Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
But by far the most interesting paper is that on Heinrich Heine. A
letter from an English lady whom Heine had known and petted in her
childhood, and who visited the poet in his last days, when he himself,
wasted by disease, "seemed no bigger than a child under the sheet that
covered him," gives what is perhaps the most lifelike picture we
have ever had of a nature that seems equally to court and to baffle
comprehension. Lord Houghton has little to add, on this subject, from
his personal recollections; but his comments upon it evince perhaps
as close a study and sagacious criticism, if not as much subtlety of
thought, as Matthew Arnold's famous essay. The following passage, for
example, sums up very felicitously the social aspect of Germany, and
its influence on Heine: "The poem of 'Deutschland' is the one of his
works where his humor runs over into the coarsest satire, and the
malice can only be excused by the remembrance that he too had been
exposed to some of the evil influences of a servile condition. Among
these may no doubt be reckoned the position of a man of commercial
origin and literary occupation in his relation to the upper order of
society in the northern parts of Germany. ...Here there remained, and
after all the events of the last year there still remains, sufficient
element of discontent to justify the recorded expression of a
philosophic German statesman, that 'in Prussia the war of classes had
still to be fought out.'"
Of the other papers in the volume, those on Humboldt, Landor and
Sydney Smith, though readable, contain little to supplement the
biographies and correspondence that have long been before the world;
while the one on "Suleiman Pasha" (Colonel Selves) suggests a doubt
whether Lord Houghton has always taken pains to sift the information
he has so eagerly accumulated. When we find him stating that the siege
of Lyons occurred under the _Directory_--which it preceded by a year
or two; that his hero, then seven years old, "grew up," entered
the navy, was present at the battle of Trafalgar (1805), and,
_subsequently_ enlisted "in the Army of Italy, then flushed with
triumph, but glad to receive young and vigorous recruits"--language
indicating the campaign of 1796-97; that "soon after his enrollment in
the regiment it became necessary to instruct the cavalry soldiers
in infantry practice, and young Selves' knowledge of the exercise
[acquired apparently on shipboard] was of the greatest use and
_brought him into general notice_"--making him, we may infer, a
special favorite of Bonaparte;--we can easily believe that these
things were related, as he tells us they were, "with epic simplicity,"
and may even conclude that some other qualities of the epic would to
more cautious ears have been equally perceptible in the narration. Of
a like character, we suspect, is the statement that Selves, being on
the staff of Grouchy on the day of Waterloo, "urgently represented
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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