LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK IN DENMARK.

A GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSE.

It was with some little excitement that I set out, in the summer of 1872, to visit for the first time the Gyldendalske Boghandel, the centre of literary activity in the country, and by far the most important publishing house in Scandinavia. As long ago as 1824 it was observed that the real Golden Age of the book-trade begins with Mr. Goldendale, the bookseller.' But the famous firm was old even then; it was an institution, at that remote date, which had lasted sixty years. In 1761, at a hamlet in the north of Jutland, a schoolmaster, whose name was Jens Mortensen, had a house in a green hollow called Gyldendal or Golden Dale. This was just the time when Jutlanders were giving up the patronymic system, and the schoolmaster adopted the name of this valley as his own surname, so that his eldest son should not have to go to the grammar-school at Aalborg under the plebeian title of Sören Jensen, but, sonorously and like a gentleman, as Sören Gyldendal.

It was Sören who started, in 1769, in a cautious way at first, the book-shop in Copenhagen which was called, and has continued to be called ever since, the Gyldendalske Boghandel or Gyldendal's Book-shop. In 140 years the business has been kept in the hands of four members of the firm, a continuity of possession which probably exceeds that of any publishing house in the world, except perhaps that of Longman. Sören Gyldendal flourished until 1802. His son-in-law and successor, Jacob Deichmann, reigned longer still, until 1850, and he was succeeded by the third monarch of the house, his adopted son, Frederik Hegel, who conducted the firm with brilliant energy and success until 1887, when his son, the present Mr. Jacob Hegel, took up the business. The original Gyldendal was a retail trader, a distributor of books rather than a publisher. Although a man of some learning, his views were purely commercial. The Golden Age began with Deichmann, who was a lover of literature, and a patron of it; or rather, with apologies to the wag of 1824 who has just been quoted, it was the

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Silver Age which opened under Deichmann; the Golden Age it was reserved for Hegel to inaugurate.

The appetite of the Danish people for every kind of printed matter had grown with remarkable rapidity during the second half of the eighteenth century, but it was kept in some check by the severity of the Press laws. With the nineteenth century a new era of intellectual energy set in, marked, at the death of Bernstorff, by the removal of the severe restrictions on the Press. This was the moment for a bookseller of the taste and vigour of Deichmann to extend and advance his business, and he took advantage of it. But the war with England, the Napoleonic struggles on the Continent, the stagnation of European trade, the difficulty of supplying the important markets of Norway, continued to render the business of literature complicated. The season of the wonderful blossoming of classic Danish poetry was commencing- The Gold Horns' of Oehlenschläger belongs to 1802, the earliest masterpieces of Schack-Steffeldt and of Blicher to about 1803-but in this Deichmann took little part as an inaugurator. He sold the books of the poets across his counter, and he shipped them to Jutland and to Norway, but his courage failed him when it was suggested that he should publish them. He thought dictionaries, grammars, atlases, and translations from Walter Scott a safer investment than the products of native talent, and he laid up a handsome fortune for a bolder man.

That bolder man was Frederik Hegel, one of the most liberal, enthusiastic, and far-sighted publishers that Europe has known. His ambition was to gather around the firm of Gyldendal all that was brilliant and all that was promising in the living poetry and prose of Denmark. And he had another and a still more interesting aim. He saw that Norway, which was beginning to expand in every intellectual direction, was prevented by the limitations of her commercial life from giving to the world a just impression of the treasures of her native genius. Now the Norwegian author wrote in a language not more to be distinguished from Danish than Scotch is from English. It was Hegel's idea to embrace all that was best in Norway in one common fold with the best of Denmark-to be. in short, the publisher of two living literatures. He effected this by annexing the young and highly vitalised talents of Björnson and Ibsen, to whom he could offer far better terms, a wider circulation, a

handsomer format, and even a swifter distribution through Norway itself, than any publisher in Christiania or Bergen was able to dream of. To the end of their days these two great writers did business exclusively with the house of Gyldendal, and all their books, so Norwegian, so national as they were, were published in Copenhagen. The other leaders of Norwegian literature followed their example, and it was almost a patriotic glory to Hegel that, as Georg Brandes said at the grave of the great publisher, he had enabled the little Denmark to subjugate the literature of so proud and so sensitive a neighbour as Norway.

In arriving at the Gyldendalske Boghandel, I was much surprised by the modesty of its appearance. It stood then in Klareboderne, a narrow and short street or passage near the centre of the city, a quiet place where the noise of the principal thoroughfares was heard faintly, like a hum. Nothing could be more insignificant than the approach, under a low arch, to the courtyard of a house so high and square that the sunlight rarely reached its lower windows. All was studiously plain; the interior like that of an old-fashioned sober bank. At the time of this my earliest visit, the genius of the place, Frederik Hegel, was absent at his country-house, Emilie Kilde, on the Sound; but I was cordially received, and shown the marvels and mysteries of the place, by August Larsen, the head clerk, from whom I had already received many courtesies, and was to be the grateful recipient of many more. Larsen had held the post, which brought him into pleasant relation with all the chief authors of his time, since 1863, and he was the most enthusiastic and the most modest of men.

When I returned to Copenhagen, in 1874, almost my earliest excursion brought me to the door of the Gyldendalske Boghandel. My main object, in so prompt a visit to the great publishing house, was to find August Larsen, and induce him to define the situation. This gentleman received me with his kind pink face pink face twinkling with enthusiastic pleasure. The cordiality of these Danes to an unimportant exile from England was extraordinary; if I were to do it justice I should write of nothing else. But among all my correspondents there had been, and was to be, none so devoted as August Larsen. It would be a long story to draw up a list of all the kindnesses he had lavished in giving me literary intelligence, sending me new Danish books, enclosing in letters

of miraculous penmanship scraps of interest from journals and magazines-bringing, in short, my London lodgings into as close relations with the Danish world of letters as was possible. In consequence of his exceptional position, everything in the shape of a book passed under Larsen's notice. No writer of the least ambition or spirit but desired to be introduced to Copenhagen by the leading firm. What, therefore, the Gyldendalske Boghandel did not see fit to publish, it had at least had the opportunity of reading in manuscript. August Larsen did not himself write, and I do not remember that he had any literary prejudices. His attention was concentrated on the business aspect of book-making, and he did not lean much to the critical. But he was amazingly well-informed, and he had the habit of observing the literary trend of the time.

Among the earliest remarks which he dropped to me on this occasion was this: Georg Brandes has made immense strides since you were here. They hate him, but they cannot overlook him any longer. I think you ought to watch Brandes' production closely. All our youngest writers seem to be trotting after him, like performing dogs after the circus-man with the whip. But the big-wigs do hate him; and as for the clergy— well, you will see for yourself. Of course you won't repeat what I say? By the way, our Mr. Hegel will never forgive me if you go without seeing him.' The suggestion about Brandes deeply interested me. The writings of the brilliant young Jewish critic had not escaped my reading, but I had not realised the degree to which the successive volumes of that extraordinary work, The Main Streams in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century,' were revolutionising thought and feeling. Of this famous book, which has now penetrated into every language of Europe, and has in its turn become commonplace and a classic, the first volume had been issued just after my visit to Denmark in 1872. In 1874 it had reached its third volume, and had achieved a tumultuous reputation. Georg Brandes, though I did not yet guess it, was to be the central figure of this my second visit to Copenhagen. At that moment, however, August Larsen returned to usher me into the presence of Mr. Hegel.

The greatest then living publisher of the North, perhaps the most remarkable man connected with the book-trade whom Scandinavia has known, had that day completed his fifty-sixth year. Mr. Frederik Hegel would not suffer me to be brought

to him, but hastened out to meet me, and with the most charming politeness led me into his private office at the back of the building. This parlour' had played a great part in the business arrangements of Danish and Norwegian literature, and I glanced round at its handsome carved panelling, its inset paintings, its old dark solid furniture, with respect. It was doomed in a few months to be dismantled, when the firm left Klareboderne for wider and more splendid quarters. Frederik Hegel had little of the appearance of a Dane; thin, tall, tightly encased in an irreproachable frock-coat, he fulfilled my conception of a convener or a sheriff-principal. His low quiet voice had an inflexion rather Scotch than Danish. This idea of a personage very influential from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh was borne out by the smoothness of the features, the large bald brow, the high cheekbones. Frederik Hegel

gave the impression of power, of justice, but almost more of patient adroitness. One felt that an angry poet, trumpeting through a mane of curls, would, in the long run, have not a single chance of worsting an opponent so quiet, smooth, and smiling. But I was not, on this first occasion, to enjoy an uninterrupted study of Hegel's conversation.

The armchair in which the publisher usually presided was now, to my surprise, occupied by a very strange figure. I was presented to Mr. Frederik Barfod, who acknowledged my bow with all the dignity of an astrologer. He had been sitting, when we entered, in a very impressive attitude, his spectacled and rather goggle eyes cast upwards in a reverie, a black skull-cap pulled down upon his brows, and one knotted hand solemnly stroking a very long and milk-white beard. It was impossible not to look round for his cauldron and his staff, so completely did he seem got up to act the part of a magician. I am not betraying a confidence, I believe, when I say that Barfod was at that time one of the recognised comic characters of Copenhagen, and I was prepared for the little performance which followed. The mage's attention was with difficulty brought down to earth, and then became riveted upon me with the most disconcerting intensity. Barfod was deaf, and Mr. Hegel had to undergo a smart fire of cross-questions and crooked answers before the former came to a right consideration of who I might be and whence I came. Fortunately-for it was as good as a farce to listen to him and to draw him on-he appeared to feel