my second long treatise, _On Laughter_, which has been lost.

As I approached my twentieth year, these fits of laughter stopped. "I
have," wrote I at the time, "seen into that Realm of Sighs, on the
threshold of which I--like Parmeniscus after consulting the Oracle of
Trophonius--have suddenly forgotten how to laugh."


XIII.

Meanwhile I had completed my eighteenth year and had to make my choice
of a profession. But what was I fitted for? My parents, and those other
of my relations whose opinions I valued, wished me to take up the law;
they thought that I might make a good barrister; but I myself held back,
and during my first year of study did not attend a single law lecture.
In July, 1860, after I had passed my philosophical examination (with
_Distinction_ in every subject), the question became urgent.
Whether I was likely to exhibit any considerable talent as a writer, it
was impossible for me to determine. There was only one thing that I felt
clear about, and that was that I should never be contented with a
subordinate position in the literary world; better a hundred times be a
judge in a provincial town. I felt an inward conviction that I should
make my way as a writer. It seemed to me that a deathlike stillness
reigned for the time being over European literature, but that there were
mighty forces working in the silence. I believed that a revival was
imminent. In August, 1860, I wrote in my private papers: "We Danes, with
our national culture and our knowledge of the literatures of other
countries, will stand well equipped when the literary horn of the Gods
resounds again through the world, calling fiery youth to battle. I am
firmly convinced that that time will come and that I shall be, if not