Chapter 5

On the 5th of September, 1833, I crossed the Simplon on my way to
Italy. On the very day, on which, fourteen years before, I had arrived
poor and helpless in Copenhagen, did I set foot in this country of my
longing and of my poetical happiness. It happened in this case, as it
often does, by accident, without any arrangement on my part, as if I
had preordained lucky days in the year; yet good fortune has so
frequently been with me, that I perhaps only remind myself of its
visits on my own self-elected days.

All was sunshine--all was spring! The vine hung in long trails from
tree to tree; never since have I seen Italy so beautiful. I sailed on
Lago Maggiore; ascended the cathedral of Milan; passed several days in
Genoa, and made from thence a journey, rich in the beauties of nature,
along the shore to Carrara. I had seen statues in Paris, but my eyes
were closed to them; in Florence, before the Venus de Medici, it was
for the first time as if scales fell from my eyes; a new world of art
disclosed itself before me; that was the first fruit of my journey.
Here it was that I first learned to understand the beauty of form--the
spirit which reveals itself in form. The life of the people--nature--
all was new to me; and yet as strangely familiar as if I were come to a
home where I had lived in my childhood. With a peculiar rapidity did I
seize upon everything, and entered into its life, whilst a deep
northern melancholy--it was not home-sickness, but a heavy, unhappy
feeling--filled my breast. I received the news in Rome, of how little
the poem of Agnete, which I had sent home, was thought of there; the
next letter in Rome brought me the news that my mother was dead. I was
now quite alone in the world.

It was at this time, and in Rome, that my first meeting with Hertz took
place. In a letter which I had received from Collin, he had said that
it would give him pleasure to hear that Hertz and I had become friends;
but even without this wish it would have happened, for Hertz kindly
offered me his hand, and expressed sympathy with my sorrow. He had, of
all those with whom I was at that time acquainted, the most variously
cultivated mind. We had often disputations together, even about the
attacks which had been made upon me at home as a poet. He, who had
himself given me a wound, said the following words, which deeply
impressed themselves on my memory: "Your misfortune is, that you have
been obliged to print everything; the public has been able to follow
you step by step. I believe that even, a Goethe himself must have
suffered the same fate, had he been in your situation." And then he
praised my talent for seizing upon the characteristics of nature, and
giving, by a few intuitive sketches, pictures of