As my sad, pale looks they scan,
Who art thou, and what ails thee,
Thou strange and woe-worn man!

'I am a German poet,
Through Germany widely known;
When they name the names that are famous,
With them they will name my own.

'And what I ail, oh many,
Dear little one, ail the same.
When they name the worst of sorrows,
Mine, too, they are sure to name.'"

Sometimes he was in livelier moods, as one day, when he, my grandfather,
and my mother were walking through the fields together, and were joined
by a remarkably dull doctor of philology, whose company was particularly
distasteful to Heine. Pointing to half-a-dozen cows and oxen that were
grazing close by, he said in an undertone: "I say, Lottchen, now there
are seven doctors on the meadow."

Salomon Heine, the poet's uncle, was a millionaire who spent his money
right royally and philanthropically; a man who owed his fortune to his
own exertions, and who, when he had made a million of marks for each of
his children--I forget how many he had--devoted the next million he
amassed to the foundation of a hospital. He was a delightful specimen
of an uncle, too, for he would spend his money philonepotically as well
as philanthropically. The nephew was ever ready to dive into the uncle's
purse; equally ready to make literary capital out of him and his
friends. Gumpel, another rich banker--we know him as Gumpelino--was his
pet aversion, and specially suggestive to him as a butt for his satire.
Gumpel, too, was a self-made man, a fact of which, however, he did not
like to be reminded, quite unlike old Heine, who loved to bring up the
subject to the annoyance of his friend, shouting across the table
stories of the early days when they came to Hamburg with their bundles
slung across their shoulders. To his nephew he was ever indulgent; he
was proud of his rising popularity, and as a rule was not appealed to in
vain when the young genius had got into money troubles. On one occasion,
though, he lost patience when he had given him a round sum wherewith to
defray the expenses of a journey to Norderney, a summer resort on the
coast of the North Sea. Instead of devoting the money to the purpose of
improving his health, he managed in one night to roll the round sum into
other people's pockets at the gaming tables. This time the uncle was
indignant, and Heinrich would probably never have gone to Norderney, and
consequently never