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Andersen s Fairy Tales Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
blessed bread of existence, answered the poet.  You need feeling and the thought till they can be embodied by means
feel no care for the coming morrow: when you are old, you of words; a faculty which the others do not possess. But the
receive a pension. transition from a commonplace nature to one that is richly
 True, said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders;  and yet endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap
you are the better off. To sit at one s ease and poetise that over a certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and
is a pleasure; everybody has something agreeable to say to thus must the sudden change with the clerk strike the read-
you, and you are always your own master. No, friend, you er.
should but try what it is to sit from one year s end to the oth-  The sweet air! continued he of the police-office, in his
er occupied with and judging the most trivial matters. dreamy imaginings;  how it reminds me of the violets in the
The poet shook his head, the copying-clerk did the same. garden of my aunt Magdalena! Yes, then I was a little wild
Each one kept to his own opinion, and so they separated. boy, who did not go to school very regularly. O heavens!  tis
 It s a strange race, those poets! said the clerk, who was a long time since I have thought on those times. The good
very fond of soliloquizing.  I should like some day, just for old soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She always had
a trial, to take such nature upon me, and be a poet myself; I a few twigs or green shoots in water let the winter rage
am very sure I should make no such miserable verses as the without as it might. The violets exhaled their sweet breath,
others. Today, methinks, is a most delicious day for a poet. whilst I pressed against the windowpanes covered with fan-
Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening into life. The tastic frost-work the copper coin I had heated on the stove,
air is so unusually clear, the clouds sail on so buoyantly, and and so made peep-holes. What splendid vistas were then
from the green herbage a fragrance is exhaled that fills me opened to my view! What change-what magnificence! Yon-
with delight, For many a year have I not felt as at this mo- der in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted by
ment. their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole oc-
We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is be- cupant. But when the spring, with a gentle stirring motion,
come a poet; to give further proof of it, however, would announced her arrival, a new and busy life arose; with songs
in most cases be insipid, for it is a most foolish notion to and hurrahs the ice was sawn asunder, the ships were fresh
fancy a poet different from other men. Among the latter tarred and rigged, that they might sail away to distant lands.
there may be far more poetical natures than many an ac- But I have remained here must always remain here, sitting
knowledged poet, when examined more closely, could boast at my desk in the office, and patiently see other people fetch
of; the difference only is, that the poet possesses a better their passports to go abroad. Such is my fate! Alas!  sighed
mental memory, on which account he is able to retain the he, and was again silent.  Great Heaven! What is come to
0 Andersen s Fairy Tales Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1
me! Never have I thought or felt like this before! It must be tend with chivalric emulation for the love of the fair flower
the summer air that affects me with feelings almost as dis- that bestowed her chief favors on the latter; full of longing
quieting as they are refreshing. she turned towards the light, and as soon as it vanished,
He felt in his pocket for the papers.  These police-reports rolled her tender leaves together and slept in the embraces
will soon stem the torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder of the air.  It is the light which adorns me, said the flower.
any rebellious overflowing of the time-worn banks of offi-  But  tis the air which enables thee to breathe, said the
cial duties ; he said to himself consolingly, while his eye ran poet s voice.
over the first page.  DAME TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts. Close by stood a boy who dashed his stick into a wet
 What is that? And yet it is undeniably my own handwriting. ditch. The drops of water splashed up to the green leafy roof,
Have I written the tragedy? Wonderful, very wonderful! and the clerk thought of the million of ephemera which in
 And this what have I here?  INTRIGUE ON THE RAM- a single drop were thrown up to a height, that was as great
PARTS; or THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with doubtless for their size, as for us if we were to be hurled
new songs to the most favorite airs. The deuce! Where did I above the clouds. While he thought of this and of the whole
get all this rubbish? Some one must have slipped it slyly into metamorphosis he had undergone, he smiled and said,  I
my pocket for a joke. There is too a letter to me; a crumpled sleep and dream; but it is wonderful how one can dream so
letter and the seal broken. naturally, and know besides so exactly that it is but a dream.
Yes; it was not a very polite epistle from the manager of a If only to-morrow on awaking, I could again call all to mind
theatre, in which both pieces were flatly refused. so vividly! I seem in unusually good spirits; my perception
 Hem! hem! said the clerk breathlessly, and quite exhaust- of things is clear, I feel as light and cheerful as though I
ed he seated himself on a bank. His thoughts were so elastic, were in heaven; but I know for a certainty, that if to-morrow
his heart so tender; and involuntarily he picked one of the a dim remembrance of it should swim before my mind, it
nearest flowers. It is a simple daisy, just bursting out of the will then seem nothing but stupid nonsense, as I have often
bud. What the botanist tells us after a number of imperfect experienced already especially before I enlisted under the
lectures, the flower proclaimed in a minute. It related the banner of the police, for that dispels like a whirlwind all the
mythus of its birth, told of the power of the sun-light that visions of an unfettered imagination. All we hear or say in a
spread out its delicate leaves, and forced them to impreg- dream that is fair and beautiful is like the gold of the subter-
nate the air with their incense and then he thought of the ranean spirits; it is rich and splendid when it is given us, but
manifold struggles of life, which in like manner awaken the viewed by daylight we find only withered leaves. Alas! he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]