A critic is like the rich heiress, who is always afraid of not
being loved for herself alone. Even then, I was very loth to believe
that any recognised author, much less a writer whose position was a
vexed question, would make advances to me from pure benevolence, for the
sake of my beautiful eyes, as they say in French.
At any rate, I had now made up my mind not to have anything whatever to
do with the matter. I replied emphatically:
"Lessons in politeness I take from no one, consequently return you the
enclosed papers. Be kind enough to appeal to some one else."
This reply was evidently not the one the letter had been intended to
evoke. Steen rushed up to me at once to apologise, but I did not see
him. Twice afterwards he came with humble messages from Goldschmidt
asking me to "do him the honour" of paying him a visit. But my pride was
touchy, and my determination unwavering. Undoubtedly Steen's letter was
sent at Goldschmidt's wish, but it is equally undoubted that its form
had not been approved by him. That the alliance so cleverly led up to
came to nothing was evidently as unexpected by the poet as unpalatable
to him.
Not long afterwards, I accidentally had strong confirmation of my
suspicion that the story of a flight from Denmark was merely an
invention calculated to trap me, and after the lapse of some time I
could no longer harbour a doubt that Goldschmidt had merely wished to
disarm a critic and secure himself a public crier.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340