The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-06
Helm.

quote the following phssages:-
new book by Heinrich Heine! How
does this announcement affect US? 1t is not
so many years ago since such an announce
ment would have excited to the utmost the
whole reading public Of Europe. With what
hungry eagerness and feverish impetuosity
has each new book of Hene been received
by his contemporaries, ever since the publica-
tion of the ReiSeJHder! Why, then, do we
shrink and pause and hesitate to open the
volume which now comes to us in Heines
name? Alas between this volume and all
the others there is grave Ay, and some
thing sadder than the grave-a long, long
dying agony.
When we have once taken leave of a man
for life his unexpected temperance cannot
but disconcert u.s. Hme, in the interval, has
changed the conditions of intercourse be-
tween us and him. Heine is still, par ercel-
lence, the poet Of the nineteenth century.
But the century is already older than its poet.
And if, in this latest volume, fresh from the
Hamburg printing press, we find again the
man we remember-the poet of the Buch der
Liede and the R0mda2er0, hardly will he find
in US the public which we also remember
the public to which those poems were ad-
dressed.
1t is impossible to read without feeling
of profound melancholy the book now set
before us by Mr.. Strodtmann, Heine's lite
rary executor. 1t is like reading an inven-
tory Of the personal effects of a dead friend
list methodically arranged for public in
spection of the furniture of the dead mans
most private and secret chambers, to which,
during his lifetime, not even his intimates
were admitted 1t is from the hand of a
corpse that this book has been taken by those
who place it in our own. So long as he was
yet alive, Heine withheld the gift. Let us
therefore bear in mind the circumstances in
which we receive it, and and duly respect the
&c Cd
Heinrich Heine was the first-born of his
century. He used to say, 81 am the first
man of my time;" for he was born in the
year 1SOO and we are all of his family.
But the little ones who, half frightened by
Heines audacity, half reassured by his sue
cess SO timidly and wonderingly followed
his madcap pursuit of modern ideas across
their grandfathers fences and bitches, are
now grown up, have finished their education,
and entered into their inheritance The most
perceptive and discriminating of English
critics Mathew Arnold, himself poet as well
as o thinker has, with his usual felicitous
accuracy, distinguished Heine from all other
poets of his time as a soldier, and (since
Gnthe's DEATH the most brilliant soldier in
the war of the liberation of humanity. Yes,
but if Heine could now, like his own great
master, Mephistopheles, slip back unawares
into the chair of doctrine from which the
timid and blushing disciple of Doctor Faust
was encouraged by that notable autograph,
K7TttS sicut DeOS sCicttes bOnun ct H1aLUn1,
would not Heine also be as abashed and dis
concerted as Mephistopheles himself by the
astonishing progress of his former pupils
Mr.. Tennyson has complainedathat
can can raise his flower now
For all nave got the seed
And now again the people
Call the flower weed.'
But Mr.. Tennysons flower is a flower of Ian
guage. Heines is flower of thought; anC
the seed Of it has been carried farther anC
wider, and borne fruit more abundantly
than could possibly have been the case had i
not contained
s'That which makes thousands, perhaps millions
think"
Heine himself declares that in poetry form
is everything. But the ultimate value of tina
everything is determined by what also deter
mines the form of it. Every form of geniu
is imitable 1t is the genius of the forr
which remains dn5gUe. Heines verse, hghl
spiced and richly favored though it be- is ye
sauce of which many inferior cooks no'
know the receipt. And, if they knew it NO
already, they would easily learn it from thi
little book, which is a complete culinar
manual by the inventor himself of the cuts5n
a Ia Hejne 1t smells of the kitchen; and tn
worst of it is, that before opening it we hav
tasted and relished to the full the dainties
and choicest viands that everleft that kitchen
and the savory odor, which whetS the appt
tite of the still hungry somewhat sckens tn
nostrils of the already full. No writer wa
ever more deliberate and reticent than Helm
l., IN regard to publication.
! = The negJi9e in which it was his pleasur
to present himself before the public was
studied neglige, carefully arranged in private
u His immense naturalness is never ndtf. II
possessed in the highest degree the art
being natural. What if we now find h
writing-desk open? Before looking into
let us at least remember that he himself kel
it locked. He never set his least work in OF
sight before it was highly finished; and wi
can suppose that he would willingly ha,
suffered us to look over his shoulder while
was about it, and so detect the secret of
- manipulation Not much of what is he
- exposed of Heine's work has the appearan
Al of having been destined to leave his wor
I shop in its present state. The editor of the
fragments AYERS that Heine was onlyprevent
by death from putting the finishing touch
them. But it is precisely the finishing tou
which determines the effect of all work; al
it is to finishing touches that Heines wo
- especially owes its peculiar elegance.
that as it may, however, even Heines Il
finished work is we'll worth contemplatin
We are thankful for the sight of It, i
beauties, though only half dressed, are be1
ties still; and we, who have so often be
bewildered by the charm of their elder siste
since those enchanting coquettes first cal
out can easily imagine with what matchl'
grace of movement these pretty orpha
would have worn the graade toilette VIII
they will never now receive. Some few