I.
The first thing that impressed me was Hamburg, and by that I mean the
European views prevalent there. At that time, doubtless mainly for
national reasons, Denmark hated Hamburg. Different Danish authors had
recently written about the town, and in as depreciatory a strain as they
could. The description of one amounted to an assertion that in Hamburg
people only talked of two things, money and women; that of another
commenced: "Of all the places I have ever seen in my life, Hamburg is
the most hideous."
The situation of the town could not be compared with that of Copenhagen,
but the Alster quarter was attractive, the architecture and the street
life not uninteresting. What decided me, however, was not the externals
of the town, but the spirit I noticed pervading the conversation. The
idea underlying things was that a young man must first and foremost
learn to keep himself well and comfortably; if he could not do this in
Hamburg, then as soon as possible he must set off to some place across
the sea, to Rio, or New York, to the Argentine, or Cape Colony, and
there make his way and earn a fortune. The sons of the families I was
invited to visit, or heard talked about, had long been away; in the
houses I went to, the head of the family had seen other parts of the
world.
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