DOI Artikel:
Norregard, Julie: Georg Brandes: a silhouette
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27811#0170
166 Georg Brandes
On the cathedra stood Georg Brandes.
A tall, lithe hgure, dressed simply but with scrupulous care.
And what a wonderful face is his ! Irregular features, some might
even be called ugly ; it seems impossible to say exactly what they
are like, captivated as one is by their ever-changing expression—
quiet thoughtfulness flashing into humour, tired melancholy break-
ing into a sunlit smile.
He speaks without pose and affectation, seems scarcely to raise
his voice above the pitch of ordinary conversation, yet it carries
each phrase to the furthest corner of the room. But behind the
quietness is felt the quivering of a passionate nature, which now
and then, when he is roused by some best loved or best hated
theme, flashes on the audience with a suddenness that electrifies.
Sometimes we would follow him with Goethe to the Court of
Weimar, or another time he would reveal to us the gigantic fancy
concealed behind the mountains of dull description in the works
of Zola. With glowing words he would paint for us the poetry and
romance of Polishliterature, or illuminate for us the golden thoughts
of Niezche, young Germany's ill-fated philosopher.
Winter after winter has passed, and youth has fled with the
years. The sadness in his eyes has deepened, and his hair is
touched with silver, but his vitality is still the same, his spiritual
alertness as keen as ever. Still he gathers round him the young
men and women of Copenhagen, and when he showers on them
the sparks of his own rich personality, he sets aflame the smoulder-
ing fire of their natures, brings into bloom the flowers that lie
sleeping in their souls.
A favourite saying of Dr. Brandes' is " that men and women
can be divided into three classes—those who command, those who
obey, and those who can neither command nor obey and that
ought
On the cathedra stood Georg Brandes.
A tall, lithe hgure, dressed simply but with scrupulous care.
And what a wonderful face is his ! Irregular features, some might
even be called ugly ; it seems impossible to say exactly what they
are like, captivated as one is by their ever-changing expression—
quiet thoughtfulness flashing into humour, tired melancholy break-
ing into a sunlit smile.
He speaks without pose and affectation, seems scarcely to raise
his voice above the pitch of ordinary conversation, yet it carries
each phrase to the furthest corner of the room. But behind the
quietness is felt the quivering of a passionate nature, which now
and then, when he is roused by some best loved or best hated
theme, flashes on the audience with a suddenness that electrifies.
Sometimes we would follow him with Goethe to the Court of
Weimar, or another time he would reveal to us the gigantic fancy
concealed behind the mountains of dull description in the works
of Zola. With glowing words he would paint for us the poetry and
romance of Polishliterature, or illuminate for us the golden thoughts
of Niezche, young Germany's ill-fated philosopher.
Winter after winter has passed, and youth has fled with the
years. The sadness in his eyes has deepened, and his hair is
touched with silver, but his vitality is still the same, his spiritual
alertness as keen as ever. Still he gathers round him the young
men and women of Copenhagen, and when he showers on them
the sparks of his own rich personality, he sets aflame the smoulder-
ing fire of their natures, brings into bloom the flowers that lie
sleeping in their souls.
A favourite saying of Dr. Brandes' is " that men and women
can be divided into three classes—those who command, those who
obey, and those who can neither command nor obey and that
ought