GEORGE BRANDES—A HASTY IMPRESSION
The man who fought the big battle for Ibsen and Nietzsche should have filled Madison Square Garden; as it was, the little Comedy Theatre wasn’t large enough to hold the audience, although Scandinavian patriotism accounted for a good deal of it. He came on the stage with Brander Matthews, the apotheosis of the academic, and the contrast was striking. Matthews was tall, dull, professional. Brandes, with his keen face, alert eyes, and shock of grayish hair, was possibly the most fully alive person in the room. He radiated interest—human connection with anything vital.
We were all a little sorry his subject was Shakespeare; we wanted to hear of something modern. And when the first part of the lecture was read, couched in scholarly but terse English, we felt cheated. It was good criticism, and informing, but it wasn’t the sort of thing we had expected from Brandes. Suddenly a spark shot out. (The quotation is from memory):
We cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that all works of literature which have a real effect on mankind, all works which endure hundreds of years, find their inspiration not in books, but in life.
The words were pronounced with excited intensity. Soon came another:
We used to define the genius as the man who interprets his age; now we know that the genius is the man who, working against his age, creates new times.
Dr. Brandes broke into a lively sally at the Baconians. He spoke of Shakespeare’s errors in scholarship. These Bacon would surely have avoided, but of Shakespeare’s great lines Bacon could not possibly have written one. He ended that section with something like this:
The Baconian theory was founded by the uneducated, it was developed by the half-educated, and it is now held solely by idiots.
The audience was immensely pleased at his sharp fire.
Dr. Brandes’ epigrams sometimes sound as if he substituted wit for wisdom. But that is because the epigrams stick and are repeated. His method is to open with an epigram to catch the attention, to proceed with a line of sound argument, and at the end to finish superbly with a sentence that contains his conclusions and impales his opponent at the same time.
With Frank Harris, Dr. Brandes was no more gentle. By parallel quotation Harris was made to appear ridiculous. Brandes showed that whatever in his writings is sound has been said before. This was the end of the lecture:
Mr. Harris says that it is possible to admire Shakespeare, but that it is impossible to worship him. Ladies and gentlemen, I do the impossible.
Afterwards came a supper of the Scandinavian Society, at which the guest of honor made a speech that looked brilliant and was lively even as a piece of pantomime—but it was in Danish. Dr. Brandes was beaming and unaffectedly cordial with everybody. He smilingly interrupted one of the pompous addresses in his honor to correct a quotation from Goethe. He proposed a toast to the charming young lady who acted as his American manager, and said that the success of his tour was due entirely to her. Later a consul made a highly complimentary, but exceedingly tedious, speech. Dr. Brandes fidgeted until he could stand it no longer, then he quickly got up, took his champagne glass, ran over to the orator and slapped him on the shoulder, saying, “You are a very nice man.” The rest was drowned in the toast.