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A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heine
proclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789,
and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Age
took to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter.
Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such,
from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, from
France into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle.
But that for which, France, far less meditative than Germany, is
eminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea,
when she seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it.
And that in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which she
appears so helpless and impotent, is just the practical application of
her innumerable ideas. "When Candide," says Heine himself, "came to
Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with
gold-nuggets instead of marbles.


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