Otto
Thostrup, a clever fellow, with nine prae caeteris, as his comrades
said, but also of a proud spirit, of which he must be broken. Not at
the disputations, which have been already mentioned, will we make his
acquaintance, although there we must be filled with respect for the good
Latin scholar; not in large companies, where his handsome exterior and
his speaking, melancholy glance must make him interesting; as little in
the pit of the Opera although his few yet striking observations there
would show him to be a very intellectual young man; but we will seek
him out for the first time at the house of his friend, the young Baron
Wilhelm. It is the beginning of November: we find them both with their
pipes in their mouths; upon the table lie Tibullus and Anacreon, which
they are reading together for the approaching philologicum.

In the room stands a piano-forte, with a number of music-books; upon the
walls hang the portraits of Weyse and Beethoven, for our young Baron is
musical, nay a composer himself.

"See, here we have again this lovely, clinging mist!" said Wilhelm. "Out
of doors one can fairly taste it; at home it would be a real plague to
me, here it only Londonizes the city."

"I like it!" said Otto. "To me it is like an old acquaintance from
Vestervovov. It is as though the mist brought me greetings from the sea
and sand-hills."

"I should like to see the North Sea, but the devil might live there!
What town lies nearest to your grandfather's estate?"

"Lernvig," answered Otto. "If any one wish to see the North Sea
properly, they ought to go up as far as Thisted and Hjoerring. I have
travelled there, have visited the family in Boerglum-Kloster; and,
besides this, have made other small journeys. Never shall I forget one
evening; yes, it was a storm of which people in the interior of the
country can form no conception. I rode--I was then a mere boy, and a
very wild lad--with one of our men. When the storm commenced we found
ourselves among the sand-hills. Ah! that you should have seen! The sand
forms along the strand high banks, which serve as dikes against the sea;
these are overgrown with sea-grass, but, if the storm bursts a single
hole, the whole is carried away. This spectacle we chanced to witness.
It is a true Arabian sand-storm, and the North Sea bellowed so that
it might be heard at the distance of many miles. The salt foam flew
together with the sand into our faces."

"That must have been splendi