HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Continuator of Goethe
the head of "Young Germany" were not unhke
those that the couple had heard and approved in the
London circles of Leigh Hunt, Harriet Martineau,
and John Chapman, and that George Eliot, as assistant
editor of Westminster Review, had herself
voiced in her anonymous column. The prediction
could, therefore, be ventured that, in giving an account
of Heine and his works, she would not make
herself an overzealous agent of heaven, she would
not dwell lengthily on his failings, she would not
"hold the candle up to dusty, vermin haunted corners,
but let the light fall as much as possible on the
noble and more attractive details." ^
This was indeed her approach. Entitling her essay
"German Wit," she began with a distinction between
wit and humor and then accused the Germans
of being the only great European people that
contributed nothing of any importance to the
world's stock of either wit or humor — nothing until
Heine. He alone deserved universal attention, for
he was one of the most remarkable men of the century,
no echo but a real voice: "a surpassing lyric
poet, who has uttered our feelings for us in delicious
song; a humorist, who touches leaden folly
with the magic wand of his fancy, and transmutes
It into the fine gold of art — who sheds his sunny
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