all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all its
rigid defiant Monotheism, appear:--

"Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is no
gushing philanthropist, no declaimer.

"Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God of
thunder, and he is a God of revenge.

"The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and the
sins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity.

"Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existing
away, throughout all the eternities.

"Our God, too, is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin as
sacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus.

"Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thrones
break, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead.

"Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting;
but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting of
pigs."[179]

Nor must Heine's sweetest note be unheard,--his plaintive note, his note
of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the
winter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts
wander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her
Christmas-tree." "Thou tookest,"--he cries to the German exile,--

"Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poor
returnest thou back. German truth, German shirts,--one gets them worn to
tatters in foreign parts.

"Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lies
warm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside.

"Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more!
longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!"[180]

God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of his
life are few and evil. "Can it be that I still actually exist? My body
is so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, and
my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin,
which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose
tops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees,
brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave here
in Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but
the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of the
piano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the
depart