True
genius has no connection whatever with excesses and caprices, in fact,
is impossible without the strict fulfilment of one's duty. (Knitting
furiously.) Genius is simple, straightforward, domesticated,
industrious."
When we began to speak of mutual acquaintances, amongst others,
Magdalene Thoresen, feeling very uncomfortable in the presence of the
lady, I blurted out most tactlessly that I was sure that lady was much
interested in me. It was a mere nothing, but at the moment sounded like
conceit and boasting. I realised it the moment the words were out of my
mouth, and instinctively felt that I had definitely displeased her. But
the conversational material was used up and I withdrew. I never saw
Johanne Louise Heiberg again; henceforth she thought anything but well
of me.
XI.
Magdalene Thoresen was spending that year in Copenhagen, and our
connection, which had been kept up by correspondence, brought with it a
lively mutual interchange of thoughts and impressions. Our natures, it
is true, were as much unlike as it was possible for them to be; but
Magdalene Thoresen's wealth of moods and the overflowing warmth of her
heart, the vivacity of her disposition, the tenderness that filled her
soul, and the incessant artistic exertion, which her exhausted body
could not stand, all this roused in me a sympathy that the mistiness of
her reasoning, and the over-excitement of her intellectual life, could
not diminish.
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