HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

i^eine* 23
BELLINI.
When one met him in society, and
heard him rack and torture the poor
French words like a hangman, as he
poured forth a continuous torrent of
cock-and-bull stories, one often fancied
that the world was about to come to an
end with a thunder-crash. On such occasions,
a death-like silence pervaded
the drawing-room, terror was depicted
on every countenance, on some in the
color of chalk, on others in that of vermilion
: ladies hesitated whether to
faint or to make their escape; men
looked nervously toward their trousers
to satisfy themselves that they really
had them on; and, what was more
dreadful still, this general anxiety excited
a convulsive desire to laugh,
which could be suppressed only with
the greatest difficulty.
ART AND POLITICS.
A pure work of art is seldom
brought forth in an age in which politics
are predominant. The poet in such
an epoch resembles the sailor on a
stormy sea, who beholds on the distant
shore a cloister standing on a tall cliff;
the white nuns stand there singing, but
the storm outroars their voices.