ordinary course. When I began to read Virgilius I felt as if I got wings
on my immortal soul, and I think I shall never lose them wholly again.
I began to read the poets, starting with the comedies of Old Holberg the
Dane, and passing to Schiller and Goethe and Heine. I read all plays
of Shakespeare (in Danish translation, then). I studied "Oidipous
Tyrannos," Sophocles' awful tragedy, in the original, and read Plautus
and Terentius as other boys, Icelandic and Danish fiction.

'During my first year at college I saw Matthías Jochumsson's
"Utilegumenn" (The Outlaws) performed at Reykjavik: they had then very
fine Icelandic scenery, and went home in ecstasy over the performance,
feeling that I had seen the brightest and strongest play in the world.
Of my reading I thought "Macbeth," "Gretchen im Carcer" ("Faust" I),
and "Oidipous Tyrannos" finest and fullest. While at Reykjavik I wrote
"Nyársnóttin" (New Year's Night) and got it acted at the college, with
the greatest possible success. That drama formed a turning point in my
life--as the author of it I went to Copenhagen to pursue my studies as
graduate student. I left college made to half of what I am.

'While studying Political Science at Copenhagen I wrote the drama,
"Hellismenn" (The Cave-dwellers). I had come south with two other dramas
in my mind. But the atmosphere in Copenhagen was strongly realistic
at that time; my Romanticism was not able to withstand it. Without
my knowledge I turned to Realism, and when I began to think about my
intended dramas I could not write on them because all my thoughts had
taken another direction. After completing my examinations I returned,
Copenhagen having made the other half of what I am. In 1880 I was
appointed auditor of the Official Accounts of Iceland, and got married.
During the ten ensuing years I was buried under an avalanche of accounts
and official documents and could hardly hold my head up above the