Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 11

V.

The anonymous recipient of the honourable mention nevertheless determined to call upon his judges, make their acquaintance, and let them know who he was.

I went first to Hauch, who resided at that time at Frederiksberg Castle, in light and lofty rooms. Hauch appeared exaggeratedly obliging, the old man of seventy and over paying me, young man as I was, one compliment after the other. The treatise was "extraordinarily good," they had been very sorry not to give me the prize; but I was not to bear them any ill- will for that; they had acted as their consciences dictated. In eighteen months I should be ready to take my Magister examination; the old poet thought he might venture to prophesy that I should do well. He was surprised at his visitor's youth, could hardly understand how at my age I could have read and thought so much, and gave me advice as to the continuation of my studies.

Sibbern was as cordial as Hauch had been polite and cautious. It was very funny that, whereas Hauch remarked that he himself had wished to give me the prize with an _although_ in the criticism, but that Sibbern had been against it, Sibbern declared exactly the reverse; in spite of all its faults he had wanted to award the medal, but Hauch had expressed himself adverse. Apparently they had misunderstood one another; but in any case the result was just, so there was nothing to complain of.

Sibbern went into the details of the treatise, and was stricter than Hauch. He regretted that the main section of the argument was deficient; the premises were too prolix. He advised a more historic, less philosophical study of Literature and Art. He was pleased to hear of the intimate terms I was on with Brochner, whereas Hauch would have preferred my being a.s.sociated with Rasmus Nielsen, whom he jestingly designated "a regular brown-bread nature." When the treatise was given back to me, I found it full of apt and instructive marginal notes from Sibbern's hand.

Little as I had gained by my unsuccessful attempt to win this prize, and unequivocally as my conversation with the practical Sibbern had proved to me that a post as master in my mother tongue at a Grammar-school was all that the Magister degree in Aesthetics was likely to bring me, whereas from my childhood I had made up my mind that I would never be a master in a school, this conversation nevertheless ripened my determination to give up my law studies, but of course only when by successfully competing for the prize the next year I had satisfactorily proved my still questionable ability.

VI.

The Meeting of Scandinavian students at Copenhagen in June, 1862, taught me what it meant to be a Scandinavian. Like all the other undergraduates, I was Scandinavian at heart, and the arrangements of the Meeting were well calculated to stir the emotions of youth. Although, an insignificant Danish student, I did not take part in the expedition to North Zealand specially arranged for our guests, consequently neither was present at the luncheon given by Frederik VII to the students at Fredensborg (which was interrupted by a heavy shower), I was nevertheless deeply impressed by the Meeting.

It was a fine sight to behold the students from the three other Scandinavian Universities come sailing across the Sound from Malmo to Copenhagen. The Norwegians were especially striking, tall and straight, with narrow faces under ta.s.seled caps, like a wood of young fir trees; the national type was so marked that at first I could hardly see any difference between them.

For me, there were three perfect moments during the festivities. The first was at the meeting of all the students in the Square of Our Lady, after the arrival of the visitors, when the scholars of the Metropolitan School, crowding the windows of the building, greeted them with a shout of delight. There was such a freshness, such a childish enthusiasm about it, that some of us had wet eyes. It was as though the still distant future were acclaiming the young ones now advancing to the a.s.sault, and promising them sympathy and conquest.

The second was when the four new flags embroidered by Danish ladies for the students were consecrated and handed over. Clausen's speech was full of grandeur, and addressed, not to the recipients, but to the flags as living beings: "Thou wilt cross the Baltic to the sanctuary at Upsala.

Thou wilt cross the Cattegat to the land of rocks...." and the address to each of the flags concluded: "Fortune and Honour attend thee!" The evening after the consecration of the flags, there was a special performance at the Royal Theatre for the members of the Meeting, at which Heiberg, radiant as she always was, and saluted with well-merited enthusiasm, played _Sophie_ in the vaudeville "_No_," with a rosette of the Scandinavian colours at her waist. Then it was that Paludan-Muller's prologue, recited by our idolised actor, Michael Wiehe, caused me the third thrilling moment. Listening to the words of the poet from a bad place in the gallery, I was hardly the only one who felt strangely stirred, as Wiehe, letting his eyes roam round the theatre, said:

Oh! that the young of the North might one day worthily play Their part! Oh that each one might do his best For the party he has chosen! That never there be lack Of industry, fidelity, strength and talents!

And may he firm step forth, the mighty genius (_Mayhap, known only to the secret power within him, Seated amongst us now_), the mighty genius, Who, as Fate hath willed it, is to play The mighty part and do the mighty things.

Involuntarily we looked round, seeking for the one to whom the poet's summons referred.

The general spirit of this Meeting has been called flat in comparison with that pervading former meetings. It did not strike the younger partic.i.p.ants so. A breath of Scandinavianism swept over every heart; one felt borne along on a historic stream. It seemed like a bad dream that the peoples of the North had for so many centuries demolished and laid waste each other, tapped one another for blood and gold, rendered it impossible for the North to a.s.sert herself and spread her influence in Europe.

One could feel at the Meeting, though very faintly, that the Swedes and Norwegians took more actual pleasure in each other, and regarded themselves as to a greater extent united than either of them looked upon themselves as united with the Danes, who were outside the political Union. I was perhaps the only Dane present who fancied I detected this, but when I mentioned what I thought I observed to a gifted young Norwegian, so far was he from contradicting me that he merely replied: "Have you noticed that, too?"

Notwithstanding, during the whole of the Meeting, one constantly heard expressed on every hand the conviction that if Germany were shortly to declare war against Denmark--which no one doubted--the Swedes and Norwegians would most decidedly not leave the Danes in the lurch. The promise was given oftener than it was asked. Only, of course, it was childish on the part of those present at the Meeting to regard such promises, given by the leaders of the students, and by the students themselves in festive mood, as binding on the nations and their statesmen.

I did not make any intellectually inspiring acquaintances through the Meeting, although I was host to two Upsala students; neither of them, however, interested me. I got upon a friendly footing through mutual intellectual interests with Carl von Bergen, later so well known as an author, he, like myself, worshipping philosophy and hoping to contribute to intellectual progress. Carl von Bergen was a self-confident, ceremonious Swede, who had read a great many books. At that time he was a new Rationalist, which seemed to promise one point of interest in common; but he was a follower of the Bostrom philosophy, and as such an ardent Theist. At this point we came into collision, my researches and reflections constantly tending to remove me farther from a belief in any G.o.d outside the world, so that after the Meeting Carl von Bergen and I exchanged letters on Theism and Pantheism, which a.s.sumed the width and thickness of treatises. For very many years the Swedish essayist and I kept up a friendly, though intermittent intercourse. Meanwhile von Bergen, whose good qualities included neither character nor originality, inclined, as years went on, more and more towards Conservatism, and at forty years old he had attained to a worship of what he had detested, and a detestation of what he had worshipped. His vanity simultaneously a.s.sumed extraordinary proportions. In a popular Encyclopaedia, which he took over when the letter B was to be dealt with, and, curiously enough, disposed of shortly afterwards, _von Bergen_ was treated no less in detail than _Buonaparte_. He did battle with some of the best men and women in Sweden, such as Ellen Key and Knut Wicksell, who did not fail to reply to him. When in 1889 his old friend from the Students'

Meeting gave some lectures on Goethe in Stockholm, he immediately afterwards directed some poor opposition lectures against him, which neither deserved nor received any reply. It had indeed become a specialty of his to give "opposition lectures." When he died, some few years later, what he had written was promptly forgotten.

There was another young Swedish student whom I caught a glimpse of for the first time at the Students' Meeting, towards whom I felt more and more attracted, and who eventually became my friend. This was the darling of the G.o.ds, Carl Snoilsky. At a fete in Rosenborg Park, amongst the songs was one which, with my critical scent, I made a note of. It was by the then quite unknown young Count Snoilsky, and it was far from possessing the rare qualities, both of pith and form, that later distinguished his poetry; but it was a poet's handiwork, a troubadour song to the Danish woman, meltingly sweet, and the writer of it was a youth of aristocratic bearing, regular, handsome features, and smooth brown hair, a regular Adonis. The following year he came again, drawn by strong cords to Christian Winther's home, loving the old poet like a son, as Swinburne loved Victor Hugo, sitting at Mistress Julie Winther's feet in affectionate admiration and semi-adoration, although she was half a century old and treated him as a mother does a favourite child.

It was several years, however, before there was any actual friendship between the Swedish poet and myself. He called upon me one day in my room in Copenhagen, looking exceedingly handsome in a tight-fitting waistcoat of blue quilted silk. In the absence of the Swedo-Norwegian Amba.s.sador, he was Charge d'Affaires in Copenhagen, after, in his capacity as diplomatic attache, having been stationed in various parts of the world and, amongst others, for some time in Paris. He could have no warmer admirer of his first songs than myself, and we very frequently spent our evenings together in Bauer's wine room--talking over everything in Scandinavian, English, or French literature which both of us had enthusiastically and critically read. On many points our verdicts were agreed.

There came a pause in Snoilsky's productive activity; he was depressed.

It was generally said, although it sounded improbable, that he had had to promise his wife's relations to give up publishing verse, they regarding it as unfitting the dignity of a n.o.ble. In any case, he was at that time suffering under a marriage that meant to him the deprivation of the freedom without which it was impossible to write. Still, he never mentioned these strictly personal matters. But one evening that we were together, Snoilsky was so overcome by the thought of his lack of freedom that tears suddenly began to run down his cheeks. He was almost incapable of controlling himself again, and when we went home together late at night, poured out a stream of melancholy, half-despairing remarks.

A good eighteen months later we met again in Stockholm; Snoilsky was dignified and collected. But when, a few years later, so-called public opinion in Sweden began to rave against the poet for the pa.s.sion for his second wife which so long made him an exile from his country, I often thought of that evening.

As years pa.s.sed by, his outward bearing became more and more reserved and a trifle stiff, but he was the same at heart, and no one who had known him in the heyday of his youth could cease to love him.

VII.

A month after the Students' Meeting, at the invitation of my friend Jens Paludan-Muller, I spent a few weeks at his home at Nykjobing, in the island of Falster, where his father, Caspar Paludan-Muller, the historian, was at the time head master of the Grammar-school. Those were rich and beautiful weeks, which I always remembered later with grat.i.tude.

The stern old father with his leonine head and huge eyebrows impressed one by his earnestness and perspicacity, somewhat shut off from the world as he was by hereditary deafness. The dignified mistress of the house likewise belonged to a family that had made its name known in Danish literature. She was a Rosenstand-Goiske. Jens was a cordial and attentive host, the daughters were all of them women out of the ordinary, and bore the impress of belonging to a family of the highest culture in the country; the eldest was womanly and refined, the second, with her Roman type of beauty and bronze-coloured head, lovely in a manner peculiarly her own; the youngest, as yet, was merely an amiable young girl. The girls would have liked to get away from the monotony of provincial life, and their release came when their father was appointed to a professorship at Copenhagen University. There was an ease of manner and a tone of mental distinction pervading the whole family. Two young, handsome Counts Reventlow were being brought up in the house, still only half-grown boys at that time, but who were destined later to win honourable renown. One of them, the editor of his ancestress's papers, kept up his acquaintance with the guest he had met in the Paludan-Muller home for over forty years.

There often came to the house a young Dane from Caracas in Venezuela, of unusual, almost feminine beauty, with eyes to haunt one's dreams. He played uncommonly well, was irresistibly gentle and emotional. After a stay of a few years in Denmark he returned to his native place. The previously mentioned Gronbeck, with his pretty sister, and other young people from the town, were frequent guests during the holidays, and the days pa.s.sed in games, music, wanderings about the garden, and delightful excursions to the woods.

On every side I encountered beauty of some description. I said to Jens one day: "One kind of beauty is the glow which the sun of Youth casts over the figure, and it vanishes as soon as the sun sets. Another is stamped into shape from within; it is Mind's expression, and will remain as long as the mind remains vigorous. But the supremest beauty of all is in the unison of the two harmonies, which are contending for existence.

In the bridal night of this supremest beauty, Mind and Nature melt into one."

A few years later the old historian was called upon to publish the little book on Gulland, with its short biography prefixed, as a memorial to his only son, fallen at Sankelmark, and again, a few years later, to edit Frederik Nutzhorn's translation of Apuleius in memory of his son's friend, his elder daughter's fiance. During the preparation of these two little books, our relations became more intimate, and our friendship continued unbroken until in the month of February, 1872, a remark in one of my defensive articles caused him to take up his pen against me. My remark was to the effect that there were men of the same opinions as myself even among the priests of the established church. Caspar Paludan- Muller declared it my public duty to mention of whom I was thinking at the time, since such a traitor was not to be tolerated in the lap of the Church. As I very naturally did not wish to play the part of informer, I incurred, by my silence, the suspicion of having spoken without foundation. The Danish man whom I had in my thoughts, and who had confided his opinions to me, was still alive at the time. This was the late Dean Ussing, at one time priest at Mariager, a man of an extraordinarily refined and amiable disposition, secretly a convinced adherent of Ernest Renan. A Norwegian priest, who holds the same opinions, is still living.

VIII.

In August, 1863, on a walking tour through North Sjaelland, Julius Lange introduced me to his other celebrated uncle, Frederik Paludan-Muller, whose Summer residence was at Fredensborg. In appearance he was of a very different type from his brother Caspar. The distinguishing mark of the one was power, of the other, n.o.bility. For Frederik Paludan-Muller as a poet I cherished the profoundest admiration. He belonged to the really great figures of Danish literature, and his works had so fed and formed my inmost nature that I should scarcely be the same had I not read them. It was unalloyed happiness to have access to his house and be allowed to enjoy his company. It was a distinction to be one of the few he vouchsafed to take notice of and one of the fewer still in whose future he interested himself. Do the young men of Denmark to-day, I wonder, admire creative intellects as they were admired by some few of us then? It is in so far hardly possible, since there is not at the present time any Northern artist with such a hall-mark of refined delicacy as Frederik Paludan-Muller possessed.

The young people who came to his house might have wished him a younger, handsomer wife, and thought his choice, Mistress Charite, as, curiously enough, she was called, not quite worthy of the poet. Unjustly so, since he himself was perfectly satisfied with her, and was apparently wholly absorbed by a union which had had its share in isolating him from the world. His wife was even more theologically inclined than himself, and appeared anonymously--without anyone having a suspicion of the fact--as a religious auth.o.r.ess. Still, she was exceedingly kind to anyone, regardless of their private opinions, who had found favour in the poet's eyes.

The dry little old lady was the only one of her s.e.x with whom Paludan- Muller was intimate. He regarded all other women, however young and beautiful, as mere works of art. But his delight in them was charming in him, just because of its freedom from sense. One evening that he was giving a little banquet in honour of a Swedish lady painter, named Ribbing, a woman of rare beauty, he asked her to stand by the side of the bust of the Venus of Milo, that the resemblance, which really existed between them, might be apparent. His innocent, enthusiastic delight in the likeness was most winning.

IX.

Two other celebrated personages whom I met for the first time a little later were Bjornstjerne Bjornson and Magdalene Th.o.r.esen.

I became acquainted with Bjornstjerne Bjornson at the Nutzhorns, their son, Ditlev, being a pa.s.sionate admirer of his. His _King Sverre_ of 1861 had been a disappointment, but _Sigurd Slembe_ of the following year was new and great poetry, and fascinated young people's minds. Bjornson, socially, as in literature, was a strong figure, self- confident, loud-voiced, outspoken, unique in all that he said, and in the weight which he knew how to impart to all his utterances. His manner jarred a little on the more subdued Copenhagen style; the impression he produced was that of a great, broad-shouldered, and very much spoilt child. In the press, all that he wrote and did was blazoned abroad by the leading critics of the day, who had a peculiar, challenging way of praising Bjornson, although his ability was not seriously disputed by anyone. The National Liberal Leaders, Alfred Hage, Carl Ploug, etc., had opened their hearts and houses to him. It is said that at one time Heiberg had held back; the well-bred old man, a little shocked by the somewhat noisy ways of the young genius, is said to have expressed to his friend Krieger some scruples at inviting him to his house. To Krieger's jesting remark: "What does it matter! He is a young man; let him rub off his corners!" Heiberg is credited with having replied: "Very true! Let him! but not in my drawing-room! That is not a place where people may rub anything off." Heiberg's wife, on the other hand, admired him exceedingly, and was undoubtedly very much fascinated by him.

In a circle of younger people, Bjornson was a better talker than conversationalist. Sometimes he came out with decidedly rash expressions of opinion, conclusively dismissing a question, for instance, with severe verdicts over Danish music, Heyse's excepted, judgments which were not supported by sufficient knowledge of the subject at issue. But much of what he said revealed the intellectual ruler, whose self- confidence might now and again irritate, but at bottom was justified. He narrated exceptionally well, with picturesque adjectives, long remembered in correct Copenhagen, spoke of the _yellow_ howl of wolves, and the like. Take it all in all, his att.i.tude was that of a conqueror.

He upheld poetry that was actual and palpable, consequently had little appreciation for poetry, that, like Paludan-Muller's, was the perfection of thought and form, and boldly disapproved of my admiration for it.

X.

It was likewise through Frederik Nutzhorn that I, when a young beginner in the difficult art of life, became acquainted with Madame Magdalene Th.o.r.esen. Our first conversation took place in the open air one Summer day, at the Klampenborg bathing establishment. Although Magdalene Th.o.r.esen was at that time at least forty-six years old, her warm, brownish complexion could well stand inspection in the strongest light.

Her head, with its heavy dark hair, was Southern in its beauty, her mouth as fresh as a young girl's; she had brilliant and very striking eyes. Her figure was inclined to be corpulent, her walk a trifle heavy, her bearing and movements full of youth and life.

She was remarkably communicative, open and warmhearted, with a propensity towards considerable extravagance of speech. Originally incited thereto by Bjornson's peasant stories, she had then published her first tales, _The Student and Signe's Story_, which belonged, half to Norwegian, half to Danish literature, and had been well received. She was the daughter of a fisherman at Fredericia, and after having known both the buffets and the smiles of Fortune, had come to be on terms of friendship with many men and women of importance, now belonging to the recognised personalities of the day. She was also very well received and much appreciated in the Heiberg circle.

In comparison with her, a woman, I might have been called erudite and well-informed. Her own knowledge was very desultory. She was interested in me on account of my youth, and her warm interest attached me to her for the next five years,--as long, that is, as she remained in Denmark.

She very soon began to confide in me, and although she scarcely did so unreservedly, still, no woman, at least no mature and gifted woman, had told me so much about herself before. She was a woman who had felt strongly and thought much; she had lived a rich, and eventful life; but all that had befallen her she romanticised. Her poetic tendency was towards the sublime. She was absolutely veracious, and did not really mean to adorn her tales, but partly from pride, partly from whimsicality, she saw everything, from greatest to least, through beautifully coloured magnifying-gla.s.ses, so that a translation of her communications into every-day language became a very difficult matter, and when an every-day occurrence was suspected through the narrative, the same could not be reproduced in an every-day light, and according to an every-day standard, without wounding the narrator to the quick. For these reasons I never ventured to include among my Collected Essays a little biographical sketch of her (written just as she herself had idealised its events to me), one of the first articles I had printed.

She saw strong natures, rich and deep natures, in lives that were meagre or unsuccessful. Again, from lack of perspicacity, she sometimes saw nothing but inefficiency in people with wide intellectual gifts; thus, she considered that her son-in-law, Henrik Ibsen, who at that time had not become either known or celebrated, had very imperfect poetic gifts.

"What he writes is as flat as a drawing," she would say. Or she would remark: "He ought to be more than a collaborator of Kierkegaard." It was only much later that she discovered his genius. Bjornson, on the other hand, she worshipped with an enthusiastic love; it was a trouble to her that just about this time he had become very cool to her.

Vague feelings did not repel her, but all keen and pointed intelligence did. She was wholly and entirely romantic. Gallicism she objected to; the clarity of the French seemed to her superficial; she saw depth in the reserved and taciturn Northern, particularly the Norwegian, nature.

She had groped her way forward for a long time without realising what her gifts really were. Her husband, who had done all he could to a.s.sist her education, had even for a time imagined, and perhaps persuaded her, that her gifts lay in the direction of Baggesen's. Now, however, she had found her vocation and her path in literature.