นิทานภาษาอังกฤษ

ON board a steamer I once met an elderly man, with such a
merry face that, if it was really an index of his mind, he
must have been the happiest fellow in creation; and indeed he
considered himself so, for I heard it from his own mouth. He
was a Dane, the owner of a travelling theatre. He had all his
company with him in a large box, for he was the proprietor of
a puppet-show. His inborn cheerfulness, he said, had been
tested by a member of the Polytechnic Institution, and the
experiment had made him completely happy. I did not at first
understand all this, but afterwards he explained the whole
story to me; and here it is:-

    “I was giving a representation,” he said, “in the hall of
the posting-house in the little town of Slagelse; there was a
splendid audience, entirely juvenile excepting two respectable
matrons. All at once, a person in black, of student-like
appearance, entered the room, and sat down; he laughed aloud
at the telling points, and applauded quite at the proper time.
This was a very unusual spectator for me, and I felt anxious
to know who he was. I heard that he was a member of the
Polytechnic Institution in Copenhagen, who had been sent out
to lecture to the people in the provinces. Punctually at eight
o’clock my performance closed, for children must go early to
bed, and a manager must also consult the convenience of the
public.

    “At nine o’clock the lecturer commenced his lecture and
his experiments, and then I formed a part of his audience. It
was wonderful both to hear and to see. The greater part of it
was beyond my comprehension, but it led me to think that if we
men can acquire so much, we must surely be intended to last
longer than the little span which extends only to the time
when we are hidden away under the earth. His experiments were
quite miracles on a small scale, and yet the explanations
flowed as naturally as water from his lips. At the time of
Moses and the prophets, such a man would have been placed
among the sages of the land; in the middle ages they would
have burnt him at the stake.

    “All night long I could not sleep; and the next evening
when I gave another performance and the lecturer was present,
I was in one of my best moods.

    “I once heard of an actor, who, when he had to act the
part of a lover, always thought of one particular lady in the
audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of
the house, and now the Polytechnic lecturer was my she, my
only auditor, for whom alone I played.

    “When the performance was over, and the puppets removed
behind the curtain, the Polytechnic lecturer invited me into
his room to take a glass of wine. He talked of my comedies,
and I of his science, and I believe we were both equally
pleased. But I had the best of it, for there was much in what
he did that he could not always explain to me. For instance,
why a piece of iron which is rubbed on a cylinder, should
become magnetic. How does this happen? The magnetic sparks
come to it,- but how? It is the same with people in the world;
they are rubbed about on this spherical globe till the
electric spark comes upon them, and then we have a Napoleon,
or a Luther, or some one of the kind.

    “‘The whole world is but a series of miracles,’ said the
lecturer, ‘but we are so accustomed to them that we call them
everyday matters.’ And he went on explaining things to me till
my skull seemed lifted from my brain, and I declared that were
I not such an old fellow, I would at once become a member of
the Polytechnic Institution, that I might learn to look at the
bright side of everything, although I was one of the happiest
of men.

    “‘One of the happiest!’ said the lecturer, as if the idea
pleased him; ‘are you really happy?’

    “‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘for I am welcomed in every town, when
I arrive with my company; but I certainly have one wish which
sometimes weighs upon my cheerful temper like a mountain of
lead. I should like to become the manager of a real theatre,
and the director of a real troupe of men and women.’

    “‘I understand,’ he said; ‘you would like to have life
breathed into your puppets, so that they might be living
actors, and you their director. And would you then be quite
happy?’

    “I said I believed so. But he did not; and we talked it
over in all manner of ways, yet could not agree on the
subject. However, the wine was excellent, and we clanked our
glasses together as we drank. There must have been magic in
it, or I should most certainly become tipsy; but that did not
happen, for my mind seemed quite clear; and, indeed, a kind of
sunshine filled the room, and beamed from the eyes of the
Polytechnic lecturer. It made me think of the old stories when
the gods, in their immortal youth, wandered upon this earth,
and paid visits to mankind. I said so to him, and he smiled;
and I could have sworn that he was one of these ancient
deities in disguise, or, at all events, that he belonged to
the race of the gods. The result seemed to prove I was right
in my suspicions; for it was arranged that my highest wish
should be granted, that my puppets were to be gifted with
life, and that I was to be the manager of a real company. We
drank to my success, and clanked our glasses. Then he packed
all my dolls into the box, and fastened it on my back, and I
felt as if I were spinning round in a circle, and presently
found myself lying on the floor. I remember that quite well.
And then the whole company sprang from the box. The spirit had
come upon us all; the puppets had become distinguished actors-
at least, so they said themselves- and I was their director.

    “When all was ready for the first representation, the
whole company requested permission to speak to me before
appearing in public. The dancing lady said the house could not
be supported unless she stood on one leg; for she was a great
genius, and begged to be treated as such. The lady who acted
the part of the queen expected to be treated as a queen off
the stage, as well as on it, or else she said she should get
out of practice. The man whose duty it was to deliver a letter
gave himself as many airs as he who took the part of first
lover in the piece; he declared that the inferior parts were
as important as the great ones, and deserving equal
consideration, as parts of an artistic whole. The hero of the
piece would only play in a part containing points likely to
bring down the applause of the house. The ‘prima donna’ would
only act when the lights were red, for she declared that a
blue light did not suit her complexion. It was like a company
of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle with them; for I
was their director. My breath was taken away, my head whirled,
and I was as miserable as a man could be. It was quite a
novel, strange set of beings among whom I now found myself. I
only wished I had them all in my box again, and that I had
never been their director. So I told them roundly that, after
all, they were nothing but puppets; and then they killed me.
After a while I found myself lying on my bed in my room; but
how I got there, or how I got away at all from the Polytechnic
professor, he may perhaps know, I don’t. The moon shone upon
the floor, the box lay open, and the dolls were all scattered
about in great confusion; but I was not idle. I jumped off the
bed, and into the box they all had to go, some on their heads,
some on their feet. Then I shut down the lid, and seated
myself upon the box. ‘Now you’ll have to stay,’ said I, ‘and I
shall be cautious how I wish you flesh and blood again.’

    “I felt quite light, my cheerfulness had returned, and I
was the happiest of mortals. The Polytechnic professor had
fully cured me. I was as happy as a king, and went to sleep on
the box. Next morning- correctly speaking, it was noon, for I
slept remarkably late that day- I found myself still sitting
there, in happy consciousness that my former wish had been a
foolish one. I inquired for the Polytechnic professor; but he
had disappeared like the Greek and Roman gods; from that time
I have been the happiest man in the world. I am a happy
director; for none of my company ever grumble, nor the public
either, for I always make them merry. I can arrange my pieces
just as I please. I choose out of every comedy what I like
best, and no one is offended. Plays that are neglected
now-a-days by the great public were ran after thirty years
ago, and listened to till the tears ran down the cheeks of the
audience. These are the pieces I bring forward. I place them
before the little ones, who cry over them as papa and mamma
used to cry thirty years ago. But I make them shorter, for the
youngsters don’t like long speeches; and if they have anything
mournful, they like it to be over quickly.”

                            THE END

ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a
princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He
travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he
get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was
difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was
always something about them that was not as it should be. So
he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very
much to have a real princess.

    One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder
and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly
a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went
to open it.

    It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate.
But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had
made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes;
it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the
heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

    “Well, we’ll soon find that out,” thought the old queen.
But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the
bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then
she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then
twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

    On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning
she was asked how she had slept.

    “Oh, very badly!” said she. “I have scarcely closed my
eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I
was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all
over my body. It’s horrible!”

    Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had
felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the
twenty eider-down beds.

    Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

    So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that
he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum,
where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

    There, that is a true story.

                            THE END

A DUCK once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who
said she came from Spain, which is almost the same thing. At
all events, she was called the “Portuguese,” and she laid
eggs, was killed, and cooked, and there was an end of her. But
the ducklings which crept forth from the eggs were also called
“Portuguese,” and about that there may be some question. But
of all the family one only remained in the duckyard, which may
be called a farmyard, as the chickens were admitted, and the
cock strutted about in a very hostile manner. “He annoys me
with his loud crowing,” said the Portuguese duck; “but, still,
he’s a handsome bird, there’s no denying that, although he’s
not a drake. He ought to moderate his voice, like those little
birds who are singing in the lime-trees over there in our
neighbor’s garden, but that is an art only acquired in polite
society. How sweetly they sing there; it is quite a pleasure
to listen to them! I call it Portuguese singing. If I had only
such a little singing-bird, I’d be kind and good as a mother
to him, for it’s in my nature, in my Portuguese blood.”

    While she was speaking, one of the little singing-birds
came tumbling head over heels from the roof into the yard. The
cat was after him, but he had escaped from her with a broken
wing, and so came tumbling into the yard. “That’s just like
the cat, she’s a villain,” said the Portuguese duck. “I
remember her ways when I had children of my own. How can such
a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon the
roofs. I don’t think they allow such things in Portugal.” She
pitied the little singing-bird, and so did all the other ducks
who were not Portuguese.

    “Poor little creature!” they said, one after another, as
they came up. “We can’t sing, certainly; but we have a
sounding-board, or something of the kind, within us; we can
feel that, though we don’t talk about it.”

    “But I can talk,” said the Portuguese duck; “and I’ll do
something for the little fellow; it’s my duty;” and she
stepped into the water-trough, and beat her wings upon the
water so strongly that the bird was nearly drowned by a
shower-bath; but the duck meant it kindly. “That is a good
deed,” she said; “I hope the others will take example by it.”

    “Tweet, tweet!” said the little bird, for one of his wings
being broken, he found it difficult to shake himself; but he
quite understood that the bath was meant kindly, and he said,
“You are very kind-hearted, madam;” but he did not wish for a
second bath.

    “I have never thought about my heart,” replied the
Portuguese duck, “but I know that I love all my
fellow-creatures, except the cat, and nobody can expect me to
love her, for she ate up two of my ducklings. But pray make
yourself at home; it is easy to make one’s self comfortable. I
am myself from a foreign country, as you may see by my
feathery dress. My drake is a native of these parts; he’s not
of my race; but I am not proud on that account. If any one
here can understand you, I may say positively I am that
person.”

    “She’s quite full of ‘Portulak,’” said a little common
duck, who was witty. All the common ducks considered the word
“Portulak” a good joke, for it sounded like Portugal. They
nudged each other, and said, “Quack! that was witty!”

    Then the other ducks began to notice the little bird. “The
Portuguese had certainly a great flow of language,” they said
to the little bird. “For our part we don’t care to fill our
beaks with such long words, but we sympathize with you quite
as much. If we don’t do anything else, we can walk about with
you everywhere, and we think that is the best thing we can
do.”

    “You have a lovely voice,” said one of the eldest ducks;
“it must be great satisfaction to you to be able to give so
much pleasure as you do. I am certainly no judge of your
singing so I keep my beak shut, which is better than talking
nonsense, as others do.”

    “Don’t plague him so, interposed the Portuguese duck; “he
requires rest and nursing. My little singing-bird do you wish
me to prepare another bath for you?”

    “Oh, no! no! pray let me dry,” implored the little bird.

    “The water-cure is the only remedy for me, when I am not
well,” said the Portuguese. “Amusement, too, is very
beneficial. The fowls from the neighborhood will soon be here
to pay you a visit. There are two Cochin Chinese amongst them;
they wear feathers on their legs, and are well educated. They
have been brought from a great distance, and consequently I
treat them with greater respect than I do the others.”

    Then the fowls arrived, and the cock was polite enough
to-day to keep from being rude. “You are a real songster,” he
said, “you do as much with your little voice as it is possible
to do; but there requires more noise and shrillness in any one
who wishes it to be known who he is.”

    The two Chinese were quite enchanted with the appearance
of the singing-bird. His feathers had been much ruffled by his
bath, so that he seemed to them quite like a tiny Chinese
fowl. “He’s charming,” they said to each other, and began a
conversation with him in whispers, using the most aristocratic
Chinese dialect: “We are of the same race as yourself,” they
said. “The ducks, even the Portuguese, are all aquatic birds,
as you must have noticed. You do not know us yet,- very few
know us, or give themselves the trouble to make our
acquaintance, not even any of the fowls, though we are born to
occupy a higher grade in society than most of them. But that
does not disturb us, we quietly go on in our own way among the
rest, whose ideas are certainly not ours; for we look at the
bright side of things, and only speak what is good, although
that is sometimes very difficult to find where none exists.
Except ourselves and the cock there is not one in the yard who
can be called talented or polite. It cannot even be said of
the ducks, and we warn you, little bird, not to trust that one
yonder, with the short tail feathers, for she is cunning; that
curiously marked one, with the crooked stripes on her wings,
is a mischief-maker, and never lets any one have the last
word, though she is always in the wrong. That fat duck yonder
speaks evil of every one, and that is against our principles.
If we have nothing good to tell, we close our beaks. The
Portuguese is the only one who has had any education, and with
whom we can associate, but she is passionate, and talks too
much about ‘Portugal.’”

    “I wonder what those two Chinese are whispering about,”
whispered one duck to another; “they are always doing it, and
it annoys me. We never speak to them.”

    Now the drake came up, and he thought the little
singing-bird was a sparrow. “Well, I don’t understand the
difference,” he said; “it appears to me all the same. He’s
only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let
them, I say.”

    “Don’t take any notice of what he says,” whispered the
Portuguese; “he’s very well in matters of business, and with
him business is placed before everything. But now I shall lie
down and have a little rest. It is a duty we owe to ourselves
that we may be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with
sage and onions and apples.” So she laid herself down in the
sun and winked with one eye; she had a very comfortable place,
and felt so comfortable that she fell asleep. The little
singing-bird busied himself for some time with his broken
wing, and at last he lay down, too, quite close to his
protectress. The sun shone warm and bright, and he found out
that it was a very good place. But the fowls of the
neighborhood were all awake, and, to tell the truth, they had
paid a visit to the duckyard, simply and solely to find food
for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave, and the
other fowls soon followed them.

    The witty little duck said of the Portuguese, that the old
lady was getting quite a “doting ducky,” All the other ducks
laughed at this. “Doting ducky,” they whispered. “Oh, that’s
too ‘witty!’” And then they repeated the former joke about
“Portulak,” and declared it was most amusing. Then they all
lay down to have a nap.

    They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly
something was thrown into the yard for them to eat. It came
down with such a bang, that the whole company started up and
clapped their wings. The Portuguese awoke too, and rushed over
to the other side: in so doing she trod upon the little
singing-bird.

    “Tweet,” he cried; “you trod very hard upon me, madam.”

    “Well, then, why do you lie in my way?” she retorted, “you
must not be so touchy. I have nerves of my own, but I do not
cry ‘tweet.’”

    “Don’t be angry,” said the little bird; “the ‘tweet’
slipped out of my beak unawares.”

    The Portuguese did not listen to him, but began eating as
fast as she could, and made a good meal. When she had
finished, she lay down again, and the little bird, who wished
to be amiable, began to sing,-

                       “Chirp and twitter,
                         The dew-drops glitter,
                       In the hours of sunny spring,
                         I’ll sing my best,
                         Till I go to rest,
                       With my head behind my wing.”

    “Now I want rest after my dinner,” said the Portuguese;
“you must conform to the rules of the house while you are
here. I want to sleep now.”

    The little bird was quite taken aback, for he meant it
kindly. When madam awoke afterwards, there he stood before her
with a little corn he had found, and laid it at her feet; but
as she had not slept well, she was naturally in a bad temper.
“Give that to a chicken,” she said, “and don’t be always
standing in my way.”

    “Why are you angry with me?” replied the little
singing-bird, “what have I done?”

    “Done!” repeated the Portuguese duck, “your mode of
expressing yourself is not very polite. I must call your
attention to that fact.”

    “It was sunshine here yesterday,” said the little bird,
“but to-day it is cloudy and the air is close.”

    “You know very little about the weather, I fancy,” she
retorted, “the day is not over yet. Don’t stand there, looking
so stupid.”

    “But you are looking at me just as the wicked eyes looked
when I fell into the yard yesterday.”

    “Impertinent creature!” exclaimed the Portuguese duck:
“would you compare me with the cat- that beast of prey?
There’s not a drop of malicious blood in me. I’ve taken your
part, and now I’ll teach you better manners.” So saying, she
made a bite at the little singing-bird’s head, and he fell
dead on the ground. “Now whatever is the meaning of this?”
“she said; “could he not bear even such a little peck as I
gave him? Then certainly he was not made for this world. I’ve
been like a mother to him, I know that, for I’ve a good
heart.”

    Then the cock from the neighboring yard stuck his head in,
and crowed with steam-engine power.

    “You’ll kill me with your crowing,” she cried, “it’s all
your fault. He’s lost his life, and I’m very near losing
mine.”

    “There’s not much of him lying there,” observed the cock.

    “Speak of him with respect,” said the Portuguese duck,
“for he had manners and education, and he could sing. He was
affectionate and gentle, and that is as rare a quality in
animals as in those who call themselves human beings.”

    Then all the ducks came crowding round the little dead
bird. Ducks have strong passions, whether they feel envy or
pity. There was nothing to envy here, so they all showed a
great deal of pity, even the two Chinese. “We shall never have
another singing-bird again amongst us; he was almost a
Chinese,” they whispered, and then they wept with such a
noisy, clucking sound, that all the other fowls clucked too,
but the ducks went about with redder eyes afterwards. “We have
hearts of our own,” they said, “nobody can deny that.”

    “Hearts!” repeated the Portuguese, “indeed you have,
almost as tender as the ducks in Portugal.”

    “Let us think of getting something to satisfy our hunger,”
said the drake, that’s the most important business. If one of
our toys is broken, why we have plenty more.”

                            THE END

IN a poet’s room, where his inkstand stood on the table,
the remark was once made, “It is wonderful what can be brought
out of an inkstand. What will come next? It is indeed
wonderful.”

    “Yes, certainly,” said the inkstand to the pen, and to the
other articles that stood on the table; “that’s what I always
say. It is wonderful and extraordinary what a number of things
come out of me. It’s quite incredible, and I really don’t know
what is coming next when that man dips his pen into me. One
drop out of me is enough for half a page of paper, and what
cannot half a page contain? From me, all the works of a poet
are produced; all those imaginary characters whom people fancy
they have known or met. All the deep feeling, the humor, and
the vivid pictures of nature. I myself don’t understand how it
is, for I am not acquainted with nature, but it is certainly
in me. From me have gone forth to the world those wonderful
descriptions of troops of charming maidens, and of brave
knights on prancing steeds; of the halt and the blind, and I
know not what more, for I assure you I never think of these
things.”

    “There you are right,” said the pen, “for you don’t think
at all; if you did, you would see that you can only provide
the means. You give the fluid that I may place upon the paper
what dwells in me, and what I wish to bring to light. It is
the pen that writes: no man doubts that; and, indeed, most
people understand as much about poetry as an old inkstand.”

    “You have had very little experience,” replied the
inkstand. “You have hardly been in service a week, and are
already half worn out. Do you imagine you are a poet? You are
only a servant, and before you came I had many like you, some
of the goose family, and others of English manufacture. I know
a quill pen as well as I know a steel one. I have had both
sorts in my service, and I shall have many more when he comes-
the man who performs the mechanical part- and writes down what
he obtains from me. I should like to know what will be the
next thing he gets out of me.”

    “Inkpot!” exclaimed the pen contemptuously.

    Late in the evening the poet came home. He had been to a
concert, and had been quite enchanted with the admirable
performance of a famous violin player whom he had heard there.
The performer had produced from his instrument a richness of
tone that sometimes sounded like tinkling waterdrops or
rolling pearls; sometimes like the birds twittering in chorus,
and then rising and swelling in sound like the wind through
the fir-trees. The poet felt as if his own heart were weeping,
but in tones of melody like the sound of a woman’s voice. It
seemed not only the strings, but every part of the instrument
from which these sounds were produced. It was a wonderful
performance and a difficult piece, and yet the bow seemed to
glide across the strings so easily that it was as if any one
could do it who tried. Even the violin and the bow appeared to
perform independently of their master who guided them; it was
as if soul and spirit had been breathed into the instrument,
so the audience forgot the performer in the beautiful sounds
he produced. Not so the poet; he remembered him, and named
him, and wrote down his thoughts on the subject. “How foolish
it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their
performance, and yet we men often commit that folly. The poet,
the artist, the man of science in his laboratory, the
general,- we all do it; and yet we are only the instruments
which the Almighty uses; to Him alone the honor is due. We
have nothing of ourselves of which we should be proud.” Yes,
this is what the poet wrote down. He wrote it in the form of a
parable, and called it “The Master and the Instruments.”

    “That is what you have got, madam,” said the pen to the
inkstand, when the two were alone again. “Did you hear him
read aloud what I had written down?”

    “Yes, what I gave you to write,” retorted the inkstand.
“That was a cut at you because of your conceit. To think that
you could not understand that you were being quizzed. I gave
you a cut from within me. Surely I must know my own satire.”

    “Ink-pitcher!” cried the pen.

    “Writing-stick!” retorted the inkstand. And each of them
felt satisfied that he had given a good answer. It is pleasing
to be convinced that you have settled a matter by your reply;
it is something to make you sleep well, and they both slept
well upon it. But the poet did not sleep. Thoughts rose up
within him like the tones of the violin, falling like pearls,
or rushing like the strong wind through the forest. He
understood his own heart in these thoughts; they were as a ray
from the mind of the Great Master of all minds.

    “To Him be all the honor.”

                            THE END

You ought to have known our aunt; she was charming! That
is to say, she was not charming at all as the word is usually
understood; but she was good and kind, amusing in her way, and
was just as any one ought to be whom people are to talk about
and to laugh at. She might have been put into a play, and
wholly and solely on account of the fact that she only lived
for the theatre and for what was done there. She was an
honorable matron; but Agent Fabs, whom she used to call
“Flabs,” declared that our aunt was stage-struck.

    “The theatre is my school,” said she, “the source of my
knowledge. From thence I have resuscitated Biblical history.
Now, ‘Moses’ and ‘Joseph in Egypt’- there are operas for you!
I get my universal history from the theatre, my geography, and
my knowledge of men. Out of the French pieces I get to know
life in Paris- slippery, but exceedingly interesting. How I
have cried over “La Famille Roquebourg’- that the man must
drink himself to death, so that she may marry the young
fellow! Yes, how many tears I have wept in the fifty years I
have subscribed to the theatre!”

    Our aunt knew every acting play, every bit of scenery,
every character, every one who appeared or had appeared. She
seemed really only to live during the nine months the theatre
was open. Summertime without a summer theatre seemed to be
only a time that made her old; while, on the other hand, a
theatrical evening that lasted till midnight was a lengthening
of her life. She did not say, as other people do, “Now we
shall have spring, the stork is here,” or, “They’ve advertised
the first strawberries in the papers.” She, on the contrary,
used to announce the coming of autumn, with “Have you heard
they’re selling boxes for the theatre? now the performances
will begin.”

    She used to value a lodging entirely according to its
proximity to the theatre. It was a real sorrow to her when she
had to leave the little lane behind the playhouse, and move
into the great street that lay a little farther off, and live
there in a house where she had no opposite neighbors.

    “At home,” said she, “my windows must be my opera-box. One
cannot sit and look into one’s self till one’s tired; one must
see people. But now I live just as if I’d go into the country.
If I want to see human beings, I must go into my kitchen, and
sit down on the sink, for there only I have opposite
neighbors. No; when I lived in my dear little lane, I could
look straight down into the ironmonger’s shop, and had only
three hundred paces to the theatre; and now I’ve three
thousand paces to go, military measurement.”

    Our aunt was sometimes ill, but however unwell she might
feel, she never missed the play. The doctor prescribed one day
that she should put her feet in a bran bath, and she followed
his advice; but she drove to the theatre all the same, and sat
with her feet in bran there. If she had died there, she would
have been very glad. Thorwaldsen died in the theatre, and she
called that a happy death.

    She could not imagine but that in heaven there must be a
theatre too. It had not, indeed, been promised us, but we
might very well imagine it. The many distinguished actors and
actresses who had passed away must surely have a field for
their talent.

    Our aunt had an electric wire from the theatre to her
room. A telegram used to be dispatched to her at coffee-time,
and it used to consist of the words, “Herr Sivertsen is at the
machinery;” for it was he who gave the signal for drawing the
curtain up and down and for changing the scenes.

    From him she used to receive a short and concise
description of every piece. His opinion of Shakspeare’s
“Tempest,” was, “Mad nonsense! There’s so much to put up, and
the first scene begins with ‘Water to the front of the
wings.’” That is to say, the water had to come forward so far.
But when, on the other hand, the same interior scene remained
through five acts, he used to pronounce it a sensible,
well-written play, a resting play, which performed itself,
without putting up scenes.

    In earlier times, by which name our aunt used to designate
thirty years ago, she and the before-mentioned Herr Sivertsen
had been younger. At that time he had already been connected
with the machinery, and was, as she said, her benefactor. It
used to be the custom in those days that in the evening
performances in the only theatre the town possessed,
spectators were admitted to the part called the “flies,” over
the stage, and every machinist had one or two places to give
away. Often the flies were quite full of good company; it was
said that generals’ wives and privy councillors’ wives had
been up there. It was quite interesting to look down behind
the scenes, and to see how the people walked to and fro on the
stage when the curtain was down.

    Our aunt had been there several times, as well when there
was a tragedy as when there was a ballet; for the pieces in
which there were the greatest number of characters on the
stage were the most interesting to see from the flies. One sat
pretty much in the dark up there, and most people took their
supper up with them. Once three apples and a great piece of
bread and butter and sausage fell down right into the dungeon
of Ugolino, where that unhappy man was to be starved to death;
and there was great laughter among the audience. The sausage
was one of the weightiest reasons why the worthy management
refused in future to have any spectators up in the flies.

    “But I was there seven-and-thirty times,” said our aunt,
“and I shall always remember Mr. Sivertsen for that.”

    On the very last evening when the flies were still open to
the public, the “Judgment of Solomon” was performed, as our
aunt remembered very well. She had, through the influence of
her benefactor, Herr Sivertsen, procured a free admission for
the Agent Fabs, although he did not deserve it in the least,
for he was always cutting his jokes about the theatre and
teasing our aunt; but she had procured him a free admission to
the flies, for all that. He wanted to look at this
player-stuff from the other side.

    “Those were his own words, and they were just like him,”
said our aunt.

    He looked down from above on the ‘Judgment of Solomon,”
and fell asleep over it. One would have thought that he had
come from a dinner where many toasts had been given. He went
to sleep, and was locked in. And there he sat through the dark
night in the flies, and when he woke, he told a story, but our
aunt would not believe it.

    “The ‘Judgment of Solomon’ was over,” he said, “and all
the people had gone away, up stairs and down stairs; but now
the real play began, the after-piece, which was the best of
all,” said the agent. “Then life came into the affair. It was
not the ‘Judgment of Solomon’ that was performed; no, a real
court of judgment was held upon the stage.” And Agent Fabs had
the impudence to try and make our aunt believe all this. That
was the thanks she got for having got him a place in the
flies.

    What did the agent say? Why, it was curious enough to
hear, but there was malice and satire in it.

    “It looked dark enough up there,” said the agent; “but
then the magic business began- a great performance, ‘The
Judgment in the Theatre.’ The box-keepers were at their posts,
and every spectator had to show his ghostly pass-book, that it
might be decided if he was to be admitted with hands loose or
bound, and with or without a muzzle. Grand people who came too
late, when the performance had begun, and young people, who
could not always watch the time, were tied up outside, and had
list slippers put on their feet, with which they were allowed
to go in before the beginning of the next act, and they had
muzzles too. And then the ‘Judgment on the Stage’ began.”

    “All malice, and not a bit of truth in it,” said our aunt.

    The painter, who wanted to get to Paradise, had to go up a
staircase which he had himself painted, but which no man could
mount. That was to expiate his sins against perspective. All
the plants and buildings, which the property-man had placed,
with infinite pains, in countries to which they did not
belong, the poor fellow was obliged to put in their right
places before cockcrow, if he wanted to get into Paradise. Let
Herr Fabs see how he would get in himself; but what he said of
the performers, tragedians and comedians, singers and dancers,
that was the most rascally of all. Mr. Fabs, indeed!- Flabs!
He did not deserve to be admitted at all, and our aunt would
not soil her lips with what he said. And he said, did Flabs,
that the whole was written down, and it should be printed when
he was dead and buried, but not before, for he would not risk
having his arms and legs broken.

    Once our aunt had been in fear and trembling in her temple
of happiness, the theatre. It was on a winter day, one of
those days in which one has a couple of hours of daylight,
with a gray sky. It was terribly cold and snowy, but aunt must
go to the theatre. A little opera and a great ballet were
performed, and a prologue and an epilogue into the bargain;
and that would last till late at night. Our aunt must needs
go; so she borrowed a pair of fur boots of her lodger- boots
with fur inside and out, and which reached far up her legs.

    She got to the theatre, and to her box; the boots were
warm, and she kept them on. Suddenly there was a cry of
“Fire!” Smoke was coming from one of the side scenes, and
streamed down from the flies, and there was a terrible panic.
The people came rushing out, and our aunt was the last in the
box, “on the second tier, left-hand side, for from there the
scenery looks best,” she used to say. “The scenes are always
arranged that they look best from the King’s side.” Aunt
wanted to come out, but the people before her, in their fright
and heedlessness, slammed the door of the box; and there sat
our aunt, and couldn’t get out, and couldn’t get in; that is
to say, she couldn’t get into the next box, for the partition
was too high for her. She called out, and no one heard her;
she looked down into the tier of boxes below her, and it was
empty, and low, and looked quite near, and aunt in her terror
felt quite young and light. She thought of jumping down, and
had got one leg over the partition, the other resting on the
bench. There she sat astride, as if on horseback, well wrapped
up in her flowered cloak with one leg hanging out- a leg in a
tremendous fur boot. That was a sight to behold; and when it
was beheld, our aunt was heard too, and was saved from
burning, for the theatre was not burned down.

    That was the most memorable evening of her life, and she
was glad that she could not see herself, for she would have
died with confusion.

    Her benefactor in the machinery department, Herr
Sivertsen, visited her every Sunday, but it was a long time
from Sunday to Sunday. In the latter time, therefore, she used
to have in a little child “for the scraps;” that is to say, to
eat up the remains of the dinner. It was a child employed in
the ballet, one that certainly wanted feeding. The little one
used to appear, sometimes as an elf, sometimes as a page; the
most difficult part she had to play was the lion’s hind leg in
the “Magic Flute;” but as she grew larger she could represent
the fore-feet of the lion. She certainly only got half a
guilder for that, whereas the hind legs were paid for with a
whole guilder; but then she had to walk bent, and to do
without fresh air. “That was all very interesting to hear,”
said our aunt.

    She deserved to live as long as the theatre stood, but she
could not last so long; and she did not die in the theatre,
but respectably in her bed. Her last words were, moreover, not
without meaning. She asked,

    “What will the play be to-morrow?”

    At her death she left about five hundred dollars. We
presume this from the interest, which came to twenty dollars.
This our aunt had destined as a legacy for a worthy old
spinster who had no friends; it was to be devoted to a yearly
subscription for a place in the second tier, on the left side,
for the Saturday evening, “for on that evening two pieces were
always given,” it said in the will; and the only condition
laid upon the person who enjoyed the legacy was, that she
should think, every Saturday evening, of our aunt, who was
lying in her grave.

    This was our aunt’s religion.

                            THE END

“IN the world it’s always going up and down; and now I
can’t go up any higher!” So said Ole the tower-keeper. “Most
people have to try both the ups and the downs; and, rightly
considered, we all get to be watchmen at last, and look down
upon life from a height.”

    Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old
tower-keeper, a strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to
speak out everything that came into his head, and who for all
that had many a serious thought deep in his heart. Yes, he was
the child of respectable people, and there were even some who
said that he was the son of a privy councillor, or that he
might have been. He had studied, too, and had been assistant
teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all that to
him? In those days he lived in the clerk’s house, and was to
have everything in the house- to be at free quarters, as the
saying is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young
gentleman. He wanted to have his boots cleaned with patent
blacking, and the clerk could only afford ordinary grease; and
upon that point they split. One spoke of stinginess, the other
of vanity, and the blacking became the black cause of enmity
between them, and at last they parted.

    This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely,
patent blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly,
he at last drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but
the church tower is the only place in a great city where
hermitage, office and bread can be found together. So he
betook himself up thither, and smoked his pipe as he made his
solitary rounds. He looked upward and downward, and had his
own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in books
and in himself. I often lent him books- good books; and you
may know by the company he keeps. He loved neither the English
governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a
mixture of empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted
biographies, and descriptions of the wonders of, the world. I
visited him at least once a year, generally directly after New
Year’s day, and then he always spoke of this and that which
the change of the year had put into his head.

    I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will
reproduce his own words whenever I can remember them.

                      FIRST VISIT

    Among the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which
had greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological
book, containing an account of the boulders.

    “Yes, they’re rare old fellows, those boulders!” he said;
“and to think that we should pass them without noticing them!
And over the street pavement, the paving stones, those
fragments of the oldest remains of antiquity, one walks
without ever thinking about them. I have done the very thing
myself. But now I look respectfully at every paving-stone.
Many thanks for the book! It has filled me with thought, and
has made me long to read more on the subject. The romance of
the earth is, after all, the most wonderful of all romances.
It’s a pity one can’t read the first volume of it, because it
is written in a language that we don’t understand. One must
read in the different strata, in the pebble-stones, for each
separate period. Yes, it is a romance, a very wonderful
romance, and we all have our place in it. We grope and ferret
about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball keeps
turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which
we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then
it’s a story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands
of years and is still going on. My best thanks for the book
about the boulders. Those are fellows indeed! They could tell
us something worth hearing, if they only knew how to talk.
It’s really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing,
especially when a man is as highly placed as I am. And then to
think that we all, even with patent lacquer, are nothing more
than insects of a moment on that ant-hill the earth, though we
may be insects with stars and garters, places and offices! One
feels quite a novice beside these venerable million-year-old
boulders. On last New Year’s eve I was reading the book, and
had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my usual
New Year’s diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you
don’t know what that is!

    “The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough
known- that journey is taken on St. John’s eve, to the
Brocken; but we have a wild journey, also which is national
and modern, and that is the journey to Amack on the night of
the New Year. All indifferent poets and poetesses, musicians,
newspaper writers, and artistic notabilities,- I mean those
who are no good,- ride in the New Year’s night through the air
to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting brushes or
quill pens, for steel pens won’t bear them- they’re too stiff.
As I told you, I see that every New Year’s night, and could
mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not
like to draw their enmity upon myself, for they don’t like
people to talk about their ride to Amack on quill pens. I’ve a
kind of niece, who is a fishwife, and who, as she tells me,
supplies three respectable newspapers with the terms of abuse
and vituperation they use, and she has herself been at Amack
as an invited guest; but she was carried out thither, for she
does not own a quill pen, nor can she ride. She has told me
all about it. Half of what she said is not true, but the other
half gives us information enough. When she was out there, the
festivities began with a song; each of the guests had written
his own song, and each one sang his own song, for he thought
that the best, and it was all one, all the same melody. Then
those came marching up, in little bands, who are only busy
with their mouths. There were ringing bells that rang
alternately; and then came the little drummers that beat their
tattoo in the family circle; and acquaintance was made with
those who write without putting their names, which here means
as much as using grease instead of patent blacking; and then
there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy was worst off,
for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then, too,
there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns
over the dust-bin, and calls it ‘good, very good, remarkably
good.’ And in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by
the mere meeting of these folks, there shot up out of the
great dirt-heap at Amack a stem, a tree, an immense flower, a
great mushroom, a perfect roof, which formed a sort of
warehouse for the worthy company, for in it hung everything
they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out of the
tree poured sparks like flames of fire; these were the ideas
and thoughts, borrowed from others, which they had used, and
which now got free and rushed away like so many fireworks.
They played at ‘the stick burns,’ and the young poets played
at ‘heart-burns,’ and the witlings played off their jests, and
the jests rolled away with a thundering sound, as if empty
pots were being shattered against doors. ‘It was very
amusing!’ my niece said; in fact, she said many things that
were very malicious but very amusing, but I won’t mention
them, for a man must be good-natured, and not a carping
critic. But you will easily perceive that when a man once
knows the rights of the journey to Amack, as I know them, it’s
quite natural that on the New Year’s night one should look out
to see the wild chase go by. If in the New Year I miss certain
persons who used to be there, I am sure to notice others who
are new arrivals; but this year I omitted taking my look at
the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back through
millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in
the north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before
Noah’s ark was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom
of the sea, and re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that
peered forth from the flood and said, ‘This shall be Zealand!’
I saw them become the dwelling-place of birds that are unknown
to us, and then become the seat of wild chiefs of whom we know
nothing, until with their axes they cut their Runic signs into
a few of these stones, which then came into the calendar of
time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond all lapse of
time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three or
four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air,
and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a
falling star is, do you not? The learned men are not at all
clear about it. I have my own ideas about shooting stars, as
the common people in many parts call them, and my idea is
this: How often are silent thanksgivings offered up for one
who has done a good and noble action! The thanks are often
speechless, but they are not lost for all that. I think these
thanks are caught up, and the sunbeams bring the silent,
hidden thankfulness over the head of the benefactor; and if it
be a whole people that has been expressing its gratitude
through a long lapse of time, the thankfulness appears as a
nosegay of flowers, and at length falls in the form of a
shooting star over the good man’s grave. I am always very much
pleased when I see a shooting star, especially in the New
Year’s night, and then find out for whom the gift of gratitude
was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell in the southwest, as
a tribute of thanksgiving to many- many! ‘For whom was that
star intended?’ thought I. It fell, no doubt, on the hill by
the Bay of Plensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves
of Schleppegrell, Lasloes, and their comrades. One star also
fell in the midst of the land, fell upon Soro, a flower on the
grave of Holberg, the thanks of the year from a great many -
thanks for his charming plays!

    “It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a
shooting star falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none
will fall- no sunbeam brings thanks to me, for here there is
nothing worthy of thanks. I shall not get the patent lacquer,”
said Ole, “for my fate on earth is only grease, after all.”

                      SECOND VISIT

    It was New Year’s day, and I went up on the tower. Ole
spoke of the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the
Old Year into the New- from one grave into the other, as he
said. And he told me a story about the glasses, and this story
had a very deep meaning. It was this:

    “When on the New Year’s night the clock strikes twelve,
the people at the table rise up with full glasses in their
hands, and drain these glasses, and drink success to the New
Year. They begin the year with the glass in their hands; that
is a good beginning for drunkards. They begin the New Year by
going to bed, and that’s a good beginning for drones. Sleep is
sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the glass
likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass?” asked Ole. “I
will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and
then pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and
misfortune and the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now,
suppose we count the glasses- of course I count the different
degrees in the glasses for different people.

    “You see, the first glass, that’s the glass of health, and
in that the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the
beam in the ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be
sitting in the arbor of health.

    “If you take the second glass- from this a little bird
soars upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a
man may listen to his song, and perhaps join in ‘Fair is life!
no downcast looks! Take courage, and march onward!’

    “Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who
cannot certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin
blood in his veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin- not
wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play
off tricks upon you. He’ll sit at your ear and whisper merry
thoughts to you; he’ll creep into your heart and warm you, so
that you grow very merry, and become a wit, so far as the wits
of the others can judge.

    “In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In
that glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go
beyond that sign.

    “Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you
will feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a
different way. Out of the glass there will spring with a bang
Prince Carnival, nine times and extravagantly merry. He’ll
draw you away with him; you’ll forget your dignity, if you
have any, and you’ll forget more than you should or ought to
forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks will carry you
away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in silk and
satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but tear
yourself away if you can!

    “The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the
form of a little, well dressed, attractive and very
fascinating man, who thoroughly understands you, agrees with
you in everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He
has a lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies
you home. There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed
to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly
chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which
led him to commit all the other six. The man’s blood is
mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and
with that the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each
one grows up with a strength like that of the grains of
mustard-seed, and shoots up into a tree, and spreads over the
whole world: and most people have no choice but to go into the
oven, to be re-cast in a new form.

    “That’s the history of the glasses,” said the tower-keeper
Ole, “and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but
I give it you with both!”

                       THIRD VISIT

    On this occasion I chose the general “moving-day” for my
visit to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable
down in the streets in the town; for they are full of
sweepings, shreds, and remnants of all sorts, to say nothing
of the cast-off rubbish in which one has to wade about. But
this time I happened to see two children playing in this
wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at “going to bed,”
for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this sport.
They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged
curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. “It was splendid!”
they said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides,
I was obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.

    “It’s moving-day to day,” he said; “streets and houses are
like a dust-bin- a large dust-bin; but I’m content with a
cartload. I may get something good out of that, and I really
did get something good out of it once. Shortly after Christmas
I was going up the street; it was rough weather, wet and
dirty- the right kind of weather to catch cold in. The dustman
was there with his cart, which was full, and looked like a
sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of the cart stood
a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its twigs;
it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out
into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back
of his cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was
mournful- all depends on what you think of when you see it;
and I thought about it, and thought this and that of many
things that were in the cart: or I might have done so, and
that comes to the same thing. There was an old lady’s glove,
too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I tell you? The
glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger at the
tree. ‘I’m sorry for the tree,’ it thought; ‘and I was also at
the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to
speak, a ball night- a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My
memory keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing
else to live for!’ This is what the glove thought, or what it
might have thought. ‘That’s a stupid affair with yonder fir
tree,’ said the potsherds. You see, potsherds think everything
is stupid. ‘When one is in the dust-cart,’ they said, ‘one
ought not to give one’s self airs and wear tinsel. I know that
I have been useful in the world- far more useful than such a
green stick.’ This was a view that might be taken, and I don’t
think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree
looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the
dust-heap; and truly there is dust enough in the streets on
moving-day. The way is difficult and troublesome then, and I
feel obliged to run away out of the confusion; or, if I am on
the tower, I stay there and look down, and it is amusing
enough.

    “There are the good people below, playing at ‘changing
houses.’ They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels,
and the household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with
them. All the little griefs of the lodging and the family, and
the real cares and sorrows, move with them out of the old
dwelling into the new; and what gain is there for them or for
us in the whole affair? Yes, there was written long ago the
good old maxim: ‘Think on the great moving-day of death!’ That
is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to you
that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations.
Yes, Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport
writer, and he countersigns our service-book, and he is
director of the savings bank of life. Do you understand me?
All the deeds of our life, the great and the little alike, we
put into this savings bank; and when Death calls with his
omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with him into the
land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he
takes this or that good deed we have done, and lets it
accompany us; and this may be very pleasant or very terrific.
Nobody has ever escaped the omnibus journey. There is
certainly a talk about one who was not allowed to go- they
call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride behind the omnibus.
If he had been allowed to get in, he would have escaped the
clutches of the poets.

    “Just cast your mind’s eye into that great omnibus. The
society is mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit
side by side. They must go without their property and money;
they have only the service-book and the gift out of the
savings bank with them. But which of our deeds is selected and
given to us? Perhaps quite a little one, one that we have
forgotten, but which has been recorded- small as a pea, but
the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who
sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and
flouted, will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a
provision; and the stool may become a litter in the land of
eternity, and rise up then as a throne, gleaming like gold and
blooming as an arbor. He who always lounged about, and drank
the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might forget the wild
things he had done here, will have his barrel given to him on
the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on; and
the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain
pure, and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he
sees and feels what in life he could not or would not see; and
then he has within him the punishment, the gnawing worm, which
will not die through time incalculable. If on the glasses
there stood written ‘oblivion,’ on the barrel ‘remembrance’ is
inscribed.

    “When I read a good book, an historical work, I always
think at last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the
omnibus of death, and wonder, which of the hero’s deeds Death
took out of the savings bank for him, and what provisions he
got on the journey into eternity. There was once a French
king- I have forgotten his name, for the names of good people
are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it will come back
some day;- there was a king who, during a famine, became the
benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his
memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, ‘Quicker than
this melts didst thou bring help!’ I fancy that Death, looking
back upon the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as
provision, a snow-flake that never melts, and this flake
floated over his royal head, like a white butterfly, into the
land of eternity. Thus, too, there was Louis XI. I have
remembered his name, for one remembers what is bad- a trait of
him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one could say the
story is not true. He had his lord high constable executed,
and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the
innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other
eight years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm
blood of their father spurted over them, and then he had them
sent to the Bastille, and shut up in iron cages, where not
even a coverlet was given them to protect them from the cold.
And King Louis sent the executioner to them every week, and
had a tooth pulled out of the head of each, that they might
not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys said, ‘My
mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger brother
had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my teeth,
and spare him.’ The tears came into the hangman’s eyes, but
the king’s will was stronger than the tears; and every week
two little teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had
demanded them, and he had them. I fancy that Death took these
two teeth out of the savings bank of life, and gave them to
Louis XI, to carry with him on the great journey into the land
of immortality; they fly before him like two flames of fire;
they shine and burn, and they bite him, the innocent
children’s teeth.

    “Yes, that’s a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the
great moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That’s just
the serious part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the
omnibus may draw up. Which of our deeds will Death take out of
the savings bank, and give to us as provision? Let us think of
the moving-day that is not marked in the calendar.”

                            THE END

A VERY old house stood once in a street with several that
were quite new and clean. The date of its erection had been
carved on one of the beams, and surrounded by scrolls formed
of tulips and hop-tendrils; by this date it could be seen that
the old house was nearly three hundred years old. Verses too
were written over the windows in old-fashioned letters, and
grotesque faces, curiously carved, grinned at you from under
the cornices. One story projected a long way over the other,
and under the roof ran a leaden gutter, with a dragon’s head
at the end. The rain was intended to pour out at the dragon’s
mouth, but it ran out of his body instead, for there was a
hole in the gutter. The other houses in the street were new
and well built, with large window panes and smooth walls. Any
one could see they had nothing to do with the old house.
Perhaps they thought, “How long will that heap of rubbish
remain here to be a disgrace to the whole street. The parapet
projects so far forward that no one can see out of our windows
what is going on in that direction. The stairs are as broad as
the staircase of a castle, and as steep as if they led to a
church-tower. The iron railing looks like the gate of a
cemetery, and there are brass knobs upon it. It is really too
ridiculous.”

    Opposite to the old house were more nice new houses, which
had just the same opinion as their neighbors.

    At the window of one of them sat a little boy with fresh
rosy cheeks, and clear sparkling eyes, who was very fond of
the old house, in sunshine or in moonlight. He would sit and
look at the wall from which the plaster had in some places
fallen off, and fancy all sorts of scenes which had been in
former times. How the street must have looked when the houses
had all gable roofs, open staircases, and gutters with dragons
at the spout. He could even see soldiers walking about with
halberds. Certainly it was a very good house to look at for
amusement.

    An old man lived in it, who wore knee-breeches, a coat
with large brass buttons, and a wig, which any one could see
was a real wig. Every morning an old man came to clean the
rooms, and to wait upon him, otherwise the old man in the
knee-breeches would have been quite alone in the house.
Sometimes he came to one of the windows and looked out; then
the little boy nodded to him, and the old man nodded back
again, till they became acquainted, and were friends, although
they had never spoken to each other; but that was of no
consequence.

    The little boy one day heard his parents say, “The old man
opposite is very well off, but is terribly lonely.” The next
Sunday morning the little boy wrapped something in a piece of
paper and took it to the door of the old house, and said to
the attendant who waited upon the old man, “Will you please
give this from me to the gentleman who lives here; I have two
tin soldiers, and this is one of them, and he shall have it,
because I know he is terribly lonely.”

    And the old attendant nodded and looked very pleased, and
then he carried the tin soldier into the house.

    Afterwards he was sent over to ask the little boy if he
would not like to pay a visit himself. His parents gave him
permission, and so it was that he gained admission to the old
house.

    The brassy knobs on the railings shone more brightly than
ever, as if they had been polished on account of his visit;
and on the door were carved trumpeters standing in tulips, and
it seemed as if they were blowing with all their might, their
cheeks were so puffed out. “Tanta-ra-ra, the little boy is
coming; Tanta-ra-ra, the little boy is coming.”

    Then the door opened. All round the hall hung old
portraits of knights in armor, and ladies in silk gowns; and
the armor rattled, and the silk dresses rustled. Then came a
staircase which went up a long way, and then came down a
little way and led to a balcony, which was in a very ruinous
state. There were large holes and long cracks, out of which
grew grass and leaves, indeed the whole balcony, the
courtyard, and the walls were so overgrown with green that
they looked like a garden. In the balcony stood flower-pots,
on which were heads having asses’ ears, but the flowers in
them grew just as they pleased. In one pot pinks were growing
all over the sides, at least the green leaves were shooting
forth stalk and stem, and saying as plainly as they could
speak, “The air has fanned me, the sun has kissed me, and I am
promised a little flower for next Sunday- really for next
Sunday.”

    Then they entered a room in which the walls were covered
with leather, and the leather had golden flowers stamped upon
it.

                “Gilding will fade in damp weather,
                 To endure, there is nothing like leather,”

said the walls. Chairs handsomely carved, with elbows on each
side, and with very high backs, stood in the room, and as they
creaked they seemed to say, “Sit down. Oh dear, how I am
creaking. I shall certainly have the gout like the old
cupboard. Gout in my back, ugh.”

    And then the little boy entered the room where the old man
sat.

    “Thank you for the tin soldier my little friend,” said the
old man, “and thank you also for coming to see me.”

    “Thanks, thanks,” or “Creak, creak,” said all the
furniture.

    There was so much that the pieces of furniture stood in
each other’s way to get a sight of the little boy.

    On the wall near the centre of the room hung the picture
of a beautiful lady, young and gay, dressed in the fashion of
the olden times, with powdered hair, and a full, stiff skirt.
She said neither “thanks” nor “creak,” but she looked down
upon the little boy with her mild eyes; and then he said to
the old man,

    “Where did you get that picture?”

    “From the shop opposite,” he replied. “Many portraits hang
there that none seem to trouble themselves about. The persons
they represent have been dead and buried long since. But I
knew this lady many years ago, and she has been dead nearly
half a century.”

    Under a glass beneath the picture hung a nosegay of
withered flowers, which were no doubt half a century old too,
at least they appeared so.

    And the pendulum of the old clock went to and fro, and the
hands turned round; and as time passed on, everything in the
room grew older, but no one seemed to notice it.

    “They say at home,” said the little boy, “that you are
very lonely.”

    “Oh,” replied the old man, “I have pleasant thoughts of
all that has passed, recalled by memory; and now you are come
to visit me, and that is very pleasant.”

    Then he took from the book-case, a book full of pictures
representing long processions of wonderful coaches, such as
are never seen at the present time. Soldiers like the knave of
clubs, and citizens with waving banners. The tailors had a
flag with a pair of scissors supported by two lions, and on
the shoemakers’ flag there were not boots, but an eagle with
two heads, for the shoemakers must have everything arranged so
that they can say, “This is a pair.” What a picture-book it
was; and then the old man went into another room to fetch
apples and nuts. It was very pleasant, certainly, to be in
that old house.

    “I cannot endure it,” said the tin soldier, who stood on a
shelf, “it is so lonely and dull here. I have been accustomed
to live in a family, and I cannot get used to this life. I
cannot bear it. The whole day is long enough, but the evening
is longer. It is not here like it was in your house opposite,
when your father and mother talked so cheerfully together,
while you and all the dear children made such a delightful
noise. No, it is all lonely in the old man’s house. Do you
think he gets any kisses? Do you think he ever has friendly
looks, or a Christmas tree? He will have nothing now but the
grave. Oh, I cannot bear it.”

    “You must not look only on the sorrowful side,” said the
little boy; “I think everything in this house is beautiful,
and all the old pleasant thoughts come back here to pay
visits.”

    “Ah, but I never see any, and I don’t know them,” said the
tin soldier, “and I cannot bear it.”

    “You must bear it,” said the little boy. Then the old man
came back with a pleasant face; and brought with him beautiful
preserved fruits, as well as apples and nuts; and the little
boy thought no more of the tin soldier. How happy and
delighted the little boy was; and after he returned home, and
while days and weeks passed, a great deal of nodding took
place from one house to the other, and then the little boy
went to pay another visit. The carved trumpeters blew
“Tanta-ra-ra. There is the little boy. Tanta-ra-ra.” The
swords and armor on the old knight’s pictures rattled. The
silk dresses rustled, the leather repeated its rhyme, and the
old chairs had the gout in their backs, and cried, “Creak;” it
was all exactly like the first time; for in that house, one
day and one hour were just like another. “I cannot bear it any
longer,” said the tin soldier; “I have wept tears of tin, it
is so melancholy here. Let me go to the wars, and lose an arm
or a leg, that would be some change; I cannot bear it. Now I
know what it is to have visits from one’s old recollections,
and all they bring with them. I have had visits from mine, and
you may believe me it is not altogether pleasant. I was very
nearly jumping from the shelf. I saw you all in your house
opposite, as if you were really present. It was Sunday
morning, and you children stood round the table, singing the
hymn that you sing every morning. You were standing quietly,
with your hands folded, and your father and mother. You were
standing quietly, with your hands folded, and your father and
mother were looking just as serious, when the door opened, and
your little sister Maria, who is not two years old, was
brought into the room. You know she always dances when she
hears music and singing of any sort; so she began to dance
immediately, although she ought not to have done so, but she
could not get into the right time because the tune was so
slow; so she stood first on one leg and then on the other, and
bent her head very low, but it would not suit the music. You
all stood looking very grave, although it was very difficult
to do so, but I laughed so to myself that I fell down from the
table, and got a bruise, which is there still; I know it was
not right to laugh. So all this, and everything else that I
have seen, keeps running in my head, and these must be the old
recollections that bring so many thoughts with them. Tell me
whether you still sing on Sundays, and tell me about your
little sister Maria, and how my old comrade is, the other tin
soldier. Ah, really he must be very happy; I cannot endure
this life.”

    “You are given away,” said the little boy; “you must stay.
Don’t you see that?” Then the old man came in, with a box
containing many curious things to show him. Rouge-pots,
scent-boxes, and old cards, so large and so richly gilded,
that none are ever seen like them in these days. And there
were smaller boxes to look at, and the piano was opened, and
inside the lid were painted landscapes. But when the old man
played, the piano sounded quite out of tune. Then he looked at
the picture he had bought at the broker’s, and his eyes
sparkled brightly as he nodded at it, and said, “Ah, she could
sing that tune.”

    “I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!” cried the
tin soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself down on the
floor. Where could he have fallen? The old man searched, and
the little boy searched, but he was gone, and could not be
found. “I shall find him again,” said the old man, but he did
not find him. The boards of the floor were open and full of
holes. The tin soldier had fallen through a crack between the
boards, and lay there now in an open grave. The day went by,
and the little boy returned home; the week passed, and many
more weeks. It was winter, and the windows were quite frozen,
so the little boy was obliged to breathe on the panes, and rub
a hole to peep through at the old house. Snow drifts were
lying in all the scrolls and on the inscriptions, and the
steps were covered with snow as if no one were at home. And
indeed nobody was home, for the old man was dead. In the
evening, a hearse stopped at the door, and the old man in his
coffin was placed in it. He was to be taken to the country to
be buried there in his own grave; so they carried him away; no
one followed him, for all his friends were dead; and the
little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as the hearse moved
away with it. A few days after, there was an auction at the
old house, and from his window the little boy saw the people
carrying away the pictures of old knights and ladies, the
flower-pots with the long ears, the old chairs, and the
cup-boards. Some were taken one way, some another. Her
portrait, which had been bought at the picture dealer’s, went
back again to his shop, and there it remained, for no one
seemed to know her, or to care for the old picture. In the
spring; they began to pull the house itself down; people
called it complete rubbish. From the street could be seen the
room in which the walls were covered with leather, ragged and
torn, and the green in the balcony hung straggling over the
beams; they pulled it down quickly, for it looked ready to
fall, and at last it was cleared away altogether. “What a good
riddance,” said the neighbors’ houses. Very shortly, a fine
new house was built farther back from the road; it had lofty
windows and smooth walls, but in front, on the spot where the
old house really stood, a little garden was planted, and wild
vines grew up over the neighboring walls; in front of the
garden were large iron railings and a great gate, which looked
very stately. People used to stop and peep through the
railings. The sparrows assembled in dozens upon the wild
vines, and chattered all together as loud as they could, but
not about the old house; none of them could remember it, for
many years had passed by, so many indeed, that the little boy
was now a man, and a really good man too, and his parents were
very proud of him. He was just married, and had come, with his
young wife, to reside in the new house with the garden in
front of it, and now he stood there by her side while she
planted a field flower that she thought very pretty. She was
planting it herself with her little hands, and pressing down
the earth with her fingers. “Oh dear, what was that?” she
exclaimed, as something pricked her. Out of the soft earth
something was sticking up. It was- only think!- it was really
the tin soldier, the very same which had been lost up in the
old man’s room, and had been hidden among old wood and rubbish
for a long time, till it sunk into the earth, where it must
have been for many years. And the young wife wiped the
soldier, first with a green leaf, and then with her fine
pocket-handkerchief, that smelt of such beautiful perfume. And
the tin soldier felt as if he was recovering from a fainting
fit. “Let me see him,” said the young man, and then he smiled
and shook his head, and said, “It can scarcely be the same,
but it reminds me of something that happened to one of my tin
soldiers when I was a little boy.” And then he told his wife
about the old house and the old man, and of the tin soldier
which he had sent across, because he thought the old man was
lonely; and he related the story so clearly that tears came
into the eyes of the young wife for the old house and the old
man. “It is very likely that this is really the same soldier,”
said she, and I will take care of him, and always remember
what you have told me; but some day you must show me the old
man’s grave.”

    “I don’t know where it is,” he replied; “no one knows. All
his friends are dead; no one took care of him, and I was only
a little boy.”

    “Oh, how dreadfully lonely he must have been,” said she.

    “Yes, terribly lonely,” cried the tin soldier; “still it
is delightful not to be forgotten.”

    “Delightful indeed,” cried a voice quite near to them; no
one but the tin soldier saw that it came from a rag of the
leather which hung in tatters; it had lost all its gilding,
and looked like wet earth, but it had an opinion, and it spoke
it thus:-

                 “Gilding will fade in damp weather,
                  To endure, there is nothing like leather.”

    But the tin soldier did not believe any such thing.

                            THE END

THE OLD CHURCH BELL
             (WRITTEN FOR THE SCHILLER ALBUM)

    IN the country of Wurtemburg, in Germany, where the
acacias grow by the public road, where the apple-trees and the
pear-trees in autumn bend to the earth with the weight of the
precious fruit, lies the little town of Marbach. As is often
the case with many of these towns, it is charmingly situated
on the banks of the river Neckar, which rushes rapidly by,
passing villages, old knights’ castles, and green vineyards,
till its waters mingle with those of the stately Rhine. It was
late in the autumn; the vine-leaves still hung upon the
branches of the vines, but they were already tinted with red
and gold; heavy showers fell on the surrounding country, and
the cold autumn wind blew sharp and strong. It was not at all
pleasant weather for the poor. The days grew shorter and more
gloomy, and, dark as it was out of doors in the open air, it
was still darker within the small, old-fashioned houses of the
village. The gable end of one of these houses faced the
street, and with its small, narrow windows, presented a very
mean appearance. The family who dwelt in it were also very
poor and humble, but they treasured the fear of God in their
innermost hearts. And now He was about to send them a child.
It was the hour of the mother’s sorrow, when there pealed
forth from the church tower the sound of festive bells. In
that solemn hour the sweet and joyous chiming filled the
hearts of those in the humble dwelling with thankfulness and
trust; and when, amidst these joyous sounds, a little son was
born to them, the words of prayer and praise arose from their
overflowing hearts, and their happiness seemed to ring out
over town and country in the liquid tones of the church bells’
chime. The little one, with its bright eyes and golden hair,
had been welcomed joyously on that dark November day. Its
parents kissed it lovingly, and the father wrote these words
in the Bible, “On the tenth of November, 1759, God sent us a
son.” And a short time after, when the child had been
baptized, the names he had received were added, “John
Christopher Frederick.”

    And what became of the little lad?- the poor boy of the
humble town of Marbach? Ah, indeed, there was no one who
thought or supposed, not even the old church bell which had
been the first to sound and chime for him, that he would be
the first to sing the beautiful song of “The Bell.” The boy
grew apace, and the world advanced with him.

    While he was yet a child, his parents removed from
Marbach, and went to reside in another town; but their dearest
friends remained behind at Marbach, and therefore sometimes
the mother and her son would start on a fine day to pay a
visit to the little town. The boy was at this time about six
years old, and already knew a great many stories out of the
Bible, and several religious psalms. While seated in the
evening on his little cane-chair, he had often heard his
father read from Gellert’s fables, and sometimes from
Klopstock’s grand poem, “The Messiah.” He and his sister, two
years older than himself, had often wept scalding tears over
the story of Him who suffered death on the cross for us all.

    On his first visit to Marbach, the town appeared to have
changed but very little, and it was not far enough away to be
forgotten. The house, with its pointed gable, narrow windows,
overhanging walls and stories, projecting one beyond another,
looked just the same as in former times. But in the churchyard
there were several new graves; and there also, in the grass,
close by the wall, stood the old church bell! It had been
taken down from its high position, in consequence of a crack
in the metal which prevented it from ever chiming again, and a
new bell now occupied its place. The mother and son were
walking in the churchyard when they discovered the old bell,
and they stood still to look at it. Then the mother reminded
her little boy of what a useful bell this had been for many
hundred years. It had chimed for weddings and for
christenings; it had tolled for funerals, and to give the
alarm in case of fire. With every event in the life of man the
bell had made its voice heard. His mother also told him how
the chiming of that old bell had once filled her heart with
joy and confidence, and that in the midst of the sweet tones
her child had been given to her. And the boy gazed on the
large, old bell with the deepest interest. He bowed his head
over it and kissed it, old, thrown away, and cracked as it
was, and standing there amidst the grass and nettles. The boy
never forgot what his mother told him, and the tones of the
old bell reverberated in his heart till he reached manhood. In
such sweet remembrance was the old bell cherished by the boy,
who grew up in poverty to be tall and slender, with a freckled
complexion and hair almost red; but his eyes were clear and
blue as the deep sea, and what was his career to be? His
career was to be good, and his future life enviable. We find
him taking high honors at the military school in the division
commanded by the member of a family high in position, and this
was an honor, that is to say, good luck. He wore gaiters,
stiff collars, and powdered hair, and by this he was
recognized; and, indeed, he might be known by the word of
command- “March! halt! front!”

    The old church bell had long been quite forgotten, and no
one imagined it would ever again be sent to the melting
furnace to make it as it was before. No one could possibly
have foretold this. Equally impossible would it have been to
believe that the tones of the old bell still echoed in the
heart of the boy from Marbach; or that one day they would ring
out loud enough and strong enough to be heard all over the
world. They had already been heard in the narrow space behind
the school-wall, even above the deafening sounds of “March!
halt! front!” They had chimed so loudly in the heart of the
youngster, that he had sung them to his companions, and their
tones resounded to the very borders of the country. He was not
a free scholar in the military school, neither was he provided
with clothes or food. But he had his number, and his own peg;
for everything here was ordered like clockwork, which we all
know is of the greatest utility- people get on so much better
together when their position and duties are understood. It is
by pressure that a jewel is stamped. The pressure of
regularity and discipline here stamped the jewel, which in the
future the world so well knew.

    In the chief town of the province a great festival was
being celebrated. The light streamed forth from thousands of
lamps, and the rockets shot upwards towards the sky, filling
the air with showers of colored fiery sparks. A record of this
bright display will live in the memory of man, for through it
the pupil in the military school was in tears and sorrow. He
had dared to attempt to reach foreign territories unnoticed,
and must therefore give up fatherland, mother, his dearest
friends, all, or sink down into the stream of common life. The
old church bell had still some comfort; it stood in the
shelter of the church wall in Marbach, once so elevated, now
quite forgotten. The wind roared around it, and could have
readily related the story of its origin and of its sweet
chimes, and the wind could also tell of him to whom he had
brought fresh air when, in the woods of a neighboring country,
he had sunk down exhausted with fatigue, with no other worldly
possessions than hope for the future, and a written leaf from
“Fiesco.” The wind could have told that his only protector was
an artist, who, by reading each leaf to him, made it plain;
and that they amused themselves by playing at nine-pins
together. The wind could also describe the pale fugitive, who,
for weeks and months, lay in a wretched little road-side inn,
where the landlord got drunk and raved, and where the
merry-makers had it all their own way. And he, the pale
fugitive, sang of the ideal.

    For many heavy days and dark nights the heart must suffer
to enable it to endure trial and temptation; yet, amidst it
all, would the minstrel sing. Dark days and cold nights also
passed over the old bell, and it noticed them not; but the
bell in the man’s heart felt it to be a gloomy time. What
would become of this young man, and what would become of the
old bell?

    The old bell was, after a time, carried away to a greater
distance than any one, even the warder in the bell tower, ever
imagined; and the bell in the breast of the young man was
heard in countries where his feet had never wandered. The
tones went forth over the wide ocean to every part of the
round world.

    We will now follow the career of the old bell. It was, as
we have said, carried far away from Marbach and sold as old
copper; then sent to Bavaria to be melted down in a furnace.
And then what happened?

    In the royal city of Bavaria, many years after the bell
had been removed from the tower and melted down, some metal
was required for a monument in honor of one of the most
celebrated characters which a German people or a German land
could produce. And now we see how wonderfully things are
ordered. Strange things sometimes happen in this world.

    In Denmark, in one of those green islands where the
foliage of the beech-woods rustles in the wind, and where many
Huns’ graves may be seen, was another poor boy born. He wore
wooden shoes, and when his father worked in a ship-yard, the
boy, wrapped up in an old worn-out shawl, carried his dinner
to him every day. This poor child was now the pride of his
country; for the sculptured marble, the work of his hands, had
astonished the world.* To him was offered the honor of forming
from the clay, a model of the figure of him whose name, “John
Christopher Frederick,” had been written by his father in the
Bible. The bust was cast in bronze, and part of the metal used
for this purpose was the old church bell, whose tones had died
away from the memory of those at home and elsewhere. The
metal, glowing with heat, flowed into the mould, and formed
the head and bust of the statue which was unveiled in the
square in front of the old castle. The statue represented in
living, breathing reality, the form of him who was born in
poverty, the boy from Marbach, the pupil of the military
school, the fugitive who struggled against poverty and
oppression, from the outer world; Germany’s great and immortal
poet, who sung of Switzerland’s deliverer, William Tell, and
of the heaven-inspired Maid of Orleans.

    * The Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen.

    It was a beautiful sunny day; flags were waving from tower
and roof in royal Stuttgart, and the church bells were ringing
a joyous peal. One bell was silent; but it was illuminated by
the bright sunshine which streamed from the head and bust of
the renowned figure, of which it formed a part. On this day,
just one hundred years had passed since the day on which the
chiming of the old church bell at Marbach had filled the
mother’s heart with trust and joy- the day on which her child
was born in poverty, and in a humble home; the same who, in
after-years, became rich, became the noble woman-hearted poet,
a blessing to the world- the glorious, the sublime, the
immortal bard, John Christoper Frederick Schiller!

                            THE END

IN China, you know, the emperor is a Chinese, and all
those about him are Chinamen also. The story I am going to
tell you happened a great many years ago, so it is well to
hear it now before it is forgotten. The emperor’s palace was
the most beautiful in the world. It was built entirely of
porcelain, and very costly, but so delicate and brittle that
whoever touched it was obliged to be careful. In the garden
could be seen the most singular flowers, with pretty silver
bells tied to them, which tinkled so that every one who passed
could not help noticing the flowers. Indeed, everything in the
emperor’s garden was remarkable, and it extended so far that
the gardener himself did not know where it ended. Those who
travelled beyond its limits knew that there was a noble
forest, with lofty trees, sloping down to the deep blue sea,
and the great ships sailed under the shadow of its branches.
In one of these trees lived a nightingale, who sang so
beautifully that even the poor fishermen, who had so many
other things to do, would stop and listen. Sometimes, when
they went at night to spread their nets, they would hear her
sing, and say, “Oh, is not that beautiful?” But when they
returned to their fishing, they forgot the bird until the next
night. Then they would hear it again, and exclaim “Oh, how
beautiful is the nightingale’s song!”

    Travellers from every country in the world came to the
city of the emperor, which they admired very much, as well as
the palace and gardens; but when they heard the nightingale,
they all declared it to be the best of all. And the
travellers, on their return home, related what they had seen;
and learned men wrote books, containing descriptions of the
town, the palace, and the gardens; but they did not forget the
nightingale, which was really the greatest wonder. And those
who could write poetry composed beautiful verses about the
nightingale, who lived in a forest near the deep sea. The
books travelled all over the world, and some of them came into
the hands of the emperor; and he sat in his golden chair, and,
as he read, he nodded his approval every moment, for it
pleased him to find such a beautiful description of his city,
his palace, and his gardens. But when he came to the words,
“the nightingale is the most beautiful of all,” he exclaimed,
“What is this? I know nothing of any nightingale. Is there
such a bird in my empire? and even in my garden? I have never
heard of it. Something, it appears, may be learnt from books.”

    Then he called one of his lords-in-waiting, who was so
high-bred, that when any in an inferior rank to himself spoke
to him, or asked him a question, he would answer, “Pooh,”
which means nothing.

    “There is a very wonderful bird mentioned here, called a
nightingale,” said the emperor; “they say it is the best thing
in my large kingdom. Why have I not been told of it?”

    “I have never heard the name,” replied the cavalier; “she
has not been presented at court.”

    “It is my pleasure that she shall appear this evening.”
said the emperor; the whole world knows what I possess better
than I do myself.”

    “I have never heard of her,” said the cavalier; “yet I
will endeavor to find her.”

    But where was the nightingale to be found? The nobleman
went up stairs and down, through halls and passages; yet none
of those whom he met had heard of the bird. So he returned to
the emperor, and said that it must be a fable, invented by
those who had written the book. “Your imperial majesty,” said
he, “cannot believe everything contained in books; sometimes
they are only fiction, or what is called the black art.”

    “But the book in which I have read this account,” said the
emperor, “was sent to me by the great and mighty emperor of
Japan, and therefore it cannot contain a falsehood. I will
hear the nightingale, she must be here this evening; she has
my highest favor; and if she does not come, the whole court
shall be trampled upon after supper is ended.”

    “Tsing-pe!” cried the lord-in-waiting, and again he ran up
and down stairs, through all the halls and corridors; and half
the court ran with him, for they did not like the idea of
being trampled upon. There was a great inquiry about this
wonderful nightingale, whom all the world knew, but who was
unknown to the court.

    At last they met with a poor little girl in the kitchen,
who said, “Oh, yes, I know the nightingale quite well; indeed,
she can sing. Every evening I have permission to take home to
my poor sick mother the scraps from the table; she lives down
by the sea-shore, and as I come back I feel tired, and I sit
down in the wood to rest, and listen to the nightingale’s
song. Then the tears come into my eyes, and it is just as if
my mother kissed me.”

    “Little maiden,” said the lord-in-waiting, “I will obtain
for you constant employment in the kitchen, and you shall have
permission to see the emperor dine, if you will lead us to the
nightingale; for she is invited for this evening to the
palace.” So she went into the wood where the nightingale sang,
and half the court followed her. As they went along, a cow
began lowing.

    “Oh,” said a young courtier, “now we have found her; what
wonderful power for such a small creature; I have certainly
heard it before.”

    “No, that is only a cow lowing,” said the little girl; “we
are a long way from the place yet.”

    Then some frogs began to croak in the marsh.

    “Beautiful,” said the young courtier again. “Now I hear
it, tinkling like little church bells.”

    “No, those are frogs,” said the little maiden; “but I
think we shall soon hear her now:” and presently the
nightingale began to sing.

    “Hark, hark! there she is,” said the girl, “and there she
sits,” she added, pointing to a little gray bird who was
perched on a bough.

    “Is it possible?” said the lord-in-waiting, “I never
imagined it would be a little, plain, simple thing like that.
She has certainly changed color at seeing so many grand people
around her.”

    “Little nightingale,” cried the girl, raising her voice,
“our most gracious emperor wishes you to sing before him.”

    “With the greatest pleasure,” said the nightingale, and
began to sing most delightfully.

    “It sounds like tiny glass bells,” said the
lord-in-waiting, “and see how her little throat works. It is
surprising that we have never heard this before; she will be a
great success at court.”

    “Shall I sing once more before the emperor?” asked the
nightingale, who thought he was present.

    “My excellent little nightingale,” said the courtier, “I
have the great pleasure of inviting you to a court festival
this evening, where you will gain imperial favor by your
charming song.”

    “My song sounds best in the green wood,” said the bird;
but still she came willingly when she heard the emperor’s
wish.

    The palace was elegantly decorated for the occasion. The
walls and floors of porcelain glittered in the light of a
thousand lamps. Beautiful flowers, round which little bells
were tied, stood in the corridors: what with the running to
and fro and the draught, these bells tinkled so loudly that no
one could speak to be heard. In the centre of the great hall,
a golden perch had been fixed for the nightingale to sit on.
The whole court was present, and the little kitchen-maid had
received permission to stand by the door. She was not
installed as a real court cook. All were in full dress, and
every eye was turned to the little gray bird when the emperor
nodded to her to begin. The nightingale sang so sweetly that
the tears came into the emperor’s eyes, and then rolled down
his cheeks, as her song became still more touching and went to
every one’s heart. The emperor was so delighted that he
declared the nightingale should have his gold slipper to wear
round her neck, but she declined the honor with thanks: she
had been sufficiently rewarded already. “I have seen tears in
an emperor’s eyes,” she said, “that is my richest reward. An
emperor’s tears have wonderful power, and are quite sufficient
honor for me;” and then she sang again more enchantingly than
ever.

    “That singing is a lovely gift;” said the ladies of the
court to each other; and then they took water in their mouths
to make them utter the gurgling sounds of the nightingale when
they spoke to any one, so thay they might fancy themselves
nightingales. And the footmen and chambermaids also expressed
their satisfaction, which is saying a great deal, for they are
very difficult to please. In fact the nightingale’s visit was
most successful. She was now to remain at court, to have her
own cage, with liberty to go out twice a day, and once during
the night. Twelve servants were appointed to attend her on
these occasions, who each held her by a silken string fastened
to her leg. There was certainly not much pleasure in this kind
of flying.

    The whole city spoke of the wonderful bird, and when two
people met, one said “nightin,” and the other said “gale,” and
they understood what was meant, for nothing else was talked
of. Eleven peddlers’ children were named after her, but not of
them could sing a note.

    One day the emperor received a large packet on which was
written “The Nightingale.” “Here is no doubt a new book about
our celebrated bird,” said the emperor. But instead of a book,
it was a work of art contained in a casket, an artificial
nightingale made to look like a living one, and covered all
over with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. As soon as the
artificial bird was wound up, it could sing like the real one,
and could move its tail up and down, which sparkled with
silver and gold. Round its neck hung a piece of ribbon, on
which was written “The Emperor of China’s nightingale is poor
compared with that of the Emperor of Japan’s.”

    “This is very beautiful,” exclaimed all who saw it, and he
who had brought the artificial bird received the title of
“Imperial nightingale-bringer-in-chief.”

    “Now they must sing together,” said the court, “and what a
duet it will be.” But they did not get on well, for the real
nightingale sang in its own natural way, but the artificial
bird sang only waltzes.

    “That is not a fault,” said the music-master, “it is quite
perfect to my taste,” so then it had to sing alone, and was as
successful as the real bird; besides, it was so much prettier
to look at, for it sparkled like bracelets and breast-pins.
Three and thirty times did it sing the same tunes without
being tired; the people would gladly have heard it again, but
the emperor said the living nightingale ought to sing
something. But where was she? No one had noticed her when she
flew out at the open window, back to her own green woods.

    “What strange conduct,” said the emperor, when her flight
had been discovered; and all the courtiers blamed her, and
said she was a very ungrateful creature.

    “But we have the best bird after all,” said one, and then
they would have the bird sing again, although it was the
thirty-fourth time they had listened to the same piece, and
even then they had not learnt it, for it was rather difficult.
But the music-master praised the bird in the highest degree,
and even asserted that it was better than a real nightingale,
not only in its dress and the beautiful diamonds, but also in
its musical power. “For you must perceive, my chief lord and
emperor, that with a real nightingale we can never tell what
is going to be sung, but with this bird everything is settled.
It can be opened and explained, so that people may understand
how the waltzes are formed, and why one note follows upon
another.”

    “This is exactly what we think,” they all replied, and
then the music-master received permission to exhibit the bird
to the people on the following Sunday, and the emperor
commanded that they should be present to hear it sing. When
they heard it they were like people intoxicated; however it
must have been with drinking tea, which is quite a Chinese
custom. They all said “Oh!” and held up their forefingers and
nodded, but a poor fisherman, who had heard the real
nightingale, said, “it sounds prettily enough, and the
melodies are all alike; yet there seems something wanting, I
cannot exactly tell what.”

    And after this the real nightingale was banished from the
empire, and the artificial bird placed on a silk cushion close
to the emperor’s bed. The presents of gold and precious stones
which had been received with it were round the bird, and it
was now advanced to the title of “Little Imperial Toilet
Singer,” and to the rank of No. 1 on the left hand; for the
emperor considered the left side, on which the heart lies, as
the most noble, and the heart of an emperor is in the same
place as that of other people.

    The music-master wrote a work, in twenty-five volumes,
about the artificial bird, which was very learned and very
long, and full of the most difficult Chinese words; yet all
the people said they had read it, and understood it, for fear
of being thought stupid and having their bodies trampled upon.

    So a year passed, and the emperor, the court, and all the
other Chinese knew every little turn in the artificial bird’s
song; and for that same reason it pleased them better. They
could sing with the bird, which they often did. The
street-boys sang, “Zi-zi-zi, cluck, cluck, cluck,” and the
emperor himself could sing it also. It was really most
amusing.

    One evening, when the artificial bird was singing its
best, and the emperor lay in bed listening to it, something
inside the bird sounded “whizz.” Then a spring cracked.
“Whir-r-r-r” went all the wheels, running round, and then the
music stopped. The emperor immediately sprang out of bed, and
called for his physician; but what could he do? Then they sent
for a watchmaker; and, after a great deal of talking and
examination, the bird was put into something like order; but
he said that it must be used very carefully, as the barrels
were worn, and it would be impossible to put in new ones
without injuring the music. Now there was great sorrow, as the
bird could only be allowed to play once a year; and even that
was dangerous for the works inside it. Then the music-master
made a little speech, full of hard words, and declared that
the bird was as good as ever; and, of course no one
contradicted him.

    Five years passed, and then a real grief came upon the
land. The Chinese really were fond of their emperor, and he
now lay so ill that he was not expected to live. Already a new
emperor had been chosen and the people who stood in the street
asked the lord-in-waiting how the old emperor was; but he only
said, “Pooh!” and shook his head.

    Cold and pale lay the emperor in his royal bed; the whole
court thought he was dead, and every one ran away to pay
homage to his successor. The chamberlains went out to have a
talk on the matter, and the ladies’-maids invited company to
take coffee. Cloth had been laid down on the halls and
passages, so that not a footstep should be heard, and all was
silent and still. But the emperor was not yet dead, although
he lay white and stiff on his gorgeous bed, with the long
velvet curtains and heavy gold tassels. A window stood open,
and the moon shone in upon the emperor and the artificial
bird. The poor emperor, finding he could scarcely breathe with
a strange weight on his chest, opened his eyes, and saw Death
sitting there. He had put on the emperor’s golden crown, and
held in one hand his sword of state, and in the other his
beautiful banner. All around the bed and peeping through the
long velvet curtains, were a number of strange heads, some
very ugly, and others lovely and gentle-looking. These were
the emperor’s good and bad deeds, which stared him in the face
now Death sat at his heart.

    “Do you remember this?” “Do you recollect that?” they
asked one after another, thus bringing to his remembrance
circumstances that made the perspiration stand on his brow.

    “I know nothing about it,” said the emperor. “Music!
music!” he cried; “the large Chinese drum! that I may not hear
what they say.” But they still went on, and Death nodded like
a Chinaman to all they said. “Music! music!” shouted the
emperor. “You little precious golden bird, sing, pray sing! I
have given you gold and costly presents; I have even hung my
golden slipper round your neck. Sing! sing!” But the bird
remained silent. There was no one to wind it up, and therefore
it could not sing a note.

    Death continued to stare at the emperor with his cold,
hollow eyes, and the room was fearfully still. Suddenly there
came through the open window the sound of sweet music.
Outside, on the bough of a tree, sat the living nightingale.
She had heard of the emperor’s illness, and was therefore come
to sing to him of hope and trust. And as she sung, the shadows
grew paler and paler; the blood in the emperor’s veins flowed
more rapidly, and gave life to his weak limbs; and even Death
himself listened, and said, “Go on, little nightingale, go
on.”

    “Then will you give me the beautiful golden sword and that
rich banner? and will you give me the emperor’s crown?” said
the bird.

    So Death gave up each of these treasures for a song; and
the nightingale continued her singing. She sung of the quiet
churchyard, where the white roses grow, where the elder-tree
wafts its perfume on the breeze, and the fresh, sweet grass is
moistened by the mourners’ tears. Then Death longed to go and
see his garden, and floated out through the window in the form
of a cold, white mist.

    “Thanks, thanks, you heavenly little bird. I know you
well. I banished you from my kingdom once, and yet you have
charmed away the evil faces from my bed, and banished Death
from my heart, with your sweet song. How can I reward you?”

    “You have already rewarded me,” said the nightingale. “I
shall never forget that I drew tears from your eyes the first
time I sang to you. These are the jewels that rejoice a
singer’s heart. But now sleep, and grow strong and well again.
I will sing to you again.”

    And as she sung, the emperor fell into a sweet sleep; and
how mild and refreshing that slumber was! When he awoke,
strengthened and restored, the sun shone brightly through the
window; but not one of his servants had returned- they all
believed he was dead; only the nightingale still sat beside
him, and sang.

    “You must always remain with me,” said the emperor. “You
shall sing only when it pleases you; and I will break the
artificial bird into a thousand pieces.”

    “No; do not do that,” replied the nightingale; “the bird
did very well as long as it could. Keep it here still. I
cannot live in the palace, and build my nest; but let me come
when I like. I will sit on a bough outside your window, in the
evening, and sing to you, so that you may be happy, and have
thoughts full of joy. I will sing to you of those who are
happy, and those who suffer; of the good and the evil, who are
hidden around you. The little singing bird flies far from you
and your court to the home of the fisherman and the peasant’s
cot. I love your heart better than your crown; and yet
something holy lingers round that also. I will come, I will
sing to you; but you must promise me one thing.”

    “Everything,” said the emperor, who, having dressed
himself in his imperial robes, stood with the hand that held
the heavy golden sword pressed to his heart.

    “I only ask one thing,” she replied; “let no one know that
you have a little bird who tells you everything. It will be
best to conceal it.” So saying, the nightingale flew away.

    The servants now came in to look after the dead emperor;
when, lo! there he stood, and, to their astonishment, said,
“Good morning.”

                            THE END

IN a nursery where a number of toys lay scattered about, a
money-box stood on the top of a very high wardrobe. It was
made of clay in the shape of a pig, and had been bought of the
potter. In the back of the pig was a slit, and this slit had
been enlarged with a knife, so that dollars, or crown pieces,
might slip through; and, indeed there were two in the box,
besides a number of pence. The money-pig was stuffed so full
that it could no longer rattle, which is the highest state of
perfection to which a money-pig can attain. There he stood
upon the cupboard, high and lofty, looking down upon
everything else in the room. He knew very well that he had
enough inside him to buy up all the other toys, and this gave
him a very good opinion of his own value. The rest thought of
this fact also, although they did not express it, for there
were so many other things to talk about. A large doll, still
handsome, though rather old, for her neck had been mended, lay
inside one of the drawers which was partly open. She called
out to the others, “Let us have a game at being men and women,
that is something worth playing at.”

    Upon this there was a great uproar; even the engravings,
which hung in frames on the wall, turned round in their
excitement, and showed that they had a wrong side to them,
although they had not the least intention to expose themselves
in this way, or to object to the game. It was late at night,
but as the moon shone through the windows, they had light at a
cheap rate. And as the game was now to begin, all were invited
to take part in it, even the children’s wagon, which certainly
belonged to the coarser playthings. “Each has its own value,”
said the wagon; “we cannot all be noblemen; there must be some
to do the work.”

    The money-pig was the only one who received a written
invitation. He stood so high that they were afraid he would
not accept a verbal message. But in his reply, he said, if he
had to take a part, he must enjoy the sport from his own home;
they were to arrange for him to do so; and so they did. The
little toy theatre was therefore put up in such a way that the
money-pig could look directly into it. Some wanted to begin
with a comedy, and afterwards to have a tea party and a
discussion for mental improvement, but they commenced with the
latter first. The rocking-horse spoke of training and races;
the wagon of railways and steam power, for these subjects
belonged to each of their professions, and it was right they
should talk of them. The clock talked politics- “tick, tick;”
he professed to know what was the time of day, but there was a
whisper that he did not go correctly. The bamboo cane stood
by, looking stiff and proud: he was vain of his brass ferrule
and silver top, and on the sofa lay two worked cushions,
pretty but stupid. When the play at the little theatre began,
the rest sat and looked on; they were requested to applaud and
stamp, or crack, when they felt gratified with what they saw.
But the riding-whip said he never cracked for old people, only
for the young who were not yet married. “I crack for
everybody,” said the cracker.

    “Yes, and a fine noise you make,” thought the audience, as
the play went on.

    It was not worth much, but it was very well played, and
all the characters turned their painted sides to the audience,
for they were made only to be seen on one side. The acting was
wonderful, excepting that sometimes they came out beyond the
lamps, because the wires were a little too long. The doll,
whose neck had been darned, was so excited that the place in
her neck burst, and the money-pig declared he must do
something for one of the players, as they had all pleased him
so much. So he made up his mind to remember one of them in his
will, as the one to be buried with him in the family vault,
whenever that event should happen. They all enjoyed the comedy
so much, that they gave up all thoughts of the tea party, and
only carried out their idea of intellectual amusement, which
they called playing at men and women; and there was nothing
wrong about it, for it was only play. All the while, each one
thought most of himself, or of what the money-pig could be
thinking. His thoughts were on, as he supposed, a very distant
time- of making his will, and of his burial, and of when it
might all come to pass. Certainly sooner than he expected- for
all at once down he came from the top of the press, fell on
the ground, and was broken to pieces. Then the pennies hopped
and danced about in the most amusing manner. The little ones
twirled round like tops, and the large ones rolled away as far
as they could, especially the one great silver crown piece who
had often to go out into the world, and now he had his wish as
well as all the rest of the money. The pieces of the money-pig
were thrown into the dust-bin, and the next day there stood a
new money-pig on the cupboard, but it had not a farthing in
its inside yet, and therefore, like the old one, it could not
rattle. This was the beginning with him, and we will make it
the end of our story.

                            THE END