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an onlooker only, in safety ensconced,-
- see thinkers perish and martyrs bleed,
- see empires founded and vanish away,-
- see world-epochs grow from their trifling seeds;
- in short, I will skim off the cream of history.-
- I must try to get hold of a volume of Becker,
- and travel as far as I can by chronology.-
- It's true-my grounding's by no means thorough,
- and history's wheels within wheels are deceptive;-
- but pooh; the wilder the starting-point,
- the result will oft be the more original.-
- How exalting it is, now, to choose a goal,
- and drive straight for it, like flint and steel!
- [With quiet emotion.]
- To break off all round one, on every side,
- the bonds that bind one to home and friends,-
- to blow into atoms one's hoarded wealth,-
- to bid one's love and its joys good-night,-
- all simply to find the arcana of truth,-
- [Wiping a tear from his eye.]
- that is the test of the true man of science!-
- I feel myself happy beyond all measure.
- Now I have fathomed my destiny's riddle.
- Now 'tis but persevering through thick and thin!
- It's excusable, sure, if I hold up my head,
- and feel my worth, as the man, Peer Gynt,
- also called Human-life's Emperor.-
- I will own the sum-total of bygone days;
- I'll nevermore tread in the paths of the living.
- The present is not worth so much as a shoe-sole;
- all faithless and marrowless the doings of men;
- their soul has no wings and their deeds no weight;
- [Shrugs his shoulders.]
- and women,-ah, they are a worthless crew!
- [Goes off.]
