To a man such as Heine a woman is not so much a personality as a
beautiful embodiment of the elements: "Earth, air, fire and water met
together in a rose."' If she is beautiful, he will waive
"intellectual sympathy"; if she is good, he will not mind her
forgetting the titles of his books. When she becomes a mother, he
--being a man of genius--understands that she is a more wonderful
being than he can ever hope to be.
Much has been said about the unhappy marriages of great writers. The
true reason too often has been that they have married literary
amateurs instead of women and wives. Heine was wiser. No one would,
of course, pretend that Mathilde was his mate. But, then, what woman
could have been? Certainly not that little literary prig he called
his "Mouche."
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Old Love Stories Retold by
Richard Le Gallienne.
At present we have only this one chapter/story of this book.
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