flowers, supernatural beings, and friendly kings—ugly, sordid,
unsatisfactory things have no place. Andersen himself could never
really face the ugly and cruel, he could not even write or talk
about them; so that this delicate talent of his was not the one to
make him write good books about real life, for in the world there are
both good and bad. His plays and novels were not true to life; they
were sentimental and boring, and only when Andersen has been able to
describe nature in his novels does his poetic talent shine through.
Plants were Andersen’s favorite things, as anyone can see who reads
“The Fir Tree,” “Little Ida’s Flowers,” or “The Snow Queen.” “Flowers
know that I love them,” he said. He likened them to sleeping children,
for he loved simplicity and unconsciousness. Only in the vegetable
world he felt was there complete peace and harmony, without any jarring
element. When he saw a fallen tree he felt he must weep, and when
the buds began to swell in the spring, he would laugh aloud for joy.
After flowers, Andersen loved birds better than four-footed animals,
and then children. I suppose some people might be shocked at this. He
didn’t love children in the mass; there are, after all, nice and nasty
children; but he had great friends among them.
When he was old, his admirers in Denmark put up a statue to him in
Copenhagen, showing him as an old man with uplifted finger and a
smiling face, surrounded by a host of children. It sounds all right
to those who didn’t know Andersen. Well, he was quite cross about it,
and said he didn’t feel like that at all. It was annoying to have
himself represented as “a venerable, toothless old man, with a pack of
children crowding round,” as he expressed it.
Andersen, by the time he was middle-aged, was celebrated over a great
part of the world. He was fashionable in his own town of Copenhagen,
and people would nudge one another in the street as he passed,
saying, “There goes the Poet.” Actresses recited his stories, and he
himself read them aloud at parties, which would be considered very
great occasions. In some ways it sounds rather trying. He had a way
of reading his favorites over and over again, and demanding absolute
attention; the ladies must stop knitting, the gentlemen must cease to
smoke. In spite of these rules and regulations his extraordinary way
of reading, his charming voice, his faces and antics, astonished and
interested his audience so much that they put up with anything, and
would have been willing to stand on their heads, if he had asked them
to.
Andersen was made very happy by success, and he says in his “Life,”
that it made up to him for all the hard words the critics had spoken.
“There came within me,” he says, “a sense of rest, a feeling that all,
even the bitter in my life, had been needful for my development and
fortune.”
It was a constant source of wonder and delight to him to find himself
where he was. He, the son of a poor cobbler and a washerwoman, who
had run about as a child in wooden shoes, now to be treated by the
most important people as their equal, and to enjoy the best that the
world can give. He was friends with princes, and kings were as fathers
to him. On his travels, which were like fairy tale travels, he found
himself welcomed in every drawing-room of every capital in Europe. He
met Dumas and Victor Hugo in France; in Germany, Heine, the brothers
Grimm, and Mendelssohn and Schumann; and Dickens, as we know, in
England. And he didn’t meet these people in a stiff, formal way, but
in their dressing-gowns, so to speak. His childlike nature drew people
to him, and he was friendly and intimate with them at once. All these
things appeared to him more marvelous even than the most fantastic
incidents of his own fairy tales. He would often, when enjoying some
quite ordinary luxury, which most people take as a matter of course,
such as lying on a sofa in a new dressing-gown surrounded by books,
think of his childhood and wonder.
That Andersen should have been impressed by grandeur, by kings and
princes in their castles, and the trappings of wealth, is quite
natural. He was pleased and amazed, as a child and as a peasant are
pleased and amazed. It appealed to his romantic imagination, and the
marvel of the contrast with his own childhood and early manhood never
ceased to delight him, and to make him thankful. He was not a snob,
for a snob is one who despises the less fortunate, but he had a real
democratic feeling and never forgot that he was a peasant to start
with. He knew that poor people have just as much nobility of soul as
the better off, and he shows this in his stories. He is always pointing
out the beauty of simple, humble things; of the things that people pass
by without noticing. In a lovely but little-known story, “The Conceited
Apple Blossom,” though it is only about flowers, you can think of them
as people, and it becomes really an allegory on rich and poor. Andersen
said about poor people that they were as defenseless as children, and
therefore he felt specially tender toward them. When at his literary
jubilee, celebrated at Copenhagen, he received gold snuffboxes from
kings, and letters from ladies declaring their love from all over the
world, he treasured most, four-leaved clovers sent him by peasants, and
a waistcoat made for love by an admiring tailor.
Hans Andersen was very vain, and sometimes very silly. He thirsted
for praise and encouragement, all the more so, that for so many years
he had met with nothing but contempt. Praise was to him, he says, as
necessary as sunshine and water to flowers, and without it he perished.
Praise made him feel nice, humble, and grateful, but disagreeable
criticism made him bitter and proud. He made no effort to conceal his
vanity. If he had been praised he wanted everybody to know about it.
Once he shouted to a friend on the other side of the street, “Well,
what do you think? I am read in Spain now. Good-by!”
But Hans Andersen’s character was full of contradictions. Though
acutely sensitive and easily dejected, yet he was dogged, and sometimes
almost pushing in his desire to be thought a great writer. From
earliest days he had been full of enterprise and energy—the energy of
the spirit, for his health had never been good, and had been made worse
by privations. At thirty he said he felt sixty, but at sixty he felt
younger.
The great Danish writer, Brandes, has written a splendid Essay on
Andersen, in which he says in reference to him, “He who possesses
talent should also possess courage.” And Hans Andersen did possess
these, the happiest perhaps of all combinations of qualities.
We may be glad to know that Hans Andersen was not vain of his looks;
indeed, he thought himself very ugly. But he fancied that he looked
distinguished. He had his hair curled every day, and he wore very high
starched collars to hide his long neck, and very baggy trousers to hide
his legs. But in spite of this he was always extremely odd to look
at—immensely tall and shambling, with huge feet like boats, a great
Roman nose, and almost invisible eyes. But this did not prevent his
being simply idolized by the ladies of Denmark, several of whom wrote
and asked him to marry them!
The end of Andersen’s life was certainly the happiest period. For
fifteen years at least, he had enjoyed the fact that of all Danish
writers he was the most famous in the world. He _was_ a genius, for
what he wrote was absolutely original, and peculiar to himself. His
fairy stories are beautiful inspirations with nothing to do with
education or learning.
Andersen was fortunate in being appreciated, and his works were at
the height of their popularity during his lifetime. It is rather
pathetic that this being so, there should still have lingered in his
mind wistful regrets for his serious works, the unsuccessful novels
and plays. “Do you not think,” he said when he was quite old, to a
well-known English critic, “that the people will come back to my ‘Two
Baronesses’?” (a very bad novel he wrote). Fortunately his critic had
not read the book.
No human being is entirely satisfied, nor should he be, for he would
then become complacent and conceited, though in Andersen’s case, as we
know, nearly every dream of his youth came true.
Hans Andersen was seventy when he died. His last days were spent
happily and peacefully with some friends in a house called “Rolighed,”
which means peace or quietude, outside Copenhagen. It overlooked the
Sound, that sheltered and beautiful bit of coast which lies between the
town of Copenhagen and the turbulent Kattegat. From his window Andersen
could watch the ships going by like “a flock of wild swans,” as he
described it, and he could see in the distance Tycho Brahe’s island
sparkling in the sun.
Even when he was ill, he was able to get about the garden to look at
the wild flowers he had planted there, and to make his own original
nosegays which he had loved to do as a child.
Surrounded by the kindest and most loving friends, he was spared all
suffering and discomfort at the end, for he had an illness which
gradually weakened him and he simply went to sleep never to wake again.
When he was dying he said very often, “How beautiful the world is! How
happy I am!”
It was this spirit of Andersen’s, which to the end found beauty and
joy in life, that makes his stories so fresh and eternal. For though
Hans Andersen died a long time ago, he still lives in his writings. In
nearly all countries they are known and read. For the truly great works
of men are a gift to the whole world, and belong to all countries and
to all time. I think these stories of Hans Andersen’s will probably
live for ever, long after we are gone—perhaps so long as this world
shall last.
D. P.
IX
MAZZINI
1805–1872
The supreme virtue is sacrifice—to think, work, fight, suffer, where
our lot lies, not for ourselves but others, for the victory of good
over evil.
After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 there was a determination among
the sovereigns of Europe to strengthen their position and prevent
any progressive movements which might lead to a breach between the
peoples and their rulers. This was due to a fear and dislike of the
ideas which had brought about the great Revolution in France. The
Austrian Minister Metternich was very powerful, and exercised a great
influence far beyond his own country. He was more than conservative:
he was reactionary, and did all in his power to repress any signs
of revolution. For a time he was successful, and all opponents of
established government were treated with the greatest severity. But
he did not succeed in dispelling the restlessness and discontent. He
only drove it beneath the surface and increased its force, so that when
it broke out it carried all before it. Ideas with regard to liberty,
human rights, and nationality spread rapidly, and by 1830 there were in
half the countries of Europe bodies of exasperated men who were ready
to sacrifice their lives to fight against the injustices of autocratic
rule. The consequence of this was that two waves of revolution spread
over Europe: the first about 1830, the second in 1848, when Metternich,
finding his policy utterly defeated, fled into exile.
We are here concerned only with the case of Italy. What we know now as
the kingdom of Italy was formerly divided up into many separate States.
In the north the provinces of Lombardy and Venice belonged to Austria;
Piedmont and the island of Sardinia formed the kingdom of Sardinia;
there were Grand Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany; the Pope ruled
over the Papal States, which stretched across the middle of Italy;
and the lower part of the boot and the island of Sicily formed the
kingdom of Naples and the two Sicilies. These States quarreled with one
another, and in many of them the people suffered from bad government.
Gradually the idea grew that the Austrians must be driven out and a
united Italy established—one country ruled by one Government. But it
took more than forty years to accomplish this.
[Illustration: MAZZINI
From portrait by Felix Moscheles]
It requires three sorts of minds to bring about a great change of
this sort. The people must be educated, and when educated their
indignation must be controlled, so that its full force may be felt at
the right moment. Those who cling to the old order of things must
be overthrown, and the new order must be firmly established so as to
be lasting. In fact, you want a man of ideas, a man of action, and a
statesman, not necessarily acting together, but keeping the same object
in view.
Italy was singularly fortunate in this respect. There emerged at the
critical period, among the many who were ready to serve the cause,
three outstanding figures: Mazzini, the man of ideas; Garibaldi, the
man of action; and Cavour, the statesman. The man of action and the
statesman are likely to get the most credit when the great decisive
actions in the final stages of a successful revolution take place. But
the work of the reformer, who in the earlier and more difficult times
sees a spark of light in the darkness and proceeds patiently, with
the whole weight of public opinion against him, to preach, educate,
and prepare the ground, is certainly more difficult and in some ways
perhaps even more admirable.
Giuseppe Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805. His father was a doctor
who devoted much of his time to unpaid service of the poor, and his
mother was a woman of strong character who took a close interest in
the great political movements of the time. Giuseppe was a studious and
thoughtful boy, but delicate in health. He noticed how his parents
treated with equal courtesy people from all ranks of life; he listened
to reminiscences of the French Republican wars and read the praises
of the democratic form of government in the pages of Greek and Roman
history. There was no question of conversion with him. His sympathies
grew naturally in favor of popular government as against the rule of
despotic princes. When he was sixteen the collapse of a rising in
Piedmont made such a deep impression on him that he neglected his
lessons and insisted on dressing in black, a habit he kept up to the
end of his life.
To his father’s disappointment he showed himself quite unfit to
become a doctor; the very sight of an operation made him faint. He
was allowed, therefore, to study law, and at the same time foreign
literature, history, and poetry occupied a great part of his time. He
was also very fond of music. Except on rare occasions when he went to
the theater, he spent his evenings at home with his mother after going,
during the day, for long solitary walks. While doing useful work as
the poor man’s lawyer, he began to write reviews and essays for the
newspapers. But his articles became so advanced in tone that two of the
newspapers to which he contributed were suppressed.
As a consequence of the rapid growth of discontent against the
misgovernment of the petty Sovereigns of the States of Italy, a secret
revolutionary body had been formed, which was known as the Carbonari
(the word means “charcoal burners,” of which there were many in the
mountains of Calabria). It was a sort of Freemasons’ Society. Mazzini
disapproved of the mysteries and theatrical forms in which the members
indulged, but as it was the only revolutionary organization in the
country, he became a member and swore the usual oath of initiation
over a bared dagger. He worked for them zealously, but his intention
was to form a far more vigorous association. The Government had their
eye on the Carbonari, and Mazzini was arrested and sent to prison.
In his prison room at Savona he had much time for reflection. He
gazed upon the sky and sea and read the only three books permitted
to him, the Bible, Byron, and Tacitus. Here it was that he thought
out the organization of a new society, the aim of which was to be the
liberation of Italy from tyranny and its unification under a republican
form of government. This society was “Young Italy,” which became famous
throughout Europe; its motto was “God and the people.” A further
unsuccessful insurrection of the Carbonari convinced Mazzini of the
necessity of his new scheme. When, however, he was set free, so many
restrictions were placed on his liberty that he decided to live at
Marseilles. Here, with a few others, in one single room, he worked for
two years with the most astonishing industry.
His famous letter to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was written from
Marseilles. In it he urged the King to take the lead in the impending
struggle for Italian independence. All over Italy a great sensation
was produced by this letter, but the Sardinian Government was deeply
offended, and his arrest was ordered should he cross the frontier.
He also issued the manifesto of Young Italy, and in response to it,
members joined from all parts of Italy. But a complaint was made to the
French Government, and Mazzini was obliged to retire from Marseilles
and take refuge in Switzerland.
A great blow came to him which affected both his health and his mind.
His greatest friend, Jacopo Ruffini, was one of the leaders in an
unsuccessful rising in Genoa. He was captured with several others and
executed. For a time Mazzini was dismayed, but his unflagging energy
kept him at work, and from Geneva he organized a band of exiles which
included Germans and Poles as well as Italians, and the invasion of
Savoy was planned. Mazzini accompanied the expedition himself, but the
attack broke down without a single shot being fired.
Time after time the efforts of this irrepressible enthusiast were
destined to fail. He had to work in secret, and little by little he
acquired the habit of plotting and scheming and adopted the methods of
a conspirator. But he never lost sight of his great ideal, and in spite
of severe trials and cruel disappointments he was able to retain in
his deeply religious nature a lofty and high-minded purpose. Mazzini
was a most striking man in appearance. Of medium height and slightly
built, his outward air of quiet melancholy concealed an inward burning
passion, which only shone out through the fire in his eyes. He had a
dark olive complexion, with black hair and beard. He always wore a
black, tight-fitting frock-coat, with a black silk handkerchief round
his neck in place of a collar. Except for his mother, women played a
very small part in Mazzini’s life. One woman, who was a widow called
Giudetta Sidoli, kept up an affectionate correspondence with him for
a time, but there was never any question of their marrying. His work,
his poverty, and his restless wandering made it impossible for him to
settle down as a married man.
After forming a “Young Europe” association of men who believed in
liberty, equality, and fraternity for all mankind, and after issuing a
newspaper called _Young Switzerland_ he was forced by the authorities
to leave Switzerland, and he took refuge in England. As a lover of the
beauties of nature, he complained at first at having to go to what he
called “the sunless and musicless island.” “We have lost,” he wrote
from London, “even the sky which the veriest wretch on the Continent
can look at.” In time, however, he came to regard with great affection
the country which has been a home and refuge to many disconsolate
wanderers and outcasts from foreign lands.
Mazzini came to England in 1837, and was obliged to live at first
in great poverty. But he had not come to rest. It was always a hard
struggle for him. After a heated correspondence with his father, he
ceased to receive any money from home, and he got into such low water
that he actually had to pawn his rings, his watch, his books, and even
on one occasion his boots and waistcoat, in order to get money for
food. His generosity to others who were still worse off than himself
made things more difficult. In the winter he risked his health by
giving away his only overcoat. At last he had to go to moneylenders.
It was indeed a desolate and miserable period for him, and had it
not been for the great spirit within him, he might have broken down
completely in despair. But he battled on, learned the English language,
wrote articles for English newspapers, and began to make English
friends. His sympathies were always on the side of the destitute and
the downtrodden; he taught in an evening school for poor Italian
children, and worked to prevent small boys of poverty-stricken parents
in Southern Italy being brought to England by scoundrels who made them
grind organs.
His first close English friendship was with the great writer, Thomas
Carlyle, and his wife. “They love me as a brother,” he wrote, “and
would like to do me more good than it is in their power to do.” He
liked Carlyle’s open nature and broad views, but they often had heated
arguments. “He may preach the merit of holding one’s tongue,” said
the Italian, “but the merit of silence is not his.” Mrs. Carlyle was
at first very sympathetic and interested in his political views, but
after a while she, like her husband, expressed disapproval of his
revolutionary ideas. However, he continued to be a frequent caller,
coming in all weathers, “his doeskin boots oozing out water upon the
carpets in a manner frightful to behold.”
Two or three years later, the breach between the two men widened, and
they saw no more of one another. But Carlyle retained his respect for
the strange Italian exile, who he declared was the most pious man he
had ever met.
In many other English families Mazzini was received with warm
cordiality. He wrote a great deal and completed the greater part of
the finest of all his works, “The Duties of Man.” But Italy was always
in his thoughts; he kept in constant communication with the Italian
leaders, for he dreaded dying with his work undone. It was during
this period that the British Home Secretary, Sir John Graham, ordered
Mazzini’s letters to be opened as they passed through the British Post
Office, and communicated their contents to the Neapolitan Government.
A great stir was caused by this. There were debates in Parliament,
a Committee of Inquiry was appointed, and Mazzini’s character was
successfully vindicated. This episode, which was very discreditable to
the British Government, brought him many new friends.
In 1848 the good news came of the rising in North Italy and the
expulsion of the Austrians from Venice and Lombardy. A flood of
patriotism spread over Italy, and volunteers poured to the front from
all parts. Mazzini immediately hurried to Milan, where he was received
in triumph as the prophet who had been cast out, but who had preached
and suffered while others fell away and doubted. Fighting continued,
but the King, Charles Albert, was a timid man, quite incapable of
dealing in a masterful way with the situation that had arisen. He was
willing to consult Mazzini, but the enthusiastic reformer would have no
dealings with him. He refused for a moment to set aside his hatred of
monarchy, which he described as “a hereditary lie.” This was not the
only instance in which his zeal for the republican form of government
prevented him from co-operating with others who were just as eager as
he was for a united Italy.
The war continued. The Austrians gained victories and Milan was
occupied. Mazzini shouldered a rifle and served in a small force
under Garibaldi. Meanwhile, in Central Italy, the Pope had fled and
Rome was declared a republic. Three men were appointed to take over
the government with supreme powers. Of this triumvirate Mazzini was a
member. The opportunity had come for him to display his powers as a
ruler, and to put into practical form the theories about which he had
written and preached so much; but it proved to be short. Nevertheless,
he managed to deal with a difficult situation with the utmost skill,
showing wisdom and moderation, erring, if anything, on the side of
leniency toward his enemies. He adopted none of the pomp and ceremony
of a ruler, but lived with austere simplicity, unguarded, and
accessible to all who wished to approach him. By this mild authority
he maintained order in the city, and he might have succeeded in setting
up good government in a permanent form, had it not been for the
intervention of France. The attack on the Romans by Louis Napoleon has
been described as one of the meanest political crimes, and indeed there
was no excuse for it. The siege lasted nearly a month, and the city
fell. The victors entered Rome. Garibaldi with three thousand followers
refused to surrender and retreated. Mazzini fled the country. So ended
his brief experience as a ruler.