Veitel, Ephraim

German lyric poet and essayist; born at Düsseldorf Dec. 13, 1797; died in Paris Feb. 17, 1856; son of Samson Heine and Betty von Geldern. Though named after his father's brother Hertz, he was chiefly influenced in his early days by his mother and her uncle, Simon von Geldern, a curious mixture of traveler, "schnorrer," and adventurer. His father left his education to his mother, Betty von Geldern, who, touched by the new ideas of the French Revolution, and something of a freethinker, had him educated in a desultory manner by equally freethinking Jesuits and French refugees. There is little evidence that he had any specifically Jewish education, though he records in his "Memoirs" that he learned to conjugate the Hebrew verb "paḳad." As he also refers to the root "ḳaṭal," it is probable that he had to relearn Hebrew later from Gesenius. The time of his youth was the most favorable the German Jews had seen, owing to the influence of Napoleon, and Heine was always conscious of, and grateful for, the Jewish emancipation due to him.

Early Influences.

At the age of seventeen, in 1815, he was sent to Frankfort to try his fortune in a banker's office, where for the first time he became aware of the restrictions by which Jews were oppressed in the German cities. At first he could not bear it, and went back to Düsseldorf; the next year he went to Hamburg to enter the office of his uncle, Solomon Heine, who was becoming one of the chief merchants of that city. The office-work proving distasteful to him, he ventured to set up in business for himself in 1818, but failed. Meanwhile the most important influence upon his life came through his frustrated love for his cousin Amalie, which brought out some of the tenderest, and, when he was thwarted, some of the most cynical, strains of his muse. When Solomon Heine found that his daughter was likely to be entangled with her cousin, who had shown no capacity for business, a rigid embargo was put upon any intercourse between Heine and the young girl, who shortly afterward, in 1821, married J. Friedländer of Absinthhein. Perhaps as a kind of compensation, his uncle sent Heine in 1819 to study law at Bonn and afterward at Göttingen, whence he was rusticated; going next to Berlin, he came under the influence of the Hegelians. Here his first volume of poems appeared, and here for the first time he came in contact with real Jewish influences. He became a member of the circle around Rahel, and in the household of Veit became acquainted with Moser, Gans, Dr. Rosenheim, Daniel Lessmann, and Joseph Lehmann. He also visited the Mendelssohns, and at Chamisso's house became acquainted with Hitzig (Embden, "Family Life," pp. 44-47, New York, 1892). He came in touch with Zunz and his followers, and by them was drawn into the circle which was attempting to create Jewish science by the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft des Judenthums. When the "Zeitschrift" appeared, Heine complained of its German ("Briefe," ed. Karpeles, p. 117).

The chief influence, however, was exercised by Moses Moser, whom Heine somewhere calls a supplement to "Nathan the Wise." They, with Ludwig Marcus and Emanuel Wolf, were inspired by the idea of uniting modern culture and ancient Judaism, and Heine joined eagerly in their enthusiastic hopes, which were, however, destined soon to be frustrated. In the reaction many of the members of the Verein submitted to baptism, which at that time was the only key to an official career in Prussia. The effect on Heine was rather to divert his attention from Jewish matters to German literature, and from 1822 to 1827 he produced a series of poems and sketches of travel which practically placed him at the head of German literature, culminating as they did in the "Buch der Lieder," one of the most exquisite volumes of lyric verse produced by a German poet. Much, however, that he wrote was offensive to the bourgeois and the bureaucracy of Prussia, but the coarseness of the suggestions was often redeemed by the piquant style in which they were put forth, and his light shafts of satire managed to pierce the most pachydermatous of mortals. His wit was essentially Jewish, and was clearly derived from the Berlin circles in which he had recently moved. It was while under their influence that he attempted his sole effort at a romance in his "Rabbi von Bacharach," a historical romance of the Middle Ages dealing with the persecution of the Jews by the Crusaders; it was unfortunately left unfinished.

Heinrich Heine

His Conversion.

Meanwhile the question of a livelihood had forced him to take up the problem of his continued formal connection with the Jewish community. The example of Eduard Gans had shown him the hopelessness of expecting an academic career for a professing Jew. Defiantly yet reluctantly he determined on nominally changing his faith, and was received into the Protestant Church (June 28, 1825) as a preliminary to his LL.D. at GÖttingen and to his career at the Prussian bar. He himself did not attempt to disguise the motives which led to this renunciation He declared that he was "merely baptized, not converted." In writing to Moser he said:

Heine took a morbid pleasure in going to the temple at Hamburg to listen to Dr. Salomon preaching against baptized Jews. He was soon to learn that his sacrifice—if it was a sacrifice—was of little avail.

Almost immediately after his baptism he published his "Buch Le Grand" (1827), which was so revolutionary in tone and apologetic toward Napoleon, then in the depth of disrepute, that he considered it wise to await publication in England. The climate and the Philistinism of the England of those days were both repulsive to him, and he soon returned to Hamburg to produce his masterpiece, "Buch der Lieder." Despairing of any government employ from Prussian officials, he went to Munich, but found all attempts vain after the antinomian display he had made in the "Buch Le Grand." He accordingly went to Italy, and further irritated public opinion by the loose descriptions of his Italian adventures in his "Bäder von Lucca." After his father's death he produced the third volume of his "Reisebilder," the circulation of which was at once prohibited by the Prussian government, which showed clearly by this means its determination not to give him an official career. The French Revolution of 1830 found him, therefore, prepared to abandon his native land, and in May, 1831, he took up his permanent abode in Paris, where at that time his Jewish birth was rather an advantage than otherwise.

Mediator Between France and Germany.

The next eighteen years of his life were devoted in the main to a series of propagandist efforts which were Jewish in method if not in aim. Heine constantly strove to act the same part of mediator between French and German culture as the Spanish Jews had acted between the Christians and Moors of Spain. In particular he collaborated with Ludwig Börne, though not in direct association with him, in the attempt to create an intellectual party in Germany which would apply to German institutions and conceptions the freedom and force of French revolutionary ideas. By this means the two helped to create the party of "Young Germany" in literature and politics. At the same time he attempted to render the profundities of German thought accessible to the French public, and thus prepare the way for a closer sympathy between the minds of the two nations. During all this time he wrote little, if anything, dealing with Jewish subjects. His associates in Paris were by no means so exclusively Jewish as in Berlin and Hamburg. He was admitted to intimacy with Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alexandre Dumas, and, in fact, with all that was brilliant in French literature and art. Yet many of his most intimate friends were of the Jewish circle. Alexandre Weill, David d'Angers, A. Mels, A. Karpeles, the Oppenheims, the Friedlands, and to some extent the Paris Rothschilds, came into more or less intimate relations with him while he was able to go out into society.

Both Heine and Börne were particularly suited for the function they performed in transporting French ideas—or, rather, practical suggestions for carrying them out—to Germany, so rich in its own ideas, but hitherto with so little capacity for putting them into practise. As Jews, both were able to view the movements with a certain dispassionate detachment, and could disentangle the permanent from the transitory element in current events. Heine, however, was no revolutionist in act. He trusted to the influence of ideas rather than to any direct intermeddling in political affairs. This caused disagreement between himself and Börne, who attacked him virulently. Heine preserved silence during Börne's life, but after his death wrote an analysis of Börne's weaknesses. The exploit did Heine no credit, and brought upon him a duel with one Strauss, an admirer of Börne. Fears for the result of a duel led Heine to legitimate his relations to Mathilde Mirat (1841).

Heine supported himself partly by his literary efforts, partly by a pension from the French government, and to some extent by an allowance from his uncle Solomon Heine, which was continued after some bickerings by his cousin Charles, after Solomon's death, with a promise that the allowance should be continued to Madame Heine after the poet's death.

His "Mattress Grave."

About 1847 Heine was seized by the illness that ultimately brought him to a comparatively early grave. Whatever its nature, whether softening of the spinal cord, muscular atrophy, or locomotor ataxia, there can be little doubt that his irregular life had led to his neuropathic condition. After May, 1848, he never rose from his bed for over eight years, during which time, bravely bearing the most excruciating pain, he showed a heroic patience which redeemed in large measure the want of taste and dignity shown in his early attitude. His thoughts frequently turned back to the creed of his youth, and he often gave pathetic recognition of his appreciation of the finer sides of Judaism and of the Jewish people. In his "Romanzero" he gave what is still, perhaps, the most striking picture of Judah ha-Levi, derived doubtless from Michael Sachs's "Religiöse Poesie." The moreirreverent "Disputation" showed that he was just as irreverent in dealing with sacred Jewish subjects as his enemies accused him of being toward Christianity. In his "Prinzessin Sabbath" he enshrined for all time the sublimer sides of Jewish home-worship.

It was while on his "mattress grave" that Heine gave utterance to his most penetrating comments on matters Jewish:

On Bible and Jews.

After a brilliant reference to Moses as a remarkable artist, since he created that masterwork "Israel," he continues:

That contrast between the Hellenic and the Hebraic influences in civilization was a favorite one with Heine, and led him on one occasion to refuse to consider Christians as essentially different from Jews, the slight difference between them being distinguished by calling Christians "Nazarenes."