e and consolation in many troubled hours
of life. . . . Of Greek I will not say a word, I should get too much
irritated. The monks in the Middle Ages were not so far wrong when
they maintained that Greek was an invention of the devil. God knows
the suffering I endured over it. . . . With Hebrew it went somewhat
better, for I had always a great liking for the Jews, though to this
very hour they crucify my good name; but I could never get on so far
in Hebrew as my watch, which had much familiar intercourse with
pawnbrokers, and in this way contracted many Jewish habits--for
example, it wouldn't go on Saturdays."

Heine's parents were apparently not wealthy, but his education was cared
for by his uncle, Solomon Heine, a great banker in Hamburg, so that he
had no early pecuniary disadvantages to struggle with. He seems to have
been very happy in his mother, who was not of Hebrew but of Teutonic
blood; he often mentions her with reverence and affection, and in the
"Buch der Lieder" there are two exquisite sonnets addressed to her, which
tell how his proud spirit was always subdued by the charm of her
presence, and how her love was the home of his heart after restless weary
ramblings:

"Wie machtig auch mein stolzer Muth sich blahe,
In deiner selig sussen, trauten Nahe
Ergreift mich oft ein demuthvolles Zagen.

* * * * *

Und immer irrte ich naeh Liebe, immer
Nach Liebe, doch die Liebe fand ich nimmer,
Und kehrte um nach Hause, krank und trube.
Doch da bist du entgegen mir gekommen,
Und ach! was da in deinem Aug' geschwommen,
Das war die susse, langgesuchte Liebe."

He was at first destined for a mercantile life, but Nature declared too
strongly against this plan. "God knows," he has lately said in
conversation with his brother, "I would willingly have become a banker,
but I could never bring myself to that pass. I very early discerned that
bankers would one day be the rulers of the world." So commerce was at
length given up for law, the study of which he began in 1819 at the
University of Bonn. He had already published some poems in the corner of
a newspaper, and among them was one on Napoleon, the object of his
youthful enthusiasm. This poem, he says in a letter to St. Rene
Taillandier, was written when he was only sixteen. It is still to be
found in the "Buch der Lieder" under the title "Die Grenadiere," and it
proves that even in