As
Danish things go, it was a very important offer to a young man. It
promised both influence and income, and it was only my profound and
ever-increasing determination not to give myself up to journalism that
made me without hesitation dictate a polite refusal. I was still to weak
to write. My motive was simply and solely that I wished to devote my
life to knowledge. But Bille, who knew what power in a little country
like Denmark his offer would have placed in my hands, hardly understood
it in this way, and was exceedingly annoyed at my refusal. It gave the
first impulse to his altered feeling toward me. I have sometimes
wondered since whether my fate in Denmark might not have been different
had I accepted the charge. It is true that the divergence between what
the paper and I, in the course of the great year 1871, came to
represent, would soon have brought about a split. The Commune in Paris
caused a complete _volte face_ of the liberal bourgeoisie in
Denmark, as elsewhere.
XLVI.
While I was still too weak to write, I received a letter from Henrik
Ibsen (dated December 20, 1870), which impressed me greatly. Henrik
Ibsen and I had been on friendly terms with one another since April,
1866, but it was only about this time that our intimacy began to emit
sparks, an intimacy which was destined to have a very widening influence
upon me, and which is perhaps not without traces on the stages of his
poetical progress.
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