No More Learning

A
UGUST 31st, 1869. — I have finished Schopenhauer. My mind
has been a tumult of opposing systems, - Stoicism, Qui-
etism, Buddhism, Christianity. Shall I never be at peace
with myself? If impersonality is a good, why am I not consist-
ent in the pursuit of it ? and if it is a temptation, why return to
it, after having judged and conquered it ?
Is happiness anything more than a conventional fiction ? The
deepest reason for my state of doubt is that the supreme end and
aim of life seems to me a mere lure and deception. The indi-
vidual is an eternal dupe, who never obtains what he seeks, and
who is forever deceived by hope. My instinct is in harmony
with the pessimism of Buddha and of Schopenhauer. It is a
doubt which never leaves me, even in my moments of religious
fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Maïa; and I look at her, as it
were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skep-
tical. What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what
is it I hope for ? It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe
in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within
this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hid-
den - a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in
love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millen-
nium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, a
pseudo-scoffer.
“Borné dans sa nature, infini dans ses veux,
L'homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux. )
M.
ARCH 17TH, 1870. - This morning the music of a brass band
which had stopped under my windows moved me almost
to tears.
It exercised an indefinable, nostalgic power over
me; it set me dreaming of another world, of infinite passion and
supreme happiness. Such impressions are the echoes of Paradise


## p. 487 (#521) ############################################

HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
487
in the soul; memories of ideal spheres whose sad sweetness rav-
ishes and intoxicates the heart. O Plato! O Pythagoras! ages
ago you heard these harmonies, surprised these moments of
inward ecstasy, - knew these divine transports! If music thus
carries us to heaven, it is because music is harmony, harmony is
perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.
A
PRIL ist, 1870. — I am inclined to believe that for a woman
love is the supreme authority, — that which judges the rest
and decides what is good or evil. For a man, love is sub-
ordinate to right. It is a great passion, but it is not the source •
of order, the synonym of reason, the criterion of excellence. It
would seem, then, that a woman places her ideal in the perfec-
tion of love, and a man in the perfection of justice.
၂'
UNE 5TH, 1870. -- The efficacy of religion lies precisely in that
which is not rational, philosophic, nor eternal; its efficacy
lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary.
Thus religion attracts more devotion in proportion as it demands
more faith, that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the
profane mind. The philosopher aspires to explain away all mys-
teries, to dissolve them into light. It is mystery, on the other
hand, which the religious instinct demands and pursues: it is
mystery which constitutes the essence of worship, the power of
proselytism. When the cross became the “foolishness of the
cross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day,
those who wish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten
religion, to economize faith, find themselves deserted, like poets
who should declaim against poetry, or women who should decry
love. Faith consists in the acceptance of the incomprehensible,
and even in the pursuit of the impossible, and is self-intoxicated
with its own sacrifices, its own repeated extravagances.
It is the forgetfulness of this psychological law which stulti-
fies the so-called liberal Christianity. It is the realization of it
which constitutes the strength of Catholicism.
Apparently, no positive religion can survive the supernatural
element which is the reason for its existence, Natural religion
seems to be the tomb of all historic cults. All concrete religions
die eventually in the pure air of philosophy. So long then as
the life of nations is in need of religion as a motive and sanc-
tion of morality, as food for faith, hope, and charity, so long


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488
HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
will the masses turn away from pure reason and naked truth,
so long will they adore mystery, so long — and rightly so
will they rest in faith, the only region where the ideal presents
itself to them in an attractive form.
0°
CTOBER 26TH, 1870. — If ignorance and passion are the foes
of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indif-
ference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The mod-
ern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and
conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and
vulgar crowd, is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty.
When any society produces an increasing number of literary
exquisites, of satirists, skeptics, and beaux esprits, some chemical
disorganization of fabric may be inferred. Take, for example,
the century of Augustus and that of Louis XV. Our cynics and
railers are mere egotists, who stand aloof from the common
duty, and in their indolent remoteness are of no service to
society against any ill which may attack it. Their cultivation
consists in having got rid of feeling. And thus they fall farther
and farther away from true humanity, and approach nearer to
the demoniacal nature. What was it that Mephistopheles lacked ?
Not intelligence, certainly, but goodness.
D*
ECEMBER LITH, 1872. — The ideal which the wife and mother
makes for herself, the manner in which she understands
duty and life, contain the fate of the community. Her
faith becomes the star of the conjugal ship, and her love the
animating principle that fashions the future of all belonging to
her. Woman is the salvation or destruction of the family. She
carries its destinies in the folds of her mantle.
JANE
ANUARY 220, 1875. — The thirst for truth is not a French
passion. In everything appearance is preferred to reality,
the outside to the inside, the fashion to the material, that
which shines to that which profits, opinion to conscience. That
is to say, the Frenchman's centre of gravity is always outside
him,- he is always thinking of others, playing to the gallery.
To him individuals are so many zeros: the unit which turns
them into a number must be added from outside; it may
be
royalty, the writer of the day, the favorite newspaper, or any
other temporary master of fashion. - All this is probably the


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HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
489
result of an exaggerated sociability, which weakens the soul's
forces of resistance, destroys its capacity for investigation and
personal conviction, and kills in it the worship of the ideal.
D
ECEMBER 9TH, 1877. — The modern haunters of Parnassus
carve urns of agate and of onyx; but inside the urns what
is there ? -- Ashes. Their work lacks feeling, seriousness,
sincerity, and pathos - in a word, soul and moral life. I cannot
bring myself to sympathize with such a way of understanding
poetry. The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff and matter
are wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand alone --
a substitute for everything else. We find metaphors, rhymes,
music, color, but not man, not humanity. Poetry of this facti-
tious kind may beguile one at twenty, but what can one make
of it at fifty? It reminds me of Pergamos, of Alexandria, of all
the epochs of decadence when beauty of form hid poverty of
thought and exhaustion of feeling. I strongly share the repug-
nance which this poetical school arouses in simple people. It is
as though it only cared to please the world-worn, the over-subtle,
the corrupted, while it ignores all normal healthy life, virtuous
habits, pure affections, steady labor, honesty, and duty. It is an
affectation, and because it is an affectation the school is struck
with sterility. The reader desires in the poem something better
than a juggler in rhyme, or a conjurer in verse; he looks to find
in him a painter of life, a being who thinks, loves, and has a
conscience, who feels passion and repentance,
The true critic strives for a clear vision of things as they are
– for justice and fairness; his effort is to get free from himself,
so that he may in no way disfigure that which he wishes to
understand or reproduce. His superiority to the common herd
lies in this effort, even when its success is only partial. He dis-
trusts his own senses, he sifts his own impressions, by returning
upon them from different sides and at different times, by com-
paring, moderating, shading, distinguishing, and so endeavoring
to approach more and more nearly to the formula which repre-
sents the maximum of truth.
The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presup-
poses the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.


## p. 490 (#524) ############################################

HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
490
M^
AY 19TH, 1878. — Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a
matter of tact and flair; it cannot be taught or demon-
strated, - it is an art. Critical genius means an aptitude
for discerning truth under appearances or in disguises which con-
ceal it; for discovering it in spite of the errors of testimony, the
frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss or alteration of
texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing deceives
for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail. It is the
talent of the Juge d'Instruction who knows how to interrogate
circumstances, and to extract an unknown secret from a thousand
falsehoods. The true critic can understand everything, but he
will be the dupe of nothing, and to no convention will he sacrifice
his duty, which is to find out and proclaim truth. Competent
learning, general cultivation, absolute probity, accuracy of general
view, human sympathy, and technical capacity,- how many things
are necessary to the critic, without reckoning grace, delicacy,
savoir vivre, and the gift of happy phrasemaking!
M
AY 220, 1879 (Ascension Day). - Wonderful and delicious
weather. Soft, caressing sunlight,- the air a limpid blue, -
twitterings of birds; even the distant voices of the city
have something young and springlike in them. It is indeed a
new birth.
The ascension of the Savior of men is symbolized
by the expansion, this heavenward yearning of nature. . . I
feel myself born again; all the windows of the soul are clear.
Forms, lines, tints, reflections, sounds, contrasts, and harmonies,
the general play and interchange of things, – it is all enchanting!
In my court-yard the ivy is green again, the chestnut-tree is
full of leaf, the Persian lilac beside the little fountain is flushed
with red and just about to flower; through the wide openings to
the rignt and left of the old College of Calvin I see the Salève
above the trees of St. Antoine, the Voirons above the hill of
Cologny; while the three flights of steps which, from landing to
landing, lead between two high walls from the Rue Verdaine to
the terrace of the Tranchées, recall to one's imagination some old
city of the south, a glimpse of Perugia or of Malaga.
All the bells are ringing. It is the hour of worship. A his-
torical and religious impression mingles with the picturesque, the
musical, the poetical impressions of the scene. All the peoples
of Christendom — all the churches scattered over the globe — are
celebrating at this moment the glory of the Crucified.


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HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
491
And what are those many nations doing who have other
prophets, and honor the Divinity in other ways — the Jews, the
Mussulmans, the Buddhists, the Vishnuists, the Guebers? They
have other sacred days, other rites, other solemnities, other beliefs.
But all have some religion, some ideal end for life — all aim at
raising man above the sorrows and smallnesses of the present,
and of the individual existence. A11 have faith in something
greater than themselves, all pray, all bow, all adore; all see
beyond nature, Spirit, and beyond evil, Good. All bear witness
to the Invisible. Here we have the link which binds all peoples
together.
All men are equally creatures of sorrow and desire,
of hope and fear. All long to recover some lost harmony with
the great order of things, and to feel themselves approved and
blessed by the Author of the universe. All know what suffering
is, and yearn for happiness. All know what sin is, and feel the
need of pardon.
Christianity, reduced to its original simplicity, is the reconcili-
ation of the sinner with God, by means of the certainty that God
loves in spite of everything, and that he chastises because he
loves. Christianity furnished a new motive and a new strength
for the achievement of moral perfection. It made holiness attract-
ive by giving to it the air of filial gratitude.
ULY a
Jºsunshine
, and have just come back rejoicing in a renewed
communion with nature. The waters of the Rhone and the
Arve, the murmur of the river, the austerity of its banks, the
brilliancy of the foliage, the play of the leaves, the splendor of
the July sunlight, the rich fertility of the fields, the lucidity of
the distant mountains, the whiteness of the glaciers under the
azure serenity of the sky, the sparkle and foam of the mingling
rivers, the leafy masses of the La Bâtie woods, - all and every-
thing delighted me. It seemed to me as though the years of
strength had come back to me. I was overwhelmed with sensa-
tions. I was surprised and grateful. The universal life carried
me on its breast; the summer's caress went to my heart. Once
more my eyes beheld the vast horizons, the soaring peaks, the
blue lakes, the winding valleys, and all the free outlets of old
days. And yet there was no painful sense of longing. The
scene left upon me an indefinable impression, which was neither
hope, nor desire, nor regret, but rather a sense of emotion, of


## p. 492 (#526) ############################################

492
ANACREON
passionate impulse, mingled with admiration and anxiety.
I am
conscious at once of joy and of want; beyond what I possess
I see the impossible and the unattainable; I gauge my own
wealth and poverty: in a word, I am and I am not — my inner
state is one of contradiction, because it is one of transition.
A"
.
PRIL IOTH, 1881 [he died May uth). — What dupes we are of
our own desires! . . Destiny has two ways of crush-
ing us— by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
But he who only wills what God wills escapes both catastrophes.
« All things work together for his good. ”
ANACREON
(B. C. 562 ? -477)
F the life of this lyric poet we have little exact knowledge.
We know that he was an Ionian Greek, and therefore by
racial type a luxury-loving, music-loving Greek, born in the
city of Teos on the coast of Asia Minor. The year was probably
B. C. 562. With a few fellow-citizens, it is supposed that he fled to
Thrace and founded Abdera when Cyrus the Great, or his general
Harpagus, was conquering the Greek cities of the coast. Abdera,
however, was too new to afford luxurious living, and the singing
Ionian soon found his way to more genial
Samos, whither the fortunes of the world
then seemed converging. Polycrates was
“ tyrant,” in the old Greek sense of irre-
sponsible ruler; but withal so large-minded
and far-sighted a man that we may use a
trite comparison and say that under him
his island was, to the rest of Greece, as
Florence in the time of Lorenzo the Mag-
nificent was to the rest of Italy, or Athens
in the time of Pericles to the other Hellenic
States. Anacreon became his tutor, and
may have been of his council; for Herodo-
ANACREON
tus says that when Orætes went to
see
Polycrates he found him in the men's apartment with Anacreon the
Teian. Another historian says that he tempered the stern will of
the ruler. Still another relates that Polycrates once presented him
with five talents, but that the poet returned the sum after two nights



## p. 493 (#527) ############################################

ANACREON
493
made sleepless from thinking what he would do with his riches, say-
ing it was not worth the care it cost. ”
After the murder of Polycrates, Hipparchus, who ruled at Athens,
sent a trireme to fetch the poet. Like his father Pisistratus, Hip-
parchus endeavored to further the cause of letters by calling poets to
his court. Simonides of Ceos was there; and Lasus of Hermione, the
teacher of Pindar; with many rhapsodists or minstrels, who edited
the poems of Homer and chanted his lays at the Panathenæa, or high
festival of Athena, which the people celebrated every year with de-
vout and magnificent show. Amid this brilliant company Anacreon
lived and sang until Hipparchus fell (514) by the famous conspiracy
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. He then returned to his native
Teos, and according to a legend, died there at the age of eighty-
five, choked by a grape-seed.
Anacreon was a lyrist of the first order. Plato's poet says of him
in the 'Symposium,' “When I hear the verses of Sappho or Anacreon,
I set down my cup for very shame of my own performance. ” He
composed in Greek somewhat, to use a very free comparison, as Her-
rick did in English, expressing the unrefined passion and excesses
which he saw, just as the Devonshire parson preserved the spirit of
the country festivals of Old England in his vivid verse.
To Anacreon music and poetry were inseparable. The poet of his
time recited his lines with lyre in hand, striking upon it in the
measure he thought best suited to his song. Doubtless the poems of
Anacreon were delivered in this way. His themes were simple,
wine, love, and the glorification of youth and poetry; but his imagin-
ation and poetic invention so animated every theme that it is the
perfect rendering which we see, not the simplicity of the common-
place idea. His delicacy preserves him from grossness, and his grace
from wantonness. In this respect his poems are a fair illustration of
the Greek sense of self-limitation, which guided the art instincts of
that people and made them the creators of permanent canons of
taste.
Anacreon had no politics, no earnest interest in the affairs of life,
no morals in the large meaning of that word, no aims reaching
further than the merriment and grace of the moment. Loving luxury
and leisure, he was the follower of a pleasure-loving court. His cares
are that the bowl is empty, that age is joyless, that women tell him
he is growing gray. He is closely paralleled in this by one side of
Béranger; but the Frenchman's soul had a passionately earnest half
which the Greek entirely lacked. Nor is there ever any outbreak
of the deep yearning, the underlying melancholy, which pervades
and now and then interrupts, like a skeleton at the feast, the gayest
verses of Omar Khayyam.


## p. 494 (#528) ############################################

494
ANACREON
His metres, like his matter, are simple and easy. So imitators,
perhaps as brilliant as the master, have sprung up and produced a
mass of songs; and at this time it remains in doubt whether any
complete poem of Anacreon remains untouched. For this reason the
collection is commonly termed Anacreontics. ' Some of the poems
are referred to the school of Gaza and the fourth century after
Christ, and some to the secular teachings and refinement of the
monks of the Middle Ages. Since the discovery and publication of
the text by Henry Stephens, in 1554, poets have indulged their lighter
fancies in such songs, and a small literature of delicate trifles now
exists under the name of Anacreontics) in Italian, German, and
English. Bergk's recension of the poems appeared in 1878. The
standard translations, or rather imitations in English, are those of
Cowley and Moore. The Irish poet was not unlike in nature to the
ancient Ionian. Moore's fine voice in the London drawing-rooms
echoes at times the note of Anacreon in the men's quarters of Po-
lycrates or the symposia of Hipparchus. The joy of feasting and
music, the color of wine, and the scent of roses, alike inspire the
songs of each.
DRINKING
THE
HE thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again,
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By 's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and, when he's done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light;
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there; for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
ley's Translation.


## p. 495 (#529) ############################################

ANACREON
495
AGE
OT
FT am I by the women told,
Poor Anacreon, thou grow'st old!
Look how thy hairs are falling all;
Poor Anacreon, how they fall!
Whether I grow old or no,
By th' effects I do not know;
This I know, without being told,
'Tis time to live, if I grow old;
'Tis time short pleasures now to take,
Of little life the best to make,
And manage wisely the last stake.
Cowley's Translation.
THE EPICURE
I
F
Ill the bowl with rosy wine!
Around our temples roses twine!
And let us cheerfully awhile,
Like the wine and roses, smile.
Crowned with roses, we contemn
Gyges' wealthy diadem.
To-day is ours, what do we fear ?
To-day is ours; we have it here:
Let's treat it kindly, that it may
Wish, at least, with us to stay.
Let's banish business, banish sorrow;
To the gods belongs to-morrow.
II
U
NDERNEATH this myrtle shade,
On flowery beds supinely laid,
With odorous oils my head o'erflowing,
And around it roses growing,
What should I do but drink away
The heat and troubles of the days?
In this more than kingly state
Love himself shall on me wait.
Fill to me, Love, nay fill it up;
And, mingled, cast into the cup


## p. 496 (#530) ############################################

496
ANACREON
Wit, and mirth, and noble fires,
Vigorous health, and gay desires.
The wheel of life no less will stay
In a smooth than rugged way:
Since it equally doth flee,
Let the motion pleasant be.
Why do we precious ointments show'r?
Noble wines why do we pour ?
Beauteous flowers why do we spread,
Upon the monuments of the dead ?
Nothing they but dust can show,
Or bones that hasten to be so.
Crown me with roses while I live,
Now your wines and ointments give
After death I nothing crave;
Let me alive my pleasures have,
All are Stoics in the grave.
Cowley's Translation.
GOLD
A
MIGHTY pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
Virtue now, nor noble blood,
Nor wit by love is understood;
Gold alone does passion move,
Gold monopolizes love;
A curse on her, and on the man
Who this traffic first began!
A curse on him who found the ore!
A curse on him who digged the store!
A curse on him who did refine it!
A curse on him who first did coin it!
A curse, all curses else above,
On him who used it first in love!
Gold begets in brethren hate;
Gold in families debate;
Gold does friendship separate;
Gold does civil wars create.
These the smallest harms of it!
Gold, alas! does love beget.
Cowley's Translation.


## p. 497 (#531) ############################################

ANACREON
497
THE GRASSHOPPER
H
APPY Insect! what can be
In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy Morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill;
'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread,
Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing;
Happier than the happiest king!
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants, belong to thee:
All that summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.
Man for thee does sow and plow;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently joy:
Nor does thy luxury destroy;
The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.
Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year!
Thee Phæbus loves, and does inspire;
Phæbus is himself thy sire.
To thee, of all things upon Earth,
Life's no longer than thy mirth.
Happy insect, happy thou !
Dost neither age nor winter know;
But, when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,
(Voluptuous, and wise withal,
Epicurean animal! )
Sated with thy summer feast,
Thou retir'st to endless rest.
Cowley's Translation,
THE SWALLOW
F
OOLISH prater, what dost thou
So early at my window do,
With thy tuneless serenade?
Well 't had been had Tereus made
Thee as dumb as Philomel;
There his knife had done but well.
11-32


## p. 498 (#532) ############################################

498
ANACREON
In thy undiscovered nest
Thou dost all the winter rest,
And dreamest o'er thy summer joys,
Free from the stormy season's noise:
Free from th' ill thou'st done to me;
Who disturbs or seeks out thee ?
Hadst thou all the charming notes
Of the wood's poetic throats,
All thou art could never pay
What thou hast ta'en from me away.
Cruel bird! thou'st ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne'er must equaled be
By all that waking eyes may see.
Thou, this damage to repair,
Nothing half so sweet or fair,
Nothing half so good, canst bring,
Though men say thou bring'st the Spring.
Cowley's Translation.
THE POET'S CHOICE
I
F HOARDED gold possessed a power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every day should swell my store;
That when the fates would send their minion,
To waft me off on shadowy pinion,
I might some hours of life obtain,
And bribe him back to hell again.
But since we ne'er can charm away
The mandate of that awful day,
Why do we vainly weep at fate,
And sigh for life's uncertain date ?
The light of gold can ne'er illume
The dreary midnight of the tomb!
And why should I then pant for treasures ?
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures;
The goblet rich, the hoard of friends,
Whose flowing souls the goblet blends!
Moore's Translation.


## p. 499 (#533) ############################################

ANACREON
499
DRINKING
1
CARE not for the idle state
Of Persia's king, the rich, the great!
I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own.
But oh! be mine the rosy braid,
The fervor of my brows to shade;
Be mine the odors, richly sighing,
Amid my hoary tresses flying.
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to-morrow ne'er should shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling cup and cordial smile;
And shed from every bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus's shrine !
For Death may come, with brow unpleasant,
May come when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the sable shore,
And grimly bid us — drink no more!
Moore's Translation.
A LOVER'S SIGH
T"
He Phrygian rock that braves the storm
Was once a weeping matron's form;
And Procne, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.
Oh that a mirror's form were mine,
To sparkle with that smile divine;
And like my heart I then should be,
Reflecting thee, and only thee!
Or could I be the robe which holds
That graceful form within its folds;
Or, turned into a fountain, lave
Thy beauties in my circling wave;
Or, better still, the zone that lies
Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs!
Or like those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow!


## p. 500 (#534) ############################################

500
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
1
Yes, I would be a happy gem,
Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Oh, anything that touches thee,
Nay, sandals for those airy feet –
Thus to be pressed by thee were sweet!
Moore's Translation.
1
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
(1805-1875)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
»
HE place of Hans Christian Andersen in literature is that of
the “Children's Poet,” though his best poetry is prose.
He was born in the ancient Danish city of Odense, on April
20, 1805, of poor and shiftless parents. He had little regular instruc-
tion, and few childish associates. His youthful imagination was first
stimulated by La Fontaine's Fables) and the Arabian Nights,' and
he showed very early a dramatic instinct, trying to act and even to
imitate Shakespeare, though, as he says, “hardly able to spell a single
word correctly. ” It was therefore natural that the visit of a dramatic
company to Odense, in 1818, should fire his fancy to seek his theatri-
cal fortune in Copenhagen; whither he went in September, 1819, with
fifteen dollars in his pocket and a letter of introduction to a danseuse
at the Royal Theatre, who not unnaturally took her strange visitor
for a lunatic, and showed him the door. For four years he labored
diligently, suffered acutely, and produced nothing of value; though
he gained some influential friends, who persuaded the king to grant
him a scholarship for three years, that he might prepare for the
university.
Though he was neither a brilliant nor a docile pupil, he did not
exhaust the generous patience of his friends, who in 1829 enabled
him to publish by subscription his first book, A Journey on Foot
from Holm Canal to the East Point of Amager): a fantastic ara-
besque, partly plagiarized and partly parodied from the German
romanticists, but with a naïveté that might have disarmed criticism.
In 1831 there followed a volume of poems, the sentimental and
rather mawkish Fantasies and Sketches,' product of a journey in
Jutland and of a silly love affair. This book was so harshly criti-
cized that he resolved to seek a refuge and new literary inspiration
in a tour to Germany; for all through his life, traveling was Ander-
sen's stimulus and distraction, so that he compares himself, later, to
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HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
501
a pendulum bound to go backward and forward, tic, toc, tic, toc,
till the clock stops, and down I lie. ”
This German tour inspired his first worthy book, Silhouettes,'
with some really admirable pages of description. His success encour-
aged him to attempt the drama again, where he failed once more,
and betook himself for relief to Paris and Italy, with a brief stay in
the Jura Mountains, which is delightfully described in his novel,
(O. T. '
Ital had n him much the ame clarifying effect that it had
on Goethe; and his next book, the novel Improvisatore' (1835),
achieved and deserved a European recognition. Within ten years
the book was translated into six languages. It bears the mark of its
date in its romantic sentiments. There is indeed no firm character-
drawing, here or in any of his novels; but the book still claims
attention for its exquisite descriptions of Italian life and scenery.
The year 1835 saw also Andersen's first essay in the Wonder
Stories, which were to give him his lasting title to grateful remem-
brance. He did not think highly of this work at the time, though
his little volume contained the now classic (Tinderbox,' and Big
Claus and Little Claus. Indeed, he always chafed a little at the
modest fame of a writer for children; but he continued for thirty-
seven years to publish those graceful fancies, which in their little
domain still hold the first rank, and certainly gave the freest scope
to Andersen's qualities, while they masked his faults and limitations.
He turned again from this “sleight of hand with Fancy's golden
apples,” to the novel, in the ‘O. T. ' (1836), which marks no advance
on the Improvisatore'; and in the next year he published his best
romance, Only a Fiddler,' which is still charming for its autobio-
graphical touches, its genuine humor, and its deep pathos. At the
time, this book assured his European reputation; though it has less
interest for us to-day than the “Tales,' or the Picture Book without
Pictures (1840), where, perhaps more than anywhere else in his work,
the child speaks with all the naïveté of his nature.
A journey to the East was reflected in A Poet's Bazaar' (1842);
and these years contain also his last unsuccessful dramatic efforts,
“The King Dreams' and 'The New Lying-in Room. In 1843 he was
in Paris, in 1844 in Germany, and in the next year he extended his
wanderings to Italy and England, where Mary Howitt's translations
had assured him a welcome. Ten years later he revisited England
as the guest of Dickens at Gadshill.
The failure of an epic, Ahasuerus’ (1847), and of a novel, “The
Two Baronesses' (1849), made him turn with more interest to wonder
tales and fairy dramas, which won a considerable success; and when
the political troubles of 1848 directed his wanderings toward Sweden,


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502
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
>
he made from them I Sverrig' (In Sweden: 1849), his most exquisite
book of travels. As Europe grew peaceful again he resumed his in-
defatigable wanderings, visiting Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland,
Spain, Bohemia, and England; printing between 1852 and 1862 nine
little volumes of stories, the mediocre but successful In Spain? (1860),
and his last novel, (To Be or Not To Be (1857), which reflects the
religious speculations of his later years.
He was now in comparatively easy circumstances, and passed the
last fifteen years of his life unharassed by criticism, and surrounded
with the “honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,” that should
accompany old age. It was not until 1866 that he made himself a
home; and even at sixty-one he said the idea “positively frightened
him — he knew he should run away from it as soon as ever the first
warm sunbeam struck him, like any other bird of passage. ”
In 1869 he celebrated his literary jubilee. In 1872 he finished his
last (Stories. That year he met with an accident in Innsbrück from
which he never recovered. Kind friends eased his invalid years; and
so general was the grief at his illness that the children of the United
States collected a sum of money for his supposed necessities, which
at his request took the form of books for his library. A few months
later, after a brief and painless illness, he died, August ist, 1875. His
admirers had already erected a statue in his honor, and the State gave
him a magnificent funeral; but his most enduring monument is that
which his Wonder Tales) are still building all around the world.
The character of Andersen is full of curious contrasts. Like the
French fabulist, La Fontaine, he was a child all his life, and often a
spoiled child; yet he joined to childlike simplicity no small share of
worldly wisdom. Constant travel made him a shrewd observer of
detail, but his self-absorption kept him from sympathy with the broad
political aspirations of his generation.
In the judgment of his friends and critics, his autobiographical
(Story of My Life is strangely unjust, and he never understood the
limitations of his genius. He was not fond of children, nor personally
attractive to them, though his letters to them are charming.
In personal appearance he was limp, ungainly, awkward, and odd,
with long lean limbs, broad flat hands, and feet of striking size.
His eyes were small and deep-set, his nose very large, his neck very
long; but he masked his defects by studied care in dress, and
always fancied he looked distinguished, delighting to display his
numerous decorations on his evening dress in complacent profusion.
On Andersen's style there is a remarkably acute study by his
fellow-countryman Brandes, in Kritiker og Portraiter' (Critiques and
Portraits), and a useful comment in Boyesen's Scandinavian Litera-
ture. When not perverted by his translators, it is perhaps better


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HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
503
suited than any other to the comprehension of children. His syntax
and rhetoric are often faulty; and in the “Tales' he does not hesitate
to take liberties even with German, if he can but catch the vivid,
darting imagery of juvenile fancy, the “ohs” and “ahs” of the nurs-
ery, its changing intonations, its fears, its smiles, its personal appeals,
and its venerable devices to spur attention and kindle sympathy.
Action, or imitation, takes the place of description. We hear the
trumpeter's taratantara and the pattering rain on the leaves, rum
dum dum, rum dum dum. ” The soldier «comes marching along, left,
right, left, right. ” No one puts himself so wholly in the child's place
and looks at nature so wholly with his eyes as Andersen. If you
hold one of those burdock leaves before your little body it's just like
an apron, and if you put it on your head it's almost as good as an
umbrella, it's so big. " Or he tells you that when the sun shone on
the flax, and the clouds watered it, "it was just as nice for it as it
is for the little children to be washed and then get a kiss from
mother: that makes them prettier; of course it does. ” And here, as
Brandes remarks, every right-minded mamma stops and kisses the
child, and their hearts are warmer for that day's tale.
The starting-point of this art is personification. To the child's
fancy the doll is as much alive as the cat, the broom as the bird,
and even the letters in the copy-book can stretch themselves. On
this foundation he builds myths that tease by a certain semblance of
rationality, — elegiac, more often sentimental, but at their best, like
normal children, without strained pathos or forced sympathy.
Such personification has obvious dramatic and lyric elements; but
Andersen lacked the technique of poetic and dramatic art, and
marred his prose descriptions, both in novels and books of travel, by
an intrusive egotism and lyric exaggeration. No doubt, therefore,
the most permanent part of his work is that which popular instinct
has selected, the Picture Book without Pictures,' the Tales and
Stories); and among these, those will last longest that have least of
the lyric and most of the dramatic element.
Nearly all of Andersen's books are translated in ten uniform but
unnumbered volumes, published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Of the numerous translations of the “Tales,' Mary Howitt's (1846) and
Sommer's (1893) are the best, though far from faultless.
The Life of Hans Christian Andersen' by R. Nisbet Bain (New
York, 1895) is esteemed the best.
Bani hello


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504
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER
From Collected Fairy Tales, newly translated
T"
HERE were once twenty-five tin soldiers, who were all brothers,
for they were cast out of one old tin spoon. They held
their muskets, and their faces were turned to the enemy;
red and blue, ever so fine, were the uniforms. The first thing
they heard in this world, when the cover was taken from the
box where they lay, were the words, “Tin soldiers! ” A little
»
boy shouted it, and clapped his hands. He had got them because
it was his birthday, and now he set them up on the table. Each
soldier was just like the other, only one was a little different.
He had but one leg, for he had been cast last, and there was
not enough tin. But he stood on his one leg just as firm as the
others on two, so he was just the one to be famous.
On the table where they were set up stood a lot of other
playthings; but what caught your eye was a pretty castle of
paper. Through the little windows you could see right into the
halls. Little trees stood in front, around a bit of looking-glass
which was meant for a lake. Wax swans swam on it and were
reflected in it. That was all very pretty, but still the prettiest
thing was a little girl who stood right in the castle gate. She
was cut out of paper too, but she had a silk dress, and a little
narrow blue ribbon across her shoulders, on which was a spark-
ling star as big as her whole face. The little girl lifted her
arms gracefully in the air, for she was a dancer; and then she
lifted one leg so high that the tin soldier could not find it at all,
and thought that she had only one leg, just like himself.
“That would be the wife for me,” thought he, “but she is too
fine for me. She lives in a castle, and I have only a box, which
I have to share with twenty-four. That is no house for her.
.
But I will see whether I can make her acquaintance. ” Then he
lay down at full length behind a snuff-box which was
on the
table. From there he could watch the trig little lady who kept
standing on one leg without losing her balance. When evening
came, the other tin soldiers were all put in their box, and the
people in the house went to bed. Then the playthings began to
play, first at "visiting,” then at "war” and at "dancing. ” The
“
tin soldiers rattled in their box, for they would have liked to
join in it, but they could not get the cover off. The nutcracker
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HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
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turned somersaults, and the pencil scrawled over the slate.
There was such a racket that the canary-bird woke up and began
to sing, and that in verses. The only ones that did not stir were
the tin soldier and the little dancer. She stood straight on tip-
toe and stretched up both arms; he was just as steadfast on his
one leg. He did not take his eyes from her a moment.
Now it struck twelve, and bang!