Recollections of My Childhood and Youth

by Georg Brandes

The sudden disappearance of the critic of The Fatherland from the literary arena was, under the conditions of the time, an event. He had no little talent, attracted by ideas and fancies that were sometimes very telling, repelled by mannerisms and a curious, far-fetched style, laid chief emphasis, in the spirit of the most modern Danish philosophy, on the will, and always defended ethical standpoints. From the time of Björnson's first appearance he had attached himself so enthusiastically and inviolably to him that by the general public he was almost regarded as Björnson's herald. At every opportunity he emphatically laid down Björnson's importance and as a set-off fell upon those who might be supposed to be his rivals. Ibsen, in particular, received severe handling. His departure was thus a very hard blow for Björnson, but for that matter, was also felt as a painful loss by those he opposed.

XIX.

Not long after this departure, and immediately after the publication of my long article on Goldschmidt, I received one day, to my surprise, a letter of eight closely written pages from Björnstjerne Björnson, dated April 15th, 1869.

What had called it forth was my remark, in that article, that Björnson, like Goldschmidt, sometimes, when talent failed, pretended to have attained the highest, pretended that obscurity was the equivalent of profundity. When writing this, I was thinking of the obscure final speech about God in Heaven in Björnson's Mary Stuart, which I still regard as quite vague, pretentious though it be as it stands there; however, it was an exaggeration to generalise the grievance, as I had done, and Björnson was right to reply. He considered that I had accused him of insincerity, though in this he was wrong; but for that matter, with hot-tempered eloquence, he also denied my real contention. His letter began:

Although I seldom read your writings, so that possibly I risk speaking of something you have elsewhere developed more clearly, and thus making a mistake, I nevertheless wish to make a determined protest against its being called a characteristic of mine, in contrast to Oehlenschläger (and Hauch!!), to strain my powers to reach what I myself only perceive unclearly, and then intentionally to state it as though it were clear. I am quite sure that I resemble Oehlenschläger in one thing, namely, that the defects of my book are open to all, and are not glossed over with any sort or kind of lie; anything unclear must for the moment have seemed clear to me, as in his case. My motto has always been: "Be faithful in small things, and God shall make you ruler over great things." And never, no, never, have I snatched after great material in order to seem great, or played with words in order to seem clever, or been silent, in order to appear deep. Never. The examples around me have been appalling to me, and I am sure that they have been so because I have from the very beginning been on my guard against lies. There are passages in every work which will not yield immediately what one impatiently demands of them;--and then I have always waited, never tried; the thing has had to come itself unforced, and it is possible that what I have received has been a deception; but I have believed in it; to me it has been no deception. Before I finally conclude, I always, it is true, go over again what I have written (as in the case of Synnöve, and A Happy Boy, Between the Fights, etc). I wish to have the advantage of a better perception. Thus far, in what I have gone through, I have seen weak places which I can no longer correct. Lies I have never found.

Unfortunately one is often exposed to the danger of being untrue; but it is in moments of surprise and absolute passion, when something happens to one's eye or one's tongue, that one feels is half mad, but when the beast of prey within one, which shrinks at nothing, is the stronger. Untrue in one's beautiful, poetic calm, one's confessional silence, at one's work, I think very few are.

This summing up, which does honour to Björnson and is not only a striking self-verdict, but a valuable contribution to poetic psychology in general, in its indication of the strength of the creative imagination and its possibilities of error, was followed by a co- ordinate attempt at a characterisation and appreciation of Goldschmidt:

You are likewise unjust to Goldschmidt on this point, that I know with certainty. Goldschmidt is of a naïve disposition, susceptible of every noble emotion. It is true that he often stages these in a comic manner, and what you say about that is true; he does the same in private life, but you have not recognised the source of this. In the last instance, it is not a question of what we think, but of what we do. Just as this, on the whole, is an error that you fall persistently into, it is in particular an error here, where, for instance, his two brothers, with the same qualifications and with the same dual nature, have both developed into characters, the one indeed into a remarkable personality. But Goldschmidt began as a corsair captain at seventeen; his courage was the courage behind a pen that he fancied was feared, his happiness that of the flatterer, his dread that of being vapid; and there were many other unfavourable circumstances, for that matter.... He is now striving hard towards what he feels has, during his life, been wasted in his ability, both moral and intellectual qualities, and for my part, I respect this endeavour more than his decisive success within narrow limits.

In this passage the distinction and contrast between contemplative life and actual existence was quite in the Rasmus Nielsen spirit; the use that was made of it here was strange. One would suppose that the example adduced established that similar natural qualifications, similar family and other conditions, in other words, the actual essential conditions of life, were of small importance compared with one's mode of thought, since the brothers could be so different; Björnson wished to establish, hereby, that the mode of life was more important than the mode of thought, although the former must depend on the latter. For the rest, he alluded to Goldschmidt's weak points, even if in somewhat too superior a manner, and without laying stress upon his great artistic importance, with leniency and good-will.

But if, in other things he touched upon, he had an eye for essentials, this failed him sadly when the letter proceeded to a characterisation of the addressee, in which he mixed up true and false in inextricable confusion. Amongst other things, he wrote: