The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-11

Matthew Arnold has summed up Heine in this verse:
 'fThe Spirit of the World,
 Beho1ding the absurdity of men, don1c smile
 For one brief moment wander OCT his lips
 That smile was EIeine."
 Born a Jew, Heine was educated at a Franciscan convent and Jesuit academy. Breathing a Catholic atmos- phere, he nevertheless became faTnl- liar with the works of Vo1taire and other great French writers and philo- sophers. As a boy he formed that great admiration for the French revo- lution and for Napoleon that con- tinued through life.
 The love of Napoleon and the love his life, began at the same time, when he was only eleven. It was then that he saw Napoleon in the flesh. Years later he wrote:
 ''The picture will never vanish from. my memory. I see him still, high on horseback with those eternal eyes in his marble imperator face, quiet as destiny, looking down on the guards marching by; and the old grenadters looked up to him in awful submission stern accomplices, deathly proud; Te, Caesar, nnoriturf saIutant.''
 
 Heine entered the University of Bonn, but before that, eben before at the age of eleven his eyes had been glad, dened by the sight of Napoleon, he had had his first love affair. Little Veronica was the sweetheart of, his early boyhood, and her death is com memorated in <deathless verse. Heine's next love affair was with Josepha, the pretty daughter of an executiOner, imm ortalized as Sefchen the Red. This was followed by a hope less love for his cousin, Amalie Heine, whose father, Solomon, was rich banker. She married another, Johan F,riedlander, but the poet was never quite able to forget her. His love for l Arnalie is perpetuated in the Inter nezzo." Years afterward in Paris, 1 when he had had score or more of sweethearts, he confessed to a friend that after losing Ama1ie Hove remain ed only 8 trade for me-
 It was in his Paris, when he was about twenty-four, that he met Ma tiIde, a beautiful girl of eighteen, who became his devoted mistress. She was a rniIliner in the shop of her aunt, and Heinie actually bargained for her with the elderly woman, but in the course of time he came to love her and gave her his name. In his latter painful years, spent on a mattress grave, grave without rest, death without the privileges of the depart ed," Matnde played the role of an angel of mercy.
 Heinie spent but a year at Bonn. I and afterward continued his studies at Berlin and. at Gottingen, where he took his degree in. law, having pub lic1y professed Christianity He made no attempt to practice his profession, but embarked on literary and jour nalistic career. As an editor hs soon aroused the wrath of the Prussian of ficials, and, to escape their vengeance he fled the country and settled in Par is. There he spent the greater par of the remainder of his life, and only once recrossed the Rhine. In France Heine was on familiar terms with many of the great writer. of the day. including Victor Hugo Balzao. Theophi1e Gautier, Georgt Sand and the elder Dumas. In 184S l he was prostrated by the disease which afterward caused his death after nearly eight years of terribI, suffering. Shortly before his deau he recalled the glories of the past; sanc sadly added, But now-I am only { poor death-sick Jew"