Life of Heinrich Heine

easures which lay in wait for him, he would probably have saved himself much after-bitterness and pain. But at last the nervous headaches which had commenced in childhood became more frequent and more intolerable. He realized that a change was necessary; nor did he disguise from himself the fact that he was doing nothing towards adoption of a definite profession. By this time, moreover, his family was in straitened circumstances. His parents had had to leave Diissel- dorf, and had ultimately settled in the dull little town of Liineburg, where they lived partly on their own small capital, and partly on the 'assistance given by Salomon Heine. Here Heinrich determined to go for awhile, to recoup his strength and to think over his prospects. When he left Berlin about Ihe beginning of May, 1823,it was with anything but a lightsome heart. Departure signified the renunciation for a time of the society which had meant so much to him, of the friends in whom he had so delighted, of the literary stimulus which had been so invaluable. Moreover, he was now no longer a nobody?merely a clever Jewish youth with creditable introductions. He had made his mark, not less surely though limitedly. As the author of the promising and in many ways remarkable "Young Sorrows/'and of the in every sense noteworthy " Lyrical Interlude," of " Rat- cliff," and of " Almansor," he had gained a foremost place among the youngest writers of Germany. His repute had not spread throughout the country...