Hans Christian Ørsted

“ But the most beautiful sight of all is the old castle of Kronenburg, where Holger Danske sits in the deep, dark cellar, into which no one goes. He is clad in iron and steel, and rests his head on his strong arm; his long beard hangs down upon the marble table, into which it has become firmly rooted; he sleeps and dreams, but in his dreams he sees everything that happens in Denmark. On each Christmas-eve an angel comes to him and tells him that all he has dreamed is true, and that he may go to sleep again in peace, as Denmark is not yet in any real danger ”

“ Away they flew over wood and heath, rivers and pools, up north toward the Wild Bog; arrived here, they hovered round in great circles. The martyr raised high the cross; it shone like gold, and his lips chanted the holy mass. Little Helga sang with him as a child joins in its mother's song. She swung the censer, and from it issued a fragrance of the altar so strong and so wonder-working that the reeds and rushes burst into blossom, and numberless flower stems shot up from the bottomless depths; everything that had life within it lifted itself up and blossomed. ”

“ Rasmus Andersen lived in dark, weary days when fratricidal wars tore Denmark and Sweden.
In a quiet square, where the Odense children love to play, is a bronze figure of Hans Christian Andersen. It is a good statue; the limp, ungainly figure is faithfully reproduced. Upon the face is the sweet expression peculiar to the child-hearted man who never became sufficiently grown up to lose the children’s point of view. ”

“ At this moment her stepmother came into the room, and Joanna said quickly, “Knud is so unhappy, because I am going away;” and it appeared as if they had only been talking of her journey. “Come, be a man,” she added, placing her hand on his shoulder; “you are still a child, and you must be good and reasonable, as you were when we were both children, and played together under the willow-tree.”
Knud listened, but he felt as if the world had slid out of its course. His thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the wind. ”

“ The evening before the third trial Johannes went early to bed, said his prayers, and slept quite peacefully; but his companion fastened the wings to his back, and the sword to his side, and took all the three rods with him and flew off to the palace.
The night was pitch dark and a storm was raging, so that the tiles flew off the houses, and the trees in the garden, on which the skeletons were hanging, swung to and fro like reeds before the wind; every moment there were flashes of lightning and the thunder rolled as if in one continuous clap which lasted the whole of the night. ”

“ HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
REMINISCENCES OF HANS C. ANDERSEN.
“A prophet has no honour in his own country.” To no one can this bitter proverb be more truly applied, in the early part of his career, than to the author of “Fairy Tales,” now so well known and read in many languages, not only in the Netherlands but in all civilized countries.
Hans Christian Andersen was not descended from the high and noble in the land. The only child of poor parents; he was born at Odense, on the island of Funen, on the 2nd of April, 1805. ”

“ It glided over the rolling waves and across the ocean of time, and to him came the voice of Solon; spoken in a strange tongue, yet intelligible to him, he heard the Danish motto: "By law the land is ruled."
The genius of the human race stood in the humble room, bent down over the bed and imprinted a kiss on the boy's forehead: "Be thou strong in fame and strong in the battle of life! With truth in thy heart fly toward the land of truth!"
The elder brother was not yet in bed; he was standing at the window looking out at the mist which rose from the meadows. ”

“ HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN When a man writes as beautiful and as interesting stories as Hans Christian Andersen has written for children, we like to know something about him; and we find that nothing that he ever wrote was much more interesting than his own life. Certainly no one who knew him while he was a child could have thought that he would ever have much chance of becoming a famous man.
He was born on April 2nd, 1805, in the city of Odense, in Denmark. ”

“ The pictures of the old citizens seemed to be endued with life; they stepped forth from the walls, against which they had hung for centuries, and seated themselves near the entrance of the church. The gates and doors flew open, and all the dead from the churchyard entered at the sound of the music, and filled the seats in the church. Then the music of the psalm pealed forth like the noise of waters, and Jurgen saw that his old foster-parents from the Hunsby dunes, and the old Merchant Bronne and his wife were there; and at their side, close to Jurgen, sat their lovely daughter Clara. ”

“ The father of Hans Christian Andersen was a shoemaker of Odense. When scarcely twenty, he married a young girl about as poor as himself. The poverty of this couple may be imagined from the circumstance that the house afforded no better bedstead than a wooden frame, made to support the coffin of some count in the neighborhood, whose body lay in state before his interment. ”

“ If he dried his eyes with his nightcap, then the tear and the picture would be crushed; but the source of the tears remained and welled up again in his heart. The pictures did not follow one another in order, as the circumstances they represented had occurred; very often the most painful would come together, and when those came which were most full of joy, they had always the deepest shadow thrown upon them.
The beech-woods of Denmark are acknowledged by every one to be very beautiful, but more beautiful still in the eyes of old Anthony were the beechwoods in the neighbourhood of Wartburg. ”

“ He held her fast, and the old oak under which they stood seemed to help him, for the loosened roots on the ground became entangled in the maiden's feet, and held them fast. Close by rose a bubbling spring, and he sprinkled Helga's face and neck with the water, commanded the unclean spirit to come forth, and pronounced upon her a Christian blessing. But the water of faith has no power unless the well-spring of faith flows within. And yet even here its power was shown; something more than the mere strength of a man opposed itself, through his means, against the evil which struggled within her. ”

“ His best known work, Aanden i Naturen (“The Soul in Nature”) , has been translated into all European languages. His brother, Anders Sandoe Oersted (1778-1830) , is known as a writer on jurisprudence and diplomacy. In Denmark, as in other lands, the novel takes a foremost place in the literature of the present day. The most celebrated Danish novelist of our time is Hans Christian Andersen (born 1805) . His best works, however, are his short fairy tales. His imagination and humor place these among the most charming of writings, and they are translated into all European tongues. ”

“ But he would not let her sit before him on the horse, though of her own free will she wished to do so. "Thou must sit behind me, not before me," said he. "Thy magic beauty has a magic power which comes from an evil origin, and I fear it; still I am sure to overcome through my faith in Christ." Then he knelt down, and prayed with pious fervor. It was as if the quiet woodland were a holy church consecrated by his worship. The birds sang as if they were also of this new congregation; and the fragrance of the wild flowers was as the ambrosial perfume of incense ”

“ The God whom none might name would reign, and to Him would ascend Baldur the mild, the loving, redeemed from the kingdom of the dead—he was coming—the Viking's wife saw him plainly, she knew his face—it was that of the Christian priest, their prisoner. "White Christ," she cried aloud, and as she named the name she pressed a kiss upon the forehead of the loathsome toad; the frog's skin fell away, and before her stood little Helga in all the radiance of her beauty, gentle as she had never been before, and with beaming eyes. ”

“ Then Knud went home and packed up his knapsack; he felt he must return to the home of his childhood, to the elder-tree and the willow. "Ah, under that willow-tree!" A man may live a whole life in one single hour.
The old couple begged him to remain, but words were useless. In vain they reminded him that winter was coming, and that the snow had already fallen on the mountains. He said he could easily follow the track of the closely-moving carriages, for which a path must be kept clear, and with nothing but his knapsack on his back, and leaning on his stick, he could step along briskly. ”

“ They came from every side, always increasing like a rising, rolling sea. Then they swooped towards the forest, where every sound had been silenced as if by magic, every breath hushed, every bird mute. All nature stood still in grave suspense. ”

“ They are just as frightened of them as you used to be of the cane behind the looking glass. I can double the boys up, I can tell you, and then they have to go into the bag; we don't stand upon ceremony, and there they have to stay; they can't get out to play their tricks till it suits me to let them. But here we have one of them." It was the Northwind who came in with an icy blast ”

“ At Borglum it was warm and cheerful in the heated rooms, while cold winter raged without, when a piece of news was brought to the bishop. "Jens Glob, of Thyland, has come back, and his mother with him." Jens Glob laid a complaint against the bishop, and summoned him before the temporal and the spiritual court.
"That will avail him little," said the bishop. "Best leave off thy efforts, knight Jens."
Again it is the time of falling leaves and stranded ships. Icy winter comes again, and the "white bees" are swarming, and sting the traveller's face till they melt. ”

“ IT HAS OUR MOST GRACIOUS APPROVAL.The two impostors requested him to step nearer, and asked if he did not think the pattern very pretty and the colours extremely beautiful. They then pointed to the empty loom, while the poor old minister kept staring as hard as he could, but without being able to see what in fact, was not there to be seen. “Have mercy on us!” thought he; “can I be so stupid, after all? I never thought myself so, and I must not let any one know it. Can I be unfit for my office? No! it will never do for me to own that I could not see the stuff.” ”

“ The third lion reminded him of Margaret, who united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. But when he gazed at the red hearts, their colours glowed more deeply, even as flames, and his memory followed each in turn. The first led him to a dark, narrow prison, in which sat a prisoner, a beautiful woman, daughter of Christian the Fourth, Eleanor Ulfeldt, [2] and the flame became a rose on her bosom, and its blossoms were not more pure than the heart of this noblest and best of all Danish women. “Ah, yes; that is indeed a noble heart in the Danish arms,” said the grandfather. ”

“ Its wings looked as if they were clipped, the bird itself as if it had been injured, and she inquired what had been done to it, and for the first time heard the tradition which the Egyptians relate about the ostrich.
The race had at one time been beautiful, its wings large and powerful; then, one evening, a mighty forest bird said to it: 'Brother, shall we fly to the river in the morning, if God will, and drink?' And the ostrich replied: 'I will.' When day broke they flew off, at first high up towards the sun—the eye of God—ever higher and higher, the ostrich far before all the others ”

“ He understood now why the gingerbread man had a bitter almond in his left side; his was the feeling of bitterness, and Joanna, so mild and friendly, was represented by the honeycake maiden. As he thought upon all this, the strap of his knapsack pressed across his chest, so that he could hardly breathe; he loosened it, but gained no relief. He saw but half the world around him; the other half he carried with him in his inward thoughts: and this is the condition in which he left Nuremberg. Not till he caught sight of the lofty mountains did the world appear more free to him ”

“ He can enter into a human being, talk to him, and make any movement he likes. The will-o'-the-wisp can assume any form whatever, man or woman, and can talk and act in their spirit, but according to his own notions of extremes, so that he arrives at any result he wishes. But in the course of the year he must know and understand how to lead three hundred and sixty-five mortals astray, — and that he must do in grand style, — to lead them astray from truth and righteousness ”

“ 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. ”

“ Councilor Knap, deep in meditation on the times of King Hans, was on his way home, but fate had so ordained it that instead of his own galoshes, he had put on the galoshes of fortune, in which he now stepped out into Östergade. By the magic power of the galoshes, however, he was now put back to the days of King Hans, and his feet went right into the mire and mud of the street, for in those days the streets were not paved.
THE COUNCILOR SAW A LARGE FIELD BEFORE HIM, WITH A FEW BUSHES HERE AND THERE, AND A BROAD STREAM FLOWING THROUGH IT.
"How terribly dirty the street is!" ”