Meanwhile I had completed my eighteenth year and had to make my choice
of a profession. But what was I fitted for? My parents, and those other
of my relations whose opinions I valued, wished me to take up the law;
they thought that I might make a good barrister; but I myself held
back, and during my first year of study did not attend a single law
lecture. In July, 1860, after I had passed my philosophical examination
(with _Distinction_ in every subject), the question became urgent.
Whether I was likely to exhibit any considerable talent as a writer, it
was impossible for me to determine. There was only one thing that I
felt clear about, and that was that I should never be contented with a
subordinate position in the literary world; better a hundred times be a
judge in a provincial town. I felt an inward conviction that I should
make my way as a writer. It seemed to me that a deathlike stillness
reigned for the time being over European literature, but that there
were mighty forces working in the silence. I believed that a revival
was imminent. In August, 1860, I wrote in my private papers: "We Danes,
with our national culture and our knowledge of the literatures of other
countries, will stand well equipped when the literary horn of the Gods
resounds again through the world, calling fiery youth to battle. I am
firmly convinced that that time will come and that I shall be, if not
the one who evokes it in the North, at any rate one who will contribute
greatly towards it."
One of the first books I had read as a student was Goethe's _Dichtung
und Wahrheit_, and this career had extraordinarily impressed me. In my
childlike enthusiasm I determined to read all the books that Goethe
says that he read as a boy, and thus commenced and finished
Winckelmann's collected works, Lessing's _Laocoon_ and other books of
artistic and archaeological research; in other words, studied the
history and philosophy of Art in the first instance under aspects
which, from the point of view of subsequent research, were altogether
antiquated, though in themselves, and in their day, valuable enough.
Goethe's life fascinated me for a time to such an extent that I found
duplicates of the characters in the book everywhere. An old language
master, to whom I went early in the morning, in order to acquire from
him the knowledge of English which had not been taught me at school,
reminded me vividly, for instance, of the old dancing master in Goethe,
and my impression was borne out when I discovered that he, too, had two
pretty daughters. A more important point was that the book awoke in me
a restless thirst for knowledge, at the same time that I conceived a
mental picture of Goethe's monumental personality and began to be
influenced by the universality of his genius.
Meanwhile, circumstances at home forced me, without further
vacillation, to take up some special branch of study. The prospects
literature presented were too remote. For Physics I had no talent; the
logical bent of my abilities seemed to point in the direction of the
Law; so Jurisprudentia was selected and my studies commenced.
The University lectures, as given by Professors Aagesen and Gram, were
appalling; they consisted of a slow, sleepy dictation. A death-like
dreariness brooded always over the lecture halls. Aagesen was
especially unendurable; there was no trace of anything human or living
about his dictation. Gram had a kind, well-intentioned personality, but
had barely reached his desk than it seemed as though he, too, were
saying: "I am a human being, everything human is alien to me."
We consequently had to pursue our studies with the help of a coach, and
the one whom I, together with Kappers, Ludvig David and a few others,
had chosen, Otto Algreen-Ussing, was both a capable and a pleasant
guide. Five years were yet to elapse before this man and his even more
gifted brother, Frederik, on the formation of the Loyal and
Conservative Society of August, were persecuted and ridiculed as
reactionaries, by the editors of the ascendant Press, who, only a few
years later, proved themselves to be ten times more reactionary
themselves. Otto was positively enthusiastic over Law; he used to
declare that a barrister "was the finest thing a man could be."
However, he did not succeed in infecting me with his enthusiasm. I took
pains, but there was little in the subject that aroused my interest.
Christian the Fifth's _Danish Law_ attracted me exclusively on account
of its language and the perspicuity and pithiness of the expressions
occasionally made use of.
With this exception what impressed me most of all that I heard in the
lessons was Anders Sandöe Oersted's _Interpretation of the Law_. When I
had read and re-read a passage of law which seemed to me to be easily
intelligible, and only capable of being understood in one way, how
could I do other than marvel and be seized with admiration, when the
coach read out Oersted's Interpretation, proving that the Law was
miserably couched, and could be expounded in three or four different
ways, all contradicting one another! But this Oersted very often did
prove in an irrefutable manner.
In my lack of receptivity for legal details, and my want of interest in
Positive Law, I flung myself with all the greater fervour into the
study of what in olden times was called Natural Law, and plunged again
and again into the study of Legal Philosophy.