patent leather boots, and had embraced a marchioness in Paris. At
gymnastics, Grimur Thomsen showed himself audacious and not seldom
coarse in what he said and hinted. It is true that by reason of my youth
I was very susceptible and took offence at things that an older man
would have heard without annoyance.


IV.

I continued to be physically far from strong. Mentally, I worked
indefatigably. The means of deciding the study question that, after long
reflection, seemed to me most expedient, was this: I would compete for
one of the University prizes, either the aesthetic or the philosophical,
and then, if I won the gold medal, my parents and others would see that
if I broke with the Law it was not from idleness, but because I really
had talents in another direction.

As early as 1860 I had cast longing eyes at the prize questions that had
been set, and which hung up in the Entrance Hall of the University. But
none of them were suited to me. In 1861 I made up my mind to attempt a
reply, even if the questions in themselves should not be attractive.

There was amongst them one on the proper correlation between poetic
fiction and history in the historical romances. The theme in itself did
not particularly fascinate me; but I was not ignorant of the subject,
and it was one that allowed of being looked at in a wide connection,
i.e., the claims of the subject as opposed to the imagination of the
artist, in general. I was of opinion that just as in sculpture the human
figure should not be represented with wings, but the conception of its
species be observed, so the essential nature of a past age should be