Heinrich Heine [pp. 23-31]

HEINRICH HEINE.
through the nation. The "Youthful Sorrows,"
which had met with so cold a reception at their
first appearance, were now passionately admired;
furnishing another of the many instances in literature that success is essential to success.
"The Book of Songs "even exceeded his "Travel-Pictures" in popularity; it pleased all sorts of
people, despite its radicalism, its scoffing and skeptical spirit. Itwas essentially true to life, and the
treatment was almost faultless. It had the perfume
of true poetry; it is believed by many to be his
best work. In simplicity and suggestiveness the
production was Greek. Behind an airy lightness
was the deepest import; a delicate touch undulated
down to the heart of Nature. The most conventional people were won by its sweetness and charm;
haughty aristocrats, believers in the divine right of
titled tyrants, much as they hated the sentiments of
the young republican, were moved by the grace and
sensuousness of his verse. They detested him as a
man, and loved him as a poet. Many hailed him as
the legitimate successor of the great Goethe, who
had so long ruled Germany from an intellectual
throne he was so soon to quit. Indeed, his songs
have never been equaled in that country by any one
but the universally-acknowledged head of its litera ture; and often it is hard to tell to which of the two
superiority should be awarded. Heine's powers
were limited; he was essentially a lyric poet. But
in this respect, and in respect to form, he has been
surpassed by no German except Goethe, if even by
him. His prose is beautiful, which can be said of
very little German prose - generally careless of
structure and finish-and has frequently been ranked
even above that of the Many-sided One. -
Goethe did not quite approve Heine, who was
too full of unrest, of politics, of cynicism, to suit
his calm, objective mind. He thought his chief fault
was deficiency of love, though the younger writer
might have retorted on the older in kind. He did
not, however; he enthusiastically admired the author
of "Faust." "Nature," he says, "wanting to see
how she looked, created Goethe." "That personal
accordance with genius," he says again, "which we
always desire to see in illustrious men, was found in
perfection in Goethe. His external appearance was
just as imposing as the word which lives in his
works. His form was symmetrical, noble, expres sive of joy; one might study Greek art upon it, as
upon an antique. His eyes were calm as a god's;
they continued to the last as divine as they were in
youth."
Up to I830 Heine had not mentally revolted
against Germany; the tone of his writings was not
inconsistent with the tone of a loyal subject. But
the French Revolution of that year awakened him,
as it did so many young men of Europe, to a sense
of oppression, and threw him into the ranks of the
opposition. He published in Hamburg a fiercely
sarcastic pamphlet, entitled "Kahldorf on the No bility, in Letters addressed to Count de Moltke,"
which created a political stir, drew official attention
to him, and, with his energetically avowed liberal
ism, impelled him to leave Prussia for France (I83I),
and make his residence in Paris. The exact cause
of his self-exile is not known, although there is little
doubt that he was obliged to choose between that
and imprisonment. In his "Confessions" (" Gestindnisse ") he humorously suggests his reason for
crossing the Rhine: "I knew in Berlin an old
counselor who had passed many years in the citadel
of Spandau, and who told me how disagreeable it
was to wear irons during winter. It struck me as
unchristian not to have warmed the irons. I inquired of the counselor if he had many oysters to
eat. He said he had not; that Spandau was too far
from the sea; that meat, moreover, was very scarce
there, and that the only game was the flies which fell
into the soup."
Heine loved Paris dearly, and, with the exception of brief visits to the Fatherland, staid
there till his death. Its sensuous life, its atmosphere of art, its quickness of mind, its brilliant
persiflage, its social and moral freedom, delighted
him; it was the next best thing, he said, after the
Athens of Pericles. "When God is weary," is one
of his utterances, "he opens the windows of heaven
and looks down on the boulevards of Paris." He
began writing, after going there, a series of letters
on the state of France, to the Augsburg Gazette,
which he continued for several years. They were
eagerly read, and subsequently reproduced in a vol ume, "FranzSsische Zustinde." They were, as
may be supposed, strong and sparkling, deeply
veined with irony, and abounding in predictions,
some of which were remarkably verified. His por traits of certain prominent politicians brought upon
him the not undeserved charge of ingratitude.
He evinced his capacity as a critic in "History
of Modern Literature in Germany," "The Salon,"
and "The Romantic School," which he published in
French-so written by himself, it has been asserted,
although Parisian authorities aver, not truly, however,
that he could not write French, and that all his edi tions in that language were done by Gdrard de Nerval,
Saint-Ren6, Taillandier, and others. The latter work
-printed in German also-was savage in its assaults,
not on the romanticists alone, but on the philosophers
and authors of his country generally. In sweeping
condemnation, it was near akin to Byron's "English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers." In it he laid about
him on every side with supreme bitterness and de liberate malice, not even sparing his former master
and friend, August Schlegel, whom he had lauded
not long before as one of the heroes of German lit erature. The book excited a cyclone of wrath
throughout the length and breadth of Germany: rad icals and conservatives, the unbelievers and the or thodox, the scholars and the nobles, howled at it in
a common key; the Teutonic people had not for
years been so united on any one thing as on that pro duction. Its author was obviously bent on exhibit ing his talent for abuse, at the expense of truth, espe cially of contemporaneous writers, whom he hanged,
drew, and quartered, and then hacked to fragments.
His blows were mainly directed at Old Germany.
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