Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

THE

LIFE, WORK, AND OPINIONS

OF

HEINRICH HEINE

BY

WILLIAM STIGAND

AUTHOR OF ATHENAIS, OR THE FIRST CRUSADE'

IN TWO VOLUMES- -VOLUME I.

NEW YORK

J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY
LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO

1880

PREFACE.

'IT was the great task of my life to labour at a hearty understanding between Germany and France.' Such is the declaration which Heine has himself made in his will. Had this been the only aim and object of his life, it might be doubted at the present time whether his life had not been spent in vain. Nevertheless, when the violence of national hatred engendered by late events shall have somewhat passed away, the spirit of Heine as embodied in his books may yet assist in hastening a reconciliation between France and Germany. Meanwhile, for those who are neither French nor German, and who desire to arrive at a fair appreciation of the distinctive characteristics of these two great nations, no better study can be offered than the judgments and opinions respecting the country of his birth and the country of his adoption formed by so independent and highly gifted a critic as Heine, a critic by birth and destiny so admirably placed for observation.

The writer has naturally been under much difficulty in managing the matter of Heine's life so as to endeavour not to offend the delicacy of English readers. The freedom and irreverence, to use mild terms, with which

387434

Heine's wit disported itself at times are notorious, and some passages of his writings could certainly have been printed nowhere but among a German public. Had the writer, however, gone to the extreme limit of admitting no passage of which his own taste did not approve, he would be conceived to have committed the error of making Heine appear far too proper and perfect a person. He has, therefore, left standing, with some hesitation, a few passages among the mildest of those bearing the peculiar stamp of his sometimes inexcusable audacity, in order not altogether to withdraw from the book this characteristic of his genius.

In somewhat the same way the writer has not considered himself at liberty to omit Heine's severe and often very unjust criticisms on England and the English nation. His antipathy to England during the greater part of his life is a peculiar trait in his character, and one which an English biographer must put up with and account for as

he best can.

These anti-Anglican sallies of his became fewer and less vehement towards the end of his life, when he had made acquaintance with English men and women, on whose friendship he placed a high value. It must, too, be remembered that his knowledge of England as a place of residence was limited to a few months' duration, and that he probably passed his time in London during that period in as melancholy a way as most foreigners do who have not the advantage of many good acquaintances in the capital. However, as most of Heine's anti-Anglican tirades are replete with his own peculiar spirit of humour, an English reader who can thoroughly appreciate this will

be as much amused at their perusal as good-humoured Englishmen would be in looking at caricatures of their own countrymen from the pencil of Cham or on the boards of the Palais Royal, but need not, however, omit to observe whatever truth there may be, even in a caricature.

The foregoing observations, of course, concern Heine chiefly as a humorist and a critic, but it is as a poet that Heine will ever have the greatest interest for humanity. Without denying the title of greatness to contemporary poets, it may be doubted whether any of their utterances are so sure of reaching extreme posterity as those of Heine. Some of his songs are pure and perfect as the finest crystals, and are undying, and the immortality of these will leaven with their imperishable essence the whole mass of his writings. The writer is conscious that he is guilty, perhaps, of some exaggeration in the exclusive estimate he has formed of the Pagan element in Heine's poetry. No doubt this does prevail in it to a large extent; nevertheless, there are little blossoms of sentiment among his poems, scattered here and there, so pure and so sweet that no one could have produced them unless, at least, he had been closely in contact with the Christian spirit and purified to some extent by contact therewith.

It is, too, as poet, critic, and humorist combined that his opinions on life, the world, and society especially interest us. These, it will be found, varied considerably with the progress of years and under the vicissitudes to which he was subjected both from within and from without. Hopeful in the years of the pride of life, and in the heyday of the blood, he settled down finally into a state of pessim

« ПредишнаНапред »