i-NRLF 
 
 575 
 
PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 AMERICANA GERMANICA 
 
 MONOGRAPHS DEVOTED TO THE COMPARATIVE 
 STUDY OF THE 
 
 Literary, Linguistic and Other Cultural Relations 
 
 OF 
 
 Germany and America 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 MARION DEXTER LEARNED 
 
 University of Pennsylvania 
 (See List at the End of the Book) 
 
HEINE IN AMERICA 
 
 Thesis presented to the Faculty oj the Graduate School 
 of the Universitv of Pennsylvania in partial fulfill 
 ment of the requirements for the Degree 
 of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 By 
 
 H. B. SACHS 
 
 Gmertccma (Sermamca 
 
 NUMBER 23. 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 1916 
 
COPYRIGHT 1916 
 
 BY 
 H. B. SACHS 
 
f T 2 3-3 
 S3 
 
 TO 
 MARION DEXTER LEARNED 
 
 36129 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The spirit of the world 
 
 Beholding the absurdity of men 
 
 Their vaunts, their feats let a sardonic smile 
 
 For one short moment wander o er his lips. 
 
 That smile was Heine ! 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 In 1826 the first volume of the Reisebilder appeared, and 
 Germany realized instantly that it possessed a new great writer 
 of prose. In 1827 came Das Bitch der Lleder, and Europe pos 
 sessed a new great poet. Yet, before these facts could be duly 
 recognized and openly acknowledged in England and America, 
 the genius of Heine had to conquer great prejudices. Heine 
 detested the English; he said that he might settle in England if 
 it were not that he would find two things there coal-smoke and 
 Englishmen, neither of which he could abide. The air of 
 London felt like an oaken cudgel upon his shoulders. His notes 
 on English institutions, literature, the English attitude were 
 insolently malignant. All this was not calculated to endear him 
 to the leaders of English opinion. Consequently we need not be 
 surprised to find eminent critics joining in the general expres 
 sion of indignation and abhorrence. "Here was a poet," Kings- 
 ley said, "who might or might not be a genius, but who was 
 certainly a leper/ Men like Carlyle, who were the interpreters 
 of German literature in England, and whose opinions were re 
 garded as authoritative, did not hesitate to pass judgment of 
 condemnation on Heine. "That blackguard Heine" is Carlyle s 
 only reference to Heine. Everything about him proved, in 
 English eyes, detestable. He was a Jew, and a pagan and a 
 skeptic a truly delicious compound for the Englishman. He 
 had erected an idolatrous Napoleon legend just when the Na 
 poleonic phantom had been laid comfortably to rest. In Eng 
 land it was long before the fascinating genius of Heine made 
 peace with the spirit of the nation. In Clough and Matthew 
 
 (9) 
 
TO Introduction 
 
 Arnold we have the first conscious introduction of Heine s in 
 fluences into English poetry. The school of Pater and Swin 
 burne adopted Heine s modern and yet intense paganism. The 
 memory of Heine thus gradually overcame the bitter prejudices 
 of English readers. The interest in Heine has increased amaz 
 ingly in England; thanks in the first place to Matthew Arnold s 
 admirable essay, 1 and next to the writers of various magazine 
 articles, which have appeared in England and in America. 
 Special mention must be made of the excellent contributions 
 towards an enlightened estimate of Heine s works by George 
 Eliot, 2 J. D. Lester, 3 and Charles Grant. 4 We cannot overesti 
 mate the great influences which these views have had in Amer 
 ican criticisms of Heine. In many instances American critics 
 have either quoted, restated with approbation or wholly appropri 
 ated the estimates of Arnold and Grant. Matthew Arnold 
 in his remarkable essay on Heine said : "Heine is note 
 worthy because he is the most important successor and con- 
 tinuator of Goethe in Goethe s most important line of activity 
 his activity as a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity. 
 Heine is in the European literature of that quarter of 
 a century, which follows the death of Goethe, incomparably the 
 most important spirit." Such an estimate of Heine from Eng 
 land s most distinguished critic could not fail to dominate Amer 
 ican criticism on the works of the poet. 
 
 Precisely the same prejudices, which existed in England 
 against Heine, appeared in America in a less bitter form. So 
 long as American criticism on German literature was influenced 
 by Gervinus, Menzel and other detractors of Heine, together 
 with the indignation of the Englishmen, we must not expect to 
 find just and sympathetic criticism. Misconceptions, inaccura 
 cies must arise so long as original thought and independent in 
 vestigations were deemed unnecessary. Longfellow writes an 
 
 1 Cornhill s Magazine, Vol. 8, 1863, pp. 233-249. Reprinted in Essays on 
 Criticism. 
 
 2 Westminster Review, 1856. Reprinted in her essays. 
 
 3 Fortnightly Review, Vol. 6, N. S., 1869, pp. 287-303. 
 * Contemporary Review, Vol. 38, 1880, pp. 372-395. 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 essay on Heine repeating the views of depreciative German 
 critics rather than stating his own. All early critics place im 
 plicit confidence in the statements and anecdotes of Strodt- 
 mann and have no scruples about inserting absurdities attributed 
 to Heine. One reviewer reports Heine as dead in 1849. Almost 
 all critics quote, in order to add authority to their views, a re 
 mark of Goethe given in Eckermann s Conversations: "One 
 thing is lacking in him love." The reference, as one of Mr. 
 Storr s 5 reviewers pointed out, is not to Heine, but to Count 
 Platen. How could anyone acquainted with Heine s genius as 
 sume that Goethe would give expression to such an absurd 
 opinion? Mr. Storr pleads as an extenuating circumstance that 
 he was misled by Strodtmann. 6 Mr. William Sharp, 7 the 
 author of the best English monograph on Heine, and Matthew 
 Arnold, both in his Essays on Criticism, and in his poem Heine s 
 Grave, endorse this absurdity. 
 
 If the bitterness of the early American reviewers of Heine s 
 works was due to the English influence and the slavish adher 
 ence to views of German critics, Heine did not fail to add a 
 provocation by his fierce and withering satire. Not satisfied 
 with his ridicule of the English, Heine made a virulent attack 
 on Americans. In 1830 he writes to his friend Borne from the 
 lonely little island of Heligoland: ". . . or shall I betake 
 myself to America to that huge region of free men, 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 exercises its brutal authority. Thou knowest what I 
 think of this accursed land, which I used to love before I had 
 understood it. And yet my vocation as liberator compels me 
 publicly to praise and extol this country! Oh, you good Ger 
 man peasants, go to America! You will there find neither 
 princes nor nobles; all men % are alike there; all are equally 
 
 5 Heine s Travel Pictures, translated by Francis Storr. 2d Ed. London, 
 1895. Preface. 
 
 1867-69. 
 
 6 Adolf Strodtmann, Heinrich Heine s Leben und Werke. 2 Bds. Berlin, 
 
 7 Life of Heinrich Heine, by William Sharp. London, 1888. 
 
12 Introduction 
 
 churls except, indeed, a few millions whose skins are black or 
 brown, and who are treated like dogs." 
 
 By such denunciations Heine alienated many Americans. 
 Are we to wonder that American critics assumed a hostile at 
 titude towards him and endeavored to find cause for denounc 
 ing his character? This indulging in personalities, for which 
 they condemned Heine s criticism of A. W. Schlegel and Borne, 
 now became characteristic of the criticism on Heine. Ripley 
 and other eminent critics in their reviews of Heine s works con 
 cerned themselves chiefly with condemning his character and 
 searching for imperfections in his works. When they found 
 any flaw they proceeded at once to exaggerate it. But the time 
 for a more just appreciation of Heine was destined to come and 
 was ushered in by George Eliot and Matthew Arnold. 
 
 But misunderstandings of Heine s character did not cease 
 until the publication of Heine s Familienleben by his nephew 
 Baron von Embden more than ten years ago. Heine s affec 
 tion for his mother, sister and his surprising devotion to his 
 wife came as a complete revelation to all who had painted him 
 as a devil. 
 
Heine in American Criticism. 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 
 (Vol. XLII, 1836, pp. 163-178.) 
 
 This article is a review of Letters Auxiliary to the History 
 of Modern Polite Literature in Germany, by Heinrich Heine. 
 Translated from German by G. W. Haven, Boston, 1836. 
 
 Acknowledging that the book presents the views of a man 
 of uncommon talent and power, the reviewer declares that Heine 
 is an enemy of superstition, bigotry and tyranny without being 
 a friend of religion and true liberty; a hater of the vices of 
 others, without being a lover of virtue. Heine s perception of 
 others foibles and faults is as quick and sure, as his ridicule is 
 pointed and his sarcasm withering. His natural powers are in 
 disputably of a high order. As a critic he exhibits a penetration 
 and clearness of perception and strength and distinctness of de 
 lineation, an abundance and happiness of illustration, an appro 
 priateness of comparison, and a liveliness, ease, and vigor of 
 style, rarely united in one man. His control of the language is 
 remarkable. The reviewer doubts whether Heine is surpassed 
 or equalled in this respect, by any writer of that time. After 
 some comment on Heine s prejudices and unfairness as a critic, 
 the reviewer says : "Heine combines the volatile, effervescent 
 spirit of the French with the philosophical depth of the Ger 
 mans. His poetical talent, even if he had not evinced it by the 
 particular productions which rank him high among the living 
 poets of Germany, is apparent both from his appreciation of the 
 same power in others, and from the beauty of many passages in 
 the work under consideration, passages which have all that con 
 stitutes true poetry except versification. . . . Heine pre 
 sents a mixture of good and bad qualities. . . . We are far 
 from advocating or even excusing his political, theological and 
 philosophical opinions; but we would, in fairness, acknowl 
 edge the correctness, justice and originality of many of his 
 criticisms." 
 
 (13) 
 
14 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 The reviewer then proceeds to make the reader acquainted 
 with the original of Mr. Haven s translation. In doing this he 
 uses as far as possible Heine s own words, in order to give not 
 merely an account of Heine s opinions, but also some specimens 
 of his manner. In speaking of Heine s attack on A. W. Schlegel 
 the reviewer waxes warm and says: This is on the whole the 
 most exceptionable portion, indicating a relentless, atrocious 
 hostility, for which there is, upon Heine s own showing, no 
 sort of ground. We are naturally led to suspect some private 
 grudge. The description of the personal appearance of A. W. 
 Schlegel, and the allusions to his private affairs, are so evidently 
 in bad taste and proofs of 2, rancorous and implacable malice, 
 that we pass by them in silent contempt." 
 
 Heine attributes Tieck s change from his first to his second 
 manner to the influence of the Schlegels, and the change to the 
 third manner to the influence of Goethe. These changes struck 
 Heine as a strange discrepancy between the understanding and 
 the imagination. The reviewer here takes exception to Heine s 
 view and endeavors to explain these three manners of Tieck as 
 the principal stages of a perfectly natural and spontaneous pro 
 cess of the inner man; a perfect harmony; the absence of ex 
 tremes; in a word the result of a natural and complete develop 
 ment. 
 
 The review concludes with remarks on Heine s criticism of 
 Schelling, Hegel, Steffens and Gorres, which the reviewer con 
 siders full of interest and humor, but by no means free from 
 prejudice. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882). 
 
 1807-1882. 
 
 Longfellow affords an excellent illustration of a man of 
 talent and genius failing to understand the significance of Heine 
 in the literature of Europe. The views he expresses in his 
 article on Heine in Graham s Magazine 8 are not quite in accord 
 with what he really felt concerning Heine. This will be evident 
 
 8 Graham s Magazine, Vol. XX, 1842, pp. 134-137- 
 
Heine in American Criticism 15 
 
 from the quotations from his journal. Although Longfellow 
 does not omit mentioning all the faults attributed to Heine s 
 style by the enraged German critics, yet he does not hesitate to 
 imitate Heine s manner in Hyperion and Voices of the Night. 
 This illustrates the truth of the saying that what a man con 
 demns publicly, he often hastens zealously to imitate. 
 
 Matthew Arnold s estimate of Heine on first reading was 
 anything but favorable, as his letters 9 show. Happily Arnold 
 travelled soon far from the state of mind in which he could 
 regard the Reisebilder as "the most ridiculous thing in the 
 world." He knew that to speak of Heine as a man who tried to 
 be gloomy was the reverse of the truth, and he consequently 
 expressed the truth upon mature reflection. But Longfellow re 
 printed his essay to serve as an introduction to the article on 
 Heine in the Poets and Poetry of Europe a few years later. 
 
 In Hyperion (1839), Chapter VII, in speaking of Menzel s 
 attack on Goethe, Paul Fleming says : "But, of all that has 
 been said or sung, what most pleases me is Heine s Apologetic, 
 if I may so call it; in which he says that the minor poets who 
 flourished under the imperial reign of Goethe, resemble a young 
 forest . . . (Cf. Heine s view of Goethe in Romantische 
 Schidc)" After quoting the passage, Paul Fleming says: 
 "Do you not think that beautiful?" "Yes, very beautiful," says 
 the Baron, "and I am glad to see that you can find something to 
 admire in my favorite author, notwithstanding his frailties; or, 
 to use an old German saying, that you can drive the hens out 
 of the garden without trampling down the beds." 
 
 The Romantische Schule seems to have been a great favorite 
 with Longfellow and he quoted the sections treating of Goethe, 
 Des Knabenwunderhorn and Das Niebelungen Lied in his Poets 
 and Poetry of Europe. 
 
 In his article in Graham s Magazine, 10 Longfellow says: 
 "Ludwig Borne once said that Voltaire was only the John the 
 
 9 Letters of Arnold, edited by W. E. Russel. Vol. i, pp. 10-11. Letter to 
 his mother, May /, 1848. 
 
 10 Graham s Magazine, Vol. XX, pp. 134-137. 
 
1 6 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Baptist of Antichrist, but that Heine was Antichrist himself. 
 Perhaps he paid Heine too great a compliment; yet the remark 
 is true as far as this, that it points him out as the leader of that 
 new school in Germany which is seeking to establish a religion 
 of sensuality, and to build a palace of Pleasure on the ruins 
 of the church. The school is known under the name of Young 
 Germany. It is skeptical and sensual; and seems desirous of 
 trying again the experiment so often tried before, but never 
 with any success, of living without a God. Heine expresses 
 this in phrases too blasphemous or too voluptuous to repeat. 
 Heine s plans for regenerating society are at best but vague 
 opinions thrown out recklessly and at random, like fire-brands, 
 that set in a flame whatever light matter they fall upon. 
 
 "The style of Heine is remarkable for vigor, wit and bril 
 liancy; but is wanting in taste and refinement; to the reckless 
 ness of Byron he adds the sentimentality of Sterne. The 
 Reisebilder is a kind of Don Juan in prose, with passages from 
 the Sentimental Journey. He is always in extremes, either of 
 praise or censure; setting at naught the decencies of life, and 
 treating the most sacred things with frivolity. Throughout 
 his writings you see traces of a morbid, ill-regulated mind; of 
 deep feeling, disappointment and suffering. His sympathies 
 seem to have died within him, like Ugolino s children in the 
 tower of Famine. With all his various powers, he wants the one 
 great power the power of truth ! He wants, too, that ennobling 
 principle of all human endeavors, the aspiration after an ideal 
 standard, that is higher than himself. In a word he wants 
 sincerity and spirituality. 
 
 "In the highest degree reprehensible, too, is the fierce, im 
 placable hatred with which Heine pursues his foes. No man 
 should write of another as he permits himself to do at times. 
 In speaking of Schlegel, as he does in his German literature, he 
 is utterly without apology. And yet to such remorseless invec- 
 tiveness, to such witty sarcasms, he is indebted to a great degree 
 for his popularity. It was not till after he had bitten the heel 
 of Hercules, that the Crab was placed among the constellations. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 17 
 
 "The minor poems of Heine, like most of his prose writings, 
 are but a portrait of himself. The same melancholy tone the 
 same endless sigh pervades them. Though they possess the 
 highest lyric merit, they are for the most part fragmentary 
 expressions of some momentary state of feeling sudden ejacula 
 tion of pain or pleasure, of restlessness, impatience, regret, long 
 ing, love. They profess to be songs and as songs must they be 
 judged and as German songs. Thus these imperfect expressions 
 of feeling these mere suggestions of thought, this luminous 
 mist, that half reveals, half hides the sense, this selection of 
 topics from scenes of every-day life, and in fine, this prevailing 
 tone of sentimental sadness, will not seem affected, misplaced nor 
 exaggerated. At the same time it must be confessed that the 
 trivial and commonplace recur too frequently in these songs. 
 Here, likewise, as in the prose of Heine, the lofty aim is want 
 ing; we listen in vain for the spirit-stirring note for the word 
 of power for those ancestral melodies, which amid the uproar 
 of the world, breathe in our ears forevermore the voices of 
 consolation, encouragement and warning. Heine is not suffi 
 ciently in earnest to be a great poet." 
 
 How beautifully and poetically has Longfellow pointed out 
 all conceivable as well as inconceivable defects in Heine s style! 
 Yet how inadequate, unfair and negative is this criticism ! Long 
 fellow fails to see Heine s real place in the world s literature 
 and his real contribution and influence. Not a word does Long 
 fellow say about Heine s wonderful sea-poetry! Probably when 
 Longfellow read the Romanzero he reached different conclu 
 sions. Instead of striving to refute the misstatements and 
 exaggerations of Longfellow s criticism we will leave that for 
 subsequent reviews. Let us quote a passage from Longfellow s 
 journal to see what he said a few years after this criticism 
 appeared in Graham s Magazine. 
 
 In the Journal, ^ June 4, 1846, Longfellow commented on 
 the Book of Songs as follows: "A true summer morning, warm 
 
 11 Life of H. W. Longfellow, edited by Samuel Longfellow. 3 Vols. 
 Boston, 1893. Vol. II, p. 41. 
 
1 8 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 and breezy. F. sat under the linden-tree and read to me Heine s 
 poems, while I lay under a hay-cock. . . . Heine, delicious 
 poet for such an hour ! What a charm there is about his Buck 
 der Lieder! Ah, here they would be held by most people as 
 ridiculous. Many poetic souls there are here, and many lovers 
 of song, but life and its ways and ends are prosaic in this 
 country to the last degree." 
 
 Other passages might be quoted to prove that Longfellow s 
 appreciation of Heine became more sympathetic but this will 
 suffice. Later we shall see how Longfellow caught the manner 
 of Heine in his poetry. 
 
 SARAH AUSTIN. 12 
 
 Remarkable, considering the date when it was written, is 
 the pregnant and just tribute paid to the merits of Heine in 
 Sarah Austin s brief sketch. After giving some well chosen speci 
 mens of Heine s brilliant and witty prose style, she proceeds to 
 give a brief biographical and critical sketch, calling attention, in 
 a graceful manner, to Heine s significance in European literature 
 as follows: "Some of his songs are beautiful, especially those 
 written in Heligoland, the imagery of which is drawn from the 
 northern seas and their various aspects. Their lyrical sweetness 
 is not surpassed by anything in the German language, except by 
 some of Geothe s songs. Heine s prose style is also regarded in 
 Germany as admirable even by those who least admire the matter 
 of his writings. As a proof of his artistical merit, I might men 
 tion the pretty sort of echo of the beginning with which the 
 Harts-miners closes." 
 
 Colonel T. W. Higginson in his latest work (Part of a 
 Man s Life, Boston, 1905), speaks of Sarah Austin s German 
 Prose Writers as one of the first books which kindled his literary 
 enthusiasm. It was together with Heine s work Die Roman- 
 tische Schule, among the first books which created in America 
 the zeal for German literature. 
 
 12 Fragments from German Prose Writers, translated by Sarah Austin, 
 with Biographical Sketches of the Authors. New York, 1841, p. 220. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 19 
 
 W. H. HURLBUT. 13 
 
 Of all criticisms on Heine we have no hesitation in pro 
 nouncing Hurlbut s the unique and most amusing. That Hurl- 
 but was possessed of a fertile imagination from the inexhaustible 
 store from which he preferred to draw in sketching Heine s life, 
 rather than go to the trouble of investigating, will be obvious. 
 That there were rumors of Heine s death in 1848 is not improb 
 able; but how can we excuse the audacity of a man who writes 
 with certainty without ascertaining the real facts? The mourn 
 ful description of Heine s lamentable death in 1848 is too amus 
 ing to be omitted. If we bear in mind that Heine s malady began 
 in 1848 and his death occurred in 1856, Hurlbut s sketch affords 
 us more amusement. The article begins with a brief and clear 
 outline of the rise and character of the school known as Young 
 Germany. After connecting Heine with this school, Hurlbut 
 says: "In 1830, he went to Paris, and finding the extravagance, 
 intellectual and social, of that fermenting city the atmosphere 
 best suited to his restless nature, he fixed there his abode. There 
 he continued to reside, occupying himself with his literary labors, 
 poetical and political, and enjoying with full zest the brilliancy 
 and reckless gaiety of a circle in which he held a central place 
 till his death in 1848. The close of his life was darkened by great 
 physical sufferings, and greater social and spiritual misery. He 
 was struck at once with paralysis and with blindness. These de 
 privations shutting him out from those material sources of delight 
 at which he had nourished himself so long, embittered his temper 
 and led him to a neglect of the elegancies and amenities of life, 
 which soon drove away many of his butterfly friends. And 
 though his genius and importance still secured to him the admir 
 ation and the sympathy of a few superior persons, he may be 
 said to have been withdrawn from the cheerful light of human 
 society and to have died in a very desolate and mournful con 
 dition. This brief account of a career, uneventful as are the 
 lives of the majority of literary men, comprises all that we have 
 
 13 North American Review, Vol. LXIX, 1849, pp. 216-249. 
 
2C Heine in American Criticism 
 
 learned with certainty of the outward biography of Heine. It 
 comprises, too, we are inclined to think, all that we need know 
 of that biography. His birth, his occupation, his place of resi 
 dence, his death these are all the important keys that his history 
 can give us to the outward character of a man and of his 
 works." 
 
 Having dashed off this biographical sketch Hurlbut now 
 turns his attention to making a careful review of Heine s literary 
 activity in various departments of literature. The most important 
 of Heine s works, that upon which his fame must eventually rest, 
 is, in Hurlbut s opinion, the Reisebilder. He assigns it a high 
 place among literary favorites of all literatures, and finds these 
 two seals of genius stamped upon the greater part of the Reise 
 bilder entire independence of thought and feeling, and true 
 poetic power of description and representation. The careless 
 audacity, Hurlbut declares to be the very spirit of the movements 
 in these travels. What he particularly regards as a distinctive 
 merit of the Reisebilder is the entire absence of cant. The 
 scenes in the Hartzreise Hurlbut thinks are portrayed with ad 
 mirable skill and force. 
 
 Of Heine s satirical powers he finds De I Allemagne to be 
 the finest exhibition. But he warns the general reader to beware 
 of the Romantische Schide if he reads for information, and if 
 he values his literary integrity and would keep his mind free 
 from prejudice. After advising the reader to shun the danger 
 ous brilliancy of the Romantische Schule, Hurlbut continues: 
 "To all serious persons, of whatever nation, it must remain only 
 an entertaining abomination. We dismiss it with alacrity to its 
 proper circle the Inferno of literature, into which it will as 
 suredly sink. We cannot be considered as unmerciful in con 
 signing Atta Troll, Deutschland and many other merely political 
 squibs, to the more ignoble quarter of that Elysium in which so 
 many mighty shades of Rome, France, and England dwell." 
 
 If the Romantische Schule, Atta Troll and Deutschland were 
 consigned to the realm of the shades and oblivion by Hurlbut s 
 unmerciful condemnation, the Buck der Lieder was at least saved 
 
Heine in American Criticism 21 
 
 to posterity by him. In this beautiful collection he enjoys the 
 fragrance of a gifted nature, the peaceful working of a naturally 
 clear and noble heart. The enjoyment is marked by a spirit of 
 skepticism. In criticising the Buck der, Lieder Hurlbut says: 
 "The poet asserts himself in these masterly compositions the 
 tenderness, the glow, the hope find expression in most exquisite 
 forms. His plastic power is remarkable. Heine is unquestion 
 ably the greatest artist among the younger German poets, but to 
 compare him to Goethe is exaggerated praise. We are charmed 
 by the seductive beauty and melody of his verse. And when, in 
 some parts of that extraordinary poem, The North Sea, Heine 
 really rises to pure and lofty feelings, to grand and simple 
 thoughts, the solemnity and powers of his measures, sometimes 
 rolling out with the rhythm of the waves, reveal the intrinsic 
 greatness of the poetic nature which was lost to art and to its 
 own true happiness in the turmoil of our times." 
 
 The Neue Gedichte Hurlbut declares to be the saddest, the 
 most lamentable, perhaps, that ever proceeded from a man so 
 capable of greatness. Heine s raillery, which he calls the "evil 
 spirit," here tramples down the holiest feelings and scoffs at 
 the most beautiful thoughts. The fatal element in Heine s char 
 acter Hurlbut declares to have been the want of any resolute 
 adherence to a great and noble purpose. The reviewer objects 
 to calling Heine the German Byron, because they only resemble 
 each other in artistic power, sensualism and love of the sea. 
 Hurlbut thus distinguishes them: "The gay, reckless, witty poli 
 tician is wholly different from the magnificent English scoffer. 
 The one was a scoffer among scoffers, the other a terrible scorner 
 in a day of fearful convulsions and wrathful conflicts. Their 
 very sensualism bore not the same stamp; with Heine it was 
 sentimental, with Byron it was passionate." 
 
 Vainly endeavoring to find a parallel for Heine, because he 
 thinks the comparison with Byron unsatisfactory, Hurlbut finally 
 lands upon an absurd solution of the problem by suggesting that 
 Heine might, with justice, be called a nineteenth century Wie- 
 land. 
 
22 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Putnam s Monthly Magazine. 
 
 (Vol. VI, 1855, pp. 475-48i.) 
 
 HENRY HEINE. 
 
 The reviewer writes a letter from Oberwesel-on-the-Rhine 
 to a friend in Park Place. In this letter he speaks of Heine as 
 the genius who tore up the treaties of Vienna, a tearful trifler, 
 a sardonic sentimentalist who laughs at old legends over his wine, 
 and shudders beneath the Lorelei-rocks in the twilight. The music 
 of Heine s melodies, the subtle and true rhythm of his genius 
 enrapture the writer of the letter when he first hears the Lorelei 
 in the sweet Rhenish weather. In speaking of the Lorelei the 
 writer says : "How completely is Heine s own individuality pre 
 served in the half smile which plays upon his lips as he ends his 
 song! He seems to throw off the brief mood of romance, and 
 turns on his heels again, to skepticism and entire Germany has 
 produced only two poets beside Heine, who could have written 
 this song of the Liirlei, and neither one of them could thus have 
 concluded it ; Uhland was too serious a sentimentalist, Goethe too 
 consummate an artist." 
 
 After briefly sketching Heine s life and giving in translation 
 some specimens of his poetry, the writer comments on the Reise- 
 bilder as follows : "The Reisebilder was almost as original in 
 form as it was fresh in substance; . . . one is vaguely re 
 minded by it of the Sentimental Journey. But the reminiscence 
 is so very vague ! It always reminds me much more strongly of 
 a comic opera. What opera ever had an overture more ex 
 quisitely constructed than those songs of the Heimkehr in which 
 all the coming work is so musically resumed, hinted or foretold?" 
 
 The writer is delighted with the style of the Reisebilder, the 
 rhythm of which glides on in prose as "harmonious as the flow 
 of a forest brook, and ever and anon is broken into little melodi 
 ous cascades of verse." He enjoys the grace and power with 
 which Heine paints all manner of scenes and persons. Heine s 
 description of London he considers one of the finest ever written 
 of that indescribable, inexhaustible London. After dwelling upon 
 and analyzing the exquisite, limpid style of Heine, the reviewer 
 
Heine in American Criticism 23 
 
 maintains that of the Germans only Lessing has approached and 
 Goethe surpassed it. The art of composition has declined in Ger 
 many since the avatar of Heine, but the decline did not begin with 
 him. 
 
 Heine has been classed by some critics with the great humor 
 ists. This classification is obviously incorrect, and the reviewer 
 very justly takes issue with these critics, and makes the following 
 distinction : "If to be capricious is to be a great humorist, then 
 he (Heine) is one. But the best quality of humor lies deep in 
 the soul, beneath the light play of caprice. The style of a great 
 humorist, of Jean Paul, for instance, or Carlyle, does not glitter, 
 it glows. The style of Heine is, in no wise, incandescent, but 
 rather scintillating. Compare Heine s Sketch of Religion and 
 Philosophy in Germany with Carlyle s Past and Present, and you 
 will see clearly what I mean." 
 
 Having drawn this distinction, the writer speaks of Heine s 
 remarkable attainments in French and gives some account of Die 
 Romantische Schule, Der Salon, Verrnischte Schriften, Ludwig 
 Borne, and Heine s last days. Pointed, brilliant, fanciful, and 
 fascinating as is the prose style of Heine, the writer thinks that 
 the most abiding charm of his genius is to be found in the fine 
 lyrical qualities : "In his own secret heart, I doubt not he 
 (Heine) cherished, most of all his works, those exquisite 
 effusions which collected in half a dozen series from the Lyrical 
 Poems, published in 1822, to the Romanzero (the saddest and 
 poorest of them all) published in 1853, comprise some of the 
 truest, and sweetest, and strongest lyric poetry of modern times." 
 In concluding his letter, the writer takes advantage of the oppor 
 tunity to censure Gervinus for his unjustifiable attitude toward 
 Heine and says: "And though Gervinus (respectable Gervinus) 
 has thought fit to omit Heine from his very stupid history, as 
 long as the German language shall live, these songs will live, in 
 which the German consonants have been wrought to melodies as 
 delicious as were ever trilled through the vowels of Italy." 
 
 In addition to this criticism on Heine s literary achieve 
 ments, this article also contains some meritorious, metrical trans 
 lations of some of Heine s most famous lyrics. But of these we 
 
24 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 shall treat in the section dealing with American translations of 
 Heine s works. 
 
 This sympathetic and appreciative estimate was evidently 
 written while the writer was under the spell of Heine s magic, 
 and consequently he fails to point out the defects in Heine s 
 works, on which other critics are so fond of dwelling to a 
 monotonous extent. 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. 
 
 As a man of considerable talent and fame, a very close 
 student of Heine, the opinions and views of Leland are worthy 
 of our careful attention and respect. Captivated with the genius 
 of Heine, he, nevertheless, was conscious of the German s defects 
 and inconsistencies. Leland s criticisms of Heine appeared as 
 prefaces to the various translations, the first of which, the Reise- 
 bilder, appeared in Philadelphia, in 1855, with the title, Pictures 
 of Travel. In this preface, Leland expresses the opinion that no 
 modern German writer has exerted an influence comparable to 
 that of Heine, and that since Goethe no author has penetrated 
 so generally through every class of society. This universality of 
 popularity he considers the surest test of the existence of genius. 
 Leland groups Heine with that great band which numbered Lu- 
 cian, Rabelais and Swift among its members. The secret of 
 Heine s popularity among the Germans, Leland finds to be uni 
 versality of talent, sincerity and weaknesses, and the graceful art 
 of communicating to the most uneducated mind refined secrets 
 of art and criticism. Considering it worse than folly to attempt 
 to palliate Heine s faults, Leland condemns the vulgarity of many 
 passages in the Reisebilder. That Heine was a genius, and not a 
 clever imitator of genius, he thinks, is shown by his many and 
 marvellous prophecies or intuitions. The fact that Heine can 
 only be fully comprehended as a whole, and the more one reads 
 him, the better he is appreciated, Leland finds to be only char 
 acteristic of great writers who do not reproduce themselves. 
 
 In the preface to his translation of Heine s Florentine Nights 
 (London, 1891) Leland says: "It is much to say of a volu 
 minous writer in prose as well as in verse, that he has left few 
 
Heine in American Criticism 25 
 
 lines that can be spared from the literature of the world. Goethe, 
 whom we cheerfully acknowledge greater than Heine, is totally 
 unable to stand such a test in his poetical works, even to say 
 nothing of his prose. . . . Heine was a poet by the grace 
 of God and carried the happy instinct of his verse into his prose. 
 As a poet he was essentially a Volksdichter. He was equipped 
 with two intellectual gifts, perfect lucidity and perfect propor 
 tion. He was at the same time a most original and accurate 
 thinker, and possesses in the discussion of grave matters the ease 
 and brightness and symmetry which have constituted his charm 
 as a lyric poet." 
 
 Of much greater merit and value as criticism than the pre 
 ceding is the preface which Leland wrote for his translation of 
 De I Allemagne (London, 1892). After expressing his admir 
 ation of the brilliancy and fascination of the style of this work, 
 Leland says: "Such writers are invaluable as educators or 
 trainers of thought and style. One cannot praise too highly, as 
 regards depth and value, the manner in which he has seized, in 
 a most independent, original manner, on the leading names which 
 truly illustrate German thought since Luther, or the exquisite 
 skill and refined art with which he has concisely and beautifully 
 set them forth. The wonderful parallel which runs through his 
 work, like a motive through an opera, of the progress of the 
 mental revolution in Germany and the political in France. The 
 simile is grandly sustained and carried to a triumphant conclu 
 sion." 
 
 The principal faults of the Romantic School and Religion 
 and Philosophy in Germany, according to Leland are : (i) A 
 fair and harmonious idea of the balance of any author described 
 is not given because the author was manifestly unable to accord 
 or co-ordinate error and merit in others. This is the result of 
 Heine s love of gossip and scandal and his boyish susceptibility 
 which made him for the moment altogether enthusiastic, either 
 with admiration or anger, at a character or a book, without 
 reflecting on the other side ; (2) The childish jealousy, or merely 
 personal dislike, which he had not the good sense to control or 
 conceal. Heine had not the vast impartiality of a Goethe. Hence 
 
26 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 he neglects the real influence or action of certain authors in their 
 time, although he does it well with others ; (3) He does not give 
 intelligently and succinctly the method of any philosopher, and in 
 several cases this is done so imperfectly as to almost induce the 
 suspicion that he had not clearly understood them. This is cer 
 tainly the case as regards the methods of Kant, Fichte and Schel- 
 ling, while as to Hegel he really tells us nothing at all. 
 
 In conclusion Leland says about "Germany": "It is an 
 eccentric, though brilliant and genial mingling of metaphysics, 
 mockery and memoir. He did not explain German metaphysics 
 well or clearly to the multitude ; he simply made its vast influence 
 understood by entertaining and personal gossip, interspersing so 
 much that was vivacious, original and true with a great deal that 
 was frivolous and sometimes false, as to produce the greatest 
 masterpiece of melange known in literature." 
 
 Despite these shortcomings of Heine as a critic and inter 
 preter, Leland thinks that in. the Salon 14 Heine shows himself 
 absolutely a master in criticising pictures, music, and the stage 
 with marvellous ability, carefully avoiding technical terms. He 
 believes the Salon to be, as a whole, the one which, of its kind, 
 combines more suggestive thought, amusement, and information 
 than any other with which he is acquainted. Very justly Leland 
 disapproves of Heine s pitiful and disagreeable abuse of Raupach 
 and Spontini. 
 
 Pointing out as the predominant characteristic in which 
 Heine greatly surpassed all writers of his time that "he nothing 
 touched which he did not adorn," Leland, in his preface to the 
 French Affairs, 1 * calls attention to two very eminent points in 
 this book. One is the masterly manner in which Heine as early 
 as 1832, immediately after Louis Phillipe s succession to the 
 throne, pointed out clearly and accurately the causes which would 
 lead to that monarch s overthrow. These causes were bound up 
 with many influences which are still in vivid action, and which 
 
 " The Salon, translated from German of Heine by C. G Leland. London, 
 1893. Preface. 
 
 " French Affairs, Letters From Paris, translated from German of Heine 
 by C. G. Leland. London, 1893. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 27 
 
 no writer has expressed more wisely, more searchingly or more 
 succinctly than Heine. Therefore Leland thinks that the French 
 Affairs forms an admirable preparation for a study of French 
 politics of the present day. The reason why these letters have 
 never received the recognition due to their real merit, Leland 
 thinks, is owing to the heedless manner in which they were 
 written and the flippant gossip introduced to catch the eye of the 
 general reader. The second remarkable point in these letters in 
 cluding those in "Lutetia" is the fact that Heine, alone, in the 
 early thirties foresaw very clearly the future of Socialism and the 
 troubles which it was to cause. 
 
 Speaking of Heine s incongruities, Leland says : "The Ger 
 mans call Jean Paul the Only One/ because he is supposed to be 
 quite peculiar in his incongruities or in combining opposite char 
 acteristics. Yet I am certain that in this respect Heine, and not 
 Jean Paul, may claim precedence. There is at least in Richter 
 a deep moral unity, and however eccentrically he piled up or 
 overwrought his intertwined sentences, he never once fell into 
 the vulgar and careless style of the very worst of scribblers for 
 the press. But Heine exhibits in his intellectual efforts such 
 startling contradictions as were never yet beheld in living mortal ; 
 while as regards style or writing, there are in his works hundreds 
 of passages in which literary art attains the most exquisite per 
 fection; while, on the other hand, it is undeniable that there is 
 not a living writer of the English language, be he ever so 
 humble a tyro on the obscurest sheet, who would scrawl, even in 
 haste, such bungling, reiterative, and shallow sentences as may 
 be found at times rather frequently in all of Heine s works, but 
 especially in this (French Affairs} ." 
 
 Leland s preface 16 to his translation of Heine s Familien- 
 leben is a review of this book, which he considers to be the best 
 life of Heine which had yet appeared. In prefaces and notes to 
 his translations Leland had laid great stress on the extraordinary 
 contradictions which Heine s character presents, and which Le- 
 
 16 The Family Life of Heine, edited by von Embden and translated by 
 C. G. Leland. London, 1893. 
 
28 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 
 
 land thought entitled him to be called in preference to Jean Paul, 
 "the Only One" (the unique), in literature. Now Leland finds 
 that in a complete abandon to Hellenism, Heine was always con 
 sistent. And as a final, overwhelming proof of Heine s bizarre 
 nature, Leland learns that the professed roue was in reality all 
 his life long possessed by such an intense absorbing love -for his 
 mother and sister, and had constantly after marriage such faith 
 ful moral devotion to his wife, perhaps unparalleled in literary 
 biography. 
 
 GEORGE RIPLEY. 
 Putman s Monthly Magazine. 
 (VoL VIII, 1856, pp. 517-526.) 
 
 Ripley s paper on Heine s last days severely condemns his 
 character. It is rather analytical and philosophical in tone; but 
 it confines itself closely to the data given in Alfred Meissner s 
 Erinnerungen. 17 As an introduction to his review of Meissner s 
 little volume Ripley says: "Heine was not the man to secure the 
 love or even the esteem of general society. His wit had too sharp 
 an edge to conciliate the favor of common acquaintance. He 
 wielded it too recklessly to inspire confidence in his moral 
 integrity. His insatiable love of fun, his instinctive sense of the 
 ludicrous, and his miraculous command of the vocabulary of 
 humor, were combined with a subtle Mephistophelean malice, and 
 an audacious disregard of consequences, which were saved from 
 being repulsive only by his brilliant keenness of intellect, and the 
 original and surprising escapades of his fancy, which leave the 
 reader in a state of piquant gratification and eager curiosity at 
 once." 
 
 The revelations of Heine s remarkable idiosyncrasies as illus 
 trated by the incidents contained in Meissner s book attracted 
 Ripley. He considered Heine one of the most illustrious poets 
 Germany has produced, possessing a restless and yearning soul 
 enclosed in a tender and almost weak constitution, and experienc- 
 
 * Heinrich Heine s Erinnerungen, by Alfred Meissner, 1856. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 29 
 
 ing both the rapture and the wretchedness of life, with the exal 
 tation of enthusiasm. While Heine was being consumed by con 
 troversy and ambition, there was another characteristic, thinks 
 Ripley, which tended to destroy his physical life: "He was the 
 poet of love, and predestined to devote his life to the celebration 
 of female beauty. He sang of passion in all its forms, from 
 Platonism to the Witches Sabbath. He found expression for its 
 tenderest breathings, as if he possessed the heart of the elves; 
 and was as familiar with its bolder display as if he had shared 
 in the feasts of the fauns. . . . For Heine love was the 
 element of life; no intoxication of the senses; no temporary 
 plunge into dissoluteness, but an immeasurable passion, which 
 penetrated his whole being and kindled it into an ardent and 
 beautiful flame. . . . His soul was completely given to what 
 he lived. In this passion whose music rang through his nature, he 
 felt himself elevated above the discords of the world, of society, 
 of political forms, and it also took him out of himself and the 
 perpetual dualism of his character. But these flames, in which 
 he loved so well to breathe, devoured his life, consuming his very 
 soul." 
 
 Ripley comments on the difference in the natures of Borne 
 and Heine, calling Heine a child his brain swarming with gay 
 visions wild, unlicensed, extravagant a poet, a sybarite, a 
 creature of the world fond of frivolous society. Ripley believes 
 that Heine could not have been a friend of moral earnestness, 
 because he liked nothing so well as an obstreperous laugh. After 
 repeating some of the incidents given by Meissner illustrative of 
 the great wretchedness and agony of Heine s last days, Ripley 
 exclaims: "Such was the end of one of the most extraordinary 
 poets of recent times. But whatever claims his poetry may assert 
 on the admiration of the world, his personal character can never 
 be arrayed in attractive colors. But compared with any true 
 ideal of humanity, Heine was not a man to command approval 
 or love. This scoffing element in his nature was predominant 
 over the suggestions of truth. Devoted to the worship of beauty, 
 his life plan left no place for the pursuit of good. He seems 
 never to have recognized the presence of the ethical principle in 
 
30 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 the constitution of man. The voice of duty was never heard 
 amidst the seductive melodies of his song. He was possessed, like 
 many other men of genius, with a gigantic selfishness. Unscrup 
 ulous in the exercise of his wit, he made fewer friends than ad 
 mirers, and his enemies were more than either. No one can say 
 that he did not deserve his fate. His personality was one from 
 which the heart shrinks; his life, though impassioned, was grim 
 and unloving; his death was lonely, without faith and without 
 hope; his genius will consecrate his memory, but can never re 
 deem his character/ 
 
 Meissner, in his Er inner ung en, paints Heine s character in 
 attractive colors, but Ripley evidently regarded his testimony as 
 insufficient in view of the damaging evidence presented by other 
 accounts of Heine s wickedness. It is hardly fair to judge the 
 susceptible nature of Heine by such harsh Puritanic standards, as 
 Ripley was inclined to do, or to endeavor to bind the impulses 
 of Heine s wild and wayward genius by artificial rules. Had 
 Ripley lived to read Heine s letters addressed to his mother and 
 sister, so inspired with passionate affection, allied to the most 
 delicate and unaffected respect, he would doubtless been less 
 severe in his condemnation of Heine s character. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 Profoundly learned in the German language, philosophy and 
 literary criticism, Theodore Parker saw the need, in America, 
 of a new kind of criticism. It must be like the German in its 
 depth, philosophy, all-sidedness and geniality. It must have the 
 life, wit and sparkle of the French. Most of the American critics 
 at that time (1839) were somewhat shallow, and they wrote 
 often of what they understood but feebly and superficially. 
 Parker did a great deal towards exciting a desire for more 
 thorough critical ability among Americans. His papers on Ger 
 man literature and Strauss are among the best on the subject 
 published in American reviews. He wrote a critique of Menzel s 
 History of German Literature and criticisms of Goethe and 
 Schiller. 
 
 Parker was greatly interested in Heine and his works are 
 full of references and quotations from Heine s poetry and criti- 
 
Heine in American Criticism 31 
 
 cisms. Of Parker as a translator of Heine s poetry we shall speak 
 later. As a specimen of Parker s acumen as a critic and appreci 
 ation of Heine s genius we will quote a passage from a letter 18 
 to Mrs. Apthorp dated September 21, 1857: ". . . Heine 
 has a deal of the Devil in him, mixed with a deal of genius. No 
 body could write so well as he surely none since Goethe; that 
 Hebrew nature has a world of sensuous and devotional emotion 
 in it, and immense power of language also. But his genius is 
 lyric, not dramatic, not epic; no Muse rises so high as the 
 Hebrew, but it cannot keep long on the wing. The Psalms and 
 Prophets of the Old Testament teach us this; Oriental sensu- 
 ousness attained their finest expression in the Song of Solomon, 
 and in Heine s Lieder. In the latter the idol is veiled in thin 
 gauze; in the former it is without the veil. Much in Heine I 
 hate much likewise, I admire and love. The Romanzero I 
 never like enough to read. Heine was malignant and blasphem 
 ous." 
 
 JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL. 
 
 The Dancing Bear.^ 
 
 Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, 
 And win the dearest crowns beyond the goal 
 Of their own conscious purpose ; they control 
 With gossamer threads wide-flown our fancy s play, 
 And so our action. On my walk today, 
 A wallowing bear, begged clumsily his toll, 
 When straight a vision rose of Atta Troll, 
 And scenes ideal witched mine eyes away. 
 "Merci, Mossieu!" the astonished bearward cried. 
 Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the slave 
 Of partial memory, seeing at his side 
 A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave 
 Was none of mine ; poor Heine o er the wide 
 Atlantic welter stretched it from his grave. 
 
 18 Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by John Weiss. New 
 York, 1864. Vol. i, p. 306. 
 
 19 Works of J. R. Lowell. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New 
 York, 1895. Vol. IV, p. 184. 
 
32 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 That Heine was a great favorite with Lowell we are assured 
 by various sources of information, principally Mr. W. D. How- 
 ells My Literary Friends and Acquaintances and My Literary 
 Passions. When Mr. Howells visited Lowell in 1860, the con 
 versation at once turned on Heine, and Lowell expressed his ap 
 preciation and great admiration of Heine s genius. Yet Lowell 
 cautioned Mr. Howells to avoid imitating Heine s cynicism. 
 
 In his essay on Carlyle, speaking of Goethe s and Richter s 
 influence on Carlyle, and the fact that the Germans had persuaded 
 themselves that the essence of true humor is formlessness, Lowell 
 says : "Heine had not yet shown that a German might combine 
 the most airy humor with a sense of form as delicate as Goethe s 
 own, and that there was no need to borrow the bow of Philoctetes 
 for all kinds of game. Mr. Carlyle s tendency was toward the 
 lawless, and the attraction of Jean Paul made it an overmastering 
 one." 
 
 Later, in his admirable essay on Lessing^ Lowell again 
 expresses his opinion of Heine s style : "That the general want 
 of style in German authors is not wholly the fault of the language 
 is shown by Heine (a man of mixed blood) who can be daintily 
 light in German." 
 
 And a few pages further on Lowell 22 says : "Heine himself, 
 the most graceful sometimes, the most touching, of modern 
 poets, and clearly the most easy of German humorists, seems to 
 me wanting in a refined perception of that inward propriety, 
 which is only another name for poetic proportion, and shocks us 
 sometimes with an Unflathigkeit, as at the end of his Deutsch- 
 land, which, if it makes Germans laugh, as we should be sorry to 
 believe, makes other people hold their noses. Such things have 
 not been possible in English since Swift, and the persifleur Heine 
 cannot offer the same excuse of savage cynicism that might be 
 pleaded for the Irishman." 
 
 The foregoing passage shows us that Lowell was conscious 
 
 20 Vol. II, p. 90. 
 "Vol. II, p. 167. 
 "Vol. II, p. 170. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 33 
 
 of the defects in Heine s style. Such instances of revolting vul 
 garism Lowell very justly condemned. Heine s mockery and 
 cynicism also come in for their share of censure. In this same 
 essay on Lessing, 23 Lowell remarks: "To the Germans, with 
 their weak nerve of sentimentalism, his (Lessing s) brave com 
 mon sense is a far wholesomer tonic than the cynicism of Heine, 
 which is, after all, only sentimentalism soured." 
 
 Lowell s essay on Witchcraft 24 contains among others the 
 following reference to Heine s wit and wisdom in adapting and 
 utilizing his materials : "While Schiller was lamenting the Gods 
 of Greece, some of them were nearer neighbors to him than he 
 dreamed; and Heine had the wit to turn them to delightful ac 
 count, showing himself, perhaps, the wiser of the two in saving 
 what he could from the shipwreck of the past for present use on 
 the prosaic Juan Fernandez of a scientific age, instead of sitting 
 down to bewail it." 
 
 The weakness of the humorist is explained by Lowell s care 
 ful analysis in his essay on Fielding. 25 While doing this Lowell 
 says: "The weakness of the humorist is that he can never be quite 
 unconscious, for in him it seems as if the two lobes of the brain 
 were never in perfect unison, so that if ever one of them be on 
 the point of surrendering itself to a fine frenzy of unqualified 
 enthusiasm, the other watches it, makes fun of it, renders it un 
 easy with a vague sense of absurd incongruity, till at last it is 
 forced to laugh when it had rather cry. Heine turned this to his 
 purpose, and this is what makes him so profoundly and yet some 
 times so unpleasantly pathetic." 
 
 The influence of the Spanish romances on the form of 
 Heine s verse, Lowell says in his notes 26 on Don Quixote, is un 
 mistakable. 
 
 Speaking of Thoreau, 27 Lowell says that both Thoreau and 
 Carlyle represented the reaction and revolt against Philisterei, a 
 
 23 Vol. II, p. 229. 
 
 24 Vol. II, p. 327. 
 
 25 Vol. VI, p. 56. 
 
 26 Vol. 6, p. 116. 
 
 27 Vol. i, p. 364. 
 
34 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 renewal of the old battle begun in modern times by Erasmus and 
 Reuchlin, and continued by Lessing, Goethe, and, in a far nar 
 rower sense, by Heine in Germany. 
 
 In his essay on Winter 28 Lowell exclaims: "He (Winter) 
 does not touch those melancholy cords on which Autumn is as 
 great a master as Heine." Though fragmentary, desultory and 
 scattered, these references to Heine s works give us a fairly clear 
 idea of Lowell s estimate of the importance of Heine in modern 
 European literature. 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 
 (Vol. 98, 1864, p. 293 ff.) 
 
 The publication of Leland s translation of Heine s Book of 
 Songs called forth this critical notice. It begins with the remark 
 that the triumphant question of the lively French Abbe "Si un 
 Allemand pent etre bel esprit" waited nearly two centuries to be 
 answered, and at last, not by a pure Teuton, but by a German Jew. 
 Of Heine as a wit the reviewer says: "No wittier man than 
 Heine ever lived, nor any whose wit had more purpose in it. 
 Tempered as it was with poetic sentiment, intensified by a feeling 
 half patriotism and half of the race that has no country, its cut 
 was far deeper than that of Voltaire. If he often seems the most 
 careless of persifleurs, the real strength of Heine, as of Byron, 
 lay in the sad sincerity which was the base of his humor." Be 
 cause Heine is a man of Jewish birth, the reviewer thinks that 
 the lack of "vivida vis" of nationality in his lyrical poems may 
 well be forgiven. He considers Heine s lyrics the most grace 
 ful, easy and pathetic of modern times. The cause of Heine 
 being a mocker, he thinks, is not because he lacks deep and genu 
 ine feeling, but because his enthusiasm has been disappointed and 
 disillusioned. 
 
 This is the extent of the critical estimate of Heine given in 
 this review. The remainder of the article is devoted to an appre 
 ciative commendation of Leland s success as a translator of 
 Heine s verse. 
 
 Vol. 3, p. 259. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 35 
 
 FREDERIC H. HEDGE. 29 
 
 Hedge was a very learned man and a keen critic. Espe 
 cially true is this of his scholarly attainments in the knowledge 
 of German literature, and as such his views are of the highest 
 value. It was not till late in life that he became professor at 
 Harvard. He had already published his volume of translations 
 and biographical sketches Prose Writers of Germany. In the 
 case of Heine, he appended to his own criticism, the critique of 
 Matthew Arnold (Cornhill s Magazine, 1863). "Since the Sor 
 rows of Werther," says Hedge, "no book had so profoundly 
 stirred the German mind as the Reisebilder. As a writer, Heine 
 takes rank with the foremost satirists of modern times. But he 
 was more than a satirist, he was a lyric poet of the highest order. 
 A union unparalleled in any other writer before or since of lyric 
 sensibility with bitter sarcasm, of the tenderest sweetness with the 
 sharpest irony, is characteristic of the man. To say that he is the 
 wittiest of German writers is saying little, for German writers 
 are not remarkable for wit. We may say without hesitation he is 
 one of the wittiest of men; we may place him by the side of 
 Voltaire." 
 
 In Hours With German Classics? Hedge treats more at 
 length of Heine, whom he considers unsurpassed in the attribute 
 of wit. Among writers of all nations, Hedge thinks, Heine 
 stands pre-eminent in the union pf dissimilar and antagonistic 
 traits sarcasm and genuine poetic feeling, Mephistophelean and 
 lyric grace, the bitterest and the sweetest in mental life. But 
 Heine s pre-eminent talent, Hedge finds to be wit of the Voltairian 
 type: wit born of cynicism and inspired by contempt. 
 
 Arnold s statement that Heine is the most important suc 
 cessor and continuator of Goethe as a liberator of humanity, is 
 regarded by Hedge as absolutely false. To support his objection 
 to Arnold s view Hedge writes: "To say that a mocker, a persi- 
 fleur, one whose favorite use of the pen was to bespatter some 
 
 29 Prose Writers of Germany, by Frederic H. Hedge. New Edition, Phila 
 delphia, 1870, pp. 568-580. 
 
 * Hours With German Classics, by Frederic H. Hedge. Boston, 1886, pp. 
 502-528. 
 
36 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 respectability, from whom it is so hard to get a serious word on 
 any subject, who seemed to look upon the universe and life as a 
 colossal farce, to say that such a one has, of German authors 
 next to Goethe, contributed most to the liberation of humanity, 
 is to grievously mistake the forces and influences by which human 
 nature is made free. Liberation comes, not by snarling at op 
 pressors or grimacing at society, but by elevating the mind and 
 enlarging the intellectual horizon. This, Goethe with earnest 
 effort, promoting the culture which alone makes free, spent his 
 life in doing. Only on an earnest, patient, reverent soul could 
 his mantle fall. Heine was not of that sort; when he called 
 himself a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity, he mistook 
 the quarrel with existing institutions for real enlargement and 
 soul emancipation." 
 
 Of Heine s prose works, Hedge considers the Reisebilder 
 the best from a literary point of view, because it is the freshest, 
 the freest, the most thoroughly impregnated with the author s 
 genius and also stamped with his faults. The chief merits of 
 the Reisebilder, according to Hedge, are flashing wit, rollicking 
 humor, eloquence, pathos and piquancy; and the defects, coarse 
 and bitter satire, unjust criticism, prejudice and egotism. The 
 influence of Sterne s Sentimental Journey Hedge finds only in 
 the form of the Reisebilder but not in the substance. Of Heine s 
 lyrical powers Hedge has this to say: "As a lyric poet Heine 
 must always rank high, not only among German, but among 
 all modern European singers. His songs have that subtle inde 
 scribable, inexplicable charm which we find in Goethe, in Uhland, 
 in Beranger, and in Burns; but, above all, in some of Shakes 
 peare s songs. There is in them a spontaneity which is lacking 
 in many poets who far excel him in other qualities in fire and 
 force as Schiller and Byron. There is a touch-and-go character, 
 a fugitive grace, like the momentary fluttering of a humming 
 bird about a honeysuckle. Their substance is of the lightest, 
 airiest (I am speaking of the songs), a fleeting thought arrested 
 and crystalized in verse; the mood of the moment breathed in 
 numbers, words coming unsought to embody a sentiment fall- 
 
Heine in American Criticism 37 
 
 ing, as it were, accidentally into metrical cadence and just happen 
 ing to rhyme: no appearance of elaboration, no suggestion of 
 conscious effort, sometimes a vexatious looseness of versifica 
 tion; . . . never were songs more popular than Heine s." 
 
 Very characteristic of Heine, thinks Hedge, is the blending 
 of sadness and jest in one weird little poem. Beneath Heine s 
 cynicism and vituperation there was a latent love of his father 
 land. This, and his yearning, unconquerable affection for his 
 mother, Hedge commends as Heine s redeeming traits. 
 
 Heine s essay on the history of religion and philosophy in 
 Germany, Hedge naturally finds superficial, yet he ranks it in 
 merit next to the Reisebilder. The dissertation on The Romantic 
 School is, in Hedge s judgment, too much praised by non-German 
 readers, ignorant of the writers treated, who regard it as the 
 most valuable of Heine s productions. Hedge denies that Heine 
 ranks third among the poets of Germany, because he was no 
 "maker"; he was "not a great poet, but a marvellous songster, 
 and beyond comparison, Germany s wittiest writer, the foremost 
 satirist of his time." 
 
 LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER. 
 
 Lucy Hooper is particularly noteworthy as a translator of 
 German verse. Her translations from Goethe, Geibel, Schiller, 
 Hebbel and Vogl, display rare talent. Especially was she success 
 ful in her rendering of Goethe s inimitable and fascinating 
 Fisher, and The King of Thule. Why she should have given us 
 so many translations from Geibel and so few from the others, is 
 not apparent. As indicative of her estimate of Heine let us take 
 her poem On a Portrait of Heine: 31 
 
 Behold! the limner s magic art 
 In few, yet wondrous lines doth tell 
 How beautiful, how sad, how sweet 
 The face of him who sang so well ! 
 The Poet, not the Infidel, 
 
 81 Poems by Lucy Hamilton Hooper. Philadelphia, 1871, p. 62. 
 
38 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Looks from those features calm and fair ! 
 No skeptic sneer their beauty mars, 
 For Death is near and Thought is there. 
 Thus thou didst look, thus hadst thou sung, 
 What immortality were thine! 
 We ne er had prayed then, "God forgive, 
 And World forget, each mocking line!" 
 Forgive, O God, forget, O World. 
 What blasphemy he could create ! 
 Let but that sweet, sad face recall 
 How sweet his song, how sad his fate ! 
 
 KATE HILLARD. 32 
 
 Although Kate Hillard advances no original views concern 
 ing Heine, she, nevertheless, gives us a careful and lucid view of 
 all previous criticisms. The morbidly discordant tone that often 
 haunts one in reading the poetry and prose of Heine seems to her 
 to betray a lack of health in the writer. She complains that the 
 exquisite fancy, the delicate grace of a song is spoiled by the 
 laugh in the last line. The strange distortion of this noble soul, 
 she believes to have had its origin in a subtle deterioration of the 
 brain, commencing early and culminating in the softening of the 
 spinal marrow which resulted in death after eight years of in 
 tense suffering. 
 
 Kate Hillard finds much that was similar in the natures of 
 Byron and Heine. Of the two, Heine appears to her the simpler 
 and the sweeter, because while Byron was bitter and affected, 
 Heine was more sincere in his grief as well as in his joy. The 
 worst trait in Heine s character, she believes to be his savage 
 attacks on Borne and Schlegel. Her characterization of Heine 
 is interesting if not original: "Imagine a nature with all the 
 Hebraic inheritance of pride, intensity, and stubborn devotion 
 to the idea, power and sadness as of the sea; endow it with Hel 
 lenic susceptibility to beauty and to love, with ardent passions 
 
 32 Lippincott s Magazine, Vol. X, 1872, pp. 187-194. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 39 
 
 and tender sensibilities ; add to these the German dreaminess and 
 quiet humor, simplicity and tenderness, through which play swift 
 gleams of truly French wit and enthusiasm; and then in this 
 wonderfully organized brain, this instrument that should be 
 capable of producing the strongest and sweetest of earthly har 
 monies, implant a fatal disease that gradually tightens its hold 
 till life itself is stifled in its terrible grasp. Is it any wonder that 
 some of the strings jangle? . . . a single thing is lacking in 
 his brilliant career, a healthy brain." 
 
 Yet in spite of this lamentable situation, Kate Hillard admits 
 that the good, the true and the beautiful preponderate in Heine s 
 writings. In his poetic soul suffering and sorrow are transmuted 
 into golden thoughts and precious fancies. Heine, she thinks, 
 rivals Tennyson in the melodious charm of his verse. The ex 
 quisite grace, the dainty finish, the wonderful imagery lead her 
 to call Heine pre-eminently a poet of the poets. Noteworthy 
 is her comparison of Goethe and Heine: He (Heine) has a sub 
 tle faculty of suggestion that seems to open through the narrow 
 windows of his shortest poems wide vistas of thought and feel 
 ing. It is a divine incompleteness more attractive than the full- 
 arbed beauty that leaves nothing more to be desired. Herein 
 lies the greatest difference between the songs of Heine and of 
 Goethe. The shortest verses of Goethe contain a fully-rounded 
 thought, complete and perfect from all sides. It is finished and 
 there is nothing for the most daring and restless fancy to add or 
 alter. But Heine gives us in his songs a sort of touch-and-go 
 effect that is inexpressibly charming. It is like a bird that lights 
 on a bending branch, shakes out one burst of melody and is gone 
 before you fairly realize its presence." 
 
 In spite of all the faults that stand out frankly on the sur 
 face of Heine s soul, she finds that there is something fascinating 
 in his loving heart, his brilliant intellect, sparkling wit, his tender, 
 mournful pathos, the wonderful imagination of the man. In 
 expressibly touching is the spectacle of his suffering during his 
 last days, and it is no wonder that Kate Hillard was powerfully 
 affected by it. 
 
40 Heine, in American Criticism 
 
 S. A. STERN. 33 
 
 The biographical and critical introduction which Stern 
 gives to his Scintillations from Heine, is based largely on 
 Strodtmann and Arnold, and consequently presents very little 
 worthy of our serious consideration. Mr. Stern thinks that 
 Heine s faults were as patent as his virtues ; but that his genius 
 was greater than either. 
 
 WILLIAM DEAN Ho WELLS. 34 
 
 While reviewing Stern s Scintillations and Lord Houghton s 
 monograph on Heine, Mr. Ho wells took advantage of the oppor 
 tunity to express his admiration of his adored Heine. The 
 Florentine Nights, Mr. Howells calls a weird, romantic mono 
 logue containing the wildest inventions and caprices, and con 
 tinues: "It is incoherent, changeful, lawless, natural, and en 
 chanting as a dream, full of the tenderness and insult of Heine s 
 passion, with enough of his fine, coarse suggestion; the slight 
 thread of narrative is dropped whenever the author likes, and his 
 fancy ranges satirically to anything else in the world, art, 
 politics, religion and the odiousness of England and the English 
 people, the delight fulness of Paris . . . 
 
 Mr. Howells thinks that Heine loses in translation that soft 
 ness of outline, that play of light and shadow which characterize 
 him; he becomes harsh, sharp and sometimes shabby. Heine, 
 says Mr. Howells, can best be appreciated by young men not past 
 the age of even liking the faults of genius, whereas men in middle 
 life are somewhat wearied, though Heine remains wonderful. 
 Of Heine s sentimentalism Mr. Howells says: " All expressions 
 of Heine s mind were tinged or interspersed with the same sort of 
 passionate sentimentalism, his criticism, satire, politics, religion, 
 even his contempt. There was always something creative, too, in 
 his writing; the poet in him constantly strove to give objective 
 
 "Scintillations From the Prose Works of Heine, translated by S. A. 
 Stern. New York, 1873. 
 
 84 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 32, 1873, P- 237 f. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 41 
 
 shape to what he felt or thought, and the process was the same 
 whether he was allegorizing his youthful love of beauty or re 
 cording his youthful detestation of England." 
 
 To give a general idea of Florentine Nights, Mr. Howells 
 calls it a wandering and wilful expression of Heine s mind upon 
 anything that comes into it. Charm is the only unity he finds, 
 and at the same time he remarks that some passages of the 
 Florentine Nights are not to be read aloud to young ladies. In 
 reviewing Lord Houghton s monograph, Mr. Howells recognizes 
 the unmanageableness of Heine s character and endeavors to 
 explain the enigma of his genius by calling him a poetic humorist. 
 
 Of Hettner s History of German Literature, Mr. Howells 
 writes, that it is the only German book, excepting those of 
 Schopenhauer and Heine, which is written in a pleasing, grace 
 ful style. 
 
 More valuable as criticism is Mr. Howells review 35 of Le- 
 land s translation of Heine s works. Concerning Heine s prose, 
 Mr. Howells says that it has the mood and music of poetry and 
 sings and laughs and sighs and capers as it goes. The newspaper 
 letters from Paris to the Augsburger Zeitung, covering the emo 
 tions if not the events of two revolutions, are in Mr. Howells 
 opinion, the most valuable and delightful record of that period. 
 Apropos of these letters Mr. Howells exclaims: "Heine is 
 always a mocking-bird, of the gayest and saddest note in the 
 world ; but it must be allowed that he is much more a mocking 
 bird when he is not doing duty as a carrier-pigeon for the Augs 
 burger Allgemeine Zeitung, but he is wildly tuning and tumbling 
 in airy heights and depths of his own choosing." 
 
 Howells conceives of Heine as an ultimation of an English 
 impulse. The rise of the suspiratory and interjectional school 
 of highly poetized and highly personalized English prose 
 (Sterne s Sentimental Journey} transfused into Heine a fresh 
 inspiration, a novel force, a charm unknown before. But 
 Sterne s coquettish, capricious pose was quickly transformed 
 in Heine, whose attitude was no longer that of the Englishman. 
 
 Harper s Magazine, Vol. 107, 1903, p. 480 f. 
 
42 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Inwardly Heine was not Sterne alone, but also Voltaire and 
 Rabelais. But more and more Heine s own strange physiog 
 nomy shone through till that became all and the contributory 
 expressions nothing. Once Heine became himself, he remained 
 an influence and force destined to be felt wherever literary 
 art feels the need of liberation. 
 
 Interesting is Mr. Howells acknowledgment of Heine s 
 universal influence: What Heine does for the reader, who is 
 also a writer, is to help him find his own true nature, to teach 
 him that form which is the farthest from formality; to reveal 
 to him the secret of being himself. He cannot impart the grace, 
 the beauty in which he abounds, but if his lover has either in 
 him, Heine will discover it to him. The delight of his instruction 
 will be mainly aesthetic, but the final meaning of his life and work 
 is deeply and sadly ethical." 
 
 Howells regards Heine as the arch-mocker, before whom 
 Aretino and Voltaire must bow their heads. That self-mockery 
 of Heine s, he says, is bewitching, but it is not one of the things 
 which Heine profitably teaches, because it invokes everything, 
 unfaith as well as faith. Heine had no philosophy of art, or 
 conduct, or politics that lasts, except freedom. But what will 
 be lasting in Heine, says Howells, is his literature, his poetry, 
 which is no more separable from his prose than from his verse. 
 
 After deploring the fact that Heine often misbehaved, and 
 at times atrociously and infamously, Howells concludes: Yet 
 with all his offensiveness, he could be of an exquisite gentleness, 
 purity, and tenderness. He was not a very good Jew, but he 
 asserted nobly the dignity of Judaism: he was a doubtful Chris 
 tian, but he felt to the heart the beautif ulness of Christ ; he was 
 a poor pattern of Protestantism, yet he was as far from being 
 a Catholic as from being a pagan or a Puritan. For all his sins 
 he paid with sufferings of such rarely exampled severity that 
 they might well have persuaded him of a moral government of 
 the world, if they were not mere accidents befalling him while 
 worse sinners went free." 
 
Heine in American Criticism 43 
 
 S. L. FLEISHMAN. 
 
 The biographical and critical sketch of Heine in Fleish 
 man s Prose Miscellanies 36 is valuable in many respects. 
 Fleishman follows the account of Strodtmann, the able and 
 sympathetic biographer of Heine. In fact, the biographical 
 and anecdotal portions of this sketch may be considered as merely 
 a translation and condensation of Strodtmann s Heine s Leben 
 und Werken. The apparent contradictions in Heine s personal 
 character are utilized by Fleishman in explaining the surprises, 
 paradoxes, and startling anti-climaxes in which his writings 
 abound. After acknowledging that a more witty, poetic, and 
 enjoyable style than Heine s cannot be found in the literature 
 of any country, Fleishman continues: "His love of antithesis is 
 one of the marked features of his style. He delights in stirring 
 the mind of the reader with tragic emotion, deep pathos, beauti 
 ful and elevated thoughts simply to surprise him in the con 
 cluding line with some terse, cynical remark or quaint, humor 
 ous conceit totally out of harmony, as it would seem at first 
 thought, with what had preceded." 
 
 Many critics maintain that these anti-climaxes mar some of 
 Heine s finest poems, and give the impression that Heine is 
 mocking both himself and his readers. Fleishman accounts for 
 these inconsistencies by attributing to Heine two natures com 
 bined in one, where the fervid fancy and wild poetic enthusiasm 
 are tempered by sound, practical common sense. Heine s poetry 
 has been compared to a beautiful rose beneath which lurks the 
 stinging thorn. Concerning this, Fleishman remarks: "None 
 more than Heine appreciated the beauty and the fragrance of the 
 rose, but he knew also, that the thorn also was there. His habit 
 of looking at the two sides of everything the bright and the 
 dark, the poetical and the prosaic, the strong voice and the 
 weak echo, the contrast between noble, exalted, ideal aspirations 
 and the disheartening shortcomings in actual life, it is this 
 that embitters the life and writings of Heine." 
 
 38 Prose Miscellanies From Heine, translated by S. L. Fleishman. Phil 
 adelphia, 1876. 
 
44 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Burns, Byron and Heine are called by Fleishman the most 
 eminent modern poets of the egotistic or subjective school. 
 Heine can be as grand, romantic, and picturesque as Byron, 
 and as simple, unpretentious and quaintly humorous as Burns. 
 After a comparison of the sea-poems of Byron and Heine, 
 Fleishman reaches this conclusion: "Heine s sea-poems are as 
 majestic as Byron s grand apostrophes to the ocean. Both im 
 press upon us the conception of the immensity and grandeur of 
 nature, but Heine by some droll anti-climax in the concluding 
 verse always wipes away this impression of awe. Byron is arti 
 ficial. Heine is as natural, graceful and attractive as Burns." 
 
 That wonderful collection of poems, The Romanzero, 
 Fleishman agrees, is the "last, free forest-song of Romanticism." 
 Believing it to be useless to seek to palliate Heine s faults, Fleish 
 man exclaims: "Richly endowed by nature, he did not always 
 use his gifts wisely or well. This perversion of his talents will 
 always be a blot on his fame ; his sin brings its own punishments. 
 Gifted with the most wonderful and versatile powers a clear 
 insight into men and things, a vivid imagination enabling him 
 to fill up the gaps of history and biography, a poetic power and 
 fervor that could clothe even the most hideous objects in robes 
 of beauty and tenderness, a wit that for sting has not its superior 
 in any literature, dramatic and descriptive powers of the very 
 highest order, with such qualities he could not fail to acquire 
 a large circle of readers." 
 
 Fleishman thinks that Heine has failed to win a place in 
 the affection of people, because he lacks moral character, hence 
 men seek in vain for noble teachings, for lofty and elevating 
 thoughts free from cant in Heine s works. No amount of 
 grace, talent or genius, he says will make up for this deficiency, 
 and for his licentiousness. The Nation in a review of Fleish 
 man s translation, Prose Miscellanies, speaks of the Romantic 
 School, as follows: "It is a late day to call attention to the 
 admirable way in which Heine wrote this chapter of literary 
 history. Many long-winded German commentators and collec 
 tors of mouldy facts have toiled over the same ground, nearly 
 buried beneath their learning, without half the insight of Heine, 
 
Heine in American Criticism 45 
 
 without half of his brilliant gift of exposition. Compare for 
 instance, Haym s massive work with these few chapters, and 
 it is easy to see on which side the advantage lies certainly not 
 with the heaviest battalions. * Heine has been accused, with 
 much justice, of indulging in harsh personalities, notably in the 
 case of the Schlegels. Yet it is remarkable, thinks Mr. Fleish 
 man, 37 that Heine s literary judgments have been substantially 
 indorsed by posterity. Fleishman regards the Romantic School, 
 a review of German literature by one of the masters of that 
 literature, as a classic of its kind. 
 
 The Suabian Mirror, Heine s caustic review of some of 
 the minor poets of Germany, though written in Heine s most 
 characteristic style, brilliant, witty, Mr. Fleishman finds repre 
 hensible because it is personal and written with a decided spite 
 of malice. 
 
 JUNIUS HENRY BROWNE. SS 
 
 This review begins with the customary remark that Heine 
 was one of the wittiest of men, and after touching on his in 
 fluence and unquestioned force it calls attention to Heine s eccen 
 tric character, antagonisms and inconsistencies. "Much that 
 Heine did," continues Browne, "was intolerable and inexcus 
 able, and yet his worst behavior was relieved by exceeding 
 goodness. Quotations from Heine are as contradictory as him 
 self. Their great range and inconsistency may be illustrated 
 by saying that they would excuse and condemn every act, noble 
 and ignoble, of his checkered career. They were the offspring 
 of impulse." 
 
 Very justly Mr. Browne believes the strong influence which 
 Byron exerted on Heine to have operated mainly through sym 
 pathy. Heine found in Byron his own thoughts and feelings 
 forcibly expressed. Their temperaments were a good deal alike, 
 and consequently, thinks Mr. Browne, they often struck the same 
 keys and produced the same notes. But Mr. Browne wishes us 
 
 37 The Romantic School, by Heinrich Heine. Translated by S. L. Fleish 
 man. New York, 1882. Preface. 
 
 "Appleton s Journal, Vol. 17, 1877, pp. 23-31. 
 
46 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 to understand that there was no imitation on the part of Heine ; 
 he was as original as Byron ; the muse of both was in their own 
 brain and heart. 
 
 Heine was accused by Longfellow of insincerity, yet Mr. 
 Browne emphasizes his belief that Heine was absolutely and 
 invincibly sincere. 
 
 Speaking of the Reisebilder, Mr. Browne says: "His work 
 was prose and poetry combined, embracing graphic and striking 
 impressions of his travel and his reflections thereon, eloquent, 
 charming, often pathetic, but mingled with the caustic irony and 
 Jbiting satire that are inseparable from his writings." 
 
 Heine s dramas Almansor and Ratcliffe, having no dramatic 
 interest are pronounced by Mr. Browne of mediocre merit. Of 
 Heine s retort to Platen, Browne says: "It was the quintessence 
 of wormwood, terrible, withering, annihilating. It showed the 
 immense power of his sarcasm, his genius for stabbing with 
 poisoned stilettos." 
 
 The principal defects and blemishes of the Book of Songs, 
 according to Mr. Browne, are its radicalism, scoffing and skepti 
 cal spirit. But he finds it to be true to life and the treatment 
 to be almost faultless: "It had the perfume of true poetry. In 
 simplicity and suggestiveness the production was Greek. Be 
 hind an airy lightness was the deepest import; a delicate touch 
 undulated down to the heart of nature, the sweetness and charm, 
 grace and sensuousness of the verse." 
 
 Comparing the lyric genius of Goethe and Heine, Mr. 
 Browne finds it difficult to decide to whom to award the su 
 periority. As a lyric poet, Mr. Browne feels sure that Heine 
 has never been surpassed by any German, except Goethe, if even 
 by him. The prose style of Heine Mr. Browne regards as admir 
 able, ranking above that of Goethe. This he regards as a marvel 
 lous achievement in view of the general carelessness of structure 
 and finish of German prose. 
 
 The Franzosische Zustande, Mr. Browne finds to be strong 
 and sparkling, deeply veined with irony and abounding in pre 
 dictions, some of which were remarkably fulfilled. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 47 
 
 Concerning the Romantic School, Mr. Browne has this to 
 say: "It was savage in its assaults. In it Heine laid about him 
 on every side with supreme bitterness and deliberate malice. Its 
 author was obviously bent on exhibiting his talent for abuse, 
 at the expense of truth of contemporaneous authors." 
 
 Heine s virulent attack on Borne is considered by Browne 
 a disreputable achievement because all sense of justice and de 
 cency was absorbed in his mania for detraction. 
 
 The New Poems are highly praised by Mr. Browne; he 
 considers many pieces as not suffering in comparison with those 
 of the charming Book of Songs. 
 
 After declaring Atta Troll to be a satire of the highest 
 order, and some of the final poems to be wonderfully weird and 
 shudderingly beautiful, Mr. Browne concludes his critique by 
 predicting that Heine will be remembered by posterity as a great 
 poet and not as a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity. 
 
 JAMES K. HosMER. 39 
 
 James K. Hosmer was professor of English and German 
 literature in Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., and in that 
 capacity he was able to compare the genius of Heine with illus 
 trious geniuses of English literature. A careful perusal of Hos- 
 mer s History of German Literature shows us in what high 
 esteem he held Heine s critical abilities. The Romantische 
 Schule was a special favorite with him, and consequently he 
 quotes Heine frequently, especially in treating of the Niebelungen 
 Lied, Luther, Lessing, Goethe, Novalis, Tieck and Jean Paul. 
 
 In Heine, Hosmer thinks, the spirit of the Jewish race, so 
 intense, so persistent, so trampled by persecution, has found 
 an adequate voice, a voice in which there is at times the bitter 
 ness and gall as of the waters of Marah, poured out too indis 
 criminately upon the innocent as well as upon those worthy of 
 scorn. 
 
 Hosmer quotes approvingly Matthew Arnold s view that 
 Heine became the first poet of his time, the greatest name in 
 
 39 A Short History of German Literature, by James K. Hosmer. New 
 York, 1878. Revised Edition, New York, 1892, pp. 497-533. 
 
48 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 German literature since the death of Goethe. Of Heine s con 
 ception of love in his early poems Hosmer writes: "It is far 
 enough from being the highest, and sometimes a bold, cynical 
 defiance of propriety appears, which grew upon him as he went 
 forward." 
 
 The causes which brought down upon Heine the fierce perse 
 cutions, Hosmer finds to be his witty, graphic prose, his noncha 
 lant irreverence, which not infrequently runs into insolence and 
 blasphemy, his disregard of proprieties, his outspoken scorn 
 of the powers that rule. About Heine s wit and sentiment Hos 
 mer writes: Nothing was ever so airy and volatile as his wit, 
 nothing ever so delicate as his sentiment. There has not lived 
 in our time such a master of brilliant graphic description. The 
 Germans have been accused of wanting greatly in wit and 
 humor, but certain it is that this German Jew more than any 
 man probably of the present century in the civilized world pos 
 sessed these gifts. We must regard him as a genius coordinate 
 with Aristophanes, Cervantes and Montaigne. His conversation 
 was full of it, even when he lay in the greatest misery on his 
 mattress grave." 
 
 Hosmer judges Heine s brilliant wit with severity because 
 his wit was often distorted to cynicism; his frivolity to insolence 
 and vulgarity. In art, patriotism, religion or freedom he finds 
 Heine wanting in sincerity, because he sometimes suddenly inter 
 rupts the expression of intense emotion by a grotesque sugges 
 tion which makes the emotion or its object ridiculous. 
 
 In comparing Heine with English writers, Hosmer finds 
 that he has points of resemblance with Sterne, still more with 
 Byron, but that he is more closely analogous in genius and char 
 acter to Dean Swift. Of Heine s resemblances to Swift, Hos 
 mer says: "Such gall and wormwood as they could pour upon 
 their adversaries, what sinners elsewhere have tasted! With 
 what whips of scorpions they smote folly and vice; but who 
 will dare to say it was through any love of virtue ? Both libelled 
 useful and honorable men with coarse lampoons; in both there 
 was too frequent sinking into indecency. Heine was not alto 
 gether a scoffer." 
 
Heine in American Criticism 49 
 
 Of course, Hosmer knew that Heine had also the power 
 of touching the tenderest sensibilities. Hosmer next dwells on the 
 influence of Romanticism and the popular ballad on Heine s 
 plaintive songs. The air of naturalness and immediateness of 
 Heine s poems he believes to be owing to a certain assumed 
 negligence and consummate art. To illustrate his opinion that 
 no poet has ever been able to convey more thoroughly the im 
 pression of perfect artlessness, Hosmer says of the Lorelei: "The 
 words of the Lorelei, so simple, so infantile almost in sense, and 
 yet with which is marvellously bound such tender feeling! As 
 one repeats the lines they are almost nothing. Yet caught within 
 them, like some sad sweet-throated nightingale within a net, 
 there pants such pathos! The child of the Jew, Heine, was of 
 the race among the races of the earth possessed of the most in 
 tense passionate force, and in him his people found a voice. 
 Now it is a sound of wailing, melancholy and sweet as that 
 heard by the rivers of Babylon when the harps were hung upon 
 the willows, now it is a tone pure and lofty as the peal of the 
 silver trumpets before the Holy of Holies in the temple service, 
 when the gems in the high priest s breastplate flashed with the 
 descending Deity; now a call to strive for freedom, bold and 
 clear as the summons of the Maccabees. But think of the cup 
 that has been pressed to the Jew s lips! The bitterness has 
 passed into his soul, and utters itself in scorn and poisoned mock 
 ing. He cares not what sanctities he insults, nor whether the 
 scoff touches the innocent as well as the guilty. Persecution 
 has brought to pass desperation, which utters itself at length in 
 infernal laughter. May we not see in the statue of Venus of 
 Milo a type of Heine s genius so shorn of strength, so stained 
 and broken, yet, in the ruin of beauty and power, so unparalleled ? 
 
 A. PARKER. 40 
 
 This sketch by Parker indicates only in the broadest outlines 
 the scope and general character of Heine and his works. Parker 
 pronounces Heine one of the most original figures in all litera- 
 
 40 Lippincot fs Magazine, Vol. XXVI, 1880, pp. 604-612. 
 
50 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 ture, and thinks that his genius never found its highest ex 
 pression, for, confined within a narrower channel by not en 
 listing in all the conflicts of his day his genius would have been 
 irresistible, where now its force is only brilliantly dispersive. 
 Of Heine s service to literature, Parker says: "He created a 
 prose style unequalled in clearness and brilliancy by anything 
 previously known in German literature Goethe s prose is pon 
 derous in comparison and its influence will be felt long after 
 certain of its mannerisms have passed into oblivion. His wit 
 is destined to immortality by reason of the serious purpose that 
 underlies it. It has a spontaneity which no wit ever exercised 
 for its own ends can ever have." Those who call Heine frivo 
 lous and mocker, simply because he can jest at serious things, 
 Parker thinks can only know him very superficially or else 
 must be ignorant of the real part which humor has to play in 
 the world. Heine s service in the war of liberation of humanity, 
 Parker declares, was his setting an example of a man who could 
 speak unflinchingly for principles at a time \vhen such utterance 
 was not easy, truly a great service to posterity. 
 
 M. D. CONWAY. 41 
 
 Beginning ostensibly as a review of Snodgrass s Wit, Wis 
 dom and Pathos of Heine, with the remark that there is no page 
 of Heine s without its wit, wisdom and pathos, Mr. Conway 
 really aims in this article to present a study of Heine. The 
 secret of the tenderness felt by scholars and poets for the 
 memory of Heine, is according to Mr. Conway, the fact that 
 Heine s pathos is born of his vicarious sufferings for the hap 
 pier thinkers of today, and because. with this pathos he unites 
 so much wit. This is precisely Matthew Arnold s explanation of 
 the effectiveness of Heine s writings. 
 
 At this point Mr. Conway ventures on an absurd statement: 
 "At Gottingen he (Heine) had discovered that he had no faith in 
 the dogmas of Judaism, and was baptised in the Lutheran 
 Church." Gross ignorance of the life of Heine and the motives 
 
 The International Review, Vol. 12, 1882, pp. 425-438. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 51 
 
 which prompted his abandoning Judaism can only account for 
 such mis-statements. Worse than this is Mr. Conway s assertion 
 that because Heine aimed to tell the truth about the English, 
 they could never forgive him. As a specimen of Mr. Conway s 
 insight let us read the following piece of clever criticism: "He 
 (Heine) was the best European traveller and no other work 
 equals the Pictures of Travel, for fine characterization of Euro 
 pean communities. He also wrote poetry while he wandered, 
 never any that was poor: much that was great." What a brilliant 
 characterization! The discovery that the first hero of his 
 worship (Don Quixote) was only an effigy made up to be 
 laughed at, had a lasting influence on Heine, thinks Mr. Con- 
 way, and caused him to become a mocker. After exalting the 
 mind to some exquisite vision of beauty or character, Heine too 
 often shatters it all by a mocking line, complains Conway, and 
 he thinks this laughter is really the sigh of a soul in pain, unable 
 to find a true satisfaction. 
 
 For subtle suggestiveness and beautiful imagery, Conway 
 thinks that Heine s art as a writer has never been exceeded even 
 by Goethe. Conway here mentions a passage in Heine s Floren 
 tine Nights, which he believes has not its equal in Goethe s 
 Italian letters. 
 
 The truest vision of Heine, he finds to be that of the re 
 fined artist kneeling to the last before the perfect ideal of 
 humanity, Venus of Milo armless though it be not able to be 
 stow bounties like a Madonna or other conventional idol of the 
 world. 
 
 A. LANGEL. 42 
 
 The occasion of this article was the appearance of the 
 fragment of Heine s Memoirs, of which the critics had spoken 
 lightly. Langel was very much charmed by them; he admires 
 their pregnant brevity. In the story of the childish and un 
 conscious love of Heine for Sefchen, the daughter of the execu 
 tioner, he finds the genius of Heine in the embryonic state, with 
 
 41 The Nation, Vol. 39, 1884, p. 89. 
 
52 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 all its wonderful qualities and also with its defects. Heine, 
 Langel maintains, was all Heine at the age of twenty-five and 
 life added not much to him; his source of inspiration was only 
 renewed when the approach of death began to be felt. After 
 reviewing the criticisms of Montegut, Langel comes to the con 
 clusion that when Heine wrote in 1816 his Two Grenadiers, 
 he was already the great lyric poet whom the world has since 
 admired. 
 
 WILLIAM R. TnAYER. 43 
 
 Reviewing Weill s volume of Souvenirs Intimes, of Heine, 
 Thayer remarks that close inspection of Heine s private life 
 diminishes whatever personal esteem his works may have gained 
 for him. He dislikes Heine s bitterness and mockery and finds 
 him devoid of genuine sincerity and almost bereft of moral 
 sense, and says: "His (Heine s) writings, in the long run, are 
 as unwholesome as a diet of pickles would be." 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS. 44 
 
 The Venus of the Louvre. 
 
 Down the long hall she glistens like a star, 
 
 The foam-born mother of love, transfixed to stone, 
 
 Yet none the less immortal, breathing on, 
 
 Time s brutal hand hath maimed, but could not mar, 
 
 When first the enthralled enchantress from afar 
 
 Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone 
 
 Serenely poised on her world- worshipped throne, 
 
 As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, 
 
 But at her feet a pale death-stricken Jew, 
 
 Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love. 
 
 Here Heine wept ! Here still he weeps anew, 
 
 Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move 
 
 While mourns one ardent heart, and poet brain, 
 
 For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain. 
 
 43 Lip pine ott s Magazine, Vol. 33, 1884, pp. 409-413. 
 
 44 The Century Magazine, Vol. VII, 1884, pp. 210-217. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 53 
 
 The secret cause of Heine s unhappiness and moral and 
 intellectual inconsistencies Emma Lazarus finds to be a fatal and 
 irreconcilable dualism, forming the basis of his nature Heine, 
 a Jew with the mind and eyes of a Greek. In setting forth this 
 view she writes: "In Heine, the Jew, there is a depth of human 
 sympathy, a mystic warmth and glow of the imagination, a 
 pathos, an enthusiasm, an indomitable resistance to every species 
 of bondage, totally at variance with the qualities of Heine the 
 Greek. On the other hand the Greek Heine is a creature of 
 laughter and sunshine, possessing an intellectual clearness of 
 vision, a plastic grace, a pure and healthy love of art for art s 
 own sake, with which the sombre Hebrew was in perpetual 
 conflict. 
 
 "What could be the result of imprisoning two such antagonis 
 tic natures in a single body? What but the contradictions, the 
 struggles, the tears, the violence, that actually ensued? For 
 Heine had pre-eminently the artist capacity of playing the spec 
 tator to the workings of his own mind, and his mordant sarcasm 
 and merciless wit were but the expression of his own sense 
 of the internal incongruity. . . . Today his muse is the 
 beautiful Herodias, the dove-eyed Shulamite, tomorrow it will 
 be Venus Anadyomene, the genius of blooming Hellas." From 
 this inherent self-contradiction, Emma Lazarus thinks, sprang 
 Heine s alternations of enthusiasm and cynicism, of generosity 
 and egotism, his infidelities, his laughter and his tears. 
 
 As a critic, she finds that his literary opinions were fre 
 quently extravagant and partial. Speaking of Heine s marvel 
 lous command of language she says: "For him human language 
 seems to lose its inadequacy and intangibility, for him the German 
 tongue lays aside its harshness and unwieldiness to become the 
 most pliant musical medium of lyrical utterance." 
 
 To find a parallel for the magnificent imagery and voluptu 
 ous orientalism of the Intermezzo, Emma Lazarus deems it 
 necessary to go back to the Hebrew poets of Palestine and Spain. 
 In Ratcliffe she fails to find a trace of the poet of the Intermezzo, 
 and Almansor she considers an improvement on Ratcliffe. 
 
54 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Nevertheless, as a tragedy, she thinks Almansor is a complete 
 failure, lacking the essential elements, interest, action, and 
 character. 
 
 The detached cosmopolitanism of Goethe, she considers cold 
 when compared with the ringing, burning words of Heine s The 
 Spinners. 
 
 The rich and spicy aroma, the glowing color, the flavor of 
 the Orient so characteristic of Heine in the Intermesso, Emma 
 Lazarus finds in the poetry of the mediaeval Spanish Jews and 
 consequently she regards the Intermezzo as a well-sustained 
 continuation of the Divan and Gazelles of Judah Halevi, or the 
 thinly veiled sensuousness of Alcharisi and Ibn Ezra. With 
 respect to this influence she says: "Heine is too sincere a poet 
 to be accused of plagiarism, but there can be no doubt that, im 
 bued as he was with the spirit of his race, revering so deeply 
 their seldom studied poetic legacy, he at times unwittingly re 
 peated the notes which rang so sweetly in his ears. What the 
 world thought distinctly characteristic of Heine was often simply 
 a mode of expression peculiar to his people." To illustrate her 
 meaning she quotes a few lines from Judah Halevi and calls 
 attention to the fact that Heine had celebrated his great prede 
 cessor in. the poem entitled Judah Halevi, and that its passion 
 ate lamentation for Jerusalem has the very ring of Halevi. De 
 spite the magical fascination of Heine s style, she dislikes the 
 morbid, lachrymose sentimentality and the occasional flippancy 
 and vulgarity, and this she thinks "precludes Heine from wear 
 ing the crown of those poets whose high prerogative it is to 
 console, to uplift, to lead humanity." Physically, mentally and 
 morally, Emma Lazarus maintains, Heine lacked health. 
 
 F. MARION CRAWFORD. 
 
 Highly commendable is the accurate and delightful char 
 acterization of Heine given by Mr. Crawford in his book en 
 titled, With the Immortals. 45 Here Heine, made visible by Mr. 
 Chard s experiments, speaks in his own person. In Chapter IV 
 
 With the Immortals, by F. Marion Crawford. London, 1888. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 55 
 
 we have a good description of Heine s wonderful and sarcastic 
 face. Mr. Crawford represents Heine in conversation as re 
 gretting his bitter-sweet emotions. He conceives of Heine as 
 made up of contradictions, always out of harmony with his 
 surroundings and in perpetual exile; in Germany a Frenchman, 
 in France a German ; among Jews a Christian, among Christians 
 a Jew, with Catholics a Protestant, with Protestants a Catholic. 
 
 The magic of Heine s style is carefully analyzed and the 
 effectiveness is illustrated, together with its weakness by having 
 Heine tell a terribly sad story of an old beggar dying in a snow 
 storm; the sympathy of the audience is aroused, then suddenly 
 Heine introduces a facetious remark, wiping away the effect. 
 Gwendolene, Mr. Chard s wife, said: "I wish you would not 
 talk in that light way, after what you have been telling us so 
 earnestly." Heine answered: "I cannot help it, madam, I have 
 a particular talent for being easily moved ; and when I am moved 
 I shed tears, and when I shed tears it seems very foolish and 
 I at once try to laugh at myself or at the first convenient object 
 which falls in my way. For tears hurt bitterly sometimes, and 
 it is best to get rid of them in any way one can, provided one 
 does not put them beyond one s reach altogether." When Heine 
 has explained to Mr. Chard how pain can be sweet, he is brought 
 together with such illustrious men as Chopin, Caesar and Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, and, of course, brilliant, witty discussions 
 follow. 
 
 Crawford has made a careful study of Heine and endeavors 
 in this book, With the Immortals, to present the real portrait 
 of Heine. At times Mr. Crawford succeeds in making Heine 
 witty, ironical and sarcastic as in real life. He has been also 
 tolerably successful in reproducing Heine s anti-climaxes and 
 subtleties of thought. To ascertain in what esteem Mr. Craw 
 ford holds Heine we need only reflect that he has made him the 
 leading figure among the immortals of this book. But Mr. Craw 
 ford realizes that Heine s immortality is owing to his attain 
 ments as a lyric poet and wit and not as a soldier in the war of 
 liberation of humanity. 
 
56 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 W. S. SlMONDS. 46 
 
 The forces that ruled Heine in his brilliant and stressful 
 career, Mr. Simonds maintains are a passion for. the beautiful, 
 for the pleasure in life and for freedom. On almost everything 
 Heine wrote, Mr. Simonds finds the stamp of genius, and some 
 times that subtle burst of laughter. Arnold s view that Heine s 
 warfare was waged on Philistinism exclusively, Mr. Simonds 
 thinks is too narrow. Yet he insists that Heine will be remem 
 bered only for his Book of Songs and the Romanzero. The 
 vague restlessness that sometimes turns to mocking laughter so 
 almost like despair, Mr. Simonds explains as the cry of that 
 wandering spirit searching for happiness, for beauty, and finding 
 only dust and ashes where it sought its lost ideal. 
 
 HJALMAR HYORTH BovESEN. 47 
 
 In his essay on Carmen Sylva, Mr. Boyesen in speaking 
 of the lyric poet as necessarily a tuneful egoist who mirrors 
 his soul s physiognomy in his song, writes as follows: "Goethe, 
 the greatest lyric genius of the century, set his own heart to 
 music, and Heine, who follows close behind him, drew no less 
 freely upon his emotional experience." 
 
 Die Romantische Schule is a great favorite with Mr. Boyesen 
 as with all American writers on Romanticism, and he quotes 
 Heine quite frequently, notably in the characterization of Lessing, 
 Novalis and Tieck. On page 285 of his Essays on German Litera 
 ture, Boyesen says: "Heine s essay on Romanticism is a most 
 fascinating book, which is equally remarkable for its epigram 
 matic brilliancy, its striking originality, and its utter injustice 
 and unreliability." 
 
 In commenting on Heine s criticism of Tieck s Marchen. 
 Boyesen writes: "This is not criticism, but it is better than 
 criticism: it is not negatively analytical, but conveys by a certain 
 happy choice of adjectives some of the more positive qualities 
 of the poet (Tieck) and indeed those very qualities which are 
 surest to escape analysis." 
 
 49 The Dial (Chicago), Vol. 12, 1892, pp. 213-215. 
 
 47 Essays on German Literature, by H. H. Boyesen. New York, 1892. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 57 
 
 CHARLES DE KAY. 48 
 
 Mr. De Kay regards Heine not only as a literary star of the 
 first brightness, but as a Captain in the battle America has been 
 fighting. Heine s wit reminds him of Rabelais rather than 
 of Sterne. It was the peculiar quality of the Weltschmerz, 
 thinks Mr. De Kay, that rose from Heine s verse and prose, 
 sweet but with a suggestion of death that characterizes Heine 
 and makes him relished by thousands. 
 
 B. W. WELLS. 49 
 
 Considerable space is devoted to a sympathetic study of 
 Heine by Mr. Wells, in his Modern German Literature, because 
 he regards him as the only writer of primary importance since 
 Goethe s death. Mr. Wells finds two characteristics that con 
 nect Heine with the Romanticists, his irony and his national 
 democratic protest. This irony he thinks, sprang from the in 
 compatibility of two elements in Heine s nature, the Hellenic 
 joy of life such as inspired Goethe s Roman Elegies and the 
 Hebrew earnestness nursed by the study of Hegel. Of these 
 two elements Mr. Wells writes: "Each seemed by turns to 
 show him the emptiness of the other. He never succeeded in 
 establishing a harmony between these antinomies of his character. 
 Hence came a mocking spirit to which very little was sacred, and 
 which Heine possessed in a higher degree than any writer of the 
 century." 
 
 The Intermezzo, Mr. Wells maintains, marks an advance in 
 form, on the earlier poems, but ethically it showed increasing 
 bitterness, sinking sometimes to vituperation, and a reckless bold 
 ness that rose at times to sensuality. Yet he admits that some 
 of Heine s most perfect lyrics are to be found in it. 
 
 Heine learned to know and love the sea as no other German 
 poet has done. Concerning the poems grouped under the title, 
 
 48 The Family Life of Heine, by von Embden. Translated by Charles De 
 Kay. New York, 1893. Preface to English translation. 
 
 49 Modern German Literature, by Benjamin W. Wells. Boston, 1805, 
 pp. 324-364- 
 
58 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Heimkehr, with the later "Nord-See" cycle, Mr. Wells says 
 that they are the finest verses of the sea that Germany has ever 
 produced and will bear comparison with the best work of Byron 
 and Shelley in this field. Of the Reisebilder (Harzreise*), Mr. 
 Wells writes: "None resisted the charm of this imperishable 
 monument of satiric wit ; it was something new in German litera 
 ture. Such light, easy, sparkling prose, such graceful, daring, 
 bubbling wit, had not yet been seen in Germany, and were to re 
 main an unattained model for the imitation of following genera 
 tions. Heine has never been equaled in this field save by himself, 
 and he has not always maintained the level of the Harzreise. 
 
 Despite the capricious disorder of the Buck le Grand, Mr. 
 Wells finds in it a life that defies criticism, graceful, grotesque, 
 cynical, naive, with a vigor, a brilliancy, a keenness of scorn, 
 and a fire of enthusiasm. That the poems of the Romanzero, 
 so tender, so melodious, so exquisite in form and fancy should 
 be the product of the sleepless nights of a bed-ridden sufferer, 
 seems to Mr. Wells to be almost beyond belief. Seeing in Heine 
 the skeptical representative of a time of ferment and the one who 
 transferred to a political and social field the activity of Goethe 
 in a literary sphere, Mr. Wells concludes as follows : "He (Heine) 
 is the wittiest, clearest, keenest satirist, the most delicate and 
 graceful writer of songs in Germany. . . . Less positive 
 than Goethe, he has not the peculiar quality that makes a classic 
 for all ages and peoples, and yet, as Matthew Arnold says, he is 
 "incomparably the most important figure of that quarter of a 
 century that follows the death of Goethe." 
 
 FRANK E. SAWYER. 50 
 
 This musical critic possesses also considerable poetic talent. 
 As a lover of music he is naturally a lover of the Musicians 
 Poets and particularly Heine, whose influence on Sawyer s poetry 
 is unmistakable. In his Notes and Half Notes, Sawyer has the 
 following sonnet on Heinrich Heine, Shubert s poet: 
 
 Notes and Half Notes, by Frank E. Sawyer. New York, 1896, p. 90. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 59 
 
 More than all other poets, it is thou, 
 
 Heine, to whom the world s musicians kneel. 
 
 Thou know st so well all that tried spirits feel 
 
 Who never to a man-made law will bow ! 
 
 Thou see st us men with thorn encircled brow, 
 
 Who, outcast from our kind, to God appeal. 
 
 But God is sphinx-like; then our hearts we steel, 
 
 And drain life s wine cups, knowing all is now! 
 
 Yet e en when flashing forth they falchion bare, 
 
 Thou droppest song-pearls, which the musician strings 
 
 Into a necklace for his lady fair: 
 
 Pearls with the argent gleam of angel wings 
 
 Which surely they have caught, sometime, somewhere, 
 
 When thou wast soaring for God s hidden things. 
 
 WILLIAM STEIN WAY. 51 
 
 In this article Mr. Steinway first gives an indication of the 
 representations and arguments by which the authorities of 
 Diisseldorf and Mayence justified their refusal of a monument to 
 Heine. Then he states, refutes and ridicules the New York 
 press objections to a Heine monument in New York on the 
 ground that Heine could not be credited with the overwhelm 
 ing genius which compels recognition. In the course of his re 
 marks Mr. Steinway says: "Thus, on grounds of pure prejudice, 
 Heinrich Heine, incomparably the most popular of all German 
 poets, not excepting Goethe or any other; ranking, by universal 
 recognition, with the very first men of genius of all the world s 
 ages: whose creations have entered more largely and lastingly 
 into the domain of music than those of any other writer, had 
 been formally pronounced unworthy of monumental honors in the 
 land of his birth. There are innumerable generations still to 
 come which will give the world none who can excel the lyrics 
 of Heine." 
 
 MARION M. MiLLER. 52 
 
 Recognizing in Heine a brilliant, original spirit and creative 
 genius, Mr. Miller begins his review of Ellis s translation of 
 Heine s Prose Writings (Camelot Series). Mr. Miller classes 
 
 61 The Forum, Vol. 20, 1896, p. 746 f . 
 
 Ba Bachelor of Arts, Vol. II, 1896, p. 778 f . 
 
60 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Heine as belonging to the ancient Greek cult of Adonis- 
 worshippers, those who mourned with Bion and Moschus the 
 loveliness of Life in Death. As a humorist, he thinks, Heine is 
 inferior to Artemus Ward in so far as personal satire is beneath 
 a humor of ever glowing geniality, but Heine s cosmopolitanism 
 makes him the typical humorist of the nineteenth century. 
 
 In analyzing Heine s humor Mr. Miller continues as follows: 
 "The epigrammatic form in which his humor is often cast is 
 typically French; the humanity exhibited by his half-comic, half- 
 pathetic characters, thoroughly English; and the broad ethical 
 purpose of the whole, even when commingled with the fiercest 
 satire, as universal and exalted as the prophetic cry of Elijah 
 among the priests of Baal or of Carlyle against the modern shrine 
 of Mammon." The union of all that is intellectual and emotional 
 and ethical in modern humor is found by the reviewer in the 
 Reisebilder. 
 
 Mr. Miller calls the Romantic School and Religion and 
 Philosophy in Germany, magnificent criticism, and much needed 
 models for modern reviewers, combining as they do, exposition 
 that is not pedantic, and comment that does not rely on paradox 
 alone for its raison d etre. 
 
 In conclusion Mr. Miller calls attention to the great influence 
 of Heine in the sphere of social reform, and asserts that Heine 
 is esteemed by Socialists as the poet of revolt against established 
 social institutions. 
 
 KUNO FRANCKE. 53 
 
 Professor Francke does not sympathize with the violent 
 declamations of contemporary Anti-Semitism against the so- 
 called inroad of Judaism into German culture. Borne s and 
 Heine s services as forerunners of the revolution of 1848, he 
 considers sufficient to secure them an honorable place in German 
 history. In Heine, he admires a poetic genius in whom vibrated 
 the accords and discords of a whole century. Unwilling to join 
 in the defamation of Borne and Heine, Francke says: "If there 
 is to be blame, and alas ! there is ample ground for it, let them 
 
 83 Social Forces in German Literature, by Kuno Francke. New York, 
 1896, pp. 509, 5H, 519-527. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 61 
 
 be blamed first who stigmatized these Jews as Jews, who slandered 
 their race and vilified their ideals, who cast suspicion upon their 
 motives and slurs upon their achievements, who forced them into 
 unworthy compromises and stratagems or else into a sterile 
 opposition to the whole existing order, who in a word by dis 
 franchising them, made them either scoffers or fanatics or both." 
 
 Neither Heine nor Borne is regarded by Francke as an in 
 tellectual leader, because neither has added to the store of 
 modern culture a single original thought or a single poetic symbol 
 of the highest life. Their strength, he contends, was consumed 
 in negation, their mission was fulfilled in fighting the principles 
 of the Holy Alliance, in helping to break down the absolutism of 
 Metternich and in making room again for the ideas which had 
 led to the national revival of 1813. 
 
 Of all the accusations against Heine, Francke regards the 
 assertion that he had no heart for Germany, as the most unjust. 
 He finds a note of deep-felt sadness and longing, homesickness 
 and isolation in the lines on Germany: 
 
 Ich hatte einst ein schones Vaterland 
 
 Der Eichenbaum 
 
 Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft 
 
 Es war ein Traum. 
 
 Das kiisste mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch 
 
 (Man glaubt es kaum 
 
 Wie gut es Klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!" 
 
 Es war ein Traum." 
 
 Heine s Pantheism, the emancipation of the flesh, Francke 
 considers as a new form of that ideal of free humanity toward ^ 
 which all German culture from Luther to Goethe had tended. 
 On this point Francke says: "It is one of Heine s lasting achieve 
 ments to have brought out, in those much-abused and much- 
 appropriated essays, "On the History of German Religion and 
 Philosophy, this inner continuity of the intellectual development 
 of modern Europe." 
 
 The fatal defect and barrenness of Heine s life, he declares 
 to be his failure to place his genius in the service of the ideals 
 of existence of which he had spoken so fervently, and his abjur- 
 
62 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 ing Judaism and adopting the outward form of a creed which 
 he inwardly despised. Consequently he believes Heine to have 
 been religiously, politically and even artistically a renegade. 
 
 Francke considers Heine an unworthy disciple of Goethe, 
 because Goethe remained faithful to the modern ideal of hu 
 manity and his very doubt was at bottom constructive and 
 reverent, whereas Heine denounced this ideal; his very belief 
 being negative and frivolous. After finding the stability, serious 
 ness and trust in the goodness of human nature lacking, he con 
 cludes as follows: "As to his art, nothing could be more signifi 
 cant for Heine s character than that this greatest lyric genius since 
 Goethe should have produced hardly a single poem which fathoms 
 the depths of life. This master in the art of poetic hypnotizing 
 t- hardly ever sets free our higher^self. This brilliant painter of 
 nature, who with a few careless touches charms a whole land 
 scape before our eyes, who is as much at home on the lonely downs 
 of the North Sea as in the mountain wildernesses of the Pyrenees, 
 hardly ever allows us a glimpse into the mysterious brooding and 
 moving of nature s creative forces. This accomplished connois 
 seur of the human heart, this expert of human desires, hardly 
 ever reveals the secret of true love. This philosophic apostle of 
 a complete and harmonious humanity revels as a poet in exposing 
 his own unharmonious, fickle, scoffing, petulant self. ... Is 
 it too much to say that of all the writers of his time Heine is the 
 saddest example of the intellectual degeneration wrought by the 
 political principles of the age of the Restoration?" 
 
 WILLIAM T. BRANTLY. 54 
 
 This article is a review of American translations of the 
 prose writings of Heine. Brantly is of the opinion that as a 
 great lyric poet, Heine s fame is secure, and that his place is 
 indubitably with the immortals. Heine, he feels sure, pos 
 sesses every merit that a prose writer should have precision, 
 balance, wit, humor, pathos, learning, originality, and above all, 
 a style of limpid clearness and sovereign charm. In all Heine s 
 
 Conservative Review, Vol. I, 1899, pp. 60-73. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 63 
 
 twelve volumes of prose, Mr. Brantly does not find a dull line. 
 As a critic of literature and philosophy, he thinks, Heine dis 
 plays extraordinary acumen and learning. Intellectually and 
 physically he regards Heine as a mixture of Apollo and Mephis- 
 topheles sometimes wholly an Apollo, sometimes wholly a scof 
 fing, sneering, witty Mephistopheles and very often both at the 
 same time. Mr. Brantly considers the reckless abuse of persons 
 as one of the most astounding things in Heine s prose, and con 
 cludes: "Heine s work in its totality is like a vast building con 
 taining within its circumference every variety of architecture 
 a solemn Gothic nave leading the spirit heavenward, a gorge 
 ous Renaissance palace, full of the lust of the flesh, of the lust of 
 the eye and the pride of life; a pagan temple of Aphrodite, an 
 abode of love and beauty." 
 
 W. A. R. KERR. 55 
 
 The reason why Heine is the greatest favorite among the 
 foreign poets with English readers, Mr. Kerr thinks, is because 
 he is at once as sentimental as Orlando and as cynical as Jaques 
 and possesses infinite variety. Heine s fame, he thinks, rests 
 upon his strange mingling of sentiment and cynicism. Of 
 Heine s sea-poetry Mr. Kerr says: "He struck an almost un 
 touched chord in German song. Till then the mystery, the cease 
 less change, the subtle suggestiveness of the ocean, had been un 
 noticed in Germany." 
 
 The work that Heine produced during his years of suffering, 
 Mr. Kerr finds tainted by an increasing cynicism, a growing 
 recklessness and a regrettable tendency to coarseness. 
 
 LILIAN WniTiNG. 56 
 
 The singular richness in beauty and melody of Heine s 
 songs are duly appreciated by this poetess, and she has given us 
 some fine translations of Heine s lyrics. The Song of Heine s 
 Pine and Palm (Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam) she regards as 
 
 65 Canadian Magazine, Vol. 15, 1900, p. 35 f. 
 
 58 The World Beautiful in Books, by Lilian Whiting. Boston, 1901. 
 
64 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 a wonderful example of a picture poem. Of her work as a 
 translator of Heine s verse we shall speak in a subsequent 
 section. 
 
 CALVIN TnoMAs. 57 
 
 Heine s much reviled emancipation of the flesh, Professor 
 Thomas finds also in the early works of Schiller and he suggests 
 that here is an opportunity for malicious criticism to assert 
 itself. In speaking of Schiller s erotic verses addressed to Laura, 
 Thomas says: "We miss in them altogether the captivating sim 
 plicity which the young Goethe and later the young Heine 
 caught from the songs of the people." 
 
 JOHN FIRMAN COAR. 
 
 58 
 
 "As I was born to heap eternal ridiciule on all that is worth 
 less, gone to seed, absurd, false, and farcical, so it is but a trait 
 of my nature to feel that which is sublime, to admire that which 
 is majestic and to glorify that which has life." 
 
 In these words of Heine, Coar finds the keynote to his 
 character as a man and poet. He regards as wrong the view 
 that Heine was destructive out of mere love of destruction. 
 The inconsistencies of all Heine did and wrote, Coar believes, 
 find their ultimate unity in the consistency of his democracy. 
 
 Speaking of the Reisebilder and Buck der Lieder, Coar 
 says : "Intensely subjective these works certainly were, but their 
 intense subjectivity was objectively conceived. It is evident that 
 the poetic consciousness from which they emanated was satu 
 rated with the restless, troubled craving of contemporary life, 
 not as the negation of his personal desires, but as the negation 
 of its own social ideals, and this fact gave to his poetry a quality 
 not to be found in the poetry of isolation. In his poetic sub 
 jectivity was reflected the contrasts of an objective reality. They 
 were the contrasts that the contemporaries felt, and that he too, 
 
 " The Life and Works of Schiller, by Calvin Thomas. New York, 1901, 
 p. 20. 
 
 68 Studies in German Literature in the Nineteenth Century, by J. F. Coar. 
 New York, 1903, pp. 160-192. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 65 
 
 as a child of his day, felt, though he felt them more keenly. 
 Ihese his poetic imagination laid hold of and fashioned into 
 forms poetic." 
 
 Coar believes that Heine overstepped the bounds of decency 
 in attacking Platen and Borne. Highly creditable he finds 
 Heine s devotion to his wife and affection for his mother. The 
 Romanzero he pronounces to be in many respects the noblest 
 work of Heine s poetic pen, the three books, Histories, Lamen 
 tations and Hebraic Melodies comprising the great lyric trilogy 
 of his life. Mr. Coar condemns severely Heine s gibes and 
 flippant grossness. The poetical life of Heine is divided by Mr. 
 Coar into five phases of growth. In the first the personal 
 element predominates, and the result is his songs of love. In the 
 second phase Heine observed objective life through the medium 
 of his emotions and subjective world sorrow came to the 
 surface, characterized also by the retention of the poetic dream 
 land as a refuge from the discordant reality. In the sea poetry 
 his enlarged conception of nature modified the poetic activity 
 of Heine and his poetry entered on a third phase. The most 
 significant feature of this change was the attempt to measure 
 human life not by the standards of personal volition, but by the 
 standards of a great natural phenomenon. Heine s exile brought 
 to fruition the theme of liberty and he passed through the fourth 
 phase. In the Romanzero we see the poet in the last phase of 
 his activity. The fight for freedom, Coar insists, made Heine a 
 theoretical democrat, though it deprived him of the power to 
 conceive the poetic vision of democracy. About Heine s de 
 mocracy Coar writes: "His civic democracy could express it 
 self in poetry only through negation of political forms, and his 
 religious democracy only through accentuation of the sensual 
 element of life." 
 
 This Mr. Coar declares was the tragedy of Heine s last 
 days, the failure of his life. The Book of Songs, Coar says, 
 "came like gusts of refreshing wind, so unconventional and 
 sprightly was the treatment of their themes and so close to the 
 hearts of men these themes themselves." 
 
66 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 ROBERT W. DEERiNG. 59 
 
 Professor Deering recognizes in Heine the keenest satirist, 
 and after Goethe, the most graceful, gifted poet of the century, 
 the best embodiment of his restless, discontented age, and one of 
 the most important, though unwholesome, influences in modern 
 German literature. He repeats Matthew Arnold s view of Heine 
 as a splendid genius gone adrift for lack of moral balance. Of 
 the Book of Songs, Deering says: "It will preserve Heine s 
 memory to posterity. It contains some of the choicest gems of 
 lyric poetry in German or any other literature. No mere words 
 can describe the deep feeling, the noblest sentiment, the tender 
 pathos, the haunting melancholy, the exquisite imagery, the per 
 fect rhythm, of many of these songs." 
 
 But the sweet harmony of these chords, Deering finds, is 
 often broken by the jangling discord of Heine s frenzied bitter 
 ness; his mingling of the holiest sentiment with a mocking 
 cynicism, and a bestial sensuality. Acknowledging the Reise- 
 bilder to be the most remarkable travels ever written, Deering 
 continues: "They offer us the most amazing bizarre collection 
 of sparkling wit, rollicking humor, cutting criticism, tender 
 pathos, venomous satire, downright vulgarity, that was ever 
 printed." 
 
 The colossal egotism of the Reisebilder Deering considers 
 the best commentary on Heine s character and genius. Behind 
 all his cynical abuse the writer finds in Heine a latent love of the 
 old home, an unfailing affection for his mother, and these he 
 calls Heine s redeeming traits. He thinks that Heine was too 
 unstable or volatile to be a real thinker about anything; his 
 opinions are too subjective to be reliable; they are founded on 
 personal pique and prejudice rather than on facts. That Heine 
 was a liberator of thought and leader of men, Deering denies 
 because he thinks Heine was not the master of great ideas, but 
 the slave of great passions. As a critic, he regards Heine as 
 negative, tearing down, never building up. Of Heine s wit he 
 says: "It is a lightning bolt, brilliant but blasting." 
 
 09 The Chautauquan, Vol. XXXV, 1902, pp. 271, 280. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 67 
 
 RICHARD HOCHDOERFER. GO 
 
 Of Heine s prose work Professor Hochdoerfer is inclined 
 to regard the inimitable Harzreise as the finest example. In 
 spite of the fine satire and brilliancy of Atta Troll and Deutsch- 
 land he cannot consider them as German classics, because, in 
 these poems as in the controversial writings against Count Platen 
 and Borne, he finds the brilliant and fearless wit impaired by a 
 certain mannerism and recklessness foreign to Heine s earlier 
 muse. Mr. Hochdoerfer thinks that the poems Heine wrote dur 
 ing his last years are among his best, not less entitled to im 
 mortality than those incorporated in the Buck der Lieder. 
 
 He feels confident in calling the Book of Songs one of the 
 world s classics; yet the spirit of mockery and vulgarity break 
 ing forth in the closing lines of a poem, he thinks, mars its 
 beauty as "a hideous sore or vulgar line disfigures an otherwise 
 perfect face." Hochdoerfer calls Ratcliffe and Almansar poems 
 in dramatic form without any of the qualities fitting for stage 
 representation. The poems of the North Sea Cycle he takes to 
 be Heine s most peculiar and incomparable contribution to Ger 
 man literature. The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar, Hochdoerfer con 
 siders a master-stroke of Heine s genius, and sure of a place 
 among the best German ballads. Concerning the Book of Songs, 
 he says: "In the Book of Songs Heine has erected to himself 
 a monument which will stand the test of time and make in 
 vective powerless. Friend and foe must concede that the senti 
 ment to which these songs give utterance has never found a more 
 beautiful body. No folksongs have achieved greater popularity. 
 He played the harp of love, he played on the strings of the 
 human soul with such perfect mastery that all people capable of 
 passion and emotion listen with love and laughter, with trem 
 bling and tears." 
 
 ANNA ALICE CHAPIN. SI 
 
 Of all the descriptions of the Marseillaise ever writen, Miss 
 Chapin thinks there in none so fine as that of Heine. In regard 
 
 * Introductory Studies in German Literature, by Richard Hochdoerfer. 
 Chautauqua, N. Y., 1904, pp. 189-216. 
 
 81 Makers of Song, by A. A. Chapin. New York, p. 331. 
 
68 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 to this she writes : "His sensitive appreciation seized upon the 
 vivid qualities of the great song, and inspired him with images 
 and phrases such as he only knew how to combine." 
 
 Heine s style she considers inimitable and his prose the 
 purest extant. 
 
 E. S. MEYER. 62 
 
 In criticising two new Heine Portraits Mr. Meyer says of 
 the first: "This is undoubtedly from the poet s young manhood, 
 from his warm, full, voluptuous throbbing spring of love and song. 
 It is a face of feeling rather than of thought; it appeals rather 
 to the heart than to the mind. Heine at this age was all feeling ; 
 to him now the emotion of the moment was the real truth of 
 life and its artistic expression an absolute necessity. The sub 
 jective impressions of the flying hours, so intensely absorbed, 
 left no time for thought. All was emotion, a passionate longing 
 for fuller, larger perfect feeling. The portrait is not good and 
 yet it presents almost our ideal of a lyric poet, young, tender, 
 strong, passionate, but full of sadness and longing. This is the 
 German poet, the Heine of the Buck der Lieder, the exquisite 
 expression of youth s passionate certainty that life is nothing 
 but love, love with its glorious rapture of possession and its fear 
 ful void of loss." 
 
 The second portrait represents Heine twenty years later, 
 still in full possession of his great intellectual power, but the face 
 looks cold, cynical, almost embittered. Commenting on this 
 change Meyer remarks: "Thirty years desecration of, and con 
 sequent supposed disillusion in, all he once cherished most, life, 
 love, religion, fatherland are indelibly stamped upon this coun 
 tenance. He has drunk so greedily the precious wine of life that 
 now there are bitter dregs in every draught." 
 
 JOSEPH JACOBS. 63 
 
 In his biographical sketch Mr. Jacobs treats of Heine in his 
 relation to Judaism. He seeks to find the reason why Heine did 
 not devote his great powers to the services of his race and re- 
 
 M Critic, Vol. 44, p. 234 f . 
 
 83 Jewish Encyclopaedia, Vol. VI, pp. 327-334. 
 
Heine in American Criticism 69 
 
 ligion, in his earlier training and environment. Except for the 
 few years at Berlin, Heine did not come under any specifically 
 Jewish influences of a spiritual kind ; yet Mr. Jacobs thinks that 
 this Berlin influence was deep enough to stamp Heine s work 
 with a Jewish note throughout his life. Heine s wit and pathos, 
 Mr. Jacobs maintains, are essentially Jewish. 
 
 WILLIAM V. BYERs. 64 
 
 After Horace, Mr. Byers declares, Heine has had no su 
 perior as a master of lyrical expression. Among moderns, he 
 thinks, Burns alone compares with Heine and even Burns him 
 self, though greater as a poet, is his inferior as a musician. Al 
 though Heine was one of the greatest of wits as well as the great 
 est musician of his age, Mr. Byers does not rank him as a great 
 poet, because a great poet must be a great thinker, whereas Heine 
 was only the poet of the Weltschmerz. 
 
 Heine s Reisebilder, he believes, might have kept his name 
 alive had he never written the Lieder. 
 
 In the essays and songs Mr. Byers finds much that is ab 
 normal and diseased, but little that is commonplace and nothing 
 that is merely silly. At the worst he considers Heine diabolical, 
 but this diabolism is that of a great soul cast down but not lost. 
 
 RICHARD BURTON. 65 
 
 Judging by quality, Professor Burton places Heine with the 
 few great poets and literary men of Germany. Heine s lyrics, 
 he thinks, have not been surpassed in Germany, and rank with 
 the masterpieces of their kind in world literature. As a prose 
 writer he finds Heine had extraordinary brilliancy, vigor of 
 thought and grace of form, and as a thinker he regards him as 
 one of the pioneers of modern ideas in our country. What 
 Burton regards as reprehensible is that Heine is at times sen 
 sual, ribald and blasphemous. He does not consider Heine an 
 admirable character. 
 
 "The World s Best Essays, edited by D. G. Bremer. St. Louis, Mo. 
 Vol. VI, p. 2153 f. 
 
 65 Library of the World s Best Literature, edited by C, P. Warner. New 
 York. Vol. XII, pp. 7185-7220. 
 
70 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 Goethe and Heine he names as the chief exponents of German 
 lyric poetry and in this respect he thinks Heine is incomparable. 
 Of their relative merits he says: "Nor in lyric expression need 
 Heine yield to Goethe. Some of Heine s lyrics are among the 
 precious bits of poetry which the world has taken forever to its 
 heart, their haunting perfection, their magic of diction, and 
 witchery of music are delicious/ 
 
 The exquisite deep romanticism of the lyrics, Burton finds, 
 is sometimes rudely broken by Heine s own sneering laugh. As a 
 prose writer he regards the Reisebilder as his finest example and 
 says : "These gay, audacious, charming, bitter travel sketches, 
 these phantasy sketches are of very unequal merit, rang 
 ing from the exquisite lyric work of the opening section and the 
 delightful narrative of the experiences in the Harz Mountains 
 to the sparkling indecencies of the division dealing with Italy, 
 and the more labored argument and satire of the English frag 
 ments. 
 
 "Of the Reisebilder as a whole the inspiration grows stead 
 ily less in the successive parts. The style is of unprecedented 
 vigor and brilliancy." 
 
 To say a wise, keen thing in a light way, to say it directly, 
 yet with grace, Burton realizes, calls for a beautiful talent; but 
 to accomplish this in and with the German language, he thinks, 
 is a double triumph for Heine. Although he recognizes in Heine 
 a thinker, a force in the development of modern ideas, the ideas 
 of liberty in its various applications, yet Burton thinks that 
 Matthew Arnold has exaggerated this influence in his remarkable 
 essay on Heine and goes too far in declaring him the "most im 
 portant German successor and continuator of Goethe in Goethe s 
 most important line of activity, that of a soldier in the war of 
 liberation of humanity." Nevertheless, Burton admits that 
 Matthew Arnold s estimate hits nearer the mark than the mis- 
 appreciations of too many critics of his own country. Heine s 
 mission, as an individualist and iconoclast, he finds was to satir 
 ize with trenchant power existing abuses. 
 
 In Heine s sentiment Burton finds much of the morbid and 
 in this respect he calls him decadent, that is unwholesome, ex- 
 
Heine in American Criticism 71 
 
 travagant and bestial. But intellectually, he feels sure, Heine 
 saw clearly and he was at bottom sane. 
 
 THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. GG 
 
 Among the books which first awakened his literary enthusi 
 asm, and created in him a zeal for German literature, Colonel 
 Higginson mentions Heine s Romantische Schule translated by 
 G. W. Haven (Boston, 1836). Speaking of some favorite pas 
 sages in this book Higginson says : "I fear that my boyish copy 
 of Heine opens of itself at the immortal compliment given by 
 the violin player Solomons to George III of England, then his 
 pupil : Violin players are divided into three classes : to the first 
 class belong those who cannot play at all ; to the second class 
 belong those who play very miserably; and to the third, those 
 who play finely; Your Majesty has already elevated yourself to 
 the rank of the second class/ Tried by such a classification, 
 Heine certainly ranks in the third class, not the second." 
 
 Higginson thinks it strange that of the two German authors 
 who bid fair to live longest on the road to immortality, the one, 
 Goethe, should be the most absolutely German among them all, 
 while Heine died in heart, as in residence, a Frenchman. 
 
 Should we require additional evidence of Colonel Higgin- 
 son s high estimate of Heine we may find it in the numerous 
 witticisms quoted from Heine to adorn and enliven Higginson s 
 various prose writings. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 Dr. Riethmueller G7 in his investigation was not fortunate 
 enough to be able to consult Mr. Traubel s 6S recent publication 
 and consequently could not ascertain Whitman s estimate of 
 Heine. One citation 67 sounded depreciative : "For American 
 literature we want mighty authors, not even Carlyle and Heine 
 like, born and brought up in (and more or less essentially par- 
 
 68 Part of a Man s Life, by T. W. Higginson. Boston and New York, 
 1905, p. 165 f. 
 
 67 Walt Whitman and the Germans, by Richard Riethmueller. Philadel 
 phia, 1906, p. 25. 
 
 68 With Walt Whitman in Camden, by Horace Traubel. Boston, 1906. 
 
72 Heine in American Criticism 
 
 taking and giving out) the vast abnormal ward or hysterical 
 sick chamber which in many respects Europe, with all its glories, 
 would seem to be." 
 
 But Traubel s book has supplied the necessary light. On 
 page 98 " 8 he reports Whitman (May 3, 1888), while speaking 
 of his Leaves of Grass and their alleged indecency, as saying in 
 these words: "But all this fear of indecency ; all this noise about 
 purity and sex and all the social order and the Comstockism par 
 ticular and general is nasty too nasty to make any compromise 
 with. I never come up against it but I think of what Heine 
 said to a woman who had expressed to him some suspicion about 
 the body. Madam/ said Heine, are not all naked under our 
 clothes? I have not yet succeeded in getting the waist-coat 
 out of customs . . ." 
 
 Traubel tells us that Whitman (May 5, 1888) had been 
 reading Heine again the Reisebilder, concerning which he said: 
 "I have the book here; it is good to read at any time Heine 
 is good for almost any one of my moods. And that reminds 
 me: the best thing Arnold ever did was his essay on Heine; 
 that is the one thing of Arnold s that I unqualifiedly like." 
 
 On May 27, 1888, Whitman asked Traubel how his father 
 was and then said: "Your father is a great man. He was here 
 the other day ; . spouted German poetry to me, Goethe, 
 
 Schiller, Heine, Lessing. I couldn t understand a word, but I 
 could understand everything else. . . . There he was spout 
 ing away in a language strange to me yet very much of it 
 seemed as plain as if it was English." 
 
 However, the most significant passage for us is given by 
 Traubel on page 461. Whitman had been looking over Arnold s 
 essay on Heine again and said : "I would read it if I was you, 
 Horace. It s the only thing from Arnold that I have read with 
 zest. Heine ! Oh, how great ! The more you stop to look, to 
 examine, the deeper seem the roots ; the broader and higher the 
 umbrage. And Heine was free was one of the men who win 
 by degrees. He was the master of a pregnant sarcasm : he brought 
 down a hundred hnmbuggeries if he brought down two. At 
 times he plays with you with a deliberate, baffling sportiveness." 
 
Heine s American Translators 73 
 
 HEINE S AMERICAN TRANSLATORS. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Although the number of American translators of Heine s 
 works is amazingly large, yet we must remember that there were 
 other means by which Americans unable to read German could 
 become acquainted with him. The English magazines, which 
 had a large circulation here, continued to publish criticisms and 
 translations from which many American literary men first 
 learned to appreciate the genius of Heine. Many of these articles 
 were reprinted in the Living Age. Complete translations of 
 Heine s poems by E. A. Bowring and others appeared in England 
 as early as 1858, and, being reprinted in Bohn s Library, served 
 to augment the number of American translations. Later Heine s 
 Book of Songs, compiled from the translations of E. A. Bowring 
 and Theodore Martin, appeared in New York, and specimens of 
 these and other English metrical translations from Heine were 
 reprinted in America in such selections as the University of 
 Literature, and the Library of World s Best Literature, as well 
 as in Longfellow s Poems of Places ana 1 Poetry of Europe. 
 Other English translations from Heine, such as those of Snod- 
 grass, Egan, Wallis, Storr, Ellis, Sharp and Kate Freiligraphf 
 Kroeker also had large sales in this country, thus attesting the 
 astonishing demand in America for translations from Heine. 
 
 The first collection of the works of Heine in seven volumes 
 was published in Philadelphia in 1857-59. As early as 1855, a 
 translation of the Reiscbilder by Lelancl appeared in Philadelphia. 
 That Heine himself was gratified by Leland s translation of the 
 Reisebilder is obvious from the following extract from a letter to 
 Mr. Calmann Levy: "A piece of good news that I forgot to com 
 municate to you the other day. An English translation of the 
 Reisebilder which has appeared in New York (Philadelphia; 
 
74 Heine s American Translators 
 
 none ever appeared in New York) has met with an enormous 
 success, according to a correspondence in the Augsburger Zeitung 
 (which does not love me enough to invent successes for me). 
 Henri Heine, Paris, Wednesday, October 4, 1855." 
 
 In our long list of American interpreters of Heine we shall 
 find many famous names and not a few obscure ones. Con 
 sidering the difficulty of the task, we need not be surprised to find 
 that so many have given us poor renderings. In some cases it 
 is exasperating to see what a miserable appearance the exquisite 
 lyrics of Heine present after mutilation by clumsy and unskilled 
 hands. But we must not condemn too severely, and it is beyond 
 the scope of this treatise to enter into details concerning the in 
 numerable inelegancies and inaccuracies in the various trans 
 lations. If the translator adheres strictly and pedantically merely 
 to the form of the original, his translation loses the wonderful 
 unlabored simplicity, and we get an awkward, insipid metrical 
 copy. Those who concern themselves with the idea, and not with 
 the form, obtain results equally disappointing. That the task of 
 successful and felicitous translation is not an impossible one, will 
 be obvious from the specimens which we shall quote later. If 
 the translator succeeds in preserving the spirit and tone of the 
 original, so that the translated copy arouses the understanding 
 and emotions of the foreigner, we may consider him successful. 
 
 Yet the best translation takes much of the soul out of poetry 
 like Heine s ; though the form and features of the original are 
 preserved, its very breath of life is gone it is like a corpse, 
 whose cheeks do not glow, whose eyes do not dream or flash or 
 sparkle, whose heart does not thrill or throb with feeling, it is 
 pale and still and cold. 
 
 In this section we shall treat briefly, in chronological order 
 as far as possible of the various translations from Heine s works 
 which have appeared in America, our aim being rather to give a 
 complete view of the field without entering into wearisome 
 details. 
 
Heine s American Translators 75 
 
 G. W. HAVEN. 
 
 "Letters Auxiliary to the History of Modern Polite Liter 
 ature in Germany, by Heinrich Heine, translated from the Ger 
 man by G. W. Haven. Boston, 1836." We cannot overestimate 
 the significance and influence of Haven s translation ; it served 
 to introduce American readers to the treasures and beauties of 
 German literature and established the fame and popularity of 
 Heine in America. Immediately after its publication, a lengthy 
 review of Heine s work appeared in the North American Review. 
 This translation really became a text book on German literature, 
 and was one of the few books that created an enthusiasm for 
 German literature in this country. Longfellow incorporated 
 Heine s criticism on Goethe and the Niebelnngen and Des Kna- 
 benwunderhorn in Hyperion and The Poets and Poetry of 
 Europe. 
 
 The substance of the Letters Auxiliary formed originally a 
 part of a larger work written and published in French with the 
 title Sun I Allernagne, and Heine, having reason to expect a trans 
 lation into German, executed the work himself. From fear of 
 the censorship and from a due regard to the feelings of his 
 countrymen, he omitted not only the political, but also the most 
 offensive portions of the theological and philosophical parts. 
 This modified work is the original of Haven s translation. 
 
 To the great merits of Haven s translation the reviewers 
 have given us sufficient testimony and assurance. His is, indeed, 
 a translation, not only of the letter, but of the spirit also. One 
 reviewer expressed his admiration of Haven s talent as a trans 
 lator in a convincing manner, and requested him to pursue his 
 career and gratify the American public with many similar proofs 
 of his acquirements and ability. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 The winter of 1836, spent by Longfellow in Germany, 
 appears to have been the time when most of his translations 
 from the German were made. Translating played an important 
 part in the development of Longfellow s powers. He found an 
 
76 Heine s American Translators 
 
 outlet for his metrical thought and emotion in the translation 
 of lyrics. This was a pleasant avocation for him and to the 
 end of his life he found an ever grateful occupation in recast 
 ing the foreign thought of other men in moulds of his own. His 
 appreciation of European literary art was the occasion for a fine 
 ness of literary expression quite beyond his earlier independent 
 efforts. He found, in translating, a gentle stimulus to his poetic 
 faculties, and reverted to it when wishing to quicken his spirit. 
 "I agree with you entirely," he writes to Freiligrath, November 
 24, 1843, " m what you say about translations. It is like running 
 a ploughshare through the soil of one s mind ; a thousand germs 
 of thought start up, which otherwise might have lain and rotted 
 in the ground." 
 
 There were two special incentives to his translating. In 
 1843 ne undertook the preparation of the Poets and Poetry of 
 Europe and in 1874 he began the collection known as Poems of 
 Places. In preparing his academic lectures and the critical 
 papers, which he contributed to the periodicals, he found occasion 
 to introduce a number of translations. 
 
 In Hyperion (1839) when speaking of Goethe and Menzel, 
 Longfellow introduced Heine s view of Goethe, translated from 
 Die Romantische Schule. Longfellow s paper on Heine appeared 
 in Graham s Magazine in 1842. To illustrate his criticism he 
 translated in this article the following excerpts from the Reise- 
 bilder: (i) Tour to the Harz Mountains (Scene on the Brocken, 
 Reisebilder, Vol. i), (2) Street Musicians (Reisebilder, Vol. 3). 
 
 The only metrical translation, which Longfellow published 
 from Heine appeared in The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems 
 (1846) with the title The Sea Hath Its Pearls, comprising the 
 first three verses of the longer poem with the title Nachts in der 
 Cajiite, which forms a portion of Heine s Die Nordsee in his 
 Reisebilder. This translation has a quality distinctively Long 
 fellow s while still a faithful rescript of the original. But he has 
 not succeeded, in this translation, in rendering the rhythm of the 
 original. This is evident by a comparison of the translation 
 with the original (Elster, I, 171). 
 
Heine s American Translators 77 
 
 Nachts in der Kajiite. 
 
 Das Meer hat seine Perlen, 
 Der Himmel hat seine Sterne, 
 Aber mein Herz, mein Herz, 
 Mein Herz hat seine Liebe. 
 Gross ist das Meer und der Himmel, 
 Doch grosser ist mein Herz, 
 Und schoner als Perlen und Sterne, 
 Leuchtet und strahlt meine Liebe. 
 Du kleines, junges Madchen, 
 Komm an mein grosses Herz ; 
 Mein Herz und das Meer und der Himmel 
 Vergehen vor lauter Liebe." 
 
 " The sea hath its pearls, 
 
 The heaven hath its stars ; 
 
 But my heart, my heart, 
 
 My heart hath its love. 
 " Great are the sea and the heaven, 
 
 Yet greater is my heart; 
 
 And fairer than pearls and stars 
 
 Flashes and beams my love. 
 
 Thou little, youthful maiden, 
 
 Come unto my great heart ; 
 
 My heart, and the sea, and the heaven 
 Are melting away with love." 
 
 SARAH AUSTIN. 
 
 Sarah Austin s translations of selections from Heine s prose 
 are to be found in her Fragments from German Prose Writers 
 (New York, 1841 ). On pages 60-63 we nave The Harts-Miners 
 from the Reisebilder, and on pages 152-154 The Hartz also 
 from the Reisebilder. The book also contains a brief biographi 
 cal and critical sketch of Heine. Whatever she translated from 
 Heine is certainly well done, and she managed to select such 
 passages as well illustrate the artistical merit of Heine s prose 
 style. 
 
 W. H. HURLBUT. 
 
 In his critique on Heine in the North American Review 
 (Vol. LXIX, 1849, pp. 216-249), Hurlbut incorporated ex- 
 
78 Heine s American Translators 
 
 tracts from the Reisebilder which he translated to illustrate 
 the charms of Heine s style. Besides these quotations the re 
 view also contained the following metrical translations of 
 Heine s poems. Wir sassen am Fischerhause,^ Ich bin die 
 Prinzessin Use (Elster, I, 159), Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar 
 (Elster, I, 146), Du schones Fischer mddchen, Ein Fichtenbaum 
 steht einsam. These translations adhere very closely to the 
 original rhythm and yet the melody is lost to a considerable 
 extent. If they have but few other merits, Hurlbut s versions 
 are at least faithful in reproducing the spirit and tone 
 of Heine s lyrics. These translations were evidently considered 
 excellent for we find Longfellow and others frequently quoting 
 them. As a specimen of Hurlbut s ability as a translator let us 
 take the familiar lyric, Du schones Fischermadchen, rendered 
 by him as follows: 
 
 Thou charming fishermaiden, 
 Come push thy boat to land, 
 And sitting here beside me, 
 Talk with me, hand in hand. 
 On my heart thy young head lay, 
 Oh! trust thyself to me; 
 Thou day by day confidest 
 Thyself to the raging sea. 
 And like that sea my heart is, 
 With storms and ebb and flow, 
 And richest pearls too, sleeping 
 In silent depths below. 
 
 Perhaps in many respects a more meritorious translation 
 is his rendering of the inimitable Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam: 
 
 A lonely fir-tree standeth 
 
 On a chilly Northern height. 
 
 The snow and the ice while it sleepeth, 
 
 Weave round it a garment white. 
 
 It dreameth of a palm tree, 
 
 That far in the Eastern land, 
 
 Alone and silent mourneth 
 
 On its plain of burning sand. 
 
 "* Heinrich Heine s SdmtUche Werke, von Ernst Elster, Leipzig. 
 
Heine s American Translators 79 
 
 ALFRED BASKERVILLE. 
 
 As early as 1854 Baskerville had published his Poetry of 
 Germany in Philadelphia. It consisted of selections from up 
 wards of seventy of the most celebrated poets, translated into 
 English verse, with the original text on the opposite page. This 
 book had a large sale and a fifth edition appeared in 1866. It is 
 dedicated to the memory of his wife, of whose valuable assist 
 ance the translator was deprived by death, during the progress 
 of the translation. This volume presents to the English 
 reader a tolerably complete outline of modern German poetry, 
 giving the most popular pieces of the most celebrated poets. 
 The selection begins with Hartmann von der Aue, Wolfram 
 von Eschenbach, Walter von der Vogelweide and Gottfried 
 von Strassburg. The poets are arranged according to priority 
 of birth. The selections are confined to lyrical poems. The 
 original text has been placed on the opposite page and in many 
 cases this acts as a mirror, and reflects with increased vividness 
 the defects of the translations. In every case the metre of the 
 original has been adhered to even to the ancient hexameter and 
 pentameter. Baskerville endeavored to infuse the spirit of the 
 original into his translations, and yet he usually renders the 
 German literally. We can doubtless find, in these translations, 
 sufficient cause for blame, without cavilling at occasional imper 
 fections in the rhymes, but we must be lenient and take into 
 consideration the difficulty of the task. From Heine, Baskerville 
 translates the following: Die Grenadiere, Lorelei, Habe mich 
 mit Liebesreden, Und zviissten s die Blumen die Kleinen, Warum 
 sind dcnn die Rosen so blass, Liebste, sollst mir heute sagen, Du 
 schdnes Fischer mad chen, Das Meer erglanzte weit hinaus, Ich 
 stand gelehnt an den Mast, Mein Kind, wir <waren Kinder, Ich 
 rief den Tcufel und cr kam. Of these, Baskerville comes near 
 est to perfection in his translation of Das Meer erglanzte weit 
 hinaus. 
 
 The sea in the glow of departing eve 
 
 Far, far in the distance shone; 
 
 We sat by the fisherman s lonely cot, 
 
 In silence we sat and alone. 
 
8o Heine s American Translators 
 
 The mists arose, and the waters swelled, 
 
 The sea-gull flew to and fro; 
 
 And from thine eyes, as they beamed with love, 
 
 I saw the tear-drops flow. 
 
 I saw them falling upon thy hand, 
 
 Then on my knee I sank; 
 
 And from thy little lily hand 
 
 The burning tears I drank. 
 
 E er since that hour, I ve pined away, 
 
 My soul with longing dies; 
 
 That wretched maiden has poisoned me 
 
 With the venom of her bright eyes. 
 
 GRAHAM S MAGAZINE. 
 
 In Graham s Magazine, Volume XL VI I, 1855, P a g e 4 2 9> we 
 find the following translation from Heine: 
 
 A Fragment: Wenn ich in deine Augen sehe. 
 
 " As within thine eyes I look, 
 All my pain the heart forsook, 
 When my lips with thine are sealed, 
 All the wounds of life are healed. 
 
 On thy heart when I recline, 
 Heaven s happiness is mine; 
 When thou say st I love but thee 
 Bitter tears fall fast and free. 
 
 This translation is too free, in fact, almost a paraphrase. 
 In order to get his rhyme the translator has spoiled the effect by 
 shifting from the present tense (line i ) to the past tense (line 2). 
 
 The epigram translated from Heine in Graham s Magazine, 
 Volume XLVIII, 1856, page 326, fails to render the rhythm of the 
 original : 
 
 Wir fuhren allein im dunkeln. 
 
 All night alone we journeyed on, 
 In a carriage close together ; 
 We laughed and talked right joyously, 
 In spite of wind and weather. 
 
Heine s American Translators 81 
 
 But when first broke the morning s light, 
 Judge of our fright, my child ! 
 Between us sat a blind-eyed boy 
 T was love with aspect mild. 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. 
 
 Charles Godfrey Leland was a man of many accomplish 
 ments. A Philadelphian by birth, he commanded a Pennsylvania 
 Battery in the Civil War. It was a humorous ballad, Hans 
 Breitmann s Barty that made him famous. He was the author 
 of nearly a hundred books, covering many varieties of literature. 
 His translation of Heine has the reputation of being the finest 
 in the English language, though he was not always successful 
 in interpreting the German poet s verse. That was better done 
 by the poetess, Emma Lazarus. 
 
 While employed on the Philadelphia Bulletin, Leland trans 
 lated Heine s Reisebilder (Pictures of Travel). For it, poetry 
 included, he was to receive three shillings a page. Even this 
 was never paid in full ; he was obliged to take part of the money 
 in engravings and books and the publisher failed. It passed 
 into other hands, and many thousands of copies were sold; from 
 all of which he, of course, got nothing. This translation of the 
 Reisebilder appeared in Philadelphia in 1855, and was favorably 
 received by all reviewers. That Heine himself was pleased by 
 it we have already learned from the extract of the letter to 
 Calmann-Levy quoted in the introduction. A fourth edition 
 appeared in Philadelphia in 1863 and a fifth edition in New 
 York in 1866. In all more than ten thousand copies were sold 
 before the new edition of Leland s translation of the Reisebilder 
 appeared in London in 1891. When Leland had published his 
 translation of the Reisebilder in 1855, Bayard Taylor got a copy 
 of it. Taylor went in company with Thackeray to New York, 
 and told Leland subsequently that they had read the work aloud 
 between them alternately, with roars of laughter, till it was 
 finished ; that Thackeray praised the translation to the skies, and 
 that his comments and droll remarks on the text were delightful. 
 
82 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Thackeray was a perfect German scholar, and well informed as 
 to all in the book. 
 
 Leland had bestowed much care on cleansing the Reisebilder 
 in his translation. The omissions are confined almost entirely 
 to what Heine in later years himself altered or rejected. It is 
 impossible to perfectly transfer the original spirit of Heine s glori 
 fied and clarified prose in English. Leland s translation is far 
 from being perfect as regards simplicity of language allied to 
 melody and brilliancy, but Leland did his best to reproduce it. 
 
 In 1891, the first volume of Leland s complete translation 
 of Heine s works appeared in London. This volume contained 
 the Florentine Nights, The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelezvop- 
 ske, The Rabbi of Bacharach and Shakespeare s Maidens and 
 Women. Volumes II and III also printed in London in 
 the same year, contained a reprint of Leland s translation of the 
 Reisebilder, omitting the poems which appear in the Buck der 
 Lieder. In the next year. (1892), Volume IV, the Salon ap 
 peared in London. Of this edition Volumes V and VI (Lon 
 don, 1892), contained the translation of Germany, comprising, 
 Religion and Philosophy in Germany, The Romantic School, 
 Elementary Spirits, Doctor Faust, The Gods in Exile, and The 
 Goddess Diana. The following year (1893), Leland s transla 
 tion of French Affairs appeared in London making up Vol 
 umes VII and VIII of the complete edition of Heine s prose. 
 The Family Life of Heine, edited by von Embclen, was also trans 
 lated by Leland and published in London in 1893. This volume 
 is a life of Heine, illustrated by one hundred and twenty-two 
 hitherto unpublished letters addressed by Heine to different mem 
 bers of the family. To many, the translations from Heine pub 
 lished by Leland in London were a grievous disappointment, for 
 they expected from him something better. There are many 
 pages in which the original seems to be reproduced with as much 
 fidelity and as much grace as can reasonably be expected in a 
 translation from a writer so difficult as Heine. R. M Lintock 70 
 in his review of Leland s translation of the Florentine Nights, 
 
 70 Academy, Vol. 40, 1891, p. 256 f. 
 
Heine s American Translators 83 
 
 etc. (Vol. I), says: "A better knowledge of German and more 
 care in the writing of English should be shown by Leland. There 
 are readings of the original which must be pronounced utterly 
 indefensible and there are English sentences which come peril 
 ously near to being mere nonsense." 
 
 Mr. M Lintock gives some examples of Leland s inaccura 
 cies in translating and thinks that to find such absurd passages in 
 the work of a man already famous is decidedly discouraging. 
 In Volume I, Leland has made some faint efforts to expurgate 
 the text, has omitted half a page in one place, and here and there 
 an odd sentence or two. Heine is inexpurgable, and squeamish 
 people had best have nothing to do with him at all. 
 
 In his translation of the French Affairs, Leland has care 
 fully studied and compared the different texts, French and Ger 
 man, and has omitted not a passage, or even a shade of thought 
 of any value in either. This greatly increased the labor and the 
 difficulty of the task. 
 
 Reviewing Leland s translation of Florentine Nights (Vol. 
 I), Mr. N. S. Simonds 71 writes: "Mr. Leland gives in this 
 volume an excellent translation of Heine s prose. If it be said 
 in criticism that Mr. Leland has occasionally coined a stiff and 
 unnatural phrase to fit the German idiom, it may be replied that 
 such slips are the fate of translators generally. Less excusable 
 is the intrusion of too frequent footnotes which repeatedly 
 encumber rather than illuminate the page." 
 
 In his review 72 of the prose writings of Heine, W. T. 
 Brantly criticises Leland s translation as follows: "In Leland s 
 translation the felicity and flavor of the original is lost, but it is 
 no disparagement to Leland s admirable rendition to say that 
 he has not achieved the impossible." Mr. W. D. Ho wells 73 con 
 siders Leland s version of Heine a great achievement, although 
 he disapproves of Leland s commenting the text with excuses, 
 explanations and reproaches and sometimes condemnations out 
 right. But Howells does justice to the fact that the translator 
 
 71 The Dial (Chicago), Vol. 12, pp. 213-215. 
 
 72 Conservative Review, Vol. I, 1899, pp. 60-73. 
 
 7 * Harper s Magazine, Vol. 107, 1903, pp. 480-483. 
 
84 Heine s American Translators 
 
 has rendered the original with a conscience which has spared 
 no pains in comparing the French texts with the German texts in 
 which Heine sometimes wrote the original simultaneously or 
 alternately. Of the translation as a whole Howells says: "The 
 work done is one which a literary man of Leland s distinct talent 
 might well be content to have for his final work, though all 
 would be sorry to have the Hans Breitmann Ballads forgotten 
 in it." 
 
 Even the friendliest critic does not pretend that Leland s 
 version is of an even texture. They are all sensible of a certain 
 heaviness in it which cannot truly render the original, and of 
 certain attempted analogues in American and English parlance 
 which are not quite responsive to the student slang of the French 
 and German. And yet in spite of all the inaccuracies, inelegancies, 
 and shortcomings of Leland s translation, no one can examine 
 it without recognizing the fidelity and the painstaking fulness 
 with which the original has been followed and reported. Leland 
 also translated Heine s Buck der Lieder and it appeared in Phila 
 delphia in 1864. A third edition was published in New York in 
 1868. Most of these songs had already been published by Le 
 land in his translation of the Reisebilder in 1855. He now re 
 stored them to their original metres. 
 
 A man of varied cultivation and genial temperament, of 
 an ardent appreciation of his author, Leland certainly brought 
 eminent qualifications to his labor of love. He has fairly justi 
 fied the expectations of those who augured most highly of his 
 success from their knowledge of his fitness. Yet we must assent 
 to the axiom of Cervantes, that no translation of poetry can be 
 made without sensible loss of that indefinable aroma which char 
 acterizes the writing of masters in their own language. Never 
 theless Leland s versions are generally faithful, easy and elegant, 
 conveying with curious nicety, the tone as well as the meaning 
 of the original. 
 
 The only poem in this volume in which Leland has departed 
 from the original metre is Das Meer erglanzte weit hinaus. 74 If 
 
 Elster, I, 102 (Heimkehr). 
 
Heine s American Translators 85 
 
 we remember that a great proportion of words which are mono 
 syllables in English are two or three syllables in German, a pecu 
 liarity which renders literal translation into the same metre as 
 the original, and into the same number of words almost impossi 
 ble, we will be inclined to forgive Leland for giving us some 
 free renderings and paraphrases instead of translations. As an 
 example of some of Leland s blunders and failures to convey the 
 proper meaning we may take his rendering of the play on words 
 in the last lines of the poem Sei mir gegrusst, du Grosse. 75 Le 
 land translates : 
 
 Die Thore jedoch, die liessen 
 Mein Liebchen entwischen gar still ; 
 Ein Thor ist immer willig, 
 Wenn eine Thorin will. 
 as follows: 
 
 But the wicket-gate was faithless 
 Through which she escaped so still ; 
 Oh, a wicket is aways willing 
 To ape when a wicked one will. 
 
 To give some idea of Leland s ability as a translator of 
 Heine s lyrics, let us quote the following specimens as illustrat 
 ing the translator at his best : 
 
 Bergstimme. 7 * 
 
 Ein Reiter durch das Bergthal zieht. 
 
 A rider through the valley passed, 
 And sang a mournful stave,- 
 " And ride I hence to my true love s arms, 
 Or to a gloomy grave?" 
 The rocks an echo gave: 
 " A gloomy grave !" 
 
 , And onward rode the cavalier, 
 
 And still his sighs increase; 
 " So I must away to an early grave ! 
 Well, then the grave hath peace." 
 The echo would not cease: 
 The grave hath peace." 
 
 75 Elster, I, 104. 
 " Elster, I, 35. 
 
86 Heine s American Translators 
 
 And from the rider s care-worn cheek 
 A single tear there fell ; 
 " And if only the grave has peace for me, 
 Why, then, in the grave all s well !" 
 The echo gave a knell, 
 "In the grave all s well!" 
 
 Wir sassen am Fischer hanse 77 
 
 We sat by the fisher s cottage 
 And looked at the stormy tide: 
 The evening mist came rising, 
 And floating far and wide. 
 
 One by one in the lighthouse 
 The lamps shone out on high; 
 And far on the dim horizon 
 A ship went sailing by. 
 
 We spoke of storm and shipwreck, 
 Of sailors who live on the deep, 
 And how between sky and water 
 And terror and joy they sweep. 
 
 We spoke of distant countries, 
 In regions strange and fair, 
 And of the wondrous beings 
 And curious customs there ; 
 
 Of perfumes and lights on the Ganges, 
 Where trees like giants tower, 
 And of beautiful silent beings 
 Who kneel to the lotus-flower; 
 
 Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, 
 Broad-headed, wide-mouthed, and small, 
 Who crouch round their oil-fires, cooking, 
 And chatter and scream and bawl. 
 
 And the maidens earnestly listened, 
 Till at last we spoke no more: 
 The ship like a shadow had vanished, 
 And darkness fell on the shore. 
 
 77 Elster, I, 98. 
 
Heine s American Translators 87 
 
 During the progress of his translation of the Book of Songs, 
 Leland had access to the various translations from Heine s lyrics, 
 by Baskerville, Furness 78 and Bowring. The influence thus 
 exerted on his translations is clearly discernible and the numer 
 ous resemblances and uses of the same tricks in translating, 
 cannot be said to be accidental. 
 
 PUTNAM S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 (Vol. VI, 1855, p. 475 f.) 
 
 This fascinating review of Heine s works contains a few 
 specimens of translation that have not been surpassed in some 
 respects. Very few versions have rendered the subtle rhythm 
 of Heine s exquisite lyrics with such spirit and charm. Take 
 for example the translation of the Lorelei: 
 I know not what it presages, 
 That I should be saddened so ; 
 A legend of long passed ages 
 Haunts me, and will not go. 
 
 Tis cool, and the dusk is growing, 
 And quietly flows the Rhine; 
 In the sunset s golden glowing 
 The peaks of the mountains shine. 
 
 Far up in the golden beaming 
 Sits the maiden divinely fair ; 
 The gold in her robes is gleaming, 
 She is combing her golden hair. 
 
 With a golden comb and glancing 
 She is combing her tresses there; 
 And she singeth a song entrancing, 
 A weird and wonderful air ! 
 
 The heart of the boatman that hears it 
 Grows wild with a passionate love; 
 He sees not the rock as he nears it, 
 He sees but the siren above! 
 
 The waves to their fatal embraces 
 Take the boat and the boatman too; 
 Such work with her musical graces, 
 It pleases the Lorelei to do ! 
 
 78 Gems from German Verse, translated by W. H. Furness. Philadel 
 phia, 1860. 
 
88 Heine s American Translators 
 
 This translation possesses many merits not found in others. 
 It is, indeed, a lame attempt to do the immortal poem into Eng 
 lish, because it is far from literal. But, whatever fault we may 
 find with the translation, we must acknowledge that it is faithful 
 to the spirit of the original. This was the first version in which 
 the foreboding force of the word "bedeuten," in the first line, 
 was preserved. The gleam of mocking gayety which breaks out 
 in the last verse, has been invariably lost by the translators. The 
 ending of the song indicates Heine s individuality. He seems 
 to throw off the brief mood of romance and returns to skepticism 
 and satire. 
 
 The reviewer also gives a translation of some verses written 
 by Heine on the Jewish Hospital at Hamburg. As a keynote to 
 the Reisebilder, the reviewer gives the following translations from 
 the Heimkehr (Elster, I, 95 f.) : 
 
 In mein gar zu dunkles Leben. 19 
 
 On my life, too dark and gloomy, 
 Once there gleamed a vision bright, 
 Now that vision bright hath vanished, 
 And I stand in utter night. 
 
 When a child in lonely darkness 
 Feels its terrors on him crowd, 
 He, to chase his doubts and horror, 
 Shouts some cheerful song aloud. 
 
 So a noisy child, I m singing, 
 While in shade and gloom I stray; 
 Though my song be not delightful, 
 Yet it drives my fears away !" 
 
 Sag, wo ist dein schones Liebchen. SQ 
 
 Say ! where is thy fair beloved, 
 Once by thee so sweetly sung, 
 When the magic flames of passion 
 Through thy spirit flashed and sprung. 
 
 "Elster, 1,95- 
 "Elster, I, 134. 
 
Heine s American Translators 89 
 
 Oh! those flames have sunk and faded, 
 And my heart is dull and cold ; 
 And this book, an urn funereal, 
 Ashes of my love doth hold! 
 
 W. H. FURNESS. 
 
 Undoubtedly the best translation into English of Heine s 
 Nach Frankreich 20 gen swei Grenadier is the one made by W. H. 
 Furness, and was first printed in his volume of translations en 
 titled Gems from German Verse, Philadelphia, 1860. This excel 
 lent translation of the Two Grenadiers was subsequently reprinted 
 in the collection of translations entitled Pearls from Heine (Phil 
 adelphia, 1865). After making some trifling changes, Furness 
 incorporated this translation together with his translation of the 
 Lorelei into his volume of Verses, Translations from the German 
 and Hymns, which appeared in Boston in 1886. Disregarding the 
 few faulty rhymes, these translations may be regarded as attain 
 ing perfection, since they are remarkably faithful to the letter, 
 form and spirit of the original. To make a good translation of 
 the Two Grenadiers is extremely difficult, because the rhythm of 
 each line answers exactly to the mood and matter the mournful 
 iambics, "Der Andre sprach ! das Lied ist aus ; the fiery anapaests : 
 Dann reitet mein Kaiser wohl iiber mein Grab" the wildness of 
 the strophe "Was schert mich Weib, was schert mich Kind," have 
 been but seldom well rendered by translators. 
 
 In his translation of the Lorelei, Furness has been successful 
 in conveying the foreboding effect of the word "bedeuten" in the 
 first line, and in reproducing the anti-climax and mocking gayety 
 of the last lines. As an indication of Furness s ability as a trans 
 lator of German lyrics, we will quote his two translations from 
 Heine : 
 
 Nach Frankreich so gen zwei Grenadier. 
 (The Two Grenadiers.) 
 
 To France were travelling two grenadiers, 
 From prison in Russia returning, 
 And when they came to the German frontiers 
 They hung down their heads in mourning. 
 
90 Heine s American Translators 
 
 There came the heart-breaking news in their ears 
 That France was by fortune forsaken ; 
 Scattered and slain were her brave grenadiers, 
 And Napoleon, Napoleon was taken. 
 
 Then wept together those two grenadiers, 
 O er their country s departed glory; 
 "Woe s me," cried one, in the midst of his tears, 
 "My old wound, how it burns at the story!" 
 
 The other said, "The end has come, 
 What avails any longer living? 
 Yet have I a wife and child at home, 
 For an absent father grieving. 
 
 "Who cares for wife? Who cares for child? 
 Dearer thoughts in my bosom awaken; 
 Go beg, wife and child, when with hunger wild, 
 For Napoleon, Napoleon is taken ! 
 
 "Oh, grant me, brother, my only prayer, 
 When death my eyes is closing : 
 Take me to France, and bury me there ; 
 In France be my ashes reposing. 
 
 "This cross of the Legion of Honor bright, 
 Let it be near my heart, upon me ; 
 Give me my musket in my hand, 
 And gird my sabre on me. 
 
 "So will I lie, and arise no more, 
 My watch like a sentinel keeping. 
 Till I hear the cannon s thundering roar, 
 And the squadrons above me sweeping. 
 
 "Then the Emperor comes ! and his banners wave, 
 With their eagles o er him bending; 
 And I will come forth, all in arms, from my grave, 
 Napoleon, Napoleon attending!" 
 
 Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten. 
 (Lorelei.) 
 
 I do not know what it foretelleth 
 I am so sad at heart, 
 My mind on a legend dwelleth, 
 That comes and will not depart. 
 
Heine s American Translators 91 
 
 The air is cool in the twilight, 
 And the Rhine flows smoothly on. 
 The peaks of the mountains sparkle 
 In the glow of the evening sun. 
 
 High on yon rock reclineth 
 A maiden strangely fair, 
 Her golden apparel shineth, 
 She combs her golden hair. 
 
 With a golden comb she combs it, 
 A song the while sings she ; 
 All weird and wondrous is it, 
 And mighty the melody. 
 
 The boatman, as it comes o er him, 
 It seizes with fierce delight; 
 He heeds not the rocks before him, 
 His gaze is fixed on the height. 
 
 I believe in the end that the billows 
 O er the boatman and boat roll high; 
 And this with her fearful singing 
 Was done by the Lorelei. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH. 
 
 This American landscape painter, poet and translator was 
 the son of William Cranch, the eminent jurist, Chief Justice of 
 the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, 1805-1855. Chris 
 topher P. Cranch was born in Virginia in 1813 and died at 
 Cambridge, Mass., in 1892. He entered the ministry, but soon 
 retired to devote himself to art. He published Poems (1844), 
 The Bird and the Bell (1875), Ariel and Caliban (1887), and 
 prose tales for children. Some of his translations are excellent. 
 His translation of Heine s Lorelei may be found in the volume 
 entitled Folk Songs, edited by J. W. Palmer, New York, 1861. 
 This version is quite literal, but the last strophe is badly rendered. 
 Heine s individuality, so completely preserved in the half smile 
 which plays upon his lips as he ends his song, is lost in Cranch s 
 rendition. 
 
g2 Heine s American Translators 
 
 The Lorelei. 
 
 I know not what it presages, 
 This heart with sadness fraught; 
 Tis a tale of the olden ages, 
 That will not from my thought. 
 
 The air grows cool and darkles; 
 The Rhine flows calmly on; 
 The mountain summit sparkles 
 In the light of the setting sun. 
 
 There sits in soft reclining, 
 A maiden wondrous fair, 
 With golden raiment shining, 
 And combing her golden hair. 
 
 With a comb of gold she combs it ; 
 And combing, low singeth she, 
 A song of a strange, sweet sadness, 
 A wonderful melody. 
 
 The sailor shudders, as o er him 
 The strain comes floating by; 
 He sees not the cliffs before him, 
 He only looks on high. 
 
 Ah ! round him the dark waves, flinging 
 Their arms, draw him slowly down ; 
 And this, with her wild, sweet singing, 
 The Lorelei has done. 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER (842-1881). 
 
 This well-known American poet, critic and litterateur, al 
 though possessing a good knowledge of German, has given us 
 only two metrical translations from that language. Lanier wrote 
 a sonnet in German to Nannette Falk-Auerbach. This sonnet 
 was originally written in German and published in a German daily 
 of Baltimore, while the author s translation appeared at the same 
 time in the Baltimore Gazette. The two translations, which he 
 made from the German, are Herder s Spring Greeting and 
 Heine s Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam. Few poems surpass this 
 lyric either in beauty and simplicity of form or depth of expres 
 sion. How felicitously Lanier has rendered these characteristics 
 
Heine s American Translators 93 
 
 may be seen from his rendition, which follows. It is dated 1864 
 and was made by Lanier while at Point Lookout Prison : 
 
 The Palm and the Pine. 81 
 
 In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, 
 Upon a wintry height ; 
 It sleeps ; around it snows have thrown 
 A covering of white. 
 
 It dreams forever of a Palm 
 That far i the Morning-land, 
 Stands silent in a most sad calm, 
 Midst of the burning sand. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER (1810-1860). 
 
 This noted American clergyman, lecturer, reformer and 
 author was born in Lexington, Mass., and died in Florence, Italy. 
 He was a conspicuous advocate of the abolition of slavery and 
 rendered his country its debtor by his eminent service in that 
 cause. 
 
 Some of Parker s translations of German poetry are remark 
 ably well done, but many are left in an imperfect condition. 
 There are specimens from Hymns of the Mystics, of Paul Ger- 
 hardt, from the poetry of the Boy s Wonder-Horn, from Schwab, 
 Simon Dach, Popular Collections, Riickert, Korner, Geibel, Opitz 
 and Heine. Some translations from Heine, which he made while 
 he was meditating an article upon that poet, are well done. The 
 translations from Parker, which we shall quote, are taken from 
 The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by John 
 Weiss, New York, 1864 (Vol. II, 31-36). Here is Parker s 
 version of Heine s "Vorrede zur dritten Auflage" of his Buch 
 der Lieder (1839), beginning with the line, "Das ist der alte 
 Marchenwald." 
 
 This is the old poetic wood; 
 The linden s breath comes stealing; 
 And glancing wondrously, the moon 
 Enchanteth every feeling. 
 
 * Poems by Sidney Lanier, edited by his wife. New York, 1899, p. 232. 
 
94 Heine s American Translators 
 
 I walked therein, and as I went 
 Above I heard a quiring: 
 It was the nightingale; she sang 
 Of love and love s desiring. 
 
 She sang of love and love s woe, 
 Of laughter and of weeping ; 
 She joy d so sadly, plain d so gay, 
 That dreams came back from sleeping. 
 
 I walked therein and as I went, 
 Before me saw, extending 
 In ample space, a castle huge, 
 Its gables high ascending. 
 
 Windows were closed, and everywhere 
 A silence and a mourning, 
 As if in those deserted walls 
 Was quiet death sojourning. 
 
 Before the door a sphinx there lay, 
 Part joy, part fear, half human; 
 Body and claws a lion s were, 
 The breast and head, a woman, 
 
 A woman fair; her pallid face 
 Spoke of most wild desiring; 
 The silent lips were arched with smiles, 
 A tranquil trust inspiring. 
 
 The nightingale, too, sweetly sang, 
 Could I resist her? Never! 
 But as I kissed the handsome face 
 My peace was gone forever! 
 
 Living became the marble form, 
 The stone began to shiver, 
 She drank my kisses fiery glow 
 With thirsty lips that quiver. 
 
 She almost drank away my breath, 
 And then, with passion bending, 
 She coiled me round, my mortal flesh 
 With lion-talons rending. 
 
Heine s American Translators 95 
 
 Ecstatic torture, woeful bliss! 
 Joy, anguish, without measure! 
 And while the talons grimly tear, 
 Her kisses give such pleasure! 
 
 The nightingale sang, "Handsome sphinx ! 
 
 Love, what is intended 
 That all thy blessed beatitudes 
 With death-throes thou hast blended ? 
 
 "Oh, handsome sphinx, come solve for me 
 The riddle, tell the wonder ! 
 For many a thousand years thereon 
 Thought I, and still I ponder." 
 
 Parker also gave us an impromptu translation from memory 
 of Heine s Lorelei. How musically Parker could render Heine s 
 lyrics is well illustrated by his admirable translations of Und 
 zviissten s die Blumen, die kleinen; Du hast Diamanten und Pcr- 
 len; Die Linde bluhte, die Nachtigall sang; Du bist wie cine 
 Blnme and Mein, ivir war en Kind+er, of which we shall only quote 
 the last two as perhaps presenting Parker at his best in translating 
 Heine. These two matchless lyrics have not been better trans 
 lated into English. 
 
 Du bist wie cine Blnme. 
 
 Thou art a little flower, 
 So pure, and fair, and gay, 
 
 1 look on thee, and sadness 
 Steals to my heart straightway. 
 
 My hands I feel directed 
 Upon thy head to lay, 
 Praying that God may keep thee 
 So pure and fair and gay. 
 
 Mein, zvir waren Kinder. 
 
 My child, when we were children, 
 Two children small and gay, 
 We crept into the hen-house 
 And laid us under the hay. 
 
96 Heine s American Translators 
 
 We crow d as do the cockerels, 
 When people passed the wood, 
 " Ki-ker-ki!" and they fancied 
 It was the cock that crow d. 
 
 The chests which lay in the court-yard, 
 We paper d them as fair, 
 Making a house right famous, 
 And dwelt together there. 
 
 The old cat .of our neighbor 
 Oft came to make a call; 
 We made her bow and courtesy, 
 And compliment and all. 
 
 We ask d with friendly question, 
 How she was getting on; 
 To many an ancient pussy, 
 The same we since have done. 
 
 In sensible discoursing 
 
 We sat like aged men, 
 
 And told how, in our young days, 
 
 All things had better been. 
 
 That faith, love, and religion 
 From earth are vanish d quite, 
 And told how dear is coffee, 
 And money is so tight. 
 
 But gone are childish gambols, 
 And all things fleeting prove; 
 Money, the world, our young days, 
 Religion, truth, and love. 
 
 HIRAM CORSON. 
 
 The two translations, which Mr. Corson made of Heine s 
 songs, are to be found in Pearls from Heine, Philadelphia, 1865. 
 This pamphlet is not readily accessible, but may be found in the 
 library of the American Philosophical Society. In this volume of 
 translations Corson has contributed his versions of Ich stand 
 gelehnt an dem Mast, and Am Fenster stand die Mutter (Wall- 
 fahrt nach Kevlaar). Both are admirably done, and the sim 
 plicity and melodious gliding of the rhythm are well reproduced. 
 
Heine s American Translators 97 
 
 We would gladly cite both translations, but owing to the length 
 of die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar, we must content our self with only 
 the first, which, however, will amply attest the merits of Corson s 
 ability. 
 
 Ich stand gelehnt an dem Mast. 
 
 I stand supported by the mast, 
 And watch the wavelets free. 
 Adieu, my beauteous Fatherland! 
 My ship sails fast from thee! 
 
 I m gliding by my loved one s home, 
 That looks upon the sea ; 
 I wildly gaze at its glistening panes, 
 But no hand waves to me. 
 
 Away, ye tears ! from my eyes away ! 
 That I may clearly see; 
 My fainting heart, be stout and strong, 
 And fail not now to me. 
 
 J. W. MONTCLAIR. 
 
 We have only been able to find one translation from Heine 
 by Montclair, and this in the volume before mentioned, Pearls 
 from Heine. Consequently we can say but little regarding this 
 translator. With the exception of three lines, the translation is 
 remarkably accurate and liberal, and preserves the spirit and tone 
 of the original admirably. 
 
 Auf Flilgeln des Gesanges. 
 
 On wings of song and music, 
 Beloved, I d waft thee away 
 To the flowering banks of Ganges, 
 Forever blooming and gay. 
 
 Its floral realm shall receive thee, 
 Illumed by the silent moon ; 
 There the lotus-flowers are longing 
 To greet their companion soon. 
 
 There violets nod and titter, 
 Or gaze on the stars above; 
 And roses with eloquent fragrance. 
 Recount their legends of love. 
 
98 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Within the spice-groves are lurking 
 The innocent, cunning gazelles ; 
 And distant is heard the rushing 
 Of the holy tide as it swells. 
 
 Under the palm will we linger, 
 Housed from the open skies; 
 In raptures of love and contentment, 
 Dreaming with open eyes. 
 
 WM. H. FURNESS, JR. 
 
 Wm. H. Furness, Jr., the brother of Horace Howard 
 Furness, also contributed one translation to the Pearls from 
 Heine namely, the translation of the poem from the Lyrical 
 Intermezzo, beginning with the line "Die Lotusblume angstigt." 
 This translation possesses all the distinguished characteristics of 
 the other translations in the Pearls from Heine, and we can 
 hardly refrain from expressing our regret that we have not more 
 versions from Heine by the same men. 
 
 The Lotus-Flower. 
 (Die Lotus-Blume angstigt). 
 
 The lotus-flower pineth 
 Beneath day s splendor bright : 
 With head all bent and drooping, 
 Dreaming, she waits the night. 
 
 The moon, who is her lover, 
 Awakes her with its light, 
 And she lifteth to it fondly 
 Her lily face so white. 
 
 She blooms, and glows, and glistens, 
 And gazes calmly above; 
 She sighs, and weeps and trembles, 
 From love and the pain of love. 
 
 T. EMBLET OSMUN. 
 
 Once more are we placed in the embarrassing situation of 
 endeavoring to form a judgment of a man s ability as a trans 
 lator with only one specimen extant. This is his translation of 
 
Heine s American Translators 99 
 
 Heine s Du bist wie eine Blume, so often badly rendered even 
 by excellent translators. That Osmun s version is far from per 
 fect will be obvious after examination. His translation is to be 
 found in Pearls from Heine. 
 
 Du bist wie eine Blume. 
 
 Thou art as some fair flower, 
 So chaste, so gay, so sweet: 
 I look on thee, and Sorrow 
 Finds in my heart a seat. 
 
 I feel as I were prompted 
 On thy head my hands to lay, 
 And pray to God to keep thee 
 So sweet, so chaste, so gay. 
 
 KATE HILLARD. 
 
 In her article on Heine in Lippincott s Magazine (Vol. X, 
 pp. 187 f. ), Kate Hillard gives a few specimens of translation. 
 She finds the mournful secret of Heine s poetic strength in the 
 words of the poem, Aus meinen Thrdnen spriessen (Elster, I, 
 66), which she renders rather poorly, especially the first strophe, in 
 which neither the rhythm nor the meaning is accurately or felici 
 tously translated. The second strophe is a decided improvement : 
 
 Aus meinen Thrdnen spriessen. 
 
 From my tears sweet flowers are springing 
 All over the blossoming dales, 
 And my sighs are changed by magic 
 To a chorus of nightingales. 
 
 And if thou wilt love me, darling, 
 To thee the flowers I ll bring, 
 And before thy chamber window 
 The nightingales shall sing. 
 
 This hardly conveys the effect of Heine s poetry, the subtle 
 aroma of beauty has fled, which is the greatest charm of the 
 poem. Far more successful is her rendering of the often trans 
 lated beginning of the Nachts in der Kajute (Elster, I, 171 ), the 
 perfection of whose melody it is impossible to reproduce. 
 
ioo Heine s American Translators 
 
 Das Meer hat seine Perlen. 
 
 The sea hath its pearls, 
 The heavens have their stars, 
 But my heart, my heart, 
 My heart has its love. 
 
 Great are the sea and the heavens, 
 But greater is my heart, 
 And brighter than pearls or stars 
 Sparkles and glows my love. 
 
 Thou youthful little maiden, 
 Come to my mighty heart: 
 My heart and the sea and the heavens 
 Are melting away with love. 
 
 While she failed to reproduce the exquisite melody of the 
 above-cited poem by neglecting the feminine endings and rhymes, 
 she certainly secured literal exactness of meaning in the very 
 rhyme and rhythm of the original in her translation of the poem 
 beginning with the line Mit schwarzen Segeln segelt mein Schiff 
 (Elster, I, 229), which she translates as follows: 
 
 With black sails hoisted, sails my ship 
 Far over the tossing tea: 
 Thou knowest well how sad I am, 
 Yet still tormentest me. 
 
 Thy heart is faithless as the wind, 
 It changes unceasingly: 
 With black sails hoisted, sails my ship 
 Far over the tossing sea. 
 
 JOHN B. PHILLIPS. 
 
 John B. Phillips was a native of Kennet, Pa., and a friend 
 of Bayard Taylor. Many of the most confidential letters written 
 by Taylor in early life were addressed to Phillips. After study 
 ing medicine in Paris, Phillips settled in St. Paul, Minn., where 
 he passed the rest of his life in the practice of his profession and 
 in the office of State Commissioner of Statistics. He was a man 
 of strong character, and of marked literary tastes, as his trans- 
 
Heine s American Translators 101 
 
 lations from Heine and other German poets as well as his own 
 sonnets show. Dr. Phillips died at the age of fifty-six, April 27, 
 1877. Bayard Taylor wrote in the New York Tribune an 
 obituary notice of his friend. 
 
 WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. 
 
 W. W. Story was born at Salem, Mass., in 1819, and died 
 in Italy in 1895. ^ e was tne son f Joseph Story, the eminent 
 American jurist, and achieved considerable fame as a sculptor and 
 poet. In the Poets and Poetry of Europe, by H. W. Longfellow 
 (Philadelphia, 1870), on page 351, we find the following transla 
 tion, by W. W. Story, of Heine s poem, Ein Fichtenbaum 
 steht einsam (Elster, I, 78) : 
 
 A lonely fir-tree standeth 
 On a height where north winds blow, 
 It sleepeth, with whitened garment, 
 Enshrouded by ice and snow. 
 It dreameth of a palm-tree, 
 That far in the Eastern land, 
 Lonely and silent, mourneth 
 On its burning shelf of sand. 
 
 SIMON ADLER STERN. 
 
 The scintillations 82 Stern gives us are passages from essays 
 and letters not before translated, and that weird, romantic mono 
 logue called Florentine Nights. In this translation Heine loses 
 that softness of outline, that play of light and shadow, which 
 characterize him; he becomes harsh, sharp, sometimes shabby, 
 and you see how occasionally he forces his fantastic attitudes. 
 However, there are passages of the Florentine Nights which do 
 not suffer mortally from translation, and one of these is that 
 very Heinesque hit where Max tells of his passion for the 
 beautiful statue which he found when a boy in the neglected 
 garden of his mother s chateau. The other scintillations are as 
 satisfactory as such selections can very well be; but each lover 
 
 * Scintillations from the Prose Works of Hcinrich Heine, translated 
 from the German by S. A. Stern. New York, 1873. 
 
IO2 Heine s American Translators 
 
 of Heine will find fault with them, as not the best, and, in his 
 turn, would doubtless choose passages which Stern would have 
 condemned. The book is prefaced by a very sensibly written 
 sketch of Heine s life and some study of his genius; and this 
 also will not meet with much favor from Heine s habitual 
 readers. Indeed, Heine lends himself as little as any author 
 that ever lived to the purposes of the biographer or critic per 
 haps, because he has himself so thoroughly done the work of 
 autobiography and self-criticism, that nothing really remains 
 for others. 
 
 The Nation in a review of Stern s translation says: "Mr. 
 Stern has succeeded in putting Heine into an English dress, and 
 in doing it so well that those who read the great original will 
 still find pleasure in seeing with what ingenuity and studious 
 zeal our uncouth English has been subdued to the interpretations 
 of the wittiest of Germans, and the most delicate of word- 
 painters in French or German." By giving excerpts, in brief 
 compass, as Stern does in the latter part of the volume, there 
 is left on the reader s mind an impression of abruptness and 
 forced wit, as if Heine were constantly attempting to be epigram 
 matic; whereas, part of the greatest charm of Heine s style are 
 the flashes of wit and humor, touches of pathos, profound philo 
 sophical thoughts, beautiful word pictures, stinging sarcasms 
 all linked together by the most natural and ingenious gradations. 
 Of all writers, Heine most abounds in startling surprises, para 
 doxes, and anti-climaxes, yet such is his marvellous skill of com 
 bination that amid all his extravagant fancies nothing seems 
 forced or unreal. No writer better bears being quoted in brief, 
 witty excerpts, yet none loses more by such treatment than Heine. 
 
 J. M. MERRICK. 
 
 After Merrick was graduated from Harvard University, 
 as Bachelor of Science, he became instructor in Chemistry in the 
 Lawrence Scientific School. In 1874 he published in Boston 
 his specimens of translations in a volume entitled, Nugae Inutiles 
 This book contains translations from Horace, Catullus, Homei 
 and Heine. The original Latin or German words are followed 
 
Heine s American Translators 103 
 
 by metrical translations into English. Merrick s translations 
 are, for the most part, faithful to the letter and form, although 
 he often fails to reproduce the melody and spirit. As a speci 
 men of his skill as a translator let us cite his version of Ich bin die 
 Prinzessin Use (Elster, I, 159). 
 
 Princess Use (pages 116-119). 
 
 I am the Princess Use, 
 And I live in Ilsenstein, 
 Come with me to my castle, 
 And a happy lot is thine. 
 
 Thy head will I besprinkle 
 With water fresh and fair : 
 Thy sorrow all thou shalt forget, 
 Though sick at heart with care. 
 
 My soft white arms shall hold thee 
 Close to my whiter breast, 
 And lulled with dreams of fairyland, 
 Thou there shalt take thy rest. 
 
 I will kiss thee and embrace thee, 
 As I kissed and held the head 
 Of the noble Emperor Henry, 
 Who now is with the dead. 
 
 The dead are dead and buried, 
 And only the living live ; 
 But I am fair and blooming, 
 With a merry heart to give. 
 
 My heart throbs neath the water, 
 And my crystal castle rings : 
 The knight with the ladies dances, 
 The squire huzzas and sings. 
 
 Mid the rustle of silken dresses, 
 
 The clatter of spurs is heard; 
 
 And with fiddles and horns and kettle-drums 
 
 The listener s blood is stirred. 
 
 But thee shall the arms encircle 
 That held the Emperor fast, 
 And stopped his ears with their fingers 
 When I heard the trumpets blast. 
 
IO4 Heine s American Translators 
 
 For I am the Princess Use, 
 And in Ilsenstein I dwell: 
 Come home with me to my castle 
 And all with thee shall be well. 
 
 To point out some of the shortcomings of Merrick s rendi 
 tions we need only mention a few examples. In the last line of 
 the fifth strophe, "Mein lachendes Herze bebt," is badly rendered 
 by the line With a merry heart to give." Still worse is Mer 
 rick s perversion of the meaning in his translation of strophe six : 
 
 Komm in mein Schloss herunter, 
 In mein Kristallenes Schloss. 
 Dort tanzen die Fraulein und Ritter, 
 Es jubelt der Knappentross. 
 
 The third line in both the second and the third strophes, 
 has the wrong metre. Somewhat better is Merrick s translation 
 of Die Jungfrau schldft in der Kammer (Elster, I, 106) : 
 
 The maiden sleeps in her chamber, 
 The tremulous moon looks in; 
 Outside is singing and ringing, 
 And waltzing tunes begin. 
 
 " I will look and see from my window 
 Who troubles my rest outside." 
 A skeleton stands in the moonlight there, 
 And fiddles and sings beside. 
 
 " Thou didst promise me a dance once, 
 And thy word thou dost not keep, 
 Tonight is a ball in the churchyard. 
 We ll dance while other folk sleep." 
 
 He seizes the maiden roughly, 
 And pulls her out of her bed : 
 She follows the bones that, singing 
 And fiddling, stride ahead. 
 
 He fiddles and dances and capers, 
 And rattles his bones long dead, 
 And horridly in the moonlight 
 Keeps nodding and nodding his head. 
 
Heine s American Translators 105 
 
 Other translations from Heine in this volume by Merrick 
 are: Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne, Freundschaft, 
 Liebe, Stein der Weiscn, Mensch verspotte nicht den Teufel, 
 Das ist des Fruhlings traurige Lust and Sapphire sind die Augen 
 dein, of which we shall only quote the last one: 
 
 Sapphires are thy eyes, 
 So lonely and so sweet ; 
 Thrice happy is the man 
 Whom they with love do greet. 
 
 A diamond is thy heart, 
 
 That glorious splendor throws; 
 
 Thrice happy is the man 
 
 For whom that dear heart glows. . 
 
 Rubies are thy lips, 
 None fairer are to see 
 Thrice happy is the man 
 Whose rubies bright these be. 
 
 Could I but find this man 
 In a lonesome greenwood, 
 His luck should all leave him, 
 On the spot where he stood. 
 
 S. L. FLEISHMAN. 
 
 In his Prose Miscellanies from Heinrdch Heine, Philadel 
 phia, 1876, Fleishman gives us translations from The Salon, The 
 Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopske, Religion and Philoso 
 phy in Germany, The Romantic School } The Schwabian School, 
 The Gods in Exile and Confessions. Unfortunately the translator 
 has resorted in this volume of selections to extensive expurgating 
 and trimming. Nobody can translate Heine without facing the 
 problem whether to present the great man as he was, or to de 
 stroy much of the psychological value of his work by injudicious 
 trimming to suit the translator s idea of public taste. In making 
 this selection of Heine s prose writings for publication, the trans 
 lator was bewildered by an embarrassment of riches. To give 
 only these few pages while so many delightful passages are 
 omitted is very unsatisfactory and misrepresents the genius of 
 
io6 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Heine. However, whatever Fleishman selected for translation 
 he certainly rendered faithfully and in many cases happily; yet 
 there are passages where the brilliant, witty, poetic style of 
 Heine s prose appears dull and insipid in the translation. The 
 book also contains a very excellent sketch, biographical and 
 critical, of Heine and his works. In this sketch Fleishman fol 
 lows the account of Strodtmann s Heine s Leben und Werke. 
 Six years later (1882), Fleishman published his translation of 
 Heine s Romantic School, in New York. This translation was 
 undertaken at the suggestion of his wife and was completed by 
 her assistance. In addition to the Romantic School, this volume 
 contains a translation of the Suabian Mirror and Heine s intro 
 duction to an illustrated edition of Don Quixote. 
 
 Realizing that he had made a mistake in trimming the prose 
 of Heine in his previous volume of translations, Fleishman 
 profited by this opportunity to acknowledge his error, conse 
 quently in this volume he. presents Heine as he is, and is careful 
 to avoid distorting the meaning. He leaves the task of vindica 
 tion to Heine himself. In the preface to this translation of the 
 Romantic School, Fleishman devotes some space to calling atten 
 tion to the significance of Heine as critic and as a writer on 
 German literature, especially for foreigners. As far as we have 
 been able to observe, the translator has rendered the German with 
 felicity and accuracy, and we have no hesitation in saying that it 
 is a decided improvement on Fleishman s previous efforts in 
 translating, as indicated by his Prose Miscellanies. 
 
 JAMES K. HOSMER. 
 
 Of Hosmer as a critic we have already spoken. His essay 
 on Heine, 83 in his History of German Literature, contains numer 
 ous translations of excerpts from Heine s prose, and metrical 
 translations of passages from Deutschland, ein Wintermdrchen, 
 some stanzas from the New Alexander directed against the 
 King of Prussia, The Princess Use, and the lines Heine wrote to 
 
 8 M Short History of German Literature, by J. K. Hosmer. New York, 
 1878, pp. 497-533- 
 
Heine s American Translators 107 
 
 his wife when he was on his death bed. Hosmer s translation 
 of the Prinzessin Use (Elster, I, 159), is literal but not poetic. 
 The rhythm, is poorly reproduced and the melodious flow is 
 almost absent. The rhyme in strophe three is faulty. 
 
 Princess Use. 
 Ich bin die Prinzessin Use. 
 
 I am the Princess Use ; 
 To my castle come with me, 
 To the Ilsenstein my dwelling, 
 And we will happy be. 
 
 Thy forehead will I moisten, 
 
 From my clear, flowing rill ; 
 
 Thy griefs thou shalt leave behind thee, 
 
 Thou soul with sorrow so ill ! 
 
 Upon my bosom snowy, 
 
 Within my white arms fold, 
 
 There shalt thou be and dream a dream 
 
 Of the fairy lore of old. 
 
 I ll kiss thee, and softly cherish, 
 As once I cherished and kissed 
 The dear, dear Kaiser Heinrich, 
 So long ago at rest. 
 
 The dead are dead forever, 
 The living alone live still ; 
 And I am blooming and beautiful, 
 My heart doth laugh and thrill. 
 
 O come down into my castle, 
 My castle crystal bright! 
 There dance the knights and maidens, 
 There revels each servant-wight. 
 
 There rustle the garments silken, 
 There rattles the spur below ; 
 The dwarfs drum and trumpet and fiddle 
 And the bugles merrily blow. 
 
 Yet my arm shall softly enclose thee, 
 As it Kaiser Heinrich enclosed: 
 When the trumpets music thundered, 
 His ears with my hands I closed. 
 
io8 Heine s American Translators 
 
 HENRY PHILLIPS, JR. 
 
 Henry Phillips was formerly librarian of the American 
 Philosophical Society, and in several volumes of translations 
 from the German has shown great skill as a translator of poetry. 
 He has, indeed, succeeded in surpassing the originals, especially 
 in the case of some obscure German poets. In 1878 Phillips pro 
 duced his Poems Translated from the Spanish and German. 
 It appeared in Philadelphia, and one hundred copies were printed, 
 exclusively for private circulation, as in the case of his later 
 volume of translations from German poets. Both of these are 
 to be found in the Library of the American Philosophical Society 
 in Philadelphia. Unfortunately this excellent translator devoted 
 most of his attention to adorning inferior German poets in splen 
 did English dress and he shunned the masters almost entirely. 
 From Heine he gives us only three translations and these are 
 contained in his first volume, Poems Translated from the Spanish 
 and German. In the poemjZwei Brilder, Phillips reproduces the 
 meaning, spirit and tone admirably, but departs at times from 
 the trochaic rhythm, and in Belsazer some of the rhymes are 
 bad. Since these translations from Heine by Phillips are so ex 
 cellent, and because the volume in which they are to be found 
 is to most people inaccessible, we shall quote all of them. They 
 will serve as specimens of Phillips ability as a translator of 
 German verse. 
 
 Zwei Briider (Elster, I, 36). 
 
 Oben auf der Bergespitze. 
 
 The Duel. 
 
 High on yonder mountain s summit, 
 Stands a castle veiled in night ; 
 In the valley gleam bright lightnings, 
 Whirling swords with blazing light. 
 
 Those stern fighters are two brothers. 
 Madly hungering for a life; 
 Speak and tell us now the reason 
 Of this wild nefarious strife? 
 
Heine s American Translators log 
 
 For the love of Countess Laura 
 Have both hearts with wrath been swayed, 
 And they have drawn their murderous weapons 
 To possess the beauteous maid. 
 
 Which one of the two combatants 
 Can the fair one s favor boast ? 
 Neither has she more inclined to 
 Sword! thy point shall do the most! 
 
 And they duel, bold, determined, 
 Clashing, flashing, blow on blow, 
 Thrusting blindly in mad darkness, 
 Stumbling midst the bushes low. 
 
 Woe, ye fratricidal monsters! 
 Woe, ye vale of bloody zeal ! 
 Each one falls to earth prostrated 
 By his brother s bloody steel. 
 
 Generations have departed, 
 Centuries have rolled away; 
 On the hill-side, sadly gloomy, 
 Stands the castle to this day. 
 
 But when eve falls on that valley, 
 Strange the tale the peasants say, 
 As the church bells toll out midnight, 
 Once more clangs the brothers fray! 
 
 Belsazer (Elster, I, 46). 
 Die Mitternacht zog ndher schon. 
 
 The midnight hour onwards passed ; 
 All Babylon was sunk in rest. 
 
 Save where the palace stood on high, 
 Belshazzar held wild revelry; 
 
 Where in the chambers filled with lights, 
 The king caroused among his knights. 
 
 Around sate his minions, in purple s rich fold, 
 And quaffed mighty bumpers from beakers of gold. 
 
 Deep clanged the bright goblets, wild reveled the guest. 
 The king s stubborn heart swelled with pride in his breast. 
 
no Heine s American Translators 
 
 The wine s reddest glow burns in his mad cheeks, 
 And many a wicked thought he speaks. 
 
 And blindly his madness his soul onwards spurred 
 Till he blasphemed the Godhead with direst of word. 
 
 And he swore and he raged in his infamies wild, 
 While the servile crew mean flatteries smiled. 
 
 And he shouted an order with eyes aflame 
 Away one hurried and back quick came, 
 
 And brought of gold vessels a heavy load 
 That once served the worship of Israel s God. 
 
 And with his rash hands polluted by sin, 
 
 The king seized a chalice and poured the wine in. 
 
 And raised it to his lips so vile, 
 
 And drained it and cried with drunken smile. 
 
 "Jehovah, I to thee in scorn, 
 
 For I am the king in Babylon!" 
 
 Yet scarce had the sound died away on the ear 
 In his bosom there came a gruesome fear. 
 
 And shouting and laughter ceased sudden with all, 
 And silence like death reigned supreme in the hall. 
 
 While in horror and terror and wonder all stand, 
 For lo ! on the wall seems a human hand ! 
 
 That wrote and wrote on the marble so white 
 With letters of fire, and vanished from sight. 
 
 With staring eyes and bated breath 
 The king sat motionless, a living death. 
 
 And the roistering crowd were filled with dread, 
 Were silent and motionless as dead. 
 
 The Magi came at the king s command, 
 But none these words could understand. 
 
 That very night by his menial train 
 That impious monarch in sleep was slain. 
 
Heine s American Translators 1 1 1 
 
 Hor ich das Liedchen klingen (Elster, I, 81). 
 
 When er I hear that song again 
 My darling used to sing, 
 My breast is racked with savage pain, 
 My heart doth madly spring. 
 
 A gloomy yearning sends my soul 
 Into the forest drear, 
 Where misery beyond control 
 Bursts forth in many a tear. 
 
 THEODORE TILTON. 
 
 Theodore Tilton, editor, poet and lecturer, was born in 
 New York in 1835. He was the editor of The Independent and 
 founder of the Golden Age. He is known chiefly from his suit 
 against Henry Ward Beecher begun in 1874, which resulted in 
 the disagreement of the jury. Among his poems are Thou and 
 I, a lyric of humn life, and translations from Goethe and Heine. 
 In his volume of poems published in New York in 1880, Tilton 
 incorporated his translations of Goethe s Konig in Thule and 
 Heine s Ritter Olaf, translated in the original metres. This is 
 perhaps the most literal rendering of Ritter Olaf in English, 
 and the spirit of the original is fairly well reproduced. 
 
 Ritter Olaf (Elster, I, 273). 
 Vor dem Dome stehen Zwci Manner. 
 
 At the door of the Cathedral 
 Stand two men together waiting; 
 Both are clad in scarlet raiment; 
 One the king and one the headsman, 
 
 And the king saith to the headsman, 
 " From the Psalm the priests are singing, 
 Now methinks the marriage is ended: 
 Headsman, hold thy good axe ready!" 
 
 Clang of bells and peals of organ! 
 Forth the folks stream from the temple; 
 Motley is the throng, and, midway, 
 Come the bridal pair, be jeweled. 
 
H2 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Pale and full of fear and sorrow 
 Looks the king s all beauteous daughter; 
 Bluff and blithesome looks Sir Olaf, 
 And his red mouth, it is smiling! 
 
 And with smiling red mouth, saith he 
 To the king, who, standeth scowling, 
 " Sire, this day, my head requirest : 
 
 " I this day must die ! O let me 
 Live the day through till the midnight, 
 That my nuptials I may honor 
 With a wedding-feast and torch-dance ! 
 
 " Let me, let me live, I pray thee, 
 Till the last cup shall be emptied 
 Till the last dance shall be finished ! 
 Let me live until the midnight !" 
 
 And the king saith to the headsman, 
 " To our son we grant a respite 
 Let him live until the midnight! 
 Headsman, hold thy good axe ready!" 
 
 II. 
 
 Sir Olaf at the festive board 
 
 Drains the last flagon that is poured; 
 
 Close clinging to his side 
 
 His sobbing bride! 
 
 Before the door stands the headsman! 
 
 The waltz begins; and Sir Olaf the waist 
 
 Of his young wife clasps, and away in wild haste 
 
 They whirl to the glitter and glance 
 
 Of the last torch-dance ! 
 
 Before the door stands the headsman! 
 
 The blare of the trumpets is loud and glad; 
 The sigh of the flutes is soft and sad ; 
 Each guest beholding the dancing twain, 
 Feels a shiver of pain 
 Before the door stands the headsman ! 
 
Heine s American Translators 113 
 
 And while they dance in the echoing room, 
 To the ear of the bride thus whispers the groom, 
 " How dearly I love thee can never be told 
 The grave is so cold !" 
 Before the door stands the headsman! 
 
 III. 
 
 Sir Olaf it is noon of night! 
 Thy life has filled its measure; 
 Thou with the daughter of a prince 
 Hast had unhallowed pleasure. 
 
 The monks, with murmuring voice, begin 
 The prayer for the dead s redeeming; 
 The man in red, on a scaffold black, 
 Stands with his white axe gleaming. 
 
 Sir Olaf strides to the castle yard: 
 The lights and the sword shine brightly; 
 The red mouth of the knight, it smiles! 
 And he crieth gayly and lightly : 
 
 " I bless the sun, I bless the moon, 
 And the stars that in heaven glitter; 
 And I also bless the little birds 
 That in the tree-tops twitter. 
 
 " I bless the sea, I bless the land, 
 And the dewy meads of clover; 
 I bless the violets mild as the eyes 
 Of my darling to her lover! 
 
 " Those violet eyes of thine, my wife, 
 Now sending my soul to heaven! 
 And I also bless the lilac-tree 
 Where thou to my arms wert given !" 
 
 MARK TWAIN (Samuel L. Clemens). 
 
 In Chapter XVI of A Tramp Abroad (1880), Mark Twain 
 gives an amusing account of the Lorelei legend. The air of the 
 Lorelei he tells us, he could not endure at first, but by and by 
 it began to take hold of him. He prints in this chapter the words, 
 music and the legend of the Lorelei, and, after some droll re- 
 
ii4 Heine s American Translators 
 
 marks on the legend he says: "I have a prejudice against the 
 people who print things in a foreign language and add 
 no translation. When I am the reader, and the author 
 considers me able to do the translating myself, he pays 
 me quite a nice compliment, but if he would do the trans 
 lating for me I would try to get along without the 
 compliment. If I were at home, no doubt, I would get a 
 translation of this poem, but I am abroad and can t; therefore 
 I will make a translation myself. It may not be a good one, for 
 poetry is out of my line, but it will serve my purpose which is, 
 to give the un-German young girl a jingle of words to hang 
 the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by 
 some one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical 
 thought from one language to another." 
 
 Then Mark Twain gives the following translation of 
 Heine s Lorelei: 
 
 I cannot divine what it meaneth, 
 
 This haunting nameless pain: 
 
 A tale of the bygone ages 
 
 Keeps brooding through my brain: 
 
 The faint air cools in the gloaming, 
 And peaceful flows the Rhine, 
 The thirsty summits are drinking 
 The sunset s flooding wine; 
 
 The loveliest maiden is sitting 
 High-throned on yon blue air, 
 Her golden jewels are shining, 
 She combs her golden hair; 
 
 She combs with a comb that is golden, 
 And sings a weird refrain 
 That steeps in deadly enchantment 
 The listener s ravished brain. 
 
 The doomed in his drifting shallop, 
 Is tranced with the sad sweet tone, 
 He sees not the yawning breakers, 
 He sees but the maid alone. 
 
Heine s American Translators 115 
 
 The pitiless billows engulf him ! 
 So perish sailor and bark; 
 And this, with her baleful singing, 
 Is the Lorelei s gruesome work. 
 
 As Mark Twain has explained the purpose of his transla 
 tion of the Lorelei we must refrain from judging it severely. 
 We need merely note that he has failed to convey the foreboding 
 effect of bedeuten in the first line, and did not reproduce the 
 sudden change to mockery in the last strophe as indicated in 
 the line "Ich glaube die Wellen verschlingen" . But in all other 
 respects the translation is admirable, and the melodious gliding 
 of the rhythm is delightful. Mark Twain was a perfect German 
 scholar, and of this fact, his famous essay on the German lan 
 guage is sufficient evidence. Delicious and characteristic are Mark 
 Twain s remarks on Garnham s translation of the Lorelei (Chap 
 ter XII, Tramp Abroad) : 
 
 "I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, on the 
 Legends of the Rhine, but it would not answer the purpose I 
 mentioned above, because the measure is too nobly irregular, it 
 don t fit the tune snugly enough; in places it hangs over at the 
 ends too far; and in other places one runs out of words before 
 he gets to the end of a bar. Still Garnham s translation has high 
 merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of my book. I 
 believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England. I 
 take peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I con 
 sider that I discovered him: 
 
 I do not know what it signifies, 
 That I am so sorrowful ? 
 A fable of old times so terrifies, 
 Leaves my heart so thoughtful. 
 
 The air is cool and it darkens, 
 And calmly flows the Rhine ; 
 The summit of the mountain harkens 
 In evening sunshine line. 
 
 The most beautiful maiden entrances 
 Above wonderfully there, 
 Her beautiful golden attire glances, 
 She combs her golden hair. 
 
u6 Heine s American Translators 
 
 With golden comb so lustrous, 
 And thereby a song sings, 
 It has a tone so wondrous, 
 That powerful melody rings. 
 
 The shipper in the little ship 
 It affects with woes and might : 
 He does not see the rocky clip, 
 He only regards dreadful height. 
 
 I believe the turbulent waves 
 Swallow at last shipper and boat 
 She with her singing craves 
 All to visit her magic moat. 
 
 "No translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts ; 
 and in their regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. 
 It is as succinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought 
 to be. It should exactly reflect the thought of the original. 
 You can t sing, Above wonderfully there, because it simply 
 won t go to the tune, without damaging the singer; but it is a 
 most clingingly exact translation of Dort oben wunderbar, 
 fits it like a blister. Mr. Garnham s reproduction has other 
 merits, a hundred of them, but it is not necessary to point 
 them out. They will be detected." 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS (1849-1887). 
 
 Of all American translations of Heine s poems, we must 
 pronounce the one made by Emma Lazarus as being on the whole, 
 the most satisfactory. In reviewing her works we are struck by 
 the precocity and spontaneity of her poetic gift, for she was a 
 born singer; poetry was her natural language. At the age of 
 eleven the War of Secession inspired her first lyric outbursts. 
 Her poems and translations written between the ages of four 
 teen and seventeen were collected and constituted her first pub 
 lished volume. A profound melancholy pervaded that book. 
 Foremost among the translations are a number of Heine s songs, 
 rendered with a finesse and literalness that are rarely combined. 
 Emma Lazarus possessed eminent qualifications for translating 
 Heine s poems. She was akin to Heine in combining Hellenism 
 
Heine s American Translators 117 
 
 and Hebraism in her nature. Already in her first volume we 
 observe traces of this kinship and affinity that afterwards so 
 plainly declared itself. Her works like Heine s are subjective 
 and biographical. 
 
 In 1 88 1 appeared her translation of Heine s Poems and 
 Ballads (New York, 1881), to which she prefixed a biographical 
 sketch of Heine. This translation was at once generally accepted 
 as the best version of that untranslatable poet. Very curious is 
 the link between that bitter, mocking, cynical spirit and the re 
 fined, gentle spirit of Emma Lazarus, as is well indicated in her 
 translations. Of her translations from Heine in general we may 
 say that she has given us as faithful and accurate a reproduction 
 of the thought, spirit, tone, rhythm and melody of the original 
 as is possible. In some poems she falls below the standard of 
 excellence which she usually maintains. Positive traces of her 
 depending on previous versions, not to be designated as acci 
 dental resemblances are discernible now and then. Her rhymes 
 are for the most part exact, and she endeavored throughout to 
 reproduce the limpidity, ease, simplicity and subtle suggestive- 
 ness of the original, and with considerable success. As her vol 
 ume of translations from Heine has become almost inaccessible 
 we will cite a few specimens. The only copy which we have 
 been able to find in Philadelphia is in the possession of ex-Judge 
 Sulzberger. 
 
 The Pine and the Palm (Elster, I, 78). 
 Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam. 
 
 There stands a lonely pine-tree, 
 
 In the north, on a barren height ; 
 
 He sleeps while the ice and the snow-flakes 
 
 Swathe him in folds of white. 
 
 He dreameth of a palm-tree 
 Far in the sunrise land, 
 Lonely and silent longing 
 On her burning bank of sand. 
 
n8 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Du bist wie eine Blume (Elster, I, 117). 
 
 Thou seemest like a flower, 
 So pure and fair and bright ; 
 A melancholy yearning 
 Steals o er me at thy sight. 
 
 I fain would lay in blessing 
 My hands upon thy hair ; 
 Imploring God to keep thee 
 So bright and pure and fair. 
 
 Du schones Fischer madchen (Elster, I, 99) 
 
 Thou fairest fishermaiden, 
 Row thy boat to the land, 
 Come here and sit beside me, 
 Whispering hand in hand. 
 
 Lay thy head on my bosom, 
 And have no fear of me; 
 For carelessly thou trustest 
 Daily the savage sea. 
 
 My heart is like the ocean, 
 With storm and ebb and flow ; 
 And many a pearl lies hidden 
 Within its depths below. 
 
 Das Meer hat seine Perlen (Elster, I, 171). 
 
 The ocean hath its pearls, 
 The heaven hath its stars 
 But oh! my heart, my heart, 
 My heart hath its love. 
 
 Great are the sea and the heavens, 
 But greater is my heart; 
 And fairer than pearls or stars 
 Glistens and glows my love. 
 
 Thou little youthful maiden, 
 
 Come unto my mighty heart! 
 
 My heart, and the sea, and the heavens 
 
 Are melting away with love. 
 
Heine s American Translators 119 
 
 Nacht lag aitf meinen Augen (Elster, I, 90). 
 
 Night lay upon my eyelids, 
 About my lips earth clave ; 
 With stony heart and forehead 
 I lay within my grave. 
 
 How long I cannot reckon 
 I slept in that strait bed; 
 I woke and heard distinctly 
 A knocking overhead. 
 
 "Wilt thou not rise, my Henry? 
 The eternal dawn is here; 
 The dead have re-arisen, 
 Immortal bliss is near." 
 
 "I cannot rise, my darling, 
 
 I am blinded to the day. 
 
 Mine eyes with tears thou knowest, 
 
 Have wept themselves away/ 
 
 "Oh, I will kiss them, Henry, 
 Kiss from thine eyes the night. 
 Thou shalt behold the angels 
 And the celestial light" 
 
 "I cannot rise, my darling, 
 
 My blood is still outpoured, 
 
 Where thou didst wound my heart once, 
 
 With sharp and cruel word." 
 
 "I ll lay my hand, dear Henry, 
 Upon thy heart again. 
 Then shall it cease, from bleeding, 
 And stilled shall be its pain." 
 
 "I cannot rise, my darling, 
 My heart is bleeding see! 
 I shot myself, thou knowest, 
 When thou wert reft from me!" 
 
 "Oh, with my hair, dear Henry, 
 I ll stanch the cruel wound, 
 And press the blood-stream backward, 
 Thou shalt be whole and sound." 
 
120 Heine s American Translators 
 
 So kind, so sweet she wooed me, 
 I could not say her nay. 
 I tried to rise and follow, 
 And clasp my loving May. 
 
 Then all my wounds burst open, 
 From head and breast outbrake 
 The gushing blood in torrents 
 And lo, I am awake! 
 
 Even at the cost of sacrificing the enchanted melody, Emma 
 Lazarus, in her article on Heine in the Century Magazine (Vol. 
 VII), gave a few prose translations, for only in such literal 
 versions could she hope to convey an approximate idea of the 
 piercing subtlety of thought and innuendo so peculiar to Heine s 
 poems. 
 
 HENRY C. LEA. 
 
 This eminent writer on ecclesiastical history was born in 
 Philadelphia in 1825. He has published Superstition and Force 
 (1866), Sacerdotal Celibacy (1867), Studies in Church History 
 (1869), and a History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages 
 (1887). In 1882 appeared in Philadelphia his Translations 
 and Other Rhymes. This volume was privately printed and a 
 copy may be found in the Library of the Historical Society in 
 Philadelphia. It contains translations from Goethe, Uhland, 
 Schiller, Herder, Dach and Heine. Mr. Lea s version of Heine s 
 famous sonnet to his mother, Im tollen Wahn hatt ich dich einst 
 verlassen is a fine specimen of accurate and spirited translation 
 (Elster, I, 57). 
 
 I left thee once my spirit madly burning, 
 To wander onwards to earth s farthest shore, 
 And find if I could quench the thirst I bore 
 For love and satisfy my heart s wild yearning. 
 
 So love I sought, through every pathway turning. 
 With outstretched hand I went from door to door, 
 Begging a little love from each one s store, 
 But they gave only cruel hate and spurning 
 
Heine s American Translators 121 
 
 And thus in quest of love I wandered ever, 
 Seeking for love and finding love, ah, never! 
 Then homeward turned, spent with vain endeavor. 
 And thou didst come with hasty step to meet me, 
 
 And what in thine o erbrimming eyes did greet me 
 That was the love whose quest so long did cheat me ! 
 
 Beautifully has Mr. Lea translated Heine s Wallfahrt 
 nach Kevlaar (Elster, 146), which we shall quote in preference 
 to the remaining translations from Heine, such as the Lorelei, 
 etc., because it represents in our opinion Mr. Lea s best effort 
 in that line. Especially commendable is the fidelity with which 
 the original is reproduced. 
 
 Am Fenster stand die Mutter. 
 
 The mother stood at the window, 
 The youth lay on his bed, 
 "Come, Wilhelm dear," she said. 
 
 "I am so sick, O mother, 
 I can neither hear nor see. 
 I think of the dead Gretchen, 
 And my heart aches wo fully." 
 
 "Rise, and we ll go to Kevlaar, 
 With book and rosary, 
 God s Mother there will surely 
 Cure thy sick heart for thee." 
 
 Now swells the chanting solemn, 
 The church s banners shine, 
 As on goes the procession, 
 Through Collen on the Rhine. 
 
 As the crowd sweeps on, the mother 
 Leads her son tenderly, 
 And both join in the chorus 
 "Sweet Mary, praise to Thee !" 
 
 II. 
 
 The Mother of God at Kevlaar 
 Wears today her richest gear. 
 She has much to do, for gather 
 Sick folk from far and near. 
 
122 Heine s American Translators 
 
 And these poor sick ones bring her, 
 As offerings to suit, 
 Limbs made of wax so neatly 
 Full many a hand and foot. 
 
 And whoso a wax-hand offers 
 She frees his hand of pain; 
 And whoso a wax-foot offers, 
 The foot is made whole again. 
 
 And many who went on crutches 
 On the rope can dance around; 
 And many can play on the viol 
 Who had not a finger sound. 
 
 The mother has taken a candle 
 And a waxen-heart has made 
 "Take this to God s sweet Mother, 
 She will heal thy grief," she said. 
 
 The son takes the wax-heart sighing, 
 To the shrine he sighing goes, 
 The tears from his eyes are flowing, 
 As the prayer from his sick heart flows. 
 
 "Thou Blessed of all the Blessed, 
 Thou Queen upon Heaven s throne, 
 Thou God s own purest virgin, 
 To Thee be my sorrows known! 
 
 "I dwell alone with my mother, 
 At Collen on the Rhine, 
 Collen where there is many 
 A church and chapel and shrine. 
 
 "And near to us dwelt Gretchen, 
 Who now lies neath the ground 
 Mary, I bring Thee a wax heart, 
 Heal thou my heart s deep wound! 
 
 "Heal thou my heart that s broken, 
 And I will most fervently 
 Sing every night and morning, 
 Sweet Mary, a praise to Thee!" 
 
Heine s American Translators 123 
 
 III. 
 
 The sick son and his mother 
 In a room together slept, 
 The Mother of God came thither, 
 And silently in she stepped. 
 
 The sick youth she bent over, 
 And on his heart so seared 
 She laid her hand, and softly 
 She smiled and disappeared. 
 
 In her sleep all this the mother 
 Saw and yet more she marked 
 From her slumber she awakened, 
 For the dogs so loudly barked. 
 
 There lay outstretched before her, 
 Her son all stark and dead, 
 While o er the wan, shrunk features, 
 The dawn its radiance shed. 
 
 The hands she gently folded 
 Benumbed with grief was she 
 Yet her low voice rose devoutly 
 "Sweet Mary, praise to Thee!" 
 
 Mr. Lea s translation of the Lorelei is poor, yet in the last 
 strophe he has felicitously caught the tone and spirit of the 
 sudden gleam of mockery so characteristic of Heine: 
 
 I believe that the end of the story 
 Is the sinking of skiff and youth, 
 And that mischief with her singing 
 Hath the Lorelei wrought in sooth! 
 
 F. JOHNSON. 
 
 Johnson translated Heine s Lyrisches Intermezzo, and en 
 titled his volume, A Romance in Song. This book appeared 
 in Boston in 1884. 
 
124 Heine s American Translators 
 
 FREDERIC H. HEDGE. 
 
 Selections from the prose of Heine were given by Hedge 
 in his Prose Writers of Germany. He also translated extracts 
 from the Reisebilder, in his essay on Heine, in the volume en 
 titled Hours zvith German Classics (Boston, 1886), in addition 
 to giving some specimens of metrical translations. Professor 
 Hedge, whatever else he was, was no poet, and he set a bad 
 example when he murdered Goethe s Der Erlkdnig, in which no 
 one can detect a suspicion of the beautiful ballad strain of the 
 original in his dry and spiritless rendering. A certain bland 
 self-assurance which does not dream of the subtler difficulties 
 to be overcome is what strikes one as a characteristic of Hedge s 
 dealings with Goethe and Heine. His translation of Heine s 
 Ein Reiter durch das Bergthal zieht and Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar, 
 are certainly bad. 
 
 In the following specimen (which is the best Hedge has 
 done with Heine), the grace and easy levity of the original song 
 are entirely absent: 
 
 Es treibt mich hin, es treibt mich her! 
 Noch wenige Stunden, dann soil ich sie schauen, 
 Sie selber, die schonste der schonen Jungfrauen; 
 Du treues Herz, was pochst du so schwer! 
 
 etc. (Elster, I, 31), is thus rendered by Hedge: 
 
 I m tossed and driven to and fro; 
 A few hours more and I shall meet her, 
 The maid, than whom earth knows no sweeter: 
 Heart, my heart, why throbb st thou so? 
 But the hours they are a lazy folk ; 
 Leisurely their slow steps dragging, 
 Yearning, creeping, lingering, lagging, 
 Come, hurry up, you lazy folk! 
 With hurry and worry I m driven and chased ; 
 But the hours were never in love, I judge, 
 And so they conspire to wreak their grudge 
 In secretly mocking at lover s haste. 
 
Heine s American Translators 125 
 
 CHARLES T. BROOKS (1813-1883). 
 
 Charles Timothy Brooks was born in Salem, Mass, in 1813. 
 He enjoyed the study of German, with whose masterpieces in 
 prose and poetry his name was to be so honorably identified in 
 after years as translator and critic. He was initiated into the 
 language and its literature by those enthusiastic and eminent 
 German scholars, Dr. Karl Pollen and Prof. Charles Beck. In 
 1838 he offered his tribute, a volume of translated German 
 poetry to the Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, edited 
 by George Ripley, in the interests of the Transcendental philoso 
 phy. The qualities which distinguished Brooks as a translator 
 from the German, were his rare knowledge of the language and 
 its literature, great practice in composition, a cultivated gift of 
 expression and a warm poetical sympathy. His first considerable 
 publication was a translation of Schiller s William Tell (1837). 
 His collection of translated poems contributed to Ripley s Speci 
 mens of Foreign Literature (Vol. XIV of Series), has already 
 been alluded to. He was singularly happy in his rendering of 
 shorter poems and lyrics. His exquisite versions of the ballads 
 and songs of Uhland, Lenau, Chamisso, A. Grim, Freiligrath 
 and Heine, and his fine translation of Faust will longest preserve 
 his literary reputation with posterity. In 1842 his second col 
 lection of translated verse under the title of German Lyric 
 Poetry was published in Philadelphia. Brooks is also famous 
 for his translations from Jean Paul. In Poems Original and 
 Translated, by Charles T. Brooks (Boston, 1885), we find the 
 following fine translation from Heine (page 184 f). 
 
 Meergruss (Elster, I, 179). 
 
 Thalatta, Thalatta! 
 Sei mir gegriisst, du eiviges Meer! 
 Thalatta! Thalatta! 
 Hail to thee ! hail ! thou infinite sea ! 
 Hail to thee ! hail ! ten thousand times 
 My bounding heart greets thee ! 
 As whilom ten thousand 
 Greek hearts leaped up to greet thee 
 Misery vanquishing, homesick, and languishing, 
 World-renowned Greek hearts heroic. 
 
126 Heine s American Translators 
 
 The billows were swelling, 
 Were swelling and sounding; 
 The sun-beams were flashing and playing, 
 Refulgent with rosy lustre: 
 Up rose the flocks of startled sea mews 
 Wheeling away loud screaming ; 
 
 Mid stamping of war steeds and clattering of bucklers, 
 It rang through the welken like triumph s shout; 
 Thalatta! Thalatta! 
 
 Welcome once more thou infinite sea ! 
 
 Like voices of home, thy murmuring waters; 
 
 Like dreams of my childhood, sunbeams and shadows 
 
 Flit o er thy weltering billowy domain. 
 
 And memory forever reviews the old story 
 
 Of all the precious glorious playthings, 
 
 Of all the glittering Christmas presents, 
 
 Of all the branching trees of red coral, 
 
 Gold fishes, pearls and shells of beauty, 
 
 The secret stores thou treasurest up 
 
 Below in thy sparkling crystal house. 
 
 Oh, how long have I languished in dreary exile ! 
 Like a dry, withering flower, 
 In the tin case of the botanist pining, 
 So lay my heart in my breast. 
 I seem like one who, the live-long winter 
 A patient, sat in a dark sick-chamber, 
 And now I suddenly leave it, 
 And, lo! in her dazzling effulgence, 
 Comes the emerald Spring, sun-wakened, to greet me, 
 And the rustling trees, white and blossoming murmur, 
 And the fair young flowers look up at me 
 With radiant, sunny glances, 
 All is music and mirth and beauty and bliss, 
 And through the blue heavens the warblers are singing, 
 Thalatta! Thalatta! 
 
 Thou valiant, retreating heart ! 
 
 How oft, how bitterly 
 
 Harassed thee the Northland s barbarian maidens! 
 
 Bending their great eyes upon thee, 
 
 Fiery arrows they darted; 
 
Heine s American Translators 127 
 
 With words all crooked and polished 
 Threatened to rend my bosom asunder; 
 With arrow-head billets they smote to destroy 
 My wretched, bewildered brain. 
 Vainly I held up my shield against them; 
 The arrow came hissing, the blows fell crashing, 
 And pressed by the Northern barbarian maidens, 
 Fought I my way to the sea 
 And now I breathe freely once more, 
 And breathe out my thanks to the sea, 
 The blessed, the rescuing sea! 
 Thalatta! Thalatta! 
 
 NEWELL DUNBAR. 
 
 In Newell Dunbar s book, Heinrich Heine, His Wit, Wis 
 dom and Poetry, Preceded by the Essay of Matthew Arnold 
 (Boston, 1892), edited by Newell Dunbar, we have a good an 
 thology, sips hastily snatched the cream of the inimitable Heine 
 is what this little book aims to present. The skimming is skilfully 
 performed and affords delicious refreshment and sustenance. 
 Dunbar acknowledges his indebtedness to the excellent volume of 
 selections by Snodgrass. Dunbar s volume combines prose and 
 verse in about equal proportions, something like an all-around 
 presentment of the author being thus given in a single volume. 
 In this respect the book is unique. The incorporation in it of 
 the sympathic essay of Matthew Arnold greatly enhances the 
 value. Also some of the illustrations used had never hitherto 
 been placed before English readers. As this volume is merely 
 a compilation from other translators, we need not speak of its 
 merits. 
 
 FRANCES HELLMAN. 
 
 The Lyrics and Ballads of Heine and Other German Poets, 
 translated by Frances Hellman, New York, 1892, contains ninety- 
 six pieces from Heine supplemented by forty-six others from 
 Goethe, Geibel, Uhland and others. The verse for the most part 
 flows easily and gracefully. There are not a half dozen lines in the 
 whole collection that fail in that respect. So far as we have 
 been able to compare translation with original, there are no 
 
128 Heine s American Translators 
 
 blunders in sense not even the customary one in the last line of 
 Heine s Am fernen Horizonte. Like the one just named, many 
 of the poems, especially of Heine s, are well rendered and the 
 translator has contrived in most cases to preserve the original 
 rhythm. As a specimen of her translations from Heine we shall 
 take Die Bergstimme (Elster, I, 35), Ein Reiter durch das 
 Bergthal Zieht. 
 
 The Mountain Voice. 
 
 Across the vale, in slow, sad pace, 
 There rides a trooper brave; 
 "Oh! go I now to sweetheart s arm, 
 Or to a gloomy grave?" 
 The mountain answer gave : 
 "A gloomy grave." 
 
 And onward still the horseman rides, 
 And sighs with heaving breast: 
 "So soon I go then to my grave, 
 Ah well, the grave brings rest." 
 The mountain voice confessed : 
 "The grave brings rest." 
 
 And then down from the horseman s cheek 
 A woeful tear-drop fell; 
 "And if the grave alone brings rest, 
 All will, in the grave, be well." 
 The voice with hollow knell : 
 "In the grave be well." 
 
 CHARLES DE KAY. 
 
 A translation of the familiar letters of Heine addressed 
 chiefly to his mother and sister is what Mr. De Kay has given us 
 in his Family Life of Heine (New York, 1893). These letters 
 were first collected and published by Von Embden, Heine s 
 nephew. They are not literary at all. Heine was often loose in 
 construction and sometimes ungrammatical, but at the same time 
 the German is easy. These letters reflect the hopes and needs of 
 Heine and his attitude of mind toward money, his wife, house- 
 
Heine s American Translators 129 
 
 hold, publisher, friends, enemies and relations. Broad wit is not 
 absent. De Kay s translation is for the most part faithful, yet he 
 fails to reproduce the grace and ease of the original with felicity. 
 
 ARTHUR DEXTER. 
 
 Karpeles called the book, Heinrich Heine s Life Told in His 
 Own Words, edited by Gustav Karpeles, and translated from the 
 German by Arthur Dexter (New York, 1893), an autobiography. 
 As Heine did not select the materials of which it is composed 
 and join them in a volume to tell the story of his life, Dexter has 
 changed the title. For the same reason he has omitted much that 
 he thought would not interest American readers. The metrical 
 portions of this translation are literal, but the melodious union of 
 simplicity with wit and pathos, so characteristic of Heine s poetry, 
 is not reproduced by the translator. Dexter has also inserted in 
 this volume a few letters taken from Heine s Familienleben, 
 edited by his nephew, Baron von Embden. To give examples of 
 Dexter s metrical translations we quote the following specimens : 
 
 Auf Flugeln des Gesanges (Elster, I, 68). 
 Upon the wings of melody 
 My heart s delight I will beaf 
 To the far-off streams of the Ganges, 
 To a spot of beauty rare. 
 There lies a blooming garden, 
 Beneath the moonlight clear; 
 The lotus flowers are waiting 
 For their little sister dear. 
 The violets titter and gossip, 
 And look at the stars above ; 
 Each rose in the ear of her lover 
 Whispers her story of love. 
 The gazelles, in their innocent cunning, 
 Listen and pass with a bound ; 
 And the waves of the sacred river 
 On the distant shore resound. 
 Here will we lie in the shadow, 
 Under the palm of the stream, 
 And drink deep of rest and passion, 
 And dream a heavenly dream. 
 
130 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam (Elster, I, 78). 
 
 A pine-tree stands deserted 
 On the barren northern height, 
 It slumbers, by the ice and snow 
 Wrapped in a mantle white. 
 
 It is dreaming of a palm-tree 
 In the far-off morning-land, 
 Deserted and grieving in silence, 
 By the cliffs and burning sand. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 
 
 In his volume entitled For Fifty Years (Boston, 1893), 
 Edward Everett Hale gives two metrical translations from 
 Heine. Owing to their length, we cannot quote both, although 
 they are well done. We can get an idea of their excellence by com 
 paring Neptune Descending with the original. The other trans 
 lation beginning with the line, "Midnight rests upon the city", 
 was written by Mr. Hale in 1843, bvrt not published until 1893. 
 It consists of sixty-four lines, and the rhythm flows along ad 
 mirably. 
 
 Neptune Descending. 
 
 There he sat high, retired from the seas ; 
 There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten, 
 There burned with rage at the god-king who slew them. 
 Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountain quickly de 
 scending ; 
 
 He bent the forests also as he came down, 
 And the high cliffs shook under his feet. 
 Three times he trod upon them, 
 And, with his fourth step, reached the home he sought far, 
 
 There was his palace, in the deep waters of the seas, 
 
 Shining with gold and builded forever. 
 
 There he yoked him his swift footed horses, 
 
 Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden. 
 
 He binds then with golden thongs, 
 
 He seizes his golden goad, 
 
 He mounts upon the chariot and doth fly, 
 
 Yes ! he drives them forth into the waves ! 
 
Heine s American Translators 131 
 
 And the whales rise under him from the depths, 
 
 For they know he is their king ; 
 
 And the glad sea is divided into parts, 
 
 That his steeds may fly along quickly ; 
 
 And his brazen axle passes dry between the waves, 
 
 So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians. 
 
 MADISON CAWEIN. 
 
 In The White Snake and Other Poems (Louisville, 1895), 
 (J. P. Marton and Company, translations from the German by 
 Madison Cawein), the well-known poet, offers three translations 
 from Heine, namely, Palsgravine Jutta, containing twenty-one 
 lines; from the Jehuda ben Halevy, containing seven four-line 
 strophes; and Perduse, containing thirty-six strophes of two 
 lines each. Of this book, there were but one hundred and fifty 
 copies printed, of which one hundred copies were for sale. 
 
 MARION M. MILLER. 
 
 The article on Heine by M. M. Miller in the Bachelor of 
 Arts (Vol. II, 1896), contains a fairly accurate translation of 
 Heine s Weavers: 
 
 With thirsty eyes, darkened by grieving, 
 Gnashing their teeth, a web they are weaving: 
 "Thy shroud are we shaping, O Germany old, 
 And into it weaving a curse three-fold 
 Weaving, a-weaving! 
 
 "A curse on God ! In vain supplication 
 We prayed him in horrors of cold and starvation, 
 All bootless we waited and hoped and believed 
 Us he has bemocked and befooled and deceived 
 Weaving, a-weaving! 
 
 "A curse on Kaiser, the rich man s Kaiser! 
 For woes of the poor no kinder, no wiser; 
 He lets us, when from us our last groat is wrung 
 As though we were dogs, be shot at and hung, 
 Weaving, a-weaving! 
 
132 Heine s American Translators 
 
 "A curse on country, the fatherland rotten, 
 Where shame and disgrace flaunt, and truth is forgotten, 
 Where every bloom fades untimely away 
 And royal batten the worm on decay, 
 Weaving, a-weaving! 
 
 "The loom is a-creaking, in ceaseless flight 
 The shuttle is glancing by day and by night, 
 Thy shroud are we shaping, O Germany old ! 
 Yes, into it weaving the curse, three- fold, 
 Weaving, a-weaving!" 
 
 EUGENE FIELD. 
 
 In his various editions of poems, Eugene Field gives us 
 some fine specimens of translations from Luther, Uhland, 
 Korner and Heine. Although his translations from Heine are 
 not literal, yet they are masterly reproductions of the tone, spirit 
 and melody of the original. Let us take for example, his beauti 
 ful rendering of the exquisite lyric Aits meinen Thrdncn spries- 
 sen (Elster, I, 66) : 
 
 Love Song 84 Heine. 
 
 Many a beauteous flower doth spring 
 From the tears that flood my eyes, 
 And the nightingale doth sing 
 In the burden of my sighs. 
 
 If, O child, thou lovest me, 
 Take these flowerets fair and frail, 
 And my soul shall waft to thee 
 Love songs of the nightingale. 
 
 Eugene Field is also felicitous in his paraphrase 85 of 
 Heine s Es fdllt ein Stern herunter (Elster, I, 88). 
 
 There fell a star from realms above 
 A glittering glorious star to see ! 
 Methought it was the star of love, 
 So sweetly it illumined me. 
 
 14 Songs and Other Verse, by Eugene Field. New York, 1896, p. 30. 
 K Songs and Other Verse, p. 184. 
 
Heine s American Translators 133 
 
 And from the apple branches fell 
 Blossoms and leaves that time in June ; 
 The wanton breezes wooed them well 
 With soft caress and amorous tune. 
 
 The white swan proudly sailed along 
 And vied her beauty with her note 
 The river jealous of her song, 
 Threw up its arms to clasp her throat. 
 
 But now oh, now the dream is past 
 The blossoms and the leaves are dead, 
 The swan s sweet song is hushed at last, 
 And not a star burns overhead. 
 
 Another clever translation is Field s version of Heine s 
 Widow or Daughter? 
 
 Shall I woo the one or the other ? 
 Both attract me more s the pity! 
 Pretty is the widowed mother, 
 And the daughter, too, is pretty. 
 
 When I see that maiden shrinking, 
 By the gods I swear I ll get er! 
 But anon I fall to thinking 
 That the mother 1 suit me better ! 
 
 So like any idiot ass 
 Hungry for the fragrant fodder, 
 Placed between two bales of grass, 
 Lo, I doubt, delay, and dodder ! 
 
 Field being an enthusiastic admirer of Heine s lyrics, and 
 possessing a fine poetic feeling has been marvelously successful 
 in the few specimens that he translated from the Buck dcr Lieder. 
 
 W. A. R. KERR. 
 
 The Canadian Magazine (Vol. XII, 1899) published the 
 first contribution of W. A. R. Kerr to the already large num 
 ber of American translations from Heine. In this number of 
 the magazine, Kerr published two translations and subsequently 
 in his article on Heine (Canadian Magazine, Vol. XV), he 
 
134 Heine s American Translators 
 
 introduced a few more. While these versions give indication 
 of considerable talent in translating, yet they fail to reproduce 
 the directness and simplicity of the originals. The subtle 
 thought and innuendo and grace are but poorly reported. The 
 following specimens represent Mr. Kerr s best efforts in trans 
 lating Heine: 
 
 Recollection. 
 
 The yellow foliage shivers, 
 
 Down fall the dry leaves to their doom 
 
 Ah, all that was fair and lovely 
 
 Sinks withered in the tomb. 
 
 The tops of the forest are shimmering 
 Beneath the wan sun s sad light, 
 The last cold kisses of summer 
 Give way to the winter night. 
 
 I cannot keep from weeping 
 From my heart s inmost cell ; 
 This scene once again reminds me 
 Of when we said farewell. 
 
 And I was forced to leave thee, 
 I knew thou wert dying now 
 I was the parting summer, 
 The dying forest thou. 
 
 Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam. 
 
 A pine-tree standeth lonely 
 
 On a bare northern height, 
 
 It slumbereth, while ice and snow flakes 
 
 Are veiling it in white. 
 
 And of a palm-tree it dreameth, 
 That far in the Orient land 
 Lonely and silent mourneth 
 On a burning rocky strand. 
 
 EDWARD HENRY KEEN. 
 
 The only translation from Heine published by Mr. Keen, 
 is to be found in the Outlook (Vol. 69, page 978). 
 
Heine s American Translators 135 
 
 Schattenkusse, Schattenliebe (Elster, I, 229). 
 
 Shadow love, and shadow kisses, 
 Shadow life so fleet and strange, 
 Will all hours be sweet as this is ? 
 Tell me, dear one, must they change? 
 
 Nothing stays of all we cherish, 
 Weary eyes will fall asleep; 
 All things fade, and pass and perish, 
 Loving hearts must cease to beat. 
 
 JOHN HAY. 
 
 The volume of Poems by John Hay, published recently 
 by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, contains some excellent 
 translations and paraphrases from Heine s songs and ballads. 
 How well Hay could paraphrase Heine s lyrics may be seen 
 from the following rendering of Du bist wie eine Blumc: 
 
 When I look on thee and feel how dpr, 
 How pure, and how fair thou art, 
 Into my eyes there steals a tear, 
 And a shadow mingled of love and fear 
 Creeps slowly over my heart. 
 
 And my very hands feel as if they would lay 
 Themselves on they fair young head, 
 And pray the good God to keep thee alway 
 As good and lovely, as pure and gay, 
 When I and my wild love are dead. 
 
 Heine s Azra is admirably rendered. The words by Hay 
 fit the wonderful music written by Rubenstein very well, and 
 yet the translation is literal: 
 
 Tdglich ging die Wunderschone. 
 
 Daily went the fair and lovely 
 Sultan s daughter in the twilight, 
 In the twilight by the fountain, 
 Where the sparkling waters plash. 
 
 Daily stood the young slave silent 
 In the twilight by the fountain, 
 Where the plashing waters sparkle, 
 Pale and paler every day. 
 
136 Heine s American Translators 
 
 Once by twilight came the princess 
 Up to him with rapid questions: 
 " I would know thy name, thy nation, 
 Whence thou comest, who thou art?" 
 And the young slave said, "My name is 
 Mahomet, I come from Yemmen. 
 I am of the sons of Azra, 
 Men who perish if they love." 
 
 Other translations and paraphrases from Heine to be 
 found in Hay s poems are Good and Bad Luck, The Golden 
 Calf, To the Young, and The Countess Jutta. Of these we 
 shall only quote the last, because this puts Hay s ability to a 
 severe test in reproducing the melody and flow of Heine s so- 
 called irregular rhythms. The others are mostly free render 
 ings, but possess the peculiar flavor which stamps them as the 
 peculiar work of Heine. How thoroughly Hay was dominated 
 by Heine we shall learn later. 
 
 Countess Jutta. 
 
 The Countess Jutta passed over the Rhine, 
 In a light canoe by the moon s pale shine. 
 The handmaid rows and the Countess speaks: 
 " Seest thou not there where the water breaks 
 
 Seven corpses swim 
 
 In the moonlight dim? 
 So sorrowful swim the dead! 
 "They were seven knights full of fire and youth, 
 They sank on my heart and swore me truth. 
 I trusted them; but for Truth s sweet sake, 
 Lest they should be tempted their oaths to break, 
 
 I had them bound, 
 
 And tenderly drowned! 
 So sorrowful swim the dead !" 
 The merry Countess laughed outright ! 
 It rang so wild in the startled night ! 
 Up to the waist the dead men rise 
 And stretch lean fingers to the skies. 
 
 They nod and stare 
 
 With glassy glare! 
 So sorrowful swim the dead! 
 
Heine s American Translators 137 
 
 In many instances Hay transforms almost rather than 
 translates, simply retaining the most delicate perfection of the 
 thought, re-embodied in a new form. 
 
 LILIAN WHITING. 
 
 While the lyrical translations of Miss Whiting do not offer 
 the most perfect approach to the spirit of the originals, yet she 
 shows an exquisite interpretation of the poet s art, being herself a 
 poetess of no mean ability. In her World Beautiful in Books 
 (Boston, 1901), we find two translations from Heine; namely, 
 Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsani and Mein Liebchen, wir sassen 
 zusammen. 
 
 Ein Fichtenbaum stcht einsani. 
 
 A pine-tree stood alone on 
 A bare, bleak, Northern height, 
 The ice and the snow they swathe it 
 As it sleeps there all in white. 
 
 Tis dreaming of a palm tree 
 In a far-off Eastern land 
 That mourns, alone, and silent, 
 On a ledge of burning sand. 
 
 Mein Liebchcn wir sassen zusammen. 
 
 My darling we sat together, 
 
 We two in our frail boat ; 
 
 The night was calm o er the wide sea 
 
 Whereon we were afloat. 
 
 The Spectre-Island, the lonely, 
 Lay dim in the moon s mild glance ; 
 There sounded sweetest music, 
 There waved the shadowy dance. 
 
 It sounded sweeter and sweeter, 
 But we slid past forlornly 
 Upon the great sea-flow." 
 It waved there to and fro ; 
 
138 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 HEINE S INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN LITERATURE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 So powerful has been Heine s influence that unmistakable 
 traces are discernible in the literatures of all cultured lands. His 
 works are read, admired and translated into every cultivated 
 language. Heine s claim to immortality is that in his works the 
 whole spiritual life of his age is reflected and expressed. Its in 
 tellectual endeavor, its wildest passions, its tenderest emotion, its 
 hope and its disappointment find a voice in his verse. A high 
 theme, but one which he treated in no abstract manner, in no 
 careful exalted style. There lives in his works a spirit which 
 breaks through the national boundaries of talent and feeling. 
 Heine is not infrequently praised and esteemed in foreign 
 countries more than Goethe. We have a monograph by Louis 
 Betz on Heine in France, a very comprehensive and diligent 
 piece of research work from which we learn much. On Heine s 
 influence in Russia, Italy and South America, similar works have 
 appeared. In England the influence of Heine s works manifested 
 itself slowly, for his genius had to make peace with the temper 
 of the nation. In spite of many eminent examples to the con 
 trary, the natural tendency of the English lyric is robust and joy 
 ous. To Clough and Matthew Arnold we may attribute the first 
 conscious introduction of Heine s influences into English 
 poetry. When they first imitated the cadences of Heine, a force 
 was required which should be a powerful reaction against the 
 false melancholy of Byronism. The best work of Arnold dis 
 played a peculiar originality, by fusing with the serene philosophy 
 of Wordsworth and the sensuous ecstasy of Keats, the sensi 
 bility and vibrations of the soul of Heine. To a still later school, 
 that of Pater and Swinburne, Heine s great discovery lay less in 
 his attitude of intellectual revolt than in his adoption of a modern 
 and yet intense paganism, the originality and vitality of his at- 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 139 
 
 titude toward beauty. It is undoubtedly the most independent, the 
 most unacademic that the world had seen. Heine in an age but 
 half emancipated from the so-called rules of Aristotle, and sur 
 rounded by those who could give a reason for every article of 
 imaginative faith which they professed, played the double part 
 of a rebel angel and delicious child. "English literature owes to 
 Heine, if not directly, at least indirectly, and to elements first 
 unchained by him, all that is most original, least servile, and most 
 sensitive in the European arts of today," says Edmund Gosse. 
 Heine s very powerlessness and faint intellectual beatings against 
 the prison bars of life, have helped greatly to bre^ak down the 
 stronghold of conventionality. It is precisely the mystery of 
 Heine, his enigmatic smile, his want of definite outline, which, 
 combined with the pure flame of his genius, have given to his ar 
 rogance and irony, his pity and indignation, his romantic melody 
 and his capricious wit their triumphant charm. Wherever a new 
 vision of beauty arises, wherever the false is mocked at and the 
 true encouraged, wherever the conception of a young enthusiasm 
 disturbs the comfortable inaction of the elderly, there Heine is 
 present in spirit 
 
 In the poetry of Robert Buchanan and James Thomson, the 
 author of the City of Dreadful Night, the influence of Heine is 
 clearly seen. Sharp in his Earth s Voices celebrates nature after 
 the manner of Heine. 
 
 Concerning Heine s influence in America very little of a 
 positive nature has been known. As early as 1885 C. G. Leland 
 had declared in his preface to his translation of Heine s Reise- 
 bilder, that no living German writer had exerted an influence at 
 all comparable to that of Heine, and that since Goethe, no author 
 had penetrated so generally through every class of society. Mr. 
 E. C. Stedman in his Poets of America (Boston, 1886) had 
 called attention to the influence of Heine on Longfellow s Hy 
 perion and Voices of the Night and had even gone so far as to point 
 out some resemblances. Mr. Stedman was also struck by Poe s 
 absolute love of beauty and was inclined to find a parallel in 
 Heine s idolatry of the Lady of Milo. To Lowell belongs the 
 
140 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 credit of discovering Heine s dominating influence on W. D. 
 Howells. In some prose sketch of Howells, Lowell s keen analy 
 sis had found the Heine, and Lowell advised Howells to try to 
 sweat the Heine out as men do mercury. Professer T. R. Louns- 
 bury in his volume on J. F. Cooper in the American Men of 
 Letters series noted some close similarities between Cooper s 
 phrases and descriptions of events in Paris after the July Revolu 
 tion, and those of Heine in the columns of the Augsburg Allge- 
 meine Zeitung. William Sharp in his Life of Heine (London, 
 1888) conjectured that Frank Stockton, the American humorist, 
 derived hints for one or two of his best known tales from 
 Heine s extravaganza The White Elephant, to be found in the 
 Romanzero. Professor Brander Matthews in his Introduction 
 to American Literature says that Longfellow s lyrics have a 
 singing simplicity caught probably from German lyrists such as 
 Uhland and Heine. Equally vague and inconclusive are the con 
 jectures of C. F. Richardson, who in his American Literature 
 acknowledges, in an indefinite manner, Longfellow s indebted 
 ness to Heine, and hints at the possibility of this influence being 
 present in R. H. Stoddard and W. W. Story. Concerning 
 Heine s influence on the poetry of W. D. Howells, Richardson 
 feels at liberty to express himself with more certainty and empha 
 sis. The general scope and nature of Heine s influence are thus 
 defined by W. D. Howells in Harper s Magazine (Vol. 107, 
 pp. 480-483) : "Heine remained an influence and force destined to 
 be felt wherever and whenever literary art feels the need of liber 
 ation. What Heine does for the reader, who is also a writer, is 
 to help him find his own true nature; to teach him that form 
 which is the farthest from formality ; to reveal to him the secret 
 of being himself. He cannot impart the grace, the beauty in 
 which he abounds, but if his lover has either in him, Heine will 
 discover it to him. The delight of his instruction will be mainly 
 aesthetic, but the final meaning of his life and work is deeply and 
 sadly ethical." 
 
 After hearing the testimony of these authoritative voices 
 concerning the extent and character of the influence exerted by 
 Heine in America, one can realize the difficulty of giving a com- 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 141 
 
 plete account of such a pervading force. This force has mani 
 fested itself in both prose and verse, and has been operative since 
 the publication of Haven s translation of Die Romantische Schule 
 in Boston, in 1836. Heine s influence first appears in a positive 
 form in Longfellow s Hyperion and continues to the present day, 
 being still recognizable in the verse of such contemporary poets 
 as Madison Cawein and Lilian Whiting, and in the novels of, 
 W. D. Howells and Marion Crawford. 86 Heine himself was well 
 aware of his enormous popularity in America. Attacks on his 
 character and works in Germany saddened his last days. Dur 
 ing Meissner s last visit to him in the summer of 1854 Heine 
 remarked: "How the journals calumniate me! What a miser 
 able wretch am I, according to those articles. How many faults 
 do they find in my works? If this goes on much farther I shall 
 soon cease to be counted among the poets. I am treated so only 
 in that Germany which I love so well, while France gives me 
 nothing but words of praise, America reprints me, and scholars 
 in New York and Albany make me the subject of their lectures." 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882). 
 
 German influence began to exert itself on Longfellow when 
 he was a student, and continued to make itself felt in his later 
 life during his first visit to Germany, in 1829. In August of the 
 following year he returned to America, and was for five years 
 professor of modern languages at Bowdoin College. Here he 
 read more or less German literature. In April, 1835, Longfellow 
 again sailed for Europe, traveled through Germany and Switzer 
 land, and in the following October returned to America in order 
 to become professor of modern languages at Harvard. He de 
 livered lectures and wrote on German literature. In April, 1842, 
 he went to Europe for the third time. In Germany he planned 
 his Christus, made the acquaintance- of Freiligrath, and turned 
 
 M In view of this immense extent of Heine s influence, we will in our 
 present section confine ourselves mainly to tracing the influence in American 
 poetry, beginning with Longfellow and concluding with John Hay, Eugene 
 Field, and others, who died but recently. 
 
142 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 his attention to the Jungdeutsche Schule. Returning to America 
 in the winter of 1842 he remained for twenty- five years in 
 America, and delivered lectures on Goethe and Schiller, and 
 published his Poets and Poetry of Europe, and read the works of 
 Fichte, Kant, Grillparzer, Uhland and Heine. In 1868 he went 
 to Europe for the last time, and on his return to America, read 
 Schlegel, Grimm and Voss. Longfellow also felt the German 
 influence through his friendly relations with Freiligrath, Karl 
 Pollen, Franz Lieber, Karl Schurz and Johann Georg Rohl. But 
 not only in his life as a scholar and man do we observe the in 
 fluence of German spirit and culture, but also in his poetical and 
 prose works. Goethe interested him always and Richter was his 
 favorite author. How deep and permanent his impressions of 
 Germany were is evident in many passages. Especially is the 
 Rhineland mentioned frequently. Longfellow s genius was al 
 most feminine in its flexibility and sympathetic quality. It 
 readily took the color of its surroundings and opened itself 
 eagerly to impressions of the beautiful from every quarter, but 
 especially from books. The young poet s fancy was instinctively 
 putting out feelers toward the Old World. After his visit to 
 Europe he returned deeply imbued with the spirit of romance. 
 It was his mission to refine American tastes by revealing new 
 springs of beauty in the literature of foreign tongues. His mis 
 sion was interpretative; his inspiration came to him, in the first 
 instance, from other sources than the common life about him. 
 He naturally began as a translator, and in subtler ways than by 
 direct translation he infused the fine essence of European poetry 
 into his own. We have already noted the recognition and 
 acknowledgment of Longfellow s indebtedness to Heine, by 
 such eminent American litterateurs and critics as Richardson, 
 Matthews, and Stedman. In previous sections we have discussed 
 Longfellow s criticisms on Heine and his transaltion of Nachts 
 in der Kajiite and various prose extracts from Graham s Maga 
 zine. Of the numerous quotations from Die Romantische 
 Schule in Hyperion and Poets and Poetry of Europe we have 
 already spoken. In his edition of Poems of Places Longfellow 
 inserted a number of poems from Heine translated by various 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 143 
 
 men, and in the preface he said: "For myself, I confess that 
 these poems have an indescribable charm, as showing how the 
 affections of men have gone forth to their favorite haunts, and 
 consecrated them forever." 
 
 In his article on Heine in Graham s Magazine Longfellow 
 had said that Heine s style was remarkable for vigor, wit and 
 brilliancy. Commenting on Heine s Buck der Lieder Long 
 fellow wrote in his journal, 87 June 4, 1846: "A true summer 
 morning, warm and breezy. F. sat under the linden-tree and 
 read to me Heine s poems, while I lay under a hay-cock. . . . 
 Heine, delicious poet, for such an hour ! What a charm there is 
 about his Buck der Lieder! Ah, here they would be held by 
 most people as ridiculous. Many poetic souls there are here and 
 many lovers of song; but life and its ways and ends are prosaic 
 in this country to the last degree." 
 
 In Volume II, page no, in the Journal, February 9, 1848, 
 we read the following: "Received some German books 
 sketches of the German political lyric poets, with portraits. 
 . . . Heine, a pleasant face, and indicating the sarcastic na 
 ture of the modern Scarron." 
 
 Writing to James T. Fields, from Nahant, August 15, 
 1859, Longfellow 88 comments on Heine s Lutere as follows: 
 "Read Lutere by Henri Heine; spicy descriptions of Paris and 
 Parisian notabilities in the days of Louis Philippe." 
 
 In a letter 89 to G. W. Greene, dated March 7, 1879, Long 
 fellow says of Zendrini s translation of Heine: "A 
 more important achievement is a translation of Heine s poems 
 into Italian by Bernardino Zendrini a volume of over four 
 hundred pages, sent me by the translator, desideroso di un suo 
 guidizio." As far as I have examined it, he has done his work 
 well. And what a difficult work ! There is evidently a great and 
 strange fascination in translating. It seizes people with irresist 
 ible power and whirls them away till they are beside them- 
 
 " Life of H. W. Longfellow, edited by Samuel Longfellow. 3 Vols. Bos 
 ton, 1893. Vol. II, p. 41. 
 
 88 Life of Longfellow, by Samuel Longfellow. Vol. II, p. 372. 
 "Vol. Ill, p. 298. 
 
144 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 selves. It is like a ghost beckoning me to follow." The forego 
 ing quotations show how frequently Longfellow occupied him 
 self with the reading and study of Heine s works, and we shall 
 now proceed to consider the traces of Heine s influence which are 
 recognizable in Longfellow s works, confining ourselves mainly 
 to his poetry. Longfellow appears to have made his acquaintance 
 with Heine s works very early in life, for in his sketch book 
 Outre-Mer (1833 and 1835) where Irving s Sketch Book is the 
 model, we can find traces of German influence, especially Heine s 
 Reisebilder. Compare, for instance, the remarks made by Long 
 fellow on the narrowness of the streets of Genoa with that of 
 Heine in his Reisebilder, on the same point. In Hyperion ( 1839) 
 he shows us pictures of German life and is full of allusions to 
 German literature and quotations from Heine, Goethe and Jean 
 Paul. The grotesque episode of Frau Kranick s tea in Ems is 
 conceived entirely in the manner of Heine. The sentimental 
 tone that prevades Hyperion is the very thing which Longfellow 
 subsequently found fault with in the Reisebilder. The view of life 
 presented in his Hyperion is optimistic, yet it is overhung with 
 the same purple melancholy and affected by that same feeling of 
 sadness so characteristic of some of Heine s verse in the Buh der 
 Lieder. It was with justification that Poe called Longfellow a 
 sentimentalist as Longfellow had called Heine, when speaking of 
 the Reisebilder. Longfellow s fame began with the appearance 
 in 1839 of his Voices of the Night. Only nine new pieces were 
 in this book: these with the translations following have charac 
 teristics that his verse continued to display. The Prelude re 
 calls Heine s third edition of the Buck der Lieder ("Das ist der 
 alte Marchenwald," Elster, I, 8), then just published. Aside from 
 the influence of Heine s manner as indicated in the melodious 
 quality of the verse, the simplicity, the symbolism, the quiet, 
 smooth beginning, these two preludes have many characteristics 
 in common. The sylvan scene corresponds to der alte Marchen 
 wald; the slumberous sound of the leaves of the patriarchal tree 
 clapping their hands in glee, which brings the feelings of a 
 dream, corresponds to 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 145 
 
 " Sie jubelt so traurig, 
 Sie schluchzet so f roh ; 
 Vergessene Traume erwachen." 
 
 Both preludes have the reverie, the visions of youth. 
 " Before me rose an avenue 
 Of tall and sombrous pines" ; 
 
 reminds us of "Ich ging fiirbass, und wie ich ging, so sah ich 
 vor mir liegen auf freiem Platz ein grosses Schloss," etc. To 
 Heine the sylvan scene recalls the vision of his youthful love and 
 pain, to Longfellow it recalls the dreams of youth, visions of 
 childhood that were so sweet and wild. Distant voices tell Long 
 fellow that visions of childhood cannot stay, and that other 
 themes now demand his lay. Henceforth his song must be, the 
 forest where the din of iron branches sounds, and the river re 
 flects the heavens all black with sin; all forms of sorrow, and 
 delight, these must now be his theme. We see here the deep 
 tinge of melancholy which pervades Heine s Vorrede zur dritten 
 Auflage of his Buck der Lieder. Longfellow realizes that delight 
 exists together with sorrow. We are naturally reminded of the 
 words of the nightingale in Heine s prelude : 
 
 "Die Nachtigall sang: O schone Sphinx! 
 O Liebe ! was soil es bedeuten, 
 Dass du vermischest mit Todesqual 
 Alle deine Seligkeiten." 
 
 Later poems show very well that Longfellow caught the 
 manner of Heine. In The Day is Done, The Bridge, Twilight, 
 we find repeated the reverie and the favorite rhythm of Heine. 
 These poems also reproduce the wonderful singing quality of 
 Heine s verse, but of course they do not contain the scorn and 
 passion of the German. Longfellow like Heine is the poet of 
 sentiment. The spontaneous ease and grace are the best technical 
 qualities of Longfellow s lyrics, and these qualities he derived 
 chiefly from a careful study of Heine. In some poems Long 
 fellow displays a subtlety in feeling and suggestiveness that re 
 mind us of Heine s lyrics. The Fire of Driftwood is the subtlest 
 
146 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 thing in feeling that Longfellow ever wrote. If there is any par 
 ticular in which Longfellow s inspiration came to him at first 
 hand and not through books, it is in respect to aspects of the sea. 
 On this theme no American poet has written more beautifully 
 and with a keener sympathy than the author of The Wreck of the 
 Hesperus, and of Sea^veed. Yet Longfellow owes part of this 
 inspiration to Heine s sea-poetry, Die Nordsee. The poem en 
 titled the Fire of Driftwood reminds us of Heine s Wir sassen am 
 Fischerhause (Elster, I, 98). The resemblances in theme and 
 situation are of course merely accidental, but the manner, tone 
 and spirit is the same in both poems. Compare for instance the 
 first strophes of both poems: 
 
 " Wir sassen am Fischerhause, 
 Und schauten nach der See ; 
 Die Abendnebel kamen, 
 Und stiegen in die Hohe." 
 
 " We sat within the farm-house old, 
 Whose windows, looking o er the bay, 
 Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold, 
 An easy entrance night and day." 
 
 The Open Window reproduces admirably the favorite 
 rhythm, the tone, spirit, simplicity, suggestiveness, melody, grace 
 and charm of Heine s songs. The theme is, to be sure, hardly 
 Heine-like, but everything else is decidedly in Heine s character 
 istic manner. Other examples of the influence of Heine s tech 
 nique might be mentioned, but these will suffice to convince us 
 that the grace that takes the ear with delight, the singing sim 
 plicity and all other fascinating characteristics of Longfellow s 
 lyrics are mostly copied from Heine, although the influence of 
 Uhland is also very strong. 
 
 Heine begins quietly, smoothly. He produces his effect not 
 by direct delineation or representation, but by the suggestion of 
 the less important of the small things in which the great are re 
 flected. Remarkable is Heine s style for condensation, pregnant 
 brevity, and subtle suggestiveness. These characteristics of 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 147 
 
 Heine s technique Longfellow endeavored to imitate and in the 
 poems mentioned he succeeds well. But Longfellow was not a 
 mocker and he did not permit a discordant note to jingle in his 
 lyrics, and consequently the sudden revulsion of mood, so often 
 found in the last lines of Heine s poems, is entirely absent. How 
 successfully Longfellow was able to imitate Heine s technique is 
 well illustrated by the poem entitled Twilight, which may be 
 compared to Heine s Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter (Elster, 
 I, 109): 
 
 The twilight is sad and cloudy, 
 The wind blows wild and free, 
 And like the wings of sea-birds 
 Flash the white caps of the sea. 
 
 But in the fisherman s cottage 
 There shines a ruddier light, 
 And a little face at the window 
 Peers out into the night. 
 
 Close, close it is pressed to the window, 
 As if those childish eves 
 Were looking into the darkness 
 To see some form arise. 
 
 And a woman s waving shadow 
 Is passing to and fro. 
 Now rising to the ceiling, 
 Now bowing and bending low. 
 
 What tale do the roaring ocean 
 And the night-wind, bleak and wild, 
 As they beat at the crazy casement, 
 Tell to that little child? 
 
 And why do the roaring ocean, 
 And the night-wind, wild and bleak, 
 As they beat at the heart of the mother, 
 Drive the color from her cheek? 
 
148 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891). 
 
 If some small savor creep into my rhyme 
 Of the old poets ; if some words I use, 
 Neglected long, which have the lusty thews 
 Of that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time, 
 
 Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime 
 
 Have given our tongue its starry eminence, 
 
 It is not pride, God knows, but reverence 
 
 Which hath grown in me since my childhood s prime. 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 In mature youth Lowell took his seat in the Harvard Chair 
 of Modern Languages, succeeding Longfellow as professor in 
 1855. Already possessing scholarly knowledge of the German 
 language and literature, Lowell in 1851 visited Europe and 
 widened his acquaintance with modern languages. A little vol 
 ume of poems entitled A Year s Life appeared in 1841. This 
 was marked by no great originality. In these early verses 
 Lowell showed himself to be a young man of sentiment and 
 sometimes of sentimentality. Margaret Fuller asserted that 
 neither the imagery nor the music of his verse was his own. 
 The lines quoted above acknowledge the force of this criticism. 
 The influence of Wordsworth and Tennyson may be distinctly 
 traced in most of his early poems. But Lowell was not so spon 
 taneously and exclusively a poet as Longfellow. His prose is 
 superior; wit sparkles through his essavs and in the best parts 
 of the Fable for Critics and Biglow Papers. The influence of 
 Heine can be traced in Lowell s prose and poetry. For his 
 brilliant wit and satirical style Lowell is greatly indebted to 
 Heine. Atta Troll and Deutschland were favorites with Lowell, 
 and his penchant for satire was stimulated and developed by the 
 perusal and study of these satirical poems. That Atta Troll 
 constantly haunted his mind we are assured by the well-known 
 sonnet The Dancing Bear, previously quoted. 
 
 Lowell in his essay on Lessing shows us how well he was 
 acquainted with Deutschland. In discussing Lowell s criticisms 
 on Heine we pointed out his appreciation of the German s wit, 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 149 
 
 humor, pathos, grace and dainty lightness. Lowell s Harvard 
 Anniversary Address (1886) contains reference to Leland s 
 translation of Heine s Reisebilder, and to Heine s hating the 
 Romans because they invented the Latin language. 
 
 His essay on Witchcraft contains comment on the quota 
 tion from Heine : "Genau bei Weibern, Weiss man neimals wo 
 der Engel aufhort und der Teufel anfangt." Should we require 
 further proof of Lowell s familiarity with Heine s characteristic 
 style we may get it from W. D. Howells book entitled Liter 
 ary Friends and Acquaintances (New York, 1900). On his first 
 visit to New England Mr. Howells visited Lowell and told him 
 of the trouble he had in finding him, and could not help dragging 
 in something about Heine s search for Borne when he went to 
 see him in Frankfurt. Then Lowell spoke to Howells about 
 Heine and when Howells showed his ardor for the German poet, 
 he sought to temper it with some judicious criticisms and told 
 Howells that he had kept the first poem he had sent him for the 
 Atlantic Monthly for the long time it had been unacknowledged 
 to make sure it was not a translation from Heine. Mr. Howells 
 in his volume entitled My Literary Passions tells us that in some 
 prose sketch of his, Lowell s keen analysis had found the Heine, 
 and that Lowell advised him to sweat the Heine out of his bones 
 as men do mercury. 
 
 Lowell s fine prose style shows the influence of Heine in the 
 airy lightness, wit, humor, grace and satirical pungency. The 
 great difference between Lowell s early prose and that of his 
 mature style is attributable to the aesthetic lessons from Heine; 
 we observe a change from polixity, bombast, ambiguity, affected- 
 ness, flatness, sterility, and heaviness to simplicity, lightness, 
 brevity, naturalness, vigor, brilliancy, wit, humor and epigram 
 matic charm. Many of the witticisms, epigrams and satirical 
 shafts can be traced back to similar utterances in the Reisebilder, 
 Atta Troll and Deutschland. But we must confine ourselves to 
 Heine s influence on Lowell s poetry and content ourselves with 
 the above remarks on the development of the American critic s 
 prose style. 
 
150 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 Lowell s verse, while lacking to some extent the evenness 
 and instinctive grace of Heine s lyrics, yet displays the same 
 melodious qualities and sentimentality. The poem In the Twi 
 light Deep and Silent repeats the reverie, longing, sentimentality, 
 subtle suggestiveness and imagery of Heine s lyrics. The calm 
 beginning, simplicity and melodious flow of verse also remind us 
 of Heine s manner. Quite in the manner of Heine is also the 
 song What Reck I of the Stars?". The technique and sentimen 
 tality of the poem reminds us of Das Meer hat seine Perlen. 
 
 In the poem From the Close-shut Windows Gleams No Spark 
 we find Heine s melancholy sigh, longing, subtle suggestiveness, 
 pregnant condensation, sentimentality, but not his gleam of scorn 
 or mockery. Heine s influence is again strongly in evidence in 
 the sentimentality of such early lyrics as O Moonlight Deep and 
 Tender. Of the most convincing nature are the traces of Heine s 
 influence in the poem The Captive. Here we have the manner of 
 Heine s ballads imitated. If we compare it, for instance, with 
 The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar we see that the methods employed 
 to produce the effect are precisely the same; especially is this 
 noticeable in the incompleteness and suggestiveness. The gift 
 of describing by means of introducing characters into lyric poetry 
 was common to both Heine and Lowell. Another striking simi 
 larity is the imagery and symbolism employed in the seventh 
 strophe of this same poem, The Captive. Let us compare it with 
 Heine s matchless and famous poem Ein Fichtenbaitm steht 
 einsam : 
 
 Ein Fichtenbaitm steht einsam 
 Im Norden auf kahler Hoh 
 Ihn schlafert; mit weisser Decke 
 Umhullen ihn Eis und Schnee. 
 Er traumt von einer Palme, 
 Die fern im Morgenland 
 Einsam und schweigend trauert 
 Auf brennender Felsenwand. 
 
 The seventh strophe of Lowell s poem, The Captive, is as 
 follows : 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 151 
 
 On a green spot in the desert, 
 Gleaming like an emerald star, 
 Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, 
 Yearning for its mate afar. 
 Droops above a silver runnel, 
 Slender as a scimitar. 
 
 Lowell undoubtedly had Heine s famous poem in mind when 
 he wrote these lines. Anyone at all familiar with Heine s manner 
 and technique in his ballads will be at once struck by the re 
 semblance and influence which such ballads as The Captive pre 
 sent. Heine s influence is chiefly discernible in the manner em 
 ployed by Lowell in his lyrical poems to produce his effect. Ac 
 cordingly he does this by suggestion, and indirect representation 
 as Heine always does. Lowell, however, was not so felicitous in 
 reproducing the perfection, grace, subtlety of thought and aroma 
 of Heine s lyrics. In this respect Lowell was surpassed by Long 
 fellow, who succeeded admirably in imitating Heine s cadences 
 and style in many poems. 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878). 
 
 Taylor was a man of buoyant and eager nature ; he possessed 
 a remarkable memory, a talent for learning languages, and too 
 great a readiness to take on the hue of his favorite books. His 
 poetry, though full of glow and picturesqueness is largely imita 
 tive, suggesting Tennyson not infrequently, but more often 
 Shelley. The dangerous quickness with which he caught the 
 manner of other poets made him an admirable parodist and en 
 abled him to give us his wonderful translation of Faust. The 
 dominant German influence in Taylor is, of course, Goethe. His 
 whole life may be said to have been devoted to the study of 
 Goethe s life and works. In his twelve lectures on German litera 
 ture delivered at Cornell University, Taylor concludes with Jean 
 Paul. Of Heine, Taylor speaks but seldom in his various works. 
 In Vie^vs A-foot (Chapter XI) Taylor while speaking of Freili- 
 graph remarked: "He (Freiligrath) is now in Paris, where 
 Heine and Herwegh, two of Germany s finest poets, both banished 
 for the same reason, are living. The free spirit which charac- 
 
152 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 terizes these men, who come from among the people, shows 
 plainly the tendency of the times." 
 
 From references in Views A-foot and By-Ways of Europe 
 to the Lorelei legend and Barbarossa in Kyffhaiiser, and from his 
 remarks 90 on John B. Phillips translation of Heine s Gods of 
 Greece, we learn of Taylor s familiarity with Heine s poems. 
 C. G. Leland in his Memoirs (New York, 1893, p. 228) tells us 
 that Taylor read in conjunction with Thackeray, his (Leland s) 
 translation of Heine s Reisebilder (1855). 
 
 Heine s influence on Taylor was slight and manifested itself 
 chiefly in his use of the ballad or folksong measures and in the 
 simplicity of diction. The poem On The Headland ("The Poet s 
 Journal") repeats Heine s favorite rhythm and also his longing 
 and sentimentality. The same rhythm is found in Exorcism, 
 Squandered Lives, In Winter, etc. Heine s symbolism of Ein 
 Fichtenbaum steht einsam is evidently copied in the title of 
 Taylor s poem The Palm and the Pine, although there is no other 
 resemblance between the two poems. A Picture (Poems and 
 Lyrics) is somewhat in Heine s manner, repeating the favorite 
 rhythm, reverie, subtle suggestiveness, and longing. The same 
 smooth and quiet beginning, the vision, the passion and feeling of 
 desolation that we find so frequently in Heine, is characteristic of 
 A Picture. Peculiarly Heineesque is the sudden recovery from 
 the reverie and revulsion of mood as expressed in the last strophe 
 of this poem (A Picture) : 
 
 I see him through the doleful shades 
 Press onward, sad and slow, 
 Till from my dream the picture fades, 
 And from my heart the woe. 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 
 
 In his Reminiscences R. H. Stoddard leads us to believe that 
 he was not a scholar and was not able to read foreign languages. 
 But he tells us that it was his custom to read translations of 
 
 90 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, edited by Taylor & Scudder. 4th 
 Ed. Boston, 1885. Vol. II, p. 55. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 153 
 
 Goethe s works and Bowring s translations from European lan 
 guages. He was united in bonds of personal friendship and liter 
 ary enthusiasm with such good German scholars as Bayard 
 Taylor, George Boker, E. C. Stedmann and Eugene Field, all 
 well acquainted with the works of Heine. Under these circum 
 stances it is highly improbable that such an eminent lyric poet and 
 literary critic as Stoddard should have been ignorant of Heine s 
 lyrics. Positive and undeniable traces of Heine influence can be 
 found in Stoddard s poems. The spontaneous and imaginative 
 music of his verse is produced largely by Heine s technique. Pes 
 simistic and aging strains betokening a sense of life s weariness 
 and uncertain skies, pervade a good deal of Stoddard s poetry 
 and remind us of the "Weltschmerz" of Heine s poems. Concern 
 ing this echo in Stoddard, Richardson 91 says: "Let his best and 
 brightest self sing down in a lyric, or weigh down with some 
 strong line from sonnet or ode, such anacreontic memories, such 
 Cis-Atlantic echoes or sympathetic answers of Heine, whose 
 influence in the world I am almost ready to declare mischievous." 
 By "anacreontic memories" Richardson means Stoddard s songs 
 on Asiatic themes. Richardson, 92 who classes Heine with the 
 poets of the lesser order (Sappho, Horace, Petrarch, Gray, 
 Wordsworth), disapproves of this Heine influence in the 
 poems of Stoddard. How admirably Stoddard could imitate 
 Heine s lyrics will be obvious if we compare his poem Thou 
 Pallid Fisher maiden with Heine s celebrated Du sc hones Fischer - 
 madchen. 
 
 The Sea. 
 
 (The Lover.) 
 
 Thou pallid fishermaiden, 
 That standest by the shore, 
 Why dost thou watch the ocean. 
 And hearken to its roar? 
 
 91 American Literature, by C. F. Richardson. New York, 1895. Vol. 
 II, p. 253. 
 
 92 American Literature, Vol. II, p. 151. 
 
 83 The Poems of R. H. Stoddard. Complete Edition. New York, 1882, 
 P. 75. 
 
154 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 It is some Danish sailor, 
 That sails the Spanish main: 
 Nor will thy roses redden 
 Till he returns again. 
 
 Thou simple fishermaiden, 
 He cares no more for thee: 
 He sleeps with the mermaidens, 
 The witches of the sea. 
 
 Thou should st not watch the ocean 
 And hearken to its roar, 
 When bridal bells are ringing 
 In little kirks ashore. 
 
 Go, dress thee for thy bridal, 
 A stalwart man like me 
 Is worth a thousand sailors, 
 Whose bones are in the sea. 
 
 A finer imitation of Heine s Du schones Fischer made hen 
 could scarcely be made. The rhythm, tone, spirit, theme, senti 
 ment and manner are identical in both poems. The first line is 
 almost a translation; the adjective pallid is more appropriate to 
 a fishermaiden than "schones." Of poems repeating and re-echo 
 ing the "Weltschmerz" and pessimism, Stoddard has written 
 very many. These can be easily found and the Heine influence 
 detected. But we shall conclude our study on Stoddard by quot 
 ing one more delicious lyric which we regard as an imitation of 
 Heine s familiar vein: 
 
 The 
 
 ( The Lover. ) 
 
 You stooped and picked a red lipped shell, 
 
 Beside the shining sea; 
 
 "This little shell, when I am gone, 
 
 Will whisper still of me." 
 
 I kissed your hands upon the sands, 
 
 For you were kind to me. 
 
 Poems of R. H. Stoddard. New York, 1882, p. 59. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 155 
 
 I hold the shell against my ear, 
 
 And hear its hollow roar; 
 
 It speaks to me about the sea, 
 
 But speaks of you no more. 
 
 I face the sands, and wring my hands, 
 
 For you are kind no more. 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ( 1824-1 qcn). 
 While in Germany during the years 1845-48 Leland 95 read 
 broad and wide in German literature, as may be found by ex 
 amining the notes to his translation of Heine s works. In Ger 
 many he became a pupil of Professor Frieclrich Thiersch who 
 trained Heine to art Leland made the acquaintance of Ole 
 Bull, the violinist, who told much about Heine. Ole Bull 
 had known Heine very well and he described to Leland his bril 
 liancy in the most distinguished literary society, where in French 
 the German wit bore away the palm from all Frenchmen. 
 "Heine flashed and sprayed in brilliancy like a fountain." In 
 this manner Leland s enthusiastic admiration for Heine origi 
 nated. Heine dominated his thoughts henceforth, and all his 
 literary work showed clearly the powerful influence. Of Leland 
 as a critic and translator we have already spoken in preceding 
 sections. In the preface to his translation of the Rcisebildcr Le 
 land had declared that no living German writer had exerted an 
 influence comparable to that of Heine, and that since Goethe, no 
 author had penetrated so generally through every class of 
 society. Traces of Heine s influence appeared in Leland s early 
 works. The Hans Breitmann Ballads are written in English as 
 imperfectly spoken by Germans. Hans is a jocose burlesque 
 of a type of Germans. Teutonic philosophy and sentiment, beer, 
 music and romance have been made the medium for laughter. 
 Leland jests with the new German philosophy in the manner of 
 Heine. Breitmann is represented as one of the battered types 
 of the men of 48, whose education had led him to scepticism and 
 indifference. His mockery reminds us of Heine s predominant 
 vein. But in the case of Breitmann the mockery is accidental and 
 naive, while Heine s is keen and deliberate. Breitmann s mock 
 ery differs from Heine s as drollerv differs from brilliant satire. 
 
 95 Memoirs by C. G. Leland. New York, 1893, p. 156. 
 
156 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 These poems abound in words, phrases, suggestions, and coup 
 lets borrowed from old ballads, from Heine and from other 
 sources. We have burlesque imitations of familiar ballads of 
 Goethe and Heine. The influence of Heine is also discernible 
 in the simplicity of diction and versification, melody and the 
 "Volkslied" tone that prevails throughout the various ballads and 
 songs. Concerning Heine s wit Hans Breitmann remarks: 
 
 Twas like de sayin that Heine 
 Hafe no witz in him goot or bad : 
 Boat he only kept sayin witty dings, 
 To make beoples pelieve he had. 
 
 We often get an echo from a Heine lyric in a couplet, as in 
 Am Rhein, No. n, where the following lines remind us of simi 
 lar ones in the Lorelei: 
 
 Am Rhein ! Again am Rhein ! 
 In boat oopon der Rhein! 
 De castle-bergs soft goldnen 
 Im Abendsonnenschein. 
 
 A fine imitation or burlesque of Heine s Ich bin die Prin- 
 zessin Use is to be found in the ballad Der noble Ritter Hugo. In 
 this ballad we are also reminded of Heine s Lorelei and Goethe s 
 Fischer. But it bears the closest resemblance to the Prinzessin 
 Use. Leland has caught the manner of Heine admirably in this 
 ballad, imitating every characteristic feature. 
 
 Ballad. 
 
 Der noble Ritter Hugo 
 
 Von Schwillensaufenstein, 
 
 Rode out mit shpeer and helmet, 
 
 Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine. 
 
 Und oop der rose a meer maid, 
 Vot hadn t got nodings on, 
 Und she says, "Oh, Ritter Hugo, 
 Vhere you goes mit yourself alone ?" 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 157 
 
 And he says, "I rides in de creenwood 
 Mit helmet und mit spheer, 
 Till I cooms into ein Gasthaus 
 Und dere I trinks some beer." 
 
 Und den outspoke de maiden 
 Vot hadn t got nodings on: 
 "I ton t dink mooch of beoplesh 
 Dat goes mit demselfs alone. 
 
 "You d petter coom down in de wasser, 
 Vere dere s heaps of dings to see, 
 Und haf a shplendid tinner 
 Und drafel along mit me. 
 
 "Dere you sees de fisch a schwimmin, 
 Und you catches dem efery one." 
 So sang die wasser maiden 
 Vot hadn t got nodings on. 
 
 "Dere ish drunks all full mit money 
 In ships dat vent down of old ; 
 Und you helpsh yourself, by dunder ! 
 To shimmerin crowns of gold. 
 
 "Shoost look at dese shpoons und vatches! 
 Shoost see dese diamant rings ! 
 Coom down und full your bockets, 
 Und I ll giss you like avery dings. 
 
 "Vot you vantsh mit your schnapps und lager? 
 Coom down into der Rhine ! 
 Der ish pottles der Kaiser Charlemagne 
 Vonce filled mit gold-red wine!" 
 
 Dat fetched him he shtood all shpell pound ; 
 She pooled his coat-tails down, 
 She drawed him oonder der wasser, 
 De maiden mit nodings on. 
 
 The coupling of love and death so characteristic of Heine s 
 poems finds an echo in Leland s volume entitled The Music Les 
 son of Confucius and Other Poems (Boston, 1872). This fact is 
 well exemplified in the poem The Fountain Fay, which is a sort 
 
158 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 of Lorelei. The motto of this poem might very well be the lines 
 from Heine s prelude to the third edition of his Book of Songs, 
 from which the inspiration is drawn: 
 
 Entziickende Marter und wonniges Weh ! 
 Der Schmerz wie die Lust unermesslich ! 
 Derweilen des Mundes Kuss mich begliickt, 
 Verwunden die Tatzen mich grasslich 
 
 Die Nachtigall sang: "O schone Sphinx! 
 O Liebe! was soil es bedeuten, 
 Dass du vermischest mit Todesqual 
 All deine Seligkeiten? 
 
 The Fountain-Fay** 
 
 Ye gentles all who love your life 
 Beware, beware the water wife! 
 
 She singeth soft, she singeth low ; 
 
 Her lute is the mountain-streamlet s flow ; 
 
 Her harp the pine-wood s mournful moan ; 
 She sits in the forest and sings alone. 
 
 And her songs, like rippling rivers roll ; 
 Beware, beware, ere they drown the soul ! 
 
 Ride where you may, ride where you will, 
 The Fountain-Fay may meet you still. 
 
 He rode alone in the silent night, 
 
 She swam like a star to his left and right. 
 
 He rode by the linden blooming fair, 
 The wood-bird sung: "Oh, boy, beware!" 
 
 He came to the fountain in the wood ; 
 The Fay in her beauty before him stood. 
 
 In the starlight, silver sparkling glance 
 Her sisters swam in the Elfin dance. 
 
 "Alight, young minstrel, brave and gay, 
 And sing us thy sweetest, strangest lay !" 
 
 96 The Music Lesson of Confucius and Other Poems, by C. G. Leland. 
 Boston, 1872, pp. 102-103. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 159 
 
 He tuned his lute, and the tinkling sounds 
 Flitted like birds through the greenwood bounds. 
 
 He sang so sweet he sang so long, 
 The flower-buds opened to hear his song. 
 
 He sang so gently of maiden love, 
 
 He ripened the fruit on the boughs above. 
 
 "Far in the East is a rosy light ; 
 
 What shall he have for his song this night ?" 
 
 "I ask no more for lute and lay, 
 
 Than a kiss from the lips of the Fountain-Fay." 
 
 She kissed him once to the minstrel s sight 
 The world seemed melting in golden light. 
 
 Once more and his soul to the land of the fay 
 In beauty and music seemed floating away. 
 
 As she kissed him, again the spirit had fled: 
 He lay in the moon-rays, cold and dead. 
 
 But far from above a whisper fell: 
 
 "Green earth, with thy valleys and lakes farewell !" 
 
 Ye who know not the life of poesy, 
 Of beauty, romance, and fantasie! 
 
 And who think there can be no world like this, 
 Beware of the fairy beware her kiss. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to observe that to this Heineesque 
 poem Leland has added didactic features entirely foreign to 
 Heine s manner. Instead of the nightingale of Heine s prelude 
 who asks the sphinx for a solution of the mystery of this coup 
 ling of pleasure and pain, or love and death, Leland s didacticism 
 induces him to introduce and substitute the wood-bird telling the 
 boy to beware of the Fay. The poem Waking Dreams 97 repeats 
 Heine s unlabored imagery, reverie, condensation, and subtle sug- 
 gestiveness together with his yearning and disappointment : 
 
 Music Lesson of Confucius, p. 128. 
 
160 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 That thought is no reality, 
 Oft waking with a start, we find ; 
 But from reality take thought, 
 How little then remains behind. 
 
 I walk the greenwood all alone, 
 And thou in spirit by my side ; 
 Ah, then, thou art, indeed, my own, 
 A something more than earthly bride. 
 
 A dead leaf falls, the vision flies 
 
 Like morning mist from mountain stream ; 
 
 Yet take that vision from my life, 
 
 And life itself were but a dream. 
 
 Another poem in this same volume (Music Lesson of Con 
 fucius) displaying Heine influence is the one entitled The Dream 
 (p. 88). As usual Leland adds a prefatory strophe which Heine s 
 suggestive manner would have left to the imagination. The 
 symbolism employed in this poem by Leland also reminds us of 
 Heine s manner. The effect is produced by indirect representa 
 tion. The sentiment is also quite that of Heine. 
 
 An ancient dream has wandered 
 Through earth since the earliest time, 
 And he o er whom it sweepeth 
 Grows stern or it may be weepeth, 
 Like one who suffers with longing 
 For a sweet yet terrible crime. 
 
 It hath but a single picture : 
 A fountain which leaps and foams, 
 And by it a woman sits yearning, 
 Starting mid reveries burning 
 For a love which never comes. 
 
 The fountain leaps up in passion, 
 Darts out in a gleaming pain ; 
 And the longing of him who dreameth, 
 And the passion of her who seemeth, 
 Fall back into foam again. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 161 
 
 The influence of Heine s method of description and imagery 
 is seen in Leland s poem Eva. 98 The manner is that of Heine s 
 Sapphire sind die Augen dein. 
 
 Eva. 
 
 I ve seen bright eyes like mountain lakes, 
 Reflecting heaven s blue; 
 And some like black-volcano gulfs, 
 With wild fire flashing through. 
 
 But thine are like the eternal skies, 
 Which draw the soul afar 
 Their every glance a meteor, 
 And every thought a star, 
 
 Some lips when robbed seem cherries sweet, 
 Small sin to those who stole 
 But thine are like the Eden fruit, 
 Whose theft may cost a soul. 
 
 Oh coral fruit of paradise ! 
 Who would not grasp the prize? 
 With heaven so near to bring him back, 
 In those eternal eyes. 
 
 In this poem we have once more the co-existence of pleasure 
 and pain, love and death, the surest evidence of Heine s in 
 fluence in modern poetry. Entirely in the manner of Heine and 
 possessing characteristics only found united in Heine s poetry is 
 Leland s poem Then and Now." The pregnant brevity, the 
 subtlety of thought and suggest iveness, and particularly the last 
 two lines in their epigrammatic turn are peculiar to Heine : 
 
 Then and Now. 
 
 We met and spoke in darkness, 
 But my spirit knew your grace, 
 And my heart had felt your fetters 
 Ere my eyes had seen your face. 
 
 98 Music Lesson of Confucius, p. 118. 
 * Music Lesson of Confucius, p. 123. 
 
162 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 That evening dream is over, 
 No cloud between us rolls ; 
 Now the light is on our faces, 
 And the darkness in our souls. 
 
 If the manner, tone and spirit of Heine are well reflected 
 and repeated in Then and Now, his reverie, passion, longing, dis 
 appointment and despair are well reproduced in Leland s Para 
 dise Lost, 100 where Heine s manner is also imitated. 
 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 And we are in the winter, 
 Sadly chilled with frost and snow ! 
 Oh, how strange amid my memories 
 Seems last summer s rosy glow. 
 
 When your bright eyes opened on me, 
 Like two dew-filled lotus flowers, 
 When I saw myself reflected 
 In the depths of heaven s bowers. 
 
 But in my deepest rapture 
 It all vanished and I fell 
 Back to artificial roses : 
 Heavenly lotus, fare thee well ! 
 
 Many more poems might be cited which show Heine s in 
 fluence in thought, tone and manner, but lack of space forbids; 
 and we shall conclude our study of Leland s poems by quoting 
 one more very characteristic poem, The Mountain and Sea. 101 
 
 The Mountain and Sea. 
 
 When gazing on a summer sea 
 Beneath a purple sky, 
 It oft has seemed a mountain ridge 
 Far rising blue and high. 
 
 Now gazing inland and afar, 
 The thought still comes to me, 
 How much yon distant mountain line 
 Is like the dim blue sea. 
 
 100 Music Lesson of Confucius, p. 145. 
 
 101 Music Lesson of Confucius, p. 129. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 163 
 
 When thou art seated by my side 
 Loved memories ever rise ; 
 When thou art gone up swells the tide 
 Of those sweet, sea-blue eyes. 
 
 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1837- ). 
 
 "I have never greatly loved an author, without wishing to 
 write like him." 
 
 W. D. Howells, My Literary Passions. 
 
 Mr. Howells was born in Ohio. His early life was that of 
 a western country editor. In 1860 he published jointly with his 
 friend, Piatt, a book of verse, Poems of Two Friends. His part 
 was remarkable for little but for its imitation of well-known 
 themes and styles. Some years later he published a volume of 
 poems all his own. The work in this little book was neatly, ex 
 ecuted; it contained delicate poetical conceits and flights of 
 fancy; but it was poor poetry and failed to gain for its author 
 acceptance as a poet of mark and eminence. In 1860 Mr. Howells 
 did not wish to be anything else but a poet. Lowell had accepted 
 and begun to print in the Atlantic Monthly five or six poems of 
 his. Besides this he had written poems and sketches, and criti 
 cisms for the Saturday Press, of New York, and he was always 
 writing poems and sketches, and criticisms in his own paper. He 
 read Thackeray, Eliot, Hawthorne, Reade, De Quincey, Tenny 
 son, Longfellow and Heine and ever more Heine, where there was 
 not something new from the others. Mr. Howells has done his 
 work of autobiography with such candor and thoroughness that 
 we shall let him relate his experience with the works of Heine in 
 his own words. In his book entitled My Literary Passions. 102 Mr. 
 Howells tells us how he was initiated into the study of German 
 after he left his position as city editor in Cincinnati and returned 
 to his home in Columbus, Ohio : "At the same time I took up the 
 study of German, which I must have already played with, at such 
 odd times as I could find. My father knew something of it, and 
 that friend of mine among the printers was already reading it 
 
 102 New York, 1895, p. 165 f . 
 
164 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 and trying to speak it. I had their help with the first steps so 
 far as the recitations from Ollendorf were concerned, but I was 
 impatient to read German, or rather to read one German poet, who 
 had seized my fancy from the first line of his I had seen. This 
 poet was Heinrich Heine, who dominated me longer than any one 
 author that I have known. Where and when I first acquainted 
 myself with his most fascinating genius, I cannot be sure, but I 
 think it was in some article of the Westminster Review, where 
 several poems of his were given in French and German; and 
 their singular beauty and grace at once possessed my soul. I was 
 in a fever to know more of him, and it was my great good luck 
 to fall in with a German in the village who had his books. He 
 was a book-binder, one of those educated artisans whom the 
 Revolution of 1848 sent to us in great numbers. He was a Han 
 overian and his accent was then, I believe, the standard, though 
 Berlinese is now the accepted pronunciation. But I cared very 
 little for accent ; my wish was to get at Heine with as little delay 
 as possible, and I began to cultivate the friendship of that book 
 binder in every way. ... I clothed him in all the romantic 
 interest, I began to feel for his race and language, which now 
 took the place of the Spaniards and Spanish in my affections. He 
 was of very quick and gay intelligence, with more sympathy for 
 my love of my author s humor than for my love of his sentiment, 
 and I can remember very well the twinkle of his little sharp, black 
 eyes with their Tartar slant, and the twitching of his keenly- 
 pointed sensitive nose, when we came to some passage of biting 
 satire, or some phrases in which the bitter Jew had unpacked all 
 the insult of his soul. We began to read Heine together when my 
 vocabulary had to be dug almost word by word out of the diction 
 ary, for the bookbinder s English was rather scanty at the best, 
 and was not literary. As for the grammar, I was getting that up 
 as fast as I could from Ollendorf, and from other sources, but I 
 was enjoying Heine before I well knew a declension or a con 
 jugation. As soon as my task was done at the office, I went home 
 to the books and worked away at them until supper. Then my 
 book-binder and I met in my father s editorial room, and with a 
 couple of candles on the table, between us, and our Heine and 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 165 
 
 the dictionary before us, we read until we were both tired out. 
 . . . It seems to have been summer when our reading began. 
 . I can see the perspiration on the shining forehead of the 
 book-binder as he looks up from some brilliant passage, to ex 
 change a smile of triumph with me at having made out the mean 
 ing with the meagre facilities we had for that purpose. Some 
 times in the truce we made with the text, he told a little story of 
 his life at home, or some anecdote relevant to our reading, or 
 quoted a passage from some other author. It seemed to me the 
 make of a high intellectual banquet, and I should be glad if I 
 could enjoy anything as much now. We walked home as far as 
 his house; ... we exchanged a joyous Gute Nacht, and 
 I kept on homeward through the dark and silent village street, 
 which was really not that street, but some other where Heine had 
 been, some street out of the Reisebilder, of his knowledge or of 
 his dream. When I reached home it was useless to go to bed. I 
 shut myself into my little study, and went over what we had read, 
 till my brain was so full of it that when I crept up to my room 
 at last, it was to lie down to slumbers which were often mere 
 phantasmagory of those witching Pictures of Travel. 
 The German of Heine when once you are in the yoke of his ca 
 pricious genius, is very simple, and in his poetry it is simple from 
 the first, so that he was perhaps the best author I would have 
 fallen in with if I wanted to go fast rather than far. I found 
 this out laterwhen I attempted other German authors without the 
 glitter of his wit or the lambent glow of his fancy to light 
 me on my hard way. I should find it hard to say just why his 
 peculiar genius had such an absolute fascination for me from the 
 very first and perhaps I had better content myself with saying 
 simply that my literary liberation began with almost the earliest 
 word from him; for if he chained me to himself, he freed me 
 from all other bondage. I had been at infinite pains from time to 
 time, now upon one model, now upon another. ... I had 
 supposed with the sense at times that I was wrong, that the ex 
 pression of literature must be different from the expression of 
 life; that it must be an attitude, a pose, with something of state 
 or at least of formality in it; that it must be this style, and not 
 
1 66 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 that, that it must be like that sort of acting which you know is 
 acting when you see it and never mistake for reality. There are 
 a great many children apparently grown up, and largely accepted 
 as critical authorities, who are still of this youthful opinion of 
 mine. But Heine at once showed me that this ideal of literature 
 was false ; that the life of literature was from the springs of the 
 best common speech, and that the nearer it could be made to con 
 form in voice, look and gait, to graceful, easy picturesque and 
 humorous or impassioned talk, the better it was. He did not 
 impart those truths without imparting certain tricks with them, 
 which I was careful to imitate as soon as I began to write in his 
 manner, that is to say instantly; . . . my final lesson from 
 him, or the final effect of all my lessons from him, was to find 
 myself, and to be for good or evil whatsoever I really was. I 
 kept on writing as much like Heine as I could for several years, 
 though, and for a much longer time than I should have done if 
 I had ever become equally impassioned of any other author. 
 Some traces of his method lingered so long in my work that 
 nearly ten years afterward Mr. Lowell wrote me about something 
 of mine that he had been reading. You must sweat the Heine 
 out of your bones as men do mercury. And his kindness for me 
 would not be content with less than the entire expulsion of the 
 poison that had in its good time saved my life. I dare say it 
 was all well enough not to have it in my bones after it had done 
 its office, but it did do its office. It was in some prose sketch of 
 mine that his keen analysis had found the Heine, but the foreign 
 property had been so prevalent in my earlier work in verse that 
 he kept the first contribution he accepted from me for the Atlantic 
 Monthly a long time, or long enough to make sure that it was not 
 a translation of Heine. Then he printed it, and I am bound to say 
 that the poem now justifies his doubt to me, in so much that I do 
 not see why Heine should not have had the name of writing it if 
 he had wanted. His potent spirit became immediately so wholly 
 my control, as the mediums say, that my poems might as well have 
 been communications from him as far as any authority of my 
 own was concerned ; and they were quite like other inspirations 
 from the other world in being so inferior to the work of the spirit 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 167 
 
 before it had the misfortune to be disembodied and obliged to use 
 a medium. But I do not think that either Heine or I had much 
 lasting harm from it, and I am sure that the good, in my case at 
 least, was one that can only end with me. He undid my hands, 
 which I had taken such pains to tie behind my back, and he for 
 ever persuaded me that though it may be ingenious and surprising 
 to dance in chains, it is neither pretty nor useful." 
 
 If all authors were as frank in acknowledging their indebted 
 ness as Mr. Howells, investigations like this would be quite un 
 necessary. It remains for us merely to add to and exemplify Mr. 
 Howells remarks just quoted. He tells us also in his Literary 
 Passions that he went on reading his adored Heine much more 
 than Goethe, Schiller or Uhland. He went on writing him too, 
 just as he went on reading and writing Tennyson. Heine was 
 always a personal interest with him and every word of his made 
 Howells long to have him say it to him, and tell him why he said 
 it. Heine bore to him the message of humanity. He knew the 
 ugliness of Heine s nature; his revengefulness, and malice, and 
 cruelty, and treachery and uncleanness; and yet he found him 
 supremely charming among the poets he read. The tenderness 
 Mr. Howells still feels for Heine is not a reasoned love, as he 
 himself acknowledges. Mr. Howells had a room-mate in Colum 
 bus, Ohio, who was a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly and who 
 read Browning as devotedly as Mr. Howells read Heine. What 
 Mr. Howells could not endure without pangs of secret jealousy was 
 that his room-mate should like Heine, too, and should read him, 
 though in an English version. Concerning this intruder Mr. 
 Howells writes in his Literary Passions: "He (Mr. Howells 
 room-mate) had found the origin of those tricks and turns of 
 Heine s in Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey; and 
 this galled me, as if he had shown that some mistress of my soul 
 had studied her graces from another girl, and that it was not all 
 her own hair that she wore. I hid my rancor as well as I could, 
 and took what revenge lay in my power by insinuating that he 
 might have a very different view if he read Heine in the origi 
 nal." 
 
1 68 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 While he was in Venice as United States Consul, Mr. Ho wells 
 devoted most of his leisure hours to the study of Italian literature. 
 For the present he went no further in German literature, and he 
 recurred to it in later years only for deeper and fuller knowledge 
 of Heine. In his Literary Friends and Acquaintances (New 
 York, 1900) he tells us that when he was on his first visit to New 
 England in 1860, he was resolved above all things to see things 
 as Heinrich Heine saw them, or at least to report them as he did, 
 no matter how they appeared. He went about framing phrases 
 to this end, and trying to match the objects of interest to them 
 whenever there was the least chance of getting them together. 
 He was the mere response and hollow echo of Heine. The Italian 
 Journeys appeared in 1869 an< ^ showed distinct traces of Heine s 
 influence in the pseudo-cynicism, satirical tone, and sentimen 
 tality. In speaking of Genoa he repeats the remark from Reise- 
 bilder that the streets of Genoa are so narrow that the people sit 
 and talk in their doorways, and touch knees with the people sitting 
 and talking on the thresholds of the opposite side. When Mr. 
 Howells classes the French commercial travelers as "cattle" we 
 are reminded of Heine s famous division of the inhabitants of 
 Gottingen (in Harzreise) into professors, students, philistines 
 and cattle. To illustrate the influence of Heine on Mr. Howells 
 early prose style, manifesting itself in pseudo-cynicism, satire, 
 wit, humor and epigram, we shall quote a passage from Chapter 
 VI of the Italian Journeys: "Like the Englishman who had no 
 prejudices, I do hate a Frenchman ; and there were many French 
 men among our passengers on the Messina in whose company 
 I could hardly have been happy, had I not seen them horribly sea 
 sick. After the imprudent old gentleman of the sardines and 
 fruit-pie, these wretched Gauls were the first to be seized with 
 the malady, which became epidemic, and they were miserable up 
 to the last moment on board. To the enormity of having been 
 born Frenchmen they added the crime of being commercial 
 travellers, a class of fellow-men of whom we know little at 
 home, but who are met everywhere in European travel. They 
 spend more than half their lives in movement from place to place, 
 and they learn to snatch from every kind of travel its meagre 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 169 
 
 comforts, with an insolent disregard of the rights and feelings of 
 other passengers. They excuse an abominable trespass with a 
 cool Pardon ! take the best seat everywhere, and especially treat 
 women with savage rudeness, to which an American vainly en 
 deavors to accustom his temper. I have seen commercial travellers 
 of all nations, and I think I must award the French nation the 
 discredit of producing the most odious commercial travellers in 
 the world. The Englishman of this species wraps himself in his 
 rags, and rolls into his corner, defiantly, but not aggressively 
 boorish ; the Italian is almost a gentleman ; the German is apt to 
 take sausage out of a newspaper and cut it with his penknife ; the 
 Frenchman aggravates human nature beyond endurance by his 
 restless ill-breeding, and his evident intention not only to keep all 
 his own advantages, but to steal some of yours upon the first 
 occasion. There were three of these monsters on our steamer : 
 a slight, bloodless young man, with pale blue eyes and an in 
 credulous grin; another, a gigantic, full-bearded animal in 
 spectacles; the third an infamous, plump, little creature, in ab 
 surdly tight pantaloons, with a cast in his eye, and a habit of suck 
 ing his teeth at table. When this wretch was not writhing in the 
 agonies of sea-sickness, he was on deck with his comrades, lec 
 turing them upon various things, to which the bloodless young man 
 listened with his incredulous grin, and the bearded giant in spec 
 tacles attended with a choked look about the eyes, like a suffering 
 ox. They were constantly staggering in and out of their state 
 room, which for my sins was also mine ; and opening their abomi 
 nable, commodious, travelling-bags, or brushing their shaggy 
 heads at the reeling mirror, and since they were born into the 
 world, I think they had never cleaned their finger-nails. They 
 wore their hats at dinner, but always went away after soup, 
 deadly pale." 
 
 These passages indicate the influence of Heine s satire, 
 humor, cynicism, mockery, and his epigrammatic, light and grace 
 ful style. His novels abound in quotations from Heine. The 
 characters sing and recite Heine s songs in the original. Mr. 
 Howell s prose contains numerous allusions, echoes and reminis 
 cences from Heine s lyrics. A fine illustration of this is found 
 
170 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 in the Italian Journeys in the chapter entitled Forza Maggiore, 
 In this chapter the author speaks of Grossetto and says among 
 other things: "Further, one may say that Grosetto is on the dili 
 gence road from Avita Vecchia to Leghorn and that in the very 
 heart of the place there is a very lovely palm-tree, rare, if not 
 sole, in that latitude. This palm stands in a well-sheltered, dull, 
 little court, out of everything s way, and turns tenderly towards 
 the wall that shields it on the north. It has no other company but 
 a beautiful young girl, who leans out of a window high over its 
 head, and I have no doubt talks with it. At the moment we dis 
 covered the friends, the maiden was looking pathetically to the 
 northward, while the palm softly stirred and opened its plumes, 
 as a bird does when his song is finished ; and there is very little 
 question but it had just been singing to her that song of which 
 the palms are so fond 
 
 Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam 
 In Norden auf kahler Hoh. 
 
 "Grossetto does her utmost, to hide the secret of this tree s 
 existence, as if a hard, matter-of-fact place ought to be ashamed 
 of a sentimentality of the kind." 
 
 The reference is, of course, to Heine s song Ein Fichtenbaum 
 steht einsam, and from this poem Howells derived his inspiration 
 for his poetical description of Grossetto. His description of 
 Padua is entirely in the manner of Heine. The charm derived 
 from sauntering, the reveries, and meditations and the capricious 
 views remind us at once of similar passages in the Rcisebilder. 
 Other characteristic passages might be cited from the Italian 
 Journeys to show Heine s influence but these will be sufficient 
 for our purpose. Many of the brilliant, witty remarks and sar 
 casms in the Suburban Sketches are slight modifications or render 
 ings of Heine s. In the sketch entitled A Day s Pleasure we find 
 the following passage : "I never see* one of those fellows," 
 (sentries) says Cousin Frank, "without setting him to the music 
 of that saddest and subtlest of Heine s poems. You know it 
 Lucy" ; and he repeats: 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 171 
 
 Mein Herz, mein Herz, ist traurig 
 Doch lustig leuchtet der Mai ; 
 Ich stehe gelehnt an der Linde, 
 Hoch auf der alten Bastei. 
 
 Am alten grauen Thurme 
 Ein Schilderhauschen steht ; 
 Ein rothgerockter Bursche 
 Dort auf und nieder geht. 
 
 Er spielt mit seiner Flinte, 
 Sie funkelt im Sonnenroth, 
 Er praesentiert, und schultert, 
 Ich wollt, er schosse mich todt. 
 
 "Oh !" says Cousin Lucy, either because the poignant melan 
 choly of the sentiment has suddenly pierced her, or because she 
 does not quite understand the German, "you never can tell about 
 women." 
 
 The condensation of thought or pregnant brevity is so re 
 markable in Heine s poems that a poem like the one above quoted 
 often suggested a whole scene in Mr. Howells sketches. 
 
 Even such a late work as Literature and Life (New York, 
 1902) reveals traces of Heine influence. Especially characteristic 
 for wit, humor, sarcasm, mockery and cynicism are such chapters 
 as the one on The Psychology of Plagiarism. Mr. Howells 
 detestation of the English finds an antecedent and parallel in 
 Heine s hatred of the same people as expressed in his English 
 Fragment. Sir Walter Besant says that Mr. Howells is the only 
 American who hates the English nation. Traces of Heine s 
 cynicism still linger in him. We shall now turn our attention to 
 his relatively unimportant verse, which is dominated and sad 
 dened by the influence of Heine. Mr. Howells has already char 
 acterized his early verse and it only remains for us to cite ex 
 amples of his imitations of Heine. First we shall quote the 
 poem which was published in the Atlantic Monthly (January, 
 1860) and which Lowell suspected of being a translation from 
 Heine. The poem is so obviously and thoroughly Heineesque 
 that it is useless for us to point out parallels and resemblances in 
 
172 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 Heine s Buck der Lieder. The same melancholy sigh, the longing, 
 the disappointment, the passionate love coupled with the thought 
 of death, that pervade and form the themes of Heine s poems are 
 imitated and expressed in Heine s manner and favorite rhythm. 
 Mr. Howells succeeded in imitating and reproducing the subtle 
 charm and suggestiveness so characteristic of Heine s poems. 
 
 Motto from Heine: Das Vengnugen ist Nichts als ein hochst 
 angenehmer Schmerz. 
 
 Andenken. 105 
 I. 
 
 Through the silent streets of the city, 
 In the night s unbusy noon, 
 Up and down in the pallor, 
 Of the languid summer moon. 
 
 I wander and think of the village, 
 And the house in the maple-gloom, 
 And the porch with the honeysuckles 
 And the sweet-brier all abloom. 
 
 My soul is sick with the fragrance, 
 Of the dewy sweet-brier s breath : 
 Oh, darling! the house is empty, 
 And lonesomer than death ! 
 
 If I knock, no one will come; 
 The feet are at rest forever, 
 If I call no one will answer; 
 And the lips are cold and dumb. 
 
 The summer moon is shining 
 So wan and large and still, 
 And the weary dead are sleeping 
 In the graveyard under the hill. 
 
 II. 
 
 We looked at the wide, white circle 
 Around the autumn moon, 
 And talked of the change of weather, 
 It would rain, to-morrow, or soon. 
 
 108 Atlantic Monthly, 5, p. 100 f. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 173 
 
 And the rain came on the morrow, 
 And beat the dying leaves 
 From the shuddering bows of the maples 
 Into the flooded eaves. 
 
 The clouds wept out their sorrow; 
 But in my heart the tears 
 Are bitter for want of weeping, 
 In all these autumn years. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is sweet to be awake musing 
 In all she has said and done, 
 To dwell on the words she uttered, 
 To feast on the smiles I won. 
 
 To think with what passion at parting 
 She gave me my kisses again, 
 Dear adieux, and tears and caresses, 
 Oh, love! was it joy or pain? 
 
 To brood with a foolish rapture, 
 On the thought that it must be 
 My darling this moment is waking 
 With tender est thoughts of me! 
 
 sleep! are thy dreams any sweeter? 
 
 1 linger before thy gate 
 
 We must enter at it together, 
 And my love is loath and late. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The bobolink sings in the meadow, 
 The wren in the cherry-tree; 
 Come hither, then little maiden, 
 And sit upon my knee. 
 
 And I will tell thee a story 
 I read in a book of rhyme ; 
 I will but feign that it happened 
 To me, one summer-time. 
 
174 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 When we walked through the meadow, 
 And she and I were young; 
 The story is old and weary 
 With being said and sung. 
 
 The story is old and weary 
 Oh, child! is it known to thee? 
 Who was it that last night kissed thee 
 Under the cherry-tree 
 
 V. 
 
 Like a bird of evil presage, 
 
 To the lonely house on the shore 
 
 Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, 
 
 And shrieked at the bolted door. 
 
 And flapped its wings in the gables, 
 And shouted the well-known names, 
 And buffeted the windows 
 Afeard in their shuddering frames. 
 
 It was night and it was day-time, 
 
 The morning sun is bland, 
 
 The white cap waves come rocking, rocking, 
 
 Into the smiling land. 
 
 The white cap waves come rocking, rocking, 
 In the sun so soft and bright, 
 And toss and play with the dead man 
 Drowned in the storm last night 
 
 VI. 
 
 I remember the burning brushwood, 
 Glimmering all day long 
 Yellow and weak in the sunlight, 
 Now leaped up red and strong. 
 
 And fired the old dead chestnut, 
 That all our years had stood, 
 Gaunt and gay and ghostly, 
 Apart from the sombre wood. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 175 
 
 And flushed with sudden summer, 
 The leafless boughs on high 
 Blossomed in dreadful beauty 
 Against the darkened sky. 
 
 We children sat telling stories 
 And boasting what we should be, 
 When we were men like our fathers, 
 And watched the blazing tree. 
 
 That showered its furry blossoms, 
 Like a rain of stars, we said, 
 Of crimson and azure and purple 
 That night when I lay in bed. 
 
 I could not sleep for seeing, 
 Whenever I closed my eyes, 
 The tree in its dazzling splendor 
 Against the darkened skies. 
 
 I cannot sleep for seeing, 
 With closed eyes to-night, 
 The tree in its dazzling splendor, 
 Dropping its blossoms bright. 
 
 And old, old dreams of childhood 
 Come thronging my weary brain, 
 Dear foolish beliefs and longings, 
 I doubt, are they real again ? 
 
 It is nothing, and nothing, and nothing, 
 That I either think or see; 
 The phantoms of dead illusions 
 To-night are haunting me. 
 
 A more Heineesque poem would be hard to find; a 
 mingling of pessimism, joy, pain, sentiment and sentimentality, 
 particularly the mockery in the last lines. 
 
 Another poem in the same manner appeared in the Atlantic 
 Monthly (April, 1860) : 
 
176 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 Lost Beliefs. 
 
 One after one they left us, 
 The sweet birds out of our breasts 
 Went flying away in the morning 
 Will they come again to their nests ? 
 
 Will they come again at nightfall, 
 With God s breath in their song? 
 Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, 
 And summer days are long! 
 
 Oh, my life! with thy upward liftings, 
 Thy downward-striking roots, 
 Ripening out of thy tender blossoms 
 But hard and bitter fruits, 
 
 In thy boughs there is no shelter 
 For my birds to seek again ! 
 Ah! the desolate nest is broken 
 And torn with storms and rain! 
 
 The volume of Poenis published by W. D. Howells in 1886 
 (Boston, Ticknor & Co.), is a collection of poems previously 
 published in magazines, and contains many poems written in the 
 manner of Heine. 
 
 Passion, tenderness, yearning, waiting, doubting and despair 
 is the theme of the poem Forlorn; the manner is that of Heine; 
 reverie and suggestiveness are the means of delineation. A very 
 close imitation of Heine s theme and manner is the poem Pleas 
 ure-Pain. The motto is from Heine: "Das vergniigen ist Nichts 
 als ein hochst angenehmer Schmerz." A portion of this we have 
 already cited under Andenken. It is really made up of a series of 
 poems in the same vein. To the ones that appeared in the 
 Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Howells afterwards wrote the following 
 verses in the same vein : 
 
 Full of beautiful blossoms 
 Stood the tree in early May : 
 Came a chilly gale from the sunset, 
 And blew the blossoms away; 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 177 
 
 Scattered them through the garden, 
 Tossed them into the mere : 
 The sad tree moaned and shuddered, 
 "Alas! the Fall is here." 
 
 But all through the glowing summer 
 The blossomless tree throve fair, 
 And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow, 
 With sunny rain and air. 
 
 And when the dim October 
 With golden death was crowned, 
 Under the heavy branches 
 The tree stooped to the ground. 
 
 In youth there comes a west wind 
 Blowing our bloom away, 
 A chilly breath of Autumn 
 Out of the lips of May. 
 
 We bear the ripe fruit after, 
 Ah, me! for the thought of pain! 
 We know the sweetness and beauty 
 And the heart-bloom never again. 
 
 One sails away to sea, 
 
 One stands on the shore and cries ; 
 
 The ship goes down, the world, and the light 
 
 On the sullen water dies. 
 
 The whispering shell is mute, 
 
 And after is evil cheer : 
 
 She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, 
 
 Many and many a year. 
 
 But the stately, wide-winged ship 
 Lies wrecked on the unknown deep; 
 Far under, dead in his coral bed, 
 The lover lies asleep. 
 
 The same gloom and melancholy tone, and sad dreaming 
 pervade the poem In August. The nature-symbolism and sugges 
 tion are those of Heine. The little drowsy stream dreams of 
 June, the robins are mute, there is no wind to stir the leaves, the 
 cricket grieves. All nature bewails the dead summer The same 
 
i/8 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 might be said about The Empty House, a dreary and desolate 
 place where mystery, ghosts and gloom linger. Heine s reverie, 
 melancholy, and mockery are reproduced and repeated in Heine s 
 manner with his symbolism, indirect representation, subtle sug- 
 gestiveness and conciseness in the poem Bubbles: 
 
 I. 
 
 I stood on the brink in childhood, 
 And watched the bubbles go 
 From the rock- fretted sunny ripple 
 To the smoother tide below. 
 
 And over the white creek-bottom, 
 Under them every one, 
 Went golden stars in the water, 
 All luminous with the sun. 
 
 But the bubbles broke on the surface, 
 And under, the stars of gold 
 Broke; and the hurrying water 
 Flowed onward, swift and cold. 
 
 II. 
 
 I stood on the brink in manhood, 
 And it came to my weary brain, 
 And my heart, so dull and heavy 
 After the years of pain. 
 
 That every hollowest bubble 
 Which over my life had passed 
 Still into its deeper current 
 Some heavenly gleam had cast. 
 
 That, however, I mocked it gayly, 
 And guessed at its hollowness, 
 Still shone, with each bursting bubble, 
 One star in my soul the less. 
 
 Reminding us of Heine s manner is the delicious suggestive- 
 ness of the poem Gone. A mere suggestion and yet what a multi 
 tude of thoughts arise on reading it. Entirely in Heine s manner 
 is the little fragment The Sarcastic Fair: 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 179 
 
 " Her mouth is a honey-blossom, 
 No doubt, as the poet sings ; 
 But within her lips, the petals, 
 Lurks a cruel bee, that stings." 
 
 These lines recall those from Heine s Vorrede zur dritten 
 Auflage (Buck der Lieder), referring to the Sphinx. 
 
 Entziickende Marter und wonniges Weh ! 
 Der Schmerz wie die Lust unermesslich ! 
 Derweilen des Mundes Kuss mich beglikkt, 
 Verwunden die Tatzen mich grasslich. 
 
 In the poem Rapture we again have anguish, despair, mourn 
 ing, the joining of love with death. Love and pain, longing and 
 disappointment are sung in the poem The Thorn, with the recog 
 nition of the fact that every rose has its thorn. The sad mystery 
 of life is sentimentally lamented in the poem, The Mysteries, with 
 Heine s characteristic brevity. 
 
 The poem, Snow-Birds, recalls Heine s Traumbilder, from 
 which the inspiration is doubtless derived. A clever imitation of 
 Heine s manner as seen in such poems as Der bleiche, herbstliche 
 Halbmond; Wir sassen am Fischerhause ; Wallfahrt nach Kev- 
 laar, is given us in Mr. Howells poem entitled Feuerbilder. The 
 tone, spirit, and sentiment, and especially the mockery in the last 
 lines, are like Heine from beginning to end. The rhythm is also 
 that usually employed by Heine in such poems. Noteworthy is 
 also the calm beginning. 
 
 Feuerbilder. 
 
 The children sit by the fireside 
 With their little faces in bloom; 
 And behind, the lily-pale mother, 
 Looking out of the gloom. 
 
 Flushes in cheek and forehead 
 With a light and sudden start; 
 But the father sits there silent, 
 From the fire-light apart. 
 
180 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 " Now, what dost thou see in the embers ? 
 Tell it to me, my child," 
 Whispers the lily-pale mother 
 To her daughter sweet and mild. 
 
 " O, I see a sky and a moon 
 In the coals and ashes there, 
 And under, two are walking, 
 In the garden of flowers so fair. 
 
 " A lady gay, and her lover, 
 Talking with low voiced words, 
 Not to waken the dreaming flowers 
 And the sleepy little birds." 
 
 Back in the gloom the mother 
 
 Shrinks with a sudden sigh, 
 
 "Now, what dost thou see in the embers?" 
 
 Cries the father to the boy. 
 
 " O, I see a wedding procession 
 Go in at the church s door, 
 Ladies in silk and knights in steel, 
 A hundred of them, and more. 
 
 " The bride s face is as white as a lily, 
 And the groom s head is as white as snow ; 
 And without, with plumes and tapers, 
 A funeral paces slow." 
 
 Loudly then laughed the father, 
 And shouted again for cheer, 
 And called to the drowsy housemaid 
 To fetch him a pipe and beer. 
 
 Reverie, longing and the usual Heine characteristics are in 
 corporated in the poem, While She Sang. Many more poems 
 might be mentioned which contain distinct traces of Heine s in 
 fluence. We shall now quote three short poems which display 
 this influence in a concise manner: disappointment, unrequited 
 love, longing, insuperable obstacles and cynical mockery are 
 their themes: 
 
 A Poet. 
 
 From wells where Truth in secret lay, 
 He saw the midnight stars by day. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 181 
 
 "O marvellous gift!" the many cried, 
 "O cruel gift!" his voice replied. 
 
 The stars were far and cold and high, 
 That glimmered in the noon day sky ; 
 
 He yearned toward the sun in vain, 
 That warmed the lives of other men. 
 
 Convention. 
 
 He falters on the threshold, 
 She lingers on the stair : 
 Can it be that was his footstep? 
 Can it be that she is there? 
 
 Without is tender yearning, 
 
 And tender love is within ; 
 
 They can hear each other s heart-beats 
 
 But a wooden door is between. 
 
 The Poet s Friends. 
 
 The robin sings in the elm, 
 
 The cattle stand beneath, 
 
 Sedate and grave, with great brown eyes 
 
 And fragrant meadow-breath. 
 
 They listen to the flattered bird, 
 The wise-looking, stupid things; 
 And they never understand a word 
 Of all the robin sings. 
 
 Certain it is that Mr. Howells did his future poetical reputa 
 tion an injustice by electing to have it estimated from the per 
 formance and promise of these imitations. This became evident 
 when he published Stops of Various Quills (New York, 1895). 
 This book of verse possesses high quality; indeed, if Mr. Howells 
 had never published anything but Stops of Various Quills, the 
 probability is that he would have taken rank as a poet of marked 
 individuality and high achievement. These lyrics are mostly of 
 a philosophical character, but always truly poetical, because they 
 are always expressive of emotion, sometimes of purely senti 
 mental emotion. The influence of Heine is still seen in the 
 
1 82 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 spirit-anguish. A brooding melancholy resultant of the unsatis 
 fied craving of a high, idealistic intelligence pervades the volume. 
 The "Weltschmerz" is still present in his verse. But this melan 
 choly is lit up with a gleam here and there of vague, undefined 
 faith and trust in things as they are, in the ultimate issue of all. 
 The poems are intense, but sober; often prompted by spiritual 
 pain, but withal, calm and serene. Their tune seems sometimes 
 over-morbid as in Heine. In both Heine and Howells this tone 
 is the echo of real feeling and no mere affectation. The Stops of 
 Various Quills come very near to perfection in form, thus show 
 ing that Mr. Howells still benefited by the lessons he learned 
 from Heine. These poems are curiously simple in structure and 
 diction, but none the less forceful and artistic. They are brief and 
 concise ; not a line, not a word too many. Their imagery is fresh 
 and striking; their coloring is warm, human, and natural. That 
 Heine s irresistible spell is still somewhat effective is clearly in 
 dicated in such poems as the Bewildered Guest and Question, 
 which may have drawn their inspiration from such poems as Am 
 Meer, am wusten, n dchtlichen Meer. The pseudo-cynicism is 
 also in evidence in a few of the poems, such as Society and 
 Heredity. 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836- ). 
 
 Mr. Aldrich s charm is French and classic as distinguished 
 from German and Romantic. The influence of Hafiz, Herrick, 
 Tennyson and Keats can also be traced in his poetry. That he 
 was but little attracted by such poets as Heine is evident from 
 the following verses: 
 
 I little read those poets who have made 
 A noble art, a pessimistic trade, 
 And trained their Pegasus to draw a hearse 
 Through endless avenues of drooping verse. 
 
 Yet in the finish, suggestiveness and symbolism we are 
 often reminded of Heine. In the volume Flower and Thorn 
 (Boston, 1877), the poems An Untimely Thought Rencontre, 
 Identity and Destiny, recall Heine in their unlabored suggestive- 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 183 
 
 ness, but in sentiment, tone and manner they are entirely remote 
 from that poet. The Pine and the Walnut (Atlantic Monthly, 
 Vol. XXXV, 531), in its symbolism recalls Heine s Pine and 
 Palm. An echo of Heine is seen in Mr. Aldrich s fine sonnet, 
 The Lorelei. Mr. Aldrich is only indebted to Heine for the 
 theme; the manner, tone and spirit are entirely different from 
 Heine s famous song: 
 
 The Lorelei* 
 
 Yonder we see it from the steamer s deck, 
 The haunted mountain of the Lorelei 
 The hanging crags sharp-cut against a sky 
 Clear as a sapphire without flaw or fleck. 
 Twas here the Siren lay in wait to wreck, 
 The fisher-lad, at dusk, as he rowed by, 
 Perchance he heard her tender amorous cry, 
 And, seeing the wondrous whiteness of her neck, 
 Perchance would halt, and lean towards the shore, 
 Then she by that soft magic which she had 
 Would lure him, and in gossamers of her hair, 
 Gold upon gold, would wrap him o er and o er, 
 Wrap him, and sing to him, and drive him mad, 
 Then drag him down to no man knoweth where. 
 
 JOHN A. DoRGAN. 105 
 
 This obscure poet was a servile imitator of Heine. His 
 poems deal with Heine s favorite themes love and death, melan 
 choly, sighing, disappointment, nightingales, reveries, dreams, and 
 sphinxes. The manner, tone, spirit, are entirely Heine s, even 
 the mockery in the last lines is reproduced. The Tannhduser 
 ballad is a cheap imitation of Heine s famous ballad. The Bard 
 of Pain is evidently a poem commemorative of Heine. We shall 
 give but one specimen of these imitations, The Mermaid, an 
 imitation of Heine s Lorelei: 
 
 04 The Poems of T. B. Aldrich. Boston and New York. Houghton, 
 Mifflin & Co., p. 393. 
 
 106 Studies, by J. A. Dorgan. 3d Ed. Philadelphia, 1866. 
 
184 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 The mermaid sits in the moonshine white, 
 
 And sings as she combs her hair, 
 
 A marvellous song that thrills the night 
 
 With its burden strange, Beware ! Beware ! Beware ! 
 
 And the billows begin to tremble and moan 
 
 To moan and dash themselves at her feet, 
 
 As, ere her lips, their hearts repeat 
 
 The strain they long have known 
 
 The serpent strain they have heard so oft, 
 
 So lithe, so deadly bright and soft ; 
 
 And the winds, her bodiless slaves, 
 
 Arise from their secret caves, 
 
 And howl, as if to drown the strain. 
 
 Of her tremulous song: 
 In vain! in vain! its wild refrain 
 
 They deepen and prolong. 
 
 Gone is the magic moon; 
 
 And over the sky, so late, so fair, 
 
 As black cloud drifts, through whose rugged rifts 
 
 The stars like torches flare ; 
 
 And out of the howling foam beneath 
 
 Come sounds of peril and pain and death ; 
 
 Voices that tell of the shipwreck there; 
 
 Shrieks and curses of drowning men; 
 
 And now and then, 
 
 Sobs and sighs that lift the hair 
 
 And lie like a curse on the fainting air ; 
 
 And now and then above the war 
 
 Of darkness and despair, 
 
 The mocking pain of that wild refrain, 
 
 Beware ! Beware ! Beware ! Beware ! 
 
 L. G. THOMAS. 
 
 In his volume of Poems (New York, 1871), Thomas gives 
 us an imitation of Heine s Lorelei. Other poems in the volume 
 show traces of Heine s influence, but as this poet is almost un 
 known, we shall content ourselves with quoting his imitation of 
 the Lorelei; 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 185 
 
 Lorelei. 
 
 Lorelei, so wildly sad 
 The song of love thou singest me, 
 The very grief that drove thee mad 
 Hath made me mad for love of thee. 
 
 Thou sittest on yon rocky height, 
 O er calm, sad hrow thy raven hair 
 Floats free as if in joy s despite, 
 In all the beauty of despair. 
 
 And gazing on that face so fair, 
 From whence all joy is banished quite, 
 I know calm grief to be more rare 
 Than ever is loose-tressed delight. 
 
 Therefore, I reck not of my boat, 
 Which heaveth with the heaving wave; 
 But onward, onward, let it float, 
 Why should I shun a watery grave? 
 
 But I will ever gaze, and gaze 
 
 Up to thy face, while to my death 
 
 I drift, and drift, through fearful maze; 
 
 To catch each tone I hold my breath. 
 
 And I will perish at thy feet, 
 Nor lose one glance of those sweet eyes, 
 O thus to perish were more sweet, 
 More sweet than opening Paradise ! 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS (1849-1887). 
 
 Books were the world for Emma Lazarus from her earliest 
 years ; in them she lost herself and found herself ; and from them 
 she drew her inspirations. Her first published volume (1866), 
 contained specimens of translations from Heine. The poems in 
 this volume were crude and immature ; but they are nevertheless 
 characteristic, giving, as they do, the keynote of much that after 
 wards enfolded itself in her life. A profound melancholy per 
 vades the book, reminding us of Heine. There is not a wholly 
 glad and joyous strain in the volume. The recurrence of broken 
 vows, broken hearts, and broken lives in the experience of this 
 
1 86 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 maiden just entered upon her teens, leads us to believe that she is 
 merely imitating Heine. The gloomy and sombre streak later 
 took deeper root; it became the stamp and heritage of her race, 
 born to suffer. But dominant and fundamental though it was, 
 Hebraism was only latent thus far. It was classic and romantic 
 art that first inspired her. She pictures Aphrodite the beautiful, 
 arising from the waves, and the beautiful Apollo. Beauty, for its 
 own sake, supreme and unconditional, charmed her. Her restless 
 spirit found repose in the pagan idea the absolute unity and 
 identity of man with nature, as symbolized in the Greek myths, 
 where every natural force becomes a person, and where in turn, 
 persons pass with equal readiness and freedom back into nature 
 again. In these connections the influence of Heine at once sug 
 gests itself Heine the Greek, Heine the Jew, and Heine the 
 Pantheist. Already in this early volume we have traces of the 
 kinship, affinity and influence that afterwards so plainly declared 
 itself. Foremost among the translations are a number of Heine s 
 songs, excellently rendered. At the age of twenty-one she pub 
 lished her second volume, Admetus and Other Poems. Of classic 
 themes we have Admetus and Orpheus, and of romantic the 
 legend of Tannhauser, showing clearly the influence of Heine s 
 ballad, Tannhauser. All are treated with the artistic finish of 
 Heine. She sounds no new note; Heine s desolation, loneliness 
 and despair are repeated. Her poems, like Heine s, are subjective 
 and biographical. Some later poems show that she fell under 
 the influence of Emerson, with whom she was brought into per 
 sonal relations. He became her mentor. Even his encourage 
 ment failed to elate her and the morbid, melancholy tone pre 
 vailed in her works. Her brain spent itself in dreaming and 
 reverie. As in Heine, we still have in her poems the landscape of 
 the night, the glamour of moon and stars, pictures half real and 
 half unreal, mystic imaginings, fancies, dreams, and throughout 
 the unanswered cry, the eternal Wherefore of Destiny (cf. 
 Heine s Fragen, Nordsee). In 1874 she published Alide, a ro 
 mance in prose drawn from Goethe s autobiography (Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit}. In 1881 appeared the translation of Heine s 
 poems and ballads and a few years later her essay on Heine s 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 187 
 
 genius in the Century Magazine (Vol. VII). She was charmed 
 by the magic of his verse, the irridescent play of his fancy and 
 the sudden cry of the heart, piercing through it all. She was only 
 vaguely conscious of the real bond between her and Heine. Her 
 last days were like those of Heine on his mattress-grave in Paris. 
 She, too, the last time she went out, dragged herself to the 
 Louvre, to the feet of the Venus, the goddess without arms, who 
 could not help. Her intellect also seemed kindled anew during 
 her long agony and suffering. Never did she appear so brilliant 
 as when she was wasted to a shadow. The poem Tannhduser 
 was written in 1870. It is an unrhymed narrative. Many critics 
 accused her of borrowing from Morris s Hill of Venus; but her 
 poem was written before William Morris s poem appeared. Her 
 chief indebtedness is to Heine s Tannhduser. Many poems might 
 be cited which show traces of Heine s influence on Emma Lazarus, 
 but we shall confine ourselves to a few poems which she herself 
 acknowledged 10G to be imitations of Heine. 
 
 Heine tells us in his Correspondence that the ensemble of 
 his romance Donna Clara was a scene from his own life only 
 the park of Berlin became the Alcade s garden, the Baroness a 
 Sefiora, and he himself a St. George or even an Apollo. This 
 was only to be the first part of a trilogy, the second of which 
 shows the hero jeered at by his own child who does not know 
 him, whilst the third discovers the child, who has become a 
 Dominican, and is torturing to death his Jewish brethren. The 
 refrain of these two pieces corresponds with that of the first. 
 Indeed, Heine tells us that this little poem was not intended to 
 excite laughter, still less to denote a mocking spirit. He merely 
 wished, without any definite purpose, to render with epic im 
 partiality in this poem an individual circumstance, and at the 
 same time, something general and universal a moment in the 
 world s history which was distinctly reflected in his experience, 
 and he had conceived the whole idea in a spirit which was any 
 thing rather than smiling, but serious and painful, so much so, 
 that is was to form the first part of a tragic trilogy. Guided 
 
 106 Poems of Emma Lazarus. 2 Vols. Boston, 1889. Vol. II, p. 213. 
 
1 88 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 by these hints, Emma Lazarus has endeavored to carry out in the 
 two following ballads Heine s first conception. How well she 
 has succeeded in imitating and reproducing Heine s manner, tone 
 and sentiment will become obvious. 
 
 Don Pedrillo. 
 
 Not a lad in Saragossa 
 Nobler-featured, haughtier-tempered, 
 Than the Alcalde s youthful grandson, 
 Donna Clara s boy Pedrillo. 
 
 Handsome as the Prince of Evil, 
 And devout as St. Ignatius 
 Deft at fence, unmatched with zither, 
 Miniature of knightly virtues. 
 
 Truly an unfailing blessing 
 To his pious widowed mother, 
 To the beautiful, lone matron 
 Who foreswore the world to rear him. 
 
 For her beauty hath but ripened 
 In such wise as the pomegranate 
 Putteth by her crown of blossoms, 
 For her richer crown of fruitage. 
 
 Still her hand is claimed and courted, 
 Still she spurns her proudest suitors, 
 Doting on a phantom passion, 
 And upon her boy Pedrillo. 
 
 Like a saint lives Donna Clara, 
 First at matins, last at vespers, 
 Half her fortune she expendeth 
 Buying masses for the needy. 
 
 Visiting the poor afflicted, 
 Infinite is her compassion, 
 Scorning not the Moorish beggar, 
 Nor the wretched Jew despising. 
 
 And a scandal to the faithful, 
 E en she hath been known to welcome 
 To her castle the young Rabbi, 
 Offering to his tribe her bounty. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 189 
 
 Rarely hath he crossed the threshold, 
 Yet the thought that he hath crossed it, 
 Burns like poison in the marrow 
 Of the zealous youth Pedrillo. 
 
 By the blessed Saint lago, 
 He hath vowed immortal hatred 
 To these circumcised intruders 
 Who pollute the soil of Spaniards. 
 
 Seated in his mother s garden, 
 At high noon, the boy Pedrillo, 
 Playeth with his favorite parrot, 
 Golden-green with streaks of scarlet. 
 
 "Pretty Dodo, speak thy lesson," 
 Coaxed Pedrillo "thief and traitor" 
 "Thief and traitor" croaked the parrot, 
 "Is the yellow-skirted Rabbi." 
 
 And the boy with peals of laughter, 
 Stroked his favorite s head of emerald, 
 Raised his eyes, and lo! before him 
 Stood the yellow-skirted Rabbi. 
 
 In his dark eyes gleamed no anger, 
 No hot flush o erspread his features 
 Neath his beard his pale lips quivered, 
 And a shadow crossed his forehead. 
 
 Very gentle was his aspect, 
 And his voice was mild and friendly, 
 "Evil words, my son, thou speakest, 
 Teaching to the fowls of heaven. 
 
 " In our Talmud it stands written, 
 Thrice curst is the tongue of slander, 
 Poisoning also with its victim, 
 Him who speaks and him who listens." 
 
 But no whit abashed, Pedrillo, 
 "What care I for curse of Talmud? 
 Tis no slander to speak evil 
 Of the murderers of our Savior. 
 
igo Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 11 To your beard I will repeat it, 
 That I only bide my manhood, 
 To wreak all my lawful hatred, 
 On thyself and on thy people." 
 
 Very gently spoke the Rabbi, 
 "Have a care, my son Pedrillo, 
 Thou art orphaned, and who knoweth 
 But thy father loved this people?" 
 
 " Think you words like these will touch me? 
 Such I laugh to scorn, sir Rabbi, 
 From high heaven, my sainted father 
 On my deeds will smile in blessing. 
 
 " Loyal knight was he and noble, 
 And my mother oft assures me, 
 Ne er she saw so pure a Christian, 
 Tis from him my zeal deriveth." 
 
 " What if he were such another 
 As myself who stand before thee?" 
 "I should curse the hour that bore me, 
 I should die of shame and horror." 
 
 " Harsher is thy creed than ours ; 
 For had I a son as comely 
 As Pedrillo, I would love him, 
 Love him were he thrice a Christian. 
 
 " In his youth my youth renewing 
 Pamper, fondle, die to serve him, 
 Only breathing through his spirit 
 Couldst thou not love such a father?" 
 
 Faltering spoke the deep-voiced Rabbi, 
 With white lips and twitching fingers, 
 Then in clear, young, steady treble, 
 Answered him the boy Pedrillo : 
 
 " At the thought my heart revolteth, 
 All your tribe offend my senses, 
 They re an eyesore to my vision, 
 And a stench unto my nostrils. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 191 
 
 " When I meet these unbelievers, 
 With thick-lips and eagle noses, 
 Thus I scorn them, thus revile them, 
 Thus I spit upon their garment." 
 
 And the haughty youth passed onward, 
 Bearing on his wrist his parrot, 
 And the yellow-skirted Rabbi 
 With bowed head sought Donna Clara. 
 
 Fra Pedro. 
 
 Golden lights and lengthening shadows, 
 Flings the splendid sun declining, 
 O er the monastery garden 
 Rich in flower, fruit and foliage. 
 
 Through the avenue of nut trees, 
 Pace two grave and ghostly friars, 
 Snowy white their gowns and girdles, 
 Black as night their cowls and mantles. 
 
 Lithe and ferret-eyed the younger, 
 Black his scapular denoting 
 A lay brother ; his companion 
 Large, imperious, towers above him. 
 
 Tis the abbot, great Fra Pedro, 
 Famous through all Saragossa 
 For his quenchless zeal in crushing 
 Heresy amidst his townfolk. 
 
 Handsome still with hood and tonsure, 
 E en as when the boy Pedrillo, 
 Insolent with youth and beauty, 
 Who reviled the gentle Rabbi. 
 
 Lo, the level sun strikes sparkles 
 From his dark eyes brightly flashing 
 Stern his voice : "These too shall perish, 
 I have vowed extermination. 
 
 " Tell not me of skill or virtue, 
 Filial love or woman s beauty. 
 Jews are Jews, as serpents serpents, 
 In themselves abomination." 
 
192 Heine s Influence on American Literature 
 
 Earnestly the other pleaded, 
 "If my zeal, thrice reverend master, 
 E er afforded the assistance, 
 Serving thee as flesh serves spirit. 
 
 " Hounding, scourging, flaying, burning, 
 Casting into chains or exile, 
 At thy bidding these vile wretches, 
 Hear and heed me now, my master. 
 
 " These be nowise like their brethren, 
 Ben Jehudah is accounted 
 Saragossa s first physician, 
 Loved by colleague as by patient. 
 
 " And his daughter Donna Zara 
 Is our city s pearl of beauty, 
 Like the clusters of the vineyard 
 Droop the ringlets o er her temples. 
 
 " Like the moon in starry heavens 
 Shines her face among her people, 
 And her form hath all the languor, 
 Grace and glamour of the palm-tree. 
 
 " Well thou knowest, thrice reverend master, 
 This is not their first affliction, 
 Was it not our Holy Office 
 Whose bribed menials fired their dwelling ? 
 
 " Ere dawn broke, the smoke ascended, 
 Choked the stairways, filled the chambers, 
 Waked the household to the terror 
 Of the flaming death that threatened. 
 
 " Then the poor bed-ridden mother 
 Knew her hour had come : two daughters, 
 Twinned in form, and mind, and spirit, 
 And their father who would save them? 
 
 " Towards her door sprang Ben Jehudah, 
 Donna Zara flew behind him 
 Round his neck her white arms wreathing, 
 Drew him from the burning chamber. 
 
 " There within, her sister Zillah 
 Stirred no limb to shun her torture, 
 Held her mother s hand and kissed her, 
 Saying, We will go together. 
 
Heine s Influence on American Literature 193 
 
 :f This the outer throng could witness, 
 As the flames enwound the dwelling, 
 Like a glory they illumined 
 Awfully the martyred daughter. 
 
 " Closer, fiercer, round they gathered, 
 Not a natural cry escaped her, 
 Helpless clung to her her mother, 
 Hand in hand they went together. 
 
 " Since that Act of Faith three winters 
 Have rolled by, yet on the forehead 
 Of Jehudah is imprinted 
 Still the horror of that morning. 
 
 " Saragossa hath respected 
 His false creed; a man of sorrows, 
 He hath walked secure among us, 
 And his art repays our sufferance." 
 
 Thus he spoke and ceased. The Abbot 
 Lent him an impatient hearing, 
 Then outbroke with angry accent, 
 "We have borne three years, thou sayest? 
 
 Tis enough ; my vow is sacred. 
 These shall perish with their brethren. 
 Hark ye ! In my veins pure current 
 Were a single drop found Jewish. 
 
 " I would shrink not from outpouring 
 All my life blood but to purge it. 
 Shall I gentler prove to others ? 
 Mercy would be sacriligious. 
 
 " Ne er again at thy soul s peril, 
 Speak to me of Jewish beauty, 
 Jewish skill or Jewish virtue. 
 I have said. Do thou remember?" 
 
 Down beside the purple hillside 
 Dropped the sun, above the garden 
 Rung the Angelus clear cadence 
 Summoning the monks to vespers. 
 
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