(fyldigere citat - fra et brev til Mrs Winter 3. april, 1855 - for 170 år siden - gælder også kritikere lige præcis, og i går uddelte vi i Kritikerlavet Kritikerprisen til Christel Wiinblad, der takkede inderligt på telefon, og Georg Brandes prisen til Jørn Erslev Andersen, der (u)takkede spidst in person, og de ville begge selvfølgelig helst have skrevet videre i stedet for (Christel fortalte, at hun havde skrevet en ny bog, AT GLÆDE SIG!))
“A necessity is upon me now — as at most times — of wandering about in my old wild way, to think. I could no more resist this on Sunday or yesterday than a man can dispense with food, or a horse can help himself from being driven. I hold my inventive capacity on the stern condition that it must master my whole life, often have complete possession of me, make its own demands upon me, and sometimes, for months together, put everything else away from me. If I had not known long ago that my place could never be held, unless I were at any moment ready to devote myself to it entirely, I should have dropped out of it very soon. All this I can hardly expect you to understand — or the restlessness and waywardness of an author’s mind. You have never seen it before you, or lived with it, or had occasion to think or care about it, and you cannot have the necessary consideration for it. “It is only half an hour,” — “It is only an afternoon,” — “It is only an evening,” people say to me over and over again; but they don’t know that it is impossible to command one’s self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes, — or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day. These are the penalties paid for writing books. Whoever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. I am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but I can’t help it; I must go my way whether or no.”
