Schreiber when the latter wrote as follows: "Viele, die
vorüberschifften, gingen am Felsenriff oder im Strudel zu Grunde, weil
sie nicht mehr auf den Lauf des Fahrzeugs achteten, sondern von den
himmlischen Tönen der wunderbaren Jungfrau gleichsam vom Leben
abgelöst wurden, wie das zarte Leben der Blume sich im süssen Duft
verhaucht."

And as to her personal appearance, Brentano and Loeben simply tell us
that she was beautiful, Brentano employing the Homeric method of
proving her beauty by its effects. Heine and Schreiber not only
comment upon her physical beauty, they also tell us how she enhanced
her natural charms by zealously attending to her hair and her jewelry
and religiously guarding the color scheme in so doing. In brief, the
similarity is so striking that, if we can prove that Heine knew
Schreiber in 1823, we can definitely assert that Schreiber[65] was his
main, if not his unique, source.

Let us take up the various arguments in favor of the contention that
Heine knew Schreiber's Handbuch in 1823, beginning with the least
convincing. If Heine read Loeben's ballad and saga in "_Urania_ für
1821," he could thereby have learned also of Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_,
for, by a peculiar coincidence for our purpose, Brockhaus
discusses[66] these in the introduction in connection with a tragedy
by W. Usener, entitled Die Brüder, and based upon one of Schreiber's
_Sagen_. Proof, then, that Heine knew Loeben in 1823 is almost proof
that he also knew Schreiber.

But there is better proof than this. In Elementargeister[67], we find
this sentence: "Ganz genau habe ich die Geschichte nicht im Kopfe;
wenn ich nicht irre, wird sie in Schreibers _Rheinischen Sagen_ aufs