in order that you may understand me thoroughly, I must tell you what I think of it.
"A nature like Stephensen's, in which from the beginning, after all, there were some noble seeds (without them I suppose he would not have been an artist, not even the artist he is); when such a nature, still young and not quite debased, feels love for a young girl, then he grows higher and nobler, and she comes to know—and to love—a different being from what he was before. Still, this is not a deceit; on the contrary, she knows and loves just what he will be through their relations to one another, and in her something corresponding takes place, she develops, her character gets stronger and her views broader.
"All this is beautiful and true.
"But then the difference between the different natures appears in the course of time: such men in whom the nobler seeds are strong enough, really develop towards this ideal and gradually strengthen in it, but the others cannot keep themselves on the height to which they have been raised, they even sink below it."
"What I wrote last strained and affected me very much. It was so sad to think of and so difficult to make plain. Yesterday I could not write anything. I will not try to develop this idea any further, though it is of great importance to me that you quite understand, for it is in this point alone that my excuse lies. But surely you have understood. I dare not insist that it answers generally, but in this case it must be so.
"It was about my life in Denmark I wanted to tell you something.
