a.
13 ^.^^.if^

"i^ive tht/e Bpoki

1930

PRESS NOTICES OF FIRST EDITION.

" Mr. Snodgrass has produced a book in which lazy people will find a
great deal to please them. They can take it up at any moment, and open
it on any page with the certainty of finding some bright epigram ; they
need not turn down the page on shutting up the volume, as it matters
little where they resume. There is nothing jarring in the whole book." —
Athenauni, April 19, 1877.
" No Englishman of culture who is unacquainted with Heine can fail to
derive a new intellectual pleasure from Mr. Snodgrass's pages." — Contem
porary Review, September 1880.
"Mr. Snodgrass would appear to have saturated himself with Heine
literature, to have so caught Heine's mode of thought and his turns of
expression — quaint, droll, swift, and scathing by turns — that the trans
lator would appear to have had no more difficulty in presenting Heine as
he was to the reader than he would have in presenting his own thoughts."
Glasgow 'Herald, March 31, 1879.
"Mr. Snodgrass, in his 'Wit,' &c., has done a great service in this
respect, presenting as it were a full-length miniature of the man, clear and
effective, wherein his characteristic expression is faithfully caught, and
where, if we look carefully, we can see him as he really was, for he is
made to paint his own portrait." — British Quarterly Review, October 1881.
" Mr, Snodgrass has certainly done great service to English literature in
presenting us with a compact little volume like that before us." — Spectator.
" A word of cordial praise is due to the translator, Mr. J. Snodgrass,
for his admirable performance of a very difficult task. His book is one to
welcome and to keep as a treasure of almost priceless thought and criti
cism," — Contemporary Review, February iS8l.
" He has performed his task with skill,' tact, and judgment ; and it is
easy to perceive that he has a thorough acquaintance wjth his author and
sympathy for his matter." — Notes and Queries, April 19, 1879.
' ' The result of Mr. Snodgrass's attempt has been the production of a
volume which, for variety and interest, may be pronounced one of the
most successful books of the season." — Aberdeen Journal, March 26, 1879.
" Mr. Snodgrass has done his selection and translation admirably well,
and we owe him thanks for a volume which has in it more wit of the
highest sort, and more political insight, than any book that has lately been
given to the public." — Vanity Fair, November 8, 1879.
"The 'English Fragments' have a special interest for the English
reader ; but the selection from Heine's prose works in general, most judi
ciously made and excellently translated by Mr. Snodgrass, gives a much
completer view of the qualities of the writer's mind." — Saturday Review.
"Mr. Snodgrass has not essayed to give at all an exhaustive collection
of Heine's witty, wise, and pathetic sayings ; but he has selected, in the
order in which they occur in the complete German edition, such extracts
as have specially commended themselves to him. He has produced a
very enjoyable volume, exactly adapted to the taste of lazy and luxurious
persons, who can just take up the book for five minutes to read a delight
ful passage, complete in itself, and not long enough to fatigue the most
fastidious attention. " — Academy, May t,\, 1879.

Heines
Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

WIT, WISDOM, AND PATHOS,
FROM THE PROSE OF
HEINRICH HEINE,
WITH
A FEW PIECES FROM THE "BOOK OF SONGS."
SELECTED AND TRANSLATED BY
J. SNODGRASS.

SECOND EDITION— THOROUGHLY REVISED.

ALEXANDER GARDNER,
PAISLEY; and 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

col
50

JEs miu.
Who has shared with me the pleasure of knowing that these
translations, in their original form, served in some degree to
arouse among English readers, interest in, and admiration for,
Heine's prose writings, I Dedicate

THIS REVISED EDITION.

J. s.

" It is because he unites so much wit with so much pathos that Heine is so
effective a writer." — Matthew Arnoid: Essays in Criticisms.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In preparing a Second Edition of these translations from
Heine's prose, the volume as it originally stood has been
revised, line by line, and word by word. It would
be saying too much to call this Edition a new version,
but, whatever be its worth, the revision has been made
with the utmost care. The reception of the First Edi
tion was so cordial, that the Translator felt the duty im
posed on him of endeavouring to render the transla
tions as worthy as he could of the vigour and the
beauty of the original.
The introductory note has undergone several necessary
alterations, and an attempt has been made to improve
some of the verse translations at the end of the volume.
It may, no doubt, be thought that with regard to the
latter a more sweeping improvement should have been
made, namely, the omission of them ; but the decision
to retain them may be partly justified by an appeal to
several favourable voices, not without authority on the
matter. J. S.
December, 1887.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

In this volume an attempt is made to do for Heine's
prose what has already been done, more or less success
fully,^ for his verse. It is in some respects unfortunate
for Heine's fame that, until very recently, he should have
been known to English readers almost solely as the author
of the Book of Songs. His later poems, full of deepest
questionings concerning the mystery of human life and
suffering', and clothed in the most exquisitely poetical
form, have been quite overshadowed by the immense
popularity of his earlier verse. His prose works, now
beginning to be known to general readers in this country,
were till lately read only by systematic students of German
literature. Yet these writings fill fourteen volumes in the
best known German edition, exclusive of four volumes of
letters and posthumous pieces. Hitherto they have af
forded a happy hunting-ground for journalists and essay
ists in search of a brilliant phrase or a telling quotation.
In this way many fragments of Heine's prose have long
been familiar to English readers, and have been so often
quoted and misquoted that they are now the common
property of literary day-labourers. But Heine as a great

Translator's Note.

prose writer has not yet been accorded among us
the rtink held by German authors of far less note. The
original idea of this selection was suggested by the habit
of noting passages in the course of reading Heine's
works. In every page is to be found some idea, some
phrase, often merely an epithet, that causes the reader
either a thrill of pleasure or a shock of surprise. Fre
quently a feeling akin to physical terror is experienced
when the bolt of the writer's unerring irony falls upon the
superstitions or the hypocrisies that cling to the life of
our enlightened and professedly Christian century. It
would have been a comparatively easy task to have
formed a collection of brilliant things from Heine's works,
and to have classified them as in a book of reference.
The object of this volume is, however, somewhat differ
ent, and perhaps a little more ambitious. It is an en
deavour to reproduce in an English garb Heine's thoughts
and feelings on a great variety of subjects, and in this
manner to illustrate the phases of his many-sided mind,
and the almost endless variety of form in which he clothes
his thought and feeling. It is in no sense a book of
maxims. Heine's thought could never be confined
within the limit of an aphorism, and he certainly had no
talent for enunciating moral precepts. The scintillations
of his wit are brilliant suggestions and not rounded defi
nitions ; the flashes of his irony arouse the same feeling
of scorn in the mind of the reader that was in the mind

Translator's Note.

of the writer ; in his tenderest pathos he does not dwell
too long on the subject that gives it birth ; and he never
degenerates into maudlin sentimentality. In his vignettes
of the lives and characters of great men, he gives us a
mere outline, a few touches of the pen, but they are
always the touches of a master hand, and we have a
better conception of the life of Luther, of Spinoza, or of
Lessing, from what Heine has to say of them within the
compass of a few pages, than from their most elaborate
biographies. Many of the passages selected are simply
poems in prose, and the difficulty of adequately transla
ting them into. English is sometimes almost insurmount
able ; for in Heine's prose we find the same melodious
rhythm allied to the same simplicity of language that we
find in his verse. In its kind, his prose is as marvellous
as his verse. It has all the vivacity and grace of the best
French writing, combined with an intensity peculiar to
German literature. In a word, it is the prose of a Ger
man poet — and of such a poet ! Heine's prose has no
style in the sense in which we speak of the style of
Addison, of Macaulay, or of Milton. Here and there
we find a reminiscence of Goldsmith, or still more of
Sterne. During the early years of his literary career he
was an enthusiastic admirer of the latter ; but perhaps
his least successful writing is that in which he con
sciously imitates the author of the "Sentimental Journey."
Among Germans, Novalis may sometimes rival him in

Translator' s Note.

pathos, and Jean Paul in satire; but no German, per
haps no modern author, can approach him in power of
combining wit with pathos. In his serious passages his
prose does not exhibit the classical grace of Goethe's,
nor has it the splendid roll of Schiller's. His character,
also, had as little in common with the characters of these
two kingly writers as his style. He had not the sublime
egotism of the former, nor was he capable of the self-
sacrificing enthusiasm of the latter. He was not prepared
to suffer martyrdom for truth like Lessing, whose memory
he so ardently revered. His life was a failure ; it wanted
the predominant unity of purpose that is the polar star
of all noble forms of genius. Yet the errors of his life
contributed to give power to his writings : there was in
him a kinship with the worst as well as with the best in
human nature. He himself says that he can think of
Bryon as a colleague, but that he stands in awe of Shakes
peare. He is less afraid of Luther with his "divine
brutality," than of Shakespeare ; and he has more rever
ence for Spinoza, whom he calls the kinsman of Jesus
Christ, than for either the great Reformer or the great
Dramatist. Within recent years various short memoirs of Heine ,
have appeared in this country and in America, but we
are still without a worthy English biography.*
* Readers of German will find in the Clarendon Press Series a very pleasant
little volume of selections entitled "Heme's Prosa," with English notes and
short biography, by Professor C. A. Buchheim.

Translator's Note.

Heine, named Harry, after an English business friend
of his father's, was born at Diisseldorf on the Rhine, on
the 13th of December, 1799. Both his parents were
Jews. His father was a shopkeeper of humble means
His paternal uncle, Solomon Heine, became a wealthy
Hamburg banker, and with him the poet-nephew, during
a great part of his life, was alternately quarrelling and
making peace. Heine received his early education at the
French Lyceum in Diisseldorf, at the head of which was
Rector Schallmeyer, a Roman Catholic priest of scholarly
abilities and of liberal views. The battle of Leipzig
having finally put an end to French rule in the Rhine
Provinces, the Lyceum was broken up. Various attempts
were made to establish Heine in mercantile occupations,
first as a bank clerk in Frankfort and afterwards in busi
ness in Hamburg. From this first residence in Hamburg
date his earliest serious efforts as a poet, and the unfor
tunate though only partially explained love affair which
was to affect the whole current of his life and work.
Abandoning commerce he went, in 18 19, to the Univer
sity of Bonn in order to study jurisprudence. But his
devotion to literature was more ardent than his pursuit
of law. He was here brought under what proved to be
for him the important influence of August Wilhelm
von Schlegel, who was then inspiring the students of Bonn
with enthusiasm for German mediaeval literature. From
Bonn (for what reason is not quite clear) Heine betook

Translator's Note.

himself in the autumn of 1820 to Goettingen, of which
the professors and the student life are fiercely satirized
in the first part of the Travel-Pictures. His first residence
at Goettingen terminated after a few months by his being
rusticated, on account of his connection with a duelling
affair. Although Heine appears to have been somewhat
unjustly treated by the University Court, he accepted his
punishment without feeling much vexation. He now
went to Berlin, where, through the iritroduction of Varn-
hagen von Ense and his accomplished wife Rahel, he
enjoyed access to the best literary society and began to
be himself recognised as a true poetic genius. He at
tended the lectures of Hegel, and became personally ac
quainted with the great philosopher. There has been
much discussion as to how far Heine's views were af
fected by the teaching of Hegel. It may safely be
asserted that, though he did not accept this teaching as
the last word of philosophy, and indeed often makes it a
subject of irony, its influence on him was unquestionably
very great. At Berlin he became a member of the "Jewish
Society," an association founded by the disciples of Moses
Mendelsshon for the purpose of improving the intellec
tual, political, and social position of the Jews in Germany.
In 182 1 his first volume of verse was published. During
1823 he left Berlin to spend some time with his parents
at Liineburg, and afterwards made an excursion to Cux-
haven and Hamburg. In 1824 he was again a student

Translator's Note. xv.

at Goettingen, where he applied himself more earnestly
than he had hitherto done to the study of law. Here
he was baptized a Christian (henceforth adopting the
name Heinrich) on the 28th of June, 1825 ; and on the
20th of July following he obtained his doctor's degree,
after the usual examination. On finally leaving Goettin
gen he paid a visit to the island of Nordeney, an excur
sion that furnished material for both prose and verse.
Towards the end of this year he endeavoured to begin
practice as an advocate in Hamburg. It is doubtful,
however, whether he made any serious or continuous
effort to obtain clients. But he formed at this time the
acquaintance, and, notwithstanding frequent mutual re
proaches and recriminations, established what proved a
life-long friendship with the publisher, Julius Campe,
whose firm had a reputation for undertaking the publica
tion of works placed under the ban of censorship by the
various German States. In 1827 Heine paid his only
visit to England, of which the result is to be found chiefly
in the English Fragments. On his return from England
the Book of Songs appeared at Hamburg, and at once es
tablished its author's fame as a poet. Receiving an invi
tation from Baron Cotta to assist in editing a journal
called Political Annals, he went to Munich, but at the
expiry of six months the publication of the Annals ceased,
and Heine's health having suffered from the effects of the
Bavarian chmate, he set out on a tour through the Tyrol

Translator's Note.

and Italy. This journey seems to have left the pleasant-
est recollections in the memory of the poet, and to it we
are indebted for some of his most charming sketches of
travel. While writing the third volume of the Travel-
Pictures he resided at Berlin or at Potsdam. But this
third volume, besides containing impressions of Italy
was full of the most scathing political satire, which speed
ily drew down upon its author the wrath of the Prussian
government. This obliged him to return to Hamburg, a
city that he detested, though it was the only place in
Germany where he was safe from arrest. When the
Revolution of July occurred in Paris he was in Heligo
land, whence he wrote a series of letters that testify to
the enthusiastic expectations this event gave rise to in his
mind. On his return to Hamburg he was an eyewitness
of a scandalous riot against the Jews, and this served still
further to increase his detestation of the Free City. On
the first of May, 1 83 1, full of burning wrath and contempt
at the political condition of Germany, he crossed the
Rhine to take up his residence in Paris. In Paris, with
a few occasional intervals spent at French watering-places,
or in paying a flying visit to his mother at Hamburg, he
lived till his death on the 17th of February, 1856, on his
" mattress-grave," after seven years of the most dreadful
suffering. The story of his last years is well known, and
the few external events of the intermediate years between

Translator's Note.

1 83 1 and the beginning of his terrible suffering will be
found recorded in Mr. Stigand's volumes.
A few words are necessary as to the method adopted
in selecting and translating these extracts. They were
chosen in the order in which they appear in the com
plete edition of Heine's works published by Hoffmann
and Campe, Hamburg, and the revision has been made
from the text of the new edition by Dr. Karpeles, in which
the arrangement is almost the same as in the Hamburg
edition. By adopting this plan, reference to the original
is facilitated without the necessity of adding to each ex
tract the precise volume and page where it is to be found.
The titles of the various works from which the extracts
are taken are given at the head of alternate pages. Short
marginal titles are prefixed to all the longer extracts.
These titles afford, of course, only an approximate indica
tion of the contents of the selected passages, and it has
been found a matter of some difficulty to combine brevity
with descriptive accuracy. In the case of the shortest
extracts the marginal title (which would merely be a re
petition of the extract) is omitted, and the leading word
or words printed in small capitals. A tolerably ex
haustive index is added. Let it be noted, however, that
the volume by no means professes to embrace all the
witty, or wise, or pathetic passages to be found in Heine's
prose. Though readers of Heine may therefore miss
favourite passages, it is to be hoped that nothing here in-

Translator's Note.

eluded is too trivial to be brought into prominence. The-
German text has been used throughout, but the extracts
have been collated with the French edition, and the
Translator has not scrupled to avail himself of the French
text (which received the author's latest corrections, and
is in some respects more accurate than the German)
wherever this seemed advisable. In the latest German
editions these corrections and variations are generally
added in a foot note, but they are sometimes omitted
when the alteration is slight. As a rule, where the varia
tion in the French edition consists merely in the toning
down of a passage in order not to offend French preju
dices, the German text has been closely followed.
Where, however, there is a correction of an inelegancy
of style, a matter of fact, a name or a date, the French
text is adopted. The total number of variations is not
great, but the preceding explanation is necessary, other
wise readers familiar with Heine in German and not in
French, or vice versa, might think that the Translator had
taken aij unwarrantable liberty with the. original. Occa
sional foot-notes will be found throughout the volume,
where a date, a reference, or an explanation seemed to-
be necessary.
With considerable hesitation, a few verse translations-
are added, chiefly from the Book of Songs. Though put
forward as mere tentatives, they may perhaps serve to
give completeness to this volume by illustrating^ however

Translatoi^s Note.

imperfectly, Heine's wit, wisdom, and pathos in his verse
as well as in his prose.

The Translator.

February, 1879.
Revised, December, 1887.

CONTENTS.

Preface .0 the Second Edition, .
Translator's Note,

Vll. ix.

Travel-Pictures : The Hartz Journey and Nordeney, - I
The Book Le Grand, ..... 8
Travel-Pictures : Italy, ----- 25
' English Fragments, " " - ¦ • 55
Shakespeare's Matrons and. Maids, - - - 60
Memoirs of Schnabelewopski, - . - - 71
The Florentine Nights, . - ... 80
Religion and Philosophy in Germany, - - - 95
'The Romantic School, - . . - . 14.2
Elementary Spirits, ..... 1^8
»The Citizen-Monarchy in the Year 1832, . . 164
Lutetia : Letters on Politics, Art, and Social Life in France, 175
Art Notes from Paris : French Painters, - - 203
Letters to Lewald on the French Stage, - - 209
Musical Notes from Paris, .... 213
Ludwig Boerne : a Memoir, - - - - 213,
Letters from Berlin, . . . , . 224
On Poland, ...... 227
Introduction to Kahldorf on the Nobility, - - 229.
Preface to Salon of 1833, .... - 23L

CONTENTS.

The Denunciator,
Preface to Illustrated Edition of Don Quixote,
Ludwig Marcus ; a Reminiscence,
Confessions,Prefaces to Poems,
Thoughts and Fancies,

232233 234
23s272
276

£xom tlje " Boofe of Songs."
The Two Grenadiers,
Out of my Tears grow Flowers, -
The Stars Stand Motionless,
On the Wings of Song, my Love,
Oh did the Flowers but Know,
A Lonely Pine.Tree Stands,
When Two that are Dear must Part,
On the Darkness of my Being,
My Heart, my Heart, it Sorrows,
Fisher-Maiden Fair, . . . ,
Thou Seemest Like a Flower,
Thou hast all that Soul can Desire,
Oh when You are my Wedded Wife,
O Death ! Thou art the Cooling Night, -
Riddles, - - - " -
When by Chance You Cross my Path,
There Once Was a Poor Old King,
Where will End my Weary Journey ?
Wo wird einst des Wandermiiden,

301304
305 306308
309 3103"
312314315
316317
318319320321
322323

Index,

325

WIT, WISDOM, AND PATHOS.

o>Ko

jFfom tije " ffitabel.^ictures : ttie l^artf gouvncg."
Nature's NATURE, like a great poet, knows how to
method. p,-oduce the grandest effects with the fewest
materials. You have only a sun, trees, flowers, water,
and love. In sooth, should this last be absent from the
heart of the beholder, the aspect of the whole may be
poor enough, for then the sun is only so and so many
miles in diameter, and trees are good for fuel, and
flowers are classified according to their stamens, and
water is wet.
At the ^^ visiting the silver-smelting works, as
silver mines. ^^^^^ happens with me in life, I had not the
luck to see any silver. I was more successful in the
mint and could there watch how money is made. Fur
ther than this I have never been able to bring the mat
ter. On such occasions I have always been a mere

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

spectator, and I believe that if some day the sky were
to shower down crown pieces, I should get nothing but
a broken head, while the children of Israel joyfully
gathered the silver manna.
German Other natious may be more versatile, more
^ "''¦ witty, and more entertaining, but none is so
trusty as the trusty German people. Did I not know
that fidelity is as old as the world I should believe
that a German heart had discovered it.
Childhood OuR life in childhood has an infinite signi-
man oo . g(,^j^(,g_ p^^ ).]^^(. pgj-jod, everything is of like
importance to us, we hear all, we see all, there is unifor-
mity in all our impressions. In later life there is always
premeditation, we busy ourselves more exclusively with
details, with much ado we exchange the pure gold of
intuition for the paper-money of book definitions, to
gain in breadth of view what we lose in depth of feeling.
The Germans have the remarkable habit of embodying
in everything they do, a thought.
Immortality? Beautiful idea ! who first
Immortality. conceived thee ? Was it some worthy Nurem;
berg citizen who, as he sat before his house door of a
warm summer evening with white night-cap on head and
white clay pipe in jaw, thought in the fulness of his
content how pleasant it would be could he thus vegetate

From the " Travel- Pictures.''

into eternity without his pipe or his life going out ? Or
was it a young lover who, in the arms of his mistress,
thought of this idea of immortality, thinking it because
he felt it, and because he could not otherwise think and
feel? Perfumes PERFUMES ate the feelings of flowers, and
the feelings of
flowers, as the human heart, imagining itself alone
and unwatched, feels most deeply in the night-time, so
seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the
mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to
feeling, and breathe forth their sweetest odours. Flow
forth, ye perfumes of my heart, and seek beyond these
mountains the dear one of my dreams ! She is already
laid down to sleep, at her feet kneel angels, and when
she smiles in sleep 'tis a prayer that the angels echo ; in
her bosom lies heaven with all its bliss, and when she
breathes my heart in the distance trembles ; behind the
silken lashes of her eyelids the sun has gone down, and
when she opens her eyes again then it is day, and the
birds sing, and the cowbells tinkle, and the hills glisten
in their emerald garments, and I shoulder my knapsack
and go on my way.
Catholicism The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle
in the
Middle Ages. Ages took Under its guardianship all the rela
tions of life, all life's energies and manifestations, the
v.-hole man, physical and moral. Nor can it be denied

IVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

that thereby much peaceful happiness was created, life
glowed with an inner warmth, and the Arts, like silently
growing flowers, unfolded themselves in a splendour that
is to this day our astonishment, and that we, with all our
hastily-acquired knowledge, cannot imitate. But the
spirit has its eternal rights, it is neither to be hemmed in
by prohibitions, nor lulled to sleep by church bells ; it
threw down its prison walls, and severed the iron lead
ing-strings that bound it to Mother Church. In the
ecstasy of freedom it swept wildly over the whole earth,
ascended the highest peaks of the mountains, shouted
aloud in very wantonness, thought over old time doubts,
speculated on the wonder of the day, and counted the
stars of night. We know not yet the number of the
stars, the mystery of the day is still unsolved, the old
•doubts have become mighty questionings in our souls —
but are we happier now than heretofore ? We know that
this question is not easy of answer in the affirmative as
regards the multitude ; but we know also that the happi
ness for which we are indebted to a lie can be no true
happiness, and that in certain solitary fragmentary mo
ments of god-like intuition, a higher dignity of soul, a
purer happiness is ours, than in long vegetating years of
blind faith.
Rome has always yearned for sovereignty and when her
legions fell she sent dogmas into the provinces.

From " No7dcney."

What think -^ ^^'^y °"c^ asked me — " Doctor, whatthink
you o oe e . ^^^ ^^ Goethe " ? whereupon I crossed my
arras upon my breast, reverently bowed my head, and
exclaimed — " La illah ill allah, Wamohammed rasul
allah " t Unwittingly, this lady had asked me a most
cunning question. One should not be unceremoniously
asked : — What think'st thou of heaven and earth ? What
are thy views on men and human life ? Art thou a
reasonable being or a stupid devil ? Yet all these deli
cate inquiries lie in the ingenuous question : What think'st
thou of Goethe ?
Genius and ^HE works of gcuius are permanent, but
nticism. (.j.j[;(,j5jjj jg always in a state of change.
It is founded on the opinion of its time, for which alone
it has significance, and, unless in itself of artistic worth,
it perishes with the time.
I LOVE the SEA as I do my own soul.
The hunters The jeusc of pleasure in the noble, the-
and the
hunted, beautiful, and the good, may often be im
parted through education, but the sense of pleasure in
hunting lies in the blood. When one's ancestors have-
been hunters of the buck from time immemorial, their
descendants find a delight in this lawful occupation.
My ancestors, however, belonged not to the race of

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

hunters, but much rather to that of the hunted,* and I
feel my blood revolt at the thought of taking deadly aim
at the descendants of their former colleagues in mis
fortune. Effect of the QuiTE a sttangc elevation of soul takes pos-
sublime
in nature, session of me when I walk alone at gloaming
by the sea-shore, behind me nothing but flat dunes,
before me the heaving, immeasurable sea, over me the
sky like a great crystal dome. I seem then to myself
so ant-like in my insignificance, and yet mysoul takes such
a world-wide flight. The sublime simplicity of nature as
it lies around me both restrains and elevates my soul,
and it does so in a higher degree than any other
magnificent surroundings. Never was cathedral vast
enough for me ; my spirit with its old titanic aspirations
strives ever upward to heights beyond the gothic pillars,
and would fain pierce the roof itself.
Scott's "^"^ announcement of a Life of Napoleon
by Sir Walter Scott maf well raise the most
eager expectation.! All who revere Scott must tremble
for him : for such a book may readily prove the Russian
* Heine here refers to his Jewish birth. — Tr.
t This was written in 1826. Scott's Life of Napoleon appeared in the sum
mer of 1827. In other passages, Heine speaks of it with great bitterness, and
in a note to the French edition of the " Travel-Pictures " he calls it a tivclve-
•voliinied blasphemy — Tr.

From ^^ Nordeney."

campaign of a fame, so arduously achieved through a
series of historical romances which, more by their theme
than by their poetic power, have stirred every heart in
Europe. This theme is not merely an elegiac wail over
the loss of Scotland's national glory, as it became gradu
ally overshadowed by foreign customs, rule, and -modes
of thought ; it expresses deep grief at the loss of national
characteristics absorbed in the universality of modern
culture, a grief now quivering in the hearts of all
nations. For national memories lie deeper in the hu
man breast than is commonly supposed. Scott's works
serve to awaken these old memories. There was a
time when, in Granada, men and women rushed forth
from their houses with cries of despair, as in the
streets was heard the song of the entrance of the Moorish
king, so that it was forbidden to be sung under pain of
death ; thus too, the strain that resounds through the works
of Scott has shaken with grief a whole world. This
strain vibrates once more in the heart of the noble who
sees his castle in ruins and his scutcheon torn down ; it
vibrates in the heart of the citizen who feels his comfort
able but narrow ancestral habits disturbed by the broad
uncomfortable modern ways ; it resounds once more in
Catholic cathedrals, whence faith hath flown, and in
rabbinical synagogues whence the faithful flee; it
resounds over the whole earth, even to the banana-
woods of Hindustan, where the pious Brahmin foresees

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

the dying agony of his gods, the destruction of the imme
morial order of things, and final conquest by the British.

jTrom " aHje JSooft ILf ®vanij."
The joy of ¦'-'^'^ Others enjoy the happiness of the
exis ence. j^yg^j ^^^ wreathing their tombstone with
flowers and moistening it with faithful tears. O women !
hate me, laugh at me, mock me, but let me live! Life is
all too merrily sweet and the world is all too lovingly con
fused. It is the dream of a wine-drunk divinity, who has
slipped out without leave-taking from the symposium of
the gods and has laid himself to sleep in a lonesome star,
and knows not that he himself creates all that he dreams.
His dream-pictures take, now madly mingled shapes,
now shapes harmoniously reasonable — the Iliad, Plato,
the Battle of Marathon, Moses, the Venns de Medici,
Strasburg Cathedral, the French Revolution, Hegel,
Steamboats, are individual happy thoughts in this creating
god-dream ; but it will not last long. The god will
awake, will rub his drowsy eyes, will laugh, and our
world will relapse into nothingness, nay, it will not even
have existed.
But yet I live. Though only a shadow in a dream,
still, this is better than the cold, blank emptiness of
death. Life is the highest of earth's good, its bitterest
evil is Death. All vigorous souls love fife. Goethe's

From " The Book Le Grand."

Egmont resigns with reluctance " the friendly habitude
of being and of doing." Immermann's Edwin clings to
life " like an infant to its mother's breast," and though
he brooks it ill to owe his life to another's grace, yet
pleads he for mercy : —
For life and living are the highest good.
When Odysseus meets Achilles in the under-world as
leader of the departed heroes, and lauds him for his fame
among the living and the esteem in which he is held
by the dead, the latter replies—

O speak not of comfort in death, most noble Odysseus !
Rather would I, as labourer, till for a wage in the fields
Of one needing such aid, I, heirless and void of all heritage,
Than be first in command, o'er the hosts in the realms of the dead.

But I live I The great pulse of Nature finds a
response in my breast, and when I shout for joy I am
answered by a thousandfold echo. I hear a thousand
nightingales. Spring hath sent them to waken the earth
from her morning slumber, and the earth trembles for
joy ; her flowers are hymns with which, in her inspiration,
she greets the sun. The sun moves all to slowly, and I
yearn to whip his fire-horses to a wilder career. But
when he sinks hissing into the sea, and great Night arises
with her large longing eye, oh ! then true joy quivers-
through me, the evening breezes play about my beating

Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.

heart like fondling maidens, and the stars beckon me,
and I arise and soar forth over the little earth and the
little thoughts of men.
But a day will come when the fire in my veins will be
burnt out ; then winter will dwell in my breast, his
white flakes will cluster sparely round my head, and
his mists bedim my eyes. In mouldy tombs my friends
are lying, I alone am left behind like a solitary stalk
forgotten by the reaper. A new race has blossomed
into life, with new wishes and new thoughts. Full of
surprise I hear new names and new songs ; the old
ones are forgctten, and I too am forgotten, honoured
but by a few, despised by many, and loved by none !
Rosy-cheeked children run to me, and press into my
trembling hands the old harp, and say to me with
laughter i — " Thou hast been long time silent, lazy
greybeard, sing again to us the songs of the dreams of
thy youth!" Then I take the harp and old joys and
old sorrows re-awake, the mists are dissolved, tears
flow once more from my dead eyes, it is spring-time
again in my heart, sweet, sad tones tremble over the
strings of my harp, I see again the blue stream, and
the marble palaces, and the fair matron and maiden
faces, and I sing a song of the flowers of Brenta.
It will be my last song, the stars look upon me as in
the nights of my youth, the enamoured moonlight kisses
again my cheeks, the spirit choir of dead nightingales

Frotn the "Book Le Grand."

warbles from out the distance, sleep-drunk my eye-lids
close, my soul dies away with the tones of my harp —
sweet odours are exhaled from the flowers of Brenta.
A tree will overshadow my grave. I had wished a
palm, but it grows not in our cold North. Let it be a
linden, and in summer evenings lovers will sit and caress
beneath it. The green-finch listening from amidst the
swaying branches, is silent, and my linden murmurs in
sympathetic manner over the heads of the lovers, who
are so happy that they have not tijne even to read the
writing on my white grave-stone. But when afterwards
the lover has lost his maiden, then will he come to the
well-known linden, and sigh and weep, and look long
and often upon the gravestone, and read thereon the
writing — " He loved the flowers of Brenta.''
Where Foil ^ FIRST saw the light of the world by the
^''°''^' side of that beautiful stream on whose green
banks Folly grows, is gathered in harvest, trodden,
poured into casks, and sent abroad. Indeed 'twas but
yesterday I heard one say a foohsh thing which, in the
year 1811, was contained in a bunch of grapes that I
myself saw growing on the Johannisberg.

„ . , The town of Diisseldorf is right fair, and
Hemes °
birthplace, ^j^^^ ^^^ cliauces to have been born in it
and thinks of it from afar, he feels in a strange mood.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

I was born there and I feel as if I must straightway go
home again. When I say " go home," I mean to the
Bolker Street and to the house in which I was born.
This house will be very celebrated some day, and I have
warned the old lady who possesses it, at her life's peril
not to sell it. For the whole house she could hardly get
at present as much as will by and by be given to the
maid-servant, who will show to high-born, green-veiled
English ladies the room wherein I first saw the hght of
the world, and the hen-roost in which my father used to-
shut me up for stealing grapes, and the brown door on
which my mother taught me my letters with chalk. If I
ever become a famous author it will have been at much
trouble to my poor mother.
Dusseidorfin "^^ awokc One morning in Diisseldorf to
find the whole town in a state of dull
despair, everything wore a sort of funereal aspect, and
the towns-people were moving silently towards the mar
ket-place to read a large notice posted on the door of
the Town Hall. The weather was chilly, and the
lean tailor Kilian was standing there in his nankeen
jacket, which he usually wore only in-doors, his blue
worsted stockings hung down so that his naked legs
looked dejectedly out of them, and his thin lips trembled
as he muttered over the contents of the placard. An
old pensioner of the Palatinate was reading in a some-

From " The Book Le Grand."

what louder tone, and at many of the words a bright tear
drop trickled down on his loyal white moustache. I
stood by him weeping also, and asking him why we wept.
He said — " The Elector has abdicated " ; and as he went
on reading and came to the words, " for the faithful alle
giance of my subjects," and, " I release them from their
obligations,'' the tears flowed yet faster. There is some
thing inexpressibly touching in the sight of such an old
man, with scarred, veteran features and in faded uni
form, weeping so vehemently. As we were reading, the
Electoral coat of arms was taken down from the Town
Hall. Everything wore a mournful, dreary aspect, as if
people were expecting an eclipse. The Town Coun
cillors moved about in a slow and abdicated manner, the
very street beadle, once so mighty, seemed as if he had
lost all authority, and looked on with calm indifference
as the half mad Aloysius, hopping about on one leg, with
mocking grimaces prattled over the names of the French
generals, and the drunken hunchback Gumpertz stag
gered about in the gutter, singing Ca ira, Ca ira I
I went home crying and kept on lamenting because the
Elector had abdicated. My mother did her best to con
sole me, but I knew what I knew and was not to be
comforted. I went sobbing to bed and in the night I
dreamed that the world was coming to an end. The
beautiful flower-gardens and the green meadows were
lifted from the ground and rolled up like carpets ; the

14 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
commissary of police mounted a tall ladder and took
down the sun from the sky ; and the tailor Kilian, who
was standing by, said to himself — " I must go home and
put on my best clothes, for I am dead and am to be
buried to-day." And it grew darker and darker, only a
few stars twinkled feebly in the sky, and even these soon
fell upon the earth like yellow leaves in autumn. By
degrees all other human beings disappeared, and I,
poor child, wandered hither and thither in sad distress
until I found myself before the willow-hedge of a
deserted farm-yard. And there I saw a man digging
up the earth with a spade, and beside him was an
ugly, malicious-looking woman, holding in her apron
what looked like a dissevered human head but was
really the moon, which she placed carefully in the open
grave. Behind me stood the pensioner of the Palatinate,
sobbing, and spelling out the words — "The Elector has
abdicated." When I awoke the sun was again shining through the
windows as usual, there was beating of drums in the street,
and when I entered our sitting-room to bid my father good
morning, I found him having his hair dressed, and I heard
the nimble-footed hair-dresser relate most minutely that
the new Grand Duke, Joachim,* was to-day to receive

* Joachim Murat. In terms of the Treaty of 2Sth December, 1805, Prussia
renounced possession of the Grand Duchy of Cleve in favour of France.
On the ist of January 1806, the Elector, Maximilian Joseph, became King of

From " T/te Book Le Grand." 15
homage in the Town Hall, that this prince was of the very
best family and had married the sister of Napoleon, that
he was a person of fine deportment who wore his long
black hair in ringlets, that shortly he would make his
official entry into the town and would be sure to please
all the women-folk. Meanwhile drums still kept beating
in the streets, and I ran to the door to watch the march
ing in of the French troops, these light-hearted children
of fame, who had gone singing and jingling through the
world. I saw the joyful-earnest grenadier-faces, the
bear-skin caps, the tri-colour cockades, the glittering
bayonets, the volligeurs full of jollity und point d' houneur,
and the big drum-major with silver-laced coat, tossing
his gold-headed baton as high as the first storey, and
casting his eyes up to the second, where pretty girls sat
at the windows. I was rejoicing at the prospect of our
having soldiers billeted in the house (my mother, how-
ver, did not share my joy), and I scampered off to the
market-place. There the aspect of things was again
completely changed. It seemed as if the world had
been newly white-washed. A new coat of arms hung
over the door of the Town Hall, the railings of the
balcony were covered with embroidered velvet, French
grenadiers stood guard, the old Town Councillors had

Bavaria, and as courtesy for this elevation, his cousin Duke William, abdicated
the Duchy of Berg in favour of Joachim Murat, as regent for Napoleon.—
Tr.

1 6 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
put on new faces and their Sunday clothes, and they
greeted each other in French fashion, saying, '¦'¦ bon four."
From every window vi'omen were looking out, the square
was filled with inquisitive citizens and spruce soldiers,
and I with some other boys climbed up on the eques
trian statue of the Elector, to obtain a better view of the
gay moving throng. When I got home again I told
my mother that we were all to be made happy, and
on this account there was to be no school for that day.
On the day following the world was once more put to
rights, and there was school as before, and we had to
learn by rote as before, the Roman kings, dates, nouns
in im, irregular verbs, Greek, Hebrew, Geography, the
German language, mental arithmetic — even yet my head
swims at the very thought of it ! Everything had to be
learned by rote, and much of what I then learned stood
me afterwards in good stead. For had I not known the
names of the Roman kings by heart, it would in after
years have been a matter of indifference to me whether
Niebuhr had, or had not, proved that they never
really existed. As regards Latin, you, madam, have
no idea what a complicated language it is. Truly, if the
Romans had had to learn it for themselves they could
never have found time for conquering the world.
Fortunate people, who knew from their cradle the nouns
that take im in the accusative ! I, however, had to
learn them by heart in the sweat of my brow. As

From " The Book Le Grand." 17
for the irregular verbs — which distinguish themselves
from the regular verbs by the greater amount of thrash
ing one gets over the former — they are horribly
difficult. About Greek I can hardly trust myself to
speak, lest I should fall into a rage. The monks of the
middle-ages were not far wrong when they maintained
that Greek was an invention of the Devil's. With
German I made better progress, though the learning of
it is no child's-play. For we poor Germans, as if we were
not already sufficiently plagued by billeting, military
service, poll-tax, and a thousand other taxes, must
forsooth, burden ourselves with Adelung,* and torment
one another with the accusative and the dative.
-, . To know French thoroughly one must
Monsieur ° -'
Le Grand, yjiderstaud the spirit of the language, and
this is best learned through the beating of a drum. Ah !
how much I am indebted to the French drummer who
was so long quartered with us, and who, though he
looked hke a devil, was angel-good at heart and
could drum to perfection. He was an active little
creature, with a terrific black moustache under which
his red hps protruded ferociously, while his eyes
shot fiery glances hither and thither. I, young
rascal as I was, stuck to him like a burr, helped
* Johann Christoph Adelung, a celebrated German Philologist, was the author
of " A Grammatical and Critical Dictionary," in five volumes.— Tr.
B

1 8 JFi^, Wisdom, and Pathos.
him to pohsh his buttons till they shone like a
mirror, and to whiten his waistcoat with chalk (for
Monsieur Le Grand was quite a beau), followed him on
guard, to roll call, to parade — it was a time of glitter
and jollity; alas I les fours de fete sont passes ! Monsieur
Le Grand knew only a little broken German, merely the
important words — " bread," " kiss," " honour ; " but he
could make himself easily understood on his drum. For
example, if I did not know the meaning of the word
"liberie" he would drum out the Marseillaise, and then
I understood him. If I did not comprehend what was
meant by the word " egalit'e" he would play the march
(a ira, ga ira Its aristocrates d la lanterne ! and I under
stood him. If I did not understand the word " betise,"
he would rattle off the Dessauer March (which we
Germans, as Goethe relates, used to drum in the Cham
pagne), and I understood him. One day he wished to
explain to me the word " I'Allemagne," and to make his
meaning clear he beat on his drum that most primitive
melody, heard often on market days during the per
formances of dancing dogs, namely, dum, dum, dumi*
— it vexed me, but yet I understood him.
In a similar manner he instructed me in modern
history. I did not, it is true, understand the words, but
as he kept drumming all the time, I was able to follow
'' Ditmm in German signifies Stupid. — Tr.

From "The Book Le Grand." 19
his meaning. His method of teaching is in reality the
best possible. The history of the storming of the Bastille,
the Tuileries, etc., can be properly comprehended only
when one hears in what fashion the drums were beat on
such occasions. In our school books, we read only as
follows: — "Their Excellencies the Baions and Counts
and their noble spouses were beheaded ; — Their High
nesses the Dukes and Princes and their gracious
spouses were beheaded ; — His Majesly the King and
Her Majesty the Queen were beheaded ;" — but when one
hears the red guillotine-march on the drum, then for the
first time one really understands the matter, and knows
the why and the wherefore. What a wonderful march it
is ! It thrilled through the very marrow of my bones as
I heard it, and I was glad when I had forgotien it.
I used often to lie on the grass in the Castle Garden at
Diisseldorf devoutly listening to Monsieur Le Grand as
he related the battle-deeds of the great Emperor and, for
accompaniment, beat the marches played during such
events, until I really saw and heard them all. I saw the
crossing of the Simplon, the Emperor in front, and climb
ing after him his brave grenadiers. I heard the croaking
of the startled birds of prey, and the distant thunder of
the crashing avalanche. I saw the Emperor, with the
flag in his hand, at the Bridge of Lodi. I saw him in
his grey cloak, at Marengo. I saw him on his horse, at
the Battle of the Pyramids, surrounded by smoke and

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Mamelukes. I saw him at the Battle of Austerlitz —
how the bullets rattled on the frozen plain I I saw, I
heard, the Battles of Jena, of Eylau, of Wagram. But I
could hardly stand it any longer I Monsieur Le Grand
beat with such vehemence that he almost broke my own
tympanum. Na oieon at -^^'^ y^'^iX Were my feelings when, with my
Dusseidorf. ^^^ highly-favoured eyes, I saw the Emperor
himself ! This, too, happened in the avenue of the Castle
Garden at Dusseidorf As I pushed my way through
the gaping crowd, I thought of the deeds and battles
that Monsieur Le Grand had described to me on his
drum, and my heart beat the general march ; but I
thought also of the police regulation forbidding, under
a penalty of five thalers, riding in the avenue. Yet the
Emperor and his staff rode straight up the middle of it.
The trees trembled at his approach and seemed to make
obeisance as he passed, the sunbeams came quivering
with curious awe through the green foliage, and in the
blue sky overhead a golden star was visible. The Em
peror wore his simple green uniform and the little, world-
renowned hat. He rode a small white horse that paced
along so proudly, so deliberately, and with such an air
of distinction that, had I been the Crown Prince of
Prussia, I should have envied the lot of the Emperor's
horse. Carelessly, almost in a stooping attitude, rode the

From- "The Book Le Grand."

Emperor, with one hand holding aloft the rein, with the
other stroking in kindly fashion his horse's neck. It was
a sunny, marble hand, a mighty hand, one of those two
hands that had bound the many-headed monster of
anarchy, and enforced order amidst the conflict of the
nations; and now it was caressing good-naturedly the
mane of his horse! His face too had the sheen that we
notice in the countenances of Greek and Roman statues ;
its features certainly were cast in the noble mould of the
antique, and on them was written — Thou shalt have no
other gods beside me. A smile that warmed and lulled
into tranquillity every heart played about his hps, and yet
one knew these lips had but to whistle, .;/ la Prusse ?i'
existait plus, these lips had but to whistle, and the
Vatican would fall to pieces, these lips had but to
whistle, and the entire Holy Roman Empire would be set
dancing. Yet these lips now wore a smile, and a smile
beamed in his eye. It was an eye clear as the heavens,
it could read the hearts of men, it saw at a single glance
all the things of the earth, which we others see only in
detail, one by one, and as coloured shadows. The fore
head was less serene, there were brooding over it the
spectres of future battles, and at times there was a
twitching of the brow, as crowding thoughts passed over
it, great seven-leagued-booted thoughts, with which the
spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly through the world,
thoughts, a single one of which would, I believe, have

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

furnished a German author with materials for writing
during all his life-time. The Emperor rode calmly up
the avenue, no police officer seeking to stay him. Be
hind him, on snorting steeds and covered with gold and
decorations, galloped his staff; and the drums were beat
and the trumpets blown. Beside me the half-mad
Aloysius danced about gabbling over the names of the
generals, a little further off brawled the drunken
Gumpertz, and the people shouted thousand-voiced :
"Long live the Emperor.'' * * * "phe Emperor is
dead. He has his lonely grave on a solitary island in
the Atlantic Ocean. He for whom the earth was too
narrow, Ires peacefully under a little hillock, where five
weeping-willows sorrowfully overshadow with their green
tresses his resting-place, and a gentle rivulet ripples
moanfully by. On the tomb-stone is no inscription, but
CHo has engraved thereon invisible words that will echo
like spirit-voices through the ages. * * # *
Strange ! a tragic fate has already overtaken the three
great adversaries of the Emperor : Londonderry cut his
throat; Louis XVIII. rotted on his throne; and Pro
fessor Saalfeld* is still Professor at Goettingen.

* This is one of Heine's keenest bits of sarcasm. Professor Saalfeld, besides
sharing the pedantry and mere book learning of the other Professors of Goettingen
University, so inimitably satirised in the first portion of the "Travel-Pictures,"
was notorious also for his fierce attacks on the memory of Napoleon.— Tr.

From " The Book Le Grand." 23

The Death of O^E day as I sat on the old seat in the
M. Le Grand, r^ .., ^ , ,
Castle Garden dreaming of the past, I heard
behind me a confused murmur of human voices bewailing
the fate of the poor French soldiers who had been made
prisoners during the Russian campaign, afterwards sent
to Siberia and kept there through long years after Peace
had been made, and who were but now returning to their
homes.* Looking up I actually saw before me these
orphan children of fame; through the rents of their
ragged uniforms naked misery peered forth; in their
weather-beaten faces were deep sunk, sorrowful eyes.
Though faint and maimed and halting, they yet stepped
along with a kind of military precision, and, strangely
enough, in front of them with faltering steps marched a
drummer with his drum. With an inward shudder I was
seized with the recollection of the legend of the soldiers
who, having fallen by day on the battle field, at midnight
arise, and with a drummer at their head, march toward
their old homes. The poor French drummer looked, in
truth, as if he had risen out of a mouldy grave. He was
but a thin shadow in a dirty, ragged, grey cloak, a yellow
dead face with heavy moustache drooping sadly over the
bloodless lips, eyes like burnt-out tinder wherein still
glimmered a few feeble sparks, and yet a single one
* The return of the French soldiers from Siberia has been immortalised by
Heine in his " Two Grenadiers " — perhaps the most pathetic of modern ballads.
A rendering of this ballad will be found at page 301 of this volume. — Tr.

24 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
of these sparks served to reveal Monsieur le Grand.
He too, recognised me, and made me sit down beside
him on the sward as of old when he used to instruct me
on his drum in the French language, and on modern
history. It was still the same well known old drum,
and I ceased not to wonder how he had been able to
save it from the rapacity of the Russians. He drummed
again as of old though he uttered not a word. But if
his lips were gloomily sealed his eyes spoke the more,
and lighted up in triumph as he played the old marches.
The poplars beside us quivered as he thundered out
again the red guillotine march. He described too, on
his drum, the old battles for freedom, the old wars, the
great deeds of the Emperor, until his drum seemed like
an animate creature, happy in the thought of being able
to express its secret joy. I heard again the roar of the
cannon, the whistling of the bullets, the tumult of the
fight ; I saw again the old guard with their courage to
the death, I saw the fluttering banners, I saw the
Emperor on his horse. But insensibly a tone of sadness
stole in amid the joyous rohing of the drum, and soon it
gave forth sounds wherein the fullest strains of triumph
were mingled with an unearthly wail of grief; it
seemed at once a march of victory and a death march ;.
the eyes of the drummer opened ghostly wide until I
saw in them a great white field of ice bestrewn with
corpses — it was the battle of Moscow. I had never

From the " Travel- Pictures : Llaly.'' 25

imagined that the old, harsh drum could utter such
plaintive sounds as Monsieur Le Grand was able now to
conjure from it. Every drum-beat was a tear, and as
the sounds grew fainter and fainter, like a dismal echo
deep sighs burst from the breast of Le Grand. He
himself was growing more languid and more ghost-like,
his withered hands shook with cold, he sat as in a dream,
beating the empty air with the drum-sticks, and listening
as if to distant voices. At last he gazed on me with a
deep, abysmal, pleading look — I understood hiin — and
then his head sank down upon his drum.
No more in this life did Monsieur Le Grand beat the
drum. Nor did his drum ever give forth another sound.
It served no enemy of freedom whereon to beat a servile
tattoo, full well had I understood Le Grand's last be
seeching look — I drew the rapier from my stick and
thrust it into the drum.

Berlin and
Potsdam.

JTrom tl)f " ffirabfl-f ttturfB : Itab,"
Berlin is not a town, it is only a meeting-
place for a vast number of people, among
them certainly many persons of talent, for whom the
place itself is utterly indifferent; these persons form
intellectual Berhn. The city, indeed, contains but

2 6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
few antiquities, it is too new; yet its very newness
is- already old, faded, and dead. It has mainly grown
up not from the ideas of the people, but from those
of a few individuals. Of these few individuals Frederick
the Great is by far the most conspicuous. What he
found ready to his hand was only a firm foundation ;
from him the city first received its character, and, had
building ceased with his death, it would have remained
an historical monument of the genius of that strange
prosaic hero who developed, in true German fashion,
the artificial want of taste, the prosperous liberty of
thought, the superficiality and the capability that dis
tinguished his time. Potsdam, for example, appears to
us such a monument. We wander through its dreary
streets as through the writings left by the philosopher of
Sans Souci, it belongs to his posthumous works; and
though it is now nothing more than petrified waste
paper and contains many absurdities, we are compelled
to examine it with deep interest, and to suppress now
and then an inclination to laugh, as if in terror of receiv
ing a blow over the shoulders from the Spanish cane of
" Old Fritz."
Yearning to- ^'^ l^^t the morning broke when all was
tay. (,J^^j,gg(j^ 'pj^g g^j^ j^^j.gj. j-^j.jj^ ^j,^^ ^j^g g^y
to nourish with its beams that old child, the Earth ; the
hills trembled for very joy and wept vehemently in tears

From the "Travel Pictures: Ltaly." 27
of melting snow, the ice coverings of the lakes growled
and burst asunder, the earth opened her blue eyes,
from her bosom sprang the sweet flowers, and the sound
ing forests — those green palaces of the nightingales ; all
nature wore a smile, and this smile is called Spring.
Then also began within me a new Spring, new flowers put
forth their buds in my heart, the sense of freedom like a
rose, sprang up, and tender longings too, hke new-born
violets, and among them truly many a weed. Over the
graves of dead wishes hope spread her smiling mantle
¦of green, melodies of poesy also returned like birds of
passage which, having spent the winter in the warm south,
now sought again their forsaken northern nests, and my
forlorn northern heart rejoiced and blossomed as before,
¦only I knew not how it all came about. Was it a dusky
or a fair complexioned sun that again awakened Spring in
my heart, and kissed away the sleep of the flowers, and
with its smiles brought back the nightingales ? Was it
nature herself which sought an echo in my bosom, to gaze
therein, as in a mirror, at her own new beauty of Spring
time ? I know not, but I think it was on the terrace at
Bogenhaus, within sight of the Tryolese Alps, that such
enchantment took place. As I sat there lost in thought,
it was as if I saw a youthful countenance of wondrous
beauty looking over the mountains, and I desired wings
that I might hasten to Italy, the land of his home. I
felt the perfumes of citron and orange come floating

28 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
toward me over the mountains, enticing me to Italy
with flatteries and promises. Yea, in the golden sunset
I once plainly saw on a peak of the Alps the young
god of Spring. His joyous locks were wreathed with
flowers and laurel, and he was calling to me with laugh
ing eyes and smiling lips : — Thou art dear to me, come
hither to Italy !
The earfe and ^^ eagle sitting on his chosen lonely moun-
is crit.es. j.^j^ peak must feel pity for us poor mortals in
our lower world. He thinks then of his own destiny. He
knows not how low he himself will one day be laid. For
him the stars shine so assuringly, the voices of the
mountain streams are so consoling, his own soul soars
so proudly above all petty thoughts that he soon forgets
them. When the sun ascends the sky he is again him
self, and flies toward the sun, and when near enough,
sings to it of his joy and of his sorrow. His fellow-
animals, men especially, imagine that the eagle cannot
sing — they know not that he sings only when he is beyond
their realm, and is too proud to have any but the sun for a
listener. He is right ; some of his feathered kindred down
below might want to criticise his song. I have myself
had experience how such criticism sounds. The hen
standing on one leg clucks— the singer has no spirit; the
turkey splutters out — he is wanting in real earnestness ;
the dove coos — he knows nothing of true love ; the

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 29
goose cackles — he is ignorant of science ; the capon
twitters — he is immoral ; the bullfinch chirps — alas ! he
has no religion ; the sparrow peeps — he is not produc
tive enough ; hoopoes, magpies, owls — all croak, screech,
or caw. The nightingale alone joins not in the chorus
of the critics ; unconcerned about all the world, the red
rose is her only thought and her only song, she hovers
yearningly over it, and in the iritensity of her joy falls
upon the loved thorns, and bleeds and dies.
Poets— the Strange caprice of the people ! It de-
popular
historians, mands its history from the hand of the poet,
and not from the hand of the historian. It seeks no
veracious chronicle of naked facts, but that every fact be
again resolved into the original poesy that gave it birth.
The poets know this, and they take a secret, malicious
pleasure in moulding popular traditions so as to bring
derision on dry-as-dust historiographers and parchment
State records.
The poets do not falsify history, they tell us its mean
ing with perfect truth, though they may do so by forms
and symbols peculiar to their method. There are nations
whose whole history is handed down in this poetic man
ner — for example, the Hindoos. For such epic poems
as the Mahabarata convey the import of Indian history
far more accurately than could any compendium-writer,
with all his array of dates. In the same way I might

30 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
assert that Walter Scott's romances often render the
spirit of English history with more fidelity than Hume ;
at least Sartorius is quite right when, in his supplement
to Spittler, he enumerates these romances among the
authorities on English history.
Are there still real Jesuits ? I am often
The Jesuits. tempted to think that their existence is noth
ing but a bug-bear, a lurking anxiety lingering in our minds
long after the real danger is over, and all the zeal ex
pended in combating Jesuitism only makes me think of
people continuing to hold up umbrellas long after it has
ceased raining. I sometimes imagine that the devil, the
nobility, and the Jesuits exist only so long as they are
believed in. As for the devil, this is certainly the case, for
only believers have seen him. With respect to the nobility,
we shall some day find that the "upper ten" (la bonne
socikte) will cease to be the upper ten whenever it pleases all
worthy citizens to cease regarding it as such. But the
Jesuits? At any rate, they no longer wear the old
breeches. The old Jesuits, with their old breeches, with
their old lust of power, schemes of the universe, intrigues,
distinctions, reservations, and poisons, are in their graves,
and what we now see stealing through the world in
new glossy breeches is not even their spirit, but rather
their ghost, a foolish, imbecile ghost that is doing
its best by daily word and deed to convince men how

From the "Travel-Pictures: Italy." 31
little- it is to be feared. Indeed, it reminds us of the
story of a similar ghost of the Thuringian Forest, which
succeeded in dissipating the popular terror that it had
once inspired, by very politely removing its skull from its
shoulders in the presence of all the people, and showing
them that its interior was hollow and quite empty.
O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus? . . . Horace, Book I., Ode XIV.
The Battle of ''^^ often as my old teacher had to explain
eipz'g- j-j^jg Q^g^ jj^ which the State is compared to a
ship, he was in the habit of making all sorts of political
observations, which, however, he had to suspend when
the Battle of Leipzig was fought and his class dispersed.
My old teacher had foreseen everything. When we
"received the first tidings of the battle, he shook his grey
head, and now I know what that shaking of the head
meant. We soon got more detailed informaiion, and
people showed one another mysteriously the pictures in
which were represented, in gaudy though edifying fashion,
the great chiefs of the army kneeling on the battlefield
and rendering thanks to God. " Well might they thank
God," said my old master, with a smile such as his
features wore when he was explaining Sallust, " the
Emperor Napoleon had so often beaten them that they
could not help some day learning from him the trick of
victory." Then came the Allies and the wretched

32 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
" hberation " poetry, Hermann and Thusnelda, hurrah !
Women's Associations, Fatherland Clubs, and an inter
minable swagger about the Batde of Leipzig, and always
the Battle of Leipzig and no end of it. " It is with
these people," observed my teacher, " as with the
Thebans, when at last they succeeded in overcoming
the invincible Spartans at Leuctra, and kept boasting
incessantly of their victory, so that Antisthenes said of
them, ' They are like schoolboys who are beside them
selves with joy at having beaten their schoolmaster.'
My dear scholars, it would have been better for us if we
had got the thrashing ourselves." Shortly afterwards,
the old man died. Prussian grass grows over his grave,
and on it pasture the mettled steeds of our renovated
knights. Tyrol and the ^HE Tytolcse are handsome, sprightly,
yroese, jjQjjest, bravc, and of inscrutable shallow
ness of intellect. They are a healthy race of men, per
haps because they are too stupid to be sickly. Tyrol is
very beautiful, but the most beautiful landscape fails to
entrance us when the weather and our spirits are both
dismal. This latter condition is with me an invariable
result of the former — when it rains without it is always
bad weather within. Of politics the Tyrolese know
nothing, except that they have an Emperor, who wears a
white coat and red breeches. They have been told so

From the " Travel-Pictures : Ltaly" 33
by their old uncle, who himself heard it in Insbruck
from the black Sepperl, who has been to Vienna. When
the patriots climbed up among them and glibly ex
plained how they had now got a prince that wore a blue
coat and white breeches, they grasped their muskets,
kissed wife and child, descended the mountains, and let
themselves be shot for the sake of the white coat and
the dear old red breeches.
When all is said, it is much the same in whatever
cause one dies, so long as it is for something that is dear
to us ; and such a warm, faithful death is better than a
cold, faithless life. Even the very songs of such a death,
with their sweet rhymes and inspiring words, bring
warmth to the heart when damp fogs and importunate
cares threaten to afflict us.
Immersed in day-dreams, myself a dream,
Italy. I entered Italy, and as I had during the
journey well-nigh forgotten whither I was travelling, a
kind of terror took possession of me when I became
conscious of the large Italian eyes gazing at me, and saw
around me the gay confusion of actual, warm, stirring
Italian life. For I was really in a dream, in such a
dream as that wherein one tries to recall some old half-
faded vision. I regarded alternately the houses and the
men and women, and I was almost persuaded that I had
seen these same houses in their better days, when their
c

34 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
handsome decorations were yet fresh, when the gilded
friezes of the windows were less weather-stained, and
when the marble Madonna with the child in her arms,
had still that wondrously beautiful head which the icono
clast Time has since so ruthlessly broken off". The faces
of the old women likewise seemed so familiar to me, that
I could fancy them cut out of the Italian paintings that
I recollect seeing, when a child, in the gallery at Diissel
dorf The old men, also, looked like long-forgotten
acquaintances, staring at me with earnest eyes as if from
the distance of centuries. Even the dainty young girls
had an air of rejuvenated antiquity. I could not help
smiling at this idea of mine, and then I began to think
that the whole town was nothing but a beautiful romance
that I had once read, or rather that I had myself com
posed, and I was now captivated by the magic spell of
my own fiction and terrified at the forms of my own crea
tion. Or perhaps, thought I, it is all a dream, and I would
gladly have given anyone a thaler for a box on the ear
merely to satisfy me as to whether I was awake or asleep.
I very nearly had this commodity at a much cheaper
rate, when I presently stumbled over the stout fruit-
woman at the corner of the square. She contented her
self, however, with throwing several figs at me, which
served to convince me that I was still in the midst of the
realities of life, in the centre of the market-place of
Trent, beside the great fountain, from whose bronze

From the " Travel-Pictures : Italy." 35
tritons and dolphins silver-clear water rose in a refreshing
cascade. To the left was an old palace whose walls were
adorned with gay allegorical figures, and on the terrace
of which grey-coated Austrian soldiers were getting
trained in the art of heroism. To the right stood a
coquettish little house in the Gothic-Lombard style ;
from its interior came a sweetly wooing, girlish voice,
which trilled in such lively and merry strains that the
weather-worn walls trembled, either from pleasure or from
frailty of age. In front of me stood the ancient cathedral,
not solemnly grand and gloomy, but like a pleasant-faced
old man whose years inspire confidence and affection.
As I pushed aside the green silken curtain which hung
at the door-way 'pi the cathedral, and entered God's
house, I felt body and soul pleasantly refreshed by the
cool air which filled it, and by the soothing mysterious
light streaming down through the brightly stained win
dows on the kneeling throng. It was composed mostly
of women, prostrate on the long rows of low devotional
chairs. They prayed with an almost inaudible motion
of the lips, and kept fanning themselves during their
devotions with large green fans, so that no sound was
heard save a ceaseless holy whisper, and nothing was
seen save the moving fans and the fluttering veils. My
creaking footsteps disturbed many a pious thought, and
great catholic eyes were turned toward me, half curiously,
half invitingly, as if they would have me kneel beside
them, and join in their ^ovX-siesta.

36 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Let men say what they will, Roman Catholicism is a
good summer weather religion.
I love those pale elegiac countenances,
eauty. ^^^^ -which great black eyes shed forth their
love pain ; I love, too, the dark tint of those proud necks
— their first love was Phcebus, who kissed them brown ;
I love even the over-ripe bust with its purple points, as
if amorous birds had been pecking at it ; but above all,
I love the gracious bearing, that dumb music of the
body, those limbs that move in sweetest rhythm, volup
tuous, pliant, with divine enticement, with indolent
death-languor, and yet with etherial grandeur, and
always full of poetry. I love such forms, as I love
poetry itself; and these melodiously moving figures, this
marvellous human concert whose rhythmic waves flowed
round me, found an echo in my heart, and awoke in it
responsive accords.
Th, The little harper must have observed that
arp-pajer. .^^j^jjg gj^g ^^.^^ ^^^ played, my eyes often
wandered toward the rose in her bosom ; and when I
afterwards threw into the tin plate in which she collected
gratuities a silver piece not of the smallest, she laughed
slyly, and asked in a whisper whether I should like to have
the rose. Now I am the politest of men, and would not
for the world offend a rose, were it even a rose that had

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 37
already lost some of its fragrance. Though it is no longer
as fresh, though it has no longer such an odour of virtue
as the rose of Sharon, what, thought I, does this concern
me, especially as I have a cold in the head I 'Tis only
mankind that is so exacting. The butterfly asks not of
the flower — Hath another already kissed thee ? And the
flower demands not — Hast thou already fluttered over
the bosom of another? Besides, night had fallen and
at night all flowers are grey, the most erring rose as well
as the most virtuous parsley. In a word, without more
ado, I said to the little harper, "Si, Signora." Think
no evil, good reader. The night had fallen and the
stars looked down bright and innocent into my heart.
In my heart, too, was the memory of the dead Mary.
I thought again of the night when I stood beside the
bed whereon lay the beautiful pale body, with the meek,
still lips ; I thought again of the weird glance of the old
woman who should have watched by the body, but had
resigned her duty to me for a few short hours ; I thought
again of the night-violet that stood in a glass on the
table, and sent forth such a strangely sweet perfume ; and
I shuddered again as I wondered whether it was really
the wind that had put out the lamp, or whether there
was not some third one in the chamber of the dead.

.j.j^^ Much has been said about the amphitheatre
^^vironll'^of Verona. There is scope enough within it

38 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
for reflections, and there is no reflection that may not
find a place within the circle of this celebrated structure.
It is built in that earnest matter-of-fact style the beauty
of which consists in perfect solidity, and like all the pub
lic buildings of the Romans, it is stamped with a genius
that is none other than the genius of Rome herself And
Rome ? Is there any one of such robust ignorance that
his heart does not secretly thrill at the very name, or
that does not at least feel himself under the spell of
traditional awe ? As for myself, I confess that my feeling
was one more akin to anxiety than to pleasure, when I
reflected that I should soon be wandering about on the
soil of old Rome. Old Rome is already dead, said I, to
soothe my anxious spirit, and thou wilt have the joy of
beholding, without the slightest danger, her beautiful
corpse. But a dread such as overcame Falstaff* kept
ever rising in my mind : How if Rome too be not quite
dead but only counterfeiting death, and should suddenly
rise again — 'twould be dreadful I
When I visited the amphitheatre a comedy was just
then going on within it. In the centre stood a little
wooden show-booth on which some performers were
acting an Italian farce, the audience sitting under
the open sky, some on Httle stools, others on the

* Falstaff: '* Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be
dead : how if he should counterfeit too and rise ? "
I. Henry IV., Act V., Scene IV.— Tr.

From the " Travel- Pictures : Ltaly." 39
high stone benches of the old amphitheatre. I sat there
watching the mummeries of Brighella and Tartaglia,
where once the Roman sat witnessing the fights of
gladiators and of savage beasts. The blue crystal dome
of sky above me was the same now, as then. The shades
of night began to fall and the stars to glimmer. Truffal-
dino laughed, Smeraldina lamented, until Pantaloon at
length appeared and laid their hands in each other's.
The crowd applauded and dispersed in high good
humour. The whole play had not cost a single drop of
blood. But it was only a play. The games of the
Romans, on the contrary, were no mere games. These
were men who never found delight in mere pretence.
They were devoid of all childlike gaiety, and, earnest as
they were, exhibited even in their sports their intense
and cruel earnestness. They were not great men, these
Romans, though they were greater than other races of
men in as much as they stood on the soil of Rome. The
moment they descended the Seven Hills they be
came men of mediocrity. Hence the pettiness we dis
cover wherever we catch a glimpse of their private life.
Herculaneum and Pompeii, (those palimpsests of nature
where the old stone text is again being brought to light),
exhibit to the visitor Roman private life in little narrow
houses with diminutive chambers, which contrast strik
ingly with the colossal public buildings that expressed their
public life, the theatres, aqueducts, fountains, roads, bridges.

40 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
the ruins of which still excite our astonishment. And
this is how it is ; as the Greek is great through his con
ception of art, the Hebrew through his belief in a most
high God ; so the Romans are great through the idea of
the eternal city, great wherever under the inspiration of
this idea they have fought, or written, or built. With the
growth of Rome this idea continued to expand, the indi
vidual was absorbed in it, and even her great men, whose
fame still survives, owe their immortality to the greatness
of Rome just as the httleness of her little men is rendered
more conspicuous by it. Hence the Romans were both
the greatest heroes and the greatest satirists — heroes when
in acting they thought of Rome ; satirists when in think-
of Rome, they passed judgment on the actions of their
contemporaries. Measured by the colossal standard of
the idea of Rome, the greatest personality among them
must have appea,red dwarf-like and fit for ridicule. Taci
tus is the most unsparing master of this satire, just be
cause he was most powerfully impressed with the grandeur
of Rome, and with the insignificance of the individual.
He is ever in his true element when he can inform us
what the malicious tongues of the Forum have to say of
some imperial deed of infamy ; it is with a sort of fierce
delight that he tells us of some senatorial disgrace, or
of some unsuccessful j)iece of flattery.
I continued for a long time walking about on the
higher tiers of the seats of the amphitheatre, my thoughts

From the "Travel-Pictures : Ltaly." 41
wandering back to the past. As it is by the light of
evening that all great buildings reveal most vividly the
genius that haunts them, so these walls now spoke to
me of deepest things in their fragmentary, lapidary style.
They spoke to me of the men of old Rome and I fancied
that I saw, down in the gloom of the circus, their white
shades moving to and fro. I seemed to see the Gracchi,
with their inspired martyr eyes. "Tiberius Sempronius,"
I shouted down, " thou wilt have my vote for the
Agrarian Law I " Csesar, also, I saw walking arm-in
arm with Marcus Brutus. " Are you now reconciled ? "
I cried. " We both thought ourselves in the right,"
said Caesar, smiling as he looked up ; "I thought there
was no longer a single Roman left, and held myself
justified, therefore, in putting Rome into my pocket;
and because my friend Marcus happened to be this last
Roman, he thought himself justified on that account in
killing me." Behind these two glided Tiberius Nero,
with immaterial legs and irresolute mien. Women also
I saw there, among them Agrippina with beautiful im
perial face that moved me strangely in beholding, like
some antique marble statue in whose features sorrow
is turned to stone. "Whom seek'st thou, daughter
of Germanicus ? " She had begun to murmur forth her
wail, when suddenly the doleful sound of the vesper
bell and the horrid clamour of the tattoo broke upon
my ear. The proud Roman ghosts took flight, and

42 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
I found myself once more in the Austro-Christian every
day present.
Goethe holds the mirror up to nature, or rather, he is
himself the mirror of nature. Nature, desiring to know
how she looked, created Goethe.
Suffering '^'B.'E. whole Italian people is suffering, and
spiritualizes. .1 rr • , , , . r
the suffering have always a greater air of
distinction than the healthy. It is only the suffering
man that is truly happy ; all his limbs have their history
of pain, they are all be-souled. I even believe that thr' lUgh
the agony of suffering dumb animals may become human;
for once I saw a dying dog that gazed at me in his death-
struggle with an almost human look.
Admiration for D° "^o* supposc that I am an unqualified
^'°i"lact°s. "" admirer of Buonaparte ; my homage is ad
dressed not to the deeds, but only to the genius of the
man — be he called Alexander, or Cffisar, or Napoleon. I
never praise the act, but only the human spirit. The act
is nothing but the garment of the soul, and history noth
ing more than the cast-off wardrobe of the human spirit.
Still, love often finds a dear delight in an old garment ;
and it is thus I love the cloak of Marengo.
"We are on the battle-field of Marengo."
Marengo. How my soul thrilled with delight when the
postilion uttered these words !

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 43
It was here General Buonaparte took such a deep
draught of the cup of fame that, in the intoxication which
followed, he became Consul, Emperor, Conqueror of the
world, and was able to recover from his intoxication only
at St. Helena. Nor did it fare much better with our
selves. We too, were intoxicated — we too, had dreams
of glory ; and now in the misery of our awaking we in
dulge in all kinds of sober reflections. We often bethink
ourselves that battle-fame is an antiquated delight, that
wars have now a nobler purpose, and that Napoleon was
perhaps the last conqueror.
It really seems as if future battles would be fought for
spiritual and not for material interests, and that the his
tory of the world will henceforth cease to be a history of
spoliation, and become a history of the human spirit.
There are no longer nations in Europe
nationalism, j^^^ ^^^ parties, and it is surprising to ob
serve how, in spite of diversity of colour, they recognise
one another so readily, and how, notwithstanding the
many varieties of language, they understand each other
so well.
^ , , All praise to the French! They have
French cookery ^
and freedom, -[^^gjg^j thcmselvcs about the two great neces
sities of human society — good cookery and civil equality.
In cookery and in freedom they have made the greatest

44 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
progress, and when one day we shall all take our places
as equal guests, and be merry together, at the great
feast of reconciliation — for what can be better than a
company of peers around a table laden with good things?
— our first toast shall be to the French nation. It will,
no doubt, be some time before this feast is celebrated —
before the day of universal emancipation ; but come at
last it will, this day when, reconciled and equal, we shall
sit at the same table ; we shall then be united, and in
the strength of union we shall fight against the other
evils of the world, perhaps, in the end, against death
itself — whose stern system of equality is less repugnant
to us than the ridiculous inequality-doctrine of the
aristocracy.

I LIKE battle-fields, for terrible as is war,
Battlefields. it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man
daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy — Death.

Heine's ''¦ REALLY know not whether I have de-
mission. gg].yg(j (-j^at one day a laurel wreath be laid
upon my coffin. Poetry, however much I love it, has
always been with me only a sacred plaything, or conse
crated instrument for holy purposes. I have never
placed much value upon poet-fame, and whether my
ses are praised or decried troubles me but little. But

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 45

a sword shall ye lay upon my coffin, for I was an intrepid
soldier in the war of the liberation of humanity.
It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears,
and each weeps really for himself
"I WAS born, Signora, on New-Year's night, 1800."*
"Did I not tell you," said the Marquis, "that he is
one of the first men of our century."
The Jewish ^^ "°' Speak to me of the old Jewish re-
e igion. jjgjQjj^ J would not dcsire that faith for my
worst enemy. One has nothing but contumely and
shame from it. I tell you it is not a religion — it is a
misfortune.
The Poet's title ^F a poet two things are required : the
0 recognition. j-Qj^gg jj^ j^jg lyrical poems must be those of
nature, in his epic or dramatic poems he must place
before us real figures. If he cannot obtain recognition
of his legitimacy in these respects, the title of poet will
be denied him even though his other family papers and
patents of nobility are in perfect order.

* From this passage has arisen the common mistake of supposing that Heine
was born on the first of January, 1800. On account of various errors in ofiicial
documents the date of his birth was formerly much disputed. After careful in
vestigation recent biographers consider the date, December 13th, 1799, to be
well established.^Tr.

46 PVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
To be wholly loved with the whole heart.
Pity and I'-ve one must be suffering. Pity is the last con
secration of love, is perhaps love itself.
Dante — the Catholic Homer.
Christ is the God whom I love best —
Christ. not because he is a legitimate God whose
father was God before Him and has since infinite time
ruled the world ; but because He, though a born Dau
phin of Heaven, has democratic sympathies and delights
not in courtly ceremonies ; because he is no God of an
aristocracy of crop-headed theological pedants and fan
tastic warriors, but a modest God of the people, a citizen-
God, un bon dieu citoyen.
Man — the aristocrat amongst the animals.
Religious Only so long as religions have to struggle
ree om. 2ig^\v&t rivals, and much more when they are
persecuted than when they persecute, are they glorious
and worthy of honour ; only then do we find enthusiasm,
sacrifice, martyrs, and triumphal palms. How beautiful,
how divinely lovely, how mysteriously sweet was the
Christianity of the first centuries, when it still resembled
its Divine Founder in the heroism of suffering ! It was
then still the fair legend of an unobtrusive God who, con
cealed under the comely form of youth, walked about
under the palms of Palestine preaching the doctrine of

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 47
brotherly love, and delivering that revelation of liberty
and equality which the sages of later times recognised as
true, and which, as the gospel of the French, became
the inspiration of our epoch. Compare with the religion
of Christ the various systems of Christianity set up in
different countries as State religions, for example, the
Roman Apostolic Catholic Church, or that Catholicism
without poetry called the High Church of England, that
pitiful, decayed skeleton of faith, in which all the glow of
life is extinguished ! As in trades, so in religions, all
monopoly is injurious. Only through free competition
can religions remain powerful, and they will not attain
again their primitive splendour until political equality in
the worship of God, the right of competition in religion,
is decreed. The LListory and Achievements of the Saga-
Don Quixote. I
cious Knight, Don Quixote, deJa Mancha.j—
This was the first book I read after I had reached the
age of boyish intelligence and had sufficiently mastered
my letters. I can still vividly recall that childish time
when I stole away from the house one early morning and
ran off to the Castle Garden, to read Don Quixote there
without interruption. It was a beautiful May day and
the blossoming Spring lay hstening in the morning light
to the nightingale, its sweet flatterer, who was singing to
it a hymn of praise in tones so caressingly soft, and with

48 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
such fond enthusiasm, that the most timid buds burst into
blossom, and the gay grass plots were kissed more fervidly
by the sunbeams, and trees and flowers trembled for very
joy. I, however, seated myself on an old moss-covered
bench in the so-called " Sighing Avenue," near the water
fall, and my young heart found delight in the wonderful
adventures of the brave knight. In my childish honesty
of soul I took everything for sober reality. However
ludicrous the pranks that fortune played the poor heiro,
I imagined that it must necessarily be so, that to be
scoffed at was the fate of heroism as well as to receive
bodily wounds, and the former vexed me as sorely as the
latter moved me to pity. I was a child and knew noth
ing of that irony which God had interwoven in the web
of life, and which the great Cervantes had imitated in
the little world of his own creation. I could have shed
bitterest tears when the noble knight received nothing
but ingratitude and blows for all his chivalry. As I was
but little practised in the art of reading, and had to pro
nounce the words aloud, the birds and the trees, the
streamlet and the flowers, could hear it all, and as these
innocent creatures of nature, like children, are ignorant
of the irony of the worid, they too must have taken it all
for sober earnest, for they wept with me over the suffer
ings of the poor knight. An old spreading oak tree
actually sobbed aloud, the waterfall shook vehemently
its grey beard and seemed to rail at the baseness of the

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly." 49
world. We felt that the chivalrous ardour of the knight
was not less deserving of admiration although the lion
turned his back upon him and refused the combat, and
that his achievements were more worthy of honour in
proportion as his body was frail and withered, the armour
that protected him rusty, and the steed that bore him
mere skin and bone. We despised the low-born mob
who treated our poor knight with such brutal blows ; but
still more did we despise the high-born mob in their gay
satin cloaks, with their courtly phrases and their ducal
titles, who jeered at one far above them in chivalry and
in grandeur of soul. Dulcinea's knight rose even higher
in my esteem and gained ever more of my affection the
longer I read in the wonderful book, which indeed I
continued to do daily in that same garden, so that by
autumn I had reached the end of the history. Never
shall I forget the day when I came to read of the woeful
combat wherein the knight was so ignominiously van
quished. It was a dismal day, dark, lowering clouds sped
across the grey sky, the yellow leaves were falling mourn
fully from the trees, heavy tear-drops hung from the last
flowers, whose withered dying heads drooped sadly ; the
nightingales had long since ended their song ; on all
sides images of decay were staring at me ; and my heart
almost broke as I read how the noble knight, stunned
and bruised, lay stretched on the ground, and how, with
out raising his vizor, he said to his vanquisher in a voice so
D

50 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
weak and faint that it seemed to come from the grave : —
" Dulcinea is the fairest lady in the world, and I am the
most unhappy of knights, but it becomes not that my
weakness should belie the truth — strike home with thy
lance. Sir Knight." Alas ! the dazzling Knight of the
White Moon, who overcame the bravest and noblest
man on earth, was only a disguised barber !
But ah me ! all this was long ago, many a new Spring
has blossomed since then, though none that had ever
such a magic charm ; for now, alas I I have no faith in the
sweet tales of the nightingale, the flatterer of Spring. I
know how quickly Spring's splendour fades, and when I
behold the youngest rosebuds, it is but to see them
bloom in crimson robes of sorrow, soon to grow pale,
and be scattered by the wind. Everywhere I see only
a disguised Winter. But in my bosom still glows that
flame of love which soars in ecstasy above the earth,
and takes its adventurous flight through the wide yawn
ing space of the sky till it strikes the cold stars, and
sinks down again to the little earth, and with mingled
sighs and shouts of joy, confesses that in all creation there
is nothing more beautiful, nothing better than the human
heart. This love is an inspiration always of God-like
essence, whether it prompt to wise or to foolish actions.
And so the tears shed by the boy over the sufferings of
the foolish knight, were as little poured forth in vain as
those afterwards shed by the youth, when he came to read,

From the " Travel-Pictures : Ltaly." 5 1
through many a night in his lonely study-chamber, of
the deaths of the holiest heroes of liberty — of King Agis
of Sparta, of Caius and Tiberius Gracchus of Rome, of
Jesus of Jerusalem, of Robespierre and of Saint Just of
Paris. But now that I have donned the toga virilis
and wish to be esteemed a man, tears are at an end, and
it becomes me to act as a man in emulation of my great
predecessors, so that if it be the will of God, boys and
youths may in after times also weep over me.
Perhaps I am myself only a Don Quixote, whose head
has been sadly confused by the reading of all manner
of wonderful books, as was that of the knight of La
Mancha. Jean Jacques Rousseau has been my Amadis
of Gaul, Mirabeau my Roldan or Agramanth, and I
have pondered too deeply over the lore of the chivalrous
deeds of the French Paladins and the Knights of the
Round Table of the National Convention. But my
madness, and the fixed ideas that have taken possession
of me through the reading of these books, are the very
opposite of those that afflicted the great Knight-errant.
He sought to restore the decaying chivalry ; I, on the
contrary, seek to destroy every vestige of the age of
chivalry. Our mode of action, too, proceeds from en
tirely different views. My colleague mistook wind-mills
for giants ; I, on the other hand, can see in our present-
day giants nothing but noisy windmills. He beheld in
the leathern wine-skins mighty magicians, but in the

52 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
magicians of to-day I see nothing but leathern wine-skins.
He imagined every miserable tavern to be a castle, every
ass-driver a cavalier, every barn-wench a court-lady; I,
on the other hand, hold our castles to be but refuges for
rogues, cavaliers to be ass-drivers, our court ladies to be
but barn-wenches. He mistook a puppet-show for a
State ceremony; I hold our state ceremonies to be
mere puppet-shows ; yet I strike home as bravely at the
wooden pageantry as did the gallant knight. Alas ! such
deeds of heroism often result as disastrously for me as
they did for him, and like him I have to suffer much for
the honour of my mistress.
The Emperor The poor Empcror Maximilian having been
and his fool. . , j_- t_ -l ¦ • i i i •
taken captive by his enemies, lay closely im
prisoned. It was, I think, in the Tyrol. Here he sate in
lonely affliction, forsaken by all his knights and courtiers,
and none came to his aid. I know not whether his
countenance wore at this time the sullen look that we see
in the pictures of the second period of his life. But it
is certain that his heavy under lip, with its contempt for
his fellowmen, protruded even more disdainfully than
we observe it in these portraits. He could not but de
spise those who had fluttered so fawningly about him in
the sunshine of prosperity, and now abandoned him in
the gloom of his- dire necessity. But suddenly the door
of his prison opened to admit a man enveloped in a

From the "Travel-Pictures: Ltaly'' 53
cloak, and when the disguise was thrown aside, the
Emperor recognised his faithful Conrad von der Rosen,
the Court fool. This man brought him consolation and
counsel — yet, he was the court fool !
Oh German fatherland ! dear German people ! I am
thy Conrad von der Rosen. He whose sole business
was with pastime and with providing amusement for
thee in happy days, now forces his way into thy prison
in the time of thy need ; here under my cloak I bring
thy good sceptre and thy beautiful crown. Dost thou
not recognise me, my Emperor ? If I cannot set thee
free, I will at least console thee, and thou shalt have
some one by thee with whom to talk about thy most
sorrowful distress, and to inspire thee with courage — one
who loves thee, one whose best jest and whose best
blood are at thy service. For thou, my people, art the
real Emperor, the real lord of the land ; thy will is
sovereign, and much more legitimate than that purple-
clad tel est notre plaisir, which invokes a divine right
under no better warrant than the anointing oil of ton
sured charlatans. Thy will, my people, is the only
legitimate source of all power. Though now thou liest
there in fetters, thy just right will in the end prevail ; the
day of deliverance is at hand ; a new era is beginning.
My Emperor I the night is passed, and outside ye may
see the ruddy glow of morning.
" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art deceived ;

54 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
thou takest perhaps a gleaming axe for the sun, and the
ruddy dawn is nothing but blood."
" No, my Emperor, it is the sun, although it rises in
the west. During six thousand years men have always
seen it rising in the east; it is now high time for its course
to be changed."
" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the
bells from thy red cap, and it has now such a strange
look, that red cap of thine."
" Ah ! my Emperor, the thought of thy misfortune
caused me to shake my head in such furious wrath that
the fool's bells fell from my cap ; but it is none the worse
for that."
"Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is it I hear
breaking and crashing out there ? "
" Be still ! it is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and
soon, the doors of thy prison will be burst open, and thou
wilt be free, my Emperor."
"Am I then really Emperor? Ah ! it is but the fool
that tells me so ! "
" Oh do not sigh, dear master, it is the prison air that
makes thee so faint-hearted; when thou hast regained
thy power thou wilt feel the brave imperial blood
pulsing again in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud as an
Emperor, and arrogant and gracious, and unjust and
smiling, and ungrateful as princes are."

From, the "English Fragments'' 55
" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free
again what wilt thou do ? "
" I will then sew new bells to my cap."
" And how shall I reward thy fidelity ? "
" Ah ! my dear master, only do not have me put to
death." •jFtom tlje " ^nglisl) jFragmtnts."
National love '^^^ Germans feel no need either for free-
of freedom. ^^^ ^^ .^-^^ equality. They are a speculative
people, ideologists, a race of dreamers who look before
and after, who live only in the past and the future, and
who have no present. Englishmen and Frenchmen
have a present, to them every day brings its conflict, its
resistance, and its history. The German has nothing for
which to combat, and no sooner did he begin to suspect
that there might be things the possession of which is
desirable, than philosophical wiseacres taught him to
doubt the existence of such things. It cannot be denied
that even Germans love freedom, but they love it after
a different fashion from other nations. An Englishman
loves freedom as he loves his lawfully wedded wife. He
regards her as a possession, and if he does not treat her
with special tenderness, yet if need be, he knows how
to defend her as a man should. A Frenchman loves
freedom as he does his chosen bride. His love for her

56 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
glows and flames ; he throws himself at her feet with the
most exaggerated protestations, he will fight for her to
the death, he will commit a thousand follies for her sake.
A German loves freedom as he does his old grand
mother. But the splenetic Briton, tired of his wife, is
capable of some day putting a halter round her neck
and leading her off to Smithfield for sale. The fickle
Frenchman may perhaps become faithless to his bride,
and will then desert her to go dancing and singing after
the courtesans of the Palais Royal. But the German
will never thrust his old grandmother quite out of doors,
he will always keep a corner for her by the fireside, where
she may tell her fairy tales to the listening children. If
freedom, which God forbid I were ever to disappear from
the whole earth, a German dreamer would discover her
again in his dreams.
Heine in Send, if you choosc, a philosopher to
London, but on no account send a poet
thither ! Send a philosopher and place him at a corner
of Cheapside. He will there learn more than out of all
the books of the last Leipzig Fair. As the human
waves roar about him, a sea of new thoughts will rise
within him. The infinite spirit which broods over it will
breathe upon him, the most hidden secrets of the social
order will suddenly reveal themselves to him, he will
hear with the ear and see with the eye, the heartbeat of

From the "English Fragments." 57
the world. For as London is the right hand of the
world, its active, mighty right hand, that street which
leads from the Exchange to Downing Street may well be
regarded as the world's great artery.
But do not send a poet to London 1 This hard reality
of things, this colossal uniformity, this mechanical move
ment, this sullenness amid its pleasures of over-grown
London, depresses the imagination and rends the heart.
And did you venture to send a German poet thither, a
dreamer who must needs stand agape at everything
he sees, be it a ragged beggar-woman or a jeweller's re
splendent window, he would assuredly fare badly and be
pushed about on all sides, or even knocked down. I
' soon perceived that this people has much to do. It
lives on a grand scale, and though food and clothing are
dearer here than with us, it seeks to be better fed and
better clothed than we do. As accords with high rank
it has also great debts, and yet it sometimes ostenta
tiously throws handfuls of guineas out of the window,
pays other nations to fight that it may witness the
sport, and gives handsome gratuities to their various
kings. And so John Bull must work day and night to
procure money for all this expenditure, day and night
must he rack his brain to contrive new machinery.
He must sit and reckon in the sweat of his brow, and
hurry along, without time to look about him, from the
docks to the Exchange, from the Exchange to the Strand.

58 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
He may surely be pardoned if, when he finds in his way
a poor German poet gazing through the window of a
print-seller's shop at a corner of Cheapside, he pushes
him rather roughly aside !
I had resolved not to feel astonished at the enormous
scale of things in London, of which I had heard so
much. But it happened with me as with the unfor
tunate schoolboy who had made up his mind not to feel
the thrashing that was in store for him. His resolution
was founded on the expectation of receiving across the
shoulders the usual kind of strokes with the usual rod.
Instead of this, however, he had administered to him an
unusual volley of blows with a smart cane upon an un
usual spot. I expected great palaces, and found nothing
but little houses ; yet the very uniformity of these and
their interminable number, made a most powerful im
pression upon me.
Scott's Life of Poor Walter Scott ! hadst thou been rich,
thou wouldst not have written this book,
and wouldst not then have become poor Walter
Scott ! But the creditors of the firm of Constable
met together, and calculated and calculated, and
after much subtraction and division shook their heads,
and to poor Walter Scott was left nothing but his
laurel and his debts. Then the extraordinary came to
pass : the singer of mighty deeds himself resolved to

From the "English Fragments." 59
attempt the heroic. He determined upon a cessio bonorum,
valuation was made of the laurel crown of the " Great
Unknown " in order to redeem great known debts, and
so was produced in hungry haste, in the inspired des
pair of bankruptcy, the Life of Napoleon. Praise him, the
brave citizen 1 praise him, all ye Philistines throughout
the universe I praise him, ye virtuous shopkeepers who
sacrifice everything that ye may duly retire your bills !
— only, do not expect me to praise him. * * «
Strange ! the dead Emperor from his grave is the de-
spoiler of the British, for through him their greatest poet
has lost his laurel-crown.
In discussing politics, the stupidest Englishman will
always contrive to say something rational ; but whenever
the conversation turns upon religion, the most intelli
gent Englishman will exhibit nothing but stupidity.
Freedom the FREEDOM is a ucw religion, the religion of
igion. ^^^ time. And if Christ be not the God of
this religion He is at least one of its High Priests, and
his name irradiates with its blessing the hearts of its dis
ciples. The French are the chosen people of the new
religion ; in their language its earliest gospels and doc
trines are recorded. Paris is the New Jerusalem, and
the Rhine is the Jordan that separates the holy land of
liberty from the country of the Philistines.*
^ If in this passage, as in others, Heine is betrayed into exaggeration and
error in his estimate of the value of French ideas of freedom, and of the sacri-

6o Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
jTrom " Sijsfeespfare'a iUtatrons anti JJlaiBa."
Generous Nature never entirely disinherits
Shakespeare. any of her creatures, and if she has denied
to Englishmen everything that is beautiful and pleasing,
if she has given them neither a voice for singing nor the
sense of enjoyment, she has yet bestowed upon them by
way of compensation, a large measure of civil liberty, the
art of comfortably arranging their homes, and William
Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the intellectual sun which
illumines England with its gracious light, with its bene
ficent rays. In England everything reminds us of
Shakespeare, and the most ordinary objects appear as if
transfigured by this reminiscence. Everywhere is heard
the rustle of his wings, his clear eye beams upon us from
whatever is noteworthy, and during grand events we seem
to behold him gently beckoning with approving smile.
This perpetual recalling of Shakespeare through Shake
speare struck me very forcibly during my sojourn in Lon
don, where I, an inquisitive traveller, rambled from
morning till far into the night amid the so-called

fices made by France in its cause, it must be remembered that he was at the time
but eight and twenty years of age, in the crisis of youthful enthusiasm,
and that he had already suffered at the hands of the various German States for
the boldness of his denunciation of their petty tyranny. It was not till two years
later that he began to reside in France— an exile for the remainder of his life
from the fury of the German censorship — and he subsequently modified to a very
great extent his admiration for French methods of worshipping the Goddess of
Liberty. — Tr.

From " Shakespeare's Matrons and Maids." 6i
sights. Every lion reminded me of a greater lion —
of Shakespeare. All the places which I visited live
in his historical dramas their immortal life, and
have been familiar to me from my earliest youth.
In England, however, not only the educated
classes are acquainted with these dramas, but also
the people; even the stout "Beef-eater,'' with his
red coat and his red countenance, who acts as
guide through the Tower, and who shows you the
dungeon where Richard caused his nephews, the
young Princes, to be murdered, even he refers you
to Shakespeare for a detailed account of this cruel
story. The verger, likewise, who conducts you through
Westminster Abbey, is constantly talking about Shake
speare, in whose tragedies these dead kings and queens
who lie stretched out here in stone effigies, on their
stone sarcophagi, and who are exhibited for the sum of
one shilling and sixpence, play their terrible or their woe
ful parts. He himself — that is to say the statue of the
great poet — stands there in life size, a noble figure with
pensive head, and in his hand a parchment scroll. On
it perhaps are magic words, and when at midnight he
moves his white lips to conjure up the dead who
there repose in their tombs, they arise in their rusty
armour and quaint old court costumes, cavaliers of the
White and of the Red Rose, and ladies too, who quit
with sighs their resting places, and the rattle of arms and

62 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
sounds of laughter and of imprecation are heard. For
Shakespeare is not only poet, he is also historian ; he
wields not only Melpomene's dagger, but also the even
sharper stylus of Clio. In this respect he resembles
the earliest writers of history who, like him, knew no
distinction between poetry and history, and who, instead
of presenting us with a bare nomenclature of facts, a
dusty herbarium of events, gave us truth luminous with
song, and songs wherein the voice of truth constantly
resounds. So-called objectivity (much talked of in our
day) is nothing but a barren lie. It is impossible to
pourtray the past without lending to it the colour of our
own_ feelings. As the pretended objective historian
must always address himself to his contemporaries, so
must he_iinconsciously. .w,nt£„iiLjlLe„,sgirit,j3i_Jli5_ Qwij
time, and this spirit of the time is visible in his writing
just as in letters we see revealed not only the character
of the sender but also that of the receiver.
But it was not merely the events of his own national
history that were so clearly visible to Shakespeare, he
saw also those of which the annals of antiquity inform us.
With what astonishment do we behold this in the
dramas by which he pourtrays, in the most faithful
colours, the fallen grandeur of Rome 1 He saw into the
innermost souls of the heroes of antiquity just as he saw
into the souls of the cavaliers of the middle ages, and
he commanded them to lay bare to him their most

From " Shakespeare's Matrons and Maids." 63
secret thoughts. And never does he fail to raise truth
to the elevation of poetry. Even around the Romans,
with their lack of sensibility, that hard, sober people of
prose, that mixture of brutal rapacity and subtle legal
acumen, that casuistic soldiership, even around them he
• could throw a halo of poetry.
Yet Shakespeare has been reproached with a dis
regard for form in his Roman dramas, and a highly
gifted writer, Dietrich Grabbe, has called them " poeti
cally embellished chronicles " having no central point,
where one is at a loss to decide who is the principal per
son and who the accessory, and where, though we may
renounce the necessity for unity of time and of place, we
do not find even unity of interest. Strange error of the
most clear-sighted critics I Neither the unity of interest,
nor the unities of time and of place are wanting in
the works of our great poet ; his conceptions are only
rather more extensive than ours. The scene of the
action of his plays is the globe itself, this is his unity of
place ; eternity is the period of the action of his pieces,
this is his unity of time ; and in conformity with these
two unities is the hero of his drama, who represents the
central point, the unity of interest. Humanity is the
hero, a hero continually dying and continually being
born, continually loving, continually hating, yet loving
more than hating ; to-day crawling like a worm, to
morrow soaring like an eagle toward the sun ; to-day

64 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
meriting a fool's cap, to-morrow a laurel wreath, oftener
deserving both at once — the big dwarf, the pigmy giant,
the god prepared on homoeopathic principles in whom
the divinity, though much diluted, still exists. Ah I let
modesty and shame keep us from too much talking of
the heroism of such a hero !
The Germans GERMANS havc better Understood Shakes-
and
Shakespeare, pearc than his own countrymen have done.
And here we must mention the dear name that we
everywhere encounter when with us a great initiative has
been taken. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was the first
writer in Germany who raised his voice on behalf of
Shakespeare. He laid the solid foundation-stone of a
temple to the greatest of all poets. What is still more
worthy of praise, he took the trouble to clear away the
old rubbish from the ground whereon this temple was
to be reared. In the joyous enthusiasm of construc
tion, he mercilessly tore down the paltry French show-
booths that encumbered the ground. Gottsched*
shook so despairingly the curls in his wig that all
Leipzig trembled, and the cheeks of his wife grew
pale either from fear or from powder. It may with truth
* Founder of " The German Society," at Leipzig. Gottsched was for a time
the literary dictator of Germany. He maintained that the best models were to
be found in French literature. His wife (an accomplished woman, and the
translator of Pope's ifn/(?o/' Ms iorf) was at first his faithful ally, but subse
quently went over to the opposition, and even assisted in deposing her hus
band.— Tr.

From " Shakespearis Matrons and Maids." 65
be asserted that the whole of Lessing's Dramaturgie *
was written in the interest of Shakespeare. Wieland
and Herder followed in the train of Lessing ; Goethe,
also, did homage with a great flourish of trumpets. In
short, a brilliant galaxy of kings, one after another,
threw their votes into the urn and elected William
Shakespeare, Emperor of Literature. The Emperor was
already firmly seated on his throne when the Knight,
August Wilhelm von Schlegel, and his shield-bearer,
Hofrath Ludwig Tieck, came forward to kiss hands and
to assure the whole world that now the imperial succes-
¦sion was securely established — the thousand-year rule of
the Emperor, William the Great.

Garrickand GaRRICK UndciStOOd the thoUghtS of
a espeare. gji^kespeare more clearly than did Dr.
Johnson, the John Bull of erudition, on whose nose
Queen Mab must surely have danced in her drollest
mood while he was criticising the " Midsummer Night's
Dream " ; he certainly did not understand why he
should experiencfe a more acute tickling sensation
and a greater inclination to sneeze when criticising
* Lessing's Dramaturgie, 1767-1769, was the splendid fruit of an unsuccessful
altempt to found a German National Theatre. It was begun in the form of a
theatrical journal, but after its failure as an endeavour to elevate the German
drama, it was completed at irregular intervals and amidst much discouragement
and privation. Lessing criticises severely the French school as based on a
misconception of the true meaning of Aristotle's doctrine of the unities, and
appeals to Shakespeare in support of his theories. — Tr.
E

66 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Shakespeare than when criticising other poets. While
Dr. Johnson was dissecting Shakespeare's characters
as if they were dead bodies, making parade of his
grossest absurdities in Ciceronian English, and swaying
to and fro with ponderous self-satisfaction between the
antitheses of his Latin periods, Garrick, on the stage, was
moving the whole English nation by the powerful spell
with which he called to life the dead, whom he caused to
perform before all eyes the most terrible, most bloody, or
most laughter-moving deeds. But this man Garrick
loved the great poet, and for reward of such love he lies
buried in Westminster, close to the pedestal of Shakes
peare's statue, like a faithful dog at the feet of his master.
Faust is the true type of the Germans, of the race that
satisfies its passion through knowledge rather than
through life. Cleopatra is a thorough woman; she
Cleopatra. , , .
loves and deceives at the same time. It is
an error to suppose that when women deceive us they
have also ceased to love us. In this they are only
following their natural instinct; and even when they
have no wish to drain the forbidden cup, they like
to sip a little, to put their lips to the rim, just to
try how poison tastes. As in the character, so in
the surroundings of Cleopatra there is a strange irony.
This capricious, lustful, fickle, feverishly coquettish

From " Shakespeare' s Matrons and Maids" 67
woman, this antique Parisienne, this goddess of life,
plays fantastic tricks and rules over Egypt, the silent,
rigid land of the dead. ... Ye know it well, that
Egypt, that mysterious Mizraim, that narrow Nile valley
with the aspect of a coffin. . . . Amid its tall reeds
whimpers the crocodile, or the foundling of Old Testa
ment history. Ye see here rock-temples with mighty
pillars, against which recline the contorted forms of the
sacred animals, painted in garish, hideous colours. . .
At the portal nods the hieroglyphic cowled priest of
Isis. ... In luxurious villas mummies are taking
their siesta, their gilded masks preserving them from the
fly-swarms of corruption. . Like silent thoughts
are standing here the taper obelisks and the stout pyra
mids. . . . From the background the Moon Moun
tains of Ethiopia, in whose bosom are hid the sources of
the Nile, send greeting. . . . Everywhere death,
stone, mystery. . . . And over such a land ruled as
queen, the beautiful Cleopatra I
Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus is Certainly one of
Titus
Andronicus. Shakcspcarc's earliest productions, though
many critics dispute altogether its Shakespearian author
ship. It is pervaded by that mercilessness, that eager
predilection for the repulsive, that Titanic brawling with
the divine powers, of which we find similar instances in
the firstlings of all the greatest poets. The hero, in contrast

Wit, Wisdom, and Pat/ios.

with his whole demoralised surroundings, is a true Roman,
a relic of the old stern period. But did such men still
exist at that epoch ? It is possible ; for nature loves to
preserve here and there a specimen of all her creatures
whose species tends to destruction or transformation,
though it be only in the form of petrifactions such as are
to be found on the summits of mountains. Such a petri
fied Roman is Titus Andronicus, and his fossil virtue is
a genuine curiosity in the age of the last Caesars.

Romeo and

Not the familiar human pair, but love
itself is the hero of the drama Romeo and
Juliet. Love is here presented to us in all the arrogance
of youth, braving all adverse circumstances, and over
coming them all. For love fears not, in her desperate
struggle, to seek the aid of her most dreaded yet most
trusty ally — Death. Love in alliance with death is in
vincible. Love ! it is the highest and most victorious of
all the passions. But its world-compelling power lies in
its boundless generosity, in its almost superhuman dis
interestedness, in its self-sacrificing contempt for life.
For love there is no yesterday, and she thinks not of
any morrow ; she covets only the present day, but she
desires it wholly, unstinted, without shadow of trouble ;
she will not save of her present joy for any future, and
she disdains the warmed-up leavings of the past. " Be
fore me night, behind me night." She is a wandering

From " Shakespeare' s Matrons and Maids" 69
flame between two darknesses. Whence comes she ? —
From tiniest, almost inconceivable sparks. What is her
end? — She is extinguished as incomprehensibly, and
leaves no trace. The more violently she burns, the
more quickly she goeth out ; yet that hinders not that
she wholly giveth herself up to her blazing passion, as if
its fire would last for ever.
I do not venture to blame Shakespeare in the slightest,
yet I may be permitted to express surprise that he should
represent Romeo as having felt a passion for Rosalind
before he sees Juliet. For though he is wholly devoted
to his second mistress, there lurks in the soul of Romeo
a certain scepticism, betraying itself in ironical turns of
speech that not infrequently remind us of Hamlet. Or,
is the second love more intense with a man, simply
because it is allied to strong self-consciousness ? For a
woman there is no second love. Her nature is too
delicate to withstand a second time that most terrible
convulsion of the soul. Look at Juliet ! Could she
have sustained a second time the overpowering bliss and
horror? Could she a second time, braving all her
womanly fears, have drained the fearful cup ? I fancy
she had enough the first time, this poor happy one, this
spotless victim of the great passion.
The Jews are a chaste, an abstemious, one
The Jews, ^j^j^^ almost Say an abstract people, and in

70 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
purity of morals, they approach most nearly to the Ger
manic races.
The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
andmoten ^'^ ^^ ^°^ ^uly Germany that wears the
{hiorkt physiognomy of Palestine ; the rest of Europe
is raising itself to the level of the Jews. I say raising
itself, for the Jews were in possession from the earliest
period of their history of the modern principle, which is
only in our day beginning to develop itself among the
European nations. Greeks and Romans clung with
enthusiasm to the soil, to the Fatherland. The later
northern invaders of the Greek and Roman worlds
clung to the persons of their leaders, and throughout
the middle ages, in the place of antique patriotism, came
feality of vassals and attachment to princes. But the
Jews in all ages have clung to the law alone, to the abstract
thought, just as our modern cosmopolite republicans,
who reverence neither the land of birth nor the person
of a prince, regard the law as the highest object of
respect. Yes, the true birthplace of cosmopolitism
was the soil of Judea, and Christ, who was a real Jew,
was the special founder of the propagandism of universal
citizenship. Speaking of the republicanism of the Jews
reminds me of having read in Josephus that there were
republicans in Jerusalem, who formed an opposition
to the royally disposed Herodians, fought bravely.

From " The Memoirs of Schnabelewopski." 71
called no one " Master," and hated with a fierce hatred
Roman absolutism. Freedom and equality was their
religion. What folly !
JF«m " Wcjt iUtEmoirs of l^err ijott St^nairietoopaKf."
You must have heard of the legend of the Flying Dutch
man.'* It is the story of an ill-omened ship which can
never reach its port, and which has from time im
memorial sailed the seas. As often as it encounters
another vessel, several of its mysterious crew put off in a
boat to request those on board the stranger ship to take
charge of a packet of letters. These letters must be firmly
nailed to the mainmast, otherwise disaster will overtake
the ship, especially if there is no Bible on board or no
horse-shoe attached to the foremast. The letters always
bear the addresses of unknown persons, or of persons
long since dead, so that sometimes the great-grand-daugh
ter receives a love letter written to her great-grandmother,
who has been in her grave for a hundred years. This
wooden phantom, this woeful ship, bears the name of its
captain, a Dutchman, who once took a mighty oath that
he would double a certain cape (the name of which has
* In his Musical Notes from Paris (1840-1847), Heine says that his version
of the legend of the Flying Dutchman was well adapted for the libietto of an
opera. An attempt to present the story as an opera was made, though unsuc
cessfully, by the musician Dietz. Wagner has expressly acknowledged his in
debtedness to Heine for both the subject and the materials of the libretto of his
well-known opera. — Tr.

72 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
escaped my memory) despite a terrible gale then blow
ing ; ay, that he would double it though he should have
to sail till the day of doom. The devil took him at his
word, and he must henceforth sail on till the last day,
unless, through a woman's fidelity he should be released
from his fate. The devil, so stupid is he, has no belief
in woman's faith, and so he permits the wretched captain
to land once every seven years that he may marry, and
thus seek an opportunity of gaining his deliverance.
Poor Dutchman ! He is often only too glad to be
released from wedlock and from her who should release
him, and to return on board.
Other seven years have flown since his last landing,
and the poor Dutchman, wearier than ever of his end
less voyaging, again sets foot on shore. He forms a
friendship with a Scotch merchant whom he chances to
meet, sells to him diamonds at an absurdly low price,
and hearing that his customer has a fair daughter,
demands her in marriage. This transaction is also com
pleted. We are now introduced into the Scotchman's
home, where the maiden with trembling heart awaits
the bridegroom. She often turns to gaze with melan
choly look upon a large half-faded picture which hangs
in the chamber, and which represents a handsome man
in the dress of the period of the Spanish occupation of
the Netherlands. It is an old heirloom, and her grand
mother has told her that it is a faithful likeness of the

From " The Memoirs of Schnabelewopski." j^
Flying Dutchman as he looked when he visited Scotland
a hundred years before, in the time of William of Orange.
To the picture is attached a traditional prophecy, warn
ing the women of the family to beware of the original.
And for this reason, from her earliest childhood, the
features of this dangerous man have been stamped upon
the heart of the girl. When, therefore, the Flying
Dutchman in actual bodily presence enters, the maiden
is dismayed, but not from fear. The bridegroom is him
self struck with astonishment at sight of the portrait.
When told whom it is supposed to represent, he suc
ceeds in turning aside from himself all suspicion, laughs
at their superstition, and ridicules the notion of the
Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew of the Ocean
Yet, unconsciously, he glides into a tone of sadness as
he pictures the indescribable sufferings of Mynheer on
the immeasurable waste of waters ; how his body can be
nothing better than a living tomb of the wearied soul ;
how life spurns him and death rejects him ; like an
empty cask which the waves wash hither and thither
in idle sport, so the poor Dutchman is tossed about
between death and life, neither of which will have him.
His agony is deep as the sea whereon he floats ; his ship
is without an anchor, and his heart without hope. In
such wise speaks the bridegroom. The bride regards
him steadfastly, after casting a side-glance toward the
portrait. She seems to have divined his secret, and

74 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
when at length he asks : — " Catherine, wilt thou be true
unto me?" she resolutely replies : — "True unto death."
In the last scene we behold the wife of the Flying
Dutchman standing on a tall cliff that overhangs
the sea, wringing her hands in despair, while on the dis
tant ocean her unfortunate husband is seen on the deck
of his mysterious ship. Though he loves her he has
left her, rather than drag her with him to destruction,
and he has confessed to her his dreadful destiny and the
awful curse that hangs over him. But she calls to him
in loud tones : — " I have been true to thee unto this
hour, and I know a sure means whereby I may prove
my fidelity to thee even in death I " At these words the
faithful wife throws herself into the sea. And now the
ban over the Flying Dutchman is at an end ; he is re
leased, and we see the ghostly ship sinking into the
depths of the ocean.
The moral of the piece for women is, that they
should be careful not to marry a Flying Dutchman ; and
we men may learn from it how, even in the most for
tunate circumstances, women may be the cause of our
destruction.

The house in which I lodged at Leyden
Jan Steen. was once occupied by Jan Steen, the famous
Jan Steen, whom I hold to have been as great as
Raphael. Even as a religious painter, he was as great

From " The Memoirs of Schnabeleivopski." 75
as the Italian master : this will be clearly acknowledged
as soon as the religion of suffering is extinct, and the re
ligion of joy has torn from the rose-bushes of our earth
their dismal mantles of crape, and the nightingales can
at length venture to pour forth their long hidden raptures.
But never any nightingale will sing with such sprightliness
and joy as Jan Steen has painted. No one ever felt so
deeply as he did that on this earth there should be per
petual holiday. And Jan Steen remained all his days a
dear, good child of Nature. As the stern old pastor of
Leyden sat beside him at his fireside delivering a long
admonition on his jovial manner of life, his boisterous un
christian behaviour, his fondness for the ale-jug, his ill-
regulated domestic affairs, and his incurable merriment,
Jan Steen listened quietly during two whole hours, be
traying not the slightest impatience at the interminable
homil)', and only at last interrupting with the words — '
" Yes, good pastor, but the light would fall much better,
and I should like, if you would turn your chair a little
more toward the chimney corner, so that the flame may
throw its red glow over your whole face, while the rest of
your body remains in the shade." The worthy pastor
arose in wrath and went forth ; but Jan at once seized his
palette, and depicted the stern old man in the very position
in which he sat delivering his admonition, unconscious
that he was serving as a model. The picture is an admir
able one, and it used to hang in my bed-room at Leyden.

76 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos. '
Having seen in Holland so many of Jan Steen's
pictures, I seem to be intimately acquainted with the
whole life of the man. I know all his kinsfolk, his wife,
his children, his mother, all his cousins, his personal
enemies, and all his surroundings; yea, I have seen
them all face to face. They greet us from the canvas of
all his pictures, and a collection of these would be a
biography of the painter. Often by a single stroke of
his brush he has revealed the deepest secrets of his soul.
I fancy, for instance, that his wife must have rather
frequently reproached him for his excess in drinking,
for in the picture of the " Bean-Feast," where Jan him
self is represented as sitting at table surrounded by his
family, hjs wife is holding a large wine-jug in her hand,
and her eyes are glancing like a bacchante's. I am con
vinced, however, that the good woman never was given
to over-indulgence in wine, and that the rascal is only
trying to make us believe that not he, but his wife, was
fond of liquor. This is no doubt the reason why he is
laughing to us out of the picture with such unusual gusto.
He is in high go6d humour, he is sitting in the midst of
his family, his little son is " bean-king " and stands on
a chair with his tinsel crown, the old grandmother,
whose wrinkled features are radiant with joy, is holding
in her arms her youngest grandson, the musicians are
playing their maddest, merriest melodies, and the frugally-

From " The Memoirs of Schnabelewopski." 77
inclined and somewhat sullen housewife is handed down
to remotest posterity under the imputation that she is tipsy!
Dreaming and] What is dreaming ? What is death ? Is
' ^^ ' the latter only an interruption, or is it the
complete cessation, of life ? To such as know only the
past and the future, and cannot live an eternity in every
moment of the present, to them death must indeed
appear terrible ! When both of their crutches, place
and time, fail, then they sink into the infinite abyss.
And dreaming ? Why have we not a much greater fear
of going to sleep than of being laid in our graves ? Is
it not dreadful to think that the body can remain death-
still throughout a whole night while the soul within it
pursues its most active life, a life clothed with all the
terrors of that separation which we have created between
body and spirit ? When in some future age both will be
again united in our consciousness, then perhaps there
will be no more dreaming, or at least only the sick,
those in whom the harmony of life is destroyed, will
dream. Only lightly and rarely did the ancients dream :
a distinct and vivid dream was with them an event to be
recorded in their historical books. Real dreaming is
first found among the ancient Jews, the people of the
ghost (spirit), and it has reached its highest perfection
among Christians, the ^/%^j-/-people (spirit-people). Our
descendants will shudder as they read what a ghostly exist-

78 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
ence we pursue ; how the humanity within us is split in
twain, and only one-half of it leads an actual life. Our
epoch, and it begins at the Cross of Christ, will be
regarded as a great sickness-period of humanity. And
yet what sweet dreams we have dreamed ! Our robust
successors will hardly be able to understand them. All
the splendour of the world had faded from around us,
when lo ! we found it again in our inmost souls ; in
our souls took refuge the perfume of the trampled roses
and the sweetest melodies of the scared nightingales.
It was a sweet, a fair, a sunny dream. The
heavens heavenly blue and cloudless, the sea sea-green
and still. On an immeasurably broad expanse of water
floated a gaily decorated ship, and I was sittitig on its
deck fondling at the feet of Jadviga. I was reading to
her, with all a poet's tenderness, rapturous love songs
which I had written on rose-tinted strips of paper, and
she was listening with incredulous yet bended ear, her
face wreathed with longing smiles, and at times she
hastily seized the leaves from my hand and scattered
them upon the sea. But the fair water-nymphs, with
snow-white bosoms and arms, rose to the surface and
caught the fluttering songs of love. When I bent over
the side, I could see quite clearly down into the crystal
depths, and there were sitting in a circle the beautiful
nymphs, and in their midst stood a young water-fairy,
who declaimed with animated and expressive gestures,

From " The Memoirs of Schnabelewopski." 79
my love songs. Boisterous applause arose at each strophe ;
the green-locked beauties applauded so enthusiastically
that bosom and neck .blushed red, and their praise rang
forth in joyous yet pitying strains : — "What strange beings
are these human creatures ! What a strange existence —
what a tragic fate is theirs ! They love, yet mostly dare
not tell their love ; and even when they do confess it,
they seldom understand each other ! And, besides, they
do not live for ever as we do, they are mortal, only a
brief space of time is allotted them wherein to seek happi
ness, they must quickly seize it and quickly press it to
their hearts ere it escapes them ; therefore are their love
songs so tender, so fervent, so full of sweet anguish, so
despairingly happy, such a strange commingling of joy
and sorrow. The thought of death throws its melan
choly shadow over their happiest hours, and comforts
them consolingly in their misfortunes. They can weep !
Oh I what poetry there is in a human tear ! " " Hearest
thou," said I to Jadviga, " how these creatures under
water judge us mortals ? Let us embrace, that they
may cease to pity and may rather envy us I " But she,
the loved one, only gazed upon me in silence with a
look of unutterable love. I had kissed her dumb. She
grew pale, and a cold shudder ran through the dear body.
At last she lay rigid in my arms like white marble, and I
had almost thought her dead, when two great streams of

8o Wit, Wisdom, and PatJios.
tears welled from her eyes and flowed over me as I
pressed her sweet form still closer to my heart.
JTrom " SEijc ¦Jplorentinf iSigijts."
Calling spirits 'Tis casy to Call Spirits from the grave,
froni the
grave. but it is hard to conjure them back into the
dark void ; they gaze on us so beseechingly, our own
heart pleads for them with such mighty intercession.
^Tary"""" "^ IMPLORE you," exckimed Maria, "no
""'"ness!'''"" mocking at women. These are all worn-out
phrases of men. After all, women are necessary to your
happiness." " Alas ! " sighed Maximilian, " it is but too
true. But women have unfortunately only one way of
making us happy, while they have thirty thousand
different modes of rendering us miserable."
Influence of " You havc bccomc a great frequenter of
art on o -a
Italian beauty, the Opera, Max, though I fancy you go
there more to see than to hear." "You are not
far wrong, Maria, I do indeed go to the Opera to
gaze on the faces of the beautiful Italian women,
although for that matter, even outside the theatre
they are beautiful enough. A physiognomist might
easily detect, in the ideality of their features, the
influence of the plastic arts on the corporeal forms

From " The Florentine Nights."

of the Italian people. Nature has here got back from
the artists the capital she formerly lent to them ;
and see ! it is restored with handsome interest. Nature,
which formerly supplied the artist with models, now
copies the masterpieces created by the artist from her
own models. The sense of the beautiful has permeated
the whole nation, and as formerly the flesh exercised its
influence over the spirit, so now the spirit influences the
flesh. Not fruitless is the worship of those beautiful
Madonnas, of the fair altar pictures that impress them
selves on the soul of the bridegroom, while the bride
carries devoutly in her breast the features of some
beautiful saint. Through such elective affinity a race of
beings has here arisen fairer than the sweet soil whereon
it blossoms and the sunny sky that sheds a halo round it
like a frame of gold.
Italy the home ^^ °^^^^ countrics there are, no doubt,
o music. jjjygj(,jg^j^g -(vhose famc may equal that of the
great Italian masters, but nowhere else is to be found a
musical people. Music in Italy is not represented by
individuals, but reveals itself in the whole population.
Music has become incarnate in the people. With us in
the north it is quite otherwise ; there, music becomes
only a man, and is cahed Mozart. And besides, when
we examine closely the best that our northern musicians
offer us, it is only to find Italian sunshine and orange
F

82 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
perfume, and our composers belong much more to
beautiful Italy, the home of music, than to Germany.
Yes, Italy will always be the home of music, even though
its great Maestri untimely find a grave or grow dumb,
even though Bellini dies and Rossini is mute.

Rossini and

-"In truth," remarked Maria, "Rossini
^^ '""¦ maintains a most strict silence. If I mistake
not he has been silent these ten years." — "That is per
haps a witticism on his part. He wants to prove that
the name " Swan of Pesaro," which has been bestowed
upon him, is quite inappropriate. The swan sings as it
nears the close of life, but Rossini ceased to sing in the
middle of his life. To my mind he has done wisely, and
has thereby proved himself a true genius. An artist who
has merely talent, preserves the impulse to exercise his
talent to the end of his days ; ambition spurs him on ; he
feels that he is continually improving, and he is impelled
to reach the highest point in his art. But genius, having
already attained the summit, is satisfied ; it despises the
world and petty ambitions, and betakes itself home to
Stratford-on-Avon, like ^^'illiam Shakespeare, or goes
promenading with laughter and wit for companions, on
the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris, like Joachim Ros
sini. Unless its constitution is very feeble, genius will
contrive to live in this fashion for some considerable
time after it has executed its masterpieces, or, as we are

From "The Florentine Nights." 83
accustomed to say, fulfilled its mission. It is a mere
preconceived notion that genius must of necessity die
young. From the thirtieth to the thirty-fourth year is,
I believe, considered the dangerous period for genius.
How often have I bantered poor Bellini on the subject,
and jokingly prophesied that, in keeping with his charac
ter of genius, he ought to die as soon as he has reached
the dangerous period. Strange ! despite my jesting tone,
he used to grow uneasy over my prophecy, called me his
Jettatore, and never failed to make the sign of the fetta-
tura.* He would so willingly remain alive, he had an
almost passionate abhorrence of death, he would not
have the word named, he was as terrified at the thought
of it as is a child that is afraid to go to sleep in the dark.
He was a good darling child, often somewhat naughty ;
but then one had only to threaten him with speedy
death and he would instantly become quiet, and beseecll
pardon, and make with his two raised fingers the sign of
tht fettatura. Poor Bellini ! " f

Bellini's

Although Bellini had already resided for
French, ggygj-^i years in France, he spoke French so
* The superstition of jettaiura or evil eye is still very strong in Italy, and
even educated people continue to wear charms to protect themselves from its
influence. When a Jettatore, or per.son supposed to possess this power, ap
proaches, it is customary to extend two fingers of the hand toward the dreaded
person, the other fingers being held close to the palm. — Tr.
t Bellini, who was born at Catania in Sicily in 1806, died near Paris on the
23rd of September 1835, thus scarcely reaching the beginning ot the dangerous
period of genius.-— Tr.

84 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
badly that perhaps not even in England could it be
worse spoken. I should not, however, qualify his
manner of speaking the language with the adjective
"bad"; bad conveys far too good an idea. I should
rather say that he spoke it abominably, in a chaotic
fashion. When one met him in society, and heard him
rack and torture the poor French words like a hang
man, as he poured forth a continuous torrent of cock-
and-bull stories, one often fancied that the world was
about to come to an end with a thunder-crash. On
such occasions, a death-like silence pervaded the drawing-
room, terror was depicted on every countenance, on
some in the colour of chalk, on others in that of ver
milion ; ladies hesitated whether to faint or to make their
escape ; men looked nervously toward their trousers to
satisfy themselves that they really had them on ; and,
Vhat was more dreadful still, this general anxiety excited
a convulsive desire to laugh, which could be suppressed
only with the greatest difficulty.
— "I HAVE never seen Paganini," said Maria,
Paganini. "but from report I should think that his
appearance does not satisfy the sense of the beautiful.
I have seen portraits of him." "None of which are
likenesses," interrupted Maximilian; "they either do him
injustice or they flatter him; in no instance do they
convey a correct impression of his character. Only

From " The Florentine Nights." 85
one artist, I believe, has succeeded in delineating the
real physiognomy of Paganini. A deaf and crazy painter
called Lyser has, in a sort of spiritual frenzy, so ad
mirably 'pourtrayed by a few touches of his pencil the
head of Paganini, that one is both dismayed and moved
to laughter by the faithfulness of the sketch. ' The
Devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me with
mysterious gesticulations and a satirical, yet good natured,
wag of the head, such as he was wont to indulge in amid
his genial tomfoolery."
Paganini's "'"^ ^^^ i"- ^^ theatre at Hamburg that I
first heard Paganini's violin. Although it was
post-day, all the commercial magnates of the town were
present in the front boxes ; there was a perfect Olympus
of bankers and other miUionaires, the gods of sugar and
coffee, with their portly spouses, the goddesses Juno of
Wandrahm and Aphrodite of Dreckwall. * A religious
hush pervaded the whole assembly ; every eye was
directed toward the stage, every ear was strained for
hearing. At last a dark figure, which seemed to ascend
from the under world, appeared on the stage. It was
Paganini in full evening dress, black coat and waistcoat
cut after a most Villainous pattern, such as is perhaps in
accordance with the infernal etiquette of the court of
* Wandrahm and Dreckwall are city districts of Hamburg.— Tr.

86 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Proserpine, and black trousers fitting awkwardly to his
thin legs. His long arms appeared still longer as he
advanced holding in one hand his violin and in the other
the bow, hanging down so as almost to touch the'ground,
he himself making a series of extraordinary reverences to
the audience. In the angular contortions of his body
there was something so painfully wooden, and also some
thing so like the movements of a droll animal, that
we were overcome by a strange disposition to laugh;
but his face, which the glaring footlights caused to
assume a more corpse -like aspect than was natural
to it, had in it something so appealing, something so
imbecile and meek, that a strange feeling of compassion
prevented all tendency to laughter. Had he learned
these reverences from an automaton or from a perform
ing dog? Is this beseeching look the look of one who is
sick unto death, or does there lurk behind it the mocking
cunning of a miser ? Is that a mortal who, in the agony
of death, stands before the public in the art arena, like
a dying gladiator bidding for their applause in his last
convulsions? Or is it some phantom risen from the
grave — a vampire with a violin, who comes to suck if not
the blood from our hearts at least the money from our
pockets? Questions such as these kept chasing each
other through the brain while Paganini continued his
apparently interminable series of complimentary bows ;
but all such questionings instantly took flight the

From " The Florentine Nights'' 87
moment the marvellous master put the violin to his chin
and began to play.
Then were heard melodies such as the nightingale pours
forth in the gloaming, when the perfume of the rose intoxi
cates with deep longing her heart filled with forebodings
of Spring ! What melting, sensuously languishing notes
of bliss ! Tones that kissed one another, then poutingly
fled from one another, and again laughingly embraced and
became one, and died away in the ecstasy of union !
Again there were heard sounds like the song of the
fallen angels, who, banished from the realms of bliss, sink
with shame-red countenances to the regions of the lower
world. These were sounds from whose bottomless depth
gleamed no ray of hope or comfort. When the blessed
in heaven hear them, the praises of God die away upon
their pallid lips and, sighing, they veil their holy faces.
English ^"^ ^^ when one encounters Englishmen
c arac ens ics. ^^j-q^^jJ^ j-j^g^j- contrast servcs to make their
defects most glaringly apparent. They are the deities of
ennui, who rush through every country at post speed in
their lacquered carriages, leaving behind them every
where a grey dust-cloud of sadness. Add to this their
curiosity without interest, their polished clumsiness, their
supercilious shyness, their pedantic egoism, and their
air of chill satisfaction in the contemplation of all
melancholy objects.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

_ . , , I arrived in Paris at a very remarkable
Pans and the ^
Parisians. gpQgjj_ -pj^g French people had just enacted
their July Revolution (1830) amid the applause of the
whole world. This piece was not so ghastly as the pre
vious tragedies of the Republic and of the Empire. Only
a few thousand corpses were left on the scene. The
political romanticists, indeed, were not quite satisfied, and
they announced a new piece wherein more blood would
be spilt and the headsman have better occupation. Paris
delighted me much on account of the air of gaiety under
which everything there presents itself, and which exer
cises its influence on even the gloomiest spirits. Is it not
singular ? Paris is the theatre wherein the greatest trage
dies of human history have been performed, tragedies, the
mere recollection of which causes hearts to tremble and
eyes to grow moist in the most distant lands. The
spectator of these Parisian tragedies has, however, an
experience similar to my own at the Porte Saint-Martin,
where I saw played Alexandre Dumas' "Tour de Nesle."
I happened to be seated behind a lady who wore a hat
made of rose-coloured gauze ; this hat was so broad that
it completely interposed itself between me and the stage,
so that I witnessed the whole tragedy through a screen of
red gauze, and thus all the horrors of the drama appeared
to me in the gayest rose-coloured light. In Paris, too,
there is such a rose-coloured atmosphere to brighten for
the spectator the gloom of its tragedies, and to prevent

Fro7n " The Florentine Nights." 89
his enjoyment of life being destroyed. Even the terrors
of his own heart, which the traveller brings with him to
Paris, lose their brooding pain. His griefs are wonder
fully lightened. In the air of Paris all wounds heal more
quickly than elsewhere ; there is something in this air as
generous, as benign, as gracious as the inhabitants of the
city. What pleased me best in the people of Paris was
their polite behaviour and their air of distinction. Sweet
pine-apple perfume of politeness ! how beneficently thou
refreshed'st my languishing soul, which had endured in
Germany so much tobacco-smoke, smell of sauerkraut,
and rudeness of manners. I was almost abashed at such
sweet politeness, accustomed as I was to the clownish Ger
man thrust in the ribs without any accompanying apology.
During the first week of my stay in Paris, I sometimes in
tentionally exposed myself to be jostled, just to have the
pleasure of hearing the music of such expressions of apolo
gy. Not only by reason of their politeness, but also on ac
count of their language, the French have always seemed to
me to have a certain grand air. For with us in the north of
Germany the speaking of French is one of the attributes
of the higher nobility, and so from childhood I always
associated the French language with the idea of distin
guished birth. And yet I found that a Parisian market-
woman spoke better French than a German canonness
with four-and-sixty ancestors. This speech, which confers
such an air of distinction, bestows on the French people

go Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
in my eyes something delightfully fabulous. This arises
from another reminiscence of my childhood. The first
book from which I learned to read French was the Fables
of La Fontaine. The simple and rational style of the
Fables impressed them on my memory in indelible char
acters, and when I came to Paris and heard French
spoken on all sides, I found myself perpetually recalling
them, and imagining myself listening to the well-known
voices of the animals. Now it was the lion that spoke
and now the wolf, then the lamb, or the stork, or the
dove. Very often indeed I fancied that I could distin
guish the fox's voice, and I often recalled the words : —
Eh ! bonjour, monsieur du Corbeau !
Que vous etes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Such reminiscences of fable were still more frequently
awakened after I had penetrated into that higher region
in Paris called — The World. It was the very world from
which the blessed La Fontaine had borrowed the types
of his animal characters. The winter season began
shortly after my arrival in Paris, and I participated in the
drawing-room life in which " The World " dispprts itself
in more or less joyous mood. What struck me as most
remarkable in this life was not so much the equality of
distinguished manners that prevailed in it, as the diversity
of the elements of which it was composed. Often when
I looked round me in a spacious drawing-room, and took

From "The Florentine Nights." 91
note of the men so harmoniously assembled in it, I fancied
myself in one of those curiosity shops in which relics of
all ages are huddled together in peaceful confusion : a
Greek Apollo beside a Chinese pagoda, a Mexican
Vizliputzli next to a Gothic Ecce-Homo, Egyptian idols
with the heads of dogs, sacred grotesques in wood, in
ivory, in metal. Here I saw old mousquetaires who had
danced with Marie Antoinette, philanthropists who had
been adored by the National Assembly, leaders of the
Mountain merciless yet blameless, tamed Republicans
who had sat enthroned as members of the Directory in
the Luxembourg, high dignitaries of the Empire before
whom all Europe had trembled, ruling Jesuits of the
Restoration; in short, nothing but faded and muti
lated deities of every epoch, in whom no one has
now any faith. Their names give forth a howl when
they come together in the pages of history, but the men
themselves are to be seen assembled in peaceful and
friendly fashion, like the antiquities in the curiosity
shops of the Quai Voltaire, just alluded to. In Ger
manic countries, where passions are less easily disciplined,
a social gathering of such heterogeneous elements would
be an impossibility. Besides, with us -in the cold north
the need for conversation is not so strong as in sunnier
France, where the greatest enemies meeting in a draw
ing-room cannot long maintain a gloomy silence. In
France, too, the desire to please is so great that every-

92 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
one strives zealously to cause pleasure, not only to his
friends, but to his enemies. There is thus a continual
posing and display of fine manners, so that women are
put to their wit's end to outdo men in coquetry — and
yet they succeed.
I do not by this last observation mean to insinuate any
thing malicious, on my honour I do not, with regard to
French-women, and least of all with regard to Parisian
women. I am, in fact, one of their greatest worshippers,
and I adore them for their failings much more than for
their virtues. I know nothing more appropriate than the
legend that Parisian women enter the world with every
imaginable fault, but that some benign fairy takes com
passion on them, and attaches to each of their faults
a magic charm that lends it a new power of seduction.
This benign fairy is Grace. Are Parisian women beauti
ful ? Who can tell ? Who can penetrate all the mys
teries of the toilet, who can decipher whether that is
genuine which the tulle reveals, or whether that is false
which the puffed-out silken stuff so ostentatiously dis
plays ? And even when the eye succeeds in penetrating
the outer covering and thinks that it is about to behold
the fruit within, lo ! it conceals itself in a new covering
and in yet another, and thus by a ceaseless change of
fashion it mockingly eludes the masculine gaze. Are
their faces handsome ? Even this is difficult to ascertain.
All their features are in constant movement; every Paris-

From " The Florentine Nights." 93
icnne .has a thousand faces, each more animated, more
spiritual, more charming than another, so that it be
comes terribly embarrassing for anyone to decide on
the handsomest among them, or even on the genuine
individual face. Are their eyes large? How can
I give an opinion? We do not minutely scrutinize
the calibre of the cannon when its fire is directed at
our heads. Whoever is not actually struck by the
missiles from their eyes is at least dazzled by their fire,
and is glad enough to place himself safely beyond their
range. Is the space between nose and mouth broad
or narrow ? Sometime broad, when they turn up their
noses haughtily; sometimes narrow, when the upper
lip pouts disdainfully. Are their mouths large or small ?
Who can say where the mouth ends and the smile
begins ? To the attainment of an accurate idea of any
object, it is necessary that the beholder and the object
under examination should both be in a condition of rest.
But who can be at rest beside a Parisian woman, and
what Parisian woman is ever at rest ? There are people
who fancy they can accurately examine a butterfly when
they have fastened it to a piece of paper with a pin
through it. This is as absurd as it is cruel. The pinned,
motionless butterfly is no longer a butterfly. One must
observe the butterfly as it flutters from flower to flower,
and one must study a Parisian woman, not in her

94 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos..
domestic sphere as she sits with the needle fastened in
her bosom, but in the drawing-room, at soirees, at balls,
as she flutters about with wings of embroidered silk and
gauze under the sparkling chandeliers. Then it is that
she reveals her eager love of life, her yearning for the
sweet stupor of pleasure, her craving for intoxication,
through which she becomes almost terribly beautiful,
and wins a charm that delights yet troubles our souls.
This eager thirst for the enjoyment of existence, as if
death were waiting to call her away in a single hour from
the bubbling fountain of pleasure, or as if this fountain
itself were about to be dried up, this haste, this rage,
this frenzy of the Parisienne, especially as it exhibits
itself at balls, always reminds me of the legend of the dead
dancers, called among us the Willis. These are young
brides who have died before their wedding-day, but in .
whose bosoms the desire for the dance is still so strong
that they rise nightly from their graves, to meet in groups
on the country roads, and there give themselves up during
the midnight hour to the wildest dances. Arrayed in
their wedding-clothes, with wreathes of flowers on their
heads, with sparkling rings upon their pale hands, weirdly
laughing yet irresistibly beautiful, the Willis dance in the
moonlight, and the dance grows ever faster and more
furious as they feel that the appointed time approaches
when they must again descend into their ice-cold graves.

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany!' 95

iTrom " JRcltgton anij ^ijiloaopSs in fflfrmang."
The influence of '^'^ '^'^ latcst book, Romanccro, I have
explained the transformation that took
place within me regarding sacred things.* Since its
publication, many inquiries have been made, with Chris
tian importunity, as to the manner in which the true light
dawned upon me. Pious souls, thirsting after a miracle,
have desired to know whether, like Saul on the way to
Damascus, I had seen a light from Heaven, or whether,
like Balaam the son of Beor, I was riding on a restive
ass, which suddenly opened its mouth and began to speak
as a man ? No ! ye credulous believers, I never jour
neyed to Damascus, nor do I know anything about it save
that lately the Jews there were accused of devouring the
monks of St. Francis, and I might never have known
the name of the city had I not read the Song of
Solomon, wherein the wise king compares the nose of his
beloved to a tower that looketh toward Damascus. Nor

* This extract is taken from the preface to the second German edition of the
ConttibutioK to the History of Religion and Pttitosophy in Germany. The
preface was written in 1852, after He'ne had already lain for several years on
his " mattress-grave." The book itself first appeared in French as a series
of articles in the Revue de Deux Mondes, intended by Heine to enlighten the
French regarding the true character of German theology and philosophy, and
their influence on European civilization. For some time Heine refrained,
on account of the censorship, from publishing the work in German. When
the first German- edition appeared it was so mutilated as to justify him in
repudiating its authorship, and nearly twenty years elapsed before a complete
German edition was published. — Tr.

96 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
have I ever seen an ass, at least any four-footed one, that
spake as a man, though I have often enough met men
who, whenever they opened their mouths, spake as asses.
In truth, it was neither a vision, nor a seraphic revela
tion, nor a voice from heaven, nor any strange dream or
other mystery, that brought me into the way of salva
tion, and I owe my conversion simply to the reading of
a book. A book ? Yes, an old homely-looking book,
modest as nature and natural as it ; a book that has a
work-a-day and unassuming look, like the sun that
warms us, like the bread that nourishes us, a book
that seems to us as familiar and as full of kindly bless
ing as the old grandmother, who reads daily in it with
dear trembling lips, and with spectacles on her nose.
And the Book is called quite shortly — The Book, the
Bible. Rightly do men also call it the Holy Scripture.
He that has lost his God can find Him again in this
Book, and toward him that has never known God it
sends forth the breath of the divine word. The Jews,
who understand the value of precious things, knew full
well what they did when, at the burning of the second
Temple, they left to their fate the golden and silvern
implements of sacrifice, the candlesticks and lamps, the
very breastplate of the high priest with its great jewels,
but saved the Bible. This was the real treasure of the
Temple, and thanks be to God! it was not left a
prey to the flames or to the fury of Titus Vespasian, the

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 97

wretch who, as the Rabbinstell us, met with so dreadful
a death. A Jewish priest, who lived at Jerusalem two
hundred years before the burning of the second Temple,
during the splendid era of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and
who was called Joshua ben Siras ben Eliezer, has written
down for us in a collection of apophthegms, or Mes-
chalim, the thoughts of his time about the Bible, and I
will here impart to you his beautiful words. There is
in them a sacerdotal joy, and they are as refreshing as
if, they had but yesterday welled forth from a living
human breast. The words are these : — " All this is
the Book of the Covenant made with the Most High
God, namely, the Law which Moses commanded as
a precious treasure to the house of Jacob. Wisdom
floweth therefrom as the water of Pison when it is great,
and as the water of Tigris when it overfloweth its
banks in spring. Instruction floweth from it as the
Euphrates when it is great, and as Jordan in the harvest.
Correction cometh forth from it as the light, and as the
water of the Nile in autumn. There is none that hath
made an end of learning it, there is none that will ever
find out all its mystery ; for its meaning is richer than
any sea, and its word deeper than any abyss."
Harmony jj^ j^ffg^ agcs, whcu humanity will have
between soul ^ ' ^
Testor"ed! regained robust health, when peace will have
been once more established between body and soul, and
G

98 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
they again live together in primal harmony, it will scarcely
be possible for men to comprehend the unnatural enmity
that Christianity has set between them. Happier and
fairer generations, born of free unions, and nurtured in a
religion of joy, will smile with pity at their poor ancestors,
who passed their lives in melancholy abstinence from all
the enjoyments of this beautiful world, and who mortified
the warm, rosy-hued flesh till they became mere pale;
cold ghosts. Yes ! I declare it with full conviction : our
successors will be a fairer and happier race than we are.
For I believe in progress ; I believe that happiness is the
goal of humanity, and I cherish a higher idea of the Di
vine Being than those pious folk who suppose that man
was created only to suffer. Even here on earth I would
strive, through the blessings of free political and industrial
institutions, to bring about that reign of felicity which, in
the opinion of the pious, is to be postponed till heaven is
reached, after the day of judgment. The one expectation
is perhaps as vain as the other, and there may be no
resurrection of humanity possible either in a political or
in a religious sense. Mankind, it may be, is doomed to
eternal misery. The nations are perhaps under a perpetual
curse, condemned to be trodden under foot by despots,
to be made the instruments of their accomplices, and the
laughing-stocks of their menials. Yet though all this be
the case, even if Christianity is to be regarded as an error,
we must stfll strive to uphold it, and men must journey

From " Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 99
bare-foot through Europe, wearing monks' cowls, preach
ing the doctrine of renunciation and the vanity of all
earthly possessions, holding up before the gaze of a
scourged and despised humanity the consoling Cross,
and promising after death all the glories of heaven.
Christianity "^HE duration of religions is dependent on
human need for them. Christianity has been
a blessing for suffering humanity during eighteen cen
turies ; it has been providential, divine, holy. Yet all
that it has done in the interest of civilisation, curbing
the strong and strengthening the weak, binding together
the nations through a common sympathy and a common
tongue, and all else that its apologists have urged in its
praise — all this is as nothing compared with the great
consolation it has bestowed on man. Eternal praise is
due to the symbol of that suffering God, the Saviour
with the crown of thorns, the crucified Christ, whose
blood was a healing balm that flowed into the wounds
of humanity. The poet especially must acknowledge
with reverence the terrible majesty of this symbol.
The whole system of symbolism impressed on the
art and the life of the middle ages, must awaken
the admiration of poets in all times. In reality, what
colossal unity there is in Christian art, especially in its
architecture ! These Gothic cathedrals, how har
moniously they accord with the worship of which

Wit, Wisdom, a?id Pathos.

they are the temples, and how the idea of the Church re
veals itself in them ! Everything about them strives
upwards, everything transubstantiates itself. The stone
buds forth into branches and foliage, and becomes a
tree ; the fruit of the vine and the ears of corn be
come blood and flesh ; man becomes God ; God be
comes a pure spirit. For the poet, the Christian life of
the middle ages is a precious and inexhaustibly fruitful
field. Only through Christianity could the circumstances
of life combine to form such striking contrasts, such mot
ley sorrow, such weird beauty, that one almost fancies
such things can never have had any real existence, and
that it is all a vast fever-dream — the fever-dream of a
delirious deity. Even Nature seemed then to have put on a
fantastic disguise ; for oftentimes though man, absorbed in
abstract subtleties, turned away from her with abhorrence,
she would recall him to her with a voice so mysteriously
sweet, so terrible in its tenderness, so enchanting, that
unconsciously he would listen and smile, and become
terrified, and even fall sick unto death. The story of the
nightingale of Basle comes here into my remembrance,
and as it is probably unknown to you, I will relate it.
One day in May 1443, at the time of the Council of
Basle, a company of clerics composed of prelates, doctors,
and monks of every colour, were walking in a wood near
the town. They were disputing about theological con
troversies, distinguishing and arguing, contending about

From ^' Religion and Philosophy in Germany!' loi

annates, expectatives, and reservations, inquiring whether
Thomas Aquinas was a greater philosopher than Bona-
ventura, and so forth. But suddenly in the midst of
their dogmatic and abstract discussions, they became
silent and remained as if rooted to the spot before a
blossoming lime-tree, wherein sat a nightingale carolling
and sobbing forth her tenderest and sweetest melodies.
These learned men began to feel in a strangely blessed
mood as the warm spring notes of the bird penetrated
their scholastic and monastic hearts ; their sympathies
awoke out of their dreary winter sleep, and they looked
on one another in raptured amazement. But at last
one of them shrewdly remarked that herein must be
some wile of the evil one, that this nightingale could be
none other than an emissary of the devil seeking to divert
them by its seducing strains from their Christian con
verse, and to entice them into some voluptuous or other
alluring sin ; and he thereupon proceeded to exorcise
the evil-spirit, probably with the customary formula of
the time : — Adfuro. te per eum, qui venturus est, fudicare
vivos et mortuos, etc. To this adjuration it is said that the
bird replied, " Yea, I am an evil spirit," and flew away
laughing. Those, however, who had listened to its song
fell sick that same day and died shortly thereafter.

The Diet of T^'^.'E, illustrious pcrsons who, on the seven-
Worms, tggnth of April 1521,' were assembled in the

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Diet Hall at Worms might well cherish in their hearts
many a thought at variance with the words on their lips.
There sat a young emperor who, as he wrapped himself
with the ecstasy of youthful sovereignty in the folds of
his new purple mantle, secretly rejoiced that the proud
Roman Pontiff who had so often dealt hardly with his
imperial predecessors, nor had even yet resigned his
arrogant pretensions, was about to receive a most
effectual reprimand. The representative of the proud
Roman had also, on his side, ground for secret joy
that disunion had betrayed itself among those Germans
who, like drunken barbarians, had so often invaded and
plundered fair Italy, and still threatened her with new in
vasions and plunderings. The temporal princes rejoiced
that, while embracing the new doctrine, they might at
the same time work their will with the old Church
domains. High prelates began to reflect whether they
might not marry their cooks and transmit their electoral
dignities, bishoprics, and abbacies, to their male offspring.
The deputies of the towns rejoiced at the prospect of
increased independence. Each had here something to
gain, and the secret thoughts of each were directed to
earthly advantages.
But one man was there of whom I am convinced that
he thought not of himself but of the Divine interests which
he represented. This man was Martin Luther, the poor

From " Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 103
monk chosen by Providence to shatter the world-empire
of Rome, against which the mightiest emperors and the
boldest sages had often vainly struggled. But Providence
well knows upon what shoulders to lay its burdens. Here,
not only spiritual but physical power was necessary. It
needed a frame steeled from youth upwards in monastic
chastity and severity to endure the hardships of such a
task. Our dear master was at this time very thin and
pale, insomuch that the ruddy, well-fed lords of the Diet
looked down almost with compassion on the poor emaci
ated man in the monk's black dress. Yet was he quite
healthy, and his nerves were so strong that all the bril
liant throng inspired in him not the slightest fear. His
lungs, too, must have been right lusty, for after having
delivered his long defence he was obliged to repeat it in
Latin, as the Emperor did not understand High-German.
I become quite angry every time I think of this ; for
our dear master stood beside an open window, exposed
to a draught, while the perspiration dropped from his
forehead. After such long speaking he might well feel
much exhausted, and his lips were no doubt sorely
parched. The Duke of Brunswick must have bethought
himself that the man would be very thirsty, at least we
read that he ordered for Martin Luther from his inn,
three jugs of the best Limbeck beer. I shall never
forget this noble deed of the House of Brunswick.

104 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
As of the Reformation, so of its hero, you
Martin Luther. . -r-. - /- , . i m, ¦
have m France quite false ideas. The im
mediate cause of this failure to comprehend the principal
actor in that event lies in the fact that Luther is not only
the greatest, but that he is also the most German, man
in our history ; that in his character are united in their
most intensified forms all the virtues and all the faults of
the Germans ; that he represents in his own person
the wonderful German land. He possessed also qualities
that we seldom see associated — nay, that we usually find
in the most hostile antagonism. He was at once a dreamy
mystic and a practical man of action.. His thoughts had
not only wings, but also hands. He spoke and he acted ;
he was both the tongue, and the sword .of his time.
He was at once a cold, scholastic wordsifter, and yet an
inspired, God-drunk prophet. After a long day spent in
laboriously working out dogmatic distinctions, at evening
time he would take his flute and go out to gaze at the
stars, and his soul would dissolve in melody and devotion.
This same man, who could scold like a fishwife, could be
as gentle as a sensitive maiden. He was often as fierce
as the storm that uproots the oak tree, and then again
he was as mild as the breeze that caresses the violet.
He was full of the awful reverence of God, full of
self-sacrificing devotion to the Holy Spirit, he could lose
himself entirely in pure spirituality. And yet he was
fully aware of the glories of this present world, he

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany.'' 105
knew how estimable they are, it was his lips that uttered
the famous maxim —
"Who loves not woman, wine, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long."
He was a complete man, I might say, an absolute man,
in whom there was no discord between matter and
spirit. To call him a spiritualist would therefore be as
erroneous as to call him a sensualist. How shall I
describe him? He had in him something primordial,
incomprehensible, miraculous, such as we find in all
providential men ; something naively terrible, something
boorishly wise, something lofty yet circumscribed, some
thing invincibly dsemoniacal. Luther's father was a
miner at Mannsfield, and the boy was often with him
in his subterranean workplace, in the laboratory of the
giant metals, where are the gurgling sources of the
great fountains. Perhaps the young heart unconsciously
absorbed something of the mysterious forces of Nature,
or was bewitched by the pixies. This may have been the
cause too, that so much earthy matter, so much of the
dross of passion adhered to him, a circumstance that
has so often been made a reproach against him. But
the reproach is unjust, for without this earthy admix
ture he could not have become a man of action. Pure
spirit cannot act. Do we not learn from Jung Stilling's
Theory of Ghosts,* that spirits can indeed make them-
• Theorie der Geisterkunde, Numlerg : iSoS.—lr

io6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
selves visible in distinct form and colour, and can walk,
and run, and dance, and otherwise comport themselves
like human creatures, but that they are powerless to move
any material object, even the smallest table, from its
place ? Praise to Luther ! eternal praise to the dear man
whom we have to thank for the deliverance of our most
precious possessions, and on whose benefits our life still
depends ! It little becomes us to complain of the
narrowness of his views. The dwarf standing on the
shoulders of the giant can indeed see further than his
supporter, especially if he puts on spectacles ; but to such
a lofty survey is wanting the elevated feeling, the giant-
heart, to which we cannot lay claim. Still less does it
become us to pronounce an austere judgment on his
failings ; these failings have profited us more than the
virtues of a thousand others. Neither the subtlety of
Erasmus, nor the benignity of Melanchthon, could ever
have brought us so far as the divine brutality of Brother
Martin. From the date of the Diet at which Luther
disowned the authority of the Pope, and publicly
declared that " his doctrine could be refuted, only by
an appeal to the Bible itself, or on grounds of reason,"
a new era dawned in Germany. The chain by which
holy Boniface had bound the German Church to Rome
was that day severed. This Church, which had hitherto
formed an integral portion of the great hierarchy, broke
up into religious democracies. Religion itself under-

Fi-oin "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 107

went a change; the Indo-gnostic element disappeared,
and we see the Judaic -deistic element again rising
into prominence. Evangelical Christianity emerges.
Whenever the most essential claims of matter are not
merely recognised but legitimized, religion once more
becomes a truth ; the priest becomes a man, and takes a
wife, and begets children, as God has ordained. From
this time forward, especially since the natural sciences
have made such great progress, miracles cease. At
least in the case of Saint Simonianism, which is the
newest religion, no miracle has occurred, unless we
may regard as such the fact of a tailor's bill left
owing by Saint Simon himself, having been paid by
his disciples ten years after his death. I still see be
fore me the worthy Pere Olinde rising with enthusiasm
in the salle Taibout, and exhibiting to the astonished
congregation the receipted tailor's bill. Young grocers
were amazed at such supernatural testimony : tailors at
once began to believe.
Hospitality Among the Protestant clergy are often to
of the
parsonage, bg found men of such exemplary virtue that
even the old Stoics would have had respect for them.
One must have travelled on foot as a poor student
through North Germany, in order to, know how much vir
tue, and, to qualify the word virtue with a really beautiful
epithet, how much evangelical virtue is often to be found

io8 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
in an unassuming parsonage. How many times on
winter evenings have I found therein a hospitable
welcome — I, a stranger, whose only recommendations
were hunger and weariness ! When I had well eaten
and slept soundly, and was preparing on the morrow
morning to set forth again, the old pastor was sure to
appear in his dressing-gown to bestow his blessing on
my journey, a good act that never brought me mis
fortune. His kindly and loquacious wife would thrust
into my pocket several slices of buttered bread, which
proved not less comforting to me. Behind the mother
stood in modest silence the fair daughters of the
pastor, with their ruddy cheeks and violet eyes, and
the recollection of their timid glances kept my heart
warm throughout the whole winter day.
The German SINGULAR ! wc Germans are the strongest
censors ip. ^^^ most ingenious of nations. Princes of
our race sit on every European throne ; our Roths
childs rule the Exchanges of the world ; our learned
men are sovereigns in all the sciences ; we have in
vented gunpowder and the printing-press ; and yet any
one who fires a pistol in our country is subjected to a
fine of three thalers, and if any of us wishes to insert
in the Lfamburg Correspondent these words — " My dear
spouse has given birth to a little daughter, beautiful as

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany.'^ 109
Freedom ! " straightway Dr. Hoffmann * seizes his red
pencil and strikes out " Freedom.''
Martin Luther gave us not only freedom
Luther's Bible. of movement, but also the means of move
ment. To the spirit he gave a body ; he gave word to
the thought ; he created the German language. And this
he did by translating the Bible. The Divine Author of
this Book seems to have known as well as we do, that it
was not a matter of indifference by whom the Bible was
to be translated, and He himself chose His translator,
and endowed him with the marvellous faculty of trans
lating it out of a dead and already buried language into
a tongue that had not as yet come into existence. We
had it is true, the Vulgate, which was understood, and
the Septuagint, which men were now beginning to under
stand ; but the knowledge of Hebrew was quite extinct
throughout the Christian world. Only the Jews, who
managed to conceal themselves here and there in
corners of the earth, still preserved the tradition of
this language. Like a ghost keeping watch over some
treasure entrusted to it during its life-time, this mas
sacred nation — this ghost-like people cowering in its
obscure ghettos, kept watch there over the Hebrew
Bible. Into these evil-reputed hiding places, German
men of learning might be seen secretly stealing down
•* The Censor.-Tr.

JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

in order to discover the treasure, to acquire a know
ledge of Hebrew. As soon as the Catholic priesthood
perceived the danger that thus threatened them, that
the people might by such a side-way attain an acquaint
ance with the true Word of God and thereby discover
the Romish falsifications, they would fain have suppressed
Jewish traditions, and they actually set to work to de
stroy all Hebrew books. Thus began on the banks of the
Rhine that book-persecution against which our admirable
Doctor Reuchlin so gloriously fought. The theologians
of Cologne, who were active in the matter, especially
Hochstraaten, were by no means so devoid of intelligence
as Ulrich von Hutten, Reuchlin's valiant champion, re
presents them in his Liitem obscurorum virorum. They
attempted nothing less than the suppression of the
Hebrew language. When Reuchlin was victorious Luther
was able to begin his work. From a letter written by him
at this time to Reuchlin, Luther seems already to have
felt how important was the victory that had been gained,
gained too by one in a dependent and difficult position,
whereas he, the Augustin monk, was perfectly indepen
dent. Very naively does Luther say in this letter: — "Ego
nihil titneo, quia nihil habeo." But how Luther succeeded
in creating the language into which he translated the
Bible, remains a mystery to me even to this hour. The
old Suabian dialect, had totally disappeared along with

From " Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 1 1 1

the chivalrous poetry of the Hohenstaufen imperial era.*
The old Saxon dialect, so-called low-German, was in use
throughout only a portion of Northern Germany, and de
spite all attempts that have been made it has never
been found possible to adapt it to literary purposes. Had
Luther employed for his translation of the Bible the lan
guage spoken to-day in Saxony, Adelung would have been
right in maintaining that Saxon, especially the dialect of
Meissen, was the true high-German, that is to say, our
literary language. But modern Saxon never was a dialect
of the Germans ; as little was it so as Silesian : for the
former, like the latter, has a strong Slavonian admixture.
I therefore frankly confess that I know not what was the
origin of the language that we find in Luther's Bible.
But this I know, that through his Bible, which the new
born press, the black art, scattered by thousands of
copies among the people, the Lutheran tongue
spread in a few years over the whole of Germany, and
was raised to the rank of a written language. This
written language holds its place to our day in Germany,
and gives to that politically and religiously dismembered

* This was the age of the Crusades and of the Minnesingers. It was an epoch
of wealth and splendour. The nobles were the patrons of art and culture.
Architecture especially flourished, and the great Cathedrals of Strasburg and
Cologne were built. The national epics of the Niebelimgenlied and Gudrun
date from this period, as do also the chivalrous ron-ances, Parzival and / risian^
founded on the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
The decline of this splendid though brief era, dates from the death of Conradin
on the scaffold at Naples in 1268. — Tr. '

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

nation a literary unity. Such an inestimable gain may
well make amends to us for any loss in the later develop
ment of the language of that internal expressiveness
which we are accustomed to find in languages having
their origin in a single dialect. There is no want, how
ever, of such expressiveness in the language of Luther's
Bible, and this old book is a perennial source of reju
venescence for our tongue. Every expression and every
idiom to be found in Luther's Bible is essentially Ger
man ; an author may unhesitatingly employ it ; and as
this book is in the hands of the poorest classes among
us, they have no need of any special learned instruction
to enable them to express themselves in a literary style.
This circumstance will, when the political revolution
takes place in Germany, result in a strange phenomenon :
freedom will everywhere be able to speak, and its speech
will be that of the Bible.

Luther's Luther's Original writings have also contri-
original
¦writings, butcd to fix the German language. Owing to
their polemical passionateness they pierced deeply into the
heart of his time. Their style is not always delicate; but
not even a religious revolution can be made with orange
blossom. Oftentimes the stubborn tree-root can be cleft
only by the stubborn wedge. In the Bible, Luther's vigour
of speech is always restrained within the bounds of a cer
tain dignity by reverence for the ever present Spirit of God.

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 113

In his controversial writings, on the other hand, he
abandons himself to a plebeian vulgarity that is often
as repulsive as it is grandiose. His expressions and his
metaphors resemble the colossal stone images to be seen
in Hindoo or Egyptian temple grottoes ; their gaudy col
ouring arid fantastic hideousness both repel and fascinate
us. By reason of this uncouth lapidary style the daring
monk often appears like a religious Danton, a preacher
of the Mountain, who from his lofty elevation hurls down
his variegated word-blocks on the heads of his adver
saries. But more remarkable and more significant than
these prose works are Luther's poems, the hymns that
budded forth in his soul amid the conflicts and troubles
of his days. Oftentimes they resemble a fiower blooming
on a bare rock ; oftentimes they are like a moonbeam
shimmering across a tossing sea. Luther loved music ;
he even wrote a treatise on the art ; and his songs are
extremely melodious. In this respect also, he merits the
name of the Swan of Eisleben. He was, however, any
thing but a mild swan in many of the songs in which he
rouses the courage of his followers, and inspires himself
with the fiercest ardour for the combat. A true war song
was that defiant lay with which he and his companions
entered Worms. The old Cathedral trembled at such un
wonted strains, and the ravens were terrified in their ob
scure nests up in the church towers. This song — the Mar
seillaise LLymn of the Reformation — preserves even yet its

114 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
power of inspiring men, and perhaps we may ere long have
need in similar combats of the old mail-clad words ; —
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen.*
Characteristics The prevailing characteristic of modern
of modern j . • j t
literature, fitcrature is the predominance of individuality
and scepticism. The authorities are dethroned : reason
is the only lamp to illumine the steps of man, conscience
is his only guiding-staff in the dark labyrinth of life. Man
now stands face to face with his Creator, and sings to him
his lay. Hence it is that modern literature begins with
spiritual songs. Later on, however, as literature becomes
secular, the intensest self-consciousness, the feeling of
personality, predominates. Poetry is no longer epic and
naif; it is subjective, lyrical, and reflective.
Not Bacon, as we are accustomed to be
Descartes. taught, but Rene Descartes, is the father of
modern Philosophy. To great France belongs the
fame of the initiative. But great France, the noisy,
stirring, talkative land of the French, has never been a
* This grand hymn, which Dr. Buchheim, in the notes to his admirable
Deutsche Lyrik, (Messrs. Macmillan & Co.'s Golden Treasury Series), aptly
calls " the religious national hymn of Protestant Germany," is in part a para
phrase of a portion of the forty-sixth Psalm. We have no adequate English
translation ; indeed it would be impossible to render in another language the
force and fire as well as the peculiar rhythm of the original. Anyone who has
heard this hymn 'sung by a large congregation in a German Lutheran church,
is not likely to forget the effect of its " mail-clad words" wedded to appropri
ate sacred music. — Tr.

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 115
fitting abode for philosophy, which will perhaps never
flourish on French soil. So felt Rene Descartes, who
betook himself to Holland, the peaceful, silent land of
track-boats and Dutchmen. Here he wrote his philo
sophical works. Only in that country was it possible
for him to free his intellect from traditional formalism,
and to construct a complete system of philosophy out of
pure thought, indebted neither to faith nor to empiri
cism — conditions ever since demanded of all true
philosophy. Only in such a country could he plunge
deeply enough into the intellectual abyss to be able to
surprise thought in the ultimate grounds of self-conscious
ness, and thus establish self-consciousness through the
process of thought in the world-famed axiom : Ccgito,
ergo sum. Nowhere, perhaps, except in Holland,
could Descartes have ventured to teach a philosophy
that conflicted openly with every tradition of the past.
To him is due the honour of having established the
autonomy of philosophy. Philosophy no longer needed
to solicit from theology permission to think for itself ; it
could now take its place alongside the latter as an in
dependent science.
^ . . ,. , In all ages are to be found men in whom
Spintualism and *->
Materialism. ^^ capacity for enjoyment is incomplete,
men with stunted senses and compunctious frames, for
whom all the grapes in this garden of God are sour, who

11 6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
see in every paradise-apple the enticing serpent, who
seek in abnegation their triumph, and in suffering their
sole joy. On the other hand, we find in all ages men of
robust growth, natures filled with the pride of hfe, who
fain carry their heads right haughtily ; all the stars and
the roses greet them with sympathetic smile ; they listen
delightedly to the melodies of the nightingale and of
Rossini ; they are enamoured of good fortune and of the
flesh of Titian's pictures ; and to the hypocritical com
panion for whom such things are a torment, they answer
in the words of Shakespeare's character, " Dost thou
think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more
cakes and ale ? "
John Bull a JoHN BuLL is a born materialist, and his
ma eria is . Qj^j-jg^jg^jj Spiritualism is for the most part
traditional hypocrisy, or mere material dullness ; his
flesh resigns itself because the spirit does not come to
its aid.
Plato and Leibnitz attempted to establish a harmony
between Plato and Aristotle. In these latter
days the attempt has been often enough renewed. Is
the problem solved ? No, assuredly not ! for this pro
blem is nothing less than an adjustment of the quarrel
between idealism and materialism. Plato is a thorough
idealist and knows only inborn, or rather witk-hoxn,

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 117
ideas ; man brings his ideas with him into the world, and
when he becomes conscious of them, they appear to him
as recollections of a former state of existence. Hence
the vagueness and mysticism of Plato : he merely recol
lects more or less clearly. With Aristotle on the contrary,
everything is clear, intelligible, certain ; for, his cogni
tions are not manifestations of a pre-mundane state ; he
receives everything from experience, and knows how to
classify everything in the most precise manner. He
stands out therefore as the model for all empiricists ;
and the latter cannot sufficiently thank God that He
made him the teacher of Alexander, whose conquests
afforded him so many opportunities for the advancement
of science ; and that his victorious scholar should have
presented him with so many thousand talents of gold for
zoological researches. The old master employed the
money very conscientiously, and was thereby enabled to
dissect numerous specimens of mammals, and to obtain
a great collection of stuffed birds ; all which afforded him
scope for the most important observations. But the great
biped which he had right before his eyes, which he had
himself reared, and which was far more remarkable than
all the rest of the world-menagerie, he unfortunately over
looked and omitted to investigate. We are, in fact, left
totally without information regarding the nature of that
youthful king, the wonder and enigma of whose life and
deeds still awaken our amazement. What was Alexander ?

II 8 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
What sought he ? Was he a madman or a god ? To
this day we cannot tell. But Aristotle's information is
all the more 'complete concerning Assyrian quadrupeds,
Indian parrots, and Greek tragedies, which last also, he
dissected. Plato and Aristotle ! They are not merely the repre
sentatives of two systems, they are the types of two dif
ferent species of humanity, which since time immemorial,
under every variety of garb, have stood opposed to each
other in more or less hostile attitude. Especially through
out the middle ages and down to our own time, has the
conflict been maintained ; and the progress of this conflict
forms the essential part of Christian Church-history.
The talk is always of Plato and Aristotle, though dis
guised under other names. Dreamy, mystical, Platonic
natures find revealed in the depths of their being
the Christian idea and its corresponding symbols.
Practical, methodical, Aristotelian natures construct out
of this idea and its symbols a definite system, a dogma,
and a worship. The Church, in the end, embraces
within its pale both classes, the one taking its position as
a secular clergy, the other intrenching itself in a monastic
life, yet each continuing to wage incessant warfare upon
the other. In the Protestant Church the same conflict ex
hibits itself in the schism between pietists and the followers
of orthodoxy, who correspond in a certain degree to the
mystics and the dogmatists of Catholicism. Protestant

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 119
pietists are mystics without imagination, and Protestant
orthodox believers are dogmatists without intelligence.
Benedict Spinoza, the providential man
who, simultaneously with Locke and Leibnitz,
formed himself in the school of Descartes, was for long
regarded with derision and hatred, and has only in our
day been raised to the throne of intellectual sovereignty.
One great genius forms itself from another less by assimi
lation than by friction. One diamond polishes another.
Thus the philosophy of Descartes in no sense originated,
it merely advanced that of Spinoza. In reading Spinoza's
works we become conscious of a feeling such as per
vades us at the sight of great Nature herself in her most
life-like state of repose. We behold a forest of heaven-
reaching thoughts whose blossoming topmost boughs
are tossing like waves of the sea, while their immovable
stems are rooted in the eternal earth. There is a
peculiar, an indescribable fragrance about the writings of
Spinoza. We seem to breathe in them the air of the
future. Perhaps the spirit of the Hebrew prophets still
hovered over their late-born descendant. There is,
withal, an earnestness in him, a self-conscious bearing,
a solemn grandeur of thought that certainly seems as if
it were inherited ; for Spinoza belonged to one of the
martyr-families driven into exile by the most Catholic
kings of Spain. Added to this was the patience of the

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Dutchman, which never belies itself either in the life
or in the writings of the man. It is beyond a doubt
that the whole course of Spinoza's life was free from
blame, and pure and spotless as the life of his Divine
kinsman, Jesus Christ. Like him, too, he suffered for
his doctrine; like him he wore the crown of thorns.
Wherever a great spirit utters its thought, there is Gol
gotha. Dear reader, should'st thou happen to visit
Amsterdam, bid some cicerone of the town shew thee
the Spanish synagogue. It is a beautiful building with
its roof resting on four colossal pillars. In the midst
stands the pulpit from which was once pronounced the
curse on the despiser of the Mosaic law, the Hidalgo
Don Benedict de Spinoza. On such an occasion a buck's-
horn, called the Shofar, was blown. There must be some
thing quite terrible about this horn : for, as I once read in
the life of Solomon Maimon, when the Rabbi of Altona
was endeavouring to lead him, the pupil of Kant, back
to the old faith and when he stubbornly persisted in his
philosophical heresies, the Rabbi resorted to threats
and, holding up the Shofar, inquired in tones of awe :
" Know'st thou what this is ? " But when the pupil
of Kant replied with calm indifference : " It is the horn
of a buck," the horror-stricken Rabbi fell backwards on
the ground. At the excommunication of Spinoza there
was a solemn accompaniment on this horn. He was
ceremoniously expelled the communion of Israel, and

from "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 121 ,
declared to be unworthy henceforth to bear the name
of Jew. His Christian enemies were magnanimous
enough to leave him the name. But the Jews, the
Swiss-Guard of Deism, were inexorable, and the spot is
still pointed out in front of the Spanish Synagogue at
Amsterdam where they attempted to stab Spinoza with
their long daggers. Thus was he trained not merely in
the lessons of the school, but also in those of life.
Herein is he distinguished from most philosophers, and
in his writings we recognise the indirect influence of his
life-training. Theology was for him something more
than a mere science. So also was politics ; for with this
too he made practical acquaintance. The father of his
betrothed was hanged for political offences in the
Netherlands ; and nowhere else in the world are people
so badly hanged as in the Netherlands. You have no
idea with what preparations and ceremonies the opera
tion is accompanied. The delinquent suffers a slow
death from eunui, and the spectator has abundant leisure
for reflection. I am therefore fully persuaded that Bene
dict Spinoza reflected much on the hanging of old Van
Ende, and as previously he comprehended religion with
its daggers, so now he comprehended politics with the
cord. Evidence of this study is to be found in his
Tractatus Politicus.*
*As regards his admiration for Spinoza it may not be out of place to
state here, once for all, that Heine never seriously professed atheistical doc-

JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

The mystery of ^^^ Y"^ ^^^^ ^^ what the cvil in the world
signifies ? Spiritualists have always made
it a reproach against us^that in the pantheistic view the
distinction between good and evil is lost. But evil is in
part merely an erroneous conception of the world by the
spiritualists ; and in part it is an actual product of their
arrangement of mundane affairs. According to their
view, matter is in itself something evil ; yet this is surely
nothing less than a calumny and fearful blasphemy against
God. Matter becomes evil only when it is forced into
secret conspiracy against the usurpation of the spirit,
when it is stigmatised by the spirit and then degrades
itself through loss of self-respect, or when with the hatred
of despair it avenges itself on the spirit ; and thus evil is
a result of the arrangement of the world by the spirituaUsts.
The Latin ^HE language of the Romans can never
anguage. ^^j.^ .^.^ origin. It is a language of com
mand for generals; a language of decree for adminis
trators; an attorney language for usurers; a lapidary

trines, and that the reproach of atheism, so often hurled at him, is a proof of the
total ignorance in which even educated people are content to remain with re
gard to his prose writings. During the greater part of his life and as a result of
his Jewish sympathies, which remained strong even to the last, he was an
avowed deist, but his deism was strongly modified by the philosophical and re
ligious doctrines of Spinoza and of Lessing. In his estimate of Spinoza he was
far in advance of his time, and such was his reverence for Lessing that, in a
letter from Berlin written in 1822, he declares that when he stands under the
famous lindens, "he feels overcome with solemn awe as he thinks that on this
spot Lessing may have stood." — Tr.

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany!' 123
speech for the stone-hard Roman people. It became
the appropriate language of materialism ; for although
Christianity, with true Christian patience, tormented
itself during more than a thousand years with the
attempt to spiritualize this tongue, its efforts were fruitless.
Heine's rela- PROTESTANTISM was for me more than
tion to *
Protestantism, a religion, it was a mission. For fourteen
years I have been fighting in its interests against the
machinations of the German Jesuits. My sympathy for
dogma has, it is true, of late become extinguished, and
I have frankly declared in my writings that my whole
Protestantism consists in the fact that I was inscribed
as an evangelical Christian in the church registers of the
Lutheran communion. But a secret predilection for the
cause in which we formerly fought and suffered always
continues to nestle in our hearts, and my present re
ligious convictions are still animated by the spirit of
Protestantism. ^ The Germans are more vindictive than
German
vindictiveness. ^^^ pgopigg of Latin Origin. The reason is
that they are idealists even in their hatreds. We do not
hate one another as you French do about mere trifles,
because of wounded vanity, on account of an epigram,
or of an unreturned visiting card : no, we hate in our
enemies the deepest, most essential thing, namely, their

124 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
thought. As in your love so in your hatred, you French
are hasty, superficial. We Germans hate thoroughly,
lastingly. Too honest, perhaps too unskilful, to revenge
ourselves by speedy perfidy, we hate till our last breath.
Tj !¦.,•„„ r,A From the moment that a religion solicits
Keiigion and "
Philosophy. j.j^g ^j^ ^^ philosophy its ruin is inevitable.
In the attempt at defence it prates itself into destruction.
Religion, like every other absolutism, must not seek to
justify itself Prometheus is bound to the rock by a
silent force. Yea, ^schylus permits not personified power
to utter a single word. It must remain mute. The moment
that a religion ventures to print a catechism supported by
arguments, the moment that a political absolutism pub
lishes an official newspaper, both are near their end.
But therein consists our triumph : we have brought our
adversaries to speech, and they must reckon with us.
Moses Moses Mendelssohn* was the Reformer of
the German Israelites, his co-religionists ; he
destroyed the authority of the Talmud; he re-established
pure Mosaism. This man, whom his contemporaries

^ 1729-1786. Moses Mendelssohn was the first man of note in that illustrious
family which has given to the world a great philosopher, a famous musician, and
a distinguished painter. Moses Mendelssohn is less remarkable as an author
than for his life-long efforts on behalf of the educational elevation of his co-re
ligionists, and for his endeavours to reform Jewish worship and ritual. So
great was the veneration in which he was held by enlightened Jews that of him
it was said that " from Moses to Moses there was none like Moses." He was-
the grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy the musician. — Tr.

From "Religion and Pliilosophy in Germany." 125

called " the German Socrates," and whom they rever
ently admired for his nobility of soul and force of in
tellect, was the son of a poor sacristan of the synagogue
at Dessau. In addition to this inferiority of birth. Pro
vidence sent him into the world hunch-backed, as if to
teach the rabble in a striking manner that men are to be
judged, not by their external appearance, but by their
intrinsic worth.
As Luther overthrew the Papacy, so Mendelssohn
overthrew the Talmud ; and he did so after the same
fashion, namely, by rejecting tradition, by declaring the
Bible to be the source of religion, and by translating the
most important parts of it. By these means he shattered
Judaic, as Luther had shattered Christian, Catholicism.
For the Talmud is in fact the Catholicism of the Jews.
It is a Gothic cathedral, overladen no doubt with childish
and superfluous ornament, yet awakening our astonish
ment by its heaven-aspiring, gigantic proportions. It is
a hierarchy of religious laws, often relating to the most
fanciful and ridiculous subtleties, but everywhere so
ingeniously superimposed and subordinated, each part
sustaining and supporting another, and so terribly con
sistent, that it forms an awe-inspiring, colossal whole.

Since Luther, Germany has produced no
Lessing, greater, no better man than Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing. These two men are our pride and our joy

126 JVit, JJ^isdom, and Pathos.
When, amid the gloom of this present time, we raise
our eyes toward these consoling figures, they beckon to
us with signs of glorious promise. Yea, the third man
will also come, who will complete what Luther began,
what Lessing carried forward, the man of whom the
German Fatherland has such dire need, the third Eman
cipator. I see already the gleam of his golden armour
shining through his imperial purple mantle, like the sun
through the ruddy dawn of morning. Like Luther's,
Lessing's work consisted not merely in positive achieve
ment, but in rousing to its very depths the German
nation, and in giving a beneficial impulse to intellectual
movement by criticism, and by polemic. Lessing was
the living criticism of his time and his whole life was a
polemic. His criticism made itself felt throughout the
whole range of thought and of feeling — in religion, in
science, in art. His polemic overcame every adversary,
and waxed stronger with every victory. As he himself
avowed, conflict was necessary to his mental develop
ment. He resembled the legendary Norman who in
herited the talents, the skill, and the vigour of the enemies
slain by him in combat, and thus at last became endowed
with every possible advantage and excellence. We may
well suppose that such an unwearied champion caused
no small stir in Germany, in that tranquil Germany where,
in those days, an even greater Sabbath-stillness reigned
than we know of in our time. The majority were struck

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany!" 127
dumb by such literary daring. But his hardihood stood
Lessing in good stead ; for to dare is the secret of success
in literature, as well as in revolution and in love. Lessing's
sword inspired terror in every breast. No head was secure
from its strokes. Yea, he struck off many a head out of
pure wantonness, and then was malicious enough to pick
it up again and to shew the public that it was quite empty.
Those whom he could not reach with the sword of his
logic, he slew with the arrows of his wit. 'Friends ad
mired the gay feathers with which these arrows were
winged ; enemies felt their sharp points rankling in their
breasts. Lessing's wit had nothing in common with that
playfulness, that gaiety, those bounding sallies which
Frenchmen know so well. His wit was no little French
spaniel chasing its own shadow ; it was more like a great
German tom-cat playing with a mouse before strangling it.
-•Tf is remarkable that this man, the most redoubted wit iii
Germany, was also our most honest man. There is
nothing comparable to his love of truth. He would not
grant the slightest concession to a lie, even though by
doing so after the manner of the wise liien of the world,
he might promote the ascendency of truth. He dared do
everything for the truth except lie. - The admirable say
ing of Buffon, "The style is the man himself," finds in
Lessing its best exemplification. His manner of writing
is like his character— truthful, firm, without ornament,
beautiful and imposing by reason of inherent strength.

128 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
His style is altogether like that of Roman architecture ;
it combines the greatest solidity with the greatest sim
plicity. His sentences rest one upon another, like
blocks of square-hewn masonry ; as for the latter the
law of gravity, so in Lessing's writings logical sequence,
is the invisible binding power. In his prose, therefore,
there are but few of the redundancies and artificial turns
of expression that we employ as mortar in the con
struction of our periods. Still less do we find in it any
of those caryatides of thought, which you French call
la belle phrase.
That such a man as Lessing could never be happy
you will readily understand. Even though he had not
so fondly loved truth, though he had not obstinately de
fended it on all occasions, he would still have been un
happy, for he was a genius. Men will forgive you every
thing, said a poet lately, with a sigh : they will forgive you
wealth, they will forgive you noble birth, they will forgive
you a handsome form, they will even admit that you are
talented, but they are inexorable in their enmity toward
genius. ¦'' There was one misfortune about which Lessing
never spoke to his friends : this was his terrible isolation
— his intellectual solitariness. A few of his contem
poraries loved him ; none understood him. Moses Men
delssohn, his dearest friend, defended him with zeal
against the reproach of Spinozaism. Defence and zeal
were as ridiculous as they were superfluous. Rest in peace

From.. "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 129
in thy grave, old Moses ! Thy Lessing was indeed on
the highroad toward the dreadful heresy, the pitiful
misfortune, called Spinozaism, but the Almighty, the
Father in Heaven, saved him' through death at the right
moment. Rest in peace ! thy Lessing was no Spinozaist,
as calumny asserted ; he died a good deist like thyself,
and Nicolai, , and The Universal German Library.
Lessing was the prophet who pointed out the way from
the second to the third testament. Art was for Lessing
also a tribune, and when thrust from the pulpit or driven
from the philosopher's chair, he sprang upon the boards
of the theatre and spoke thence in still plainer language,
and gained a still more numerous audience.*
I say that Lessing continued the work of Luther.
After Luther had emancipated us from the power of
tradition and set up the Bible as the only source of
Christianity, there arose a frigid literalism, and the letter
of the Bible became as great a tyranny as tradition had
formerly been. From this tyranny of the letter Lessing
was our great liberator. The letter, says Lessing, is the
last husk that envelops Christianity, and only after its
destruction does the true spirit of Christianity stand
revealed. * ViTien prohibited by the German Governments from writing on theological
subjects Lessing, in his drama Nathan tlie Wise, did by means of the theatre
¦what he dared not do by controversial writing— preached the doctrine of reli
gious toleration. Heine is in this sentence merely quoting in another form
Lessing's own words when he made known his intention of writing a didactic
drama to promote the cause he had so deeply at heart. — Tr.
. I

130 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Lessing died at Brunswick in 1781, mis-
Kant. understood, hated and decried. In the
same year appeared at Koenigsberg Immanuel Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason. With this book (which,
through a singular delay, did not become generally
known till after the close of the decade) there begins in
Germany an intellectual revolution which offers the most
striking analogies to the material revolution in France,
and which must to the deeper thinkers appear of at least
as great importance as the latter. It developed itself in
the same phases, and between both revolutions there is
a most remarkable parallelism. On each side of the
Rhine we see the same breach with the past ; all respect
for tradition is withdrawn. As here, in France, every
privilege, so there, in Germany, every thought must
justify itself; as here, the monarchy, the key-stone of
the old social edifice, so there, deism, the key-stone of
the old intellectual regitne, falls from its place. This
catastrophe was the twenty-first of January * for deism.
Robespierre ^0 spcak frankly, you French have been
tame and moderate compared .with us Ger
mans. At most you could but kill a king, and he had
already lost his head before you guillotined him. For
accompaniment to such deed, you must needs create
such a drumming and shrieking and stamping of feet
* Louis XVI. was beheaded on the 21st of January 1793.

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 131
that the universe trembled. To compare Maximilian
Robespierre with Immanuel Ivant is to confer too
high an honour upon, the former. Maximilian Robes
pierre, the great citizen of the Rue Saint Honors, had, it
is true, his sudden attacks of destructiveness when it was
a question of the monarchy, and his frame was violently
convulsed when the fit of regicidal epilepsy was on ;
but as soon as it came to be a question about the
Supreme Being, he wiped the white froth from his lips,
washed the blood from hjs hands, donned his blue
Sunday coat with shining metal buttons, and stuck a
nosegay in the bosom of his broad vest.
The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to
pourtray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a
mechanical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence,
in a little retired street of Koenigsberg, an old town on
the north-eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe
that the great clock of the cathedral performed in a more
passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than
did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morn
ing, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining,
walking, everything had its appointed time, and the
neighbours knew that it was exactly half-past three
o'clock when Immanuel Kant stepped forth from his
house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish
cane in his hand, and betook himself to the little linden
avenue called after him to this day the " Philosopher's

132 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
Walk." Summer and winter he walked up and down it
eight times, and when the weather was dull or heavy
clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld his
servant, old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind him with
a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Provi
dence. WTiat a strange contrast did this man's outward life
present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts !
In sooth, had the citizens of Koenigsberg formed the
slightest presentiment of the full significance of his ideas,
they would have felt a far more awful dread at the pre
sence of this man than at the sight of an executioner,
who can but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in
him nothing more than a Professor of Philosophy, and
as he passed at his customary hour they greeted him in
a friendly manner and set their watches by him. But
though Immanuel Kant, the arch-destroyer in the realm
of thought, far surpassed in terrorism Maximilian
Robespierre, he had many similarities with the latter
which induce a comparison between the two men. In
the first place, we find in both the same inexorable,
keen, prosaic, sober integrity. We likewise find in
both the same talent of suspicion, only that in one it
manifested itself in the direction of thought and was
called criticism, whereas in the other it was directed
against mankind and was styled republican virtue. But
both presented in the highest degree the true type of the
narrow-minded citizen. Nature had destined them for

From "Religion and Pliilosophy in Germany." 133
weighing coffee and sugar, but fate decided that they
should weigh other things ; and into the scales of the
one it laid a king, into the scales of the other, a God.
. . . And they both gave the correct weight !
The hea-vy, buckram style of Kant's chief
Kant's style. work has been the source of much mis
chief; for his brainless imitators aped him in his ex
ternal form, and hence arose among us the superstition
that no one can be a philosopher who writes well.
Kant's With the appearance of Kant, former
p losop y. gygjgjjjg gf pfiilosophy, whlch had merely
sniffed about the external aspect of things, assembling
and classifying their characteristics, ceased to exist.
Kant led investigation back to the human intellect, and
inquired what the latter had to reveal. Not without
reason, therefore, did he compare his philosophy to the
method of Copernicus. Formerly, when men conceived
of the world as standing still and the sun as revolving
round it, astronomical calculations failed to agree accur
ately. But when Copernicus made the sun stand still
and the earth revolve round it, behold ! everything
accorded admirably. So formerly, reason like the sun
moved round the phenomena of the universe and sought
to throw its light upon them. But Kant bade reason,
the sun, stand still, and the universe of phenomena now

134 JJ-^it, JJ'Ysdom, and Pathos.
turns round and is illuminated the moment it comes
within the region of the intellectual orb.

Phenomena

The distinction of objects into Phenomena
and Noumena. ^^^ Noumcna, that is, into things that for us
exist, and into things that for us do not exist, was an
Irish bull in philosophy.

God is all The mere discussion by anyone of the
existence of God causes me to feel a strange
anxiety, an uneasy dread, such as I once experienced in
visiting New- Bedlam in London, when, for a moment
losing sight of my guide, I found myself surrounded by
madmen. " God is all that is," and doubt of His exis
tence is doubt as to life itself, it is death.
theoSti"cai and ^ REFRAIN from all popular discussion of
Reason. Kant's argument in disproof of the onto-
logical evidence for the existence of God. Let it suffice
to give an assurance that since Kant's time deism has
vanished from the realm of speculative reason. It may
perhaps be several centuries yet before this melancholy
notice of decease gets universally bruited about; we Ger
mans, however, have long since put on mourning. De
Profundis ! You fancy, then, that we may now go home.
By my hfe, no ! there is yet a piece to be played : after
the tragedy comes the farce. Up to this point Im-

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany!' 135
manuel Kant has pursued the path of inexorable philo
sophy. He has stormed heaven, and put the whole
garrison to the edge of the sword ; the ontological, cos-
mological, and physico-theological body-guards lie there
lifeless ; Deity itself, deprived of demonstration, has
succumbed ; there is now no AU-mercifuUness, no
Fatherly kindness, no other-world reward for renunciation
in this world, the immortality of the soul lies in its last
agonies — you can hear its groans and death-rattle ; and
old Lampe is standing by with his umbrella under his
arm, an afflicted spectator of the scene, tears and sweat-
drops of terror dropping from his countenance. Then
Immanuel Kant relents, and shows that he is not merely
a great philosopher, but also a good man ; he reflects,
and half good-naturedly, half-ironically he says : " Old
Lampe must have a God, otherwise the poor fellow can
never be happy. Now, man ought to be happy in this
world ; practical reason says so : — well, I am quite
willing that practical reason should also guarantee the
existence of God." As the result of this argument
Kant distinguishes between the theoretical reason and
the practical reason, and by means of the latter, as with
a magician's wand, he revivifies deism, which theoretical
reason had killed.
But is it not conceivable that Kant brought about this
resurrection not merely for the sake of old Lampe, but
through fear of the police ? Or did he act from sincere

136 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
conviction? Was not his object in destroying the evi
dence for the existence of God to. shew us how embar
rassing it might be to know nothing about God ? In
doing so, he acted almost as sagely as a Westphalian
friend of mine, who smashed all the lanterns in the
Grohnder Street in Goettingen, and then proceeded to
deliver to us in the dark a long lecture on the practical
necessity of lanterns, which he had theoretically broken in
order to shew how, without them, we could see nothing.
wrphifo- Even poetry did not escape the influence
l°ureand art." of Kaut's philosophy. But for belles-lettres
and the fine arts, this philosophy, on account of its dry,
abstract character, was eminently hurtful. Fortunately,
it did not interfere in the art of cookery.
Fichte's The philosophy of Fichte presents the
p 1 os°p y- pecuhar difficulty that it requires the mind
to observe itself in the midst of its activity ; the Ego is
to investigate its own intellectual acts during the pro
cess of thinking ; thought is to play the spy on itself
while it thinks, growing warm and warmer, until at last
it is thoroughly cooked. This operation reminds us of
the monkey seated on the hearth before a copper kettle
cooking its own tail; for, (it argues) the true art of
cookery consists not merely in the objective act of

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany!' 137
cooking, but also in the subjective consciousness of the
process of cooking.
Povert of Ger- POVERTY sits by the cradlc of all our great
man great men ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^.^ ^p ^^ i-nauhood ; and
this meagre foster-mother remains their faithful com
panion throughout life.
Goethe's songs have a coquettish charm
yncs. ^^^ .^ indescribable. The harmonious verses
entwine themselves about the heart like a tenderly
loved one : the word embraces while the thought kisses
thee. Influence of The idealism of Fichte ranks as one of
Fichte's , 1 •
philosophy, fhg most colossal crtors ever hatched m the
human brain. It is more godless and more worthy of
condemnation than the coarsest materialism. What is
called in France the atheism of the materialists, is, as I
might easily shew, an edifying and devout doctrine when
compared, as to its consequences, with Fichte's transcen
dental idealism. This I know, that both systems are
repugnant to me. Both are also anti-poetic. The French
materialists have made quite as bad verses as the German
transcendental idealists. But the doctrine of Fichte was
in no respect dangerous to the State, and still less merited
being persecuted as such. In order to be capable of

138 IJ^it, JVisdom, and Pathos.
being led astray by this heresy, one must have been
endowed with speculative acumen in a degree to be found
among few men. The great mass, with its thousands of
thick heads, was impervious to this erroneous doctrine.
The Fichtean ideas about God should, therefore, have
been attacked by the path of reason, and not through aid
of the police. The accusation of atheism in philosophy
was a thing so strange in Germany, that Fichte at first
really did not understand what it meant. Quite justly
did he remark that the question, whether a system of
philosophy is atheistical or not, sounds to a philosopher
as extraordinary as the question, whether a triangle is
green or red, would sound to a mathematician.
Death-bed ^o many free-thinkers, you say, have been
converted on their death-beds ! But do not
make too much of this. Such stories of conversion
belong at best to pathology, and are very doubtful
evidence for your case. After all, they only prove that
lit was impossible to convert these free-thinkers so long
as they went about under God's open sky, in the enjoy
ment of their healthy senses and in full possession of
their reasoning faculty.

German GERMAN philosophy is an important fact ;
p 1 osop y. jj concerns the whole human race, and only
our latest descendants will be in a position to decide

From "Religion and Philosophy in Germany." 139
whether we are to be praised or blamed for having first
worked out our philosophy, and afterwards our revolution.
It seems to me that a methodical people, such as we are,
must begin with the Reformation, must then occupy it
self with systems of philosophy, and only after their com
pletion could it pass to the political revolution. I find
this sequence quite rational. The heads that have first
served for philosophical speculation can afterwards be
struck off by the revolution for whatever objects it may
have in view ; but philosophy would not have been able
to utilise the heads struck off by a revolution that
preceded it. But give yourselves no anxiety, ye dear
fellow-countrymen ; the German revolution will not prove
any milder or gentler because it was preceded by the
criticism of Kant, the transcendental idealism of Fichte,
or even by the Philosophy of Nature. These doctrines
have served to develop revolutionary forces that only
await their time to break forth and fill the world
with terror and with admiration. When ye hear the
trampling of feet and the clashing of arms, ye neigh
bour children ye French, be on your guard, and
see that ye mingle not in the fray going on among
us at home there in Germany : it might fare ill with
you. See that ye take no hand in kindling the fire;
see that ye attempt not to extinguish it. You might
readily burn your fingers in the flame. Smile not at my
counsel, at the counsel of a dreamer, who seeks to warn

140 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
you against all such philosophies, whether Kantian, or
Fichtean, or Philosophies of Nature. Smile not at the
fancy of one who foresees in the region of reality the
same outburst of revolution that has taken place in the
region of intellect. The thought precedes the deed
as the lightning the thunder. German thunder is of true
German character : it is not very nimble, but rumbles
along somewhat slowly. But come it will, and when ye
hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in
the world's history, then know that at last the German
thunderbolt has fallen. At this commotion the eagles
will drop dead from the skies, and the lions in the
furthest wastes of Africa will bite their tails and creep
into their royal lairs. There will then be played in Ger
many a tragedy compared to which the French Revolu
tion will seem but an innocent idyl. At present, it is true,
everything is tolerably quiet, and though here and there
some few men create a little stir, do not imagine that these
are to be the real actors in the piece. They are only little
curs chasing one another round the empty arena, barking
and snapping at one another till the appoiijted hour when
the troop of gladiators appear, to fight for life and death.
And the hour will come. As on the steps of an amphi
theatre, the nations will group themselves around Germany
to witness the terrible combat. I counsel you, ye French,
keep very quiet, and above all see that ye do not ap
plaud. We might readily misunderstand such applause.

From "Religion and Philosophy i/i Germany!" 141
and in our rude fashion somewhat roughly put you to
silence. For if formerly in our servile, listless mood, we
could oftentimes overpower you, much easier were it for
us to do so in the youthful arrogance of our new-born
enthusiasm for liberty. Ye yourselves know what, in
such a case, men can do ; and ye are yourselves no longer
in such a case. Take heed, then ! I mean it well with
you; therefore it is I tell you the bitter truth. Ye
have more to fear from a free Germany than from the
entire Holy Alliance, with all its Croats and Cossacks.
For, in the first place, they do not love you in Germany,
which indeed is almost incomprehensible, since ye are
so amiable, and during your stay among us took great
pains to please at least the better and fairer half of the
German people. But even though this half still love
you, it is precisely the half that does not bear arms, and
its friendship would therefore be of little help to you.
What you are really accused of I could never under
stand. Once in a beer-cellar at Goettingen, I heard a
young Old-German assert that it was necessary to be re
venged on France for Conradin of Hohenstaufen, whom
you caused to be beheaded at Naples (1268). Doubtless
ye have long since forgotten this: we, however, forget
nothing. Ye see then, that whenever we have a mind
to quarrel with you there will be no lack of valid grounds.
In any case I advise you to be on your guard. Happen
what may in Germany — though the Crown Prince or

142 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Doctor Wirth should attain supremacy, be ye ever armed ;
remain quietly at your posts, your weapons in your hands.
I mean it well with you, and I was seized with dismay
when I heard it said lately that your ministry proposed
to disarm France. As ye are, despite your present ro
mantic tendency, a true classical people, ye know
Olympus. Among the joyous gods and goddesses
quaffing and feasting of nectar and ambrosia, ye may be
hold one goddess who, amid such gaiety and pastime,
wears ever a coat of mail, the helm on her head, and
the spear in her hand. She is the goddess of Wisdom.

jTrom " St^t Jftomantit Stijool."
Every Epoch is a sphinx that precipitates itself into the
abyss as soon as men have solved its enigma.
Rome — the Hercules among the nations.
Lyrical poetry is much the same in every age, as the
songs of the nightingales in every Spring-time.

The new ^^"^ ^^ t)ut the mirror of life, and when
cassica era. Qg^fholicism bccame extinct in life it grew
pale and faded away from art. At the time of the
Reformation, Catholic poetry suddenly disappeared from

From " The Romantic School." 143
Europe,, and in its place we behold the resuscitation of
the long-time deceased Greek poetry. But it was only
an artificial rejuvenescence, the work of the gardener
and not of the sun ; the shrubs and flowers grew in little
pots, and a sky of glass protected them from the cold
and the north wind. In the history of the world, each
event is not a direct result of some other event, rather
do events modify one another. The love of Greek art
and the passion for imitating it, which sprang up so
universally among us, was in no sense the work of
the Greek scholars who emigrated to the West after
the fall of Byzantiurri ; it was rather that in art and in
life simultaneously, Protestantism became predominant.
Leo X., the magnificent Medici, was as zealous a Pro
testant as Luther ; while the one was protesting at
Wittenberg in Latin prose, the other was protesting at
Rome in stone, in colour, and in' ottava rima. For, do
not the powerful marble figures of Michael Angelo, the
laughing nymphs of Giulio Romano, and the life-drunk
joyousness of the verses of the Master Ludovico Ariosto,
form a protesting contrast to the old, gloomy, languishing,
Catholicism ? The Italian painters produced arguments
against priestcraft more effective than did the Saxon
theologians. The glowing flesh in the pictures of Titian
is all Protestantism. The limbs of his Venus are far
profounder theses than those which the German monk
nailed to the church door at Wittenberg. It was as if

144 W^^j Wisdom, and Pathos.
men had suddenly become conscious of release from the
bondage of a thousand years ; artists especially could
once more breathe freely as they felt the Alp of Catholic
Christianity rolled from their breasts ; they plunged en
thusiastically into the sea of Greek joyousness, out of
whose foam the Goddess of Beauty again rose to greet
them ; painters painted once more tbe ambrosial joy of
Olympus ; sculptors once more chiselled out of marble
blocks, with old fondness, the old heroic forms ; poets
sang once more of the house of Atreus and of Laius : the
period of the new classical poetry had begun.
Lessing was the literary Arminius who
Lessing. delivered our Theatre from foreign domina
tion. He showed us the futility, the absurdity, the
insipidity of our imitations of the French drama, which
was itself imitated from the Greek. Not only by his
criticism, but also by his original works, he became
the founder of modern German literature. This man
pursued every direction of the human intellect, he con
sidered every aspect of human life with enthusiasm
and with disinterestedness. Art, theology, archseology,
poetry, criticism, the drama, history — he devoted him
self to them all with the same zeal and with the same
object. All his works are animated by the same great
social idea, the same sentiment of human progress, the
same religion of reason of which he was the Saint John

From " The Romantic School." 145
the Baptist, and of which we still await the Messias. He
never ceased preaching this religion, though, alas ! he
had often to preach alone and in the desert. Nor did
he possess the art of changing stones into bread ; he
passed the greater part of his life in poverty and distress,
a curse that has hung over almost all great men of
genius in Germany, and will perhaps be removed only
by the political emancipation of our country. In the
whole history of literature Lessing is the author whom
I most love.
The history ^HE history of literature is the great
Morgue wherein each one seeks the dead
whom he loves or with whom he is spiritually related.
When, amid so many insignificant corpses, I behold
Lessing or Herder with their noble human counten
ances, my heart beats quickly. How can I pass with
out stooping hastily to kiss your pale lips !

The "War of

When God, the snow, and the Cossacks,
Liberation." ^^^ destroyed the best part of Napoleon's
forces, we Germans experienced a mighty desire to free
ourselves from foreign yoke. We began to flame with
manly wrath against a tyranny too long endured; we
sought inspiration in the fine melodies but bad verses of
Koerner's songs, and we regained our freedom ; for we
are always ready to do what our princes command.
K

146 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Schiller

The spirit of his age seized upon Schiller ;
and Goet e. j^^ wrcstlcd with it, and was constrained by
it : he followed it into the combat and bore its banner,
that banner under which the hosts on the other side of
the Rhine were so enthusiastically fighting. Schiller
wrote on the side of the great ideas of the Revolution ;
he stormed the intellectual Bastilles ; he was a builder at
the temple of freedom, at the great temple that will one
day embrace within its walls all the nations in a common
brotherhood : he was cosmopolite. He began with the
hatred of the past that we see in his Robbers, where he
resembles a young Titan escaped from school, who
takes to smashing Jupiter's windows ; he ended with
that love for the future which blossoriis like a meadow
of flowers in Don Carlos ; he is himself the Marquis
of Posa, at once prophet and soldier, who fights for
the object of his prophecies, and under a Spanish
cloak wears the noblest heart that ever loved and
suffered in German land. The poet, the pigmy imi
tator of Deity, resembles his Maker also herein that
he creates his characters after his own image. If, then,
Carl Moor and the Marquis of Posa represent Schiller
himself, Goethe may be said to resemble his Werlher,
his Wilhelm Meister, and his Faust, in whom we
may study the phases of his spirit. If Schiller throws
himself wholly into history, is inspired for the cause of
the social progress of humanity, and sings the history of

From " The Romantic School!' 147
the world, Goethe is more absorbed in individual feelings,
or in art, or in nature. Natural hislury must in the end
be the engrossing occupation of Goethe, the pantheist ;
and not in poetry only, but also in scientific works, he
gives the results of his inquiries. His indifferentism was
likewise a consequence of his pantheistic view of the uni
verse. It is unfortunately the case, and we are forced to
confess it, that Pantheism has often led men into indif
ferentism. They argue thus : if everything is God, then
it is a matter of no consequence what is the subject of
one's investigations — whether it is clouds or antique
gems, national songs or the skeletons of apes, men, or
comedians. But herein lies the error : everything is not
God, but God is in all things ; God does not manifest
himself in an equal degree in everything ; He manifests
himself rather in different degrees in different things, and
everything bears within itself the impulse toward a higher
degree of divinity ; and this is the great law of progress
in nature. No I God does not manifest himself equally
in all things, as Wolfgang Goethe supposed, whereby he
drifted into indifferentism, and instead of occupying
himself with the highest human interests, busied himself
with theatrical affairs, anatomy, theory of colours, botany,
observation of the clouds. God manifests himself in
things in a greater or less degree. He has His being in
this perpetual manifestation. God is in movement, in
action, in time ; His divine inspiration is wafted toward

148 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
us from the pages of history, which is the true book of
God. Frederick Schiller felt this as by instinct, and he
became "a prophet casting backward glances," and
wrote The Revolt of the Netherlands, The Thirty Years'
War, The Maid of Orleans, and William Tell. Goethe
no doubt sang also certain great stories of emancipation ;
but he sang them as an artist. As he thrust aside as
odious to him Christian enthusiasm, and either did not
or would not comprehend the philosophical enthusiasm
¦of his time, fearing lest it should disturb the equani
mity of his spirit, so he dealt with enthusiasm generally
after the historical method, as something given, as
material to be employed. Spirit became matter in his
hands, and he gave it a fair and pleasing form. Thus
did he become the greatest artist in our literature ; every
thing he wrote is a fully rounded masterpiece of art.
The year ^^^ dieux s'en vont (The gods are leaving
' ^^' us). Goethe is dead. He died on the 2 2nd of
March in the year 1832 — that memorable year in which
our earth lost its men of greatest renown.* It would
seem as if death had suddenly become aristocratic in
this year, and had specially marked out the notabilities
of the world, to send them simultaneously to the grave.
Perhaps he conceived the idea of founding an assembly
* Scott in this country; Cuvier in France ; and Goethe in Germany, all died
in 1832  Tr.

From " The Romantic School." 149
of peers in his shadowy realm ; if so, his selection was a
most happy one. Or, on the contrary, may it not have
been a desire to favour democracy that led him to abolish
authority, by removing the men of fame, and thus pro
mote intellectual equality ? Was it respect or insolence
that made him spare the kings ? In a moment of absent-
mindedness he did indeed raise his scythe to cut down
the King of Spain, but bethought himself in good time,
and spared the royal life.* In the past year not a single-
king died. Les dieux s'en vont (The gods are leaving us)
— but the kings remain with us.
Euripides and WHETHER Euripides is a greater poet than
Racine I do not know. But this I know,
that the latter has been a living fountain of love and of
the sense of honour, and that a whole nation has drawn
enthusiasm, delight, and inspiration from this source.
What more can ye seek of a poet ? We are all mortal ;,
we descend into the grave leaving behind us our utter
ance, and when this has fulfilled its mission it returns to
the bosom of God, the meeting-place of all poet-voices,.
the abode of all harmony.
August Wilhelm ^HE propagation of elegance is the prin-
von c ege . gjp^j ruerit of Schlegel, and, thanks to him,
a little civilization was introduced into the life of German
* Ferdinand VII. suffered in 1832 from a dangerous illness, and having fallen/
into a state of comma was reported to be dead, but ultimately recovered. — Tr.

150 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
poets. Goethe had already afforded a most influential
example how one may be a German poet and yet be
able to preserve outward respectability. In earlier times
German poets scorned all conventional forms, and the
name " German poet,'' or even the words " poetical
genius,'' possessed a most unpleasant significance. A
German poet was formerly a person who wore a thread
bare and ragged coat, who manufactured marriage and
baptismal odes for a thaler a-piece, who, instead of enjoy
ing "good society," which rejected him, enjoyed all the
better that of the tavern, and who might be found at
evening lying in a drunken condition in the gutter, ten
derly caressed by Luna's sentimental beams. Such men,
as they grew older, usually sank into still lower depths of
misery. It is true it was a misery without care, or at
least, the only care incidental to it was as to where the
greatest quantity of schnaps was to be had for the least
money. Thus, too, had I always represented to myself
a German poet. How agreeable, therefore, was my sur
prise when, in the year 18 19, I, quite a young man,
having gone to study at the University of Bonn, had the
honour of seeing there, face to face, poetical genius in
the person of Herr August Wilhelm Schlegel. He was,
with the exception of Napoleon, the first great man I
had yet seen, and I shall never forget the sublime spec
tacle. Even to this day do I feel the holy awe that
quivered through my soul as I stood before' his chair and

From " The Romantic School." 151
heard him speak. I wore in those days a frock coat of
white drugget, a red cap, long fair hair, and no gloves.
Professor August Schlegel Wilhelm, however, wore kid
gloves and was dressed completely in accordance with
the latest Parisian fashion. He was also odorous with
the perfume of good society and of eau de mille-fleurs.
He was gentility and elegance personified ; and when he
spoke of the Lord Chancellor of England he added "my
friend." At his side, in baronial livery of the House of
Schlegel, stood his servant, whose duty was to trim the
wax lights that burned in silver candlesticks ; while close
at hand, in front of the marvellous man, stood a glass of
sugar water. A lacquey in livery ! wax lights ! silver
candlesticks ! " My friend, the Lord Chancellor of Eng
land " ! kid gloves ! sugar water ! "What unheard-of
things in the lecture room of a German professor !
This splendour dazzled us young men not a little,
myself especially, and I wrote at this time three odes
to Herr Schlegel, each beginning — " Oh, thou who,
etc." But only in poetry did I venture to call so distin
guished a person "thou." His exterior conferred on
him, indeed, a certain air of distinction : on his little
narrow head still glittered a few silver hairs, and his
body was so. thin, so worn out, so transparent, that he
seemed to be all spirit, so that he had almost the aspect
of an image of spiritualism.

152 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
ture\mi'sta?s" -A-LAS ! what a melancholy prospect meets
firmamem. US whcn we regard, from a nearer point of
view, the stars of our literature. It may be that the stars
of heaven appear to us fair and pure simply because we
are at such a distance from them, and know nothing of
their private life. Doubtless there are among them
ihany stars that lie and fawn, hypocritical stars, stars
that are compelled to every kind of baseness, stars that
kiss and betray one another, stars that flatter their
enemies, and (what is more grievous still) that flatter
their friends, just as we do here below. The comets
that we sometimes see whirling through the sky with
flowing locks of fire — like Maenads of heaven — these are
perhaps dissolute stars that at last, become repentant
and devout, seek some obscure corner of the firmament,
safe from the gaze of the sun, whom they detest.
Hoffmann The chief point of resemblance between
Hoffmann and Novalis consists in this, that
the poetry of both is in reality a disease. Hence it has been
remarked that the estimate of their works is the business
of the physician rather than of the critic. The rosy tint
in the writings of Novalis is not the glow of health, but
the hectic flush of consumption ; and the purple gleam
in Hoffmann's fantastic romances is not the flame of
genius, but the burning fire of fever. But do such judg
ments quite become us who are ourselves not blessed

From " 77^1? Romantic School." 153
with the most robust health, and especially at a time
when literature resembles a great lazar-house ? Or may
not poetry itself be only a malady of mankind, as the pearl
is but a diseased secretion of the poor, suffering oyster ?
.j.[jg It is difficult for a Frenchman to form
ungen le .^^^ conccptlon of the Nibelungen Lay. The
language in which it is composed is still more incompre
hensible to him. It is a granite tongue, and its verses
are like square blocks of rhyme. Here and there out of
crevices spring red flowers like drops of blood, or the long
ivy trails, like green tear-drops. Of the Titanic passions
that welter in the poem, you finical little people cannot
have the faintest idea. Imagine a clear summer night,
the stars, pale as silver but large as suns, shining out from
a blue sky, and that on such a night all the Gothic cathe
drals of Europe have given one another rendezvous on an
immense plain. To this meeting-place calmly approach
Strasburg Minster, Cologne Cathedral, the Bell tower
of Florence, the Fane of Rouen, the Spire of Amiens,
and the Church of Milan, and all pay gallant homage
to the fair Notre-Dame de Paris. Their gait, it is
true, is rather ungainly, and some of them behave in a
childish manner, so that one is now and then tempted to
laugh at their amorous raptures. But the laugh quickly
disappears when one beholds them fall into a rage and
attempt to throttle one another, until Notre-Dame de

154 '^f^'^) JVisdom, and Pathos.
Paris raises despairingly both her arms to heaven, and,
seizing a sword, severs the head from the trunk of the
tallest among them. But no ! not even then could you
form to yourselves an idea of the principal characters of
the Nibelungen Lay : no tower is so lofty and no stone
so hard as the ferocious Hagen and the revengeful Crim-
hilde. Who composed this Lay ? As little do we know
the name of the author of the Nibelungen as the names
of the poets who composed our folk-songs. Strange !
we seldom know the creator of the most admirable
books, poems, buildings, and other such monuments
of art. What was the name of the architect who
imagined the Cathedral of Cologne ? Who painted under
its roof the altar-piece, whereon the beautiful mother of
God and the three holy kings are so vividly repre
sented ? Men forget only too readily the names of their
benefactors ; the names of the good and noble who have
laboured for the welfare of their fellow-men are but sel
dom on the lips of the people, whose dull memory pre
serves only the names of their oppressors and of their
cruel battle heroes. The tree of humanity forgets the
modest gardener who tended it amidst the cold,
watered it in time of drought, and shielded it
from hurtful animals ; but it preserves faithfully the
names mercilessly cut into its bark by the sharp steel,
and transmits them to latest generations in ever-enlarging
characters.

From " The Romantic School." 155
German ^ LIVING German is truly a sufficiently
gravity. serious being, but he is not to be compared
to a dead German ! You have no idea how grave we are
after death. Our countenances are then even' longer
than when we are in life, and the worms that feed on us
grow melancholy as they behold us at their repast.
T „ , Jean Paul has been called " the Unique
Jean Paul -'
Richter. One." The epithet is admirable, and only
now do I perceive how well chosen it is, after long fruit
less consideration as to the niche to be assigned to him
in the history of literature. His appearance was almost
simultaneous with that of the " Romantic School," of
which, however, he was in no sense an adherent. Just
as little did he shew in later life any sympathy for the
" Artistic School " of Goethe. ' He stands quite isolated
in his time, simply because, in contradistinction to both
schools, he abandoned himself to the spirit of his age,
and his whole heart was filled with its influences. For
his heart and his writings were one. This peculiarity,
this unity, is to be found also in the " Young German "
writers of our day. They too make no distinction
between life and literature ; they do not seek to divorce
politics from science, or art from religion, and they
are at the same time artists, tribunes, and apostles.
Of Jean Paul's style, it is impossible for a clear, well-
regulated French intellect to form any conception. The

156 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
structure of his periods consists of a multitude of little
chambers, often so narrow that when one idea encounters
another, they knock their heads together. Suspended
from the roof are numerous hooks, on which Jean Paul
hangs all sorts of thoughts, and in the walls are in
numerable secret drawers, in which' he conceals his feel
ings. No other German author is so rich as he is in
thought and feeling, but he never lets his thought and
feeling come to maturity, so that we are more astonished
than refreshed by the wealth of his intellect and of his
heart. Ideas and sentiments that might grow to be
gigantic trees did he permit them to take sufficient root,
and spread forth their branches, blossoms, and leaves —
these he plucks up when they are still tender plants, often
mere seed-corns, and what might become whole forests
of thoughts, are set before us on a platter as green
herbs. Jean Paul is a great poet and philosopher,
but no one could be more inartistic than he is in
his manner of thinking and creating. Instead of
thoughts, he offers us his own process of thinking. We
are made spectators of the'material activity of his brain ;
he gives us, so to speak, more brain than thought. He
is the most humorous and the most sentimental of
authors ; indeed, his sentimentality always get the better
of him, and his laughter is quickly changed to tears. He
often disguises himself in the rags of a common beggar,
then suddenly — like the incognito princes of the stage —

From " The Romantic School." 157
unbuttons the coarse smock frock and reveals the glitter
ing star at his breast. In this, Jean Paul resembles
the great Irishman with whom he is often compared.*
The author of Tristram Shandy had also the power,
even when sunk in the lowest trivialities, of suddenly
reminding us by a sublime transition of his princely
rank, of his relationship to Shakespeare. Unjustly do
some critics suppose that Jean Paul has more true feel
ing than Sterne, because the latter, whenever the circum
stance with which he is dealing attains a tragic intensity,
suddenly assumes a jesting, laughter-moving tone ; while
Jean Paul, as soon as the joke becomes in the least
serious, gradually falls to weeping and lets his tears flow
quietly, drop by drop. No I Sterne was perhaps capable
of deeper feeling than Jean Paul, for he was a greater
poet. He is, as I have said, of the same stock as
Shakespeare, and, like him, was nurtured by the Muses
on Parnassus. But in womanly fashion, they early spoiled
him with their caresses. He was the favourite child of
the pale goddess of tragedy. Once, in a paroxysm of
cruel tenderness, she kissed his young heart so vehe
mently, with such passionate love and fervour, that his
heart began to bleed, and suddenly comprehended
all the sorrows of this earth, and was filled with
infinite compassion. But the younger daughter of
* Laurence Sterne, though bom in Ireland, was of English parentage. — Tr.

158 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Mnemosyne, the rosy goddess of gaiety, was quickly at
hand, and took the suffering boy into her arms, and
tried to comfort him with laughter and song, and gave
him for playthings the mask of comedy and the fool's
bells, and soothed him with kisses ; and with her kisses
bestowed upon .him all her levity, all her thoughtless
giddiness, all her witty coquettish arts. Ever after,
there was perpetual contradiction between the thoughts
of Sterne's heart and the words of his lips. Often when
his heart is moved by tragic feeling, and he seeks to ex
press the deep bleeding anguish of his soul, lo ! even to
his own amazement, from his lips flow smiling delightsome
words. More cruel to bear than any loss through death is the
loss of the loved one in life.

jTrom tf)c " ffiltmentarg SptvitB."
Silence— It is truly vexatious when women ask too
a condition
of happiness, rnany questions. Use your lips for kissing
and not for questioning, ye fair ones ! Silence is the
essential condition of happiness. When a man babbles
too freely of the favours of fortune, or when a woman
becomes inquisitive as to the mystery of her joy, the
happiness of both is at an end.

From the " Elementary Spirits." 159

The power of LovE is tfic most powcrful of spcUs ; every
other species of sorcery must yield to it.
There is but one power against which it is helpless.
What is that ? It is not fire, it is not water, it is not air^
it is not the earth with all its metals ; it is Time.

The problems of, The problem, the goal of Paganism, was
Pagani.-mand r > o b i
Christianity, j-j-jg attainment of happiness. The Greek
hero calls it the Golden Fleece, the German hero the
treasure of the Nibelungen. The task of Christianity,
on the contrary, was abnegation, and its heroes endured
the sufferings of martyrdom, they loaded the cross on
their own shoulders, and from their mightiest combat
their only gain was a grave. We can by no means forget
that the Golden Fleece and the treasure of the Nibe
lungen brought great sufferings upon their possessors.
But the error of these heroes was just this ; they mistook
gold for happiness. As regards the thing of chief im
portance however, they were right. Man must be ever
striving to acquire happiness on this earth, sweet happi
ness and not a cross. For the latter, alas ! he has but
to wait till he reaches the churchyard ; then he will be
sure to have placed over his grave — a cross !

The Legend of This is the Legend of the Whispering
the W hispering
Valley. Vallcy, whlch lies near Lorch on the Rhine,
and which takes its name from the whispering voices

i6o JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
that sound in the wayfarer's ear as he passes through it.
Through this valley came one day three young comrades
in right gleeful mood, and deeply curious as to the mean
ing of the perpetual "hist ! hist !" that greeted them at
every step. The eldest and wisest of them, a sword-smith
by trade, at last called out in a loud voice : — " These
are the voices of women who, no doubt, are so hideous
that they dare not show themselves ! " He had scarce
uttered this cunning challenge when suddenly there stood
before him three maidens of wondrous beauty, who, in the
most enticing manner, invited him and his two com
panions to refresh themselves in their castle from the
fatigues of their journey, and to share its enjoyments. This
castle, though quite at hand, had hitherto escaped the
notice of the young fellows, possibly because it was not a
building standing by itself, but was hewn in the side of a
rock, so that nothing was visible from the outside except
its narrow pointed windows and large doorway. When
they had entered the castle they were not a little amazed
at the splendour amid which they found themselves. The
three maidens, who seemed to be its sole occupants,
placed before th-em a dainty feast, and filled for them the
wine cups with their own hands. The young comrades,
whose bosoms now swelled with ever fuller rapture, had
never before seen such fair, blooming, bewitching women,
and they betrothed themselves to the maidens with many
burning kisses. On the third day the maidens said : —

From the "Elementary Spirits." i6i
If it is your desire to be always with us, dear bride
grooms, you must first return to the wood, and learn
what the birds there sing and say ; when you have
listened to the sparrow, the magpie, and the owl, and
have quite understood their sayings, then return to your
brides. Thereupon the three comrades betook them
selves to the wood, and after clearing a path through
the briars and the furze, not without getting sadly
scratched by thorns, and after many stumbles over
gnarled roots, they reached a tree whereon sat a sparrow
twittering in this wise : — ¦

' Three silly young fellows once ventured
Into the Land of Cocagne,
Where roasted geese came flying
Straight toward their wide-open mouths.
Then said they : Oh ! surely the folks
That dwell in this land right stupid must be.
These geese that are flying about
Are too big to get into our mouths."

" Ay ! ay ! " said the sword-smith, " your remark is quite
correct. When roasted geese come flying toward the
gaping mouths of fools, do not fear for the geese ! The
mouths are too small and the geese too big, and the fools
have not wit enough to help themselves."
The three comrades continued their way ; and after
pushing further through the briars and the furze, getting
sadly scratched by thorns, and after many stumbles over
gnarled roots, they came to a tree on whose branches a

1 62 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
magpie was hopping to and fro, and chattering in this
wise : " My mother was a magpie, my grandmother was
also a magpie, my great-grandmother was likewise a
magpie, my great-great-grandmother too was a magpie,
and if my great-great-grandmother were not dead, she
would still be alive."
" Ay ! ay " said the sword-smith, " I understand all
that ! It is merely the old story of the world. That is
just the sum-total of all our knowledge, and much more
than that men will never learn on this earth."
The three comrades continued ¦ their way ; and after
pushing further through the briars and the furze, getting
sadly scratched by thorns, and after many stumbles
over gnarled roots, they came to a tree in the hollow
trunk of which perched an owl that screeched in this
wise : — " He that talks to one woman will be deceived by
one woman, he that talks to two women will be deceived
by two women, and he that talks to three women will be
deceived by three women."
" Hold there !" cried the enraged sword-smith, " thou
hideous miserable bird, with thy hideous miserable words
of wisdom, that anyone may buy for a farthing from the
first hunchbacked beggar that he meets ! That is the
old, worn-out story ! Thou would'st think very differ
ently of women wert thou handsome and light-hearted as
we are, or didst thou only know our brides, who are as
fair as day and as true as gold."

From the ^^ Elementary Spirits!' 163
Upon this the three comrades began to retrace their
steps, whistling and singing merrily as they went, until
after long walking they came again within sight of the
castle in the rock. Then giving full vent to their joy
they began to sing the roguish roundelay : —
" Make open ! make open !
My darling, what dost thuu !
Sleep'st thou or wak'st thou?
Weep'st thou or laugh'st thou ? "
While the young fellows thus gleefully sang before the
castle door, three little windows above flew open and out
of each looked a hook-nosed and blear-eyed old woman.
These three old women nodded jauntily their grey heads
and opened their toothless jaws and screeched : " See,
there are our handsome bridegrooms returned ! Wait a
moment, dear bridegrooms, and we will open the door to
you and welcome you with kisses, and henceforth ye
shall enjoy the sweets of life in the arms of love ! "
The three comrades, terrified to death, did not even
wait till the door of the castle was opened and their
brides with outstretched arms prepared to receive them,
but took to their heels at once, and ran with such speed
that they reached the town of Lorch that same day.
As they sat together there in the tavern that evening
they had need to empty many a flagon of wine ere they
quite recovered from their terror. But the sword-smith,
with deep and solemn curses, declared that the owl was

164 JJ'il, J JVisdom, and Pathos.
of all the birds in the world the shrewdest, and was justly
regarded as the symbol of wisdom.
jFrom " ffidf fflitOm JttonartljD in tie jfar 1852."
It is true that quite lately many friends of
Prussia. the " Fatherland " wished the power of Prussia
extended, and they encouraged the hope of some day
seeing in the sovereigns of Prussia the rulers of a united
Germany. These men succeeded in awakening a spirit
of patriotism ; we have again had a sort of Prussian
Liberalism, and the friends of freedom were beginning to
look with confidence toward the lindens of Berlin. As
for myself, I have never had any desire to share this
confidence. On the contrary, I regard this Prussian
eagle with apprehension, and while others vaunt his
daring glances toward the sun, I look the more atten
tively at his claws. I could not trust this Prussia, this
tall pietistic hero in gaiters, this braggart with the
capacious maw, carrying a corporal's staff, which he first
dips in holy water before bringing it down on one's head.
I had great misgivings about this philosophic-Christian-
military despotism, this medley of beer, deceit, and sand.
Repulsive, deeply repulsive to me was ever this Prussia,
this pedantic, hypocritical, sanctimonious Prussia — this
Tartuffe among the nations.*
* This extract is taken from the preface to the German edition of The Citizen
Monarchy ^" BiirgerliSnigthum "j in the year lSj2. — Tr.

From " The Citizen Monarchy!' 165
Revoiuitons " They wiU not comc to-night, for it is
^fine weather.'" raining," Said Petion, as he opened the win
dow and calmly shut it again, while his friends the
Girondists were in momentary expectation of an outbreak
of the populace, incited by the party of the Mountain.
This anecdote is recorded in histories of the Revolution
to show the phlegmatic temperament of Potion. But
since I have had opportunity of studying with my own
eyes the nature of revolts of the Parisian populace, I
perceive how much these words have been misunder
stood. To be successful, riots need fine weather, plea
sant sunshine, a warm, agreeable day ; and that is why
they have always succeeded best in the months of June,
July, and August. They must on no account take place
in wet weather, for the Parisians fear nothing so much as
rain, which is sure to scare away the hundred thousand
men, women, and children, most of them dressed and in
high glee, who press to the scene of the conflict, and by
their numbers inspire courage in the breasts of the leaders.
Nor must they take place in dull weather when it is im
possible to read the big placards posted by order of the
Government at the street corners ; for the reading of
these serves to direct the crowds to certain points
where they have the greatest facility for assembling in
numbers, jostling one another, and creating a disturb
ance.

1 66 JJ'it, JVisdom, and Pathos.
Louis Philippe is a true Jesuit of the bourgeoisie — a
citizen Jesuit.
Theirs is an indifferentist of the intensest type — he is
the Goethe of Politics.
Chateaubriand is the Don Quixote of Legitimacy :
his sword is less sharp than brilliant, and he shoots with
precious pearls instead of with good piercing bullets of
lead. hicapaUerf ^ '''^^'^^ "ot gainsay the glittering illusion of
'^"RepuWK." the possibility of a French Republic. Royal
ist by inborn inclination, in France I have become more
royalist still from conviction. I am convinced that the
French cannot tolerate a Republic after the model of
that of Athens or of Sparta, and least of all after the
model of North America. The Athenians were the
studious youths of humanity ; the constitution of Athens
was a kind of academical freedom, and it would be
foohsh to seek to introduce such a constitution in our
adult epoch, for our aged Europe. And how could we
endure a constitution like that of Sparta, that factory of
grand but tiresome patriotism, that barrack of republi
can virtue, that sublime but detestable kitchen of equal
ity, where the black soup was so badly cooked that
Attic witlings maintained that it was no wonder the

From " The Citizen Monarchy!' 167
Lacedaemonians despised life and fought with such des
perate heroism in battle ! In truth, had Robespierre
merely introduced Spartan cookery into France, the
guillotine would have been superfluous ; for the aristo
crats would have died of horror to the last man, or speed
ily emigrated. Poor Robespierre 1 Thou soughtest to
introduce republican austerity into Paris — into a city
wherein 150,000 milliners, hair-dressers, and essence-
makers carry on their giddy, frizzing, scented trades. The
monotony of American life, its colourlessness, its narrow-
minded citizen notions, would be still more insupportable
in the home of curiosity, vanity, fashion, and novelty.
Lafayette and WHATEVER infatuated friends and hypo-
apo eon. gj.j|-jgg^j encmics may say, Lafayette is, next
to Robespierre, the purest character of the French
Revolution, and next to Napoleon, he is its most
popular hero. Napoleon and Lafayette are the two
names that now blossom fairest in France. Their
fame, no doubt, is of diverse kind : the one fought more
for peace than for conquest, the other fought for the
laurel rather than for the oaken wreath. It would cer
tainly be ridiculous did we seek to measure the greatness
of the two heroes by the same standard, and to place
the one on the pedestal of the other. It would be
absurd to set the statue of Lafayette on the Vendome
Column, that column cast out of cannon, the booty of so

1 68 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
many battlefields. On this bronze pillar place Napoleon,
the man of bronze, here, as in life, supported by his
cannon glory, in awful isolation towering to the clouds,
so that every ambitious soldier as he looks up at him —
him, the unattainable — may feel his heart humbled and
cured of its vain thirst for glory. In this way, the colossal
metal pillar serves as a lightning-conductor for conquest-
seeking heroism, and is of the greatest value for the
peace of Europe. Lafayette reared for himself a better
monument than that of the Vendome Place, and a better
statue than one of metal or of marble. Where could be
found marble pure as the heart, or metal strong as the
constancy of old Lafayette ? True, he was always a
man of bias, but it was the bias of the magnetic needle,
pointing ever to the north, and never to the south or
the east for the sake of change. For forty years
Lafayette has daily repeated the same thing, and con
stantly pointed to North America. It was he who inau
gurated the Revolution with the Declaration of the Rights
of Man. To this hour he has remained faithful to this
declaration, without which no political salvation is to be
expected — he, the invariable man, with his invariable
cardinal point of liberty. Verily, he is no genius as
Napoleon was, in whose brain the eagles of inspiration
built their eyries while in his bosom writhed the serpents
of calculation. But the eagles had no terror for Lafayette
and the serpents no power to seduce. As a youth he

From " The Citizen Monarchy!' 169
had the wisdom of age ; as an old man he preserved the-
fire of youth. A protector of the people against the
cunning of the great, a protector of the great against the
fury of the people, sympathising and combating, never
presumptuous and never despondent, harmoniously
strong and gentle — Lafayette remained always the same.
And thus, in his partiality and his invariability, he has
stood on the same spot, from the days of Marie Antoi
nette to this present hour : a faithful Eckhart of freedom,
he still stands ever leaning on his sword and in warning
attitude beside the entrance to the Tuileries, the en
chanted Mountain of Venus whence come magical, en
ticing strains, and out of whose seductive toils the poor
captive, once enthralled, can never free himself
It is certainly the case that the dead Napoleon is even
yet more loved by the French people than the living
Lafayette. Perhaps he is so just because he is dead,
which, as far as I am concerned, is what I like best about
Napoleon ; for were he still alive, I should have to aid
in his overthrow. The name "Napoleon" is for the
French a magical spell that electrifies and amazes them.
The voices of a thousand cannon sleep in that name, as
in the column of the Vendome Place, and the Tuileries
will tremble when one day the voices of these cannon
shall awake. As the Jews uttered not lightly the name
of their God, so here the name Napoleon is seldom
heard; he is always "the man" — I'hotnme. But his por-

170 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
trait is everywhere, in engraving and in plaster, in metal
and in wood, and in all situations. On every Boulevard
and at every street corner, are to be found orators who
praise him — " the man " — and ballad singers who chant
his deeds. On my way home last evening, as I was
passing through a little obscure street, I saw a child of
scarce three years standing beside a tallow candle fixed
in the ground, lisping a song in praise of the great Em
peror. As I was in the act of throwing a sou into the
outstretched handkerchief, I heard something glide close
up to me, which likewise begged for a sou. It was an
old soldier, who assuredly could also sing a lay about the
fame of the great Emperor, for this fame had cost him
both legs. The poor maimed fellow begged for a sou,
not in the name of God, but with the most confident
fervour he besought it for the sake of Napoleon : — "Au
nom de Napol'eon, doiiiiez-moi un sou I " His name serves
the people as the most powerful of adjurations. Napo
leon is their God, their worship, their religion — a religion
which, like every other, will become hackneyed at last.
Lafayette, on the other hand, is revered rather as a man,
or as a guardian angel. He also lives in pictures and in
songs, but less heroically; and, to speak frankly, the
effect upon me was rather ludicrous than otherwise, when
on the 28th of July last I heard the song, "Lafayette en
cheveux blancs," from the Parisienne, while I beheld the
man himself standing near me, wearing a brown wig.

From "The Citizen Monarchy." 171
This was on the Bastille Place. The man was on the
right spot, and yet I could not but inwardly smile. Per
haps such an admixture of the laughable brings him home
more closely to our human hearts. His bonhomie is ap
preciated even by children, and they understand his
grandeur better than do grown people. Of him too I
can relate a little beggar anecdote, which also serves to
distinguish the character of Lafayette's fame from that of
Napoleon. As I was standing the other day at a street
corner in view of the Pantheon, and, as usual with me
when contemplating this beautiful building, lost in medi
tation, a little Auvergnat begged of me a sou. To be
quickly rid of him, I gave him a ten-sou piece. But he
then approached with greater familiarity and inquired ;
" Do you know General Lafayette ? " "Est-ce que vous
connaissez le General Lafayette 1 " When I had replied
in the affirmative to this strange question, a look of proud,
satisfaction overspread the dirty, artless countenance of
the handsome boy, and with the queerest earnestness he
said: "He is of my country": — "LI est de mon pays."
The little Auvergnat thought no doubt that a person who
gave him ten sous must be also an admirer of Lafayette,
and he tjien considered me worthy to make the acquaint
ance of a countryman of the old General.

Westminster These fivc ycars past George Canning has
^^^''^' slept in Westminster by the side of Fox and

172 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Sheridan ; and over the mouth that spoke in such grand
and powerful strains, a spider has drawn, perhaps, its
foolish, silent web. George IV. now sleeps here also
in the ranks of his ancestors,* who lie stretched out in
stone effigies upon their tombs, their stone heads resting
on stone pillows, the globe and sceptre in their hands ;
and around them, each in his high sarcophagus, lies
England's aristocracy, the noble dukes and bishops, the
lords and barons, who in death, as in life, press close
about their king. The curious who wish to see the
tombs in Westminster may do so for the charge of
eighteenpence. A shabby-looking little verger, whose
occupation it is to exhibit the noble dead, receives the
money and rattles off their names and deeds as if he
were the showman of a waxwork. I am rather fond of
such exhibitions, for they serve to convince me that the
great ones of the earth are not immortal. I did not
grudge my eighteenpence, and as I was leaving the
Abbey I said to my conductor — " I am much pleased
with your exhibition, and would willingly have paid you
double the fee had the collection only been complete.""
Louis Louis Philippe still plays the part of citi-
iipp=- zgn-king, and continues to wear the ap-

* Heine is in error here. George IV. was not buried in Westminster, but at
Windsor. George II. was the last Sovereign interred in Westminster.— Tr.

From "The Citizen Monarchy." 173

propriate citizen costume ; but under his modest felt hat,
he wears, as every one knows, a crown of the ordinary
pattern, and in his umbrella he conceals a sceptre of the
most absolute type.
Great men— As the stars are the glory of the skv, so
the stars of o j jj
the earth, great men are the glory of their country, yea,
¦of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the
stars of earth ; and doubtless when one looks down from
above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth
a silvery light just like the stars of heaven. From such
an exalted standpoint, one might perhaps perceive how
many radiant stars are scattered over the face of our
earth, how many of them gladden the obscure desert
places with their unacknowledged and lonely lights, how
thickly strewn they are in the German Fatherland, how
brilliant, how radiant with them is France, the " Milky
Way " of great human hearts.
The earth's CuviER, by his dlscovcry of the remains of
^^' so many huge animals that no longer exist,
proved in the most ungallant fashion that our mother
Earth was many thousand years older than she had
hitherto represented herself to be.
Mr. Joseph •*¦ SHALL ncvcr forgct the appearance of one
"'"^' man whom I saw sitting on the left of the

174 ^^'^I'lf Wisdom, and Pathos.
Speaker in the English House of Commons, for no man
ever made such an unfavourable impression on me.
He has an under-sized, thick-set figure, with large angular
head, covered with unpleasant-looking, bristling, reddish
hair. His broad-cheeked, fiery-red face is common
looking, of ignoble regularity ; his eyes are unimpassioned,
mean-looking ; his nose is stumpy; there is a broad space
between nose and mouth, and the latter can scarce arti
culate three words without mentioning figures or at least
saying something about money. In the whole man there
is something niggardly, sordid, shabby : in short, he is a
true son of Scotland, this Mr. Joseph Hume. An en
graved portrait of him should be prefixed to all 'account
books. He has always been a member of the Opposition.
English Ministers are especially afraid of him when the
debate is upon a vote of money. Even when Canning
became Minister, Hume remained on the Opposition
benches ; and when the former had occasion in his
speeches to mention a sum, he would always ask Huskis-
son, who sat beside him, in an undertone, " How much ? "
When he had received the whispered reply, he would
repeat it aloud, looking at the same time in the direction
of Joseph Hume, almost with a smile. But when King
William broke his pledge, then Joseph Hume drew him
self up to the full height of his stature, and, heroically as
a god of freedom, spoke in language that sounded as
powerfully and as solemnly as the bell of St. Paul's ;

From "Lutetia." 175

and again his talk was of money, as he declared that
" the nation should refuse to pay taxes ; " and Parlia
ment assented to the proposition of the great citizen.
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish
only for the attainable.
The people once belonged to the kings : now the kings
belong to the people.

jFvom " a,utf tia : Hftttvs on pohtita, art, anS Sotial life in
jFrancf."
Louis Philippe, Louis PHILIPPE has learned in the school
Guizot, and
Thiers. 1840.* of the men of the Revolution those principles
of modern expediency, that political Jesuitism, in which
the Jacobins often surpassed the disciples of Loyola.
To the acquisition of such principles is added a large
fund of hereditary dissimulation, the tradition of his
ancestors the French kings, those eldest sons of the
Church, who, far more than other princes, have always
been rendered pliant by the anointing oil of Rheims ;
who have always possessed more of the nature of the fox
than of the lion, and who have invariably exhibited char
acters more or less sacerdotal. To this acquired and

* In the passages taken from "Lutetia'' where dates are of importance for
rightly understanding the context they are added to the marginal heading. — Tr.

176 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
inherited simulation and dissimulation, Louis Philippe
joins a natural disposition that renders it almost im
possible to penetrate to his secret thoughts through the
dense though well-meaning exterior, and the smiling
flesh, that envelops them. But even did we succeed in
obtaining a glimpse into the depths of the royal heart we
should not thereby gain much, for, after all, it is never
antipathy or sympathy toward such and such persons
that determines the actions of Louis Philippe : he only
yields to the force of circumstances — to necessity. He
puts aside with almost cruel impartiality every personal
incitation, he is stern toward himself, and if he is not
autocratic as regards others, he is at least absolute
master over himself It is therefore of little political
moment whether he is more or less attached to Guizot
than to Thiers. He will avail himself of the services of
the one or of the other according as the necessity arises,
but not sooner and not later. I really cannot, therefore,
say with certainty which of the two men is the more
agreeable or the more disagreeable to the King. I be
lieve they are both displeasing to him, and this from
jealousy of their functions as Statesmen ; for the
King is himself a minister, who sees in them his
constant rivals, and who fears that in the end they
may come to be regarded as possessing greater political
ability than himself It is said that Guizot suits him
better than Thiers, because the former is regarded with

From "Lutetia!' 177

a certain unpopularity that rather pleases the King. But
the puritanical manner, the' lurking pride, the mingled
tone of doctrinaire and pedagogue, the severe Calvinistic
exterior of Guizot can possess but little attraction for him.
In Thiers he encounters the very opposite qualities — an
unrestrained levity, a capricious yet frank temperament
that contrast almost insultingly with his own tortuous
and hermetically sealed character, and must be equally
little to his liking. Add to this that the King is fond
of talking ; so much so, that he willingly loses himsell
in an interminable prattle, which is very remarkable,
since natures prone to dissimulation are usually taciturn.
He must, therefore, experience a special dislike to
Guizot, who never discusses, but always discourses, and
who, after he has demonstrated his thesis, will listen
with severe attention to the reply of the King, and even
nod approval to his royal collocutor as if he had before
him a scholar who is repeating a lesson to his satisfaction.
The King fares even worse with Thiers, who, lost in the
flow of his own eloquence, never allows him an opportunity
for speaking. M. Thiers' language trickles forth continu
ously like wine from a cask of which the spigot has been
left out ; but the wine is always exquisite. When M.
Thiers speaks, no one else can put in a single word.
Only when he is in the act of shaving can any one hope
to find in him an attentive auditor ; only so long as the

178 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
razor is at his throat is he silent and ready to listen to
another's talk.
A Republic or To what extent the sympathy awakened
onarc y. ^^ Republicanism is perpetually repressed by
pecuniary interests, became very apparent to me during
a conversation which I had lately with a highly enlightened
banker, who said to me with the greatest ardour : — " Who
is there that denies the advantages of a Republican form
of government ? I myself am at times an out-and-out
Republican. For, look you, when I thrust my hand
into my right trousers pocket, where I carry my money,
the mere contact with the cold metal causes me to
shudder, I become anxious about my property, and
feel strongly Monarchical ; but if, on the contrary, I
thrust my hand into the left trousers pocket, which is
empty, all anxiety instantly disappears, I begin merrily
to whisde the ' Marseillaise,' and am ready to vote for the
Republic ! "
Fashionable ^iKE the Republicans, the Legitimists are
pie y, 1 40. ^ygjjy taking advantage of the present time
of peace for disseminating their principles, and especially
in the quiet soil of the provinces they are scattering broad
cast the seed from which they expect their salvation to
spring up. They anticipate the greatest results from a pro
pagandism for re-establishing the authority of the Church

From "Lutetia." 179

by means of establishments for instruction, and from the
subjugation of the intellect of the rural population. With
the restoration of the faith of their ancestors, the privi
leges of their ancestors are to be restored. Thus, we see
women of the highest birth making parade, as lady
patronesses of religion, of their devout sentiments, en
deavouring everywhere to win souls for heaven, and by
their elegant example attracting the whole fashionable
world to the churches. Indeed, the churches were never
better filled than during last Easter. Devotion, in elegant
costume, thronged especially to Saint Roche and Notre-
Dame de Lorf ette ; here, a grand display of saintly mag
nificent toilets, there, the pious dandy with white kid
gloves presenting the holy water to fair devotees, and
here again, the graces kneeling in prayer. Will this be
of long duration ? Will not this religiosity, after having
been the reigning mode, also speedily submit to a change
of fashion ? Is this flush on the cheeks of religion a sign
of health ? " God has many visitors to-day," said I to a
friend last Sunday, as I beheld the crowd thronging
toward the churches. "They are paying farewell visits,''
replied my incredulous friend.
Monsieur Thiers understands everything. It is a pity
he has not made a study of German philosophy ; this
also he would have been able to elucidate.

i8o JVif, JJ^isdom, and Pathos.

Voltaire's

The spiritual corrosion of Voltaire's criti-
influence. ^j^^ j^^^ excrciscd its dissolving influence in
the Synagogue of the Jews, as well as in the Church of
the Christians.
'^thlifaler'lf ^HE qucstion of the Jews of Damascus*
1840°" has served to place in a most miserable
light the ignorance of the President of the Council
[Thiers] with regard to Eastern affairs, a brilliant ignor
ance that may one day lead him to commit the gravest
mistakes, when it is not a question of a petty Syrian
massacre, but the great blood-stained question of the
world, the fatal and inevitable problem that we call the
" Eastern Question," which demands solution or the
preparation for its solution. M. Thiers' conclusions are
usually sound, but his premises are often false and
unsubstantial as air. With regard to Eastern affairs his
ideas are mere chimeras hatched under the burning sun
of the fanatical convents of Lebanon, or such like
refuges of superstition. It is the Ultramontane party
that furnishes his emissaries, and these report to him
marvellous things of the power of the Roman Catholic
Christians in the East, while in reality, a general rising
6f these miserable Latin Christians would not disturb
the slumber of a dog on a single Mussulman cemetery.
* The Jews of Damascus were accused by a too credulous French Consul of a
massacre of Christians, and of having drunk the blood of their victims, and
torture was inflicted to obtain a confession of the crime.— Tr.

From "Lutetia."

They are as powerless as they are despised. M. Thiers
probably imagines that France, the traditionary guardian
of these Latins, may one day acquire through them
supremacy in the East. But on this matter the English
are much better informed : they know that this pitiable
rear-guard of the Middle Ages has lagged several centuries
behind in the progress of civilization ; that these Latins
have sunk even lower than their masters, the Turks ;
and that on the fall of the Ottoman Empire, or even be
fore that event, it will much rather be the followers of
the Greek symbol who will determine the issue. The
head of the Greek Christians is not that miserable fellow
who bears the title " Patriarch of Constantinople,''
and whose predecessor was so ignominiously hanged be
tween two dogs : — no ! their head is the all-powerful Czar
of Russia, Emperor and Pope over all the adherents
of the only holy orthodox Greek faith : he is their
mailed Messias who shall deliver them from the yoke of
the infidels — their cannon-thunder God who shall one day
plant their triumphal banner on the tower of the Great
Mosque of Byzance. Yes ! this is their political, as it is
their religious, faith. Their dream is of a Russian-Greek
Orthodox Universal Empire that shall stretch forth its
arms from the Bosphorus over Europe, Asia, and
Africa. And what is most terrible about the matter is,
that their dream is no soap bubble to be dissipated by a
breath of air; there lurks within it a possibility that

Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.

stares at us with a petrifying glare like the head of
Medusa. The words of Napoleon at St. Helena, that
in the early future the world would belong either to the
Republicans or to the Cossacks, form a most discourag
ing prophecy. What a prospect ! to be doomed in the
most favourable event to die of the monotony of an
American Republic ! Alas for our poor descendants !
The First The Napolcouic Empire was a neutral ter-
'^'^"^' ritory for men of the most heterogeneous
opinions ; it was a convenient bridge for those who by
its means saved themselves from the torrent of the Revo
lution, and who during twenty years ran hither and thither
upon it, undecided whether to settle on the right or the
left bank of the tendencies of the time. The Napoleonic
Empire was little more than an adventurous interregnum
void of intellectual notabilities, and all its ideal glory is
summed up in a single man, who, after all, was himself
nothing but a brilliant event, whose significance is
even yet half shrouded in mystery. This material
interregnum accorded well with the necessities of
the time. How easy it was for French sansculottists
to don the gaily braided breeches of the Empire !
With what facility did they afterwards hang up their
plummed hats and gilt laced coats of fame upon a nail,
to snatch up again the old red caps and the " Rights of
Man ! " And the half-famished emigrants, the proud no-

From "Lutetia." 183

bles of the royalist party, had no need to renounce their
inborn courtly manners in exchanging the service of
Louis XVI. for that of Napoleon I. ; or again, after
turning their backs upon the latter, in doing homage to
the legitimate sovereign, Louis XVIII.
"^"^^Th^^^and "Have you read the Book of Baruch?"
"r84of '^' With this question on his lips ran La Fontaine
one day through the streets of Paris, stopping each of
his acquaintances to inform him of the great news
that the Book of Baruch was exceedingly fine — indeed,
one of the best things that had ever been written. People
stared at him in amazement and laughed, probably much
in the same fashion as I fancy I can see you laugh on
receiving by to-day's post the important announcement
which I now make, that the Thousand and One
Nights is one of the best of books, and especially use
ful and instructive at the present time. For from this
book one comes to know the East better than from all
the descriptions of Lamartine, Poujoulat and Company ;
and though this knowledge may not be sufficient to en
able one to solve the Eastern Question, it serves, at
least, to gladden us a little in the midst of our Western
misery ! One feels in such a happy mood as he reads
this book ! Its mere framing is more precious, than the
best pictures of the Occident.

184 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Louis Blanc's Louis Blanc is of a sobcr temperament ;
doctrine of ...
equality, he sccms to deny all enjoyment to his own
litde body, and therefore wishes to introduce into the
State a general equality pf cookery by which the same
Spartan black soup will be prepared for us all. What is
still more dreadful, he would have the giant receive the
same small portion that the dwarf enjoys. No ! I thank
thee, oh modern Lycurgus ! It is true, we are all bro
thers, but I am the big brother and you are the little
brother, and it is but proper that I should have the
larger share.*
Louis Philip e ^ WELL remember that immediately after
on ex 1 1 ion. ^^ arrival in Paris I hastened to the Palais
Royal, in order to see Louis Philippe. A friend who
accompanied me informed me that the king now appeared
on the terrace only at certain hours, but that formerly,
and until a few weeks previously, one could see him at any
time for the sum of five francs. " For five francs ? " I ex
claimed in astonishment. " Does he exhibit himself for
money ? " " No ; but he is exhibited for money, and in this
way : there is a society of claqueurs, sellers of theatre
tickets and other rascals of that sort, who offer to show
the king to any stranger for the sum of five francs ; for
* In the French edition the following is substituted for this last sentence : — "It
is true that men are born equal, but their organs of digestion are not equal, and
there are some that have aristocratic nerves of taste, and prefer truflJes to the
most virtuous potatoes." — Tr.

From "Lutetia." 185

ten francs, one may see him raising his eyes to heaven
and laying his hand on his heart with protestations of
sincerity ; while for twenty francs one may hear him sing
the ' Marseillaise.' Now, should any one give these
fellows five francs, they set up shouts of ' Long live the
King ' beneath the windows of the royal apartments,
whereupon His Majesty appears upon the terrace, bows,
and retires again. But should you give the scoundrels
ten francs, they shout much louder and conduct them
selves as if possessed, whereupon the king appears as
before, and in token of his deep emotion raises his eyes
toward heaven and lays his hand protestingly upon his
heart. Englishmen, however, often go the length of
twenty francs, upon which the enthusiasm rises to the
highest pitch ; and the moment that the king steps forth
upon the terrace, the fellows begin to sing the ' Marseil
laise ' and bellow so unmercifully that Louis Philippe,
probably to put an end to the concert, bows, raises his
eyes to heaven, lays his hand upon his heart, and joins in
singing the ' Marseillaise.' " Whether he also beats time
with his foot, as ¦ is asserted, I cannot say. Nor can I
altogether guarantee the truth of this anecdote. The
friend that related it to me has been dead seven years ;
for seven years, therefore, he has told no untruths.
.. , Between England and the wrath of the
The position of °
Germany, pj-g^ch ligg the sca ; bctwcen France and

1 86 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Russia lies Germany : and we poor Germans, through
the accident of situation, are obliged to fight for things
that do not concern us — for nothing at all, even for the
Emperor's beard. Ah ! were it even only for the beard
of an Emperor !
The Eastern The Russiaus givc themsclves but little
concern whether England swallows up the
whole of India by degrees, or even whether she becomes
mistress of China itself The day will come when Eng
land will be compelled to resign her booty to the Rus
sians, who are fortifying themselves in the Crimea, have
made themselves masters of the Black Sea, and never
lose sight of their ultimate goal — the possession of the
Bosphorus and of Constantinople. The covetous glances
of the Muscovites are directed toward ancient Byzance.
The capture of this city is for them not only a political,
but also a religious, mission. On the banks of the
Bosphorus shall their Emperor bring all the nations of
the earth under subjection to his sceptre of thongs — that
sceptre suppler and stronger than steel, which is called
the knout. Can it be possible that Constantinople is of
such paramount importance, and that the possession of
this city may decide the fate of the world ? A friend
said to me the other day : — "In Rome are kept the keys
of the kingdom of heaven, but in Constantinople are the
keys of the kingdom of earth : whoever obtains posses-

From "Lutetia." 187

sion of it will be master of the whole world."* Alas !
how terrible is this Eastern Question ! It rises before us,
at the least commotion, like a mocking spectre ! If we
try to anticipate and to obviate the dangers that threaten
us, we find ourselves involved in war ; if, on the other
hand, we are content to sit patiently watching the pro
gress of the evil, the certain result is slavery. It is a
fearful dilemma. Pursue what course she may, this
poor maiden Europa — whether with wisdom she remains
ever watching by her lamp, or like a foolish virgin falls
asleep and lets it go out, for her there is" no day of joy.
Napoleon— The Empcror is dead and buried. Let
the last of the
old heroes, ug pralsc him and sing of his deeds, but let
us, at the same time, thank God that he is dead. In
him died the last hero after the old fashion, and modern
Philistinism breathes freely as if released from a brilliant
nightmare. Over his tomb springs up the era of Indus
trialism — an era that admires quite other heroes, as, for
example, the virtuous Lafayette or James Watt.

French

The French attack every problem in its
characteristics. gggg^|.j^j point, and do not let it rest until
they have either solved it or set it aside as insolvable.
* The first portion of this extract is taken from the French version, and was
probably written shortly before the outbreak of the Crimean War. It does not
appear in the German version. The remainder of the extract is given in both
French and German texts, and is to be found in a letter dated 31st January,
1841.— Tr.

JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Such is the character of French intellect, and thus it
comes that their history develops itself like a judicial
process. What a systematic, logical sequence runs
through all the events of the French Revolution
There was really a method in their revolutionary mad
ness ; and historians of the school of Mignet, who
attribute but little importance to chance and human
passions, represent even the most frantic outbursts that
have taken place since 1789 as the result of absolute
necessity. This so-called fatalistic school is on its appro
priate soil in France, and its books are as truthful as they
are easily intelligible. Were the views and methods of
thought common .to the writers of this school adopted
with reference to Germany, the result would be the pro
duction of very erroneous and useless historical works.
For the Germans, in their dread of every species of inno
vation the consequences of- which cannot be distinctly
foreseen, either avoid as long as possible the discussion
of every important political question, or endeavour to
effect a temporary adjustment of such questions until
they accumulate and complicate themselves into such a
tangled coil that, like the Gordian knot, they can be
finally loosed only by the sword. Heaven forbid that I
should seek to make this a reproach against the great
German people, for do I not know that this perplexity
of affairs springs from a virtue in which the French are
deficient? The more ignorant a nation is, the more

From "Lutetia.''' 189

rashly does it plunge into the stream of action : the more
learned and reflective a people is, the longer does it con
tinue to sound the depths and shoals which it fords
with prudent steps, or even remains trembling on the
bank because unable to fathom the fiood, or because
terrified at the prospect of a national cold in the head from
the effects of a wetting. In the end it matters little that
our progress is slow, or that we lose a few short centuries
by standing still, for the future belongs to the German
race — a long and mighty future. The French act with
such rapidity, and seize the present opportunity with such
haste, perhaps because they have a presentiment that for
them the twilight has begun to fall : they finish in haste
their day's labour. But the part they play is still a
beautiful one, and the other nations form the worshipful
public that witnesses as a spectator the French political
and social comedy. This public is occasionally seized
with a desire to express somewhat loudly its approval or
its disapproval, or even to mount the stage and take part
in the piece. But the French always continue to be the
principal actors in the great world drama, whether they
are saluted with laurel wreaths or with rotten apples.
No ! France has not yet done with her drama, but, like
all nations, like humanity itself, she is not eternal ; she
has already, perhaps, passed the zenith of her splendour,
and a change has come over her to which we cannot be
blind. Wrinkles are beginning to appear on her smooth

19° JJ^il, JJ'7sdom, and Pathos.
forehead, grey hairs are to be seen on that head once so
full of frivolity, which now droops in careworn fashion ;
for she is no longer occupied exclusively with the things
of to day — she is concerned about the morrow.
^""^ Sf'thT'™ '^'^^ so-called question of the Dardanelles
^^tA^I. ^^' is of the highest importance, not only for the
great European powers, but for us all, for the least as
well as for the greatest, for Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz as well as
for all-powerful Austria, for the humblest cobbler as
well as for the richest currier ; for the fate of the
world itself depends upon it, and this question must be
settled in one way or another on the shores of the Dar
danelles. So long as it remains unsolved, Europe will
continue to suffer from a secret disease, which will leave
her no rest, and which will terminate in a catastrophe
the more terrible the longer it is delayed. The ques
tion of the Dardanelles is only one symptom of the
whole Eastern Quesdon, of the question of the Turkish
inheritance, the deep-seated disease with which we are
smitten, the poisonous matter which is festering in the
body politic of Europe, and which unfortunately can be
extirpated only by the surgery of the sword. '.Even when
they are discussing quite other subjects, all the great rulers
of Europe are casting anxious glances toward the Sublime
Porte, toward the old Byzance, Stamboul, Constanti
nople — for the plague-spot has many names. Had the

From "Lutetia!' 191

principle of the sovereignty of the people already received
the sanction of public law in Europe, the breaking up of
the Ottoman Empire would be less dangerous for the
rest of the world, since, in that case, the individual races
of the dissolved empire would speedily themselves elect
their particular rulers, and continue to let themselves be
governed as well as might be. But throughout the greater
part of Europe the doctrine of Absolutism still prevails ;
people and country are regarded as the property of the
prince, and this property can be acquired only by the law
of the strongest, by the ultima ratio regis— -the law of the
cannon. What wonder then that none of the high
potentates of Europe is willing to permit the great inherit
ance to be absorbed by Russia, and that each is eager
to have his share of the Oriental cake ! The appetite of
each will be whetted as he beholds the barbarians of the
North gorging themselves, and the pettiest duodecimo
German prince will at least put in a claim for beer-
money. Such are the motives of human nature that
necessarily render the fall of Turkey pernicious for the
world at large. As for the political considerations that
render it impossible for England, France, and Austria in
particular, to allow Russia to establish herself at Con
stantinople, they are apparent to every schoolboy.
M. DE Rothschild is in reahty the best
Rothschild. political thermometer. I might say that in

192 JVit, JJ^isdom, and Pathos.
this respect he possesses, as a prophet of good or bad
weather, a talent as natural and as infallible as that of the
frog ; but such a comparison might be regarded as want
ing in respect. And assuredly one cannot help feeling
respect for this man, were it only on accourit of the
respect that he inspires in the minds of the majority of
his fellow-men. I like best to visit him in the offices of
his bank, where, as a philosopher, I have an opportunity
of observing how people — and not the people of God
only, but all other people — bow and beck before him.
Such a bending and twisting of the spinal column as
the cleverest acrobats could hardly surpass ! I have seen
people, who, when they approached the great Baron,
quivered as if experiencing a shock from a voltaic bat
tery. Even before the threshold of his private room
many are seized with a shudder of veneration, such as
Moses felt on the Mount of Horeb when he perceived
that he was standing upon holy ground. M. de Roths
child's private room is indeed a wonderful place ; it
awakens elevated thoughts and sublime feelings, like the
prospect of the wide expanse of ocean, or of the starry
sky, or of great mountains or vast forests : we see here
how little is man, and how great is God ! For money is
the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.
'^''coTumn^"' Does the Vendome Column stand quite
December, 1 -. t -,¦,¦%
1841. securely ? I cannot tell ; but it stands

From "Lutetia." 1^3

on the right spot, in harmony with its surroundings.
It has a firm foundation in the national soil, and
whatever attaches itself to that, has a strong support.
But, a perfectly secure one ? No, for here in France no
thing is quite secure. Once already did the storm over
throw from the top of the Vendome Column its capital 
the iron man that crowns the pillar, and should the Com
munists succeed to power, the same thing may happen yet
again. Nay, it is even possible that the radical fury of
equality may overthrow the Column itself, in order that
this memorial and symbol of military glory should be
razed from the face of the earth.* No man, and no
work of man, shall be permitted to tower above a certain
communistic standard, and architecture, as well as epic
poetry, is threatened with destruction. "Wherefore a
monument to ambftious murderers of nations?" — thus
did I hear some one exclaim on the occasion of the
exhibition of models for the mausoleum of the Emperor.
"Why take the money of the famishing people, since we
shall certainly destroy even this when" the time comes ? "
Yea, the dead hero should have remained at St. Helena,
and I would not guarantee that his tomb may not one
day be broken to fragments, and his ashes cast into the
fair river on whose bank he desired to repose so senti
mentally — the Seine !
* What a striking fulfilment of this prophecy took place on the i6th of May
1871, during the shortlived supremacy of the Communists !— Tr,
N

194 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
The future ^HE FUTURE smclls strongly of Russia
of humanity, jg^j^er and of blood, of godlessness, and of a
vast deal of flogging. I recommend our descendants to
come into the world with very thick skins upon their
backs. Heine's opinion The English in general, thorough-bred
of
Englishmen. Englishmen — (may God forgive me the sin !)
— I detest with my whole soul, and sometimes I cannot
even consider them as my fellow men, but look upon
them as tiresome automata, as machines whose internal
main-spring is egotism. It then seems to me as if I
could hear the sound of the mechanism by which they
think, feel, calculate, digest, and pray. Their prayers,
their mechanical Anglican devotion, their church-going
with gilded prayer-book under their arms, their absurd
and wearisome Sunday observances, their awkward piety
is especially repugnant to me. I am firmly persuaded
that a blaspheming Frenchman is a more agreeable spec
tacle in the sight of God, than a praying Englishman ! *

* This is one of Heine's bitterest attacks on the English character. His only
visit to this country was of too short a duration to enable him to overcome pre
judices, that are to this day very strong on the Continent, particularly in
France. In his later years, after he had formed the intimate acquaintance of
refined English men and women, he often expressed regret that his judgments of
the English had been so severe and unjust. The passage would have been
omitted from tliis volume — like others of a similar nature — were it not that it is
often quoted, and frequently misquoted against us as a nation, and it is well in
such a case to know the precise language made use of by Heine. — Tr.

From "Lutetia!' 195

Chartists In Chartism we see revealed the hypocrisy
and
Communists, and the practical sense of the English as con
trasted with the French. The Chartists conceal their
terrorism under legal forms, whereas the Communists
declare it frankly and openly. But the latter modestly
hesitate to give its real name to the ultimate conse
quences of their principle, and one finds in discussing
with their leaders that they repudiate all intention of
seeking to abolish property, and maintain, on the con
trary, that their desire is to establish property on a
broader basis — to bestow upon it a more comprehensive
organisation. But I fear that through the zeal of such
organisers property will shrink so much that at last
nothing will be left but the " broad basis." " I wiU con
fess the truth to you," said a Communistic friend to me
lately ; " property will in no wise be abolished, but it
will receive a new definition.''
New Year "'¦ ^'^ Writing thesc lines during the last
'""''^'' hours of the wicked dying year [1842]. The
New Year is standing at the door. May it be less cruel
than its predecessor ! I send my most sorrowful good
wishes for the New Year across the Rhine. I wish for
the foolish a little wisdom, and for the wise a little
leaven of poesy. For the women I wish the prettiest of
dresses, and for the men much patience. For the rich I
wish a heart to feel, and for the poor a morsel of bread.

196 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
But above all, I wish that in this New Year we may
speak as little evil of one another as possible.
The great " How are you ? " inquired a German poet
came question. ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ Baron Rothschild. " I have
lost my reason," replied the latter. " I will not believe
it," said the poet, " until I have seen you throwing your
money out of the window.'' But the baron interrupted
him with a sigh ; — " Alas ! it is precisely the nature of
my madness, that I do not sometimes throw my money
out of the window.'' How miserable are the rich in this
life ; and after death they may not enter heaven. " It is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
This saying of the divine Communist is a terrible ana
thema, and testifies to his bitter hatred against the
bourse and haute finance of Jerusalem. The world
swarms with philanthropists, there are societies for the
prevention of cruelty to animals, and very much is done
to alleviate the miseries of the poor ; but for the rich,
who are even more to be pitied, nothing is done. In
stead of prizes for essays on the culture of the silk-worm,
stall-feeding and the philosophy of Kant, our learned
societies should announce a prize of considerable value
for the solution of the problem — How to get a camel
through the eye of a needle? Until this great camel
question is settled and the rich obtain some prospect of

From "Lutetia." 197

entering the kingdom of heaven, no effectual remedy for
the poor can be devised. The rich would become less
stony-hearted if they had a better hope than that of mere
earthly happiness, and were not so much tempted to
envy the poor who can look forward to an eternal life in
floribus. The rich say — " How can we be expected to
do anything for the beggarly rabble on earth, since they
will one day be better off than we are, and since there is
certainly no chance of our meeting them after death ? "
The poor say — " Did the rich know that up above they
should be our fellow house-mates through eternity, they
would surely give themselves some concern about us
here below, and would take heed not to ill-treat us too
much." Before all things, therefore, let us solve the
great camel question !
T-u ..rj- v. I REMEMBER that whcu I visitcd the old
1 he Rights
of Man. Lafayette, about twelve years ago, and was
in the act of taking leave, he pressed into my hand a
paper, and as he did so he had all the confident air of a
miracle doctor handing me the elixir of life. It was the
well-known " Declaration of the Rights of Man," which
the old General had brought with him from America
sixty years before, and which he still continued to
regard as the panacea destined to effect a radical cure
for the whole world. But no ! the sick man is not made
well by a mere prescription, however indispensable to

ig8 JJ'^it, JVisdom, and Pathos.
the cure that may be ; he needs the apothecary's skill in
preparing the mixture and the nurse's zealous care ; he
needs rest and time.
„„ ,. , When I think of the so-called French
Here lies a
erman poet. ]yj.jgg^| poetry, then do I begin fully to re
cognise the splendour of German poetry, and I can then
pride myself a little in having won my laurels within its
domain. We German poets need yield no single leaf
from our wreaths ; and the stone-mason who has to
decorate our last resting place with an inscription, will
find none to gainsay him when he inscribes thereon the
words : " Here lies a German Poet."
Only through some manifestation of passion can men
earn fame on earth. A single action, a single word, is
sufficient ; but the action and the word must bear the
impress of passion. Even accidental contact with great
passionate events confers immortal renown.
Rome and Had it been my lot to live as a simple
ristianity. j^Qjjjg^j^ citizcn in the time of Nero, and to
have been correspondent for the Post of Boeotia or for
the unofficial Chronicle of Abdera, my colleagues would
doubtless have had frequent occasion for witty comment
on the facts, that I could furnish no information about the
State intrigues of the Queen mother, that I was always
silent about the brilliant banquets at which the Jewish

From "Lutetia." 199

King Agrippa entertained the diplomatic corps of Rome
every Saturday ; and that, on the contrary, I was continu
ally talking about certain Galileans, an obscure handful
of people, consisting mostly of slaves and of old women
whose witless lives were passed under persecution and in
foolish visions, and who were disavowed even by the Jews.
My well-informed colleagues would certainly have in
dulged in much ironical laughter if, in referring by chance
to the Court entertainment of Caesar, at which his august
Majesty himself played the fiddle, I had nothing more
important to relate than that certain of these Galileans,
after being covered with pitch, were set on fire in order to
illumine the gardens of the Golden Palace. It was, howr
ever, a very significant illumination, and it was an awful,
a truly Roman piece of wit, to utilise the so-called
obscurantists as lights at these antique scenes of festival.
But the witticism is turned to shame. These human
torches scattered sparks of fire, whereby the Roman
world, with all its rotten grandeur, was consumed in
flame. The number of that obscure handful of people
became legion ; and in the conflict with them the legions
of Csesar were compelled to lay down their arms, and the
whole empire, the sovereignty by land and by sea, now
belongs to the Galileans.
Tartufe — the pious man, canonised by Moliere.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Poverty of the PiERRE Leroux is poor, as wcrc also Saint
great
Socialists. Simon and Fourier, and the providential
poverty of these great Socialists has enriched the earth —
enriched it with treasures of thought, opening up for us
new worlds of pleasure and of happiness. The wretched
poverty of the last years of Saint Simon's life, is univer
sally known. While he was occupied with his great
patient, suffering humanity, devising alleviations for its
eighteen century-old malady, he himself at times fell
sick of sheer misery, and only prolonged his life by
begging. Fourier too was obliged to have recourse to the
charity of friends, and many a time have I seen him in his
thread-bare grey coat stalking hastily along by the columns
of the Palais Royal, with both pockets heavily laden ;
from the one projecting the neck of a bottle, from the
other a big loaf of bread. A friend, who first pointed
him out to me, drew my attention to the indigence of
this man which obliged him to fetch his wine himself
from the wine merchant, and his bread from the baker.
" How comes it," said I, " that such men, such benefactors
of the human race, famish in France?" "In truth,"
replied my friend with a sarcastic smile, " it does little
credit to the much vaunted land of intelligence, and such
a thing would certainly not happen with us in Germany ;
for our Government would lose no time in taking people
holding such principles under its special protection,
and would provide for their board and lodging during

From " Lutetia."

the remainder of their lives, in the fortress of Spandau,
or in that of Spielberg.''
The first king A POET has Said that " the first king was a
and the
first banker, fortunate soldicr."* With regard to the
founders of modern financial dynasties, we may per
haps assert more prosaically, that the first banker was a
fortunate scoundrel.
o?Chi™^andt™e ^^ China the very coachmen are polite.
^ 'Eurape."^^ ° When in a narrow street their coaches come
into collision, and shafts and wheels get entangled, they
do not fall to abusing and cursing one another as our
cabmen do. Instead of this they descend quietly from
their places on the box, bob and bow to each other,
exchange various compliments, and then set themselves
mutually to extricate their vehicles ; after everything is
put to rights, they again bob and bow, bid each other
adieu, and go on their way. Not our cabmen merely,
but also our men of learning might take a lesson from
this. When these gentlemen come into collision with
one another they do not indulge in much compliment,
nor do they make the slightest attempt to understand

* " Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat hereux.''
K<7fta;r«.— Merope, Act I., Sc. III.
"What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs
back to a successful soldier?" i'lToW.— Woodstock, Vol. II., chap. 37.— Tr.

JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.

one another, but curse and swear just like the cabmen of
Europe. And this miserable exhibition is most fre
quently presented by theologians and philosophers,
although to the former are especially commanded the
doctrines of humility and forbearance ; while the first
lessons that ought to be learned by the latter, in the
school of reason, are patience and moderation.
I have certainly no special favour for the
Ritualism. Ultramontanes, but I must candidly confess
that, in spite of their gloomy and relentless fanaticism,
they are less hateful to me than those tolerant am
phibians of faith and science, those ritualistic believers*
whose delight it is to have their drowsy souls tickled by
ecclesiastical music and pictures of saints ; or, than those
dilettanti of religion who talk so sentimentally about the
Church, without shewing any desire to conform rigidly
to its dogmas, who merely flirt with the sacred symbols,
but shrink from any serious communion with them, and
whom the French call Catholiques marrons (" Catholic
interlopers.") These last are at present crowding the
fashionable churches, such as the Madeleine and Notre
Dame de Lorette — those holy boudoirs furnished in the
daintiest rococo style, where the censers give forth the
perfume of lavender, where the confessionals are luxuri-

* The word in the original is Kunsfgtaubigen, or " artistic believers ; " but the
word and the thing called Ritualism are precisely what Heine had in view  Tr.

From " Art Notes from Paris!' 203
ously upholstered, where everything is pervaded by rose-
coloured light and languishing music, everywhere flowers
and wanton angels, a coquettish devotion fanning itself
with Boucher and Watteau fans — a Pompadour Christi
anity. „, .... When the son of ^sculapius has ex-
The physician s ^
last resort, j^^^gjg^j j^jg gjjjn ^pon his patient, he sends
him to a Spa with a long prescription of treatment,
which is nothing else than an open letter of introduction
to chance !

jfrom " art Notes from ^arts : JTrentl) ^atnt£rs."
Ary Scheffer's enemies insinuate that he
Ary Scheffer. , . , rr -y
paints with nothing but snuff and green soap.
I cannot say how far this opinion is unjust. His brown
shades are often very affected, and miss the Rembrandt-
esque light effects which he intends to produce. His
faces have nearly all that unfortunate hue which our own
countenances have so often presented when, sleepy and out
of humour, we have looked at ourselves in the green
mirror invariably to be found in old hostelries, where the
mail coach stops in the morning. But if we examine
Scheffer's pictures more attentively and more leisurely
we become accustomed to this peculiarity, we find the

204 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
ensemble of his work to be full of poetry, and we observe
a warmth of sentiment struggling through the sombre
colouring, like the sun's rays through clouds of mist.
Robespierre's external appearance was
Robespierre. always trim and polished like the blade of
the guillotine ; inwardly, too, his heart was disinterested,
incorruptible, and consistent as the blade of the guillo
tine. This inexorable severity was not insensibility, but
virtue — the virtue of Junius Brutus, whom our heart con
demns, but whom our reason admires with a feeling of
horror. Robespierre had even a special fondness for
Camille Desmoulins, his school companion, whom he
caused to be executed when this Fanfaron de la liber tt
took to preaching an unseasonable moderation, and began
to develop weaknesses dangerous to the State. While
Camille's blood was flowing on the Place de Greve, the
tears of Maximilian may also have flowed in his lonely
chamber. This is no mere hackneyed figure of speech.
I was told lately by a friend that Bourdon de I'Oise re
lated to him that one day on entering the room where
the Committee of Public Safety held its sittings, he found
Robespierre quite alone, lost in reflection, in front of his
writing table, and weeping bitterly.*
* Heine's Notes on Art are scarcely in keeping with their title. They are
interspersed with vignettes of the characters of the persons, and reflections sug
gested by the scenes, represented in the works of the artist he is criticising. These
incidental passages are often of greater value than his art criticisms.— Tr.

From "Art Notes from Paris." 205

The Goddess of " ^^^^ ' " exckimed a litde Carlist giri, [as
' ^^''' father and child were standing before Dela
croix's picture. The Revolution of July, \ " Papa ! who is
the dirty woman with the red cap ? " " Well, really,"
replied the noble papa, with a softly derisive smile,
"really, my dear child, she has nothing to do with the
purity of the lilies : she is the Goddess of Liberty."
"But, papa, she does not wear even a chemise !" "A
true Goddess of Liberty, my dear child, seldom possesses
a chemise, and is on that account very bitter against all
who wear clean linen.
The function of Reason excrciscs merely the function of
reason in art
and in life, preserving order — is, so to say, the police in
the region of art. In life, it is mostly a cold arithmetician
summing up our folKes. Alas ! it is too often the ac
countant in bankruptcy of the broken heart calmly
reckoning the deficit.
Deiaroche's Delaroche's picture represents a scene
Cromwett 7e- s: i:
iTiUnlchlrUs. from that awful tragedy which has also been
translated into French ; which has cost so many tears
on this as well as on the other side of the channel ;
and which has likewise deeply moved German spectators.
In the picture we see both heroes of the piece, the one
as a corpse in his coffin, the other in the vigour of life
in the act of raising the pall in order to gaze on his dead

2o6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
enemy. Or have we perhaps before us not the heroes
themselves, but merely tragedians playing the part ap
pointed for them by the Director of the Universe, and
representing, it may be unconsciously to themselves,
two hostile principles? The dead wear on their counten
ances an aspect that makes the living, when they appear
beside them, seem of less significance ; for the dead have
always an air of cold and passionless distinction. Men
cannot but feel this, and out of respect for the higher
rank of the dead the guard is called out to present arms
when a corpse is being borne past, be it only the corpse
of the meanest cobbler. We can readily understand,
therefore, how unfavourable is the position of Cromwell
in any comparison with the dead king. For, the latter, glo
rified by his recent martyrdom, sanctified by the majesty
of misfortune, his neck encircled by the purple stain of
his precious blood, the kiss of Melpomene on his lips,
forms an overwhelming contrast to the grossly robust
figure of the living Puritan. The, costume, too, of Crom
well, contrasts strikingly with the last signs of splendour
that surround fallen majesty, the rich silken cushions
in the coffin, the elegance of the dazzlingly white shroud
with its ornamentation of Brabant lace. What a mighty
world-agony has the artist here pourtrayed by a few
touches of his brush ! There lies miserably bleeding all
the splendour of that royalty, once the consolation and
the ornament of humanity. The life of England has since

From "Art Notes from Paris." 207
that day become pale and sad, and affrighted poesy fled
from the land which she was formerly wont to adorn
with her gayest colours. How deeply did I feel this as
once at midnight I passed the fatal window of White
hall, and felt the humid chilly prose of England's modern
life freezing my veins ! How came it that my soul did
not experience the like feelings as I crossed but lately,
and for the first time, that terrible square on which Louis
XVI. was put to death ? I fancy it must have been be
cause the latter when he died was no longer a king, be
cause ere his head fell he had already lost his crown.
But King Charles lost his crown only with his head. He
believed in this crown, and in the absolute right for
which he fought as a brave and handsome cavalier. He
died in the pride of nobility, protesting against the lega
lity of the tribunal that condemned him — a true martyr
of royalty by the grace of God. The poor Bourbon had
not this glory : his head had before his death been de
crowned by a Jacobin cap ; he had ceased to believe in
himself, he believed firmly in the competency of his
judges ; he could but protest his innocence. He was, it
is true, a man of citizen virtue, a good and rather portly
father of a family. His death has a sentimental rather
than a tragic character. He reminds one too strongly of
August Lafontaine's family romances.* — A tear for Louis
Capet, a laurel for Charles Stuart.
* August Lafontaine, a German novelist, wrote more than one hundred and
thirty volumes of maudlin fiction, which enjoyed considerable popularity in the
beginning of the present century. — Tr.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Cromwell and '^° instltutc a parallel between Cromwell
Napoleon. ^^^ Napolcou would be unjust to both : for
Napoleon remained free from the highest of crimes :
(the execution of the Duke d' Enghien was only an
assassination). Cromwell, on the other hand, never
sank so low as to let himself be anointed Emperor by a
priest, nor as a recreant son of the Revolution did he
gallant with the crowned relatives of the Csesars. In
the life of the one there is a stain of blood, in the
life of the other a stain of oil. Yet each felt deeply
his secret guilt. Buonaparte, who might have become
the Washington of Europe, and only became its Napo
leon, never felt at ease in his imperial mantle of purple ;
the spectre of freedom haunted him like the ghost of a
murdered mother ; her voice was always ringing in his
ears ; at night she drove him in terror from his couch
and from the embraces of the espoused legitimacy : then
might he be seen stalking through the empty, re-sounding
chambers of the Tuileries, raging and storming, and
when in the morning, pale and exhausted, he took his
place in the Council of State, he would complain of
ideology, and always of ideology, and of most dangerous
ideology, and Corvisart would shake his head. When
Cromwell, likewise unable to sleep peaceably, strode
anxiously through the rooms of Whitehall, Jt was not, as
devout cavaliers supposed, a bleeding royal spectre that
pursued him, but the fear of corporeal avengers of his

From "Letters on the French Stage." 209
guilt ; he dreaded the material daggers of his enemies,
and so wore under his doublet an iron corslet, and be
came more and more distrustful, until at last appeared
the pamphlet, "Killing, no Murder." From that moment
Oliver Cromwell ceased to smile.
He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and
his reason permits, is a coward : he who ventures further
than he intended to go, is a slave.

iProm " fflonftUential itttns to august iLetoalt) on tlje jTrnuf)
Stagt."
Heine ^ ^^'^ dispcuse with cvcrybody in this
° ^"°' world except, possibly, the sun and myself ;
for without these two personages, I can imagine no
spring, nor any zephyrs of springtime, no grisettes, and
no German literature ! The whole world would else be
nothing but a yawning void, the shadow of a cipher,
the dream of a flea, a poem by Carl Streckfuss !
Mental and Alas ! mental torture is easier to be en-
p ysica pam. ^^j-g^ \!s\z.i\ physical pain ; and were I offered
the alternative between a bad conscience and an aching
tooth, I should choose the former. o

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

I AM very far from rejecting absolutely the

The old

rama. gg^j.jjgj. jT^ench tragedy. I respect Corneille
and I love Racine : they have left masterpieces that
will remain on eternal pedestals in the Temple of Art.
But for the theatre their time is past. They have
fulfilled their mission before an audience of gentle
men, who loved to regard themselves as the heirs of
ancient heroism, or who, at least, did not discard
this heroism with bourgeois pettiness. Even under
the Empire, the heroes of Corneille and of Racine
might count upon the fullest sympathy when they
appeared before the box of the great Emperor, and
played their parts before a pit-full of kings. These
days are past ; the old aristocracy is dead ; Napoleon
also is dead, and the throne is nothing but an ordinary
wooden chair covered with red velvet ; and now the
bourgeoisie is sovereign and the heroes are those of Paul
de Kock and of Eugfene Scribe.

Victor Hugo has imagination and spirit,
victor Hugo. combined with a want of taste never found
among the French, but only among us Germans. There
is a total absence of harmony in his genius, and he
abounds in inelegant excrescences like Grabbe and
Jean Paul. He is wanting in that beautiful sense of
moderation which we admire in the classical authors.

From "Letters on the French Stage." 211
His muse in spite of its majesty, is embarrassed by a kind
of German helplessness. I might say the same of his
muse that we say of a beautiful Englishwoman : she has
two left hands.
France — the Gascony of Europe.
Nothing is more foolish than the reproach
Originality. of plagiarism. There is no sixth command
ment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands upon
whatever material he finds necessary for his work ; he
may even appropriate whole pillars with their sculptured
capitals, if only the temple is magnificent for which he
employs them as supports. Goethe well knew this ;
aye, and Shakespeare before him. Nothing can be more
absurd than to declare that a poet should find all his
materials within himself, and that this alone is origin
ality. I recollect a fable in which the spider con
versing with the bee makes it a reproach against the
latter that she has to collect from a thousand flowers the
materials for the construction of her honeycomb, and the
preparation of her honey ; "Whereas I," says the spider
triumphantly, "draw the original threads of my whole
web out of my own body.''

French actors surpass the actors of every
French actors. other country, and they do so for the natural

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

reason that all Frenchmen are born comedians. They
have such a talent for readily assuming every character
in life, and of lending such grace to it, as is a pleasure to
behold. The whole of French history sometimes appears
to me like a great comedy played for the benefit of
humanity. In life, as in literature and in the plastic
arts, the theatrical is the predominant characteristic of
the French.
Convictions and ^s I was Standing lately before the cathe-
opinions. ^^^j ^j. ^jjjjgjjg^ jjj company with a friend
who was regarding with mingled feelings of awe' and pity
this monument, whose colossal proportions testify to the
strength of giants, and its sculptured ornamentation to
the unwearied patience of dwarfs, my friend at last in
quired of me how it came that now-a-days we are in
capable of rearing such edifices. I replied : " My dear
Alphonse, men in those olden days had convictions, we
moderns have only opinions ; and something more than
a mere opinion is necessary to the erection of such a
Gothic cathedral,"

The world and

The Artist is the fabled child of popular
legend, whose tears are all pearls. Alas !
his wicked step-mother, the World, beats the poor child
the more unmercifully in order that he may weep plenty
of pearls.

From "Musical Notes from Paris!' 213

Instruction INSTRUCTION is always dearly bought, and
eary oug t. ^j^^ \\ix{e Bianca is right. This eight-year-
old daughter of Meyerbeer envies the careless idleness
of other little boys and girls whom she sees playing in
the street, and the other day expressed herself in this
wise: "What a misfortune it is that I have such well-
educated parents ! From morning till night I have to
learn all sorts of things by heart, and to sit still and be
good, whereas uneducated children are allowed to run
about outside there, and amuse themselves happily all
the day long."
VicTO Hugo is an Egoist, or, to use a stronger term, he
is a Hugoist. iFrom " iWttaftal jaotes from ^atia,"
Franz Liszt's playing often seems to me like a me
lodious agony of the spirit-world.
Chopin — the Raphael of the piano.
Matrimony — the high sea for which no compass has yet
been invented. jFrom "2,udln(g Boernr; a IJlemoir."
For the writing of perfect prose there is
Prose writing. requisite, among other things, a great mastery

214 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
over metrical forms. Without such mastery a prose
writer will be deficient in a certain tact, he will permit
word combinations, expressions, ccesurcB, and phrases, that
are only admissible in poetry, to escape him, and the
result will be a secret discordance, which may offend a
few, but these very delicate, ears.
Heine's longing ^ ^M weary and yearn for rest. I shall
for rest.* ggj.|-g^jjjiy procurc for myself a German night
cap and pull it over my ears. If I only knew where, at
this present time, to lay my head. In Germany ? That
is impossible. Every instant I should be disturbed by a
policeman giving me a shake to ascertain whether I was
really asleep : the very idea of this destroys all my
peace of mind. But whither indeed shall I betake my
self? Back again to the South ? To the land where the
citron and the orange blooms ? Alas ! before every
citron tree stands an Austrian sentinel, and thunders
forth his terrible " Who goes there ? " Or shall I go
Northwards ? Or toward the North-east ? Alas ! the
polar bears, the Russians, are more dangerous than ever,
since they have become civilised, and have begun to wear
kid gloves. Or shall I return to England, where I would

* This extract is taken from a letter (one of a series to Borne from the Island
of Heligoland) dated ist July, 1830. These letters, included in the volume on
Borne in the German edition, are more appropriately placed at the beginning of
the second volume entitled, De VAttemagne, in the French version of Heine's
¦works. — Tr.

From "Ludwig Boerne: a Me?noir!' 215
not choose to be hanged in effigy, much less to live in
person ? One ought to be paid for living in England,
but, instead of that, the expense of sojourning there is
double what it is elsewhere. No ! never let me return
to that abominable country, where the machines conduct
themselves like men, and the men like machines. The
noise of the former and the silence of the latter are equally
distressing. When I was presented to the Governor of
Heligoland, after this typical Englishman had stood
before me for several minutes motionless and silent, I felt
unconsciously tempted to get behind him in order to
see whether they had not forgotten to wind up this
machine. Or shall I betake myself to America, to that
huge prison of freedom, where the invisible fetters would
be more galling to me than the visible ones at home,
and where the most odious of all tyrants, the mob, exer
cises its brutal authority ? Thou knowest what I think
of this accursed land, which I used to love before I
understood it. And yet my trade of liberator compels
me publicly to praise and extol this country ! Oh ! you
good German peasants, go to America ! You will there
find neither princes nor nobles, all men are alike there —
all are equally churls — except, indeed, a few millions
whose skins are black or brown, and who are treated like
dogs !
The Bible and ALTHOUGH at heart a Hellenist, I have
the Jews. (jgj-jyg(j jjot only entertainment, but also

2i6 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
solid edification from the Bible. What a book it is !
Vast as the universe, striking its roots into the very
depths of creation, and towering aloft into the mysterious
blue of heaven. Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfil
ment, birth and death — the whole drama of humanity
is to be found in this book. It is the book of Books,
Biblia. The Jews might easily console themselves for the
loss of Jerusalem and the Temple and the Ark of the
Covenant, the sacred jewels of the High Priest and the
golden vases of Solomon. Such a loss is but trifling
compared with the Bible, the indestructible treasure that
they saved. If I mistake not, it was Mohammed who
called the Jews "The People of the Book" — a name
that still clings to them in Eastern countries and is of
profound significance. A book is their fatherland, their
possession, their ruler, their happiness, and their mis
fortune. They live within the fenced enclosure of this
book, where they exercise their inalienable right of citizen
ship; they cannot be driven from this sacred domain nor
made to suffer contumely within it ; here, they are strong
and admirable. Immersed in the perusal of this book,
they gave but littie heed to the changes that took place
around them in the actual world. Nations rose and fell,
States flourished and became extinct, the storms of revo
lution swept across the earth, but they, the Jews, prostrate
over their book, noticed not the wild chase of time pur
suing its mad career above their heads ! As the Prophet

From "Ludwig Boerne: a Memoir." 217
of the Orient called them " The People of the Book," so
the Prophet of the Occident, Hegel, has styled them
" The People of the Spirit." Even in the remotest times
of their origin, as the Pentateuch shows, the Jews mani
fested their predilection for the abstract, and their whole
religion is nothing but an incessant dialectic, whereby
matter is separated from spirit, and the absolute is
acknowledged only in the oneness of the Spirit. In
what terrible isolation were they compelled to remain in
the midst of the nations of antiquity which, devoted to
the most joyous worship of nature, could comprehend
the spirit only in the phenomena of matter, in forms and
symbols !' What a terrible opposition did they present
to the gaudy-coloured hieroglyphic idolatries of Egypt,
of Phrenicia, of the great pleasure temple of Astarte, or
of the beautiful sinner, voluptuous, perfumed Babylon,
and finally to Greece, the radiant home of art ! It is a
remarkable spectacle to behold how " The People of the
Spirit " gradually emancipate themselves entirely from
the influence of matter, gradually become wholly spiri
tualised. Moses provided, as it were, material bulwarks
for the Spirit against the encroaching luxury of neigh
bouring peoples. Round about the field wherein he
had sown the Spirit, he planted, as a protecting hedge,
the inflexible ceremonial law and an egotistical nation
alism. But when the plant, the Holy Spirit, had struck
its roots so deeply and had sprung up to such a heaven-

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

reaching height that it could never be uprooted, then
came Jesus Christ, who tore down the barrier of the
ceremonial law that had henceforth no useful purpose to
serve, and who even pronounced the doom of Jewish
nationalism. He summoned all the nations of the earth
to their heritage in the kingdom of God, which had for
merly been the exclusive possession of a chosen people ;
he bestowed on the whole of humanity the citizenship of
Israel.
Morality not a The moral Sentiment that manifested it-
product of
religion, gelf in the life of the Jewish patriarchs was
not the result of a positive religion, or of a political legis
lation. No, for among the early Jews there existed
neither a religious doctrine nor a political law : both
were called into existence in a later age. I think it may
therefore be asserted that morality is independent alike
of dogma and of legislation, that it is a pure product of
the healthy human instinct, and that true morality, the
reason of the heart, will always continue to exist though
Church and State should perish.
Christ and What a benign figure is the God-man !
Greek
mythology. How insignificant in comparison with him
does the hero of the Old Testament appear ! Moses
loves his people with a pathetic intensity ; as a mother,
he cares for the future of Israel. Christ loves humanity;
he is the sun that sheds the warm rays of his love over

From "Ludwig Boerne: a Memoir." 219

the whole earth. What a soothing balm for all wounds
of this life are his words ! What a healing fountain for
all suffering was the blood that flowed on Calvary !
The white marble gods of the Greeks were bespattered
with this blood ; they grew sick from inward awe, and
for them there was no recovery ! Most of them, it is
true, had long borne within them the germs of a wasting
malady, and terror only hastened their death. Pan died
first. Do you know the legend as Plutarch tells it ? It
is as follows : — In the time of Tiberius a ship was sailing
toward evening past the Islands of Pharae, whch lie off
the coast of ^-Etolia. The voyagers had not yet gone to
sleep, and many were still sitting at wine after supper,
when suddenly they heard a voice from the coast calling
so loudly the name of Thamus (so was the helmsman
named), that they all were thrown into the greatest
amazement. At the first and the second calling of his
name, Thamus remained silent, but at the third time he
made answer ; upon which the voice in still louder tones
called out to him these words : " When thou comest as far
as Palodes give tidings that great Pan is dead ! " When
Thamus had reached this point he did as he had been
bidden, and shouted from the poop of the ship
toward the land : " Great Pan is dead ! " At this shout
there arose on the shore the strangest sounds of grief, a
mingling of sighs and cries of amazement, which seemed
to proceed from many voices at once. Those who were

JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.

witnesses of the occurrence related it in Rome, where it
gave rise to the most extraordinary opinions. Tiberius
ordered more careful inquiry into the matter, and did
not doubt as to its truth.
Heine's ambi- Thou thinkcst perhaps, dear reader, that
tion to be an
orator. {he highest ambition of my life has always
been to become a great poet, to be crowned perhaps on
the Capitol, as was the late Messer Francesco Petrarca.
No, it is rather the great popular orators that I have
always envied. I would that I had had, on the public
market-place, to defend my life before a motley assem
blage, by mighty words, which excite or soothe the passions,
and of which the effect is always instantaneous. Yes, be
tween ourselves, I will fain confess to thee that in my
inexperienced youth, at that period when we are pos
sessed by a passion for acting, I often imagined myself
filling such a part. I was determined, at whatever cost, to
become a great orator, and like Demosthenes I used often
to declaim on the deserted sea shore, while wind and
waves roared and howled. Thus does one exercise his
lungs, and accustom himself to speak in the midst of
the greatest tumult of a popular assembly. In a word,
I did everything that was necessary to qualify myself, in
the event of a revolution breaking out among us, for
appearing as a German popular orator. But alas !
even at the first rehearsal I perceived that in such a

From "Ludwig Boerne: a Memoir!' 221
drama I could never support my favourite character.
And were they still alive, not Demosthenes, nor Cicero,
nor Mirabeau, could appear as orators at a German re
volution ; for at a German revolution, smoking is indulged
in. Imagine my horror when I was present at a popular
assembly in Paris, to find all the liberators of the Father
land with tobacco pipes in their mouths, and the hall so
filled with the smoke of vile canaster, that it almost
¦suffocated me, and rendered it absolutely impossible for
me to have uttered a single word.
A Revolution is a misfortune, but a still greater misfor
tune is an abortive revolution.
Providence sometimes entrusts the torch to the most
careless hands, in order that a beneficial conflagration
may take place in the world.
In Revolutionary Times our only alternative is be
tween killing and being killed.
The funeral I WAS not present at the funeral of Borne.
of an
enemy. This gavc risc to invidious comment. But
nothing can be more absurd than to see in this circum
stance, which might have been purely accidental, an act
of hard-hearted animosity. Foolish people ! they do not
know that there is no more agreeable occupation than to
take part in the funeral solemnities of an enemy !

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Heine MoRE than six moons have waned since
any German voice fell upon my ear, and all
my thoughts clothe themselves laboriously in foreign
phrase. You may perhaps have some notion of bodily
exile, but of spiritual exile none but a German poet is
capable of forming any conception — one, also, who
is forced to speak French all day, to write it, and
at night even to sigh in French in the arms of his
beloved ! My very thoughts are exiled, exiled in a
foreign tongue. Happy are those who, in a foreign land,
have to combat only poverty, hunger, and cold — mere
natural evils ! Through the skylights of their garret roof
heaven smiles on them with all its stars. O gilded misery
with white kid gloves, how infinitely more torturesome
art thou ! The despairing head must be frizzed, even
perfumed perhaps, and the wrathful lips that would fain
curse heaven and earth, must smile and smile again.
Happy are those who, through their great sorrow, have
at length lost their last tiny spark of reason, and have
found a secure shelter in Charenton or in Bicetre. Their
madhouse cell seems to them a dear home, and in their
strait-waistcoats they imagine themselves victors over
every depotism, and fancy themselves proud citizens of a
free State. But all this they could have had quite as
well in the Fatherland ! Happiest of all are the dead who
lie in their graves in Pere Lachaise, as thou dost, poor
Borne ! Yes, happy are those who are in the prisons of

From " Ludivig Boerne: a Memoir!' 223
their own country ! Happy are those who inhabit the
garrets of bodily misery ! Happy are the insane in their
madhouses ! Happiest of all are the dead ! For myself,
the writer of these pages, I believe I have indeed no
cause to make too loud a lament, for do I not in
some sort share the happiness of all these, my fel
low-countrymen, in virtue of that marvellous sensibility,
that involuntary sympathy, that malady of the soul
which I have in common with all poets, and for which
we have no true name ? Believe me, although I stroll
all the day well conditioned and smiling through the
radiant streets of Babylon, as soon as evening begins to
fall, melancholy strains of harps resound in my heart,
and in the night time I hear the rattle and clang of the
kettle drums and the cymbals of grief, the whole Janizary
music of human suffering, and there arises before me a
horrible procession of shrieking masqueraders. O what
dreams ! Dreams of prison, of misery, of madness, of
death — a shrill discord of folly, and wisdom, a poisoned
soup with the taste of sauerkraut, and the perfume of
orange blossom ! What a horrible feeling when the
dreams of the night mock the deeds of the day time, and
from the garish flower of the poppy look forth masks
that hiss at us their irony, when the laurel trees are
transformed into grey thistles, and the voice of the
nightingale becomes a mocking laughter !

2 24 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

„ . ', After all it comes to the same thing in
Our journey s ^
™ ' what fashion we make < the grand tour, on
foot, on horseback, or on ship-board.. We all reach at
last the same hostelry, the same poor tavern, where the
door is opened with a spade, where our appointed
chamber is so narrow, so cold, so dark, but where one
sleeps well, almost too well.
•The people and The people is much givcn to stoning its
Its prop ets. pj-opj-^gj-g ^jjg^j j(- jjjg^y -worship thclr relics
with the greater fervency : dogs that bark at us to-day,
lick our bones to-morrow with true canine fidelity.

JFrom " letters from ISerlm."
The merchant's The merchant, all the world over, he
re igion. ]jgygg j^ (.jjg same religion. His office is his
church, his desk is his confessional, his ledger is his
Bible, his warehouse is his holy of holies, the exchange
bell is his summons to prayer, his gold is his god, and
credit is his creed.
National ^ ^OVE Germany and the Germans ; but I
egotism, j^^^ none the less the inhabitants of the other
parts of the earth, whose number is forty times that of the
Germans. It is love that gives to a human being his worth.
Heaven be thanked, then, I am of forty times more value

From " Letters from Berlin." 225
than those who cannot drag themselves out of the
slough of national egotism, and who love only Germany
and the Germans. The character of German fiction can be
German fiction. best understood by comparing it with that of
other nations — with that of France, or of England. We
may thus perceive how the external circumstances of
authors impress certain characteristics on the romances
of a nation. The English author travels, whether with
the equipage of a lord or of an apostle ; whether already
enriched by the rewards of his labour or still poor, it
matters not, he is always a traveller. Silent and self-
contained, he observes the customs, the passions, the
actions of men, and in his works of fiction are reflected
the actual world and real life. Sometimes it is a joyous
picture (Goldsmith), sometimes a gloomy one (Smollet),
but always accurate and truthful (Fielding). The French
author, be he ever so needy or untitled, lives constantly
in the midst of society, and of high society. Princes
and princesses flutter round the musical copyist Jean
Jacques, and in a Parisian drawing-room the Minister of
State is called " Monsieur," and the duchess " Madame.''
Hence we find in French novels that airy society tone,
that mobility, that politeness and urbanity which can
be attained only through intercourse with men. Hence,
too, the family resemblance running through all French
p

226 Wit,, Wisdom, and Pathos.
novels, the language of which seems to be always the
same, just because it is the language of society. But the
poor German author, since he is in general badly paid,
and seldom possesses private fortune, has not the means
of travelling, or, at least, does not travel till late in life,
after his style is already formed. Rarely, also, is he
endowed either with rank or title to open for him the
doors of distinguished society (which is not always
with us 'the best society), nay, frequently he has
not even a black coat to enable him to appear in
middle-class society. The poor German author there
fore shuts himself up in his lonely garret, where
he collects together the fragments of a world, and
writes his romances in a language strangely elaborated
out of his own consciousness — romances, wherein are
revealed forms and images, splendid, divine, intensely
poetical, but having nowhere a real existence. The
whole of German fiction, good as well ^as bad, from
the earliest Spiess, Cramer, and Vulpius epoch down
to the time of Arnim, Fouqud, Horn, Hoffmann,
bears this fantastic impress, and the character of
this literature has had great influence on the character
of our people ; so that we Germans are conspicuous
among all nations for our mysticism, secret societies,
philosophy of nature, ghost-lore, love, folly and — •
Poetry !

From the Fragment " On Poland." 227

JFrom ti)e fragment " ffln f olaniJ."
'feasant-'' WHOEVER wishcs to scc personificd obedi-
ob'edience. encc has but to observe a Polish peasant in
presence of his noble master. Nothing is wanting
except the dog's wagging tail. At such a spectacle, I
involuntarily think — " And God created man in his own
image ! " An infinite sorrow takes hold upon me when
I see one man so deeply humiliate himself in the
presence of another. Only before the king should one
bow oneself With the addition of this last article of
faith, I fully acknowledge the political creed of North
America. I will not deny that I prefer the trees of the
field to genealogical trees, that I esteem the Rights of
Man more highly than the canon law, and that I set a
greater value on the commands of reason than on the
abstractions of short-sighted, historians.
The word ^^ "Fatherland" is the first word with
" '¦'«=<*°""'" the Poles, " Freedom " is the second. A
beautiful word ! Next to love, it is certainly the most
beautiful of words ; but it is also, next to love, the word
that is most misunderstood, and that is employed to
denote things the most contradictory.
All special charters of Freedom must be abrogated
where the universal law of freedom is to flourish.

2 28 fFzV, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Women and ^ ^^'^^ "°' ^^y *^' women have no
character, gj^g^^j^g^gy . fg^j. f^Qm it ! they havc every day
a different character. Nor do I wish to blame them
for this perpetual change of character. It is, in fact,
an excellence. Character is the result of a system
of stereotyped principles. Should these be errone
ous, the whole hfe of the person in whom they
are systematically carried out is nothing but one long,
gigantic error. When a man acts according to fixed
principles, we praise him and say that he " has char
acter," overlooking altogether the fact that in such a
man the freedom of the will is entirely destroyed, that
his spiritual nature is incapable of progress, and that he
is the blind slave of his own antiquated ideas. In like
rpanner, we call it " consistency " when anyone continues
firmly to adhere to what he has definitely made up his
mind about and has strongly asserted, and we often show
ourselves tolerant enough by our admiration for fools,
and by our excuses for rascals, when all that can be
said of them is, that they have acted " consistently."
But this self-imposed moral tyranny is to be found
almost exclusively among men. The element of freedom
remains always living and active in the minds of women.
Every day they alter their views of the world, generally
without being themselves conscious of the change.
They rise in the morning as free from prepossessions as
children ; towards mid-day they build up a system of

From "Kahldorf on the Nobility." 229
thought which, like a house of cards, falls to pieces again
in the evening. Are their principles wrong to-day ?
then I wager that to-morrow they will be most proper.
They change their opinions as often as they change their
gowns. When their minds chance to be unoccupied by
any dominant thought, then are they in their most
delightful mood, enjoying an interregnum of feeling.
This interregnum is always the time of greatest purity
and strength with women, and it affords them a surer
guidance than the will-o'-the-wisps of abstract reason
that so often lead men astray.
j^jjfg In a sunny valley of flowers, I would
companion, gj^^ose a Polish woman for my companion ;
in a moonlit grove of lindens, I should choose a Ger
man. In a journey through Spain, France, and Italy, I
should prefer a Polish woman for my companion ; for
the journey of life, I should prefer a German.
Novels — the dessert of literature.
History shows that the majority of men who have done
anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.
JFrom \\t " IntroSuctt'on to 9Rai)ISorf on tl)e poiilitr."
^^ .^ . The character of the French Revolution
The French
Revolution. ^^^^ during its whole course, determined by

230 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
the moral condition of the people, and especially by their
political education. Prior to the first revolutionary out
break in France, there existed, no doubt, in that country an
already developed civilization, though only among the
upper classes, and here and there among the middle
classes; the lower classes were intellectually destitute,
and were restrained from every noble aspiration by the
most narrow-souled despotism. As regarded political cul
ture, it was totally absent not only from the lower, but
also from the upper classes. Men were conversant only
with petty manoeuvres between rival corporations, with
certain systems of reciprocal exhaustion, with traditions
of routine, with the art of equivocal formulas, with the
influence of mistresses, and such like State miseries.
Montesquieu awakened but a comparatively small num
ber of intellects. From the fact that he always reasoned
from an historical position, he obtained little influence
over the mass of a people naturally enthusiastic, a people
intensely susceptible to ideas that originate in and spring
from the heart, as those in the writings of Rousseau.
But when Rousseau, the LLamlet of France, perceives
the angry ghost, and discerns the evil purpose of
royal poisoners, when he sees the sleek hypocrisy of
parasites, the paltry lies of court etiquette, and the general
corruption of the State, when he bitterly exclaims —
'* The time is out of joint ; O, cursed spite !
That ever I was born to set it right 1 "

From the Preface to the "Salon of i8jj!" 231
when Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the half-feigned, half-
real madness of despair, raised his great complaint and
impeachment ; — when Voltaire, the Lucian of Christi
anity, laughed to scorn the huge deceit of Romish priest
craft and the divine right of despotism founded upon it ;
— when Lafayette, the hero of two worlds and of two
centuries, returned from America with the Argonauts of
freedom and with his golden fleece, the idea of a free
constitution ; — when Necker calculated, and Sieybs de
fined, and Mirabeau declaimed, and the thunders of the
Constituent Assembly rolled over the head of decaying
Monarchy with its flourishing deficit, and new economic
and political doctrines, like sudden lightning flashes,
shot from the skies — then, I say, the French were com
pelled to take their elementary lesson in the great
science of freedom — Politics ; and they had to pay dearly
in order to acquire its first rudiments, and it cost them
their best blood.
JFrom tiie preface to ti)e " Salon of 1833."
Love of There is something peculiar about patriot-
™"""'^- ism and true love of the Fatherland. One
may love one's country and withal grow to be eighty years
old, and yet be quite unconscious of such love; but
then one must always have remained at home. We
come to understand the nature of Spring only in Winter,

232 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
and the best May songs are composed by the fireside.
The love of freedom is a prison flower, and within the
walls of a prison one feels for the first time the worth of
liberty. In like manner, German love of the Father
land first makes itself felt when we are about to cross
the German frontier, and deepest of all is it felt at the
sight of German misery in a foreign land.
jFrom " ^^t Benuntfator."
Heine forbidden • "^'-'u know the dccrcc of the German Diet
to write. ^£ jjgggjjji^gj- 1835, which Completely inter
dicted me from literary activity. I wept like a child !
I had taken so much trouble with the German language,
with the accusative and dative cases ; I had learned to
string the words together so beautifully, like pearls to
pearls ; I was beginning to find pleasure in this occupa
tion, which shortened the long winter evenings of my
exile ; yea, when I wrote in German, I almost fancied
myself at home again beside my mother. And now, all
writing is positively forbidden me !
German eager- "'- SPENT nearly sevcu years at German
g ting. Universities for purposes of study, and dur
ing that time German eagerness for fighting was so
constantly before my eyes that I almost ceased to beheve
in the existence of cowardice.

From the "Preface to Don Quixote!' 233
What is truth? "Bring me the wash hand basin,"
would be the reply of Pontius Pilate.
JFrom tije " preface to an IIIuBtratta ffiint(on ot JBon ®iui.Tote."
Society— a SOCIETY is a Republic. When an indi-
epu ic. yjjj^jj^j endeavours to lift himself above his
fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means
of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous
or more intellectually gifted than others.- Whoever, by
the irresistible force of genius, rises above the common
herd is certain to be ostracised by society, which will
pursue hiiji with such merciless derision and detraction
that, at last, he will be compelled to retreat into the
soUtude of his thoughts.
Poetic tourney ^^ present, the nations are too busily
ofthe nations, ^^^^pjg^ with political affairs; but when
these are once thoroughly setded, we shall all — Germans,,
Britons, Spaniards, French, Italians — go out into the
greenwood and sing, and the nightingale shall be
umpire. I am convinced that at this poetic tourney the
song of Wolfgang Goethe will win the prize.
It is always a pleasure to me when two of my friends
like one another, just as I am always glad when two of
MY ENEMIES take to fighting one another.

234 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.

jFrom "EuSiufg Jftartus : a 3&emintstente."
The will ¦'¦^ ^^ '^*^'- rnerely what we have done, not
merely the posthumous fruit of our activity,
that entitles us to honourable recognition after death,
but also our striving itself, and especially our unsuccess
ful striving — the shipwrecked, fruitless, but great-souled
JVill to do.
Scepticism Wherefore is it that the righteous must
of Job. endure so much suffering on earth? The
book of Job does not solve this perplexing question. On
the contrary, this same book of Job is the Song of Songs
of scepticism, and in it the loathsome snakes of doubt
writhe and hiss forth their eternal — Wherefore ? How
came it that, at the return from Babylon, the pious Com
mission of the Temple Archives (of which Ezra was
president) admitted this book into the canon of the Holy
Scriptures? I have often asked myself this question.
My belief is that these divinely enlightened men did not
do so from any want of intelligence, but because, in their
sublime wisdom, they well knew that doubt is deeply
rooted and grounded in human nature, that it is not to be
suppressed by any silly device, but must undergo its ap
propriate cure. They adopted the homoeopathic method
of applying like to like, but it was no small homoeo
pathic dose they administered; on the contrary, they

From the "Confessions!' 235
increased the dose in the most terrible manner, and
such an excessive dose of scepticism is this book of Job.
This poison could not be spared from the Bible, from
the great family medicine-chest of humanity. Yea, just
as man when he suffers must weep out his suffering, so
must he also think out his doubts when he feels himself
cruelly disappointed in his claims to earthly happiness ;
and as by the bitterest flood of tears, so also by the in
tensest form of doubt, which the Germans so appro
priately call " despair," * the crisis of moral salvation is
reached. But well for him that is whole, and needs no
physician ! jFrom tge " fflonfe9sion9."t
Heine aiwa s a ^ spiritucl Frenchman (a few years ago
romantic poet, jj^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ formed a pleonasm)
once -styled me un romantique difroque — an unfrocked
Romanticist. I have a weakness for anything that shows
esprit, and however malicious the title, I was highly
amused by it. It is appropriate. In spite of my ex
terminating campaigns against Romanticism, I my
self always remained a Romanticist, and I was so in a
higher degree than I was myself conscious of After
* Zweifel in German means doubt, and Verzweiflung (which is merely a
stronger form of the word Zweifel) signifies desf air.— Tr.
t These Confessions were written in the winter of 1853-1854, and were pub
lished almost simultaneously in German and in French.— Tr.

236 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
having dealt the most fatal blows at the enthusiasm for
Romantic poetry in Germany, an infinite yearning toward
the blue flower in the dreamland of Romanticism slid
unawares into my soul, and I seized the magic lute and
sang a lay wherein I gave myself up to every fond exag
geration, to all the moonlight ecstasy, all the florid
nightingale frenzy of the once dear old fashion.' I know
that it was " the last free woodland song of the Roman
tic," and that I am its last poet. With me closed the
old German lyrical school ; whilst with me, also, began
the new school — modern German lyrical poetry.
No man truthful EvEN with the most houcst intention no
. ^^^ ^^^ ^gjj^ jj^g truth about himself. None
has ever yet succeeded in doing so, neither the holy
Augustin, the pious Bishop of Hippo, nor the Genevese
Jean Jacques Rousseau, and least of all the latter, who
cahed himself the man of truth and of nature, but who
was in reality far more untruthful and unnatural than his
contemporaries. He was too proud falsely to attribute
to himself good qualities or worthy actions ; he set him
self rather to invent the most detestable things to the in
jury of his own reputation.

Madame de ^^ Madame de Stael is an author of
genius, who once expressed the opinion
that genius has no sex, in referring to her I need

From the " Confessions!' 237
not consider myself bound by any of those gallant restraints
which we are wont to obey iri speaking of women, and
which are in reality nothing but a sympathetic acknow
ledgment of their weakness. When the worthy woman
found that, with all her pertinacity, she could make nothing
of the Emperor, she did what women are accustomed to
do in such cases, declared herself his enemy, protested
against his brutal and ungallant domination, and con
tinued to protest until the police ordered her to leave
France. She then fled to us in Germany, where she
collected material for the celebrated book that was to
exalt German spiritualism as the ideal of all excellence,
in opposition to the materialism of the French Empire.
Immediately on her appearance among us, she made
a great discovery, in the person of a man of learning
called August Wilhelm Schlegel. Here was genius
without sex. He became her attached cicerone, and
accompanied her on her journey through ah the garrets
of German literature. She decorated herself with a pro
digiously large turban, and assumed the style of Sultana
of the Intellect. She then caused our men of letters
to pass before her in intellectual review, and parodied
the great Sultan of matter. As Napoleon used to ask
bluntly : " How old are you ? how many children have
you? how many years have you served?" so Madame
de StaSl asked our men of learning : — " How old are
you ? What have you written ? Are you a follower

238 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
of Kant or of Fichte?" and such like questions, to
which she hardly waited the answers, while her faithful
Mameluke, August Wilhelm Schlegel, her Rustan, hastily
noted them in his memorandum book. As Napoleon
declared that woman to be the greatest who had
been the mother of the greatest number of children,
so Madame de Stael declared him to be the greatest
man who had written the greatest number of books.
This blue-stocking was a worse scourge than war.
She pursued our men of learning even into the sanct
uary of their thought, and more than one of. them,
who would have held his ground against Napoleon, fled
at the approach of the dreaded Madame de StaSl. It
was an intellectual billeting that our men of learning
had to endure. Those with whom the excellent woman
was particularly well satisfied, or those whose cast of
features or the colour of whose eyes pleased her, might
expect honourable mention, or even the Cross of the
Legion of Honour, in her book, De I' Allemagne. This
book always makes on me an impression that is as ludi
crous as it is irritating. In its pages I behold the pas
sionate woman in all her turbulence, a veritable hurri
cane in petticoats, sweeping through our peaceful Ger
many, and everywhere , rapturously exclaiming : — " What
a refreshing stillness breathes over this land ! How
delightfully cool it is in your woods ! What reviv
ing perfume of violets ! How peacefully the green-

From the " Confessions!' 239
finches warble in their German nests ! You are
a good, a virtuous people, and can have no idea
what corruption of morals prevails among us in the
Rue du Bac." The good woman saw in Germany only
what she wished to see : a misty cloud-land, where
the men are without livers, mere animated pieces of
virtue wandering over snowfields, and discoursing of
naught but morals and philosophy ! She saw only what
she wished to see, and heard only what she wished to
hear and to repeat. And after all she heard but little,
and never the truth, partly because she talked so in
cessantly herself, and partly because, when she discussed
with our modest men of letters, it was only to confuse and
stupify them with her rude questions. Hatred toward
the Emperor is the soul of Madame de Stael's book
De r Allemagne, and although Napoleon's name is no
where mentioned in it, one readily perceives in every line
that its authoress is darting glances toward the Tuileries.
I have no doubt that the took irritated the Emperor
much more acutely than the most direct charge could
have done : for nothing wounds a man so keenly as a
woman's little pin-pricks. We are prepared for slashing
swordstrokes, and are tickled in the most tickhsh. parts.
Oh the women ! We must needs forgive them much for
they love much, and also many ! Their hatred is really
a species of love that has become apostate. They
often try to do us an injury, because in doing so they

240 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
think to please some other man. After the overthrow
of the Emperor, Madame de Sta6l made a triumphal entry
into Paris with her book " On Germany," and she was
accompanied by several hundred thousand Germans,
whom she brought with her as magnificent illustrations
to her book. Thus illustrated by living figures the work
could not fail to be regarded as authentic, for here was
ocular testimony that its author had faithfully pourtrayed
us Germans and the virtues of the Fatherland.
Fouqu^. FrIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE WaS a
Don Quixote from the crown of his head to
his great toe : when one reads his works, one cannot but
admire — Cervantes !
Heine goes into ^ ^^^ ^onc and Suffered much, and as the
sun of the Revolution of July [1830] rose
above the horizon in France, I had become sorely wearied,
and was in need of relaxation. The air too of my
native country was growing daily more unhealthy for
me, and obliged me to think seriously of a change of
climate. I was haunted by visions ; the aspect of the clouds
troubled me; they seemed to be making aU sorts of
grimaces. I sometimes fancied the sun to be a Prussian
cockade. At nights I dreamt of a hideous black vulture
that gnawed at my liver, and I was altogether most
melancholy. Besides all this, I had made the acquaint-

From the " Confessions!' 241
ance of an old Berlin councillor of justice, who had
passed many years in the fortress of Spandau, and who
assured me that it was very uncomfortable to be com
pelled to wear cold iron in winter. I certainly considered
it most unchristian in our authorities not to warm up a
little the chains of these poor people. If our fetters were
slightly warmed, they would not have such a disagreeable
feeling, and even chilly natures might then support
them very well ; they should also be perfumed with es
sence of roses and of laurel, as is done here in France.
I inquired at my friend, the Councillor, whether he often
had oysters to eat at Spandau. He said. No ! Spandau
was too far from the sea. Meat, too, was rarely to be
got, and the only sort of fowls to be had were the flies
that dropped into one's soup. At this time I happened
also to make the acquaintance of a French commercial
traveller, who represented a wine-merchant's firm. He was
never done telling me how happy life at present was in
Paris, how one lived there as in the Land of Cocagne,
and how folk sang from morning till night tht Marseillaise,
and "En avant, marchons!" and "Lafayette aux cheveux
blancs," and that "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was
written up at all the street corners ! Nor did he fail
to extol the champagne of his firm, of whose cards he
gave me a large number, and promised me letters of in
troduction to the best restaurants, in the event of my
wishing to visit the capital for my recreation. As I
Q

242 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
really had need of some recreation, as Spandau
was too far from the sea to permit of eating oysters
there, as the Spandau fly-soup was not very enticing,
and as, besides all this, Prussian fetters are very
cold in winter and the wearing of them not likely
to be beneficial to my health, I determined to journey
to Paris, and in the fatherland of champagne and
of the Marseillaise to drink the former and to hear
the latter sung, along with " En avant marchons I " and
" Lafayette aux cheveux blancs!' I crossed the Rhine on
the first of May 1831. The old river-god. Father Rhine,
was not visible, and I contented myself with throwing
my visiting-card for him into the water. I was told that
he was sitting in the depths of the stream re-studying
Meidinger's French Grammar, for since Prussian rule
was established he had fallen back very greatly in his
knowledge of French, and was now practising it anew
in order fo be prepared for contingencies. I fancied
I could hear him down in the river-bed conjugating : —
J' aime, tu aimes, il aime, nous aimons ! But what does
he love ? Certainly not the Prussians. At Saint Denis
I awoke out of a pleasant morning slumber and heard
for the first time the call of the coucou^-&!\sie.x?,, " Paris !
Paris ! " and the tinkling bell of the cocoa-sellers. Here
one breathes already the atmosphere of the capital, now
* The coucou was a small, light, one-horse carriage peculiar to Paris, now
superseded by ^^ie fiacre. — Tr.

From the " Confessions." 243
visible on the horizon. An old rascal of a guide tried
to persuade me to visit the graves of the kings, but
I had not come to France in order to see dead
kings. I contented myself with bidding the cicerone
relate the legend of the locality, which tells how the
wicked heathen king ordered the holy St. Denis to be
beheaded, and how the latter ran all the way from Paris
to Saint Denis, carrying his head in his hand, that he
might be buried there and bestow his name upon the
place. "When one thinks of the distance," said my
narrator, one must be filled with amazement that anybody
could travel so far on foot in a headless condition ;
still," he added, with a peculiar smile on his face :
" dans des cas pareils il n'y a que le premier pas qui
coiite." (" In such cases it is only the first step that is
the difficulty.") This old bon mot was worth the two
francs which I gave him for the love of Voltaire, whose
satirical smile I had thus early encountered. In twenty
minutes I was in Paris, making my entry under , the
triumphal arch of the Boulevard Saint Denis, originally
erected in honour of Louis XIV., but serving on that
day to glorify the entry of a German poet into Paris.
I was vastly astonished at the great number of finely
attired people, all dressed in the most tasteful costumes,
like pictures in a journal of fashion. I was much im
pressed too by the fact that they all spoke French, which
with us is a distinctive rnark of the nobility. But here

244 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
everybody has the distinguished air that with us is
to be found only among the nobles. The men are all so
polite, the women all so smiling. If anyone accidentally
pushed against me and did not make instant apology,
I might safely wager that he was a fellow countryman ;
and if one of the fair sex looked rather sour-visaged,
I was certain that she had eaten Sauer-kraut, or could
read Klopstock in the original. I found everything so
amusing, the sky was so blue, and the air so laden with
amiability, so generous, while here and there still
shimmered the rays of the sun of July. The cheeks of
the fair Lutetia still glowed with the fervent kisses of that
revolutionary sun, and on her bosom the bridal bouquet
was not yet quite faded. At the street corners, it is true,
the words " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," had here
and there been obliterated. The honeymoon passes so
quickly !
French manners ^^ the manners, as well as in the language
anguage. ^^ ^^ French, there is much of that sweet
flattery which costs little, and yet is so beneficent and
refreshing. God has given us tongues in order that we
may say pleasant things to our fellow-men.
Heine in How many amusing things did I behold on
my arrival in Paris ! I visited all the chief re
sorts of public pleasure, and saw all the notable caricatures

From the "Confessions!" 245
of the Capital. The serious and grave Frenchmen were
the most amusing. I saw Arnal, Boufft^, Ddjazet, De-
bureau, Odry, Mademoiselle Georges, the big pot on the
Palace of the Invalides, the exhibition of the dead in the
Morgue, and the French Academy. The latter, that is,
the Academy, is a nursery for aged men of letters in
their second childhood — a truly philanthropic institu
tion, the idea of which is taken from the Hindoos, who
provide hospitals for aged and decrepit apes. The roof
of the building, which protects the venerable heads of
the members of the Institution — I speak of the French
Academy and not of the Indian hospitals — consists of a
great dome resembling an enormous marble periwig. I
can never behold this poor old periwig without recalling
the witticisms of the many men of genius who have made
merry at the expense of the Academy, which, however,
has not on that account ceased to exist. It is not
correct therefore to say that in France ridicule kills. Of
course I did not fail to visit the necropolis of the Luxem
bourg, where there is a complete collection of the mum
mies of perjury, so carefully embalmed that one may still
read on their countenances the false oaths they swore to
all the dynasties of French Pharaohs. In the Jardin
des Plantes I saw the palace of the real apes, the three-
legged goat, and the giraffe, with which last I was specially
entertained. I did not go to hear the grand opera,
because I had come to Paris for amusement. To my

246 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
great regret I did not see Monsieur de Chateaubriand,
who would certainly have afforded me entertainment.
Nor did I see Monsieur Villemain,* his housekeeper
informing me that he was not visible, as it was Thurs
day, on which day he washed himself On descending
the stairs, I noticed a board with the inscription,
" Inquire at the Concierge;" and I hastened to address
a few civil words to this worthy person. I compli
mented him on the cleanliness of his illustrious tenant,
who washed himself every Thursday. " For, look you,"
I remarked, " cleanliness is very rare among learned
men ; the celebrated Casaubon, for example, washed
himself but once a year, on Shrove Tuesday, probably
in order to disguise himself" The porter made me
a profound bow and replied with a sigh : — " You are
a very honest gentleman, but I must undeceive you.
The illustrious person whom I have the honour to
number as one of my tenants does not consume too
much Seine water ; the Auvergnats are not enriched
by him ; and as regards cleanliness he may be called a
second Casaubon." At this, he burst into a fit of
laughter, and I went away, laughing likewise, without
knowing why I laughed.
* 1790-1869. Abel-Francois Villemain, rhetorician, politician, and man of
letters. Under Louis Philippe he was Minister of Public Instruction. His
fame rests chiefly on his lectures on literature as Professor of Eloquence at the
Sorbonne, and on his studies in ancient and modern literature. He was elected
Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy, and from 1844 till his death he
•discharged the duties of this office. — Tr.

From the " Confessions!' 247

The In order to assume a French appearance,
I sauntered leisurely along humming the

" Oil allez-vous, monsieur I'abb^?
Vous allez vous casser le nez."

until I perceived rising in front of me a large building,
which I was informed was the Pantheon. It, also, bore
an inscription, but in marble, and instead of, "In
quire at the porter," the words were, "A grateful country
to her great men." On entering, I could see nothing
but a colossal edifice full of emptiness, a kind of stone
balloon, in the middle of which a tall dry Englishman
was walking quite alone, carrying his " Guide to Paris "
between his teeth, and having the thumbs of his crooked
hands in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. I went toward
him and, with all the politeness in my power, made the
remark — " a very fine exhibition ; " I even added, " very
fine indeed," with the expectation that in the effort to
reply he might let the " Guide " drop from his mouth, as
the crow in the fable lets the cheese fall from his bill.
But the " Guide," of which I wished to gain posses
sion for the purpose of obtaining certain information, did
not fall ; the English crow held his teeth firmly pressed
together, and without paying the slightest attention to
me, left the building. I did likewise, and followed close
upon his heels to the door. There, before the peri-

248 JVit, JJ'isdom, and Pathos.
style, I beheld the chubby countenance of a stout
person, a woman with large breasts, as the Goddess of
Liberty was in those days represented. She was pro
bably the porteress of the Pantheon. It seemed as if the
sight of the son of Albion had put her into very good
humour. Making me a sign of intelligence with her little
eyes, that sparkled in her fat face like glowworms, she in
dulged in the greatest merriment over the poor English
man ; and I heard for the first time that loud Gallic laugh,
which is unknown among us, but which is both as good-
natured and as mocking as the generous wine of France,
or as a chapter of Rabelais. Nothing is more contagious
than such hilarity, and I too began to laugh more
heartily than I had ever laughed at home. In order to
open a conversation with this jovial and amusing person
the idea occurred to me to inquire where were the great
men toward whom the inscription upon the building
proclaimed the national gratitude. At this question the
genial woman broke forth into still more boisterous
laughter, so that tears filled her eyes and she had to hold
her sides to prevent suffocation ; then, fetching breath at
every word, she replied : — " Ah, how unfortunate you
are to have come hither at such a moment ! At present
there is a great scarcity of such men among us ; the
last harvest was without result, but we trust that the next
will be more productive ; our prospective great men are
thriving admirably and promise wonderful things. If

From the " Confessions!' 249
you desire to see these future great men, who are still,
however, very little fellows, you have only to betake
yourself to an establishment that is close at hand, on
the Boulevard Mont-Parnasse, and that is caUed the
Grande-Chaumiire. That is the nursery of culture and
the dance for these little great men, these mannikins of
fame, who wih one day be the pride of France and the
joy of the human race : you are fortunate, for to-day is
Thursday." The crazy, jovial soul could say no more,
and long after I had bade her adieu in order to find my
way to the establishment she had indicated, I could
hear the echo of her gaiety.
The modesty of a woman is a protection
A woman s ¦'
modesty. ^^ j^^^. .^j^tue morc secure than all the robes
in the world, however little they may be cut down at the
neck. The secret of As regards German philosophy I had
German . i i_ i
philosophy, divulged* in the plainest language the school
secret, wrapped up in scholastic formulas, known only
to the initiated in the highest class. My revelations
excited the greatest astonishment in France; and I
recollect that very eminent French thinkers artiessly
? In the Contribution to the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany,
included, with other works on Germany, under the title De f Allemagne, in the
French version of Heine's works.— Tr.

250 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
confessed to me, that they had always imagined German
philosophy to be a sort of mystical dreamland in which
Deity concealed itself as in a sanctuary of clouds, and
that German philosophers were ecstatic seers, living
in an atmosphere of piety and Godly reverence. I
am not to blame that this never has been the real
-State of the case, that German philosophy is precisely
the opposite of what has hitherto been called piety
and Godly reverence, and that our newest philo
sophers proclaim the most thoroughgoing atheism as
the last word of German metaphysics. They have
mercilessly, and in the Bacchanalian pride of life, torn
aside the blue curtains that veiled the German heaven,
shouting aloud : — " Behold ! all the deities are fled,
and up there sits only an old maid with leaden hands
and sorrowful heart : Necessity." Alas ! what formerly
sounded so strange is now preached from every house
top beyond the Rhine, and the fanatical zeal of many
of these preachers is terrible ! We have now monks
of atheism, grand inquisitors of unbelief who would
have condemned M. Arouet de Voltaire to the stake,
because in his inmost soul he was a bigoted deist. So
long as such doctrines remained the private property of
an aristocracy of wealthy intellects, and were discussed
in the dialect of a learned coterie, unintelligible to the
attendants who waited upon us while we committed
blasphemies at our philosophical petits soupers — so long

From the "Confessions!' 251
did I continue to associate with these frivolous esprits
forts, most of whom resembled the liberal grands
seigneurs who, just before the Revolution, sought to re
lieve the tedium of their idle court life with the new sub
versive' ideas. But when I perceived that the vulgar
herd, the rabble, were beginning to discuss precisely the
same themes in their foul symposia, where tallow dips
and train-oil lamps took the place of wax lights and can
delabra ; when I perceived that filthy cobblers, and low
lived journeymen tailors, had the audacity to deny, in
their vile public-house jargon, the existence of God — when
ever atheism began to smell very strongly of cheese, of
brandy, and of tobacco, the scales suddenly fell from my
eyes, and what I had failed to comprehend by the intel
lect I now comprehended by the sense of smell, through
the nausea of disgust, and there was an end, thank God !
to my atheism. To confess the truth, it was not merely
disgust that sickened me with the principles of the god
less, and caused my defection from their ranks. There
was also present an element of worldly fear, which I could
not overcome ; for I saw that atheism had concluded an
alliance, more or less secret, with the nakedest, altogether
fig leafless, and vulgarest Communism. My aversion
from the latter had certainly nothing in common with the
terror of the wealthy upstart who trembles for his fortune,
or with the anxiety of well-to-do tradespeople who fear
lest their profits should be diminished. No : I was haunted

252 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
by the secret dread that pursues the artist and tbe man
of letters, when he sees our whole modern civilization, the
arduous acquisition of so many centuries, the fruit of the
noblest labours of our predecessors, threatened with
destruction through the victory of Communism. Carried
along by the stream of generous impulse, we were always
ready to sacrifice the interests of art and of learning, in
deed, all special interests whatever, for the common good
of the suffering and oppressed people ; but we could not
conceal from ourselves what we should have to expect, as
soon as the great ignorant mass, (by some styled the
" People," by others the " Rabble "), whose legitimate
sovereignty had long since been proclaimed, should gain
absolute mastery. The poet especially feels an un
comfortable shudder when he sees this blundering
monarch assume the reins of government. We would
willingly offer up- ourselves for the good of the people, for
self-sacrifice is one of our most exquisite pleasures, the
emancipation of the people has been the great aim of our
lives, and for this cause we have striven and have endured
unutterable suffering at home and in exile; but the pure,
sensitive nature of the poet instinctively shuns all close
personal contact with the people, and still more does the
poet start back affrighted at the thought of its caresses,
• from which, may God preserve us ! A fierce democrat*
* In another passage Heine attributes this declaration to Ludwig Borne. — Tr.

From the " Confessions." 253
once declared that, were a king _to grasp his hand, he
would immediately thrust it into the fire to purify it. In
the same manner, I might say that, were His Majesty the
People to honour me with such a recognition, I would
wash my hand.
His Majesty- O^' ^ut the Pcoplc ! the poor king in
eop e . ^^gg I j^^g found sycophants more shameless
than the courtiers of Byzance or of Versailles, ready to
scatter their incense of flattery about its path. These
court lackeys of the People are incessantly praising its
perfections and its virtues, and shouting enthusiastically :
" How beautiful is the People ! how good is the People !
how intelligent is the People ! " No, it is a lie. The
poor sovereign People is not beautiful ; on the contrary,
it is very ugly. But this ugliness arises from its dirty
condition, and it will disappear as soon as we have
erected public baths, wherein His Majesty the People
may wash himself gratuitously. The People, whose good
ness is so much vaunted, is not at all good — is often just
as wicked as are certain other potentates. But its wicked
ness springs from hunger ; we must see to it that the
sovereign People has always something to eat. As soon
as His Majesty is properly fed, and his appetite is satis
fied, he also will smile upon us condescendingly and
graciously, just like other sovereigns. The People is cer
tainly not very intelligent ; it is perhaps even more stupid

2 54 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
than other monarchs ; it is almost as brutally stupid as
its minions. Its favour and confidence are bestowed only
on those who declaim and shout in the jargon of its
passions, while it despises every honest man who tries to
enlighten and ennoble it in the language of reason. So
is it in Paris ; so was it in Jerusalem. Leave it to the
People to choose between the most righteous of the
righteous and the veriest highway robber, and be sure
that the cry will be : " Let us have Barabbas ! Long live
Barabbas ! " The cause of this perversity is ignorance :
we must endeavour to eradicate this national evil by
instituting public schools for the People, where instruc
tion, and with it the indispensable bread and butter and
other nourishment, may be gratuitously provided. Then,
when every unit of the People has been placed in a
position to avail himself of all wished-for knowledge, you
will soon see an inteUigent People. Perhaps, at last, it
will become as cultivated, as intelligent, and as witty as
you and I, my dear reader.
Hegel's The merit of having long ago foretold in
p losop y. ^y ^^^j^ ;; Q^ Germany " what dreadful phe
nomena would by-and-by reveal themselves, deserves no
great praise. It was easy for me to prophesy what songs
would one day be piped and warbled in Germany, for I
was present at the brooding of the birds that were after
wards to sing the new songs. I saw Hegel sitting

From the " Confessions." 255
with comically earnest face as brood-hen on the fatal
eggs, and I heard his cackling. To speak frankly, I
seldom understood him, and only by subsequent medita
tion did I succeed in unriddling his words. I believe
that he really did not wish to be understood, and hence
his involved discourse ; hence, too, perhaps his predilec
tion for persons by whom he was sure that he could not
be understood, and to whom therefore he might very
readily accord the honour of his intimate acquaintance.

„ 1 J One beautiful starlit evening, as we were
Hegel ana '^'
'^'"'^" standing together at a window, I, a youth of
two-and-twenty, who had just well dined and had drunk
my coffee, began to speak sentimentally of the stars,
which I called the abode of the blessed. The Master,
however, only muttered, "The stars, hum! hum! the
stars are merely a brilliant leprosy on the face of the
heavens." " In God's name," cried I, " is there then no
happy place above where the virtuous after death may find
reward ? " But Hegel, staring for a moment at me with
his leaden eyes, said sharply, " You think then that you
should have a gratuity for tending your sick mother, or
for not poisoning your elder brother?" After saying this,
he looked round with anxiety, but seemed quickly re
assured when he saw that no one was near except Henry
Beer, who had come to ask him to take a hand at whist.

256 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
Hegel's I ^*^ young and proud, and it still further
teac ing. j^jgg^j jjjy yauity to Icam from Hegel that, not
as my grandmother supposed, God who lived in heaven,
but I myself here on earth, was the real God.
Deism lives, lives its most living life ; it is
Deism. not dead, and least of all has it been killed
by the newest German philosophy.
I THINK I may flatter myself that I have
Moses. formed an enlightened conception of the
character of Moses as revealed in the first portion of the
Holy Scriptures. This sublime figure has made a pro
found impression upon me. What a giant form he is !
I cannot conceive that Og, King of Bashan, was
mightier. How insignificant Sinai appears when Moses
stands on its summit ! This mountain is but a pedestal
whereon rest the feet of the man, whose head reaches
to the clouds, where he speaks with God. God forgive
me the sin ! yet I often feel as if the Mosaic God
were but a reflected image of Moses himself, whom he
so closely resembles alike in his wrath and in his love.
It were indeed a great sin, it would be anthropomor
phism, to suppose such an identification of God with his
prophet — but the resemblance is striking. Formerly, I
had no special admiration for Moses, probably because
the spirit of Hellenism was dominant within me, and

From the " Confessions!' 257

I could not pardon in the law-giver of the Jews his
intolerance of all types and plastic representations. I
failed to perceive thtit Moses, in spite of his enmity to
ward art, was yet himself a great artist, and possessed
the true artistic genius. But this artistic genius was with
him, as with his countrymen the Egyptians, directed
only toward the colossal and the indestructible. He did
not however, like the Egyptians, fashion his works of art
of bricks and granite. He erected human pyramids,
he carved out human obelisks, he took a poor shepherd
tribe and created therefrom a people fit to defy the
centuries, a great, a holy, an eternal people, a People of
God, that should serve all other peoples as an example,
yea, that should be the prototype of all humanity : he
created Israel ! More justly than the Roman poet,
might this artist, the son of Amram and of Jochebed,
boast that he had erected a monument that should
outlive all the creations of brass. As of the master-
builder, so of his work — the Hebrew People — I had never
spoken with sufficient reverence, and this too was a conse
quence of my natural inclination toward Hellenism, to
which the asceticism of Judaism is abhorrent. But since
then my predilection for Hellas has diminished. I see
now that the Greeks were only handsome youths, while
the Jews were always men, powerful, indomitable men,
not only formerly, but that they are so even to this day,
in spite of eighteen centuries of persecution and misery.

258 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
I have now learned to esteem them more worthily, and
were not all pride of birth an absurd contradiction in
the mouth of a champion of the Revolution and of its
democratic principles, the writer of these " Confessions "
might well be proud that his ancestors were of the
noble house of Israel, that he is a descendant of those
martyrs who have given to the world a God and an
eternal code of morals, and who have fought and
suffered on every battlefield of thought. You see how I,
who used formerly to quote Homer, now quote the Bible,
just like Uncle Tom. And in truth I owe much to the
Bible. It reawakened within me religious feeling ; and
this new birth of religious feeling suffices for the poet,
who can perhaps more easily than any other mortal dis
pense with positive dogmas of faith. He possesses the
gift of grace ; to his spirit the portals of divine and secu
lar symbolism open of their own accord, and to gain
admission he needs no church key.
Formerly, when Philosophy had still a
Protestantism. - •'
preponderating interest for me, I valued
Protestantism only for the services it had rendered in
the conquest of hberty of thought, thereby providing a
basis for the subsequent labours of Lebnitz, Kant, and
Hegel. Luther, the strong man with the axe, must ne
cessarily precede these champions of thought, in order
to clear the way for them. In this respect also, I

From the "Confessions!' 259
honoured the Reformation as the starting point of Ger
man philosophy, and justified my martial partisanship for
Protestantism. But now, in my later and maturer days,
when the religious sentiment again swells within me like
the billows of the sea, and the shipwrecked metaphysician
clings firmly to his Bible — now I specially value Pro
testantism on account of the services it has rendered
through the discovery and the spreading abroad of the
Sacred Book. I say, the discovery ; for the Jews, who
rescued it from the great burning of the Second Temple,
and who bore it about with them as a portable Father
land through the long period of the Middle Ages — the
Jews, I say, kept this treasure carefully concealed in
their ghetto, whither German learned men, pioneers and
initiators of the Reformation, crept down stealthily in
order to acquire the Hebrew language, and to possess
themselves of the key to unlock the casket that con
tained this treasure.
The world's The Jcws, excluded from the possession
obligations to . . . ,- ,
the Jews, of land and the acquisition of property by
handicraft, had as their only resources commerce and
money-dealing, both of which the Church prohibited to
the faithful. Thus the Jews were legally condemned to
become rich and despised, and to be murdered. Such
murders were, it is true, covered in those early days
with a cloak of religion, and it was declared to be

26o JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
a duty to kih those who had kiUed our Saviour. What
a strange delusion ! The very people who had given
to the world a God, and whose whole lives were one long
aspiration of the fear of God, was now decried as a
nation of deicides ! We saw a bloody parody of this
madness at the outbreak of the revolution in' Saint
Domingo, where a band of negroes devastated the plan
tations with fire and sword, under the leadership of a
black fanatic, who carried a huge crucifix and shouted
with blood-thirsty frenzy : " The whites killed Christ,
let us kill all the whites ! " Yes, to the Jews to whom
the world owes its God, it is indebted also for His
Divine Word, the Bible. As they had saved it at the
sack of Jerusalem, so they saved it from the bankruptcy
of the Roman Empire, and through all the tumultuous
times of the migration of the peoples they preserved the
cherished Book, until Protestantism sought it out
among them and translated it into the languages of all
countries, and spread it throughout the whole world.
This spreading abroad of the Word has produced the
most blessed fruit, and it continues even to our time in
which the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is
fulfilling a providential mission more important, and
likely to have quite other results than were anticipated
by the pious gentlemen of this British Christian Exporta
tion Society. They think by such means to establish
a narrow and petty religious dogmatism, and as they

From the " Confessions!' 261
have monopolised the sea, so would they monopolise
Heaven itself by making it a domain of the Anglican
Church. But lo ! they are unwittingly hastening the
downfall of all Protestant sects, which depend for their
very existence upon the Bible, but are destined to become
absorbed in a universal Bible autocracy. They are
advancing the great democracy wherein every man shall
be, not only king, but also bishop within his own house.
In distributing the Bible over the whole earth, in foisting
it upon the whole human race, whether by commercial
artifice, by smuggling, or by barter, and in handing over
its exegesis to the individual reason, they are founding
the great Empire of the Spirit, the empire of religious
sentiment, of the love of our neighbour, of purity, and of
true morality — in fine, the empire of whatever cannot be
taught by means of dogmatic formulas, but only by types
and examples such as are contained in that beautiful
and sacred book of instruction for young and old
children, which we call the Bible.
It is for an observant thinker a marvellous spectacle
to regard those countries in which the Bible has since
the Reformation been exercising its moulding influence,
by impressing on the morals, modes of thought, and
sentiments of their inhabitants, the stamp of the life
of Palestine as it manifests itself in the Old and New
Testaments. In the north of Europe and in America,
but especially in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon, in

262 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
general throughout Teutonic, and in a less degree
throughout Celtic, countries, this influence of the life
of Palestine has become so predominant that one might
fancy oneself to be in the midst of a nation of Jews. The
Scotch Protestants, for example, are they not Hebrews,
whose very names are biblical, whose cant even has a
kind of Jerusalemitic-pharisaic ring, and whose religion
is merely a Judaism without prohibition of swine's
flesh ? The same is the case in many portions of North
Germany and of Denmark. I will not speak of the
recently-established religious communities of the United
States, which are a pedantic imitation of Old Testament
life. The life of Palestine appears among these sects as
if daguerreotyped, the contours are scrupulously accurate,
but the whole presents a dull grey aspect, and there
is a total absence of the warm and rich colour of the
Promised Land. But some day the caricature will dis
appear, and the genuine, the true, the imperishable, that
is to say, the morahty of the old Judaism, will then
flourish with as divine a beauty in these lands as it once
did on the banks of Jordan and on the slopes of Lebanon :
for palms and camels are not necessary to goodness.
Perhaps it is not merely the capacity for receiving such
an influence that has enabled these nations so readily to
adapt their moralit]', and their modes of thought, to Judaic
life. The cause of this phenomenon is probably to
be found in the character of the Jewish people, which

From the "Confessions!' 263
always had a very strong affinity with the character of
the Teutonic, and to a certain extent also with that of
the Celtic, races. Judea has always seemed to me like a
fragment of the Occident that had lost itself in the midst
of the Orient. With its spiritualistic faith, its severe,
chaste, almost ascetic morality, in a word, with its ab
stract inward life, this country and its people always
formed a most striking contrast to the countries and the
peoples that surrounded it, devoted as these were to the
most intense and the most luxuriously coloured idolatry
of nature, and consuming their existence in the riotous
intoxication of the senses. Israel sat piously under its
fig-tree, chanting the praises of the invisible God, and
practising virtue and righteousness, while in the neigh
bouring temples of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Tyre, and of
Sidon, were being celebrated those bloody and infamous
rites the mere description of which still causes us to
shudder with horror ! When we think of such surround
ings, we cannot sufficiently admire the early grandeur of
Israel. Of the love of liberty so strong amid the Jews,
while not only round about them but among all the
nations of antiquity, even among the philosophical
Greeks, slavery was justified and flourished — of this
Jewish love of freedom, I will say nothing, lest I should
compromise the Bible in the eyes of the present rulers of
the earth. Never has the world beheld a Socialist more
audacious than our Lord and Saviour. Even Moses, in

264 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
an earlier age, was such a Socialist, though as a practical
statesman he endeavoured rather to remodel existing in
stitutions, especially those relating to property. In
stead of striving for the impossible, instead of a hot
headed attempt to abolish property, Moses strove to
effect the moralisation of property ; he sought to bring it
into harmony with equity, with the true law of reason.
This he did by establishing the "Year of Jubilee,'' when
every alienated heritage (which, among an agricultural
people, always consists of land) was restored to the
possession of its original proprietor, no matter by what
means it had passed into alien hands. This institution
of the Year of Jubilee forms a most striking contrast to
the "prescription" of the Romans, according to which,
after the lapse of a certain period, the actual possessor
of a piece of land could not be compelled to restore it
to its legitimate owner, so long as the latter was unable
to shew that he had during that period demanded resti
tution in due form. The last condition left ample scope
for chicanery, especially in a State in which despotism
and jurisprudence flourished, and where an unlawful
possessor had at his disposition every means of intimi
dation, particularly against the poor, for whom it was im
possible to obtain the necessary expenses of litigation.
The Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and the con
quests that he made by the sword he knew how to
defend by legal chicanery. None but a people of robbers

From the "Confessions." 265

and casuists could be capable of inventing "prescrip
tion," and of consecrating it in that most iniquitous of
books, which may well be called the Bible of Satan — the
Code of the Roman Civil Law. Moses did not desire
to abolish property ; he wished rather that every man
should possess property, in order that no one should be
reduced by poverty to the condition of a slave, with ser
vile disposition. Freedom was always the fundamental
idea with this great Liberator, and it is this idea that
inspires and flames forth in all his laws concerning
pauperism. Slavery itself he hated with a perfect and
intense hatred, but he could not completely annihilate
this inhumanity ; it was too deeply rooted in the life of
that primitive age, and he was obliged to limit his efforts
to alleviating by legal remedies the condition of the slave,
to facilitating his emancipation, and to restricting the
period of service. But should a slave, duly emancipated
by the law, absolutely refuse to quit the house of his mas
ter, then Moses ordained that this incorrigible mass of
servility should be nailed by the ear to the door-post of
the master's habitation, and after such exhibition be con
demned to remain in slavery during the rest of his life.
O Moses, our teacher, reach me hammer and nails, that
I may nail our sentimental slaves in black-red-and-gold*
livery, by their long ears to the Brandenburg Gate !
* Btac/i-red-and-gold were the colours adopted by the German Liberals of 1815.
In r848 they were used as the symbol of a united Germany. They were alter
nately prohibited and permitted, according as the party of progress or the
party of reaction, was in the ascendant. Btactc-'white-and-red are now the
official colours of the German Empire. — Tr.

266 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
Zeal of Whatever we may say against the zealots
the Catholics. ^^ jj^g Roman Catholic Church, one thing is
certain : they are no egotists, they concern themselves
about their brother-men ; unfortunately, often rather too
much. TT ¦ J No one need accuse me of fanatical hatred
Heine and
Catholicism. ^^ ^j^^ Romish Church, for I have always
been wanting in the narrowness of spirit necessary for
such animosity. I am too well acquainted with my
intellectual stature to suppose that I could do much
harm, by the fiercest of assaults, to such a colossal struc
ture as the Church of St. Peter. I could at most be but
a humble labourer at the slow work of demolition, a
work that may yet last for many centuries. I was too
well versed in history not to recognise the gigantic pro
portions of that edifice of granite ; let us always call it
the Bastille of the Spirit, let us always maintain that it is
now guarded only by disabled soldiers. Yet it is not the
less certain that this Bastille will not be easily stormed,
and many a yourig assailant will break his head against
its walls. As a thinker, as a metaphysician, I could
never withhold my tribute of admiration for the splendid
consistency of Roman Catholic doctrine. Nor can I
flatter myself with having gained any victory by my wit
and satire over its dogmas or its creed, and men have
done me both too much honour and too much dishonour

From the " Confessions." 267
in calling me an intellectual kinsman of Voltaire. I was
always a poet, and for this reason the poetry that blos
soms and glows under the symbohsm of Catholic dogma
and worship could not but reveal itself more profoundly
to me than to others. So much was this the case, that
in my youth I was often overpowered by the infinite
sweetness, the mysterious and blessed effluence, the
delirious death-ecstasy, of Catholicism.
The Jesuits ; WHATEVER Opinion wc may hold about the
their genius for
teaching. Jesuits in Other respects, it must be admitted
that in everything relating to the art of instruction they
gave abundant proof of sound practical sense. And though
the effect of their method of teaching was to present a
sadly mutilated idea of ancient culture, they at least suc
ceeded in popularising the knowledge of antiquity ; they,
so to speak, democratized it ; they caused it to spread
among the masses of the people. On the other hand, by
our present system, the individual man of learning, the
aristocrat of the intellect, does no doubt attain to a more
intimate acquaintance with antiquity and with the ancients,
but the great mass of the people seldom retains any scrap
¦of classical lore, any fragment of Herodotus, any fable of
yEsop, any verse of Horace, in a corner of its brain ;
whereas formerly poor folks always had some crust of
early school learning left at which they could keep munch
ing during the rest of their days. "What an ornament

268 JJ^it, JVisdom, and Pathos.
is a little scrap of Latin to the whole man ! " once said
to me an old cobbler, who still preserved in his memory
not a few fine passages from Cicero's speech against
Catiline, learnt in his young days when he wore the
little black gown of the College of the Jesuits — passages
that he would still often quote with high glee against
the demagogues of the day. Teaching was the speciality
of the Jesuits, and although they sought to direct it
wholly in the interest of their Order, the mere passion for
teaching, the only human passion that remained to
them, often gained the upperhand, so that they forgot
their aim — the suppression of reason in the interest of
belief — and instead of making children of men, as they
intended, they, against their intention, by the instruc
tion they imparted, made men of children. The great
est heroes of the Revolution were sent forth from the
schools of the Jesuits, and without such discipline as was
there to be acquired, that great upheaval of the human
spirit might have been delayed for a century. Poor
Fathers of the Society of Jesus ! you are become the
bugbear and the scapegoat of the Liberal party ; men
have comprehended only what is dangerous in you, they
have not understood the services you have rendered.
I HAVE brought it, as folk say, to no good
Only a poet ! j ' id
on this fair earth. I have not become any
thing but— a poet ! Yel I will not, by affecting a hypo
critical humihty, depreciate this name of poet. One

From the " Confessions!' 269

is much when one is a poet, and especially when one is
a great German lyrical poet, a poet of the race that has
surpassed all other nations in two things : in philosophy
and in song. I will not, with the false modesty invented
by begging knaves, gainsay my poetic fame. None of
my countrymen gained the laurel wreath at such an early
age as I did, and if my colleague Wolfgang Goethe can
sing complacently how " the Chinese with trembling hand
paints Charlotte and Werther on glass,'' I can, if it comes
to boasting, oppose to the Chinese fame of Goethe one
more fabulous still, namely, a Japanese fame.* At the
present moment my Japanese is as indifferent to me as
my Finlandish fame. Alas ! all fame, the bauble once
so highly prized, once sweet as ananas and flattery, has
long since become mingled with disgust ; its taste is now
as bitter to me as wormwood. Like Romeo I can say :
"01 am fortune's fool ! " I stand before the great
soup-pot, but I have no spoon. What boots it to me
that at festivals of mirth my health is drunk from golden
cups brimming with rarest wine, when I, a stranger
to all earth's joys, can but moisten my lips with insipid
tisane ! What boots it though aU the roses of Sharon
so tenderly bloom and give forth sweetest fragrance for
me ! Alas ! Sharon is two thousand leagues from the
Rue d'Amsterdam, where, in the peevish solitude of my
* A translation of the Book of Songs into Japanese was published at Nagasaki.
The translation was criticised in the Calcutta Reviem for 1838.— Tr.

270 JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
sick-room, the only perfume that greets my senses is the
smell of heated napkins ! Ah ! but the mockery of God
presses heavily upon me. The great Author of the
Universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, seeks to prove
with awful severity to me, the little earthly so-called
German Aristophanes, how my wittiest sarcasms are but
miserable jests compared with his, and how pitifully my
humour falls short of his colossal irony.
From the The Chronicle of Limburg is very interest-
Chronicle of
Limkurg. ing reading for those who desire information
regarding German manners and customs during the
Middle Ages. It describes, like a journal of fashion, the
costumes both male and female, that ' were in fashion
during the various periods. It takes account also of the
new ballads that were piped and sung each year, and gives
us the opening lines of many favourite songs of the time.
Thus it relates how, in the year 1480, there was through
out all Germany, a piping and singing of certain
songs, sweeter and more delightful than any melodies
ever before heard in German countries, and how young
and old, and women especially, were so captivated by
them, that one heard them sung from morning till
night. Yet these songs, adds the Chronicle, were
composed by a young clerk smitten with leprosy, who
lived in a desert place, separated from all his fellow-
men. Thou art doubtiess aware, dear reader, what a

From the "Confessions!' 271
terrible disease was this leprosy of the Middle Ages,
and how the poor creatures afflicted with the incurable
malady were thrust forth from every citizen community,
and were compelled to hold themselves aloof from all
human intercourse. Dead-alive, they wandered about
enveloped from head to foot in a grey cloak, the hood of
which was drawn over their faces, carrying in their hands
a rattle, called the Lazarus rattle, wherewith they an
nounced their approach, in order to give to every one
timely warning to avoid their path. Now the poor clerk,
of whose fame as a song-writer the Limburg Chronicle
takes note, was such a leper, sitting melancholy in the
solitude of his misery, while with joy and mirth all
Germany was piping and singing his songs. Alas ! this
fame was the mockery of God, which we know so well,
the cruel irony that is ever the same, though it thus
appeared in the romantic costume of the Middle Ages.
The satiated King of Israel and Juda said with truth,
"There is nothing new under the sun.'' Perhaps the
sun itself is but an old warmed-up piece of pleasantry,
decked out with new rays, and now glittering with im
posing splendour ! Often in my sombre night visions, I
fancy that I see standing before me the poor clerk of
the Limburg Chronicle, my brother in Apollo, and that
his suffering eyes peer wistfuUy at me from under his grey
hood ; but in an instant he is gone again, and, gradually

272 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
dying away in the distance like the echo of a dream, I
hear the creaking sounds of the Lazarus rattle.
jFrom tl)e preface to poems.
How we under- It is ouc of the most haplcss errors of man-
value Nature's
gifts. kind that it childishly undervalues the gifts
placed by Nature most conveniently within its reach,
while it esteems as the most precious of possessions
whatever is most difficult to obtain. Man reckons
as the highest of treasures the jewel locked up in
the bosom of the earth, or the pearl hid in the sands
of ocean; but he would place little store on these, did
Nature lay them at his feet like pebbles or mussel shells.
We are indifferent toward our advantages ; we try to de
ceive ourselves so long about our faults that at last we
regard them as excellencies. Once, after listening to a
concert by Paganini, as I was addressing to the master
impassioned eulogies on his violin-playing, he interrupted
me with the words : " But how were you pleased to-day
with my compliments and reverences ? "
Heine's wishes ^ YE gods ! I do not besccch ye to spare
age. ^^g ^y youth, but to leave me the virtues of
youth — disinterested wrath, disinterested tears ! Let
me not become a scolding old man, enviously growl
ing at the younger race of spirits, or a wearisome

From the Prefaces to Poems. 273

grumbler perpetually mourning over the good old times.
Let me become greyhaired without losing the love of
youth, and in spite of the infirmities of age let me still
share youth's pastimes and dangers ! I heed not though
my voice grow faint and tremulous, if only the sense of
my words remain fearless and fresh !
The poet a ^ WONDERFUL Sunday-child* is the poet :
un ay c 1 . j^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ forests that still slumber in
the acorn, and he holds converse with generations yet
unborn. They whisper to him their secrets, and he
prattles of them in the market-place. But his voice dies
away unheard amid the loud strife of daily passions :
few hear him, no one understands him. Frederick
Schlegel called the historian a prophet who looks back
into the past ; with greater reason we may say of the poet
that he is an historian whose eye discerns the future.
Heine on his ^'^ ^ ^^^ cxlst ? My body is SO shruukcn
ma ress-grave. ^j^^j. aliiiost nothing save a voice remains,
and my bed makes me think of the sounding grave of
the wizard Meilin, which is in the forest of Broceliand,
in Brittany, under tall oak trees, whose tops quiver up
toward the sky, like green flames. Ah ! how I envy

^ It is an old German superstition that children born on Sunday are destined
to be fortunate ; hence gifted or prosperous people are called, Sunday-chitdrc?l.
— Tr. S

2 74 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
thee, my colleague Merlin, these green trees with their
fresh waving, for over my mattress-grave in Paris rustles
no green leaf, and early and late I hear nothing but the
rattle of carriages, an incessant hammering, scolding, and
jingling of pianos. It is a pitiful condition ; a grave
without rest, death without the privileges of the dead,
who need spend no money, nor write any letters, nor,
worse still, books. The measure for my coffin was taken
long ago, as also for my necrology ; but I am so long
about dying, that it is beginning to get tiresome for me
as well as for my friends. But have patience ; everything
comes to an end. Some morning ye will find the show-
booth closed where ye used so often to take delight in
the puppet-play of my wit.

Heine's last ^ MUST cxprcssly contradict the rumour
that the return to a personal God has brought
me to the threshold of any Church, much less led me
into its fold. No ; my religious convictions and opinions
have remained free from all sectarianism ; I have been
enticed by no church bell, I have been dazzled by no
altar lights. I have coquetted with no symbolism, and I
have not utterly renounced my reason. I have abjured
nothing, not even my old heathen gods, from whom I
have, it is true, turned aside, though parting from them
in love and friendship. It was in May 1848, on the last
occasion on which I went out-of-doors, that I bade fare-

From the Prefaces to Poems. 275
well to the lovely idols that I had worshipped in the days
of my prosperity. Painfully did I drag my limbs to the
Louvre, and I almost fell into a swoon as I entered the
splendid hall where the blessed goddess of beauty, our
dear Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. Long time
did I he at her feet, weeping so bitterly that a stone must
have had pity on me. And the goddess looked down
on me with compassion, yet it was a compassion without
comfort, as though she would say : " See'st thou not that
I have no arms, and so cannot give thee help ? "

276 JVit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
¦{From " ffiliougijta aniJ jFanttes."*
PERSONAL.
Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of
the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the
nineteenth.

I AM of a most peaceful disposition. My wishes are :
a modest cottage with roof of thatch, but a good bed,
good food, milk and butter of the freshest, before my
window flowers, by the side of my door a few fair trees ;
and if God were pleased to render me perfectly happy,
he would permit me the satisfaction of seeing about
six or seven of my enemies hanged on those trees.
From the depth of my heart I would forgive them all the
wrong they had inflicted upon me during their lives.
Yes ; we must forgive our enemies — but not until they
are hanged !

That I became a Christian was the fault of those
Saxons who suddenly changed their minds t at the
" These fragments were collected by Dr. Strodtmann from Heine's papers
after the poet's death. — Tr.
t Ujnsattettcn, in the original: here, it is equivalent to "deserted." The
Saxon troops went over to the Allies when the defeat of the French army be
came imminent. — Tr.

From "Thoughts and Fancies." 277
battle of Leipzig ; or of Napoleon who had no need to
go to Russia ; or of his teacher at Brienne who instructed
him in geography, but did not tell him that at Moscow
it was very cold in winter.*
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.
The earth is the great rock to which humanity, the
real Prometheus, is chained, while its flesh is lacerated
by the vulture of Doubt. Humanity stole the light, and
now suffers torture for the theft.

Thought is unseen Nature, as Nature is unseen
Thought.

Among the ancients there existed no belief in ghosts.
The body was burned, the human form disappeared as
smoke in the air, it was dissolved in the purest, most
spiritual of the elements — fire. Among Christians the
body (is it in derision or from contempt ?) is restored to
earth ; it is like a seed-corn, and springs up again as a
ghost — (" it is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spirit
ual body ") — it retains the horror of corruption.
* .^fter the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig, the German Govern
ments reimposed the old tyrannical restraints that made it impossible for a Jew
to obtain any official appointment, or even to take a degree at a German
university : hence one motive for Heine's becoming a Christian. — Tr.

278 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
God has made no revelation pointing to a life beyond
the grave ; even Moses tells us nothing about it. God
is perhaps not quite pleased that the pious feel so firmly
persuaded of a future life. In his Fatherly kindness he
wishes perhaps to give us a surprise.

By no race was belief in immortality more strongly
held than by the Celts ; one might obtain the loan of
money from them to be repaid in the next world. Pious
Christian usurers should take an example from them !

The desperate condition of mankind in the age of the
Caesars explains the success of Christianity. Suicide was
of the most frequent occurrence among the proud Ro
mans, who thus at once gave up the world. Whoever
had not courage to bid the world an instantaneous farewell
adopted the slow suicide of the religion of renunciation.
Slaves and unfortunate folk were the first Christians-
By their numbers and by the new fanaticism that inspired
them, they became a power understood by Constantine '
Roman lust for universal dominion specially made it
self master of this power, and disciplined it by dogma
and ritual.

Judaism — an Aristocracy : one God has created and
rules the world ; all men are his children, but the Jews

From " Thoughts and Fancies." 279
are his favourites and their country is his chosen
Dominion. He is a monarch, the Jews are his nobles,
and Palestine is the Exarchate of God.
Christianity — a Democracy : one God has created
and rules the universe ; but He loves all men alike, and
protects alike all His dominions. He is no longer a
national, but a universal, God.

In Christianity man reaches self-consciousness of the
spirit through suffering : disease spiritualizes even the
lower animals.

The Romish Church is dying of that disease from
which no one recovers : exhaustion through the power of
Time. With her usual wisdom, she declines the aid of
all physicians ; in her long experience she has seen many
an aged person die sooner than need was, because an
energetic physician undertook the cure. But her agony
will be of long duration. She will outlive us all, the
writer of this, the printer who sets it up, even the young
apprentice who fetches the " copy."

The Jews were the only people that maintained freedom
of religious belief during the Christianization of Europe.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Judea — a Protestant Egypt.

The Teutonic races comprehended Christianity by
reason of their spiritual affinity with the Jewish moral
principle, with Judaism in general. The Jews were the
Germans of the East, and in our day Protestants in
Teutonic countries, (in Scotland, America, Germany,
Holland) are nothing else than old Oriental Jews.

Jewish history is beautiful ; but latter-day Jews reflect
discredit on their ancestors, who would otherwise be
placed far above the Greeks and Romans. I believe that
if the Jewish race were extinct, but it were known that a
single survivor of that people still existed somewhere,
men would journey a hundred leagues to grasp his hand :
but now, we are despised !

Modern Jewish history is tragical ; and yet if one were
to write about this tragedy, he would be laughed at. —
This is the most tragical thing of all.

A certificate of baptism is the card of admission to
European culture.

I LOVE the Jews personally.

From "Thoughts and Fancies!' 2^3
A. Were I of the race from which our Saviour sprang,,
I should be proud rather than ashamed of my lineage.
B. So should I, were our Saviour the only one that
came of this race ; but so many rascals have also sprung
from it, that the acknowledgment of the relationship
excites much suspicion.

Jews when they are good are better, when bad they
are worse, than Christians.

The grandeur of the Universe is always adequate to
the grandeur of the soul that surveys it. The good find
here their Paradise, and the wicked are already on earth
amid the torments of Hell.

Holy men like the Stylite are now an impossibility ;
for philanthropy would speedily shut them up in a mad
house.

I see clearly the wonder of the past. A veil is spread
over the future, but it is a rose-coloured one, and through
it gleam golden columns and glittering gems, and sweet
strains are heard.

Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

ART AND LITERATURE.
A book, like a child, must have its time. All books
hastily composed in a few weeks arouse in me a certain
prejudice against their authors. An honest woman
does not bring her child into the world before the ninth
month.

Among the Greeks life and poetry were identical.
They produced therefore no poets as great as ours, in
whom the life often contradicts the poetry. Shake
speare had more poetry in his great toe than was
possessed by all the Greek poets, with the exception of
Aristophanes. The Greeks were great artists, not poets;
they had more artistic sensibility than poetic feeling.
Their monuments of plastic art are important, because
in these works they had but to copy reality, which was
poetry, and which afforded them the best models.

The visible work is the harmonious expression of the
invisible thought : the Art of Life therefore consists in a
harmony between doing and thinking.

In Art, form is everything, the material is of no conse
quence. Staub, the tailor, charges no more for the coat

From "Thoughts and Fancies!' 283
that he supplies without having received the cloth for it
than if the cloth had been furnished to him. He asks
payment merely for the fashion ; he makes a present of
the material.

The daguerreotype is a testimony against the false
view that art is an imitation of nature. Nature here
gives evidence how little she understands about Art,
how miserable is the result when she attempts to inter
fere with Art.

A SCULPTOR engaged at the same time on statues of
Napoleon and of Wellington, seems to me like a priest who
should read mass at ten o'clock and sing in the synagogue
at twelve. Why should he not ? He may do it ; but
where this happens men will soon cease to be present
either at mass or in the synagogue. For poets it is still
more difficult to speak two languages. Alas ! most of
them can hardly speak one language.

The Theatre is not favourable for poets.

Goethe's aversion from giving way to enthusiasm is
as perverse as it is childish. Such self-reserve is more
or less suicidal ; it is like a flame that will not burn for

284 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
fear of consuming itself The generous flame, the soul
of Schiller, glows with self-sacrifice ; the brighter it
burns, the nearer it approaches annihilation, extinction.
I envy not the quiet night-light meekly consuming
away its existence.

We sought material India and found America ; now
we seek intellectual India : what shall we find?

It is to be desired that Genius should master the
knowledge of Sanscrit ; if this is left to the mere man of
learning, we shall get nothing but a good compendium.

The Mahabaratas, Ramayanas, and such like colossal
fragments, are spiritual mammoth-skeletons left on the
Himalayas.

In the age of Romanticism men loved in the flower
only its perfume ; in our time their liking is for the pro
ductive fruit. Hence the tendency toward the practical,
toward prose, toward homeliness.

The chief characteristic of present-day poets is
healthiness — Westphalian, Austrian, even Hungarian
healthiness.

From "Thoughts and Fancies. 285
Democracy is hastening the destruction of literature :
freedom and equality of style. Each is to be per
mitted to write according to his fancy, that is, as badly
as he may ; and no one is to be allowed to excel in
style, or to write better than another.

Democratic hatred toward poetry : Parnassus shall
be thrown down, made level, macadamised, and where
once the loitering poet climbed and listened to the
nightingales, there will soon be a flat turnpike road, or a
railway with its neighing iron horse hurrying busy men
along.

Democratic wrath against the celebration of love in
song : — why sing of the rose. Aristocrat ? Sing rather
of the democratic potato that nourishes the people !

A PURE work of art is seldom brought forth in an age
in which politics are predominant. The poet in such
an epoch resembles the sailor on a stormy sea, who be
holds on the distant shore a cloister standing on a tall
cliff ; the white nuns stand there singing, but the storm
outroars their voices.

The works of certain favourite authors of our time
are a libel on nature, not a description of it.

JVit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

Savigny a Roman ? No ; only a lackey of the
Roman intellect — un valet du romanisme.

Gervinus' LListory of Literature : — The problem was,
to give in a big book destitute of genius what Heinrich
Heine had given in a little book full of genius. The
problem has been admirably solved.

The German language is rich in itself, but in German
conversation we employ only the tenth part of this
wealth ; in reality therefore, our language is poor. The
French language is poor in itself, but the French possess
the talent of bringing forth all its resources in conversa
tion, and so their language is in fact rich. It is only in
literature that the Germans display all the treasures of
their language, and the French, dazzled by this display,
think : " Bless us, how brilliant these Germans must be
at home ! " They have no idea how few thoughts are in
circulation among us at home. With the French the
opposite is the case : they develop more ideas in society
than in books, and their men of greatest intellect either
do not write at all, or write only incidentally.

In French literature there prevails at present a wide
spread system of plagiarism. One genius puts his hand
into the pocket of another, and this gives them a kind of

From. " Thoughts and Fancies." 287
solidarity. By means of this art of stealing thoughts, by
which one appropriates the thought of another before it
is fully formed, intellect becomes common property. In
the Republic of Letters there is community of intellectual
possessions.

Can it be true that France wishes to return to Chris
tianity ? Is France so sick ? She is occupying herself
with pious legends. Is she preparing for death-bed con
version ? Does she desire the sacraments ? Frailty, thy
name is Man !

BuFFON says " the style is the man himself" Ville
main * is a living refutation of this maxim : his style is
beautiful, robust, and cleanly.

When a man has been guillotined several times in his
youth, like Charles Nodier,t it is quite natural that in his^
old age he should have no head.

Meyerbeer is the musical maitre de plaisir of the
aristocracy. * See sufrra, page 246. — Tr.
t r78o-i84-4. Charles Nodier, journalist, entomologist, and poet, was re
peatedly arrested on account of his protest against the assumption of sovereignty
by Napoleon After the fall of the First Empire he lived in Paris and was joint
editor of ^e Journal des Debats. — Tr.

Wit, Wisdom, and PalJios.

Lessing says : " Though Raphael's hands had been
cut off, he would still have been a painter." In the
same way, we may assert that, even though  's head
were cut off", he would still be a painter : he would
go on painting without a head, and without any one ob
serving that he was headless.

Junius is the champion of liberty who fights with
closed visor.
THE STATE AND SOCIETY.
Among the ancients, patriots were continually sound
ing their own praises — for example, Cicero. The
moderns also do the same in times of greatest
freedom — for example, Robespierre and Camille Des
moulins. When Such an epoch occurs among us, we
also will do likewise. The fameless ones are certainly
right in preaching modesty. It is so e^Sf^ox them to
practise this virtue ; it costs them no self-conquest, and
on account of its universality one fails to remark its
barrenness of deeds.

One must know Germany as a whole ; to know a part
only is dangerous. It is the story of the tree whose
leaves and fruit are bane and antidote.

From "Thoughts and Fancies." 289
Luther shook Germany to its foundations ; but
Francis Drake pacified it again : he gave us the potato.

Does the oil that is poured on the head of kings still
the tempests of their minds ?

Prussian Nobility is an abstract expression ; it refers
solely to the idea of birth, not to that of possessions.
The Prussian squires have no money.

The Hanoverian squires are asses, who can talk of
nothing but horses.

Servants that are without a master are not on that
account free men : servility is in their soul.

The German is like a slave who obeys his lord with
out chains or the lash, at mere command, aye, even at a
sign. Slavery is in the man himself, in his soul.
Spiritual is worse than material slavery. The Germans
must be freed from within; from without there is no
help for them.
The Germans are now working at the development of
their nationality, but they have begun too late. When
they have finished, nationalism will have ceased to exist

290 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos,
in the world, and they will speedily be obliged again to
give up their nationality without having derived benefit
therefrom, as the French and the British have done.

I USED always to consider a cathedral as a plaything :
I thought that a giant child, like the German people,
needed such a colossal plaything as the Cathedral of
Cologne. But now I think differently. I no longer
look upon the German people as a giant child. Cer
tainly it is no longer a child, but a sturdy youth, with
many natural abilities, which, however, will not avail
him anything if he does not earnestly take advantage of
the present, and does not keep an eye steadily fixed on
the future. We have no longer time for play, or for
carrying out the dreams of the past.

Political weathercocks conjure up storms and rely
on their own movableness. They forget that this will
avail them nothing should the stormwind some day over
throw the tower on which they stand.

Demagogy — the Holy Alliance of the People.

When I speak of the rabble, I except first, all whose
names are in the Directory, and secondly, all whose
names are not in it.

From " Thoughts and Fancies!' 291
The new civic society will drain, in the tumult of en
joyment, the last flagon, just as the old aristocracy did
before 1789 ; it already hears in the corridor the marble
footfall of the new gods, who will anon enter the hall of
festival without knocking, and overthrow the tables.

Rothschild, too, might build a Walhalla — a Pantheon
for all the princes who have raised loans from him.

The main army of Rothschild's enemies consists of
all who possess nothing : they all think, what we have
not, Rothschild has. These again are joined by the
mass of such as have lost their means ; instead of ascrib
ing the loss to their own stupidity, they imagine that it
is due to the cunning of those who have preserved their
fortunes. As soon as anyone finds himself without
money, he becomes the enemy of Rothschild.

A Communist proposes that he should share in Roths
child's three hundred millions of francs. Rothschild
sends him his- share, nine sous: "Now let me have
peace."

The Communists nourish a shoulder-shrugging anti
pathy to patriotism, fame, and war.

292 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
An association of ideas in the sense in which we speak
of industrial association, for example, an alliance between ¦
philosophic and politico-economic conceptions, would
produce the most astounding results.

The Place de la Concorde. I should like to know
whether corn would grow if it were sown there.

When a king has lost his head there is no further
help for him.

The nearer people found themselves to Napoleon the
more they admired him : with other heroes the contrary
is the case.

Napoleon was not of the wood of which kings are
made : he was of that marble of which gods are formed.

Napoleon detested the shopkeepers and the advo
cates ; he shot down the former and drov? the latter out
of the temple. They submitted, but they hated him.
They fancied they had created the Revolution for them
selves, and Napoleon used it for himself and for the peo
ple. They looked forward with delight to the Restora
tion.

From " Thoughts and Fancies!' 293
The Emperor's enemies scoff at him, but always with
a certain feeling of respect. While with the right hand
they bespatter him with mud, they hold their hats in their
left hand.

It was fortunate that the framers of the Code Napo
leon lived in times of revolution, when they learned to
sympathise with human passions and the deepest pro
blems of life.

A nation cannot be regenerated unless its government
exhibits high moral power. This power regenerates.
The fifteen years of the government of Napoleon was
therefore a necessity. He healed through fire and iron*
the sick nation; his government was a period of cure.
He was the Moses of the French : as the latter led his
people about in the desert to afford it a period of cure,
so Napoleon led the French through Europe.

People cannot understand why our German princes
live to such great ages : they are afraid to die, they fear
lest they should meet Napoleon again in the other world.

* " Fire and iron.'' Feiier und Eiseti was the motto of the Sturm und Drang
School. Schiller prefixed to his Robbers this Latin version of an aphorism of
Hippocrates :— Quae medicamenta non S3.uant., femtjn sanat, quae ferrum non
sanat, ignis sanat. — Tr.

294 Wit, JVisdom, and Pathos.
As in Homer the heroes exchange armour on the
battlefield, so the nations took to exchanging skins : the
French put on our bear skin, and we put on their ape
skin. The French became grave, we began to climb
trees. They commenced to scold our Voltairians. Keep
your minds easy ; it is only your skins we wear, we are
still bears at heart.

The people of Paris emancipated the world, and did
not accept so much as a gratuity for doing so.

Lafayette. — The world is surprised that there once
was an honest man : the situation remains vacant.

The Englishman who follows Van Amburgh about in
order to be present at all his performances, persuaded
that the lion will some day tear its master to pieces and
determined to witness the spectacle, resembles the
historian who is waiting in Paris till the French people
at last tear Louis Philippe to pieces, and who is in the
meantime daily observing this lion.

The French have more assurance of manner than the
Germans, because they are a literal people, not given to
dreaming : the dreaming German makes a scowling face
at you some morning, because he has dreamt that you
have insulted him, or that his grandfather once received
a kick from your grandfather.

From " Thoughts and Fancies!' 295
The French have so little to do with dreaming, that
even other people never dream about them, but only
about Germans.

Germans abroad are no better than exported beer.

Among the minor prophets residing in Paris there are
but few Germans : the majority of Germans come to
France in order to shew that they are no prophets even
out of their own country.

A YOUNG girl said : " The gentleman must be very
rich, for he is very ugly." The public judges in a similar
manner : "The man must be very learned, for he is very
tiresome.'' Hence the success of so many Germans in
Paris.

The mission of the Germans in Paris seems to be to
prevent me feeling home-sickness.

Dangerous Germans ! They suddenly produce a
poem from their pockets, or begin a conversation on
philosophy. In Russia the Revolution wears a crown, and is as in
exorable toward itself as the Committee of Public Safety
could ever have been.

296 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
Nicholas is, so to say, a hereditary Dictator. He shows
the most complete indifference toward the customary,
the prescriptive, the historical.

By all means let us now lean for support upon Russia
-on the stick with which we have been beaten !

WOMEN, LOVE, AND MARRIAGE.
Where the woman stops, the bad man begins.

When I read history, and am impressed by any deed
or occurrence, I often feel as if I should like to see the
woman concealed behind it, as the secret spring. Women
govern, although the Moniteur makes mention only of
men : they make history, although historians know only
the names of men.

That Xanthippe's husband should have become so
great a philosopher, is remarkable. Amid all the scold
ing, to be able to think ! But he could not write : that
was impossible. Socrates has not left to us a single
book.

From "Thoughts and Fancies!' 297
How much higher woman stands with Moses than
with other Orientals, or than with 'the Mohammedans
even down to our own day ! The latter declare that
woman shall not enter Paradise ; Mohammed excluded
her from it. Did he suppose that Paradise would no
longer be Paradise if every man were again to meet his
wife there ?

Every man who marries is like the Doge who weds
the Adriatic Sea : he knows not what he may find there
in — treasures, pearls, monsters, unknown storms.

The music at a marriage procession always reminds
me of the music of soldiers entering on a battle.

German women are dangerous on account of their
diaries, which their husbands may find.

German marriage is no true marriage. The husband
has not a spouse, but a serving-woman, and he con
tinues to lead his isolated bachelor existence of the in
tellect, even in the bosom of his family. I will not say
that he is on that account the master ; on the contrary,
he is often the servant of his serving-woman, and his
servility does not belie itself even in his own house.

298 ¦ Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS.
Wise men think out new thoughts, and fools proclaim
them.

We do not comprehend ruins, until we are ourselves
in ruins.

De mortiiis nil nisi bonum — of the living speak nothing
but evil.

" Render therefore unto Cassar the things which are
Caesar's ; and unto God the things that are God's.'' But
this applies only to giving, not to taking.

As sensible people are often very stupid, so stupid
people are often very shrewd.

The young and beautiful Miss  married old A  .
Hunger drove her to it : she had to choose between hunger
and death, which is even more meagre and more horrible.
A  should be proud that she gave his skeleton the
preference.

A MAN should become either a handicraftsman or a
philologist; breeches will be required in all ages, and
there will always be schoolboys in need of declensions
and conjugations.

VJ\OfA "THE BOOK OF $0^fQ$."

V^OfA "TUE^ BOOK OF $OKQ$."

THE TWO GRENADIERS.
Two grenadiers to France returning
From a Russian prison came.
And when they reached the German land
They were filled with grief and shame.
For there did they hear the sorrowful tale
Of France, by her glory forsaken ;
Her army was vanquished and scattered at last,
And their Emperor — he had been taken.
Then bitterly wept the two grenadiers
On hearing the woeful story :
The one, he cried — " How my old wound burns
For the loss of my country's glory !"

302 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.
The other, he said — " The song is out,
And fain would I die with thee.
But I have wife and child at home
Would starve were it not for me."
" What heed I wife ! what heed I child !
High longings within me awaken ;
Let them beg, say I, if they hungry be,
For my Emperor — he has been taken.
" But grant me, comrade, one request.
If here 'tis my lot to die ;
Then carry my body back to France,
Beneath French soil must I lie.
" Let the Honour-Cross, with its ribbon red,
Be laid upon my breast ;
With musket in hand and sword-belt girt.
Then leave me to my rest.
" And there will I lie and silently watch,
Like a sentinel at his post,
Till I hear the sound of the cannons' roar
And the tread of the galloping host.

From the " Book of Songs." 303
" Then I know that my Emperor rides o'er my grave,
Many sabres around him are wielding.
And, ready in arms, I'll arise from my grave.
My Emperor — him to be shielding." *

*The prose companion-picture to the "Two Grenadiers" will be found at
page 23.— Tr.

304 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

II.

A US MEINEN THRANEN SPRIESSEN.
Out of my tears grow flowers
The fairest of the dales.
And my sighing doth become
A choir of nightingales.
And if thou lov'st me still, my child.
For thee the flowers shall spring.
And beneath thy window-sill
The nightingales shall sing.

From " The Book of Songs." 305

III.

ES STEHEN UNBEWEGLICH.

The stars stand motionless,
The stars in their home above.
And for thousands of years have gazed
On each other with pangs of love.
They speak a wondrous language,
A language rich and fine ; —
Philologers could ne'er
Its meaning yet divine.
But I have learned that language.
Nor can I forget it e'er ;
Its grammar I conned as I gazed
On the face of my darling fair.
u

3o6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

IV.
AUF FLUGELN DES GESANGES.
On the wings of song, my Love,
I will bear thee hence to where
Near the Ganges is a grove,
A place most wondrous fair.
There lies a garden blooming
Beneath the still moonlight.
Where the lotos waits the coming
Of its sisterling, to-night.
The violets fondle each other,
And gaze at the stars above";
One rose is telling another
Stories fragrant with love.

From " The Book of Songs." 307
And fleet of foot there bounds
The lurking, timid gazelle ;
And in the distance sounds
The sacred river's swell.

There will we make our rest
Beneath the palm-tree's shade.
And, with love and peace refreshed.
Dream the dreams that never fade.

3o8 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

V.

UND WUSSTEN'S DIE BLUMEN, DIE KLEINEN.
Oh did the flowers but know
The sorrow I bear in my heart.
For me their tears would flow
To heal my aching smart !
Did the nightingales but know
How sick and sad am I,
Right merrily would flow
Their sweetest melody.
And did the stars but know
The grieving of my soul.
They would visit me here below.
And comfort and make me whole.
But none of these can know
How deadly is my smart,
One only knows my woe,
'Tis she who broke my heart.

From the "Book of Songs." 309

VI.

EIN FICHTENBA UM STEHT EINSAM.
A lonely pine-tree stands
On a height 'midst Northern cold.
Ice and snow, with covering white.
The slumbering pine enfold.

'Tis dreaming of a palm
Far in the Orient lands.
That on a burning hill-side
Alone and silent stands.

3IO Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

VII.

WENN ZWEI VON EINANDER SCHEIDEN.

When two that are dear must part.
In sorrow the hands are pressed ;
Their tears begin to flow,
Their sighing knows no rest.
With us there was no weeping,
Nor had we ought to say :
Our sighing and our weeping
Came on an after-day.

From the "Book of Songs." 311

viii.

IN MEIN GAR ZU DUNKLES LEBEN.

On the darkness of my being
Once there shone a vision bright.
Now the vision bright has faded
And around me there is night.
When the children are in darkness.
Terror fills the tiny throng.
And to drive away their fear
They sing, and sing right loud and strong.
Like a foolish child I sing
'Midst the darkness weird and drear.
Though the song brings no delight
It hath freed my heart from fear.

312 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

IX.

MEIN HERZ, MEIN HERZ IST TRAURIG.

My heart, my heart it sorro'ws
In the joyous month of May,
As I lean against the linden
By the fortress old and grey.
And deep, deep down below.
The blue moat glides along ;
A boy sits in a boat
And fishes, and sings a song.
On the plain across the water.
Tiny forms I see ;
Villas, and gardens, and men.
Oxen, and meadow, and tree.

From the "Book of Songs." 313
The maidens spread their washing,
And sport in the grass around ;
The mill-wheel scatters its diamonds —
I can hear its distant sound.
A sentry's watch-house stands
On the tower so old and grey ;
Before it, a red-coat marches
Up and down all day.
I see his musket glitter
With flashes of sunlight red ;
He shoulders and presents —
I would that he shot me dead.

314 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

X.

DU SCHONES FISCHERMADCHEN.

Fisher-maiden fair,
Row thy boat to land ;
Sit thee down beside me.
Let me clasp thy hand.
Rest upon my heart ;
Why need'st thou fear so sore
When daily thou trustest thyself
To the sea, with its angry roar ?
My heart is like the sea
It hath storm, and ebb, and flow.
And many a radiant pearl
Lies hid in its depths below.

From the " Book of Songs." 315

XI.

DU BIS! WIE FINE BLUME.

Thou seemest like a flower.
So sweet and fair and pure ;
Beholding thee, a dower
Of sadness fills my heart.
A spirit bids me lay
My hands upon thy head :
Preserve her, God, I pray,
As pure and fair and sweet.

3i6 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

XII.

DU HAST DIAMANTEN UND PERLEN.

Thou hast all that soul can desire.
Of diamonds and pearls a store ;
Thou hast the sweetest eyes : —
My darling, what wilt thou more ?
To those beautiful eyes of thine.
Full oft my soul did pour
Its burthen of deathless song ; —
My darling, what wilt thou more ?
With those beautiful eyes of thine
Thou hast wounded my heart to the core ;
Thou hast been my very undoing ; —
My darling, what wilt thou more ?

From "The Book of Songs!' 317

XIII.

UND .BIST DU ERST EHLICH WEIB.

Oh when you are my, wedded wife.
Your joy will know no measure.
For yours will be a happy life —
A constant round of pleasure !
And you may rage and you may scold,
(For that's a thing of course) ;
But, if you do not praise my, verse,
I'll sue for a divorce.

3i8 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

xiv.
DER TOD, DAS IST DIE KUHLE NACHT.
O Death ! thou art the cooling night ;
O Life ! thou art the sultry day :
It darkens and I slumber —
I am wearied with the light.
Over my head is a tree, to my seeming.
And in it a nightingale sings ;
It singeth of nought but love —
I can hear it amidst my dreaming.

From " The Book of Songs." 319
XV.
RIDDLES.
By the sea, by the desolate darkling sea.
Stands one in the morning of life :
With heart full of sorrow, with soul full of doubt.
And with quivering lips he questions the waves.
Oh solve me the Riddle of Life,
The vexing primeval riddle
Over which many a head hath puzzled —
Many a turbaned, many a hooded head,
Heads in hieroglyphic cowls.
Periwigged heads, and thousand other
Poor bewildered human heads ! —
Tell me — What is the meaning of man.
Whence hath he come, whither doth go,
And who dwells yonder in the golden stars ?
Still murmur the waves their eternal murmur,
Still bloweth the wind, still fleeteth the cloud,
Heedless and cold still twinkle the stars —
And a fool waiteth an answer.

320 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

XVI.

WENN D U MIR VOR UBER WANDELST.

When by chance you cross my path.
And your dress but touches me,
Bounding goes my gladdened heart,
And I fain would follow thee.

When you turn to give me greeting-
Greeting from large eyes to me
Fills my heart so full of terror.
That I dare not follow thee.

From the "Book of Songs." 321

XVII.
ES WAR EIN ALTER KONIG.
There once was a poor old king,
His heart was cold, his locks were grey.
He wedded a wife and she
Was young, and fair as day.

There once was a pretty page,
Fair were his locks and warm his heart ;
He bore the queen's silken train.
As became a page's part.
Know you the old, old story—
The story so sweet, so sad to tell ?
Both queen and page must die,
For they loved each other too well,

32 2 Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos.

XVIII.
WO WIRD EINST DES WANDERMUDEN.
WHERE?
Where will end my weary journey?
What last resting-place be mine ?
Under tropic palm-tree's shadow —
Under lindens by the Rhine ?
Shall I be in some far desert
Laid to rest by stranger hand ?
Shall I sleep upon a barren
Sea-shore, underneath the sand ?
What heed I ! since God's fair heaven
Will be o'er me there as here ;
And the stars,^like death lamps swaying,
Through the night will shine as clear.*

'^ The original of this last piece was not published until thirteen years after
Heine's death though probably written, according to Dr, Strodtmann, between
1830 and 1840. It will be found in the fourth volume of the complete edition of
the poems. Pieces xvi. and xvii. are not from the Book of Songs, but from
the series of poems called The Netv S^ng.—Tr.

From the "Book of Songs!' 323

WO^
JVo wird einst des JVandermiiden
L^tzte Ruhestdtte sein ?
Unter Palmen in dem Siiden ?
Unter Linden an dem Rhein 1

Werd' ich wo in einer Wiiste
Eingescharrt von fremder JLand?
Oder ruK ich an der Kiiste
Fines Meeres in dem Sand?
Lmmerhin ! Mich wird umgeben
Gotteshimmel, dort wie hier,
Und als Todtenlampen schweben
Nachts die Sterne iiber mir.

INDEX.

Alexander the Great, - - - - - 117
America, - - - - - - - 215
Ancients, The, had no Belief in Ghosts, - - - 277
Aristotle and Plato, . - . . . 116-119
Art, its Influence on Italian Beauty, - - - 80
 not an Imitation of Nature, .... 283
 in Times of Political Strife, . - . - 285
Art of Life, -.-..- 282
Association of Philosophic and Politico-Economic Ideas, 292
Atheism, -...-- 250, et seq.
Augustin, ...... 236
Authors of Our Time, ..... 285
Banker, The First, - - - - .201
Baruch, The Book of, • - • - - 183
Battlefields, --.-.. 44
Battle of Leipzig, ..-.-- 31
Bellini, - - - - - - - 82, 83
Bellini's French, ...--- 83
Berlin and Potsdam, .... - 25
Bible, The, - - - - - - 7o, 95
 Influence of, - - - - , 95. et seq.
 .Luther's, .----- 109-112
 and the Jews, . . - - 2ic,-2l?,, 260, et seq.
Book, A, Must Have its Time, - - - - 282

Camel Question, The Great,
Ceesar, Render unto, the Things which are Caesar's,
Cathedrals, Playthings for the German People, -
Catholic Interlopers, . . - .
Catholicism, Roman, ....
 and Art, - - . .

196
298 290 202 36 4

326 INDEX.

Catholicism, Heine and, ----- 266
 in the Middle Ages, - - - 3
Catholics, Zeal of, - - - - 266
Censorship, the German, .... - 108
Charles, King, and Cromwell, - - - , - 205-207
Chartists and Communists, - . - ¦ - 195
Childhood and Manhood, • . - - - 2
China, Coachmen of, - - - - - 201
Chopin,  213
Christ, ....-.- 46
 and Greek Mythology, - - - - 218
Christianity and Art, . . . - . 99- lot
 Cause of its Success, - . - - 278
 a Democracy, .... 279
 and Self-Consciousness of the Spirit, - 279
Chronicle of Limburg, ..... 270-272
Cleopatra, ..-.-. 66
Code Napoleon, The Framers of, - - - 293
Communist, The, and Rothschild, - - - 291
Communists, - - - - - -291
—  and Chartists, - . - - 195
Conflagrations, Beneficial, - - - - 221
Conrad von der Rosen, the Emperor's Fool, - - 52
Convictions and Opinions, .... 212
Corneille and Racine, ... - - 210
Coward, The, and the Slave, .... 209
Cromwell and King Charles, ... - 205-207
 ann Napoleon, .... 20S
Cuvier, - - - - - - -173
Dante, .-.-.-. 46
Dardanelles, The, Possession of, - - - - 190-191
Death-Bed Conversion, - - - - .138
Deism, ...---. 256
Delaroche's Cromwell Regarding the Body of King Chai-les, 205
Demagogy, ...... 290
Democracy and Literature, .... 285
 and Poetry, . - . - - 2S5

INDEX. 327

De mortuis nil nisi bonum, .... 298
Descartes, - - - - - -114
Desmoulins, Camille, ..... 204
Diet of Worms, ...... 101-103
Don Quixote, . . - . . 47-52
Drake, Francis, Pacified Germany, ... 289
Dreaming and Death, ----- 77
Diisseldorf, . . - - . - 11, 12
Eagle, The, and his Critics, - - - - 28
Earth, The ; its Age, . - - - - I73
Eastern Question, The, - - - 180-182, 186, 190, 191
Egypt, the Mysterious Land, - - - - 67
Elector Maxiinilian Joseph, Abdication of, " - '3
EiTiperur Ma.ximilian and his Fool, - - - 52
English Characteristics, ..... 87
 Ltive of Freedom, - - - - 55
Englishmen and Politics, - - • - 59
 and Religion, - - - - 59
 Machines, . - - - - 194
Euripides and Racine, .... - 149
Evil, Mystery of, - - - - - - 122
Fashionable Piety in 1840, .... 178-179
Fr.ust, the Type of the Germans, - . - - 66
Fichte's Philosophy, - ' - - - - 136
 Influence of, ... 137
Fiction : German, French, and English, - - - 225-226
Fire and Iron, ...... 293
First Empire, The, ..... 182
Flying Dutchman, The, Legend of, - ¦ - 71-74
Folly — Where Folly Grows, - - - - n
Fools and New Thoughts, - - - - 298
Fouque, --.---- 240
Fourier, .------ 200
France, - - - - - - - 211
 Heine's Warning to, - - - - 139-142
 Its Part in the World Drama, - - - 189
 and Christianity, . - - - - 287

328

INDEX.

Frederick the Great, . . - - - 26
Freedom, Religious, .... - 46
 National Love of, - - - - 55
 The New Religion, - - - - 59
.  and the Poles, .. - - - 227
French Cookery and Freedom, ¦ - - - 43
-i  Love of Freedom, - - - - 55
 Language, - - - - - 89, 286
 Women, ...--. 92-94
 The, Incapable of Supporting a Repubhc, - 166
 Characteristics, - - - - .187
 Fatalistic School, - - - - 188
 Drama, The Old, - - - - 210
 Actors, - - - - - - 211
 Revolution, - - , - - - 229
 Manners and Language, .... 244
 Academy, ..... 245
 Literature, Plagiarism in, ... 286
 The, Safer Associates than the Germans, - 294
 The, not Given to Dreaming, - - - 295
Funeral of an Enemy, - - - 221
Future of Humanity, ..... 194
Garrick and Shakespeare, - - - - 65
Genius, Heine's Admiration for, - - - 42
 and Criticism, ..... 5
 and Sanscrit, - - 284
German Fidelity, ..... 2
 Censorship, - - . - - 108
 Language and Luther, ... 109, et seq.
 Vindictiveness, - - - . .123
 Great Men, Poverty of, - . - . 137
 Philosophy, ..... jjS, 249
 Revolution, a Prophecy, . . - 1 39, «^ seq.
 Gravity, -..-.. 155
 Aversion to Innovation, - . - - 188
 Eagerness for Fighting, .... 232
 Fiction, ...... 225, 226
 Language, ..... 286

INDEX. 329

German Women, . . . . .
 Marriage, - . - - ,
Germans, The, ....
 and Freedom, . . . .
 and Shakespeare,
 Resemble Slaves,
 and Nationality,
 Bears at Heart, - . . ,
 Dreamers, . . . ,
 Abroad, . . . ,
 in Paris, . . . .
 Dangerous, . . . .
Germany, The Position of, - - ¦
Gervinus' History of Literature, -
God is All That Is, - - -
Goddess of Liberty, The,
Goethe, ......
 What Think You of,
 and Shakespeare, ...
 His Lyrics, . . - ,
 and Schiller,
 His Aversion from Enthusiasm, -
Gottsched, ....
Great Men the Stars of the Earth,
Greeks, The, ....
 Life and Poetry Identical Among,
Guizot, .....
Hanoverian Squires, ...
Harp-player, The, ...
Healthiness a Characteristic of Modern Poetry,
Hegel and Heine, . . . ,
Hegel's Philosophy, . . . .
Heine at the Silver, Mines,
 His Love for the Sea, - - .
 Effect of the Sublime on, -
 His Birthplace, ...
 at the Lyceum in Diisseldorf,

-

297

-

297

-

2

.

55

-

64

-

289

2S9

-

294

-

294

-

295

-

295

-

295

-

1S5

-

286

-

134

-

205

42,

146-148

-

5

-

65

-

137

46-148,

283-284

-

283

-

64

173

-

257

-

282

-

176, 177

289

-

36

¦

284

-

255

-

254, 256

-

I

-

5

-

6

.

II

.

16

33° INDEX.

Heine Learning French, - - . . . 17
 Learning Modern History, . . ¦ - 18
 Sees Napoleon at Dtisseldorf, - - - 20
 in Italy, - - - - - 33, ^^ seq.
 His Admiration for Genius, - - - 42
 On the Battlefield of Marengo, . - . 42
 His Mission, ..... 44
 Date of His Birth, - - - - 45
 His Admiration for Don Quixote, - 48, et seq.
 Himself a Don Quixote, - - . - 51
 the Court Fool of the Germans, - . - 53
 in London, ..... 56-58
 His relation to Protestantism, - - - 123, 258
 His Warning to France .... 139-142
 in Westminster Abbey, .... 172
 His Opinion of Englishmen, - . - 194
 — and the Sun, ..... 209
 His Dread of Pain, .... 209
 His Longing for Rest, . . - . 214
 in Heligoland, . - - . . 215
 Ambition to be an Orator, - - . 220
 in Exile, ...... 222, 223
 Forbidden to Write in German, . - - 232
 His Friends and Enemies, - . . 233
 Always a Romantic Poet, . - . 235
 Goes into Exile, - - . . 240, et seq.
¦  Crosses the Rhine, .... 242
 at St. Denis, ..... 242
 in Paris, - . . . . 243, et seq.
 Visits the Pantheon, .... 247
 and German Philosophy, - . . . 249
 Abjures Atheism, - - - . . 251-253
 and Hegel's Philosophy, - - - - 254, 256
 and Hegel, - - . . . 255
 His estimate of Moses, .... 256-258
 His Jewish Birth, ..... 25S
 and Protestantism, .... 258

INDEX. 331

Heine and Catholicism, - ... - 266
 Only a Poet ! - - - - - 268
 His Japanese Fame, .... 269
 the German Aristophanes, ... 270
 and the Clerk of the Limburg Chronicle, - 270-272
 ¦ His Wishes for His Old Age, - - - 272
 on His Mattress-Grave, .... 273
 His last Visit, .... 274
 His Birth, ..... 276
 His Disposition, ..... 276
 How He became a Christian, ... 276
 His Love for the Jews, - - . 280
 and the Future, .... 281
 and the Rabble, ..... 290
History and great men, . . - . - 229
Hospitality of the Parsonage, .... 107
Hugo, Victor, - - - - - - 210, 213
Humanity, The Future of, .... 194
 The Real Prometheus, - - - 277
Plume, Joseph, ...... 173-175
Hunter's, The, and the Hunted, .... 5
Immortality, ...... 2
India, Intellectual, . . . - . 284
Instruction Always Dearly Bought, - - 213
Internationalism, ----- 43
Italian Beauty, ...... 36
 Influence of, on Art, . - - 80
Italian Nation, The, - ... - 42
Italy, ------ 33. els^f-
Italy, Yearning toward, .... - 26-28
 the Home of Music, .... 81
Jadviga, a Dream, . - - - - 78
Jan Steen, ..... y^jetseq.
Jesuits, The, ....-- 30
 Their Genius for Teaching, - - - 267
Jewish Religion, The, ..... 45
Jews, The, - - - - 69, 70, 257, 279, 2S1

332

INDEX.

Jews, The, and the Bible,

70, 215-218, 259, 260, et seq.

 The World's Obligations to.
Job, The Book of,
John Bull a Materialist, -
Johnson, Dr., and Shakespeare,
Journey's End, Our,
Joy of Existence,
Judaism — an Aristocracy,
 and the Teutonic Races,
Judea,Junius, Kant Immanuel,
 His Style,
 His Philosophy,
 His Theoretical and Practical Reason
 Influence of His Philosophy on Literature and Art,
Kindred Griefs,
King, the First,
Kings,
 and Anointing Oil,
Lafayette,
 and Napoleon, .
 and "The Rights of Man,"
Latin Language, The,
Le Grand, Monsieur,

 ¦ Death of,
Leipzig, Battle of,
Leroux, Pierre,
Lessing,
 and Shakespeare,
 Quoted,
Liberty, The Goddess of,
Life, Love of.
Life Companion, A,
Life to Come, No Revelation as to
Limburg Chronicle, The, .
Liszt, Franz,

64.

259.

125, et

et seq. 234 116 65
224

278
280
280 288
30, et seq. 133
133 134
136 45
201292
289294
167-171 197
122
17, et seq. 2331
200 144 64
288

seq.

205
8-11 229
27s270 213

INDEX.

333

Literature, The History of, ... . 145,

Literature, Modern, Characteristics of,

114

 and Democracy,

285

London, ....

. 56-58

Loss in Life,

158
Louis Blanc's Doctrine of Equalit;
184
Louis Philippe,
l6(
5, 172,
175-177. 184. 1S5
Love,
68
 Power of
159
 of Country,
231
Luther, Martin,
104, et seq.
102
Tj;^ -D^-vi^
109, et seq. 112
 His Original Writings,
"3
 and Lessing,
• I2i. 129
Luxembourg, The, Heine at.
245
Lyrical Poetry,
142
Mahabarata, The,
284
Man,
46
Marengo, Battlefield of, .
42
Marriage, .
• 297, 298
Tlif^ l\Tnf-ir nt 1
297
 German,
297
Matrimony,
213
Maximilian, The Emperor, and H
[is Fool
52
Mendelssohn, Moses,
124
Mental and Physical Pain,
209
Merchant, The ; His Religion,
224
Meyerbeer,
287
Modern Civic Society,
291
Modesty, A Woman's,
249
Moralisation of Property, .
264
Morality not a Product of Religioi
218
Moses,
256, et seq.
 a Great Artist,
257
 the Creator of Israel,
257
334

INDEX.

Moses and the "Year of Jubilee,"
 a Great Liberator,
 and the Position of Women,
Murat, Joachim, Prince, .
Napoleon, Life of, Scott's,
 at Dusseidorf, .
 at Marengo,
 and Lafayette, .
 the Last Hero, .
 and Cromwell, .
Napoleon and Madame de Stael,
 and Those About Him,
 not Formed of Wood, but of Marble,
 and the Shopkeepers and Advocates,
 His Enemies,
 the Regenerator of France,
 and German Princes,
Napoleonic Empire,
National Characteristics, Decay of,
 Egotism,
Nature's Gifts, How We Undervalue Them,
 Method, .
New-Classical Era,
New Year Wishes,
Nibelungenlied,Nicholas, the Czar,
Nightingale of Basle, Story of the,
Nodier, Charles, .
Novalis and Hoffmann,
Novels, ....
Obedience Personified,
Originality,Paganini, ....
Pan, Death of, ,
Pantheon, The,
Paris, the New Jerusalem,
'  and the Parisians,

237:

264265297 14
6,58
20-22 43
167-171 187
208
et seq. 292 292292
293 293
293 182 7
224272 I
142195153
296 100
287 152
229
227211
85-S7, 272219
247-249 59
88-94

INDEX.

335

Paris, Heine's First Impressions of, . . 244, et seq.
 The People of, .... . 294
Parisian Revolutions, . . . . .165
Parsonage, Hospitality of the, .... 107
Passion and Fame, . . . . .198
Patriots, Ancient and Modern, .... 2S8
People, His Majesty the, .... 253
 The, and its Prophets, .... 224
 The, and Kings, ..... 175
Perfumes the Feelings of Flowers, ... 3
Petion, ....... 165
Phenomena and Noumena, .... 134
Philology and Handicrafts, .... 298
Philosophy, German, The Secret of. Revealed . . 249
Philosophers and Theologians, .... 202
Physicians, Their Last Resort, .... 203
Pity and Love, ...... 46
Place de la Concorde, ..... 292
Plagiarism, . . . . .211
Plato and Aristotle, . . . . .116-119
Poet, Title to Recognition of the, ... 45
 " Here lies a German Poet," . . 198
 The, and Self-Sacrifice, .... 252
 Only a, . : . . . .268
 The, a Sunday-Child, .... 273
Poets, the Popular Historians, .... 29
Polish Peasant, The, ..... 227
Politics, ...¦••• 175
Political Weather-Cocks, ..... 290
Potsdam, . ...... 26
^' Prescription" of the Roman Law, . . . 264
Problems of Paganism and Christianity, . . .159
Prometheus, Humanity the Real, . . . 277
Prose Writing, . . . . • • 213
Prussia, ...•••• 1^4
Pr-issian Nobility, . . . • ¦ 289
Racine and Euripides, ... .149

336

INDEX.

Reason in Art and in Life, .... 205

Religion, The Jewish,

45

Religious Freedom,

46
Religion and Philosophy,
124
Republic, A, or a Monarchy ?
178
Reuchlin,
no
Revolution, A, a Misfortune,
221
Revolution, The French, .
. 229-231
Revolutionary Times,
221
Rich, The, Misery of,
196
Richter, Jean Paul,
• 155-158
" Rights of Man," The, .
197
Ritualism,
202
Robespierre,
131, 204
130-133
Roman Civil Law, The, Code of.
265
Roman Private Life,
39
Romans, The, Character of,
39, 264
Rome,
4, 142
198-199
aiiu i_nriscianity, .
Romanticism,
284
Romeo and Juliet,
68
Romish Church, The, Dying from
Exhaustion, .
279
Rossini, ....
»
82
Rothschild,
191
 Might Build a Walhal
la, .
291
TT" 17
 riis jmemies,
291
aiiu ine '...ommunisi, .
291
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, .
230, 236
Ruins, ....
Russia, ....
Saint Simon,
298
295. 296200
Saint Simonianism,
107
Savigny, ....
286
Scepticism of the Book of Job,
234
Scheffer, Ary,
203
Schiller and Goethe,
146-148
283-284
INDEX.

337

Schlegel, August Wilhelm von,
Scott's, Sir Walter, Life of Napoleon,
 Novels,
Seclusion of Great Men, .
Sensible People, .
Servility in the Soul,
Sickness-Period of Humanity,
Shakespeare,
 His Historical Dramas,
 His Roman Tragedies,
 and the Unities,
 His Hero, .
 The Germans and,
 His Titus Andronicus,
 His Romeo and Juliet,
Silence, a Condition of Happiness,
Socialists, Poverty of the Great,
Society a Republic,
Socrates,Soul and Body, Harmony Between, Restored,
Sphinx, Every Epoch a, .
Spinoza, Spirits, Calling Them From Their Graves,
Spiritualism and Materialism,
Spring, Stael, Madame de.
Stars of Literature and Stars of the Firmament,
Sterne, Laurence,
Stupid People,
Stylites, Simon,
Sublime, The, in Nature, Effect of, on Heine,
Suffering Spiritualizes,
Sympathy in Sorrow,
Tacitus, Tartufe, .
Teutonic Races and Judaism,
Theatre, The, and Poets,

149-151 6,58 6
229 298289 78
60, et seq. 61 62
63 63
64
67 68'
158
200233296 97
142119 So
"5 27
236, et seq. 152
157
298281 6
279 4540
199
280
283

42,

338

INDEX.'

Thiers, . . • . . . i66, 175-178, 179

rC^

xo\-r
Thousand and One Nights, The, .
183
Thoughts and Fancies,
. 276-298
Tieck, Ludwig, and Shakespeare,
65
Titus Andronicus,
67
Truth ? What is, .
233
Truthful, No Man, about Himself,
236
Tyrol and the Tyrolese, .
32
Universe, Grandeur of the,
281
Vend6me Column, The, .
192
Verona, The Amphitheatre of.
37
Villemain,
246, 287
Voltaire,
231, 250
 Influence of his Wit,
180
War of Liberation, The, .
145
Westminster Abbey,
171
Whispering Valley, Legend of the.
159-164
Will : The Will to Do, .
234
Woman and Man,
296
Women and Character,
228
n— ..1 11/1.,.— 'm ij ._.— -— ...
80
 anci ivten s mappiness, .
 the True Makers of History,
296
Worid, The, and the Artist,
212
Year 1832, The, .
148
Year of Jubilee, Jewish, .
264
Xanthippe, ....
296
YALE

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