But before he had accomplished any independent work his lungs became affected. It was not at once perceived how serious the affection was, and Orla Lehmann, who, with the large-mindedness and open-handedness of a patriot, had taken him up, as well as sundry other young men who promised well or were merely poor, not only invited him to his weekly dinner-parties at Frederiksberg, but sent him to Upsala, that he might study Swedish philosophy there. Möller himself was much inclined to study Boströmianism and write a criticism of this philosophy, which was at that time predominant in Sweden.
He ought to have been sent South, or rather to a sanatorium; Orla Lehmann's Scandinavian sympathies, however, determined his stay in the North, which proved fatal to his health.
In 1868 he returned to Copenhagen, pale, with hollow cheeks, and a stern, grave face, that of a marked man, his health thoroughly undermined. His friends soon learnt, and doubtless he understood himself, that his condition was hopeless. The quite extraordinary strength of character with which he submitted, good-temperedly and without a murmur, to his fate, had for effect that all who knew him vied with each other in trying to lessen the bitterness of his lot and at any rate show him how much they cared for him. As he could not go out, and as he soon grew incapable of connected work, his room became an afternoon and evening meeting-place for many of his comrades, who went there to distract him with whatever they could think of to narrate, or discuss. If you found him alone, it was rarely long before a second and a third visitor came, and the room filled up.
Orla Lehmann, his patron, was also one of Kristian Möller's frequent visitors. But whenever he arrived, generally late and the last, the result was always the same. The students and graduates, who had been sitting in the room in lively converse, were struck dumb, awed by the presence of the great man; after the lapse of a few minutes, one would get up and say good-bye; immediately afterwards the next would remember that he was engaged elsewhere just at that particular time; a moment later the third would slip noiselessly out of the room, and it would be empty.
There was one, however, who, under such circumstances, found it simply impossible to go. I stayed, even if I had just been thinking of taking my leave.
Under the autocracy, Orla Lehmann had been the lyrical figure of Politics; he had voiced the popular hopes and the beauty of the people's will, much more than the political poets did. They wrote poetry; his nature was living poetry. The swing of his eloquence, which so soon grew out of date, was the very swing of youth in men's souls then. At the time I first knew him, he had long left the period of his greatness behind him, but he was still a handsome, well set-up man, and, at 58 years of age, had lost nothing of his intellectual vivacity. He had lost his teeth and spoke indistinctly, but he was fond of telling tales and told them well, and his enemies declared that as soon as a witty thought struck him, he took a cab and drove round from house to house to relate it.
Passionately patriotic though Orla Lehmann was, he was very far from falling into the then usual error of overestimating Denmark's historical exploits and present importance. He related one day that when he was in Paris, as a young man, speaking under an impression very frequent among his travelled compatriots, he had, in a conversation with Sainte-Beuve, reproached the French with knowing so shamefully little of the Danes. The great critic, as was his habit, laid his head a little on one side, and with roguish impertinence replied: "Eh! bien, faites quelque chose! on parlera de vous." He approved of the reply. We younger ones looked upon him as belonging to another period and living in another plane of ideas, although, being a liberal-minded man, he was not far removed from us. He was supposed to be a freethinker, and it was told of him that when his old housekeeper repeatedly, and with increasing impatience, requested him to come to table, he would reply, in the presence of students--a rallying allusion to the lady's Christian disposition:
"Get help from Religion, little Bech, get help from Religion!"--a remark that in those days would be regarded as wantonly irreligious!
People felt sorry for Lehmann because his politics had so wholly miscarried, and somewhat sore against him because he wanted to lay all the blame on the old despotism and the unfavourable circumstances of the time. Take him altogether, to those who were not intimately associated with him, and did not share the strong dislike felt against him in certain circles, he was chiefly a handsome and attractive antiquity.
Kristian Möller died in 1869, and his death was deeply lamented. He was one of the few comrades admired by the younger ones alike for his gifts and his stoicism. With his death my opportunities of frequently meeting Orla Lehmann ceased. But that the latter had not quite lost sight of me, he proved by appearing, at the end of February, 1870, at my examination upon my doctor's thesis at the University. As on this occasion Lehmann arrived a little late, he was placed on a chair in front of all the other auditors, and very imposing he looked, in a mighty fur coat which showed off his stately figure. He listened very attentively to everything, and several times during the discussion showed by a short laugh that some parrying reply had amused him.