My fellow students received the piece with acclamation; they were proud of me. I was the second of their body who in this year had brought out a piece on the Danish stage; the other was Arnesen, student at the same time with me, and author of a vaudeville called "The Intrigue in the People's Theatre," a piece which had a great run. We were the two young authors of the October examination, two of the sixteen poets which this year produced, and whom people in jest divided into the four great and the twelve small poets.
I was now a happy human being; I possessed the soul of a poet, and the heart of youth; all houses began to be open to me; I flew from circle to circle. Still, however, I devoted myself industriously to study, so that in September, 1829, I passed my _Examen philologicum et philosophicum_, and brought out the first collected edition of my poems, which met with great praise. Life lay bright with sunshine before me.
Until now I had only seen a small part of my native land, that is to say, a few points in Funen and Zealand, as well as Moen's Klint, which last is truly one of our most beautiful places; the beechwoods there hang like a garland over the white chalk cliffs, from which a view is obtained far over the Baltic. I wished, therefore, in the summer of 1830, to devote my first literary proceeds to seeing Jutland, and making myself more thoroughly acquainted with my own Funen. I had no idea how much solidity of mind I should derive from this summer excursion, or what a change was about to take place in my inner life.
Jutland, which stretches between the German Ocean and the Baltic, until it ends at Skagen in a reef of quicksands, possesses a peculiar character. Towards the Baltic extend immense woods and hills; towards the North Sea, mountains and quicksands, scenery of a grand and solitary character; and between the two, infinite expanses of brown heath, with their wandering gipsies, their wailing birds, and their deep solitude, which the Danish poet, Steen Blicher, has described in his novels.
This was the first foreign scenery which I had ever seen, and the impression, therefore, which it made upon me was very strong. [Footnote: This impressive and wild scenery, with its characteristic figures, of gipsies etc., is most exquisitely introduced into the author's novel of "O. T."; indeed it gives a coloring and tone to the whole work, which the reader never can forget. In my opinion Andersen never wrote anything finer in the way of description than many parts of this work, though as a story it is not equal to his others.--M. H.] In the cities, where my "Journey on Foot" and my comic poems were known, I met with a good reception. Funen revealed her rural life to me; and, not far from my birth-place of Odense, I passed several weeks at the country seat of the elder Iversen as a welcome guest. Poems sprung forth upon paper, but of the comic fewer and fewer. Sentiment, which I had so often derided, would now be avenged. I arrived, in the course of my journey, at the house of a rich family in a small city; and here suddenly a new world opened before me, an immense world, which yet could be contained in four lines, which I wrote at that time:--