It was their Boston tea-party. A
delegation of the "tax refusers" had come to Copenhagen, where the
political pot was boiling hot over the incident. The students were
enthusiastic, but the authorities of the university sternly
unsympathetic. The "Reds" were for giving a reception to the
visitors in Regentsen, the great dormitory where, as an Iceland
student, Finsen had free lodging; but it was certain that the Dean
would frown upon such a proposition. So they applied innocently for
permission to entertain some "friends from the country," and the
party was held in Finsen's room. Great was the scandal when the
opposition newspapers exploited the feasting of the tax refusers in
the sacred precincts of the university. To the end of his days
Finsen chuckled over the way they stole a march on the Dean.
For two or three years after getting his degree he taught in the
medical school as demonstrator, eking out his scant income by
tutoring students in anatomy. His sure hand and clear decision in
any situation marked him as a practitioner of power, and he had
thoughts once of devoting himself to the most delicate of all
surgery,--that of the eye. He was even then groping for his
life-work, without knowing it, for it was always light, light--the
source or avenue or effect of it--that held him.
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