The unusually favourable result of this examination attracted the
attention of academical and other circles towards me. The mark
_admissus cum praecipua laude_ had only very rarely been given before.
Hauch expressed his satisfaction at home in no measured terms. His wife
stopped my grandfather in the street and informed him that his grandson
was the cleverest and best-read young man that her husband had come
across during his University experience. When I went to the old poet
after the examination to thank him, he said to me (these were his very
words): "I am an old man and must die soon; you must be my successor at
the University; I shall say so unreservedly; indeed, I will even say it
on my death-bed." Strangely enough, he did say it and record it on his
death-bed seven years later, exactly as he had promised to do.
In Bröchner's house, too, there was a great deal said about my becoming
a professor. I myself was despondent about it; I thought only of the
war, only wished to be fit for a soldier. Hauch was pleased at my
wanting to be a soldier. "It is fine of you, if you can only stand it."
When Hauch heard for certain that I was only 22 years old (he himself
was 73), he started up in his chair and said:
"Why, it is incredible that at your age you can have got so far."
Rasmus Nielsen was the only one of the professors who did not entertain
me with the discussion of my future academic prospects; but he it was
who gave me the highest praise:
"According to our unanimous opinions," said he, "you are the foremost
of all the young men."
I was only the more determined not to let myself be buried alive in the
flower of my youth by accepting professorship before I had been able to
live and breathe freely.--I might have spared myself any anxiety.