conclusion. Similarly with _The Two Grenadiers_, a presentation of
character in circumstance, a translation of pictorial details into
terms of action and prophecy; and most strikingly in _The Pilgrimage
to Kevlaar_, a poem of such fundamentally pictorial quality that it
has been called a triptych, three depicted scenes in a little
religious drama.

It is in pieces like these that we find Heine most successfully making
of himself the interpreter of objects in the outside world. The number
of such objects is greater than is everywhere believed--though
naturally his success is surest in the case of objects congenial to
him, and the variety of these is not great. Indeed, the outside world,
even when he appears to treat it most objectively, proves upon closer
examination to be in the vast majority of cases only a treasure-trove
of symbols for the expression of his inner self. Thus, _Poor Peter_ is
the narrative of a humble youth unfortunate in love, but poor Peter's
story is Heine's; otherwise, we may be sure, Heine would not have
thought it worth the telling. Nothing could seem to be less the
property of Heine than _The Lorelei_; nevertheless, he has given to
this borrowed subject so personal a turn that instead of the siren we
see a human maiden, serenely indifferent to the effect of her charms,
which so take the luckless lover that, like the boatman, he, Heine, is
probably doomed ere long to death in the waves.

Toward the outside world, then, Heine's habitual attitude is not that
of an interpreter; it is that of an artist who seeks the means of
expression where they may be found. He does not, like Goethe and
Mörike, read out of the phenomena of nature and of life what these
phenomena in themselves contain; he reads into them what he wishes
them to say. _The Book of Songs_ is a human document, but it is no