If I am but the shadowy image in a
dream, still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of
death.
dream, still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of
death.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
He is
angered when hungry; let us therefore see to it that he has some-
what to eat. As soon as his High Mightiness has been properly
fed, and has sated his appetite, he will smile on us with gracious
condescension, just as the other monarchs do. Nor is his Majesty
the People very intelligent: he is more stupid than all other
rulers, and almost as beastly stupid as his own favorites. He
bestows his affection and his confidence on those who shout the
jargon of his own passions; while he reserves his hatred for the
brave man who endeavors to reason with and exalt him. It is
thus in Paris; it was thus in Jerusalem. Give the People the
choice between the most righteous of the righteous and the most
wretched highway robber, and rest assured its cry will be, "Give
us Barabbas! Long live Barabbas! " The secret of this perverse-
ness is ignorance. This national evil we must endeavor to allay
by means of public schools, where education, together with bread
and butter and such other food as may be required, will be sup-
plied free of expense.
WHILE I was standing before the cathedral at Amiens, with a
friend who with mingled fear and pity was regarding that monu-
ment, built with the strength of Titans and decorated with the
patience of dwarfs,- he turned to me at last and inquired, "How
does it happen that we do not erect such edifices in our day? »
And my answer was, "My dear Alphonse, the men of that day
had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions; and some-
thing more than opinions are required to build a cathedral. "
THE Horatian rule, "Nonum prematur in annum," may like
many others be very good in theory, but in practice it is worth-
less. When Horace offered the author the celebrated rule, he
ought at the same time to have furnished him with directions how
to live nine years without food. While Horace was meditating
on this maxim he was probably seated at the table of Mæcenas,
eating turkey with truffles, pheasant pudding with game sauce,
XII-451
## p. 7202 (#604) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7202
larks' ribs with Teltow turnips, peacocks' tongues, Indian birds'-
nests, and the Lord knows what else; and all of it gratis, at that.
But we, unfortunate children of a later day! live in changed
times. Our Mæcenases have quite different principles: they be
lieve that authors, like medlars, develop best if they lie on straw
for a while; they believe that dogs who are too well fed are not
so well fitted for hunting similes and ideas. And alas! when
they do for once happen to feed a poor dog, it is the one who is
least deserving of their crumbs; such, for instance, as the spaniel
who licks their hands, the tiny puppy who softly nestles in the
perfumed lap of the lady of the house, or the patient poodle who
has learned a trade and knows how to fetch and carry, to dance
and to drum.
I HAVE the most peaceable disposition. My desires are a
modest cottage with thatched roof, but a good bed, good fare,
fresh milk and butter, flowers by my window, and a few fine
trees before the door. And if the Lord wished to fill my cup
of happiness, he would grant me the pleasure of seeing some six
or seven of my enemies hanged on those trees. With a heart
moved to pity, I would before their death forgive the injury
they had done me during their lives. Yes, we ought to forgive
our enemies-but not until they are hanged.
THERE is something peculiar in patriotism, or real love of
country. One can become eighty years old, and without knowing
it, have loved his fatherland during all that time; that is, if one
has remained at home. The true nature of spring is not appre-
ciated until winter is upon us, and the best May songs are written
by the fireside. Love of freedom is a prison flower, and we do
not learn the full value of liberty until we are imprisoned. Thus,
the German's patriotism begins at the frontier, where he can
from afar behold his country's misery.
EVERY man who marries is like the Doge who weds the Adri-
atic Sea: he knows not what he may find therein,— treasures,
pearls, monsters, unknown storms.
Translation of Stern and Snodgrass.
## p. 7203 (#605) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7203
―――――――
MARIE
T WAS a cold winter evening, with keen north wind and blind-
ing snow. I was alone in the room with Marie; it was cozy
in the dim light, and the open fire crackled and whispered
so comfortably! She sat at the piano, and was playing an old
Italian melody. Her head was bowed, and the candle that stood
beside her threw a soft sweet light over the little hand; and I
stood opposite her and watched the mobile hand, every little
dimple of it, and the network of delicate veins, and meanwhile
the music stole so tender and fervent into my heart, and I stood
and dreamed a dream of unspeakable happiness. And the music
grew ever more triumphant and powerful, melting away again.
into tones of yielding submission. I died, I lived, and died again;
eternities swept by me: and when I awoke, kindly she appeared
before me, standing, and begged me with a trembling voice to
put on her fingers again the rings which she had laid aside to
play the piano; and I did it, and pressed her hand to my lips.
and "Why," I said, "did you treat me so coldly yesterday? "
and she answered, “Forgive me - I was very naughty. "
What I have told thee here, dear reader, is not an event of
yesterday, or the day before; it is an old, old story, and thousands.
of years, many thousands of years, will roll away before it reaches
an end, a good end. For lo! time is without end, but the things
in time have an end; they can be scattered into the smallest
particles of dust, but these particles, the atoms even, have their
fixed number, and fixed likewise is the number of the forms
which out of them spontaneously body themselves forth; and
no matter how long it takes, according to the eternal laws of
combination in this play of eternal repetition, all forms which
have been upon this earth must again appear, must again attract,
repel, kiss, and ruin, afterwards as before.
And it will one day come to pass that again a man will be
born quite like me, and a woman be born quite like Marie,-
only I hope the man's head may contain somewhat less foolishness
than mine now, and the woman's heart somewhat more love than
Marie's; and in a better land these two shall meet and regard
each other long, and at last the woman, reaching out her hand,
will say in a soft voice, "Forgive me I was very naughty. "
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
-
## p. 7204 (#606) ###########################################
7204
HEINRICH HEINE
-
B
From The Hartz Journey. Translated by Charles G. Leland
LACK dress coats and silken stockings,
Snowy ruffles frilled with art,
Gentle speeches and embraces —
Oh, if they but held a heart!
GÖTTINGEN
Held a heart within their bosom,
Warmed by love which truly glows;
Ah! I'm wearied with their chanting
Of imagined lovers' woes!
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the quiet cabin stands,
Where the wind blows freely o'er us,
Where the heart at ease expands.
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the dark-green fir-trees grow;
Brooks are rustling, birds are singing,
And the wild clouds headlong go.
Then farewell, ye polished ladies,
Polished men and polished hall!
I will climb upon the mountain,
Smiling down upon you all.
THE town of Göttingen, celebrated for its sausages and uni-
versity, belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains nine.
hundred and ninety-nine dwellings, divers churches, a lying-in
asylum, an observatory, a prison, a library, and a "council cellar "
where the beer is excellent. The stream which flows by the
town is termed the Leine, and is used in summer for bath-
ing, its waters being very cold, and in more than one place
so broad that Luder was obliged to take quite a run before he
could leap across. The town itself is beautiful, and pleases most
when looked at- -backwards. It must be very ancient; for I well
remember that five years ago, when I matriculated there (and
shortly after "summoned "), it had already the same gray, old-
fashioned, wise look, and was fully furnished with beggars,
beadles, dissartations, tea-parties with a little dancing, washer-
women, compendiums, roasted pigeons, Guelphic orders, professors
--
## p. 7205 (#607) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7205
ordinary and extraordinary, pipe heads, court counselors, and law
counselors. Many even assert that at the time of the great
migration of races, every German tribe left a badly corrected
proof of its existence in the town, in the person of one of its
members; and that from these descended all the Vandals, Fries-
ians, Suabians, Teutons, Saxons, Thuringians, and others who
at the present day abound in Göttingen, where, separately dis-
tinguished by the color of their caps and pipe tassels, they may
be seen straying singly or in hordes along the Weender Street.
They still fight their battles on the bloody arena of the Rasen-
mill, Ritschenkrug, and Bovden, still preserve the mode of life
peculiar to their savage ancestors, and are still governed partly
by their Duces, whom they call "chief cocks," and partly by their
primevally ancient law-book, known as the 'Comment,' which
fully deserves a place among the legibus barbarorum.
The inhabitants of Göttingen are generally and socially divided
into Students, Professors, Philistines, and Cattle; the points of
difference between these castes being by no means strictly defined.
The cattle class is the most important. I might be accused of
prolixity should I here enumerate the names of all the students
and of all the regular and irregular professors: besides, I do
not just at present distinctly remember the appellations of all
the former gentlemen; while among the professors are many
who as yet have no name at all. The number of the Göttingen
Philistines must be as numerous as the sands (or, more correctly
speaking, as the mud) of the sea; indeed, when I beheld them
of a morning, with their dirty faces and clean bills, planted be-
fore the gate of the collegiate court of justice, I wondered greatly
that such an innumerable pack of rascals should ever have been
created.
·
•
It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Göt-
tingen, and the learned *** beyond doubt still lay in bed,
dreaming that he wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of
which grew innumerable white papers written over with citations.
On these the sun shone cheerily, and he plucked them and
planted them in new beds, while the sweetest songs of the night-
ingales rejoiced his old heart.
Before the Weender Gate I met two native and diminutive
schoolboys, one of whom was saying to the other, "I don't intend
to keep company any more with Theodore: he is a low little
blackguard, for yesterday he didn't even know the genitive of
## p. 7206 (#608) ###########################################
7206
HEINRICH HEINE
mensa. " Insignificant as these words may appear, I still regard
them as entitled to record - nay, I would even write them as
town-motto on the gate of Göttingen; for the young birds pipe
as the old ones sing, and the expression accurately indicates the
narrow-minded academic pride so characteristic of the "highly
learned" Georgia Augusta.
Finding the next morning that I must lighten my knapsack,
I threw overboard the pair of boots, and arose and went forth
unto Goslar. There I arrived without knowing how. This much
alone do I remember, that I sauntered up and down hill, gazing
upon many a lovely meadow vale. Silver waters rippled and
rustled, sweet wood-birds sang, the bells of the flocks tinkled,
the many-shaded green trees were gilded by the sun; and over
all, the blue-silk canopy of heaven was so transparent that I
could look through the depths even to the Holy of Holies, where
angels sat at the feet of God, studying sublime thorough-bass in
the features of the Eternal countenance. But I was all the time
lost in a dream of the previous night, which I could not banish.
It was an echo of the old legend, how a knight descended
into a deep fountain, beneath which the fairest princess of the
world lay buried in a death-like magic slumber. I myself was
the knight, and the dark mine of Clausthal was the fountain.
Suddenly innumerable lights gleamed around me, wakeful dwarfs
leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing angrily, cutting
at me with their short swords, blowing terribly on horns which
ever summoned more and more of their comrades, and frantically
nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down with my
sword, and the blood flowed, I for the first time remarked that
they were not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming long-bearded
thistle-tops, which I had the day before hewed down on the
highway with my stick. At last they all vanished, and I came
to a splendid lighted hall, in the midst of which stood my heart's
loved one, veiled in white, and immovable as a statue. I kissed
her mouth, and then-O Heavens! -I felt the blessed breath
of her soul and the sweet tremor of her lovely lips. It seemed
that I heard the divine command, "Let there be light! " and a
dazzling flash of eternal light shot down, but at the same instant
it was again night, and all ran chaotically together into a wild
desolate sea! A wild desolate sea, over whose foaming waves the
ghosts of the departed madly chased each other, the white shrouds.
floating on the wind, while behind all, goading them on with
## p. 7207 (#609) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7207
cracking whip, ran a many-colored harlequin—and I was the har-
lequin. Suddenly from the black waves the sea monsters raised
their misshapen heads, and yawned towards me with extended
jaws, and I awoke in terror.
Alas! how the finest dreams may be spoiled! The knight in
fact, when he has found the lady, ought to cut a piece from her
priceless veil, and after she has recovered from her magic sleep
and sits again in glory in her hall, he should approach her and
say, "My fairest princess, dost thou not know me? " Then she
will answer, "My bravest knight, I know thee not! " And then
he shows her the piece cut from her veil, exactly fitting the defi-
ciency, and she knows that he is her deliverer, and both tenderly
embrace, and the trumpets sound, and the marriage is celebrated!
It is really a very peculiar misfortune that my love dreams so
seldom have so fine a conclusion.
THE SUPPER ON THE BROCKEN
From The Hartz Journey'
HE company around the table
quainted and much noisier.
gradually became better ac-
Wine banished beer, punch-
bowls steamed, and drinking, schmolliren,* and singing were
the order of the night. The old 'Landsfather' and the beautiful
songs of W. Müller, Rückert, Uhland, and others rang around,
with the exquisite airs of Methfessel. Best of all sounded our
own Arndt's German words, "The Lord, who bade iron grow,
wished for no slaves. " And out of doors it roared as if the old
mountain sang with us, and a few reeling friends even asserted
that he merrily shook his bald head, which caused the great
unsteadiness of our floor. The bottles became emptier and the
heads of the company fuller. One bellowed like an ox, a second
piped, a third declaimed from 'The Crime,' a fourth spoke Latin,
a fifth preached temperance, and a sixth, assuming the chair,
learnedly lectured as follows:- "Gentlemen, the world is a round
cylinder, upon which human beings as individual pins are scat-
tered apparently at random. But the cylinder revolves, the pins
knock together and give out tones, some very frequently and
others but seldom; all of which causes a remarkably complicated
sound, which is generally known as universal history. We will,
* Hobnobbing.
Τ
## p. 7208 (#610) ###########################################
7208
HEINRICH HEINE
in consequence, speak first of music, then of the world, and
finally of history, which latter we divide into positive and Spanish
flies >>> And so sense and nonsense went rattling on.
A jolly Mecklenburger, who held his nose to his punch-glass,
and smiling with happiness snuffed up the perfume, remarked
that it caused in him a sensation as if he were standing again
before the refreshment table in the Schwerin Theatre! Another
held his wine-glass like a lorgnette before his eye, and appeared
to be carefully studying the company, while the red wine trickled
down over his cheek into his projecting mouth. The Greifs-
walder, suddenly inspired, cast himself upon my breast, and
shouted wildly, "Oh that thou couldst understand me, for I am a
lover, a happy lover; for I am loved again, and G-d d—n me,
she's an educated girl, for she has a full bosom, wears a white
gown, and plays the piano! " But the Swiss wept, and tenderly
kissed my hand, and ever whimpered, "O Molly dear! O Molly
dear! "
During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and
glasses to fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful and
pale as statues, one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The
faint rosy hue which the wine spread over their cheeks was
scarcely visible. They gazed on each other with infinite affec-
tion, as if the one could read in the eyes of the other; and in
those eyes there was a light as though drops of light had fallen
therein from the cup of burning love which an angel on high
bears from one star to the other. They conversed softly with
earnest, trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, through all of
which ran a tone of strange sorrow. "Lora is also dead! " said
one, and sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle who
had loved a student, and who, when the latter left Halle, spoke
no more to any one, ate but little, wept day and night, gazing
ever on the canary-bird which her lover had given her. "The
bird died, and Lora did not long survive it," was the conclusion,
and both the youths sighed as though their hearts would break.
Finally the other said, "My soul is sorrowful; come forth with
me into the dark night! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds
and the moon-rays. Partake of my sorrows! I love thee: thy
words are musical, like the rustling of reeds and the flow of
rivulets; they re-echo in my breast, but my soul is sorrowful! »
Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the
neck of the other, and thus left the noisy room. I followed, and
## p. 7209 (#611) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7209
saw them enter a dark chamber, where the one, by mistake,
instead of the window threw open the door of a large wardrobe;
and both, standing before it with outstretched arms, expressing
poetic rapture, spoke alternately. "Ye breezes of darkening
night," cried the first, "how ye cool and revive my cheeks! How
sweetly ye play amid my fluttering locks! I stand on the cloudy
peak of the mountain; far below me lie the sleeping cities of
men, and blue waters gleam. List! far below in the valley rustle
the fir-trees! Far above yonder hills sweep in misty forms the
spirits of my fathers. Oh that I could hunt with ye on your
cloud steeds through the stormy night, over the rolling sea,
upwards to the stars! Alas! I am laden with grief, and my soul
is sad! " Meanwhile, the other had also stretched out his arms
towards the wardrobe, while tears fell from his eyes as he cried
to a broad pair of yellow pantaloons which he mistook for the
moon: "Fair art thou, daughter of heaven! lovely and blessed is
the calm of thy countenance. Thou walkest lonely in thy loveli-
ness. The stars follow thy blue path in the east! At thy glance
the clouds rejoice, and their dark brows gleam with light. Who
is like unto thee in heaven, thou the night-born? The stars are
ashamed before thee, and turn away their green sparkling eyes.
Whither, ah whither, when morning pales thy face, dost thou
flee from thy path? Hast thou, like me, thy hall? Dwellest
thou amid shadows of sorrow? Have thy sisters fallen from
heaven? Are they who joyfully rolled with thee through the
night now no more? Yea, they fell adown, O lovely light! and
thou hidest thyself to bewail them! Yet the night must at some
time come when thou too must pass away, and leave thy blue
path above in heaven. Then the stars, who were once ashamed
in thy presence, will raise their green heads and rejoice. Now
thou art clothed in thy starry splendor and gazest adown from
the gate of heaven. Tear aside the clouds, O ye winds, that
the night-born may shine forth and the bushy hills gleam, and
that the foaming waves of the sea may roll in light! "
A well-known and not remarkably thin friend, who had drunk
more than he had eaten, though he had already at supper de-
voured a piece of beef which would have dined six lieutenants
of the guard and one innocent child, here came rushing into the
room in a very jovial manner,- that is to say, à la swine,-
shoved the two elegiac friends one over the other into the ward-
robe, stormed through the house-door, and began to roar around
## p. 7210 (#612) ###########################################
7210
HEINRICH HEINE
outside as if raising the devil in earnest. The noise in the hall
grew more confused and duller; the two moaning and weeping
friends lay, as they thought, crushed at the foot of the mountain;
from their throats ran noble red wine, and the one said to the
other: "Farewell! I feel that I bleed. Why dost thou waken
me, O breath of spring? Thou caressest me, and sayst, 'I bedew
thee with drops from heaven. ' But the time of my withering is
at hand—at hand the storm which will break away my leaves.
To-morrow the Wanderer will come -come-he who saw me in
my beauty his eyes will glance, as of yore, around the field-
in vain >> But over all roared the well-known basso voice
without, blasphemously complaining, amid oaths and whoops, that
not a single lantern had been lighted along the entire Weender
Street, and that one could not even see whose window-panes he
had smashed.
―
—
I can bear a tolerable quantity,-modesty forbids me to say
how many bottles, and I consequently retired to my chamber
in tolerably good condition. The young merchant already lay
in bed, enveloped in his chalk-white nightcap and yellow Welsh
flannel. He was not asleep, and sought to enter into conversa-
tion with me. He was a Frankfort-on-Mainer, and consequently
spoke at once of the Jews; declared that they had lost all feeling
for the beautiful and noble, and that they sold English goods
twenty-five per cent. under manufacturers' prices. A fancy to
humbug him came over me, and I told him that I was a som-
nambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon should I unwit-
tingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he confessed
the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink through
the whole night, especially since the idea had entered his head.
that I, while in a somnambulistic crisis, might shoot him with the
pistol which lay near my bed. But in truth I fared no better
myself, for I slept very little.
swept through my brain. A pianoforte extract from Dante's
Hell. Finally I dreamed that I saw a law opera, called the
'Falcidia,' with libretto on the right of inheritance by Gans, and
music by Spontini. A crazy dream! I saw the Roman Forum
splendidly illuminated. In it Servius Asinius Göschenus, sitting
as prætor on his chair, and throwing wide his toga in stately
folds, burst out into raging recitative; Marcus Tullius Elversus,
manifesting as prima donna legataria all the exquisite feminine-
ness of his nature, sang the love-melting bravura of "Quicunque
Dreary and terrifying fancies
## p. 7211 (#613) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7211
civis Romanus "; referees, rouged red as sealing-wax, bellowed in
chorus as minors; private tutors, dressed as genii, in flesh-colored
stockinets, danced an anti-Justinian ballet, crowning with flowers
the "Twelve Tables," while amid thunder and lightning rose
from the ground the abused ghost of Roman Legislation, accom-
panied by trumpets, gongs, fiery rain, cum omni causa.
From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the
Brocken, when he awoke me to see the sun rise. Above, on the
tower, I found several already waiting, who rubbed their freezing
hands; others, with sleep still in their eyes, stumbled up to us,
until finally the whole silent congregation of the previous evening
was reassembled, and we saw how above the horizon there rose
a little carmine-red ball, spreading a dim wintry illumination.
Far around, amid the mists, rose the mountains, as if swimming.
in a white rolling sea, only their summits being visible; so that
we could imagine ourselves standing on a little hill in the midst
of an inundated plain, in which here and there rose dry clods of
earth. To retain that which I saw and felt, I sketched the fol-
lowing poem:-
-
IN THE east 'tis ever brighter,
Though the sun gleams cloudily;
Far and wide the mountain summits
Swim above the misty sea.
Had I seven-mile boots for travel,
Like the fleeting winds I'd rove,
Over valley, rock, and river,
To the home of her I love.
From the bed where now she's sleeping,
Soft the curtain I would slip;
Softly kiss her childlike forehead,
Soft the ruby of her lip.
And yet softer would I whisper
In the little lily ear,
"Think in dreams we still are loving,
Think I never lost thee, dear. "
## p. 7212 (#614) ###########################################
7212
HEINRICH HEINE
LIFE AND OLD AGE
From Book Le Grand': Translation of Charles G. Leland
O
THERS may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having
their lady-love adorn their graves with garlands, and water
them with the tears of true love. O women! hate me,
laugh at me, mitten me, but let me live! Life is all too won-
drous sweet, and the world is so beautifully bewildered: it is the
dream of an intoxicated divinity who has taken French leave of
the tippling multitude of immortals, and has laid down to sleep
in a solitary star, and knows not himself that he also creates all
that which he dreams; and the dream images form themselves
often so fantastically wildly, and often so harmoniously and
reasonably. The Iliad, Plato, the battle of Marathon, Moses, the
Medicean Venus, the cathedral of Strasburg, the French Revolu-
tion, Hegel, and steamboats, etc. , etc. , are other good thoughts
in this divine dream: but it will not last long, and the immortal
one awakes and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles; and our world
has run to nothing-yes, has never been.
No matter-I live!
If I am but the shadowy image in a
dream, still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of
death. Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of
evils.
And I live! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my
breast; and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-
fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent
them to awaken earth from her morning slumber, and earth
trembles with ecstasy; her flowers are hymns, which she sings in
inspiration to the sun; the sun moves far too slowly: I would
fain lash on his steeds that they might advance more rapidly.
But when he sinks hissing in the sea, and the night rises with
her great eyes, oh then true pleasure first thrills through me
like a new life, the evening breezes lie like flattering maidens on
my wild heart, and the stars wink to me, and I rise and sweep
over the little earth and the little thoughts of mankind.
But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched
in my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his
snowflakes will whiten my locks and his mists will dim my eyes.
Then my friends will lie in their weather-worn tombs, and I alone
will remain like a solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper. A new
## p. 7213 (#615) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7213
race will have sprung up, with new desires and new ideas; full
of wonder, I hear new names and listen to new songs, for the
old names are forgotten, and I myself am forgotten, perhaps hon-
ored by but few, scorned by many, and loved by none! And
then the rosy-cheeked boys will spring around me and place the
old harp in my trembling hand, and say laughing, "Thou indo-
lent gray-headed old man, sing us again songs of the dreams of
thy youth. "
Then I will grasp the harp, and my old joys and sorrows will
awake, the clouds will vanish, tears will again gleam on my pale
cheeks. Spring will bloom once more in my breast, sweet tones
of woe will tremble on the harp-strings. I shall see once more
the blue flood and the marble palaces and the lovely faces of
ladies and young girls, and I will sing a song of the flowers of
the Brenta.
It will be my last song; the stars will gaze on me as in the
nights of my youth, the loving moonlight will once more kiss my
cheeks, the spirit chorus of nightingales long dead will sound
flute-like from afar, my eyes intoxicated with sleep will softly
close, my soul will re-echo with the notes of my harp- perfume
breathes from the flowers of the Brenta.
A tree will shadow my grave. I would gladly have it a palm,
but that tree will not grow in the North. It will be a linden,
and of a summer evening lovers will sit there caressing; the
green-finches will be listening silently, and my linden will rustle
protectingly over the heads of the happy ones, who will be so
happy that they will have no time to read what is written on the
white tombstone. But when at a later day the lover has lost
his love, then he will come again to the well-known linden, and
sigh and weep, and gaze long and oft upon the stone until he
reads the inscription, "He loved the flowers of the Brenta. "
DÜSSELDORF
From Book Le Grand': Translation of Charles G. Leland
YES
Es, madam, there was I born; and I am particular in calling
attention to this fact, lest after my death seven cities—
those of Schilda, Krähwinkel, Polwitz, Bockum, Dülken,
Göttingen, and Schöppenstadt-should contend for the honor of
having witnessed my birth. Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine
## p. 7214 (#616) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7214
where about sixteen thousand mortals live, and where many hun-
dred thousands are buried; and among them are many of whom
my mother says it were better if they were still alive,- for
example, my grandfather and my uncle, the old Herr van Geldern
and the young Herr van Geldern, who were both such celebrated
doctors and saved the lives of so many men, and yet at last
must both die themselves. And good pious Ursula, who bore
me when a child in her arms, also lies buried there, and a rose-
bush grows over her grave; she loved rose perfume so much in
her life, and her heart was all rose perfume and goodness. And
the shrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how
miserable he looked when I last saw him! He consisted of noth-
ing but soul and plasters, and yet he studied night and day as
though he feared lest the worms might find a few ideas missing
in his head. Little William also lies there, and that is my fault.
We were schoolmates in the Franciscan cloister, and were one
day playing on that side of the building where the Düssel flows
between stone walls, and I said, "William, do get the kitten out,
which has just fallen in! " and he cheerfully climbed out on the
board which stretched over the brook, and pulled the cat out of
the water, but fell in himself, and when they took him out he
was dripping and dead. The kitten lived to a good old age.
The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of
it when in foreign lands, and happen at the same time to have
been born there, strange feelings come over the soul. I was born
there, and feel as if I must go directly home. And when I say
home, I mean the Völkerstrasse and the house where I was born.
This house will be some day very remarkable, and I have sent
word to the old lady who owns it that she must not for her life
sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly get as much
as the present which the green-veiled English ladies will give the
servant-girl when she shows them the room where I was born,
and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me
for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother
taught me to write with chalk-O Lord! madam, should I ever
become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble
enough.
But my renown as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of
Carrara; the waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked
my brow has not spread its perfume through the wide world; and
the green-veiled English ladies, when they visit Düsseldorf, leave
## p. 7215 (#617) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7215
the celebrated house unvisited, and go directly to the Market
Place and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue
which stands in its midst. This represents the Prince-Elector,
Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armor and a long hanging wig.
In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which
they now are. Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at
night they drew their caps over them and slept in peace; and
their people slumbered calmly at their feet, and when they awoke
in the morning they said, "Good-morning, father! " and he re-
plied, "Good-morning, dear children! "
But there came a sudden change over all this; for one morn-
ing, when we awoke and would say, "Good-morning, father! "
the father had traveled away, and in the whole town there was
nothing but dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like
expression, and people slipped silently through the market and
read the long paper placed on the door of the town-house. It
was dark and lowering, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in the
nankeen jacket which he generally wore only at home, and in
his blue woolen stockings, so that his little bare legs peeped out
as if in sorrow, and his thin lips quivered as he read murmur-
ingly the handbill. An old invalid soldier from the Palatine
read it in a somewhat louder tone, and little by little a trans-
parent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I stood
near him, and asked why he wept? And he replied, "The
Prince-Elector has abdicated. " And then he read further, and at
the words "for the long-manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and
hereby release you from allegiance," he wept still more.
It is a
strange sight to see, when so old a man, in faded uniform, with
a scarred veteran's face, suddenly bursts into tears.
While we
read, the Princely-Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down
from the Town Hall, and everything began to appear as miser-
ably dreary as though we were waiting for an eclipse of the
The gentlemen town councilors went about at an abdicating
wearisome gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he
had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent,
although the crazy Aloysius stood upon one leg and chattered
the names of French generals, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz
rolled around in the gutter, singing Ça ira! Ça ira!
sun.
But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince-
Elector had abducted! " My mother had trouble enough to ex-
plain the word, but I would hear nothing. I knew what I knew,
## p. 7216 (#618) ###########################################
7216
HEINRICH HEINE
and went weeping to bed, and in the night dreamed that the
world had come to an end; that all the fair flower gardens and
green meadows of the world were taken up and rolled up, and
put away like carpets and baize from the floor; that a beadle
climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun; and that
the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, "I must go home.
and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and am to be buried this
afternoon. " And it grew darker and darker; a few stars glim-
mered sparely on high, and these at length fell down like yellow
leaves in autumn; one by one all men vanished, and I, a poor
child, wandered in anguish around, until, before the willow fence
of a deserted farm-house, I saw a man digging up the earth with
a spade, and near him an ugly spiteful-looking woman who held
something in her apron like a human head-but it was the
moon, and she laid it carefully in the open grave; and behind
me stood the Palatine invalid, sighing, and spelling "The Prince-
Elector has abducted. "
The next day the world was again all in order, and we had
school as before, and things were got by heart as before: the
Roman emperors, chronology, the nomina in im, the verba irregu-
laria, Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic-
Lord! my head is still giddy with it! -all must be thoroughly
learned. And much of it was eventually to my advantage. For
had I not learned the Roman emperors by heart, it would subse-
quently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether
Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed.
And had I not learned the numbers of the different years, how
could I ever in later years have found out any one in Berlin,
where one house is as like another as drops of water or as grena-
diers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have
the number of his house in your head? Therefore I associated
with every friend some historical event which had happened in
a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the
one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always
occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For
instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the battle
of Marathon; if I saw the banker Christian Gumpel, I remem-
bered the destruction of Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend deeply
in debt, of the flight of Mahomet; if the university judge, a man
whose probity is well known, of the death of Haman; and if
Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra. Ah, heaven! the
## p. 7217 (#619) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7217
poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say
of her with Hamlet, "Take her for all in all, she was an old
woman; we oft shall look upon her like again! " But as I said,
chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their
heads but a few years, yet who know exactly where to look for.
the right houses, and are moreover regular professors.
But oh,
the trouble I had at school with my learning to count! and it
went even worse with the ready reckoning. I understood best of
all subtraction, and for this I had a very practical rule: "four
can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one;
» but I
advise all in such a case to borrow a few extra dollars, for no
one can tell what may happen.
THE PHILISTINE OF BERLIN
From (Italy)
I
AM the politest man in the world. I am happy in the reflec-
tion that I have never been rude in this life, where there are
so many intolerable scamps who take you by the button and
draw out their grievances, or even declaim their poems—yes,
with true Christian patience have I ever listened to their misereres
without betraying by a glance the intensity of ennui and of bore-
dom into which my soul was plunged. Like unto a penitential.
martyr of a Brahmin, who offers up his body to devouring ver-
min, so that the creatures (also created by God) may satiate their
appetites, so have I for a whole day taken my stand and calmly
listened as I grinned and bore the chattering of the rabble, and
my internal sighs were only heard by Him who rewards virtue.
But the wisdom of daily life enjoins politeness, and forbids a
vexed silence or a vexatious reply, even when some chuckle-
headed commercial councilor" or barren-brained cheesemonger
makes a set at us, beginning a conversation common to all Europe
with the words, "Fine weather to-day. " No one knows but that
we may meet that same Philistine again, when he may wreak
bitter vengeance on us for not politely replying, "It is very fine
weather. " Nay, it may even happen, dear reader, that thou
mayest, some fine day, come to sit by the Philistine aforesaid in
the inn at Cassel, and at the table d'hôte, even by his left side,
when he is exactly the very man who has the dish with a jolly
brown carp in it, which he is merrily dividing among the many.
XII-452
## p. 7218 (#620) ###########################################
7218
HEINRICH HEINE
If he now chance to have some ancient grudge against thee, he
pushes away the dish to the right, so that thou gettest not the
smallest bit of tail, and therewith canst not carp at all. For,
alas! thou art just the thirteenth at table, which is always an
unlucky thing when thou sittest at the left hand of the carver
and the dish goes around to the right. And to get no carp is a
great evil perhaps, next to the loss of the national cockade, the
greatest of all. The Philistine who has prepared this evil now
mocks thee with a heavy grin, offering thee the laurel leaves
which lie in the brown sauce. Alas! what avail laurels, if you
have no carp with them; and the Philistine twinkles his eyes
and snickers, and whispers, "Fine weather to-day! "
Ah! dear soul, it may even happen to thee that thou wilt at
last come to lie in some church-yard next to that same Philistine,
and when on the Day of Judgment thou hearest the trumpet
sound, and sayest to thy neighbor, "Good friend, be so kind as
to reach me your hand, if you please, and help me to stand up;
my left leg is asleep with this damned long lying still! "-then
thou wilt suddenly remember the well-known Philistine laugh,
and wilt hear the mocking tones of "Fine weather to-day! "
"Foine wey-ther to-day! "
-
O reader, if you could only have heard the tone - the incom-
parable treble-base-in which these words were uttered, and
could have seen the speaker himself,- the arch-prosaic, widow's-
savings-bank countenance, the stupid-cute eyelets, the cocked-up,
cunning, investigating nose,—you would at once have said, "This
flower grew on no common sand, and these tones are in the dia-
lect of Charlottenburg, where the tongue of Berlin is spoken even
better than in Berlin itself. "
I am the politest man in the world. I love to eat brown
carps, and I believe in the resurrection. Therefore I replied,
"In fact, the weather is very fine. "
When the son of the Spree heard that, he grappled boldly on
me, and I could not escape from his endless questions, to which
he himself answered; nor, above all, from his comparisons be-
tween Berlin and Munich, which latter city he would not admit
had a single good hair growing on it.
I, however, took the modern Athens under my protection,
being always accustomed to praise the place where I am. Friend
reader, if I did this at the expense of Berlin, you will forgive
me when I quietly confess that it was done out of pure policy,
## p. 7219 (#621) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7219
for I am fully aware that if I should ever begin to praise my
good Berliners, my renown would be forever at an end among
them; for they would begin at once to shrug their shoulders, and
whisper to one another, "The man must be uncommonly green:
he even praises us! " No town in the world has so little local
patriotism as Berlin. A thousand miserable poets have, it is
true, long since celebrated Berlin both in prose and in rhyme,
yet no cock in Berlin crowed their praise and no hen was cooked
for them, and "under the Lindens" they were esteemed miser-
able poets as before.
But after all, between you and me, reader, when it comes
to calling the whole town "a new Athens," the designation is a
little absurd; and it costs me not a little trouble to represent it
in this light. This went home to my very heart in the dialogue
with the Berlin Philister, who, though he had conversed for
some time with me, was unpolite enough to find an utter want
of the first grain of Attic salt in the new Athens.
"That," he cried tolerably loudly, "is only to be found in
Berlin. There, and there only, is wit and irony. Here they
have good white beer, but no irony. "
"No, we haven't got irony," cried Nannerl, the pretty, well-
formed waiting-maid, who at this instant sprang past us; "but
you can have any other sort of beer. "
It grieved me to the heart that Nannerl should take irony to
be any sort of beer, were it even the best brew of Stettin; and
to prevent her from falling in future into such errors, I began
to teach her after the following wise:-"Pretty Nannerl, irony
is not beer, but an invention of the Berlin people,- the wisest
folks in the world,-who were awfully vexed because they came.
too late into the world to invent gunpowder, and therefore under-
took to find out something which should answer as well. Once
upon a time, my dear, when a man had said or done something
stupid, how could the matter be helped? That which was done
could not be undone, and people said that the man was an ass.
That was disagreeable. In Berlin, where the people are shrewd-
est, and where the most stupid things happen, the people soon
found out the inconvenience. The government took hold of the
matter vigorously: only the greater blunders were allowed to
be printed, the lesser were simply suffered in conversation; only
professors and high officials could say stupid things in public,
lesser people could only make asses of themselves in private:
## p. 7220 (#622) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7220
but all of these regulations were of no avail; suppressed stupidi-
ties availed themselves of extraordinary opportunities to come to
light, those below were protected by those above, and the emer-
gency was terrible, until some one discovered a reactionary means
whereby every piece of stupidity could change its nature, and
even be metamorphosed into wisdom. The process is altogether
plain and easy, and consists simply in a man's declaring that
the stupid word or deed of which he has been guilty was meant
ironically. So, my dear girl, all things get along in this world:
stupidity becomes irony, toadyism which has missed its aim
becomes satire, natural coarseness is changed to artistic raillery,
real madness is humor, ignorance real wit, and thou thyself art
finally the Aspasia of the modern Athens. "
I would have said more, but pretty Nannerl, whom I had up
to this point held fast by the apron-string, broke away loose by
main force, as the entire band of assembled guests began to roar
for "A beer! a beer! " in stormy chorus. But the Berliner him-
self looked like irony incarnate as he remarked the enthusiasm
with which the foaming glasses were welcomed, and after point-
ing to a group of beer-drinkers who toasted their hop nectar and
disputed as to its excellence, he said smiling, "Those are your
Athenians! "
HEINE'S VISIT TO GOETHE
WHE
THEN I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, I
involuntarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle
was not there with the lightning in his beak. I was
nearly speaking Greek to him; but as I observed that he under-
stood German, I stated to him in German that the plums on the
road between Jena and Weimar were very good. I had for so
many long winter nights thought over what lofty and profound.
things I would say to Goethe, if ever I saw him—and when I
saw him at last, I said to him that the Saxon plums were very
good! And Goethe smiled.
Translation of Stern and Snodgrass.
## p. 7221 (#623) ###########################################
7221
HELIODORUS
(Fourth Century A. D. )
KUR English — or more generally, our modern — novel is the
progeny of the Greek romance of Heliodorus. If the self-
respecting, simple-minded old bishop could have foreseen the
vast concourse of the children of his mind, as numerous as the sands
of his native Syria, would he have suppressed it? A legend still pre-
served leads one to think he would not; for Heliodorus, according to
the account, had the courage of his romance-writing. The story says
that after some Thessalian young persons, in the fourth century, had
been misled to love by this Ethiopica of Heliodorus, the synod of
the Church decreed that such amorous and inflaming literature should
be committed to the flames, or the author deprived of his bishopric
of Tricca. To the glory of Heliodorus, it should be added that he
preferred resigning his prelacy to suppressing his genius.
Heliodorus was not the first romance writer. Other Greeks had
humanized Oriental allegory, parable, and fictitious narrative,-the
Greek race was wont to humanize whatever of outlandish art or
religion came to it; and the Greek story-tellers, even before the
Bishop of Tricca, made their heroes men and their heroines women,
living natural lives without the intervention of genii or magic. But
the tales of these forerunners have not been saved except in sum-
maries. It was Heliodorus whose art so charmed that it preserved
his little tales, and became a model for Longus, Achilles Tatius, and
others who came after him. There is no better example in all liter-
ature of the quiet, silent working through centuries of a book of
genuine human value. To his contemporaries Heliodorus was of so
small value that the closing sentence of his romance "Thus endeth
the Ethiopian historie of Theagenes and Cariclia, the author wereof
is Heliodorus of Emesos, a citie in Phoenicia, sonne of Theodosius,
which fetched his petigree from the Sunne » - is about all the record
we have of him.
His romance was brought to modern light by a German soldier,
who in the plunder of a library at Buda in 1526, attracted by the rich
binding of a manuscript, stole it. He brought his treasure westward
and sold it to Vincent Obsopæus, who published it in Basle in 1534.
"Until this period," says Huet in his treatise on the origin of ro-
mances (Huet was a courtier of Louis XIV. ), "nothing had been seen
## p. 7222 (#624) ###########################################
7222
HELIODORUS
better conceived or better executed than those adventures of The-
agenes and Chariclea. Nothing can be more chaste than their loves,
in which the author's own virtuous mind assists the religion of Christ-
ianity, which he professed, in diffusing over the whole work that air
of honnêteté in which almost all the earlier romances are deficient.
The incidents are numerous, novel, probable, and skillfully unfolded.
The dénouement is admirable: it is natural; it grows out of the sub-
ject; and it is in the highest degree touching and pathetic. " Quickly
told, the story is this. The lovers-Chariclea, a priestess of Delphi,
and Theagenes, a descendant of Achilles-fly to Egypt. After many
adventures and misfortunes, they come to Ethiopia and are about
to suffer immolation to the sun and moon, when it is revealed that
Chariclea is the daughter of the king reigning in that country. By
a miracle she had been born white. The marriage of the lovers
follows.
In 1547 Jacques Amyot translated the story into French. It also
found a translation into several other languages, and has exerted
a wide influence upon fictitious narrative. It was universally read.
"Heliodorus, that good Bishop of Tricca," says Montaigne in one of
his essays, "rather chose to lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of
so venerable a prelacy than to lose his daughter: a daughter that
continues to this day very graceful and comely; but notwithstanding,
peradventure a little too curiously and wantonly trickt, and too amor-
ous, for an ecclesiastical and sacerdotal daughter. " In this century
of the reappearance also,- the century in which Montaigne wrote,-
Tasso, promising the courtiers of the French King that such favorite
reading of theirs should be preserved in the glories of Italian verse,
transferred to the heroine Clorinda the incidents of the birth and
early life of Chariclea; Tasso's friend Guarini imitated the proposed
sacrifice and the discovery of the birth of Chariclea in his pastoral
drama 'Pastor Fido. ' The boyhood of Racine, it is also said, was
lighted by Heliodorus's story; for when at Port Royal, his imagina-
tion well-nigh smothered by the mass of dry erudition the monks
had heaped upon him, he came by chance upon this romance. The
fathers burnt the first copy, and the second, and a third, but the
mischief had been done; Racine's imagination had been saved, and
throughout his life the story was beloved of him. Both French and
English writers of tragedy have used the plot for plays; and Raphael,
aided by Giulio Romano, took two of the most striking incidents of
the story for his canvases. In one he has painted the moment when
Theagenes and Chariclea meet in the temple of Delphi; in the other,
Chariclea on board the Tyrian ship is imploring the captain of the
pirates that she may not be separated from her lover and the Egyp-
tian priest. Says Charles Whibley in his Introduction to the romance:
## p. 7223 (#625) ###########################################
HELIODORUS
7223
«The invention of Heliodorus carries the reader far away from life and
observation. Bloodthirsty pirates and armed men, caves and ambushes, dreams
and visions, burnings, poisonings, and sudden deaths, battle and rapine,—
these are the material of his ancient story. . . . It is in his opening scene
that Heliodorus best approves his skill. He plunges at once into a very
tangle of events, and captures the attention by a fearless contempt of prologue
and explanation.
Throughout, the author shows himself a master of
construction. Though his plot be involved, though his story begin anywhere
else than at the beginning, it is the surest of hands which holds the thread.
. . The purpose of the narrative is never confused, and you reach the
appointed end with a complete consciousness of the story's shape and con-
struction.
For him the adventure was the beginning and the end of
art.
There was never a writer who closed his senses more resolutely to
the sights and sounds of actuality. In him the faculty of observation was
replaced by the self-consciousness of the littérateur. Not even his vocabulary
was fresh or original. Coray, the wisest of his editors, has proved that he
borrowed his words as ingeniously as he concocted his episodes.
His prose,
in fact, is elaborately composed of tags from Homer and the Tragedians. »
.
•
The Greek text has been many times edited,- most successfully
by Coray, whose edition appeared in Paris in 1804. The following
are two episodes taken from the English version of Underdowne - "An
Ethiopian Historie written in Greeke by Heliodorus no lesse wittie
then pleasaunt Englished by Thomas Underdowne and newly cor-
rected and augmented with divers and sundry new additions by the
said authour whereunto is also annexed the argument of every booke
in the beginning of the same for the better understanding of the
storie. 1587. " The relation to the Greek original is often remote or
casual; the version is of great independent value, however, as a
monument of English prose.
THE LOVERS
From The First Booke
As
S SOONE as the day appeared and the Sunne began to shine
on the tops of the hilles, men whose custome was to live
by rapine and violence ranne to the top of a hill that
stretched towards the mouth of Nylus called Heracleot: where
standing awhile they viewed the sea underneath them, and when
they had looked a good season a far off into the same, and could
see nothing that might put them in hope of pray, they cast their
eyes somewhat neare the shoare: where a shippe, tyed with cables
to the maine land, lay at road, without sailers, and full fraughted,
which thing they who were a farre of might easily conjecture:
## p. 7224 (#626) ###########################################
HELIODORUS
7224
for the burden caused the shippe to drawe water within the
bourdes of the decke. But on the shore every place was ful of
men, some quite dead, some halfe dead, some whose bodies yet
panted, and plainly declared that there had ben a battell fought
of late.
But there could be seene no signes or tokens of any just
quarell, but there seemed to be an ill and unluckie banket, and
those that remained, obtained such ende. For the tables were
furnished with delicate dishes, some whereof laie in the handes
of those that were slaine, being in steede of weapons to some of
them in the battaile, so souddenly begunne. Others covered such
as crope under them to hide themselves, as they thought.
angered when hungry; let us therefore see to it that he has some-
what to eat. As soon as his High Mightiness has been properly
fed, and has sated his appetite, he will smile on us with gracious
condescension, just as the other monarchs do. Nor is his Majesty
the People very intelligent: he is more stupid than all other
rulers, and almost as beastly stupid as his own favorites. He
bestows his affection and his confidence on those who shout the
jargon of his own passions; while he reserves his hatred for the
brave man who endeavors to reason with and exalt him. It is
thus in Paris; it was thus in Jerusalem. Give the People the
choice between the most righteous of the righteous and the most
wretched highway robber, and rest assured its cry will be, "Give
us Barabbas! Long live Barabbas! " The secret of this perverse-
ness is ignorance. This national evil we must endeavor to allay
by means of public schools, where education, together with bread
and butter and such other food as may be required, will be sup-
plied free of expense.
WHILE I was standing before the cathedral at Amiens, with a
friend who with mingled fear and pity was regarding that monu-
ment, built with the strength of Titans and decorated with the
patience of dwarfs,- he turned to me at last and inquired, "How
does it happen that we do not erect such edifices in our day? »
And my answer was, "My dear Alphonse, the men of that day
had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions; and some-
thing more than opinions are required to build a cathedral. "
THE Horatian rule, "Nonum prematur in annum," may like
many others be very good in theory, but in practice it is worth-
less. When Horace offered the author the celebrated rule, he
ought at the same time to have furnished him with directions how
to live nine years without food. While Horace was meditating
on this maxim he was probably seated at the table of Mæcenas,
eating turkey with truffles, pheasant pudding with game sauce,
XII-451
## p. 7202 (#604) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7202
larks' ribs with Teltow turnips, peacocks' tongues, Indian birds'-
nests, and the Lord knows what else; and all of it gratis, at that.
But we, unfortunate children of a later day! live in changed
times. Our Mæcenases have quite different principles: they be
lieve that authors, like medlars, develop best if they lie on straw
for a while; they believe that dogs who are too well fed are not
so well fitted for hunting similes and ideas. And alas! when
they do for once happen to feed a poor dog, it is the one who is
least deserving of their crumbs; such, for instance, as the spaniel
who licks their hands, the tiny puppy who softly nestles in the
perfumed lap of the lady of the house, or the patient poodle who
has learned a trade and knows how to fetch and carry, to dance
and to drum.
I HAVE the most peaceable disposition. My desires are a
modest cottage with thatched roof, but a good bed, good fare,
fresh milk and butter, flowers by my window, and a few fine
trees before the door. And if the Lord wished to fill my cup
of happiness, he would grant me the pleasure of seeing some six
or seven of my enemies hanged on those trees. With a heart
moved to pity, I would before their death forgive the injury
they had done me during their lives. Yes, we ought to forgive
our enemies-but not until they are hanged.
THERE is something peculiar in patriotism, or real love of
country. One can become eighty years old, and without knowing
it, have loved his fatherland during all that time; that is, if one
has remained at home. The true nature of spring is not appre-
ciated until winter is upon us, and the best May songs are written
by the fireside. Love of freedom is a prison flower, and we do
not learn the full value of liberty until we are imprisoned. Thus,
the German's patriotism begins at the frontier, where he can
from afar behold his country's misery.
EVERY man who marries is like the Doge who weds the Adri-
atic Sea: he knows not what he may find therein,— treasures,
pearls, monsters, unknown storms.
Translation of Stern and Snodgrass.
## p. 7203 (#605) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7203
―――――――
MARIE
T WAS a cold winter evening, with keen north wind and blind-
ing snow. I was alone in the room with Marie; it was cozy
in the dim light, and the open fire crackled and whispered
so comfortably! She sat at the piano, and was playing an old
Italian melody. Her head was bowed, and the candle that stood
beside her threw a soft sweet light over the little hand; and I
stood opposite her and watched the mobile hand, every little
dimple of it, and the network of delicate veins, and meanwhile
the music stole so tender and fervent into my heart, and I stood
and dreamed a dream of unspeakable happiness. And the music
grew ever more triumphant and powerful, melting away again.
into tones of yielding submission. I died, I lived, and died again;
eternities swept by me: and when I awoke, kindly she appeared
before me, standing, and begged me with a trembling voice to
put on her fingers again the rings which she had laid aside to
play the piano; and I did it, and pressed her hand to my lips.
and "Why," I said, "did you treat me so coldly yesterday? "
and she answered, “Forgive me - I was very naughty. "
What I have told thee here, dear reader, is not an event of
yesterday, or the day before; it is an old, old story, and thousands.
of years, many thousands of years, will roll away before it reaches
an end, a good end. For lo! time is without end, but the things
in time have an end; they can be scattered into the smallest
particles of dust, but these particles, the atoms even, have their
fixed number, and fixed likewise is the number of the forms
which out of them spontaneously body themselves forth; and
no matter how long it takes, according to the eternal laws of
combination in this play of eternal repetition, all forms which
have been upon this earth must again appear, must again attract,
repel, kiss, and ruin, afterwards as before.
And it will one day come to pass that again a man will be
born quite like me, and a woman be born quite like Marie,-
only I hope the man's head may contain somewhat less foolishness
than mine now, and the woman's heart somewhat more love than
Marie's; and in a better land these two shall meet and regard
each other long, and at last the woman, reaching out her hand,
will say in a soft voice, "Forgive me I was very naughty. "
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
-
## p. 7204 (#606) ###########################################
7204
HEINRICH HEINE
-
B
From The Hartz Journey. Translated by Charles G. Leland
LACK dress coats and silken stockings,
Snowy ruffles frilled with art,
Gentle speeches and embraces —
Oh, if they but held a heart!
GÖTTINGEN
Held a heart within their bosom,
Warmed by love which truly glows;
Ah! I'm wearied with their chanting
Of imagined lovers' woes!
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the quiet cabin stands,
Where the wind blows freely o'er us,
Where the heart at ease expands.
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the dark-green fir-trees grow;
Brooks are rustling, birds are singing,
And the wild clouds headlong go.
Then farewell, ye polished ladies,
Polished men and polished hall!
I will climb upon the mountain,
Smiling down upon you all.
THE town of Göttingen, celebrated for its sausages and uni-
versity, belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains nine.
hundred and ninety-nine dwellings, divers churches, a lying-in
asylum, an observatory, a prison, a library, and a "council cellar "
where the beer is excellent. The stream which flows by the
town is termed the Leine, and is used in summer for bath-
ing, its waters being very cold, and in more than one place
so broad that Luder was obliged to take quite a run before he
could leap across. The town itself is beautiful, and pleases most
when looked at- -backwards. It must be very ancient; for I well
remember that five years ago, when I matriculated there (and
shortly after "summoned "), it had already the same gray, old-
fashioned, wise look, and was fully furnished with beggars,
beadles, dissartations, tea-parties with a little dancing, washer-
women, compendiums, roasted pigeons, Guelphic orders, professors
--
## p. 7205 (#607) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7205
ordinary and extraordinary, pipe heads, court counselors, and law
counselors. Many even assert that at the time of the great
migration of races, every German tribe left a badly corrected
proof of its existence in the town, in the person of one of its
members; and that from these descended all the Vandals, Fries-
ians, Suabians, Teutons, Saxons, Thuringians, and others who
at the present day abound in Göttingen, where, separately dis-
tinguished by the color of their caps and pipe tassels, they may
be seen straying singly or in hordes along the Weender Street.
They still fight their battles on the bloody arena of the Rasen-
mill, Ritschenkrug, and Bovden, still preserve the mode of life
peculiar to their savage ancestors, and are still governed partly
by their Duces, whom they call "chief cocks," and partly by their
primevally ancient law-book, known as the 'Comment,' which
fully deserves a place among the legibus barbarorum.
The inhabitants of Göttingen are generally and socially divided
into Students, Professors, Philistines, and Cattle; the points of
difference between these castes being by no means strictly defined.
The cattle class is the most important. I might be accused of
prolixity should I here enumerate the names of all the students
and of all the regular and irregular professors: besides, I do
not just at present distinctly remember the appellations of all
the former gentlemen; while among the professors are many
who as yet have no name at all. The number of the Göttingen
Philistines must be as numerous as the sands (or, more correctly
speaking, as the mud) of the sea; indeed, when I beheld them
of a morning, with their dirty faces and clean bills, planted be-
fore the gate of the collegiate court of justice, I wondered greatly
that such an innumerable pack of rascals should ever have been
created.
·
•
It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Göt-
tingen, and the learned *** beyond doubt still lay in bed,
dreaming that he wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of
which grew innumerable white papers written over with citations.
On these the sun shone cheerily, and he plucked them and
planted them in new beds, while the sweetest songs of the night-
ingales rejoiced his old heart.
Before the Weender Gate I met two native and diminutive
schoolboys, one of whom was saying to the other, "I don't intend
to keep company any more with Theodore: he is a low little
blackguard, for yesterday he didn't even know the genitive of
## p. 7206 (#608) ###########################################
7206
HEINRICH HEINE
mensa. " Insignificant as these words may appear, I still regard
them as entitled to record - nay, I would even write them as
town-motto on the gate of Göttingen; for the young birds pipe
as the old ones sing, and the expression accurately indicates the
narrow-minded academic pride so characteristic of the "highly
learned" Georgia Augusta.
Finding the next morning that I must lighten my knapsack,
I threw overboard the pair of boots, and arose and went forth
unto Goslar. There I arrived without knowing how. This much
alone do I remember, that I sauntered up and down hill, gazing
upon many a lovely meadow vale. Silver waters rippled and
rustled, sweet wood-birds sang, the bells of the flocks tinkled,
the many-shaded green trees were gilded by the sun; and over
all, the blue-silk canopy of heaven was so transparent that I
could look through the depths even to the Holy of Holies, where
angels sat at the feet of God, studying sublime thorough-bass in
the features of the Eternal countenance. But I was all the time
lost in a dream of the previous night, which I could not banish.
It was an echo of the old legend, how a knight descended
into a deep fountain, beneath which the fairest princess of the
world lay buried in a death-like magic slumber. I myself was
the knight, and the dark mine of Clausthal was the fountain.
Suddenly innumerable lights gleamed around me, wakeful dwarfs
leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing angrily, cutting
at me with their short swords, blowing terribly on horns which
ever summoned more and more of their comrades, and frantically
nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down with my
sword, and the blood flowed, I for the first time remarked that
they were not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming long-bearded
thistle-tops, which I had the day before hewed down on the
highway with my stick. At last they all vanished, and I came
to a splendid lighted hall, in the midst of which stood my heart's
loved one, veiled in white, and immovable as a statue. I kissed
her mouth, and then-O Heavens! -I felt the blessed breath
of her soul and the sweet tremor of her lovely lips. It seemed
that I heard the divine command, "Let there be light! " and a
dazzling flash of eternal light shot down, but at the same instant
it was again night, and all ran chaotically together into a wild
desolate sea! A wild desolate sea, over whose foaming waves the
ghosts of the departed madly chased each other, the white shrouds.
floating on the wind, while behind all, goading them on with
## p. 7207 (#609) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7207
cracking whip, ran a many-colored harlequin—and I was the har-
lequin. Suddenly from the black waves the sea monsters raised
their misshapen heads, and yawned towards me with extended
jaws, and I awoke in terror.
Alas! how the finest dreams may be spoiled! The knight in
fact, when he has found the lady, ought to cut a piece from her
priceless veil, and after she has recovered from her magic sleep
and sits again in glory in her hall, he should approach her and
say, "My fairest princess, dost thou not know me? " Then she
will answer, "My bravest knight, I know thee not! " And then
he shows her the piece cut from her veil, exactly fitting the defi-
ciency, and she knows that he is her deliverer, and both tenderly
embrace, and the trumpets sound, and the marriage is celebrated!
It is really a very peculiar misfortune that my love dreams so
seldom have so fine a conclusion.
THE SUPPER ON THE BROCKEN
From The Hartz Journey'
HE company around the table
quainted and much noisier.
gradually became better ac-
Wine banished beer, punch-
bowls steamed, and drinking, schmolliren,* and singing were
the order of the night. The old 'Landsfather' and the beautiful
songs of W. Müller, Rückert, Uhland, and others rang around,
with the exquisite airs of Methfessel. Best of all sounded our
own Arndt's German words, "The Lord, who bade iron grow,
wished for no slaves. " And out of doors it roared as if the old
mountain sang with us, and a few reeling friends even asserted
that he merrily shook his bald head, which caused the great
unsteadiness of our floor. The bottles became emptier and the
heads of the company fuller. One bellowed like an ox, a second
piped, a third declaimed from 'The Crime,' a fourth spoke Latin,
a fifth preached temperance, and a sixth, assuming the chair,
learnedly lectured as follows:- "Gentlemen, the world is a round
cylinder, upon which human beings as individual pins are scat-
tered apparently at random. But the cylinder revolves, the pins
knock together and give out tones, some very frequently and
others but seldom; all of which causes a remarkably complicated
sound, which is generally known as universal history. We will,
* Hobnobbing.
Τ
## p. 7208 (#610) ###########################################
7208
HEINRICH HEINE
in consequence, speak first of music, then of the world, and
finally of history, which latter we divide into positive and Spanish
flies >>> And so sense and nonsense went rattling on.
A jolly Mecklenburger, who held his nose to his punch-glass,
and smiling with happiness snuffed up the perfume, remarked
that it caused in him a sensation as if he were standing again
before the refreshment table in the Schwerin Theatre! Another
held his wine-glass like a lorgnette before his eye, and appeared
to be carefully studying the company, while the red wine trickled
down over his cheek into his projecting mouth. The Greifs-
walder, suddenly inspired, cast himself upon my breast, and
shouted wildly, "Oh that thou couldst understand me, for I am a
lover, a happy lover; for I am loved again, and G-d d—n me,
she's an educated girl, for she has a full bosom, wears a white
gown, and plays the piano! " But the Swiss wept, and tenderly
kissed my hand, and ever whimpered, "O Molly dear! O Molly
dear! "
During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and
glasses to fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful and
pale as statues, one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The
faint rosy hue which the wine spread over their cheeks was
scarcely visible. They gazed on each other with infinite affec-
tion, as if the one could read in the eyes of the other; and in
those eyes there was a light as though drops of light had fallen
therein from the cup of burning love which an angel on high
bears from one star to the other. They conversed softly with
earnest, trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, through all of
which ran a tone of strange sorrow. "Lora is also dead! " said
one, and sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle who
had loved a student, and who, when the latter left Halle, spoke
no more to any one, ate but little, wept day and night, gazing
ever on the canary-bird which her lover had given her. "The
bird died, and Lora did not long survive it," was the conclusion,
and both the youths sighed as though their hearts would break.
Finally the other said, "My soul is sorrowful; come forth with
me into the dark night! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds
and the moon-rays. Partake of my sorrows! I love thee: thy
words are musical, like the rustling of reeds and the flow of
rivulets; they re-echo in my breast, but my soul is sorrowful! »
Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the
neck of the other, and thus left the noisy room. I followed, and
## p. 7209 (#611) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7209
saw them enter a dark chamber, where the one, by mistake,
instead of the window threw open the door of a large wardrobe;
and both, standing before it with outstretched arms, expressing
poetic rapture, spoke alternately. "Ye breezes of darkening
night," cried the first, "how ye cool and revive my cheeks! How
sweetly ye play amid my fluttering locks! I stand on the cloudy
peak of the mountain; far below me lie the sleeping cities of
men, and blue waters gleam. List! far below in the valley rustle
the fir-trees! Far above yonder hills sweep in misty forms the
spirits of my fathers. Oh that I could hunt with ye on your
cloud steeds through the stormy night, over the rolling sea,
upwards to the stars! Alas! I am laden with grief, and my soul
is sad! " Meanwhile, the other had also stretched out his arms
towards the wardrobe, while tears fell from his eyes as he cried
to a broad pair of yellow pantaloons which he mistook for the
moon: "Fair art thou, daughter of heaven! lovely and blessed is
the calm of thy countenance. Thou walkest lonely in thy loveli-
ness. The stars follow thy blue path in the east! At thy glance
the clouds rejoice, and their dark brows gleam with light. Who
is like unto thee in heaven, thou the night-born? The stars are
ashamed before thee, and turn away their green sparkling eyes.
Whither, ah whither, when morning pales thy face, dost thou
flee from thy path? Hast thou, like me, thy hall? Dwellest
thou amid shadows of sorrow? Have thy sisters fallen from
heaven? Are they who joyfully rolled with thee through the
night now no more? Yea, they fell adown, O lovely light! and
thou hidest thyself to bewail them! Yet the night must at some
time come when thou too must pass away, and leave thy blue
path above in heaven. Then the stars, who were once ashamed
in thy presence, will raise their green heads and rejoice. Now
thou art clothed in thy starry splendor and gazest adown from
the gate of heaven. Tear aside the clouds, O ye winds, that
the night-born may shine forth and the bushy hills gleam, and
that the foaming waves of the sea may roll in light! "
A well-known and not remarkably thin friend, who had drunk
more than he had eaten, though he had already at supper de-
voured a piece of beef which would have dined six lieutenants
of the guard and one innocent child, here came rushing into the
room in a very jovial manner,- that is to say, à la swine,-
shoved the two elegiac friends one over the other into the ward-
robe, stormed through the house-door, and began to roar around
## p. 7210 (#612) ###########################################
7210
HEINRICH HEINE
outside as if raising the devil in earnest. The noise in the hall
grew more confused and duller; the two moaning and weeping
friends lay, as they thought, crushed at the foot of the mountain;
from their throats ran noble red wine, and the one said to the
other: "Farewell! I feel that I bleed. Why dost thou waken
me, O breath of spring? Thou caressest me, and sayst, 'I bedew
thee with drops from heaven. ' But the time of my withering is
at hand—at hand the storm which will break away my leaves.
To-morrow the Wanderer will come -come-he who saw me in
my beauty his eyes will glance, as of yore, around the field-
in vain >> But over all roared the well-known basso voice
without, blasphemously complaining, amid oaths and whoops, that
not a single lantern had been lighted along the entire Weender
Street, and that one could not even see whose window-panes he
had smashed.
―
—
I can bear a tolerable quantity,-modesty forbids me to say
how many bottles, and I consequently retired to my chamber
in tolerably good condition. The young merchant already lay
in bed, enveloped in his chalk-white nightcap and yellow Welsh
flannel. He was not asleep, and sought to enter into conversa-
tion with me. He was a Frankfort-on-Mainer, and consequently
spoke at once of the Jews; declared that they had lost all feeling
for the beautiful and noble, and that they sold English goods
twenty-five per cent. under manufacturers' prices. A fancy to
humbug him came over me, and I told him that I was a som-
nambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon should I unwit-
tingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he confessed
the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink through
the whole night, especially since the idea had entered his head.
that I, while in a somnambulistic crisis, might shoot him with the
pistol which lay near my bed. But in truth I fared no better
myself, for I slept very little.
swept through my brain. A pianoforte extract from Dante's
Hell. Finally I dreamed that I saw a law opera, called the
'Falcidia,' with libretto on the right of inheritance by Gans, and
music by Spontini. A crazy dream! I saw the Roman Forum
splendidly illuminated. In it Servius Asinius Göschenus, sitting
as prætor on his chair, and throwing wide his toga in stately
folds, burst out into raging recitative; Marcus Tullius Elversus,
manifesting as prima donna legataria all the exquisite feminine-
ness of his nature, sang the love-melting bravura of "Quicunque
Dreary and terrifying fancies
## p. 7211 (#613) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7211
civis Romanus "; referees, rouged red as sealing-wax, bellowed in
chorus as minors; private tutors, dressed as genii, in flesh-colored
stockinets, danced an anti-Justinian ballet, crowning with flowers
the "Twelve Tables," while amid thunder and lightning rose
from the ground the abused ghost of Roman Legislation, accom-
panied by trumpets, gongs, fiery rain, cum omni causa.
From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the
Brocken, when he awoke me to see the sun rise. Above, on the
tower, I found several already waiting, who rubbed their freezing
hands; others, with sleep still in their eyes, stumbled up to us,
until finally the whole silent congregation of the previous evening
was reassembled, and we saw how above the horizon there rose
a little carmine-red ball, spreading a dim wintry illumination.
Far around, amid the mists, rose the mountains, as if swimming.
in a white rolling sea, only their summits being visible; so that
we could imagine ourselves standing on a little hill in the midst
of an inundated plain, in which here and there rose dry clods of
earth. To retain that which I saw and felt, I sketched the fol-
lowing poem:-
-
IN THE east 'tis ever brighter,
Though the sun gleams cloudily;
Far and wide the mountain summits
Swim above the misty sea.
Had I seven-mile boots for travel,
Like the fleeting winds I'd rove,
Over valley, rock, and river,
To the home of her I love.
From the bed where now she's sleeping,
Soft the curtain I would slip;
Softly kiss her childlike forehead,
Soft the ruby of her lip.
And yet softer would I whisper
In the little lily ear,
"Think in dreams we still are loving,
Think I never lost thee, dear. "
## p. 7212 (#614) ###########################################
7212
HEINRICH HEINE
LIFE AND OLD AGE
From Book Le Grand': Translation of Charles G. Leland
O
THERS may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having
their lady-love adorn their graves with garlands, and water
them with the tears of true love. O women! hate me,
laugh at me, mitten me, but let me live! Life is all too won-
drous sweet, and the world is so beautifully bewildered: it is the
dream of an intoxicated divinity who has taken French leave of
the tippling multitude of immortals, and has laid down to sleep
in a solitary star, and knows not himself that he also creates all
that which he dreams; and the dream images form themselves
often so fantastically wildly, and often so harmoniously and
reasonably. The Iliad, Plato, the battle of Marathon, Moses, the
Medicean Venus, the cathedral of Strasburg, the French Revolu-
tion, Hegel, and steamboats, etc. , etc. , are other good thoughts
in this divine dream: but it will not last long, and the immortal
one awakes and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles; and our world
has run to nothing-yes, has never been.
No matter-I live!
If I am but the shadowy image in a
dream, still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of
death. Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of
evils.
And I live! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my
breast; and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-
fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent
them to awaken earth from her morning slumber, and earth
trembles with ecstasy; her flowers are hymns, which she sings in
inspiration to the sun; the sun moves far too slowly: I would
fain lash on his steeds that they might advance more rapidly.
But when he sinks hissing in the sea, and the night rises with
her great eyes, oh then true pleasure first thrills through me
like a new life, the evening breezes lie like flattering maidens on
my wild heart, and the stars wink to me, and I rise and sweep
over the little earth and the little thoughts of mankind.
But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched
in my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his
snowflakes will whiten my locks and his mists will dim my eyes.
Then my friends will lie in their weather-worn tombs, and I alone
will remain like a solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper. A new
## p. 7213 (#615) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7213
race will have sprung up, with new desires and new ideas; full
of wonder, I hear new names and listen to new songs, for the
old names are forgotten, and I myself am forgotten, perhaps hon-
ored by but few, scorned by many, and loved by none! And
then the rosy-cheeked boys will spring around me and place the
old harp in my trembling hand, and say laughing, "Thou indo-
lent gray-headed old man, sing us again songs of the dreams of
thy youth. "
Then I will grasp the harp, and my old joys and sorrows will
awake, the clouds will vanish, tears will again gleam on my pale
cheeks. Spring will bloom once more in my breast, sweet tones
of woe will tremble on the harp-strings. I shall see once more
the blue flood and the marble palaces and the lovely faces of
ladies and young girls, and I will sing a song of the flowers of
the Brenta.
It will be my last song; the stars will gaze on me as in the
nights of my youth, the loving moonlight will once more kiss my
cheeks, the spirit chorus of nightingales long dead will sound
flute-like from afar, my eyes intoxicated with sleep will softly
close, my soul will re-echo with the notes of my harp- perfume
breathes from the flowers of the Brenta.
A tree will shadow my grave. I would gladly have it a palm,
but that tree will not grow in the North. It will be a linden,
and of a summer evening lovers will sit there caressing; the
green-finches will be listening silently, and my linden will rustle
protectingly over the heads of the happy ones, who will be so
happy that they will have no time to read what is written on the
white tombstone. But when at a later day the lover has lost
his love, then he will come again to the well-known linden, and
sigh and weep, and gaze long and oft upon the stone until he
reads the inscription, "He loved the flowers of the Brenta. "
DÜSSELDORF
From Book Le Grand': Translation of Charles G. Leland
YES
Es, madam, there was I born; and I am particular in calling
attention to this fact, lest after my death seven cities—
those of Schilda, Krähwinkel, Polwitz, Bockum, Dülken,
Göttingen, and Schöppenstadt-should contend for the honor of
having witnessed my birth. Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine
## p. 7214 (#616) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7214
where about sixteen thousand mortals live, and where many hun-
dred thousands are buried; and among them are many of whom
my mother says it were better if they were still alive,- for
example, my grandfather and my uncle, the old Herr van Geldern
and the young Herr van Geldern, who were both such celebrated
doctors and saved the lives of so many men, and yet at last
must both die themselves. And good pious Ursula, who bore
me when a child in her arms, also lies buried there, and a rose-
bush grows over her grave; she loved rose perfume so much in
her life, and her heart was all rose perfume and goodness. And
the shrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how
miserable he looked when I last saw him! He consisted of noth-
ing but soul and plasters, and yet he studied night and day as
though he feared lest the worms might find a few ideas missing
in his head. Little William also lies there, and that is my fault.
We were schoolmates in the Franciscan cloister, and were one
day playing on that side of the building where the Düssel flows
between stone walls, and I said, "William, do get the kitten out,
which has just fallen in! " and he cheerfully climbed out on the
board which stretched over the brook, and pulled the cat out of
the water, but fell in himself, and when they took him out he
was dripping and dead. The kitten lived to a good old age.
The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of
it when in foreign lands, and happen at the same time to have
been born there, strange feelings come over the soul. I was born
there, and feel as if I must go directly home. And when I say
home, I mean the Völkerstrasse and the house where I was born.
This house will be some day very remarkable, and I have sent
word to the old lady who owns it that she must not for her life
sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly get as much
as the present which the green-veiled English ladies will give the
servant-girl when she shows them the room where I was born,
and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me
for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother
taught me to write with chalk-O Lord! madam, should I ever
become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble
enough.
But my renown as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of
Carrara; the waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked
my brow has not spread its perfume through the wide world; and
the green-veiled English ladies, when they visit Düsseldorf, leave
## p. 7215 (#617) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7215
the celebrated house unvisited, and go directly to the Market
Place and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue
which stands in its midst. This represents the Prince-Elector,
Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armor and a long hanging wig.
In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which
they now are. Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at
night they drew their caps over them and slept in peace; and
their people slumbered calmly at their feet, and when they awoke
in the morning they said, "Good-morning, father! " and he re-
plied, "Good-morning, dear children! "
But there came a sudden change over all this; for one morn-
ing, when we awoke and would say, "Good-morning, father! "
the father had traveled away, and in the whole town there was
nothing but dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like
expression, and people slipped silently through the market and
read the long paper placed on the door of the town-house. It
was dark and lowering, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in the
nankeen jacket which he generally wore only at home, and in
his blue woolen stockings, so that his little bare legs peeped out
as if in sorrow, and his thin lips quivered as he read murmur-
ingly the handbill. An old invalid soldier from the Palatine
read it in a somewhat louder tone, and little by little a trans-
parent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I stood
near him, and asked why he wept? And he replied, "The
Prince-Elector has abdicated. " And then he read further, and at
the words "for the long-manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and
hereby release you from allegiance," he wept still more.
It is a
strange sight to see, when so old a man, in faded uniform, with
a scarred veteran's face, suddenly bursts into tears.
While we
read, the Princely-Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down
from the Town Hall, and everything began to appear as miser-
ably dreary as though we were waiting for an eclipse of the
The gentlemen town councilors went about at an abdicating
wearisome gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he
had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent,
although the crazy Aloysius stood upon one leg and chattered
the names of French generals, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz
rolled around in the gutter, singing Ça ira! Ça ira!
sun.
But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince-
Elector had abducted! " My mother had trouble enough to ex-
plain the word, but I would hear nothing. I knew what I knew,
## p. 7216 (#618) ###########################################
7216
HEINRICH HEINE
and went weeping to bed, and in the night dreamed that the
world had come to an end; that all the fair flower gardens and
green meadows of the world were taken up and rolled up, and
put away like carpets and baize from the floor; that a beadle
climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun; and that
the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, "I must go home.
and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and am to be buried this
afternoon. " And it grew darker and darker; a few stars glim-
mered sparely on high, and these at length fell down like yellow
leaves in autumn; one by one all men vanished, and I, a poor
child, wandered in anguish around, until, before the willow fence
of a deserted farm-house, I saw a man digging up the earth with
a spade, and near him an ugly spiteful-looking woman who held
something in her apron like a human head-but it was the
moon, and she laid it carefully in the open grave; and behind
me stood the Palatine invalid, sighing, and spelling "The Prince-
Elector has abducted. "
The next day the world was again all in order, and we had
school as before, and things were got by heart as before: the
Roman emperors, chronology, the nomina in im, the verba irregu-
laria, Greek, Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic-
Lord! my head is still giddy with it! -all must be thoroughly
learned. And much of it was eventually to my advantage. For
had I not learned the Roman emperors by heart, it would subse-
quently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether
Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed.
And had I not learned the numbers of the different years, how
could I ever in later years have found out any one in Berlin,
where one house is as like another as drops of water or as grena-
diers, and where it is impossible to find a friend unless you have
the number of his house in your head? Therefore I associated
with every friend some historical event which had happened in
a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the
one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always
occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For
instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the battle
of Marathon; if I saw the banker Christian Gumpel, I remem-
bered the destruction of Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend deeply
in debt, of the flight of Mahomet; if the university judge, a man
whose probity is well known, of the death of Haman; and if
Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra. Ah, heaven! the
## p. 7217 (#619) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7217
poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say
of her with Hamlet, "Take her for all in all, she was an old
woman; we oft shall look upon her like again! " But as I said,
chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their
heads but a few years, yet who know exactly where to look for.
the right houses, and are moreover regular professors.
But oh,
the trouble I had at school with my learning to count! and it
went even worse with the ready reckoning. I understood best of
all subtraction, and for this I had a very practical rule: "four
can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one;
» but I
advise all in such a case to borrow a few extra dollars, for no
one can tell what may happen.
THE PHILISTINE OF BERLIN
From (Italy)
I
AM the politest man in the world. I am happy in the reflec-
tion that I have never been rude in this life, where there are
so many intolerable scamps who take you by the button and
draw out their grievances, or even declaim their poems—yes,
with true Christian patience have I ever listened to their misereres
without betraying by a glance the intensity of ennui and of bore-
dom into which my soul was plunged. Like unto a penitential.
martyr of a Brahmin, who offers up his body to devouring ver-
min, so that the creatures (also created by God) may satiate their
appetites, so have I for a whole day taken my stand and calmly
listened as I grinned and bore the chattering of the rabble, and
my internal sighs were only heard by Him who rewards virtue.
But the wisdom of daily life enjoins politeness, and forbids a
vexed silence or a vexatious reply, even when some chuckle-
headed commercial councilor" or barren-brained cheesemonger
makes a set at us, beginning a conversation common to all Europe
with the words, "Fine weather to-day. " No one knows but that
we may meet that same Philistine again, when he may wreak
bitter vengeance on us for not politely replying, "It is very fine
weather. " Nay, it may even happen, dear reader, that thou
mayest, some fine day, come to sit by the Philistine aforesaid in
the inn at Cassel, and at the table d'hôte, even by his left side,
when he is exactly the very man who has the dish with a jolly
brown carp in it, which he is merrily dividing among the many.
XII-452
## p. 7218 (#620) ###########################################
7218
HEINRICH HEINE
If he now chance to have some ancient grudge against thee, he
pushes away the dish to the right, so that thou gettest not the
smallest bit of tail, and therewith canst not carp at all. For,
alas! thou art just the thirteenth at table, which is always an
unlucky thing when thou sittest at the left hand of the carver
and the dish goes around to the right. And to get no carp is a
great evil perhaps, next to the loss of the national cockade, the
greatest of all. The Philistine who has prepared this evil now
mocks thee with a heavy grin, offering thee the laurel leaves
which lie in the brown sauce. Alas! what avail laurels, if you
have no carp with them; and the Philistine twinkles his eyes
and snickers, and whispers, "Fine weather to-day! "
Ah! dear soul, it may even happen to thee that thou wilt at
last come to lie in some church-yard next to that same Philistine,
and when on the Day of Judgment thou hearest the trumpet
sound, and sayest to thy neighbor, "Good friend, be so kind as
to reach me your hand, if you please, and help me to stand up;
my left leg is asleep with this damned long lying still! "-then
thou wilt suddenly remember the well-known Philistine laugh,
and wilt hear the mocking tones of "Fine weather to-day! "
"Foine wey-ther to-day! "
-
O reader, if you could only have heard the tone - the incom-
parable treble-base-in which these words were uttered, and
could have seen the speaker himself,- the arch-prosaic, widow's-
savings-bank countenance, the stupid-cute eyelets, the cocked-up,
cunning, investigating nose,—you would at once have said, "This
flower grew on no common sand, and these tones are in the dia-
lect of Charlottenburg, where the tongue of Berlin is spoken even
better than in Berlin itself. "
I am the politest man in the world. I love to eat brown
carps, and I believe in the resurrection. Therefore I replied,
"In fact, the weather is very fine. "
When the son of the Spree heard that, he grappled boldly on
me, and I could not escape from his endless questions, to which
he himself answered; nor, above all, from his comparisons be-
tween Berlin and Munich, which latter city he would not admit
had a single good hair growing on it.
I, however, took the modern Athens under my protection,
being always accustomed to praise the place where I am. Friend
reader, if I did this at the expense of Berlin, you will forgive
me when I quietly confess that it was done out of pure policy,
## p. 7219 (#621) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7219
for I am fully aware that if I should ever begin to praise my
good Berliners, my renown would be forever at an end among
them; for they would begin at once to shrug their shoulders, and
whisper to one another, "The man must be uncommonly green:
he even praises us! " No town in the world has so little local
patriotism as Berlin. A thousand miserable poets have, it is
true, long since celebrated Berlin both in prose and in rhyme,
yet no cock in Berlin crowed their praise and no hen was cooked
for them, and "under the Lindens" they were esteemed miser-
able poets as before.
But after all, between you and me, reader, when it comes
to calling the whole town "a new Athens," the designation is a
little absurd; and it costs me not a little trouble to represent it
in this light. This went home to my very heart in the dialogue
with the Berlin Philister, who, though he had conversed for
some time with me, was unpolite enough to find an utter want
of the first grain of Attic salt in the new Athens.
"That," he cried tolerably loudly, "is only to be found in
Berlin. There, and there only, is wit and irony. Here they
have good white beer, but no irony. "
"No, we haven't got irony," cried Nannerl, the pretty, well-
formed waiting-maid, who at this instant sprang past us; "but
you can have any other sort of beer. "
It grieved me to the heart that Nannerl should take irony to
be any sort of beer, were it even the best brew of Stettin; and
to prevent her from falling in future into such errors, I began
to teach her after the following wise:-"Pretty Nannerl, irony
is not beer, but an invention of the Berlin people,- the wisest
folks in the world,-who were awfully vexed because they came.
too late into the world to invent gunpowder, and therefore under-
took to find out something which should answer as well. Once
upon a time, my dear, when a man had said or done something
stupid, how could the matter be helped? That which was done
could not be undone, and people said that the man was an ass.
That was disagreeable. In Berlin, where the people are shrewd-
est, and where the most stupid things happen, the people soon
found out the inconvenience. The government took hold of the
matter vigorously: only the greater blunders were allowed to
be printed, the lesser were simply suffered in conversation; only
professors and high officials could say stupid things in public,
lesser people could only make asses of themselves in private:
## p. 7220 (#622) ###########################################
HEINRICH HEINE
7220
but all of these regulations were of no avail; suppressed stupidi-
ties availed themselves of extraordinary opportunities to come to
light, those below were protected by those above, and the emer-
gency was terrible, until some one discovered a reactionary means
whereby every piece of stupidity could change its nature, and
even be metamorphosed into wisdom. The process is altogether
plain and easy, and consists simply in a man's declaring that
the stupid word or deed of which he has been guilty was meant
ironically. So, my dear girl, all things get along in this world:
stupidity becomes irony, toadyism which has missed its aim
becomes satire, natural coarseness is changed to artistic raillery,
real madness is humor, ignorance real wit, and thou thyself art
finally the Aspasia of the modern Athens. "
I would have said more, but pretty Nannerl, whom I had up
to this point held fast by the apron-string, broke away loose by
main force, as the entire band of assembled guests began to roar
for "A beer! a beer! " in stormy chorus. But the Berliner him-
self looked like irony incarnate as he remarked the enthusiasm
with which the foaming glasses were welcomed, and after point-
ing to a group of beer-drinkers who toasted their hop nectar and
disputed as to its excellence, he said smiling, "Those are your
Athenians! "
HEINE'S VISIT TO GOETHE
WHE
THEN I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, I
involuntarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle
was not there with the lightning in his beak. I was
nearly speaking Greek to him; but as I observed that he under-
stood German, I stated to him in German that the plums on the
road between Jena and Weimar were very good. I had for so
many long winter nights thought over what lofty and profound.
things I would say to Goethe, if ever I saw him—and when I
saw him at last, I said to him that the Saxon plums were very
good! And Goethe smiled.
Translation of Stern and Snodgrass.
## p. 7221 (#623) ###########################################
7221
HELIODORUS
(Fourth Century A. D. )
KUR English — or more generally, our modern — novel is the
progeny of the Greek romance of Heliodorus. If the self-
respecting, simple-minded old bishop could have foreseen the
vast concourse of the children of his mind, as numerous as the sands
of his native Syria, would he have suppressed it? A legend still pre-
served leads one to think he would not; for Heliodorus, according to
the account, had the courage of his romance-writing. The story says
that after some Thessalian young persons, in the fourth century, had
been misled to love by this Ethiopica of Heliodorus, the synod of
the Church decreed that such amorous and inflaming literature should
be committed to the flames, or the author deprived of his bishopric
of Tricca. To the glory of Heliodorus, it should be added that he
preferred resigning his prelacy to suppressing his genius.
Heliodorus was not the first romance writer. Other Greeks had
humanized Oriental allegory, parable, and fictitious narrative,-the
Greek race was wont to humanize whatever of outlandish art or
religion came to it; and the Greek story-tellers, even before the
Bishop of Tricca, made their heroes men and their heroines women,
living natural lives without the intervention of genii or magic. But
the tales of these forerunners have not been saved except in sum-
maries. It was Heliodorus whose art so charmed that it preserved
his little tales, and became a model for Longus, Achilles Tatius, and
others who came after him. There is no better example in all liter-
ature of the quiet, silent working through centuries of a book of
genuine human value. To his contemporaries Heliodorus was of so
small value that the closing sentence of his romance "Thus endeth
the Ethiopian historie of Theagenes and Cariclia, the author wereof
is Heliodorus of Emesos, a citie in Phoenicia, sonne of Theodosius,
which fetched his petigree from the Sunne » - is about all the record
we have of him.
His romance was brought to modern light by a German soldier,
who in the plunder of a library at Buda in 1526, attracted by the rich
binding of a manuscript, stole it. He brought his treasure westward
and sold it to Vincent Obsopæus, who published it in Basle in 1534.
"Until this period," says Huet in his treatise on the origin of ro-
mances (Huet was a courtier of Louis XIV. ), "nothing had been seen
## p. 7222 (#624) ###########################################
7222
HELIODORUS
better conceived or better executed than those adventures of The-
agenes and Chariclea. Nothing can be more chaste than their loves,
in which the author's own virtuous mind assists the religion of Christ-
ianity, which he professed, in diffusing over the whole work that air
of honnêteté in which almost all the earlier romances are deficient.
The incidents are numerous, novel, probable, and skillfully unfolded.
The dénouement is admirable: it is natural; it grows out of the sub-
ject; and it is in the highest degree touching and pathetic. " Quickly
told, the story is this. The lovers-Chariclea, a priestess of Delphi,
and Theagenes, a descendant of Achilles-fly to Egypt. After many
adventures and misfortunes, they come to Ethiopia and are about
to suffer immolation to the sun and moon, when it is revealed that
Chariclea is the daughter of the king reigning in that country. By
a miracle she had been born white. The marriage of the lovers
follows.
In 1547 Jacques Amyot translated the story into French. It also
found a translation into several other languages, and has exerted
a wide influence upon fictitious narrative. It was universally read.
"Heliodorus, that good Bishop of Tricca," says Montaigne in one of
his essays, "rather chose to lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of
so venerable a prelacy than to lose his daughter: a daughter that
continues to this day very graceful and comely; but notwithstanding,
peradventure a little too curiously and wantonly trickt, and too amor-
ous, for an ecclesiastical and sacerdotal daughter. " In this century
of the reappearance also,- the century in which Montaigne wrote,-
Tasso, promising the courtiers of the French King that such favorite
reading of theirs should be preserved in the glories of Italian verse,
transferred to the heroine Clorinda the incidents of the birth and
early life of Chariclea; Tasso's friend Guarini imitated the proposed
sacrifice and the discovery of the birth of Chariclea in his pastoral
drama 'Pastor Fido. ' The boyhood of Racine, it is also said, was
lighted by Heliodorus's story; for when at Port Royal, his imagina-
tion well-nigh smothered by the mass of dry erudition the monks
had heaped upon him, he came by chance upon this romance. The
fathers burnt the first copy, and the second, and a third, but the
mischief had been done; Racine's imagination had been saved, and
throughout his life the story was beloved of him. Both French and
English writers of tragedy have used the plot for plays; and Raphael,
aided by Giulio Romano, took two of the most striking incidents of
the story for his canvases. In one he has painted the moment when
Theagenes and Chariclea meet in the temple of Delphi; in the other,
Chariclea on board the Tyrian ship is imploring the captain of the
pirates that she may not be separated from her lover and the Egyp-
tian priest. Says Charles Whibley in his Introduction to the romance:
## p. 7223 (#625) ###########################################
HELIODORUS
7223
«The invention of Heliodorus carries the reader far away from life and
observation. Bloodthirsty pirates and armed men, caves and ambushes, dreams
and visions, burnings, poisonings, and sudden deaths, battle and rapine,—
these are the material of his ancient story. . . . It is in his opening scene
that Heliodorus best approves his skill. He plunges at once into a very
tangle of events, and captures the attention by a fearless contempt of prologue
and explanation.
Throughout, the author shows himself a master of
construction. Though his plot be involved, though his story begin anywhere
else than at the beginning, it is the surest of hands which holds the thread.
. . The purpose of the narrative is never confused, and you reach the
appointed end with a complete consciousness of the story's shape and con-
struction.
For him the adventure was the beginning and the end of
art.
There was never a writer who closed his senses more resolutely to
the sights and sounds of actuality. In him the faculty of observation was
replaced by the self-consciousness of the littérateur. Not even his vocabulary
was fresh or original. Coray, the wisest of his editors, has proved that he
borrowed his words as ingeniously as he concocted his episodes.
His prose,
in fact, is elaborately composed of tags from Homer and the Tragedians. »
.
•
The Greek text has been many times edited,- most successfully
by Coray, whose edition appeared in Paris in 1804. The following
are two episodes taken from the English version of Underdowne - "An
Ethiopian Historie written in Greeke by Heliodorus no lesse wittie
then pleasaunt Englished by Thomas Underdowne and newly cor-
rected and augmented with divers and sundry new additions by the
said authour whereunto is also annexed the argument of every booke
in the beginning of the same for the better understanding of the
storie. 1587. " The relation to the Greek original is often remote or
casual; the version is of great independent value, however, as a
monument of English prose.
THE LOVERS
From The First Booke
As
S SOONE as the day appeared and the Sunne began to shine
on the tops of the hilles, men whose custome was to live
by rapine and violence ranne to the top of a hill that
stretched towards the mouth of Nylus called Heracleot: where
standing awhile they viewed the sea underneath them, and when
they had looked a good season a far off into the same, and could
see nothing that might put them in hope of pray, they cast their
eyes somewhat neare the shoare: where a shippe, tyed with cables
to the maine land, lay at road, without sailers, and full fraughted,
which thing they who were a farre of might easily conjecture:
## p. 7224 (#626) ###########################################
HELIODORUS
7224
for the burden caused the shippe to drawe water within the
bourdes of the decke. But on the shore every place was ful of
men, some quite dead, some halfe dead, some whose bodies yet
panted, and plainly declared that there had ben a battell fought
of late.
But there could be seene no signes or tokens of any just
quarell, but there seemed to be an ill and unluckie banket, and
those that remained, obtained such ende. For the tables were
furnished with delicate dishes, some whereof laie in the handes
of those that were slaine, being in steede of weapons to some of
them in the battaile, so souddenly begunne. Others covered such
as crope under them to hide themselves, as they thought.
