Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/192

 than my life over there 'mong the Charleston merchants.
 * There was something hollow in the whole affair,
 * something foreign at the bottom, something dubious behind it;-
 * I was never at home in their company,
 * nor felt myself really one of the guild.
 * What tempted me into that galley at all?
 * To grub and grub in the bins of trade-
 * as I think it all over, I can't understand it;-
 * it happened so; that's the whole affair.-
 * To be oneself on a basis of gold
 * is no better than founding one's house on the sand.
 * For your watch, and your ring, and the rest of your trappings
 * the good people fawn on you, grovelling to earth;
 * they lift their hats to your jewelled breast-pin;
 * but your ring and your breast-pin are not your person.-
 * A prophet; ay, that is a clearer position.
 * At least one knows on what footing one stands.
 * If you make a success, it's yourself that receives
 * the ovation, and not your pounds-sterling and shillings.
 * One is what one is, and no nonsense about it;
 * one owes nothing to chance or to accident,
 * and needs neither licence nor patent to lean on.-
 * A prophet; ay, that is the thing for me.
 * And I slipped so utterly unawares into it,-
 * just by coming galloping over the desert,
 * and meeting these children of nature en route.
 * The Prophet had come to them; so much was clear.
 * It was really not my intent to deceive-
 * there's a difference 'twixt lies and oracular answers;
 * and