In poetry, the lyric of Nature is inexhaustible. Heine, the greatest lyrist after Goethe, though his poetry has, like the Nixie, an enchantingly fair body with a fish's tail, wrote in the _Travels in the Harz_: 'How infinitely blissful is the feeling when the outer world of phenomena blends and harmonizes with the inner world of feeling; when green trees, thoughts, birds' songs, sweet melancholy, the azure of heaven, memory, and the perfume of flowers, run together and form the loveliest of arabesques.' But his delight in Nature was spoilt by irony and straining after effect--for example, in _The Fig Tree_; and although _The Lotos Flower_ is a gem, and the _North Sea Pictures_ shew the fine eye of a poet who, like Byron and Shelley, can create myths, his personifications as a whole are affected, and his personal feeling is forced upon Nature for the sake of a witty effect. Every element of Nature has found skilled interpreters both in poetry and painting, and technical facility and truth of representation now stand on one level with the appreciation of her charms. NOTES INTRODUCTION [Footnote 1: _Kritische Gänge_. Comp. Vischer, _Ueber den optischen Formsinn,_ and Carl du Prel, _Psychologie der Lyrik_.] [Footnote 2: As in elegy _Ghatarkarparam_.] [Footnote 3: Comp. Humboldt, _Cosmos_. Schnaase, _Geschichte der bildenden Künste_.] [Footnote 4: See _Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls bei den Griechen und Römern_, Biese.] CHAPTER I [Footnote 1: Lucos ac nemora consecrant deorumque nominibus adpellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident, Tac. Germ. Comp. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_.] [Footnote 2: Grimm. Simrock, _Handbuch der Mythologie_.] [Footnote 3: Grimm.] [Footnote 4: Grimm.] [Footnote 5: Grimm.] [Footnote 6: _Geschichte der bildenden Künste_. Comp. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer_.] [Footnote 7: Grimm.] [Footnote 8: Carrière, _Die Poesie_.] CHAPTER II [Footnote 1: Clement of Rome, i _Cor._ 19, 20. Zoeckler, _Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft_.] [Footnote 2: Comp. _Vita S. Basilii_.] [Footnote 3: _Basilii opera omnia_. Parisus, 1730.] [Footnote 4: _Cosmos_.] [Footnote 5: Biese, _Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls bei den Griechen und Römern_.] [Footnote 6: _Mélanges philosophiques, historiques, et littéraires_.] [Footnote 7: _Homily_ 4.] [Footnote 8: _Homily_ 6.] [Footnote 9: Biese, _Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls bei den Griechen und Römern_. 'In spring the Cydmian apple trees give blossom watered by river streams in the hallowed garden of the nymphs; in spring the buds grow and swell beneath the leafy shadow of the vine branch. But my heart knoweth no season of respite; nay, like the Thracian blast that rageth with its lightning, so doth it bear down from Aphrodite's side, dark and fearless, with scorching frenzy in its train, and from its depths shaketh my heart with might.'] [Footnote 10: Comp. Biese, _op. cit._] [Footnote 11: _Deutsche Rundschau_, 1879.]