THE TRUE STORY OF MY LIFE:
A SKETCH BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN...continued



CHAPTER V.

 

On the 5th of September, 1833, I crossed the Simplon on my way to

Italy. On the very day, on which, fourteen years before, I had arrived

poor and helpless in Copenhagen, did I set foot in this country of my

longing and of my poetical happiness. It happened in this case, as it

often does, by accident, without any arrangement on my part, as if I

had preordained lucky days in the year; yet good fortune has so

frequently been with me, that I perhaps only remind myself of its

visits on my own self-elected days.

 

All was sunshine--all was spring! The vine hung in long trails from

tree to tree; never since have I seen Italy so beautiful. I sailed on

Lago Maggiore; ascended the cathedral of Milan; passed several days in

Genoa, and made from thence a journey, rich in the beauties of nature,

along the shore to Carrara. I had seen statues in Paris, but my eyes

were closed to them; in Florence, before the Venus de Medici, it was

for the first time as if scales fell from my eyes; a new world of art

disclosed itself before me; that was the first fruit of my journey.

Here it was that I first learned to understand the beauty of form--the

spirit which reveals itself in form. The life of the people--nature--

all was new to me; and yet as strangely familiar as if I were come to a

home where I had lived in my childhood. With a peculiar rapidity did I

seize upon everything, and entered into its life, whilst a deep

northern melancholy--it was not home-sickness, but a heavy, unhappy

feeling--filled my breast. I received the news in Rome, of how little

the poem of Agnete, which I had sent home, was thought of there; the

next letter in Rome brought me the news that my mother was dead. I was

now quite alone in the world.

 

It was at this time, and in Rome, that my first meeting with Hertz took

place. In a letter which I had received from Collin, he had said that

it would give him pleasure to hear that Hertz and I had become friends;

but even without this wish it would have happened, for Hertz kindly

offered me his hand, and expressed sympathy with my sorrow. He had, of

all those with whom I was at that time acquainted, the most variously

cultivated mind. We had often disputations together, even about the

attacks which had been made upon me at home as a poet. He, who had

himself given me a wound, said the following words, which deeply

impressed themselves on my memory: "Your misfortune is, that you have

been obliged to print everything; the public has been able to follow

you step by step. I believe that even, a Goethe himself must have

suffered the same fate, had he been in your situation." And then he

praised my talent for seizing upon the characteristics of nature, and

giving, by a few intuitive sketches, pictures of familiar life. My

intercourse with him was very instructive to me, and I felt that I had

one merciful judge more. I travelled in company with him to Naples,

where we dwelt together in one house.

 

In Rome I also became first acquainted with Thorwaldsen. Many years

before, when I had not long been in Copenhagen, and was walking through

the streets as a poor boy, Thorwaldsen was there too: that was on his

first return home. We met one another in the street. I knew that he was

a distinguished man in art; I looked at him, I bowed; he went on, and

then, suddenly turning round, came back to me, and said, "Where have I

seen you before? I think we know one another." I replied, "No, we do

not know one another at all." I now related this story to him in Rome;

he smiled, pressed my hand, and said, "Yet we felt at that time that we

should become good friends." I read Agnete to him; and that which

delighted me in his judgment upon it was the assertion, "It is just,"

said he, "as if I were walking at home in the woods, and heard the

Danish lakes;" and then he kissed me.

 

One day, when he saw how distressed I was, and I related to him about

the pasquinade which I had received from home in Paris, he gnashed his

teeth violently, and said, in momentary anger, "Yes, yes, I know the

people; it would not have gone any better with me if I had remained

there; I should then, perhaps, not even have obtained permission to set

up a model. Thank God that I did not need them, for then they know how

to torment and to annoy." He desired me to keep up a good heart, and

then things could not fail of going well; and with that he told me of

some dark passages in his own life, where he in like manner had been

mortified and unjustly condemned.

 

After the Carnival, I left Rome for Naples; saw at Capri the blue

Grotto, which was at that time first discovered; visited the temple at

Paestum, and returned in the Easter week to Rome, from whence I went

through Florence and Venice to Vienna and Munich; but I had at that

time neither mind nor heart for Germany; and when I thought on Denmark,

I felt fear and distress of mind about the bad reception which I

expected to find there. Italy, with its scenery and its people's life,

occupied my soul, and towards this land I felt a yearning. My earlier

life, and what I had now seen, blended themselves together into an

image--into poetry, which I was compelled to write down, although I was

convinced that it would occasion me more trouble than joy, if my

necessities at home should oblige me to print it. I had written already

in Rome the first chapter. It was my novel of "The Improvisatore."

 

At one of my first visits to the theatre at Odense, as a little boy,

where, as I have already mentioned, the representations were given in

the German language, I saw the Donauweibchen, and the public applauded

the actress of the principal part. Homage was paid to her, and she was

honored; and I vividly remember thinking how happy she must be.

 

Many years afterwards, when, as a student, I visited Odense, I saw, in

one of the chambers of the hospital where the poor widows lived and

where one bed stood by another, a female portrait hanging over one bed

in a gilt frame. It was Lessing's Emilia Galotti, and represented her

as pulling the rose to pieces; but the picture was a portrait. It

appeared singular in contrast with the poverty by which it was

surrounded.

 

"Whom does it represent?" asked I.

 

"Oh!" said one of the old women, "it is the face of the German lady,

the poor lady who once was an actress!" And then I saw a little

delicate woman, whose face was covered with wrinkles, and in an old

silk gown that once had been black. That was the once celebrated

Singer, who, as the Donauweibchen, had been applauded by every one.

This circumstance made an indelible impression upon me, and often

occurred to my mind.

 

In Naples I heard Malibran for the first time. Her singing and acting

surpassed anything which I had hitherto either heard or seen; and yet I

thought the while of the miserably poor singer in the hospital of

Odense: the two figures blended into the Annunciata of the novel. Italy

was the back ground for that which had been experienced and that which

was imagined.  In August of 1834 I returned to Denmark. I wrote the

first part of the book at Ingemann's, in Sor/, in a little chamber in

the roof, among fragrant lime-trees. I finished it in Copenhagen.

 

At this time my best friends, even, had almost given me up as a poet;

they said that they had erred with regard to my talents. It was with

difficulty that I found a publisher for the book. I received a

miserable sum of money for it, and the "Improvisatore" made its

appearance; was read, sold out, and again published. The critics were

silent; the newspapers said nothing; but I heard all around me of the

interest which was felt for the work, and the delight that it

occasioned. At length the poet Carl Bagger, who was at that time the

editor of a newspaper, wrote the first critique upon it, and began

ironically, with the customary tirade against me--"that it was all over

with this author, who had already passed his heyday;"--in short, he

went the whole length of the tobacco and tea criticism, in order

suddenly to dash out, and to express his extremely warm enthusiasm for

me; and my book. People now laughed at me, but I wept. This was my mood

of mind. I wept freely, and felt gratitude to God and man.

 

"To the Conference Councillor Collin and to his noble wife, in whom I

found parents, whose children were brethren and sisters to me, whose

house was my home, do I here present the best of which I am

possessed."--So ran the dedication. Many who formerly had been my

enemy, now changed their opinion; and among these one became my friend,

who, I hope, will remain so through the whole of my life. That was

Hauch the poet, one of the noblest characters with whom I am

acquainted. He had returned home from Italy after a residence of

several years abroad, just at the time when Heiberg's vaudevilles were

intoxicating the inhabitants of Copenhagen, and when my "Journey on

Foot" was making me a little known. He commenced a controversy with

Heiberg, and somewhat scoffed at me. Nobody called his attention to my

better lyrical writings; I was described to him as a spoiled, petulant

child of fortune. He now read my Improvisatore, and feeling that there

was something good in me, his noble character evinced itself by his

writing a cordial letter to me, in which he said, that he had done me

an injustice, and offered me now the hand of reconciliation. From that

time we became friends. He used his influence for me with the utmost

zeal, and has watched my onward career with heartfelt friendship. But

so little able have many people been to understand what is excellent in

him, or the noble connection of heart between us two, that not long

since, when he wrote a novel, and drew in it the caricature of a poet,

whose vanity ended in insanity, the people in Denmark discovered that

he had treated me with the greatest injustice, because he had described

in it my weakness. People must not believe that this was the assertion

of one single person, or a misapprehension of my character; no; and

Hauch felt himself compelled to write a treatise upon me as a poet,

that he might show what a different place he assigned to me.

 

But to return to the "Improvisatore." This book raised my sunken

fortunes; collected my friends again around me, nay, even obtained for

me new ones. For the first time I felt that I had obtained a due

acknowledgment. The book was translated into German by Kruse, with a

long title, _"Jugendleben und Tr ume eines italienischen

Dichter's."_ I objected to the title; but he declared that it was

necessary in order to attract attention to the book.

 

Bagger had, as already stated, been the first to pass judgment on the

work; after an interval of some time a second critique made its

appearance, more courteous, it is true, than I was accustomed to, but

still passing lightly over the best things in the book and dwelling on

its deficiencies, and on the number of incorrectly written Italian

words. And, as Nicolai's well-known book, "Italy as it really is," came

out just then, people universally said, "Now we shall be able to see

what it is about which Andersen has written, for from Nicolai a true

idea of Italy may be obtained for the first time."

 

It was from Germany that resounded the first decided acknowledgment of

the merits of my work, or rather perhaps its over estimation. I bow

myself in joyful gratitude, like a sick man toward the sunshine, when

my heart is grateful. I am not, as the Danish Monthly Review, in its

critique of the "Improvisatore," condescended to assert, an unthankful

man, who exhibits in his work a want of gratitude towards his

benefactors. I was indeed myself poor Antonio who sighed under the

burden which I had to bear,--_I,_ the poor lad who ate the bread

of charity. From Sweden also, later, resounded my praise, and the

Swedish newspapers contained articles in praise of this work, which

within the last two years has been equally warmly received in England,

where Mary Howitt, the poetess, has translated it into English; the

same good fortune also is said to have attended the book in Holland and

Russia. Everywhere abroad resounded the loudest acknowledgments of its

excellence.

 

There exists in the public a power which is stronger than all the

critics and cliques. I felt that I stood at home on firmer ground, and

my spirit again had moments in which it raised its wings for flight. In

this alternation of feeling between gaiety and ill humor, I wrote my

next novel, "O. T.," which is regarded by many persons in Denmark as my

best work;--an estimation which I cannot myself award to it. It

contains characteristic features of town life. My first Tales appeared

before "O. T;" but this is not the place in which to speak of them. I

felt just at this time a strong mental impulse to write, and I believed

that I had found my true element in novel-writing. In the following

year, 1837, I published "Only a Fiddler," a book which on my part had

been deeply pondered over, and the details of which sprang fresh to the

paper. My design was to show that talent is not genius, and that if the

sunshine of good fortune be withheld, this must go to the ground,

though without losing its nobler, better nature. This book likewise had

its partisans; but still the critics would not vouchsafe to me any

encouragement; they forgot that with years the boy becomes a man, and

that people may acquire knowledge in other than the ordinary ways. They

could not separate themselves from their old preconceived opinions.

Whilst "O. T." was going through the press it was submitted sheet by

sheet to a professor of the university, who had himself offered to

undertake this work, and by two other able men also; notwithstanding

all this, the Reviews said, "We find the usual grammatical negligence,

which we always find in Andersen, in this work also." That which

contributed likewise to place this book in the shade was the

circumstance of Heiberg having at that time published his Every-day

Stories, which were written in excellent language, and with good taste

and truth. Their own merits, and the recommendation of their being

Heiberg's, who was the beaming star of literature, placed them in the

highest rank.

 

I had however advanced so far, that there no longer existed any doubt

as to my poetical ability, which people had wholly denied to me before

my journey to Italy. Still not a single Danish critic had spoken of the

characteristics which are peculiar to my novels. It was not until my

works appeared in Swedish that this was done, and then several Swedish

journals went profoundly into the subject and analyzed my works with

good and honorable intentions. The case was the same in Germany; and

from this country too my heart was strengthened to proceed. It was not

until last year that in Denmark, a man of influence, Hauch the poet,

spoke of the novels in his already mentioned treatise, and with a few

touches brought their characteristics prominently forward.

 

"The principal thing," says he, "in Andersen's best and most elaborate

works, in those which are distinguished for the richest fancy, the

deepest feeling, the most lively poetic spirit, is, of talent, or at

least of a noble nature, which will struggle its way out of narrow and

depressing circumstances. This is the case with his three novels, and

with this purpose in view, it is really an important state of existence

which he describes,--an inner world, which no one understands better

than he, who has himself, drained out of the bitter cup of suffering

and renunciation, painful and deep feelings which are closely related

to those of his own experience, and from which Memory, who, according

to the old significant myth, is the mother of the Muses, met him hand

in hand with them. That which he, in these his works, relates to the

world, deserves assuredly to be listened to with attention; because, at

the same time that it may be only the most secret inward life of the

individual, yet it is also the common lot of men of talent and genius,

at least when these are in needy circumstances, as is the case of those

who are here placed before our eyes. In so far as in his

'Improvisatore,' in 'O. T.,' and in 'Only a Fiddler,' he represents not

only himself, in his own separate individuality, but at the same time

the momentous combat which so many have to pass through, and which he

understands so well, because in it his own life has developed itself;

therefore in no instance can he be said to present to the reader what

belongs to the world of illusion, but only that which bears witness to

truth, and which, as is the case with all such testimony, has a

universal and enduring worth.

 

"And still more than this, Andersen is not only the defender of talent

and genius, but, at the same time, of every human heart which is

unkindly and unjustly treated. And whilst he himself has so painfully

suffered in that deep combat in which the Laocoon-snakes seize upon the

outstretched hand; whilst he himself has been compelled to drink from

that wormwood-steeped bowl which the cold-blooded and arrogant world so

constantly offers to those who are in depressed circumstances, he is

fully capable of giving to his delineations in this respect a truth and

an earnestness, nay, even a tragic and a pain-awakening pathos that

rarely fails of producing its effect on the sympathizing human heart.

Who can read that scene in his 'Only a Fiddler,' in which the 'high-

bred hound,' as the poet expresses it, 'turned away with disgust from

the broken victuals which the poor youth received as alms, without

recognizing, at the same time, that this is no game in which vanity

seeks for a triumph, but that it expresses much more--human nature

wounded to its inmost depths, which here speaks out its sufferings.'"

 

Thus is it spoken in Denmark of my works, after an interval of nine or

ten years; thus speaks the voice of a noble, venerated man. It is with

me and the critics as it is with wine,--the more years pass before it

is drunk the better is its flavor.

 

During the year in which "The Fiddler" came out, I visited for the

first time the neighboring country of Sweden. I went by the G/ta canal

to Stockholm. At that time nobody understood what is now called

Scandinavian sympathies; there still existed a sort of mistrust

inherited from the old wars between the two neighbor nations. Little

was known of Swedish literature, and there were only very few Danes who

could easily read and understand the Swedish language;--people scarcely

knew Tegn r's Frithiof and Axel, excepting through translations. I had,

however, read a few other Swedish authors, and the deceased,

unfortunate Stagnelius pleased me more as a poet than Tegn r, who

represented poetry in Sweden. I, who hitherto had only travelled into

Germany and southern countries, where by this means, the departure from

Copenhagen was also the departure from my mother tongue, felt, in this

respect, almost at home in Sweden: the languages are so much akin, that

of two persons each might read in the language of his own country, and

yet the other understand him. It seemed to me, as a Dane, that Denmark

expanded itself; kinship with the people exhibited itself, in many

ways, more and more; and I felt, livingly, how near akin are Swedes,

Danes, and Norwegians.

 

I met with cordial, kind people,--and with these I easily made

acquaintance. I reckon this journey among the happiest I ever made. I

had no knowledge of the character of Swedish scenery, and therefore I

was in the highest degree astonished by the Trollh tta-voyage, and by

the extremely picturesque situation of Stockholm. It sounds to the

uninitiated half like a fairy-tale, when one says that the steam-boat

goes up across the lakes over the mountains, from whence may be seen

the outstretched pine and beechwoods below. Immense sluices heave up

and lower the vessel again, whilst the travellers ramble through the

woods. None of the cascades of Switzerland, none in Italy, not even

that of Terni, have in them anything so imposing as that of Trollh tta.

Such is the impression, at all events, which it made on me.

 

On this journey, and at this last-mentioned place, commenced a very

interesting acquaintance, and one which has not been without its

influence on me,--an acquaintance with the Swedish authoress, Fredrika

Bremer. I had just been speaking with the captain of the steam-boat and

some of the passengers about the Swedish authors living in Stockholm,

and I mentioned my desire to see and converse with Miss Bremer.

 

"You will not meet with her," said the Captain, "as she is at this

moment on a visit in Norway."

 

"She will be coming back while I am there," said I in joke; "I always

am lucky in my journeys, and that which I most wish for is always

accomplished.

 

"Hardly this time, however," said the captain.

 

A few hours after this he came up to me laughing, with the list of the

newly arrived passengers in his hand. "Lucky fellow," said he aloud,

"you take good fortune with you; Miss Bremer is here, and sails with us

to Stockholm."

 

I received it as a joke; he showed me the list, but still I was

uncertain. Among the new arrivals, I could see no one who resembled an

authoress. Evening came on, and about midnight we were on the great

Wener lake. At sunrise I wished to have a view of this extensive lake,

the shores of which could scarcely be seen; and for this purpose I left

the cabin. At the very moment that I did so, another passenger was also

doing the same, a lady neither young nor old, wrapped in a shawl and

cloak. I thought to myself, if Miss Bremer is on board, this must be

she, and fell into discourse with her; she replied politely, but still

distantly, nor would she directly answer my question, whether she was

the authoress of the celebrated novels. She asked after my name; was

acquainted with it, but confessed that she had read none of my works.

She then inquired whether I had not some of them with me, and I lent

her a copy of the "Improvisatore," which I had destined for Beskow.

She vanished immediately with the volumes, and was not again visible

all morning.

 

When I again saw her, her countenance was beaming, and she was full of

cordiality; she pressed my hand, and said that she had read the greater

part of the first volume, and that she now knew me.

 

The vessel flew with us across the mountains, through quiet inland

lakes and forests, till it arrived at the Baltic Sea, where islands lie

scattered, as in the Archipelago, and where the most remarkable

transition takes place from naked cliffs to grassy islands, and to

those on which stand trees and houses. Eddies and breakers make it here

necessary to take on board a skilful pilot; and there are indeed some

places where every passenger must sit quietly on his seat, whilst the

eye of the pilot is riveted upon one point. On shipboard one feels the

mighty power of nature, which at one moment seizes hold of the vessel

and the next lets it go again.

 

Miss Bremer related many legends and many histories, which were

connected with this or that island, or those farm-premises up aloft on

the mainland.

 

In Stockholm, the acquaintance with her increased, and year after year

the letters which have passed between us have strengthened it. She is a

noble woman; the great truths of religion, and the poetry which lies in

the quiet circumstances of life, have penetrated her being.

 

It was not until after my visit to Stockholm that her Swedish

translation of my novel came out; my lyrical poems only, and my

"Journey on Foot," were known to a few authors; these received me with

the utmost kindness, and the lately deceased Dahlgr n, well known by

his humorous poems, wrote a song in my honor--in short, I met with

hospitality, and countenances beaming with Sunday gladness. Sweden and

its inhabitants became dear to me. The city itself, by its situation

and its whole picturesque appearance, seemed to me to emulate Naples.

Of course, this last has the advantage of fine atmosphere, and the

sunshine of the south; but the view of Stockholm is just as imposing;

it has also some resemblance to Constantinople, as seen from Pera, only

that the minarets are wanting. There prevails a great variety of

coloring in the capital of Sweden; white painted buildings; frame-work

houses, with the wood-work painted red; barracks of turf, with

flowering plants; fir tree and birches look out from among the houses,

and the churches with their balls and towers. The streets in S/dermalm

ascend by flights of wooden steps up from the M lar lake, which is all

active with smoking steam-vessels, and with boats rowed by women in

gay-colored dresses.

 

I had brought with me a letter of introduction from Oersted, to the

celebrated Berzelius, who gave me a good reception in the old city of

Upsala. From this place I returned to Stockholm. City, country, and

people, were all dear to me; it seemed to me, as I said before, that

the boundaries of my native land had stretched themselves out, and I

now first felt the kindredship of the three peoples, and in this

feeling I wrote a Scandinavian song, a hymn of praise for all the three

nations, for that which was peculiar and best in each one of them.

 

"One can see that the Swedes made a deal of him," was the first remark

which I heard at home on this song.

 

Years pass on; the neighbors understand each other better;

Oehlenschl ger. Fredrika Bremer, and Tegn r, caused them mutually to

read each other's authors, and the foolish remains of the old enmity,

which had no other foundation than that they did not know each other,

vanished. There now prevails a beautiful, cordial relationship between

Sweden and Denmark. A Scandinavian club has been established in

Stockholm; and with this my song came to honor; and it was then said,

"it will outlive everything that Andersen has written:" which was as

unjust as when they said that it was only the product of flattered

vanity. This song is now sung in Sweden as well as in Denmark.

 

 On my return home I began to study history industriously, and made

myself still further acquainted with the literature of foreign

countries. Yet still the volume which afforded me the greatest pleasure

was that of nature; and in a summer residence among the country-seats

of Funen, and more especially at Lykkesholm, with its highly romantic

site in the midst of woods, and at the noble seat of Glorup, from whose

possessor I met with the most friendly reception, did I acquire more

true wisdom, assuredly, in my solitary rambles, than I ever could have

gained from the schools.

 

The house of the Conference Councillor Collin in Copenhagen was at that

time, as it has been since, a second father's house to me, and there I

had parents, and brothers and sisters. The best circles of social life

were open to me, and the student life interested me: here I mixed in

the pleasures of youth. The student life of Copenhagen is, besides

this, different from that of the German cities, and was at this time

peculiar and full of life. For me this was most perceptible in the

students' clubs, where students and professors were accustomed to meet

each other: there was there no boundary drawn between the youthful and

elder men of letters. In this club were to be found the journals and

books of various countries; once a week an author would read his last

work; a concert or some peculiar burlesque entertainment would take

place. It was here that what may be called the first Danish

people'scomedies took their origin,--comedies in which the events of

the day were worked up always in an innocent, but witty and amusing

manner. Sometimes dramatic representations were given in the presence

of ladies for the furtherance of some noble purpose, as lately to

assist Thorwaldsen's Museum, to raise funds for the execution of

Bissen's statue in marble, and for similar ends. The professors and

students were the actors. I also appeared several times as an actor,

and convinced myself that my terror at appearing on the stage was

greater than the talent which I perhaps possessed. Besides this, I

wrote and arranged several pieces, and thus gave my assistance. Several

scenes from this time, the scenes in the students' club, I have worked

up in my romance of "O. T." The humor and love of life observable in

various passages of this book, and in the little dramatic pieces

written about this time, are owing to the influence of the family of

Collin, where much good was done me in that respect, so that my morbid

turn of mind was unable to gain the mastery of me. Collin's eldest

married daughter, especially, exercised great influence over me, by her

merry humor and wit. When the mind is yielding and elastic, like the

expanse of ocean, it readily, like the ocean, mirrors its environments.

 

My writings, in my own country, were now classed among those which were

always bought and read; therefore for each fresh work I received a

higher payment. Yet, truly, when you consider what a circumscribed

world the Danish reading world is, you will see that this payment could

not be the most liberal. Yet I had to live. Collin, who is one of the

men who do more than they promise, was my help, my consolation, my

support.

 

At this time the late Count Conrad von Rantzau-Breitenburg, a native of

Holstein, was Prime Minister in Denmark. He was of a noble, amiable

nature, a highly educated man, and possessed of a truly chivalrous

disposition. He carefully observed the movements in German and Danish

literature. In his youth he had travelled much, and spent a long time

in Spain and Italy, He read my "Improvisatore" in the original; his

imagination was powerfully seized by it, and he spoke both at court and

in his own private circles of my book in the warmest manner. He did not

stop here; he sought me out, and became my benefactor and friend. One

forenoon, whilst I was sitting solitarily in my little chamber, this

friendly man stood before me for the first time. He belonged to that

class of men who immediately inspire you with confidence; he besought

me to visit him, and frankly asked me whether there were no means by

which he could be of use to me. I hinted how oppressive it was to be

_forced_ to write in order to live, always to be forced to think

of the morrow, and not move free from care, to be able to develop your

mind and thoughts. He pressed my hand in a friendly manner, and

promised to be an efficient friend. Collin and Oersted secretly

associated themselves with him, and became my intercessors.

 

Already for many years there had existed, under Frederick VI., an

institution which does the highest honor to the Danish government,

namely, that beside the considerable sum expended yearly, for the

travelling expenses of young literary men and artists, a small pension

shall be awarded to such of them as enjoy no office emoluments. All our

most important poets have had a share of this assistance,--

Oehlenschl ger, Ingemann, Heiberg, C. Winther, and others. Hertz had

just then received such a pension, and his future life made thus the

more secure. It was my hope and my wish that the same good fortune

might be mine--and it was. Frederick VI. granted me two hundred rix

dollars banco yearly. I was filled with gratitude and joy. I was

nolonger _forced_ to write in order to live; I had a sure support

in the possible event of sickness. I was less dependent upon the people

about me. A new chapter of my life began.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

From this day forward, it was as if a more constant sunshine had

entered my heart. I felt within myself more repose, more certainty; it

was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving

Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher

Power; and the firmer becomes such a conviction, the more secure does a

man feel himself. My childhood lay behind me, my youthful life began

properly from this period; hitherto it had been only an arduous

swimming against the stream. The spring of my life commenced; but still

the spring had its dark days, its storms, before it advanced to settled

summer; it has these in order to develop what shall then ripen. That

which one of my dearest friends wrote to me on one of my later travels

abroad, may serve as an introduction to what I have here to relate. He

wrote in his own peculiar style:--"It is your vivid imagination which

creates the idea of your being despised in Denmark; it is utterly

untrue. You and Denmark agree admirably, and you would agree still

better, if there were in Denmark no theatre--_Hinc illae

lacrymae!_ This cursed theatre. Is this, then, Denmark? and are you,

then, nothing but a writer for the theatre?"

 

Herein lies a solid truth. The theatre has been the cave out of which

most of the evil storms have burst upon me. They are peculiar people,

these people of the theatre,--as different, in fact, from others, as

Bedouins from Germans; from the first pantomimist to the first lover,

everyone places himself systematically in one scale, and puts all the

world in the other. The Danish theatre is a good theatre, it may indeed

be placed on a level with the Burg theatre in Vienna; but the theatre

in Copenhagen plays too great a part in conversation, and possesses in

most circles too much importance. I am not sufficiently acquainted with

the stage and the actors in other great cities, and therefore cannot

compare them with our theatre; but ours has too little military

discipline, and this is absolutely necessary where many people have to

form a whole, even when that whole is an artistical one. The most

distinguished dramatic poets in Denmark--that is to say, in Copenhagen,

for there only is a theatre--have their troubles. Those actors and

actresses who, through talent or the popular favor, take the first

rank, very often place themselves above both the managers and authors.

These must pay court to them, or they may ruin a part, or what is still

worse, may spread abroad an unfavorable opinion of the piece previous

to its being acted; and thus you have a coffee-house criticism before

any one ought properly to know anything of the work. It is moreover

characteristic of the people of Copenhagen, that when a new piece is

announced, they do not say, "I am glad of it," but, "It will probably

be good for nothing; it will be hissed off the stage." That hissing-off

plays a great part, and is an amusement which fills the house; but it

is not the bad actor who is hissed, no, the author and the composer

only are the criminals; for them the scaffold is erected. 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

bullfights. All our most eminent dramatic writers have been whistled

down,--as Oehlenschl ger, Heiberg, Oversko, and others; to say nothing

of foreign classics, as Moli re. In the mean time the theatre is the

most profitable sphere of labor for the Danish writer, whose public

does not extend far beyond the frontiers. This had induced me to write

the opera-text already spoken of, on account of which I was so severely

criticised; and an internal impulse drove me afterwards to add some

other works. Collin was no longer manager of the theatre, Councillor of

Justice Molbeck had taken his place; and the tyranny which now

commenced degenerated into the comic. I fancy that in course of time

the manuscript volumes of the censorship, which are preserved in the

theatre, and in which Molbeck has certainly recorded his judgments on

received and rejected pieces, will present some remarkable

characteristics. Over all that I wrote the staff was broken! One way

was open to me by which to bring my pieces on the stage; and that was

to give them to those actors who in summer gave representations at

their own cost. In the summer of 1839 I wrote the vaudeville of "The

Invisible One on Sprog/," to scenery which had been painted for another

piece which fell through; and the unrestrained merriment of the piece

gave it such favor with the public, that I obtained its acceptance by

the manager; and that light sketch still maintains itself on the

boards, and has survived such a number of representations as I had

never anticipated.

 

This approbation, however, procured me no further advantage, for each

of my succeeding dramatic works received only rejection, and occasioned

me only mortification. Nevertheless, seized by the idea and the

circumstances of the little French narrative, "_Les  paves_," I

determined to dramatise it; and as I had often heard that I did not

possess the assiduity sufficient to work my mat riel well, I resolved

to labor this drama--"The Mulatto"--from the beginning to the end, in

the most diligent manner, and to compose it in alternately rhyming

verse, as was then the fashion. It was a foreign subject of which I

availed myself; but if verses are music, I at least endeavored to adapt

my music to the text, and to let the poetry of another diffuse itself

through my spiritual blood; so that people should not be heard to say,

as they had done before, regarding the romance of Walter Scott, that

the composition was cut down and fitted to the stage.

 

The piece was ready, and declared by able men, old friends, and actors

who were to appear in it, to be excellent; a rich dramatic capacity lay

in the mat riel, and my lyrical composition clothed this with so fresh

a green, that people appeared satisfied. The piece was sent in, and was

rejected by Molbeck. It was sufficiently known that what he cherished

for the boards, withered there the first evening; but what he cast away

as weeds were flowers for the garden--a real consolation for me. The

assistant-manager, Privy Counsellor of State, Adler, a man of taste and

liberality, became the patron of my work; and since a very favorable

opinion of it already prevailed with the public, after I had read it to

many persons, it was resolved on for representation. I had the honor to

read it before my present King and Queen, who received me in a very

kind and friendly manner, and from whom, since that time, I have

experienced many proofs of favor and cordiality. The day of

representation arrived; the bills were posted; I had not closed my eyes

through the whole night from excitement and expectation; the people

already stood in throngs before the theatre, to procure tickets, when

royal messengers galloped through the streets, solemn groups collected,

the minute guns pealed,--Frederick VI. had died this morning!

 

For two months more was the theatre closed, and was opened under

Christian VIII., with my drama--"The Mulatto;" which was received with

the most triumphant acclamation; but I could not at once feel the joy

of it, I felt only relieved from a state of excitement, and breathed

more freely.

 

This piece continued through a series of representations to receive the

same approbation; many placed this work far above all my former ones,

and considered that with it began my proper poetical career. It was

soon translated into the Swedish, and acted with applause at the royal

theatre in Stockholm. Travelling players introduced it into the smaller

towns in the neighboring country; a Danish company gave it in the

original language, in the Swedish city Malm/, and a troop of students

from the university town of Lund, welcomed it with enthusiasm. I had

been for a week previous on a visit at some Swedish country houses,

where I was entertained with so much cordial kindness that the

recollection of it will never quit my bosom; and there, in a foreign

country, I received the first public testimony of honor, and which has

left upon me the deepest and most inextinguishable impression. I was

invited by some students of Lund to visit their ancient town. Here a

public dinner was given to me; speeches were made, toasts were

pronounced; and as I was in the evening in a family circle, I was

informed that the students meant to honor me with a serenade.

 

I felt myself actually overcome by this intelligence; my heart throbbed

feverishly as I descried the thronging troop, with their blue caps, and

arm-in-arm approaching the house. I experienced a feeling of

humiliation; a most lively consciousness of my deficiencies, so that I

seemed bowed to the very earth at the moment others were elevating me.

As they all uncovered their heads while I stepped forth, I had need of

all my thoughts to avoid bursting into tears. In the feeling that I was

unworthy of all this, I glanced round to see whether a smile did not

pass over the face of some one, but I could discern nothing of the

kind; and such a discovery would, at that moment, have inflicted on me

the deepest wound.

 

After an hurrah, a speech was delivered, of which I clearly recollect

the following words:--"When your native land, and the natives of Europe

offer you their homage, then may you never forget that the first public

honors were conferred on you by the students of Lund."

 

When the heart is warm, the strength of the expression is not weighed.

I felt it deeply, and replied, that from this moment I became aware

that I must assert a name in order to render myself worthy of these

tokens of honor. I pressed the hands of those nearest to me, and

returned them thanks so deep, so heartfelt,--certainly never was an

expression of thanks more sincere. When I returned to my chamber, I

went aside, in order to weep out this excitement, this overwhelming

sensation. "Think no more of it, be joyous with us," said some of my

lively Swedish friends; but a deep earnestness had entered my soul.

Often has the memory of this time come back to me; and no noble-minded

man, who reads these pages will discover a vanity in the fact, that I

have lingered so long over this moment of life, which scorched the

roots of pride rather than nourished them.

 

My drama was now to be brought on the stage at Malm/; the students

wished to see it; but I hastened my departure, that I might not be in

the theatre at the time. With gratitude and joy fly my thoughts towards

the Swedish University city, but I myself have not been there again

since. In the Swedish newspapers the honors paid me were mentioned, and

it was added that the Swedes were not unaware that in my own country

there was a clique which persecuted me; but that this should not hinder

my neighbors from offering me the honors which they deemed my due.

 

It was when I had returned to Copenhagen that I first truly felt how

cordially I had been received by the Swedes; amongst some of my old and

tried friends I found the most genuine sympathy. I saw tears in their

eyes, tears of joy for the honors paid me; and especially, said they,

for the manner in which I had received them. There is but one manner

for me; at once, in the midst of joy, I fly with thanks to God.

 

There were certain persons who smiled at the enthusiasm; certain voices

raised themselves already against "The Mulatto;"--"the mat riel was

merely borrowed;" the French narrative was scrupulously studied. That

exaggerated praise which I had received, now made me sensitive to the

blame; I could bear it less easily than before, and saw more clearly,

that it did not spring out of an interest in the matter, but was only

uttered in order to mortify me. For the rest, my mind was fresh and

elastic; I conceived precisely at this time the idea of "The Picture-

Book without Pictures," and worked it out. This little book appears, to

judge by the reviews and the number of editions, to have obtained an

extraordinary popularity in Germany; it was also translated into

Swedish, and dedicated to myself; at home, it was here less esteemed;

people talked only of The Mulatto; and finally, only of the borrowed

mat riel of it. I determined, therefore to produce a new dramatic work,

in which both subject and development, in fact, everything should be of

my own conception. I had the idea, and now wrote the tragedy of The

Moorish Maiden, hoping through this to stop the mouths of all my

detractors, and to assert my place as a dramatic poet. I hoped, too,

through the income from this, together with the proceeds of The

Mulatto, to be able to make a fresh journey, not only to Italy, but to

Greece and Turkey. My first going abroad had more than all besides

operated towards my intellectual development; I was therefore full of

the passion for travel, and of the endeavor to acquire more knowledge

of nature and of human life.

 

My new piece did not please Heiberg, nor indeed my dramatic endeavors

at all; his wife--for whom the chief part appeared to me especially to

be written--refused, and that not in the most friendly manner, to play

it. Deeply wounded, I went forth. I lamented this to some individuals.

Whether this was repeated, or whether a complaint against the favorite

of the public is a crime, enough: from this hour Heiberg became my

opponent,--he whose intellectual rank I so highly estimated,--he with

whom I would so willingly have allied myself,--and he who so often--I

will venture to say it--I had approached with the whole sincerity of my

nature. I have constantly declared his wife to be so distinguished an

actress, and continue still so entirely of this opinion, that I would

not hesitate one moment to assert that she would have a European

reputation, were the Danish language as widely diffused as the German

or the French. In tragedy she is, by the spirit and the geniality with

which she comprehends and fills any part, a most interesting object;

and in comedy she stands unrivalled.

 

The wrong may be on my side or not,--no matter: a party was opposed to

me. I felt myself wounded, excited by many coincident annoyances there.

I felt uncomfortable in my native country, yes, almost ill. I therefore

left my piece to its fate, and, suffering and disconcerted, I hastened

forth. In this mood I wrote a prologue to The Moorish Maiden; which

betrayed my irritated mind far too palpably. 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 analyze our aesthetic

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.

 

At my departure, many of my young friends amongst the students prepared

a banquet for me; and amongst the elder ones who were present to

receive me were Collin, Oehlenschl ger and Oersted. This was somewhat

of sunshine in the midst of my mortification; songs by Oehlenschl ger

and Hillerup were sung; and I found cordiality and friendship, as I

quitted my country in distress. This was in October of 1840.

 

For the second time I went to Italy and Rome, to Greece and

Constantinople--a journey which I have described after my own manner in

A Poet's Bazaar.

 

In Holstein I continued some days with Count Rantzau-Breitenburg, who

had before invited me, and whose ancestral castle I now for the first

time visited. Here I became acquainted with the rich scenery of

Holstein, heath and moorland, and then hastened by Nuremberg to Munich,

where I again met with Cornelius and Schelling, and was kindly received

by Kaulbach and Schelling. I cast a passing glance on the artistic life

in Munich, but for the most part pursued my own solitary course,

sometimes filled with the joy of life, but oftener despairing of my

powers. I possessed a peculiar talent, that of lingering on the gloomy

side of life, of extracting the bitter from it, of tasting it; and

understood well, when the whole was exhausted, how to torment myself.

 

In the winter season I crossed the Brenner, remained some days in

Florence, which I had before visited for a longer time, and about

Christmas reached Rome. Here again I saw the noble treasures of art,

met old friends, and once more passed a Carnival and Moccoli. But not

alone was I bodily ill; nature around me appeared likewise to sicken;

there was neither the tranquillity nor the freshness which attended my

first sojourn in Rome. The rocks quaked, the Tiber twice rose into the

streets, fever raged, and snatched numbers away. In a few days Prince

Borghese lost his wife and three sons. Rain and wind prevailed; in

short, it was dismal, and from home cold lotions only were sent me. My

letters told me that The Moorish Maiden had several times been acted

through, and had gone quietly off the stage; but, as was seen

beforehand, a small public only had been present, and therefore the

manager had laid the piece aside. Other Copenhagen letters to our

countrymen in Rome spoke with enthusiasm of a new work by Heiberg; a

satirical poem--A Soul after Death. It was but just out, they wrote;

all Copenhagen was full of it, and Andersen was famously handled in it.

The book was admirable, and I was made ridiculous in it. That was the

whole which I heard,--all that I knew. No one told me what really was

said of me; wherein lay the amusement and the ludicrous. It is doubly

painful to be ridiculed when we don't know wherefore we are so. The

information operated like molten lead dropped into a wound, and

agonized me cruelly. It was not till after my return to Denmark that I

read this book, and found that what was said of me in it, was really

nothing in itself which was worth laying to heart. It was a jest over

my celebrity "from Schonen to Hundsr ck", which did not please Heiberg;

he therefore sent my Mulatto and The Moorish Maiden to the infernal

regions, where--and that was the most witty conceit--the condemned were

doomed to witness the performance of both pieces in one evening; and

then they could go away and lay themselves down quietly. I found the

poetry, for the rest, so excellent, that I was half induced to write to

Heiberg, and to return him my thanks for it; but I slept upon this

fancy, and when I awoke and was more composed, I feared lest such

thanks should be misunderstood; and so I gave it up.

 

In Rome, as I have said, I did not see the book; I only heard the

arrows whizz and felt their wound, but I did not know what the poison

was which lay concealed in them. It seemed to me that Rome was no joy-

bringing city; when I was there before, I had also passed dark and

bitter days. I was ill, for the first time in my life, truly and bodily

ill, and I made haste to get away.

 

The Danish poet Holst was then in Rome; he had received this year a

travelling pension. Hoist had written an elegy on King Frederick VI.,

which went from mouth to mouth, and awoke an enthusiasm, like that of

Becker's contemporaneous Rhine song in Germany. He lived in the same

house with me in Rome, and showed me much sympathy: with him I made the

journey to Naples, where, notwithstanding it was March, the sun would

not properly shine, and the snow lay on the hills around. There was

fever in my blood; I suffered in body and in mind; and I soon lay so

severely affected by it, that certainly nothing but a speedy blood-

letting, to which my excellent Neapolitan landlord compelled me, saved

my life.

 

In a few days I grew sensibly better; and I now proceeded by a French

war steamer to Greece. Holst accompanied me on board. It was now as if

a new life had risen for me; and in truth this was the case; and if

this does not appear legibly in my later writings, yet it manifested

itself in my views of life, and in my whole inner development. As I saw

my European home lie far behind me, it seemed to me as if a stream of

forgetfulness flowed of all bitter and rankling remembrances: I felt

health in my blood, health in my thoughts, and freshly and courageously

I again raised my head.

 

Like another Switzerland, with a loftier and clearer heaven than the

Italian, Greece lay before me; nature made a deep and solemn impression

upon me; I felt the sentiment of standing on the great battle field of

the world, where nation had striven with nation, and had perished. No

single poem can embrace such greatness; every scorched-up bed of a

stream, every height, every stone, has mighty memoirs to relate. How

little appear the inequalities of daily life in such a place! A kingdom

of ideas streamed through me, and with such a fulness, that none of

them fixed themselves on paper. I had a desire to express the idea,

that the godlike was here on earth to maintain its contest, that it is

thrust backward, and yet advances again victoriously through all ages;

and I found in the legend of the Wandering Jew an occasion for it. For

twelve months this fiction had been emerging from the sea of my

thoughts; often did it wholly fill me; sometimes I fancied with the

alchemists that I had dug up the treasure; then again it sank suddenly,

and I despaired of ever being able to bring it to the light. I felt

what a mass of knowledge of various kinds I must first acquire. Often

at home, when I was compelled to hear reproofs on what they call a want

of study, I had sat deep into the night, and had studied history in

Hegel's Philosophy of History. I said nothing of this, or other

studies, or they would immediately have been spoken of, in the manner

of an instructive lady, who said, that people justly complained that I

did not possess learning enough. "You have really no mythology" said

she; "in all your poems there appears no single God. You must pursue

mythology; you must read Racine and Corneille." That she called

learning; and in like manner every one had something peculiar to

recommend. For my poem of Ahasuerus I had read much and noted much, but

yet not enough; in Greece, I thought, the whole will collect itself

into clearness. The poem is not yet ready, but I hope that it will

become so to my honor; for it happens with the children of the spirit,

as with the earthly ones,--they grow as they sleep.

 

In Athens I was heartily welcomed by Professor Ross, a native of

Holstein, and by my countrymen. I found hospitality and a friendly

feeling in the noble Prokesch-Osten; even the king and queen received

me most graciously. I celebrated my birthday in the Acropolis.

 

From Athens I sailed to Smyrna, and with me it was no childish pleasure

to be able to tread another quarter of the globe. I felt a devotion in

it, like that which I felt as a child when I entered the old church at

Odense. I thought on Christ, who bled on this earth; I thought on

Homer, whose song eternally resounds hence over the earth. The shores

of Asia preached to me their sermons, and were perhaps more impressive

than any sermon in any church can be.

 

In Constantinople I passed eleven interesting days; and according to my

good fortune in travel, the birthday of Mahomet itself fell exactly

during my stay there. I saw the grand illumination, which completely

transported me into the Thousand and One Nights.

 

Our Danish ambassador lived several miles from Constantinople, and I

had therefore no opportunity of seeing him; but I found a cordial

reception with the Austrian internuntius, Baron von St rmer. With him I

had a German home and friends. I contemplated making my return by the

Black Sea and up the Danube; but the country was disturbed; it was said

there had been several thousand Christians murdered. My companions of

the voyage, in the hotel where I resided, gave up this route of the

Danube, for which I had the greatest desire, and collectively

counselled me against it. But in this case I must return again by

Greece and Italy--it was a severe conflict.

 

I do not belong to the courageous; I feel fear, especially in little

dangers; but in great ones, and when an advantage is to be won, then I

have a will, and it has grown firmer with years. I may tremble, I may

fear; but I still do that which I consider the most proper to be done.

I am not ashamed to confess my weakness; I hold that when out of our

own true conviction we run counter to our inborn fear, we have done our

duty. I had a strong desire to become acquainted with the interior of

the country, and to traverse the Danube in its greatest expansion. I

battled with myself; my imagination pointed to me the most horrible

circumstances; it was an anxious night. In the morning I took counsel

with Baron St rmer; and as he was of opinion that I might undertake the

voyage, I determined upon it. From the moment that I had taken my

determination, I had the most immovable reliance on Providence, and

flung myself calmly on my fate. Nothing happened to me. The voyage was

prosperous, and after the quarantine on the Wallachian frontier, which

was painful enough to me, I arrived at Vienna on the twenty-first day

of the journey. The sight of its towers, and the meeting with numerous

Danes, awoke in me the thought of being speedily again at home. The

idea bowed down my heart, and sad recollections and mortifications rose

up within me once more.

 

In August, 1841, I was again in Copenhagen. There I wrote my

recollections of travel, under the title of A Poet's Bazaar, in several

chapters, according to the countries. In various places abroad I had

met with individuals, as at home, to whom I felt myself attached. A

poet is like the bird; he gives what he has, and he gives a song. I was

desirous to give every one of those dear ones such a song. It was a

fugitive idea, born, may I venture to say, in a grateful mood. Count

Rantzau-Breitenburg, who had resided in Italy, who loved the land, and

was become a friend and benefactor to me through my Improvisatore, must

love that part of the book which treated of his country. To Liszt and

Thalberg, who had both shown me the greatest friendship, I dedicated

the portion which contained the voyage up the Danube, because one was a

Hungarian and the other an Austrian. With these indications, the reader

will easily be able to trace out the thought which influenced me in the

choice of each dedication. But these appropriations were, in my native

country, regarded as a fresh proof of my vanity;--"I wished to figure

with great names, to name distinguished people as my friends."

 

The book has been translated into several languages, and the

dedications with it. I know not how they have been regarded abroad; if

I have been judged there as in Denmark, I hope that this explanation

will change the opinion concerning them. In Denmark my Bazaar procured

me the most handsome remuneration that I have as yet received,--a proof

that I was at length read there. No regular criticism appeared upon it,

if we except notices in some daily papers, and afterwards in the

poetical attempt of a young writer who, a year before, had testified to

me in writing his love, and his wish to do me honor; but who now, in

his first public appearance, launched his satirical poem against his

friend. I was personally attached to this young man, and am so still.

He assuredly thought more on the popularity he would gain by sailing in

the wake of Heiberg, than on the pain he would inflict on me. The

newspaper criticism in Copenhagen was infinitely stupid. It was set

down as exaggerated, that I could have seen the whole round blue globe

of the moon in Smyrna at the time of the new moon. That was called

fancy and extravagance, which there every one sees who can open his

eyes. The new moon has a dark blue and perfectly round disk.

 

The Danish critics have generally no open eye for nature: even the

highest and most cultivated monthly periodical of literature in Denmark

censured me once because, in a poem I had described a rainbow by

moonlight. That too was my fancy, which, said they, carried me too far.

When I said in the Bazaar, "if I were a painter, I would paint this

bridge; but, as I am no painter, but a poet, I must therefore speak,"

&c. Upon this the critic says, "He is so vain, that he tells us himself

that he is a poet." There is something so pitiful in such criticism,

that one cannot be wounded by it; but even when we are the most

peaceable of men, we feel a desire to flagellate such wet dogs, who

come into our rooms and lay themselves down in the best place in them.

There might be a whole Fool's Chronicle written of all the absurd and

shameless things which, from my first appearance before the public till

this moment, I have been compelled to hear.

 

In the meantime the Bazaar was much read, and made what is called a

hit. I received, connected with this book, much encouragement and many

recognitions from individuals of the highest distinction in the realms

of intellect in my native land.

 

The journey had strengthened me both in mind and body; I began to show

indications of a firmer purpose, a more certain judgment. I was now in

harmony with myself and with mankind around me.

 

Political life in Denmark had, at that time, arrived at a higher

development, producing both good and evil fruits. The eloquence which

had formerly accustomed itself to the Demosthenic mode, that of putting

little pebbles in the mouth, the little pebbles of every day life, now

exercised itself more freely on subjects of greater interest. I felt no

call thereto, and no necessity to mix myself up in such matters; for I

then believed that the politics of our times were a great misfortune

to many a poet. Madame, politics are like Venus; they whom she decoys

into her castle perish. It fares with the writings of these poets as

with the newspapers: they are seized upon, read, praised, and

forgotten. In our days every one wishes to rule; the subjective makes

its power of value; people forget that that which is thought of cannot

always be carried out, and that many things look very different when

contemplated from the top of the tree, to what they did when seen from

its roots. I will bow myself before him who is influenced by a noble

conviction, and who only desires that which is conducive to good, be he

prince or man of the people. Politics are no affair of mine. God has

imparted to me another mission: that I felt, and that I feel still. I

met in the so-called first families of the country a number of

friendly, kind-hearted men, who valued the good that was in me,

received me into their circles, and permitted me to participate in the

happiness of their opulent summer residences; so that, still feeling

independent, I could thoroughly give myself up to the pleasures of

nature, the solitude of woods, and country life. There for the first

time I lived wholly among the scenery of Denmark, and there I wrote the

greater number of my fairy tales. On the banks of quiet lakes, amid the

woods, on the green grassy pastures, where the game sprang past me and

the stork paced along on his red legs, I heard nothing of politics,

nothing of polemics; I heard no one practising himself in Hagel's

phraseology. Nature, which was around me and within me, preached to me

of my calling. I spent many happy days at the old house of Gisselfeld,

formerly a monastery, which stands in the deepest solitude of the

woods, surrounded with lakes and hills. The possessor of this fine

place, the old Countess Danneskjold, mother of the Duchess of

Augustenburg, was an agreeable and excellent lady, I was there not as a

poor child of the people, but as a cordially-received guest. The

beeches now overshadow her grave in the midst of that pleasant scenery

to which her heart was allied.

 

Close by Gisselfeld, but in a still finer situation, and of much

greater extent, lies the estate of Bregentoed, which belongs to Count

Moltke, Danish Minister of Finance. The hospitality which I met with in

this place, one of the richest and most beautiful of our country, and

the happy, social life which surrounded me here, have diffused a

sunshine over my life.

 

It may appear, perhaps, as if I desired to bring the names of great

people prominently forward, and make a parade of them; or as if I

wished in this way to offer a kind of thanks to my benefactors. They

need it not, and I should be obliged to mention many other names still

if this were my intention. I speak, however, only of these two places,

and of Nys/, which belongs to Baron Stampe, and which has become

celebrated through Thorwaldsen. Here I lived much with the great

sculptor, and here I became acquainted with one of my dearest young

friends, the future possessor of the place.

 

Knowledge of life in these various circles has had great influence on

me: among princes, among the nobility, and among the poorest of the

people, I have met with specimens of noble humanity. We all of us

resemble each other in that which is good and best.

 

Winter life in Denmark has likewise its attractions and its rich

variety. I spent also some time in the country during this season, and

made myself acquainted with its peculiar characteristics. The greatest

part of my time, however, I passed in Copenhagen. I felt myself at home

with the married sons and daughters of Collin, where a number of

amiable children were growing up. Every year strengthened the bond of

friendship between myself and the nobly-gifted composer, Hartmann: art

and the freshness of nature prospered in his house. Collin was my

counsellor in practical life, and Oersted in my literary affairs. The

theatre was, if I may so say, my club. I visited it every evening, and

in this very year I had received a place in the so-called court stalls.

An author must, as a matter of course, work himself up to it. After the

first accepted piece he obtains admission to the pit; after the second

greater work, in the stalls, where the actors have their seats; and

after three larger works, or a succession of lesser pieces, the poet is

advanced to the best places. Here were to be found Thorwaldsen,

Oehlenschl ger, and several older poets; and here also, in 1840,1

obtained a place, after I had given in seven pieces. Whilst Thorwaldsen

lived, I often, by his own wish, sate at his side. Oehlenschl ger was

also my neighbor, and in many an evening hour, when no one dreamed of

it, my soul was steeped in deep humility, as I sate between these great

spirits. The different periods of my life passed before me; the time

when I sate on the hindmost bench in the box of the female figurantes,

as well as that in which, full of childish superstition, I knelt down

there upon the stage and repeated the Lord's Prayer, just before the

very place where I now sate among the first and the most distinguished

men. At the time, perhaps, when a countryman of mine thus thought of

and passed judgment upon me,--"there he sits, between the two great

spirits, full of arrogance and pride;" he may now perceive by this

acknowledgment how unjustly he has judged me. Humility, and prayer to

God for strength to deserve my happiness, filled my heart. May He

always enable me to preserve these feelings? I enjoyed the friendship

of Thorwaldsen as well as of Oehlenschl ger, those two most

distinguished stars in the horizon of the North. I may here bring

forward their reflected glory in and around me.

 

There is in the character of Oehlenschl ger, when he is not seen in the

circles of the great, where he is quiet and reserved, something so open

and child-like, that no one can help becoming attached to him. As a

poet, he holds in the North a position of as great importance as Goethe

did in Germany. He is in his best works so penetrated by the spirit of

the North, that through him it has, as it were, ascended upon all

nations. In foreign countries he is not so much appreciated. The works

by which he is best known are "Correggio" and "Aladdin;" but assuredly

his masterly poem of "The Northern Gods" occupied a far higher rank: it

is our "Iliad." It possesses power, freshness--nay, any expression of

mine is poor. It is possessed of grandeur; it is the poet

Oehlenschl ger in the bloom of his soul. Hakon, Jarl, and Palnatoke

will live in the poetry of Oehlenschl ger as long as mankind endures.

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have fully appreciated him, and have shown

him that they do so, and whenever it is asked who occupies the first

place in the kingdom of mind, the palm is always awarded to him. He is

the true-born poet; he appears always young, whilst he himself, the

oldest of all, surpasses all in the productiveness of his mind. He

listened with friendly disposition to my first lyrical outpourings; and

he acknowledged with earnestness and cordiality the poet who told the

fairy-tales. My Biographer in the Danish Pantheon brought me in contact

with Oehlenschl ger, when he said, "In our days it is becoming more and

more rare for any one, by implicitly following those inborn impulses of

his soul, which make themselves irresistibly felt, to step forward as

an artist or a poet. He is more frequently fashioned by fate and

circumstances than apparently destined by nature herself for this

office. With the greater number of our poets an early acquaintance with

passion, early inward experience, or outward circumstances, stand

instead of the original vein of nature, and this cannot in any case be

more incontestably proved in our own literature than by instancing

Oehlenschl ger and Andersen. And in this way it may be explained why

the former has been so frequently the object for the attacks of the

critics, and why the latter was first properly appreciated as a poet in

foreign countries where civilization of a longer date has already

produced a disinclination for the compulsory rule of schools, and has

occasioned a reaction towards that which is fresh and natural; whilst

we Danes, on the contrary, cherish a pious respect for the yoke of the

schools and the worn-out wisdom of maxims."

 

Thorwaldsen, whom, as I have already said, I had become acquainted with

in Rome in the years 1833 and 1834, was expected in Denmark in the

autumn of 1838, and great festive preparations were made in

consequence. A flag was to wave upon one of the towers of Copenhagen as

soon as the vessel which brought him should come in sight. It was a

national festival. Boats decorated with flowers and flags filled the

Rhede; painters, sculptors, all had their flags with emblems; the

students' bore a Minerva, the poets' a Pegasus. It was misty weather,

and the ship was first seen when it was already close by the city, and

all poured out to meet him. The poets, who, I believe, according to the

arrangement of Heiberg, had been invited, stood by their boat;

Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg alone had not arrived. And now guns were

fired from the ship, which came to anchor, and it was to be feared that

Thorwaldsen might land before we had gone out to meet him. The wind

bore the voice of singing over to us: the festive reception had already

begun.

 

I wished to see him, and therefore cried out to the others, "Let us put

off!"

 

"Without Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg?" asked some one.

 

"But they are not arrived, and it will be all over."

 

One of the poets declared that if these two men were not with us, I

should not sail under that flag, and pointed up to Pegasus.

 

"We will throw it in the boat," said I, and took it down from the

staff; the others now followed me, and came up just as Thorwaldsen

reached land. We met with Oehlenschl ger and Heiberg in another boat,

and they came over to us as the enthusiasm began on shore.

 

The people drew Thorwaldsen's carriage through the streets to his

house, where everybody who had the slightest acquaintance with him, or

with the friends of a friend of his, thronged around him. In the

evening the artists gave him a serenade, and the blaze of the torches

illumined the garden under the large trees, there was an exultation and

joy which really and truly was felt. Young and old hastened through the

open doors, and the joyful old man clasped those whom he knew to his

breast, gave them his kiss, and pressed their hands. There was a glory

round Thorwaldsen which kept me timidly back: my heart beat for joy of

seeing him who had met me when abroad with kindness and consolation,

who had pressed me to his heart, and had said that we must always

remain friends. But here in this jubilant crowd, where thousands

noticed every movement of his, where I too by all these should be

observed and criticised--yes, criticised as a vain man who now only

wished to show that he too was acquainted with Thorwaldsen, and that

this great man was kind and friendly towards him--here, in this dense

crowd, I drew myself back, and avoided being recognized by him. Some

days afterwards, and early in the morning, I went to call upon him, and

found him as a friend who had wondered at not having seen me earlier.

 

In honor of Thorwaldsen a musical-poetic academy was established, and

the poets, who were invited to do so by Heiberg, wrote and read each

one a poem in praise of him who had returned home. I wrote of Jason who

fetched the golden fleece--that is to say, Jason-Thorwaldsen, who went

forth to win golden art. A great dinner and a ball closed the festival,

in which, for the first time in Denmark, popular life and a subject of

great interest in the realms of art were made public.

 

From this evening I saw Thorwaldsen almost daily in company or in his

studio: I often passed several weeks together with him at Nys/, where

he seemed to have firmly taken root, and where the greater number of

his works, executed in Denmark, had their origin. He was of a healthful

and simple disposition of mind, not without humor, and, therefore, he

was extremely attached to Holberg the poet: he did not at all enter

into the troubles and the disruptions of the world.

 

One morning at Nys/--at the time when he was working at his own statue

--I entered his work-room and bade him good morning; he appeared as if

he did not wish to notice me, and I stole softly away again. At

breakfast he was very parsimonious in the use of words, and when

somebody asked him to say something at all events, he replied in his

dry way:--

 

"I have said more during this morning than in many whole days, but

nobody heard me. There I stood, and fancied that Andersen was behind

me, for he came, and said good morning--so I told him a long story

about myself and Byron. I thought that he might give one word in reply,

and turned myself round; and there had I been standing a whole hour and

chattering aloud to the bare walls."

 

We all of us besought him to let us hear the whole story yet once more;

but we had it now very short.

 

"Oh, that was in Rome," said he, "when I was about to make Byron's

statue; he placed himself just opposite to me, and began immediately to

assume quite another countenance to what was customary to him. 'Will not

you sit still?' said I; 'but you must not make these faces.' 'It is my

expression,' said Byron. 'Indeed?' said I, and then I made him as I

wished, and everybody said, when it was finished, that I had hit the

likeness. When Byron, however, saw it, he said, 'It does not resemble

me at all; I look more unhappy.'"

 

"He was, above all things, so desirous of looking extremely unhappy,"

added Thorwaldsen, with a comic expression.

 

It afforded the great sculptor pleasure to listen to music after dinner

with half-shut eyes, and it was his greatest delight when in the

evening the game of lotto began, which the whole neighborhood of Nys/

was obliged to learn; they only played for glass pieces, and on this

account I am able to relate a peculiar characteristic of this otherwise

great man--that he played with the greatest interest on purpose to win.

He would espouse with warmth and vehemence the part of those from whom

he believed that he had received an injustice; he opposed himself to

unfairness and raillery, even against the lady of the house, who for

the rest had the most childlike sentiments towards him, and who had no

other thought than how to make everything most agreeable to him. In his

company I wrote several of my tales for children--for example, "Ole

Luck Oin," ("Ole Shut Eye,") to which he listened with pleasure and

interest. Often in the twilight, when the family circle sate in the

open garden parlor, Thorwaldsen would come softly behind me, and,

clapping me on the shoulder, would ask, "Shall we little ones hear any

tales tonight?"

 

In his own peculiarly natural manner he bestowed the most bountiful

praise on my fictions, for their truth; it delighted him to hear the

same stories over and over again. Often, during his most glorious

works, would he stand with laughing countenance, and listen to the

stories of the Top and the Ball, and the Ugly Duckling. I possess a

certain talent of improvising in my native tongue little poems and

songs. This talent amused Thorwaldsen very much; and as he had

modelled, at Nys/, Holberg's portrait in clay, I was commissioned to

make a poem for his work, and he received, therefore, the following

impromptu:--

 

  "No more shall Holberg live," by Death was said,

    "I crush the clay, his soul's bonds heretofore."

  "And from the formless clay, the cold, the dead,"

    Cried Thorwaldsen, "shall Holberg live once more."

 

One morning, when he had just modelled in clay his great bas-relief of

the Procession to Golgotha, I entered his study.

 

"Tell me," said he, "does it seem to you that I have dressed Pilate

properly?"

 

"You must not say anything to him," said the Baroness, who was always

with him: "it is right; it is excellent; go away with you!"

 

Thorwaldsen repeated his question.

 

"Well, then," said I, "as you ask me, I must confess that it really

does appear to me as if Pilate were dressed rather as an Egyptian than

as a Roman."

 

"It seems to me so too," said Thorwaldsen, seizing the clay with his

hand, and destroying the figure.

 

"Now you are guilty of his having annihilated an immortal work,"

exclaimed the Baroness to me with warmth.

 

"Then we can make a new immortal work," said he, in a cheerful humor,

and modelled Pilate as he now remains in the bas-relief in the Ladies'

Church in Copenhagen.

 

His last birth-day was celebrated there in the country. I had written a

merry little song, and it was hardly dry on the paper, when we sang it,

in the early morning, before his door, accompanied by the music of

jingling fire-irons, gongs, and bottles rubbed against a basket.

Thorwaldsen himself, in his morning gown and slippers, opened his door,

and danced round his chamber; swung round his Raphael's cap, and joined

in the chorus. There was life and mirth in the strong old man.

 

On the last day of his life I sate by him at dinner; he was unusually

good-humored; repeated several witticisms which he had just read in the

Corsair, a well-known Copenhagen newspaper, and spoke of the journey

which he should undertake to Italy in the summer. After this we parted;

he went to the theatre, and I home.

 

On the following morning the waiter at the hotel where I lived said,

"that it was a very remarkable thing about Thorwaldsen--that he had

died yesterday."

 

"Thorwaldsen!" exclaimed I; "he is not dead, I dined with him

yesterday."

 

"People say that he died last evening at the theatre," returned the

waiter.  I fancied that he might be taken ill; but still I felt a

strange anxiety, and hastened immediately over to his house. There lay

his corpse stretched out on the bed; the chamber was filled with

strangers; the floor wet with melted snow; the air stifling; no one

said a word: the Baroness Stampe sate on the bed and wept bitterly. I

stood trembling and deeply agitated.

 

A farewell hymn, which I wrote, and to which Hartmann composed the

music, was sung by Danish students over his coffin.

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