Jens Peter Jacobsen Quotes

He had been so busy decking himself with the qualities he lacked that he had not had time to take note of those he possessed, but now he began to piece his own self together from scattered memories and impressions of his childhood and from the most vivid moments of his life. He saw with pleased surprise how it all fitted together, bit by bit, and was welded into a much more familiar personality than the one he had chased after in his dreams. This figure was far more genuine, far stronger, and more richly endowed. It was no mere dead stump of an ideal, but a living thing, full of infinite shifting possibilities playing through it and shaping it to a thousand fold unity.

He had reached the point where he had to choose, for when first youth is past — early or late in accordance with each person's individuality — then, early or late, dawns the day when Resignation comes to us as a temptress, luring us to forego the impossible and be content. And Resignation has much in her favor; for how often have not the idealistic aspirations of youth been beaten back, its enthusiasms been shamed, its hopes laid waste! The ideals, the fair and beautiful, have lost nothing of their radiance, but they no longer walk here among us as in the early days of our youth.

Haven't you noticed that we women daydream infinitely less than you men? We can't anticipate pleasure in our imagination or keep suffering out our lives with some imaginary consolation.Whatever is,is.Imagintion! It's so paltry!Yes,when you've grown older,as I have,you occasionally make do with the poor comedy of the imagination.

But when he began to think of human beings, his soul sickened again. He summoned them in review before him, one by one, and they all passed and left him alone, and not one stayed with him. But how far had he held fast to them? Had he been true? He had only been slower in letting go, that was all. No, it was not that. It was the dreary truth that a soul is always alone. Every belief in the fusing of soul with soul was a lie. Not your mother who took you on her lap, nor your friend, nor yet the wife who slept on your heart ....

Hvem veed? maaske man tager fejl, maaske Ens Forstand, Ens Instinkt, Ens Sandser, med al deres dagslyse Klarhed, dog fører En vild, maaske det netop gjælder om at have det uforstandige Mod at følge den Haabets Lygtemand, som brænder over Ens Lidenskabers attraasvangre Gjæring. Det er først naar man har hørt Afgjørelsens Dør slaa i, at Vishedens jernkolde Kløer graver sig ind i Ens Bryst for langsomt, langsomt at samle sig i Ens Hjærte om den nervefine Traad af Haab, hvori Ens Lykkeverden hænger, saa skjæres Traaden over, saa falder det, den bar, saa knuses det, saa kommer Fortvivlesens Skrig skarpt gjennem Tomheden.
I Tvivl fortvivler der Ingen.

Jacobsen once jestingly compared himself to the sloth (det beromte Dovendyr Ai-ar) which needed two years to climb
to the top o f a tree. It was necessary for him to withdraw absolutely from the world and to retire, as it were, within the character he wished to portray before he could set pen to paper.

Hanna Astrup Larsen (Introduction to Marie Grubbe, New York 1917)

A woman can't be pure, and isn't supposed to be — how could she? It is against nature! And do you think God made her to be pure? Answer me! — No, and ten thousand times no. Then why this lunacy! Why fling us up to the stars with one hand, when you have to pull us down with the other! Can't you let us walk the earth by your side, one human being with another, and nothing more at all? It is impossible for us to step firmly on the prose of life when you blind us with your poetic will-o'-the-wisps. Let us alone! For God's sake, let us alone!

It is only when we have heard the door of destiny slam shut that we begin to feel the iron-cold talons of certainty digging into our breast, gathering slowly, slowly around our heart, and fastening their clutches upon the fine thread of hope on which our world of happiness hangs: then the thread is severed; then all that it held falls and is shattered; then the shriek of despair sounds through the emptiness.

In doubt, no one despairs.

You have done what so many people do: they close their eyes to the realities and stop their ears when life cries 'No' to their wishes. They want to forget the deep chasm fate has placed between them and the object of their ardent longing. They want their dream to be fulfilled. But life takes no account of dreams. There isn't a single obstacle that can be dreamed out of the world, and in the end we lie there crying at the edge of the chasm, which hasn't changed and is just where it always was. But we have changed, for we have let our dreams goad all our thoughts and spur all our longings to the very highest tension. The chasm is no narrower, and everything in us cries out with longing to reach the other side, but no, always no, never anything else. If we had only kept a watch on ourselves in time! But now it is too late, now we are unhappy.

She dreamed a thousand dreams of those sunlit regions and was consumed with longing for this other and richer self, forgetting — what is so easily forgotten — that even the fairest dreams and the deepest longings do not add an inch to the stature of the human soul.

I don't understand you. I can't treat myself like a hurdy-gurdy from which I can take out an unpopular piece and put in a tune that everybody is whistling.

The flowers growing from that soil are made of
cotton cloth; they don't even grow, they are taken from the head and stuck in the heart,
because the heart has no flowers of its own. That is exactly what I envy in the young girl:
everything about her is genuine, she does not fill the goblet of her love with the makeshift
of imagination. Do not suppose, because her love is shot through and shadowed over by
imagined pictures and again pictures in a great, teeming vagueness, that she cares more
for those images than for the earth she walks upon. It is only that all her senses and
instincts and powers are reaching out for love everywhere — everywhere, without ever
feeling weary.

Whatever stamped itself on Niels's mind, what he saw, what he understood and what he misunderstood, what he admired and what he knew he ought to admire — all was woven into the story. As running water is colored by every passing picture, sometimes holding the image with perfect clearness, sometimes distorting it or throwing it back in wavering, uncertain lines, then again drowning it completely in the color and play of its own ripples, so the lad's story reflected feeling and thoughts, his own and those of other people, mirrored human beings and events, life and books, as well as it could. It was a play life, running side by side with real life. It was a snug retreat, where you could abandon yourself to dreams of the wildest adventures. It was a fairy garden that opened at your slightest nod, and received you in all its glory, shutting out everybody else.

Det var en Foraarsaften, Solen skinnede saa rød ind i Stuen, den var lige ved at gaa ned. Vingerne af Møllen deroppe paa Volden drev deres Skygger over Ruderne og Værelsets Vægge, kommende, svindende, i ensformig Veklsen af Skumring og Lys: - een stund Skumring, to Stunder Lys.

Ved Vinduet sad Niels Lyhne og stirred gjennem Voldens bronzemørke Ælme mod Skyernes Brand. Han havde været udenfor Byen, under nyudsprungne Bøge, mellem grønne Rugmarker, over blomsterbrogede Enge; Alting havde været saa lyst og let, Himlen saa blaa, Sundet saa blankt og de spadserende Damer saa sælsomt smukke. Syngende var han gaaet henad Skovstien, saa blev Ordene borte i hans Sang, saa lagde Rhytmen sig, saa døde Tonerne bort og Stilheden kom som en Svimmelhed over ham. Han lukkede Øjnene, men endda mærkede han, hvordan Lyset ligesom drak sig ind i ham og flimred gjennem alle Nerver, medens den køligt berusende Luft ved hvert Aandedrag sendte det sært betagne Blod med vildere og vildere Kraft gjennem de i Magtesløshed dirrende Aarer, og der kom ham en Følelse paa, som om alt det Myldrende, Bristende, Spirende, Ynglende i Vaarnaturen om ham, mystisk søgte at samle sig i ham i eet stort, stort Raab; og han tørsted efter dette Raab, lytted til hans Lytten tog form af en uklar, svulmende Længsel.

Nu, han sad der ved Vinduet, vaagnede Længslen igjen.

He yearned for a thousand tremulous dreams, for cool and delicate images, transparent tints, fleeting scents, and exquisite music from streams of highly strung, tensely drawn silvery strings — and then silence, the innermost heart of silence, where the waves of air never bore a single stray tone, but where all was rest unto death, steeped in the calm glow of red colors and the languid warmth of fiery fragrance.