{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_31103/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_31103","id":"gutenberg_31103","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31103","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Short Stories","Children's stories, Danish -- Translations into English","Christmas","Christmas stories","Fairy tales"],"text":"New Juveniles for 1864\n\nPUBLISHED BY\nJAMES MILLER,\n522 BROADWAY, N. Y.\n\n------\n\nMAGNET STORIES,\nFor Summer Days and Winter Nights.\nSECOND SERIES.\n\n------\n\nIMPULSE AND PRINCIPLE,\nAND OTHER STORIES.\nBY MISS ABBOTT.\n\n------\n\nTHE PRIVATE PURSE,\nAnd other Stories.\nBY MRS. S. C. HALL.\n\n------\n\nTURNS OF FORTUNE\nAnd other Stories.\nBY MRS. S. C. HALL.\n\n------------\n\nPublished By James Miller, 522 Broadway.\n\n------------\n\nPHILIP GREY,\nOR THREE MONTHS AT SEA.\nBY PETER PARLEY.\n\n------\n\nHans Andersen's Wonderful Tales.\nILLUSTRATED.\n\n------\n\nHANS ANDERSEN'S STORY BOOK.\nILLUSTRATED.\n\n------\n\nHans Andersen's Fairy Tales.\nILLUSTRATED.\n\n------\n\nGULLIVER'S TRAVELS.\nNew Edition. Illustrated.\n\n------\n\nESOP'S FABLES.\nNew Edition. Illustrated.\n\n------\n\nAunt Carrie's Rhymes for Children.\n\n------\n\nLIFE OF GEO. WASHINGTON.\nWith Illustrations by Darley.\n\n------------\n\n[Illustration: \"The Dream of Little Tuk.\"]\nTHE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK.\n\n------------\n\n\n\nHans Andersen's Library.\n\nA CHRISTMAS GREETING\nA Series of Stories,\nBY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN\nILLUSTRATED.\n\n[Illustration: \"Children Dancing.\"]\n\nPublished by James Miller,\n522 Broadway.\n\n------------\n\nA CHRISTMAS GREETING\n\nA Series of Stories,\n\nBY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN\n\n[Illustration: \"Man Carrying Firewood.\"]\n\nNew York:\n\n(Successor to C.S. Francis & Co.)\n\nPublished by James Miller,\n\n522 Broadway.\n\n------------\n\nTO\n\nCHARLES DICKENS, Esq.\n\nI am again in my quiet Danish home, but my thoughts are daily in dear\nEngland, where, a few months ago, my many friends transformed for me\nreality into a charming story.\n\nWhilst occupied with a greater work, there sprung forth--as the\nflowers spring forth in the forest--seven short stories.* I feel a\ndesire, a longing, to transplant in England the first produce of my\npoetic garden, as a Christmas greeting: and I send it to you, my dear,\nnoble, Charles Dickens, who by your works had been previously dear to\nme, and since our meeting have taken root for ever in my heart.\n\nYour hand was the last that pressed mine on England's coast: it was\nyou who from her shores wafted me the last farewell. It is therefore\nnatural that I should send to you, from Denmark, my first greeting\nagain, as sincerely as an affectionate heart can convey it.\n\n      Hans Christian Andersen.\n\n  Copenhagen. 6th December, 1847.\n\n------\n\n  * The first seven in this volume.\n\n------------\n\nCONTENTS\n\n------\n\nI. The Old House\n\nII. The Drop of Water\n\nIII. The Happy Family\n\nIV. The Story of a Mother\n\nV. The False Collar\n\nVI. The Shadow\n\nVII. The Old Street-Lamp\n\nVIII. The Dream of Little Tuk\n\nIX. The Naughty Boy\n\nX. The Two Neighboring Families\n\nXI. The Darning Needle\n\nXII. The Little Match-Girl\n\nXIII. The Red Shoes\n\nXIV. To The Young Readers\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE OLD HOUSE.\n\nIn the street, up there, was an old, a very old house,--it was almost\nthree hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great\nbeam on which the date of the year was carved: together with tulips\nand hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and\nover every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam. The one\nstory stood forward a great way over the other; and directly under the\neaves was a leaden spout with a dragon's head; the rain-water should\nhave run out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly, for there was\na hole in the spout.\n\nAll the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large\nwindow-panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would\nhave nothing to do with the old house: they certainly thought, \"How\nlong is that old decayed thing to stand here as a spectacle in the\nstreet? And then the protecting windows stand so far out, that no one\ncan see from our windows what happens in that direction! The steps are\nas broad as those of a palace, and as high as to a church tower. The\niron railings look just like the door to an old family vault, and then\nthey have brass tops,--that's so stupid!\"\n\nOn the other side of the street were also new and neat houses, and\nthey thought just as the others did; but at the window opposite the\nold house there sat a little boy with fresh rosy cheeks and bright\nbeaming eyes: he certainly liked the old house best, and that both in\nsunshine and moonshine. And when he looked across at the wall where\nthe mortar had fallen out, he could sit and find out there the\nstrangest figures imaginable; exactly as the street had appeared\nbefore, with steps, projecting windows, and pointed gables; he could\nsee soldiers with halberds, and spouts where the water ran, like\ndragons and serpents. _That_ was a house to look at; and there lived\nan old man, who wore plush breeches; and he had a coat with large\nbrass buttons, and a wig that one could see was a real wig. Every\nmorning there came an old fellow to him who put his rooms in order,\nand went on errands; otherwise, the old man in the plush breeches was\nquite alone in the old house. Now and then he came to the window and\nlooked out, and the little boy nodded to him, and the old man nodded\nagain, and so they became acquaintances, and then they were friends,\nalthough they had never spoken to each other,--but that made no\ndifference. The little boy heard his parents say, \"The old man\nopposite is very well off, but he is so very, very lonely!\"\n\nThe Sunday following, the little boy took something, and wrapped it up\nin a piece of paper, went down stairs, and stood in the doorway; and\nwhen the man who went on errands came past, he said to him--\n\n\"I say, master! will you give this to the old man over the way from\nme? I have two pewter soldiers--this is one of them, and he shall have\nit, for I know he is so very, very lonely.\"\n\nAnd the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded, and took the\npewter soldier over to the old house. Afterwards there came a message;\nit was to ask if the little boy himself had not a wish to come over\nand pay a visit; and so he got permission of his parents, and then\nwent over to the old house.\n\nAnd the brass balls on the iron railings shone much brighter than\never; one would have thought they were polished on account of the\nvisit; and it was as if the carved-out trumpeters--for there were\ntrumpeters, who stood in tulips, carved out on the door--blew with all\ntheir might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than before. Yes,\nthey blew--\"Trateratra! the little boy comes trateratra!\"--and then\nthe door opened.\n\nThe whole passage was hung with portraits of knights in armor, and\nladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled, and the silken gowns\nrustled! And then there was a flight of stairs which went a good way\nupwards, and a little way downwards, and then one came on a balcony\nwhich was in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes\nand long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of them\naltogether, for the whole balcony outside, the yard, and the walls,\nwere overgrown with so much green stuff, that it looked like a garden;\nbut it was only a balcony. Here stood old flower-pots with faces and\nasses' ears, and the flowers grew just as they liked. One of the pots\nwas quite overrun on all sides with pinks, that is to say, with the\ngreen part; shoot stood by shoot, and it said quite distinctly, \"The\nair has cherished me, the sun has kissed me, and promised me a little\nflower on Sunday!--a little flower on Sunday!\"\n\nAnd then they entered a chamber where the walls were covered, with\nhog's leather, and printed with gold flowers.\n\n    \"The gilding decays,\n    But hog's leather stays!\"\n\nsaid the walls.\n\nAnd there stood easy chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out,\nand with arms on both sides. \"Sit down! sit down!\" said they. \"Ugh!\nhow I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old\nclothes-press, ugh!\"\n\nAnd then the little boy came into the room where the projecting\nwindows were, and where the old man sat.\n\n\"I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!\" said the old\nman, \"and I thank you because you come over to me.\"\n\n\"Thankee! thankee!\" or \"cranky! cranky!\" sounded from all the\nfurniture; there was so much of it, that each article stood in the\nother's way, to get a look at the little boy.\n\nIn the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a beautiful\nlady, so young, so glad, but dressed quite as in former times, with\nclothes that stood quite stiff, and with powder in her hair; she\nneither said \"thankee, thankee!\" nor \"cranky, cranky!\" but looked with\nher mild eyes at the little boy, who directly asked the old man,\n\"Where did you get her?\"\n\n\"Yonder, at the broker's,\" said the old man, \"where there are so many\npictures hanging. No one knows or cares about them, for they are all\nof them buried; but I knew her in by-gone days, and now she has been\ndead and gone these fifty years!\"\n\nUnder the picture, in a glazed frame, there hung a _bouquet_ of\nwithered flowers; they were almost fifty years old; they looked so\nvery old!\n\nThe pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned,\nand every thing in the room became still older; but they did not\nobserve it.\n\n\"They say at home,\" said the little boy, \"that you are so very, very\nlonely!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said he, \"the old thoughts, with what they may bring with them,\ncome and visit me, and now you also come! I am very well off!\"\n\nThen he took a book with pictures in it down from the shelf; there\nwere whole long processions and pageants, with the strangest\ncharacters, which one never sees now-a-days; soldiers like the knave\nof clubs, and citizens with waving flags: the tailors had theirs, with\na pair of shears held by two lions,--and the shoemakers theirs,\nwithout boots, but with an eagle that had two heads, for the\nshoemakers must have everything so that they can say, it is a\npair!--Yes, that was a picture book!\n\nThe old man now went into the other room to fetch preserves, apples,\nand nuts;--yes, it was delightful over there in the old house.\n\n\"I cannot bear it any longer!\" said the pewter soldier, who sat on the\ndrawers; \"it is so lonely and melancholy here! but when one has been\nin a family circle one cannot accustom oneself to this life! I cannot\nbear it any longer! the whole day is so long, and the evenings are\nstill longer! here it is not at all as it is over the way at your\nhome, where your father and mother spoke so pleasantly, and where you\nand all your sweet children made such a delightful noise. Nay, how\nlonely the old man is!--do you think that he gets kisses? do you think\nhe gets mild eyes, or a Christmas tree?--He will get nothing but a\ngrave.--I can bear it no longer!\"\n\n\"You must not let it grieve you so much,\" said the little boy; \"I find\nit so very delightful here, and then all the old thoughts, with what\nthey may bring with them, they come and visit here.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's all very well, but I see nothing of them, and I don't know\nthem!\" said the pewter soldier, \"I cannot bear it!\"\n\n\"But you must!\" said the little boy.\n\nThen in came the old man with the most pleased and happy face, the\nmost delicious preserves, apples, and nuts, and so the little boy\nthought no more about the pewter soldier.\n\nThe little boy returned home happy and pleased, and weeks and days\npassed away, and nods were made to the old house, and from the old\nhouse, and then the little boy went over there again.\n\nThe carved trumpeters blew, \"trateratra! there is the little boy!\ntrateratra!\" and the swords and armor on the knights' portraits\nrattled, and the silk gowns rustled; the hog's-leather spoke, and the\nold chairs had the gout in their legs and rheumatism in their backs:\nUgh!--it was exactly like the first time, for over there one day and\nhour was just like another.\n\n\"I cannot bear it!\" said the pewter soldier, \"I have shed pewter\ntears! it is too melancholy! rather let me go to the wars and lose\narms and legs! it would at least be a change. I cannot bear it\nlonger!--Now, I know what it is to have a visit from one's old\nthoughts, with what they may bring with them! I have had a visit from\nmine, and you may be sure it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at\nlast about to jump down from the drawers.\n\n\"I saw you all over there at home so distinctly, as if you really were\nhere; it was again that Sunday morning; all you children stood before\nthe table and sung your Psalms, as you do every morning. You stood\ndevoutly with folded hands; and father and mother were just as pious;\nand then the door was opened, and little sister Mary, who is not two\nyears old yet, and who always dances when she hears music or singing,\nof whatever kind it may be, was put into the room--though she ought\nnot to have been there--and then she began to dance, but could not\nkeep time, because the tones were so long; and then she stood, first\non the one leg, and bent her head forwards, and then on the other leg,\nand bent her head forwards--but all would not do. You stood very\nseriously all together, although it was difficult enough; but I\nlaughed to myself, and then I fell off the table, and got a bump,\nwhich I have still--for it was not right of me to laugh. But the whole\nnow passes before me again in thought, and everything that I have\nlived to see; and these are the old thoughts, with what they may bring\nwith them.\n\n\"Tell me if you still sing on Sundays? Tell me something about little\nMary! and how my comrade, the other pewter soldier, lives! Yes, he is\nhappy enough, that's sure! I cannot bear it any longer!\"\n\n\"You are given away as a present!\" said the little boy; \"you must\nremain. Can you not understand that?\"\n\nThe old man now came with a drawer, in which there was much to be\nseen, both \"tin boxes\" and \"balsam boxes,\" old cards, so large and so\ngilded, such as one never sees them now. And several drawers were\nopened, and the piano was opened; it had landscapes on the inside of\nthe lid, and it was so hoarse when the old man played on it! and then\nhe hummed a song.\n\n\"Yes, she could sing that!\" said he, and nodded to the portrait, which\nhe had bought at the broker's, and the old man's eyes shone so bright!\n\n\"I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!\" shouted the pewter\nsoldier as loud as he could, and threw himself off the drawers right\ndown on the floor.\n\nWhat became of him? The old man sought, and the little boy sought; he\nwas away, and he stayed away.\n\n\"I shall find him!\" said the old man; but he never found him. The\nfloor was too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice,\nand there he lay as in an open tomb.\n\nThat day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed,\nand several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy\nwas obliged to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the\nold house, and there the snow had been blown into all the carved work\nand inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if there was\nno one at home;--nor was there any one at home--the old man was dead!\n\nIn the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was\nborne into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to\nlie in his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all\nhis friends were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the\ncoffin as it was driven away.\n\nSome days afterwards there was an auction at the old house, and the\nlittle boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and\nthe old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old\nchairs, and the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and\nsomething came there; the portrait of her who had been found at the\nbroker's came to the broker's again; and there it hung, for no one\nknew her more--no one cared about the old picture.\n\nIn the spring they pulled the house down, for, as people said, it was\na ruin. One could see from the street right into the room with the\nhog's-leather hanging, which was slashed and torn; and the green grass\nand leaves about the balcony hung quite wild about the falling\nbeams.--And then it was put to rights.\n\n\"That was a relief,\" said the neighboring houses.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\nA fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white\nwalls; but before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a\nlittle garden laid out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the\nneighboring house. Before the garden there was a large iron railing\nwith an iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still\nand peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the vine, and\nchattered away at each other as well as they could, but it was not\nabout the old house, for they could not remember it, so many years had\npassed,--so many that the little boy had grown up to a whole man, yes,\na clever man, and a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been\nmarried, and, together with his little wife, had come to live in the\nhouse here, where the garden was; and he stood by her there whilst she\nplanted a field-flower that she found so pretty; she planted it with\nher little hand, and pressed the earth around it with her fingers. Oh!\nwhat was that? She had stuck herself. There sat something pointed,\nstraight out of the soft mould.\n\nIt was----yes, guess!--it was the pewter soldier, he that was lost up\nat the old man's, and had tumbled and turned about amongst the timber\nand the rubbish, and had at last laid for many years in the ground.\n\nThe young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with a green\nleaf, and then with her fine handkerchief--it had such a delightful\nsmell, that it was to the pewter soldier just as if he had awaked from\na trance.\n\n\"Let me see him,\" said the young man. He laughed, and then shook his\nhead. \"Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a\npewter soldier which I had when I was a little boy!\" And then he told\nhis wife about the old house, and the old man, and about the pewter\nsoldier that he sent over to him because he was so very, very lonely;\nand he told it as correctly as it had really been, so that the tears\ncame into the eyes of his young wife, on account of the old house and\nthe old man.\n\n\"It may possibly be, however, that it is the same pewter soldier!\"\nsaid she, \"I will take care of it, and remember all that you have told\nme; but you must show me the old man's grave!\"\n\n\"But I do not know it,\" said he, \"and no one knows it! all his friends\nwere dead, no one took care of it, and I was then a little boy!\"\n\n\"How very, very lonely he must have been!\" said she.\n\n\"Very, very lonely!\" said the pewter soldier; \"but it is delightful\nnot to be forgotten!\"\n\n\"Delightful!\" shouted something close by; but no one, except the\npewter soldier, saw that it was a piece of the hog's-leather hangings;\nit had lost all its gilding, it looked like a piece of wet clay, but\nit had an opinion, and it gave it:\n\n    \"The gilding decays,\n    But hog's leather stays!\"\n\nThis the pewter soldier did not believe.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE DROP OF WATER.\n\nWhat a magnifying glass is, you surely know--such a round sort of\nspectacle-glass that makes everything full a hundred times larger than\nit really is. When one holds it before the eye, and looks at a drop of\nwater out of the pond, then one sees above a thousand strange\ncreatures. It looks almost like a whole plateful of shrimps springing\nabout among each other, and they are so ravenous, they tear one\nanother's arms and legs, tails and sides, and yet they are glad and\npleased in their way.\n\nNow, there was once an old man, who was called by every body\nCreep-and-Crawl; for that was his name. He would always make the best\nout of everything, and when he could not make anything out of it he\nresorted to witchcraft.\n\nNow, one day he sat and held his magnifying glass before his eye, and\nlooked at a drop of water that was taken out of a little pool in the\nditch. What a creeping and crawling was there! all the thousands of\nsmall creatures hopped and jumped about, pulled one another, and\npecked one another.\n\n\"But this is abominable!\" said Creep-and-Crawl, \"Can one not get them\nto live in peace and quiet, and each mind his own business?\" And he\nthought and thought, but he could come to no conclusion, and so he was\nobliged to conjure. \"I must give them a color, that they may be more\ndiscernible!\" said he; and so he poured something like a little drop\nof red wine into the drop of water, but it was bewitched blood from\nthe lobe of the ear--the very finest sort for a penny; and then all\nthe strange creatures became rose-colored over the whole body. It\nlooked like a whole town of naked savages.\n\n\"What have you got there?\" said another old wizard, who had no name,\nand that was just the best of it.\n\n\"Why,\" said Creep-and-Crawl, \"if you can guess what it is, I will make\nyou a present of it; but it is not so easy to find out when one does\nnot know it!\"\n\nThe wizard who had no name looked through the magnifying glass. It\nactually appeared like a whole town, where all the inhabitants ran\nabout without clothes! it was terrible, but still more terrible to see\nhow the one knocked and pushed the other, bit each other, and drew one\nanother about. What was undermost should be topmost, and what was\ntopmost should be undermost!--See there, now! his leg is longer than\nmine!--whip it off, and away with it! There is one that has a little\nlump behind the ear, a little innocent lump, but it pains him, and so\nit shall pain him still more! And they pecked at it, and they dragged\nhim about, and they ate him, and all on account of the little lump.\nThere sat one as still as a little maid, who only wished for peace and\nquietness, but she must be brought out and they dragged her, and they\npulled her, and they devoured her!\n\n\"It is quite amusing!\" said the wizard.\n\n\"Yes; but what do you think it is?\" asked Creep-and-Crawl. \"Can you\nfind it out!\"\n\n\"It is very easy to see,\" said the other, \"it is some great city, they\nall resemble each other. A great city it is, that's sure!\"\n\n\"It is ditch-water!\" said Creep-and-Crawl.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE HAPPY FAMILY.\n\nReally, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one\nholds it before one, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it\nover one's head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella,\nfor it is so immensely large. The burdock never grows alone, but where\nthere grows one there always grow several: it is a great delight, and\nall this delightfulness is snails' food. The great white snails which\npersons of quality in former times made fricassees of, ate, and said,\n\"Hem, hem! how delicious!\" for they thought it tasted so\ndelicate--lived on dock leaves, and therefore burdock seeds were sown.\n\nNow, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails,\nthey were quite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew\nand grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get the\nmastery over them--it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there\nstood an apple and a plumb-tree, or else one never would have thought\nthat it was a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the two last\nvenerable old snails.\n\nThey themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember\nvery well that there had been many more; that they were of a family\nfrom foreign lands, and that for them and theirs the whole forest was\nplanted. They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was\nstill something more in the world, which was called the manor-house,\nand that there they were boiled, and then they became black, and were\nthen placed on a silver dish; but what happened further they knew not;\nor, in fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish,\nthey could not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful, and\nparticularly genteel. Neither the chafers, the toads, nor the\nearth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any\ninformation,--none of them had been boiled or laid on a silver dish.\n\nThe old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the\nworld, that they knew; the forest was planted for their sake, and the\nmanor-house was there that they might be boiled and laid on a silver\ndish.\n\nNow they lived a very lonely and happy life; and as they had no\nchildren themselves, they had adopted a little common snail, which\nthey brought up as their own; but the little one would not grow, for\nhe was of a common family; but the old ones, especially Dame Mother\nSnail, thought they could observe how he increased in size, and she\nbegged father, if he could not see it, that he would at least feel the\nlittle snail's shell; and then he felt it, and found the good dame was\nright.\n\nOne day there was a heavy storm of rain.\n\n\"Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock leaves!\" said Father Snail.\n\n\"There are also rain-drops!\" said Mother Snail; \"and now the rain\npours right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I\nam very happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one\nhas his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures,\nsure enough; but can you not see that we are folks of quality in the\nworld? We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock\nforest is planted for our sakes! I should like to know how far it\nextends, and what there is outside!\"\n\n\"There is nothing at all,\" said Father Snail. \"No place can be better\nthan ours, and I have nothing to wish for!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the dame. \"I would willingly go to the manor-house, be\nboiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our forefathers have been\ntreated so; there is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!\"\n\n\"The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!\" said Father Snail.\n\"or the burdocks have grown up over it, so that they cannot come out.\nThere need not, however, be any haste about that; but you are always\nin such a tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the\nsame. Has he not been creeping up that stalk these three days? It\ngives me a headache when I look up to him!\"\n\n\"You must not scold him,\" said Mother Snail; \"he creeps so carefully;\nhe will afford us much pleasure--and we have nothing but him to live\nfor! But have you not thought of it?--where shall we get a wife for\nhim? Do you not think that there are some of our species at a great\ndistance in the interior of the burdock forest?\"\n\n\"Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of,\" said the old\none--\"black snails without a house--but they are so common, and so\nconceited. But we might give the ants a commission to look out for us;\nthey run to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly\nknow of a wife for our little snail!\"\n\n\"I know one, sure enough--the most charming one!\" said one of the\nants; \"but I am afraid we shall hardly succeed, for she is a queen!\"\n\n\"That is nothing!\" said the old folks; \"has she a house?\"\n\n\"She has a palace!\" said the ant--\"the finest ant's palace, with seven\nhundred passages!\"\n\n\"I thank you!\" said Mother Snail; \"our son shall not go into an\nant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the\ncommission to the white gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and\nsunshine; they know the whole forest here, both within and without.\"\n\n\"We have a wife for him,\" said the gnats; \"at a hundred human paces\nfrom here there sits a little snail in her house, on a gooseberry\nbush; she is quite lonely, and old enough to be married. It is only a\nhundred human paces!\"\n\n\"Well, then, let her come to him!\" said the old ones; \"he has a whole\nforest of burdocks, she has only a bush!\"\n\nAnd so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week\nbefore she arrived; but therein was just the very best of it, for one\ncould thus see that she was of the same species.\n\nAnd then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms shone as well as\nthey could. In other respects the whole went off very quietly, for the\nold folks could not bear noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made\na brilliant speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much\naffected; and so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole\nforest of burdocks, and said--what they had always said--that it was\nthe best in the world; and if they lived honestly and decently, and\nincreased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the\ncourse of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on\nsilver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into\ntheir shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple\ngoverned in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were\nnever boiled, and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they\nconcluded that the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the\nmen in the world were extinct; and as no one contradicted them, so, of\ncourse it was so. And the rain beat on the dock-leaves to make\ndrum-music for their sake, and the sun shone in order to give the\nburdock forest a color for their sakes; and they were very happy, and\nthe whole family was happy; for they, indeed were so.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF A MOTHER\n\nA mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so\nafraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed\nthemselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a\ndeep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more\nsorrowfully on the little creature.\n\nThen a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old, man\nwrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed\nit, as it was the cold winter season! Every thing out of doors was\ncovered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.\n\nAs the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a\nmoment, the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on\nthe stove, that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked\nthe cradle, and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and\nlooked at her little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and\nraised its little hand.\n\n\"Do you not think that I shall save him?\" said she, \"_Our Lord_ will\nnot take him from me!\"\n\nAnd the old man,--it was Death himself,--he nodded so strangely, it\ncould just as well signify yes as no. And the mother looked down in\nher lap, and the tears ran down over her cheeks; her head became so\nheavy--she had not closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now\nshe slept, but only for a minute, when she started up and trembled\nwith cold: \"What is that?\" said she, and looked on all sides; but the\nold man was gone, and her little child was gone--he had taken it with\nhim; and the old clock in the corner burred, and burred, the great\nleaden weight ran down to the floor, bump! and then the clock also\nstood still.\n\nBut the poor mother ran out of the house and cried aloud for her\nchild.\n\nOut there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman in long, black\nclothes; and she said, \"Death has been in thy chamber, and I saw him\nhasten away with thy little child; he goes faster than the wind, and\nhe never brings back what he takes!\"\n\n\"Oh, only tell me which way he went!\" said the mother: \"Tell me the\nway, and I shall find him!\"\n\n\"I know it!\" said the woman in the black clothes, \"but before I tell\nit, thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy\nchild!--I am fond of them; I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw\nthy tears whilst thou sang'st them!\"\n\n\"I will sing them all, all!\" said the mother; \"but do not stop me\nnow;--I may overtake him--I may find my child!\"\n\nBut Night stood still and mute. Then the mother wrung her hands, sang\nand wept, and there were many songs, but yet many more tears; and then\nNight said, \"Go to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw\nDeath take his way with thy little child!\"\n\nThe roads crossed each other in the depths of the forest, and she no\nlonger knew whither she should go; then there stood a thorn-bush;\nthere was neither leaf nor flower on it, it was also in the cold\nwinter season, and ice-flakes hung on the branches.\n\n\"Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?\" said the\nmother.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the thorn-bush; \"but I will not tell thee which way he\ntook, unless thou wilt first warm me up at thy heart. I am freezing to\ndeath; I shall become a lump of ice!\"\n\nAnd she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly, that it might\nbe thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went right into her flesh, and\nher blood flowed in large drops, but the thorn-bush shot forth fresh\ngreen leaves, and there came flowers on it in the cold winter night,\nthe heart of the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told\nher the way she should go.\n\nShe then came to a large lake, where there was neither ship nor boat.\nThe lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear her; neither was it open,\nnor low enough that she could wade through it; and across it she must\ngo if she would find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the\nlake, and that was an impossibility for a human being, but the\nafflicted mother thought that a miracle might happen nevertheless.\n\n\"Oh, what would I not give to come to my child!\" said the weeping\nmother; and she wept still more, and her eyes sunk down in the depths\nof the waters, and became two precious pearls; but the water bore her\nup, as if she sat in a swing, and she flew in the rocking waves to the\nshore on the opposite side, where there stood a mile-broad, strange\nhouse, one knew not if it were a mountain with forests and caverns, or\nif it were built up; but the poor mother could not see it; she had\nwept her eyes out.\n\n\"Where shall I find Death, who took away my little child?\" said she.\n\n\"He has not come here yet!\" said the old grave woman, who was\nappointed to look after Death's great greenhouse! \"How have you been\nable to find the way hither? and who has helped you?\"\n\n\"_Our Lord_ has helped me,\" said she. \"He is merciful, and you will\nalso be so! Where shall I find my little child?\"\n\n\"Nay, I know not,\" said the woman, \"and you cannot see! Many flowers\nand trees have withered this night; Death will soon come and plant\nthem over again! You certainly know that every person has his or her\nlife's tree or flower, just as every one happens to be settled; they\nlook like other plants, but they have pulsations of the heart.\nChildren's hearts can also beat; go after yours, perhaps you may know\nyour child's; but what will you give me if I tell you what you shall\ndo more?\"\n\n\"I have nothing to give,\" said the afflicted mother, \"but I will go to\nthe world's end for you!\"\n\n\"Nay, I have nothing to do there!\" said the woman, \"but you can give\nme your long black hair; you know yourself that it is fine, and that I\nlike! You shall have my white hair instead! and that's always\nsomething!\"\n\n\"Do you demand nothing else?\" said she,--\"that I will gladly give\nyou!\" And she gave her her fine black hair, and got the old woman's\nsnow-white hair instead.\n\nSo they went into Death's great greenhouse, where flowers and trees\ngrew strangely into one another. There stood fine hyacinths under\nglass bells, and there stood strong-stemmed peonies; there grew water\nplants, some so fresh, others half sick, the water-snakes lay down on\nthem, and black crabs pinched their stalks. There stood beautiful\npalm-trees, oaks, and plantains; there stood parsley and flowering\nthyme: every tree and every flower had its name; each of them was a\nhuman life, the human frame still lived--one in China, and another in\nGreenland--round about in the world. There were large trees in small\npots, so that they stood so stunted in growth, and ready to burst the\npots; in other places, there was a little dull flower in rich mould,\nwith moss round about it, and it was so petted and nursed. But the\ndistressed mother bent down over all the smallest plants, and heard\nwithin them how the human heart beat; and amongst millions she knew\nher child's.\n\n\"There it is!\" cried she, and stretched her hands out over a little\nblue crocus, that hung quite sickly on one side.\n\n\"Don't touch the flower!\" said the old woman, \"but place yourself\nhere, and when Death comes,--I expect him every moment,--do not let\nhim pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same\nwith the others. Then he will be afraid! he is responsible for them to\n_Our Lord_, and no one dares to pluck them up before _He_ gives\nleave.\"\n\nAll at once an icy cold rushed through the great hall, and the blind\nmother could feel that it was Death that came.\n\n\"How hast thou been able to find thy way hither?\" he asked. \"How\ncouldst thou come quicker than I?\"\n\n\"I am a mother,\" said she.\n\nAnd Death stretched out his long hand towards the fine little flower,\nbut she held her hands fast around his, so tight, and yet afraid that\nshe should touch one of the leaves. Then Death blew on her hands, and\nshe felt that it was colder than the cold wind, and her hands fell\ndown powerless.\n\n\"Thou canst not do anything against me!\" said Death.\n\n\"But that _Our Lord_ can!\" said she.\n\n\"I only do His bidding!\" said Death. \"I am His gardener, I take all\nHis flowers and trees, and plant them out in the great garden of\nParadise, in the unknown land; but how they grow there, and how it is\nthere I dare not tell thee.\"\n\n\"Give me back my child!\" said the mother, and she wept and prayed. At\nonce she seized hold of two beautiful flowers close by, with each\nhand, and cried out to Death, \"I will tear all thy flowers off, for I\nam in despair.\"\n\n\"Touch them not!\" said Death. \"Thou say'st that thou art so unhappy,\nand now thou wilt make another mother equally unhappy.\"\n\n\"Another mother!\" said the poor woman, and directly let go her hold of\nboth the flowers.\n\n\"There, thou hast thine eyes,\" said Death; \"I fished them up from the\nlake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them\nagain, they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep\nwell close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou\nwouldst have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life--their\nwhole human existence: and see what thou wast about to disturb and\ndestroy.\"\n\nAnd she looked down into the well; and it was a happiness to see how\nthe one became a blessing to the world, to see how much happiness and\njoy were felt everywhere. And she saw the other's life, and it was\nsorrow and distress, horror, and wretchedness.\n\n\"Both of them are God's will!\" said Death.\n\n\"Which of them is Misfortune's flower? and which is that of\nHappiness?\" asked she.\n\n\"That I will not tell thee,\" said Death; \"but this thou shalt know\nfrom me, that the one flower was thy own child! it was thy child's\nfate thou saw'st,--thy own child's future life!\"\n\nThen the mother screamed with terror, \"Which of them was my child?\nTell it me! save the innocent! save my child from all that misery!\nrather take it away! take it into God's kingdom! Forget my tears,\nforget my prayers, and all that I have done!\"\n\n\"I do not understand thee!\" said Death. \"Wilt thou have thy child\nagain, or shall I go with it there, where thou dost not know!\"\n\nThen the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to our\nLord: \"Oh, hear me not when I pray against Thy will, which is the\nbest! hear me not! hear me not!\"\n\nAnd she bowed her head down in her lap, and Death took her child and\nwent with it into the unknown land.\n\n\n[Illustration: \"THE STORY OF A MOTHER.\"]\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE FALSE COLLAR.\n\nThere was once a fine gentleman, all of whose moveables were a\nbootjack and a hair-comb: but he had the finest false collars in the\nworld; and it is about one of these collars that we are now to hear a\nstory.\n\nIt was so old, that it began to think of marriage; and it happened\nthat it came to be washed in company with a garter.\n\n\"Nay!\" said the collar, \"I never did see anything so slender and so\nfine, so soft and so neat. May I not ask your name?\"\n\n\"That I shall not tell you!\" said the garter.\n\n\"Where do you live?\" asked the collar.\n\nBut the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange\nquestion to answer.\n\n\"You are certainly a girdle,\" said the collar; \"that is to say an\ninside girdle. I see well that you are both for use and ornament, my\ndear young lady.\"\n\n\"I will thank you not to speak to me,\" said the garter. \"I think I\nhave not given the least occasion for it.\"\n\n\"Yes! when one is as handsome as you,\" said the collar, \"that is\noccasion enough.\"\n\n\"Don't come so near me, I beg of you!\" said the garter. \"You look so\nmuch like those men-folks.\"\n\n\"I am also a fine gentleman,\" said the collar. \"I have a boot-jack and\na hair-comb.\"\n\nBut that was not true, for it was his master who had them: but he\nboasted.\n\n\"Don't come so near me,\" said the garter: \"I am not accustomed to it.\"\n\n\"Prude!\" exclaimed the collar; and then it was taken out of the\nwashing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the\nsunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm\nbox-iron. \"Dear lady!\" said the collar. \"Dear widow-lady! I feel quite\nhot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a\nhole in me. Oh! I offer you my hand.\"\n\n\"Rag!\" said the box-iron; and went proudly over the collar: for she\nfancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw\nthe waggons. \"Rag!\" said the box-iron.\n\nThe collar was a little jagged at the edge, and so came the long\nscissors to cut off the jagged part.\n\n\"Oh!\" said the collar, \"you are certainly the first opera dancer. How\nwell you can stretch your legs out! It is the most graceful\nperformance I have ever seen. No one can imitate you.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" said the scissors.\n\n\"You deserve to be a baroness,\" said the collar. \"All that I have is a\nfine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a hair-comb. If I only had the\nbarony!\"\n\n\"Do you seek my hand?\" said the scissors; for she was angry; and\nwithout more ado, she _cut him_, and then he was condemned.\n\n\"I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. It is surprising how\nwell you preserve your teeth, Miss,\" said the collar. \"Have you never\nthought of being betrothed?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course! you may be sure of that,\" said the hair comb. \"I _am_\nbetrothed--to the boot-jack!\"\n\n\"Betrothed!\" exclaimed the collar. Now there was no other to court,\nand so he despised it.\n\nA long time passed away, then the collar came into the rag chest at\nthe paper mill; there was a large company of rags, the fine by\nthemselves, and the coarse by themselves, just as it should be. They\nall had much to say, but the collar the most; for he was a real\nboaster.\n\n\"I have had such an immense number of sweet-hearts!\" said the collar,\n\"I could not be in peace! It is true, I was always a fine starched-up\ngentleman! I had both a bootjack and a hair-comb, which I never used!\nYou should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay\ndown!--I shall never forget _my first love_--she was a girdle, so\nfine, so soft, and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water\nfor my sake! There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I\nleft her standing till she got black again; there was also the first\nopera dancer, she gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so\nferocious! my own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her\nteeth from the heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort\nof thing; but I am extremely sorry for the garter--I mean the\ngirdle--that went into the water-tub. I have much on my conscience, I\nwant to become white paper!\"\n\nAnd it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the\ncollar came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, and\non which the story is printed; and that was because it boasted so\nterribly afterwards of what had never happened to it. It would be well\nfor us to beware, that we may not act in a similar manner, for we can\nnever know if we may not, in the course of time, also come into the\nrag chest, and be made into white paper, and then have our whole\nlife's history printed on it, even the most secret, and be obliged to\nrun about and tell it ourselves, just like this collar.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE SHADOW.\n\nIt is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough!--there the\npeople become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the _hottest_ lands\nthey are burnt to negroes. But now it was only to the _hot_ lands that\na learned man had come from the cold; there he thought that he could\nrun about just as when at home, but he soon found out his mistake.\n\nHe, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors,--the\nwindow-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if\nthe whole house slept, or there was no one at home.\n\nThe narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine\nmust fall there from morning till evening--it was really not to be\nborne.\n\nThe learned man from the cold lands--he was a young man, and seemed to\nbe a clever man--sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he\nbecame quite meagre--even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also\nan effect on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down,\nthat they began to freshen up again.\n\nIn the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out\non all the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one\nbe accustomed to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the\nstreet. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the\nstreet--chairs and tables were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes,\nabove a thousand lights were burning--and the one talked and the other\nsung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along\nwith a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys\nwere screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and\ndetonating balls:--and there came corpse bearers and hood\nwearers,--for there were funerals with psalm and hymn,--and then the\ndin of carriages driving and company arriving:--yes, it was, in truth,\nlively enough down in the street. Only in that single house, which\nstood opposite that in which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite\nstill; and yet some one lived there, for there stood flowers in the\nbalcony--they grew so well in the sun's heat--and that they could not\ndo unless they were watered--and some one must water them--there must\nbe somebody there. The door opposite was also opened late in the\nevening, but it was dark within, at least in the front room; further\nin there was heard the sound of music. The learned foreigner thought\nit quite marvellous, but now--it might be that he only imagined\nit--for he found everything marvellous out there, in the warm lands,\nif there had only been no sun. The stranger's landlord said that he\ndidn't know who had taken the house opposite, one saw no person about,\nand as to the music, it appeared to him to be extremely tiresome. \"It\nis as if some one sat there, and practised a piece that he could not\nmaster--always the same piece. 'I shall master it!' says he; but yet\nhe cannot master it, however long he plays.\"\n\n------\n\n* The word _mahogany_ can be understood, in Danish, as having two\nmeanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in\njest, it signifies \"excessively fine,\" which arose from an anecdote of\nNyboder, in Copenhagen, (the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who\nwas always proud and fine, in her way, came to her neighbor, and\ncomplained that she had got a splinter in her finger. \"What of?\" asked\nthe neighbor's wife. \"It is a mahogany splinter;\" said the other.\n\"Mahogany! it cannot be less with you!\" exclaimed the woman;--and\nthence the proverb, \"It is so mahogany!\"--(that is, so excessively\nfine)--is derived.\n\n------\n\nOne night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony\nopen--the curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought\nthat a strange lustre came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the\nflowers shone like flames, in the most beautiful colors, and in the\nmidst of the flowers stood a slender, graceful maiden,--it was as if\nshe also shone; the light really hurt his eyes. He now opened them\nquite wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was on the\nfloor; he crept gently behind the curtain but the maiden was gone; the\nflowers shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as\never; the door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft\nand delightful, one could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it.\nYet it was like a piece of enchantment. And who lived there? Where was\nthe actual entrance? The whole of the ground-floor was a row of shops,\nand there people could not always be running through.\n\nOne evening the stranger sat out on the balcony. The light burnt in\nthe room behind him; and thus it was quite natural that his shadow\nshould fall on his opposite neighbor's wall. Yes! there it sat,\ndirectly opposite, between the flowers on the balcony; and when the\nstranger moved, the shadow also moved: for that it always does.\n\n\"I think my shadow is the only living thing one sees over there,\" said\nthe learned man. \"See! how nicely it sits between the flowers. The\ndoor stands half-open: now the shadow should be cunning, and go into\nthe room, look about, and then come and tell me what it had seen.\nCome, now! be useful, and do me a service,\" said he, in jest. \"Have\nthe kindness to step in. Now! art thou going?\" and then he nodded to\nthe shadow, and the shadow nodded again. \"Well then, go! but don't\nstay away.\"\n\nThe stranger rose, and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony\nrose also; the stranger turned round and the shadow also turned round.\nYes! if any one had paid particular attention to it, they would have\nseen, quite distinctly, that the shadow went in through the half-open\nbalcony-door of their opposite neighbor, just as the stranger went\ninto his own room, and let the long curtain fall down after him.\n\nNext morning, the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the\nnewspapers.\n\n\"What is that?\" said he, as he came out into the sunshine. \"I have no\nshadow! So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again.\nIt is really tiresome!\"\n\nThis annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because\nhe knew there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known\nto everybody at home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now\ncame there and told his story, they would say that he was imitating\nit, and that he had no need to do. He would, therefore, not talk about\nit at all; and that was wisely thought.\n\n------\n\n* Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man.\n\n------\n\nIn the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the\nlight directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always\nhave its master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made\nhimself little; he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He\nsaid, \"Hem! hem!\" but it was of no use.\n\nIt was vexatious; but in the warm lands every thing grows so quickly;\nand after the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that\na new shadow came in the sunshine. In the course of three weeks he had\na very fair shadow, which, when he set out for his home in the\nnorthern lands, grew more and more in the journey, so that at last it\nwas so long and so large, that it was more than sufficient.\n\nThe learned man then came home, and he wrote books about what was true\nin the world, and about what was good and what was beautiful; and\nthere passed days and years,--yes! many years passed away.\n\nOne evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle\nknocking at the door.\n\n\"Come in!\" said he; but no one came in; so he opened the door, and\nthere stood before him such an extremely lean man, that he felt quite\nstrange. As to the rest, the man was very finely dressed,--he must be\na gentleman.\n\n\"Whom have I the honor of speaking to?\" asked the learned man.\n\n\"Yes! I thought as much,\" said the fine man. \"I thought you would not\nknow me. I have got so much body. I have even got flesh and clothes.\nYou certainly never thought of seeing me so well off. Do you not know\nyour old shadow? You certainly thought I should never more return.\nThings have gone on well with me since I was last with you. I have, in\nall respects, become very well off. Shall I purchase my freedom from\nservice? If so, I can do it;\" and then he rattled a whole bunch of\nvaluable seals that hung to his watch, and he stuck his hand in the\nthick gold chain he wore around his neck;--nay! how all his fingers\nglittered with diamond rings; and then all were pure gems.\n\n\"Nay; I cannot recover from my surprise!\" said the learned man: \"what\nis the meaning of all this?\"\n\n\"Something common, is it not,\" said the shadow: \"but you yourself do\nnot belong to the common order; and I, as you know well, have from a\nchild followed in your footsteps, As soon as you found I was capable\nto go out alone in the world, I went my own way. I am in the most\nbrilliant circumstances, but there came a sort of desire over me to\nsee you once more before you die; you will die, I suppose? I also\nwished to see this land again,--for you know we always love our native\nland. I know you have got another shadow again; have I anything to pay\nto it or you? If so, you will oblige me by saying what it is.\"\n\n\"Nay, is it really thou?\" said the learned man: \"it is most\nremarkable: I never imagined that one's old shadow could come again as\na man.\"\n\n\"Tell me what I have to pay,\" said the shadow; \"for I don't like to be\nin any sort of debt.\"\n\n\"How canst thou talk so?\" said the learned man; \"what debt is there to\ntalk about? Make thyself as free as any one else. I am extremely glad\nto hear of thy good fortune: sit down, old friend, and tell me a\nlittle how it has gone with thee, and what thou hast seen at our\nopposite neighbor's there--in the warm lands.\"\n\n\"Yes, I will tell you all about it,\" said the shadow, and sat down:\n\"but then you must also promise me, that, wherever you may meet me,\nyou will never say to any one here in the town that I have been your\nshadow. I intend to get betrothed, for I can provide for more than one\nfamily.\"\n\n\"Be quite at thy ease about that,\" said the learned man; \"I shall not\nsay to any one who thou actually art: here is my hand--I promise it,\nand a man's bond is his word.\"\n\n\"A word is a shadow,\" said the shadow, \"and as such it must speak.\"\n\nIt was really quite astonishing how much of a man it was. It was\ndressed entirely in black, and of the very finest cloth; it had patent\nleather boots, and a hat that could be folded together, so that it was\nbare crown and brim; not to speak of what we already know it\nhad--seals, gold neck-chain, and diamond rings; yes, the shadow was\nwell-dressed, and it was just that which made it quite a man.\n\n\"Now I shall tell you my adventures,\" said the shadow; and then he\nsat, with the polished boots, as heavily as he could, on the arm of\nthe learned man's new shadow, which lay like a poodle-dog at his feet.\nNow this was perhaps from arrogance; and the shadow on the ground kept\nitself so still and quiet, that it might hear all that passed: it\nwished to know how it could get free, and work its way up, so as to\nbecome its own master.\n\n\"Do you know who lived in our opposite neighbor's house?\" said the\nshadow; \"it was the most charming of all beings, it was Poesy! I was\nthere for three weeks, and that has as much effect as if one had lived\nthree thousand years, and read all that was composed and written; that\nis what I say, and it is right. I have seen everything and I know\neverything!\"\n\n\"Poesy!\" cried the learned man; \"yes, yes, she often dwells a recluse\nin large cities! Poesy! yes, I have seen her,--a single short moment,\nbut sleep came into my eyes! She stood on the balcony and shone as the\naurora borealis shines. Go on, go on!--thou wert on the balcony, and\nwent through the doorway, and then------\"\n\n\"Then I was in the antechamber,\" said the shadow. \"You always sat and\nlooked over to the antechamber. There was no light; there was a sort\nof twilight, but the one door stood open directly opposite the other\nthrough a long row of rooms and saloons, and there it was lighted up.\nI should have been completely killed if I had gone over to the maiden;\nbut I was circumspect, I took time to think, and that one must always\ndo.\"\n\n\"And what didst thou then see?\" asked the learned man.\n\n\"I saw everything, and I shall tell all to you: but,--it is no pride\non my part,--as a free man, and with the knowledge I have, not to\nspeak of my position in life, my excellent circumstances,--I certainly\nwish that you would say _you_* to me!\"\n\n------\n\n* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate acquaintances to use the\nsecond person singular, \"Du,\" (thou) when speaking to each other. When\na friendship is formed between men, they generally affirm it, when\noccasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to each\nother and exclaiming, \"_thy health_,\" at the same time striking their\nglasses together.--This is called drinking \"_Duus_:\"--they are then,\n\"_Duus Brodre_,\" (thou brothers,) and ever afterwards use the pronoun\n\"_thou_,\" to each other, it being regarded as more familiar than \"De,\"\n(you). Father and mother, sister and brother, say _thou_ to one\nanother--without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say _thou_\nto their servants--the superior to the inferior. But servants and\ninferiors do not use the same term to their masters, or superiors--nor\nis it ever used when speaking to a stranger, or any one with whom they\nare but slightly acquainted--they then say as in English--_you._\n\n------\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the learned man; \"it is an old habit with\nme. _You_ are perfectly right, and I shall remember it; but now _you_\nmust tell me all _you_ saw!\"\n\n\"Everything!\" said the shadow, \"for I saw everything, and I know\neverything!\"\n\n\"How did it look in the furthest saloon?\" asked the learned man. \"Was\nit there as in the fresh woods? Was it there as in a holy church? Were\nthe saloons like the starlit firmament when we stand on the high\nmountains?\"\n\n\"Everything was there!\" said the shadow. \"I did not go quite in, I\nremained in the foremost room, in the twilight, but I stood there\nquite well; I saw everything, and I know everything! I have been in\nthe antechamber at the court of Poesy.\"\n\n\"But _what did_ you see? Did all the gods of the olden times pass\nthrough the large saloons? Did the old heroes combat there? Did sweet\nchildren play there, and relate their dreams?\"\n\n\"I tell you I was there, and you can conceive that I saw everything\nthere was to be seen. Had you come over there, you would not have been\na man; but I became so! And besides, I learned to know my inward\nnature, my innate qualities, the relationship I had with Poesy. At the\ntime I was with you, I thought not of that, but always--you know it\nwell--when the sun rose, and when the sun went down, I became so\nstrangely great; in the moonlight I was very near being more distinct\nthan yourself; at that time I did not understand my nature; it was\nrevealed to me in the antechamber! I became a man!--I came out\nmatured; but you were no longer in the warm lands;--as a man I was\nashamed to go as I did. I was in want of boots, of clothes, of the\nwhole human varnish that makes a man perceptible. I took my way--I\ntell it to you, but you will not put it in any book--I took my way to\nthe cake woman--I hid myself behind her; the woman didn't think how\nmuch she concealed. I went out first in the evening; I ran about the\nstreets in the moonlight; I made myself long up the walls--it tickles\nthe back so delightfully! I ran up, and ran down, peeped into the\nhighest windows, into the saloons, and on the roofs, I peeped in where\nno one could peep, and I saw what no one else saw, what no one else\nshould see! This is, in fact, a base world! I would not be a man if it\nwere not now once accepted and regarded as something to be so! I saw\nthe most unimaginable things with the women, with the men, with\nparents, and with the sweet, matchless children; I saw,\" said the\nshadow \"what no human being must know, but what they would all so\nwillingly know--what is bad in their neighbor. Had I written a\nnewspaper, it would have been read! but I wrote direct to the persons\nthemselves, and there was consternation in all the towns where I came.\nThey were so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of\nme. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors gave me new\nclothes--I am well furnished; the master of the mint struck new coin\nfor me, and the women said I was so handsome! and so I became the man\nI am. And I now bid you farewell;--here is my card--I live on the\nsunny side of the street, and am always at home in rainy weather!\" And\nso away went the shadow.\n\n\"That was most extraordinary!\" said the learned man.\n\nYears and days passed away, then the shadow came again.\n\n\"How goes it?\" said the shadow.\n\n\"Alas!\" said the learned man, \"I write about the true, and the good,\nand the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such things; I am quite\ndesperate, for I take it so much to heart!\"\n\n\"But I don't!\" said the shadow, \"I become fat, and it is that one\nwants to become! You do not understand the world. You will become ill\nby it. You must travel! I shall make a tour this summer; will you go\nwith me?--I should like to have a travelling companion! will you go\nwith me, as shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you\nwith me; I shall pay the travelling expenses!\"\n\n\"Nay, this is too much!\" said the learned man.\n\n\"It is just as one takes it!\"--said the shadow. \"It will do you much\ngood to travel!--will you be my shadow?--you shall have everything\nfree on the journey!\"\n\n\"Nay, that is too bad!\" said the learned man.\n\n\"But it is just so with the world!\" said the shadow,--\"and so it will\nbe!\"--and away it went again.\n\nThe learned man was not at all in the most enviable state; grief and\ntorment followed him, and what he said about the true, and the good,\nand the beautiful, was, to most persons, like roses for a cow!--he was\nquite ill at last.\n\n\"You really look like a shadow!\" said his friends to him; and the\nlearned man trembled, for he thought of it.\n\n\"You must go to a watering-place!\" said the shadow, who came and\nvisited him; \"there is nothing else for it! I will take you with me\nfor old acquaintance' sake; I will pay the travelling expenses, and\nyou write the descriptions--and if they are a little amusing for me on\nthe way! I will go to a watering-place,--my beard does not grow out as\nit ought--that is also a sickness--and one must have a beard! Now you\nbe wise and accept the offer; we shall travel as comrades!\"\n\nAnd so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the master was the\nshadow; they drove with each other, they rode and walked together,\nside by side, before and behind, just as the sun was; the shadow\nalways took care to keep itself in the master's place. Now the learned\nman didn't think much about that; he was a very kind-hearted man, and\nparticularly mild and friendly, and so he said one day to the shadow:\n\"As we have now become companions, and in this way have grown up\ntogether from childhood, shall we not drink '_thou_' together, it is\nmore familiar?\"\n\n\"You are right,\" said the shadow, who was now the proper master. \"It\nis said in a very straight-forward and well-meant manner. You, as a\nlearned man, certainly know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot\nbear to touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in every\nlimb if one rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just such a\nfeeling on hearing you say _thou_ to me; I feel myself as if pressed\nto the earth in my first situation with you. You see that it is a\nfeeling; that it is not pride: I cannot allow you to say _thou_ to me,\nbut I will willingly say _thou_ to you, so it is half done!\"\n\nSo the shadow said _thou_ to its former master.\n\n\"This is rather too bad,\" thought he, that I must say _you_ and he say\n\"thou,\" but he was now obliged to put up with it.\n\nSo they came to a watering-place where there were many strangers, and\namongst them was a princess, who was troubled with seeing too well;\nand that was so alarming!\n\nShe directly observed that the stranger who had just come was quite a\ndifferent sort of person to all the others;--\"He has come here in\norder to get his beard to grow, they say, but I see the real cause, he\ncannot cast a shadow.\"\n\nShe had become inquisitive; and so she entered into conversation\ndirectly with the strange gentleman, on their promenades. As the\ndaughter of a king, she needed not to stand upon trifles, so she said,\n\"Your complaint is, that you cannot cast a shadow?\"\n\n\"Your Royal Highness must be improving considerably,\" said the\nshadow,--\"I know your complaint is, that you see too clearly, but it\nhas decreased, you are cured. I just happen to have a very unusual\nshadow! Do you not see that person who always goes with me? Other\npersons have a common shadow, but I do not like what is common to all.\nWe give our servants finer cloth for their livery than we ourselves\nuse, and so I had my shadow trimmed up into a man: yes, you see I have\neven given him a shadow. It is somewhat expensive, but I like to have\nsomething for myself!\"\n\n\"What!\" thought the princess, \"should I really be cured! These baths\nare the first in the world! In our time water has wonderful powers.\nBut I shall not leave the place, for it now begins to be amusing here.\nI am extremely fond of that stranger: would that his beard should not\ngrow! for in that case he will leave us.\"\n\nIn the evening, the princess and the shadow danced together in the\nlarge ball-room. She was light, but he was still lighter; she had\nnever had such a partner in the dance. She told him from what land she\ncame, and he knew that land; he had been there, but then she was not\nat home; he had peeped in at the window, above and below--he had seen\nboth the one and the other, and so he could answer the princess, and\nmake insinuations, so that she was quite astonished; he must be the\nwisest man in the whole world! she felt such respect for what he knew!\nSo that when they again danced together she fell in love with him; and\nthat the shadow could remark, for she almost pierced him through with\nher eyes. So they danced once more together; and she was about to\ndeclare herself, but she was discreet; she thought of her country and\nkingdom, and of the many persons she would have to reign over.\n\n\"He is a wise man,\" said she to herself--\"It is well; and he dances\ndelightfully--that is also good; but has he solid knowledge?--that is\njust as important!--he must be examined.\"\n\nSo she began, by degrees, to question him about the most difficult\nthings she could think of, and which she herself could not have\nanswered; so that the shadow made a strange face.\n\n\"You cannot answer these questions?\" said the princess.\n\n\"They belong to my childhood's learning,\" said the shadow. \"I really\nbelieve my shadow, by the door there, can answer them!\"\n\n\"Your shadow!\" said the princess; \"that would indeed be marvellous!\"\n\n\"I will not say for a certainty that he can,\" said the shadow, \"but I\nthink so; he has now followed me for so many years, and listened to my\nconversation--I should think it possible. But your royal highness will\npermit me to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for a\nman, that when he is to be in a proper humor--and he must be so to\nanswer well--he must be treated quite like a man.\"\n\n\"Oh! I like that!\" said the princess.\n\nSo she went to the learned man by the door, and she spoke to him about\nthe sun and the moon, and about persons out of and in the world, and\nhe answered with wisdom and prudence.\n\n\"What a man that must be who has so wise a shadow!\" thought she; \"It\nwill be a real blessing to my people and kingdom if I choose him for\nmy consort--I will do it!\"\n\nThey were soon agreed, both the princess and the shadow; but no one\nwas to know about it before she arrived in her own kingdom.\n\n\"No one--not even my shadow!\" said the shadow, and he had his own\nthoughts about it!\n\nNow they were in the country where the princess reigned when she was\nat home.\n\n\"Listen, my good friend,\" said the shadow to the learned man. \"I have\nnow become as happy and mighty as any one can be; I will, therefore,\ndo something particular for thee! Thou shalt always live with me in\nthe palace, drive with me in my royal carriage, and have ten thousand\npounds a year; but then thou must submit to be called shadow by all\nand every one; thou must not say that thou hast ever been a man; and\nonce a-year, when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine, thou must lie\nat my feet, as a shadow shall do! I must tell thee: I am going to\nmarry the king's daughter, and the nuptials are to take place this\nevening!\"\n\n\"Nay, this is going too far!\" said the learned man; \"I will not have\nit; I will not do it! it is to deceive the whole country and the\nprincess too! I will tell every thing!--that I am a man, and that thou\nart a shadow--thou art only dressed up!\"\n\n\"There is no one who will believe it!\" said the shadow; \"be\nreasonable, or I will call the guard!\"\n\n\"I will go directly to the princess!\" said the learned man.\n\n\"But I will go first!\" said the shadow, \"and thou wilt go to prison!\"\nand that he was obliged to do--for the sentinels obeyed him whom they\nknew the king's daughter was to marry.\n\n\"You tremble!\" said the princess, as the shadow came into her chamber;\n\"has anything happened? You must not be unwell this evening, now that\nwe are to have our nuptials celebrated.\"\n\n\"I have lived to see the most cruel thing that any one can live to\nsee!\" said the shadow. \"Only imagine--yes, it is true, such a poor\nshadow-skull cannot bear much--only think, my shadow has become mad;\nhe thinks that he is a man, and that I--now only think--that I am his\nshadow!\"\n\n\"It is terrible!\" said the princess; \"but he is confined, is he not?\"\n\n\"That he is. I am afraid that he will never recover.\"\n\n\"Poor shadow!\" said the princess, \"he is very unfortunate; it would be\na real work of charity to deliver him from the little life he has,\nand, when I think properly over the matter, I am of opinion that it\nwill be necessary to do away with him in all stillness!\"\n\n\"It is certainly hard!\" said the shadow, \"for he was a faithful\nservant!\" and then he gave a sort of sigh.\n\n\"You are a noble character!\" said the princess.\n\nThe whole city was illuminated in the evening, and the cannons went\noff with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a\nmarriage! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show\nthemselves, and get another hurrah!\n\nThe learned man heard nothing of all this--for they had deprived him\nof life.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE OLD STREET-LAMP.\n\nHave you heard the story about the old street lamp? It is not so very\namusing, but one may very well hear it once. It was such a decent old\nstreet-lamp, that had done its duty for many, many years, but now it\nwas to be condemned. It was the last evening,--it sat there on the\npost and lighted the street; and it was in just such a humor as an old\nfigurante in a ballet, who dances for the last evening, and knows that\nshe is to be put on the shelf to-morrow. The lamp had such a fear of\nthe coming day, for it knew that it should then be carried to the\ntown-hall for the first time, and examined by the authorities of the\ncity, who should decide if it could be used or not. It would then be\ndetermined whether it should be sent out to one of the suburbs, or in\nto the country to a manufactory; perhaps it would be sent direct to\nthe ironfounder's and be re-cast; in that case it could certainly be\nall sorts of things: but it pained it not to know whether it would\nthen retain the remembrance of its having been a street-lamp.\n\nHowever it might be, whether it went into the country or not, it would\nbe separated from the watchman and his wife, whom it regarded as its\nfamily. It became a street-lamp when he became watchman. His wife was\na very fine woman at that time; it was only in the evening when she\nwent past the lamp that she looked at it, but never in the daytime.\nNow, on the contrary, of late years, as they had all three grown\nold,--the watchman, his wife, and the lamp,--the wife had always\nattended to it, polished it up, and put oil in it. They were honest\nfolks that married couple, they had not cheated the lamp of a single\ndrop. It was its last evening in the street, and to-morrow it was to\nbe taken to the town-hall; these were two dark thoughts in the lamp,\nand so one can know how it burnt. But other thoughts also passed\nthrough it; there was so much it had seen, so much it had a desire\nfor, perhaps just as much as the whole of the city authorities; but it\ndidn't say so, for it was a well-behaved old lamp--it would not insult\nany one, least of all its superiors. It remembered so much, and now\nand then the flames within it blazed up,--it was as if it had a\nfeeling of--yes, they will also remember me! There was now that\nhandsome young man--but that is many years since,--he came with a\nletter, it was on rose-colored paper; so fine--so fine! and with a\ngilt edge; it was so neatly written, it was a lady's hand; he read it\ntwice, and he kissed it, and he looked up to me with his two bright\neyes--they said, \"I am the happiest of men!\" Yes, only he and I knew\nwhat stood in that first letter from his beloved.\n\nI also remember two other eyes--it is strange how one's thoughts fly\nabout!--there was a grand funeral here in the street, the beautiful\nyoung wife lay in the coffin on the velvet-covered funeral car; there\nwere so many flowers and wreaths, there were so many torches burning,\nthat I was quite forgotten--out of sight; the whole footpath was\nfilled with persons; they all followed in the procession; but when the\ntorches were out of sight, and I looked about, there stood one who\nleaned against my post and wept. I shall never forget those two\nsorrowful eyes that looked into me. Thus there passed many thoughts\nthrough the old street-lamp, which this evening burnt for the last\ntime. The sentinel who is relieved from his post knows his successor,\nand can say a few words to him, but the lamp knew not its successor;\nand yet it could have given him a hint about rain and drizzle, and how\nfar the moon shone on the footpath, and from what corner the wind\nblew.\n\nNow, there stood three on the kerb-stone; they had presented\nthemselves before the lamp, because they thought it was the\nstreet-lamp who gave away the office; the one of these three was a\nherring's head, for it shines in the dark, and it thought that it\ncould be of great service, and a real saving of oil, if it came to be\nplaced on the lamp-post. The other was a piece of touchwood, which\nalso shines, and always more than a stock-fish; besides, it said so\nitself, it was the last piece of a tree that had once been the pride\nof the forest. The third was a glow-worm; but where it had come from\nthe lamp could not imagine; but the glow-worm was there, and it also\nshone, but the touchwood and the herring's head took their oaths that\nit only shone at certain times, and therefore it could never be taken\ninto consideration.\n\nThe old lamp said that none of them shone well enough to be a\nstreet-lamp; but not one of them thought so; and as they heard that it\nwas not the lamp itself that gave away the office, they said that it\nwas a very happy thing, for that it was too infirm and broken down to\nbe able to choose.\n\nAt the same moment the wind came from the street corner, it whistled\nthrough the cowl of the old lamp, and said to it, \"What is it that I\nhear, are you going away to-morrow? Is it the last evening I shall\nmeet you here? Then you shall have a present!--now I will blow up your\nbrain-box so that you shall not only remember, clearly and distinctly,\nwhat you have seen and heard, but when anything is told or read in\nyour presence, you shall be so clear-headed that you will also see\nit.\"\n\n\"That is certainly much!\" said the old street-lamp; \"I thank you much;\nif I be only not re-cast.\"\n\n\"It will not happen yet awhile,\" said the wind; \"and now I will blow\nup your memory; if you get more presents than that you may have quite\na pleasant old age.\"\n\n\"If I be only not re-cast,\" said the lamp; \"or can you then assure me\nmy memory?\"\n\n\"Old lamp, be reasonable!\" said the wind, and then it blew. The moon\ncame forth at the same time. \"What do you give?\" asked the wind.\n\n\"I give nothing!\" said the moon; \"I am waning, and the lamps have\nnever shone for me, but I have shone for the lamps.\"* So the moon went\nbehind the clouds again, for it would not be plagued. A drop of rain\nthen fell straight down on the lamp's cowl, it was like a drop of\nwater from the eaves, but the drop said that it came from the grey\nclouds, and was also a present,---and perhaps the best of all. \"I\npenetrate into you, so that you have the power, if you wish it, in one\nnight to pass over to rust, so that you may fall in pieces and become\ndust.\" But the lamp thought this was a poor present, and the wind\nthought the same. \"Is there no better--is there no better?\" it\nwhistled, as loud as it could. A shooting-star then fell, it shone in\na long stripe.\n\n------\n\n* It is the custom in Denmark, and one deserving the severest censure,\nthat, on those nights in which the moon shines; or, according to\nalmanac authority, ought to shine, the street lamps are not lighted;\nso that, as it too frequently happens, when the moon is overclouded,\nor on rainy evenings when she is totally obscured, the streets are for\nthe most part in perfect darkness. This petty economy is called \"the\nmagistrates' light,\" they having the direction of the lighting,\npaving, and cleansing of towns.\n\nThe same management may be met with in some other countries besides\nDenmark.\n\n------\n\n\"What was that?\" exclaimed the herring's head; \"did not a star fall\nright down? I think it went into the lamp! Well, if persons who stand\nso high seek the office, we may as well take ourselves off.\"\n\nAnd it did so, and the others did so too; but the old lamp shone all\nat once so singularly bright.\n\n\"That was a fine present!\" it said; \"the bright stars which I have\nalways pleased myself so much about, and which shine so\nbeautifully,--as I really have never been able to shine, although it\nwas my whole aim and endeavor,--have noticed me, a poor old-lamp, and\nsent one down with a present to me, which consists of that quality,\nthat everything I myself remember and see quite distinctly, shall also\nbe seen by those I am fond of; and that is, above all, a true\npleasure, for what one cannot share with others is but a half\ndelight.\"\n\n\"It is a very estimable thought,\" said the wind; \"but you certainly\ndon't know that there must be wax-candles; for unless a wax-candle be\nlighted in you there are none of the others that will be able to see\nanything particular about you. The stars have not thought of that;\nthey think that everything which shines has, at least, a wax-candle in\nit. But now I am tired,\" said the wind, \"I will now lie down;\" and so\nit lay down to rest.\n\nThe next day--yes, the next day we will spring over: the next evening\nthe lamp lay in the arm chair,--and where? At the old watchman's. He\nhad, for his long and faithful services, begged of the authorities\nthat he might be allowed to keep the old lamp; they laughed at him\nwhen he begged for it, and then gave him it; and now the lamp lay in\nthe arm-chair, close by the warm stove, and it was really just as if\nit had become larger on that account,--it almost filled the whole\nchair. The old folks now sat at their supper, and cast mild looks at\nthe old lamp, which they would willingly have given a place at the\ntable with them. It is true they lived in a cellar, a yard or so below\nground: one had to go through a paved front-room to come into the room\nthey lived in; but it was warm here, for there was list round the door\nto keep it so. It looked clean and neat, with curtains round the bed\nand over the small windows, where two strange-looking flowerpots stood\non the sill. Christian, the sailor, had brought them from the East or\nWest Indies; they were of clay in the form of two elephants, the backs\nof which were wanting: but in their place there came flourishing\nplants out of the earth that was in them; in the one was the finest\nchive,--It was the old folks' kitchen-garden,--and in the other was a\nlarge flowering geranium--this was their flower-garden. On the wall\nhung a large colored print of \"The Congress of Vienna;\" there they had\nall the kings and emperors at once. A Bornholm* clock, with heavy\nleaden weights went \"tic-tac!\" and always too fast; but the old folks\nsaid it was better than if it went too slow. They ate their suppers,\nand the old lamp, as we have said, lay in the armchair close by the\nwarm stove. It was, for the old lamp, as if the whole world was turned\nupside down. But when the old watchman looked at it, and spoke about\nwhat they had lived to see with each other, in rain and drizzle, in\nthe clear, short summer nights, and when the snow drove about so that\nit was good to get into the pent-house of the cellar,--then all was\nagain in order for the old lamp, it saw it all just as if it were now\npresent;--yes! the wind had blown it up right well,--it had\nenlightened it.\n\n------\n\n* Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic is famous for its\nmanufactures of clocks, potteries, and cement; it contains also\nconsiderable coal mines, though not worked to any extent. It is\nfertile in minerals, chalks, potters' clay of the finest quality, and\nother valuable natural productions; but, on account of the jealous\nnature of the inhabitants, which deters foreigners from settling\nthere, these productions are not made so available or profitable as\nthey otherwise might be.\n\n------\n\nThe old folks were so clever and industrious, not an hour was quietly\ndozed away; on Sunday afternoons some book was always brought forth,\nparticularly a book of travels, and the old man read aloud about\nAfrica, about the great forests and the elephants that were there\nquite wild; and the old woman listened so attentively, and now and\nthen took a side glance at the clay elephants--her flower-pots. \"I can\nalmost imagine it!\" said she; and the lamp wished so much that there\nwas a wax candle to light and be put in it, so that she could plainly\nsee everything just as the lamp saw it; the tall trees, the thick\nbranches twining into one another, the black men on horseback, and\nwhole trains of elephants, which, with their broad feet, crushed the\ncanes and bushes.\n\n\"Of what use are all my abilities when there is no wax candle?\" sighed\nthe lamp; \"they have only train oil and tallow candles, and they are\nnot sufficient.\"\n\nOne day there came a whole bundle of stumps of wax candles into the\ncellar, the largest pieces were burnt, and the old woman used the\nsmaller pieces to wax her thread with when she sewed; there were wax\ncandle ends, but they never thought of putting a little piece in the\nlamp.\n\n\"Here I stand with my rare abilities,\" said the lamp; \"I have\neverything within me, but I cannot share any part with them. They know\nnot that I can transform the white walls to the prettiest\npaper-hangings, to rich forests, to everything that they may wish for.\nThey know it not!\"\n\nFor the rest, the lamp stood in a corner, where it always met the eye,\nand it was neat and well scoured; folks certainly said it was an old\npiece of rubbish; but the old man and his wife didn't care about that,\nthey were fond of the lamp.\n\nOne day it was the old watchman's birth day; the old woman came up to\nthe lamp, smiled, and said, \"I will illuminate for him,\" and the\nlamp's cowl creaked, for it thought, \"They will now be enlightened!\"\nBut she put in train oil, and no wax candle; it burnt the whole\nevening; but now it knew that the gift which the stars had given it,\nthe best gift of all, was a dead treasure for this life. It then\ndreamt--and when one has such abilities, one can surely dream,--that\nthe old folks were dead, and that it had come to an ironfounder's to\nbe cast anew; it was in as much anxiety as when it had to go to the\ntown-hall to be examined by the authorities; but although it had the\npower to fall to pieces in rust and dust, when it wished it, yet it\ndid not do it; and so it came into the furnace and was re-cast as a\npretty iron candlestick, in which any one might set a wax candle. It\nhad the form of an angel, bearing a nosegay, and in the centre of the\nnosegay they put a wax taper and it was placed on a green\nwriting-table; and the room was so snug and comfortable: there hung\nbeautiful pictures--there stood many books; it was at a poet's, and\neverything that he wrote, unveiled itself round about: the room became\na deep, dark forest,--a sun-lit meadow where the stork stalked about;\nand a ship's deck high aloft on the swelling sea!\n\n\"What power I have!\" said the old lamp, as it awoke. \"I almost long to\nbe re-cast;--but no, it must not be as long as the old folks live.\nThey are fond of me for the sake of my person. I am to them as a\nchild, and they have scoured me, and they have given me train oil.\nAfter all, I am as well off as 'The Congress,'--which is something so\nvery grand.\"\n\nFrom that time it had more inward peace, which was merited by the old\nstreet-lamp.\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK.\n\nAh! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but\nthat was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant\nit for Charles, and it is all well enough if one do but know it. He\nhad now to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much less\nthan himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same\ntime; but these two things would not do together at all. There sat the\npoor little fellow with his sister on his lap, and he sang to her all\nthe songs he knew; and he glanced the while from time to time into the\ngeography-book that lay open before him. By the next morning he was to\nhave learnt all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know about them\nall that is possible to be known.\n\nHis mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little\nAugusta on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly\nthat he pretty nearly read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker,\nbut his mother had no money to buy a candle.\n\n\"There goes the old washerwoman over the way,\" said his mother, as she\nlooked out of the window. \"The poor woman can hardly drag herself\nalong, and she must now drag the pail home from the fountain: be a\ngood boy, Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won't you?\"\n\nSo Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again\ninto the room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no\nthought of such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old\nturn-up bedstead; in it he lay and thought about his geography lesson,\nand of Zealand, and of all that his master had told him. He ought, to\nbe sure, to have read over his lesson again, but that, you know, he\ncould not do. He therefore put his geography-book under his pillow,\nbecause he had heard that was a very good thing to do when one wants\nto learn one's lesson; but one cannot, however, rely upon it entirely.\nWell there he lay, and thought and thought, and all at once it was just\nas if some one kissed his eyes and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not\nsleep; it was as though the old washerwoman gazed on him with her mild\neyes and said, \"It were a great sin if you were not to know your\nlesson tomorrow morning. You have aided me, I therefore will now help\nyou; and the loving God will do so at all times.\" And all of a sudden\nthe book under Tuk's pillow began scraping and scratching.\n\n\"Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!\"--that was an old hen who came creeping\nalong, and she was from Kjoge. I am a Kjoger hen,\"* said she, and then\nshe related how many inhabitants there were there, and about the\nbattle that had taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth\ntalking about.\n\n------\n\n* Kjoge a town in the bay of Kjoge \"To see the Kjoge hens,\" is an\nexpression similar to \"showing a child London,\" which is said to be\ndone by taking his head in both hands, and so lifting him off the\nground. At the invasion of the English in 1807, an encounter of a no\nvery glorious nature took place between the British troops and the\nundisciplined Danish militia.\n\n------\n\n\"Kribledy, krabledy--plump!\" down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird,\nthe popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now _he_ said\nthat there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body;\nand he was very proud. \"Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.*\nPlump! here I lie capitally.\"\n\n------\n\n* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some hundred paces from it\nlies the manor-house Ny Soe, where Thorwaldsen generally sojourned\nduring his stay in Denmark, and where he called many of his immortal\nworks into existence.\n\n------\n\nBut little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he was on\nhorseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping on and on. A\nknight with a gleaming plume, and most magnificently dressed, held him\nbefore him on the horse, and thus they rode through the wood to the\nold town of Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town.\nHigh towers rose from the castle of the king, and the brightness of\nmany candles streamed from all the windows; within was dance and song,\nand King Waldemar and the young, richly-attired maids of honor danced\ntogether. The morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the\nwhole town and the king's palace crumbled together, and one tower\nafter the other; and at last only a single one remained standing where\nthe castle had been before,* and the town was so small and poor, and\nthe school boys came along with their books under their arms, and\nsaid, \"2000 inhabitants!\" but that was not true, for there were not so\nmany.\n\n------\n\n* Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar a considerable place, now\nan unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains\nof a wall, show where the castle once stood.\n\n------\n\nAnd little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed,\nand yet as if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside\nhim.\n\n\"Little Tukey! little Tukey!\" cried some one near. It was a seaman,\nquite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a\nmidshipman it was not.\n\n\"Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising\ninto importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches:\nformerly people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on\nthe sea,\" said Corsor; \"I have high roads and gardens, and I have\ngiven birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all poets are\nnot. I once intended to equip a ship that was to sail all round the\nearth; but I did not do it, although I could have done so: and then,\ntoo, I smell so deliciously, for close before the gate bloom the most\nbeautiful roses.\"\n\n------\n\n* Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction\nof steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long\ntime for a favorable wind, \"the most tiresome of towns.\" The poet\nBaggesen was born here.\n\n------\n\nLittle Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as\nsoon as the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden\nthere appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above\nstood a magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out\nthe hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that\nthere was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king\nwith a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the\nfountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up\nthe slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of\nDenmark, hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ\nplayed and the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. \"Do\nnot forget the diet,\" said King Hroar.[1] Again all suddenly\ndisappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him just as if one turned\nover a leaf in a book. And now stood there an old peasant-woman, who\ncame from Soroe,[2] where grass grows in the marketplace.\n\n------\n\n[1] Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name\nfrom King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the\nbeautiful cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of\nDenmark are interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish\nDiet assemble.\n\n[2] Soroe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded\nby woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an\nacademy for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were\nappointed professors here. The latter lives there still.\n\n------\n\nShe had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and back: it was\nso wet, it certainly must have been raining \"Yes, that it has,\" said\nshe; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's comedies,\nand about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together,\nand her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as\nshe were going to make a spring. \"Croak! croak!\" said she: \"it is wet,\nit is wet; there is such a pleasant death-like stillness in Soroe!\"\nShe was now suddenly a frog, \"Croak;\" and now she was an old woman.\n\"One must dress according to the weather,\" said she. \"It is wet, it is\nwet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, and\nby the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the finest\nfish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the\nbottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek,--Croak!\" When she spoke it\nsounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked with great\nboots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring that\nlittle Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not\ndo him any harm.\n\nBut even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was:\nhis little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling\nhair, was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings\nwas yet able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green\nwoods and the blue lakes.\n\n\"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are\nflying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very\nlarge! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in\nthe world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt\nitself like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with\nmarble statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your\nname shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the\nship that was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde\"----\n\n\"Do not forget the diet!\" said King Hroar.\n\n\"Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last\nyou sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly\"----\n\n\"As if I lay in Soroe,\" said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he\nwas now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not\nat all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring.\n\nAnd out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he\nknew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at\nthe door, nodded to him friendly, and said, \"Thanks, many thanks, my\ngood child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your\nloveliest dream!\"\n\nLittle Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving\nGod knew it.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE NAUGHTY BOY.\n\nA long time ago there lived an old poet, a thoroughly kind old poet.\nAs he was sitting one evening in his room, a dreadful storm arose\nwithout, and the rain streamed down from heaven; but the old poet sat\nwarm and comfortable in his chimney-corner, where the fire blazed and\nthe roasting apple hissed.\n\n\"Those who have not a roof over their heads will be wetted to the\nskin,\" said the good old poet.\n\n\"Oh let me in! let me in! I am cold, and I'm so wet!\" exclaimed\nsuddenly a child that stood crying at the door and knocking for\nadmittance, while the rain poured down, and the wind made all the\nwindows rattle.\n\n\"Poor thing!\" said the old poet, as he went to open the door. There\nstood a little boy, quite naked, and the water ran down from his long\ngolden hair; he trembled with cold, and had he not come into a warm\nroom he would most certainly have perished in the frightful tempest.\n\n\"Poor child!\" said the old poet, as he took the boy by the hand. \"Come\nin, come in, and I will soon restore thee! Thou shalt have wine and\nroasted apples, for thou art verily a charming child!\" And the boy was\nso really. His eyes were like two bright stars; and although the water\ntrickled down his hair, it waved in beautiful curls. He looked exactly\nlike a little angel, but he was so pale, and his whole body trembled\nwith cold. He had a nice little bow in his hand, but it was quite\nspoiled by the rain, and the tints of his many-colored arrows ran one\ninto the other.\n\nThe old poet seated himself beside his hearth, and took the little\nfellow on his lap; he squeezed the water out of his dripping hair,\nwarmed his hands between his own, and boiled for him some sweet wine.\nThen the boy recovered, his cheeks again grew rosy, he jumped down\nfrom the lap where he was sitting, and danced round the kind old poet.\n\n\"You are a merry fellow,\" said the old man; \"what's your name?\"\n\n\"My name is Cupid,\" answered the boy. \"Don't you know me? There lies\nmy bow; it shoots well, I can assure you! Look, the weather is now\nclearing up, and the moon is shining clear again through the window.\"\n\n\"Why, your bow is quite spoiled,\" said the old poet.\n\n\"That were sad indeed,\" said the boy, and he took the bow in his hand\nand examined it on every side. \"Oh, it is dry again, and is not hurt\nat all; the string is quite tight. I will try it directly.\" And he\nbent his bow, took aim, and shot an arrow at the old poet, right into\nhis heart. \"You see now that my bow was not spoiled,\" said he,\nlaughing; and away he ran.\n\nThe naughty boy! to shoot the old poet in that way; he who had taken\nhim into his warm room, who had treated him so kindly, and who had\ngiven him warm wine and the very best apples!\n\nThe poor poet lay on the earth and wept, for the arrow had really\nflown into his heart.\n\n\"Fie!\" said he, \"how naughty a boy Cupid is! I will tell all children\nabout him, that they may take care and not play with him, for he will\nonly cause them sorrow and many a heart-ache.\"\n\nAnd all good children to whom he related this story, took great heed\nof this naughty Cupid; but he made fools of them still, for he is\nastonishingly cunning. When the university students come from the\nlectures, he runs beside them in a black coat, and with a book under\nhis arm. It is quite impossible for them to know him, and they walk\nalong with him arm in arm, as if he, too, were a student like\nthemselves; and then, unperceived, he thrusts an arrow to their bosom.\nWhen the young maidens come from being examined by the clergyman, or\ngo to church to be confirmed, there he is again close behind them.\nYes, he is for ever following people. At the play he sits in the great\nchandelier and burns in bright flames, so that people think it is\nreally a flame, but they soon discover it is something else. He roves\nabout in the garden of the palace and upon the ramparts: yes, once he\neven shot your father and mother right in the heart. Ask them only,\nand you will hear what they'll tell you. Oh, he is a naughty boy, that\nCupid; you must never have anything to do with him. He is for ever\nrunning after everybody. Only think, he shot an arrow once at your old\ngrandmother! But that is a long time ago, and it is all past now;\nhowever, a thing of that sort she never forgets. Fie, naughty Cupid!\nBut now you know him, and you know, too, how ill-behaved he is!\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE TWO NEIGHBORING FAMILIES.\n\nWe really might have thought something of importance was going on in\nthe duck-pond, but there was nothing going on. All the ducks that were\nresting tranquilly on the water, or were standing in it on their\nheads--for that they were able to do--swam suddenly to the shore: you\ncould see in the wet ground the traces of their feet, and hear their\nquacking far and near. The water, which but just now was smooth and\nbright as a mirror, was quite put into commotion. Before, one saw\nevery tree reflected in it, every bush that was near: the old\nfarm-house, with the holes in the roof and with the swallow's nest\nunder the eaves; but principally, however, the great rose-bush, sown,\nas it were, with flowers. It covered the wall, and hung forwards over\nthe water, in which one beheld the whole as in a picture, except that\neverything was upside down; but when the water was agitated, all swam\naway and the picture was gone. Two duck's feathers, which the\nfluttering ducks had lost, were rocking to and fro: suddenly they flew\nforwards as if the wind were coming, but it did not come: they were,\ntherefore, obliged to remain where they were, and the water grew quiet\nand smooth again, and again the roses reflected themselves--they were\nso beautiful, but that they did not know, for nobody had told them.\nThe sun shone in between the tender leaves--all breathed the most\nbeautiful fragrance; and to them it was as with us, when right\njoyfully we are filled with the thought of our happiness.\n\n\"How beautiful is existence!\" said each rose. \"There is but one thing\nI should wish for,--to kiss the sun, because it is so bright and\nwarm.* The roses yonder, too, below in the water, the exact image of\nourselves--them also I should like to kiss, and the nice little birds\nbelow in their nest. There are some above, too; they stretch out their\nheads and chirrup quite loud: they have no feathers at all, as their\nfathers and mothers have. They are good neighbors, those below as well\nas those above. How beautiful existence is!\"\n\n------\n\n* In Danish the sun is of the feminine gender, and not, as with us,\nwhen personified, spoken of as \"he.\" We beg to make this observation,\nlest the roses' wish \"to kiss the sun,\" be thought unmaidenly. We are\nanxious, also, to remove a stumbling block, which might perchance trip\nup exquisitely-refined modern notions, sadly shocked, no doubt, as\nthey would be, at such an apparent breach of modesty and\ndecorum.--(Note of the Translator.)\n\n------\n\nThe young birds above and below--those below of course the reflection\nonly in the water--were sparrows: their parents were likewise\nsparrows; and they had taken possession of the empty swallow's nest of\nthe preceding year, and now dwelt therein as if it had been their own\nproperty.\n\n\"Are those little duck children that are swimming there?\" asked the\nyoung sparrows, when they discovered the duck's feathers on the water.\n\n\"If you _will_ ask questions, do let them be a little rational at\nleast,\" said the mother. \"Don't you see that they are feathers, living\nstuff for clothing such as I wear, and such as you will wear also? But\nours is finer. I should, however, be glad if we had it up here in our\nnest, for it keeps one warm. I am curious to know at what the ducks\nwere so frightened; at us, surely not; 'tis true I said 'chirp,' to\nyou rather loud. In reality, the thick-headed roses ought to know, but\nthey know nothing; they only gaze on themselves and smell: for my\npart, I am heartily tired of these neighbors.\"\n\n\"Listen to the charming little birds above,\" said the roses, \"they\nbegin to want to sing too, but they cannot as yet. However, they will\ndo so by and by: what pleasure that must afford! It is so pleasant to\nhave such merry neighbors!\"\n\nSuddenly two horses came galloping along to be watered. A peasant boy\nrode on one, and he had taken off all his clothes except his large\nbroad black hat. The youth whistled like a bird, and rode into the\npond where it was deepest; and as he passed by the rosebush he\ngathered a rose and stuck it in his hat; and now he fancied himself\nvery fine, and rode on. The other roses looked after their sister, and\nasked each other, \"Whither is she going?\" but that no one knew.\n\n\"I should like to go out into the world,\" thought one; \"yet here at\nhome amid our foliage it is also beautiful. By day the sun shines so\nwarm, and in the night the sky shines still more beautifully: we can\nsee that through all the little holes that are in it.\" By this they\nmeant the stars, but they did not know any better.\n\n\"We enliven the place,\" said the mamma sparrow; \"and the swallow's\nnest brings luck, so people say, and therefore people are pleased to\nhave us. But our neighbors! Such a rose-bush against the wall produces\ndamp; it will doubtless be cleared away, and then, perhaps, some corn\nat least may grow there. The roses are good for nothing except to look\nat and to smell, and, at most to put into one's hat. Every year--that\nI know from my mother--they fall away; the peasants wife collects them\ntogether and strews salt among them; they then receive a French name\nwhich I neither can nor care to pronounce, and are put upon the fire,\nwhen they are to give a pleasant odor. Look ye, such is their life;\nthey are only here to please the eye and nose! And so now you know the\nwhole matter.\"\n\nAs the evening came on, and the gnats played in the warm air and in\nthe red clouds, the nightingale came and sang to the roses; sang that\nthe beautiful is as the sunshine in this world, and that the beautiful\nlives for ever. But the roses thought that the nightingale sang his\nown praise, which one might very well have fancied; for that the song\nrelated to them, of that they never thought: they rejoiced in it,\nhowever, and meditated if perhaps all the little sparrows could become\nnightingales too.\n\n\"I understood _the song of that bird quite well_,\" said the young\nsparrows; \"one word only was not quite clear to me. What was the\nmeaning of 'the beautiful?'\"\n\n\"That is nothing,\" said the mamma sparrow, \"that is only something\nexternal. Yonder at the mansion, where the pigeons have a house of\ntheir own, and where every day peas and corn is strewn before them--I\nhave myself eaten there with them, and you shall, too, in time; tell\nme what company you keep, and I'll tell you who you are--yes, yonder\nat the mansion they have got two birds with green necks and a comb on\ntheir head; they can spread out their tail like a great wheel, and in\nit plays every color, that it quite hurts one's eyes to look at it.\nThese birds are called peacocks, and that is 'THE BEAUTIFUL.' They\nonly want to be plucked a little, and then they would not look at all\ndifferent from the rest of us. I would already have plucked them, if\nthey had not been quite so big.\"\n\n\"I will pluck them,\" chirped the smallest sparrow, that as yet had not\na single feather.\n\nIn the peasant's cottage dwelt a young married couple; they loved each\nother dearly, and were industrious and active: everything in their\nhouse looked so neat and pretty. On Sunday morning early the young\nwoman came out, gathered a handful of the most beautiful roses, and\nput them into a glass of water, which she placed on the shelf.\n\n\"Now I see that it is Sunday,\" said the man, and kissed his little\nwife. They sat down, read in the hymn-book, and held each other by the\nhand: the sun beamed on the fresh roses and on the young married\ncouple.\n\n\"This is really too tiring a sight,\" said the mamma sparrow, who from\nher nest could look into the room, and away she flew.\n\nThe next Sunday it was the same, for every Sunday fresh roses were put\nin the glass: yet the rose-tree bloomed on equally beautiful. The\nyoung sparrows had now feathers, and wanted much to fly with their\nmother; she, however, would not allow it, so they were forced to\nremain. Off she flew; but, however, it happened, before she was aware,\nshe got entangled in a springe of horse-hair, which some boys had set\nupon a bough. The horse-hair drew itself tightly round her leg, so\ntightly as though it would cut it in two. That was an agony, a fright!\nThe boys ran to the spot and caught hold of the bird, and that too in\nno very gentle manner.\n\n\"It's only a sparrow,\" said they; but they, nevertheless, did not let\nher fly, but took her home with them, and every time she cried they\ngave her a tap on the beak.\n\nThere stood in the farm-yard an old man, who knew how to make\nshaving-soap and soap for washing, in square cakes as well as in round\nballs. He was a merry, wandering old man. When he saw the sparrow that\nthe boys had caught, and which, as they said, they did not care about\nat all, he asked, \"Shall we make something very fine of him?\" Mamma\nsparrow felt an icy coldness creep over her. Out of the box, in which\nwere the most beautiful colors, the old man took a quantity of gold\nleaf, and the boys were obliged to go and fetch the white of an egg,\nwith which the sparrow was painted all over; on this the gold was\nstuck, and mamma sparrow was now entirely gilded; but she did not\nthink of adornment, for she trembled in every limb. And the\nsoap-dealer tore a bit off the lining of his old jacket, cut scollops\nin it so that it might look like a cock's comb, and stuck it on the\nhead of the bird.\n\n\"Now, then, you shall see master gold-coat fly,\" said the old man, and\nlet the sparrow go, who, in deadly fright, flew off, illumined by the\nbeaming sun. How she shone! All the sparrows, even a crow, although an\nold fellow, were much frightened at the sight; they, however flew on\nafter him, in order to learn what foreign bird it was.\n\nImpelled by anguish and terror, he flew homewards: he was near falling\nexhausted to the earth. The crowd of pursuing birds increased; yes,\nsome indeed even tried to peck at him.\n\n\"Look! there's a fellow! Look! there's a fellow!\" screamed they all.\n\n\"Look! there's a fellow! Look! there's a fellow!\" cried the young\nsparrows, as the old one approached the nest. \"That, for certain, is a\nyoung peacock; all sorts of colors are playing in his feathers: it\nquite hurts one's eyes to look at him, just as our mother told us.\nChirp! chirp! That is the beautiful!\" And now they began pecking at\nthe bird with their little beaks, so that it was quite impossible for\nthe sparrow to get into the nest: she was so sadly used that she could\nnot even say \"Chirrup,\" still less, \"Why, I am your own mother!\" The\nother birds, too, now set upon the sparrow, and plucked out feather\nafter feather; so that at last she fell bleeding in the rose-bush\nbelow.\n\n\"Oh! poor thing!\" said all the roses, \"be quieted; we will hide you.\nLean your little head on us.\"\n\nThe sparrow spread out her wings once more, then folded them close to\nher body, and lay dead in the midst of the family who were her\nneighbors,--the beautiful fresh roses.\n\n\"Chirp! chirp!\" sounded from the nest. \"Where can our mother be? It is\nquite inconceivable! It cannot surely be a trick of hers by which she\nmeans to tell us that we are now to provide for ourselves? She has\nleft us the house as an inheritance; but to which of us is it\nexclusively to belong, when we ourselves have families?\"\n\n\"Yes, that will never do that you stay here with me when my household\nis increased by the addition of a wife and children,\" said the\nsmallest.\n\n\"I shall have, I should think, more wives and children than you,\" said\nthe second.\n\n\"But I am the eldest,\" said the third. They all now grew passionate;\nthey beat each other with their wings, pecked with their beaks, when,\nplump! one after the other was tumbled out of the nest. There they lay\nwith their rage; they turned their heads on one side, and winked their\neyes as they looked upward: that was their way of playing the\nsimpleton. They could fly a little, and by practice they learned to do\nso still better; and they finally were unanimous as to a sign by\nwhich, when at some future time they should meet again in the world,\nthey might recognise each other. It was to consist in a \"Chirrup!\" and\nin a thrice-repeated scratching on the ground with the left leg.\n\nThe young sparrow that had been left behind in the nest spread himself\nout to his full size. He was now, you know, a householder; but his\ngrandeur did not last long: in the night red fire broke through the\nwindows, the flames seized on the roof, the dry thatch blazed up high,\nthe whole house was burnt, and the young sparrow with it; but the\nyoung married couple escaped, fortunately, with life. When the sun\nrose again, and every thing looked so refreshed and invigorated, as\nafter a peaceful sleep, there was nothing left of the cottage except\nsome charred black beams leaning against the chimney, which now was\nits own master. A great deal of smoke still rose from the ground, but\nwithout, quite uninjured, stood the rose-bush, fresh and blooming, and\nmirrored every flower, every branch, in the clear water.\n\n\"Oh! how beautifully the roses are blooming in front of the burnt-down\nhouse!\" cried a passer-by. \"It is impossible to fancy a more lovely\npicture. I must have that!\"\n\nAnd the man took a little book with white leaves out of his pocket: he\nwas a painter, and with a pencil he drew the smoking house, the\ncharred beams, and the toppling chimney, which now hung over more and\nmore. But the large and blooming rose-tree, quite in the foreground,\nafforded a magnificent sight; it was on its account alone that the\nwhole picture had been made.\n\nLater in the day two of the sparrows who had been born here passed by.\n\"Where is the house?\" asked they. \"Where the nest? Chirp! chirp! All\nis burnt down, and our strong brother,--that is what he has got for\nkeeping the nest. The roses have escaped well; there they are yet\nstanding with their red cheeks. They, forsooth, do not mourn at the\nmisfortune of their neighbors. I have no wish whatever to address\nthem; and, besides, it is very ugly here, that's my opinion.\" And off\nand away they flew.\n\nOn a beautiful, bright, sunny autumn day--one might almost have\nthought it was still the middle of summer--the pigeons were strutting\nabout the dry and nicely-swept court-yard in front of the great\nsteps--black and white and party-colored--and they shone in the\nsunshine. The old mamma pigeon said to the young ones: \"Form\nyourselves in groups, form yourselves in groups, for that makes a much\nbetter appearance.\"\n\n\"What little brown creatures are those running about amongst us?\"\nasked an old pigeon, whose eyes were green and yellow. \"Poor little\nbrownies! poor little brownies!\"\n\n\"They are sparrows: we have always had the reputation of being kind\nand gentle; we will, therefore, allow them to pick up the grain with\nus. They never mix in the conversation, and they scrape a leg so\nprettily.\"\n\n\"Yes, they scratched three times with their leg, and with the left leg\ntoo, and said also \"Chirrup!\" It is by this they recognised each\nother; for they were three sparrows out of the nest of the house that\nhad been burnt down.\n\n\"Very good eating here,\" said one of the sparrows. The pigeons\nstrutted round each other, drew themselves up, and had inwardly their\nown views and opinions.\n\n\"Do you see the cropper pigeon?\" said one of the others. \"Do you see\nhow she swallows the peas? She takes too many, and the very best into\nthe bargain!\"--\"Coo! coo!\"--\"How she puts up her top-knot, the ugly,\nmischievous creature!\" \"Coo! coo! coo!\"\n\nAnd every eye sparkled with malice. \"Form yourselves in groups! form\nyourselves in groups! Little brown creatures! Poor little brownies!\nCoo! coo!\" So it went on unceasingly, and so will they go on\nchattering in a thousand years to come.\n\nThe sparrows ate right bravely. They listened attentively to what was\nsaid, and even placed themselves in a row side by side, with the\nothers. It was not at all becoming to them, however. They were not\nsatisfied, and they therefore quitted the pigeons, and exchanged\nopinions about them; nestled along under the garden palisades, and, as\nthey found the door of the room open that led upon the lawn, one of\nthem, who was filled to satiety, and was therefore over-bold, hopped\nupon the threshold. \"Chirrup!\" said he, \"I dare to venture!\"\n\n\"Chirrup!\" said another, \"I dare, too, and more besides!\" and he\nhopped into the chamber. No one was present: the third saw this, and\nflew still further into the room, calling out, \"Either all or nothing!\nHowever, 'tis a curious human nest that we have here; and what have\nthey put up there? What is that?\"\n\nClose in front of the sparrows bloomed the roses; they mirrored\nthemselves in the water, and the charred rafters leaned against the\nover-hanging chimney. But what can that be? how comes this in the room\nof the mansion? And all three sparrows were about to fly away over the\nroses and the chimney, but they flew against a flat wall. It was all a\npicture, a large, beautiful picture, which the painter had executed\nafter the little sketch.\n\n\"Chirrup!\" said the sparrows, \"it is nothing! It only looks like\nsomething. Chirrup! That is beautiful! Can you comprehend it? I\ncannot!\" And away they flew, for people came into the room.\n\nDays and months passed, the pigeons had often cooed, the sparrows had\nsuffered cold in winter, and in summer lived right jollily; they were\nall betrothed and married, or whatever you choose to call it. They had\nyoung ones, and each naturally considered his the handsomest and the\ncleverest: one flew here, another there; and if they met they\nrecognised each other by the \"Chirrup?\" and by the thrice-repeated\nscratching with the left leg. The eldest sparrow had remained an old\nmaid, who had no nest and no family; her favorite notion was to see a\nlarge town, so away she flew to Copenhagen.\n\nThere one beheld a large house, painted with many bright colors, quite\nclose to the canal, in which lay many barges laden with earthen pots\nand apples. The windows were broader below than above, and when the\nsparrow pressed through, every room appeared like a tulip, with the\nmost varied colors and shades, but in the middle of the tulip white\nmen were standing: they were of marble, some, too, were of plaister;\nbut when viewed with a sparrow's eyes, they are the same. Up above on\nthe roof stood a metal chariot, with metal horses harnessed to it; and\nthe goddess of victory, also of metal, held the reins. It was\n_Thorwaldsen's Museum._\n\n\"How it shines! How it shines!'' said the old maiden sparrow. That,\ndoubtless, is 'the beautiful.' Chirrup! But here it is larger than a\npeacock!\" She remembered still what her mother, when she was a child,\nhad looked upon as the grandest among all beautiful things. The\nsparrow fled down into the court: all was so magnificent. Palms and\nfoliage were painted on the walls. In the middle of the court stood a\nlarge, blooming rose-tree; it spread out its fresh branches, with its\nmany roses, over a grave. Thither flew the old maiden sparrow, for she\nsaw there many of her sort. \"Chirrup!\" and three scrapes with the left\nleg. Thus had she often saluted, from one year's end to the other, and\nnobody had answered the greeting--for those who are once separated do\nnot meet again every day--till at last the salutation had grown into a\nhabit. But to-day, however, two old sparrows and one young one\nanswered with a \"Chirrup!\" and with a thrice-repeated scrape of the\nleft leg.\n\n\"Ah, good day, good day!\" It was two old birds from the nest, and a\nlittle one besides, of the family. \"That we should meet here! It is a\nvery grand sort of place, but there is nothing to eat here: that is\n'the beautiful!' Chirrup!\"\n\nAnd many persons advanced from the side apartments, where the\nmagnificent marble figures stood, and approached the grave that hid\nthe great master who had formed the marble figures. All stood with,\nglorified countenances around Thorwaldsen's grave, and some picked up\nthe shed rose-leaves and carefully guarded them. They had come from\nfar--one from mighty England, others from Germany and France: the most\nlovely lady gathered one of the roses and hid it in her bosom. Then\nthe sparrows thought that the roses governed here, and that the whole\nhouse had been built on account of them. Now, this seemed to them, at\nall events, too much; however, as it was for the roses that the\npersons showed all their love, they would remain no longer. \"Chirrup!\"\nsaid they, and swept the floor with their tails, and winked with one\neye at the roses. They had not looked at them long before they\nconvinced themselves that they were their old neighbors. And they\nreally were so. The painter who had drawn the rose-bush beside the\nburned-down house, had afterwards obtained permission to dig it up,\nand had given it to the architect--for more beautiful roses had never\nbeen seen--and the architect had planted it on Thorwaldsen's grave,\nwhere it bloomed as a symbol of the beautiful, and gave up its red\nfragrant leaves to be carried to distant lands as a remembrance.\n\n\"Have you got an appointment here in town?\" asked the sparrows.\n\nAnd the roses nodded: they recognised their brown neighbors, and\nrejoiced to see them again. \"How delightful it is to live and to\nbloom, to see old friends again, and every day to look on happy faces!\nIt is as if every day were a holy-day.\"\n\n\"Chirrup!\" said the sparrows. \"Yes, it is in truth our old neighbors;\ntheir origin--from the pond--is still quite clear in our memory!\nChirrup! How they have risen in the world! Yes, Fortune favors some\nwhile they sleep! Ah! there is a withered leaf that I see quite\nplainly.\" And they pecked at it so long till the leaf fell off; and\nthe tree stood there greener and more fresh, the roses gave forth\ntheir fragrance in the sunshine over Thorwaldsen's grave, with whose\nimmortal name, they were united.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE DARNING-NEEDLE.\n\nThere was once upon a time a darning needle, that imagined itself so\nfine, that at last it fancied it was a sewing-needle.\n\n\"Now, pay attention, and hold me firmly!\" said the darning-needle to\nthe fingers that were taking it out. \"Do not let me fall! If I fall on\nthe ground, I shall certainly never be found again, so fine am I.\"\n\n\"Pretty well as to that,\" answered the fingers; and so saying, they\ntook hold of it by the body.\n\n\"Look, I come with a train!\" said the darning-needle, drawing a long\nthread after it, but there was no knot to the thread.\n\nThe fingers directed the needle against an old pair of shoes belonging\nto the cook. The upper-leather was torn, and it was now to be sewed\ntogether.\n\n\"That is vulgar work,\" said the needle; \"I can never get through it. I\nshall break! I shall break!\" And it really did break. \"Did I not say\nso?\" said the needle; \"I am too delicate.\"\n\n\"Now it's good for nothing,\" said the fingers, but they were obliged\nto hold it still; the cook dropped sealing-wax upon it, and pinned her\nneckerchief together with it.\n\n\"Well, now I am a breast-pin,\" said the darning-needle. \"I was sure I\nshould be raised to honor: if one is something, one is sure to get\non!\" and at the same time it laughed inwardly; for one can never see\nwhen a darning-needle laughs. So there it sat now as proudly as in a\nstate-carriage, and looked around on every side.\n\n\"May I take the liberty to inquire if you are of gold?\" asked the\nneedle of a pin that was its neighbor. \"You have a splendid exterior,\nand a head of your own, but it is small, however. You must do what you\ncan to grow, for it is not every one that is bedropped with\nsealing-wax!\" And then the darning-needle drew itself up so high that\nit fell out of the kerchief, and tumbled right into the sink, which\nthe cook was at that moment rinsing out.\n\n\"Now we are going on our travels,\" said the needle. \"If only I do not\nget lost!\" But it really did get lost.\n\n\"I am too delicate for this world!\" said the needle, as it lay in the\nsink, \"but I know who I am, and that is always a consolation;\" and the\ndarning-needle maintained its proud demeanor, and lost none of its\ngood-humor.\n\nAnd all sorts of things swam over it--shavings, straws, and scraps of\nold newspapers.\n\n\"Only look how they sail by,\" said the needle. \"They do not know what\nis hidden below them! I stick fast here: here I sit. Look! there goes\na shaving: it thinks of nothing in the world but of itself--but of a\nshaving! There drifts a straw; and how it tacks about, how it turns\nround! Think of something else besides yourself, or else perhaps\nyou'll run against a stone! There swims a bit of a newspaper. What's\nwritten there is long ago forgotten, and yet out it spreads itself, as\nif it were mighty important! I sit here patient and still: I know who\nI am, and that I shall remain after all!\"\n\nOne day there lay something close beside the needle. It glittered so\nsplendidly, that the needle thought it must be a diamond: but it was\nonly a bit of a broken bottle, and because it glittered the\ndarning-needle addressed it, and introduced itself to the other as a\nbreast-pin.\n\n\"You are, no doubt, a diamond?\"\n\n\"Yes, something of that sort.\" And so each thought the other something\nvery precious, and they talked together of the world, and of how\nhaughty it is.\n\n\"I was with a certain miss, in a little box,\" said the darning-needle,\n\"and this miss was cook; and on each hand she had five fingers. In my\nwhole life I have never seen anything so conceited as these fingers!\nAnd yet they were only there to take me out of the box and to put me\nback into it again!\"\n\n\"Were they, then, of noble birth?\" asked the broken bottle.\n\n\"Noble!\" said the darning-needle; \"no, but high-minded! There were\nfive brothers, all descendants of the 'Finger' family. They always\nkept together, although they were of different lengths. The outermost\none, little Thumb, was short and stout; he went at the side, a little\nin front of the ranks: he had, too, but one joint in his back, so that\nhe could only make one bow; but he said, if a man were to cut him off,\nsuch a one were no longer fit for military service. Sweet-tooth, the\nsecond finger, pryed into what was sweet, as well as into what was\nsour, pointed to the sun and moon, and he it was that gave stress when\nthey wrote. Longman, the third brother, looked at the others\ncontemptuously over his shoulder. Goldrim, the fourth, wore a golden\ngirdle round his body! and the little Peter Playallday did nothing at\nall, of which he was very proud. 'Twas boasting, and boasting, and\nnothing but boasting, and so away I went.\"\n\n\"And now we sit here and glitter,\" said the broken glass bottle.\n\nAt the same moment more water came along the gutter; it streamed over\nthe sides and carried the bit of bottle away with it.\n\n\"Well, that's an advancement,\" said the darning-needle. \"I remain\nwhere I am: I am too fine; but that is just my pride, and as such is\nto be respected.\" And there it sat so proudly, and had many grand\nthoughts.\n\n\"I should almost think that I was born of a sunbeam, so fine am I! It\nseems to me, too, as if the sunbeams were always seeking me beneath\nthe surface of the water. Ah! I am so fine, that my mother is unable\nto find me! Had I my old eye that broke, I verily think I could weep;\nbut I would not--weep! no, it's not genteel to weep!\"\n\nOne day two boys came rummaging about in the sink, where they found\nold nails, farthings, and such sort of things. It was dirty work;\nhowever, they took pleasure in it.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried one who had pricked himself with the needle, \"there's a\nfellow for you.\"\n\n\"I am no fellow, I am a lady!\" said the darning-needle; but no one\nheard it. The sealing-wax had worn off, and it had become quite black;\nbut black makes one look more slender, and the needle fancied it\nlooked more delicate than ever.\n\n\"Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!\" said the boys; and then they\nstuck the needle upright in the egg-shell.\n\n\"The walls white and myself black,\" said the needle. \"That is\nbecoming! People can see me now! If only I do not get seasick, for\nthen I shall snap.\"\n\nBut it was not sea-sick, and did not snap.\n\n\"It is good for sea-sickness to have a stomach of steel, and not to\nforget that one is something more than a human being! Now my\nsea-sickness is over. The finer one is, the more one can endure!\"\n\n\"Crack!\" said the egg-shell: a wheel went over it.\n\n\"Good heavens! how heavy that presses!\" said the needle. \"Now I shall\nbe sea-sick! I snap!\" But it did not snap, although a wheel went over\nit. It lay there at full length, and there it may lie still.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE LITTLE MATCH GIRL.\n\nMost terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and\nevening--the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there\nwent along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked\nfeet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was\nthe good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had\nhitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them\nas she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that\nrolled by dreadfully fast. One slipper was nowhere to be found; the\nother had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he\nthought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other\nshould have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her\ntiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a\nquantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in\nher hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no\none had given her a single farthing.\n\nShe crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of\nsorrow, the poor little thing!\n\nThe flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful\ncurls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now\nthought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt\nso deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was new year's eve;\nyes, of that she thought.\n\nIn a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the\nother, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet\nshe had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to\ngo home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and\ncould not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would\ncertainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she\nhad only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even though the\nlargest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.\n\nHer little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might\nafford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out\nof the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it.\nShe drew one out. \"Rischt!\" how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a\nwarm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it\nwas a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though\nshe were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet\nand a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed\ninfluence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already\nstretched out her feet to warm them too; but--the small flame went\nout, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt out\nmatch in her hand.\n\nShe rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the\nlight fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil,\nso that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a\nsnow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and\nthe roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and\ndried plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose\nhopped down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and\nfork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the\nmatch went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left\nbehind. She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the\nmost magnificent Christmas trees: it was still larger, and more\ndecorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in\nthe rich merchant's house.\n\n\n[Illustration: THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL.]\n\n\nThousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and\ngaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows\nlooked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands\ntowards them when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas\ntree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one\nfell down and formed a long trail of fire.\n\n\"Some one is just dead!\" said the little girl; for her old\ngrandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now no\nmore, had told her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God.\n\nShe drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in\nthe lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so\nmild, and with such an expression of love.\n\n\"Grandmother!\" cried the little one; \"oh, take me with you! You go\naway when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like\nthe delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!\"\nAnd she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall,\nfor she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her.\nAnd the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than\nat noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and\nso tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in\nbrightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was\nneither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.\n\nBut in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with\nrosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen\nto death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the\nchild there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. \"She\nwanted to warm herself,\" people said: no one had the slightest\nsuspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed\nof the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the\njoys of a new year.\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE RED SHOES.\n\nThere was once a little girl who was very pretty and delicate, but in\nsummer she was forced to run about with bare feet, she was so poor,\nand in winter wear very large wooden shoes, which made her little\ninsteps quite red, and that looked so dangerous!\n\nIn the middle of the village lived old Dame Shoemaker; she sate and\nsewed together, as well as she could, a little pair of shoes out of\nold red strips of cloth; they were very clumsy, but it was a kind\nthought. They were meant for the little girl. The little girl was\ncalled Karen.\n\nOn the very day her mother was buried, Karen received the red shoes,\nand wore them for the first time. They were certainly not intended for\nmourning, but she had no others, and with stockingless feet she\nfollowed the poor straw coffin in them.\n\nSuddenly a large old carriage drove up and a large old lady sate in\nit: she looked at the little girl, felt compassion for her, and then\nsaid to the clergyman:\n\n\"Here, give me the little girl, I will adopt her!\"\n\nAnd Karen believed all this happened on account of the red shoes, but\nthe old lady thought they were horrible, and they were burnt. But\nKaren herself was cleanly and nicely dressed; she must learn to read\nand sew; and people said she was a nice little thing, but the\nlooking-glass said: \"Thou art more than nice, thou art beautiful!\"\n\nNow the queen once traveled through the land, and she had her little\ndaughter with her. And this little daughter was a princess, and people\nstreamed to the castle, and Karen was there also, and the little\nprincess stood in her fine white dress, in a window, and let herself\nbe stared at; she had neither a train nor a golden crown, but splendid\nred morocco shoes. They were certainly far handsomer than those Dame\nShoemaker had made for little Karen. Nothing in the world can be\ncompared with red shoes.\n\nNow Karen was old enough to be confirmed; she had new clothes and was\nto have new shoes also. The rich shoemaker in the city took the\nmeasure of her little foot. This took place at his house, in his room;\nwhere stood large glass-cases, filled with elegant shoes and brilliant\nboots. All this looked charming, but the old lady could not see well,\nand so had no pleasure in them. In the midst of the shoes stood a pair\nof red ones, just like those the princess had worn. How beautiful they\nwere! The shoemaker said also they had been made for the child of a\ncount, but had not fitted.\n\n\"That must be patent leather!\" said the old lady, \"they shine so!'\"\n\n\"Yes, they shine!\" said Karen, and they fitted, and were bought, but\nthe old lady knew nothing about their being red, else she would never\nhave allowed Karen to have gone in red shoes to be confirmed. Yet such\nwas the case.\n\nEverybody looked at her feet; and when she stepped through the chancel\ndoor on the church pavement, it seemed to her as if the old figures on\nthe tombs, those portraits of old preachers and preachers' wives, with\nstiff ruffs, and long black dresses, fixed their eyes on her red\nshoes. And she thought only of them as the clergyman laid his hand\nupon her head, and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with\nGod, and how she should be now a matured Christian; and the organ\npealed so solemnly; the sweet children's voices sang, and the old\nmusic-directors sang, but Karen only thought of her red shoes.\n\nIn the afternoon, the old lady heard from every one that the shoes had\nbeen red, and she said that it was very wrong of Karen, that it was\nnot at all becoming, and that in future Karen should only go in black\nshoes to church, even when she should be older.\n\nThe next Sunday there was the sacrament, and Karen looked at the black\nshoes, looked at the red ones--looked at them again, and put on the\nred shoes.\n\nThe sun shone gloriously; Karen and the old lady walked along the path\nthrough the corn; it was rather dusty there.\n\nAt the church door stood an old soldier with a crutch, and with a\nwonderfully long beard, which was more red than white, and he bowed to\nthe ground, and asked the old lady whether he might dust her shoes.\nAnd Karen stretched out her little foot.\n\n\"See! what beautiful dancing-shoes!\" said the soldier, \"sit firm when\nyou dance;\" and he put his hand out towards the soles.\n\nAnd the old lady gave the old soldier an alms, and went into the\nchurch with Karen.\n\nAnd all the people in the church looked at Karen's red shoes, and all\nthe pictures, and as Karen knelt before the altar, and raised the cup\nto her lips, she only thought of the red shoes, and they seemed to\nswim in it; and she forgot to sing her psalm, and she forgot to pray,\n\"Our father in Heaven!\"\n\nNow all the people went out of church, and the old lady got into her\ncarriage. Karen raised her foot to get in after her, when the old\nsoldier said,\n\n\"Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!\"\n\nAnd Karen could not help dancing a step or two, and when she began her\nfeet continued to dance; it was just as though the shoes had power\nover them. She danced round the church corner, she could not leave\noff; the coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her, and\nhe lifted her in the carriage, but her feet continued to dance so that\nshe trod on the old lady dreadfully. At length she took the shoes off,\nand then her legs had peace.\n\nThe shoes were placed in a closet at home, but Karen could not avoid\nlooking at them.\n\nNow the old lady was sick, and it was said she could not recover. She\nmust be nursed and waited upon, and there was no one whose duty it was\nso much as Karen's. But there was a great ball in the city, to which\nKaren was invited. She looked at the old lady, who could not recover,\nshe looked at the red shoes, and she thought there could be no sin in\nit;--she put on the red shoes, she might do that also, she thought.\nBut then she went to the ball and began to dance.\n\nWhen she wanted to dance to the right, the shoes would dance to the\nleft, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced back\nagain, down the steps, into the street, and out of the city gate. She\ndanced, and was forced to dance straight out into the gloomy wood.\n\nThen it was suddenly light up among the trees, and she fancied it must\nbe the moon, for there was a face; but it was the old soldier with the\nred beard; he sate there, nodded his head, and said, \"Look, what\nbeautiful dancing shoes!\"\n\nThen she was terrified, and wanted to fling off the red shoes, but\nthey clung fast; and she pulled down her stockings, but the shoes\nseemed to have grown to her feet. And she danced, and must dance, over\nfields and meadows, in rain and sunshine, by night and day; but at\nnight it was the most fearful.\n\nShe danced over the churchyard, but the dead did not dance,--they had\nsomething better to do than to dance. She wished to seat herself on a\npoor man's grave, where the bitter tansy grew; but for her there was\nneither peace nor rest; and when she danced towards the open church\ndoor, she saw an angel standing there. He wore long, white garments;\nhe had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth; his\ncountenance was severe and grave; and in his hand he held a sword,\nbroad and glittering.\n\n\"Dance shalt thou!\" said he,--\"dance in thy red shoes till thou art\npale and cold! Till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton!\nDance shalt thou from door to door, and where proud, vain children\ndwell, thou shalt knock, that they may hear thee and tremble! Dance\nshalt thou------!\"\n\n\"Mercy!\" cried Karen. But she did not hear the angel's reply, for the\nshoes carried her through the gate into the fields, across roads and\nbridges, and she must keep ever dancing.\n\nOne morning she danced past a door which she well knew. Within sounded\na psalm; a coffin, decked with flowers, was borne forth. Then she knew\nthat the old lady was dead, and felt that she was abandoned by all,\nand condemned by the angel of God.\n\nShe danced, and she was forced to dance through the gloomy night. The\nshoes carried her over stack and stone; she was torn till she bled;\nshe danced over the heath till she came to a little house. Here, she\nknew, dwelt the executioner; and she tapped with her fingers at the\nwindow, and said, \"Come out! come out! I cannot come in, for I am\nforced to dance!\"\n\nAnd the executioner said, \"Thou dost not know who I am, I fancy? I\nstrike bad people's heads off; and I hear that my axe rings!\"\n\n\"Don't strike my head off!\" said Karen, \"then I can't repent of my\nsins! But strike off my feet in the red shoes!\"\n\nAnd then she confessed her entire sin, and the executioner struck off\nher feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced away with the little\nfeet across the field into the deep wood.\n\nAnd he carved out little wooden feet for her, and crutches, taught her\nthe psalm criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand which had\nwielded the axe, and went over the heath.\n\n\"Now I have suffered enough for the red shoes!\" said she; \"now I will\ngo into the church that people may see me!\" And she hastened towards\nthe church door: but when she was near it, the red shoes danced before\nher, and she was terrified, and turned round. The whole week she was\nunhappy, and wept many bitter tears; but when Sunday returned, she\nsaid, \"Well, now I have suffered and struggled enough! I really\nbelieve I am as good as many a one who sits in the church, and holds\nher head so high!\"\n\nAnd away she went boldly; but she had not got farther than the\nchurchyard gate before she saw the red shoes dancing before her; and\nshe was frightened, and turned back, and repented of her sin from her\nheart.\n\nAnd she went to the parsonage, and begged that they would take her\ninto service; she would be very industrious, she said, and would do\neverything she could; she did not care about the wages, only she\nwished to have a home, and be with good people. And the clergyman's\nwife was sorry for her and took her into service; and she was\nindustrious and thoughtful. She sate still and listened when the\nclergyman read the Bible in the evenings. All the children thought a\ndeal of her; but when they spoke of dress, and grandeur, and beauty,\nshe shook her head.\n\nThe following Sunday, when the family was going to church, they asked\nher whether she would not go with them; but she glanced sorrowfully,\nwith tears in her eyes, at her crutches. The family went to hear the\nword of God; but she went alone into her little chamber; there was\nonly room for a bed and chair to stand in it; and here she sate down\nwith her prayer-book; and whilst she read with a pious mind, the wind\nbore the strains of the organ towards her, and she raised her tearful\ncountenance, and said, \"O God, help me!\"\n\nAnd the sun shone so clearly! and straight before her stood the angel\nof God in white garments, the same she had seen that night at the\nchurch door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its\nstead a splendid green spray, full of roses. And he touched the\nceiling with the spray, and the ceiling rose so high, and where he had\ntouched it there gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls, and\nthey widened out, and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the\nold pictures of the preachers and the preachers' wives. The\ncongregation sat in cushioned seats, and sang out of their\nprayer-books. For the church itself had come to the poor girl in her\nnarrow chamber, or else she had come into the church. She sate in the\npew with the clergyman's family, and when they had ended the psalm and\nlooked up, they nodded and said, \"It is right that thou art come!\"\n\n\"It was through mercy!\" she said.\n\nAnd the organ pealed, and the children's voices in the choir sounded\nso sweet and soft! The clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the\nwindow into the pew where Karen sate! Her heart was so full of\nsunshine, peace, and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine\nto God, and there no one asked after the Red Shoes.\n\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTO THE YOUNG READERS\n\nHere is another volume of Andersen's charming stories for you; and I\nam sure you will be glad to get it. For my part, I am always delighted\nto find one that I do not happen to have yet seen; and as I know the\nothers pleased you--for I have heard so, both directly and indirectly,\nfrom a great many people, there can be no doubt that you all will be\noverjoyed to have a few more of these stories told you.\n\nAnd there is no one who participates in this delight more than--whom\ndo you think? Why, than Andersen himself! He is so happy that his\nTales have been thus joyfully received, and that they have found their\nway to the hearts and sympathies of you all. He speaks of it with\nevident pleasure; and it is not vanity, but his kind affectionate\nnature, which inclines him to mention such little occurrences as prove\nhow firm a hold his writings have taken on the minds of the young and\ngentle-natured. \"So much praise might,\" he says, \"spoil a man, and\nmake him vain. Yet no, it does not spoil him: on the contrary, it\nmakes him better; it purifies his thoughts, and this must give one the\nimpulse and the will to deserve it all.\" He was so pleased to hear,\nand I, you may be sure, was equally pleased to tell him, what had been\nwritten to me by a friend a short time before--that several little\nboys and girls, Miss Edgeworth's nephews and nieces were so delighted\nwith the \"**Tales From Denmark**,\" that they not only read and re-read\nthem continually, but used _to act the stories_ together in their\nplay-hours!\n\nAnd a certain little dark-eyed thing of my acquaintance, \"little\nNelly,\" or \"the little gipsey,\" as I sometimes call her, knows the\nwhole story of \"Ellie and the Pretty Swallow,\" by heart; and another\n\"wee thing,\" that cannot yet read, but is always wanting to have\nstories told her, knows all about Kay and Gerda, and the\nflower-garden, and how Gerda went to look for her brother, inquiring\nof every body she met, and how at last the good sister found him.\n\nIn Copenhegan, as Andersen himself told me, all the children know him.\n\"And,\" he said, with such a countenance that showed such homage was\ndearer to him than the more splendid honors paid as tributes to his\ngenius, \"as I walk along the street, the little darlings nod and kiss\ntheir hands to me; and they say to one another, 'There's Andersen!'\nand then some more run and wave their hands. Oh yes, they all know me.\nBut sometimes, if there be one who does not, then, perhaps, his mamma\nwill say, 'Look, that is he who wrote the story you read the other\nday, and that you liked so much;' and so we soon get acquainted.\" And\n_this_ popularity delights him more than anything; and you surely\ncannot call it vanity.\n\nIn the account he has written of his life, he relates a circumstance\nthat happened to him at Dresden; and it is so pretty that I insert it\nhere. He writes: \"An evening that for me was particularly interesting\nI spent with the royal family, who received me most graciously. Here\nreigned the same quiet that is found in private life in a happy\nfamily. A whole troop of amiable children, all belonging to Prince\nJohn, were present. The youngest of the princesses, a little girl who\nknew that I had written the story of 'The Fir-tree,' began familiarly\nher conversation with me in these words: 'Last Christmas we also had a\nfir-tree, and it stood here in this very room.' Afterwards, when she\nwas taken to bed earlier than the others, and had wished her parents\nand the king and queen 'Good night,' she turned round once more at the\nhalf-closed door, and nodded to me in a friendly manner, and as though\nwe were old acquaintance. I was her prince of the fairy tale.\"\n\nBut it is not the praise of the great, or the admiration of a court,\non which he sets most value, as you will see by the following extract\nfrom a letter which I received from him to-day, only an hour or two\nago. It is about his stay in England, and his visit to the north,\nafter I had left him, and I am sure he will not mind my sharing thus\nmuch of what he writes to me with you. \"The hearty welcome I met with\nin Scotland moved me greatly. My writings were so well known, I found\nso many friends, that I can hardly take in so much happiness. But I\nmust relate you one instance: in Edinburgh I went with a party of\nfriends to Heriot's Hospital, where orphan children are taken care of\nand educated. We were all obliged to inscribe our names in the\nvisitors' book. The porter read the names, and asked if that was\nAndersen the author: and when some one answered 'Yes,' the old man\nfolded his hands and gazed quite in ecstacy at an old gentleman who\nwas with us, and said: 'Yes, yes! he is just as I had always fancied\nhim to myself--the venerable white hair--the mild expression--yes,\nthat is Andersen!' They then explained to him that I was the person.\n'That young man!' he exclaimed; 'Why generally such people, when one\nhears about them, are either dead or very old.' When the story was\ntold me, I at first thought it was a joke; but the porter came up to\nme in a most touching manner, and told me how he and all the boys\nentered so entirely and heartily into my stories. It so affected me\nthat I almost shed tears.\"\n\nThis is indeed popularity!\n\nNow I dare say you thought that the little princes and princesses in a\nking's palace had tastes and feelings very different from a poor\ncharity-boy; but you see, although so different in rank, they were\nalike in one thing--they were both children; and childhood, if left to\nitself, is in all situations the same.\n\nAnd do you know, too, my little friends, that you are very excellent\ncritics? Yes, most sage and excellent critics; though I dare say not\none of you even ever dreamt of such a thing. But it is, nevertheless,\ntrue; and not some, but all of you, whether in England, Scotland, or\nIreland--the little boys in Heriot's Hospital, and the little princess\nat Dresden who knew the story of \"The Fir-Tree.\" For without one\ndissentient voice you have passed favorable judgment on these stories:\nin your estimation of them your were unanimous.\n\nYet when they first appeared in Denmark some of the critics by\nprofession found fault with them, and wondered, as they said, how an\nauthor who had written works of greater pretension, could think of\nmaking his appearance with something so childish as these tales. And\nsome kind friends, grown-up people, whose opinion was not unimportant,\nadvised him by all means to give up writing such stories as he had no\ntalent for them; and it was only later, that, to use Andersen's own\nwords, \"every door and heart in Denmark was open to them.\" But all of\nyou, not critics by profession, you welcomed them at once; as soon as\nyou saw them you perceived their beauty--you cherished and gave them a\nplace in your heart. And this is the reason why I say that you are\nsage and excellent critics; and if you can preserve the same\nsimple-heartedness, finding pleasure in what is natural and truthful,\nand allow yourselves to be guided by the instincts of your pure\nuncorrupted nature, you may always be so.\n\nYou will like to know that Thorwaldsen, the great Thorwaldsen, loved\nto hear Andersen repeat these tales. It is true he has quite a\npeculiar way of relating them, which adds greatly to their charm. I\nbegged him one day to tell me the story of \"The Top and Ball,\" and he\nimmediately sat down on the sofa and began. Though I knew it by heart\nfrom beginning to end, so often had I read it over, yet it now seemed\nquite new, from his manner of telling it; and I was as amused and\nlaughed as much as though I had never heard it before. That very\npretty one, \"Ole Luckoie,\" was written when in the society of\nThorwaldsen; and \"often at dusk,\" so Andersen relates, \"when the\nfamily circle were sitting in the summer house, would Thorwaldsen\nglide gently in, and, tapping me on the shoulder, ask, 'Are we little\nones to have no story tonight?' It pleased him to hear the same story\nover and over again; and often, while employed on his grandest works,\nhe would stand with a smiling countenance and listen to the tale of\n'Top and Ball,' and 'The Ugly Duck.'\" The last is my favorite also.\n\nFrom Rome, where this occurred, you must now take a jump with me to\nHamburg; for I have to tell you an anecdote that happened there to\nAndersen, also, about his stories which he relates in his \"Life.\" He\nhad gone to see Otto Speckter, whose clever and characteristic\npictures most of you will certainly know, and he intended to go\nafterwards to the play. Speckter accompanied him. \"We passed an\nelegant house. 'We must first go in here, my dear friend,' said he; 'a\nvery rich family lives there, friends of mine, friends of your tales;\nthe children will be overjoyed--' 'But the opera,' said I. 'Only for\ntwo minutes,' he replied, and drew me into the house, told my name,\nand the circle of children collected round me. 'And now repeat a\nstory,' he said: 'only a single one.' I did so, and hurried to the\ntheatre. 'That was a strange visit,' I said. 'A capital one! a most\nexcellent one!' shouted he. 'Only think! the children are full of\nAndersen and his fairy tales: all of a sudden he stands in the midst\nof them, and relates one himself, and then he is gone--vanished. Why,\nthat very circumstance is a fairy tale for the children, and will\nremain vividly in their memory.' It amused me too.\"\n\nYou will be getting impatient, I am afraid. However, before I finish I\nmust tell you something about the stories in this volume. The\ntranslation of them I had begun in Andersen's room, and when he came\nin we began talking about them, one of which, \"The Little Girl with\nthe Matches,\" I had read in his absence. I told him how delighted I\nwas with it--that I found it most exquisitely narrated; but that how\nsuch a thing came into his head, I could not conceive. He then said,\n\"That was written when I was on a visit at The Duke of Augustenburg's.\nI received a letter from Copenhagen from the editor of a Danish\nalmanac for the people, in which he said he was very anxious to have\nsomething of mine for it, but that the book was already nearly\nprinted. In the letter were two woodcuts, and these he wished to make\nuse of, if only I would write something to which they might serve as\nillustrations. One was the picture of a little match-girl, exactly as\nI have described her. It was from the picture that I wrote the\nstory--wrote it surrounded by splendor and rejoicing, at the castle of\nGrauenstein, in Schleswig.\"\n\n\"And Little Tuk,\" said I.--\"Oh! 'Little Tuk,'\" answered he, laughing;\n\"I will tell you all about him. When in Oldenburg I lived for some\ntime at the house of a friend, the Counsellor von E***. The children's\nnames were Charles and Gustave (Augusta?) but the little boy always\ncalled himself 'Tuk.' He meant to say 'Charles,' but he could not\npronounce it otherwise. Now once I promised the dear little things\nthat I would put them in a fairy tale, and so both of them appeared,\nbut as poor children in the story of 'Little Tuk.' So you see, as\nreward for all the hospitality I received in Germany, I take the\nGerman children and make Danes of them.\"\n\nYou see he can make a story out of anything. \"They peep over his\nshoulder,\" as he once wrote to me, a long time ago. And one time, when\nhe was just going to set off on a journey, his friend said to him, \"My\nlittle Erich possesses two leaden soldiers, and he has given one of\nthem to me for you, that you may take it with you on your travels.\"\n\nNow I should not at all wonder if this were the very \"Resolute Leaden\nSoldier\" you read of in the \"**Tales From Denmark**;\" but this one, it\nis true, was a Turk, and I don't think the other was. And then, too,\nthere is nothing said about this one having but one leg. However, it\nmay be the same, after all.\n\nAs to the tale called \"The Naughty Boy,\" that, it is true, is an old\nstory. The poet Anacreon wrote it long, long ago; but Andersen has\nhere re-told it in so humorous a manner, that it will no doubt amuse\nyou as much as though it had been written originally by him. He has\ngiven the whole, too, quite another dress; and \"the naughty boy\"\nhimself he has tricked out so drolly, and related such amusing tricks\nof him, that I think Mr. Andersen had better take care the young rogue\ndoes not play him a sly turn some day or other, for the little\nincorrigible rascal respects nobody.\n\nBefore I say farewell, there is one thing I must tell you; which is,\nthere are two persons you certainly little think of, to whom you owe\nsome thanks for the pretty tales of Anderson that have so greatly\ndelighted you, as well as for those he may still write. You will never\nguess who they are, so I will tell you. They are Frederick VI., the\nlate, and Christian VIII., the present King of Denmark. The former\ngave Andersen a pension to relieve him from the necessity of depending\non his pen for bread; so that, free from cares, he was able to pursue\nhis own varied fancies. Though not much, it was sufficient; but the\npresent king, who has always been most kind to your friend\nAndersen--for so you surely consider him--increased his pension\nconsiderably, in order that, he might be able to travel, and follow in\nfull liberty the bent of his genius.\n\nNow do you not like a king who thus holds out his hand to genius, who\ndelights to honor the man who has done honor to their common country,\nand who is proud to interest himself in his fate as in that of a\nfriend? And this King Christian VIII. does. Am I not right, then, in\nsaying that you owe him your thanks?\n\nFarewell, my little friends, and believe that I am always ready and\nwilling to serve you.\n\nCharles Boner.*\n\nDonau Stauf, near Ratisbon.\n\n------\n\n* By whom several of the stories in this volume were translated\n\n------------\n\n\n\nPublished by James Miller, New York.\n\n\n\n------------\n\n\n\nTHE STORY\n\nOF THE\n\nRED BOOK OF APPIN:\n\nA Fairy Tale of the Middle Ages.\n\nWITH\n\nAN INTERPRETATION.\n\nBy the Author of\n\"Alchemy and the Alchemists,\"\n\"Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher,\" and\n\"Christ the Spirit.\"\n\nPrice 50 cents.\n\n\n------\n\n\n\nTHE ICE MAIDEN,\n\nAnd other Tales.\n\nBy Hans Christian Andersen.\n\nTranslated by Fanny Fuller. Price 75 cents.\n\n\n\n------\n\n\n\nON THE\n\nCHARACTER AND INFLUENCE\n\nof\n\nWASHINGTON.\n\nBy M. Guizot.\n\n50 cents.\n\n\n\n------\n\n\n\nFRIENDS IN COUNCIL.\n\nA SERIES OF READINGS, AND DISCOURSES THEREON.\n\n4 vols. 12mo.\n\n\n\n------\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nUGLY DUCK,\n\nAnd other Tales.\n\nBY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.\n\nIllustrated.\n\n[Illustration: Mother Holding Mistletoe Above Infant.]\n\nNew York:\n\nPublished by James Miller,\n\n(Successor To C. S. Francis & Co.)\n\n522 Broadway.","title":"A Christmas Greeting: A Series of Stories","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":29738}