But he is
indispensable to the characterization of the group.
Widely different as these three men are in almost everything, they have
this in common, that they have deeply breathed the air of the nineteenth
century; and they all show more or less the influence of Brandes. That
this influence has been direct and personal seems probable from the
relation which they have sustained to the revolutionary critics. Of this
I am, however, by no means sure. Mr. Jacobsen, who was by profession a
botanist, and translated Darwin into Danish, no doubt came by his
"advanced views" at first hand. In the case of Schandorph it is more
difficult to judge. He is an excellent linguist, and may have had access
to the same sources from which Brandes drew his strength. Drachmann is
so vacillating in his tendencies that he refuses to be permanently
classified in any school of art or thought. Of the three, Schandorph
seems altogether the maturest mind and furnishes the most finished and
satisfactory work. In his novel "Without a Centre" (_Uden Midtpunkt_)
the reader feels himself at once face to face with an interesting and
considerable personality.
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