Heinrich Heine on the English

“Heine identified the precise origin of the British-oligarchical way of thinking in Lockean empiricism, and utilitarianism. In the Englischen Fragmenten, he warns: “But don’t send any poets to London. This naked [mere?] seriousness about everything, this colossal monotony, this machine-like movement, this sadness of joy itself, this exaggerated London, oppresses the imagination and tears the heart. And you must certainly not send a German poet there, a dreamer, who must pause for everything he sees, even for a ragged beggar woman, or a shiny plate made by a goldsmith — Oh! He’ll have a rough time soon enough, and he will be pushed around from all sides, or with a mild “God damn” be pushed down onto the ground.”

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