Time & Perspective Quote by Georg Brandes

Childhood heroics rarely collide so neatly with the mundane logistics of growing up. Brandes sketches that collision in a sentence that pivots from swagger to obligation: “in imagination I was so great a warrior” meets “I had myself to protect my brother.” The intent is less to brag about early bravery than to puncture it. He frames the “warrior” not as a destiny but as a compensatory fantasy arriving right on schedule - “just about this time” - when the scaffolding of childhood (the nurse, the escorted route to school) is removed.

The subtext is about the birth of selfhood under pressure. Being “no longer taken” isn’t merely a change in transportation; it’s a quiet demotion from cared-for child to responsible actor. Brandes makes the shift feel bodily: imagination is weightless, “real life” demands “more strength.” That word choice matters. Strength here isn’t epic; it’s practical, social, even infrastructural. The world is suddenly something you move through unchaperoned, and your first test of agency arrives as duty to someone smaller.

Contextually, this reads like the seedbed of Brandes the critic: an early recognition that narratives we tell ourselves (warrior, hero, protagonist) are constantly being negotiated by circumstances. He’s already attentive to the irony that the grandest self-image is most useful when it can be repurposed into care. The line carries a sly realism: masculinity and courage are introduced not through glory, but through a walk to school with a younger brother and the unromantic fear that something could happen if you’re not strong enough.