Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/11

Rh will be seen that his prose may be as well worth translating as his verse. To illustrate the meaning by an example on the contrary side, Wordsworth's prose style, though noble and dignified, is not the style of the immortal part of his poetry. If he had been able to discuss the principles of poetical composition and the Convention of Cintra in the style of "Lucy Gray," he would have been not merely a fine essayist, but an unique figure in literature. No one, manifestly, could achieve this without a special, an almost miraculous gift. Heine actually possessed this gift; and hence his prose disquisitions, descriptions, satires, and the rest, are as original in form as in substance. The same charm pervades all he wrote, and hence, whatever judgment may be passed on the moral characteristics of his work, from a literary point of view there is absolutely nothing in it which a translator is not justified in rendering—if he can. If the foreign reader fails to enjoy, the fault ia not in Heine, but in his own want of preliminary acquaintance with Heine's theme. Writing for a German public on themes of contemporary concern, Heine inevitably presupposes an amount of existing knowledge which the English reader will not always possess. It must be added,