The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-07-09
Hans Andersen.

When the cable dispatch came to the
effect that Hans Andersen, the Danish
poet, lay dying, all literary journalists
prepared to write sketch of his life,
or in some good fitting way do honor
to the good old man, and shade of
gloom passed into every household in
which there had been children to teach
the older people to love him. How
ever, the obituaries were unwritten and
the tears unshed, for the next steamer
brought word that the immediate dan
ger was over, and the old poet, although
an invalid, had, it was hoped, several
years of life yet before him. Later
another story was told, which we have
reason to believe to be true, that Ander.
sen had himself stated that, in spite of
the enormous sale of his books in for
eign countries, these sales or his wide
spread reputation had never been of
one dollars pecuniary value to him,
except in q single instance when an
American publisher, unsolicited, lately
sent him copyright percentage on the
sale of one edition of his works. An
dersen is now an old and feeble man,
and although not in want, lacks many
comforts to make his few remaining
years easy and pleasant. 1t has been
proposed, that instead of waiting until
the affection and homage of his friends
in this country could evaporate the
funeral notices and private sighs and
lamentations, they should send him
some solid, practical testimony in token
of gratitude for the pleasure he has
given them.
Andersen deserves, as no other man
does, that title of the children's friend,
the more because he will never, in all
probability, be dead to them. Like all
joyous, child like natures, there is an
immortal quality of life in all he says
and does morbid, melancholic men re-
turn to the charmel-house and mold as
to their native place but the Danish
poet and his gay, happy kinsfolk never
can cease to be to us. He will go
out of sight some day, but, long after
he is dust, the little chap who reads the
Hardy Tin Soldier" will know quite
all that the man who tells it to him is
above somewhere, telling stories as
wonderful to other children about his
knee. There is, too, a something oddly
contagious, so to speak, la Andersen's
genius and character to the man who
once has heard his story there is slight
change in the tone and color of all the
outdoor world thereafter.
His early years gave strange bent
to his genuis.. sAndersen spent his
childish days in the kitchen and shoe
makers shop where his father and
mother worked. Outside were the mar
row, sloping streets of the town of
Odense, smelling strongly of leather
and fish, and opening into the waters OF
the Skager Rack, which shone red in
the evening sun.
The boy knew nothing of dwarfs OF
genii to people this scene, but his
imagination was no less q potent and
life-giving flame every paltry object
about him lived for him with O soul OF
its own, talked, fought, boosted. SUI
fered as human being. When the lad
was old enough to tell the stories o
these tin soldiers or old street lamps
the world would stop to listen, as it al
ways does to true thing. People long
ago believed that mermaids and birds
or FAIRIES might have adventures bu
at the touch of this boy the mirrors anc
tables in the drawing-room, the toys il
the nursery, even the cooks darning
needle and the matches ia their box
began to expose their loves and hates
and private hates and squabbles. An
dersen has been emphatically the En-
chanter of Home, and the work of hi
youth made childhood for most of III
purer and happier. Let our children
then, return the gift to him in comfor
and cheer for his home during the few
days left to him.