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Over men of genius, as well as the commonplace herd, he cast the same spell, stamping himself as a personage who could be compared with no other. The German poet Heine thus describes his first acquaintance with this paragon of violinists: "It was in the theatre at Hamburg that I first heard Paganini's violin.
Then the portrait was again brought forth, and hung next to that of Count Caprivi which had supplanted it. On his top bookshelf, triumphant over a dreary jungle of theological literature, might have been found the works of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Freiligrath, and in a secret receptacle behind his little drug cabinet reposed a complete edition of Heine.
But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues; while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned in no 'mattress-grave. Without Rabelais, without Voltaire, without Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands lacking in zest; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients could meet you in the lists of sportive dialogue.
I was quite unconscious of applause, and when at the end of the acts I was tempestuously called for, I had every time to be forcibly reminded by Heine and driven on to the stage. On the other hand, one great anxiety filled me with growing alarm: I noticed that the first two acts had taken as long as the whole of Freischutz, for instance.
"Was you acquainted maybe with Heinrich Strauss in Detroit?" asked Schwegel. "Did I know Heinrich Strauss?" repeated Curly, affectionately. "Why, say, 'Bo, I wish I had a dollar for every game of pinochle me and Heine has played on Sunday afternoons." More beer and a second plate of steaming food was set before the diplomat.
When I remarked that I thought Heine was the author he corrected me by proving that they were written by Schiller. Lloyd George could never carry on a conversation like this for the simple reason that he lacks familiarity with literature. He feels perhaps like the late Charles Frohman who, on being asked if he read the dramatic papers said: "Why should I read about the theatre.
"Dieu me pardonnera," said Heine, "c'est son métier"; but he had not the Christian sense of what it was that God was to forgive. It is only in Jesus that we can live the real life of prayer, in the intimate way of Jesus. All this means that we have to solve our x from Jesus not to discover him through it.
I think it a misfortune for the present generation that his books have fallen into a kind of neglect, and I believe that they will emerge from it again to the advantage of literature. In spite of Heine and Tennyson, De Quincey had a large place in my affections, though this was perhaps because he was not a poet; for more than those two great poets there was then not much room.
Not long ago, I saw some correspondence in the Times' and other papers about what Heine calls 'Das kleine welthistorische Hutchen, which the whole of Europe knew so well, to its cost. Some six or seven of the Buonaparte hats, so it appears, are still in existence. But I noticed, that though all were located, no mention was made of the one in the Luxembourg.
This trait, much clarified and spiritualized in later life, became a distinct, ironic note in his character. Possibly it attracted Heine, although his irony was on a more intellectual plane. His piano playing at this time was neat and finished, and he had already begun those experimentings in technique and tone that afterward revolutionized the world of music and the keyboard.
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