The Washington times., 1920-01-18
TODAY

Tell me what signifies man!
Whence has he come? and whittier
goes he7
Who dwells up in the golden
stars"
The waves they murmur their
endless babble;
The wind il blows, and the clouds
they wander,
The stars they glitter coldly in
different
And a fool waits for an answer"
In these days when Ouija board
tells that papa is happy and wants
TO talk TO mamma, and Mr.. Mae
terlinck is lecturing on a queer,
fiimsy, immortal soul of his own
inveRtion, read for pleasant
change Heine's idea of the birth
of a great thought:
Immortality! Beautiful thought
Who first imagined thee-was II
some Nuremberg shopkeeper who,
with white nightcap on head and
white porcelain pipe In jaw sat some
warm summers evening before his
shop door, and comfortably unused
how pleasant II would be II this
would only last foreyer-pipe and
breath never going out, to yegetate
on for all eternity"
Heine's idea OF freedom, Eng
lish, French, and German brands.
Is as follows, from English
Fragments" An Englishman
loves freedom as he loves his law
fully welded wife; he regards
her as a possession, and, if he
does not treat her with special
tenderness. yet If need be, he
knows how to defend her.
"A Frenchman loves freedom
as he does his CHOSEN bride; he
will commit a thousand fOllies for
her sake.
"A German loves freedom as he
does his old grandmother. And
yet, after all, no one can ever tell
how things may turn out The
grumpy Englishman, in an ILL
temper with his wife, is capable
OF some day putting a rope around
her neck.
THE inconstant Frenchman may
become unfaithful to his adored
mistress and be seen flutterins
about the Palais Royal after sh-
other
But the German will never quite
abandon his old grandmother; he
will always keep for her nook by
the chimney corner, where she can
tell her fairy tales t. the listen
ing children
Now, in heaven, Heine knows
his old grandmother to follow the
Kaiser. He is paying a high price
| for the mistake
Heine knew his own value and
importance. When he went to
London, his Uncle Solomon gave
him q letter Of credit on Roths-
child for four hundred pounds, a
| gigantic sum for beggarly
nephew poet. Uncle Solomon ex-
| planned carefully to Heinrich that
he must not draw the money; it
was only given to him with a let
ter Of introduction, that he might
have a certain financial standing.
Nephew Heinrich spent every
penny of it promptly. His expla-
nation to Solomon was:
"My dear uncle, did you really
expect not to have to pay for the
honor of bearing my name?"
The worthy son of Solomon,
when the latter was dead, showed
his gratitude to the poet who had
made immortal the vulgar name
of a vulgar banker by cutting off
Heine's pitiful allowance, leaving
him to die in poverty.
This makes you regret that the
Jewish religion does not provide
for Uncle Salomon's son some
eternal hell of fire and birthstone
in which he might now be sitting,
regretting his bad taste and in
gratitude. The Christian is more
thorough in that respect.
Heine, like all other great writ
ers, made his meaning clear by
well-chosen comparisons. In writ
ing of Fichte's philosophy, with
its ego" and all the rest of it,
Heine writes, in one Of his philo-
sophical essays
"Fichte requires the mind to OBJ
serve itself whilst in activity.
Thought shall listen to itself while
it is thinking; even while it is get
ting warm, and warmer, and at
last becomes a thought. This re-
minds us Of the ape who sits by
the fireplace and cooks his own
tail, asserting that the true sci
ence of cookery consists not only
in objective cookery, but also in
being subjectively conscious of be-
ing cooked"
Apart from some of his won.
dcrful songs, the best of Heine is
in his "Reisebilder," Travel Pic.
tures," in which his imaginative
genius was the camera. In that
work and in Sterne's Sentimental
Journey" which inspired Heine
as a boy, you will find the best
German and best English prose