his head bowed in profound melancholy, his cheeks thin and
drawn and bearded, as in his last illness._

_Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, felt a sentimental affinity with the
poet; his unhappiness, his_ Weltschmerz, _touched a responsive chord in
her own unhappy heart. Intellectual sympathy with Heine's thought or
tendencies there could have been little, for no woman has ever quite
understood Heinrich Heine, who is still a riddle to most of the men of
this age._

_After the assassination of the hapless Empress, the beautiful villa was
bought by the German Emperor. He at once ordered Heine's statue to be
removed--whither no one knows. Royal (as well as popular) spite has
before this been vented on dead or inanimate things--one need only ask
Englishmen to remember what happened to the body of Oliver Cromwell. The
Kaiser's action, by the way, did not pass unchallenged. Not only in
Germany but in several other countries indignant voices were raised at
the time, protesting against an act so insulting to the memory of the
great singer, upholding the fame of Heine as a poet and denouncing the
new master of the Achilleion for his narrow and prejudiced views on art
and literature._

_There was, however, a sound reason for the Imperial interference.
Heinrich Heine was in his day an outspoken enemy of Prussia, a severe
critic of the House of Hohenzollern and of other Royal houses of
Germany. He was one who held in scorn the principles of State and
government that are honoured in Germany, and elsewhere, to this very
day. He was one of those poets--of whom the nineteenth century produced
only a few, but those amongst the greatest--who had begun to distrust
the capacity of the reigning aristocracy, who knew what to expect from
the rising bourgeoisie, and who were nevertheless not romantic enough to
believe in the people and the wonderful possibilities hidden in them.
These poets--one and all--have taken up a very negative attitude towards
their contemporaries and have given voice to their anger and
disappointment over the pettiness of the society and government of their
time in words full of satire and contempt._

_Of course, the echo on the part of their audiences has not been
wanting. All these poets have experienced a fate surprisingly similar,
and their relationship to their respective countries reminds one of
those unhappy matrimonial alliances which--for social or religious
reasons--no divorce can ever dissolve. And, worse th