Hertz, like the much greater Baggesen, laid
great stress upon precise and elegant form.--[Translator's note.]]
_Ghost Letters_ fell into my hands one day, and the diction of them
appealed to me almost more, I felt myself, first secretly, afterwards
more consciously, drawn towards the school of form in Danish literature,
and rather enjoyed being a heretic on this point. For to entertain
kindly sentiments for the man who had dared to profane Oehlenschlaeger
was like siding with Loki against Thor. Poul Moeller's Collected Works I
had received at my confirmation, and read again and again with such
enthusiasm that I almost wore the pages out, and did not skip a line,
even of the philosophical parts, which I did not understand at all. But
Hertz's Lyrical Poems, which I read in a borrowed copy, gave me as much
pleasure as Poul Moeller's Verses had done. And for a few years, grace
and charm, and the perfect control of language and poetic form, were in
my estimation the supreme thing until, on entering upon my eighteenth
year, a violent reaction took place, and resonance, power and grandeur
alone seemed to have value. From Hertz my sympathies went over to
Christian Winther, from Baggesen to Homer, Aeschylus, the Bible,
Shakespeare, Goethe. One of the first things I did as a student was to
read the Bible through in Danish and the Odyssey in Greek.
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