HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

24 J^eine,
SHAKESPEARE.
Generous Nature never entirely disinherits
any of her creatures, and if she
has denied to Englishmen everything
that is beautiful and pleasintij, if she has
given them neither a voice for singing
nor the sense of enjoyment, she has yet
bestowed upon them by way of compensation,
a large measure of civil liberty,
the art of comfortably arranging their
homes, and William Shakespeare.
SHAKESPEARE'S HERO.
Humanity is his hero, a hero continually
dying and continually being born,
continually loving, continually hating,
yet loving more than hating; to-day
crawling like a worm, to-morrow soaring
like an eagle toward the sun; to-day
meritini,^ a fool's cap, to-morrow a laurel
wreath, oftener deserving both at once
— the big dwarf, the pigmy giant, the
god prepared on homoeopathic principles
in whom the divinity, though much diluted,
still exists. Ah ! let modesty
and shame keep us from too much talking
of the heroism of such a hero !