not so astonished as I, when I saw that my good Venedey had so entirely forgotten himself as to suddenly turn poet and make verses. And what verses ! Fearful it is to rouse a lion,* And dangerous is the tiger's tooth, especially horrible when he cries: "I also am a poet," and utters his versified "Ee-ah." No, my dear fellow, nobody can stand that kind of poetry. Even a less civilized stomach would become sea-sick from it; even a flat-nosed Russian would not be able to stand the smell of these slops in rhymes, and your poems ought to be sent to Menzikoff at Sebastopol - he surely would at once throw up all. Your ruminated prose is ambrosia in comparison with this fourfooted poetry. Every verse an ass! Goethe would turn around in his tomb if he could hear these sounds. * Parody of a stanza in Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke." Jacob Grimm would be struck by apoplexy if he could see how your verses defile our beautiful mother-tongue. The poor German Muse, blushing and wringing her hands, exclaims: "O, Jacob Venedey, you have injured me, indeed you have injured me very much, for you have soiled my pure white tunic with your water of Cologne, which is not by any means as odorous as that of your countryman, Maria Farina!" "Alas, dearest Venedey, you are a worse sinner than I, who in boyish waggishness only wetted, a little bit, the garments of old women and, I acknowledge it, also your new mantle; while you have sullied my high Goddess, the German Muse, our beautiful German language, the soul of our country. And our language is the best we Germans possess; it is our fatherland itself, and to that have you given a bad smell. Oh, what have you done, you who pretend to be a patriot ? Pardon me, I feel overcome by patriotism. I feel how, setting aside all French politeness, I might exclaim in thoroughly German rudeness: Dirty menial, Nature has destined you to clean closets and not to be a German poet! Do not touch the German Muse with your filthy dactyls, do not soil her white garment which is a present from me! Pardon my rudeness of expression. I also am a German! LETTER TO MR. CALMANN-LEVY MY DEAR MR. LEVY On opening this morning the envelope containing the proof-sheet which your young man brought me the day before yesterday, I see, to my great displeasure, that sheet 17 (as also the last part of sheet 16), which contained precisely the impression of that part of the manuscript which is in the said envelope, was not sent to me. Now, this manuscript is so bad and so confusedly written, that a careful revision of the proof by myself is of the utmost importance. The piece itself, furthermore, touches a very scaly subject; hence a mistake in the printing might play me a terrible trick in my own country. Therefore, I am anxious to see and to correct that 17th sheet, as soon as possible, and I beg you to tell the printer to have it, as well as the last part of sheet 16, sent to me at once. Are the sheets, which you brought me the other day, already wholly printed off? I had the idea of not having you send me the proofs of the sheets, in which there are no important alterations to make, leaving entirely to you the work of carefully revising them before going to press. It will, however, do no harm to send them to me, all the same, before they are printed off, for, at a moment, when my eyes permit of it, I may like to see if there is nothing out of the way in them. For instance, if page 285 is not yet struck off, I should be glad to insert là before the same word la in the 9th line. Unfortunately, the whole sentence ought to be re-written: And it is this page only that I have glanced at. This is the reason why, in future, I wish to have sent me all the sheets before they are printed. A piece of good news, that I forgot to communicate to you the other day: An English translation of the "Reisebilder," which has appeared in New York, has met with an enormous success, S 274 MEMOIRS OF HEINRICH HEINE. according to a correspondence in the Augsburger Zeitung (which does not love me enough to invent successes for me). Please send me: I copy of "De l'Allemagne," 2 do. of "Lutèce," and 2 do. of "Poésies et Légendes." I am, yours obediently, HENRI HEINE. Wednesday, Oct. 4, 1855. |