The one certain thing was that my
present status seemed to amount to nothing at all.
XXII.
In those boyhood's years, however, I revelled in ideas of greatness to
come which had not so far received a shock. And I was in no doubt as to
the domain in which when grown up I should distinguish myself. All my
instincts drew me towards Literature. The Danish compositions which were
set at school absorbed all my thoughts from week to week; I took the
greatest pains with them, weighed the questions from as many sides as I
could and endeavoured to give good form and style to my compositions.
Unconsciously I tried to find expressions containing striking contrasts;
I sought after descriptive words and euphonious constructions. Although
not acquainted with the word style in any other sense than that it bears
in the expression "style-book," the Danish equivalent for what in
English is termed an "exercise-book," I tried to acquire a certain
style, and was very near falling into mannerism, from sheer
inexperience, when a sarcastic master, to my distress, reminded me one
day of Heiberg's words: "The unguent of expression, smeared thickly over
the thinness of thoughts."
XXIII.
Together with a practical training in the use of the language, the
Danish lessons afforded a presentment of the history of our national
literature, given intelligently and in a very instructive manner by a
master named Driebein, who, though undoubtedly one of the many
Heibergians of the time, did not in any way deviate from what might be
termed the orthodoxy of literary history.
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