Stay in Italy, settle down here, and you
will reach a far higher position than you can possibly attain in your
own country. The intellectual education you possess is exceedingly rare
in Italy; what I can say, without exaggeration, is that in this country
it is so extraordinary that it might be termed an active force. Within
two years you would be a power in Italy, at home, you will never be more
than a professor at a University. Stay here! Villari and I will help you
over your first difficulties. Write in French, or Italian, which you
like, and as you are master of the entire range of Germanic culture,
which scarcely any man in Italy is, you will acquire an influence of
which you have not the least conception. A prophet is never honoured in
his own country. We, on the other hand, need you. So stay here! Take Max
Mueller as an example. It is with individuals as with nations; it is only
when they change their soil that they attain their full development and
realise their own strength."
I replied: "I am deaf to that sort of thing. I love the Danish language
too well ever to forsake it. Only in the event of my settlement in
Denmark meeting with opposition, and being rendered impossible, shall I
strap on my knapsack, gird up my loins, and hie me to France or Italy; I
am glad to hear that the world is not so closed to me as I had formerly
believed.
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