Whether I was likely to exhibit any considerable talent as a writer, it
was impossible for me to determine. There was only one thing that I felt
clear about, and that was that I should never be contented with a
subordinate position in the literary world; better a hundred times be a
judge in a provincial town. I felt an inward conviction that I should
make my way as a writer. It seemed to me that a deathlike stillness
reigned for the time being over European literature, but that there were
mighty forces working in the silence. I believed that a revival was
imminent. In August, 1860, I wrote in my private papers: "We Danes, with
our national culture and our knowledge of the literatures of other
countries, will stand well equipped when the literary horn of the Gods
resounds again through the world, calling fiery youth to battle. I am
firmly convinced that that time will come and that I shall be, if not
the one who evokes it in the North, at any rate one who will contribute
greatly towards it."
One of the first books I had read as a student was Goethe's _Dichtung
und Wahrheit_, and this career had extraordinarily impressed me. In
my childlike enthusiasm I determined to read all the books that Goethe
says that he read as a boy, and thus commenced and finished
Winckelmann's collected works, Lessing's _Laocoon_ and other books
of artistic and archaeological research; in other words, studied the
history and philosophy of Art in the first instance under aspects which,
from the point of view of subsequent research, were altogether
antiquated, though in themselves, and in their day, valuable enough.
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