hands."

He himself was one of these, and in this passage his own art and
personality is described better than could be done in thousands of
words of commentary.

Jens Peter Jacobsen was born in the little town of Thisted in Jutland,
on April 7, 1847. In 1868 he matriculated at the University 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