HEILUNGKIANG 



HEINI 



Heilungkiang. Province of 

 China, the northernmost of the 

 three provs. forming Manchuria. 

 The capital is Tsitsihar, and other 

 important towns are Aigun and 

 Khailar. Heilungkiang is bounded 

 on the W. mainly by the Argun 

 river, on the N. by the Amur, on 

 the E. by the Sungari, and com- 

 prises the valley of the Nonni, tri- 

 butary to the Sungari, with the 

 surrounding Great and Little 

 Khingan Mts. The Chinese Eastern 

 Rly., a section of the Russian 

 Trans-Siberian line, traverses the 

 S. portion. The chief products are 

 skins and furs. Area, 167,000 sq. 

 m. Estimated pop. 1,500,000. The 

 name Heilungkiang is a variant 

 for the Amur river (q.v.}. 



Heimin (Japanese, commoners). 

 Third and lowest social class under 

 the feudal system in Japan. The 

 heimin were divided into farmers, 

 artisans, and tradesmen, and 

 ranked in that order below the 

 samurai, their masters. 



The farmers, as the most indis- 

 pensable contributors to the main- 

 tenance of their superiors, and the 

 artisans, who included artists and 

 craftsmen of every kind, were 

 treated with respect, but the 

 trading class was regarded with 

 scornful contempt. None of the 

 heimin had any status in social 

 intercourse or any income beyond 

 what they actually earned. See 

 Daimio. 



Heine, HEINRICH (1797-1856). 

 German poet. Born at Diisseldorf, 

 Dec. 13, 1797, of a poor Jewish 

 family, he was sent, after leaving 

 school, to Hamburg, where a 

 wealthy uncle, Salomon Heine, in- 

 itiated him into a business career. 

 He proved himself, however, in- 

 capable, went bankrupt, and then, 

 still with the support of his uncle, 

 studied law at the universities of 

 Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin. In 

 these years, 1819 to 1824, he dis- 

 covered his lyrical genius under 

 the stimulus of unhappy love 

 affairs with his cousin, Amalie 

 Heine, and, after her marriage, 

 with her sister Therese. In 1822 

 he published a collection of 

 Poems, followed in 1823 by Trage- 

 dies, which, although they con- 

 tained some of the most familiar 

 poems later incorporated in his 

 Book of Songs, were appreciated 

 by only a few. 



In 1825 Heine became a convert 

 to Christianity, and in the same 

 year obtained his degree from 

 Gottingen. Owing to the very 

 great success of his two volumes of 

 Pictures of Travel ; The Journey in 

 the Harz Mountains, 1826 ; The 

 North Sea; Buch Le Grand, 1827, he 

 decided to devote himself to litera- 

 ture ; and with the appearance of 



(H. Heine) 



From a drawing by E. B. Vrietz, 1851 



The Book of Songs, in 1827, he 

 became the most popular poet of 

 his day. A visit to London, a stay 

 of some months in Munich, where 

 he was editor of a newspaper, and 

 a journey to Italy provided him 

 with the materials for fresh 

 Pictures of Travel : Journey from 

 Munich to Genoa; The Baths of 

 Lucca, 1830; The City of Lucca; 

 English Fragments, 1831. 



Like all young men of letters of 

 the time, Heine was stirred by the 

 July Revolution of 1830, and in 

 1831, disappointed and embittered 

 by the treatment meted out to him 

 at home, he settled in Paris, which 

 remained his home for the rest of 

 his life. Only twice, in 1843 and 

 1844, did he revisit his native land. 

 Heine was intimately associated 

 with the literary school of " Young 

 Germany," and when in 1835 the 

 government suppressed the activi- 

 ties of the school, he was included 

 in the ban. This interfered with 

 his literary plans ; but his uncle did 

 not withdraw his support, and from 

 1837 to 1848 he was also in receipt 

 of a pension of 4,800 francs (about 

 200) from the secret fund of the 

 French Government. In 1834 he 

 became intimate with a French- 

 woman of the people, Eugenie 

 Mirat, who inspired him with a 

 lasting affection ; and in 1841 she 

 became his wife. 



Heine in Paris 



During the earlier part of his 

 stay in Paris, Heine's activity was 

 mainly journalistic ; he contributed 

 to German newspapers articles on 

 French life, art, and letters. These 

 were followed by four volumes, en- 

 titled The Salon, 1834-40, which, 

 however, include much more than 

 criticisms of pictures ; the prin- 

 cipal content is indeed a study of 

 religion and philosophy in Ger- 

 many, while the later volumes are 

 mainly made up of short stories, 

 such as The Rabbi of Bacherach. 



A later collection bore the title 

 Lutetia, 1854. In The Romantic 

 School, 1836, Heine criticised with 

 uncalled-for virulence the literary 

 school from which he had himself 

 sprung, ami in Ludwig Borne, 1840, 

 he attacked his friend and fellow- 

 fighter in the ranks of " Young 

 Germany." 



In 1844 he came forward again, 

 with two volumes of New Poems, 

 and a satiric epic, Germany, a 

 Winter Tale. These were followed, 

 in 1847, by Atta Troll, generally 

 recognized as his finest sustained 

 poem, and in 1851 by the collection 

 of poems entitled Roman zero. 

 But in 1845 Heine fell a victim to 

 creeping paralysis, which from the 

 spring of 1848 till his death in 

 Paris, Feb. 17, 1856, kept him 

 practically bedridden. In spite of 

 his sufferings, he maintained his 

 mental vigour and freshness, as 

 is to be seen in the wonderful 

 Last Poems and Thoughts, which 

 were published posthumously in 

 1869 ; indeed, it might be said that 

 in these years Heine underwent a 

 kind of spiritual regeneration, which 

 to himself was bound up in some 

 mystic way with the romantic 

 devotion of the young poetess, 

 Camille Selden (La Mouche). 



Heine's position among the Ger- 

 man lyric poets of the 19th century 

 has been influenced by other than 

 literary factors, and is difficult to 

 define. His Jewish characteristics 

 have been a stumbling block to 

 appreciation by many of his own 

 countrymen, his personal life affords 

 few aspects that awaken sympathe- 

 tic admiration. And yet The Book of 

 Songs is incontestably the greatest, 

 as it has been the most popular, 

 collection of German lyrics of the 



Heine. House in Bolkerstrasse, 

 Diisseldorf, where the poet was born 



