part in a play. It was now New Year's Day. The theatre was closed, and only a half-blind porter sat at the entrance to the stage, on which there was not a soul. I stole past him with a beating heart, got between the moveable scenes and the curtain, and advanced to the open part of the stage. Here I fell down upon my knees, but not a single verse for declamation could I recall to my memory. I then said aloud the Lord's Prayer. I went out with the persuasion that, because I had spoken from the stage on New Year's Day, I should, in the course of the year, succeed in speaking still more, as well as in having a part assigned to me."—(p. 50.)
We must quote the paragraph that immediately follows this extract, because it shows that, after all, there was something better stirring at his heart than this vague theatrical ambition, this empty vanity. There was the love of nature there. "During the two years of my residence in Copenhagen, I had never been out into the open country. Once only had I been in the park, and there I had been deeply engrossed by studying the diversions of the people and their gay tumult. In the spring of the third year, I went out for the first time amid the verdure of a spring morning. I stood still suddenly under the first large budding beech-tree. The sun made the leaves transparent—there was a fragrance, a freshness—the birds sang. I was overcome by it—I shouted aloud for joy, threw my arms around the tree, and kissed it. 'Is he mad?' said a man close behind me."
His good fortune provided him at length with a sincere and serviceable friend in the person of Collins—conference-councillor, as his title runs, and one of the most influential men at that time in Denmark. Through his means a grant was obtained from the royal purse, and access procured to something like regular education in the grammar-school at Slagelse. His place in the school was in the lowest class amongst little boys. He knew indeed nothing at all—nothing of what is taught by the pedagogue. At the age of eighteen, after having written a tragedy, which had been submitted to the theatre at Copenhagen, and we know not what poems besides,—after having versified a dance, and recited a song, he begins at the very beginning, and seats himself down in the lowest form of a grammar-school.
It is not our intention to pursue the biography of Andersen beyond what is necessary for understanding the singular circumstances in which his mind grew up; we shall not, therefore, detain our readers much longer on this part of our subject. His scholastic progress appears to have been at first slow and painful; the rector of the grammar-school behaved neither kindly nor generously towards him; and on him he afterwards took his revenge in the character of Habbas Dahdah, in "The Improvisatore." But he was docile, he was persevering, and passed through the school, and afterwards the college, not discreditably. In 1829, he was launched again into the world, a member of the educated class of society.
After supporting himself some time by his pen, he received from his government a stipend for travelling, which, it appears, in Denmark is bestowed on young poets as well as artists. And now he started on his travels—evidently the best school of education for a mind like his. For whatever use books may have been of to Andersen, in teaching him to write, they have had nothing to do with teaching him to think. No one portion of his writings of any value can be traced to his acquaintance with books. What knowledge he got from this source he could never rightly use. What his eye saw, what his heart felt—that alone he could work with. The slowly won reflection, the linked thought—any thing like a train of reasoning, seems to have been an utter stranger to his mind. Throughout his life, he is an observant child. From books he can gather nothing: severe analytic thinking he knows nothing of; he must see the world, must hear people talk, must remember how his own heart beat, and thus only can he find something for utterance.
What a change now in his destiny! The poor shoemaker's child, that wandered wild in the woods of Odense, and afterwards wandered almost as wild and as solitary in the streets of Copenhagen—who was next imprisoned in a school with dictionary and grammar—is now free again—may wander with wider range of vision—is a traveller—and in Italy! But the sensitive temper of Andersen, we are afraid, hardly permitted him to enjoy, as he might have done, his full cup of happiness. Vanity is an unquiet companion; he should have left it behind him at home; then the little piece of malice which he records of one of his friends would not have disturbed him as it appears to have done.
"During my journey to Paris, and the whole month that I spent there, I heard not a single word from home. Could it be that my friends had nothing agreeable to tell me? At length, however, a letter arrived; a large letter, which cost a large sum in postage. My heart beat with joy, and yearning impatience; it was indeed my first letter. I opened it, but I discovered not a single written word—nothing but a Copenhagen newspaper, containing a lampoon upon me, and that was sent to me all that distance with postage unpaid, probably by the anonymous writer himself. This abominable malice wounded me deeply. I have never discovered who the author was; perhaps he was one of those who afterwards called me friend, and pressed my hand. Some men have base thoughts; I also have mine."
Poor Andersen has all his life long been sorely plagued by his critics. Those who peruse his Autobiography to the close, and every part of it is worth reading, will find him in violent ill humour with the theatrical public, whom he describes as taking a malicious and diabolical pleasure in damning plays. To hiss down a piece, he declares, is one of the chief amusements that fill the house. "Five minutes is the usual time, and the whistles resound, and the lovely women smile and felicitate themselves like the Spanish ladies at their bloody bull-fights." His second journey into Italy seems to have been in part occasioned by some quarrel with the theatre. "If I would represent this portion of my life more clearly and reflectively, it would require me to penetrate into the mysteries of the theatre, to analyse our æsthetic cliques, and to drag into conspicuous notice many individuals who do not belong to publicity; many persons in my place would, like me, have fallen ill, or would have resented it vehemently. Perhaps the latter would have been the most sensible."
Oh, no! Hans Christian—by no means the most sensible. Better even to have fallen ill. An author by his quarrel with the public, whether the reading or theatrical public, can gain nothing for himself but added torment. The more vehemently he contests and resents, the louder is the laugh against him. Whether the right is upon his side, time alone can show; time alone can redress his wrongs. When the poet has written his best, he has done all his part. If he cannot feel perfectly tranquil as to the result, let him at least affect tranquillity—let him be silent, and silence will soon bring that peace it typifies.
Henceforward, however, upon the whole, the career of Andersen is prosperous, and his life genial. We find him in friendly intercourse with the best spirits of the age. The lad who walked about Odense with long yellow locks, bare-headed, and bare-footed, and who was half reconciled to being a tailor's apprentice, because he should get plenty of remnants to dress his puppets with—is seen spending the evening with the royal family of Denmark, or dining with the King of Prussia, who decorates him with his order of the Red Eagle! He has exemplified his text—"people have a deal of adversity to go through, and then they become famous."
Those who have read "The Improvisatore," the most ambitious of the works of Andersen, and by far the most meritorious of his novels, will now directly recognise the materials of which it has been constructed. His own early career, and his travels into Italy, have been woven together in the story of Antonio. So far from censuring him—as some of his Copenhagen critics appear to have done—for describing himself and the scenes he beheld, we are only surprised when we read "The True Story of his Life," that he has not been able to employ in a still more striking manner, the experience of his singular career. But, as we have already observed, he betrays no habit or power of mental analysis; he has not that introspection which, in the phrase of our poet Daniel, "raises a man above himself;" so that Andersen could contemplate Andersen, and combine the impartial scrutiny of a spectator with the thorough knowledge which self can only have of self. So far from censuring him for the frequent use he makes of the materials which his own life and travels afforded him, we could wish that he had never attempted to employ any other. Throughout his novels, whenever he departs from these, he is either commonplace or extravagant,—or both together, which, in our days, is very possible. If he imitates other writers,
