bound, home-made; how selfish, how angular, how Anglican![1] A country which would long ago have been swallowed up by the sea if it had not feared that it would cause internal pain . . . a race, a grey gaping monster, which breathes only nitrogen[2] and deadly ennui, and which will certainly at last hang itself with a colossal cable.
And in such a land and among such people William Shakespeare first saw the light in 1564.
But the England of those days where—in the Northern Bethlehem called Stratford-upon-Avon—the man was born to whom we are indebted for the world's gospel known as the Shakesperian Drama that England was certainly very different from that of to-day; it was even termed Merry England, and it flourished in gleaming colour, masque-merriment, deep meaning frolicsome folly, sparkling earnest action, transcendent-
- ↑ Wie eng, wie Englisch. Literally, how narrow or close; implying also angular, contracted movements. Heine was much given to these little, old-fashioned quodllibets and puns which are so much admired by certain readers as "untranslateable graces," and brilliant points of "ineffably graceful style" or "wealth of imagery." Out of justice to Heine it may be here recalled that, many years after, he expressed to Lady Duff Gordon deep regret for all this early abuse of everything English, confessing that it was mere ill-tempered caprice, and that he was quite ignorant of the people.—"Ich habe sie auch nicht gekannt." It is probable that false second-hand ideas as to English "Puritanism," and a desire to please his French readers, had a great deal to do with it.—Translator.
- ↑ Nitrogen. In German, Stickstoff, literally strangling-stuff.
