Heinrich Heine

“ These eyes appeared to rest upon him now from under their drooping sleepy white eyelids with an inexpressible tenderness and fascination, and he was suddenly reminded of Heinrich Heine’s quaint love-fancy; “Behind her dreaming eyelids the sun has gone to rest; when she opens her eyes it will be day, and the birds will be heard singing!” ”

“ Upon this earth rave, suffer, shed their blood.
Upon the Rhine’s fair strand, where vine-hills smile,
Once in glad summer days we roam’d the while;
Bright laugh’d the sun, sweet incense in that hour
Stream’d from the beauteous cup of every flower.
The purple pinks and roses breath’d in turn
Red kisses on us, which like fire did burn;
Even the smallest daisy’s faint perfume
Appear’d a life ideal then to bloom.
But thou didst peacefully beside me go,
In a white satin dress, demure and slow,
Like some girl’s portrait limn’d by Netscher’s art,
A little glacier seem’d to be thy heart. ”

“ In the spiritual as well as in the worldly hierarchy I have attained neither office nor rank; I have accomplished nothing in this beautiful world; nothing has become of me—nothing but a poet.
But no, I will not feign a hypocritical humility, I will not depreciate that name. It is much to be a poet, especially to be a great lyric poet, in Germany, among a people who in two things—in philosophy and in poetry—have surpassed all other nations. ”

“ Then, at times, that prose is as magical and as mysterious as the firmament, when the darkness of twilight has lifted, and the grand Goethean thoughts appear, pure and golden, like the stars. The charm of this book is indescribable; it is a salaam sent by the Occident to the Orient, and many a quaint and curious flower is gathered there; passionate red roses, snowdrops white as a maiden's bosom, comical dandelions, purple digitalis like long human fingers, contorted crocuses, and peeping slyly forth, in the midst, modest German violets. ”

“ Thou art like the rose in the wine-cellar of Bremen.
That is the rose of roses,
The older it grows the fairer it blooms,
And its celestial perfume has inspired me.
And did not mine host of the town-cellar of Bremen
Hold me fast, fast by my hair,
I should tumble head over heels.
The worthy man! we sat together,
And drank like brothers.
We spake of lofty, mysterious things,
We sighed and sank in each other's arms.
And he led me back to the religion of love:
I drank to the health of my bitterest enemy,
And I forgave all bad poets,
As I shall some day hope to be forgiven myself. ”

“ While I lay on hard mattresses, sleepless all night,
In my exile far over the billows!
One sleeps so well, and one dreams so well
In our featherbeds delicious;
The German spirit here feels itself free
From all earth’s fetters pernicious.
It feels itself free, and upward soars
To the highest regions Elysian;
O German Spirit, how proud is the flight
Thou takest in nightly vision!
The gods turn pale, when thou drawest nigh;
When soaring tow’rds heaven’s dominions,
Thou hast snuff’d out the light of many a star,
With the strokes of thine eager pinions. ”

“ That the flowers and girls, when they saw him approach,
Their merriment scarcely could swallow.
From his room’s darkest corner he often ne’er stirr’d,
Esteeming the sight of men shocking,
And extended his arms, without speaking a word,
As though some vain phantom were mocking.
But scarce had the hour of midnight drawn near,
When a wonderful singing and noise met his ear,
And he heard at the door a strange knocking. ”

“ At Berlin, in 1821, appeared his first volume of poems, and then he began to take his true place.
At this period Heine is described as a good-natured and gentle youth, but reserved, not caring to show his emotions. He was of middle height and slender, with rather long light brown hair (in childhood it was red, and he was called "Rother Harry") framing the pale and beardless oval face, the bright blue short-sighted eyes, the Greek nose, the high cheek-bones, the large mouth, the full—half cynical, half sensual—lips. He was not a typical German; like Goethe, he never smoked ”

“ Only one German youth played the boor, and railed against what he called my aping the manners of the foreign Babylon; and growled out in his old Teutonic, beer-drinking bass voice, 'At a cherman masquerade, a Cherman should speak Cherman.' Oh German youth! how thy words strike me as not only silly, but almost blasphemous at such moments, when my soul lovingly embraces the entire universe, when I would fain joyfully embrace Russians and Turks, and throw myself in tears on the breast of my brother the enslaved African! ”

“ "I am no longer a divine biped," he wrote. "I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Wlimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man." ”

“ He insisted that the young man should complete his studies; and so, in January, 1824, Heine once more betook himself to Göttingen, where on the twenty-first of July, 1825, he was duly promoted Doctor utriusque Juris. In the summer of 1824 he made the trip through the Hartz mountains which served as the basis of The Journey to the Hartz; immediately before his promotion he submitted to baptism in the Lutheran church as Christian Johann Heinrich Heine. ”

“ Yes, when one was in society with him, and he like a public executioner broke the poor French words on the wheel, and without sign or trembling dealt out a tremendous coq à l'âne, one felt as if the very world must split as with a thunder-crack. A deathly stillness then spread over the entire hall, for death himself seemed to be painting terror on every face with chalk and cinnabar; ladies knew not whether they should faint or fly; men looked in sudden amazement at their breeches to realise that they really wore such things ”

“ From the Grillparzer Monument at Vienna
Beethoven. By Max Klinger
THE LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
I. The history of German literature makes mention of few men more self-centered and at the same time more unreserved than Heinrich Heine. It may be said that everything which Heine wrote gives us, and was intended to give us, first of all some new impression of the writer; so that after a perusal of his works we know him in all his strength and weakness, as we can know only an amiable and communicative egotist ”

“ The most remarkable poet whom Germany has produced in the present century is Heinrich Heine (1800-1856) , and his poems are among the most fascinating lyrics in European literature. The delicacy, wit, and humor of his writings, their cruel and cynical laughter, and their tender pathos, give him a unique place in the literature of his country. A school of writers known as Young Germany was deeply influenced by Heine. Their object was to revolutionize the political, social, and religious institutions of the country. ”

“ I do not know what he had against the poor man, but the Genoese became pale as death; he grappled in rage the little fellow, gave him boxes on the ear and not a few kicks, hurled him headlong out of doors, and then, drawing a stiletto from his pocket, plunged it into the breast of the young beauty.
"At that instant cries of 'Bravo! Bravo!' rang from every side. Hamburg's inspired men and women paid their tribute of the most roaring applause to the great artist, who had ended the first part of his concert, and who with more angles and contortions than before bowed before them. ”

“ Another poet who was a friend and admirer of my father, and whom I saw likewise like a vision only passing before me, was Heinrich Heine. He was younger than my father (1799–1856) , and evidently looked up to him as his master. “I love no lyric poet,” he wrote, “excepting Goethe, so much as Wilhelm Müller.” I found a letter of his which deserves to be preserved. Alas! the whole of my father’s library and correspondence was destroyed by fire, and this letter escaped only because my mother, a great admirer of Heine’s poems, had preserved it among her own books. ”

“ Smiling at the assenting glance of Maria, Maximilian sat on the chair before the sofa, and thus began his story:—
"It is now eight years since I went to London to learn the language and people there. The devil take the people with their language! They take a dozen monosyllables in mouth, chew them, crush them, and spit them out, and call that talking. But by good luck they are naturally tolerably taciturn, and though they always stare at us open-mouthed they at least spare us long conversations. But woe to him who meets a son of Albion who has made the grand tour, and learned to speak French. ”

“ Heinrich Heine
More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. ”

“ Heinrich Heine died in Paris in 1856. Frederick Nietzsche was a youth, Richard Wagner's "Tannhäuser" had just been greeted, in the presence of the composer, with a storm of hisses in the Opera house at Paris. The social condition of Germany may be partially realized if one remembers that the death-rate was over 28 per mille, as compared with 17 per mille to-day; that only a start had been made with railway construction; that the country, with its not very generous soil, depended wholly upon agriculture ”

“ They ne’er were disfigured by fever’s attack,
They die with a joyous demeanour,
And gladly are welcomed at her sad court
By Proserpine, hell’s Czarina.
O how I envy a fate like theirs!
Seven years I daily languish
For death, as on the ground I writhe
In bitter and speechless anguish.
O God! my agony shorten, that I
May be buried,—my sole ambition.
Thou knowest that I no talent possess
For filling a martyr’s position.
I feel astonished, gracious Lord,
At a course so unconsequential;
Thou madest a joyous poet, without
That joy that is so essential. ”

“ Around them, in front or behind, are grouped a crowd of writers, theologians and poets, romance writers and savans. If one of the combatants stops short, like Schelling, the author overwhelms him with invectives. If a timid and poetic band of dreamers, such as Tieck, Novalis, Brentanc, and Arnim, try to bring back this feverish Germany to the fresh poetry of the middle ages, he throws himself upon them and disperses them, like those Cobolds in the ‘Book of Songs’ who overthrew the angels of paradise. ”

“ For water—thou knowest well what I mean—is thy evil fortune, and thou wilt perish. Water is not thy element; the weakest trout can live in it better than the king of the forest. Hast thou forgotten how the eddy of the Tagus would swallow thee?"
Bursting into loud laughter, Don Isaac suddenly threw his arms round the Rabbi's neck, covered his mouth with kisses, leapt with jingling spurs high into the air, so that the Jews who were passing by shrank back in alarm, and in his own natural hearty and joyous voice cried—
"Truly thou art Abraham of Bacharach! ”

“ The cavalier spoke these last words with affected earnestness, and squinted as if yearning at the great picture-plate which hung from Schnapper Elle's neck. Nose Star looked down with inquisitive eyes, and the much-bepraised bosom heaved so that the whole city of Amsterdam rocked from side to side.
"Ah!" sighed Schnapper Elle, "virtue is worth more than beauty. What use is my beauty to me? My youth is passing away, and since Schnapper is gone—anyhow, he had handsome hands—what avails beauty." ”

“ Because I love thee madly,
Thou lovely son of man."
[Pg 73]
XV.
When I before thy dwelling,
In early morning pace,
How gladly in the window
I see thy gentle face.
Thy brown-black eyes in pity,
Mine own eyes, wistful scan,
"Who art thou, and what lack'st thou,
Thou strange, unhappy man?"
I am a German poet,
Of goodly German fame,
When their best names are spoken,
Mine own they are sure to name.
And what I lack, sweet maiden,
Most Germans lack the same.
When men name sharpest sorrows,
Mine own they are sure to name. ”

“ I will drum the whole catechism into thee when we drink to-morrow together; but now open the gate, for here are two strangers who wish to enter."
"Open the gate!" cried Nose-Star, and his voice almost deserted him. "That can't be done in such a hurry, my dear Jack; one can't tell—don't know, you know—and I'm a lone man. Veitel Oxhead has the key, and he is sitting now in the corner mumbling his eighteen-prayer, and he must not be interrupted. And Jäkel the Fool is here too, but he is busy; I'm a lone man."
"The devil take the Jews!" ”

“ The prose writings of his French period mark, together with Börne’s Briefe aus Paris, the beginning of a new era in German journalism and a healthy revolt against the unwieldly prose of the Romantic period. Above all things, Heine was great as a wit and a satirist. His lyric may not be able to assert itself beside that of the very greatest German singers, but as a satirist he had powers of the highest order. He combined the holy zeal and passionate earnestness of the “soldier of humanity” with the withering scorn and ineradicable sense of justice common to the leaders of the Jewish race. ”