Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/232

214 become a Prussian hussar. As a hussar he intended to enter upon a career which was soon to raise him to greatness and send him home to his Arense. But things turned out quite otherwise than he had imagined. Instead of becoming a "Kammerhussar," as had been promised him, he was compelled to accept the position of a common infantry soldier, and he fared no better when he deserted the Prussians and went to the Austrians. After a year and a half of dangers and privations, through which he contracted the physical weakness that caused him so much suffering in after life, he again deserted and returned to Copenhagen. Two years later he passed his theological examination, but Arense married another man. Henceforth Ewald abandoned all hope of earthly happiness, and in this frame of mind he wrote the prose narrative "Lykkens Tempel," which was published by the "society for the advancement of the beautiful and the useful," after it had been sent back to the author several times for revision and correction.

The same year in which this story was published the society offered a prize for an ode on the attributes of divinity. Ewald competed, but instead of the required ode he handed in a lyrical drama, the "Adamiade." It was sent back to him with the remark that it certainly showed a "faint glimmering of genius," and he was asked to mend and improve it, whereupon Ewald declared that "if he could not be the first poet in the realm, he did not care to be the second," and therewith he undertook to recast and work over his poem until "all had to confess that since the days of King Skjold his equal had not been seen." While he was engaged on the revision of this poem, it became apparent to him that what he most of all lacked was thorough knowledge, and so he resolved not to write a line for two years, but devote all his time to study and reading. Of the poets he studied, Corneille and Klopstock had the greatest charm for him, and the latter especially exercised a powerful influence on the development of his poetical talent, an influence, however, from which he later gradually emancipated himself.