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.
XV.
I thought about this time of nothing but my desire to become a competent soldier of my country. There was nothing I wanted more, but I felt physically very weak. When the first news of the battles of Midsunde and Bustrup arrived, I was very strongly inclined to follow Julius Lange to the Reserve Officers' School. When tidings came of the abandonment of the Danevirke my enthusiasm cooled; it was as though I foresaw how little prospect of success there was. Still, I was less melancholy than Lange at the thought of going to the war. I was single, and delighted at the thought of going straight from the examination-table into a camp life, and from a book-mad student to become a lieutenant. I was influenced most by the prospect of seeing Lange every day at the Officers' School, and on the field. But my comrades explained to me that even if Lange and I came out of the School at the same time, it did not follow that we should be in the same division, and that the thing, moreover, that was wanted in an officer, was entire self-dependence. They also pointed out to me the improbability of my being able to do the least good, or having the slightest likelihood in front of me of doing anything but quickly find myself in hospital. I did not really think myself that I should be able to stand the fatigue, as the pupils of the military academy went over to the army with an equipment that I could scarcely have carried. I could not possibly suppose that the conscription would select me as a private, on account of my fragile build; but like all the rest, I was expecting every day a general ordering out of the fit men of my age.