Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 18

The vices and paltrinesses of the individual could not be directly remedied; inherited maladies and those brought upon one's self, stupidity and folly, brutality and malice, undeniably existed. But the inst.i.tutions of society ought to be so planned as to render these destructive forces inoperative, or at least diminish their harmfulness, not so as to give them free scope and augment their terrors by securing them victims.

In marriage, the position of the one bound against his or her will was undignified, often desperate, but worst in the case of a woman. As a mother she could be wounded in her most vulnerable spot, and what was most outrageous of all, she could be made a mother against her will. One single unhappy marriage had shown me, like a sudden revelation, what marriage in countless cases is, and how far from free the position of woman still was.

But that woman should be oppressed in modern society, that the one-half of the human race could be legally deprived of their rights, revealed that justice in society, as it at present stood, was in a sorry state.

In the relations between the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the same legalised disproportion would necessarily prevail as between man and woman.

My thought pierced down into the state of society that obtained and was praised so highly, and with ever less surprise and ever greater disquiet, found hollowness everywhere. And this called my will to battle, armed it for the fight.

VII.

From this time forth I began to ponder quite as much over Life as over Art, and to submit to criticism the conditions of existence in the same way as I had formerly done with Faith and Law.

In matters concerning Life, as in things concerning Art, I was not a predetermined Radical. There was a great deal of piety in my nature and I was of a collecting, retentive disposition. Only gradually, and step by step, was I led by my impressions, the incidents I encountered, and my development, to break with many a tradition to which I had clung to the last extremity.

It was in the spirit of the Aesthetics of the time, that, after having been engaged upon the Tragic Idea, I plunged into researches on the Comic, and by degrees, as the material ordered itself for me, I tried to write a doctor's thesis upon it, Abstract researches were regarded as much more valuable than historic investigation. In comic literature Aristophanes in particular delighted me, and I was thinking of letting my general definitions merge into a description of the greatness of the Greek comedian; but as the thread broke for me, I did not get farther than the theory of the Comic in general. It was not, like my previous treatise on the Tragic, treated under three headings, according to the Hegelian model, but written straight ahead, without any subdivision into sections.

Whilst working at this paper I was, of course, obliged constantly to consult the national comedies and lighter plays, till I knew them from cover to cover. Consequently, when Gotfred Rode, the poet, who was connected with a well-known educational establishment for girls, asked me whether I would care to give a course of public lectures for ladies, I chose as my subject _The Danish Comedy_. The lectures were attended in force. The subject was supremely innocent, and it was treated in quite a conservative manner. At that time I cherished a sincere admiration, with only slight reservations, for Heiberg, Hertz, Hostrup and many others as comic playwriters, and was not far short of attributing to their works an importance equal to those of Holberg. And yet I was unable to avoid giving offence. I had, it appears, about Heiberg's _Klister and Malle_, an inseparable betrothed couple, used what was, for that matter, an undoubtedly Kierkegaardian expression, viz., _to bes...o...b..r a relation_. This expression was repeated indignantly to the Headmistress, and the thoughtless lecturer was requested to call upon the Princ.i.p.al of the college. When, after a long wait, and little suspecting what was going to be said to me, I was received in audience, it appeared that I had been summoned to receive a polite but decided admonition against wounding the susceptibilities of my listeners by expressions which were not "good form," and when I, unconscious of wrongdoing, asked which expression she alluded to, the unfortunate word "bes...o...b..r" was alleged; my young hearers were not "'Arriets" for whom such expressions might be fitting.

I was not asked again to give lectures for young ladies.

VIII.

Hitherto, when I had appeared before the reading public, it had only been as the author of shorter or longer contributions to the philosophical discussion of the relations between Science and Faith; when these had been accepted by a daily paper it had been as its heaviest ballast. I had never yet written anything that the ordinary reader could follow with pleasure, and I had likewise been obliged to make use of a large number of abstruse philosophical words.

The proprietors of the _Ill.u.s.trated Times_ offered me the reviewing of the performances at the Royal Theatre in their paper, which had not hitherto printed dramatic criticisms. I accepted the offer, because it afforded me a wished-for opportunity of further shaking off the dust of the schools. I could thus have practice with my pen, and get into touch with a section of the reading public who, without caring for philosophy, nevertheless had intellectual interests; and these articles were in reality a vent for what I had at heart about this time touching matters human and artistic. They were written in a more colloquial style than anything I had written before, or than it was usual to write in Denmark at that time, and they alternated sometimes with longer essays, such as those on Andersen and Goldschmidt.

Regarded merely as dramatic criticisms, they were of little value. The Royal Theatre, the period of whose zenith was nearly at an end, I cared little for, and I was personally acquainted with next to none of the actors, only meeting, at most, Phister and Adolf Rosenkilde and of ladies, Sodring in society.

I found it altogether impossible to brandish my cane over the individual actor in his individual part. But the form of it was merely a pretext. I wanted to show myself as I was, speak out about dramatic and other literature, reveal how I felt, show what I thought about all the conditions of life represented or touched upon on the stage.

My articles were read with so much interest that the editors of the _Ill.u.s.trated Times_ raised the writer's scale of remuneration to 10 Kr. a column (about 11_s_. 3_d_.), which at that time was very respectable pay. Unfortunately, however, I soon saw that even at that, if I wrote in the paper all the year round, I could not bring up my yearly income from this source to more than 320 kroner of our money, about I7_l_. 12_s_. 6_d_. in English money; so that, without a University bursary, I should have come badly off, and even with it was not rolling in riches.

The first collection of my articles, which I published in 1868 under the t.i.tle of _Studies in Aesthetics_, augmented my income a little, it is true, but for that, as for the next collection, _Criticisms and Portraits_, I only received 20 kroner (22_s_. 6_d_.) per sheet of sixteen pages. Very careful management was necessary.

IX.

With the first money I received for my books, I went in the middle of the Summer of 1868 for a trip to Germany. I acquired some idea of Berlin, which was then still only the capital of Prussia, and in population corresponded to the Copenhagen of our day; I spent a few weeks in Dresden, where I felt very much at home, delighted in the exquisite art collection and derived no small pleasure from the theatre, at that time an excellent one. I saw Prague for the first time, worshipped Rubens in Munich, and, with him specially in my mind, tried to realise how the greatest painters had regarded Life. Switzerland added to my store of impressions with grand natural spectacles. I saw the Alps, and a thunderstorm in the Alps, pa.s.sed starlit nights on the Swiss lakes, traced the courses of foaming mountain streams such as the Tamina at Pfaffers, ascended the Rigi at a silly forced march, and from the Kulm saw a procession of clouds that gripped my fancy like the procession of the Vanir in Northern mythology. Many years afterwards I described it in the Fourth volume of _Main Currents_. From Interlaken I gazed on the whiteness of the Jungfrau, but scarcely with greater emotion than once upon a time when I had gazed at the white cliffs of Moen. On my homeward journey I saw Heidelberg's lovely ruins, to which Charles V.'s castle, near the Al-hambra, makes a marvellous pendant, Stra.s.sburg's grave Cathedral, and Goethe's house at Frankfurt.

My travels were not long, but were extraordinarily instructive. I made acquaintance with people from the most widely different countries, with youthful frankness engaged in conversation with Germans and Frenchmen, Englishmen and Americans, Poles and Russians, Dutchmen, Belgians and Swiss, met them as travelling companions, and listened attentively to what they narrated. They were, moreover, marvellously frank towards the young man who, with the curiosity of his age, plied them with questions.

Young Dutchmen, studying music in Dresden, gave me some idea of the ill- will felt in their country towards the Prussians, an ill-will not unmingled with contempt. On the other hand, I was astonished, during a half day's excursion on foot with a few Leipzig students, to learn how strong was the feeling of the unity of Germany and of the necessity of the supremacy of Prussia, even in the states which in the 1866 war had been on the side of Austria. The students felt no grief over having been defeated, the victors were Germans too; everything was all right so long as the German Empire became one. These and similar conversations, which finally brought me to the conclusion that the whole of the bourgeoisie was satisfied with the dominance of Prussia, had for result that in 1870 I did not for a moment share the opinion of the Danes and the French, that the defeated German states would enter into an alliance with France against Prussia.

English undergraduates told me what philosophical and historical works were being most read in the universities of Great Britain; Bohemian students explained to me that in the German philosophical world Kant had quite outshone Hegel and put him in the background.

The lady members of an American family from Boston treated me quite maternally; the wife suggested almost at once, in the railway-carriage, that I should give her when we reached the hotel whatever linen or clothes I had that wanted repairs; she would be very pleased to mend them for me. The husband, who was very pious and good-natured, had all his pockets full of little hymn-books and in his memorandum book a quant.i.ty of newspaper cuttings of devotional verse, which he now and then read aloud enthusiastically.

But I also met with Americans of quite a different cast. A young student from Harvard University, who, for that matter, was not in love with the Germans and declared that the United States could with difficulty absorb and digest those who were settled there, surprised me with his view that in the future Bismarck would come to be regarded as no less a figure than Cavour. The admiration of contemporary educated thought was then centred around Cavour, whereas Bismarck had hitherto only encountered pa.s.sionate aversion outside Germany, and even in Germany was the object of much hatred. This student roused me into thinking about Bismarck for myself.

Having lain down, all bathed in perspiration, during the ascent without a guide of a mountain in Switzerland, I was accosted by a woman, who feared I had come to some harm. I walked on up with her. She turned out to be a young peasant woman from Normandy, who lived half-way up the mountain. She had accompanied her husband to Switzerland, but cursed her lot, and was always longing to be back in France. When I remarked that it must be some consolation to live in so lovely a place, she interrupted me with the most violent protests. A beautiful place! This!

The steep mountain, the bristly fir-trees and pine-trees, the snow on the top and the lake deep down below--anything uglier it would be hard to conceive. No fields, no pasture-land, no apple-trees! No indeed! If she had to mention a country that really was beautiful, it was Normandy.

There was plenty of food for all there, you did not need to go either up or down hill; there, thank G.o.d, it was flat. Did I think stones beautiful, perhaps? She had not been down in the valley for five months, and higher than her house she had never been and would never go; no, thank you, not she! She let her husband fetch what they required for the house; she herself sat and fretted all through the Winter; life then was almost more than she could bear.

On one of the steamers on the Lake of Lucerne, I caught, for the first time, a glimpse of Berthold Auerbach, who was very much admired by my comrades in Copenhagen and by myself.

At the hotel table at Lucerne I made the acquaintance of a Dutch captain from Batavia, an acquaintance productive of much pleasure to me. Before the soup was brought round I had pulled out a letter I had just received, opened it and begun to read it. A voice by my side said in French:

"Happy man! You are reading a letter in a woman's writing!" With that our acquaintance was made.

The captain was a man of forty, who in the course of an active life had had many and varied experiences and met with prosperity, but was suffering from a feeling of great void. His society was exceedingly attractive to me, and he related to me the main events of his life; but after one day's a.s.sociation only, we were obliged to part. All through my trip I had a curious feeling of every farewell on the journey being in all human probability a farewell for life, but had not realised it painfully before. But when next day the brave captain, whose home was far away in another quarter of the globe, held his hand out to say good- bye, I was much affected. "Till we meet again" said the captain.

"And where?"

"Till we meet again all and everywhere, for we live an eternal life; till we meet again in time and s.p.a.ce, or outside time and s.p.a.ce!"

I reflected sadly that I should never again see this man, who, the last twenty-four hours had shown me, was in extraordinary sympathy and agreement with me.

Separated from those dearest to me, the whole of the journey, for that matter, was a sort of self-torment to me, even though a profitable one.

Like every other traveller, I had many a lonely hour, and plenty of time to ponder over my position and vocation in life. I summed up my impressions in the sentence: "The Powers have designated me the champion of great ideas against great talents, unfortunately greater than I."

X.

There was only one distinguished person outside my circle of acquaintance to whom I wished to bring my first descriptive book, as a mark of homage, Johanne Louise Heiberg, the actress. I had admired her on the stage, even if not to the same extent as Michael Wiehe; but to me she was the representative of the great time that would soon sink into the grave. In addition, I ventured to hope that she, being a friend of Frederik Paludan-Muller, Magdalene Th.o.r.esen and others who wished me well, would be at any rate somewhat friendly inclined towards me. A few years before, it had been rumoured in Copenhagen after the publication of my little polemical pamphlet against Nielsen, that at a dinner at the Heiberg's there had been a good deal of talk about me; even Bishop Martensen had expressed himself favourably, and it also attracted attention that a short time afterwards, in a note to his book _On Knowledge and Faith_, he mentioned me not unapprovingly, and contented himself with a reminder to me not to feel myself too soon beyond being surprised. When the Bishop of Zealand, one of the actress's most faithful adherents, had publicly spoken thus mildly of the youthful heretic, there was some hope that the lady herself would be free from prejudice. My friends also eagerly encouraged me to venture upon a visit to her home.

I was admitted and asked to wait in a room through the gla.s.s doors of which I was attentively observed for some time by the lady's adopted children. Then she came in, in indoor dress, with a stocking in her hand, at which she uninterruptedly continued to knit during the following conversation: She said: "Well! So you have collected your articles." I was simple enough to reply--as if that made any difference to the lady--that the greater part of the book had not been printed before. She turned the conversation upon Bjornson's _Fisher Girl_, which had just been published, and which had been reviewed by _The Fatherland_ the evening before, declaring that she disagreed altogether with the reviewer, who had admired in the _Fisher Girl_ a psychological study of a scenic genius. "It is altogether a mistake,"

said Mrs. Heiberg, absorbed in counting her st.i.tches, "altogether a mistake that genius is marked by restlessness, refractoriness, an irregular life, or the like. That is all antiquated superst.i.tion. True genius has no connection whatever with excesses and caprices, in fact, is impossible without the strict fulfilment of one's duty. (Knitting furiously.) Genius is simple, straightforward, domesticated, industrious."

When we began to speak of mutual acquaintances, amongst others, Magdalene Th.o.r.esen, feeling very uncomfortable in the presence of the lady, I blurted out most tactlessly that I was sure that lady was much interested in me. It was a mere nothing, but at the moment sounded like conceit and boasting. I realised it the moment the words were out of my mouth, and instinctively felt that I had definitely displeased her. But the conversational material was used up and I withdrew. I never saw Johanne Louise Heiberg again; henceforth she thought anything but well of me.

XI.

Magdalene Th.o.r.esen was spending that year in Copenhagen, and our connection, which had been kept up by correspondence, brought with it a lively mutual interchange of thoughts and impressions. Our natures, it is true, were as much unlike as it was possible for them to be; but Magdalene Th.o.r.esen's wealth of moods and the overflowing warmth of her heart, the vivacity of her disposition, the tenderness that filled her soul, and the incessant artistic exertion, which her exhausted body could not stand, all this roused in me a sympathy that the mistiness of her reasoning, and the over-excitement of her intellectual life, could not diminish. Besides which, especially when she was away from Copenhagen, but when she was there, too, she needed a literary a.s.sistant who could look through her MSS. and negotiate over them with the publishers of anthologies, year-books, and weekly papers, and for this purpose she not infrequently seized upon me, innocently convinced, like everybody else for that matter, that she was the only person who made a similar demand upon me.

Still, it was rather trying that, when my verdict on her work did not happen to be what she wished, she saw in what I said an unkindness, for which she alleged reasons that had nothing whatever to do with Art.

Magdalene Th.o.r.esen could not be otherwise than fond of Rasmus Nielsen; they were both lively, easily enraptured souls, who breathed most freely in the fog. That, however, did not come between her and me, whom she often thought in the right. With regard to my newspaper activity, she merely urged the stereotyped but pertinent opinion, that I ought not to write so many small things; my nature could not stand this wasting, drop by drop.

I had myself felt for a long time that I ought to concentrate my forces on larger undertakings.

XII.

There were not many of the upper middle cla.s.s houses in Copenhagen at that time, the hospitality of which a young man with intellectual interests derived any advantage from accepting. One of these houses, which was opened to me, and with which I was henceforward a.s.sociated, was that of Chief Physician Rudolph Bergh. His was the home of intellectual freedom.

The master of the house was not only a prominent scientist and savant, but, at a time when all kinds of prejudices ruled una.s.sailed, a man who had retained the uncompromising radicalism of the first half of the century. The spirit of Knowledge was the Holy Spirit to him; the profession of doctor had placed him in the service of humanity, and to firmness of character he united pure philanthropy. The most despised outcasts of society met with the same consideration and the same kindness from him as its favoured ones.