, 1875-09-08

from this custom on the occasion of ''the Eng
lish Roses" arrival at the house, near Copenha-
gen, where he was then staying. He became
silent, sulked, would not eat, and disappeared
early in the evening. The next morning their
hostess came to the English guest and asked
her if she would mind not being helped first,
cit made dear And'sen so unhappy he went
to the kitchen, and told the servants he could
see they TO longer loved him, since they
thought more of the English lady than of
him." When he wanted to go out to walk,
every one must go; if be changed his mind
and sat down to write, every one must stay at
home, for presently he would CONF into the
room to read what he had written, and would
be much rufaed by the absence of an auditor.
He would walk up to a stranger and say:
''They write in such and such a paper that l have
such thoughtful eyes; do you think my eyes so
thoughtful ~ or, Every one in the world
knows me all the kings in Europe have en-
braced me, sovereigns come to meet me at
their door - and all this as frankly as a child
would ask you to admire its new frock. He
never forgot his origin, nor did he ever boast
of it; he would say simply, "It is very good
of God to have given a poor c0bblerS son a
great genius, to have made me a great poet"
The harsh Danish tongue admits of no f0ritura,
and therefore though his ideas were so p%oetical,
he clothed them always in the most direct
and downright words, and he never had any
idea that there was anything which ought not
to be said. He spoke very little English, and
was no Judge of the rendering of Danish into
that language 50 that Mary HoWitt's fiat,
bald, almost literal translation ofhis novels
if they may be 50 called-and stories pleased
him he could understand them, be said.
His voice was exquiSitely melOdious his read
ing of his own stories, which he half acted, SO
expressive was his gesture, was indiseribably
delightful. He held one spell. bound, seeing.
hearing nothing but him, and his storytelling
was even more charming. General converse
ton he had none ; it was difficult to discover
on what subjects he really did know anything,
for he never conversed he brought every
topic that was started back to himself, to the
olOud-land in which he lived, to the point in
which his interest centred. His talk was always
like that Of an ideally-gifted ohild,-question,
narrative, fancy, but never meeting, or going
with, or borrowing from other minds. He
would begin to tell a story after a few min
utes' distracted gazing at some little object, a
straw, a pebble, no matter what-m0st COM
monty, q toy or a foWer-and pour out his
fancies in the plain unadorned forms of the
Danish, his voice exquisitely modulated with
every emotion or meaning, and his great, ugly,
ape-Iike hands, which looked as if nothing that.
they touched could escape sullying or destruo-
ton, deftly cutting out the q~uainteSt designs in
paper, with wonderful rapidly and delicacy, as
he spoke. Fdiry-scenes, dances, lovers seated
under trees, groups of flowers and plants these
and countless other objects would drop fromHlis
curling, twisting, shipping scissors, as fancy
after fancy came from his lips. Nothing was
%soulless to the man with a child's soul, a great
Imagination, and also a child's untroubIed be-
lief. He did not seem to have any definite
creed, and he attended no place of worship
he had no need of spiritual help, or oOmpre-
hension of spiritual doubt or difficulty. The
good God and the Christ-child were the sum of
his ideas, and he found them everywhere.
"God has made it so, it is right" or "God has
said it is wrong" was all his law; and he
could no more have put his mind into. a .polemi-
cal attitude, than he could have tubbed or
ridden to hounds. Ingenious people, who in
sist on seeing everything double, discern Pan.
theism under the quaint cOnceits of this friend
and oonfdant Of the fairy, and flower, and bird
world but there is no such thing-at least it
was not in himself-no subtlety of any kind, only
the ever-fowing fountain of a wondrous and in
exhaustible fancy, to which all living things
came, and mirrored themselves therein. You
lived in his stories while he was telling them,
and he lived in them always. He would walk
out with a friend or two at Petersh0i, and be
silent, almost s~ullen-never failing to remark
and return the salutation of passers-by, how
ever-for time then he would begin to poke