughly-
scrolled lines, with lips unable to respond to his wife's
kisses, with ears painfully alert to any discordant sound,
in straits of poverty, misunderstood, maligned, deceived,
and defrauded, his was indeed a pitiable case. Had it
not been for the sake of his wife and his old mother he
would have put an end to his great misery, but he was
of too heroic mould to entail suffering upon those who
loved him by voluntarily plucking the dark fruit that
grows so temptingly upon the boundary wall in the
garden of life.
But ere matters had reached this dire length in the
year 1848, Heine had passed through various vicissi-
tudes. In January he had gone to a private hospital in
the Rue de l'Oursine, beyond the Jardin des Plantes,
and while here, he was still able to move about in tardy
invalid fashion. One day in February he had driven to
his apartments in the Rue Poissonnière to dine with his
wife and the physician under whose general care he was.
Ere the dinner was over a strange echoing sound was
heard from the streets it grew louder and louder, and
suddenly above the tumult rose the wild exultant strains
of the "Marseillaise." "Another revolution," exclaimed
Heine, without knowing to what extent his words were
true. For the Revolution of 1848 had begun, and "the
poet among nations," as Mrs. Browning so aptly called
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167
France, had entered upon a new and disastrous era. If
he had been the Heine of ten years earlier he would have
been eager and exultant: but, alas, he no longer cared for,
because he no longer believed in, the baffled yet dogged
ascent of man. It was all a wretched struggle, in which
the brave and the good perished.
When it was time for him to return to the hospital,
the carriage which he had ordered to come for him had
not made its appearance. Ere long he learned that it
had been upset to make a barricade: so the poet could
smile grimly as he realized that he, the revolutionary
exile, met with the same treatment as "un aristo'." It
was not until after much delay and trouble that the
invalid was conveyed back to the Rue de l'Oursine, and
strange indeed must have been the thoughts of the
lonely man as he drove through the interminable streets,
and heard the excitable populace singing their favourite
chant of revolution.
By April his jaws had become so stiffened that he
could no longer dictate with ease, or without twinges
of pain. He now became certain that he could not
outlast the year, and the thought brought him infinite
relief.
In May there was a brief improvement, and one day
he went out for what he only too justly feared would be
his last stroll in those Boulevards he loved so well. The
most pathetic incident in his life occurred during "this
last day of his life."
>> I
"It was in May that Heine took his last promenade in the
Boulevards. Masses of the populace rolled along the streets of
In Meissner's words, as translated by Mr. Stigand.
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LIFE OF HEINE.
Paris; driven about by their tribunes as by storms. The poet, half-
blind, half-lame, dragged himself on his stick and endeavoured to
extricate himself from the deafening uproar, and finally escaped
into the Louvre close by. . . . Ere long he found himself in the
room on the ground-floor in which the ancient gods and goddesses
stand.
Suddenly he stood before the ideal of Beauty, the smiling en-
trancing goddess, the miracle of an unknown master, the Venus of
Milo, who in the course of centuries has lost her arms but not her
witchery. Overcome, agitated, stricken through, almost terrified
at her aspect, the sick man staggered back till he sank on a seat,
and tears, hot and bitter, streamed down his cheeks."
It was but fitting that this last visit of Heine to the
outer world should have been to the Goddess of Beauty,
whose thrall he ever was and whose songs he had sung
ever since the far-off days when, as a child, he had
wandered by the banks of the Düssel, or had listened to
the secrets of the birds in that favourite haunt of his
among the green alleys of the Schlossgarten.
From that day forward the poet never left his bed
save when, for change of position, his nurse lifted him
from it as she would a child, and placed him in an arm-
chair propped up with cushions.
Heine's death-in-life had begun: henceforth he was
to know the bitterness of a mattress-grave. Yet from
this matrazzen-gruft, as he himself called it, his voice
was still to arise clear and strangely sweet and wild,
as from the depths of the Mammoth Caverns thrills at
times the song of a sightless bird.
IN
CHAPTER VII.
N the summer of 1848 the invalid was taken to Passy,
but without beneficial result. In October Mathilde
Heine took her husband back to Paris, where apartments
were leased at No. 50, Rue d'Amsterdam. It was an
unfortunate choice of rooms, for though the windows
of the second-floor apartments looked upon the court
instead of upon the traffic-noisy street, the sufferer could
see from his chamber no green branch, could hear no
bird-song, could feel no breath of keen air, and, save
occasionally at noon, could feel no sunbeams playing
upon his emaciated face or almost transparent hands.
Moreover, the stairs were so steep that Heine could not
easily be carried to and fro for the purpose of enjoyment.
of the open air; and, as a final aggravation, there were
in the opposite apartments two ladies, who spent hours.
daily in a frightful massacre of music.
The winter of 1848-49 was to prove the most terrible
period of Heine's sufferings. In order to obtain the
briefest intervals of rest, he had to take a great quantity
of opium, but even the drug frequently failed to bring
him surcease of pain. In Adolf Strodtmann's words, his
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LIFE OF
blindness increased; his legs had become emaciated and
soft, "like cotton wool," the sufferer declared; his back
had become twisted; and in order to somewhat relieve
the cramps in the spine it had to be cauterized. For a
time it was the poet's wish to be taken to Germany,
there to end his days quietly; but the problem of how to
journey thither was insoluble, and ere long he realized
that not only for this practical reason, but for his wife's
sake he must await the inevitable end in Paris. Ere 1848
had passed away he was no longer able to lie upon an
ordinary bed, but upon a heap of mattresses and pillows.
laid upon the floor; from this mattress-heap, this
“mattress-grave," he looked out upon the world as a
prisoner immured in a dungeon for life.
For the first year or two of this dreadful life, Heine
was so much visited that the apartments in the Rue
d'Amsterdam resembled rather the salon of some pros-
perous celebrity than the lodging of a poverty-stricken,
disease-wasted, death-sick Jew. Even the aged Béranger
once toiled up the steep stairs in order to greet a greater
than himself; and from time to time Dumas the elder
and Théophile Gautier cheered the sufferer by their
visits: nor should special mention be omitted of the two
friends who by their translations and essays did so much to
make Heine's genius appreciated by the French public—
Gérard de Nerval and Saint-René Taillendier. But at
last, as was inevitable-since, as Heine himself remarked,
he was so unconscionably long a-dying-the door-bell
rang but rarely, and ultimately weeks would pass without
any other than Mathilde to keep him company. True,
(6 Nonotte "
was pleasant company, even though she
HEINE.
171
lavished more caresses upon her parrot than upon her
Henri; or sat up all night to apply poultices to a cat which
had scratched its ear, a sacrifice no human creature could
have drawn forth. Once he even became anxious about
his "good Mathilde," domesticated though he knew her
to be. She had gone out one afternoon to take a drive,
and had promised to be back by four o'clock; but half-
past five, six, seven, eight struck, and there was no sign
of her. Her husband wondered if an accident had be-
fallen her; or if, wearied of her invalid, she had eloped
with some lustier friend. "In my painful doubt I sent
the sick-nurse to her chamber to see whether 'Cocotte,'
the parrot, was still there. That set me at ease again,
and I began to breathe more freely. Without 'Cocotte
the dear woman would never have fled from me!"
On another occasion, after a long period of loneliness,
the invalid was visited by Berlioz, whom he had known
in the happier days when he was wont to associate with
Meyerbeer, and other famous musicians.
"What!" ex-
claimed the sick poet, as the caller entered the darkened
room, "somebody actually pays me a visit! Ah, but
Berlioz was always so original ! "
Early in 1849 a Hungarian physician, who had been
the first to discover what the complaint of the poet
really was, but whose opinions had been pooh-poohed,
took Heine's case in hand. Under his care the invalid
greatly improved. True, there was no hope of ultimate
recovery; but Dr. Gruby was enabled to partially restore
the obscured vision, to invigorate the upper part of the
body to such an extent that his patient could sit up
against his cushions, and make some use of his hands
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LIFE OF
and arms, and even to reanimate the palate, so that once
more Heine was able to enjoy his food. Later on, the
poet was enabled to dictate to the Polish gentleman who
acted as his secretary, to have books read to him, and
even to give way to the creative impulse which had long
lain dormant, not been annihilated, as he had feared.
>>
Thus it was that after years of literary warfare, brilliant
but desultory journalism, and prostration by insidious.
disease and disasters of another kind, the poetic spirit.
broke out afresh. Heine realized that he could never
again write as in his "Nordsee or "Heimkehr " poems,
and that out of mockery comparatively little of durable
poetic value could come; yet he felt that the well-spring
within him was as vital as of yore, if more troubled at its
source, and no longer ebullient with waters of crystal purity.
During those terrible years of suffering, 1850 and 1851,
the genius of the poet reached its climacteric. It was
then that he produced that wonderful series of poems.
collectively entitled "Romancero." Here every phase
of Heine's genius is visible: here he is sombre, imagina-
tive, tender, graceful, ironical, exquisitely delicate, and
grossly cynical; here, moreover, the variety and extent
of his metrical skill must astonish and delight the critical
reader.
The "Romancero" is partitioned into three books,
respectively entitled "Histories," "Lamentations,” and
"Hebrew Melodies." Poems of the ballad nature pre-
vail in "Histories," and of these the first two are Oriental
pieces, "Rhampsenit" and "Der Weisse Elefant."
"Rhampsenitus" is a humorous composition, founded
upon an episode in Herodotus (bk. ii. c. 121), and
HEINE.
173
~
"The White Elephant" is an extravaganza from which
Mr. Frank Stockton, the American novelist, would seem
to have derived hints for one or two of his best-known
tales. But a poem of a much higher order is the fine
ballad, "The Field of Hastings," wherein is told how
two monks, Asgod and Ailrik, seek, in her hermitage, the
beautiful Edith the Swan-neck, once beloved of King
Harold, so that she may help them to find the body of
the king among the slain on the fatal field of Hastings;
how all day long Edith passed to and fro amid the
thousands of the dead, until at eve she came upon a
corp on whose bloody breast she flung herself, and
whose pale lips she kissed, for it was that of the man
whose love she had been in the days of old. Even
finer, perhaps, is the well-known poem "Ferdusi," which
recounts how Shah Mahomet repented him of his fraud
upon the "Fount of Song," and sent great riches and
tribute to Ferdusi where he dwelt afar off; but how,
as the long caravan entered the city of Thūs amidst
joyous shouts of "La Illa Il Allah," there simultaneously
passed out at the Eastern Gate the funeral train of the
dead poet. The veiled satire of such poems as Charles
I.” and “Marie Antoinette" was naturally resented by
official Germany, and still more so that people's song of
"The Silesian Weavers," which, indeed, was suppressed
at once by the censors. In "The Apollo God" there is
an autobiographical undercurrent. The nun who in dis-
guise traverses the Rhineland, and asks of every wayfarer
if he has chanced to see Apollo, clad in a scarlet cloak and
playing most sweetly upon a lyre, is probably meant to
represent Poetry or the Ideal; the old man who informs
CC
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LIFE OF
her that "Apollo" was none other than a free-thinking,
free-living German Jew, who lately was but a chorister in
the Synagogue at Amsterdam, may be taken as Reality,
or rather, Disillusion; and of course the shining Apollo
of the nun, and the tawdry travelling Apollo of the
pedlar, are the poet himself in his dual aspect. The
romantic "Mohrenkönig" (The Moorish King), and that
delicate phantasy, "The Asra," are welcome after the
satirical "King Louis," "Our Marine," "The Two
Knights," and other compositions of the kind. The
pathetic ballad of "Geoffrey Rudèl," the Provençal poet
who with Melisanda of Tripoli "drained the cup of
wildest joy and deepest desolation," and the lengthy
satirical but poetic piece called "Vitzliputzli," are among
the most striking of these "Historien."
The most remarkable portion of the "Lamentations"
is the short cycle of lyrical picces grouped under the
title "Lazarus." Of these, that "To the Angels " is a
pathetic committal of his wife to the care of the mysterious
powers of heaven-evidently written early in 1849, at the
time when death seemed so imminent. Poems like "The
Will" are unworthy of the poet's genius; but here as
elsewhere the slow but sure disintegration of time will
sift away all that is worthless. Heine will not be remem-
bered for his banjo strains. But it is the third part of
Romancero," the "Hebrew Melodies," that contains
some of Heine's finest poetical work. "The Princess
Sabbath," though so fragmentary in effect, is full of a
certain bizarre beauty; but the principal poem, one of
the poet's longest and best productions, is "Jehuda Ben
Halévy "-where, moreover, the Biblical influence is
HEINE.
175
most strongly manifest. The sweet Jewish singer of the
Middle Ages had always exercised a great fascination for
Heine; and in this strange and picturesque poem he
sings of him not merely with literary emotion, but with
all the pain of the long "fifteen hundred years' tragedy,"
at his heart. The concluding piece, the wild medley
called "Disputation," has been described as "the most
Voltairean scene ever imagined by the sceptical demon
of Heine's mind."
I
So aroused was Heine's literary activity by the partial
improvement in his condition, that he not only wrote his
"Romancero" poems, but employed his restless brain
in many other ways. Among minor productions in verse
should be mentioned the libretto for a ballet, entitled
"Der Doktor Faust," which, in 1851, was sold to Mr. Lum-
ley, then director of Her Majesty's Theatre in London, for
the sum of £240, although it never appeared upon the
English stage. A much more important production, how-
ever, so far as literature is concerned, is the poetically.
conceived and ably written prose phantasy, entitled "The
Gods in Exile," written in 1852-53, and first printed in
the Revue des Deux Mondes (April, 1853). The idea was
not a novel one with the author, for some sixteen or
seventeen years earlier he had committed some portion
of the subject-matter to paper. It is an attempt to focus
some of the medieval legends concerning the "last days"
of the dethroned gods of ancient Greece and Rome,—
¹ Dr. Evans believes it, however, to have formed the basis of the
ballet"
Satanella," which Taglioni arranged for the Berlin stage
some years ago. It is not to be confused with the discarded Faust-
poem of his student-days.
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LIFE OF
*
that metamorphosis into demons, as he says, which the
Greek and Roman gods underwent when Christianity
achieved supreme control of the western world. The
most striking episode in "The Gods in Exile" is the
account of how Bacchus and his followers, in the guise
of monks, cross a Tyrolese lake, and, on the further
bank, meet a horde of Bacchantes and satyrs, and give
way to wild revels and mad abandonment; and how the
terrified ferryman ultimately recognizes, in the superior
of the convent to whom he goes for spiritual succour,
none other than the metamorphosed wine-god himself.
But notwithstanding the comparative improvement in
his condition, Heine still suffered torments intermit-
tently, and as the weeks and months went past his body
shrivelled, his hair became grey, and the frost of an
unnatural old age rendered him pitiable of aspect.
was his one source of strength, at last, that the means of
death at least lay ever within reach: "That I can reach
out and take that opium, or clutch that dagger, alone
gives me courage and enables me to endure.”
It
"In many moments," he says again, with that charac-
teristic cynicism which spared self as little as any other,
"a doubt quivers through me whether man really is a
two-legged god, as Hegel assured me five and twenty
years ago. I am no more a Divine biped; I am no more
the high-priest of the Germans after Goethe—no more the
great heathen No. 2—a Hellene of jovial life and portly
person, laughing cheerfully down on dismal Nazarenes:
only a poor death-sick Jew."
At the height of his illness the report was spread
abroad in Germany that "the infidel mocker " had come
HEINE.
177
to see the error of his ways, and had taken refuge in
Christianity. That Heine did come to repent of much
in his life is true; but as to his religious fervour-it was
of the kind immortalized in "when the devil was sick the
devil a saint would be,"-without hypocritical pretence,
however. Here, for example, is one of his confessions of
faith, made in his most desperate straits: "A religious
reaction has set in upon me for some time. God knows
whether the morphine or the poultices have anything to
do with it. I believe again in a personal God: to this
we come when we are sick, sick to death and broken
down. If the German people accept the King of Prussia
in their need, why should I not accept a personal God?
When health is used up, money used up also, and sound
human senses used up, Christianity begins. For the
sick man it is a very good religion."
•
Nevertheless a very real change resulted from his ill-
ness. It was no mawkish sentimentalism, no cowardly
hedging against the future, but a realization of the fact
that he had done much for which he had cause of bitter
regret. He would fain have been a truer soldier, fain
have followed closer his lost ideals, fain have been a Sir
Galahad. But he had failed, and there was an end of it.
Perhaps the curse of Israel was the blight that thwarted
his life. In the preface to the "Romancero," he makes
a statement which is none the less true because of its
cynical humour: "I have scratched many, bitten many,
and was no lamb; but, believe me, those admired lambs
of meekness would bear themselves less piously if they
possessed the teeth and the claws of the tiger." Half in
earnest, half mockingly, as is his wont, he tells in this
>
I2
178
LIFE OF
preface the story of his latest "conversion." He returned
to God like the Prodigal Son, after having kept swine
with the Hegelians for some time. "Was it my wretched-
ness drove me back? Perhaps a less miserable reason.
A sort of heavenly home-sickness fell upon me and drove
me forth, amid forests and gorges, across the dizzy
mountain paths of dialectics. On my way I found the
god of the Pantheists (St. Simonism), but I could not
make use of him. This poor dreary being is inter-
penetrated with the world and grown into it, imprisoned
in it, as it were, and yawns at you will-less and impotent.
The immortality of the soul, our permanence after
death, will then be given us into the bargain, like the
fine marrow-bone which the (Parisian) butcher, when he
is contented with his customers, throws gratis into the
basket. Such a fine marrow-bone is termed in French
la réjouissance, and the most excellent strengthening
broths are made therewith, which are also very soothing
for a poor pining sick man. That I did not reject such
a réjouissance, and rather took it to heart with comfort,
every feeling man must approve."
It is impossible to read Heine without being keenly
alert. One moment he will discuss in all seriousness the
supreme problem of immortality-the next he lets hist
emotion escape, like some volatile essence, in a jest
about the inconvenience of ghosts. Even his friends
were constantly deceived. One day he assured Meissner
that if he could go out on crutches he would go straight
to church. Meissner was impressed, but somewhat in-
credulous whereupon his companion reiterated that
most certainly he would go to church. "Where else
HEINE.
179
should one go to -with crutches? I' faith, if one could
walk out without crutches, I should prefer to stroll along
the lively Boulevards or to the Jardin Mabille.”
I
Between 1852 and 1854 his most important writings
were the "Letzte Gedichte" (the "Last Poems") and the
interesting prose autobiographical fragment known as
the "Geständnisse," the "Confessions." The latter was
intended to form a portion of the work on Germany, but
was separately published, and in a French magazine.
Eminently characteristic of the author, it should be read
for its own sake as well as for its autobiographical value.
The "Confessions" begin with the well-known remark:
"A witty Frenchman-a few years ago these words would
have been a pleonasm—once dubbed me an unfrocked
Romanticist." Thereupon the author indites a kind of
apologia of his literary position in connection with the
Neo-Romantic movement. He admits that he has
always been a Romanticist at heart, and that in a greater
degree than he had himself realized that after he had
delivered many a broadside against Romanticism, he had
in reality fought under its colours, and made good what
he had destroyed. As he candidly says, he ought to
have included in his account of the Romantic School a
review of his own writings: for no countryman of his
could with justice claim a more liberal space in the
history of German Romanticism.
""
From Romanticism the writer of the "Confessions
passes to a statement of his intention to describe the
philosophical and religious changes which had taken
place in his mind since he had written his work on.
¹ It was Nodier who alluded to Heine as un romantique défroqué.
180
LIFE OF
Germany; but-and how characteristic of Heine !-he
thereupon breaks off in a dissertation upon women. After
a parting shaft in the direction of Madame de Staël, the
author becomes autobiographical, and recounts the story
of his expatriation: but upon this witty narrative I have
already drawn. The Hegel episode will also be remem-
bered by the reader of the present volume. The passages
concerning the author's views upon Israel and Hellas
should be carefully perused by those who, on the one
hand, consider that Heine had no reverence for the historic
greatness of his race; or, on the other, that he was so
uncompromising a Hellene as to be unable to see any-
thing but the highest spiritual development in Paganism.
In a score of places, the “Voice of Israel," as an enthu-
siastic young Jewish poet recently apostrophised the
author of the "Buch der Lieder," has borne earnest
testimony to his profound admiration for, pride in, and
sympathy with his people; and that he was well aware of
his own poetic indebtedness to the Israelite within him,
to the long tragedy of his race since the crucifixion of the
Aramean prophet, is undeniable.
A large portion of the later part of the "Geständnisse"
is devoted to the refutation of "the silly and contra-
dictory reports” which prevailed concerning the poet's
religious change, and a sarcastic explanation of the true
state of affairs. It may be summed up in the assertion
that if Heine continued to adhere to the Protestant
faith, it was simply because that faith did not at all
inconvenience him.
Towards the conclusion he claims his due place in
literature with a throb of pride that might be mistaken
HEINE.
181
"sham
by enemies for arrogance. It is much to be a poet,
he says, especially a great lyric poet: with no
modesty, the invention of worthless vagabonds," will he
depreciate his poetic fame. None of his countrymen
ever won the laurel at so early an age, and if Goethe
could write, "the Chinese with trembling hand paints
Werther and Lotte on porcelain," he could match this
boast with " my poems have been translated into the
Japanese language."
"But at this moment I am as indifferent to my Japanese fame as
to my renown in Finland. Alas! fame, once sweet as sugared
pineapple and flattery, has for a long time been nauseous to me; it
tastes as bitter to me now as wormwood. With Romeo, I can say, 'I
am the fool of fortune.' The bowl stands filled before me, but I lack
a spoon. What does it avail me that at banquets my health is pledged
in choicest wines, and drunk from golden goblets, when I, myself,
severed from all that makes life pleasant, may only wet my lips with
an insipid potion? What does it avail me that enthusiastic youths
and maidens crown my marble bust with laurel wreaths, if mean-
while the shrivelled fingers of an aged nurse press a blister of Spanish
flies behind the ears of my actual body? Of what avail is it that all
the roses of Shiraz so tenderly glow and bloom for me? Alas!
Shiraz is two thousand miles away from the Rue d'Amsterdam,
where, in the dreary solitude of my sick-room, I have nothing to
smell, unless it be the perfume of warmed napkins. Alas! the irony
of God weighs heavily upon me! The Great Author of the Uni-
verse, the Aristophanes of Heaven, wished to show the petty,
earthly, so-called German Aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms
are but feeble banter compared with His, and how immeasurably
He excels me in humour and in colossal wit.
"Humbly do I acknowledge His superiority, . . . but here I
venture to offer most submissively the suggestion that the sport which
the Master has inflicted on the poor pupil is rather too long drawn
out: it has already lasted over six years, and after a time becomes
monotonous. Moreover, if I may take the liberty to say it, in my
humble opinion the jest is not new.”
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LIFE OF
The "Confessions" conclude with a comparison of
the writer to a certain sweet-voiced leper of the Middle
Ages, whose songs were the joy and delight of all, while
the Minnesinger himself went to and fro like a living
corpse, muffled from head to foot and with a hood over
his face, and in his hand the Lazarus-Bell wherewith to
warn all who might be in the neighbourhood of his
approach. "Oh that old, familiar scorn, that cruel jest
of God. . . . But there is nothing new under the sun.
Perhaps it also is only an old warmed-up jest.”
Readers of the "Geständnisse" will recollect that
early therein the author alludes to the greater autobio-
graphical detail of his "Memoirs." For many years
past Heine had been slowly but steadily working at what
he intended to be his chef-d'œuvre, the "romance of his
life." Everything of his development, every important
incident of his youth and manhood, his thoughts and
opinions on all subjects, and not only about himself but
about the celebrated men and women of all nations
whom he had known, everything, in fact, that had made
up life for him was to be included. It is known that so
early as 1840 Heine had concluded the fourth volume of
these "Memoirs," but unfortunately they are buried
away from those who would fain read them. The poet's
family disposed of them after his death, and they now
abide innocuously in the archives of the Imperial Library
at Vienna. That they should thus be held out as a bait
to oblivion is from every point of view most reprehensible,
even if they should be far more fragmentary and super-
ficial-even if they should be the sheath of many un-
whetted stilettos, if they should contain too much unspilt
HEINE.
183
venom-than could fairly be anticipated. Heine's own
words concerning them are explicit: "I know the future.
belongs to me. Even if I die to-day I shall leave behind
me four volumes of autobiographical history which will
represent my thought and endeavour, and on account of
their historic matter, of their true exposition of the most
mysterious of transitive periods, will go down to pos-
terity."
A wild cynicism, a savage irony, a humour that causes
tears rather than laughter, the wood-note-wild of pas-
sionate song and the shout of mockery, delicate pathos
and reckless abandonment, the sob of remembrance and
the cry of despair-these are the characteristics of the
"Last Poems." Most of them are quite untranslatable,
not only from a far from infrequent licence of expression,
but because they are so married to the original words
that divorce is impossible. A few have been presentably
rendered in English-"Body and Soul" ("Leib und
Seele ") by the late James Thomson; " Wie langsam krie-
chet sie dahin" ("How wearily it drags along ")—with
that bitter line, "I have two rooms: the one I die in
and the grave"-and "Ein Wetterstrahl, beleuchtend
plötzlich" ("A lightning flash, all suddenly ablaze ") by
the late Lord Houghton. It is suggestive that one of
these cries from the abyss relates to that long-lost love
of Heine's, the treachery or the malfortune of which had
stricken an undying heart-wound. Here, on his mattress-
grave, with his well-loved wife and the faithful friend
whom he called La Mouche (his Fly) his thoughts go
back to grimy Hamburg and to Amalie.
Did space
permit I would quote Mr. Richard Garnett's admirable
184
LIFE OF
I
rendering of "Du warst ein blondes Jungfraulein, so artig"
("Thou wert a blond-haired maid without a stain").
"Für die Mouche ("Die Passionsblume " ": "The
Passion-flower"), a poem of remarkable beauty, one of
Heine's finest, in my opinion, is noteworthy as having
been the last song of the tired singer, written only a
week or two before his death. Yet it must not be
dismissed thus briefly. In an open carven tomb, an ´d
moonlit ruins of eld and a rout of fallen columns
and stone-wrought sphinxes, centaurs and other shapes
uncouth and mysterious, lies a dead man, with "pale,
long-suffering features." Around the huge sarcophagus
"a wild and motley train" is sculptured: the laughing
gods of Olympus, Adam and Eve, Paris and Helen,
Hector before ruined Troy, the Hebrew prophets and
Bacchus and Silenus and Priapus, Esther and Judith,
Proserpine and Venus, Leda and Danae, Diana and
Hercules, Balaam's ass and John the Baptist, Peter with
the keys, and love-sick Jove, and the Child of the
Temple. Then—
((
Quite suddenly it came into my head
The dead man in the marble tomb was I."
Bending from his sarcophagus he sees a flower of rare
and extraordinary beauty, the Flower of the Passion-
Then, sorcery of dreams! This flower of mine-
This blossom from the heart of passion blown,
Had changed into a woman's likeness, thine,
Yes, thine, my best and dearest, thine, thine own."
The only good translation I have met with is the admirable
endering by Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, from which I quote.
HEINE.
185
Nowhere more than in the lines following those just
quoted is Heine's kinship with Shelley more manifest-
the finest lines in what seems to me the loveliest of all
the short poems of Heine's maturity—
"We did not speak; but ah, I could perceive
The inmost secret of your spirit clearly;
The spoken word is shameless, may deceive,
Love's pure unopened flower is silence merely.
Voiceless communing! Who could ever deem,
In tender converse which no ear might hear,
That time could fly as in my happy dream
That summer night so full of joy and fear?
What we then said, oh, ask it of me never!
Ask of the glow-worm what it says in shining;
Ask what the wavelet whispers to the river ;
Question the west wind of its soft repining.
Ask the carbuncle of its fiery gleam;
Ask what coy sweets the violet is betraying;
But ask not what beneath the moon's sad beam
The martyr's-flower and her dead are saying!
Then, in words almost identical with those of Baudelaire,
he appeals to Death to let his soul know the last volup-
tuous bliss of sinking into stormless and painless silence.
S ddenly harsh clamours and discordant noises environ
the sarcophagus among the ruins. Even when Heine is
in the very shadow of death, and is giving utterance to a
deep and genuine emotion, his inevitable cynicism breaks.
the exquisite spell. The turmoil is due to the quarrel-
some wrangling of the bas-reliefs upon the tomb !
Must lies still haunt the very stones, and can
These marble shadows fight for outworn glozes?
The startled shriek of the wild wood-god Pan,
Contending with anathemas of Moses!"
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LIFE OF
It is the old battle, the poet exclaims, betwixt stern
Reality and the Beautiful, the immemorial and eternal.
conflict between Barbarian and Hellene. And thus dis
cordantly-yet with a choking sob at the end-does the
poem conclude—
(C They shouted, raved, swore,—all the rest of it,
There was no end of tedious controversy;
But Balaam's ass had still the best of it,
And brayed down gods and saints, and knew no mercy.
And at this vile ee-aw, which never ceas'd
This odious discord, truculent, defying,
In desperation at the stupid beast
I too cried out, and-woke myself with crying."
¹
Among the Posthumous Poems though not necessarily
of very late composition-there are two or three of great
beauty, and one, "Bimini," that I should place first
among all Heine's long poems. The two most note-
worthy, the pathetic "Erinnerung" ("Remembrance ")
and "Bimini," have been most ably rendered by Lord
Lytton, the most Heinesque of all translators of the poet.
"Bimini" is the fabled island wherein springs eternal
the Fountain of Youth, the same that in the early days of
Spain's greatness was long vainly sought by Don Juan
Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida. It is written in
those unrhymed and even nonassonantic irregular trochaic
quatrains which Heine used so often, and always with
such magical effect. It is beyond question one of the
most distinctive of the poet's productions. None other
than he could have written it: it is beyond even the
I "Letzte Gedichte und Gedanken von Heinrich Heine. Aus
dem Nachlasse des Dichters." Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe.
HEINE.
187
shadowy rivalry of the imitator. Were I not already at
my limits of space I should quote the fifteen exquisite
quatrains of Caca's lullaby: nothing more delicately fan-
tastic was ever written by its author. In the fourth and
concluding Part, Ponce de Leon, after weary wandering,
at last reaches "Bimini," though not the isle of his
search. A shadowy land it is —
"A still land, wherein so softly,
Under silent cypress shadows,
Flows the streamlet whose good water
Likewise hath strange power to heal.
Lethê, that good water's name is.
Drink thereof, and thou forgettest
All thy suffering,-yea, forgotten
Thou and all thy suffering too.
Good the water, good the land is !
Whoso once hath reached it, leaves it
Nevermore.
For that land, truly
Is the real Bimini."
Fit stanzas these in their deep elegiac pathos to be
chanted from the sick-bed of a dying poet. As Lord
Lytton aptly remarks, this poem is Heine's epicedion.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN of choleraed, the plague might
N 1854 the scourge of cholera swept through Paris.
So far as Heine was concerned, the plague might
have entered the dark room in the Rue d'Amsterdam,
and received a welcome; but for his wife's sake he
agreed to a sudden move to what promised to be
healthier quarters. Several of their friends had died of
the epidemic, and the gentleman who acted as the poet's
amanuensis had been seized by it. Mathilde became
more and more anxious as she saw the signs of death
increase along the whole extent of the street. Cholera
she could understand, and dread: her husband's illness
was a different matter, a terrible complaint that like
rheumatic fever would pass away after it had expended
its virulence. This inability to realise the import of
Heine's infirmity, however, was by no means regret-
able so far as the poet was concerned. He never
resented his beloved Nonotte's sanguine faith in his re-
covery; on the contrary, her invincible cheerfulness was
an unmistakable factor in what went to enable Heine to
maintain his long struggle against death. It made him
feel not only more reconciled to what time still held in
LIFE OF HEINE.
189
waiting for him, but rendered him less anxious for his
wife's future. Of course he saw the weak side of this
characteristic. When one day he was seized with dread-
ful spasms of coughing, he thought the end was at hand,
but when the physician assured him that they would not
hasten his death, he ironically panted out, "Do not tell.
my wife this she has enough to bear already!" None
the less he valued greatly the sunny insouciance of
Mathilde's nature. She, on her side, though she had
nothing in common with her husband's intellectual life
or spiritual experiences, entirely understood the man
whom she so faithfully loved for over twenty years as a
man. His satire fell heedlessly upon her ears: if too
caustic it escaped her, if unmistakable she repaid it with.
a mirthful laugh. Once he expressed the most earnest
wish that she might re-marry after his decease—for he
was anxious that at least one man should lament his
death! Have your jest, mon ami, but you know you
cannot do without me," was Nonotte's sensible response.
CC
Thus it came about that a bundle of mattresses was
laid upon a litter, and a poor shrivelled "poet-corpse"
upon it, and transferred to the Grande Rue, Batignolles.
The change, however, was harmful. The rooms were
dark and damp, and an inflammation of the throat warned
Heine against continued residence.
Shortly afterwards Madame Heine found suitable and
charming apartments at No. 3 in the Avenue Matignon.
True, they were on the fifth floor, and had to be reached
by an ascent of over an hundred steps; but they were
sunlit, well-ventilated, and had a balcony looking out
upon the Champs Elysées. Here, in time, Heine was
190
LIFE OF
conveyed. On fine days he was laid on a mattress pile in
the balcony, and through his half-veiled right eye could
look once again on the joy and beauty of life. Even
though this long-lost happiness came to him through an
opera glass-for his dimmed sight could not perceive
objects at a distance—it was almost too much for him.
The first time he saw the green trees and the crowd of
wayfarers he stared long and eagerly; but suddenly he
laid down the glass with a sigh. He had seen a young
vendor of pastries approach two ladies, by whose side.
leapt a pug-dog. His whole heart had yearned with envy
of the dog.
It was prior to the departure from the Rue d'Amster-
dam, however, that Heine commenced the Memoirs of
his childhood and early life, to which reference was made
early in the Introductory Note to the present volume. The
composition, though as characteristic as anything that
ever came from his pen, shows a falling-off in style:
inevitable in the circumstances in which it was produced.
It was in the autumn of 1855 that his schöner
Todesengel the lovely Angel of Death of his last
hours-came to him as though straight from heaven.
Every one who knows Heine knows something of the
Mouche-the fine mouche, the chatte musquée, the heart's
delight, the soul's joy-who is so strangely and patheti-
cally bound up with his latter days.
Even now no one seems to know the real personality
of the lady who is familiar to literature as Camille
Selden. She is still alive, but shuns more direct
notoriety and it is possible that the fair woman who
shot a ray of happiness, and even hope, into the heart of
:
HEINE.
191
the stricken poet, will never be further revealed to us than
as the author of "The Last Days of Heinrich Heine.”
The utmost that has been discovered is to be found in
Alfred Meissner's "Geschichte meines Lebens," where he
alludes to "Camille Selden " as Elise de K. Heine's
niece, the Princess Della-Rocca, has written of her as an
adorable creature, about twenty-two years of age (¿.e., in
1855), well-educated, and able to write and speak with
equal ease in French, German, and English. What
further we know of her is that she was of German origin,
and that her late girlhood was spent in France; that she
had been married at eighteen, and that her husband had
taken her to London in order to get quit of her, and so
far succeeded that he immured her in an asylum; that
here she fell ill and became partially but temporally
paralysed; and that finally, on her recovery, she was
befriended by one of the doctors, who vindicated her
sanity and procured her release.
One day in Paris she noted an advertisement in a
journal. It had been inserted by Heine, who wished for a
reader. She wrote and offered her services, not as a paid
assistant, but as a friend, because of her great admiration
for the poet.¹ Thenceforth she was the source of im-
measurable comfort and happiness to her death-stricken
friend.
But La Mouche is assured of immortality, whether her
real name and the facts of her life ever become public or
not. It can never be forgotten what she was to Heine,
According to Strodtmann and other biographers. Her own
account differs (Vide Introduction to her "Last Days of Heinrich
Heine").
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LIFE OF
"The last flower of his mournful autumn,” as he alludes
to her in one of his letters. This friendship was indeed
a passion, a passion not of the body, but of the soul.
Even Heine, save for a single satirical outburst in one
of the poems he addressed to her (beginning "Words,
words"), never dreamt of it otherwise. As he says in
one of the pathetic little notes he often sent to her, to
postpone a visit on account of unendurable agony, he
loved her with the tenderness of a dying man.
The "Last Days" have been adequately rendered into
English by a friendly translator, and the slim volume is
easily procurable. No student of Heine should fail to
read it: and I shall not dwell, therefore, upon its fasci-
nating story.¹ How "Camille Selden" first met the
"pitiless banterer," how she charmed him by her man-
ner, her voice, her native fluency in German, and, above
all, by her electric sympathy and intellectual insight:
how she loved and admired and bore with and ministered
to the sweetest singer of his time: and how within four
months a new life bloomed for each-all will be found
in these scanty pages, whose publication a few years ago
sent a thrill throughout Europe and the West.
Lest any reader, however, should infer that this late
love of Heine's is significant of indifference to his wife,
it may be as well to reiterate that to the last day of his
life he loved Mathilde better than any woman whom he
had ever known. She was the queen of women to him :
it was not her fault that she was but a loving woman,
unconscious of "soul," and, though alertly intelligent,
"The Last Days of Heinrich Heine." By Camille Selden.
Translated by Clare Brune. Remington and Co., 1884.
1
HEINE.
193
unintellectual. Heine realized this, and his love never
wavered. His letters to her, during his revisits to Ger-
many, are charming by their almost youthful fervour of
affection. This loyalty in the "butterfly poet," as
Menzel scornfully alluded to him, in "that blackguard,"
as the most anti-poetic of all men of genius, Carlyle,
called him, is one of his most characteristic traits. The
two persons who had best reasons to be aware of it were
his wife and his mother.
It is to Meissner that we owe a record which should suffice
to wipe out the memory of all Heine's coarsenesses and
banalities. One day this good friend entered and found
the poet dictating a letter to his mother. 'What!" he
asked, "does the old lady who dwells by the Dammthor
still live?" "Truly: though old, and sick, and feeble, still
beats the warm mother-heart for me." "And do you often
write to her?" "Regularly every month." Whereupon
exclaimed Meissner, how unhappy the old lady must be
at her son's condition. “At my condition ?
Oh, I
should explain that we hold peculiar relations. My
mother believes me to be as well and sound as when I
last saw her. She is aged and reads no newspapers, and
the few old friends whom she sees are in like condition.
I write to her often, as well as I can in a cheerful
humour, and tell her of my wife and how happy I am.
If she notices that only the signature is mine, the ex-
planation is that I have pains in the eyes which will soon
pass off. And thus she is happy. For the rest, that a
son should be as sick and wretched as I am, no mother
would believe." In addition to these precautions, Heine
had warned all his Hamburg relatives and acquaint-
13
194
LIFE OF
ances against the disillusioning of the "dear old
lady."
Is there anything more pathetic in the history of litera-
ture? I doubt it.
To revert for a moment to Camille Selden: perhaps
the only thing to object to in her "Reminiscences" is
her absolute obliviousness to Mathilde's existence. There
could have been nothing in common between the two
women: but that the naturkind, the child of nature, as
her husband spoke of her, was in some respects the
nobler-natured may be inferred from the absence of
resentment wherewith she saw her place taken by an-
other, and from the apparently scornful reticence which
characterizes "The Last Days."
But from the summer of 1855 onward, a stealthy
weakness grew upon the poet's enfeebled constitution.
His sufferings increased. Spasms, coughs, and frightful
vomitings wrecked his already agonized frame. Often,
often he prayed to be delivered from "this cancer of life."
Yet, at intervals, ill and wretched as he was, he clung to
life with the profound instinct of nature. "I never saw,”
declared a friend who visited him late in the autumn,
“I never saw a man bear such horrible pain and misery
in so perfectly unaffected a manner. He neither paraded
his anguish nor tried to conceal it, or to put on any stoical
airs."
But amid all his sufferings Heine's indomitable spirit
rose triumphant. His irony, his wit, remained with him
to the last. When Adolf Stahr re-visited him after a
long absence, he apologized for his continued existence,
but assured his guest that when he next came he would
HEINE.
195
find no dying poet: a prolongation of the joke would be
too tedious for his friends.
The first day of the new year was one of distressing
suffering. The poet could see no one, not even his
"Lotus-Flower," as he often called la mouche. But
he managed to send her a line with his best new-year
wishes, having signed it-in bitter mockery of his own
degradation from the pride of manhood-"Nebuchad-
nezzar II.," and, as by an afterthought, "Formerly
atheist to his Prussian Majesty, now worshipper of the
Lotus Flower."
Towards the end of January, Théophile Gautier paid
his friend what proved a last visit. The French poet
was shocked by the appearance of his confrère, but
hardly anticipated a speedy end. A deathly pallor had
usurped the wonted marble paleness. The hands were
those of a dead man miraculously simulative of life.
Yet the keen flame of wit flickered about those dying
lips; and with an elfish enjoyment of his own sallies
Heine would raise the paralyzed lid of his seeing eye to
note the effect of some keen shaft upon his auditor.
In the recovery from a worse chest attack than usual, he
was asked by his doctor if he could manage to whistle.
Pouvez vous siffler" (Can you whistle-or hiss, as the
word also means)? "Hélas non!" gasped the poet,
"pas même les pièces de Monsieur Scribe!"
(6
On another occasion he was found by Berlioz prostrate
with ennui after a visit from a pedantic German professor,
who left as the musician entered. "I am afraid you will
find me very stupid, my dear fellow," exclaimed Heine,
"but the fact is I have just been exchanging thoughts
with Dr.
>>
196
LIFE OF
One day early in February-after a period of terrible
agony, when "his brain was full of madness, and his
heart of sorrow "-Camille Selden entered his room and
saw him covering large sheets of paper with feverish
haste, "with a pencil that assumed the sharpness of a
murderous weapon." "I heard a cruel laugh, the laugh
of satiated revenge. I looked at Henri : 'I have them,'
he cried, 'dead or living they shall not escape. The
tiger's claws shall survive the tiger.'" Heine was alluding
to some additional matter he had just composed for his
"Memoirs." The box containing these he once pointed.
out to Meissner with the remark: "Look you! There
are my memoirs. Therein I have been collecting for
many years past a series of portraits and frightful sil-
houettes. Many know of this box and tremble. In this
chest is shut up one of my best, but by no means the
last, of my triumphs."
Yet from this sardonic humour this strange being passed
to the extreme of tenderness. A little poem about his
wife, composed at this time, might have been written
by the author of "The Songs of Innocence."
February opened cold and wet, and the feeble flame
of the poet's life languished. The two latest notes he
addressed to his Lotus-Flower echo his depth of weari-
ness. "Deepest Sorrow, thy name is Heinrich Heine,"
he exclaims in one of them. On the evening of Friday,
the 15th of February, a sudden access of emotion made
his "beloved Mouche" break into sobs. "We remained
silent, but he placed his hand on my head and seemed
to bless me. Thus passed our last interview.”
"As I
was on the threshold I heard him call out in his
HEINE.
197
vibrating, spasmodic tones, 'Come to-morrow; do not
fail'" Alas, she went not on the morrow, upon the
evening of which there was no longer any invalid poet
to whom to minister.
A frightful and incessant sickness had completely
prostrated the sufferer. It became evident that death
was imminent. By the night of the 16th, he himself knew
that the end was at hand. "Am I about to die?" he
asked of his physician, whom he saw steadfastly regarding
him. "It is well."
Ere midnight an anxious friend called to inquire as
to his state, and to bid farewell. With officious zeal he
asked if the dying man had made his peace with God.
"Do not trouble yourself," replied the poet, with a wan
smile, “Dieu me pardonnera; c'est son métier:
"}
These were the last words uttered by Heinrich Heine.
His untamable irony illumined even the shadow of
death.
At four o'clock on the morning of the 17th he awoke
from the sleep into which he had fallen, muttered some-
thing, and again slept, but did not awaken any more.
And in this calm fashion it was that he came into his
inalienable inheritance, that he, too, like Ponce de Leon,
discovered Bimini.
¹ Readers of Camille Selden's "Last Days of Heine," will recollect
a strange episode in connection with the poet's death. Heine died
somewhere between five and eight o'clock on the morning of the
17th. Madame Selden's words are as follows: "I awoke in a
singular manner. Towards eight o'clock I heard a noise in my
room, a kind of fluttering like that produced by moths. I opened
my eyes but closed them again, for a black form was writhing like a
gigantic insect in the dawn, and sought some way of escape." Madame
198
LIFE OF
When the friend, whose advent was always so welcome,
entered the death-chamber she was not appalled by the
visible signs of death, but by the inscrutable silence.
There was nothing human in that cold corpse, nothing
which recalled the man who had loved, hated, and
suffered. Nought to look upon but an ancient mask,
over which the final calm had cast a frost of haughty
indifference. She had foreseen all save this sudden
silence, all save this limitless calm.
On the forenoon of the 20th a few friends, ncluding
Théophile Gautier, Alexandre Dumas, Mignet, Alexandre
Weill, and Paul de Saint-Victor, followed the dead poet
to his grave in Montmartre. The coffin was so large and
heavy for the wasted child-frame within, that Gautier was
reminded of the lines in the "Lyrisches Intermezzo,"
where there is an allusion to the gigantic coffin that
shall one day convey the singer to his rest, gigantic
because of the vast love and the vast sorrow that shall
therein be buried along with the insensate body.
The memorial stone in Montmartre bears the simple
inscription, "Henri Heine." No longer had the poet
cause to yearn over that "melodious grave of the en-
chanter Merlin, which is in the forest of Broceliand in
Brittany, under high oaks whose tops shine like green
flames to heaven."
*
*
*
*
*
Some seven years before Heine's death his unfortunate
friend Gérard de Nerval wrote of him as follows: "It is
Selden hurriedly dressed soon afterwards, and when she reached the
Avenue Matignon heard that Heine had passed away just before
dawn.
HEINE.
199
no vain antithetical by-play to say of Heine that he is
at once cruel and tender, naïf and perfidious, sceptical
and credulous, lyrical and prosaic, a sentimentalist and
a mocker at sentiment, impassioned and reserved,
spirituel et pittoresque, an ancient and a moderner,
moyen-âge et révolutionnaire." This extraordinary com-
plexity, this many-sidedness, has been at once the fasci-
nation and the stumbling-block of critical students,
German, French, and English. In their extremity they
have variously compared him to Aristophanes, Rabelais,
Cervantes, Burns, Sterne, Jean Paul Richter, Swift,
Voltaire, Byron, Shelley, Béranger, Villon, and Catullus.
The very variety of these comparisons is significant.
What manner of man is this who has something in
common with the great masters of irony of all time-
than whom Catullus never sang more poignantly, or
Burns or Béranger with a freer lilt, a wilder music? It
is perhaps inevitable to attempt to classify even the
most absolutely unique phenomenon, howsoever that
attempt may be foredoomed to failure: but never did
a more hopeless subject present itself to the literary
scientist than the extraordinary genius represented by
the words "Heinrich Heine." Though therein it is easy
to trace that wide relationship which critics have been
pleased to designate, it is impossible to find the imme-
diate kin of this poet. He was born in some happy Vale
of Tempe that we know not of, among Parnassus-grass
engirt with thickets of oleander, citron, and pomegranate:
but who were his parents? Perhaps some passionate.
Oriental, and a dreaming blue-eyed maiden from the
forests beyond the Danube, who at times would sing her
200
LIFE OF
magic faerie-lore and at times chant of the slaying sword
and the skull-borne mead of the tribesmen. Or was he
but a dream of fallen Judæa, caught up by the mocking
breath of the Earth-Spirit and blown beyond Jordan and
waste Babylon to the hills of Greece? What strange
noviciate was his on what heights did he watch the
gods and behold the beauty of the world, in what
desolate places consort with unclean animals and evil
spirits? Do what we will we cannot affiliate, we cannot
classify Heine. When we would apprehend it, his genius
is as volatile as his wit-a subtle essence that can be
condensed in a few lines of perfect song, or that, like the
vapours of the Arabian wizard, can expand into cloudy.
mists. Of only one thing can we be sure that he is
of our time, of our century. He is so absolutely and
essentially modern that he is often antique. Yet never is
he other than Heinrich Heine: Jew or Hellene, Bursch
or Parisien, a soldier in the van or an idler on ungranted
furlough, wild mocker or sweet singer, his idiosyncrasy
is dominant. There never has been any other such as
he: and another Heine can hardly appear again. As
Théophile Gautier wrote of the poet after his death,
what long and slow combinations will it cost nature
before she can reproduce such a head! There are
flowers which bloom much more rarely than the aloe
-human flowers which unfold their fadeless petals but
once, it may be, in the whole slow growth of
humanity:
It is a poet of our own country, and of our own time,
who has uttered the best definition of Heine that has
yet been said.
HEINE.
201
"The spirit of the world
Beholding the absurdity of men—
Their vaunts, their feats-let a sardonic smile
For one short moment wander o'er his lips.
That smile was Heine!"
In these words Matthew Arnold is more incisively
interpretative than even in his able, though occasionally
inaccurate and inadequate essay on the poet, upon whom
he justly says that incomparably the greatest portion of
Goethe's mantle fell-whom, still more aptly, he calls the
Paladin of the modern spirit.
An
But it is not among his superficial complexities, it is
among more fundamental bases that we must seek for the
prime factors in Heine's genius. Yet these complexities,
how puzzling they are! How one is tempted to enlarge
upon Gérard de Nerval's cliquetis d'antithèses.
Israelite and yet not a Jew; one of the "bodyguard of
Jehovah," and yet a deserter and a mocker; a Christian,
and an infidel; a free-liver, and yet loyal to his wife and
reverent of his mother; a Romanticist, and the chief
antagonist of Romanticism; a true poet, and a born
journalist; an historian without method, a philosopher
without real philosophy; the most tender of German
poets, and the most savagely cynical; a German, yet the
bitterest scourge of Germans, and, though without a drop
of French blood, a Frenchman of the French; an intense
admirer of Shakespeare and the poets of England, and a
hater of the nation and of everything English; a cynic
who laughed at sentiment and generosity, whose tears
would rise at the sight of something beautiful, and whose
purse, and brain, and courtesy were at the service even
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LIFE OF
of strangers and the unworthy; impatient and irritable
in health, of heroic endurance in ills more terrible than
ever fell to the lot of poet before; laughing at hope and
scorning resignation, yet nobly resigned and cherishing,
as it were, the living soul of a dead negation.
First and foremost Heine was a Jew, and born in an
enslaved country, and half a century too soon.
To be a
German Jew even so comparatively lately as fifty or sixty
years ago—what a fate for a poet! Worse still, to have
inherited the pride of Israel, to scorn the workers of her
ignominy, to realize the frightful accumulation of her wrong,
her untold misery, her long despair, her undying hope!
And yet again worse to have sold one's soul for a mess
of pottage. If ever an act for which ethically there is no
excuse, but which the charitable must greatly palliate,
wrought its own revenge, it was Heine's apostasy. He
hearkened to Mephistopheles, and in cold blood signed
the agreement whereby he, a Jew, renounced Judaism,
he, an Israelite, became a Christian. Even in these days,
when God seems to have withdrawn at least a solar sys-
tem further away, a man cannot barter his spiritual
birthright with immunity-or rather they may who have
no care but to eat, drink, and be merry; though the poet,
the man of genius, dare not sin without being haunted
for ever by the flaming sword even at the gates of earthly
Edens.
It is because of Heine's "intense modernism," of his
saturation with modern ideas, that he is so pre-eminently
the exponent of the yearning spirit of our century, that
he is of such various appeal. He saw what many better
and perhaps wiser men than himself failed to perceive:
HEINE.
203
the deep undertone of his time was clearly audible to
him. He has given voice to our inarticulate resentment
against we know not what; he has been our advocate
against a blind tyranny of nature; he has given expression
to our unexpressed pain. A new note, an intensely
modern note, vibrates in the nervous prose of his
sentences and in the magic of his verse. For the first
time a strange voice is heard laughing at the sanctities
of four thousand years; not a mere mockery, the ripple
of which has passed over the sea of humanity from all
time, but the laugh of the modern man who has reached
the summit, or what he believes to be the summit, of
human life, and does not see even the most ordinary
Pisgah beyond, much less a Promised Land. It is true
that in a sense this is but a phase that Heine represents;
yet even if the phase do not prove recurrent in similar
or novel guise, he must always remain as the typical
exponent of one of the most spiritually troublous periods
in the history of man.
As for his song-motive, I should say it was primarily
his Lebenslust, his delight in life that love so intensely
human that it almost necessarily involved the ignoring
of the divine. Rainbow-hued as is his genius, he him-
self was a creature of earth. It was enough to live.
Upon his mattress-grave he envied even the pug-dog
which ran to and fro beneath in the Champs Elysées;
it was alive and sound-what happiness, what magical
fortune! He would cling to life, even though it were
by a rotten beam, he declared once in his extremity.
And the poet of life he unquestionably is. There is a
pulse in everything he writes: his is no galvanised
1
}
204
LIFE OF
existence. No parlour-passions lead him into the quick-
sands of oblivion. The sun shines, a fair girl laughs, the
lightning flashes, the sea frets and fumes and destroys,
the woman wounds-loves, hates, enmities, despairs, all
the passions of mind and body-all these we have,
intensely human, but never the rapture of the mystic, the
ecstasy of the visionary. His sight is keener than an
eagle's, but spiritual horizons are for the most part beyond
his ken. Better still to say that he sees all the stars in
heaven, but pays no heed to those which the eye of
scientific faith perceives thronging in depths beyond.
He loves and is loved, and the sun shines, then all is
well; love evanishes and ennui comes, and 'tis an east
wind, then ho for poison that will rankle and stilettos of
speech that, like Sefchen's sword, will thirst for blood.
At his best Heine is a creature of controlled impulse; at
his worst he is a creature of impulse uncontrolled.
Through extremes he gained the golden mean of art;
here is his apologia. By himself he must be judged, nor
could the justest arbiter materially interfere with the
poise of the scales set by Heine himself.
As a prose writer Heine is unsurpassed by any German
-even by Goethe-for lucidity, ease of movement, and
admirable concision. He can be as classical as Winckel-
mann, as chaste as Lessing, as clear-cut as Goethe, as
lucidly nebulous " as Novalis or the worthy Jean Paul:
and over and above all he can be blithe and debonair as
no German scribe before or since. Never had any
stream so many back-waters, so many little rushy coves,
but all are as crystal-clear as the central current.
who would hunt for muddy shallows will find them if he
He
HEINE.
205
be diligent, but then these rarities belong to trampled
ground where one would expect miriness. In the higher
phases of style, however, Heine falls below Goethe. His
inconsistencies, his vagrant fancy, his endless divergencies,
his ambuscades for the unwary reader, have a charm all
their own—a charm somewhat palling, almost common-
place now-but these are not the characteristics of a
great style. Yet he will be read as a master of German
prose long after his compositions have been relegated to
the upper shelves.
His position towards religion concerns little those who
have come after him. The points of vantage shift so
constantly that a dead man's instructions are as likely to
be provocative of boredom as of material help. Funda-
mentally he was a rationalist; Reason, he declared, had
been the passion malheureuse of his life. If he missed
much that is good, he saw clearly what was infeasible,
absurd, or evil. He hated priestcraft, whether Christian
or Judaic; a paid clergy seemed to him a spiritual
anomaly. But if clergy there must be, then let them be
out-and-out exemplars of their faith; rather the fierce
hell-threatening priest than "the molly-coddle homœopa-
thic soul-doctor who pours the thousandth part of a pint
of reason into a gallon of morals, and sends people to
sleep with it on Sundays." And it is because he was a
friend of Religion, and a friend of the Church, that he
"loathed that abortion called State-Religion, that monster
born of the intrigue between temporal and spiritual
power." For notwithstanding all his repudiations and
blasphemies Heine believed in a Supreme Power: what
he knew not and does not try to explain. His sole credo
206
LIFE OF
is the very characteristic, "I may not be over partial to
anthropomorphism, but I believe in the Glory of God."
Towards politics his position was that of an uncon-
cerned seer, so just, so incisive was his vision. Many
will recall his memorable phrase: "There are no nations
in Europe now; there are only two factions. One is
called Aristocracy: it thinks itself privileged by birth,
and monopolizes all the glories of the commonalty.
The other faction is called Democracy; it vindicates the
rights of man, and in the name of Reason demands the
destruction of the privileges of birth."
Emancipation! This was Heine's synonym for Vor-
wärts: his slogan in all his brilliant though desultory
assaults. Emancipation of all oppressed peoples and
races, emancipation of the whole world, and especially,
first, of Europe, "that is now old enough to be its own
master, and is breaking away from the iron leading-
strings once held by the privileged aristocracy."
It is true what a brilliant English essayist of his own
race has said of him, that his writings will be remembered
by the wise, and that they "tell of a man whose life was
filled with rapturous love for humanity, of a man angry
until death with the shallow forms and conventionalities
possessed no longer of any spiritual import." True; and
yet, after all, it is to Heine the poet that we turn when
we wish to see the rainbow-hues of immortality. Here
his radical fault of fragmentariness, of incompleteness,
is less obvious, if at all. There is, of course, a formal
fragmentariness in art which, however, is not essentially
distinct from completeness-as exemplified, for instance,
in the best of Heine's verse. But his prose work: how
HEINE.
207
often, nay, how almost invariably, its fragmentariness is
its present bane as it must prove its ultimate loss. All
his life he was a beginner. His beginnings are always
brilliant and often splendid: yet they are only com-
mencements. What magnificent essays his "Religion
and Philosophy in Germany" and his "Romantic
School" are! how inadequate, how merely introductory
they are as histories! This is Heine's weakest point, his
most fatal flaw.
But in poetry where is his equal as a lyric voice? One
is inclined to alter Browning's lines, and cry-
"O lyric voice, half demon and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire!"
Unfortunately, in his poetry as in his prose, Heine is
far from infrequently not only needlessly blasphemous,
but recklessly coarse and even occasionally obscene. It
is impossible not to note this canker; the wisest plan is
to regret the flaw in the exquisite flower, and then to cut
it away as it were, to overlook it. Something of the
same excuse that is made for Rabelais must be made for
Heine; for the rest, his banalities are nothing more nor
less than the strains of an ugly warp of vulgarity which
intertwined with his essential refinement—the mud, let
us say, in which his golden feet too often voluntarily
slipped. I certainly agree with Lord Lytton that this
obscenity is an even greater defect of genius than of art.
Yet too much has been made of this defect of Heine's
by friends as well as by foes. There is a place in the
economy of nature even for what is foul; and as never
was man more ein Naturkind, a child of nature, than
208
LIFE OF
Heine, he may be forgiven the display of some inherited.
traits.
Mr. Matthew Arnold has expended some felicitous
phrases upon the poet whom, after all, he did not wholly
understand; but nowhere has he proved himself so in-
cisive as the critic just alluded to when the latter states
that Heine's poetic life was the outcome of the intuitive
and continuous contemplation of suffering from a poetical
point of view. His lyric crown was indeed a crown of
thorns. It was Heine's destiny, concludes Lord Lytton,
in his admirable critique upon the poet's posthumous
publications, it was his destiny to become the permanent
representative of the pain which is born of contrast. One
great and everlasting form of human suffering found in
him its appropriate poet.
Goethe thought that the one thing lacking in his lyric
rival was love, but though the Jupiter Tonans of Weimar
-as the younger poet called him-gauged correctly so
far as he went, he did not penetrate deeply into Heine's
real as distinct from his assumed nature. Matthew
Arnold perhaps comes nearer to the truth when he
declares that the fundamental weakness lay not in in-
capacity of love, but in lack of moral balance. An
American critic thinks that we must rather look to a
physiological cause. From early boyhood the poet's
nervous system was morbid, or at least with constant
tendencies to an abnormal condition; and throughout
his life his brain must have been more or less strenuously
affected by cerebral excitement. No doubt each is right
to a certain extent. The poet himself would have
scoffed at the physiological as well as at the moral
HEINE.
209
diagnosis. Probably the real weakness was that Heine
was too much in love with life; he became its slave,
worshipped as a slave, grovelled as a slave, and met with
the slave's heritage of mockery and contumely. To win
life's secret one must barter many resignations for a few
veiled favours. After all, his own indication is best:
"In my cradle lay my line of march marked out for my
whole life."
And yet this enfant terrible of poetry, as his Mouche
rebelliously calls him, was the most Hellenically sensuous
as well as the most Biblically or Hebraicly ascetic of
singers. His imagination roams everywhere, but from
choice in the sunswept southlands, and, above all, in the
East. Spain, Italy, Greece-what inspirations he found
from these: but it was to "mystic Ind," with its vast
lotus-covered rivers and its gorgeous past and brooding
present, to the extreme Orient, to Persia in particular,
that his heart yearned. "O Firdusi!" he exclaims
somewhere, "O Firdusi! O Ischami! O Saadi! How
miserable is your brother! How do I long after the
roses of Schiraz !”
East and west, north and south: how marvellous the
range of this poet-Hellene, Oriental, dreaming and
imaginative German, sceptical Frenchman. What a
strange medley his poems seem when one's memory
surveys them in one illuminating flash.
"Strange
dreams," writes his dearest friend, "where raillery cloaks
tenderness; roseate clouds, where fair angel-heads
appear between baneful demon-faces; transparent fogs,
illumed by an imaginary sun; shifting landscapes full of
contrasts; sometimes a cloister-garden, and close beside
14
210
LIFE OF
it the blue waters of a Greek river; sometimes Gothic
ruins, and close by the Indian cactus, displaying its
blood-red purple blossoms."
It is vain, however, to attempt any exposition of the
magic of Heine's verse. As he says in his last poem,
"Die Passionsblume:" question the glowworm as to
whence comes its brightness, or bid the wave explain its
murmuring: ask the west wind the meaning of its moan-
ings and plaints, or seek the purport of the perfume in
the rose or of the fire in the carbuncle.
seas.
Heine must always hold his place as a poet: his
poems have become as deeply imbedded in the heart of
the German nation as are the groves of coral in Indian
The author of the "Buch der Lieder” may not be
to Germany what Burns is to Scotland: but he is cer-
tainly far more to his country than Béranger-the third
in the trio of the greatest of modern song-poets-ever
was to France.
Heine passed as a drifting cloud : but his songs remain
like stars in the heaven of poetry. "Und so ist der blaue
Himmel grösser als jedes Gewölk darin, und daurerhafter
dazu," as says Jean Paul Richter: "The blue heaven is
greater than any cloud that passeth over it.”
Two thousand years ago—I read somewhere recently-
there might have been seen at Laurium a certain yellow
flower, which must have flourished in the golden age of
Greece, and have faded for a while with the greatness of
her people. "For when the piles of rubbish and scoriæ
were removed,” says the narrator, "and the fresh air and
sunlight played upon the soil below, we are told the
seeds, long buried, revived, and a little flower, unknown
HEINE.
211
to the botanists of this century, sprang forth, and
blossoms and lives as the Flower of Laurium."
One can well imagine that if, two thousand years hence,
the German tongue were to have developed into a
practically alien language, some curious philologist of a
poetic turn might one day welcome with delight, after
laborious research among the débris of a vanished litera-
ture, certain long buried yet fragrant blooms. These he
would assuredly lovingly gather and transplant, so that
a new cycle of humanity might rejoice in the "Laurium.
Flowers of Heinrich Heine. For it is of the nature
of the Flowers of Laurium that they are imperishable.
THE END.
INDEX.
A.
Esthetic criticism, Heine's, 136,
150
"Almansor," 46, 47, 52, 55,
58-9
America, Heine on, 131
Apollo God, The," 173-4
'Apostasy," Heine's, 42, 63, 86-
92, 202
Arndt, 37, 43
Arnold, Matthew, 200-1, 208
"Atta Troll," 152–4, 155
B.
“Belshazzar," 57
Béranger, 25
Berlin, 48, 50, 62
Berlioz, 171, 195
"Bimini," 186-7
Bonn, 44, 47
"Book of Ideas," 23, 105, 108
Börne, Ludwig, 117, 137-139
Breza, Count von, 54
"Buch der Lieder," 55-57, 65,
116
Byron, 54, 72, 73
C.
Campe, Julius, 97, 141
Carlyle on Heine, 193
Christian baptismal
Heine's, 92
Christiani, Rudolf, 96
names,
Christianity, Heine and, 177-8,
180
Complexity, Heine's, 199, 201,
208
"Confessions," 132, 179, 180,
182
Cotta, Baron, 116, 118-119
Cuxhaven, 65-68, 71
D.
Della-Rocca, Princess, 16, 191
"Deutschland, Ein Wintermär-
chen," 157-8
214
INDEX.
"Die Nacht am Strande," IOI
"Donna Clara," 71
Don Quixote, 25, 26
"Don Rodrigo," 57
"Du schönes Fischermädchen,"
69
E.
"Early Poems," 44
"Ein Traum, gar seltsam schauer-
lich," 32-33, 56
Emancipation, Heine and, 206
England, Heine on, 130; on
Englishmen, 109-11, 131
Englische Fragmente," 109
Erinnerung," 186
"
F.
Faust-poem, Heine's projects ofa,
"Der Doktor Faust," 175
73;
"Ferdusi," 173
"Florentine Nights, The," 26,
"
122, 126, 149
'Fragen," 102
Fragmentariness, Heine's, 206
France and Germany, Heine on
the reconciliation of, 165
French Revolution of 1830, Heine
and the, 127-130
Fresco Sonnets, 57
"Frieden," 99
G.
Gans, Edward, 48, 50
Garnett, R., 184
Gautier, Théophile, 142, 170, 195,
198, 200
Geldern family, Romance per-
taining to, 16
Geldern, Simon von, 19
"Germany: A Winter's Tale,"
156-8
Germany and France, Heine on
the reconciliation of, 165
"Gesellschafter," Heine's contri-
butions to, 53
“Geständnisse,” 132, 179, 180,
182
Ghosts, Heine and, 149
"Gods in Exile,” 175-6
Goethe, 55, 74, 75, 76, 77, 181, 208
Götterdämmerung," 71
Göttingen, 47, 72-3, 86,.93
"Grenadiers, The Two," 25
H.
Hamburg, 37, 42, 96-7, 129
"Harzreise," The, 47, 73, 78-85,
97
Hastings, The Field of," 173
Hegel, 50, 51, 176
"
Heimkehr, Die,” 65, 68-71, 97
Heine, Amalie, 15, 39-43, 62, 65,
71, 116, 183
Heine, Charlotte, 16
Heine, Gustave, 16
Heine, Heinrich in his twelfth
year at the time of the French
Invasion of Russia, 11; Heine
and Le Grand, 12; his Juden-
Schmerz, 12; nothing parochial
in his genius, 12; its univer-
sality, 12; born, December 13,
1799, 14; his parentage and
ancestry, 15; his brothers and
sister, 16; his Uncle Simon von
Geldern, 16; his father, 16; his
mother, 17; baptized "Harry,"
19; his childhood, 20; his
school experiences, 20-23; his
instruction by Le Grand, 23;
his ardour for Napoleon, 23;
writes "The Two Grenadiers."
INDEX.
215
25; books which early influenced
him, 25; the Sefchen episode, 27-
31; his earliest published poems,
31-34; selection of a profession,
34, 35; Heine as a Jew, 36; his
Frankfürt experiences, 36; goes
to his Uncle Salomon in Ham-
burg, 37; personal traits, 38;
loves his Cousin Amalie, 39;
always more or less a black
sheep among his Hamburg
relatives, 39; sets up as "H.
Heine & Co.," 40; leaves
his uncle's and Hamburg, 41;
at Düsseldorf, 40; early writ-
ings, 40; at Bonn, 44; Heine
and Schlegel, 44; matriculates,
46; his "Junge Leiden," 46;
at Göttingen, 47; his duel
and rustication, 48; goes to
Berlin, 49; his life there, 49 ;
meets Moses Moser and the
Varnhagens, 49; Heine and
Hegel, 51; publishes poems in
the Berlin "Gesellschafter," and
then in book-form, 53; his ap-
pearance at this period, 54;
Heine and Romanticism, 55;
the first cycle of the "Buch der
Lieder," 55; hears of his Cousin
Amalie's marriage, 56; his
tragedies, "Ratcliff" and "Al-
mansor," 57-60; his "Lyrisches
Intermezzo," 60; his
"Pine
and Palm" lyric, 61; his ner-
vous headaches, 62; at Lüne-
burg, 63; goes to the North
Sea, 64; assisted by his Uncle
Salomon, 65; his unhappiness
in Hamburg, 65 ; "Die Heim-
kehr," 65; quarrels with his
Uncle Salomon, 67; at Cux-
"
"
haven, 67; his love of the sea,
67, 96, 103; his "Lorelei” and
other lyrics of the "Heimkehr"
cycle, 69; returns to Göttingen,
72; writes the "Rabbi von
Bacharach," 72; meets Immer-
mann, 72; Heine and Byron,
72; projects a Faust-poem, 73;
goes on a tour through the
Hartz district, 74; meets Goethe
at Weimar, 74; Heine and
Goethe, 74-78; the "Harz-
reise," 78; Heine's apos-
tasy," 86-92; embraces Chris-
tianity, 92; takes his legal de-
gree, 93; goes to the North Sea
again, 94; Norderney," 94-
96; "Die Nordsee," 94-99;
meets Julius Campe, on his
return to Hamburg, 97; publi-
cation of first volume of the
"Reisebilder," 98; his lyrics,
"Frieden" and "Die Nacht
am Strande," 99-102; writes
the second volume of the
"Reisebilder,” 105; the "Book
of Ideas," 105; satire upon
Professor Saalfeld, 107; goes to
London, 107; his stay in Eng-
land, 109-114; prose-outlines
of poems, 112-114; another
quarrel with his Uncle Salo-
mon, 115; goes to join Baron
Cotta's
newspaper - staff at
Munich, 116; meets Frau
Friedlander (Amalie), 116; por-
trait taken by Ludwig Grimm,
117; stays with Ludwig Börne,
117; goes to Italy, 120; writes
"The Florentine Nights," 122,
126;
hears of his father's death,
123; the "Italien" volume of
216
INDEX.
the "Reisebilder," 124-126; his
attack on Count von Platen,
126; at Heligoland at the out-
break of the Revolution of July,
128; hatred of Hamburg, 129;
the idea of expatriation, 130;
leaves Germany and arrives in
Paris, 132-3; life in Paris, 134–
137; loves, and marries, Ma-
thilde Mirat, 137; Heine and
the Börne duel, 138-140; secret
pension from the French Go-
vernment, 141; his "History
of Religion and Philosophy in
Germany," and "The Romantic
School," 142-149; Heine and
Protestantism, 145; Heine and
ghosts, 149; his imaginary
"Memoirs of Herr von Schnabe-
lewopski," 150; his longest
poem, Atta Troll," 151-154;
visits his mother, 154; his
"Neue Gedichte," 155; his
"Deutschland," 156; growing
ill-health, 158; death, and will,
of Salomon Heine, and results
to Heine, 159-161; his phy-
sical prostration, 161; his ex-
periences of the Revolution of
1848, 166; last walk along the
Boulevards, 167; falls before
the Venus of Milo, 167; his
mattress-grave, 168; terrible
sufferings in 1848-9, 169; lone-
liness, 171; partial recovery,
172; writes “The Romancero,'
172-174; "Der Doktor Faust"
and "Gods in Exile," 175; his
rumoured real conversion, 177;
his "Letzte Gedichte," 179-
183; his "" Confessions," 179;
his
"Memoirs," 182; 'Die
Passionsblume," 184-6; his
Posthumous Poems, 186;
Heine's
"Bimini," 186-7;
epicedion, 187; moved to
the Avenue Matignon in the
Champs Elysées, 189; is
visited by his friend La Mouche
(Camille Selden), 190 et seq.;
Heine and his wife, 192;
his care for his mother, 193;
growing weakness and suffering,
194; his untamable wit, 195;
his last words, 197; his death,
197-8; summary of his genius,
198-210
Heine, Karl, 159-161
Heine, Mathilde (Heine's wife),
137, 154, 155-6, 162, 164, 169,
171, 174, 188, 192–4
Heine, Maximilian, 16, 120
Heine, Salomon, 15, 37, 41, 64,
67, 71, 93, 97, 114, 141, 159
Heine, Samson, 15, 16, 123
Heine's mother, 15, 17, 18, 35,
154, 193
Hohenhausen, Baroness von, 49,
52
Humboldt, 163
Immermann, 72
I.
Inconsistencies, Heine's, 140, 199,
201
"Italiensche Reisebilder," 112,
120-2, 124
Italy, Heine in, 120-123
J.
"Jehuda ben Halévy," 36, 174-5
Jews in Germany, The, 12, 36
Judaism, Heine and, 90, 180, 202
Judenkrawall, the Hamburg, 129
INDEX.
217
Juden-Schmerz, Heine and the,
12, 72, 90
'Junge Leiden," 46, 55, 63
K.
Kevlaar, the pilgrimage to," 71
L.
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 161
Laube, 165
Le Grand, II, 22, 23, 24
Letzte Gedichte," 91, 179, 183-
187
Lewald, August, 126–7
Lewald, Fanny, 165
Liberty, Heine upon, III
London, Heine sails for, 105;
stays in, 107
"Lyrisches Intermezzo," 60, 63
Lytton, Lord, 112, 187, 208
M.
Marriage, Heine's, 137
Meissner, A., 165
Memoirs, Heine's, 182
"Memoirs of Herr von Schnabe-
lewopski," 150-1
Meyerbeer, 161
"Minnesänger, Die," 55
Modernism, Heine's, 202-3
Montmartre,
198
"Neue Gedichte," 137, 154, 155-6
Night Thoughts," 154
Night-watch on the Drachen-
fels," 44
Norderney, 94, 96, 103
"
Norderney," 94, 95, 106–8
"Nordsee, Die," 68, 94, 97, 99
P.
Pache, Teresa, 116
Paris, inevitably Heine's goal,
131; goes to Paris, 132; life in,
134
"
Passionsblume, Die," 184
"Pine and Palm, The," 61
Platen, Count von, 125
Posthumous poems, 186
"Princess Sabbath, The," 174
Prose outlines for poems, 112,
114
Prose style, Heine's, 204
R.
"Rabbi von Bacharach," 36, 72
""
"
"
Heine buried in,
Moser, Moses, 49, 64, 108
Mouche, La (Camille Selden), 183,
184, 190-2, 194, 196, 197
"Mountain Echo, The," 57
Munich, 116, 118
N.
Napoleon, 23, 24, 25, 95, 106
Nerval, Gérard de, 170, 198
Ramsgate," 112
'Ratcliff," 52, 55, 57-8
Reisebilder," II, 14, 25, 85, 94,
97-103, 105, 107, 109, 120, 124,
126
Religion and Philosophy in
Germany," Heine's History of,
142-147, 207
Religion, Heine and, 205
Revolution of 1848, The, 166–7
""
Romancero, The," 172-175
Romantic poets, 25, 56
Romanticism, 44, 45, 55, 60, 153,
179
"Romantic School, The," 142,
147-149, 207
Rothschild, 135
218
INDEX.
S.
Saalfeld, Professor, 107
"
Salon, Der," 150
"Satanella," 175
Schiff, Hermann, 54
Schlegel, 44, 55
Schoolday experiences, Heine's,
20-22
Scott, Sir Walter, 37, 54, 95
Scribe, Eugène, 195
Sefchen, 25, 27-31, 56
Selden, Camille (La Mouche), 183,
190-2, 194, 196, 197
Sethe, C., letter from Heine to,
40-1, 55
"Shakespeare's
Maids and
Matrons," 149
Shelley, 183
Spandau, the prison fortress of,
Sterne, 25, 37, 106
St. Simonism, 144, 178
"Suabian School, The," 149
T.
Taillendier, Saint-René, 107
'Thalatta," IoI
"Traumbilder," 31, 55
V.
Varnhagens, The, 49, 51, 53, 131,
161, 163
Venus of Milo, Heine's last visit
to, 168
W.
"Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar, Die,"
132
71
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
BY
JOHN P. ANDERSON
(British Museum).
I. WORKS.
II. SINGLE WORKS.
III. SELECTIONS.
IV. MISCELLANEOUS.
V. APPENDIX-
Biography, Criticism, etc.
Songs, etc., set to Music.
Magazine Articles.
VI. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.
Heinrich
I. WORKS.
Heine's Sämmtliche
Philadelphia,
Werke. 6 Bde.
1857-59, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's Sämmtliche
Werke. [Edited by A. Strodt- |
mann.] 21 Bde. Hamburg,
Wien [printed], 1861-66, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's Sämmtliche
Werke. (Neue vermehrte
Ausgabe.) 18 Bde. Hamburg,
Leipzig [printed], 1873-74, 8vo.
Sämmtliche Werke. Neue
Ausgabe. (Biographie von G.
Karpeles.) 12 Bde. Hamburg,
1884, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's Werke. Illus-
trirte Pracht-Ausgabe.
Her-
ausgegeben von H. Laube.
Wien [1884, etc.], 4to.
Heinrich Heine's Sämmtliche
Werke. Bibliothek-Ausgabe.
13 Bde. Hamburg, Leipzig
[printed], 1885, 8vo.
Heinrich
Heine's Sämmtliche
Werke, mit Biographie von J.
Reuper nebst Einleitungen und
dem Porträt des Dichters.
Halle a. S. [1886, etc.], 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's gesammelte
Werke. Herausgegeben von G.
Karpeles. (Biographische Ein-
leitung von C. A. Buchheim.)
Berlin, Leipzig [printed], 1887,
etc., 8vo.
Vermischte Schriften. 3 Bde.
Hamburg, 1854, 8vo.
f
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Poetische Werke.
1857, 8vo.
Hamburg, Buch der Lieder. Hamburg
1827, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's
Sämmtliche
Gedichte. 2 Bde. Amsterdam,
1869, 8vo.
1861, 8vo.
Dichtungen.
Dichtungen. 2 Thle. Amsterdam,
Ausgewählt und
Mit
erläutert von K. Hessel.
einem bisher unbekannten
Bildnis des Dichters, aus dem
Jahre 1828, einer Biographie
desselben und einem Verzeichnis
der Compositionen Heinescher
Lieder. Bonn, 1887, 8vo.
The Poems of Heine complete;
translated in the original metres
[from the German].
sketch of Heine's life.
A. Bowring. London,
8vo.
With a
By E.
1858,
-Another edition. (Bohn's
Standard Library.) London,
1861, 8vo.
II. SINGLE WORKS.
Atta Troll. Ein Sommernachts-
traum. Hamburg, 1847, 8vo.
-Atta Troll and other poems.
Translated into English by
T. S. Egan. London, 1876,
8vo.
Briefe... herausgegeben von F.
Steinmann. 2 Thle. Amster-
dam, 1861, 16mo.
Leipzig,
Briefe von H. Heine an seinen
Freund M. Moser.
1862, 8vo.
Aus dem Nachlass Varnhagen's
von Ense. Briefe von Stäge-
mann, Metternich, Heine und
Bettina von Arnim, etc.
[Edited by L. Assing.] Leipzig,
1865, 8vo.
-H. Heine's Book of Songs
A Translation [from the Ger
man] by J. E. Wallis. London
1856, 8vo.
-Heine's Book of Songs
Translated by C. G. Leland
Philadelphia, 1864, 16mo.
-Third edition. New York
1868, 8vo.
-The Book of Songs. Trans
lated from the German b
Stratheir. London, 1882, 8vo
-Heine's Book of Songs
Compiled from the translation
by Sir Theodore Martin and
E. A. Bowring. New York
1884, 16mo.
A Romance in Song. Heine'
Lyrical Interlude.
by F. Johnson.
Boston [1884], 8vo.
Translated
Illustrated
Der Doktor Faust. Ein Tanz
poem, nebst kuriosen Berichter
über Teufel, Hexen, und Dicht
kunst. Hamburg, 1851, 8vo.
Französische Zustände. Ham
burg, 1833, 12mo.
Gedichte. Berlin, 1822, 8vo.
Letzte Gedichte und Gedanken
Aus dem Nachlasse des Dichters.
Hamburg, 1869, 8vo.
Neue Gedichte. Hamburg, 1844,
8vo.
Heinrich Heine's Memoiren und
neugesammelte Gedichte, Prosa
und Briefe. Mit Einleitung
herausgegeben von E. Engel.
Hamburg, Leipzig [printed
1884, 8vo.
Supplementband to "H. Heine's
Sämmtliche Werke."
The Memoirs of Heinrich
Heine, and some newly-dis-
covered fragments of his writ-
ings. With an introductory
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
iii
essay by T. W. Evans. Lon-
don, 1884, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine's politisches Glau-
bensbekenntniss oder: Epistel
an Deutschland. Geschrieben
und gedruckt, 1832, neu an's
Licht gezogen, 1848. Leipzig
[1-48], 8vo.
H. Heine über L. Börne. Ham-
burg, 1840, 8vo.
-Ludwig Borne: recollections
of a revolutionist. Abridged
and translated by T. S. Egan.
London, 1881, 8vo.
Reisebilder. 4 Thle.
1826-34, 8vo.
Hamburg,
-Heine's Pictures of Travel.
Translated by C. G. Leland.
Fourth edition.
1863, 12mo.
-Fifth edition.
1866, Svo.
Die Harzreise.
1853, 16mo.
Philadelphia,
New York,
Hamburg,
-German Classics, edited with
English notes, etc., by C. A.
Buchheim. Vol. viii. Heine's
Harzreise, etc. (Clarendon
Press Series.) Oxford, 1886,
8vo.
-A Trip to the Brocken.
Translated by R. McLintock.
London, 1881, 8vo.
-Ideas. "Buch Le Grand"
of the Reisebilder of Heinrich
Heine, 1826. London, 1884,
8vo.
Romanzero. Hamburg, 1851, 8vo.
This forms Bd. iii. of Heine's
"Gedichte."
Der Salon. 4 Bde. Hamburg,
1834-40, 8vo.
Shakespeare's
Maedchen und
Frauen, mit Erlaeuterungen von
Heinrich Heine. [With plates.]
Paris [printed], Leipzig, 1839,
4to.
"
Tragödien, nebst einem lyrischen
Intermezzo. Berlin, 1823, 8vo.
Contains the "William Ratcliff,"
"Intermezzo," and "Almansor."
Zur Geschichte der neueren
schönen Literatur in Deutsch-
land, Paris [printed], Leipzig,
1833, 12mo.
Appeared originally in the
Europe Littéraire" in 1833.
Re-
printed under the title of "Romant-
ische Schule," and in French it
forms part iv. of "De l'Allemagne."
-Die Romantische Schule.
Hamburg, 1836, 12mo.
-The Romantic School. Trans-
lated by S. L. Fleishman. New
York, 1882, 8vo.
De l'Allemagne.
Paris, 1835, 8vo.
2 vols.
These vols. form vol. v.-vi. of the
French edition of Heine's works
published in 1834-5.
-Letters auxiliary to the his-
tory of modern polite literature
in Germany. Translated by G.
W. Haven. Boston, 1836, 8vo.
Zur Geschichte der Religion und
Philosophie in Deutschland.
Hamburg, 1835, 8vo.
-Religion and Philosophy in
Germany a fragment. Trans-
lated by John Snodgrass. (Eng-
lish and Foreign Philosophical
Library, vol. 18.) London,
1882, 8vo.
The original of this translation
was first published in the Revue
des Deux Mondes in 1834. In the
French version (1835) of Heine's
works it appears as the first part of
the two volumes "De l'Allemagne."
III. SELECTIONS.
Metrical Translations from the
German of Goethe, Schiller,
Uhland, Heine, and others, by
a German lady. Hamburg,
1852, 8vo.
iv
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Selections from the Poetry of
Heinrich Heine, translated by
J. Ackerlos [pseud, i.e., John
Stores Smith]. London, 1854,
8vo.
Poems. Translated by Julian
Fane. Privately printed.
Vienna, 1854, 8vo.
Poems from the German. By
Richard Garnett. London,
1862, 8vo.
Contains seven poems from Heine.
Leisure Hour Series. Scintilla-
tions from the prose works of
Heinrich Heine. I. Florentine
Nights. II. Excerpts. Trans-
lated from the German by S. A.
Stern. New York, Newburgh
[printed], 1873, 8vo.
Prose Miscellanies from Heinrich
Heine. Translated by S. L.
Fleishman. Philadelphia, 1876,
8vo.
Selections from the poetical
works of Heinrich Heine.
Translated into English. Lon-
don, 1878, 8vo.
Poems and Ballads. Done into
English verse by Theodore
Martin, etc. Edinburgh and
London, 1878, 8vo.
Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos, from
the prose of Heinrich Heine,
with a few pieces from the
"Book of Songs. Selected
and translated by J. Snodgrass.
London, 1879, 8vo.
-Second edition. Paisley,
1888, 8vo.
English Fragments from the Ger-
man of Heinrich Heine. Trans-
lated by S. Norris. Edinburgh,
1880, 8vo.
The City of Dreadful Night, and
other Poems. By James Thom-
son. London, 1880, 8vo.
Translations from Heine, pp. 165-
184.
Poems and Ballads. Translated
by E. Lazarus. To which is
prefixed a biographical sketch
of Heine. New York, 1881,
8vo.
Translations from Heine and other
verses, by Ernest Radford.
Cambridge, 1882, 8vo.
Heine. Selections from the Reise-
bilder and other prose works.
Edited by C. Colbeck. (Mac-
millan's Series of Foreign School
Classics.) London, 1883, 8vo.
German Classics, edited with
English notes, etc., by C. A.
Buchheim. Vol. vii. Heine's
Prosa, being selections from his
prose works. (Clarendon Press
Series.) Oxford, 1884, 8vo.
Representative German Poems,
ballad and lyrical. Original
texts with English versions by
various translators. Edited by
K. Knortz. New York, 1885,
8vo.
Heinrich Heine, pp. 229-257.
Poems and Translations. By
Bessie Craigmyle. Aberdeen,
1886, 16mo.
Contains sixteen translations from
Heine.
The Prose Writings of Heinrich
Heine. Edited, with an intro-
duction, by Havelock Ellis.
(The Camelot Series.) London,
1887, 8vo.
Poems, selected by Kate Freiligrath
Kroeker. (Canterbury Poets.)
London, 1887, 16mo.
Travel Pictures, including the
Tour in the Harz, Norderney,
and Book of Ideas, together
with the Romantic School.
Translated by Francis Storr.
With map and appendices.
(Bohn's Standard Library.)
London, 1887, 8vo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Songs and Lyrics, by H. Heine
and other German poets. Done
into English verse by J. Geikie.
Edinburgh, 1887, 8vo.
IV. MISCELLANEOUS.
Kahldorf über den Adel in Briefen
an den Grafen M. von Moltke.
Herausgegeben von H. Heine.
Nürnberg, 1831, 8vo.
Der sinnreiche Junker Don
[6
Farbendruck nach Original-
Aquarellen von R. B.
plates.] Berlin, 1866, 4to.
Ducros, Louis.-Henri Heine et
son temps, etc. Paris, 1886,
8vo.
Eliot, George.-Essays and Leaves
from a Note-book. London,
1884, 8vo.
German Wit: Heinrich Heine
(from the Westminster Review,
1856), pp. 79-144.
Quixote von La Mancha von M. Gaedcke, Hugo.-Aus Heinrich
Mit
Cervantes de Saavedra.
einer Einleitung von Heinrich
Heine. 2 Bde. Stuttgart,
1837, 8vo.
Sittengemälde aus dem elsäss-
ischen Volksleben. Novellen
von A. Weill. Mit einem Vor-
wort von Heinrich Heine. 2
Bde. Stuttgart, 1847, 8vo.
V. APPENDIX.
BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.
Arnold,
Matthew.-Essays
in
Criticism. Third edition. Lon-
don, 1875, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine, pp. 181-224.
Boden, August.-H. Heine über
L. Börne. Zur Charakteristik
Heine's. Mainz, 1841, 8vo.
Born, Stephan.-Heinrich Heine.
(Oeffentliche Vorträge, Bd. 3.)
Basel, 1875, 8vo.
Heine'sche
Börne, Ludwig.-Ludwig Börne's
Urtheil über H. Heine, etc.
Frankfurt-am-Main, 1840, 8vo.
Braun, Heinrich.
Lieder im Bilde.
von H. Braun. [With the
text.] Berlin [1874], fol.
Buchanan, Robert.-A look round
Silhouetten
Literature. London, 1887, 8vo.
Heine in a court suit, pp. 210-217.
Bussy, Rosa.-Lose Blätter aus
Heine's Buch der Lieder in
Heine's Dichterwerkstatt. Eine
Studie. Hamburg, 1875, 8vo.
Gautier, Théophile.-Portraits et
Souvenirs Littéraires. Paris,
1875, 8vo.
Henri Heine, pp. 105-128.
Gostwick, Joseph.-Gerinan Poets.
A series of memoirs and trans-
lations. London [1875], 4to.
Heine, pp. 245-265.
-German Culture and Chris-
tianity, etc. London, 1882,
8vo.
H. Heine, pp. 360-364.
Gottschall, Rudolf.-Porträts und
Studien. Leipzig, 1870, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine nach neuen Quel-
len, Bd. 1, pp. 185-264.
Hedge, Frederick Henry.-Hours
with German Classics. Boston,
1886, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine, pp. 502-528.
Heinrich.
Co
Heine,
Heinrich
Heine. [Biographical and criti-
cal notice, with selections from
his works.] Cassel, 1853, 16mo.
Forms Bd. 12 of Moderne
Klassiker.
-Joyas Prusianas. Inter-
medio, Regreso y Nueva Prima-
vera, poemas líricos de E. Heine.
Interpretacion española prece-
dida de un estudio biográfico del
poeta por M. M. Fernandez y
G. [onzalez ?] Madrid, 1873,
8vo.
vi
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Heine, Heinrich.-L'Atta Troll, |
tradotto da G. Chiarini, con
prefazione di G. Carducci e note
di K. Hillebrand, Bologna,
1878, 8vo.
-Poemas y fantasias. Traduc-
ción en verso castellano de J.
J. Herrero. Con un prólogo de
D. M. Menéndez y Pelayo.
Madrid, 1883, 8vo.
-II Canzoniere. Traduzione
di B. Zendrini, proceduto dalla
introduzione alla terza edizione
e seguito dal saggio critico,
Heine e suoi interpreti. Quarta
edizione, 2 vols. Milano,
1884, 8vo.
-Poesias de Heine. Libro de
los Cantares. Traduccion en
verso, precedida de un prólogo
por T. Llorente, etc. Barcelona,
1885, 8vo.
-Poesie complete. Traduzione
del Conte G. C. Secco-Suardo,
con cenni biografici. 2 vols.
Torino, 1886, 8vo.
-Il Libro dei Canti, tradotto
da C. Varese, con prefazione di
Paolo Lioy. Firenze, 1886, 8vo.
Heine, Maximilian.-Erinnerung-
en an Heinrich Heine und seine
Familie. Von seinem Bruder
Maximilian Heine. Berlin,
1868, 8vo.
Houghton, Lord.-Monographs,
personal and social. London,
1873, 8vo.
The Last Days of Heinrich Heine,
pp. 293-339.
Hüffer, Hermann.-Aus dem Leben
Heinrich Heine's. Berlin, 1878,
8vo.
Japp, Alexander Hay.-German
Life and Literature, etc. Lon-
don [1880], 8vo.
Numerous references to Heine.
Jeske-Choinski, Teodor.-Henryk
Heine, portret literacki. Kra-
ków, 1885, 8vo.
Karpeles, Gustav. Heinrich
Heine und das Judenthum.
Breslau, 1868, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine.-Biograph-
ische Skizzen. Berlin [1870],
8vo.
Heinrich Heine's Biographie.
Hamburg, 1885, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine und seine
Zeitgenossen. Berlin, 1888,
8vo.
Lewald, August.-Aquarelle aus
dem Leben. Mannheim, 1836,
8vo.
Magnus, Lady.-Jewish Portraits.
Heine, Th. ii., pp. 89-139.
London, 1888, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine, pp. 45-81; ap-
peared originally in Macmillan's
Magazine for 1883.
Martini, Felice.-Heine e Zen-
drini, ghiribizzo
critico.
Heinrich
Ham-
Milano, 1879, & vo
Meissner, Alfred.
Heine. Erinnerungen.
burg, 1856, 8vo.
Meyr, Melchior. Ueber die
poetischen Richtungen unserer
Zeit. Erlangen, 1838, 8vo.
Ueber des Buch der Lieder, pp.
51-58.
Mirecourt, E. de [i.e., C. J.
Jacquot].-Les Contemporains.
Pt. 70. Henri Heine. Paris,
1856, 12mo.
-Histoire Contemporaine.
Henri Heine. No. 120. Paris,
1871, 12mo.
Proelss, Robert.-Heinrich Heine.
Seine Lebensgang und seine
Schriften, etc. Stuttgart,
1886, 8vo.
Robert-Tornow, Walter.-Goethe
in Heine's Werken,
Berlin, 1883, 8vo.
etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
vii
Rocca, Maria della, Princess.
Ricordi della vita intima di
Enrico Heine. Firenze, 1880,
8vo.
-Souvenirs de la vie intime de
Henri Heine, recueillis par sa
nièce Princesse Della-Rocca
née Embden-Heine. Paris,
1881, 8vo.
-Errico Heine.
note e rettifiche, etc.
1882, 8vo.
Ricordi,
Roma,
-Skizzen über Heinrich Heine,
etc. Wien, 1882, 8vo.
Saint-Réné Taillandier.
Taillandier. — Ecri-
vains et Poëtes Modernes.
Paris, 1861, 8vo.
Henri Héine, pp. 89-153.
Histoire de la Jeune Alle-
magne. Paris, 1848, 8vo.
Henri Heine, pp. 90-133, 388-393.
Schanz, Giulio. Enrico Heine in
Italia, coll'aggiunta di alcuni
documenti letterari, etc.
Dresden, 1868, 8vo.
Schärt, Hermann. Heinrich
Heine und sein Vaterland.
Czernowitz [1879], 8vo.
Scheible, J.-Heinrich Heine, der
Unsterbliche. Eine Mahnung
aus dem Jenseits, etc. (Kleiner
Wunder-Schauplatz, Th. 12.)
Stuttgart, 1857, 16mo.
Schiff, Hermann.
Heinrich
Heine und der Neuisraelitismus.
Hamburg, 1866, 8vo.
Schmidt, Julian.-Bilder aus dem
Geistigen Leben unserer Zeit.
2 Bd. Leipzig, 1870-71, 8vo.
Heinrich Heine, Bd. 2, pp. 283-350.
Schmidt-Weissenfels, E.-Ueber
Heinrich Heine, etc. Berlin,
1857, 8vo.
Schwenk, Konrad.-Literiarsche
Charakteristiken und Kritiken.
Frankfurt am Main, 1847, 8vo.
H. Heine's Buch der Lieder, pp.
341-349.
Camille.-Les
Selden, Camille.-Les
jours de Henri Heine.
1884, 8vo.
derniers
Paris,
The last days of Heinrich
Heine. Translated by Clare
Brune. London, 1884, 8vo.
Sintenis, F.-H. Heine. Ein
Vortrag. Dorpat, 1877, 8vo.
Steinmann, Friedrich.-H. Heine.
Denkwürdigkeiten und Erleb-
nisse aus meinem Zusammen-
leben mit ihm. Prag, 1857, 8vo.
Der Froschmäusekrieg wider
H. Heine's Dichtungen. Am-
sterdam, 1861, 8vo.
Stephani, Max. Jos. - Heinrich
Heine und ein Blick auf unsre
Zeit. Halle, 1834, 8vo.
Stigand, William. The Life,
Work, and Opinions of Heinrich
Heine. 2 vols. London, 1875,
8vo.
Strodtmann, Adolf. Heinrich
Heine's Wirken und Streben,
etc. Hamburg, 1857, 8vo.
-H. Heine's Leben und Werke.
2 Bde. Berlin, 1867-69, 8vo.
-Zweite Auflage. 2 Bde. Ber-
lin, 1873-4, 8vo.
Weill, Alexandre.-Souvenirs in-
times de Henri Heine. Paris,
1883, 8vo.
Weiss, John.-Life and Corres-
pondence of Theodore Parker.
2 vols. London, 1863, 8vo.
Vol. ii. contains translations from
Heine.
Z, X, Y.
Die Recensenten-
oder
oberflächliche
Hölle
Kritik und Heine'sche Tiefe.
Rendsburg, 1856, 8vo.
Zett, Alfred von. Im Karste.
Nach H. Heine's " Harzreise.'
Pola, 1881, 8vo.
Zianitzka, K. Th.
Heinrich
Ein
Heine der Liederdichter.
romantisches Lebensbild. 6
Th. Leipzig, 1864, 16mo.
15
viii
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
SONGS, ETC, SET TO MUSIC.
Three Songs from H. Heine's
Reisebilder. [British Vocal
Album, No. 26-28.] By Sir G.
A. Macfarren, 1845, etc.
Sechs Lieder von Heine. By M.
Wielhorski, 1852.
Six Songs from the German of
Heine. By A. L. Eigher, 1860.
Twelve Lieder von H. Heine.
By H. Hertz, 1867.
Sechs Lieder von H. Heine. By
R. Franz, 1867.
H.
Zwei Balladen von H. Heine.
By M. Weyermann, 1869.
Liebestraum. Ein Cyclus von
sechs Gesangen. By A.
Klughardt, 1870.
Almansor. Fragment aus
Heine's gleichnamiger Tragödie.
Concert-Arie für Bariton mit
Orchester. Begleitung. By C.
Reineke, 1874.
Sechs Gesänge. [Nos. 1, 3, and 5
written by Heine.] By S. War-
teresiewicz, 1874.
Sechs Lieder. [Nos. 1-3 written by
·
Heine.] By A. Urspruch, 1875.
Six Songs of Heine. By C. V.
Stanford, 1876 and 1878.
Liebeslieder (nach Texten von
Heine). By A. Urspruch, 1876.
Three Lyrics from Heine's Book of
Songs. By M. G. Carmichael,
1876 and 1878.
Gesänge. Zwölf Dichtungen von
Heine. By P. Geisler, 1876.
Sechs Lieder. (Gedichte by H.
(Gedichte by H. |
Heine.) By L. Gruenberger, 1877.
Gesänge. Zehn Dichtungen von
Heine. By P. Geisler, 1877.
Sechs Lieder, etc. [Nos. 1-3
written by Heine.] By M.
Roeder, 1878.
Lieder, etc.
Heft 1.
By A.
Fuchs [Nos. 1-4, 6 written by
Heine], 1878.
Zwei Lieder von H. Heine. By
M. V. White, 1878 and 1882.
Blumen von H. Heine.
Vanderstucken, 1879.
Sechs Gesänge. Op. 28.
By F.
[Nos. 4,
6 written by Heine.] By G.
Hasse, 1879.
Vier Lieder, etc. [Nos. 1, 2 written
by Heine.] By A. von Sigmond,
1880.
[Nos. 1, 2
By. R.
Sechs Lieder. Op. 60. [Nos. 3,
6 written by Heine.] By F.
Siebmann, 1880.
Sechs Lieder, etc.
written by Heine.]
Philip, 1880.
Sechs Lieder. Op. 20.
4, 5 written by Heine.]
Hartmann, 1880.
Romanze, etc. [Nos. 1, 2, 5-8
written by Heine.] By B.
Junck, 1880.
[Nos. 2,
By L.
Drei Lieder. [Nos. 2, 3 written by
Heine.] By H. Schaeffer, 1881.
Three Songs. [Nos. 1, 2 written by
Heine.] By U. K. Hartree, 1881.
Sechs Lieder. Op. 85. [Nos. 1,
2 written by Heine.] By J.
Brahms, 1882.
Fünf Lieder.
Op. 7. [Nos. 3,
4 written by Heine.] By A.
Becker, 1882.
Trois Lieder sur des poésies de H.
Heine. By G. de Kervéguen,
1882.
Sechs Liebeslieder von Heine.
By A. Hervey, 1883.
Drei Lieder für drei Frauenstim-
men. Op. 32. [Nos. 1, 2
written by Heine.]
By A.
Klughardt, 1884.
Ratcliff. Gesangescene. By. A.
Fuchs, 1884.
Ah! sure if the little flowers."
(From the German of H. Heine.)
1876.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
ix
"Alla mia dormente." By B.
Junck, 1884.
"All in the lovely month of
May." By A. Foote, 1874.
"Allnächtlich im Traume seh 'ich
dich." By S. Warteresiewicz.
(Sechs Gesänge, Op. 6, No. 1),
1886.
"Am
einsamen Strande da
plätschert die Fluth." Die
Nixen. By F. W. Kuecken,
1876.
"Am fernen Horizonte." By W.
Claussen (Fünf Lieder, Op. 3,
No. 4), 1875 ?
"Am Fenster stand die Mutter."
By O. Ludolffs, 1873.
"Am Kreuzweg ward begraben."
By B. Hopffer (Zwölf Lieder
Op. 9, No. 4), 1870; E. Meyer-
Helmund (Vier Lieder, Op. 11,
No. 2), 1885.
"Am
Leuchtende Sommer-
morgen. By F. Siebmann (6
Lieder, Op. 47, No. 3), 1864.
"An die blaue Himmelsdecke.
By F. Gumbert; L. Hartmann
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 22, No. 2),
1882. E. Rudersdorff, 1860.
"An die bretterne Schiffswand."
By H. Reimann (Vier Lieder,
Op. 4, No. 2), 1881.
"Andre beten zur Madonne."
By L. E. Bach, 1884.
Anfangs wollt' ich fast ver-
zagen. By R. Schumann
(Mélodies, No. 8), 1867.
"Auf die schlafende Zuleima."
By R. Kruckow (Drei Lieder,
No. 1), 1874.
"Aus alten Mährchen." By T.
Seifart, 1858.
"
"Aus meiden Thränen spriessen.
By R. F. Ellicott, 1881; R.
Schumann (Dichterliebe, No. 2),
1861.
ཟ
Fleeting
"The baby wept."
Sorrow. By E. J. Danvers,
1876.
"La belle étoile tombe." By J.
Merkens, 1886.
<<
Berg' und Burgen
Burgen schau'n
herunter. By R. Schumann
(Mélodies, No. 7), 1867.
"Die blauen Fruhlingsaugen."
By R. F. Ellicott, 1881; J.
Pauls (Lieder, Op. 12, No. 6),
1886; F. Ries (Vier Lieder,
Op. 25, No. 3), 1876; A.
Rubinstein (Songs and Duets,
No. 8), 1869; A. Rubinstein,
1878; 0. Tiehsen (Sieben
Gedichte, Op. 6, No. 3), 1860? ;
R. Wiierst (Vier Zweistimmige
Lieder, No. 2), 1874.
"Buch der Lieder." By R.
Schumann (Dichterliebe), 1861.
"Das ist ein Brausen und
Heulen." By C. Krill (Fünf
Lieder, No. 2), 1874.
""
"Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen.
By L. Ehlert (Fünf Lieder, No.
4), 1860 ?
'Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter."
By P. Viardot-Garcia, 1870.
"Dass du mich liebst das wusst'
ich." By L. Heidingsfeld (Zwei
Lieder, Op. 10, No. 1), 1879;
A. Horn, 1874; O. Tiefen-
bach, 1884.
"Deh !
non giurare e bacia
solamente." By H. M. Costa,
1881.
"Dein Angesicht so lieb und
schön." By E. Degele (Drei
Gesänge, Op. 12, No. 2), 1873;
G. Hasse (Sechs Gesänge, Op.
27, No. 4), 1877; C. Ritter
(Zwölf Lieder, Op. 4, No. 8),
1857.
"Du bist gestorben und weisst
es nicht." By A. Horn, 1875.
X
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
"Du bist wie eine Blume." By
A. Amadei (Sechs Gesänge, Op.
9, No. 4), 1885; A. Bungert
Junge Lieder, Op. 3, No. 2),
1872; M. Halbmayr (Zwei
(Lieder, No. 2), 1880; G.
Henschel (Vier Lieder, Op. 37,
No. 3), 1885; H. Reimann
(Vier Lieder, No. 4), 1881 ; A.
Rubinstein (Songs and Duets,
No. 3), 1869; A. Rubinstein,
1876 and 1881; G. Sgambati
(Canti, No. 3),1885; C. Voss,
1852; E. von Waldeck, 1881
F. Warnhe (Drei Lieder, Op.
22), 1884; H. Wichmann (Sechs
Lieder, Op. 3, No. 3), 1845 ?
A. Winterberger (12 Gesänge,
Op. 12, No. 2), 1865.
"Du hast Diamanten und Perlen."
By G. Hoelzel, 1853.
"Du liebst mich nicht." By E.
A. Macdowell (Drei Lieder, Op.
11, No. 2), 1885; T. Nehfeld
(Drei Lieder, Op. 18, No. 2),
1885.
;
"Du schönes Fischermädchen.”
By C. Eckert, 1852; W. Fink
(Vier Lieder, Op. 4, No. 4),
1865; G. Hasse (Vier Gesänge,
Op. 9, No. 4), 1874; G. Meyer-
beer, 1848; W. S. Rockstro
(Lyra Anglo-Germanica, No.
14), 1853; F. Schubert, 1850.
"Thou beauteous fishermaiden."
By B. Tours, 1868.
"Entflich mit mir und sei mein
Weib." By H. Ehrlich, 1880
C. V. Stanford, 1882.
"Es fällt ein Stern herunter."
By W. Claussen (Fünf Lieder,
Op. 3, No. 5), 1875?
Klughardt (Vier Lieder, Op. 41,
No. 2), 1884.
A.
"Es fasst mich wieder der alte
""
Muth. By M. J. Beer (Sechs
Lieder, No. 3), 1876.
"Es hat die warme Fruhlings-
nacht.' By J. Weiss
(Vier Lieder, Op. 3, No. 1),
1885.
"Es schauen die Blumen." By
J. Brahms (Vier Lieder, Op.
96, No. 3), 1886; H. Krigar
(Sechs Lieder, No. 6), 1873.
"Es treibt dich fort von Ort zu
Ort." By O. De La Cinna,
1859; R. Schumann, (Mélodies,
No. 2), 1867; J. Weiss (Vier
Lieder, Op. 3, No. 2), 1885.
"Es war als hätt' der Himmel."
By W. Sturm (Vier Gesänge,
Op. 16, No. 2), 1876.
"Es war ein alter König." By
F. P. Frontini, 1883; A.
Heitsch (Sechs Lieder, Op. 5,
No. 5), 1884; G. Henschel
(Vier Lieder, Op. 37, No. 1),
1885; A. Hoffmann (Zehn
Gesänge, Op. 5, No. 4), 1884;
F. W. Kuecken (Duette, Op.
105, No. 1), 1877; A Lucae
(Vier Lieder, No. 2), 1882;
E. Meyer Helmund (Vier
Lieder, Op. 3, No. 2), 1886; F.
Ries (Vier Lieder, Op. 25, No.
1), 1876; M. Zenger (Fünf
Lieder, No. 2), 1877.
"Es war einmal ein König." By
B. Ramann (Drei Lieder, Op.
23, No. 1), 1872.
J
"Ferne flammenhelle Sterne."
By C. G. Reissiger (Ernste
Lieder, Op. 96, No. 1), 1850?
"Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam."
By K. Heubner (Fünf Lieder,
Op. 4, No. 4), 1885; F. Hiller
(10 Gesänge, Op. 90, No. 9),
1863; A. Jensen (Drei Zweistim-
mige Lieder, No. 2), 1883; C.
Ritter (Zwölf Lieder, Op. 4, No.
11), 1857; H. Roesel (Drei
Duette, Op. 25, No. 2), 1884;
A. Rubinstein, 1886; F. Von
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
xi
Woyrsch (4 Lieder, Op. 2, No.
1), 1884.
Schumann (Dichterliebe, No. 7),
1861.
"Fioriva il tiglio." By P."Ich hab dich geliebt." By E.
Guarini, 1880.
"Frühlingsmythus." By F. Von
Holstein, 1880.
"Gekommen ist der Maie." By
R. Schwahn (Drei Lieder, Op.
3, No. 2), 1874; O. Tiehsen
(Sieben Gedichte, Op. 6, No. 2),
1860 ?
"Das gelbe Laub erzittert." By
O. De La Cinna, 1859; V. E.
Nessler (Vier Lieder, Op. 23,
No. 3), 1870.
"Già il sol dal monte." By E.
Aromatari, 1883.
"Der Herbstwind rüttelt die
Bäume." By Mendelssohn
(Three German Songs, Op. 34,
No. 3), 1845.
"Herr Peter und Bender sassen
beim Wein." By R. Emmerich,
1873.
"Herzens Stimmen." - Trans-
lated from the German of
Heine. By A. Hervey, 1884.
"Herz, mein Herz, sei nicht
beklommen."
By W. Claussen
(Fünf Lieder, Op. 3, No. 3),
1875? B. Hopffer (Zwölf Lieder,
Op. 6, No. 3), 1870.
"Ho pianto tanto in sogno." By
A. Rotoli, 1882.
"Hör' ich das Liedchen
er-
klingen." By M. Ernemann
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 13, No. 1),
1850 ? C. Fink (Fünf Lieder,
Op. 3, No. 5), 1857; J. Kiel
(Liederkreis, No. 8), 1874.
"Ja du bist elend und ich grolle
nicht." By H. Erler, 1872.
"Ich geh! nicht allein, mein
feines Lieb." By J. Schaeffer
(Funf Lieder, No. 1), 1874.
"Ich grolle nicht." By R.
Rentsch (2 Lieder, No. 2),
1878.
"Ich hab' im Traum geweinet.
By F. d'Alquen, 1877; St. C.
Baddeley (Sechs Lieder, No. 6),
1883; E. Lassen (Sechs Lieder,
Op. 48, No. 2), 1873; W.
Schulthes, 1856; R. Schumann
(Dichterliebe, No. 13), 1861.
"Ich halte ihr die Augen Zu."
By F. W. Kuecken, 1850.
"Ich hatte einst ein schönes
Vaterland." By E. Hermes
(Vier Mannerquartette, No. 1),
1881.
"Ich hatte einst schones Traum."
By F. Gumbert (Drei Lieder).
"Ich lieb' eine Blume." By A.
Levinsohn (Drei Lieder, Op. 2,
No. 2), 1886.
"Ich stand gelehnet an den
Mast."
By R. Franz (Sechs
Gesänge, Op. 48, No. 3), 1878;
H. Hartung (Sechs Lieder, No.
3), 1877.
"Ich stand in dunklen Träumen.
""
By G. Jensen (Drei Lieder, Op.
21, No. 3), 1885; M. M.
Lindner, 1878.
"Ich wandelte unter den Bäum-
en." By R. Schumann (Mélodies,
No. 3), 1867.
"Ich weiss nicht, was soll es
bedeuten." By C. L. Fischer.
1885; J. Mathieux (Sechs
Lieder, No. 4), 1840? F.
Silcher, 1858.
«Ich will meine Seele tauchen.'
By G. Hasse (Acht Lieder, Op.
26, No. 7), 1877; A. Kleffel
(Lenz und Liebe, No. 5), 1869;
C. Ritter (Zwölf Lieder, Op. 4,
No. 7), 1857; M. Roeder (Zwei
xii
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Lieder, No. 2), 1884; R. "Ein Jüngling liebt ein
Schumann (Dichterliebe, No. 5),
1861.
""
"Ich wollt meine Schmerzen
ergössen. By A. Fesca (Six
German Songs, Op. 32, No. 5),
1850.
"Im Mondenglanze ruht das
Meer." By S. Ochs (Drei
Gedichte, Op. 7, No. 2), 1885.
"Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome."
By R. Schumann (Dichterliebe,
No. 6), 1861.
Mädchen. By C. Grossmann
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 1, No. 6),
1870.
Kind, es wäre dein Verderben."
By G. Henschel Vier Lieder,
Op. 37, No. 4), 1885.
"Das Leben ist der schwüle
Tag." By L, Heidingsfeld Zwei
Lieder, Op. 4, No. 1), 1878.
"Lehn' deine Wang." By A.
Bungeêrt, 1884; E. Sjögren (An
Eine, Op. 16, No. 5), 1886.
"Leise zieht durch mein
By M. Ernemann
"Im Schloss zu Düsseldorf am
Rhein."
1875.
Gemuth."
By C. Reinecke,
"Im Walde wandl' ich.
By E.
W. B., 1867; L. E. Bach,
1884.
"'Im
wunderschönen Monat
Mai." By F. W. Kuechen,
1851; R. Schumann (Dichter-
liebe, No. 1), 1861; H. G.
Richter (Fünf Lieder, No. 3),
1875.
"In deinen Augen hab' ich's
gelesen." By A. Klughardt
(Drei Lieder, Op. 39, No. 2),
1883.
""
"In dem Mondenschein im
Walde. By Mendelssohn
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 19, No. 4),
1849.
"In dem Traum siehst du."
By
R. Franz (Sechs Gesänge, Op.
41, No. 2), 1867.
"In dem Walde spriesst und
""
grünt es. By A. Levinsohn
(Drei Lieder, Op. 2, No. 3),
1886.
"In meiner Erinn'rung blühen
Bilder." By C. Ritter (Zwölf
Lieder, Op. 4, No. 1), 1857.
"In mein gar zu dunkles Leben."
By F. von Kerstorf (12 Deutsche
Lieder, No. 9), 1874.
(Vier Lieder, Op. 26, No. 1),
1875?; R. Franz (Sechs Gesänge,
Op. 41, No. 1), 1867; N. W.
Gade (Eight duettinos, Op. 9,
No. 1), 1849; F. J. van der
Heijden (Fünf Lieder, No. 4),
1883; C. Isenmann (Fünf
Mannerchöre, Op. 66, No. 4),
1884; T. H. MacDermott,
1880; Mendelssohn (Sechs
(Lieder, Op. 19, No. 3), 1849;
F. Reichel (Fünf Gesänge, No.
4), 1873; H. Von Sahr (Acht
Gesänge, No. 4), 1877; F.
Siebmann (Sechs Zweistimmige
Lieder, Op. 54, No. 1), 1872;
W. Sturm (Sechs Lieder, Op. 19,
No. 3), 1877.
""
"Lieb' Liebchen leg's Händchen
auf's Herze mein.' By J.
Gauby (Zwei Lieder, Op. 14,
No. 2), 1882; F. Ries (Sechs
Lieder, Op. 8, No. 4), 1869.
"Lieb' Liebchen, lieb' Liebchen."
By C. A. F. Eckert (Sechs
Lieder, Op. 28, No. 5), 1872;
R. Schumann (Mélodies, No.
4), 1867.
"Die Lotosblume ängstigt sich."
By R. Schumann, 1865; F.
von Woyrsch (4 Lieder, Op. 2,
No. 2), 1884.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
xiii
rothen
"Mädchen mit dem
Mündchen." By F. Kuelz
(Drei Lieder, Op. 43, No. 3),
1884; O. Ludolfs, 1885; E.
Meyer-Helmund (Drei Lieder,
Op. 25, No. 2), 1886; F. Ries
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 6, No. 1),
1869; F. Ries (16 Mélodies,
No. 1), 1869; M. Zenger (6
Lieder, No. 3), 1864.
"Maiden mine [Mädchen mit
dem rothen Mündchen].
Sir W. E. Bennett,
H. A. Harding, 1877.
rr Mag da draussen Schnee sich
thürmen." By W. S. Rockstro
(Lyra Anglo-Germanica, No.
1la.), 1853.
""
By
1875;
"Maggio è tornato." By B.
Junck, 1884.
"Maria, Maria ich liebe dich."
By F. von Suppé, 1884.
"Das Meer erglanzte weit hinaus."
By F. Schubert, 1857.
"Das Meer hat seine Perlen."
By M. W. Balfe, 1862; C. E.
Pinsuti, 1865; 0. Tiehsen,
1846; M. V. White, 1880.
"Mein Knecht steh' auf und
sattle schnell." By E. Meyer-
Helmund (Drei Lieder, Óp. 29,
No. 1), 1886; M. Stange (Drei
Gesänge, No. 1), 1881.
"Mein Liebchen, wir
beisammen.' By J. Brahms
(Vier Lieder, Op. 96, No. 4),
1886; L. Franz (Drei Lieder,
No. 3), 1885; E. Lassen (Sechs
Lieder, Op. 48, No. 1), 1873;
Edward MacDowell (Drei Lieder,
Op. 11, No. 1), 1885; F.
Siebmann (6 Lieder, Op. 47,
No. 4), 1864.
sassen
"Mein süsses Lieb, wenn du im
Grab." By M. Renner (Vier
Gesänge, No. 3), 1883.
"Mir träumte von einem
Königskind." By A. Deprosse
(Sechs Lieder, Op. 33, No. 5),
1875; A. Kleffel (Sechs Gesänge,
No. 5), 1873.
"Mit deinen blauen Augen." By
C. Ritter (Zwölf Lieder, Op. 4,
No. 5), 1857.
"Mit Myrten und Rosen." By
R. Schumann (Mélodies, No. 9),
1867.
"Mit schwarzen
Segeln segelt
mein Schiff." By M. J. Beer
Sturm und Stille, No. 3), 1877 ;
A. Rotoli, 1885.
"Der Mond ist aufgegangen."
By E. Naumann (6 Lieder, Op.
29, No. 5), 1866; F. Siebmann
(6 Lieder, Op. 47, No. 2), 1864.
Morgens steh ich auf." By R.
Schumann (Mélodies, No. 1),
1867.
"Mutter zum Bienelein." By R.
Franz (Sechs Gesänge, Op. 41,
No. 5), 1867; M. Zenger (Fünf
Duette, No. 3), 1877.
"Nacht liegt auf den fremden
Wegen. By W. A. Aiken, 1880;
A. J. Becher (Acht Gedichte, No.
3), 1840? W. Claussen (Fünf
Lieder, Op. 3, No. 2), 1875; H.
Krigar, (Sechs Lieder, No. 2),
1873.
"Die Nachtigall sie sang so süss.”
By F. von Suppé, 1884.
"Nel mio giardin s'asconde umil."
By A. Tessarin, 1876.
"Nun leg' dein liebes Kopfchen."
By C. Riccius (Vier Lieder, Op.
20, No. 2), 1884.
via
"L'onda scintilla e corre
Giuliva." By A. Vanbianchi,
1886.
"Oben wo die Sterne glühn."
By Edward Macdowell (Drei
Lieder, Op. 11, No. 3), 1885.
xiv
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
"Ein Reiter durch das Bergthal
zieht." By A. Winterburger,
1875.
66
"Die Rose, die Lilie." By R.
Schumann (Dichterliebe, No. 3),
1861; M. Zenger (Sechs Chor-
gesänge, Op. 24, No. 5), 1877.
Sag'mir, wer einst die Uhren er-
fund." By P. Umlauff (Fünf
Lieder, Op. 26, No. 5), 1886.
"Die schlanke Wasserlilie." By
R. Franz (Zehn Gesänge, Op. 51,
No. 7), 1879; F. von Woyrsch
(4 Lieder, Op. 2, No. 3), 1884.
"Die schönen Augen der Früh-
lingsnacht." By R. Franz
(Zehn Lieder, Op. 51, No. 5),
1879.
"Ein schöner Stern geht auf in
meiner Nacht." By F. von
Holstein (Sechs Lieder, Op. 42,
No. 5), 1880.
"Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden."
By J. P. Goldberg, 1873; R.
Schumann (Mélodies, No. 5),
1867.
""
"Schon wieder bin ich fort-
gerissen. By H. Hofmann
(Liedercyclus, Op. 27, No. 3),
1875.
"Der See hat seine Perlen." By
R. Franz, 1863.
"The sea hath its pearls; poetry
by H. W. Longfellow (from H.
Heine). By L. Caracciolo, 1885.
"Sie haben mich gequälet." By
E. A. G. Bell, 1861.
"Sie liebten sich beide." By C.
Grossmann (Sechs Lieder, Op. 1,
No. 2), 1870.
"Sterne mit den goldnen Füss-
chen." By G. Hasse (Vier
Gesänge, Op. 13, No. 2), 1874;
A. Reichardt, 1861.
"Ein Stern ging auf vor meinem
trüben Blick. By C. Davidoff
(Lieder, Op. 25, No. 4), 1883.
"Still ist die Nacht." By J. H.
Franz (Drei Lieder, Op. 17, No.
1), 1869.
"Still versteckt der Mond sich
draussen." By F. Draeseke,
<<
1882.
"Täglich ging die wunderschöne.”
By R. Emmerich (Sechs Gesänge,
Op. 41, No. 1), 1874; A. Ruben-
stein, 1880.
"Der Tod, das ist die kühle
Nacht." By A. Amadei (Fünf
Gesänge, Op. 8, No. 3), 1885; J.
Brahms (Vier Lieder, Op. 96,
No. 1), 1886; G. Hasse (Sechs
Gesänge. Op. 32, No. 1), 1881;
F. Lew (Drei Lieder, No. 2),
1885; C. J. Schmidt (Drei Nacht-
stücke, No. 3), 1879.
(C
To-night she will dance." By
A. W. Batson, 1876.
""
Tragodie F. Hiller (Drei
Lieder), 1874.
"Über die Berge steigt schon die
Sonne." By G. Hasse (Vier
Gesänge, Op. 13, No. 3), 1874.
"Un di t'abbandona.'
By A.
Vanbianchi, 1886.
"Und wüssten's die Blumen." By
C. Kammerlander (4 Lieder,
No. 4), 1865; M. Moszkowski
(Drei Lieder, Op. 13, No. 2),
1877; A. Reichardt, 1859; M.
Roeder (Fünf Gesänge, Op. 3,
No. 3), 1873; R. Schumann
(Dichterliebe, No. 8), 1861; M.
Zenger (6 Lieder, No. 2), 1864.
Vaghe stelle del ciel." By G.
Ruta, 1884.
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder."
By F. Mannstaedt (2 Lieder,
No. 1), 1871; V. E. Nessler
(Vier Lieder, Op. 23, No. 2,)
1870.
"Verrieth_mein_blasses Ange-
sicht." By H. Hofmann (Fünf
Lieder, Op. 26, No. 3), 1875.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
XV
""
"Vor dem Dome steh'n zwei
Männer." By F. Draeseke, 1882.
"Warte, warte, wilder Schiff-
mann. By R. Schumann
(Mélodies, No. 6), 1867.
"Warum sind denn die Rosen so
blass."
By A. P. Lighthill,
1864; C. A. Ranken, 1881.
" Was will die einsame Thräne."
By H. Bellermann, 1877; C. G.
Reissiger (Ernste Lieder, Op.
96, No. 8), 1850; J. Roch,
1877; O. Wangemann (Fünf
Lieder, Op. 30, No. 5), 1884.
"Die Wellen blinken und fliessen
dahin." By J. Brahms (Lieder,
etc., Op. 71, No. 1), 1876, etc. ;
F. von Gumbert, 1855.
"Wenn du gute Augen hast."
By C. Ritter (Zwölf Lieder,
Op. 4, No. 6), 1857.
"Wenn ich auf dem Lager liege."
By A. Bungert (Junge Lieder,
Op. 2, No. 3), 1872; W.
Claussen (Fünf Lieder, Op. 3,
No. 1), 1875; R. Kruckow
(Drei Lieder, No. 2), 1874;
Mendelssohn, 1851; F. Reichel
(Vier Terzetten, Op. 6, No. 3),
1874; M. Zenger, (6 Lieder,
No. 4), 1864.
"Wenn ich in deine Augen seh !"
By F. Nehfeld (Drei Lieder,
Op. 18, No. 1), 1885; R.
Schumann (Dichterliebe, No.
4), 1861.
" Wenn
zwei von einander
scheiden. By R. Franz (Sechs
Gesänge, Op. 48, No. 1), 1878;
G. Henschel (Vier Lieder, Op.
37, No. 2), 1885.
"We sat by the fisher's dwelling."
[Wir sassen am Fischerhause.]
By W. Bell, 1877 and 1879.
"Wie des Mondes Abbild zittert.”
By S. Ochs, 1883; H. Petri
(Lieder, Op. 6, No. 4), 1884.
"Wir wollen jetzt Frieden
machen." By S. Ochs, 1883.
"Wohl durch der Wälder einödige
Pracht." By H. Krigar (Sechs
Lieder, No. 3), 1873.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES.
Heine, Heinrich.
Heine, Heinrich. Revue Univer-
selle, by E. Quinet, tom 6,
1834, pp. 219-229.-Revue des
Deux Mondes, by E. Quinet,
February 1834, pp. 353-369.-
Fraser's Magazine, vol. 26, 1842,
pp. 733-736; vol. 74, 1866, pp.
588-607. Revue des
des Deux
Mondes, by D. Stern, 1 Dec.
1844, pp. 844-862.-Revue des
Deux Mondes, by Saint-Réné
Taillandier, Jan. 1845, pp. 297-
332.-North American Review,
by W. H. Hurlbut, vol. 69,
1849, pp. 216-249.-Sharpe's
London Magazine, vol. 1, N.S.,
1852, pp. 291-298, 362-369.
Revue des Deux Mondes, by
Saint-Réné Taillandier (with
portrait after C. Gleyre),
April 1852, pp. 5-36.-Revue
Contemporaine, by L. Ratis-
bonne, tom 19, 1855, pp. 643-
669.-Putnam's Monthly Maga-
zine, vol. 6, 1855, pp. 475-481
Dublin University Magazine,
vol. 54, 1859, pp. 590-598.-
Cornhill Magazine, vol. 7, 1863,
pp. 247-251; same article,
Littell's Living Age, vol. 79,
pp. 51-62.-Cornhill Magazine,
by Matthew Arnold, vol. 8,
1863, pp. 233-249.-Fortnightly
Review, by J. D. Lester, vol.
6, N.S., 1869, pp. 287-303;
same article, Littell's Living
Age, vol. 103, pp. 180-190.-
Glasgow University Album,
1869, pp. 78-95.-Every Satur-
xvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Heine, Heinrich.
day, vol. 8, 1869, p. 417, etc.
-Englishwoman's Domestic
Magazine, vol. 11 N.S., 1871,
pp. 17-21, 83-87.-Lippincott's
Magazine, by Kate Hillard,
vol. 10, 1872, pp. 187-194
same article, Victoria Magazine,
vol. 22, 1873, pp. 501-515.
Theological Review, by C.
Beard, vol. 13, 1876, pp. 174-
201.-Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine, vol. 122, 1877, pp.
74-90.-Appleton's Journal of
Literature, by J. H. Browne,
vol. 2 N.S., 1877, pp. 23-31.
-Western, by J. K. Hosmer,
vol. 4, 1878, p. 667, etc.-
Contemporary Review, by
Charles Grant, vol. 38, 1880,
pp. 372-395.- Lippincott's
Magazine, by A. Parker, vol.
26, 1880, pp. 604-612.-British
Quarterly Review, by A. H.
Japp, vol. 74, 1881, pp. 265-
298.-Macmillan's Magazine,
by Lady Magnus, vol. 47, 1883,
pp. 59-66; afterwards reprinted
in Jewish Portraits, 1888.
Revue des Deux Mondes, by
Emile Montégut, tom. 63,
1884, pp. 241-277. West-
minster Review, April 1888,
pp. 426-441.
-And his Interpreters. Nuova
Antologia, by B. Zendrini, vol.
27, 1874, pp. 793-821; vol. 28,
pp. 5-26.
-And his Works. National
Quarterly Review, vol. 13, 1866,
p. 56, etc.
Atta Troll. Revue des Deux
Mondes, by Saint-Réné Taillan-
dier, 1 Nov. 1843, pp. 462-465.
-Deutschland. Nuova Anto-
logia, by G. Chiarini, vol. 20,
1880, pp. 401-428.
Heine, Heinrich.
Grave of. Every Saturday,
vol. 16, 1873, p. 128, etc.
—Last Days of. New Monthly
Magazine, vol. 117, 1859, pp.
363-370.-Southern Magazine,
by J. A. Harrison, vol. 15,
1874, p. 246.
-Last Poems and Thoughts.
Fortnightly Review, by the Hon.
R. Lytton, vol. 7 N.S., 1870, pp.
257-277.
-Last Years of. Putnam's
Monthly Magazine,
vol. 8,
1856, pp. 517-526.
-Life and Works of. Temple
Bar, by E. B. Shuldham, vol.
29, 1870, pp. 210-227.-Fraser's
Magazine, by H. G. Hewlett,
vol. 14 N.S., 1876, pp. 600-
623.-London Quarterly Review,
vol. 58, 1882, pp. 411-438.
Lytton on. Every Saturday,
vol. 9, 1870, pp. 211, etc.
-Memoirs. Nuova Antologia,
by G. Chiarini, vol. 45, 1884,
pp. 201-218.
-on
Religion and Politics.
Fortnightly Review, by L. A.
Montefiore, vol. 22 N.S., 1877,
pp. 325-339.
Poems of. Revue des Deux
Mondes, by Gérard de Nerval,
15 July, 1848, pp. 224-243, and
15 Sept. 1848, pp. 914-930.—
North British Review, vol. 32,
1860, pp. 389-415.
Prose Works of. Southern
Magazine, by E. Spenser, vol.
13, 1873, p. 506, etc.
Translations from. Black-
wood's Edinburgh Magazine,
by Theodore Martin, vol. 121,
1877, pp. 504, 505; vol. 122,
pp. 501-505, 628-633; vol. 123,
pp. 89-96, 221-224, 426-433,
599-602.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
xvii
Heine, Heinrich.
National
Visit to London.
Review, by Thomas Pryde, Dec.
1887, pp. 542-548.
Wit and Writings of. West-
minster Review, vol. 9, N.S.,
1856, pp. 1-33; same article,
Eclectic Magazine, vol. 37, pp.
316-328, and Littell's Living
Age, vol. 48, pp. 513-531.
Heine, Heinrich.
Works and Times of. Tait's
Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 18,
2nd Series, 1851, pp. 618-622,
679-683; same article, Eclectic
Magazine, vol. 26, pp. 481-491.
Writings of. Edinburgh Re-
view, vol. 104, 1856, pp. 192-
209.
Gedichten
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Ratcliff, Intermezzo, and
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Buch der Lieder
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schönen Litteratur in
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Der Salon
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MAN?
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