With all his virtues he lacked that higher
self-esteem which we call nobility.
CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE
The late Romantic authors of Denmark who lived on the traditions of
Oehlenschlaeger's time and the aesthetical doctrines of J. L. Heiberg,
have gradually been passing away; and a new generation has grown up,
which, though it knows Joseph, has repudiated his doctrine. A period of
stagnation followed the disappearance of the Romanticists. The
Sleswick-Holstein war of 1866, and the consequent hostility to Germany,
cut off the intellectual intercourse between the two countries which in
the first half of the century had been lively and intimate; and as, for
a while, no new ties were formed, a respectable dulness settled upon the
little island kingdom. People lived for the concerns of the day, earned
their bread and butter, amused themselves to the best of their ability,
but troubled themselves very little about the battles of thought which
were being fought upon the great arena of the world.
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