SPEECH AT THE DANISH STUDENTS’ BANQUET, COPENHAGEN, OCTOBER 3, 1885

I DO not like it at all to hear my praises sung so loudly. I prefer solitude, and I always feel an inclination to protest when the health of an artist or a poet is proposed with a motive such as: There stands he, and there far away are the others. But the thanks given me contains also an admission. If my existence has been of any importance, as you say it has, the reason is that there is kinship between me and the times. There is no yawning gulf fixed between the one who produces and the one who receives. There is kinship between the two. I thank you for the kinship I have found here among you.