Recollections of My Childhood and Youth

Recollections of My Childhood and Youth

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Title: Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth
Author: George Brandes
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8160] [This file was first posted on June 23, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
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-headings in SECOND LONGER STAY ABROAD are misnumbered in the original hard copy, skipping from VII to IX.]

RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
BY
GEORGE BRANDES
AUTHOR OF "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE," ETC.

[Illustration: DR. GEORGE BRANDES _From a Sketch by G. Rump_]
DISCOVERING THE WORLD
First Impressions--Going to Bed--My Name--Fresh Elements--School--The King--Town and Country--The King's Gardens--The Friendly World--Inimical Forces--The World Widens--The Theatre--Progress--Warlike Instincts-- School Adventures--Polite Accomplishments--My Relations
BOYHOOD'S YEARS
Our House--Its Inmates--My Paternal Grandfather--My Maternal Grandfather --School and Home--Farum--My Instructors--A Foretaste of Life--Contempt for the Masters--My Mother--The Mystery of Life--My First Glimpse of Beauty--The Head Master--Religion--My Standing in School--Self-esteem --An Instinct for Literature--Private Reading--Heine's _Buch der Lieder_--A Broken Friendship
TRANSITIONAL YEARS
School Boy Fancies--Religion--Early Friends--_Daemonic Theory_--A West Indian Friend--My Acquaintance Widens--Politics--The Reactionary Party--The David Family--A Student Society--An Excursion to Slesvig-- Temperament--The Law--Hegel--Spinoza--Love for Humanity--A Religious Crisis--Doubt--Personal Immortality--Renunciation
ADOLESCENCE
Julius Lange--A New Master--Inadaption to the Law--The University Prize Competition--An Interview with the Judges--Meeting of Scandinavian Students--The Paludan-M��llers--Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson--Magdalene Thoresen--The Gold Medal--The Death of King Frederik VII--The Political Situation--My Master of Arts Examination--War--_Admissus cum laude praecipua_--Academical Attention--Lecturing--Music--Nature--A Walking Tour--In Print--Philosophical Life in Denmark--Death of Ludwig David-- Stockholm
FIRST LONG SOJOURN ABROAD
My Wish to See Paris--_Dualism in our Modern Philosophy_--A Journey--Impressions of Paris--Lessons in French--Mademoiselle Mathilde --Taine
EARLY MANHOOD
Feud in Danish Literature--Riding--Youthful Longings--On the Rack--My First Living Erotic Reality--An Impression of the Miseries of Modern Coercive Marriage--Researches on the Comic--Dramatic Criticism--A Trip to Germany--Johanne Louise Heiberg--Magdalene Thoresen--Rudolph Bergh-- The Sisters Spang--A Foreign Element--The Woman Subject--Orla Lehmann-- M. Goldschmidt--Public Opposition--A Letter from Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson-- Hard Work
SECOND LONGER STAY ABROAD
Hamburg--My Second Fatherland--Ernest Hello--_Le Docteur Noir_-- Taine--Renan--Marcelin--Gleyre--Taine's Friendship--Renan at Home-- Philar��te Chasles' Reminiscences--_Le Th��atre Fran?ais_--Coquelin --Bernhardt--Beginnings of _Main Currents_--The Tuileries--John Stuart Mill--London--Philosophical Studies--London and Paris Compared-- Antonio Gallenga and His Wife--Don Juan Prim--Napoleon III--London Theatres--Gladstone and Disraeli in Debate--Paris on the Eve of War-- First Reverses--Flight from Paris--Geneva, Switzerland--Italy--Pasquale Villari--Vinnie Ream's Friendship--Roman Fever--Henrik Ibsen's Influence--Scandinavians in Rome
FILOMENA
Italian Landladies--The Carnival--The Moccoli Feast--Filomena's Views
SECOND LONGER STAY ABROAD Continued Reflections on the Future of Denmark--Conversations with Giuseppe Saredo--Frascati--Native Beauty--New Susceptibilities--Georges Noufflard's Influence--The Sistine Chapel and Michael Angelo--Raphael's Loggias--A Radiant Spring

RECOLLECTIONS OF
MY CHILDHOOD
AND YOUTH

DISCOVERING THE WORLD
First Impressions--Going to Bed--My Name--Fresh Elements--School--The King--Town and Country--The King's Gardens--The Friendly World--Inimical Forces--The World Widens--The Theatre--Progress--Warlike Instincts-- School Adventures--Polite Accomplishments--My Relations.
I.
He was little and looked at the world from below. All that happened, went on over his head. Everyone looked down to him.
But the big people possessed the enviable power of lifting him to their own height or above it. It might so happen that suddenly, without preamble, as he lay on the floor, rummaging and playing about and thinking of nothing at all, his father or a visitor would exclaim: "Would you like to see the fowls of Kj?ge?" And with the same he would feel two large hands placed over his ears and the arms belonging to them would shoot straight up into the air. That was delightful. Still, there was some disappointment mingled with it. "Can you see Kj?ge now?" was a question he could make nothing of. What could Kj?ge be? But at the other question: "Do you see the fowls?" he vainly tried to see something or other. By degrees he understood that it was only a phrase, and that there was nothing to look for.
It was his first experience of empty phrases, and it made an impression.
It was just as great fun, though, when the big people said to him: "Would you like to be a fat lamb? Let us play at fat lamb." He would be flung over the man's shoulder, like a slaughtered lamb, and hang there, or jump up and ride with his legs round the man's hips,