MINIATURE PORTRAITS OF CONTINENTAL AUTHORS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1926, 15 January 1891, Page 36

MINIATURE PORTRAITS OF CONTINENTAL AUTHORS.

Br Oswald E. Hugo.

HEINE IN GERMAN MAGAZINES. No. VI. Some souls Icme all things but the love of beauty, And by that love they are redeemnble, For in love and beauty they acknowledge good— And good is God—the great Necessity. — P«BTUB. Standing at the foot of Mount Egmont, we do not receive the same impression of its height and beauty of form as when viewing the mountain from a distance. It is often thus with men of genius. To their own age their true greatness is not apparent. Ifc is only brought out by the distance of years and centuries. To his own time, Heine seemed more of a disturbing factor than capable of exerting any permanent influence upon the literature of his country; but to us ifc is clear that no other writer of modem times since the age of Goethe has left such a distinct mark upon German thought and poetry as Heine. He may be said to have defeated the artificial school, and founded the natural. Immediately before the advent of Heine, 1 German .literature— prose as well as poetry

—was rapidly approaching to Alexandrianism. Men, instead of looking around them or within themselves, went in search through all countries and languages for objects o£ inspiration; preferring the new, the pretty, and the fine, to the natural and the simple. Like Ixion, they spurned the love of earth s fairest daughters in the pursuit of an apparent goddess, who nevertheless at last melted away in mist. # Authors wrote— as Augustus said of Mark Antony to make men stare rather than to be understood. Heine showed the world that lofty thoughts and fine sentiments are most effective when expressed in simple language, and that one needs not go in search for poetry into far-away regions, when it maybe found all around us : in the most commonplace events, and in the humblest of lives. To judge by the number of articles upon Heine which have of late appeared in German and Scandinavian magazines, the interest, both in the man and the author, is now stronger than it ever has been. Among these publications Fanny Lewald's "Erinnerungen an Heinrich Heine " is the most interesting. The authoress describes her meetings and conversations with Heine during the last year of his live when he was living in Paris. ' It was in the end of spring that Mrs Lewald first visited Heine. She found him paralysed in one side of the body, and with the one eye closed and sightless ; but his mind was as vigorous as ever, and be spoke in the same mirthful strain. Mrs Lewald told him that it was a sad and undeserved fate to find him confined to his rooms in such a beautiful spring time — he who had written so beautifully about the glories of spring. " Yes," he answered, " but I have written just as well about the glories of the sea, and yet I have always been sea sick. And women — 1 guel mal elles mont fait.' " The first news about the Berlin revolution had just reached Paris, and it agitated Heine very much. "I wish," said he to Mrs Lewald, " that it had happened either sooner or later ; for to live to see it in such a condition as mine is insufferable, I know I have done my share to bring it about. Often have I sounded the alarm jbell to awaken them from their sleep." In speaking about his illness Heine expressed himself thus : " What astonishes me most is that my love of life is uodiminished by my physical sufferings. My emotional vitality seems to me like the apparition of a nun amongst ruined cloister- walls -it haunts the ruins of my Ego." When Stahr, the German critic, was in Paris, Mrs Lewald requested him to visit Heine, but he refused. "Just because he is so ill, and thus entitled to friendly words, will I keep away from him; for notwithstanding the enjoyment I have derived from the good and the beautiful in his works, notwithstanding my admiration for the Aristophanian brilliancy of his political writings, I think his genius on the whole more evil than good, and as a man I cannot admire him. As I cannot tell him that, I will rather remain away."

At last Stahr yielded to the request from Mrs Lewald and other friends, and went to see Heine. "We found him lying in bed, whioh te had not left for many days. The curtains were down, and the bed was furthermore protected from the light by a large screen. Tbe sick poet lifted the almost transparent hand to the tight eye, and pushed up the eyelid to get a glimpse of us. Only this one eye had a little sight left ; but the eyelid was paralysed." Heine spoke a great deal of his sufferings and illness. "I am incessantly suffering fearful pains. Even my little sleep is haunted by terrible dreams. Yesterday I hang suspended in a cage in mid-air, and slimy monstera were crawling around my cage ; and all this I have to bear without any aid from heaven. Still do not believe that I am without any religion. My religion is opium. There is more affinity between opium and religion than philosophers are aware of." It has been asserted that Heine in his last illness became converted to Christianity. Mrs Lewald denies this. He died as he had lived— a kind of Pagan Pantheist. With regard to a future life, his attitude was to the last one of agnosticism. These were his words to Mrs Lewald and'Stahr :— " Upon this point there is a peculiar conflict within me. My reason tells me that faith in immortality is a delusion. In the Old Testament there is no trace of such a belief. Moses was too practical a character to entertain it. But though my reason cannot conceive the immortality, my feeling cannot conceive the opposite. Only egotists can be reconciled to the thought of annihilation. To an affectionate nature it will ever remain inconceivable. Thus I cannot bring myself to think that I shall leave my wife for ever."

And further on he said : — " For my part I have realised that all— both healthy and sick — need religion ; or rather need different religions. To the healthy and strong Christianity with its resignation and humility is useless, but to those who suffer it is a goo s. religion."

On other occasions he gave vent to the most repulsive jests upon religion, death, and eternity.

He met death with a fearlessness amounting to levity. It cannot be called courage unless we confound courage with brutality. We can understand Pefcronius Arbiter or some other outworn debauchee in pagan Eome meeting death in a similar manner. It is a feature of paganism that it makes men die bravely. In the case of the educated and philosophical this may result from stoical resignation and absence of superstitious fears, but it may also be the result of that unconsciousness of sin and inability to realise the responsibilities of life which go together with a blunted moral nature. With Heine there can be no doubt the latter was the case. He had no conception of moral responsibility. His morality, especially with regard to women, was of the very lowest; or, it would be better to say, he had none at all. He had a fatal gift of making ail wornec he came in contact withUove him. "Women, like moths, are ever caught by gJaie." And there was a glamour about Heine's personalty and manners. His countenance was characteristically handsome— as purely classical as a Greek statue. There was something in his voice that dispelled all reserve, aad made those to whom he spoke for the first time feel as if he had been their friend for many years, His conversation was weirdly bril-

liant; abounding in quaint illustrations, and in that admiration of earnestness and cynicism which constitutes the chief charm of his writingg.

Mrs Lewald relates several little traits showing Heine's affection for his mother. She also gives the opinions of Heine upon matters of literature and social and political subjects mentioned during their various interviews. Among other things we need not be surprised when we learn from her that Heme — the revolutionary Eadical — was adverse to woman's emancipation, since in our days many who call themselves Liberals entertain the same illiberal opinion. Heine, however, gave a more logical reason for his opinions than is advanced by those who share his views to-day. "It is withme with respect to women's rights as it was with Napoleon towards the negroes. He was asked why he did not emancipate the blacks. • I will tell you,' he replied, • because I am myself white.' "

Heine's cousin— his first love— who rejected him to marry a wealthy banker, wrote to him when he was lying ill : " Indeed, I must be miserable when even you are moved. You who throughout all my earlier sufferings have stood before my eyes like a statue, beautiful as a statue, cold as a statue."

Mrs Lewald wonders how Heine could have married the woman he did — so vulgarly commonplace without even the slightest claim to physical beauty; but everybody has wondered at the same. She wonders also that so stupid a woman could obtain the influence over him that she had. Probably the two facts are related as cause and effect; for if Carlyle speaks the truth when he tells us that against stupidity even the gods themselves fight in vain, the husband of a stupid wife cannot escape defeat. It is to be hoped that Mr Lewald's contribution toa clearer knowledge of Heinewillbe translated into English. Every biographical fragment about Heine enables us to understand his writing better, for no fact is more personal. There is in literature the same tendencies which in politics make men either socialists or individualists. Some poets sink their personal being in the majesty of Nature. With others Nature is only a means of heightening the interest of human individuality, like, in the paintings by mediasval masters, the landscapes seem to serve only as frames around the central figures of saints. To the first class belong some of the greatest among the immortals. Among the latter we meet with those writers whose chief attractiveness consist in the fact that they are so pre-eminently human — such are Catullus, Horace, Tibullus, and Heine.

Hugh Patterson's Celebrated Asthma Cure, which has a very large sale in Ofcago, can be obtained from Carrighan, chemist, Dunedin, where testimonials can be seen. Price 2s 6d.

— Scene : Scotch farmhouse. Time : Sunday morning. Tourist (to farmer's wife) : " Can you let me have a glass of milk, please 1" Milk is produced, and consumed. Tourist (taking some coppers from his pocket : " A penny, I suppose ? " Farmer's Wife: "Man, dae ye no think shame o' yer'sal tae be buyin goods on the gawbath ? " Tourist (re-pocketing the coppers): "Ob, well, there's no harm done. I'm sure I'm much obliged. But won't you have the money for it ? " Farmer's Wife : " Na, na ; I'll no tak' less than saxpence for brakin' the Sawbath."