Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1885-01-09

has associated the little country of Den-
mark in most peoples minds with two
names representing the most contrasted
personalities Hamlet, the protagonist
of human speculation, and Hans
Christian Andersen, the first child
author. He was not the first to write
for children, nor the first to Introduce
the child into literature; another dis
tinction belongs to him: He was the
first child who had contributed to liter
ATTIRE. The work by which he is best
known is nothing more nor less than an
artistic creation of precisely the order
which is common among children.
Ii Is part OF the .ommon experience
OF men 10 endow inanimate things with
more or less life through the operation
OF imagination. Even mere symbols
are made to have superluity of life.
But the power of personifying that
which seems to have no personality is
strongest in childhood, it is very apt to
die out or become indistinct in later
years. Andersen never lost this power;
he cultivated it and that which with
children is vivid but for,nless became
with him even more vivid, but ordered
and disposed as by the laws of art.
This, L think, may be taken "a the
peculiar contribution of Andersen to-
iiterature; he was tbetnterpreter to the
world OF that creative power which is
significant of childhood; the child spoke
through hi n. He was himself, as his
autobiography and the unvarying test;-
mony OF his friends show, child all
his lie. The ma rete which is so large
an element in his stories was an ex-
pre- sion OF his own artless nature; his
was condition almost OF arrested de-
veloDment. He was an excessively vain
man, but his vanity was the innocent
egotism of child who wants every body
to look at him when he is doing any
thing which pleases himself. He be-
moans with amusing simplicity the in
difference which people showed to his
philosophical writings; he AYERS with
an air of injured innocence that he
studied very hard, and was often read
ing difficult books at midnight when
people supposed he was amusing him
self. He would have discontinued sII:h
trivial matters as wiring his little
tales, but they forced themselves upon
him.
1t was hard for Andersen's contempo-
raries to withhold their ridicule OF this
for Danes 10 accept cordially the con-
spicuous po ition in their Little creature
which he holds in the eyes of ioreigne s.
He wrote novels, poems, books of travel.
and dramas. tie ranked as an artist
and a man of creative power in these
fo ms below others of his time and ma
ton, vet il will be found that when
Danish literature is named, Andersen
is quite the only figure in it of familiar
repute beyond the boundaries of his
own country, and this not by virtue of
these larger works, but through few
wonder-stories.
Andersen was by no means man
who pre- erred to associate w tn chill
dren. When it wa proposed in his life
time to erect in the Rosenberg Garden
in Copenhagen a statue in his honor,
various sculpt1rs submitted de igns.
One of them was pleas n one which
would probably re ect the sentiment of
most eopie regarding him; it repre-
sented the great story teller with two
children by his knee while he told them
stories. Andersen OBJ ected positively
to the conception. for he So q he was
not in the habit OF taking children thus
into his arms. The design whicl was
CHOSEN. ana was presumably accepted
by him, presents him in a curule char,
a cloak falling + his shoulders, while
he bends forward, holding. with his
finger between the leaves, thin book,
which might contain one of his stories.
and stretching forth the other hand
with an eager gesture. This eayerness.
too, is in his lace and his parted lips:
he is reciting one OF his sto.ies. The
statue. which is of bronze, stands upon
pedestal bearing in front his name,
with dateSof his birth and death. and on
the sides pretty rel lefs. the one of the
&" gly Duckling" group, the other of Il
child borne upon a siork. A simple in
! scription states that the statue was
cree ell in losJ by the Danish people in
memory of the won,ler-story poe.
Horace T.. ScHttder, ia HdryerS S adga
/ -5,1o