Shortly before, I had paid my first visit to Professor Rasmus Nielsen.
He was exceedingly agreeable, recognised me, whom perhaps he remembered
examining, and accorded me a whole hour's conversation. He was, as
always, alert and fiery, not in the least blasé, but with a slight
suggestion of charlatanism about him. His conversation was as lively
and disconnected as his lectures; there was a charm in the clear glance
of his green eyes, a look of genius about his face. He talked for a
long time about Herbart, whose Aesthetics, for that matter, he betrayed
little knowledge of, then of Hegel, Heiberg, and Kierkegaard. To my
intense surprise, he opened up a prospect, conflicting with the
opinions he had publicly advocated, that Science, "when analyses had
been carried far enough," might come to prove the possibility of
miracles. This was an offence against my most sacred convictions.
Nielsen had recently, from the cathedra, announced his renunciation of
the Kierkegaard standpoint he had so long maintained, in the phrase:
"The Kierkegaard theory is impracticable"; he had, perhaps influenced
somewhat by the Queen Dowager, who about that time frequently invited
him to meet Grundtvig, drawn nearer to Grundtvigian ways of
thinking,--as Bröchner sarcastically remarked about him: "The farther
from Kierkegaard, the nearer to the Queen Dowager."
In the midst of my final preparations for the examination, I wrestled,
as was my wont, with my attempts to come to a clear understanding over
Duty and Life, and was startled by the indescribable irony in the word
by which I was accustomed to interpret my ethically religious
endeavours,--_Himmelspraet_. [Footnote: Word implying one who attempts
to spring up to Heaven, and of course falls miserably to earth again.
The word, in ordinary conversation, is applied to anyone tossed in a
blanket.]
I handed in, then, my request to be allowed to sit for my Master of
Arts examination; the indefatigable Bröchner had already mentioned the
matter to the Dean of the University, who understood the examinee's
reasons for haste. But the University moved so slowly that it was some
weeks before I received the special paper set me, which, to my horror,
ran as follows: "Determine the correlation between the pathetic and the
symbolic in general, in order by that means to elucidate the contrast
between Shakespeare's tragedies and Dante's _Divina Commedia_, together
with the possible errors into which one might fall through a one-sided
preponderance of either of these two elements."
This paper, which had been set by R. Nielsen, is characteristic of the
purely speculative manner, indifferent to all study of history, in
which Aesthetics were at that time pursued in Copenhagen. It was,
moreover, worded with unpardonable carelessness; it was impossible to
tell from it what was to be understood by the correlation on which it
was based, and which was assumed to be a given conclusion. Even so
speculative a thinker as Frederik Paludan-Müller called the question
absolutely meaningless. It looked as though its author had imagined
Shakespeare's dramas and Dante's epic were produced by a kind of
artistic commingling of pathetic with symbolic elements, and as though
he wished to call attention to the danger of reversing the correct
proportions, for instance, by the symbolic obtaining the preponderance
in tragedy, or pathos in the epopee, or to the danger of exaggerating
these proportions, until there was too much tragic pathos, or too much
epic symbolism. But a scientific definition of the expressions used was
altogether lacking, and I had to devote a whole chapter to the
examination of the meaning of the problem proposed to me.
The essay, for the writing of which I was allowed six weeks, was handed
in, 188 folio pages long, at the right time. By reason of the sheer
foolishness of the question, it was never published.
In a postscript, I wrote: "I beg my honoured examiners to remember the
time during which this treatise was written, a time more eventful than
any other young men can have been through, and during which I, for my
part, have for days at a time been unable to work, and should have been
ashamed if I could have done so."
In explanation of this statement, the following jottings, written down
at the time on a sheet of paper:
_Sunday, Jan. 17th_. Received letter telling me I may fetch my leading
question to-morrow at 5 o'clock.
_Monday, Feb. 1st_. Heard to-day that the Germans have passed the Eider
and that the first shots have been exchanged.
_Saturday, Feb. 6th_. Received to-day the terrible, incomprehensible,
but only too certain news that the Danevirke has been abandoned without
a blow being struck. This is indescribable, overwhelming.
_Thursday, Feb. 28th_. We may, unfortunately, assume it as certain that
my dear friend Jens Paludan-Müller fell at Oversö on Feb. 5th.
_Feb. 28th_. Heard definitely to-day.--At half-past one this night
finished my essay.