HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Blackguard and Apostate
Weimar tradition and the foe of "Young Germany."
Once he called Heine a blackguard. On
another occasion he referred to him as a "filthy,
foetid sausage of spoiled victuals." ^* Long after
adoration of Heine became general in England, he
continued to rage at him. In 1865 he stormed at
Matthew Arnold for esteeming obscene, impudent,
untruthful Heine, the continuator of Goethe.^^ In
1870 he told Friedrich Althaus that it was shameful
to put the dirty, blaspheming Jew Heine in
front of Goethe.^^ Coventry Patmore reported that
by 1874 Carlyle and he were the only ones who
dared to think, much less speak, evil of Heine.^^
In 1875 the Scottish novelist William Black was
asked by Carlyle for which German he had
the greatest affection and, when Black replied:
"Heine," Carlyle flared up and began to thunder:
"That slimy and greasy Jew — fit only to eat sausages
made of toads." ^^ The vehemence of Carlyle's
wrath whenever Heine's name was mentioned
resulted from deeply ingrained prejudices
against the latter's background no less than from
differences in attitudes towards political, social,
and moral problems. That Charles Kingsley spoke
of Heine as a wicked man, we may perhaps also
ascribe to the influence of Carlyle, for in his atti-
[29]