Digital Book booking

This explains the love which Heine, that
Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference
which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the
chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have
been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the
Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from
the land of the Philistines."[143] He means that the French, as a
people, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people;
that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any
other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter
at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the
detestation which Heine had for the English: "I might settle in
England," he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should find
there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either."
What he hated in the English was the "aechtbrittische Beschraenktheit," as
he calls it,--the _genuine British narrowness_.


Pages:
203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227