It was his habit when travelling to place his big top-boots at night within easy reach, so that he might use them as weapons against any ghost or suspicious-looking object that might be stirring in the gloom.
One evening when he had gone to bed at a country inn, he was aroused from his sleep and saw indistinctly a white phenomenon fluttering to and fro along the opposite wall. Instantly he grabs a boot and hurls it with ferocious force at the goblin. A roar was heard followed by a salvo of blue profanity. It was a fellow-traveller--a lumber-dealer--who was to occupy the other bed in the room. He had undressed and was disporting himself in nocturnal attire before reposing, when Jonas Lie"s well-aimed missile hit him in the stomach and doubled him up with pain.
A skeleton in the den of a medical friend caused Lie many a shiver, for he could never quite rid himself of the idea that it moved. All that lay beyond the range of the senses drew him with an irresistible, half-shuddering attraction; and he resented all attempts to explain it by ordinary mundane laws. As his first novel abundantly proves, he possesses in a marked degree the "sixth sense" that gropes eagerly and with a half-terrified fascination in the dusk that lies beyond the daylight of the other five.
The verses which Jonas Lie began about this time to produce are mostly written for patriotic and other festive occasions, and therefore arouse no creepy sensations. But they are so overladen with confusing imagery that they have to be read twice to be understood. In the poem "Solveig"
(1855) he makes the heart "in its prison envy the free-born thoughts which fly to the beloved one"s breast." His versification is gnarled and twisted, and a perpetual strain upon the ear. As Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen has remarked, one need not be a princess in order to be troubled by the peas in his verse.[13] Browning himself could scarcely have perpetrated more unmelodious lines than Jonas Lie is capable of. Nevertheless there is often in his patriotic songs a most inspiriting bugle-note, which is found nowhere in Browning, unless it be in the "Cavalier Tunes." The curiosities of his prosody are (according to his biographer) attributable to the Nordland accent in his speech. They would sound all right, he says, to a Nordland ear.
[13] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, p. 527.
At the risk of violating chronology I may as well speak here of his two collections of "Poems" (1867 and 1889) (the latter being an expurgated but enlarged edition of the earlier), to which the present criticisms particularly apply. Both editions contain notable things amid occasional bits of what scarcely rises above doggerel. The sailor songs, though rough, are true in tone and have a catching nautical swing; but of far deeper ring and more intensely felt are the poems which deal with the nocturnal sides of nature. These have at times a strange, shivering resonance, like an old violin whose notes ripple down your spine. I refer especially to such untranslatable poems as "Draugen," "Finn-Shot,"
"The Mermaid," and "Nightmare." The mood of these is heavy and uncanny, like that of the "Ancient Mariner." But they are indubitably poetry. It is by no means sure that the world has not lost a poet in Jonas Lie; but probably a lesser one than the novelist that it gained.
As Jonas had been voted by his kin the family dullard, it was decided to make a clergyman of him. But to this the young man objected, chiefly, according to his own story, because the clerical gown looks too much like a petticoat. At all events, after having equipped himself with a set of theological tomes, and peeped cursorily into them, he grew so discouraged that he went to the bookseller and exchanged them for a set of law-books. Not that the law had any peculiar attraction for him; he rather accepted it as a _pis aller_; for, of course, he had to study something. In due time he was graduated, but with such poor standing that he concluded to put in another year and try again. And this time he managed to acquit himself creditably. He then began (1859) the practice of the law in the little town of Kongsvinger, the centre of the richest lumber districts in Norway. But in the meanwhile he had had an experience of another kind which is worth recounting.
From his boyhood he had been a worshipper of the fair s.e.x. Marriages (of other people) had been among the most tragic events in his life; and he rarely failed to shed tears at the thought that now this lovely charmer, too, was removed from the number of his possible selections. If things went on in this way he would have no choice but to be a bachelor.
However, one fine day a most attractive-looking craft, bearing the name Thomasine Lie, appeared upon his horizon, sailed within speaking distance, and presently a great deal nearer. In fact, though they were cousins, it took a remarkably short time for the two young people to discover that they loved each other; and when that discovery was made, they acted upon it with laudable prompt.i.tude. They became engaged; and were subsequently married. And from that day the Finnish Hyde in Jonas was downed and reduced to permanent subjection. He never raised his head again. The more sober-minded, industrious, and sensible Norse Jekyll took command and steered with a steady hand, in fair weather and foul, and often through dangerous waters, the barque Jonas Lie, which came to carry more and more pa.s.sengers the longer it proceeded on its voyage.
Truth to tell, I know among contemporary men of letters no more complete, happy, and altogether beautiful marriage than that of Jonas and Thomasine Lie. The nearest parallel to it that I can think of is that of John Stuart Mill and Mrs. Taylor, who later became Mrs. Mill.
Lie"s friends accuse him of carrying his admiration of his wife to the verge of idolatry. He will leave himself but little merit, but with an air of candid conviction he attributes even his authorship to his Thomasine. "Her name ought to stand next to mine on the t.i.tle-pages of my books," he has repeatedly declared. And again, "If I have written anything that is good, then my wife deserves as much credit for it as myself ... Without her nothing would have come of it except nonsense."
Even though that may be an exaggeration, pure delusion it is not. For Mrs. Lie is, in a certain way, the complement to her husband. She possesses what he has not; and he possesses what she, in her modest self-extinction, would never dream of laying claim to. The spirit of order, adjustment, and lucidity is strong in her; while he, in his fanciful exuberance, is often overwhelmed by his material, and is unable to get it into shape. Then she quietly steps in and separates the dry land from the water in his seething and struggling chaos. She is one of those rare women who, while apparently only listening, can give you back your own thoughts clarified. Mr. Garborg relates most charmingly how she straightens out the tangles in her husband"s plots, and un.o.btrusively draws him back, when, as frequently happens, he has switched himself off on a side-line and is unable to recover his bearings. And this occurs as often in his conversation as in his ma.n.u.scripts, which he never despatches to the publisher without her revision. She helps him condense. She knows just what to omit. Yet she does not pretend to be in the least literary. Her proper department, in which she is also a shining success, is the care of her children and the superintendence of her household. She understands to perfection the art of economy and has a keen practical sense, which makes her admirably competent in all the more difficult situations in life. And he, feeling her competence and his own deficiency, frankly leans on her. Hence a certain motherliness on her part (most beautiful to behold) has tinged their relation; and on his an admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes in the other what he himself lacks; and the husband"s genius loses none of its brightness to the wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and adjusts the reflectors which send its light abroad.
I have again antic.i.p.ated, because the subsequent career of Jonas Lie could not be properly understood without a full appreciation of the new factor which from this time enters into it. He developed signal ability as a lawyer during the years of his practice at Kongsvinger; became prosperous and influential, bought a considerable estate (called Sigridnaes) and began to dabble in politics. He still wrote occasional poems, and was the soul of all conviviality in the town. He entertained celebrities, wrote political leaders in the papers, earned a great deal of money, lived high, and unfolded a restless and widely ramified activity. Then came the great financial crisis of 1867-68, which swept away so many great fortunes in Norway. Lie became involved (chiefly by endors.e.m.e.nt of commercial paper) to the extent of several hundred thousand dollars. He gave up everything he had, and moved to Christiania, resolved to pay the enormous debt, for which he had incurred legal responsibility, to the last farthing. Quixotic as it may seem, it was his intention to accomplish this by novel-writing. And to his honor be it said that for a long series of years he kept sending every penny he could spare, above the barest necessities, to his creditors, refusing to avail himself of the bankruptcy law and accept a compromise. But it was a bottomless pit into which he was throwing his hard-earned pennies, and in the end he had to yield to the persuasions of his family and abandon the hopeless enterprise.
In Christiania he spent some hard and penurious years, trying to make a livelihood as a journalist and man of letters. Some of his friends suspected that the Lie family were subsisting on very short rations; but they were proud, and there was no way to help them. The ex-lawyer developed ultra-democratic sympathies, and time and again his Thomasine led the dance at the b.a.l.l.s of the Laborers" Union with Mr. Eilert Sundt.[14] A position as teacher of Norwegian in Heltberg"s Gymnasium he lost because he only made orations to his pupils, but taught them no rhetoric. His volume of "Poems" (1867) had attracted no particular attention; but his political articles were much read and discussed.
However, it was not in politics that he was to win his laurels.
[14] A well-known Norwegian philanthropist, whose work on the Gypsies is highly regarded.
A little before Christmas, 1870, there appeared from Gyldendal"s publishing-house in Copenhagen a novel, ent.i.tled "The Visionary" (_Den Fremsynte_), by Jonas Lie. To a.n.a.lyze the impression which this strange book makes at the first reading is difficult. I thought, as I sat rejoicing in its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: "This Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and "The Visionary" is his one blossom. It is the one good novel which almost every life is said to contain. Only this is so strikingly good that it is a pity it will have no successors."
It was evidently himself, or rather the Finnish part of himself, the author was exploring; it was in the mine of his own experience he was delving; it was his own heart he was coining. That may, in a sense, be true of every book of any consequence; but it was most emphatically true of "The Visionary." It is not to the use of the first person that this autobiographical note is primarily due; but to a certain beautiful intimacy in the narrative, and a _nave_ confidence which charms the reader and takes him captive. With a lavish hand Lie has drawn upon the memories of his boyhood in the arctic North; and it was the newness of the nature which he revealed, no less than the picturesque force of his language, which contributed in no small degree to the success of his book. But, above all, it was the sweetness and pathos of the exquisite love story. Susanna, though as to talents not much above the commonplace, is ravishing. To have breathed the breath of such warm and living life into a character of fiction is no small achievement. It is the loveliness of love, the sweetness of womanhood, the glorious ferment of the blood in the human springtide which are celebrated in "The Visionary." The thing is beautifully done. I do not know where young love has been more touchingly portrayed, unless it be in some of the Russian tales of Tourgueneff.[15] The second-sight with which the hero, David Holst, is afflicted, introduces an undertone of sadness--a pensive minor key--and seems to necessitate the tragic _denouement_.
[15] Spring Floods, Liza, Faust.
The immediate success of "The Visionary" changed Jonas Lie"s situation and prospects. He was first sent with a public stipend to Nordland for the purpose of studying the character, manners, and economic condition of the dwellers within the polar zone; and, like the conscientious man he is, he made an exhaustive report to the proper department, detailing with touching minuteness the results of his observations. The Norwegian government has always taken a strong (and usually very intelligent) interest in rising artists, musicians, and men of letters, and has endeavored by stipends and salaries to compensate them for the smallness of the public which the country affords. Jonas Lie was now a sufficiently conspicuous man to come into consideration in the distribution of the official _panem et circenses_. The state awarded him a largess of $400 for one year (twice renewed), in order to enable him to go to Italy and "educate himself for a poet;" and he was also made a beneficiary of the well-known Schafer legacy for the training of artists. In the autumn of 1871 he started with his wife and four children for Rome. It was in a solemnly festal frame of mind that he now resolved to devote the rest of his life to his real vocation, which at last he had found. This was what they had all meant--his gropings, trials, and failures. They had all fitted him for the life-work which was now to be his. The world lay before him as in the shining calm after storm.
He took his artistic training, as everything else, with extreme seriousness. With the utmost conscientiousness he started out with his Thomasine, morning after morning, to study the Vatican and the Capitoline collections. "Happy is the man," says Goethe, "who learns early in life what art means." But Jonas Lie was thirty-eight years old; and, as far as I can judge from his writings, I should venture to say that the secret of cla.s.sical art has never been unlocked to him. It lies probably rather remote from the sphere of his sensations. His genius is so profoundly Germanic that only an ill-wisher would covet for him that expansion of vision which would enable him to perceive with any degree of artistic realization and intimacy the glorious serenity of the Juno Ludovisi and the divine distinction of the Apollo Belvedere.
The two books which were the first-fruits of the Roman sojourn were a disappointment to his friends, though in the case of the unpretentious collection called "Tales and Sketches from Nordland" (1872) there is no reason why it should have been. The public found that it was not on a level with "The Visionary," and by "The Visionary" Jonas Lie was bound to be judged, whether he liked it or not. That is the penalty of having produced a masterpiece, that one is never permitted to follow the example of _bonus Homerus_, who, as every one knows, sometimes nods.
Jonas Lie was far from nodding in "The Barque Future" (1872). There was an abundance of interest in the material, and a delightful picturesque vigor in the descriptions of nature. But of romantic interest of the kind which the ordinary novel-reader craves, there was very little. _a propos_ of "The Barque Future" let me quote a bit of general characterization which applies to nearly all the subsequent works of Jonas Lie.
"It is in this particular that Jonas Lie most distinctly diverges from all romanticism and romance-writing: His interest in practical affairs, his ability to see poetry in that which is contemporary. The sawdust in the rivers has never offended him, nor the Briton"s black cloud of coal-smoke. The busy toil of office and shop is not prose to him. He penetrates to the bottom of its meaning--its significance to civilization."[16]
[16] Arne Garborg: Jonas Lie, p. 172.
"The Barque Future" is, as regards its problem, Gustav Freytag"s _Soll und Haben_ ("Debit and Credit") transferred to Nordland. Instead of the n.o.ble house of Rothsattel we have the ancient and highly esteemed commercial firm of Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel was dragged to ruin by the Jew Veitel Itzig. But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can Lie violate the proprieties of fiction by permitting Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He could not, like the German novelist, conjure up a n.o.ble gentleman of democratic sympathies and practical ability (like von Finck) and make him emerge in the nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry, justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the state by the uses which he fulfils. In Norway there is no n.o.bility; and Lie, therefore, had to make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten Jonsen (the equivalent of Anton Wohlfahrt in _Soll und Haben_) the inheritor of the future. He accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele Heggelund; but not until he has put Jacob to shame by the amount and character of the work by which he earns his Rachel.
The reception of "The Barque Future" was far from satisfactory to its author. He grew apprehensive about himself. He could not afford another failure; nay, not even a _succes d"estime_. Accordingly he waited two years, and published in 1874 "The Pilot and his Wife," which made its mark. It is an every-day story in the best sense of the word, the history of a marriage among common folk. And yet so true is it, so permeated with a warm and rich humanity, that it holds the reader"s attention from beginning to end. Then, to add to its interest, it has some bearing upon the woman question. Lie maintains that no true marriage can exist where the wife sacrifices her personality, and submits without a protest to neglect and ill-treatment. Happily we are not particularly in need of that admonition on our side of the ocean.
The wife of the pilot, Salve Christensen, had once broken her engagement with him, having become enamored of the handsome naval lieutenant, Beck; but she recovers her senses and marries Christensen, whom she really loves. After her marriage she tries to do penance for the wrong she has done him by being, as she fancies, a model wife. But by submission and self-extinction, so alien to her character, she arouses his suspicion that she has something on her conscience; and, in his feeling of outrage, he begins to neglect and abuse her. When, at last, his maltreatment reaches a climax, she arises in all the dignity of her womanhood, and a.s.serts her true self. Then comes reconciliation, followed by a united life of true equality and loving comradeship.
Such a mere skeleton of a plot can, of course, give no conception of the wealth of vivid details with which the book abounds. There is, however, a certain air of effort about it, of a strenuous seriousness, which is, I fancy, the temperamental note of this author.
"The Pilot and his Wife" besides reviving Lie"s popularity also served to define his position in Norwegian literature. He had at first been a.s.signed a definite corner as the "poet of Nordland," but his ambition was not satisfied with so narrow a province. In all his tales, so far, he has surpa.s.sed all predecessors in his descriptions of the sea; and the critics, when favorably disposed, fell into the habit of referring to him as "the novelist of the sea," "the poet of the ocean," etc. The Norwegian sailor, whom he may be said to have revealed in "The Pilot,"
came to be considered more and more as his property; and no one can read such tales as "Press On" (_Gaa Paa_) and "Rutland" without agreeing that the t.i.tle is well merited. I know of no English novelist since Smollett, who produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions of maritime life. Mr. Clark Russell, who knows his ship from masthead to keel as thoroughly as Jonas Lie, and writes fully as clever a story, seems to me to have a lower aim, in so far as the novel of adventure, _caeteris paribus_, belongs on a lower level than the novel of character.
In the year 1874 the Norwegian Storthing conferred upon Jonas Lie an annual "poet"s salary" of about six hundred dollars. This is supposed to supply a warranty deed to a lot on Parna.s.sus. It removes any possible flaw in the t.i.tle to immortality. Lie was now lifted into the ill.u.s.trious triumvirate in which BjOrnson and Ibsen were his predecessors. Great expectations were entertained of his literary future. But, oddly enough, this official recognition did not have a favorable effect upon Lie. He felt himself almost oppressed by a sense of obligation to yield full returns for what he consumed of the public revenues. In 1875 he published a versified tale, "Faustina Strozzi,"
dealing with the struggle for Italian liberty. In spite of many excellences it fell rather flat, and was roughly handled by the critics.
Even a worse fate befell its successor, "Thomas Ross" (1878), a novel of contemporary life in the Norwegian capital. It is a pale, and rather labored story, in which a young girl, of the Rosamond Vincy type, is held up to scorn, and the atrocity of flirtation is demonstrated by the most tragic consequences. There is likewise an air of triviality about "Adam Schrader" (1879); and Lie became seriously alarmed about himself when he had to register a third failure. Like its predecessor, this book is full of keen observations, and the sketches of the social futilities and the typical characters at a summer watering-place are surely good enough to pa.s.s muster. But, somehow, the material fails to combine into a sufficiently coherent and impressive picture; and the total effect remains rather feeble. In a drama, "Grabow"s Cat" (1880), he suffered shipwreck once more, though he saved something from the waves. The play was performed in Christiania and Stockholm, and aroused interest, but not enough to keep it afloat.
It has been said of Browning that he succeeded by a series of failures, which meant, in his case, that his books failed to command instant attention, but were gradually discovered by the thoughtful few who by their appreciation spread the poet"s fame among the thoughtless many. It was not in this way that Jonas Lie"s failures conduced to his final success. "Thomas Ross," "Adam Schrader," and "Grabow"s Cat" have not grown perceptibly in the estimation either of the critics or of the public since their first appearance. But they supplied their author a hard but needed discipline. They warned him against over-confidence and routine work. He had pa.s.sed through a soul-trying experience, in its effect not unlike the one which Keats describes _a propos_ of "Endymion:"
"In "Endymion" I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than if I had stayed upon the green sh.o.r.e, took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure--would rather fail than not be among the greatest."
Jonas Lie reconquered at one stroke all that he had lost, by the delightful sea-novel "Rutland" (1881), and reinstated himself still more securely in the hearts of an admiring public by the breezy tale, "Press On" (1882). But after so protracted a sea-voyage he began to long for the sh.o.r.e, where, up to date he had suffered all his reverses. It could not be that he who had lived all his life on _terra firma_, and was so profoundly interested in the problems of modern society, should be banished forever, like "The Man Without a Country," to the briny deep, and be debarred from describing the things which he had most at heart.
One more attempt he was bound to make, even at the risk of another failure. Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life Prisoner"
(_Livsslaven_), which deserved a better fate than befell it. The critics found it depressing, compared it to Zola, and at the same time scolded the author because he lacked indignation and neglected to denounce the terrible conditions which he described. He replied to their arraignments in an angry but very effective letter. But that did not save the book.
Truth to tell, "The Life Prisoner" is a dismal tale. It was, in fact, the irruption of modern naturalism into Norwegian literature. It reminds one in its tone more of Dostoyevski"s "Crime and Punishment" than of "L"a.s.sommoir." For to my mind Dostoyevski is a greater exponent of naturalism than Zola, whom Lemaitre not inaptly styles "an epic poet."
The pleasing and well-bred truths or lies, to the expounding of which _belles lettres_ had hitherto been confined, were here discarded or ignored. The author had taken a plunge into the great dumb deep of the nethermost social strata, which he has explored with admirable conscientiousness and artistic perception. Few men of letters would object to being the father of so creditable a failure. Lie, being convinced that his book was a good one, no matter what the wielders of critical tomahawks might say to the contrary, resolved to persevere in the line he had chosen and to pluck victory from the heels of defeat.
And the victory came even the same year (1883), when he published what, to my mind, is the most charming of all his novels, "The Family at Gilje." That is a book which is taken, warm and quivering, out of the very heart of Norway. The humor which had been cropping out tentatively in Lie"s earlier tales comes here to its full right, and his shy, beautiful pathos gleams like hidden tears behind his genial smile. It is close wrought cloth of gold. No loosely woven spots--no shoddy woof of cheaper material. Captain Jaeger and his wife, Inger-Johanna, JOrgen, Grip, nay, the whole company of sober, everyday mortals that come trooping through its chapters are so delightfully human that you feel the blood pulse under their skin at the first touch. It is a triumph indeed, to have written a book like "The Family at Gilje."
From this time forth Jonas Lie"s career presents an unbroken series of successes. "A Maelstrom" (1884), "Eight Stories," "Married Life" (_Et Samliv_), (1887), "Maisa Jons" (1888), "The Commodore"s Daughters" and "Evil Powers" (1890), which deal with interesting phases of contemporary life, are all extremely modern in feeling and show the same effort to discard all tinsel and sham and get at the very heart of reality.
He had by this series of novels established his reputation as a relentless realist, when, in 1892, he surprised his admirers by the publication of two volumes of the most wildly fantastic tales, ent.i.tled "Trold." It was as if a volcano, with writhing torrents of flame and smoke, had burst forth from under a sidewalk in Broadway. It was the suppressed Finn who, for once, was going to have his fling, even though he were doomed henceforth to silence. It was the "queer thoughts" (which had acc.u.mulated in the author and which he had scrupulously imprisoned) returning to take vengeance upon him unless he released them. The most grotesque, weird, and uncanny imaginings (such as Stevenson would delight in) are crowded together in these tales, some of which are derived from folk-lore and legends, while others are free fantasies.
Before taking leave of Jonas Lie, a word about his style is in order.
Style, as such, counts for very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly individual and vigorous manner of utterance, though a trifle rough, perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. Mere decorative adjectives and clever felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and social phenomena--all that we include under the term modern progress--command his most intense and absorbed attention. Having since 1882 been a resident of Paris (except during his annual summer excursions to Norway or the mountains of Bavaria) he has had the advantage of seeing the society which he describes at that distance which, if it does not lend enchantment, at all events unifies the scattered impressions, and furnishes a convenient critical outpost. He does not permit himself, however, like so many foreigners in the French capital, to lapse into that supercilious cosmopolitanism which deprives a man of his own country without giving him any other in exchange. No; Jonas Lie is and remains a Norseman--a fact which he demonstrated (to the gratification of his countrymen) on a recent occasion. At the funeral of the late Professor O. J. Broch--a famous Norwegian who died in Paris--the chaplain of the Swedish legation made an oration in which he praised the departed statesman and scientist, referring to him constantly as "our countryman." When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without anybody"s invitation, stepped quietly up to the coffin and in the name of Norway bade _his_ countryman a last farewell. "The spirit came over Lie," says his biographer, "and he spoke with ravishing eloquence."
But why did he do such an uncalled-for thing, you will ask? Because there is a systematic effort on the part of Sweden to suppress the very name of Norway, and to give the impression, throughout the world, that there is no such nationality as the Norwegian. Therefore every Norseman (unless he chooses to be a party to this suppression) is obliged to a.s.sert his nationality in season and out of season. But Jonas Lie has, indeed, in a far more effective way borne aloft the banner of his country. His books have been translated into French, German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Russian, and Bohemian; and throughout Europe the literary journals and magazines are beginning to discuss him as one of the foremost representatives of modern realism.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN[17]
[17] A portion of this essay appeared originally in "The Dial" of Chicago.
Hans Christian Andersen was a unique figure in Danish literature, and a solitary phenomenon in the literature of the world. Superficial critics have compared him with the Brothers Grimm; they might with equal propriety have compared him with Voltaire or with the man in the moon.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scientific collectors of folk-lore, and rendered as faithfully as possible the simple language of the peasants from whose lips they gathered their stories. It was the ethnological and philological value of the fairy-tale which stimulated their zeal; its poetic value was of quite secondary significance. With Andersen the case was exactly the reverse. He was as innocent of scientific intention as the hen who finds a diamond on a dunghill is of mineralogy. It was the poetic phase alone of the fairy-tale which attracted him; and what is more, he saw poetic possibilities where no one before him had ever discovered them. By the alchemy of genius (which seems so perfectly simple until you try it yourself) he transformed the common neglected nonsense of the nursery into rare poetic treasure. Boots, who kills the ogre and marries the princess--the typical lover in fiction from the remotest Aryan antiquity down to the present time--appears in Andersen in a hundred disguises, not with the rudimentary features of the old story, but modernized, individualized, and carrying on his shield an un.o.btrusive little moral. In "Jack the Dullard" he comes nearest to his primitive prototype, and no visible effort is made to refine him. In "The Most Extraordinary Thing" he is the vehicle of a piece of social satire, and narrowly escapes the lot which the Fates seem especially to have prepared for inventors, viz., to make the fortune of some unscrupulous clown while they themselves die in poverty. In "The Porter"s Son" he is an aspiring artist, full of the fire of genius, and he wins his princess by conquering that many-headed ogre with which every self-made man has to battle--the world"s envy, and malice, and contempt for a lowly origin. It is easy to multiply examples, but these may suffice.
In another species of fairy-tale, which Andersen may be said to have invented, incident seems to be secondary to the moral purpose, which is yet so artfully hidden that it requires a certain maturity of intellect to detect it. In this field Andersen has done his n.o.blest work and earned his immortality. Who can read that marvellous little tale, "The Ugly Duckling," without perceiving that it is a subtle, most exquisite revenge the poet is taking upon the humdrum Philistine world, which despised and humiliated him, before he lifted his wings and flew away with the swans, who knew him as their brother? And yet, as a child, I remember reading this tale with ever fresh delight, though I never for a moment suspected its moral. The hens and the ducks and the geese were all so vividly individualized, and the incidents were so familiar to my own experience, that I demanded nothing more for my entertainment.
Likewise in "The Goloshes of Fortune" there is a wealth of amusing adventures, all within the reach of a child"s comprehension, which more than suffices to fascinate the reader who fails to penetrate beneath the surface. The delightful satire, which is especially applicable to Danish society, is undoubtedly lost to nine out of ten of the author"s foreign readers, but so prodigal is he both of humorous and pathetic meaning, that every one is charmed with what he finds, without suspecting how much he has missed. "The Little Mermaid" belongs to the same order of stories, though the pathos here predominates, and the resemblance to De la Motte Fouque"s "Undine" is rather too striking. But the gem of the whole collection, I am inclined to think, is "The Emperor"s New Clothes," which in subtlety of intention and universality of application rises above age and nationality. Respect for the world"s opinion and the tyranny of fashion have never been satirized with more exquisite humor than in the figure of the emperor who walks through the streets of his capital in _robe de nuit_, followed by a procession of courtiers, who all go into ecstasies over the splendor of his attire.
It was not only in the choice of his theme that Andersen was original.
He also created his style, though he borrowed much of it from the nursery. "It was perfectly wonderful," "You would scarcely have believed it," "One would have supposed that there was something the matter in the poultry-yard, but there was nothing at all the matter"--such beginnings are not what we expect to meet in dignified literature. They lack the conventional style and deportment. No one but Andersen has ever dared to employ them. As Dr. Brandes has said in his charming essay on Andersen, no one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer the vivid mimicry and gesticulation which accompany a nursery tale to the printed page. If you tell a child about a horse, you don"t say that it neighed, but you imitate the sound; and the child"s laughter or fascinated attention compensates you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully you crow, roar, grunt, and mew, the more vividly you call up the image and demeanor of the animal you wish to represent, and the more impressed is your juvenile audience. Now, Andersen does all these things in print: a truly wonderful feat. Every variation in the pitch of the voice--I am almost tempted to say every change of expression in the story-teller"s features--is contained in the text. He does not write his story, he tells it; and all the children of the whole wide world sit about him and listen with, eager, wide-eyed wonder to his marvellous improvisations.[18]
[18] Brandes: Kritiker og Portraiter, p. 303.