HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

xxviii
3^ntrotiuttton.
idea is beginning to exercise a real
power in human society, with serious
future inconvenience, and, in the meanwhile,
cuts us off from the sympathy of
other nations, which feel its power more
than we do.
But, in 1830, Heine very soon found
that the fire-engines of the German governments
were too much for his direct
efforts at incendiarism. " What demon
drove me," he cries, " to write my Reisebilder,
to edit a newspaper, to plague
myself with our time and its interests,
to try and shake the poor German
Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep
in his hole ? What good did I get by
it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to
shut them again immediately; he
yawned, only to begin snoring again the
next minute louder than ever; he
stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only
to sink down again directly afterwards,
and lie like a dead man in the old bed of
his accustomed liabits. I must have
rest; but where am I to find a restingplace
? In Germany I can no longer
stay."
This is Heine's jesting account of his
own efforts to rouse Germany : now for
his pathetic account of them ; it is because
he unites so much wit witli so
much pathos that he is so effective a
writer: —
" The Emperor Charles the Fifth sate
in sore straits, in the Tyrol, encompassed
by his enemies. All his knights