To the student of Jens Peter Jacobsen’s life and works, Niels Lyhne has a value apart from its greatness as literature from the fact that it is the book in which the author recorded his own spiritual ...

She had the black, luminous eyes of the Blid family with delicate, straight eyebrows; she had their boldly shaped nose, their strong chin, and full lips. The curious line of mingled pain and sensuousn...

In a way, the child brought the parents together again. Over his little cradle they would meet in a common hope, a common joy, and a common fear; of him they would think, and of him they would talk, e...

The years passed. One Christmas trod upon the heels of another, leaving the air bright with its festive glow till long after Epiphany. Whitsun after Whitsun scampered over flower-decked meadows. One s...

There are those who can take up their grief and bear it, strong natures who feel their own powers through the very heaviness of their burden. Weaker people give themselves up to their sorrow passively...

Six months had passed since Edele’s death, when one of Lyhne’s cousins, Mrs. Refstrup, became a widow. Her husband had been a potter, but the business had never been flourishing, and during his long i...

“Mr. Lyhne⁠—Mrs. Boye; Mr. Frithjof Petersen⁠—Mrs. Boye.” It was Erik who performed the introduction, and it took place in Mikkelsen’s studio, a light, spacious room with a floor of stamped clay and a...

It was an evening in spring; the sun threw a red light into the room, as it sank toward the horizon. The wings of the windmill on the embankment drew shadows over the windowpanes and the walls, coming...

There was in Niels Lyhne’s nature a lame reflectiveness, child of an instinctive shrinking from decisive action, grandchild of a subconscious sense that he lacked personality. He was always struggling...

Niels Lyhne hurried home. He could not bear his loneliness among so many strangers, but the nearer he came to Copenhagen, the oftener he asked himself what he wanted there, and the more he regretted t...

Early that summer Erik Refstrup came home after his two years in Italy. He had gone away a sculptor; he returned a painter, and he had already attracted attention, had sold his pictures, and received ...

Three years had passed; Erik and Fennimore had been married for two years, and made their home in a little villa at Mariagerfjord. Niels had not seen Fennimore since that summer at Fjordby. He lived i...

For the better part of two years Niels Lyhne had roamed about on the Continent. He was very lonely, without kith or kin or any close friend of his heart. Yet there was another and greater loneliness t...

For about a year, Niels Lyhne had lived at Lønborggård, managing the farm as well as he knew how and as much as his old steward would let him. He had taken down his shield, blotted out his ’scutcheon,...

Autumn had come; there were no flowers any more on the graves up there in the churchyard, and the fallen leaves lay brown and moldering in the wet under the trees of Lønborggård. Niels Lyhne went abou...

Letters of J. P. Jacobsen. Published with a preface by Edvard Brandes. ↩...