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EMINENT AUTHORS

OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

_LITERARY PORTRAITS_

BY

Dr. GEORG BRANDES



_TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL BY_

RASMUS B. ANDERSON,

UNITED STATES MINISTER TO DENMARK; AUTHOR OF "NORSE MYTHOLOGY,"
"VIKING TALES OF THE NORTH," "AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED
BY COLUMBUS," AND OTHER WORKS.

NEW YORK:

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.



1886

[Illustration: Georg Brandes]




NOTE.

This volume is published by special arrangement with the author. At my
request Dr. Georg Brandes has designated me as his American translator
and takes a personal interest in the enterprise.

To Auber Forestier, who kindly aided me in translating the stories of
Björnstjerne Björnson, I have to express my cordial thanks for valuable
assistance in the preparation of this translation.

                                                    RASMUS B. ANDERSON.

     COPENHAGEN, DENMARK,
         July, 1886.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


It is a well-known fact that at the beginning of this century several
prominent Danes endeavored to acquire citizenship in German literature.
Since then the effort has not been repeated by any Danish author. To
say nothing of the political variance between Germany and Denmark,
these examples are far from alluring on the one hand, and on the
other hand they furnish no criterion of the Danish mind. The great
remodeler of the Danish language, Oehlenschläger, placed his works
before the German public in German so wholly lacking in all charm,
that he only gained the rank of a third-class poet in Germany. The
success, however, which lower grades of genius, such as Baggesen and
Steffens, have attained, was the result, in the first case, of a
veritable chameleon-like nature and a talent for language that was
unique of its kind, and in the second, of a complete renunciation of
the mother-tongue.

The author of this volume, who is far from being a chameleon, and who
has by no means given up his native tongue, who stands, indeed, in the
midst of the literary movement which has for some time agitated the
Scandinavian countries, knows very well that a human being can only
wield a powerful influence in the country where he was born, where
he was educated by and for prevailing circumstances. In the present
volume, as in other writings, his design has simply been to write in
the German language for Europe; in other words, to treat his materials
differently than he would have treated them for a purely Scandinavian
public. He owes a heavy debt to the poetry, the philosophy, and the
systematic æsthetics of Germany; but feeling himself called to be
the critic, not the pupil, of the history of German literature, he
cherishes the hope that he may be able to repay at least a small
portion of his debt to Germany.

The nine essays of which this book consists, and of which even those
that have already appeared in periodicals, have been thoroughly
revised, are not to be regarded as "Chips from the Workshop" of a
critic; they are carefully treated literary portraits, united by a
spiritual tie. Men have sat for them, with whom the author, with one
exception (Esaias Tegnér), has been personally acquainted, or of whom
he has at least had a close view. To be sure, the same satisfactory
survey cannot always be taken of a living present as of a completed
past epoch; but perhaps a picture of the present as a whole may be
furnished, the general physiognomy may be arrived at, by characterizing
as faithfully and vividly as possible, some of its typical forms.

The mode of treatment in these essays is greatly diversified. In some
of them the individuality of the author portrayed is represented as
exhaustively as possible; in others, an attempt has simply been made to
present the man in actual person before the eyes of the reader; some
are purely psychological; others offer a fragment of æsthetics; others,
again, are eminently biographical and historical. In all of them the
characteristics of the individual are so chosen as to bring out the
most important features of the author's life and works.

Even the personalities described are of a very heterogeneous nature.
They belong to not less than six nationalities. Common to all of them,
however, there is a something which is more easily felt than defined;
they are modern authors. By this I do not mean that they all, without
exception, with full consciousness, and with their whole hearts, have
paid homage to the "modern" in art and in thought, but merely that
they, even though in a very unequal degree,--which heightens the charm
to the observer,--represent the modern style of mind.

                                                         GEORG BRANDES.



        CONTENTS.

        PAUL HEYSE
        HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
        JOHN STUART MILL
        ERNEST RENAN
        ESAIAS TEGNÉR
        GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
        FREDERIK PALUDAN-MÜLLER
        BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON
        HENRIK IBSEN


[Illustration: PAUL HEYSE.]




EMINENT AUTHORS OF THE 19TH CENTURY.




PAUL HEYSE.


1875.


"How does it happen," I asked recently of a distinguished
portrait-painter, "that you, who formerly have made successful efforts
in several other branches of art, have at last confined yourself wholly
to portrait-painting?"

"I think it is because it has given me the most pleasure," replied he,
"to study and to perpetuate an object which has never existed before,
and will never appear again."

With these words he seemed to me strikingly to designate the interest
which attracts a person to distinct individuality, that of the inner as
well as that of the outer being. To the critic, too, the individual is
an especially alluring object; to him, too, the execution of a portrait
is a singularly fascinating occupation. Unfortunately, his means of
communication are deplorably far behind those of the painter. What
can be more difficult and more fruitless than the attempt to express
in words that which is purely individual--that which in accordance
with its very nature must mock at every effort of reproduction? Is not
personality, in its uninterrupted flow, the true _perpetuum mobile_,
which does not admit of being constructed?

And yet these insolvable problems ever charm and attract anew. After
we have gradually become familiar with an author, have come to feel
ourselves perfectly at home in his writings, to perceive dimly that
certain of their characteristics dominate others, and then happen to
be by nature of a critical turn of mind, we can find no peace until
we have rendered ourselves an account of our impressions, and made
clear the indistinct image of the character of another _ego_ that has
arisen within our own soul. We hear or read criticisms on an author
and find them absurd. Why are they absurd? Other statements seem to us
but half true. What is lacking to make them wholly true? A new work of
importance from his pen appears. How far have the earlier works been a
preparation for it? We almost become curious to learn how we ourselves
would characterize his talent--and we satisfy our curiosity.



I.


Whoever casts a glance on the long row of closely printed volumes
which form Paul Heyse's complete works, and remembers that the author
was born in the year 1830, will first of all be apt to exclaim,
"What industry!" Involuntarily he will trace back this astonishing
productiveness to a will power of rare endurance. None the less,
however, does it owe its origin to a singularly fortunate nature. This
nature possessed within itself so luxuriant a fruitfulness that it
has yielded its harvest without the least effort of the will, without
any undue exertion; it has yielded a harvest of such variety that we
might believe it to be fostered according to a defined plan and with a
painstaking will; nevertheless, it has obviously been permitted to act
with thorough independence. To allow nature to rule, to follow one's
own pleasure or bent (sich gehen zu lassen[1]), has been from the
outset, as we soon come to feel, Heyse's motto, and so it happens that
with qualities which usually lead to a wandering, scanty, fragmentary
productiveness, he has completed and perfected each undertaking, having
written lyric and epic poems, one grand epos (Thekla), a dozen dramas,
more than fifty "novellen," and two large romances. He began early;
while yet a student, he entered on his literary career. Free from care
as a pedestrian tourist who gayly whistles as he strolls along, never
hurrying, pausing to drink at every spring, lingering before the bushes
by the wayside, and plucking flowers as well as berries, resting in the
shade, and wandering along in the shade, he has gradually trodden a
pathway of such extent that we could only expect to see it traversed by
one who maintained a breathless march, with eyes fixed unwaveringly on
the goal.

The voice followed by Heyse as an author is unquestionably the voice
of instinct. North German though he is, nothing is farther removed
from him than cool deliberation and premeditation. Born in Berlin,
he nevertheless takes root in Munich, and finds in the ardent South
German race and in the throbbing South German life the surroundings
most congenial to his temperament; at home in South Germany, he yet
feels constantly drawn to Italy, as the land where the human plant has
attained a more beautiful and luxuriant growth than elsewhere, one
that is less disturbed by reflex action, and where the voice of the
blood speaks most distinctly, most powerfully. This voice is the siren
voice which allures Heyse. Nature! Nature! keeps ringing in his ear.
Germany has authors who appear almost wholly devoid of inspiration, and
who have only been made what they are by a vigorous North German will
(as Karl Gutzkow, for instance); others (as Fanny Lewald) whose works
bear the impress of an active North German intellect. Neither through
volition nor deliberation does Heyse create and fashion his works, but
simply by heeding the inner impulse.

Many an author is tempted to impart to his reader an idea of himself
differing somewhat from the correct one. He takes pleasure in
representing himself as that which he _would like_ to be,--in former
times, as being endowed either with keener sensibilities or deeper
melancholy than he ever possessed, in our day as being now more
experienced, now colder or harsher, than he really is. More than one
distinguished author, as Mérimée, or Lecomte de Lisle, has so shrunk
from manifesting his emotions that he has succeeded, on the other hand,
in exhibiting an appearance of lack of feeling by no means natural to
him. Such people make it a point of honor not to breathe freely and
easily until they have crossed the snow-line where the human element
in our natures ends, and their contempt for those who lay claim to the
sympathy of the multitude on the plane below leads them to yield to
the temptation to force their way up to a height whither pride, not
instinct, bids them ascend. For Heyse this temptation does not exist.
He has never for a moment been able or willing to write himself into
either greater warmth or coldness than he actually felt. He has never
professed to be writing with his heart's blood when he was fashioning
calmly as an artist, and he has patiently submitted when the critics
censured him for lack of warmth. On the other hand, he has never
been able to report, as so many of the most eminent French authors
have done, a horrible or revolting occurrence with the same stoic
tranquillity, and in the same tone that would be suitable in stating
where a man of the world purchases his cigars, or where the best
champagne could be obtained. He aims neither at the ardent style of
passionate temperaments, nor at the self-control of the worldling. In
comparison with Swinburne he seems rather cold, and in comparison with
Flaubert naïve. But the narrow path in which he wanders is precisely
that which is pointed out to him by the instinct of his innermost
being, by the purely individual and yet so complicated being which is
the result of his nature.



II.


The power which an individual obeys as an artist, necessarily becomes
the power which in his works is exalted to the place of honor. That is
the reason why Heyse as an author glorifies nature. Not what a human
being thinks or desires, but what he is by nature interests Heyse in
him. The highest duty in his eyes is to honor nature and heed her
voice. Sin against nature is the true sin. Give her free scope, and let
her act her own pleasure.

There are, therefore, not many authors who are such marked fatalists as
Heyse. In free will, according to the traditional sense of the word,
he does not believe, and is evidently quite as sceptically opposed to
Kant's categorical imperative as his Edwin or his Felix.[2] But if he
does not believe in innate ideas, he does believe in innate instinct,
and this instinct is sacred to him. In his "novellen" he has described
how unhappy the soul feels when this instinct is either disturbed or
rendered uncertain. In his "Kenne Dich Selbst" (Know Thyself) it is
intelligence, in his "Reise nach dem Glück" (Journey after Happiness)
it is morality that is the disturber of the peace.

In the first of these "novellen" Heyse has represented the anguish
which proceeds from a too early or a premeditated invasion on the
instinctive life of the soul. "That beautiful stupor of youth, that
dreamy, unconscious plenitude of the powers, the pure faculty of
enjoyment of the yet unexhausted senses, was lost to young Franz
through his premature struggle for self-consciousness."[2] He here
portrays the sleeplessness of the mind, which is as dangerous for the
health of the soul as actual sleeplessness is for the welfare of the
body, and shows how one in whom the reflex faculty is maimed "loses
that mysterious, obscure substance which is the very pith and marrow of
our personality."

In "Die Reise nach dem Glück" it is conventional morality, which by
supplanting instinct has shattered the soul. A young girl, having
conquered her own natural impulses from motives of inculcated morality,
has banished her lover from her presence late at night, and thereby
become the innocent cause of his death. The remembrance of this
misfortune haunts her constantly. "If one's own heart does not point
out the way, one is sure to go astray. Once before in my life I was
made wretched because I refused to hearken to my heart, let it cry as
loudly as it would. Now I will pay heed if it but whispers to me, and I
will have ear for nothing else."[3]

In instinct the entire nature is present. Now if the inner devastation
which results where instinct has lost its guiding power, be in Heyse's
eyes the most profound of all misfortunes, to the characters he
delights most in delineating, the consciousness of life presents the
exact opposite; that is, the most profound sense of happiness in the
enjoyment of the totality and harmony of their natures. Heyse, as a
matter of course, is far removed from considering self-introspection
as a principle inimical to the healthy sense of life. His own views
appear to be about the same as those expressed by the invalid in
"Kenne Dich Selbst" in the words: just as agreeable as it may be for
him to awaken in the night, to consider and to know that he is able to
sleep still longer, just so glorious it appears to him to arouse from
his dreamy state of happiness, to collect his thoughts, to reflect,
and then, as it were, to turn over on the other side and indulge in
further enjoyment. At all events, in his romance "Kinder der Welt"
(Children of the World), he has permitted Balder, the most ideally
fashioned character in the book, to carry out this last thought in a
still more significant way. Melancholy views have just been expressed,
speculations regarding the sun which shines indifferently on the
just and on the unjust, and looks down upon more wretchedness than
happiness, and about the infinite, ever-recurring miseries of life, and
more to like effect. Franzel, the young socialist printer, has been
expatiating upon the opinion that one who had truly considered the
lot of humanity, could never find rest or peace, and in his distress
has called life a lie when Balder attempts to show him that a life
in which repose was possible, would no longer deserve the name. And
then Balder explains to Franzel in what the enjoyment of life for him
consists; namely, in "experiencing past and future in one." With the
utmost originality he declares that he could have no enjoyment if
his experiences were incomplete, and that in his silent moments of
contemplation all the scattered elements of his being were united in
one harmonious whole. "Whenever I have wished to do so, that is to
say, as often as I have desired to make for myself a genuine holiday
of life and to enjoy to the utmost my little existence, I have, as it
were, conjured up all the periods of my life at once: my laughing,
sportive childhood, when I was yet strong and well, then the first
glow of thought and feeling, the first pangs of youth, the foreboding
of what a full, healthy, mature life must be, and at the same time the
renunciation which usually becomes a habit only to very old people."
To such a conception of life, human existence is not divided into
moments, which vanish, leaving us to bemoan their disappearance, nor
is it broken into fragments in the service of reciprocally contending
impulses and thoughts; to one who possesses the faculty of casting out
an anchor at any moment, of realizing the totality and reality of one's
own being, life cannot lacerate like