In conversation with Paludan-Müller, little was learned concerning his
life. He never made any communications regarding it to the public,
nor was it his wont to speak in private of his personal experiences.
He was by no means a good narrator. He discussed every great problem
with interest; but facts, as such, occupied his mind in but a trifling
degree. His mode of speech was argumentative, not figurative; the
poetic element manifested itself in brilliant flashes, but scarcely
ever in a picturesque expression. In a critical, or even violently
exciting situation, I have never seen Paludan-Müller. I do not even
know whether his external life ever presented momentous critical
situations. The external lives of the Danish writers of his day were as
a rule empty. They were educated in one school of learning or another,
passed several years at the University of Copenhagen in vain endeavors
to acquire some professional science, published their first poetry,
undertook an extended journey abroad, and had awarded to them some
official position, or a poet's stipend. To the lot of some of them was
added a long and obstinate struggle for recognition. But even this
dramatic element was lacking in the life of Paludan-Müller. He took
part in no intellectual campaign. True, he was for a time not estimated
according to his deserts, but he was never wholly misunderstood. His
life seems, therefore, to have had as few sharp angles as that of most
of our modern men of talent.
He was born in 1809 at a parsonage in Fünen, became a student in
1828, passed a mediocre examination in jurisprudence in 1835, married
in 1838, and during the years 1838-40 travelled through Middle and
Southern Europe. In 1851 he was made a knight of the order of Danebrog,
and in 1854 received a professor's title. Moreover, in his mature
manhood, he was a poet and a recluse.
What he was as a youth, we must conjecture from his works. From what I
have heard, I imagine him to have been greatly fêted in social circles,
the decided lion of aristocratic houses of Fünen; it has been told to
me that he possessed such humor and so decided a faculty for impromptu
invention, that he would sometimes create on the spur of the moment
an entire little drama, and play it entirely alone, running from one
side of his improvised stage to the other, in order to reply to his own
speeches. I remember, too, having heard that in his younger days he had
experienced a deep heart-grief, a young girl whom he loved having been
snatched from him by death. Very early, at all events, the chain of
bitter experiences, without which he could not have written the first
part of "Adam Homo" in his thirty-first year, subdued his original love
of life, and when still young, he retired from the world, withdrawing
entirely from public, almost entirely from social life, and devoting
himself exclusively to his home, his art, and his theological and
philosophic studies. His marriage was childless, so that even in his
household life there was nothing to fix his gaze on the world without.
The more completely he severed the cords that had bound him to his
surroundings, the more self-controlled and contemplative he became.
Through accidental remarks alone, through words that he dropped in the
course of conversation, without dreaming what an impression they must
make upon a young man, did I gain a clear idea of the nature of the
results at which he had arrived in the course of his life-experience
and knowledge of human nature. These results were not of an optimistic
nature.
Never shall I forget the day when I carried to him a pamphlet, my
first published work. "I thank you," said he. "It will give me great
pleasure to read the book. How soon do you want it back?" "I beg of
you to keep it." "You want to present the book to me. Oh, innocence!
He gives his own books to people. Do you carry it to others as well?
What? To your friends and near acquaintances? Well, believe me, you
will not long continue such a course. This is something authors only
do when they are very young." At that time such a speech excited me to
very much the same opposition as the cold, cruel irony of "Adam Homo";
later I learned to understand better the freedom from illusion and the
caution from which it sprang. To-day Paludan-Müller's reserve appears
only natural to me.
The sharp suspicion he sometimes manifested was rather touching than
insulting, for Paludan-Müller was not suspicious on his own account,
but rather for the sake of those who enjoyed his favor. He always
feared that the wicked world, especially dangerous womankind, would
lure his favorites to destruction, and warnings on his part were never
lacking. Among his precepts may be found some of those half-worldly,
half-Christian admixtures of well-calculated egotism and conventional
morality, which are so full of good sense, and yet are listened to so
unwillingly by young people. One day in the year 1867, for instance,
he exclaimed: "What is that you are saying? Some Italian ladies whom
you visited frequently at Paris have invited you to stay at their
house during the Exposition? You should not think of such a thing!"
"And why not? I can assure you these ladies are not only thoroughly
irreproachable in character, but are people of the highest culture."
"That makes no difference, no difference whatever, nor did I say
anything to the contrary; I only remarked that it would be wiser to
have nothing to do with these Italian women. Use your time and your
talents for whole relations; that is what we should do. It is wisest
to sow where we can ourselves reap the harvest; a young man would do
better to employ his time for the benefit of his mother, his sister,
his wife, in other words, in whole relations; everything else is
lost time." He said this with great earnestness, and in a peculiarly
domineering way, as though he were resolved not to listen to any
objections that might be offered. It made me a little angry at the
time, because the innocent invitation of these foreign ladies was by
no means cause sufficient for such an outburst; but when I think of it
now, this mistrust only seems to me one of the spiritual conditions
from which "Adam Homo" proceeded.
It was but comparatively seldom, however, that this negative side
of his character came to light. I have preserved a far stronger
impression of the loving and thoughtful care for others manifested by
Paludan-Müller, of the princely refinement of his nature. His bearing
to his wife, who was ten years older than himself, was the perfection
of chivalry, and a similar chivalrous demeanor marked his intercourse
with the many ladies, by no means endowed with personal attractions,
who visited at his home. To the admiration and flatteries of beautiful
women, he was absolutely unsusceptible. I remember one case, when an
exceedingly handsome lady, who had succeeded in getting a seat next to
him at a social gathering, overwhelmed him with honestly meant thanks,
not unmingled with a critic's appreciation, for "Adam Homo." She
utterly failed to win the favor of Paludan-Müller. What he said to me
afterwards was, "She has, no doubt, in her not very long life, wrought
a considerable amount of mischief." On the other hand, he treated with
peculiar warmth ladies who were in humble and reduced circumstances.
There was in his family an old unmarried aunt, who was well advanced
in the sixties, and who, although a good-hearted, excellent person,
was most unattractive in personal appearance. Paludan-Müller became the
self-appointed knight of this old lady; he always paid her the choicest
attention, and he who scarcely ever invited any one to dine with him
always celebrated her birthday each summer with a little dinner party,
and each time proposed a toast for her in the most hearty words.