The theory, the intimation of which roused Vilsing to such a degree,
bore in its form witness to such immaturity that it could only have
made an impression on a youth whose immaturity, in spite of his age,
was greater still. To present it with any degree of clearness is
scarcely possible; it was not sufficiently clear in itself for that.
But this was about what it amounted to:
The introspection and energetic self-absorption to which I had given
myself up during my last few years at school became even more
persistent on my release from the restraint of school and my free
admission to the society of grown-up people.
I took advantage of my spare time in Copenhagen, and on the restricted
travels that I was allowed to take, to slake my passionate thirst for
life; firstly, by pondering ever and anon over past sensations, and
secondly, by plunging into eager and careful reading of the light
literature of all different countries and periods that I had heard
about, but did not yet myself know at first hand.
Through all that I experienced and read, observed and made my own, my
attitude towards myself was, that before all, I sought to become clear
as to what manner of man I really, in my inmost being, was. I asked
myself who I was. I endeavoured to discover the mysterious word that
would break the charm of the mists in which I found myself and would
answer my fundamental question, _What_ was I? And then at last, my
ponderings and my readings resulted in my finding the word that seemed
to fit, although nowadays one can hardly hear it without a smile, the
word _Daemonic_.
I was daemonic in giving myself this reply it seemed to me that I had
solved the riddle of my nature. I meant thereby, as I then explained it
to myself, that the choice between good and evil did not present itself
to me, as to others, since evil did not interest me. For me, it was not
a question of a choice, but of an unfolding of my ego, which had its
justification in itself.
That which I called the _daemonic_ I had encountered for the first time
outside my own mind in Lermontof's hero. Petsjórin was compelled to act
in pursuance of his natural bent, as though possessed by his own being.
I felt myself in a similar manner possessed. I had met with the word
_Daimon_ and _Daimones_ in Plato; Socrates urges that by _daemons_ the
Gods, or the children of the Gods, were meant. I felt as though I, too,
were one of the children of the Gods. In all the great legendary
figures of the middle ages I detected the feature of divine possession,
especially in the two who had completely fascinated the poets of the
nineteenth century, Don Juan and Faust. The first was the symbol of
magic power over women, the second of the thirst for knowledge giving
dominion over humanity and Nature. Among my comrades, in Vilsing, even
in the hunch-backed fellow with the unsuccessful moustache, I had seen
how the Don Juan type which had turned their heads still held sway over
the minds of young people; I myself could quite well understand the
magic which this beautiful ideal of elementary irresistibility must
have; but the Faust type appealed to me, with my thirst for knowledge,
very much more. Still, the main thing for me was that in the first
great and wholly modern poets that I made acquaintance with, Byron and
his intellectual successors, Lermontof and Heine, I recognised again
the very fundamental trait that I termed _daemonic_, the worship of
one's own originality, under the guise of an uncompromising love of
liberty.
I was always brooding over this idea of the _daemonic_ with which my
mind was filled. I recorded my thoughts on the subject in my first long
essay (lost, for that matter), _On the Daemonic, as it Reveals Itself
in the Human Character_.
When a shrewdly intelligent young fellow of my own age criticised my
work from the assumption that the _daemonic_ did not exist, I thought
him ridiculous. I little dreamt that twenty-five years later Relling,
in _The Wild Duck_, would show himself to be on my friend's side in the
emphatic words: "What the Devil does it mean to be daemonic! It's sheer
nonsense."