He has that sense of surprise and delighted
expectation which only the masters of fiction are apt to evoke. It is a
story of a Danish national type--the conversational artist. In no
country in the world is there such a conversational fury as in Denmark.
A people has, of course, to do something with its surplus energy; and as
political opposition is sure to prove futile, there is nothing left to
do but to talk--not only politics, but art, poetry, religion, in fact,
everything under the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, the hero
of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble tongue, the country had a more
liberal Government, and criticism of the Ministry was not yet high
treason. But centuries of repression and the practical exclusion of the
bourgeoisie from public life were undoubtedly the fundamental causes of
this abnormal conversational activity. There is something soft and
emotional in the character of the Danes, which distinguishes them from
their Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen--an easily flowing lyrical vein,
which imparts a winning warmth and cordiality to their demeanor.
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