The True Story of My Life Part 5

I met with cordial, kind people,--and with these I easily made acquaintance. I reckon this journey among the happiest I ever made. I had no knowledge of the character of Swedish scenery, and therefore I was in the highest degree astonished by the Trollh tta-voyage, and by the extremely picturesque situation of Stockholm. It sounds to the uninitiated half like a fairy-tale, when one says that the steam-boat goes up across the lakes over the mountains, from whence may be seen the outstretched pine and beechwoods below. Immense sluices heave up and lower the vessel again, whilst the travellers ramble through the woods.

None of the cascades of Switzerland, none in Italy, not even that of Terni, have in them anything so imposing as that of Trollh tta. Such is the impression, at all events, which it made on me.

On this journey, and at this last-mentioned place, commenced a very interesting acquaintance, and one which has not been without its influence on me,--an acquaintance with the Swedish auth.o.r.ess, Fredrika Bremer. I had just been speaking with the captain of the steam-boat and some of the pa.s.sengers about the Swedish authors living in Stockholm, and I mentioned my desire to see and converse with Miss Bremer.

"You will not meet with her," said the Captain, "as she is at this moment on a visit in Norway."

"She will be coming back while I am there," said I in joke; "I always am lucky in my journeys, and that which I most wish for is always accomplished.

"Hardly this time, however," said the captain.

A few hours after this he came up to me laughing, with the list of the newly arrived pa.s.sengers in his hand. "Lucky fellow," said he aloud, "you take good fortune with you; Miss Bremer is here, and sails with us to Stockholm."

I received it as a joke; he showed me the list, but still I was uncertain. Among the new arrivals, I could see no one who resembled an auth.o.r.ess. Evening came on, and about midnight we were on the great Wener lake. At sunrise I wished to have a view of this extensive lake, the sh.o.r.es of which could scarcely be seen; and for this purpose I left the cabin. At the very moment that I did so, another pa.s.senger was also doing the same, a lady neither young nor old, wrapped in a shawl and cloak. I thought to myself, if Miss Bremer is on board, this must be she, and fell into discourse with her; she replied politely, but still distantly, nor would she directly answer my question, whether she was the auth.o.r.ess of the celebrated novels. She asked after my name; was acquainted with it, but confessed that she had read none of my works.

She then inquired whether I had not some of them with me, and I lent her a copy of the "Improvisatore," which I had destined for Beskow. She vanished immediately with the volumes, and was not again visible all morning.

When I again saw her, her countenance was beaming, and she was full of cordiality; she pressed my hand, and said that she had read the greater part of the first volume, and that she now knew me.

The vessel flew with us across the mountains, through quiet inland lakes and forests, till it arrived at the Baltic Sea, where islands lie scattered, as in the Archipelago, and where the most remarkable transition takes place from naked cliffs to gra.s.sy islands, and to those on which stand trees and houses. Eddies and breakers make it here necessary to take on board a skilful pilot; and there are indeed some places where every pa.s.senger must sit quietly on his seat, whilst the eye of the pilot is riveted upon one point. On s.h.i.+pboard one feels the mighty power of nature, which at one moment seizes hold of the vessel and the next lets it go again.

Miss Bremer related many legends and many histories, which were connected with this or that island, or those farm-premises up aloft on the mainland.

In Stockholm, the acquaintance with her increased, and year after year the letters which have pa.s.sed between us have strengthened it. She is a n.o.ble woman; the great truths of religion, and the poetry which lies in the quiet circ.u.mstances of life, have penetrated her being.

It was not until after my visit to Stockholm that her Swedish translation of my novel came out; my lyrical poems only, and my "Journey on Foot," were known to a few authors; these received me with the utmost kindness, and the lately deceased Dahlgr n, well known by his humorous poems, wrote a song in my honor--in short, I met with hospitality, and countenances beaming with Sunday gladness. Sweden and its inhabitants became dear to me. The city itself, by its situation and its whole picturesque appearance, seemed to me to emulate Naples. Of course, this last has the advantage of fine atmosphere, and the suns.h.i.+ne of the south; but the view of Stockholm is just as imposing; it has also some resemblance to Constantinople, as seen from Pera, only that the minarets are wanting. There prevails a great variety of coloring in the capital of Sweden; white painted buildings; frame-work houses, with the wood-work painted red; barracks of turf, with flowering plants; fir tree and birches look out from among the houses, and the churches with their b.a.l.l.s and towers. The streets in Sdermalm ascend by flights of wooden steps up from the M lar lake, which is all active with smoking steam-vessels, and with boats rowed by women in gay-colored dresses.

I had brought with me a letter of introduction from Oersted, to the celebrated Berzelius, who gave me a good reception in the old city of Upsala. From this place I returned to Stockholm. City, country, and people, were all dear to me; it seemed to me, as I said before, that the boundaries of my native land had stretched themselves out, and I now first felt the kindreds.h.i.+p of the three peoples, and in this feeling I wrote a Scandinavian song, a hymn of praise for all the three nations, for that which was peculiar and best in each one of them.

"One can see that the Swedes made a deal of him," was the first remark which I heard at home on this song.

Years pa.s.s on; the neighbors understand each other better; Oehlenschl ger. Fredrika Bremer, and Tegn r, caused them mutually to read each other's authors, and the foolish remains of the old enmity, which had no other foundation than that they did not know each other, vanished.

There now prevails a beautiful, cordial relations.h.i.+p between Sweden and Denmark. A Scandinavian club has been established in Stockholm; and with this my song came to honor; and it was then said, "it will outlive everything that Andersen has written:" which was as unjust as when they said that it was only the product of flattered vanity. This song is now sung in Sweden as well as in Denmark.

On my return home I began to study history industriously, and made myself still further acquainted with the literature of foreign countries. Yet still the volume which afforded me the greatest pleasure was that of nature; and in a summer residence among the country-seats of Funen, and more especially at Lykkesholm, with its highly romantic site in the midst of woods, and at the n.o.ble seat of Glorup, from whose possessor I met with the most friendly reception, did I acquire more true wisdom, a.s.suredly, in my solitary rambles, than I ever could have gained from the schools.

The house of the Conference Councillor Collin in Copenhagen was at that time, as it has been since, a second father's house to me, and there I had parents, and brothers and sisters. The best circles of social life were open to me, and the student life interested me: here I mixed in the pleasures of youth. The student life of Copenhagen is, besides this, different from that of the German cities, and was at this time peculiar and full of life. For me this was most perceptible in the students'

clubs, where students and professors were accustomed to meet each other: there was there no boundary drawn between the youthful and elder men of letters. In this club were to be found the journals and books of various countries; once a week an author would read his last work; a concert or some peculiar burlesque entertainment would take place. It was here that what may be called the first Danish people'scomedies took their origin,--comedies in which the events of the day were worked up always in an innocent, but witty and amusing manner. Sometimes dramatic representations were given in the presence of ladies for the furtherance of some n.o.ble purpose, as lately to a.s.sist Thorwaldsen's Museum, to raise funds for the execution of Bissen's statue in marble, and for similar ends. The professors and students were the actors. I also appeared several times as an actor, and convinced myself that my terror at appearing on the stage was greater than the talent which I perhaps possessed. Besides this, I wrote and arranged several pieces, and thus gave my a.s.sistance. Several scenes from this time, the scenes in the students' club, I have worked up in my romance of "O. T." The humor and love of life observable in various pa.s.sages of this book, and in the little dramatic pieces written about this time, are owing to the influence of the family of Collin, where much good was done me in that respect, so that my morbid turn of mind was unable to gain the mastery of me. Collin's eldest married daughter, especially, exercised great influence over me, by her merry humor and wit. When the mind is yielding and elastic, like the expanse of ocean, it readily, like the ocean, mirrors its environments.

My writings, in my own country, were now cla.s.sed among those which were always bought and read; therefore for each fresh work I received a higher payment. Yet, truly, when you consider what a circ.u.mscribed world the Danish reading world is, you will see that this payment could not be the most liberal. Yet I had to live. Collin, who is one of the men who do more than they promise, was my help, my consolation, my support.

At this time the late Count Conrad von Rantzau-Breitenburg, a native of Holstein, was Prime Minister in Denmark. He was of a n.o.ble, amiable nature, a highly educated man, and possessed of a truly chivalrous disposition. He carefully observed the movements in German and Danish literature. In his youth he had travelled much, and spent a long time in Spain and Italy, He read my "Improvisatore" in the original; his imagination was powerfully seized by it, and he spoke both at court and in his own private circles of my book in the warmest manner. He did not stop here; he sought me out, and became my benefactor and friend. One forenoon, whilst I was sitting solitarily in my little chamber, this friendly man stood before me for the first time. He belonged to that cla.s.s of men who immediately inspire you with confidence; he besought me to visit him, and frankly asked me whether there were no means by which he could be of use to me. I hinted how oppressive it was to be _forced_ to write in order to live, always to be forced to think of the morrow, and not move free from care, to be able to develop your mind and thoughts. He pressed my hand in a friendly manner, and promised to be an efficient friend. Collin and Oersted secretly a.s.sociated themselves with him, and became my intercessors.

Already for many years there had existed, under Frederick VI., an inst.i.tution which does the highest honor to the Danish government, namely, that beside the considerable sum expended yearly, for the travelling expenses of young literary men and artists, a small pension shall be awarded to such of them as enjoy no office emoluments. All our most important poets have had a share of this a.s.sistance,--Oehlenschl ger, Ingemann, Heiberg, C. Winther, and others. Hertz had just then received such a pension, and his future life made thus the more secure.

It was my hope and my wish that the same good fortune might be mine--and it was. Frederick VI. granted me two hundred rix dollars banco yearly.

I was filled with grat.i.tude and joy. I was nolonger _forced_ to write in order to live; I had a sure support in the possible event of sickness.

I was less dependent upon the people about me. A new chapter of my life began.

CHAPTER VI.

From this day forward, it was as if a more constant suns.h.i.+ne had entered my heart. I felt within myself more repose, more certainty; it was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher Power; and the firmer becomes such a conviction, the more secure does a man feel himself. My childhood lay behind me, my youthful life began properly from this period; hitherto it had been only an arduous swimming against the stream. The spring of my life commenced; but still the spring had its dark days, its storms, before it advanced to settled summer; it has these in order to develop what shall then ripen. That which one of my dearest friends wrote to me on one of my later travels abroad, may serve as an introduction to what I have here to relate. He wrote in his own peculiar style:--"It is your vivid imagination which creates the idea of your being despised in Denmark; it is utterly untrue. You and Denmark agree admirably, and you would agree still better, if there were in Denmark no theatre--_Hinc illae lacrymae!_ This cursed theatre. Is this, then, Denmark? and are you, then, nothing but a writer for the theatre?"

Herein lies a solid truth. The theatre has been the cave out of which most of the evil storms have burst upon me. They are peculiar people, these people of the theatre,--as different, in fact, from others, as Bedouins from Germans; from the first pantomimist to the first lover, everyone places himself systematically in one scale, and puts all the world in the other. The Danish theatre is a good theatre, it may indeed be placed on a level with the Burg theatre in Vienna; but the theatre in Copenhagen plays too great a part in conversation, and possesses in most circles too much importance. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the stage and the actors in other great cities, and therefore cannot compare them with our theatre; but ours has too little military discipline, and this is absolutely necessary where many people have to form a whole, even when that whole is an artistical one. The most distinguished dramatic poets in Denmark--that is to say, in Copenhagen, for there only is a theatre--have their troubles. Those actors and actresses who, through talent or the popular favor, take the first rank, very often place themselves above both the managers and authors. These must pay court to them, or they may ruin a part, or what is still worse, may spread abroad an unfavorable opinion of the piece previous to its being acted; and thus you have a coffee-house criticism before any one ought properly to know anything of the work. It is moreover characteristic of the people of Copenhagen, that when a new piece is announced, they do not say, "I am glad of it," but, "It will probably be good for nothing; it will be hissed off the stage." That hissing-off plays a great part, and is an amus.e.m.e.nt which fills the house; but it is not the bad actor who is hissed, no, the author and the composer only are the criminals; for them the scaffold is erected. Five minutes is the usual time, and the whistles resound, and the lovely women smile and felicitate themselves, like the Spanish ladies at their b.l.o.o.d.y bullfights. All our most eminent dramatic writers have been whistled down,--as Oehlenschl ger, Heiberg, Oversko, and others; to say nothing of foreign cla.s.sics, as Moli re. In the mean time the theatre is the most profitable sphere of labor for the Danish writer, whose public does not extend far beyond the frontiers. This had induced me to write the opera-text already spoken of, on account of which I was so severely criticised; and an internal impulse drove me afterwards to add some other works. Collin was no longer manager of the theatre, Councillor of Justice Molbeck had taken his place; and the tyranny which now commenced degenerated into the comic. I fancy that in course of time the ma.n.u.script volumes of the censors.h.i.+p, which are preserved in the theatre, and in which Molbeck has certainly recorded his judgments on received and rejected pieces, will present some remarkable characteristics. Over all that I wrote the staff was broken! One way was open to me by which to bring my pieces on the stage; and that was to give them to those actors who in summer gave representations at their own cost. In the summer of 1839 I wrote the vaudeville of "The Invisible One on Sprog," to scenery which had been painted for another piece which fell through; and the unrestrained merriment of the piece gave it such favor with the public, that I obtained its acceptance by the manager; and that light sketch still maintains itself on the boards, and has survived such a number of representations as I had never antic.i.p.ated.

This approbation, however, procured me no further advantage, for each of my succeeding dramatic works received only rejection, and occasioned me only mortification. Nevertheless, seized by the idea and the circ.u.mstances of the little French narrative, "_Les paves_," I determined to dramatise it; and as I had often heard that I did not possess the a.s.siduity sufficient to work my mat riel well, I resolved to labor this drama--"The Mulatto"--from the beginning to the end, in the most diligent manner, and to compose it in alternately rhyming verse, as was then the fas.h.i.+on. It was a foreign subject of which I availed myself; but if verses are music, I at least endeavored to adapt my music to the text, and to let the poetry of another diffuse itself through my spiritual blood; so that people should not be heard to say, as they had done before, regarding the romance of Walter Scott, that the composition was cut down and fitted to the stage.

The piece was ready, and declared by able men, old friends, and actors who were to appear in it, to be excellent; a rich dramatic capacity lay in the mat riel, and my lyrical composition clothed this with so fresh a green, that people appeared satisfied. The piece was sent in, and was rejected by Molbeck. It was sufficiently known that what he cherished for the boards, withered there the first evening; but what he cast away as weeds were flowers for the garden--a real consolation for me. The a.s.sistant-manager, Privy Counsellor of State, Adler, a man of taste and liberality, became the patron of my work; and since a very favorable opinion of it already prevailed with the public, after I had read it to many persons, it was resolved on for representation. I had the honor to read it before my present King and Queen, who received me in a very kind and friendly manner, and from whom, since that time, I have experienced many proofs of favor and cordiality. The day of representation arrived; the bills were posted; I had not closed my eyes through the whole night from excitement and expectation; the people already stood in throngs before the theatre, to procure tickets, when royal messengers galloped through the streets, solemn groups collected, the minute guns pealed,--Frederick VI. had died this morning!

For two months more was the theatre closed, and was opened under Christian VIII., with my drama--"The Mulatto;" which was received with the most triumphant acclamation; but I could not at once feel the joy of it, I felt only relieved from a state of excitement, and breathed more freely.

This piece continued through a series of representations to receive the same approbation; many placed this work far above all my former ones, and considered that with it began my proper poetical career. It was soon translated into the Swedish, and acted with applause at the royal theatre in Stockholm. Travelling players introduced it into the smaller towns in the neighboring country; a Danish company gave it in the original language, in the Swedish city Malm, and a troop of students from the university town of Lund, welcomed it with enthusiasm. I had been for a week previous on a visit at some Swedish country houses, where I was entertained with so much cordial kindness that the recollection of it will never quit my bosom; and there, in a foreign country, I received the first public testimony of honor, and which has left upon me the deepest and most inextinguishable impression. I was invited by some students of Lund to visit their ancient town. Here a public dinner was given to me; speeches were made, toasts were p.r.o.nounced; and as I was in the evening in a family circle, I was informed that the students meant to honor me with a serenade.

I felt myself actually overcome by this intelligence; my heart throbbed feverishly as I descried the thronging troop, with their blue caps, and arm-in-arm approaching the house. I experienced a feeling of humiliation; a most lively consciousness of my deficiencies, so that I seemed bowed to the very earth at the moment others were elevating me.

As they all uncovered their heads while I stepped forth, I had need of all my thoughts to avoid bursting into tears. In the feeling that I was unworthy of all this, I glanced round to see whether a smile did not pa.s.s over the face of some one, but I could discern nothing of the kind; and such a discovery would, at that moment, have inflicted on me the deepest wound.

After an hurrah, a speech was delivered, of which I clearly recollect the following words:--"When your native land, and the natives of Europe offer you their homage, then may you never forget that the first public honors were conferred on you by the students of Lund."

When the heart is warm, the strength of the expression is not weighed. I felt it deeply, and replied, that from this moment I became aware that I must a.s.sert a name in order to render myself worthy of these tokens of honor. I pressed the hands of those nearest to me, and returned them thanks so deep, so heartfelt,--certainly never was an expression of thanks more sincere. When I returned to my chamber, I went aside, in order to weep out this excitement, this overwhelming sensation. "Think no more of it, be joyous with us," said some of my lively Swedish friends; but a deep earnestness had entered my soul. Often has the memory of this time come back to me; and no n.o.ble-minded man, who reads these pages will discover a vanity in the fact, that I have lingered so long over this moment of life, which scorched the roots of pride rather than nourished them.

My drama was now to be brought on the stage at Malm; the students wished to see it; but I hastened my departure, that I might not be in the theatre at the time. With grat.i.tude and joy fly my thoughts towards the Swedish University city, but I myself have not been there again since. In the Swedish newspapers the honors paid me were mentioned, and it was added that the Swedes were not unaware that in my own country there was a clique which persecuted me; but that this should not hinder my neighbors from offering me the honors which they deemed my due.

It was when I had returned to Copenhagen that I first truly felt how cordially I had been received by the Swedes; amongst some of my old and tried friends I found the most genuine sympathy. I saw tears in their eyes, tears of joy for the honors paid me; and especially, said they, for the manner in which I had received them. There is but one manner for me; at once, in the midst of joy, I fly with thanks to G.o.d.

There were certain persons who smiled at the enthusiasm; certain voices raised themselves already against "The Mulatto;"--"the mat riel was merely borrowed;" the French narrative was scrupulously studied. That exaggerated praise which I had received, now made me sensitive to the blame; I could bear it less easily than before, and saw more clearly, that it did not spring out of an interest in the matter, but was only uttered in order to mortify me. For the rest, my mind was fresh and elastic; I conceived precisely at this time the idea of "The Picture-Book without Pictures," and worked it out. This little book appears, to judge by the reviews and the number of editions, to have obtained an extraordinary popularity in Germany; it was also translated into Swedish, and dedicated to myself; at home, it was here less esteemed; people talked only of The Mulatto; and finally, only of the borrowed mat riel of it. I determined, therefore to produce a new dramatic work, in which both subject and development, in fact, everything should be of my own conception. I had the idea, and now wrote the tragedy of The Moorish Maiden, hoping through this to stop the mouths of all my detractors, and to a.s.sert my place as a dramatic poet.

I hoped, too, through the income from this, together with the proceeds of The Mulatto, to be able to make a fresh journey, not only to Italy, but to Greece and Turkey. My first going abroad had more than all besides operated towards my intellectual development; I was therefore full of the pa.s.sion for travel, and of the endeavor to acquire more knowledge of nature and of human life.

My new piece did not please Heiberg, nor indeed my dramatic endeavors at all; his wife--for whom the chief part appeared to me especially to be written--refused, and that not in the most friendly manner, to play it. Deeply wounded, I went forth. I lamented this to some individuals.

Whether this was repeated, or whether a complaint against the favorite of the public is a crime, enough: from this hour Heiberg became my opponent,--he whose intellectual rank I so highly estimated,--he with whom I would so willingly have allied myself,--and he who so often--I will venture to say it--I had approached with the whole sincerity of my nature. I have constantly declared his wife to be so distinguished an actress, and continue still so entirely of this opinion, that I would not hesitate one moment to a.s.sert that she would have a European reputation, were the Danish language as widely diffused as the German or the French. In tragedy she is, by the spirit and the geniality with which she comprehends and fills any part, a most interesting object; and in comedy she stands unrivalled.

The wrong may be on my side or not,--no matter: a party was opposed to me. I felt myself wounded, excited by many coincident annoyances there.

I felt uncomfortable in my native country, yes, almost ill. I therefore left my piece to its fate, and, suffering and disconcerted, I hastened forth. In this mood I wrote a prologue to The Moorish Maiden; which betrayed my irritated mind far too palpably. If I would represent this portion of my life more clearly and reflectively it would require me to penetrate into the mysteries of the theatre, to a.n.a.lyze our aesthetic cliques, and to drag into conspicuous notice many individuals, who do not belong to publicity. Many persons in my place would, like me, have fallen ill, or would have resented it vehemently: perhaps the latter would have been the most sensible.

At my departure, many of my young friends amongst the students prepared a banquet for me; and amongst the elder ones who were present to receive me were Collin, Oehlenschl ger and Oersted. This was somewhat of suns.h.i.+ne in the midst of my mortification; songs by Oehlenschl ger and Hillerup were sung; and I found cordiality and friends.h.i.+p, as I quitted my country in distress. This was in October of 1840.

For the second time I went to Italy and Rome, to Greece and Constantinople--a journey which I have described after my own manner in A Poet's Bazaar.

In Holstein I continued some days with Count Rantzau-Breitenburg, who had before invited me, and whose ancestral castle I now for the first time visited. Here I became acquainted with the rich scenery of Holstein, heath and moorland, and then hastened by Nuremberg to Munich, where I again met with Cornelius and Sch.e.l.ling, and was kindly received by Kaulbach and Sch.e.l.ling. I cast a pa.s.sing glance on the artistic life in Munich, but for the most part pursued my own solitary course, sometimes filled with the joy of life, but oftener despairing of my powers. I possessed a peculiar talent, that of lingering on the gloomy side of life, of extracting the bitter from it, of tasting it; and understood well, when the whole was exhausted, how to torment myself.

In the winter season I crossed the Brenner, remained some days in Florence, which I had before visited for a longer time, and about Christmas reached Rome. Here again I saw the n.o.ble treasures of art, met old friends, and once more pa.s.sed a Carnival and Moccoli. But not alone was I bodily ill; nature around me appeared likewise to sicken; there was neither the tranquillity nor the freshness which attended my first sojourn in Rome. The rocks quaked, the Tiber twice rose into the streets, fever raged, and s.n.a.t.c.hed numbers away. In a few days Prince Borghese lost his wife and three sons. Rain and wind prevailed; in short, it was dismal, and from home cold lotions only were sent me. My letters told me that The Moorish Maiden had several times been acted through, and had gone quietly off the stage; but, as was seen beforehand, a small public only had been present, and therefore the manager had laid the piece aside. Other Copenhagen letters to our countrymen in Rome spoke with enthusiasm of a new work by Heiberg; a satirical poem--A Soul after Death. It was but just out, they wrote; all Copenhagen was full of it, and Andersen was famously handled in it. The book was admirable, and I was made ridiculous in it. That was the whole which I heard,--all that I knew. No one told me what really was said of me; wherein lay the amus.e.m.e.nt and the ludicrous. It is doubly painful to be ridiculed when we don't know wherefore we are so. The information operated like molten lead dropped into a wound, and agonized me cruelly.

It was not till after my return to Denmark that I read this book, and found that what was said of me in it, was really nothing in itself which was worth laying to heart. It was a jest over my celebrity "from Schonen to Hundsr ck", which did not please Heiberg; he therefore sent my Mulatto and The Moorish Maiden to the infernal regions, where--and that was the most witty conceit--the condemned were doomed to witness the performance of both pieces in one evening; and then they could go away and lay themselves down quietly. I found the poetry, for the rest, so excellent, that I was half induced to write to Heiberg, and to return him my thanks for it; but I slept upon this fancy, and when I awoke and was more composed, I feared lest such thanks should be misunderstood; and so I gave it up.

In Rome, as I have said, I did not see the book; I only heard the arrows whizz and felt their wound, but I did not know what the poison was which lay concealed in them. It seemed to me that Rome was no joy-bringing city; when I was there before, I had also pa.s.sed dark and bitter days. I was ill, for the first time in my life, truly and bodily ill, and I made haste to get away.

The Danish poet Holst was then in Rome; he had received this year a travelling pension. Hoist had written an elegy on King Frederick VI., which went from mouth to mouth, and awoke an enthusiasm, like that of Becker's contemporaneous Rhine song in Germany. He lived in the same house with me in Rome, and showed me much sympathy: with him I made the journey to Naples, where, notwithstanding it was March, the sun would not properly s.h.i.+ne, and the snow lay on the hills around. There was fever in my blood; I suffered in body and in mind; and I soon lay so severely affected by it, that certainly nothing but a speedy blood-letting, to which my excellent Neapolitan landlord compelled me, saved my life.

In a few days I grew sensibly better; and I now proceeded by a French war steamer to Greece. Holst accompanied me on board. It was now as if a new life had risen for me; and in truth this was the case; and if this does not appear legibly in my later writings, yet it manifested itself in my views of life, and in my whole inner development. As I saw my European home lie far behind me, it seemed to me as if a stream of forgetfulness flowed of all bitter and rankling remembrances: I felt health in my blood, health in my thoughts, and freshly and courageously I again raised my head.

Like another Switzerland, with a loftier and clearer heaven than the Italian, Greece lay before me; nature made a deep and solemn impression upon me; I felt the sentiment of standing on the great battle field of the world, where nation had striven with nation, and had perished.

No single poem can embrace such greatness; every scorched-up bed of a stream, every height, every stone, has mighty memoirs to relate. How little appear the inequalities of daily life in such a place! A kingdom of ideas streamed through me, and with such a fulness, that none of them fixed themselves on paper. I had a desire to express the idea, that the G.o.dlike was here on earth to maintain its contest, that it is thrust backward, and yet advances again victoriously through all ages; and I found in the legend of the Wandering Jew an occasion for it. For twelve months this fiction had been emerging from the sea of my thoughts; often did it wholly fill me; sometimes I fancied with the alchemists that I had dug up the treasure; then again it sank suddenly, and I despaired of ever being able to bring it to the light. I felt what a ma.s.s of knowledge of various kinds I must first acquire. Often at home, when I was compelled to hear reproofs on what they call a want of study, I had sat deep into the night, and had studied history in Hegel's Philosophy of History. I said nothing of this, or other studies, or they would immediately have been spoken of, in the manner of an instructive lady, who said, that people justly complained that I did not possess learning enough. "You have really no mythology" said she; "in all your poems there appears no single G.o.d. You must pursue mythology; you must read Racine and Corneille." That she called learning; and in like manner every one had something peculiar to recommend. For my poem of Ahasuerus I had read much and noted much, but yet not enough; in Greece, I thought, the whole will collect itself into clearness. The poem is not yet ready, but I hope that it will become so to my honor; for it happens with the children of the spirit, as with the earthly ones,--they grow as they sleep.