The True Story of My Life Part 6

In Athens I was heartily welcomed by Professor Ross, a native of Holstein, and by my countrymen. I found hospitality and a friendly feeling in the n.o.ble Prokesch-Osten; even the king and queen received me most graciously. I celebrated my birthday in the Acropolis.

From Athens I sailed to Smyrna, and with me it was no childish pleasure to be able to tread another quarter of the globe. I felt a devotion in it, like that which I felt as a child when I entered the old church at Odense. I thought on Christ, who bled on this earth; I thought on Homer, whose song eternally resounds hence over the earth. The sh.o.r.es of Asia preached to me their sermons, and were perhaps more impressive than any sermon in any church can be.

In Constantinople I pa.s.sed eleven interesting days; and according to my good fortune in travel, the birthday of Mahomet itself fell exactly during my stay there. I saw the grand illumination, which completely transported me into the Thousand and One Nights.

Our Danish amba.s.sador lived several miles from Constantinople, and I had therefore no opportunity of seeing him; but I found a cordial reception with the Austrian internuntius, Baron von St rmer. With him I had a German home and friends. I contemplated making my return by the Black Sea and up the Danube; but the country was disturbed; it was said there had been several thousand Christians murdered. My companions of the voyage, in the hotel where I resided, gave up this route of the Danube, for which I had the greatest desire, and collectively counselled me against it. But in this case I must return again by Greece and Italy--it was a severe conflict.

I do not belong to the courageous; I feel fear, especially in little dangers; but in great ones, and when an advantage is to be won, then I have a will, and it has grown firmer with years. I may tremble, I may fear; but I still do that which I consider the most proper to be done.

I am not ashamed to confess my weakness; I hold that when out of our own true conviction we run counter to our inborn fear, we have done our duty. I had a strong desire to become acquainted with the interior of the country, and to traverse the Danube in its greatest expansion. I battled with myself; my imagination pointed to me the most horrible circ.u.mstances; it was an anxious night. In the morning I took counsel with Baron St rmer; and as he was of opinion that I might undertake the voyage, I determined upon it. From the moment that I had taken my determination, I had the most immovable reliance on Providence, and flung myself calmly on my fate. Nothing happened to me. The voyage was prosperous, and after the quarantine on the Wallachian frontier, which was painful enough to me, I arrived at Vienna on the twenty-first day of the journey. The sight of its towers, and the meeting with numerous Danes, awoke in me the thought of being speedily again at home. The idea bowed down my heart, and sad recollections and mortifications rose up within me once more.

In August, 1841, I was again in Copenhagen. There I wrote my recollections of travel, under the t.i.tle of A Poet's Bazaar, in several chapters, according to the countries. In various places abroad I had met with individuals, as at home, to whom I felt myself attached. A poet is like the bird; he gives what he has, and he gives a song. I was desirous to give every one of those dear ones such a song. It was a fugitive idea, born, may I venture to say, in a grateful mood. Count Rantzau-Breitenburg, who had resided in Italy, who loved the land, and was become a friend and benefactor to me through my Improvisatore, must love that part of the book which treated of his country. To Liszt and Thalberg, who had both shown me the greatest friendship, I dedicated the portion which contained the voyage up the Danube, because one was a Hungarian and the other an Austrian. With these indications, the reader will easily be able to trace out the thought which influenced me in the choice of each dedication. But these appropriations were, in my native country, regarded as a fresh proof of my vanity;--"I wished to figure with great names, to name distinguished people as my friends."

The book has been translated into several languages, and the dedications with it. I know not how they have been regarded abroad; if I have been judged there as in Denmark, I hope that this explanation will change the opinion concerning them. In Denmark my Bazaar procured me the most handsome remuneration that I have as yet received,--a proof that I was at length read there. No regular criticism appeared upon it, if we except notices in some daily papers, and afterwards in the poetical attempt of a young writer who, a year before, had testified to me in writing his love, and his wish to do me honor; but who now, in his first public appearance, launched his satirical poem against his friend. I was personally attached to this young man, and am so still. He a.s.suredly thought more on the popularity he would gain by sailing in the wake of Heiberg, than on the pain he would inflict on me. The newspaper criticism in Copenhagen was infinitely stupid. It was set down as exaggerated, that I could have seen the whole round blue globe of the moon in Smyrna at the time of the new moon. That was called fancy and extravagance, which there every one sees who can open his eyes. The new moon has a dark blue and perfectly round disk.

The Danish critics have generally no open eye for nature: even the highest and most cultivated monthly periodical of literature in Denmark censured me once because, in a poem I had described a rainbow by moonlight. That too was my fancy, which, said they, carried me too far.

When I said in the Bazaar, "if I were a painter, I would paint this bridge; but, as I am no painter, but a poet, I must therefore speak,"

&c. Upon this the critic says, "He is so vain, that he tells us himself that he is a poet." There is something so pitiful in such criticism, that one cannot be wounded by it; but even when we are the most peaceable of men, we feel a desire to flagellate such wet dogs, who come into our rooms and lay themselves down in the best place in them.

There might be a whole Fool's Chronicle written of all the absurd and shameless things which, from my first appearance before the public till this moment, I have been compelled to hear.

In the meantime the Bazaar was much read, and made what is called a hit. I received, connected with this book, much encouragement and many recognitions from individuals of the highest distinction in the realms of intellect in my native land.

The journey had strengthened me both in mind and body; I began to show indications of a firmer purpose, a more certain judgment. I was now in harmony with myself and with mankind around me.

Political life in Denmark had, at that time, arrived at a higher development, producing both good and evil fruits. The eloquence which had formerly accustomed itself to the Demosthenic mode, that of putting little pebbles in the mouth, the little pebbles of every day life, now exercised itself more freely on subjects of greater interest. I felt no call thereto, and no necessity to mix myself up in such matters; for I then believed that the politics of our times were a great misfortune to many a poet. Madame, politics are like Venus; they whom she decoys into her castle perish. It fares with the writings of these poets as with the newspapers: they are seized upon, read, praised, and forgotten. In our days every one wishes to rule; the subjective makes its power of value; people forget that that which is thought of cannot always be carried out, and that many things look very different when contemplated from the top of the tree, to what they did when seen from its roots. I will bow myself before him who is influenced by a n.o.ble conviction, and who only desires that which is conducive to good, be he prince or man of the people. Politics are no affair of mine. G.o.d has imparted to me another mission: that I felt, and that I feel still. I met in the so-called first families of the country a number of friendly, kind-hearted men, who valued the good that was in me, received me into their circles, and permitted me to partic.i.p.ate in the happiness of their opulent summer residences; so that, still feeling independent, I could thoroughly give myself up to the pleasures of nature, the solitude of woods, and country life. There for the first time I lived wholly among the scenery of Denmark, and there I wrote the greater number of my fairy tales. On the banks of quiet lakes, amid the woods, on the green gra.s.sy pastures, where the game sprang past me and the stork paced along on his red legs, I heard nothing of politics, nothing of polemics; I heard no one practising himself in Hagel's phraseology. Nature, which was around me and within me, preached to me of my calling. I spent many happy days at the old house of Gisselfeld, formerly a monastery, which stands in the deepest solitude of the woods, surrounded with lakes and hills. The possessor of this fine place, the old Countess Danneskjold, mother of the d.u.c.h.ess of Augustenburg, was an agreeable and excellent lady, I was there not as a poor child of the people, but as a cordially-received guest. The beeches now overshadow her grave in the midst of that pleasant scenery to which her heart was allied.

Close by Gisselfeld, but in a still finer situation, and of much greater extent, lies the estate of Bregentoed, which belongs to Count Moltke, Danish Minister of Finance. The hospitality which I met with in this place, one of the richest and most beautiful of our country, and the happy, social life which surrounded me here, have diffused a sunshine over my life.

It may appear, perhaps, as if I desired to bring the names of great people prominently forward, and make a parade of them; or as if I wished in this way to offer a kind of thanks to my benefactors. They need it not, and I should be obliged to mention many other names still if this were my intention. I speak, however, only of these two places, and of Nys, which belongs to Baron Stampe, and which has become celebrated through Thorwaldsen. Here I lived much with the great sculptor, and here I became acquainted with one of my dearest young friends, the future possessor of the place.

Knowledge of life in these various circles has had great influence on me: among princes, among the n.o.bility, and among the poorest of the people, I have met with specimens of n.o.ble humanity. We all of us resemble each other in that which is good and best.

Winter life in Denmark has likewise its attractions and its rich variety. I spent also some time in the country during this season, and made myself acquainted with its peculiar characteristics. The greatest part of my time, however, I pa.s.sed in Copenhagen. I felt myself at home with the married sons and daughters of Collin, where a number of amiable children were growing up. Every year strengthened the bond of friendship between myself and the n.o.bly-gifted composer, Hartmann: art and the freshness of nature prospered in his house. Collin was my counsellor in practical life, and Oersted in my literary affairs. The theatre was, if I may so say, my club. I visited it every evening, and in this very year I had received a place in the so-called court stalls. An author must, as a matter of course, work himself up to it. After the first accepted piece he obtains admission to the pit; after the second greater work, in the stalls, where the actors have their seats; and after three larger works, or a succession of lesser pieces, the poet is advanced to the best places. Here were to be found Thorwaldsen, Oehlenschl ger, and several older poets; and here also, in 1840,1 obtained a place, after I had given in seven pieces. Whilst Thorwaldsen lived, I often, by his own wish, sate at his side. Oehlenschl ger was also my neighbor, and in many an evening hour, when no one dreamed of it, my soul was steeped in deep humility, as I sate between these great spirits. The different periods of my life pa.s.sed before me; the time when I sate on the hindmost bench in the box of the female figurantes, as well as that in which, full of childish superst.i.tion, I knelt down there upon the stage and repeated the Lord's Prayer, just before the very place where I now sate among the first and the most distinguished men. At the time, perhaps, when a countryman of mine thus thought of and pa.s.sed judgment upon me,--"there he sits, between the two great spirits, full of arrogance and pride;" he may now perceive by this acknowledgment how unjustly he has judged me.

Humility, and prayer to G.o.d for strength to deserve my happiness, filled my heart. May He always enable me to preserve these feelings? I enjoyed the friendship of Thorwaldsen as well as of Oehlenschl ger, those two most distinguished stars in the horizon of the North. I may here bring forward their reflected glory in and around me.

There is in the character of Oehlenschl ger, when he is not seen in the circles of the great, where he is quiet and reserved, something so open and child-like, that no one can help becoming attached to him. As a poet, he holds in the North a position of as great importance as Goethe did in Germany. He is in his best works so penetrated by the spirit of the North, that through him it has, as it were, ascended upon all nations. In foreign countries he is not so much appreciated. The works by which he is best known are "Correggio" and "Aladdin;" but a.s.suredly his masterly poem of "The Northern G.o.ds" occupied a far higher rank: it is our "Iliad." It possesses power, freshness--nay, any expression of mine is poor. It is possessed of grandeur; it is the poet Oehlenschl ger in the bloom of his soul. Hakon, Jarl, and Palnatoke will live in the poetry of Oehlenschl ger as long as mankind endures. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have fully appreciated him, and have shown him that they do so, and whenever it is asked who occupies the first place in the kingdom of mind, the palm is always awarded to him. He is the true-born poet; he appears always young, whilst he himself, the oldest of all, surpa.s.ses all in the productiveness of his mind. He listened with friendly disposition to my first lyrical outpourings; and he acknowledged with earnestness and cordiality the poet who told the fairy-tales. My Biographer in the Danish Pantheon brought me in contact with Oehlenschl ger, when he said, "In our days it is becoming more and more rare for any one, by implicitly following those inborn impulses of his soul, which make themselves irresistibly felt, to step forward as an artist or a poet. He is more frequently fashioned by fate and circ.u.mstances than apparently destined by nature herself for this office. With the greater number of our poets an early acquaintance with pa.s.sion, early inward experience, or outward circ.u.mstances, stand instead of the original vein of nature, and this cannot in any case be more incontestably proved in our own literature than by instancing Oehlenschl ger and Andersen. And in this way it may be explained why the former has been so frequently the object for the attacks of the critics, and why the latter was first properly appreciated as a poet in foreign countries where civilization of a longer date has already produced a disinclination for the compulsory rule of schools, and has occasioned a reaction towards that which is fresh and natural; whilst we Danes, on the contrary, cherish a pious respect for the yoke of the schools and the worn-out wisdom of maxims."

Thorwaldsen, whom, as I have already said, I had become acquainted with in Rome in the years 1833 and 1834, was expected in Denmark in the autumn of 1838, and great festive preparations were made in consequence.

A flag was to wave upon one of the towers of Copenhagen as soon as the vessel which brought him should come in sight. It was a national festival. Boats decorated with flowers and flags filled the Rhede; painters, sculptors, all had their flags with emblems; the students'

bore a Minerva, the poets' a Pegasus. It was misty weather, and the ship was first seen when it was already close by the city, and all poured out to meet him. The poets, who, I believe, according to the arrangement of Heiberg, had been invited, stood by their boat; Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg alone had not arrived. And now guns were fired from the ship, which came to anchor, and it was to be feared that Thorwaldsen might land before we had gone out to meet him. The wind bore the voice of singing over to us: the festive reception had already begun.

I wished to see him, and therefore cried out to the others, "Let us put off!"

"Without Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg?" asked some one.

"But they are not arrived, and it will be all over."

One of the poets declared that if these two men were not with us, I should not sail under that flag, and pointed up to Pegasus.

"We will throw it in the boat," said I, and took it down from the staff; the others now followed me, and came up just as Thorwaldsen reached land. We met with Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg in another boat, and they came over to us as the enthusiasm began on sh.o.r.e.

The people drew Thorwaldsen's carriage through the streets to his house, where everybody who had the slightest acquaintance with him, or with the friends of a friend of his, thronged around him. In the evening the artists gave him a serenade, and the blaze of the torches illumined the garden under the large trees, there was an exultation and joy which really and truly was felt. Young and old hastened through the open doors, and the joyful old man clasped those whom he knew to his breast, gave them his kiss, and pressed their hands. There was a glory round Thorwaldsen which kept me timidly back: my heart beat for joy of seeing him who had met me when abroad with kindness and consolation, who had pressed me to his heart, and had said that we must always remain friends. But here in this jubilant crowd, where thousands noticed every movement of his, where I too by all these should be observed and criticised--yes, criticised as a vain man who now only wished to show that he too was acquainted with Thorwaldsen, and that this great man was kind and friendly towards him--here, in this dense crowd, I drew myself back, and avoided being recognized by him. Some days afterwards, and early in the morning, I went to call upon him, and found him as a friend who had wondered at not having seen me earlier.

In honor of Thorwaldsen a musical-poetic academy was established, and the poets, who were invited to do so by Heiberg, wrote and read each one a poem in praise of him who had returned home. I wrote of Jason who fetched the golden fleece--that is to say, Jason-Thorwaldsen, who went forth to win golden art. A great dinner and a ball closed the festival, in which, for the first time in Denmark, popular life and a subject of great interest in the realms of art were made public.

From this evening I saw Thorwaldsen almost daily in company or in his studio: I often pa.s.sed several weeks together with him at Nys, where he seemed to have firmly taken root, and where the greater number of his works, executed in Denmark, had their origin. He was of a healthful and simple disposition of mind, not without humor, and, therefore, he was extremely attached to Holberg the poet: he did not at all enter into the troubles and the disruptions of the world.

One morning at Nys--at the time when he was working at his own statue--I entered his work-room and bade him good morning; he appeared as if he did not wish to notice me, and I stole softly away again.

At breakfast he was very parsimonious in the use of words, and when somebody asked him to say something at all events, he replied in his dry way:--

"I have said more during this morning than in many whole days, but n.o.body heard me. There I stood, and fancied that Andersen was behind me, for he came, and said good morning--so I told him a long story about myself and Byron. I thought that he might give one word in reply, and turned myself round; and there had I been standing a whole hour and chattering aloud to the bare walls."

We all of us besought him to let us hear the whole story yet once more; but we had it now very short.

"Oh, that was in Rome," said he, "when I was about to make Byron's statue; he placed himself just opposite to me, and began immediately to a.s.sume quite another countenance to what was customary to him. 'Will not you sit still?' said I; 'but you must not make these faces.' 'It is my expression,' said Byron. 'Indeed?' said I, and then I made him as I wished, and everybody said, when it was finished, that I had hit the likeness. When Byron, however, saw it, he said, 'It does not resemble me at all; I look more unhappy.'"

"He was, above all things, so desirous of looking extremely unhappy,"

added Thorwaldsen, with a comic expression.

It afforded the great sculptor pleasure to listen to music after dinner with half-shut eyes, and it was his greatest delight when in the evening the game of lotto began, which the whole neighborhood of Nys was obliged to learn; they only played for gla.s.s pieces, and on this account I am able to relate a peculiar characteristic of this otherwise great man--that he played with the greatest interest on purpose to win. He would espouse with warmth and vehemence the part of those from whom he believed that he had received an injustice; he opposed himself to unfairness and raillery, even against the lady of the house, who for the rest had the most childlike sentiments towards him, and who had no other thought than how to make everything most agreeable to him. In his company I wrote several of my tales for children--for example, "Ole Luck Oin," ("Ole Shut Eye,") to which he listened with pleasure and interest.

Often in the twilight, when the family circle sate in the open garden parlor, Thorwaldsen would come softly behind me, and, clapping me on the shoulder, would ask, "Shall we little ones hear any tales tonight?"

In his own peculiarly natural manner he bestowed the most bountiful praise on my fictions, for their truth; it delighted him to hear the same stories over and over again. Often, during his most glorious works, would he stand with laughing countenance, and listen to the stories of the Top and the Ball, and the Ugly Duckling. I possess a certain talent of improvising in my native tongue little poems and songs. This talent amused Thorwaldsen very much; and as he had modelled, at Nys, Holberg's portrait in clay, I was commissioned to make a poem for his work, and he received, therefore, the following impromptu:--

"No more shall Holberg live," by Death was said, "I crush the clay, his soul's bonds heretofore."

"And from the formless clay, the cold, the dead,"

Cried Thorwaldsen, "shall Holberg live once more."

One morning, when he had just modelled in clay his great bas-relief of the Procession to Golgotha, I entered his study.

"Tell me," said he, "does it seem to you that I have dressed Pilate properly?"

"You must not say anything to him," said the Baroness, who was always with him: "it is right; it is excellent; go away with you!"

Thorwaldsen repeated his question.

"Well, then," said I, "as you ask me, I must confess that it really does appear to me as if Pilate were dressed rather as an Egyptian than as a Roman."

"It seems to me so too," said Thorwaldsen, seizing the clay with his hand, and destroying the figure.

"Now you are guilty of his having annihilated an immortal work,"

exclaimed the Baroness to me with warmth.

"Then we can make a new immortal work," said he, in a cheerful humor, and modelled Pilate as he now remains in the bas-relief in the Ladies'

Church in Copenhagen.

His last birth-day was celebrated there in the country. I had written a merry little song, and it was hardly dry on the paper, when we sang it, in the early morning, before his door, accompanied by the music of jingling fire-irons, gongs, and bottles rubbed against a basket.

Thorwaldsen himself, in his morning gown and slippers, opened his door, and danced round his chamber; swung round his Raphael's cap, and joined in the chorus. There was life and mirth in the strong old man.