Georg Brandes

“ The very air is a fête. The little black- haired youngsters, running about this picturesquely steep street, are my delight, whenever I look out of the window. All that is in front of me: the splendours of Rome, the Summer, the art of Italy, Naples in the South, Venice in the North, makes my heart beat fast and my head swim. I only need to turn round from the window and see Filomena standing behind me, knitting, posed like a living picture by Küchler to feel, with jubilation: I am in Rome. Saredo came to-day at twelve o'clock, and saw me dressed for the first time. ”

“ And I said to myself every day that supposing the war expected in Denmark were to break out again, and the young men were summoned to arms, the most insignificant little Danish girl would make me a better Valkyrie; all my feelings would be foreign to her, and possibly she would not even be able to learn Danish. Any other woman would understand more of my mind than she. And yet! Yet she was the only one for me.
Thus I was swayed by opposing wishes the whole of the long time during which the matter was pending and uncertain. ”

“ The younger generation admired in him the high-principled and steadfast opponent of the Empire in the Chamber, and he was regarded as well-nigh the most eloquent man in France. As an advocate, he was incomparable. His unusual handsomeness,--his beautiful face under a helmet of grey hair, and his upright carriage,--were great points in his favour. His eloquence was real, penetrating, convincing, inasmuch as he piled up fact upon fact, and was at the same time, as the French manner is, dramatic, with large gesticulations that made his gown flutter restlessly about him like the wings of a bat. ”

“ The stronger the feeling of his own ego that the individual has, the more eagerly he necessarily clings to the belief that he cannot be annihilated. But to none could the belief be more precious than to a youth who felt his life pulsate within, as if he had twenty lives in himself and twenty more to live. It was impossible to me to realise that I could die, and one evening, about a year later, I astonished my master, Professor Bröchner, by confessing as much. "Indeed," said Bröchner, "are you speaking seriously? You cannot realise that you will have to die one day? ”

“ The French had behaved like tyrants in Italy; now they were being paid out. Besides which, the Prussians would not come to Paris. But if they did come, they would be nice to them, and invite them to dinner, like friends. Sometimes I attempted to reply, but came off badly. One day that I had ventured a remark to a large and ponderous Roman lady, on the ingratitude of the Italians towards the French, the good lady jumped as if a knife had been stuck into her, and expatiated passionately on the infamy of the French. The Romans were,--as everyone knew,--the first nation on earth. ”

“ And the thoughts which the sight of the countless globes involuntarily and inevitably evokes, were born in me, too,--thoughts of the littleness of the earth in our Solar System, and of our Solar System in the Universe, of immeasurable distances--so great that the stars whose rays, with the rapidity of light's travelling, are striking against our eyes now, may have gone out in our childhood; of immeasurable periods of time, in which a human life, or even the lifetime of a whole people, disappears like a drop in the ocean. ”

“ Charite Paludan-Müller's North Pole nature. She lived, not in a world of ideas remote from reality, but in a world of feeling and passion, full of affection and admiration, jealousy and dislike. Being a woman, she was happy at every expression of pleasure over one of her books that she heard or read of, and liked to fancy that the solitary young man who sent her an enthusiastic letter of thanks was only one of hundreds who thought as he did. Like a woman, also, she was hurt by indifference, which, however, her warm heart rarely encountered. ”

“ I am outside and above the earth and far from human kind. This is his earth and these are his men, created in his image to people his world. For this one man's work is a world, which, though that of one man only, can be placed against the productions of a whole nation, even of the most splendid nation that has ever lived, the Greeks. Michael Angelo felt more largely, more lonely, more mightily than any other. He created out of the wealth of a nature that in its essence was more than earthly. Raphael is more human, people say, and that is true; but Michael Angelo is more divine. ”

“ The festival, which lasted all day and concluded with dancing and fireworks, was a great success, and a young man who had been carousing all night, travelling all day, and had danced all the evening with pretty girls till his senses were in a whirl, could not help regarding the scene of the festival in a romantic light, as he stood there alone, late at night, surrounded by flaring torches, the fireworks sputtering and glittering about him. Some few of the students sat in the fields round flaming rings of pitch, an old Angel peasant keeping the fires alight and singing Danish songs. ”

“ He spoke Latin to me, and showed me round; at an enquiry of mine, he fetched from his quarters in the Collegio Romano a book with reproductions from the pagan section of the Lateran Museum, and explained to me some bas-reliefs which I had not understood. His obligingness touched me, his whole attitude made me think. Hitherto I had only spoken to one solitary embryo Jesuit,--a young Englishman who was going to Rome to place himself at the service of the Pope, and who was actuated by the purest enthusiasm; I was struck by the fact that this second Jesuit, too, seemed to be a worthy man. ”

“ For Frederik Paludan-Müller as a poet I cherished the profoundest admiration. He belonged to the really great figures of Danish literature, and his works had so fed and formed my inmost nature that I should scarcely be the same had I not read them. It was unalloyed happiness to have access to his house and be allowed to enjoy his company. It was a distinction to be one of the few he vouchsafed to take notice of and one of the fewer still in whose future he interested himself. Do the young men of Denmark to-day, I wonder, admire creative intellects as they were admired by some few of us then? ”

“ My Wish to See Paris--Dualism in our Modern Philosophy--A Journey--Impressions of Paris--Lessons in French--Mademoiselle Mathilde --Taine.
I.
I had wished for years to see Paris, the city that roused my most devout feelings. As a youth I had felt a kind of reverent awe for the French Revolution, which represented to me the beginning of human conditions for all those who were not of the favoured among men,--and Paris was the city of the Revolution. ”

“ Here he had frequently met, sitting on their benches, four or five old gentlemen who took their evening ramble at the same time; by degrees they made each other's acquaintance and got into conversation with one another. It turned out that the old gentlemen were candle-makers who had retired from business and now had considerable difficulty in passing their time away. In reality they were always bored, and they yawned incessantly. These men had one theme only, to which they always recurred with enthusiasm--their hope in personal immortality for all eternity. ”