Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 12

On all questions of thought, pure and simple, she was extremely vague.

She was a Christian and a Heathen with equal sincerity, a Christian with her overflowing warm-heartedness, with her honest inclination to believe, a Heathen in her averseness to any negation of either life or Nature. She used to say that she loved Christ and Eros equally, or rather, that to her, they both meant the same. To her, Christianity was the new, the modern, in contrast to the rationalism of a past age, so that Christianity and modern views of life in general merged in her eyes into one unity.

Hers was a deeply feminine nature, and a productive nature. Her fertile character was free from all taint of over-estimation of herself. She only revealed a healthy and pleasing self-satisfaction when she imagined that some person wished to set up himself or herself over her and misjudge acts or events in her life with respect to which she considered herself the only person qualified to judge. At such times she would declare in strong terms that by her own una.s.sisted strength she had raised herself from a mean and unprotected position to the level of the best men and women of her day. Herself overflowing with emotion, and of a n.o.ble disposition, she craved affection and goodwill, and gave back a hundredfold what she received. If she felt herself the object of cold and piercing observation, she would be silent and unhappy, but if she herself were at ease and encountered no coolness, she was all geniality and enthusiasm, though not to such an extent that her enthusiasm ceased to be critical.

She could over-value and under-value people, but was at the same time a keen, in fact a marvellous psychologist, and sometimes astonished one by the pertinent things she said, surprising one by her accurate estimate of difficult psychological cases. For instance, she understood as few others did the great artist, the clever coquette, and the old maid in Heiberg's wife, the actress.

She had no moral prejudices, and had written _Signe's Story_ as a protest against conventional morality; but she was none the less thoroughly permeated by Christian and humane ideas of morality, and there was no element of rebellion in her disposition.

On the whole, she was more a woman than an auth.o.r.ess. Her nature was tropical in comparison with Mrs. Charite Paludan-Muller's North Pole nature. She lived, not in a world of ideas remote from reality, but in a world of feeling and pa.s.sion, full of affection and admiration, jealousy and dislike. Being a woman, she was happy at every expression of pleasure over one of her books that she heard or read of, and liked to fancy that the solitary young man who sent her an enthusiastic letter of thanks was only one of hundreds who thought as he did. Like a woman, also, she was hurt by indifference, which, however, her warm heart rarely encountered.

This richly endowed woman made me appear quite new to myself, inasmuch as, in conversations with my almost maternal friend, I began to think I was of a somewhat cold nature, a nature which in comparison with hers seemed rather dry, unproductive and unimaginative, a creature with thoughts ground keen.

Magdalene Th.o.r.esen compared me one day to an unlighted gla.s.s candelabra, hanging amid several others all lighted up, which had the gleam of the fire on the countless facets of its crystals, but was itself nothing but cold, smooth, polished, prisms.

Thus during my a.s.sociation with Magdalene Th.o.r.esen I came to regard myself in a new light, when I saw myself with her eyes, and I was struck more than ever by how different the verdicts over me would be were my various friends and acquaintances each to describe me is I appeared to them. To Magdalene Th.o.r.esen I was all mind, to others all pa.s.sion, to others again all will. At the Nutzhorns' I went by the name of the modest B., elsewhere I was deemed conceitedly ambitious, some people thought me of a mild temper, others saw in me a quarrelsome unbeliever.

All this was a challenge to me to come to a clear understanding about my real nature. The fruits of my work must show me what sort of man I was.

XI.

I continued my legal studies with patient persistence, and gradually, after having made myself master of Civil Proceedings, I worked my way through the whole of the juridic system, Roman Law excluded. But the industry devoted to this was purely mechanical. I pursued my other studies, on the contrary, with delight, even tried to produce something myself, and during the last months of 1862 elaborated a very long paper on _Romeo and Juliet_, chiefly concerning itself with the fundamental problems of the tragedy, as interpreted in the Aesthetics of the day; it has been lost, like so much else that I wrote during those years. I sent it to Professor Brochner and asked his opinion of it.

Simultaneously I began to work upon a paper on the Idea of Fate in Greek Tragedy, a response to the Prize question of the year 1862-1863, and on December 31, 1862, had finished the Introduction, which was published for the first time about six years later, under the t.i.tle _The Idea of Tragic Fate_. Appended to this was a laborious piece of work dealing with the conceptions of Fate recorded in all the Greek tragedies that have come down to us. This occupied the greater part of the next six months.

The published Introduction gives a true picture of the stage of my development then, partly because it shows the manner in which I had worked together external influences, the Kierkegaardian thoughts and the Hegelian method, partly because with no little definiteness it reveals a fundamental characteristic of my nature and a fundamental tendency of my mind, since it is, throughout, a protest against the ethical conception of poetry and is a proof of how moral ideas, when they become part of an artistic whole, lose their peculiar stamp and a.s.sume another aspect.

In November, 1862, I joined a very large recently started undergraduates' society, which met once a fortnight at Borch's College to hear lectures and afterwards discuss them together. It numbered full fifty members, amongst them most of the men of that generation who afterwards distinguished themselves in Denmark. The later known politician, Octavius Hansen, was Speaker of the Meetings, and even then seemed made for the post. His parliamentary bearing was unrivalled. It was not for nothing he was English on the mother's side. He looked uncommonly handsome on the platform, with his unmoved face, his beautiful eyes, and his brown beard, curled like that of Pericles in the Greek busts. He was good-humoured, just, and well-informed. Of the numerous members, Wilhelm Thomsen the philologist was certainly the most prominent, and the only one whom I later on came to value, that is, for purely personal reasons; in daily a.s.sociation it was only once in a way that Thomsen could contribute anything from his special store of knowledge. One day, when we had been discussing the study of cuneiform inscriptions, the young philologist had said, half in jest, half in earnest: "If a stone were to fall down from the Sun with an inscription in unknown signs, in an unknown language, upon it, we should be able to make it out,"--a remark which I called to mind many years later when Thomsen deciphered the Ancient Turkish inscriptions in the Mountains of Siberia.

A great many political lectures were given. I gave one on Heiberg's Aesthetics.

On January 1, 1863, I received a New Year's letter from Brochner, in which he wrote that the essay on Romeo and Juliet had so impressed him that, in his opinion, no one could dispute my fitness to fill the Chair of Aesthetics, which in the nature of things would soon be vacant, since Hauch, at his advanced age, could hardly continue to occupy it very long.

Thus it was that my eager patron first introduced what became a wearisome tangle, lasting a whole generation, concerning my claims to a certain post, which gradually became in my life what the French call _une scie_, an irritating puzzle, in which I myself took no part, but which attached itself to my name.

That letter agitated me very much; not because at so young an age the prospect of an honourable position in society was held out to me by a man who was in a position to judge of my fitness for it, but because this smiling prospect of an official post was in my eyes a snare which might hold me so firmly that I should not be able to pursue the path of renunciation that alone seemed to me to lead to my life's goal. I felt myself an apostle, but an apostle and a professor were, very far apart.

I certainly remembered that the Apostle Paul had been a tent-maker. But I feared that, once appointed, I should lose my ideal standard of life and sink down into insipid mediocrity. If I once deviated from my path, I might not so easily find it again. It was more difficult to resign a professorship than never to accept it. And, once a professor, a man soon got married and settled down as a citizen of the state, not in a position to dare anything. To dispose of my life at Brochner's request would be like selling my soul to the Devil.

So I replied briefly that I was too much attached to Hauch to be able or willing to speculate on his death. But to this Brochner very logically replied: "I am not speculating on his death, but on his life, for the longer he lives, the better you will be prepared to be his successor."

By the middle of June, 1863, the prize paper was copied out. In September the verdict was announced; the gold medal was awarded to me with a laudatory criticism. The gold medal was also won by my friend Jens Paludan-Muller for a historic paper, and in October, at the annual Ceremony at the University, we were presented with the thin medal bearing the figure of Athene, which, for my part, being in need of a Winter overcoat, I sold next day. Clausen, the Rector, a little man with regular features, reserved face and smooth white hair, said to us that he hoped this might prove the first fruits of a far-reaching activity in the field of Danish literature. But what gave me much greater pleasure was that I was shaken hands with by Monrad, who was present as Minister for Education. Although Clausen was well known, both as a theologian and an important National Liberal, I cared nothing for him. But I was a little proud of Monrad's hand-pressure, for his political liberality, and especially his tremendous capacity for work, compelled respect, while from his handsome face with its thoughtful, commanding forehead, there shone the evidence of transcendent ability.

XII.

On the morning of November 15th, 1863, Julius Lange and I went together to offer our congratulations to Frederik Nutzhorn, whose birthday it was. His sisters received me with their usual cheerfulness, but their father, the old doctor, remarked as I entered: "You come with grave thoughts in your mind, too," for the general uneasiness occasioned by Frederik VII's state of health was reflected in my face. There was good reason for anxiety concerning all the future events of which an unfavourable turn of his illness might be the signal.

I went home with Julius Lange, who read a few wild fragments of his "System" to me. This turned upon the contrasting ideas of _Contemplation_ and _Sympathy_, corresponding to the inhaling and exhaling of the breath; the resting-point of the breathing was the moment of actual consciousness, etc.; altogether very young, curious, and confused.

In the afternoon came the news of the King's death. In the evening, at the Students' Union, there was great commotion and much anxiety. There were rumours of a change of Ministry, of a Bluhme-David-Ussing Ministry, and of whether the new King would be willing to sign the Const.i.tution from which people childishly expected the final incorporation of Slesvig into Denmark. That evening I made the acquaintance of the poet Christian Richardt, who told me that he had noticed my face before he knew my name. Julius Lange was exceedingly exasperated and out of spirits. Ploug went down the stairs looking like a man whose hopes had been shattered, and whom the blow had found unprepared. His paper had persistently sown distrust of the Prince of Denmark.

The Proclamation was to take place in front of Christiansborg Castle on December 16th, at 11 o'clock. I was fetched to it by a student of the same age, the present Bishop Frederik Nielsen. The latter had made my acquaintance when a Free-thinker, but fortunately he recognised his errors only a very few years later, and afterwards the valiant theologian wrote articles and pamphlets against the heretic he had originally cultivated for holding the same opinions as himself. There is hardly anyone in Denmark who persists in error; people recognise their mistakes in time, before they have taken harm to their souls; sometimes, indeed, so much betimes that they are not even a hindrance to their worldly career.

The s.p.a.ce in front of the Castle was black with people, most of whom were in a state of no little excitement. Hall, who was then Prime Minister, stepped out on the balcony of the castle, grave and upright, and said, first standing with his back to the Castle, then looking to the right and the left, these words: "King Frederik VII is dead. Long live King Christian IX!"

Then the King came forward. There were loud shouts, doubtless some cries of "Long live the King," but still more and louder shouts of: "The Const.i.tution forever!" which were by no means loyally intended. At a distance, from the Castle balcony, the different shouts could, of course, not be distinguished. As the King took them all to be shouts of acclamation, he bowed politely several times, and as the shouts continued kissed his hand to right and left. The effect was not what he had intended. His action was not understood as a simple-hearted expression of pure good-will. People were used to a very different bearing on the part of their King. With all his faults and foibles, Frederik VII was always in manner the Father of his people; always the graceful superior; head up and shoulders well back, patronisingly and affectionately waving his hand: "Thank you, my children, thank you! And now go home and say 'Good-morning' to your wives and children from the King!" One could not imagine Frederik VII bowing to the people, much less kissing his hand to them.

There was a stormy meeting of the Students' Union that evening. Vilhelm Rode made the princ.i.p.al speech and caustically emphasised that it took more than a "Kiss of the hand and a parade bow" to win the hearts of the Danish people. The new dynasty, the head of which had been abused for years by the National Liberal press, especially in _The Fatherland_, who had thrown suspicion of German sympathies on the heir-presumptive, was still so weak that none of the students thought it necessary to take much notice of the change of sovereigns that had taken place. This was partly because since Frederik VII's time people had been accustomed to indiscriminate free speech concerning the King's person--it was the fashion and meant nothing, as he was beloved by the body of the people --partly because what had happened was not regarded as irrevocable. All depended on whether the King signed the Const.i.tution, and even the coolest and most conservative, who considered that his signing it would be a fatal misfortune, thought it possible that Christian IX. would be dethroned if he did not. So it is not difficult to form some idea of how the Hotspurs talked. The whole town was in a fever, and it was said that Prince Oscar was in Scania, ready at the first sign to cross the Sound and allow himself to be proclaimed King on behalf of Charles XV. Men with Scandinavian sympathies hoped for this solution, by means of which the three kingdoms would have been united without a blow being struck.

In the middle of the meeting, there arrived a message from Crone, the Head of Police, which was delivered verbally in this incredibly irregular form--that the Head of Police was as good a Scandinavian as anyone, but he begged the students for their own sakes to refrain from any kind of street disturbance that would oblige him to interfere.

I, who had stood on the open s.p.a.ce in front of the Castle, lost in the crowd, and in the evening at the meeting of the students was auditor to the pa.s.sionate utterances let fall there, felt my mood violently swayed, but was altogether undecided with regard to the political question, the compa.s.s of which I could not fully perceive. I felt anxious as to the att.i.tude of foreign powers would be in the event of the signing of the Const.i.tution. Old C.N. David had said in his own home that if the matter should depend on him, which, however, he hoped it would not, he would not permit the signing of the Const.i.tution, were he the only man in Denmark of that way of thinking, since by so doing we should lose our guarantee of existence, and get two enemies instead of one, Russia as well as Germany.

The same evening I wrote down: "It is under such circ.u.mstances as these that one realises how difficult it is to lead a really ethical existence. I am not far-sighted enough to perceive what would be the results of that which to me seems desirable, and one cannot conscientiously mix one's self up in what one does not understand.

Nevertheless, as I stood in the square in front of the Castle, I was so excited that I even detected in myself an inclination to come forward as a political speaker, greenhorn though I be."

XIII.

On the 18th of November, the fever in the town was at its height. From early in the morning the s.p.a.ce in front of the Castle was crowded with people. Orla Lehmann, a Minister at the time, came out of the Castle, made his way through the crowd, and shouted again and again, first to one side, then to the other:

"He has signed! He has signed!"

He did not say: "The King."

The people now endured seven weeks of uninterrupted change and kaleidoscopic alteration of the political situation. Relations with all foreign powers, and even with Sweden and Norway, presented a different aspect to the Danish public every week. Sweden's withdrawal created a very bitter impression; the public had been induced to believe that an alliance was concluded. Then followed the "pressure" in Copenhagen by the emissaries of all the Powers, to induce the Government to recall the November Const.i.tution, then the Czar's letter to the Duke of Augustenborg, finally the occupation of Holstein by German troops, with all the censure and disgrace that the Danish army had to endure, for Holstein was evacuated without a blow being struck, and the Duke, to the accompanyment of scorn and derision heaped on the Danes, was proclaimed in all the towns of Holstein.

On Christmas Eve came tidings of the convocation of the Senate, simultaneously with a change of Ministry which placed Monrad at the head of the country, and in connection with this a rumour that all young men of twenty-one were to be called out at once. This last proved to be incorrect, and the minds of the young men alternated between composure at the prospect of war and an enthusiastic desire for war, and a belief that there would be no war at all. The first few days in January, building on the rumour that the last note from England had promised help in the event of the Eider being pa.s.sed, people began to hope that the war might be avoided, and pinned their faith to Monrad's dictatorship.

Frederik Nutzhorn, who did not believe there would be a war, started on a visit to Rome; Jens Paludan-Muller, who had been called out, was quartered at Rendsborg until the German troops marched in; Julius Lange, who, as he had just become engaged, did not wish to see his work interrupted and his future prospects delayed by the war, had gone to Islingen, where he had originally made the acquaintance of his fiancee.

Under these circ.u.mstances, as a twenty-one-year-old student who had completed his university studies, I was anxious to get my examination over as quickly as possible. At the end of 1863 I wrote to my teacher, Professor Brochner, who had promised me a short philosophical summary as a preparation for the University test: "I shall sit under a conjunction of all the most unfavourable circ.u.mstances possible, since for more than a month my head has been so full of the events of the day that I have been able neither to read nor think, while the time of the examination itself promises to be still more disquiet. Still, I dare not draw back, as I should then risk--which may possibly happen in any case--being hindered from my examination by being called out by the conscription and perhaps come to lie in my grave as _Studiosus_ instead of _candidatus magisterii_, which latter looks infinitely more impressive and is more satisfying to a man as greedy of honour as Your respectful and heartily affectionate, etc."

XIV.

Shortly before, I had paid my first visit to Professor Rasmus Nielsen.

He was exceedingly agreeable, recognised me, whom perhaps he remembered examining, and accorded me a whole hour's conversation. He was, as always, alert and fiery, not in the least blase, but with a slight suggestion of charlatanism about him. His conversation was as lively and disconnected as his lectures; there was a charm in the clear glance of his green eyes, a look of genius about his face. He talked for a long time about Herbart, whose Aesthetics, for that matter, he betrayed little knowledge of, then of Hegel, Heiberg, and Kierkegaard. To my intense surprise, he opened up a prospect, conflicting with the opinions he had publicly advocated, that Science, "when a.n.a.lyses had been carried far enough," might come to prove the possibility of miracles. This was an offence against my most sacred convictions.

Nielsen had recently, from the cathedra, announced his renunciation of the Kierkegaard standpoint he had so long maintained, in the phrase: "The Kierkegaard theory is impracticable"; he had, perhaps influenced somewhat by the Queen Dowager, who about that time frequently invited him to meet Grundtvig, drawn nearer to Grundtvigian ways of thinking,-- as Brochner sarcastically remarked about him: "The farther from Kierkegaard, the nearer to the Queen Dowager."

In the midst of my final preparations for the examination, I wrestled, as was my wont, with my attempts to come to a clear understanding over Duty and Life, and was startled by the indescribable irony in the word by which I was accustomed to interpret my ethically religious endeavours,--_Himmelspraet_. [Footnote: Word implying one who attempts to spring up to Heaven, and of course falls miserably to earth again. The word, in ordinary conversation, is applied to anyone tossed in a blanket.]

I handed in, then, my request to be allowed to sit for my Master of Arts examination; the indefatigable Brochner had already mentioned the matter to the Dean of the University, who understood the examinee's reasons for haste. But the University moved so slowly that it was some weeks before I received the special paper set me, which, to my horror, ran as follows: "Determine the correlation between the pathetic and the symbolic in general, in order by that means to elucidate the contrast between Shakespeare's tragedies and Dante's _Divina Commedia_, together with the possible errors into which one might fall through a one-sided preponderance of either of these two elements."

This paper, which had been set by R. Nielsen, is characteristic of the purely speculative manner, indifferent to all study of history, in which Aesthetics were at that time pursued in Copenhagen. It was, moreover, worded with unpardonable carelessness; it was impossible to tell from it what was to be understood by the correlation on which it was based, and which was a.s.sumed to be a given conclusion. Even so speculative a thinker as Frederik Paludan-Muller called the question absolutely meaningless. It looked as though its author had imagined Shakespeare's dramas and Dante's epic were produced by a kind of artistic commingling of pathetic with symbolic elements, and as though he wished to call attention to the danger of reversing the correct proportions, for instance, by the symbolic obtaining the preponderance in tragedy, or pathos in the epopee, or to the danger of exaggerating these proportions, until there was too much tragic pathos, or too much epic symbolism. But a scientific definition of the expressions used was altogether lacking, and I had to devote a whole chapter to the examination of the meaning of the problem proposed to me.

The essay, for the writing of which I was allowed six weeks, was handed in, 188 folio pages long, at the right time. By reason of the sheer foolishness of the question, it was never published.

In a postscript, I wrote: "I beg my honoured examiners to remember the time during which this treatise was written, a time more eventful than any other young men can have been through, and during which I, for my part, have for days at a time been unable to work, and should have been ashamed if I could have done so."