III.

It does not suffice to indicate the quarter of the globe in which a

genius dwells; we cannot travel through Denmark with a map of Europe

for our guide. In the first place, it is necessary to see the locality

more accurately described, and, even then, we no more know a genius

because we happen to be familiar with his relations and surroundings

than we know a city because we have walked around its walls. For though

a genius may be partially, he cannot be exhaustively, explained by

the period in which he lives. What is transmitted to him he combines

under a new law; a product himself, he brings forth products which he

alone of the whole world is able to bring forth. We need only exert

our powers of observation a little, or hearken perhaps to the opinion

of a foreigner, to feel how much there is that is national, local,

and individual in Andersen's nursery stories. I was once talking with

a young Frenchman about Denmark. "I am very well acquainted with

your country," said he. "I know that your king is named Christian,

that your greatest author is an unrecognized genius whose name

is Hr. Schmidt, that Hr. Ploug is your fatherland's most valiant

warrior, whom no battle-field ever saw retreat, and that Hr. Bille

is the Gambetta of Denmark. I know that you have a body of learned

men who are distinguished for their scientific independence and free

investigations, and I know Hr. Holst, whom you call the 'Tyrtäus

of Danebrog.'" Seeing that he had oriented himself pretty well, I

interrupted him with the question, "Have you read Andersen's nursery

stories?" "Have I read them?" cried he, in reply. "Why, I have read

no other Danish book." "What do you think of them?" asked I. "_Un peu

trop enfantin,_" was the answer, and I am convinced that if Andersen's

nursery stories were submitted to a French child five years old, he,

too, would find them '_un peu trop enfantin_.'

I have stated that the childlike element in Andersen is universally

intelligible. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. This

childlike tone has a decidedly Teutonic impress; it is best understood

in England and in Germany, less well in any of the Latin nations, least

of all by the French. In fact, Andersen is very little known and read

in France. England is the only land in which romances and semi-romances

are devoted to the portrayal of the spiritual life of little children

(Dickens's "Paul Domby" and "David Copperfield," Miss Wetherell's

"The Wide, Wide World," George Eliot's "The Mill on the Floss"), and

English child nature is unique of its kind. It is only needful to open

the first illustrated French book for children that comes to hand to

observe the difference. The English child and the French child are as

dissimilar as the acorn and the beechnut. Moreover, Andersen could

never gain firm foothold in France for the reason that the field is

already occupied, having been taken possession of long since by La

Fontaine.

There are two kinds of naïveté. One is that of the heart, the other

that of the understanding; the former is frank, free, simple, and

touching, the latter has a distorted appearance, is jocose, full of

ready wit, and subtile. The one evokes tears, the other a smile; the

former has its beauty, the latter its charm; the former characterizes

the good child, the latter the _enfant terrible;_ and Andersen is the

poet of the former, La Fontaine of the latter naïveté. The latter form

of naïveté is that expression of precocity which utters the appropriate

word without exactly knowing what it says, and which has, therefore,

the appearance of a cloak; the other naïveté is that of innocence which

takes it for granted that its Garden of Eden is the whole world, and

consequently puts the whole world to shame without being aware that it

is doing so, and at the same time with so appropriate a choice of words

that it assumes the appearance of a mask. If we compare Andersen's

nursery stories with the fables of La Fontaine, we shall find a

fundamental difference in the contemplation of life exhibited and thus

become acquainted with the limits of the Northern mode of viewing life,

for every attempt at definition is in itself a limitation.

One of the most marked traits in La Fontaine's and the Gallic mode of

contemplating life is the war against illusion. The humorous play in

La Fontaine's naïveté is dependent on the fact that, harmless as this

naïveté is, good-natured and gentle as it always shows itself to be,

it now and then gives undoubted evidence that it is not altogether

foolish, that it will not allow itself to be duped, that it knows very

well how to estimate and value all the stupidity and hypocrisy, all the

preaching and all the empty phrases with which humanity permits itself,

as by common consent, to be led by the nose or by the heart. With a

smile it passes by all the earnestness at whose core is corruption and

hollowness, all the greatness which at bottom is but audacity, all

the respectability whose essence is a lie. Thus it puts "Everything in

its Right Place," which is the title of one of Andersen's most popular

tales. The key-note of its earnestness is poetic enthusiasm, and its

keen wit has a sting which is carefully concealed. French satire is

a rapier with a provisional button. In "Tartuffe," "Candide," and

"Figaro," it effected a revolution before the revolution. Laughter is

the oldest Marseillaise of France.

The most marked trait in Andersen's mode of viewing life, is that which

gives the ascendency to the heart, and this trait is genuinely Danish.

Full of feeling itself, this method of contemplation takes every

opportunity to exalt the beauty and significance of the emotions. It

overleaps the will (the whole destiny of the Flax, in the story of its

life, comes from without), does combat with the critique of the pure

reason as with something pernicious, the work of the Devil, the witch's

mirror, replaces pedantic science with the most admirable and witty

side-thrusts ("The Bell," "A Leaf From the Sky"), describes the senses

as a tempter, or passes them over as unmentionable things, pursues and

denounces hardheartedness, glorifies and commends goodness of heart,

violently dethrones coarseness and narrowness, exalts innocence and

decorum, and thus "puts everything in its right place." The key-note

of its earnestness is the ethic-religious feeling coupled with the

hatred felt by geniality for narrowness, and its humorous satire is

capricious, calm, in thorough harmony with the idyllic spirit of the

poet. Its satire has only the sting of a gnat, but it stings in the

tenderest places. Which of the modes of contemplation is the best? Such

a question is not worthy of an answer. I love the beech, but I love the

birch as well. Only because they please me, not in view of casting the

balance in favor of either of these modes, I quote the following lines

of George Herwegh:--

"My eyes with tears have often been bedewed,

When hearts I've seen all bruised and maltreated,

By hounds of understanding, too, pursued.

"Within the breast one little word is seated,

Yet wisely is its utterance subdued,

For hearts that beat too high will be defeated."

As different as these modes of contemplating life are the poetic

endowments of the two authors. La Fontaine writes clear, elegant,

highly melodious verse, whose poetry is a light enthusiasm and a

gentle melancholy. Andersen writes a grotesque, irregular prose, full

of harmless mannerisms, and whose poetry is a luxuriant, gushing,

rapturous conceit. It is this fantastic element which makes Andersen

so foreign to the French people whose rather gray poetry wholly lacks

the bright-hued floral splendor found among the Northern people and

attaining its highest beauty in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's

Dream," a splendor which may be detected throughout Andersen's nursery

stories, and which imparts to them their finest perfume. And as the

fantastic caprice of this element is Norse-Danish, its idyllic key-note

is purely Danish. No wonder that the earliest and most original of

these nursery stories were written during the reign of Friedrich VI.

and bear the stamp of his day. We recognize this monarch in all the

fatherly, patriarchal old kings represented in them; we find the spirit

of the age in the complete lack of social, to say nothing of political

satire, that we detect in them. No wonder, too, that Thorwaldsen could

never weary of hearing these stories read aloud as he counted his

numbers in the game of Lotto, for his Danish temperament was naïve,

and his art, with all its greatness, was as idyllic as the art which

produced these poetic creations.

A genius, born in an age whose every influence opposes his development,

is either hopelessly crushed or goes to ruin like any inferior talent.

An Andersen born in Denmark in 1705, instead of 1805, would have been

a most unfortunate and thoroughly insignificant individual, perhaps

even a maniac. A genius born at a period when everything unites to

come to its aid, produces classic, genial creations. Now, this first

harmony between a poet and his era (in a measure also, his country)

corresponds to a second one between the individual faculties of genius,

and to a third one between genius and its peculiar type of art. The

nature of genius is an organically connected whole; its weakness in one

direction is the condition of its strength in another; the development

of this faculty causes that one to be checked in its growth, and it

is impossible to alter any single particular without disturbing the

entire machinery. We may wish that one quality or another was different

than it is, but we can readily comprehend that any decided change is

out of the question. We may wish our poet had stronger personality,

a more manly temperament, and more mental equilibrium; but we have

no difficulty in understanding that the lack of defined personality,

and the incompleteness of the character whose acquaintance we make in

"The Story of my Life," stand in the most intimate relationship with

the nature of his endowments. A less receptive mind would not be so

susceptible to poetic impressions, a harder one would not unite so

much flexibility with its more rigid attitude, one more susceptible to

criticism and philosophy would not be so naïve.

Since, then, the moral attributes are requisite to the intellectual,

so, too, they are mutually contingent one upon the other. An

overflowing lyric sentiment, an exalted sensibility, cannot exist with

the experience and method of a man of the world, for experience chills

and hardens. A lightly vaulting fancy that hops and soars like a bird,

does not admit of being united with the logically measured crescendo

and decrescendo of dramatic action. An observation by no means inclined

to be cold-blooded cannot possibly penetrate psychologically to the

heart of things; a childlike, easily quivering hand cannot dissect a

villain. If, therefore, we place genius of this kind face to face with

sundry defined and well-known types of art, we can determine beforehand

precisely what its relations with each of them will be.

The romance is a species of poetic creation which demands of the mind

that would accomplish anything remarkable in it, not only imagination

and sentiment, but the keen understanding, and the cool, calm power

of observation of the man of the world; that is the reason why it is

not altogether suited to Andersen, although it is not wholly remote

from his talent. In the entire scenery, the background of nature,

the picturesque effect of the costumes, he is successful; but where

psychological insight is concerned, traces of his weakness may be

detected. He will take part for and against his characters; his men

are not manly enough, his women not sufficiently feminine. I know no

poet whose mind is more devoid of sexual distinctions, whose talent is

less of a nature to betray a defined sex, than Andersen's. Therefore

his strength lies in portraying children, in whom the conscious sense

of sex is not yet prominent. The whole secret lies in the fact that

he is exclusively what he is,--not a man of learning, not a thinker,

not a standard-bearer, not a champion, as many of our great writers

have been, but simply a poet. A poet is a man who is at the same time

a woman. Andersen sees most forcibly in man and in woman that which

is elementary, that which is common to humanity, rather than that

which is peculiar and interesting. I have not forgotten how well he

has described the deep feeling of a mother in "The Story of a Mother,"

or how tenderly he has told the story of the spiritual life of a woman

in "The Little Sea-Maid." I simply recognize the fact that what he has

represented is not the complicated spiritual conditions of life and

of romance, but the element of life; he rings changes on single, pure

tones, which amid the confused harmonies and disharmonies of life,

appear neither so pure nor so distinct as in his books. Upon entering

into the service of the nursery story all sentiments undergo a process

of simplification, purification, and transformation. The character

of man is farthest removed from the comprehension of the poet of

childhood, and I can only recall a single passage in his stories in

which a delicate psychological characteristic of a feminine soul may

be encountered, even this appears so innocently that we feel inclined

to ask if it did not write itself. It occurs in the story of the new

porcelain figures, "The Shepherdess and the Chimney-Sweep."

"'Have you really courage to go forth with me into the wide world?'

asked the chimney-sweep, tenderly. 'Have you considered how large it

is, and that we can never come back here again?' 'I have,' said she.

And the chimney-sweep gazed fixedly upon her, and then he said: 'My way

lies up the chimney. Have you really courage to go with me through the

stove, and to creep through all the flues?' ... And he led her towards

the door of the stove. 'It looks quite black,' said she, but still

she went with him and on through all the intricacies of the interior,

and through the flues, where a pitchy darkness reigned." After long,

long troublesome ascent they reached the top of the chimney and seated

themselves on its edge. "The heaven and all its stars were above them,

and all the roofs of the town below them; they could see far around,

far away into the world. The poor shepherdess had never pictured it

to herself thus; she leaned her little head on her sweep, and wept so

bitterly that all the gilding of her girdle came off. 'O this is too

much!' said she; 'I cannot bear it. This world is too large. O were I

but again on the little table under the looking-glass! I shall never be

happy till I am there again. I have followed you into the wide world;

now, if you really love me, you may follow me home again.'"

A more profound, more mercilessly true, more self-evident analysis

of a certain kind of feminine enthusiasm and its energy when it

undertakes to act boldly without regard to consequences, and without

looking backwards, can be found, I think, in the works of no other

Danish writer. What delicacy of presentation: the momentary resolute

enthusiasm, the heroic conquering of the first horror, the endurance,

bravery, firmness, until the moment which requires courage, when the

firmness is shattered, and the yearning for the little table under

the looking-glass is awakened. Many a voluminous romance would have

been exalted by such a page, and we find in it a compensation for the

fact that Andersen is no master in the province of the romance. The

drama is a species of poetic production that requires the faculty for

differentiating an idea and distributing it among many characters;

it requires an understanding of conscious action, a logic power to

guide this, an eye to the situation, a passion for becoming absorbed

and overwhelmed in the inexhaustible study of individual, many-sided

characters. Therefore it is that the drama is still farther removed

from the genius of Andersen than the romance, and that his lack of

capacity for the dramatic style increases with mathematical exactness

in the same ratio as each variety of dramatic art is removed from the

nursery story, and consequently from his gifts. He naturally succeeds

best with the nursery-story comedy; although, to be sure, it possesses

little more of comedy than the name. It is a mixed species, and if it

were put to the test of the Spanish story, it would be recognized as a

bastard. In the comedy of special situations he is happy with respect

to the poetic execution of single scenes ("The King's Dream"), but

singularly unfortunate in the execution of the idea as a whole ("The

Pearl of Good Fortune"). The comedy proper is not poorly suited to his

gifts. Certain of his nursery stories are, indeed, veritable Holberg

comedies; "The Happy Family" is a Holberg character-comedy, and "It is

Quite True" possesses a decided Holberg plot. In stories of this kind

character delineation comes easier to him than in the grave drama, for

in them he walks directly in the footsteps of Holberg, so strikingly

does his talent accord in a single direction with that of this early

Northern dramatist. Andersen is, as I have already remarked, no direct

psychologist; he is rather a biologist than an especially well-informed

student of human nature. His predilection is for describing man through

animals or plants, and seeing him develop from the rudiments of his

nature. All art contains an answer to the question, What is man?

Inquire of Andersen how he defines man, and he will reply, Man is a

swan hatched in the "duck-yard" of Nature.

To a person who takes an interest in psychological investigations, who,

without being able to grasp a complex character, possesses a refined

development of observation for single qualities, for characteristic

peculiarities, animals, especially those with which we are familiar,

afford great relief. We are usually accustomed to credit each animal

with an individual attribute, or at all events, with a limited group

of attributes. The snail is slow, the nightingale is the unpretending

singer with the glorious voice, the butterfly is the fair inconstant

one. There is nothing then to prevent the poet who possesses the gifts

needed to represent these striking little traits, from following in the

footsteps of Holberg, the man who wrote "Den Vægelsindede" (The Fickle

One), as Andersen did in "The New Lying-In Room." He betrays here,

moreover, one of his many points of similarity with Dickens, whose

comic characterizations are frequently limited to a few traits repeated

_ad infinitum._

In the epopee, which belongs in our day to the impossible forms of

poetry and which demands all the qualities that Andersen lacks, he can

merely find play for certain petty fancies, as for instance, when he

characterizes the spirit of China, in his "Ahasuerus," in a droll lyric

episode, or when he permits the twittering swallows (exactly as in a

nursery story) to describe the festal hall of Attila.

In his descriptions of travel very naturally a large number of his

best qualities come to light. Like his favorite, the migratory bird,

he is in his element when he travels. He observes with the eye of

a painter, and he describes like an enthusiast. Yet even here two

faults are apparent: one is that his lyric tendency at times runs

away with him, so that he chants a hymn of praise instead of giving a

description, or exaggerates instead of painting (see, for instance, the

gushing and untrue description of Ragatz and Pfäffers); the other, that

the underlying, personal, egotistical element of his nature, giving

evidence that his innermost personality lacks reserve, occasionally

obtrudes itself in a most disturbing manner.

The latter tendency characterizes with especially marked force the

style of his autobiography. The criticism that can with justice be made

on his "Story of My Life" is not so much that the author is throughout

occupied with his own private affairs (for that is quite natural in

such a work); it is that his personality is scarcely ever occupied with

anything greater than itself, is never absorbed in an idea, is never

entirely free from the ego. The revolution of 1848 in this book affects

us as though we heard some one sneeze; we are astonished to be reminded

by the sound that there is a world outside of the author.

In lyric poetry Andersen has met with foreign success--even Chamisso

has translated some of his songs; yet I am always loath to see him lay

aside his bright colored, realistic prose dress, that is so true to

nature, in order to veil himself in the more uniform mantle of verse.

His prose has fancy, unrestrained sentiment, rhythm, and melody. Why,

then, cross the brook to find water? His poems, too, are frequently

distinguished by a peaceful and childlike spirit, a warm and gentle

sentiment. We see that the result of his attempts in the different

regions of poetry proceeds quite directly, like the unknown _x_ in

mathematics, from the nature of his talents on one side, and the nature

of the kind of poetic creation he has chosen on the other.

Thus the nursery story remains his sole individual creation, and for

it he requires no patent, since no one is likely to rob him of it.

In Andersen's day it was a common thing to attempt to classify all

kinds of poetic creations with their varieties in an æsthetic system,

according to the method of Hegel; and Hegel's Danish disciple, Heiberg,

projected a complicated system in which the rank of the comedy, the

tragedy, the romance, the nursery story, etc., was definitely fixed,

while to Heiberg's own art-form an especially high rank was accorded.

It is, however, in a certain measure pedantic to speak of general

classes of art. Every creative artist thoroughly individualizes his own

species of art. The form which he has used, no other has it in his

power to use. So it is with the nursery story, whose theory Andersen

made no attempt to describe, whose place in the system there has been

no effort to establish, and which I, for one, should take good care

not to define. There is, indeed, something very curious about æsthetic

systematic classification; it impresses one very much in the same way

as division of rank in the State: the more one broods over it, the

more heretical one becomes. Perhaps this arises from the fact that to

think is in the main synonymous with becoming a heretic. Yet like every

natural type, Andersen's nursery story has its individual character,

and his theories are comprised in the laws it obeys, whose boundaries

it may not overstep without bringing to light a monster. Everything in

the world has its law, even that species of poetry which transcends the

laws of nature.

Andersen somewhere remarks, that he has made attempts in pretty much

every radiation of the nursery story. This remark is striking and

good. His nursery stories form a complete whole, a web with manifold

radiations, that seems to address the beholder in the words of the

spider's web in "Aladdin," "See how the threads can become entwined in

the delicate net!" If it will not seem too much like bringing the dust

of the schoolroom into the parlor, I should like to call the reader's

attention to a celebrated scientific work in Adolf Zeising's "Æsthetic

Investigations," in which can be found a complete series of æsthetic

contrasts, in all their different phases (the beautiful, the comic, the

tragic, the humorous, the touching, etc.), arranged in one great star,

just as Andersen has planned in respect to his nursery stories.

The form of fancy and the method of narration in the nursery story

admit the treatment of the most heterogeneous materials in the most

varied tones. Within its province may be found sublime narratives, as

"The Bell"; profound and wise stories, as "The Shadow"; fantastically

bizarre, as "The Elfin Mound"; merry, almost wanton ones, as "The

Swineherd," or "The Leap Frog "; humorous ones, as "The Princess on the

Pea," "Good Humor," "The False Collar," "The Lovers"; also stories with

a tinge of melancholy, as "The Constant Tin Soldier"; deeply pathetic

poetic creations, as "The Story of a Mother"; oppressively dismal,

as "The Red Shoes"; touching fancies, as "The Little Sea-Maid"; and

those of mingled dignity and playfulness, as "The Snow Queen." Here we

encounter an anecdote like "A Great Sorrow," which resembles a smile

through tears, and an inspiration like "The Muse of the Coming Age,"

in which we feel the pinion strokes of history, the heart-throbs and

pulse-beats of the active, stirring life of the present, as violent as

in a fever, and yet as healthy as in a happy moment of enthusiastic

inspiration.[7] In short, we find everything that lies between the

epigram and the hymn.

Is there, then, a boundary line which limits the nursery story, a law

which binds it? If so, where does it lie? The law of the nursery story

lies in the nature of the nursery story, and its nature is dependent on

that of poetry. If, at the first moment, it would seem that nothing is

prohibited a species of poetic creation which can permit a princess to

feel a pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds, it is

but a semblance. The nursery story, which unites unbridled freedom of

invention with the restraint its central idea impresses upon it, must

steer between two rocks: between the luxuriance of style that lacks

ideas, and dry allegory; it must strike the medium course between too

great fulness and too great meagreness. This, Andersen most frequently

succeeds in doing, and yet not always. Those of his stories that are

based on materials derived from folk-lore, as "The Flying Trunk," or

those that may be classed with the fairy-tale proper, as "Thumbling,"

do not attract grown people as they do children, because the story

in such instances conceals no thought. In his "Garden of Paradise"

everything preceding the entrance to the garden is masterly, but the

Fairy of Paradise herself seems to me to be invested with little, if

any, beauty or charm. The opposite extreme is when we see the barren

intention, the dry precept, through the web of poetic creation; this

fault, as might be expected in our reflecting and conscious age, is

one of more frequent occurrence. We feel it keenly because the nursery

story is the realm of the unconscious. Not only are unconscious beings

and objects the leaders of speech in it, but what triumphs and is

glorified in the nursery story is this very element of unconsciousness.

And the nursery story is right; for the unconscious element is our

capital and the source of our strength. The reason why the travelling

companion could receive aid from the dead man, was because he had

entirely forgotten that he had formerly helped this same dead man,

and even simple Hans gains the princess and half the kingdom, because

with all his folly he is so exceedingly naïve. Even stupidity has its

genial side and its good luck; with the poor intermediate beings, the

Nureddin natures alone, the nursery story knows not what to do.

Let us consider some instances of sins against the unconscious. In the

beautiful story of "The Snow Queen" a most disturbing influence is

exercised by the scene where the Snow Queen requests little Kay to make

figures with the ice puzzle for the understanding, and he is unable

to represent the word "Eternity." There is also clumsy and un-poetic

bluntness in "The Neighboring Families" whenever the sparrow's family

mention the rose by the abstract, and for a sparrow rather unnatural,

term, "the beautiful." It would have been understood, without this

hint, that the roses were the representatives of the beautiful in the

narrative, and in encountering this abstract word in the nursery story

we recoil as though we had come into contact with a slimy frog.

This tendency to allegory in narratives for children appears most

frequently, as might be expected, in the form of instruction and

moralizing; in some of the nursery stories, as in "The Buckwheat,"

the pedagogic element plays an exaggerated rôle. In others, as "The

Flax," we feel too strongly at the conclusion--as in Jean Paul--the

tendency to exhibit, in season and out of season, the doctrine of

immortality. Toward the end of the latter story a few little, somewhat

"insipid beings" are created who announce that the song is never

done. In some cases finally the tendency is more personal. A whole

series of stories ("The Duckling," "The Nightingale," "The Neighboring

Families," "The Daisy," "The Snail and The Rose-Tree," "Pen and

Inkstand," "The Old Street Lamp") allude to the poet's life and the

poet's lot, and in single cases we see traces--a rare exception with

Andersen--of invention being dragged in forcibly in order to bring

out the tendency. What sense and what conformity to nature is there,

for instance, in the fact that the street lamp can only let others

see the beautiful and symbolic sights that had been interwoven with

its experience when it is provided with a wax candle, and that its

faculties are useless when provided with an ordinary light? It is quite

incomprehensible until we conceive it to be an allegory on a poet's

supposed need of prosperity in order to accomplish anything. "And so

genius must run after cupboard lore!" wrote Kierkegaard on the occasion

of the appearance of "Only a Fiddler." Still more infelicitous is the

scene where the street lamp, in its melted-down condition, in its other

life, finds its way to a poet and thus fulfils its destiny. So strongly

as this the tendency has rarely shown itself.

The first duty of the nursery story is to be poetic, its second

to preserve the marvellous element. Therefore, it is first of all

necessary that the order of the legendary world be sacred to it. What

in the language of legendary lore is regarded as a fixed rule, must

be respected by the nursery story, however unimportant it may be in

relation to the laws and rules of the real world. Thus it is quite

inappropriate for the nursery story, as in Andersen's "The Dryad," to

part its heroine from her tree, to let her make a symbolic journey to

Paris, to go to the "bal Mabille," etc., for it is not more impossible

for all the kings of the earth to place the smallest leaf on a nettle

than it is for legendary lore to tear a dryad away from its tree. But

in the second place, it lies in the nature of the nursery story form

that its outline can frame nothing that, in order to obtain its poetic

rights, requires a profound psychological description, an earnest

development, such as would be adapted either to the nature of the

drama or the romance. A woman like Marie Grubbe, a sketch of whose

interesting life Andersen gives us in the story of "Chicken-Grethe,"

is too much of a character for it to be possible for the author of the

nursery story to describe or interpret; when he attempts to do so, we

feel a disproportion between the object and the form.[8] There is less

occasion, however, to marvel at these few blemishes than at the fact

that they so very rarely occur. I have only called attention to them

because it is interesting to become acquainted with the boundary lines

by observing how they have been overstepped, and because it seemed to

me more important to ascertain how the Pegasus of the nursery story,

notwithstanding all its freedom to race and fly through the circle, has

its firm tether in the centre.

Its beauty, its strength, its power of flight, and its grace, we do

not see by observing its limits, but by following its many and bold

movements within its circle. Upon this fact we will in conclusion cast

a glance. The nursery story field lies before us like a large, rich

flowery plain. Let us freely stroll about this, let us cross it in all

directions, now plucking a flower here, now there, rejoicing in its

coloring, its beauty, its _tout-ensemble._ These brief little poetic

creations stand in the same relation to the poetry of greater compass

as little flowers to the trees of the forest. Whoever on a beautiful

day in spring takes a walk in a forest by the seaside in order to view

the beeches in their youthful splendor, with their brown velvety buds

encased in light green silk, and after gazing aloft for awhile bends

his eyes downward to the earth, will find that the carpet of the forest

is as beautiful as its ceiling of tree-tops. Here grow in lowly state

many colored anemones, white and dark red mayflowers, yellow stars

of Bethlehem, and saxifrage, starwort, buttercups and dandelions.

Near together are the buds, the full-blown flowers, and those which

already bear seed, the virgin and the fecundated plants, the flowers

without fragrance and those with pleasant perfume, the poisonous, and

the useful, the healing weed. Frequently the plant which takes the

humblest place in the system, as the flowerless fern, is the most

beautiful to the eye. Flowers which seem to be complex prove on closer

scrutiny to consist of very few leaves, and plants whose bloom seems

to be one flower, bear on their top a wealth of blossoms only united

by the stalk. So, too, it is with the nursery stories. Those which in

respect to their worth seem the most insignificant, as "The Leap-Frog,"

often contain a whole life philosophy in a nutshell, and those which

appear to be a single whole, as "The Galoshes of Fortune," are often

composed of a loosely united cluster of blossoms. Some are in the bud,

as "The Drop of Water"; others are about bursting the seed, as "The

Jewish Girl," or "The Stone of the Wise Men." Some consist of but a

single point, as "The Princess on the Pea"; others have grand, noble

form, as "The Story of a Mother," a tale that is a special favorite in

India, and that resembles that tropical flower, the calla, which in its

sublime simplicity consists of but a single leaf.

I open the book at random, and my eye falls on "The Elfin Mound." What

life and what humor! "In the kitchen there was a great quantity of

frogs among the dishes; adders' skins, with little children's fingers

inside; salad of mushroom-seed; wet mice's snouts and hemlock,...

rusty nails and church-window glass were among the delicacies and

kickshaws." Does any one think that the children are forgotten here?

By no means. "The old Elfin King had his golden crown polished with

powdered slate-pencil. It was the pencil of the head scholar; and to

obtain this one is very difficult for the Elfin King." Does any one

think there is nothing here for grown people? A still greater mistake!

"O how I long to see the old Northern Elf! His sons, people say, are

coarse, blustering fellows...." They "went with open throats, for

they disdained the cold." What a banquet! The skeleton horse is among

the invited guests. Does any one think that Andersen would forget the

character of the guests at a festal gathering? "The Elfin maidens were

now to dance, simple as well as stamping dances.... Confound it! their

legs grew so long, one did not know which was the beginning nor which

was the end, one could not distinguish legs from arms; all was twirling

about in the air like sawdust; and they went whizzing round to such

a degree that the Skeleton Horse grew quite sick, and was obliged to

leave the table." Andersen is acquainted with the nervous system of the

skeleton horse, and is mindful of his weak stomach.

He has the genuine gift for creating supernatural beings, in modern

times so rare. How deeply symbolical and how natural it is, for

instance, that the little sea-maid, when her fish-tail shrivelled up

and became "the prettiest pair of white feet a little girl could have,"

should feel as though she were treading on pointed needles and sharp

knives at every step she took! How many poor women tread on sharp

knives at every step they take, in order to be near him whom they love,

and are yet far from being the most unhappy of women!

What a splendidly drawn band is that multitude of sprites in "The Snow

Queen," what a superb symbol the witches' mirror, and how thoroughly

the author has comprehended this queen herself, who, sitting in the

midst of the desert snow field, had imbibed all its cold beauty! This

woman is to a certain degree related to Night, one of Andersen's

peculiarly characteristic creations. It is not Thorwaldsen's mild,

sleep-bringing night, not Carstens' venerable, motherly night; it is

black, gloomy, sleepless, and awful night. "Out in the snow sat a woman

in long black garments, and she said, 'Death has been with you in your

room; I saw him hasten away with your child; he strides faster than

the wind, and never brings back what he has taken away.' 'Only tell

me which way he has gone,' said the mother. 'Tell me the way, and I

will find him.' 'I know him,' said the woman in the black garments;

'but before I tell you, you must sing me all the songs that you have

sung to your child. I love those songs; I have heard them before. I

am Night, and I saw your tears when you sang them.' 'I will sing them

all, all!' said the mother. 'But do not detain me, that I may overtake

him, and find my child.' But Night sat dumb and still. Then the mother

wrung her hands, and sang, and wept. And there were many songs, but

yet more tears." Then the mother journeys onward, weeps out her eyes

in order that for this price she may be borne to the opposite shore,

and in the great hot-house of Death gives her long black hair to an old

gray-haired woman in exchange for the old woman's white hair.

We meet with a countless multitude of fanciful creations, little

elf-like divinities, such as Ole Shut-Eye (the sandman), or the goblins

with the red caps, and the northern dryad, the Elder-Tree Mother. We

feel Andersen's strength when we compare it with the weakness of the

contemporary Danish poets in this respect. What pale forms are not

Heilberg's Pomona, Astræa, or Fata Morgana! Andersen invests even a

shadow with a body. What says the shadow? What does it say to its

master? "I, as you know well, have from a child followed in your

footsteps." This is true. "We have grown up together from childhood."

This is not less true, and when after his call he takes his leave,

he says, "Farewell! here is my card; I live on the sunny side of

the street, and am always at home in rainy weather."[9] Andersen is

familiar with the shadow's pangs of yearning, its customs, and its

delights. "I ran about the streets in the moonlight; I made myself

long up the walls--it tickles the back so delightfully!" The story

of the shadow, which by no means reminds us of Chamisso, is a little

world in itself. I do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the greatest

master novels in Danish literature. It is the epopee of all shadows,

of all people who are feeble imitations, of all those characters that

lack originality and individuality, all those who imagine that through

mere emancipation from their prototypes they can attain independence,

personality, and true, genuine, human existence. It is also one of the

few stories in which the poet, in spite of his tender-hearted optimism,

has ventured to allow a hideous truth to stand forth in its entire

nakedness. The shadow resolves, in order to insure himself against

all revelations concerning his past, to take the man's life. "'Poor

Shadow!' (that is the man) said the Princess; 'he is very unfortunate;

it would be a real work of charity to deliver him from the little life

he has; and when I think properly over the matter, I am of opinion that

it will be necessary to do away with him in all stillness!' 'It is

certainly hard!' said the Shadow, 'for he was a faithful servant!' and

then he gave a sort of a sigh. 'You are a noble character!' said the

Princess." This story is one of those in which the transition from the

natural to the supernatural can most readily be observed. The shadow

worked its way up "so as to become its own master," until it seems

quite natural that it should at last make itself free.

We close the book, and open it again at another place. Here we meet

with "The Leap-Frog." A brief and comprehensive treatise on life. The

main characters are a Flea, a Grasshopper and a Leap-Frog, made of

the breast-bone of a goose; the king's daughter is the prize for the

highest jumper. "Pay heed, all of you," says the muse of the nursery

story. "Spring with understanding. It is of no use to jump so high that

no one can see you; for then the rabble will insist that it would have

been as well not to have jumped at all. Only look at all the greatest

minds, thinkers, poets, and men of science. For the multitude it is

the same as though they had not jumped at all; they reap no harvest of

reward, a body is needed for that. Neither is it of any use to spring

high and well, for those who spring right into the face of the Powers

that be. In this way, forsooth, a person would never make a career.

No; take the Leap-Frog for a model. He is almost apoplectic; first of

all he has the appearance of one that cannot jump at all, and many

motions he certainly cannot make either; nevertheless, he makes--with

the instinct of stupidity, with the dexterity of indolence--a little

side-jump, into the lap of the princess. Take example from this; he

has shown that he has understanding." What a pearl of a nursery story!

and what a faculty for making psychological use of animals! It cannot

be denied that the reader is at times inclined to cherish a doubt as

to what this fancy of permitting animals to speak can signify. It is

one thing whether we readers feel that it strikes home to us, and then

whether the character of the animal is really hit, the animal that

has not one human quality. Meanwhile, we can readily comprehend that

it is impossible to speak of animals, even in a purely scientific

way, without attributing to them qualities with which we are familiar

through our own nature. How, for instance, could we avoid painting

the wolf as cruel? Andersen's skill only consists in producing a

poetic, a striking seeming conformity between the animal and its human

attributes. How true it is when the cat says to little Rudy: "Come out

upon the roof with me, little Rudy. It is all nonsense to fancy one

must fall down; you won't fall unless you are afraid; come, set one

of your paws here, the other there, and take care of yourself with

the rest of your paws! Keep a sharp lookout, and be active in your

limbs. If there be a hole, spring over it, and keep a firm footing as

I do." How natural it is when the old snail says: "You need not be in

a hurry--but you always hurry so, and the little one is beginning just

the same way. Has he not been creeping up that stalk these three days?

My head quite aches when I look up at him." What finer description of

a lying-in room than the story of the hatching of the young duckling?

What more probable than that the sparrows, when they want to abuse

their neighbors, should call them "those thick-headed roses."[10]

One story I have reserved until the end; I will now search for it, for

it is, as it were, the crown of Andersen's work. It is the story of

"The Bell," in which the poet of naïveté and nature has reached the

pinnacle of his poetic muse. We have seen his talent for describing

in a natural way that which is superhuman, and that which is below

the human. In this story he stands face to face with nature herself.

It treats of the invisible bell which the children, who had just been

confirmed, went out into the wood to seek--young people in whose

breasts yearning for the invisible, alluring, and wondrous voices of

nature was still fresh. The king of the country had "vowed that he

who could discover whence the sounds proceeded should have the title

of 'Universal Bell-ringer,' even if it were not really a bell. Many

persons now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place, but

one only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far

enough; that one not farther than the others. However, he said that

the sound proceeded from a very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of

learned owl, that continually knocked its head against the branches....

So now he got the place of 'Universal Bell-ringer,' and wrote yearly

a short treatise 'on the Owl'; but everybody was just as wise as

before." The children who had been confirmed go out this year also, and

"they hold each other by the hand; for, as yet, they had none of them

any high office." But soon they begin to grow weary, one by one, and

some of them return to town, one for one reason, another for another

pretext. An entire class of them linger by a small bell in an idyllic

little house, without considering, as the few constant ones, that so

small a bell could not possibly cause so enticing a play of tones, but

that it must give "very different tones from those that could move a

human breast in such a manner"; and with their small hope, their small

yearning, they betake themselves to rest near their small discovery,

the small bell, the small idyllic joy. I fancy the reader must have

met some of these children after they were grown up. Finally but two

remain, a king's son and a poor little boy in wooden shoes, and "with

so short a jacket that one could see what long wrists he had." On the

way they parted; for one wished to seek the bell on the right, the

other on the left. The king's son sought the bell in the road that lay

"on the side where the heart is placed"; the poor boy sought it in the

opposite direction. We follow the king's son, and we read admiringly

of the mystic splendor with which the poet has invested the region, in

altering and exchanging the natural coloring of the flowers. "But on

he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the wood,

where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white lilies

with blood-red stamens; sky-blue tulips, which shone as they moved in

the winds; and the apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like

large soap-bubbles: so only think how the trees must have sparkled in

the sunshine!" The sun goes down; the king's son begins to fear that he

will be surprised by night; he climbs upon a rock in order to see the

sun once more before it disappears in the horizon. Listen to the poet's

song of praise:--

"And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of

trees,--climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were

writhing, and the toads were croaking,--and he gained the summit before

the sun had quite gone down. How magnificent was the night from this

height! The sea the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves

against the coast--was stretched out before him. And yonder, where sea

and sky meet, stood the sun, like a large, shining altar, all melted

together in the most glowing colors. And the wood and the sea sang a

song of rejoicing, and his heart sang with the rest: all nature was

a vast, holy church, in which the trees and buoyant clouds were the

pillars; flowers and grass the velvet carpeting; and heaven itself the

large cupola. The red colors above faded away as the sun vanished,

but a million stars were lighted, a million diamond lamps shone; and

the king's son spread out his arms toward heaven, and wood, and sea;

when at the same moment, coming by a path to the right, appeared, in

his wooden shoes and short-sleeved jacket, the poor boy who had been

confirmed with him. He had followed his own path, and had reached the

spot just as soon as the son of the king had done. They ran toward

each other, and stood together, hand in hand, in the vast church of

nature and of poetry, while over them sounded the invisible, holy bell;

blessed spirits floated around them, and lifted up their voices in a

rejoicing hallelujah."

Genius is the wealthy king's son, its attentive follower the poor boy;

but art and science, although they may have parted on their way, meet

in their enthusiasm, and their devotion to the divine, universal soul

of nature.

[1] The quotations are from Houghton, Mifflin & Co.'s edition of

Andersen's works.

[2] Compare such passages as the following: "It was just as though some

one were sitting there practising a tune which he could not get hold

of, always the same tune. 'I will get it, though,' he says, no doubt;

but nevertheless, he does not get it, let him play as long as he will."

"The great white snails, which the grand people in old times used to

have made into fricassees; and when they had eaten them, they would

say, 'H'm, how good that is!' for they had the idea that it tasted

delicious. These snails lived on burdock-leaves."

[3] Uffe the Bashful, according to tradition, is the son of a Danish

king. His father had been a powerful warrior in his day, but has become

old and feeble. The son causes the father the most profound solicitude.

No one has ever heard him speak; he has never been willing to learn the

use of weapons, and he moves through life in phlegmatic indifference,

taking no interest in anything about him. But when the kings of Saxony

refuse to pay the old father the accustomed tribute, mock at him,

and challenge him to single combat, and the father wrings his hands

in despair and cries, "Would that I had a son!" Uffe, for the first

time, finds voice, and summons both kings to a holmgang (duel) with

him. Great haste is now made to bring weapons to him, but no harness

is large enough for his broad breast. If he did but make the slightest

movement, whichever one is tried on him is rent asunder. Finally he is

forced to content himself with a harness that bears the marks of many

blows. It is the same with every sword that is placed in his hand. They

all snap like glass whenever he makes trial of them on a tree. Then the

king has the ancient sword Skräpp, once wielded by his father, brought

forth from the giant warrior's grave, and bids Uffe lay hold of it,

but not to test it before the fight. Thus armed, Uffe presents himself

before the two foreign kings, on an island in the Eider. The blind old

king sits on the river-bank and with throbbing heart anxiously hearkens

to the clashing of the swords. If his son fall, he will plunge into the

waves and die. Suddenly Uffe aimed a blow with his sword at one of the

Saxon kings, and cut him in two right across the body. "That tone I

know," said the king; "that was Skräpp's ring!" And Uffe gave another

blow, and cut the other king through lengthwise, so that he fell in two

halves to the ground. "That was Skräpp's ring again," cried the blind

king. And when the old king died, Uffe ascended the throne and became a

powerful and much feared ruler.

[4] The fables of the past century (for instance, Lessing's fables) are

merely ethic.

[5] G. Brandes: S. Kierkegaards. Ein literarisches Charakterlied.

Leipsic, 1879.

[6] The following composition was recently written in Copenhagen by a

little maiden of ten years on the theme, "An Unexpected Joy." "There

dwelt in Copenhagen a man and his wife who were very happy. All went

well with them, and they were extremely fond of each other; but they

felt very sorry because they had no children. They waited a long time,

still they got none. At last the husband went away on a long journey

and was gone ten years. When the time was at an end, he returned

home, entered his house, and was happy indeed to find five little

children in the nursery, some playing, some in the cradle. This was an

unexpected joy!" This composition, however is an example of the kind of

naivete' which Andersen never uses. The point would attract a French

story-teller, but, like everything else that alludes to sex, it leaves

Andersen perfectly cold.

[7] There is not a single Danish poet, who, to such a degree as

Andersen, has scorned to produce effect through the romance of the

past; even in the nursery story, which from the beginning has been

handled by the romantic school of Germany in a manner that can he

compared with the style of the Middle Ages, he is always solely and

entirely in the _present._ He, as well as Oersted, dares to sacrifice

the interesting element in his enthusiasm for King John and his time,

and he heartily joins with Ovid in exclaiming,--

Prisca juvent alios! ego me nunc denique natum

Gratulor. Haec aetas moribus apta meis.--ARS. AMAT. III. 121.

[8] Her life was used later as the historic foundation for the

brilliant romance "Fru Marie Grubbe," by J. P. Jacobsen.

[9] Here, as everywhere, the poet has his faithful allies in language,

in the play of words, which dance forward under his pen as soon as he

places it on paper. We see, for instance, what a swarm there is in "The

Old Street Lamp" or "The Snow Man." We see how he avails himself of

the sound-language of animals, for instance. "'Quack!' said the little

toad, and that means the same as when men say 'Alack!'"

[10] Compare, for the sake of antithesis, the method and form of

the speech of the glove, the neckerchief, the flask, in Heiberg's

"Christmas Pastimes and New Year's Farces" furthermore Alfred de

Musset's "Le merle blanc," and Taine's "Vie et opinions philosophiques

d'un chat," in his work, "Voyage aux Pyréneés."

[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL.]