writing-table, were a daily source of vexation. I often felt that I
should not be happy until the Ordinances were swept from my table. And
the lectures were always so dreary that they positively made me think of
suicide--and I so thirsty of life!--as a final means of escape from the
torment of them. I felt myself so little adapted to the Law that I
wasted my time with Hamlet-like cogitations as to how I could give up
the study without provoking my parents' displeasure, and without
stripping myself of all prospects for the future. And for quite a year
these broodings grew, till they became a perfect nightmare to me.

I had taken a great deal of work upon myself; I gave lessons every day,
that I might have a little money coming in, took lessons myself in
several subjects, and not infrequently plunged into philosophical works
of the past, that were too difficult for me, such as the principal works
of Kant. Consequently when I was nineteen, I begun to feel my strength
going. I felt unwell, grew nervous, had a feeling that I could not draw
a deep breath, and when I was twenty my physical condition was a violent
protest against overwork. One day, while reading Kant's _Kritik der
Urteilskraft_, I felt so weak that I was obliged to go to the doctor.
The latter recommended physical exercises and cold shower-baths.

The baths did me good, and I grew so accustomed to them that I went on
taking them and have done so ever since. I did my gymnastic exercises
with a Swede named Nycander, who had opened an establishment for Swedish
gymnastics in Copenhagen.

There I met, amongst others, the well-known Icelandic poet and
diplomatist, Grimur Thomsen, who bore the title of Counsellor of
Legation. His compatriots were very proud of him. Icelandic students
declared that Grimur possessed twelve dress shirts, three pairs of