He had been married since I had last been at his house, and his
wife, a young, clear-skinned lady with black plaits, brown eyes and an
extremely graceful figure, was as fresh as a rose, and talked with the
outspoken freedom of youth, though expressing herself in carefully
selected words.
After a few days, Taine, who was generally very formal with strangers,
treated me with conspicuous friendliness. He offered at once to
introduce me to Renan, and urgently advised me to remain six months in
Paris, in order to master the language thoroughly, so that I might
enlighten Frenchmen on the state of things in the North, as well as
picture the French to my fellow-countrymen. Why should I not make French
my auxiliary language, like Turgenieff and Hillebrandt!
Taine knew nothing of German belles lettres. As far as philosophy was
concerned, he despised German Aesthetics altogether, and laughed at me
for believing in "Aesthetics" at all, even one day introducing me to a
stranger as "A young Dane who does not believe in much, but is weak
enough to believe in Aesthetics." I was not precisely overburdened by
the belief. But a German Aesthetic, according to Taine's definition, was
a man absolutely devoid of artistic perception and sense of style, who
lived only in definitions. If you took him to the theatre to see a sad
piece, he would tear his hair with delight, and exclaim: "_Voila das
Tragische!_"
Of the more modern German authors, Taine knew only Heine, of whom he was
a passionate admirer and whom, by reason of his intensity of feeling, he
compared with Dante.
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