The Home of Hans Christian Andersen
by
Horace E. Scudder (1884)
It is a curious freak of fortune which has associated the little country of
Denmark in most people's minds with two names representing the most
contrasted personalities, Hamlet, the protagonist of human speculation,
and Hans Christian Andersen, the first child-author. He was not the first
to write for children, nor the first to introduce the child into literature;
another distinction belongs to him: he was the first child who had
contributed to literature. The work by which he is best known is nothing
more nor less than an artistic creation of precisely the order which is
common among children.
It is part of the common experience of men to endow inanimate
things with more or less life through the operation of the imagination.
Even mere symbols are made to have a superfluity of life. But the power
of personifying that which seems to have no personality is strongest in
childhood; it is very apt to die out or become indistinct in later years.
Andersen never lost this power; be cultivated it; and that which with
children is vivid but formless became with him even more vivid, but
ordered and disposed as by the laws of art.
This, I think, may be taken as the peculiar contribution of Andersen
to literature: he was the interpreter to the world of that creative power
which is significant of childhood: the child spoke through him. He was
himself, as his autobiography and the unvarying testimony of his friends
show, a child all his life. The Naïveté which is so large an element in his
stories was an expression of his own artless nature; his was a condition
almost of arrested development. He was an excessively vain man, but his
vanity was the innocent egotism of a child who wants everybody to look
at him when he is doing anything which pleases himself. He bemoans
with amusing simplicity the indifference which people showed to his
philosophical writings; he avers with an air of injured innocence that he
studied very hard, and was often reading difficult books at midnight,
when people supposed he was amusing himself. He would have
discontinued such trivial matters as writing his little tales, but they
forced themselves from him.
It was hard for Andersen's contemporaries to withhold their ridicule of
this strange figure, and it is still difficult for Danes to accept cordially the
conspicuous position in their literature which he holds in the eyes of
foreigners. He wrote novels, poems, books of travel, and dramas. He ranked
as an artist and a man of creative power in these forms below others of his
time and nation, yet it will be found that when Danish literature is named,
Andersen is quite the only figure in it of familiar repute beyond the
boundaries of his own country, and this not by virtue of these larger works,
but through a few wonder-stories.
Andersen was by no means a man who preferred to associate with
children. When it was proposed in his lifetime to erect in the Rosenborg
Garden in Copenhagen a statue in his honor, various sculptors submitted
designs. One of them was a pleasing one which would probably reflect
the sentiment of most people regarding him; it represented the great
storyteller with two children by his knee while he told them stories.
Andersen objected positively to the conception, for he said he was not in
the habit of taking children thus into his arms. The design which was
chosen, and was presumably accepted by him, presents him in a curule
chair, a cloak falling off his shoulders, while he bends forward, holding.
with his finger between the leaves, a thin book, which might contain one
of his stories, and stretching forth the other hand with an eager gesture.
This eagerness, too, is in his face and his parted lips; he is reciting one of
his stories. The statue, which is of bronze, stands upon a pedestal bearing
in front his name, with dates of his birth and death, and on the sides
pretty reliefs, the one of the Ugly Duckling group, the other of a child
borne upon a stork. A simple inscription states that the statue was erected
in 1880 by the Danish people in memory of time wonder-story poet.
The statue was planned before Andersen's death in 1875, and his
countrymen, who had been forced into a pride in his genius, and had
adopted a good-natured tone of admiration toward him, somewhat as one
might humor a spoiled child, entertained themselves with the thought that
Andersen would every day take a walk in the Rosenborg Gardens and
admire the bronze effigy of himself. I think they really regretted the loss of
this reflected pleasure. Well, one might easily choose a less agreeable walk,
even with somebody else's statue than his own at the end of it. The garden is
the resort of nursery-maids and children, and there in the sunny afternoons
of the long Northern summer days one may see children sporting in the long
avenue overhun1g with grateful shade, at the end of which, in a little garden
plant, stands Andersen's statue. Andersen had not a beautiful face, nor a
graceful figure, but the sculptor, by giving the face the glow of animation
and making the figure eager and unconscious, has achieved a signal triumph
in a perfectly honest and truthful manner.
Intimate and extended mental association with the Danish story teller
rendered very trivial sights and incidents in Copenhagen and Odense
interesting to me. Sentences out of his stories of no sort of intrinsic value
remained in my head, and came up to entertain me as I walked through
the streets. In the introduction for instance, to The Galoshes of Fortune,
in Charles Boner's admirable translation—Boner is much the best
translator Andersen has had—the beginning reads: "Every author has
some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style of writing. Those who
do not like him magnify it, shrug their shoulders, and exclaim, 'There he
is again!' I, for my part, know very well how I can bring about this
movement and this exclamation. It would happen immediately if I were
to begin here as I intended to do, with, 'Rome has its Corso, Naples its
Toledo.' 'Ah, that Andersen! there he is again!' they would cry. Yet I
must, to please my fancy, continue quite quietly, and add, 'but
Copenhagen has its East Street.'"
As soon as I had chosen my quarters I sallied out, and struck at once
into East Street, much pleased to find it as narrow, as winding, and as
insignificant generally as Washington Street in Boston. What a charm
and consolation it brings to us in our travels when the homely
imagination which we have had proves to have been in excess of the
fact! The people in East Street were innocent of any historic or literary
consciousness. The shops were more ambitions to be French than to
preserve Danish peculiarities and it was only by repeopling the place
with Andersen's characters and with himself that I could attain anything
like an artistic satisfaction. It was thus that a perfectly commonplace
street—Hyskenstræde (Small-houses Street)—tempted me its whole
length, simply because it was associated in my mind with the story of
The Old Bachelor's Night-Cap, and I sought the Frederiks Hospital to
see the dull, ordinary iron picket-fence in front of it, through which the
unfortunate young man in The Galoshes of Fortune thrust his head. I
even crossed over to Christianshavn, and set out on a walk to the east
end of Amager, in order to reproduce for myself Andersens first literary
venture, when be published his Journey on Foot from Holmens Kanal to
the East Point of Amager.
But, after all, it was the Copenhagen of Andersen's own fortune
which interested me most. The story of his forlorn youth there, of the
awkward, sensitive poet in his Ugly Duckling period, is one of the vivid
sentences in modern literary history. Andersen wrote his experience for
the Danish people, and he never had anything cosmopolitan about him,
so that any one who reads sympathetically the early chapters of his
autobiography must necessarily acquire a kind of intimacy with people
who have very little historical significance. The names of Collin,
Guldberg, Dahlen, Colbjørnsen, Carl Jacobsen (founder of Carlsberg)
come to have for him an individuality which is absolutely the gift of
Andersen, while the better known names of Ingemann, Heiberg, Ørsted,
Ochlenschläger, Weyse, Hertz, Grundtvig, Kierkegaard and others are
identified by the passing references in the book. The frequent recurrence
of these names in Andersen's autobiography with familiar reference
gives to the foreigner who is indebted to the book for his knowledge of
Danish life a feeling as if he had known these people casually and under
social conditions, not through literary history, so that Copenhagen, when
he comes to visit the city, has been introduced to him by Andersen.
Of course such a knowledge is superficial enough, but it answers the
agreeable purpose of making one feel at home in the city. Such a
comfortable sensation is increased by what I may call the homeliness of
Copenhagen. There is little that is striking in architectural feature. The
Exchange with its twisted dragon spire is a picturesque red brick
building of the Dutch Renaissance style, which is under careful
restoration piece by piece. The Round Tower, attached to the Church of
the Trinity, used once as an observatory for looking up, and now as an
observatory for looking down and off, has only the character of a
gigantic tube, up which one ascends by a paved roadway, rising in a
gentle slope as it winds round a smaller tube. It would be possible to
drive to the top, and emperors and queens and the like have amused
themselves thus; but I followed the crowd, who clung to the inner wall
going up, and trotted down by the larger outer circle. The walls,
especially near the top, were scrawled with names and dates. I saw
Rossini's name in very bold letters. The Church of Our Saviour has a
curious spiral staircase winding outside of the spire, and there is a quaint
old facade from 1616 in the Amagertorv, but aside from these the public
and private buildings would hold the eye accustomed to Flemish towns
but a short time.
In the absence of any masterpieces of architecture, one returns to
what I have characterized as the homeliness of the town. The churches
are big, spacious, and hospitable houses. I remember especially the
impression produced on me by Frederik's Church in Christianshavn,
where the square auditorium had very few seats on the floor, but was
surrounded in the oddest manner by three galleries, with curtains before
them, so that, if the congregation chose, it could draw its curtains and go
to sleep while the minister prosed in his pulpit. In another church—the
one with a spiral staircase about its spire—there were four tiers of these
private boxes in the transepts, and wood-carving of the most demoralized
sort met the eye when gazing at the huge altarpiece and at the organ,
which was held up by two huge wooden elephants that served as
caryatides.
The palaces likewise, with no exterior splendor, but with gardens and
honest-looking rooms, gave one the feeling that royalty made itself
comfortable rather than spectacular. The museums were housed in
palaces, the Thorvaldsen one only being in a building erected for the
purpose; and inasmuch as the objects in the museums were largely the
odds and ends of past royal living, one enjoyed the sense of being cheek
by jowl with the titular great. Indeed, the principal museum, the famous
Museum of Northern Antiquities, which occupies the Princes Palace,
owes its importance, after the indefatigable zeal of Mr. Thomsen, its
great custodian in days gone by, to the unremitting interest which the
government and people together have shown in its collections, so that an
immense store of objects illustrating the whole range of Scandinavian
life has been accumulated within its walls, and arranged with intelligent
judgment. It seemed to me much the most popular museum which I ever
visited. A living stream of visitors flowed through the rooms, and took a
careful chronological course in its movement.
Thorvaldsen's Museum divides the honors with the Museum of
Northern Antiquities, and the traveller, though he may have thought of
the frequent reference which Andersen makes to the sculptor, does not
need this introduction to a man who divides with Andersen the
distinction of Danish fame in the minds of foreigners. The museum is
devoted exclusively to originals or copies of Thorvaldsen's work, and to
furniture or works of art which belonged to the sculptor, who made the
Danish people his heirs. The first impression which one gets from
walking through the galleries is of the astounding productiveness of the
man, but the longer he looks the more he is likely to find the marvel
comprehensible. Here is, indeed, a great array of statuary, but the same
subject recurs repeatedly; the plaster reappears in the marble, and studies
abound which indicate the variations upon a certain round of themes. It
is a pity that the collection is not so arranged for the student that he may
see in a group all the work produced by Thorvaldsen upon a single
theme. Instead, the effort is apparently made to secure the widest vanety
of artistic grouping so that the separate rooms shall each be agreeable
little galleries of sculpture.
Aside from the portrait busts, the few illustrations of religious art for
churches, and the occasional memorial sculpture, the great mass of
works consists of illustrations of classic fable, and here again one
discovers a further limitation in the constant recurreuce by Thorvaldsen
to the myth of Amor and Psyche, and the loveliest of his work was the
marble group of Amor and Psyche reunited in heaven. There is a series
of bass-reliefs entitled "Amor's Dominion over the World," and one is
tempted to take it as expressing most completely the sculptor's
conception of life. He was a man born with a love of sensuous beauty
who came late to a knowledge of the Greek form, and seized upon it, and
all the myths which it represented, as sufficient aud satisfying. After that
lie desired chiefly to reproduce the Greek idea as it swayed his own life.
There is thus little thought in his work, little attempt at losing himself in
a great idea, little imagination, but considerable fancy, and great fertility
in the use of Greek examples. These lie handled as the material which
was familiar to him, and he never got far from time use of a few simple
forms.
There was one curious invention as applied to Christian art and that
was in a whimsical illustration of the story of Adam and Eve. They are
represented seated together, while Adam holds Abel on his knee. An
altar fire burns near. Abel has an apple in his uplifted hand, and Cain,
who is on the ground, spurns another apple with his foot, at time same
time snatching at Abel's. The serpent looks upon this family group,
which appears to have been Thorvaldsen's sculpturesque conception of
an antithesis to the Holy Family. But in the treatment of the subject of
Christian art one is apt to discover how completely Thorvaldsen was
dominated by a Greek and, I may add, a pagan sense. He was often
called upon for memorial stones, and his conception of Death was
always one of fear. Such triumph as he delineated was always that of a
sublimated human passion, as instanced in Psyche. In the direct subjects
of the Christ and the Apostles the twelve are merely conventional
figures, with scarcely any individuality springing from personal or
typical traits, and the Christ was the elegant work of a man whose
thought was controlled by Greek lines and inspired by a traditional
Protestantism.
I have strayed a little from my subject, but Thorvaldsen and his work
give a special significance to Danish life, which has a very lively interest
in questions of art. The gallery, the ballet, the theatre, music, and
literature are constantly making demands upon popular attention, and
receiving the meed of discussion at any rate. Any one reading Andersen's
life is struck by the village-like character of the society in which he
moved, by the rough-and-tumble life which the followers of the arts
endured, and the jostling criticism which fell to every one's share. It was
midsummer when I was in Copenhagen, and I had no opportunity to see
some of the dramatic representations which give distinction to Denmark;
but I went to Tivoli with every one else, and saw there a characteristic
side of life.
Tivoli is not so unique a place as it once was, for the fashion which it
set has been abundantly copied; but it remains as one of the most
interesting of summer gardens, and this for the simple reason that Danish
society is uncompromisingly democratic and homogeneous. There are
absolutely no places of amusement in Copenhagen which have a class
distinction. At Tivoli one sees the richest and most gentle by the side of
the poorest and humblest. It is a social exchange where there is the most
complete consideration for every one.
I went to Tivoli one evening when there was to be a series of
entertainments especially for children. I can not say that there was very
much novelty in the programme. There was a varied and skillful use of the
customary sports; jugglers and strong men made the astonishing common-
place; brass bands and string bands played at judicious distance from each
other; pantomime and comedy were housed under cover, while the audience
stood outside; whirhigigs went round, balloons went up, and there was one
extraordinary amusement, which may have been reproduced elsewhere, but
never chanced to come in my way. It is called in Danish Rutschebane, and
may as well be dubbed in English rush-railway. A tower stands. at either end
of a railway, which is perhaps a hundred and eighty feet in length, forty feet
high at one extremity, and half as high at the other. I climbed the rude
staircase of the higher tower, and found myself in a room crowded with
people waiting tbeir opportunity for a ride. At the entrance stood a phaeton-
like car on four small iron wheels, the car being very stout, and holding two
people with comfort. The wheels were in grooves, and the course extended
over the descending and ascending slopes. Two people would get into the
car and be strapped in by a leathern boot; the car would be started down the
inclined plane by an attendant, and away it would go down the first slope,
and by its impetus rise to the next height, go over and down and up again at
each rise pitching a little lower, at each pitch rising to a lesser height, until
the last slope, when it rushed up the hill, bumped against a buffer, and the
two travellers got out. The car would then be seized, dragged aside, put
upon a lift, hauled up to a height above, and sent back, with other
passengers or empty, down a corresponding road parallel to the first, and
terminating in a similar low tower by the side of the one I was in, where
it would be hoisted again into place, and be ready to make the round of
the rush-railway again.
I stood by the entrance where the car started down, watching the
couples get into the vehicle and then go thundering down the slope. I
saw sedate men who might have been bank presidents get in, and
children, and ardent youths and maidens, two by two. They held each
other in; they almost lost their hats; they bowed, and fell back upon the
huge "thank-you-ma'ams"; they looked frightened, and they looked bold;
they smiled, and they almost cried; but I heard no one scream. At length,
when I had politely given way to those more eager, I was driven by
shame and an inextinguishable curiosity to try this reckless "coast." I
paid the fare—about two and a half cents—and took my seat. I jammed
my hat down over my brow, grasped the back of the car with one hand,
and no doubt turned pale as the push was given and we began that awful
descent. I felt that thrilling sensation of vibration in the pit of my
stomach which one has in a swing when descending, and then we shot up
the slope, saw a new abyss, and plunged into it. A delicious reprieve was
followed by another fearful descent; four times we dashed in the face of
fate, and then, with one triumphant rush, flew up the last incline. I got
out of the car with my wits standing on end, and tumbled down the
staircase in a bewildered, groggy way, anxious to get my legs upon the
immovable earth again.
There was no mistaking the thorough enjoyment which everybody
took in this amusing place, and the decorum and good feeling seemed to
come by nature. The applause was enthusiastic and energetic, and one
formed a most agreeable impression of the sociability of the people. No
doubt something is due to the absence of a foreign element. All are
Danes, and know each other as people do in a large village.
May I add that this democratic spirit was specially agreeable in the
grave-yards? I went to the large cemetery where Andersen lies buried.
Good taste was universally shown, and there was no display. Simple
tablets and little family lots neatly ordered seemed to suggest no
distinction of class or wealth. But it was odd to see how titles were
always scrupulously placed on the stone, or if the man had no honorary
title, then his occupation, so that one learned that Wine-merchant
Pedersen lay buried here, Musical-instrument-maker Frederik Richter
there, and in one Place I read, "This stone is raised to the memory of the
Veteran Chocolate-manufacturer Reimer Timotheus Kehiet." I found
Andersen's resting-place after considerable search. A neat Scotch granite
stone stands in a small inclosure, where roses bloom in a box-bordered
pint, and ivy vines and a prickly thorn give constant greenness. On the
stone are Andersen's name, date of birth and death, and a stanza from
one of his poems, which I venture to translate:
The soul which in God's own image is made
Eternal is—can never fade
Eternity's seed in our life doth lie—
The body may fall, the soul can not die.
A fading wreath lay at the foot of the stone, placed there ten days before, on
the anniversary of his death. I was glad to think that lie lay in so quiet a
place.
It chanced to me to have entrance into the family life of Roughed,
upon the outskirts of the city, where Andersen spent many happy days,
and where he died. I was in the midst there of familiar memories of
Andersen, and got at his home life, as it may not be unfair to call it, if it
was a borrowed home. Through the glimpses of sketches and
photographs I saw him in the garden, lying upon the grass, talking with
the painter Bloch, receiving a little child as she gravely brought him a
stork and a doll, seated at his table, and among his books. Here he read
his new stories as he wrote them, and listened, not always with patience,
but always with instruction, to the criticisms offered, and so worked and
reworked his little fancies. He had an odd genius for cutting out figures,
and there was a drawing which he had made to preserve some view,
curiously good and stiff, like the work of a very old master.
Andersen's life, when not spent in travel, was passed chiefly in
Copenhagen. Thither he came to seek his fortune when a boy, and rarely
did he go hack to his birth-place in Odense; but the reader of his life will
recall the early days there, and the brief triumph when the city was
illuminated and a celebration held on the seventieth anniversary of
Andersen's birth. I spent a few hours in the old town before leaving
Denmark, and traced the few signs not yet obliterated of the story-teller's
childhood there. The house where he was born is pulled down, but the
house associated with his childhood still stands, altered, as the
neighborhood is. A tablet upon the side of the house commemorates the
poet's connection with it, but I could not discover the corner in the roof
where was the little garden which he describes so charmingly in The
Snow Queen. The Bell's Hollow I saw in the deep shade of the Bishop's
Garden, and the Monk's Mill still grinds its meal. Best of all, as I strolled
along the river down to which the garden used to run from the house
where Andersen lived, I saw a number of ducks paddling about, and to
my supreme joy they all set upon one forlorn little duck and began to
peck at it. I was content with this. It was worth the visit to Odense to see
the veritable Ugly Duckling at the foot of Andersen's gooseberry-bush
garden.
Horace E. Scudder.
The Home of Hans Christian Andersen,
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Glossary:
freak of fortune: skæbnens lunefuldhed
associate: forbinde
contrasted personalities: personlighedsmodsætninger
protagonist: ledende skikkelse
distinction: særkende
contribute: bidrage til
endow: udstyre
inanimate: sjælløs
superfluity: overflod
apt to: tilbøjelig til
indistinct: skjult, glemt
vivid: levende
dispose: opstille
testimony: bevidnelse
arrested: standset
excessively: yderst
vain: forfængelig
egotism: egoisme
bemoan: begræde
aver: forsikre
injured: såret
contemporary: samtidig
withhold: ændre
ridicule: latterliggørelse
cordial: hjertelig
conspicuous: iøjnefaldende
repute: ry
virtue: værdi
erect: rejse
sentiment: holdning
conception: forestilling
curule chair: sammenklappelig stol
pedestal: piedestal
admiration: beundring
effigy: billede (på metal)
resort: tilholdssted
nursery-maid: barneplejerske
intimate: intim
render: forbindes med
intrinsic: egentlig
sally: drage af sted
consolation: trøst
excess: i overensstemmelse med
attain: opnå
satisfaction: tilfredsstillelse
picket fence: stakit
thrust: støde
venture: vovestykke
forlorn: tabt
awkward: besynderlig
cosmopolitan: vant til at færdes i udlandet
acquire: opnå
recurrence: tilbagevenden
indebt: stå i gæld til
casual: tilfældig
homeliness: provinsialitet
picturesque: billedskøn
ascend: stige op
paved: murstensbelagt
scrawl: overmale
quaint: mærkelig
spacious: rummelig
hospitable: gæstfri
congregation: menighed
pulpit: prædikestol
tier: række
transept: tværskib ( i kirke)
caryatide: figur, der bærer et tag
jowl: kæbe
titular great: ærværdighed
indefatigable: utrættelig
zeal: tjenstivrighed
custudian: kustode
unremitting: aldrig svigtende
heir: arving
array: imponerende række
statuary: billedhuggerkunst
recur: vende tilbage
vanety: fløj
limitation: begrænsning
recurrence: tilbagevenden
bass: bast
tempt: friste
sensuous: sanselig
chiefly: hovedsagelig
sway: gennemsyre
fertility: frugtbarhed
whimsical: løjerlig
spurl: afvise
antithesis: det modsatte af
pagan: hedensk
delineate: skildre
sumlimate: sublimere
passion: lidenskab
trait: karakteregenskab
meed: belønning
rough-and-tumble: udsvævende
endure: føre
jostling: stærk
abundant: rigelig
homogeneous: homogen
joggler: jonglør
judicious: velovervejet
whirligig: snurretop
dub: efterligne
phaeton: jagtvogn
stout: kraftig
groove: fordybning
attendant: hjælper
impetus: voldsom
hoist: hejse
sedate: adstadig
ardent: lidenskabelig
inexstinguishable: uudslukkelig
pit of stomach: hjertekule
abyss: afgrund
reprieve: pause
decorum: anstændighed
inclosure: indhegning
box-bordered pint: lille kasse
ivy: efeu
prickly: stikkende
stanza: strofe
venture: vove
wreath: krans
outskirts: udkant
thither: der
obliterate: udslette
tablet: tavle
grind: male
peck: kigge
gooseberry: stikkelsbær
EXERCISES FOR YOUR EXERCISE BOOK:
1) What does it mean that
Hans Christian Andersen was a child all
his life?
2) What did Hans Christian Andersen do in the night time?
3) Why did Danes consider him ridiculous?
4) How was his relationship with children?
5) Which metal is the statue of Hans Chr. Andersen made of?
6) What is the Danish title for "The Galoshes of
Fortune"?
7) Explain what galoshes is.
8) Which street does East Street remind the author of?
9) How is East Street described?
10) Try to explain the word picturesque.
11) How did kings and queens amuse themselves in The Round
Tower?
12) What is so special about the spire of The Church of Our
Saviour?
13) Which comparison does the author use about Amagertorv?
14) Try to explain the word homeliness.
15) How is Thorvalden's Museum described?
16) How was Thorvaldsen's relationship to Death?
17) How is yours?
18) Where did Thorvaldsen get his inspiration?
19) How is Tivoli described?
20) Is it right, that the rush-railway in Tivoli is the oldest in the
world?
21) Try to explain the meaning of the small poem and give your
opinion on the issue.
22) Hans Chr. Andersen wrote 168 fairy tales. Which of them do
you consider the best?
23) Hans Chr. Andersen was a very vain person. What does that
mean?
24) Rumours had it, that Hans Chr. Andersen's father was the King
of Denmark. He sometimes believed
in it himself. Do you think
it is likely considering the social
status of his mother?
25) What could be the reason why Hans Chr. Andersen got so
famous and still is? Are his
writings so exceptional?
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