HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

J^eine* 107
the caricature will disappear sooner or
later. The zeal, the imperishable and
the true — that is to say, the morality
— of ancient Judaism will in those
countries bloom forth just as acceptably
to God as in the old time it blossomed
on the banks of Jordan and on the
heights of Lebanon. One needs neither
palm-trees nor camels to be good; and
goodness is better than beauty.
JEWISH
DESCENT.
I see now that the Greeks were only
beautiful youths, but that the Jews
were always men, strong, unyielding
men, not only in the past, but to this
very day, in spite of eighteen centuries
of persecution and suffering. Since
that time I have learned to appreciate
them better, and, were not all pride of
ancestry a silly inconsistency in a
champion of the revolution and its democratic
principles, the writer of these
pages would be proud that his ancestors
belonged to the noble house of Israel,
that he is a descendant of those martyrs
who gave the world a God and a
morality, and who have fought and
suffered on all the battle-fields of
thought.