The Portland daily press., 1882-07-13
Bits From Heine's Biography.
Quaint Death-B Bed Humor-A Story of the
Poets Wife.
contemporary Review.l

Contemporary RevieW.]
All Heine's family were naturally averse to
his marriage with Matilde Mirat, and the writ
or of the Memoirs talks of her with no love.
"Shs was a handsome woman, rather inclined
to enabonpoirt, with black hair, white teeth,
yoluptuous full-lipped mouth, and gentle, ex-
pressiye eyes. She was regular Partisan
qrssette, and quite uneducated." "One of Ma
Tides best qualities" said Heine laughingly
to Sewald, sis that she does not know one atom
of German literature and has not read single
word of my writing people say that Heine
is a very clever man." she would say, "but
know nothing about it, suppose must trust
to their word" And curiously enough, this
simple, unsophisticated Naturks1ad became
great source of happiness in his life.
On leaving Hamburg friend OF Helnes
gave him a large sausage, begging him to take
it to Paris as an Offering to a homeopathic doc
tor, friend of his. In the railway carriage
Heine tasted a bit of it, and liked it so much
that, before he reached Paris there was only
morsel left. This he enclosed in an envelope
and despatched it with the following letter.
'sDear Doctor: According to the precepts OF
homeopathy, the thousandth part is more ell
cacious than the whole. / send you, therefore,
that portion of the enclosed sausage in the hope
that the pleasure you derive from it will be
thousand times greater tnan IL you nad re-
ceived it ALL.
One of Heine's friends, anxious for his con-
version, asked him shortly before his death il
he were at peace with God. 'Set your mind
at rest" answered Heine, "le bon Dieu me
pardonnera, cest son METER" "Do you be-
iieve in the existence of a Supreme Being?"
the same person asked on another occasion
of Supreme Being, perfectly omnipotent
and all-seeing, exists, do you think he will
care whether wretched little mouse, living
in the Rue d'Amsterdam, believes in Him or
not?" "What good does it do me- he Ia
ments, "that at banquets my health is drunk
out of golden goblets, and in the best OF wine,
if myself, separated from all the joys OF the
world can only wet my lips with an insipid
tisane? What good does it do me that enthus-
astic youths and damses crown my marble bust
with laurels, when on my real head a blister is
being clapped behind my ears by an old SICK
nurse? What lists it to me If all the roses OF
Shiraz glow and smell for me so sweetly?
Alas! Shiraz is 1000 miles from the hue
d'Amsterdam. where get nothing to smell. in
the melancholy solitude of my sick-room but
the perfume of warm napkins" ut is time"
he sings, "to bury the old, unhappy ditties,
and all the sad dreams, SO fetch me coffin
vast 1t must be vaster than Heidelbergs vat,
and longer than the bridge over the Main.
And then fetch dozen giants-they must be
stronger than st. Christopher, in the Cathe-
dral of Cologne on the Rhine. They must
take up that coffin and sink it deep in the
ocean wave for such a mighty coffin must be
laid in mighty grave. Would you know why
nv coffin must be SO vast and stout and wide?
/ shall lay all my sorrows and love and an
guish there, side by side"