and not principles (Dinge), or rather that they see in principles only persons,[1] and so prophesy the ruin of the first, because they have perceived the weakness of the latter, and thereby lead their constituents or those who believe in them (Kommittenten) into most serious errors and mistakes.
I cannot refrain from calling special attention to the false relationship[2] which now exists in France between things (that is, spiritual and material interests) and persons (i.e., the representatives of these). This was quite different at the end of the last century, when man towered so colossally to the height of things, so that they form in the history of the Revolution at the same time an heroic age, and as such are now celebrated, worshipped, and loved by our Repub-
- ↑ Dinge, choses, "things." A word far too generally and loosely applied both in French and German, as in the present instance. This was satirised in the Breitmann Ballads:
"O vot ish all dis eart'ly pliss?
Und vot ish man's sookcess?
Und vot ish various kinds of dings?
Und vot is happiness?"It is an amusing instance of Heine's remarkably quick perception, as well as of his very frequent disposition to let errors stand rather than take the trouble to correct them, that in the next sentence he gives these "dings" a definition in parenthesis.—Translator.
- ↑ French version, disproportion.
