Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/190

“Contemplations on the love of truth of one who recites the following nonsense of Heine to a young girl occupied in knitting in the drawing-room—

‘ Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,
Herzliebchen, trag ich dich fort.’^[1]

“Herzliebchen——? Mary your sweetheart? Do your parents and Louise Rosemeyer know that? Is it proper to say that to a child, who might, on account of it, very readily become disobedient to her mother, by thinking herself of age, because she is called herzliebchen. What is the meaning of that ‘carrying away on your wings?’ You have no wings, nor has your song. Try to fly over the Laurier Canal: it is not very wide. But if you had wings, could you propose such a thing to a girl who is not yet confirmed? what do you mean by that flying away together? For shame!

‘Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges
Da weisz ich den schinsten Ort.’^[2]

“Then you may go there alone, and hire lodgings, but don’t take with you a girl who has to help her mother at home. But you do not mean it; for you never saw the Ganges, and you cannot therefore know whether you will be comfortable there. Shall I tell you how matters

1. “On song’s exulting pinion
   I'll bear thee, my sweetheart fair.”
   
   
2. “Where Ganges holds his dominion,—
   The sweetest of spots know I there.”