HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

3Fntrotiu(tion«
Ivii
(and posterity too, I am quite sure, will
say this), in the European poetry of
that quarter of a century which follows
the death of Goethe, incomparably the
most important figure.
What a spendthrift, one is tempted
to cry, is Nature! With what prodigality,
in the" march of generations, she
employs human power, content to gather
almost always little result from it, sometimes
none! Look at Byron, that Byron
whom the present generation of
Englishmen are forgetting; Byron, the
greatest natural force, the greatest elementary
power, I cannot but think,
which has appeared in our literature
since Shakspeare. And what became
of this wonderful production of nature ?
He shattered himself, he inevitably
shattered himself to pieces against the
huge, black, cloud-topped, interminable
precipice of British Philistinism. But
Byron, it may be said, was eminent
only by his genius, only by his inborn
force and fire; he had not the intellectual
equipment of a supreme modern
poet; except for his genius he was
an ordinary nineteenth-century English
gentleman, with little culture and with
no ideas. Well, then, look at Heine.
Heine had all the culture of Germany ;
in his head fermented all the ideas of
modem Europe. And what have we
got from Heine? A half-result, for
want of moral balance, and of nobleness
of soul and character. That is what I