Chapter VIII: Preface (8)

"But it is so delicious to swim!" said the Duckling; "so delicious when the waters close over your head, and you plunge to the bottom!"

"Well, that is a queer sort of pleasure," said the Hen; "I think you must be crazy. Not to speak of myself, ask the Cat--he is the most sensible animal I know--whether he would like to swim, or to plunge to the bottom of the water. Ask our mistress, the old woman,--there is no one in the world wiser than she; do you think she would take pleasure in swimming, and in the waters closing over her head?"

"You do not understand me," said the Duckling.

"What, we do not understand you! So you think yourself wiser than the Cat and the old woman, not to speak of myself. Do not fancy any such thing, child, but be thankful for all the kindness that has been shown you. Are you not lodged in a warm room, and have you not the advantage of society from which you can learn something? But you are a simpleton, and it is wearisome to have anything to do with you. Believe me, I wish you well. I tell you unpleasant truths, but it is thus that real friendship is shown. Come, for once give yourself the trouble to learn to purr, or to lay eggs."

"I think I will go out into the wide world again," said the Duckling.

"Well, go," answered the Hen.

So the Duckling went. He swam on the surface of the water, he plunged beneath, but all animals passed him by on account of his ugliness. And the autumn came, the leaves turned yellow and brown, the wind caught them and danced them about, the air was very cold, the clouds were heavy with hail or snow, and the raven sat on the hedge and croaked, the poor Duckling was certainly not very comfortable!

One evening, just as the sun was setting with unusual brilliancy, a flock of large, beautiful birds rose from out the brushwood; the Duckling had never seen anything so beautiful before; their plumage was of a dazzling white, and they had long slender necks. They were swans; they uttered a singular cry, spread out their long, splendid wings, and flew away from these cold regions to warmer countries, across the open sea. They flew so high, so very high! and the little Ugly Duckling's feelings were so strange; he turned round and round in the water like a mill-wheel, strained his neck to look after them, and sent forth such a loud and strange cry that it almost frightened himself. Ah! he could not forget them, those noble birds! those happy birds! When he could see them no longer, he plunged to the bottom of the water, and when he rose again was almost beside himself. The Duckling knew not what the birds were called, knew not whither they were flying, yet he loved them as he had never before loved anything; he envied them not, it would never have occurred to him to wish such beauty for himself; he would have been quite contented if the ducks in the duck-yard had but endured his company,--the poor, ugly animal!

And the winter was so cold, so cold! The Duckling was obliged to swim round and round in the water, to keep it from freezing; but every night the opening in which he swam became smaller and smaller; it froze so that the crust of ice crackled; the Duckling was obliged to make good use of his legs to prevent the water from freezing entirely; at last, wearied out, he lay stiff and cold in the ice.

Early in the morning there passed by a peasant, who saw him, broke the ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and brought him home to his wife.

He now revived; the children would have played with him, but our Duckling thought they wished to tease him, and in his terror jumped into the milk-pail, so that the milk was spilled about the room; the good woman screamed and clapped her hands; he flew thence into the pan where the butter was kept, and thence into the meal-barrel, and out again, and then how strange he looked!

The woman screamed, and struck at him with the tongs, the children ran races with each other trying to catch him, and laughed and screamed likewise. It was well for him that the door stood open; he jumped out among the bushes into the new-fallen snow,--he lay there as in a dream.

But it would be too melancholy to relate all the trouble and misery that he was obliged to suffer during the severity of the winter. He was lying on a moor among the reeds, when the sun began to shine warmly again, the larks sang, and beautiful spring had returned.

And once more he shook his wings. They were stronger than formerly, and bore him forwards quickly, and, before he was well aware of it, he was in a large garden where the apple-trees stood in full bloom, where the syringas sent forth their fragrance, and hung their long green branches down into the winding canal. O, everything was so lovely, so full of the freshness of spring! And out of the thicket came three beautiful white Swans. They displayed their feathers so proudly, and swam so lightly, so lightly! The Duckling knew the glorious creatures, and was seized with a strange melancholy.

"I will fly to them, those kingly birds!" said he. "They will kill me, because I, ugly as I am, have presumed to approach them. But it matters not; better to be killed by them than to be bitten by the ducks, pecked by the hens, kicked by the girl who feeds the poultry, and to have so much to suffer during the winter!" He flew into the water, and swam towards the beautiful creatures; they saw him and shot forward to meet him. "Only kill me," said the poor animal, and he bowed his head low, expecting death; but what did he see in the water? He saw beneath him his own form, no longer that of a plump, ugly, gray bird,--it was that of a Swan.

It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been hatched from a Swan's egg.

The good creature felt himself really elevated by all the troubles and adversities he had experienced. He could now rightly estimate his own happiness, and the larger Swans swam around him, and stroked him with their beaks.

Some little children were running about in the garden; they threw grain and bread into the water, and the youngest exclaimed, "There is a new one!" the others also cried out, "Yes, there is a new Swan come!" and they clapped their hands, and danced around. They ran to their father and mother, bread and cake were thrown into the water, and every one said, "The new one is the best, so young and so beautiful!" and the old Swans bowed before him. The young Swan felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wings; he scarcely knew what to do, he was all too happy, but still not proud, for a good heart is never proud.

He remembered how he had been persecuted and derided, and he now heard every one say he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds. The syringas bent down their branches towards him low into the water, and the sun shone so warmly and brightly,--he shook his feathers, stretched his slender neck, and in the joy of his heart said, "How little did I dream of so much happiness when I was the ugly, despised Duckling!"

_Hans Christian Andersen._

THE POET AND HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER.

It was a June morning. Roses and yellow jasmine covered the old wall in the Poet's garden. The little brown mason bees flew in and out of their holds beneath the pink and white and yellow flowers. Peacock-butterflies, with large blue eyes on their crimson velvet wings, fluttered about and settled on the orange-brown wall-flowers. Aloft, in the broad-leaved sycamore-tree, the blackbird was singing as if he were out of his senses for joy; his song was as loud as any nightingale, and his heart was glad, because his young brood was hatched, and he knew that they now sat with their little yellow beaks poking out of the nest, and thinking what a famous bird their father was. All the robins and tomtits and linnets and redstarts that sat in the trees of the garden den shouted vivas and bravuras, and encored him delightfully.

The Poet himself sat under the double-flowering hawthorn, which was then all in blossom. He sat on a rustic seat, and his best friend sat beside him. Beneath the lower branches of the tree was hung the canary-bird's cage, which the children had brought out because the day was so fine, and the little canary loved fresh air and the smell of flowers. It never troubled him that other birds flew about from one end of the garden to the other, or sat and sung on the leafy branches, for he loved his cage; and when the old blackbird poured forth his grand melodies, the little canary sat like a prince in a stage-box, and nodded his head, and sang an accompaniment.

One of the Poet's children, his little daughter, sat in her own little garden, which was full of flowers, while bees and butterflies flitted about in the sunshine. The child, however, was not noticing them; she was thinking only of one thing, and that was the large daisy-root which was all in flower; it was the largest daisy-root in the whole garden, and two-and-fifty double pink-and-white daisies were crowded upon it. They were, however, no longer daisies to the child's eyes, but two-and-fifty little charity children in green stuff gowns, and white tippets, and white linen caps, that had a holiday given them. She saw them all, with their pink cheeks and bright eyes, running in a group and talking as they went; the hum of the bees around seeming to be the pleasant sound of their voices. The child was happy to think that two-and-fifty charity children were let loose from school to run about in the sunshine. Her heart went with them, and she was so full of joy that she started up to tell her father, who was sitting with his best friend under the hawthorn-tree.

Sad and bitter thoughts, however, just then oppressed the Poet's heart. He had been disappointed where he had hoped for good; his soul was under a cloud; and as the child ran up to tell him about the little charity children in whose joy she thought he would sympathize, she heard him say to his friend, "I have no longer any hope of human nature now. It is a poor miserable thing, and is not worth working for. My best endeavors have been spent in its service,--my youth and my manhood's strength, my very life,--and this is my reward! I will no longer strive to do good. I will write for money alone, as others do, and not for the good of mankind!"

The Poet's words were bitter, and tears came into the eyes of his best friend. Never had the child heard such words from her father before, for he had always been to her as a great and good angel.

"I will write," said he, "henceforth for money, as others do, and not for the good of mankind."

"My father, if you do," said the child, in a tone of mournful indignation, "I will never read what you write! I will trample your writings under my feet!"

Large tears rolled down her cheeks, and her eyes were fixed on her father's face.

The Poet took the child in his arms and kissed her. An angel touched his heart, and he now felt that he could forgive his bitterest enemies.

"I will tell you a story, my child," he said, in his usually mild voice.

The child leaned her head against his breast, and listened.

"Once upon a time," he began, "there was a man who dwelt in a great, wide wilderness. He was a poor man, and worked very hard for his bread. He lived in a cave of a rock, and because the sun shone burning hot into the cave, he twined roses and jessamines and honeysuckles all around it; and in front of it, and on the ledges of the rock, he planted ferns and sweet shrubs, and made it very pleasant. Water ran gurgling from a fissure in the rock into a little basin, whence it poured in gentle streams through the garden, in which grew all kinds of delicious fruits. Birds sang in the tall trees which Nature herself had planted; and little squirrels, and lovely green lizards, with bright, intelligent eyes, lived in the branches and among the flowers.

"All would have gone well with the man, had not evil spirits taken possession of his cave. They troubled him night and day. They dropped canker-blight upon his roses, nipped off his jasmine and honeysuckle-flowers, and, in the form of caterpillars and blight, ate his beautiful fruits.

"It made the man angry and bitter in his feelings. The flowers were no longer beautiful to him, and when he looked on them he thought only of the canker and the caterpillar.

"'I can no longer take pleasure in them,' he said; 'I will leave the cave, and go elsewhere.'

"He did so; and travelled on and on, a long way. But it was a vast wilderness in which he dwelt, and thus it was many and many a weary day before he came to a place of rest; nor did he know that all this time the evil spirits who had plagued him so in his own cave were still going with him.

"But so they were. And they made every place he came to seem worse than the last. Their very breath cast a blight upon everything.

"He was footsore and weary, and very miserable. A feeling like despair was in his heart, and he said that he might as well die as live. He lay down in the wilderness, so unhappy was he, and scarcely had he done so, when he heard behind him the pleasantest sound in the world,--a little child singing like a bird, because her heart was innocent and full of joy; and the next moment she was at his side.

"The evil spirits that were about him drew back a little when they saw her coming, because she brought with her a beautiful company of angels and bright spirits,--little cherubs with round, rosy cheeks, golden hair, and laughing eyes between two dove's wings as white as snow. The child had not the least idea that these beautiful spirits were always about her; all she knew was that she was full of joy, and that she loved above all things to do good. When she saw the poor man lying there, she went up to him, and talked to him so pityingly, and yet so cheerfully, that he felt as if her words would cure him. She told him that she lived just by, and that he should go with her, and rest and get well in her cave.

"He went with her, and found that her cave was just such a one as his own, only much smaller. Roses and honeysuckles and jasmine grew all around it; and birds were singing, and goldfish were sporting about in the water; and there were beds of strawberries, all red and luscious, that filled the air with fragrance.

"It was a beautiful place. There seemed to be no canker nor blight on anything. And yet the man saw how spiders had woven webs like the most beautiful lace from one vine-branch to another; and butterflies that once had been devouring caterpillars were flitting about. Just as in his own garden, yellow frogs were squatted under the cool green strawberry leaves. But the child loved both the frogs and the green lizards, and said that they did her no harm, and that there were plenty of strawberries both for them and for her.

"The evil spirits that had troubled the man, and followed him, could not get into the child's garden. It was impossible, because all those rosy-cheeked cherubs and white-robed angels lived there; and that which is good, be it ever so small, is a great deal stronger than that which is evil, be it ever so large. They therefore sat outside and bit their nails for vexation; and as the man stayed a long time with the child, they got so tired of waiting that a good number of them flew away forever.

"At length the man kissed the child and went back to his own place; and when he got there he had the pleasure of finding that, owing to the evil spirits having been so long away, the flowers and fruits had, in great measure, recovered themselves. There was hardly any canker or blight left. And as the child came now very often to see him,--for, after all, they did not live so very far apart, only that the man had wandered a long way round in the wilderness,--and brought with her all the bright company that dwelt with her, the place was freed, at least while she stayed, from the evil ones.

"This is a true story, a perfectly true story," added the Poet, when he had brought his little narrative to an end; "and there are many men who live like him in a wilderness, and who go a long way round about before they can find a resting-place. And happy is it for such when they can have a child for their neighbor; for our Divine Master has himself told us that blessed are little children, and that of such is the kingdom of heaven!"

The Poet was silent. His little daughter kissed him, and then, without saying a word about the little charity children, ran off to sit down beside them again, and perhaps to tell them the story which her father had just related to her.

_Mary Howitt._

THE RED FLOWER.

What it was, where it grew, I should find it difficult to tell you. I had seen it once, when a little child, in a stony road, among the thorns of a hedge; and I had gathered it. Ah! that was certain! It waved at the end of a long stalk; its petals were of a flame-like red; its form was unlike anything known, resembling somewhat a censer, from which issued golden stamens.

Since those earliest days, I had often sought it, often asked for it. When I mentioned it, people laughed at me. I spoke of the flower no more, but I sought for it still.

"Impossible!" Experience writes the word in the dictionary of the man. In the child's vocabulary, it has no existence. The marvellous to him is perfectly natural. Things which he sees to be beautiful arrange themselves along his path; why should he have a doubt of this or of that? By and by, exact bounds will limit his domain. A faint line, then a barrier, then a wall: erelong the wall will rise and surround the man,--a dungeon from which he must have wings to escape.

Around the child are neither walls nor boundary lines, but a limitless expanse, everywhere glowing with beautiful colors. In the far-off depths, reality mingles with revery. It is like an ocean whose blue waves glimmer and sparkle on the horizon, where they kiss the shores of enchanted isles.

I sought the red flower. Have you never searched for it too?

This morning, in the spring atmosphere, its memory came back to my heart. It seemed to me that I should find it; and I walked on at random.

I went through solitary footpaths. The laborers had gone to their noonday repose. The meadows were all in bloom. Weeds, growing in spite of wind and tide spread a golden carpet beside the rose-colored meadow-grass. In the wet places were tangles of pale blue forget-me-nots; beyond them, tufts of the azure veronica, and over the stream hung the straw-colored lotus. Under the grain, yet green, corn-poppies were waving. With every breeze a scarlet wave arose, swelled, and vanished.

Blue butterflies danced before me, mingling and dispersing like floating flower-petals in the air. Under the umbelled plants was a pavement of beetles, of black and purple mosaic. On the tufts of the verbena gathered insects with shells blazoned like the escutcheons of the knights of the Middle Ages. The quail was calling in the thickets; three notes here, and three there. I found myself on the skirt of a pine forest, and I seated myself on the grass.

The red flower! I thought of it no longer. The butterflies had carried it away. I thought how beautiful life is on a spring morning; what happiness it is to open the lips and inhale the fresh air; what joy to open the eyes and behold the earth in her bridal robes; what delight to open the hands and gather the sweet-smelling blossoms. Then I thought of the God of the heavens, that, arching above me, spoke of his power. I thought of the Lord of the little ones,--of the insects that, flitting about me, spoke of his goodness. All these accents awoke a chord in harmony with that which burst forth from the blossoming meadows.

I arose, and came to a recess in the shadowy edge of the forest.

As I walked, something glowed in the grass; something dazzled me; something made my heart throb. It was the red flower!

I seized it. I held it tightly in my hand. It was the flower; yes, it was the same, but with a strange, new splendor. I possessed it, yet I dared not look upon it.

Suddenly I felt the blossom tremble in my fingers. They loosened their grasp. The flower dilated. It expanded its carnation petals, slightly tinged with green; it spread out a purple calyx; two stamens, two antennæ, vibrated a moment. The blossom quivered; some breath had made it shudder; its wings unfolded. As I gazed, it fluttered a little, then rose in a golden sunbeam; its colors played in the different strata of the air, the roseate, the azure, the ether; it disappeared.

O my flower! I know whither thou goest and whence thou comest! I know the hidden sources of thine eternal bloom. I know the Word that created thee; I know the Eden where thou growest!

Winged flower! he who falters in his search for thee will never find thee. He who seeks thee on earth may grasp thee, but will surely lose thee again. Flower of Paradise, thou belongest only to him who searches for thee where thou hast been planted by the hand of the Lord.

_Madame De Gasparin._

THE STORY WITHOUT AN END.