lessons, but he was very far from being bored, because he had such
a lively imagination and could always invent games and stories for
himself. His father would make him toys, pictures that changed their
shapes when pulled with a string, and a mill which made the miller
dance when it went round, and peep-shows of funny rag dolls. What he
liked best was making dolls’ clothes. In the little garden he would
sit for hours near the one gooseberry-bush. This, with the help of a
broomstick and his mother’s apron, he made into a little tent, and
there he would sit in all weathers, fancying things and inventing
stories. Very occasionally he went to a school, and at one school he
made friends with a little girl and would tell her stories. They were
mostly about himself—how he was of noble birth only the fairies had
changed him in his cradle, and all sorts of other inventions. One day
he heard the little girl say, “He is a fool like his grandpapa,” and
poor Hans trembled and never spoke to her about these things again. He
had a mad old grandfather at the lunatic asylum, where he sometimes
went. His grandmother, the mother of his father, was a dear old lady
who looked after the garden of the asylum, and brought flowers to
the Andersens every Sunday. She would recount to Hans stories of her
youth—of her mother’s mother, who had been quite a grand lady, and
of her own happy childhood in more prosperous circumstances. Strange
sights Hans would see in the court at the asylum, sights that would
haunt him for days and even years, so that he would beg his parents to
put him in their big bed and draw the curtains that he might feel safe.
He grew up religious in a sort of superstitious way, and this was his
mother’s influence. He was shocked at his father, as his mother and
the neighbors were—“there is no other devil than that which is in our
own hearts,” said his father one day, and Andersen’s mother burst into
tears and prayed to God to forgive his father. The cobbler died when
Hans was only eleven years old, and he was left alone with his mother.
He continued to play with his toy theater and peep-shows and made
dolls’ clothes. But he also read all he could lay hands on, and a great
deal of Shakespeare, which made a deep impression on him. He liked best
the plays where there are ghosts and witches—he felt he must go on the
stage. He jotted down at this time the titles of twenty-five plays; the
spelling of the titles being most peculiar!
Naturally young Hans Andersen was the laughing-stock of the
neighborhood. Nobody understood him, and Hans singing in the lanes and
sewing and reading at home was simply regarded as a lunatic. By the
time he was fourteen he had not a single friend of his own age. Boys
teased him, and screamed at him, “There goes the play scribbler,” so
that Hans shrank from them and would hide himself at home from their
mocking eyes and voices. He longed, like the ugly duckling of his
story, for the companionship of people cleverer and nobler than himself.
He was indeed very funny to look at, quite comically ugly with his
large nose and feet and very small Japanese eyes, and he was so tall
and gawky that his clothes were always too small for him, which made
him look still odder. He became persuaded that his voice was going to
make his fortune, and an old woman who washed clothes in the river told
Andersen that the Empire of China lay under the water there. Hans
quite believed her. He thought to himself that perhaps one moonlight
night, when he would be singing by the water’s edge, a Chinese Prince
might push his way through the earth on hearing his song, and would
take him down into his country and there make him rich and noble. Then
he might let him visit Odense again, where he would live and build a
castle, the envied and admired of everybody. Long after—Andersen says
in his autobiography—when he was reading his poems and stories aloud in
Copenhagen, he hoped for such a Prince to appear in the audience who
would sympathize and help him.
But the gentry, though much amused by the cobbler’s peculiar son, were
sorry for him. He seemed to them a strange and freakish being, who,
though he could recite plays from memory and make poetry, was yet so
ignorant that he knew no grammar, or even how to spell. They laughed
at Hans’ absurdly ambitious and childish ideas, that he was at once
going to be a great writer, or singer, or actor, without any education
at all. One family tried their best to get him into the local school,
or to enter some trade, but he would not hear of it. He was, however,
sent to the ragged school for a time to learn scripture, writing, and
arithmetic. They found he could hardly write a line correctly, and
he was dreadfully bored by this sort of learning. He must have been
an annoying pupil, for he was always dreamy and absent-minded, and
never looked at his lessons except on his way to and from school. He
tried to please the master by bringing him bunches of wild flowers.
He left the school as ignorant as he had entered it. At about the age
of fourteen he was confirmed, and wore for the first time a pair of
boots—of these he was so tremendously proud that when he walked up
the aisle of the church he drew his trousers right up so that every
one might see the boots, and he rejoiced that they squeaked so loudly
that every one’s attention might be drawn to them—at the same time he
felt he ought not to be thinking so much of his boots and so little of
his Maker. The story of the Red Shoes was inspired by them. Naturally
his relations began to get a little anxious about this time as to his
future. He was fourteen and he had not yet done anything sensible, and
was what ordinary people would call a dunce. He had, it is true, shown
extraordinary skill with his needle, and this pointed to his being a
tailor. While his relations talked and worried over Hans together and
came to no conclusion the boy continued his desultory life. But he
had great schemes in his head, and was making up his mind to take his
fate into his own hands. He would, like the heroes he had read about,
set out by himself to seek his fortune. This meant that he would go to
Copenhagen and there find work at the Theater. This idea had come to
him when the actors from the Royal Theater there had come to Odense.
Andersen had one day got permission to appear on the stage as a
shepherd. His enthusiasm and funny childish ways amused and interested
the actors, and Hans at once thought he was a born actor and that his
fortune was made. He heard these same actors speak about a thing called
a Ballet, which seemed to be finer than anything in the world, and of
a wonderful lady who danced in the Ballet, and Hans pictured her as a
sort of fairy queen who would help him and make him famous. His mother
was rather alarmed at these plans, but Hans said in answer to her
objections, “You go through a frightful lot of hardships, and then you
become famous.” So the mother consulted a wise woman, who, examining
the coffee grouts, said that Hans Christian Andersen would become a
great man, and that one day Odense would be illuminated in his honor.
Hans’ mother was then quite satisfied. The boy packed up his little
bundle to take him to the ship, and so to Copenhagen. He had about nine
dollars in his pocket, and was fourteen years old. Most people would
say what a mad expedition and how absurd, but Hans had no fear, he was
happy, for he had his wish, and was quite sure that he would make his
fortune.
When he arrived at Copenhagen he rushed off to see the Fairy Queen,
the dancer he had heard about, and told her how he wished to go on the
stage. To show her what he could do, he took off his boots and made a
drum out of his hat, and so began to dance and sing. As he had such a
very odd appearance, his heavy elephantine gambols simply terrified the
poor lady, she took him for an escaped lunatic, and of course showed
him the door.
But Hans Andersen, still hopeful, went off to the Director of the
Theater, and there met with another rebuff. He was told that only
educated people were engaged for the stage. This was hard to bear,
and after various adventures and disappointments Hans found he had
only fifty cents left—so either he must return to Odense by the first
coasting ship, or stop at Copenhagen and learn a trade. He chose a
trade, and apprenticed himself to a joiner, but there the roughness and
coarse talk of his fellow-joiners upset him so much that he left the
same day. So there he was, friendless and with nothing to do but to
wander the streets. In his wanderings, he suddenly remembered the name
of a man he had heard the Odense people talk about, a musician, the
Director of the Conservatoire. So off he went to this man’s house, with
the purpose of asking him to take him as a pupil. When he arrived he
found the musician was having a dinner-party, but Andersen was allowed
in, and telling them of his object he was taken to the piano, and there
played and recited. When he had finished, he burst into tears, but the
company applauded and raised a small collection of money for him. The
kind musician arranged that he should have lessons in singing, and
Hans, full of joy, wrote to his mother that his fortune was in sight.
For the next nine months he was supported by these “noble-minded men,”
as he called them, but when he lost his voice about the age of fifteen,
they advised him to return to his native town and learn a handicraft,
but rather than do this the poor boy was ready to endure every
hardship. He lived now in a garret in the lowest quarter of Copenhagen,
and had nothing to eat but a cup of coffee in the morning and a roll
eaten on a bench later in the day. He was very proud and sensitive, so
he would pretend that he had had plenty to eat and that he had been
dining out with friends, also that he was quite warm, when his clothes
were absolutely threadbare and patched, and his wretched boots let in
all the wet, so that his feet were sometimes not dry for weeks. When he
lay down to sleep in his attic, he tells us, after saying his prayers,
he was helped by his trust in God that everything would turn out right
in the end; and indeed it was almost miraculous the way something or
somebody always turned up to help.
Kind-hearted people taught him German and Danish, and sent him to the
dancing school to learn dancing, but they did not give him money,
because they had no idea how poor he was, as he said nothing about
it. The courage and determination he showed at this time were really
remarkable in so young a boy, and in spite of being very nearly
starved he continued to write poems and plays. One play he sent to
the Royal Theater without giving his name, and never doubted in his
childish ignorance that it would be accepted. It was sent back to him
with a curt note saying that the play showed such a lack of education
that it was absurd. But the only effect this had on Andersen was to
make him write another, and he sent that to the manager of the theater;
but this time those who read it said it showed unmistakable signs of
talent, and advised that Andersen’s friends should ask the King to help
with money to support and educate the boy. Frederick VI of Denmark was
like the kind kings in Andersen’s stories. He arranged at once that
Hans should be sent to the Latin School at Slagelse for three years, to
be properly educated and cared for. This was arranged and Hans went off
to school, but his time there was not at all happy.
The adventurous, free life he led in Copenhagen, though he had been
hungry and cold, had been much more to his liking. In the story of
his life he writes about this period with the greatest bitterness.
He had been so happy at the prospect of learning, and when he got to
school, he felt like a wild bird shut up in a cage. “I behaved,” he
said, “like one who is thrown into the water without being able to
swim. It was a matter of life and death to me to make progress, but
there came one billow after another—one called Mathematics, another
called Grammar, another called Geography—and I began to fear I should
never swim through them all.” He was terribly frightened of failing,
and began to think he was a dunce, for he was seventeen and had to be
put with the smallest boys in the school, which was very discouraging,
but it was greatly the master’s fault. He treated Hans as he would
ninety-nine boys out of a hundred. He never ceased laughing at him,
and seldom, if ever, encouraged him; so damping was he that Andersen
really began to feel he was not worth all the trouble and money that
were being spent upon him. Andersen, with his sensitive, imaginative
nature, was apt to make mountains out of molehills. His imagination,
indeed, was quite extraordinary, extravagant, and out of proportion to
his other faculties. He needed a kind, understanding person to guide
him, but he was left to himself and had few, if any, friends. The
ordinary dull routine of school life made him suffer. He describes it
all in his book as a sort of “Dotheboys Hall,” when it was really just
an ordinary school like any other at that date. His anxiety to get
on may be guessed at when we read that he nearly worried himself to
death, because he got “Very good” in a report for conduct, instead of
“Remarkably good.” “I am a strange being,” he once wrote. “If the wind
blows a wee bit sharply the water always comes into my eyes, though I
know very well that life cannot be a perpetual May day.”
When he was twenty his master moved to Elsinore, and Andersen went
with him. He was pleased and excited at the change; the beautiful
country round Elsinore filled him with joy; but, alas! he got on
still less well with his master, who treated him, Andersen says, as a
perfectly stupid, brutish boy. At that period it was considered the
right thing for schoolmasters, and even parents, never to praise a
child or encourage him for fear of spoiling him. Yet all the time this
master was scolding and laughing at Hans, he was writing to the boy’s
friends, praising his nature, his warm heart and imagination, and his
diligence in work. He recommended him as worthy of any support in the
way of money or education that might be given him. One day Andersen
brought his master a poem he had written, and the man scoffed and
said it was mere idle trash, and only fit for the rubbish-heap. This
quite finished Hans; he was found by another master in deep distress.
The same master told Andersen’s friends of the boy’s unhappiness
and advised his removal. He was taken away. So ended what Andersen
describes as the “darkest and bitterest period of my life.” He had been
at school a little more than three years.
Andersen now became a student at Copenhagen. He worked hard and
conscientiously, but was always stupid at examinations, and at Latin
and Greek. In his spare time he wrote poems, plays, and sketches, and
published his first considerable book called “A Journey on Foot from
Holmen’s Canal to the East Point of Amager.” This strange volume
is such a confused jumble of things that it is rather like a dream.
But even in the jumble you can see Andersen’s gift, in the little
fairy-like touches and the beautiful descriptions of nature and of
seasons. The Danes liked the book, for rather childish and fantastic
things amuse them. Most of Andersen’s work, however, was pronounced to
be wishy-washy and silly by the critics, and Andersen failed and failed
again; yet he never gave up trying and never apparently lost belief in
his own talent. Still he got very cast down and unhappy, and felt that
he must get away and have a complete change. The same kind King who
had helped him with his education, then allowed him money for foreign
travel, and Andersen went off for a long spell abroad—to Italy, to
France, and to Germany.
Away from his own country he got great inspiration, he says, and
started by writing a novel which he was certain would take the world by
storm. It was a most bitter blow that when the book was published every
one laughed at it, and the reviews which reached him abroad pronounced
it to be dull, sentimental, and unreal. But Andersen had made up his
mind that he would be either a great novelist or a great dramatist; so
on he went, writing with his usual persistence and courage. He did at
last succeed in bringing out a successful novel.
So immediate was its success that the author’s reputation seemed
made. This type of novel, which is very romantic and very impossible,
would not be appreciated nowadays; but again its charm lay in its
descriptions of scenery and places. Andersen was delighted, and at once
made up his mind that he was to be one of the greatest novelists the
world had ever seen. But this was not to be, for except for one or two
rather beautiful books of travel, his serious books were not great, and
were not to make him famous.
Now Andersen had a talent which he did not take seriously himself, and
if it had not been for his friends, perhaps the world would never have
known of it.
When Hans Andersen was in a good humor and wanted to keep children
quiet and amused—nicely behaved and nice-looking children they had
to be—he used to tell them fairy tales. Odense, his birthplace, was
a home of legends, and folk stories he had heard as a child stuck in
his memory. These he wove into stories in the most wonderful manner.
He had a peculiar way of telling these stories which simply delighted
children. He never in telling them troubled about grammar; he would use
childish words and baby language. Then he would act and jump about and
make the most comic faces. Nobody who had not heard him could guess how
lively and amusing these stories were; but it never seemed to strike
Andersen that he might write them down: he did not think them worth
it. When some one suggested that he might write them down and print
them, so that they should be known by other people, not only his own
small circle of friends, Andersen laughed at the idea, but decided to
do it just for fun. He would write them down as he told them. Now this
is easier said than done, for when you begin to put pen to paper your
inclination is to write a thing like an essay and not as if you were
talking to somebody. Yet what you feel when you read Hans Andersen’s
stories is just this, that they are told and not written. He printed
first a tiny volume, and called it “Fairy Tales as Told to Children”;
it cost ten cents. In this volume were “The Tinder Box,” “Little Claus
and Big Claus,” and “Little Ida’s Flowers,” and this was followed by a
second part with “Thumbeline” and “The Traveling Companion,” and then a
third number appeared containing “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The
Little Mermaid.” The three parts made the first volume of his tales.
Andersen still refused to take these “small things,” as he called
them, seriously. He was certainly not encouraged by the critics, for
they were too stupid and conventional to see the point of these tales.
Some were too grand even to look at them, and some were shocked. One
wrote that no child should be allowed to read “The Tinder Box,” for it
wasn’t at all nice that a Princess should ride on a dog’s back, and be
kissed by a soldier. Hans Andersen was advised by these dense people
not to waste any more time on such things. There was also much scolding
about the conversational style of the writing. It was quite unlike
the heavy, pompous stuff people were accustomed to at that date. “This
is not the way people write,” it was said, “this is not grammar.” But
there were people who saw at once the beauty of these stories, who
declared that they would make Andersen immortal.
Andersen himself did not trouble much about it one way or the other;
he still thought about the success of his novel, and made plans for
writing another with Napoleon as his hero. He would compel people to
see what a great dramatist and novelist he was. He wrote and translated
many operettas and plays. One was produced at the Royal Theater with
great success. It was a poor play but well acted, and containing some
noble sentiments; it pleased the honest Danes. But the Fairy Tales went
on appearing at intervals, and found their way into most Danish homes.
In fact, they were building up Hans Andersen’s reputation for him all
over the world. Andersen soon found that he had great admirers among
children, and there were very few nurseries where they didn’t know the
stories by heart. Perhaps his own country had not been quite so eager
about them as some others—Germany and Sweden, and even England, which
is supposed to be slow and conservative about new things, were very
enthusiastic. When Andersen visited England at the age of forty-three,
he found he was quite a lion. Great ladies would repeat his stories
from memory, and he was asked out to breakfasts, teas, and dinners, to
meet other important people of the day. He was delighted, because he
loved to be appreciated. Dickens was specially kind to him and asked
Andersen to stay with him. Andersen wrote about England to his friends
in Denmark: “Here I am regarded as a Danish Walter Scott, while in
Denmark I am supposed to be a sort of third-class author.” He fumed and
fretted in quite a childish way that the Danish papers did not pay more
attention to his reception in England; it made him feel quite ill, he
says.
So after writing an immense poem and another novel, which both failed,
he devoted himself to the Fairy Tales.
Andersen in his own “Life” says about his Fairy Tales, that he would
willingly have given up writing them, but that they forced themselves
upon him. He knew that the critics would object to the style of
the writing, and that was why, at the beginning, he had called the
stories “Fairy Tales for Children,” but he had meant them as much for
the grown-ups. He found that people of different ages were equally
amused by them—the older ones by the deeper meaning, and children by
the fancies, so like their own, and the amusing, lively style of the
writing. Indeed, Andersen’s great gift is that he appeals to so many
different sorts of people, that he himself has so many sides. He is
tender, sad, and wistful, but also absurd, fantastic, and amusing. At
one moment he makes us cry, the next instant we laugh. Andersen had
been able to keep the imagination of a child of five or six, though
he was a grown-up man of over thirty when he began to publish his
stories. He saw through a child’s eyes, and never felt any difficulty
in imagining all the playthings coming alive. He does not, for one
thing, distinguish between things and persons. He makes inanimate
things human, and he does it without any effort or apparent stretching
of the imagination. It seems quite the most ordinary thing in the
world, when Andersen tells us about it, that an inkpot should talk
with a pen, and that flowers, dolls, earwigs, beetles, clouds, and the
necks of bottles should all converse with one another, and have their
special personalities. He could write about anything, and the telling
of utterly improbable things quite simply and naturally, is one of
his great gifts. “Tell us a story about a darning-needle,” said the
Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, who was never tired of hearing him; and
that was how the story came to be written. “I am not a fellow, I am a
young lady,” said the darning-needle, and how could a darning-needle be
anything else?
Many incidents of Andersen’s curious childhood inspired his stories
as well as folk-lore. Beautifully as he has adapted legends—such as
the “Wild Swans” and the “Swineherd”—his own inventions are, I think,
the best of all. What more lovely and touching story can be imagined
than the “Little Mermaid,” or more charming than “Thumbeline”? In
the “Little Mermaid,” and that thrilling “Story of the Traveling
Companion,” we seem to see the author’s great belief in good, in love,
and self-sacrifice; yet he never points a moral or annoys by preaching.
That was the last thing he could be; he was much too aware of his own
failings to think of lecturing other people about theirs, even in
a story. Some of his heroes play the most shocking pranks, such as
the soldier in “The Tinder Box,” who kills an old woman; and Little
Claus’ behavior is rather odd; yet they never seem to meet with any
retribution. On the contrary, they thrive exceedingly.
Andersen had a great gift of satire, which in some cases may be
rather bitter and unkind, but in Andersen’s it could not possibly
offend people. He laughs at the world, and at people’s foibles in
such an amused, kindly spirit, though he does show up most clearly
the absurdity and emptiness of such things as riches and power, which
believe that everything is within their grasp. “The Little Nightingale”
and “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” are examples of this sort of story.