Perhaps because Heine was in spirit an Oriental, the Germans never have known exactly what to make of him. Professor Francke says (_History of German Literature_, p. 526) that Heine "produced hardly a single poem which fathoms the depths of life." This assertion seems scarcely defensible in view of such poems as the following: Wo wird einst des Wandermüden Letzte Ruhestatte sein? Unter Palmen in dem Süden? Unter Linden an dem Rhein? Werd' ich wo in einer Wüste Eingescharrt von fremder Hand? Oder ruh' ich an der Küste Eines Meeres in dem Sand? Immerhin! Mich wird umgeben Gotteshimmel, dort wie hier, Und als Todtenlampen schweben Nachts die Sterne über mir. To find an equally beautiful expression of faith in God as a universal spiritual presence that transcends all space relations, we must go back to the anonymous Jewish poet who wrote the psalm in which occur the lines: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? And whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in Sheol, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, And the light about me shall be night; Even the darkness hideth me not from thee; But the night shineth as the day. For the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." As a matter of fact, both poems are to be accounted for as equally the product of a rarely gifted people--a people with a unique genius for religion.[D] _Disraeli and His Oriental Imagination_ Benjamin Disraeli belonged to a family who left Spain in the fifteenth century to avoid the horrors of the Inquisition. Upon their escape, in gratitude to the God of Jacob who had sustained them through unheard of trials, they adopted the name Disraeli, in order that their race might be forever recognized. Of such a family Benjamin Disraeli was a worthy representative. He never was ashamed of his race. On the contrary, he gloried in it, and lost no opportunity to put forth the claim of his people to be the true aristocracy of the earth. "Has not the Jew the oldest blood and the finest genius of the world?" he asks. And again, in one of his books (_Tancred_, 1847), he says, "The Jews are of the purest race; the chosen people; they are the aristocracy of nature."