Chapter XIV (1)

And the child was become happy and joyful, and breathed freely again, and thought no more of returning to his hut; for he saw that nothing returned inwards, but rather that all strove outwards into the free air,--the rosy apple-blossoms from their narrow buds, and the gurgling notes from the narrow breast of the lark. The germs burst open the folding doors of the seeds, and broke through the heavy pressure of the earth in order to get at the light; the grasses tore asunder their bands and their slender blades sprang upward. Even the rocks were become gentle, and allowed little mosses to peep out from their sides, as a sign that they would not remain impenetrably closed forever. And the flowers sent out color and fragrance into the whole world, for they kept not their best for themselves, but would imitate the sun and the stars, which poured their warmth and radiance over the spring. And many a little gnat and beetle burst the narrow cell in which it was inclosed, and crept out slowly, and, half asleep, unfolded and shook its tender wings, and soon gained strength, and flew off to untried delights. And as the butterflies came forth from their chrysalids in all their gayety and splendor, so did every humbled and suppressed aspiration and hope free itself, and boldly launch into the open and flowing sea of spring.

_German of Carove._

MEMORIES OF CHILD LIFE.

MEMORIES OF CHILD LIFE.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,

POET AND NOVELIST OF DENMARK.

My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life, and the object for which thou wilt strive, and then, according to the development of thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and defend thee to its attainment," my fate could not, even then, have been directed more happily, more prudently, or better. The history of my life will say to the world what it says to me,--There is a loving God, who directs all things for the best.

In the year 1805 there lived at Odense, in a small mean room, a young married couple, who were extremely attached to each other; he was a shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of a richly gifted and truly poetical mind. His wife, a few years older than himself, was ignorant of life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bedstead with which he began housekeeping; this bedstead he had made out of the wooden frame which had borne only a short time before the coffin of the deceased Count Trampe, as he lay in state, and the remnants of the black cloth on the wood-work kept the fact still in remembrance.

Instead of a noble corpse, surrounded by crape and waxlights, here lay, on the 2d of April, 1805, a living and weeping child,--that was myself, Hans Christian Andersen. During the first day of my existence my father is said to have sat by the bed and read aloud in Holberg, but I cried all the time. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?" it is reported that my father asked in joke; but I still cried on; and even in the church, when I was taken to be baptized, I cried so loudly that the preacher, who was a passionate man, said, "The young one screams like a cat!" which words my mother never forgot. A poor emigrant, Gomar, who stood as godfather, consoled her in the mean time by saying that, the louder I cried as a child, all the more beautifully should I sing when I grew older.

Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench, the bed, and my crib, was the abode of my childhood; the walls, however, were covered with pictures, and over the workbench was a cupboard containing books and songs; the little kitchen was full of shining plates and metal pans, and by means of a ladder it was possible to go out on the roof, where, in the gutters between it and the neighbor's house, there stood a great chest filled with soil, my mother's sole garden, and where she grew her vegetables. In my story of the "Snow Queen" that garden still blooms.

I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled; but I continually heard from my mother how very much happier I was than she had been, and that I was brought up like a nobleman's child. She, as a child, had been driven out by her parents to beg; and once, when she was not able to do it, she had sat for a whole day under a bridge and wept.

My father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his whole heart; he lived for me. On Sundays he made me perspective-glasses, theatres, and pictures which could be changed; he read to me from Holberg's plays and the "Arabian Tales"; it was only in such moments as these that I can remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never felt himself happy in his life and as a handicraftsman. His parents had been country people in good circumstances, but upon whom many misfortunes had fallen,--the cattle had died; the farm-house had been burned down; and, lastly, the husband had lost his reason. On this the wife had removed with him to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind was full of intelligence, apprentice to a shoemaker; it could not be otherwise, although it was his ardent wish to attend the grammar school, where he might learn Latin. A few well-to-do citizens had at one time spoken of this, of clubbing together to raise a sufficient sum to pay for his board and education, and thus giving him a start in life; but it never went beyond words. My poor father saw his dearest wish unfulfilled; and he never lost the remembrance of it. I recollect that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes, and it was when a youth from the grammar school came to our house to be measured for a new pair of boots, and showed us his books and told us what he learned.

"That was the path upon which I ought to have gone!" said my father, kissed me passionately, and was silent the whole evening.

He very seldom associated with his equals. He went out into the woods on Sundays, when he took me with him; he did not talk much when he was out, but would sit silently, sunk in deep thought, whilst I ran about and strung strawberries on a bent, or bound garlands. Only twice in the year, and that in the month of May, when the woods were arrayed in their earliest green, did my mother go with us; and then she wore a cotton gown, which she put on only on these occasions and when she partook of the Lord's Supper, and which, as long as I can remember, was her holiday gown. She always took home with her from the wood a great many fresh beech boughs, which were then planted behind the polished stone. Later in the year sprigs of St. John's wort were stuck into the chinks of the beams, and we considered their growth as omens whether our lives would be long or short. Green branches and pictures ornamented our little room, which my mother always kept neat and clean; she took great pride in always having the bed linen and the curtains very white.

One of my first recollections, although very slight in itself, had for me a good deal of importance, from the power by which the fancy of a child impressed it upon my soul; it was a family festival, and can you guess where? In that very place in Odense, in that house which I had always looked on with fear and trembling, just as boys in Paris may have looked at the Bastile,--in the Odense house of correction.

My parents were acquainted with the jailer, who invited them to a family dinner, and I was to go with them. I was at that time still so small that I was carried when we returned home.

The House of Correction was for me a great storehouse of stories about robbers and thieves; often I had stood, but always at a safe distance, and listened to the singing of the men within and of the women spinning at their wheels.

I went with my parents to the jailer's; the heavy iron-bolted gate was opened and again locked with the key from the rattling bunch; we mounted a steep staircase,--we ate and drank, and two of the prisoners waited at the table; they could not induce me to taste of anything, the sweetest things I pushed away; my mother told them I was sick, and I was laid on a bed, where I heard the spinning-wheels humming near by and merry singing, whether in my own fancy or in reality I cannot tell; but I know that I was afraid, and was kept on the stretch all the time; and yet I was in a pleasant humor, making up stories of how I had entered a castle full of robbers. Late in the night my parents went home, carrying me; the rain, for it was rough weather, dashing against my face.

Odense was in my childhood quite another town from what it is now, when it has shot ahead of Copenhagen, with its water carried through the town, and I know not what else! Then it was a hundred years behind the times; many customs and manners prevailed which long since disappeared from the capital. When the guilds removed their signs, they went in procession with flying banners and with lemons dressed in ribbons stuck on their swords. A harlequin with bells and a wooden sword ran at the head; one of them, an old fellow, Hans Struh, made a great hit by his merry chatter and his face, which was painted black, except the nose, that kept its genuine red color. My mother was so pleased with him that she tried to find out if he was in any way related to us; but I remember very well that I, with all the pride of an aristocrat, protested against any relationship with the "fool."

In my sixth year came the great comet of 1811; and my mother told me that it would destroy the earth, or that other horrible things threatened us. I listened to all these stories and fully believed them. With my mother and some of the neighboring women I stood in St. Canut's Churchyard and looked at the frightful and mighty fire-ball with its large shining tail.

All talked about the signs of evil and the day of doom. My father joined us, but he was not of the others' opinion at all, and gave them a correct and sound explanation; then my mother sighed, the women shook their heads, my father laughed and went away. I caught the idea that my father was not of our faith, and that threw me into a great fright. In the evening my mother and my old grandmother talked together, and I do not know how she explained it; but I sat in her lap, looked into her mild eyes, and expected every moment that the comet would rush down, and the day of judgment come.

The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it only for a moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was her joy and her delight. She was a quiet and most amiable old woman, with mild blue eyes and a fine figure, which life had severely tried. From having been the wife of a countryman in easy circumstances she had now fallen into great poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a little house, which was the last poor remains of their property. I never saw her shed a tear; but it made all the deeper impression upon me when she quietly sighed, and told me about her own mother's mother,--how she had been a rich, noble lady, in the city of Cassel, and that she had married a "comedy-player,"--that was as she expressed it,--and run away from parents and home, for all of which her posterity had now to do penance. I never can recollect that I heard her mention the family name of her grandmother; but her own maiden name was Nommesen. She was employed to take care of the garden belonging to a lunatic asylum; and every Sunday evening she brought us some flowers, which they gave her permission to take home with her. These flowers adorned my mother's cupboard; but still they were mine, and to me it was allowed to put them in the glass of water. How great was this pleasure! She brought them all to me; she loved me with her whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it.

She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the garden; on such occasions she took me with her to the asylum, and I lay upon the great heaps of green leaves and pea-straw; I had many flowers to play with, and--which was a circumstance upon which I set great importance--I had here better food to eat than I could expect at home.

All such patients as were harmless were permitted to go freely about the court; they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw herself against the door where I lay; the little valve through which she received her food burst open; she stared down upon me, and stretched out her long arm toward me. I screamed for terror,--I felt the tips of her fingers touching my clothes,--I was half dead when the attendant came; and even in later years that sight and that feeling remained within my soul.

I was very much afraid of my weak-minded grandfather. Only once had he ever spoken to me, and then he had made use of the formal pronoun, "you." He employed himself in cutting out of wood strange figures,--men with beasts' heads and beasts with wings; these he packed in a basket and carried them out into the country, where he was everywhere well received by the peasant-women, because he gave to them and their children these strange toys. One day, when he was returning to Odense, I heard the boys in the street shouting after him; I hid myself behind a flight of steps in terror, for I knew that I was of his flesh and blood.

I very seldom played with other boys; even at school I took little interest in their games, but remained sitting within doors. At home I had playthings enough, which my father made for me. My greatest delight was in making clothes for dolls, or in stretching out one of my mother's aprons between the wall and two sticks before a currant-bush which I had planted in the yard, and thus to gaze in between the sun-illumined leaves. I was a singularly dreamy child, and so constantly went about with my eyes shut, as at last to give the impression of having weak sight, although the sense of sight was especially cultivated by me.

An old woman-teacher, who had an A B C school, taught me the letters, to spell, and "to read right," as it was called. She used to have her seat in a high-backed arm-chair near the clock, from which at every full stroke some little automata came out. She made use of a big rod, which she always carried with her. The school consisted mostly of girls. It was the custom of the school for all to spell loudly and in as high a key as possible. The mistress dared not beat me, as my mother had made it a condition of my going that I should not be touched. One day having got a hit of the rod, I rose immediately, took my book, and without further ceremony went home to my mother, asked that I might go to another school, and that was granted me. My mother sent me to Carsten's school for boys; there was also one girl there, a little one somewhat older than I; we became very good friends; she used to speak of the advantage it was to be to her in going into service, and that she went to school especially to learn arithmetic, for, as her mother told her, she could then become dairy-maid in some great manor.

"That you can become in my castle when I am a nobleman!" said I; and she laughed at me, and told me that I was only a poor boy. One day I had drawn something which I called my castle, and I told her that I was a changed child of high birth, and that the angels of God came down and spoke to me. I wanted to make her stare as I did with the old women in the hospital, but she would not be caught. She looked queerly at me, and said to one of the other boys standing near, "He is a fool, like his grandpapa," and I shivered at the words. I had said it to give me an air of importance in their eyes; but I failed, and only made them think that I was insane like my grandfather.

I never spoke to her again about these things, but we were no longer the same playmates as before. I was the smallest in the school, and my teacher, Mr. Carsten, always took me by the hand while the other boys played, that I might not be run over; he loved me much, gave me cakes and flowers, and tapped me on the cheeks. One of the older boys did not know his lesson, and was punished by being placed, book in hand, upon the school-table, around which we were seated; but seeing me quite inconsolable at this punishment, he pardoned the culprit.

The poor old teacher became, later in life, telegraph-director at Thorseng, where he still lived until a few years since. It is said that the old man, when showing the visitors around, told them with a pleasant smile, "Well, well, you will perhaps not believe that such a poor old man as I was the first teacher of one of our most renowned poets!"

Sometimes, during the harvest, my mother went into the field to glean. I accompanied her, and we went, like Ruth in the Bible, to glean in the rich fields of Boaz. One day we went to a place the bailiff of which was well known for being a man of a rude and savage disposition. We saw him coming with a huge whip in his hand, and my mother and all the others ran away. I had wooden shoes on my bare feet, and in my haste I lost these, and then the thorns pricked me so that I could not run, and thus I was left behind and alone. The man came up and lifted his whip to strike me, when I looked him in the face and involuntarily exclaimed, "How dare you strike me, when God can see it?"

The strong, stern man looked at me, and at once became mild; he patted me on my cheeks, asked me my name, and gave me money.

When I brought this to my mother and showed it her, she said to the others, "He is a strange child, my Hans Christian; everybody is kind to him. This bad fellow even has given him money."

MADAME MICHELET,

FRENCH AUTHOR, WIFE OF THE WELL-KNOWN WRITER, MICHELET.

Among my earliest recollections, dating (if my memory deceive me not) from the time when I was between the ages of four and five, is that of being seated beside a grave, industrious person, who seemed to be constantly watching me. Her beautiful but stern countenance impressed one chiefly by the peculiar expression of the light blue eyes, so rare in Southern Europe. Their gaze was like that which has looked in youth across vast plains, wide horizons, and great rivers. This lady was my mother, born in Louisiana, of English parentage.

I had constant toil before me, strangely unbroken for so young a child. At six years of age, I knit my own stockings, by and by my brothers' also, walking up and down the shady path. I did not care to go farther; I was uneasy if, when I turned, I could not see the green blind at my mother's window.

Our lowly house had an easterly aspect. At its northeast corner, my mother sat at work, with her little people around her; my father had his study at the opposite end, towards the south. I began to pick up my alphabet with him; for I had double tasks. I studied my books in the intervals of sewing or knitting. My brothers ran away to play after lessons; but I returned to my mother's work-room. I liked very well, however, to trace on my slate the great bars which are called "jambages." It seemed to me as if I drew something, from within myself, which came to the pencil's point. When my bars began to look regular, I paused often to admire what I had done; then, if my dear papa would lean towards me, and say, "Very well, little princess," I drew myself up with pride.

My father had a sweet and penetrating voice; his dark complexion showed his Southern origin, which also betrayed itself in the passionate fire of his eyes, dark, with black lashes, which softened their glance. With all their electric fire, they were not wanting in an indefinable expression of tenderness and sweetness. At sixty years of age, after a life of strange, and even tragic, incidents, his heart remained ever young and light, benevolent to all, disposed to confide in human nature,--sometimes too easily.

I had none of the enjoyments of city-bred children, and less still of that childish wit which is sure to win maternal admiration for every word which falls from the lips of the little deities. Mother Nature alone gave me a welcome, and yet my early days were not sad; all the country-side looked so lovely to me.

Just beyond the farm lay the cornfields which belonged to us; they were of no great extent, but to me they seemed infinite. When Marianne, proud of her master's possessions, would say, "Look, miss, there, there, and farther on,--all is yours," I was really frightened; for I saw the moving grain, undulating like the ocean, and stretching far away. I liked better to believe that the world ended at our meadow. Sometimes my father went across the fields to see what the reapers were doing, and then I hid my face in Marianne's apron, and cried, "Not so far, not so far! papa will be lost!"

I was then five years old. That cry was the childish expression of a sentiment, the shadow of which gained on me year by year,--the fear that I might lose my father. I desired to please, to be praised, and to be loved. I felt so drawn towards my mother, that I sometimes jumped from my seat to give her a kiss; but when I met her look, and saw her eyes, pale and clear as a silvery lake, I recoiled, and sat down quietly. Years have passed, and yet I still regret those joys of childhood which I never knew,--a mother's caresses. My education might have been so easy; my mother might have understood my heart,--a kiss is sometimes eloquent; and in a daily embrace she would perhaps have guessed the thoughts I was too young to utter, and would have learned how faithfully I loved her.

No such freedom was allowed us. The morning kiss and familiar speech with one's parents are permitted at the North, but are less frequent in the South of France. Authority overshadows family affection. My father, who was an easy man and loved to talk, might have disregarded such regulations; but my mother kept us at a distance. It made one thoughtful and reserved to watch her going out and coming in, with her noble air, severe and silent. We felt we must be careful not to give cause for blame.

My mother could spin like a fairy. All winter she sat at her wheel; and perhaps her wandering thoughts were soothed by the gentle monotonous music of its humming. My father, seeing her so beautiful at her work, secretly ordered a light, slender spinning-wheel to be carved for her use, which she found one morning at the foot of her bed. Her cheek flushed with pleasure; she scarcely dared to touch it, it looked so fragile. "Do not be afraid," said my father; "it looks fragile, but it can well stand use. It is made of boxwood from our own garden. It grew slowly, as all things do that last. Neither your little hand nor foot can injure it." My mother took her finest Flanders flax, of silvery tresses knotted with a cherry-colored ribbon. The children made a circle round the wheel, which turned for the first time under my mother's hands. My father was watching, between smiles and tears, to see how dexterously she handled the distaff. The thread was invisible, but the bobbin grew bigger. My mother would have been contented if the days had been prolonged to four-and-twenty hours, while she was sitting by her beautiful wheel.

When we rose in the morning, we said a prayer. We knelt together; my father standing, bareheaded, in the midst. After that, what delight it was to run to the hill-top, to meet the first rays of the sun, and to hear our birds singing little songs about the welcome daylight! From the garden, the orchard, the oaks, and from the open fields, their voices were heard; and yet, in my heart, I hid more songs than all the birds in the world would have known how to sing. I was not sad by nature. I had the instincts of the lark, and longed to be as happy. Since I had no wings to carry me up to the clouds, I would have liked to hide myself like him among the tall grain and the flax.

One of my great enjoyments was to meet the strong south-winds that came to us from the ocean. I loved to struggle with the buffets of the blast. It was terrible, but sweet, to feel it tossing and twisting my curls, and flinging them backward. After these morning races on the hills, I went to visit the wild flowers,--weeds that no one else cherished; but I loved them better than all other plants. Near the water, in little pools hollowed by the rains in stormy weather, on the border of the wood, sprang up, flourished, and died, forests of dwarf proportions; white, transparent stars; bells full of sweet odors. All were mysterious and ephemeral; so much the more did I prize and regret them.

If I indeed had the merry disposition of the lark, I had also his sensitive timidity, that brings him sometimes to hide between the furrows in the earth. A look, a word, a shadow, was enough to discourage me. My smiles died away, I shrunk into myself, and did not dare to move.

"Why did my mother choose three boys, rather than three girls, after I was born?" This problem was often in my mind. Boys only tear blouses, which they don't know how to mend. If she had only thought how happy I would be with a sister, a dear little sister! How I should have loved her,--scolded her sometimes, but kissed her very often! We should have had our work and play together, thoroughly independent of all those gentlemen,--our brothers.

My eldest sister was too far from my age. There seemed to be centuries between us. I had one friend,--my cat, Zizi; but she was a wild, restless creature, and no companion, for I could scarcely hold her an instant. She preferred the roof of the house to my lap.

I became very thoughtful, and said to myself, "How shall I get a companion? and how do people make dolls?" It did not occur to me, who had never seen a toy-shop, that they could be purchased ready-made. My chin resting on my hand, I sat in meditation, wondering how I could create what I desired. My passionate desire overruled my fears, and I decided to work from my own inspiration.

I rejected wood, as too hard to afford the proper material for my dolly. Clay, so moist and cold, chilled the warmth of my invention. I took some soft, white linen, and some clean bran, and with them formed the body. I was like the savages, who desire a little god to worship. It must have a head with eyes, and with ears to listen; and it must have a breast, to hold its heart. All the rest is less important, and remains undefined.

I worked after this fashion, and rounded my doll's head by tying it firmly. There was a clearly perceptible neck,--a little stiff, perhaps; a well-developed chest; and then came vague drapery, which dispensed with limbs. There were rudiments of arms,--not very graceful, but movable; indeed, they moved of themselves. I was filled with admiration. Why might not the body move? I had read how God breathed upon Adam and Eve the breath of life; with my whole heart and my six years' strength I breathed on the creature I had made. I looked; she did not stir. Never mind. I was her mother, and she loved me; that was enough. The dangers that menaced our mutual affection only served to increase it. She gave me anxiety from the moment of her birth. How and where could I keep her in safety? Surrounded by mischievous boys, sworn enemies to their sisters' dolls, I was obliged to hide mine in a dark corner of a shed, where the wagons and carriages were kept. After being punished, I could conceive no consolation equal to taking my child to bed with me. To warm her, I tucked her into my little bed, with the friendly pussy who was keeping it warm for me. At bedtime, I laid her on my heart, still heaving with sobs; and she seemed to sigh too. If I missed her in the night, I became wide awake; I hunted for her, full of apprehension. Often she was quite at the bottom of the bed. I brought her out, folded her in my arms, and fell asleep happy.

I liked, in my extreme loneliness, to believe that she had a living soul. Her grandparents were not aware of her existence. Would she have been so thoroughly my own, if other people had known her? I loved better to hide her from all eyes.

One thing was wanting to my satisfaction. My doll had a head, but no face. I desired to look into her eyes, to see a smile on her countenance that should resemble mine. Sunday was the great holiday, when everybody did what they liked. Drawing and painting were the favorite occupations. Around the fire, in winter time, the little ones made soldiers; while my elder brother, who was a true artist, and worked with the best colors, painted dresses and costumes of various sorts. We watched his performances, dazzled by the marvels which he had at his finger-ends.

It was during this time of general preoccupation that my daughter, carefully hidden under my apron, arrived among her uncles. No one noticed me; and I tried, successfully, to possess myself of a brush, with some colors. But I could do nothing well; my hand trembled, and all my lines were crooked. Then I made an heroic resolution,--to ask my brother's assistance boldly. The temptation was strong, indeed, which led me to brave the malice of so many imps. I stepped forward, and, with a voice which I vainly endeavored to steady, I said, "Would you be so kind as to make a face for my doll?" My eldest brother seemed not at all surprised, but took the doll in his hands with great gravity, and examined it; then, with apparent care, chose a brush. Suddenly he drew across her countenance two broad stripes of red and black, something like a cross; and gave me back my poor little doll, with a burst of laughter. The soft linen absorbed the colors, which ran together in a great blot. It was very dreadful. Great cries followed; everybody crowded round to see this wonderful work. Then a cousin of ours, who was passing Sunday with us, seized my treasure, and tossed it up to the ceiling. It fell flat on the floor. I picked it up; and, if the bad boy had not taken flight, he would have suffered, very likely, from my resentment.

Sad days were in store for us. My child and I were watched in all our interviews. Often was she dragged from her hiding-places among the bushes and in the high grass. Everybody made war upon her,--even Zizi, the cat, who shared her nightly couch. My brothers sometimes gave the doll to Zizi as a plaything; and, in my absence, even she was not sorry to claw it, and roll it about on the garden walks. When I next found it, it was a shapeless bunch of dusty rags. With the constancy of a great affection, I remade again and again the beloved being predestined to destruction; and each time I pondered how to create something more beautiful. This aiming at perfection seemed to calm my grief. I made a better form, and produced symmetrical legs (once, to my surprise, the rudiment of a foot appeared); but the better my work was, the more bitter the ridicule, and I began to be discouraged.

My doll, beyond a doubt, was in mortal peril. My brothers whispered together; and their sidelong glances foreboded me no good. I felt that I was watched. In order to elude their vigilance, I constantly transferred my treasure from one hiding-place to another; and many nights it lay under the open sky. What jeers, what laughter, had it been found!

To put an end to my torments, I threw my child into a very dark corner, and feigned to forget her. I confess to a shocking resolution; for an evil temptation assailed me. But, if self-love began to triumph over my affection for her, it was but as a momentary flash, a troubled dream. Without the dear little being, I should have had nothing to live for. It was, in fact, my second self. After much searching, my unlucky doll was discovered. Its limbs were torn off without mercy; and the body, being tossed up into an acacia-tree, was stuck on the thorns. It was impossible to bring it down. The victim hung, abandoned to the autumnal gales, to the wintry tempests, to the westerly rains, and to the northern snows. I watched her faithfully, believing that the time would come when she would revisit this earth.

In the spring, the gardener came to prune the trees. With tears in my eyes, I said, "Bring me back my doll from those branches." He found only a fragment of her poor little dress, torn and faded. The sight almost broke my heart.

All hope being gone, I became more sensitive to the rough treatment of my brothers; and I fell into a sort of despair. After my life with _her_ whom I had lost; after my emotions, my secret joys and fears,--I felt all the desolation of my bereavement. I longed for wings to fly away. When my sister excluded me from her sports with her companions, I climbed into the swing, and said to the gardener, "Jean, swing me high,--higher yet: I wish to fly away." But I was soon frightened enough to beg for mercy.

Then I tried to lose myself. Behind the grove which closed in our horizon stretched a long slope, undulating towards a deep cut below. With infinite pains, I surmounted all obstacles, and gained the road. How far, far away from home I felt! My heart was beating violently. What sorrow this would give to my dear father! Where should I sleep? I should never dare to ask shelter at a farm-house, much less lie down among the bushes, where the screech-owls made a noise all night. So, without further reflection, I returned home.

Animals are happier. I wished to be little Lauret, the gold-colored ox, who labors so patiently, and comes and goes all day long. Or I'd like to be Grisette or Brunette, the pretty asses who are mother's pets.

After all, who would not like to be a flower? However, a flower lives but a very little while: you are cut down as soon as born. A tree lasts much longer. Yet what a bore it must be to stay always in one place! To stand with one's foot buried in the ground,--it is too dreadful; the thought worried me when I was in bed, thinking things over.

I would have been a bird, if a good fairy had taken pity on me. Birds are so free, so happy, they sing all day long. If I were a bird, I would come and fly about our woods, and would perch on the roof of our house. I would come to see my empty chair, my place at table, and my mother looking sad; then, at my father's hour for reading, alone in the garden, I would fly, and perch on his shoulder, and my father would know me at once.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER,

ONE OF THE GREAT AUTHORS OF GERMANY.

It was in the year 1763 that I came into the world, in the same month that the golden and gray wagtail, the robin-redbreast, the crane, and the red-hammer came also; and, in case anybody wished to strew flowers on the cradle of the new-born, the spoonwort and the aspen hung out their tender blossoms,--on the 20th of March, in the early morning. I was born in Wunsiedel, in the highlands of the Fitchtelbirge. Ah! I am glad to have been born in thee, little city of the mountains, whose tops look down upon us like the heads of eagles, and where we can glance over villages and mountain meadows, and drink health at all thy fountains!

To my great joy I can call up from my twelfth or, at farthest, my fourteenth month of age one pale little remembrance, like an early and frail snow-drop, from the fresh soil of my childhood. I recollect that a scholar loved me much, and carried me about in his arms, and took me to a great dark room and gave me milk to drink.

In 1765 my father was appointed minister to Joditz, where I was carried in a girl's cap and petticoat. The little Saale River, born like myself in the Fitchtelbirge, ran with me to Joditz, as it afterwards ran after me to Hof when I removed there. A small brook traverses the little town, that is crossed on a plank as I remember. The old castle and the pastor's house were the two principal buildings. There was a school-house right opposite the parsonage, into which I was admitted, when big enough to wear breeches and a green taffety cap. The schoolmaster was sickly and lean, but I loved him, and watched anxiously with him as he lay hid behind his birdcage placed in the open window to catch goldfinches, or when he spread a net in the snow and caught a yellow-hammer.

My life in Joditz was very pleasant, all the four seasons were full of happiness. I hardly know which to tell of first, for each is a heavenly introduction to the next; but I will begin with winter. In the cold morning my father came down stairs and learned his Sunday sermon by the window, and I and my brother carried the full cup of coffee to him,--and still more gladly carried it back empty, for we could pick out the unmelted sugar from the bottom. Out of doors, the sky covered all things with silence,--the brook with ice, the village roofs with snow; but in our room there was warm life,--under the stove was a pigeon-house, on the windows goldfinch-cages; on the floor was the bull-dog and a pretty little poodle close by. Farther off, at the other end of the house, was the stable, with cows and pigs and hens. The threshers we could hear in the court-yard beating out the grain.

In the long twilight our father walked back and forth, and we trotted after him, creeping under his nightgown, and holding on to his hands if we could reach them. At the sound of the vesper-bell we stood in a circle and chanted the old hymn,

"Dis finstre Nacht bricht stark herein."
"The gloomy night is gathering in."

The evening chime in our village was indeed the swan-song of the day, the muffle of the over-loud heart, calling from toil and noise to silence and dreams. Then the room was lit up, and the window-shutters bolted, and we children felt all safe behind them when the wind growled and grumbled outside, like the _Knecht Ruprecht_, or hobgoblin. Then we could undress and skip up and down in our long trailing nightgowns. My father sat at the long table studying or composing music. Our noise did not disturb the inward melody to which he listened as we sat on the table or played under it.

Once a week the old errand-woman came from Hof with fruit and meats and pastry-cakes. Sometimes the housemaid brought her distaff into the common room of an evening, and told us stories by the light of a pine-torch. At nine o'clock in the evening I was sent to the bed which I shared with my father. He sat up until eleven, and I lay wide awake, trembling for fear of ghosts, until he joined me. For I had heard my father tell of spiritual appearances, which he firmly believed he had himself seen, and my imagination filled the dark space with them.

When the spring came, and the snows melted, we who had been shut up in the parsonage court were set free to roam the fields and meadows. The sweet mornings sparkled with undried dews. I carried my father's coffee to him in his summer-house in the garden. In the evening we had currants and raspberries from the garden at our supper before dark. Then my father sat and smoked his pipe in the open air, and we played about him in our nightgowns, on the grass, as the swallows did in the air overhead.

The most beautiful of all summer birds, meanwhile, was a tender, blue butterfly, which, in this beautiful season, fluttered about me, and was my first love. This was a blue-eyed peasant-girl of my own age, with a slender form and an oval face somewhat marked with the small-pox, but with the thousand traits that, like the magic circles of the enchanter's wand, take the heart a prisoner. Augustina dwelt with her brother Romer, a delicate youth, who was known as a good accountant, and as a good singer in the choir. I played my little romance in a lively manner, from a distance, as I sat in the pastor's pew in the church, and she in the seat appropriated to women, apparently near enough to look at each other without being satisfied. And yet this was only the beginning; for when, at evening, she drove her cow home from the meadow pasture, I instantly knew the well-remembered sound of the cow-bell, and flew to the court wall to see her pass, and give her a nod as she went by; then ran again down to the gateway to speak to her, she the nun without, and I the monk within, to thrust my hand through the bars (more I durst not do, on account of the children without), in which there was some little dainty sugared almonds, or something still more costly, that I had brought for her from the city. Alas! I did not arrive in many summers three times to such happiness as this. But I was obliged to devour all the pleasures, and almost all the sorrows, within my own heart. My almonds, indeed, did not all fall upon stony ground, for there grew out of them a whole hanging-garden in my imagination, blooming and full of sweetness, and I used to walk in it for weeks together. The sound of this cow-bell remained with me for a long time, and even now the blood in my old heart stirs when this sound hovers in the air.

In the summer, I remember the frequent errands that I, with a little sack on my back, made to my grandparents in the city of Hof, to bring meat and coffee and things that could not be had in the village. The two hours' walk led through a wood where a brook babbled over the stones. At last the city with its two church-towers was seen, with the Saale shining along the level plain. I remember, on my return one summer afternoon, watching the sunny splendor of the mountain-side, traversed by flying shadows of clouds, and how a new and strange longing came over me, of mingled pain and pleasure,--a longing which knew not the name of its object,--the awakening and thirsting of my whole nature for the heavenly gifts of life.

After the first autumn threshing I used to follow the traces of the crows in the woods, and the birds going southward in long procession, with strange delight. I loved the screams of the wild geese flying over me in long flocks. In the autumn evenings the father went with me and Adam to a potato-field lying on the other side of the Saale. One boy carried a hoe upon his shoulder, the other a hand-basket; and while the father dug as many new potatoes as were necessary for supper, and I gathered them from the ground and threw them into the basket, Adam gathered the best nuts from the hazel-bushes. It was not long before Adam fell back into the potato-beds, and I in my turn climbed the nut-tree. Then we returned home, satisfied with our nuts and potatoes, and enlivened by running for an hour in the free, invigorating air; every one may imagine the delight of returning home by the light of the harvest festivals.

Wonderfully fresh and green are two other harvest flowers, preserved in the chambers of my memory, and both are indeed trees. One was a full-branched muscatel pear-tree in the pastor's court-yard, the fall of whose splendid hanging fruit the children sought through the whole autumn to hasten; but at last, upon one of the most important days of the season, the father himself reached the forbidden fruit by means of a ladder, and brought the sweet paradise down, as well for the palates of the whole family as for the cooking-stove.

The other, always green, and yet more splendidly blooming, was a smaller tree, taken on St. Andrew's evening from the old wood, and brought into the house, where it was planted in water and soil in a large pot, so that on Christmas night it might have its leaves green when it was hung over with gifts like fruits and flowers.

In my thirteenth year my father was appointed pastor of Swarzenbach, also on the Saale River, a large market town, and I had to leave Joditz, dear even to this day to my heart. Two little sisters lie in its graveyard. My father found there his fairest Sundays, and there I first saw the Saale shining with the morning glow of my life.

CHARLES LAMB,

GENIAL ENGLISH ESSAYIST.

From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, and legendary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the "History of the Bible," by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. The pictures with which it abounds--one of the ark, in particular, and another of Solomon's Temple, delineated with all the fidelity of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the spot--attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. Turning over the picture of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in its ingenious fabric, driving my inconsiderate fingers right through the two larger quadrupeds,--the elephant and the camel,--that stare (as well they might) out of the last two windows next the steerage in that unique piece of naval architecture. The book was henceforth locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, the _objections_ and _solutions_ gradually cleared out of my head, and have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.

But there was one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nerves rather more seriously. That detestable picture!

I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors,--the night-time, solitude, and the dark. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life,--so far as memory serves in things so long ago,--without an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say that, to his picture of the Witch raising up Samuel, (O that old man covered with a mantle!) I owe, not my midnight terrors, the horror of my infancy, but the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for me a hag that nightly sat upon my pillow,--a sure bedfellow, when my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, while the book was permitted me, I dreamed waking over his delineation, and at night (if I may use so bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision true. I durst not, even in the daylight, once enter the chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the window, aversely from the bed, where my witch-ridden pillow was. Parents do not know what they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm, the hoping for a familiar voice when they awake screaming, and find none to soothe them,--what a terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves! The keeping them up till midnight, through candlelight and the unwholesome hours, as they are called, would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the better caution. That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the fashion to my dreams,--if dreams they were,--for the scene of them was invariably the room in which I lay.

The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End, or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire, a farm-house, delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of my sister, who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End,--kindred or strange folk,--we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore.