of
Copenhagen, where he displayed a remarkable talent for science, winning
the gold medal of the university with a dissertation on Seaweeds.
He definitely chose science as a career, and was among the first in
Scandinavia to recognize the importance of Darwin. He translated
the Origin of Species and Descent of Man into Danish. In 1872 while
collecting plants he contracted tuberculosis, and as a consequence,
was compelled to give up his scientific career. This was not as great
a sacrifice, as it may seem, for he had long been undecided whether to
choose science or literature as his life work.

The remainder of his short life--he died April 30, 1885--was one of
passionate devotion to literature and a constant struggle with ill
health. The greater part of this period was spent in his native town of
Thisted, but an advance royalty from his publisher enabled him to visit
the South of Europe. His journey was interrupted at Florence by a severe
hemorrhage.

He lived simply, unobtrusively, bravely. His method of work was slow
and laborious. He shunned the literary circles of the capital with their
countless intrusions and interruptions, because he knew that the time
allotted him to do his work was short. "When life has sentenced you to
suffer," he has written in Niels Lyhne, "the sentence is neither a fancy
nor a threat, but you are dragged to the rack, and you are tortured, and
there is no marvelous rescue at the last moment," and in this book there
is also a corollary, "It is on the healthy in you you must live, it
is the healthy that becomes great." The realization of the former has
given, perhaps, a subdued tone to his canvasses; the recognition of the
other has kept out of them weakness or self-pity.

Under the encouragement of George Brandes his novel Marie Grubbe was
begun in 1873, and published in 1876. His other novel Niels Lyhne
appeared in 1880. Excluding his early scientific works, these two books
together with a collection of short stories, Mogens and Other Tales,
published in 1882, and a posthumous volume of poems, constitute
Jacobsen's literary testament. The present volume contains Mogens, the
story with which he made his literary debut, and other characteristic
stories.

The physical measure of Jacobsen's accomplishment was not great, but
it was an important milestone in northern literature. It is hardly
an exaggeration to say that in so far as Scandinavia is concerned he
created a new method of literary a