Hans Christian Andersen

“ I see now the bold smile on the lips which expressed joy or sorrow so strongly, so decisively, When the steam-vessel, like an enchanted ship, sails hither from the mountains, many a stranger comes to the church, visits this vault, and inquires the names of the kings, and these names sound forgotten and dead; he looks upon the worm-eaten crown, smiles, and if he be of a pious turn of mind, there is melancholy in his smile.
Slumber ye dead! the Moon remembers you. The Moon sends in the night her cold beams to your quiet kingdom, over which hangs the wooden crown! ”

“ No human being had deeper feeling, or greater elasticity of mind than he. The theatre was his ideal-world. Had he been slender and well proportioned, then he might have become a first-rate tragic actor, for the great, the heroic, filled his soul; but he was obliged to be the Clown. His sufferings, even, and his melancholy increased the comic expression of his strongly-marked countenance, and excited the laughter of the crowded public who applauded their favorite. The pretty little Columbine was friendly and kind to him, and yet she preferred marrying Harlequin. ”

“ They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. “See!” cried they, at last, “the Emperor’s new clothes are ready!”
And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding something up, saying, “Here are your Majesty’s trowsers! here is the scarf! here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth.” ”

“ I know another, one still more strange; not the corpse, but the ghost of a city. On all sides where the fountain splashes into a marble basin, I seem to hear stories of the floating city. Yes, the fountain-streams can tell them! The billows on the shore sing of them. Over the surface of the sea there often floats a mist, that is the widow’s weeds. The sea’s bridegroom is dead; his palace and city are now a mausoleum. Dost thou know this city? ”

“ It was only two days since the camel, adorned with skins and costly shawls, bore her, a beautiful bride, around the walls of the city; drums and bagpipes resounded, women sang, and shouts of joy were sent forth from those who surrounded the camel, the bridegroom shouted the gayest and the loudest of them all, and now—now he rode with the caravan across the desert. I accompanied them for many nights; saw them rest beside the wells, among the crested palm trees; they stabbed with a knife the fallen camel and cooked the flesh with fire. My beams cooled the burning sand ”

“ That is not a fairy palace but a church which thou seest before thee! the gilded dome, the gilded balls around it, shine in my beams; the magnificent bronze horses upon it have traveled about like bronze horses in a fairy tale; they have traveled thither, away from their place, and then again back! Seest thou the beautiful painting on walls and window panes? It is as if some genius had done the will of a child and thus decorated this extraordinary temple. Dost thou see the winged lion upon the pillar? ”

“ I will give thee a picture of Pompeii,— said the Moon. I have been in the suburbs, the Street of Tombs, as it is called, where once the rejoicing youths, with roses around their brows, danced with the lovely sisters of Lais. Now the silence of death reigns here; German soldiers in the pay of Naples keep guard here, and play at cards and dice. A crowd of foreigners, from the other side of the mountains, wandered into the city, accompanied by the guard. They wished to see this city, arisen from the grave, by the full clear light of the Moon ”

“ It was just now five and-twenty years since I, a poor lad, traveled alone and helpless to Copenhagen. Exactly the five-and twentieth anniversary would be celebrated by my being with my king and queen. Everything which surrounded me, man and nature, reflected themselves imperishably in my soul; I felt myself, as it were, conducted to a point from which I could look forth more distinctly over the past, with all the good fortune and happiness which it had evolved for me. ”

“ In the horn of plenty sate, with folded arms, and gazing upon the great river-god, a very little love, a true picture of the little boy with the wheel; it was the same expression. Living and charming, here stood the little marble child; and yet more than a thousand times had the wheel of the year gone round since it stood forth in stone. Just so many times as the boy in the poor chamber turned the wheel has the great wheel of time hummed round, and still shall hum, before the age creates another marble-god like this. ”

“ The swineherd—that is to say—the Prince, for no one knew that he was other than an ill-favored swineherd, let not a day pass without working at something; he at last constructed a rattle, which, when it was swung round, played all the waltzes and jig tunes, which have ever been heard since the creation of the world.
“Ah, that is superbe!” said the Princess when she passed by, “I have never heard prettier compositions! Go in and ask him the price of the instrument; but mind, he shall have no more kisses!” ”

“ Like most men of great original talent, he is emphatically one of the people; and writing as he has done, principally of popular life, he describes what he himself has suffered and seen. Poverty or hardship, however, never soured his mind; on the contrary, whatever he has written is singularly genial, and abounds with the most kindly and universal sympathy. Human life, with all its trials, privations, and its tears, is to him a holy thing ”

“ When the Clown was most out of humor, she was the only one who could make him smile—nay, even burst into peals of laughter. First of all she would be melancholy with him, then rather cheerful, and at last full of fun.
“I know what it is thou art in want of!” said she—“yes, it is this love!” and so he was obliged to laugh.
“Me and love!” exclaimed he. “That would be a merry thing! How the public would applaud.”
“It is love!” continued she; and added, with comic pathos—“It is me that you love!”
“Yes! and yet there are people who say there is no such thing as love!” ”

“ This very evening a poor hearse has driven out of the gate of the town; not a single being accompanied it. There lay upon it a suicide, our painted and derided hero. The driver was the only attendant; no one followed, no one except the Moon. In an angle of the churchyard wall is the self-murdered laid; nettles will soon spring up thereon; there will grave-diggers cast thorns and weeds from other graves.
NINETEENTH EVENING.
I come from Rome,—said the Moon,—there, in the middle of the city, upon one of the seven hills, lie the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars ”

“ So the Princess was to have the rose, and the nightingale; and they were accordingly put into large silver caskets, and sent to her.
The Emperor had them brought into a large hall, where the Princess was playing at “Visiting,” with the ladies of the court; and when she saw the caskets with the presents, she clapped her hands for joy.
“Ah, if it were but a little pussy-cat!” said she; but the rose tree, with its beautiful rose came to view.
“Oh, how prettily it is made!” said all the court ladies.
“It is more than pretty,” said the Emperor, “it is charming!” ”

“ We are now in Cisterna, the little city where the Apostle Paul was met by his friends at Rome, when he was on his way to that city. Sing about it, you poets! The evening is beautiful; the stars twinkle. There is a girl lovely enough for sculpture, in the public-house at Cisterna; look at her, you poets! And sing about the fire-lily of the marshes!
Second Day’s Journey.
The Post-horses.—Now do go a little cautiously! not galloping in that way! There is a carriage driving before us, which we are not to pass on the road. ”

“ I withdrew my gaze from that poor chamber—I can see so far around me! I looked at that very moment into the hall of the Vatican where the marble gods stand. I illumined the group of the Laocoon; the stone seemed to sigh. I pressed my quiet kiss upon the muses’ breast; I fancy it heaved. But my beams tarried longest upon the group of the Nile, upon the colossal god. He lay full of thought, supporting himself upon sphinxes: dreaming there as if he were thinking of the fleeting year; little loves played around him with crocodiles. ”

“ My beams sought to penetrate the thick fence which the old plantains had woven, and which formed itself into an arch as firm as the shell of the tortoise. A Hindoo girl, light as the gazelle, beautiful as Eve, came forth from the thicket. There is scarcely anything so airy and yet so affluent in the luxuriance of beauty, as the daughter of India. ”

“ His third work, “Only a Fiddler,” is remarkable for its strongly drawn personal and national characteristics, founded upon his own experience in early life. Perhaps there never was a more affecting picture of the hopeless attempts of a genius of second-rate order to combat against and rise above poverty and adverse circumstances, than is given in the life of poor Christian, who dies at last “only a fiddler.”
In all these works Andersen has drawn from his own experience, and in this lies their extraordinary power. ”

“ How like a snake the road winds along the hill-side, by ruinous mounds and olive woods, all illumined by the red evening sunlight. A picturesque little town lies below us, and the peasants, full of life, are thronging the road. There is poetry in these hills! Come hither, thou who canst sing of it! Place thyself upon my back! My poets in the carriage there sit and are quite lazy. ”

“ His old grandmother took him to the manufactory, and shed bitter tears because the lot of the boy was so early toil and sorrow. The workmen in the factory were principally German, and discovering that Andersen had a fine voice, and knew many popular songs, they made him sing to them while the other boys did his work. He knew himself that he had a good voice, because the neighbors always listened when he sang at home, and once a whole party of rich people had stopped to hear him, and had praised his beautiful voice. Everybody in the manufactory heard him with equal delight. ”

“ On several evenings I read aloud my little stories to them, and nothing could be more gracious and kind than they were. It is so well when a noble human nature will reveal itself, where otherwise only the king’s crown and the purple mantle might be discovered. ”

“ The pigs, which at the beginning of the journey, were so fat that many of them died by the way, became thin and wretched before we came to our destination. Now, the world strides onward: everything gets easier!”
“We can smoke our pipes,” said the youth; “lie in the sun in our warm skin-cloaks. Meadows and cities glide swiftly past us; the pigs fly along with us, and get fat on the journey. That is the life!” ”

“ The father of Andersen was not without education; his mother was the kindest of human beings; they lived on the best terms with each other, but still the husband was not happy. He read comedies and the Arabian Tales, and made a puppet theatre for his little son, and often on Sundays took him out with him into the woods round Odense, where the solitude was congenial to his mind. ”

“ The flag hangs drooping like mourning crape; a girl stands there to rest herself, she has set down the heavy buckets of water, whilst the yoke on which she sustained them rests upon her shoulders, and she supports herself on the column of victory. ”

“ The manager, however, was obliged to give something more merry than common, in order that the public should not miss too much the lovely Columbine and the light-bodied Harlequin, and for this reason it behoved the Clown to be doubly entertaining. He danced and sprung aloft with despair at his heart, and the public clapped their hands and shouted—“Bravo, bravissimo!” The clown was called for when the performance was over. Oh, he was invaluable!
This evening, after the play, the poor little man walked out from the city to the solitary churchyard. ”

“ All the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be.
“I will send my faithful old minister, to the weavers,” said the Emperor at last, after some deliberation, “he will be best able to see how the cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than he is.”
So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their empty looms. ”

“ For the first time this night do we inhale warmth in this blessed chimney corner, and we will inhale it till we burst! The upper leathers are gone already,—nothing remains but the hind quarters, and they will soon give way. Before, however, we die this blessed death, we wish to leave our history behind us; and we wish also that our corpses should be taken to Berlin, to repose near to that man who had the heart and the courage to describe ‘Italy as it is,’—even by the truth-loving Nicolai.”
And with these words the boots crumbled to pieces. ”

“ At the distance of a hundred paces, there lay a sick man within an open tent of skins; there was life still in his veins, but for all that he must die, because he himself believed it, and the people all around him believed it too. ”

“ Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of remaining invisible to every one who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character. ”

“ Let us now see the son of the poor shoemaker of Odense—the friendless, ill-clad, almost heart-broken boy of Copenhagen—on one of those occasions, which would make an era in the life of any other literary man, but which are of every day occurrence in his. I will quote from his own words.
“I received a letter from the ministry, Count Rantzau Breitenburg, containing an invitation from their majesties of Denmark to join them at the watering-place of Föhr; this island lies in the North Sea, on the coast of Sleswick. ”

“ Whether regarded as the human being asserting in his own person the true nobility of mind and moral worth, or the man of genius, whose works alone have raised him from the lowest poverty and obscurity, to be an honored guest with kings and queens, Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most remarkable men of his day. ”