Of all contemporary French writers, I was fondest of Taine. I had begun studying this historian and thinker in Copenhagen. The first book of his that I read was The French Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century, in a copy that had been lent to me by Gabriel Sibbern. The book entranced me, and I determined to read every word that I could get hold of by the same author. In the Imperial Library in Paris I read first of all The History of English Literature, of which I had hitherto only been acquainted with a few fragments, which had appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Taine was to me an antidote to German abstraction and German pedantry. Through him I found the way to my own inmost nature, which my Dano-German University education had covered over.
Shortly after my arrival in Paris, therefore, I had written to Taine and begged for an interview. By a singular piece of ill-luck his reply to me was lost, and it was only at the very end of my stay that I received a second invitation to go to him. Although this one conversation could not be of any vast importance to me, it was nevertheless the first personal link between me and the man who was and remained my greatly loved master and deliverer, even though I mistrusted his essential teachings. I was afraid that I had created a bad impression, as I had wasted the time raising objections; but Taine knew human nature well enough to perceive the personality behind the clumsy form and the admiration behind the criticism. In reality, I was filled with passionate gratitude towards Taine, and this feeling remained unaltered until his latest hour.
During this my first stay in Paris I added the impression of Taine's personality to the wealth of impressions that I took back with me from Paris to Copenhagen.
[EARLY MANHOOD]
Feud in Danish Literature--Riding--Youthful Longings--On the Rack--My First Living Erotic Reality--An Impression of the Miseries of Modern Coercive Marriage--Researches on the Comic--Dramatic Criticism--A Trip to Germany--Johanne Louise Heiberg--Magdalene Thoresen--Rudolph Bergh-- The Sisters Spang--A Foreign Element--The Woman Subject--Orla Lehmann-- M. Goldschmidt--Public Opposition--A Letter from Björnstjerne Björnson-- Hard Work.
I.
After my return from France to Denmark, in 1867, my thoughts were taken up once more by the feud that had broken out in Danish literature between Science and so-called Revelation (in the language of the time, Faith and Knowledge). More and more had by degrees entered the lists, and I, who centred my greatest intellectual interest in the battle, took part in it with a dual front, against the orthodox theologians, and more especially against R. Nielsen, the assailant of the theologians, whom I regarded as no less theologically inclined than his opponents.
I thereby myself became the object of a series of violent attacks from various quarters. These did not have any appreciable effect on my spirits, but they forced me for years into a somewhat irritating attitude of self-defence. Still I was now arrived at that period of my youth when philosophy and art were unable to keep temperament in check.
II.
This manifested itself first in a fresh need for physical exercise. During the first two years after the decision of 1864, while things were leading up to war between Prussia and Austria, and while the young blood of Denmark imagined that their country would be drawn into this war, I had taken part, as a member of the Academic Shooting Society, in drill and shooting practice. After the battle of Königgratz these occupations lost much of their attraction.