ering up to
the burning house, but as the flames were spreading rapidly, all
bystanders were ordered to range themselves in line with the firemen.
Harry refused point-blank to help: "I may not do it, and I will not,
because it is _Shabbes_ to-day." But another time, when it jumped with
his wishes, the eight year old boy managed to circumvent the Law. He was
playing with some of his schoolmates in front of a neighbor's house. Two
luscious bunches of grapes hung over the arbor almost down to the
ground. The children noticed them, and with longing in their eyes passed
on. Only Harry stood still before the grapes. Suddenly springing on the
arbor, he bit one grape after another from the bunch. "Red-head Harry!"
the children exclaimed horrified, "what are you doing?" "Nothing wrong,"
said the little rogue. "We are forbidden to pluck them with our hands,
but the law does not say anything about biting and eating." His
education was not equable and not methodical. Extremely indulgent
towards themselves, the parents were extremely severe in their treatment
of their children. So arose the contradictions in the poet's character.
He is one of those to whom childhood's religion is a bitter-sweet
remembrance unto the end of days. Jewish sympathies were his
inalienable heritage, and from this point of view his life must be
considered.

The poet's mother was of a different stamp from his father. Like most of
the Jews in the Rhenish provinces, his father hailed Napoleon, the first
legislator to establish equality between Jews and Christians, as a
savior. His mother, on the other hand, was a good German patriot and a
woman of culture, who exercised no inconsiderable influence upon the
heart and mind of her son. Heine calls her a disciple of Rousseau, and
his brother Maximilian tells us that Goethe was her favorite among
authors.

The boy was first taught by Rintelsohn at a Jewish school, but his
knowledge of Hebrew seems to have been very limited. It is an
interesting fact that his first poem, "Belshazzar," which he tells us he
wrote at the age of sixteen, was inspired by his childhood's faith and
is based upon Jewish history. Towards the end of his life he said to a
friend:[96] "Do you know what inspired me? A few words in the Hebrew
hymn, _Wayhee bechatsi halaila_, sung, as you know, on the first two
evenings of the Passover. This hymn commemorates all momentous events in
the history of the Jews that occurred at midnight; among them t