HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

INtttt. 15
HEINE'S VERSION.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum — of the
living speak nothing but evil.
THE ENGLISH.
The English in general, thorough-bred
Englishmen — (may God forgive me the
sin!)—I detest with my whole soul,
and sometimes I cannot even consider
them as my fellow men, but look upon
them as tiresome automata, as machines
whose internal main-spring is egotism.
It then seems to me as if I could hear
the sound of the mechanism by which
they think, feel, calculate, digest, and
pray. Their prayers, their mechanical
Anglican devotion, their church-going
with gilded prayer-book under their
arms, their absurd and wearisome Sunday
observances, their awkward piety is
especially repugnant to me. I am
firmly persuaded that a blaspheming
Frenchman is a more agreeable spectacle
in the sight of God, than a praying
Englishman! *
* It is but fair to taj, Heine mitigated in later life
bia unfavorable opinion of Englishmen.