de Voguee in his book "Le Roman Russe," which gave him a
seat among the Forty Immortals.
The significance of Dr. Brandes's literary activity, which has now
extended over a quarter of a century, can hardly be estimated from our
side of the Atlantic. The Danish horizon was, twenty years ago, hedged
in on all sides by a patriotic prejudice which allowed few foreign ideas
to enter. As previously stated, the people had, before the two
Sleswick-Holstein wars, been in lively communication with Germany, and
the intellectual currents of the Fatherland had found their way up to
the Belts, and had pulsated there, though with some loss of vigor. But
the disastrous defeat in the last war aroused such hostility to Germany
that the intellectual intercourse almost ceased. German ideas became
scarcely less obnoxious than German bayonets. Spiritual stagnation was
the result. For no nation can with impunity cut itself off from the
great life of the world. New connections might, perhaps, have been
formed with France or England; but the obstacles in the way of such
connections appeared too great to be readily overcome.
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