Fables and Tales (No Posting)

[TS Sailor Mercury]

*** There are many Fables and Tales that some of us might remember growing up, far too many of them never get passed on to new generations. Here are many of the Fables and Tales from years passed ***

The Hare and the Tortoise


There once was a Hare who made fun of a the Tortoise's short legs and slow place, the Tortoise had replied with a laugh, "Though you may be swift like the wind, I would still win the race." The Hare believed the assertion to be impossible and agreed to the challenge. They let the Fox choose the course and the goal. On the day of the race the two started out together, The Hare racing until it was far along the path, the hare believed the Tortoise would never catch up and was sure he had time for a nap, laid beside a tree and fell fast asleep. The entire time the Tortoise never stopped and keeping on a slow but steady pace to the finish line passing up the sleeping Hare. When the Hare awoke he discovered that the Tortoise had passed him and hopped as fast as possible but the Tortoise had reached the end and was sleeping comfortable from her long tiring journey to the finish the line.


Slow but steady wins the race.

The End

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears


Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

"This porridge is too hot!" she exclaimed.

So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.

"This porridge is too cold," she said

So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge.

"Ahhh, this porridge is just right," she said happily and she ate it all up.

After she'd eaten the three bears' breakfasts she decided she was feeling a little tired. So, she walked into the living room where she saw three chairs. Goldilocks sat in the first chair to rest her feet.

"This chair is too big!" she exclaimed.

So she sat in the second chair.

"This chair is too big, too!" she whined.

So she tried the last and smallest chair.

"Ahhh, this chair is just right," she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces!

Goldilocks was very tired by this time, so she went upstairs to the bedroom. She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard. Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft. Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right. Goldilocks fell asleep.

As she was sleeping, the three bears came home.

"Someone's been eating my porridge," growled the Papa bear.

"Someone's been eating my porridge," said the Mama bear.

"Someone's been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!" cried the Baby bear.

"Someone's been sitting in my chair," growled the Papa bear.

"Someone's been sitting in my chair," said the Mama bear.

"Someone's been sitting in my chair and they've broken it all to pieces," cried the Baby bear.

They decided to look around some more and when they got upstairs to the bedroom, Papa bear growled, "Someone's been sleeping in my bed,"

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed, too" said the Mama bear

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed and she's still there!" exclaimed Baby bear.

Just then, Goldilocks woke up and saw the three bears. She screamed, "Help!" And she jumped up and ran out of the room. Goldilocks ran down the stairs, opened the door, and ran away into the forest. And she never returned to the home of the three bears.

THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

The Lion and the Mouse


Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up
and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge
paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O
King," cried the little Mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall
never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn
some of these days?" The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the
Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let
him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the
hunters who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a
tree while they went in search of a waggon to carry him on. Just
then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad
plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away
the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?"
said the little Mouse.


Little friends may prove great friends.

(this is one version of the Fable)

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~

~*THE TOAD*~


THE well was deep, and therefore the rope had to be a long
one; it was heavy work turning the handle when any one had to
raise a bucketful of water over the edge of the well. Though
the water was clear, the sun never looked down far enough into
the well to mirror itself in the waters; but as far as its
beams could reach, green things grew forth between the stones
in the sides of the well.

Down below dwelt a family of the Toad race. They had, in
fact, come head-over-heels down the well, in the person of the
old Mother-Toad, who was still alive. The green Frogs, who had
been established there a long time, and swam about in the
water, called them "well-guests." But the new-comers seemed
determined to stay where they were, for they found it very
agreeable living "in a dry place," as they called the wet
stones.

The Mother-Frog had once been a traveller. She happened to
be in the water-bucket when it was drawn up, but the light
became too strong for her, and she got a pain in her eyes.
Fortunately she scrambled out of the bucket; but she fell into
the water with a terrible flop, and had to lie sick for three
days with pains in her back. She certainly had not much to
tell of the things up above, but she knew this, and all the
Frogs knew it, that the well was not all the world. The
Mother-Toad might have told this and that, if she had chosen,
but she never answered when they asked her anything, and so
they left off asking.

"She's thick, and fat and ugly," said the young green
Frogs; "and her children will be just as ugly as she is."

"That may be," retorted the mother-Toad, "but one of them
has a jewel in his head, or else I have the jewel."

The young frogs listened and stared; and as these words
did not please them, they made grimaces and dived down under
the water. But the little Toads kicked up their hind legs from
mere pride, for each of them thought that he must have the
jewel; and then they sat and held their heads quite still. But
at length they asked what it was that made them so proud, and
what kind of a thing a jewel might be.

"Oh, it is such a splendid and precious thing, that I
cannot describe it," said the Mother-Toad. "It's something
which one carries about for one's own pleasure, and that makes
other people angry. But don't ask me any questions, for I
shan't answer you."

"Well, I haven't got the jewel," said the smallest of the
Toads; she was as ugly as a toad can be. "Why should I have
such a precious thing? And if it makes others angry, it can't
give me any pleasure. No, I only wish I could get to the edge
of the well, and look out; it must be beautiful up there."

"You'd better stay where you are," said the old
Mother-Toad, "for you know everything here, and you can tell
what you have. Take care of the bucket, for it will crush you
to death; and even if you get into it safely, you may fall
out. And it's not every one who falls so cleverly as I did,
and gets away with whole legs and whole bones.

"Quack!" said the little Toad; and that's just as if one
of us were to say, "Aha!"

She had an immense desire to get to the edge of the well,
and to look over; she felt such a longing for the green, up
there; and the next morning, when it chanced that the bucket
was being drawn up, filled with water, and stopped for a
moment just in front of the stone on which the Toad sat, the
little creature's heart moved within it, and our Toad jumped
into the filled bucket, which presently was drawn to the top,
and emptied out.

"Ugh, you beast!" said the farm laborer who emptied the
bucket, when he saw the toad. "You're the ugliest thing I've
seen for one while." And he made a kick with his wooden shoe
at the toad, which just escaped being crushed by managing to
scramble into the nettles which grew high by the well's brink.
Here she saw stem by stem, but she looked up also; the sun
shone through the leaves, which were quite transparent; and
she felt as a person would feel who steps suddenly into a
great forest, where the sun looks in between the branches and
leaves.

"It's much nicer here than down in the well! I should like
to stay here my whole life long!" said the little Toad. So she
lay there for an hour, yes, for two hours. "I wonder what is
to be found up here? As I have come so far, I must try to go
still farther." And so she crawled on as fast as she could
crawl, and got out upon the highway, where the sun shone upon
her, and the dust powdered her all over as she marched across
the way.

"I've got to a dry place. now, and no mistake," said the
Toad. "It's almost too much of a good thing here; it tickles
one so."

She came to the ditch; and forget-me-nots were growing
there, and meadow-sweet; and a very little way off was a hedge
of whitethorn, and elder bushes grew there, too, and bindweed
with white flowers. Gay colors were to be seen here, and a
butterfly, too, was flitting by. The Toad thought it was a
flower which had broken loose that it might look about better
in the world, which was quite a natural thing to do.

"If one could only make such a journey as that!" said the
Toad. "Croak! how capital that would be."

Eight days and eight nights she stayed by the well, and
experienced no want of provisions. On the ninth day she
thought, "Forward! onward!" But what could she find more
charming and beautiful? Perhaps a little toad or a few green
frogs. During the last night there had been a sound borne on
the breeze, as if there were cousins in the neighborhood.

"It's a glorious thing to live! glorious to get out of the
well, and to lie among the stinging-nettles, and to crawl
along the dusty road. But onward, onward! that we may find
frogs or a little toad. We can't do without that; nature alone
is not enough for one." And so she went forward on her
journey.

She came out into the open field, to a great pond, round
about which grew reeds; and she walked into it.

"It will be too damp for you here," said the Frogs; "but
you are very welcome! Are you a he or a she? But it doesn't
matter; you are equally welcome."

And she was invited to the concert in the evening- the
family concert; great enthusiasm and thin voices; we know the
sort of thing. No refreshments were given, only there was
plenty to drink, for the whole pond was free.

"Now I shall resume my journey," said the little Toad; for
she always felt a longing for something better.

She saw the stars shining, so large and so bright, and she
saw the moon gleaming; and then she saw the sun rise, and
mount higher and higher.

"Perhaps after all, I am still in a well, only in a larger
well. I must get higher yet; I feel a great restlessness and
longing." And when the moon became round and full, the poor
creature thought, "I wonder if that is the bucket which will
be let down, and into which I must step to get higher up? Or
is the sun the great bucket? How great it is! how bright it
is! It can take up all. I must look out, that I may not miss
the opportunity. Oh, how it seems to shine in my head! I don't
think the jewel can shine brighter. But I haven't the jewel;
not that I cry about that- no, I must go higher up, into
splendor and joy! I feel so confident, and yet I am afraid.
It's a difficult step to take, and yet it must be taken.
Onward, therefore, straight onward!"

She took a few steps, such as a crawling animal may take,
and soon found herself on a road beside which people dwelt;
but there were flower gardens as well as kitchen gardens. And
she sat down to rest by a kitchen garden.

"What a number of different creatures there are that I
never knew! and how beautiful and great the world is! But one
must look round in it, and not stay in one spot." And then she
hopped into the kitchen garden. "How green it is here! how
beautiful it is here!"

"I know that," said the Caterpillar, on the leaf, "my leaf
is the largest here. It hides half the world from me, but I
don't care for the world."

"Cluck, cluck!" And some fowls came. They tripped about in
the cabbage garden. The Fowl who marched at the head of them
had a long sight, and she spied the Caterpillar on the green
leaf, and pecked at it, so that the Caterpillar fell on the
ground, where it twisted and writhed.

The Fowl looked at it first with one eye and then with the
other, for she did not know what the end of this writhing
would be.

"It doesn't do that with a good will," thought the Fowl,
and lifted up her head to peck at the Caterpillar.

The Toad was so horrified at this, that she came crawling
straight up towards the Fowl.

"Aha, it has allies," quoth the Fowl. "Just look at the
crawling thing!" And then the Fowl turned away. "I don't care
for the little green morsel; it would only tickle my throat."
The other fowls took the same view of it, and they all turned
away together.

"I writhed myself free," said the Caterpillar. "What a
good thing it is when one has presence of mind! But the
hardest thing remains to be done, and that is to get on my
leaf again. Where is it?"

And the little Toad came up and expressed her sympathy.
She was glad that in her ugliness she had frightened the
fowls.

"What do you mean by that?" cried the Caterpillar. "I
wriggled myself free from the Fowl. You are very disagreeable
to look at. Cannot I be left in peace on my own property? Now
I smell cabbage; now I am near my leaf. Nothing is so
beautiful as property. But I must go higher up."

"Yes, higher up," said the little Toad; "higher-up! She
feels just as I do; but she's not in a good humor to-day.
That's because of the fright. We all want to go higher up."
And she looked up as high as ever she could.

The stork sat in his nest on the roof of the farm-house.
He clapped with his beak, and the Mother-stork clapped with
hers.

"How high up they live!" thought the Toad. "If one could
only get as high as that!"

In the farm-house lived two young students; the one was a
poet and the other a scientific searcher into the secrets of
nature. The one sang and wrote joyously of everything that God
had created, and how it was mirrored in his heart. He sang it
out clearly, sweetly, richly, in well-sounding verses; while
the other investigated created matter itself, and even cut it
open where need was. He looked upon God's creation as a great
sum in arithmetic- subtracted, multiplied, and tried to know
it within and without, and to talk with understanding
concerning it; and that was a very sensible thing; and he
spoke joyously and cleverly of it. They were good, joyful men,
those two,

"There sits a good specimen of a toad," said the
naturalist. "I must have that fellow in a bottle of spirits."

"You have two of them already," replied the poet. "Let the
thing sit there and enjoy its life."

"But it's so wonderfully ugly," persisted the first.

"Yes, if we could find the jewel in its head," said the
poet, "I too should be for cutting it open.'

"A jewel!" cried the naturalist. "You seem to know a great
deal about natural history."

"But is there not something beautiful in the popular
belief that just as the toad is the ugliest of animals, it
should often carry the most precious jewel in its head? Is it
not just the same thing with men? What a jewel that was that
Aesop had, and still more, Socrates!"

The Toad did not hear any more, nor did she understand
half of what she had heard. The two friends walked on, and
thus she escaped the fate of being bottled up in spirits.

"Those two also were speaking of the jewel," said the Toad
to herself. "What a good thing that I have not got it! I might
have been in a very disagreeable position."

Now there was a clapping on the roof of the farm-house.
Father-Stork was making a speech to his family, and his family
was glancing down at the two young men in the kitchen garden.

"Man is the most conceited creature!" said the Stork.
"Listen how their jaws are wagging; and for all that they
can't clap properly. They boast of their gifts of eloquence
and their language! Yes, a fine language truly! Why, it
changes in every day's journey we make. One of them doesn't
understand another. Now, we can speak our language over the
whole earth- up in the North and in Egypt. And then men are
not able to fly, moreover. They rush along by means of an
invention they call 'railway;' but they often break their
necks over it. It makes my beak turn cold when I think of it.
The world could get on without men. We could do without them
very well, so long as we only keep frogs and earth-worms."

"That was a powerful speech," thought the little Toad.
"What a great man that is yonder! and how high he sits! Higher
than ever I saw any one sit yet; and how he can swim!" she
cried, as the Stork soared away through the air with outspread
pinions.

And the Mother-Stork began talking in the nest, and told
about Egypt and the waters of the Nile, and the incomparable
mud that was to be found in that strange land; and all this
sounded new and very charming to the little Toad.

"I must go to Egypt!" said she. "If the Stork or one of
his young ones would only take me! I would oblige him in
return. Yes, I shall get to Egypt, for I feel so happy! All
the longing and all the pleasure that I feel is much better
than having a jewel in one's head."

And it was just she who had the jewel. That jewel was the
continual striving and desire to go upward- ever upward. It
gleamed in her head, gleamed in joy, beamed brightly in her
longing.

Then, suddenly, up came the Stork. He had seen the Toad in
the grass, and stooped down and seized the little creature
anything but gently. The Stork's beak pinched her, and the
wind whistled; it was not exactly agreeable, but she was going
upward- upward towards Egypt- and she knew it; and that was
why her eyes gleamed, and a spark seemed to fly out of them.

"Quunk!- ah!"

The body was dead- the Toad was killed! But the spark that
had shot forth from her eyes; what became of that?

The sunbeam took it up; the sunbeam carried the jewel from
the head of the toad. Whither?

Ask not the naturalist; rather ask the poet. He will tell
it thee under the guise of a fairy tale; and the Caterpillar
on the cabbage, and the Stork family belong to the story.
Think! the Caterpillar is changed, and turns into a beautiful
butterfly; the Stork family flies over mountains and seas, to
the distant Africa, and yet finds the shortest way home to the
same country- to the same roof. Nay, that is almost too
improbable; and yet it is true. You may ask the naturalist, he
will confess it is so; and you know it yourself, for you have
seen it.

But the jewel in the head of the toad?

Seek it in the sun; see it there if you can.

The brightness is too dazzling there. We have not yet such
eyes as can see into the glories which God has created, but we
shall receive them by-and-by; and that will be the most
beautiful story of all, and we shall all have our share in it.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~

~* THE ANGEL *~


"WHENEVER a good child dies, an angel of God comes down
from heaven, takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out his
great white wings, and flies with him over all the places
which the child had loved during his life. Then he gathers a
large handful of flowers, which he carries up to the Almighty,
that they may bloom more brightly in heaven than they do on
earth. And the Almighty presses the flowers to His heart, but
He kisses the flower that pleases Him best, and it receives a
voice, and is able to join the song of the chorus of bliss."

These words were spoken by an angel of God, as he carried
a dead child up to heaven, and the child listened as if in a
dream. Then they passed over well-known spots, where the
little one had often played, and through beautiful gardens
full of lovely flowers.

"Which of these shall we take with us to heaven to be
transplanted there?" asked the angel.

Close by grew a slender, beautiful, rose-bush, but some
wicked hand had broken the stem, and the half-opened rosebuds
hung faded and withered on the trailing branches.

"Poor rose-bush!" said the child, "let us take it with us
to heaven, that it may bloom above in God's garden."

The angel took up the rose-bush; then he kissed the child,
and the little one half opened his eyes. The angel gathered
also some beautiful flowers, as well as a few humble
buttercups and heart's-ease.

"Now we have flowers enough," said the child; but the
angel only nodded, he did not fly upward to heaven.

It was night, and quite still in the great town. Here they
remained, and the angel hovered over a small, narrow street,
in which lay a large heap of straw, ashes, and sweepings from
the houses of people who had removed. There lay fragments of
plates, pieces of plaster, rags, old hats, and other rubbish
not pleasant to see. Amidst all this confusion, the angel
pointed to the pieces of a broken flower-pot, and to a lump of
earth which had fallen out of it. The earth had been kept from
falling to pieces by the roots of a withered field-flower,
which had been thrown amongst the rubbish.

"We will take this with us," said the angel, "I will tell
you why as we fly along."

And as they flew the angel related the history.

"Down in that narrow lane, in a low cellar, lived a poor
sick boy; he had been afflicted from his childhood, and even
in his best days he could just manage to walk up and down the
room on crutches once or twice, but no more. During some days
in summer, the sunbeams would lie on the floor of the cellar
for about half an hour. In this spot the poor sick boy would
sit warming himself in the sunshine, and watching the red
blood through his delicate fingers as he held them before his
face. Then he would say he had been out, yet he knew nothing
of the green forest in its spring verdure, till a neighbor's
son brought him a green bough from a beech-tree. This he would
place over his head, and fancy that he was in the beech-wood
while the sun shone, and the birds carolled gayly. One spring
day the neighbor's boy brought him some field-flowers, and
among them was one to which the root still adhered. This he
carefully planted in a flower-pot, and placed in a window-seat
near his bed. And the flower had been planted by a fortunate
hand, for it grew, put forth fresh shoots, and blossomed every
year. It became a splendid flower-garden to the sick boy, and
his little treasure upon earth. He watered it, and cherished
it, and took care it should have the benefit of every sunbeam
that found its way into the cellar, from the earliest morning
ray to the evening sunset. The flower entwined itself even in
his dreams- for him it bloomed, for him spread its perfume.
And it gladdened his eyes, and to the flower he turned, even
in death, when the Lord called him. He has been one year with
God. During that time the flower has stood in the window,
withered and forgotten, till at length cast out among the
sweepings into the street, on the day of the lodgers' removal.
And this poor flower, withered and faded as it is, we have
added to our nosegay, because it gave more real joy than the
most beautiful flower in the garden of a queen."

"But how do you know all this?" asked the child whom the
angel was carrying to heaven.

"I know it," said the angel, "because I myself was the
poor sick boy who walked upon crutches, and I know my own
flower well."

Then the child opened his eyes and looked into the
glorious happy face of the angel, and at the same moment they
found themselves in that heavenly home where all is happiness
and joy. And God pressed the dead child to His heart, and
wings were given him so that he could fly with the angel, hand
in hand. Then the Almighty pressed all the flowers to His
heart; but He kissed the withered field-flower, and it
received a voice. Then it joined in the song of the angels,
who surrounded the throne, some near, and others in a distant
circle, but all equally happy. They all joined in the chorus
of praise, both great and small,- the good, happy child, and
the poor field-flower, that once lay withered and cast away on
a heap of rubbish in a narrow, dark street.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~


~*BEAUTY OF FORM AND BEAUTY OF MIND*~


THERE was once a sculptor, named Alfred, who having won
the large gold medal and obtained a travelling scholarship,
went to Italy, and then came back to his native land. He was
young at that time- indeed, he is young still, although he is
ten years older than he was then. On his return, he went to
visit one of the little towns in the island of Zealand. The
whole town knew who the stranger was; and one of the richest
men in the place gave a party in his honor, and all who were
of any consequence, or who possessed some property, were
invited. It was quite an event, and all the town knew of it,
so that it was not necessary to announce it by beat of drum.
Apprentice-boys, children of the poor, and even the poor
people themselves, stood before the house, watching the
lighted windows; and the watchman might easily fancy he was
giving a party also, there were so many people in the streets.
There was quite an air of festivity about it, and the house
was full of it; for Mr. Alfred, the sculptor, was there. He
talked and told anecdotes, and every one listened to him with
pleasure, not unmingled with awe; but none felt so much
respect for him as did the elderly widow of a naval officer.
She seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was concerned, to be like a
piece of fresh blotting-paper that absorbed all he said and
asked for more. She was very appreciative, and incredibly
ignorant- a kind of female Gaspar Hauser.

"I should like to see Rome," she said; "it must be a
lovely city, or so many foreigners would not be constantly
arriving there. Now, do give me a description of Rome. How
does the city look when you enter in at the gate?"

"I cannot very well describe it," said the sculptor; "but
you enter on a large open space, in the centre of which stands
an obelisk, which is a thousand years old."

"An organist!" exclaimed the lady, who had never heard the
word 'obelisk.' Several of the guests could scarcely forbear
laughing, and the sculptor would have had some difficulty in
keeping his countenance, but the smile on his lips faded away;
for he caught sight of a pair of dark-blue eyes close by the
side of the inquisitive lady. They belonged to her daughter;
and surely no one who had such a daughter could be silly. The
mother was like a fountain of questions; and the daughter, who
listened but never spoke, might have passed for the beautiful
maid of the fountain. How charming she was! She was a study
for the sculptor to contemplate, but not to converse with; for
she did not speak, or, at least, very seldom.

"Has the pope a great family?" inquired the lady.

The young man answered considerately, as if the question
had been a different one, "No; he does not come from a great
family."

"That is not what I asked," persisted the widow; "I mean,
has he a wife and children?"

"The pope is not allowed to marry," replied the gentleman.

"I don't like that," was the lady's remark.

She certainly might have asked more sensible questions;
but if she had not been allowed to say just what she liked,
would her daughter have been there, leaning so gracefully on
her shoulder, and looking straight before her, with a smile
that was almost mournful on her face?

Mr. Alfred again spoke of Italy, and of the glorious
colors in Italian scenery; the purple hills, the deep blue of
the Mediterranean, the azure of southern skies, whose
brightness and glory could only be surpassed in the north by
the deep-blue eyes of a maiden; and he said this with a
peculiar intonation; but she who should have understood his
meaning looked quite unconscious of it, which also was
charming.

"Beautiful Italy!" sighed some of the guests.

"Oh, to travel there!" exclaimed others.

"Charming! Charming!" echoed from every voice.

"I may perhaps win a hundred thousand dollars in the
lottery," said the naval officer's widow; "and if I do, we
will travel- I and my daughter; and you, Mr. Alfred, must be
our guide. We can all three travel together, with one or two
more of our good friends." And she nodded in such a friendly
way at the company, that each imagined himself to be the
favored person who was to accompany them to Italy. "Yes, we
must go," she continued; "but not to those parts where there
are robbers. We will keep to Rome. In the public roads one is
always safe."

The daughter sighed very gently; and how much there may be
in a sigh, or attributed to it! The young man attributed a
great deal of meaning to this sigh. Those deep-blue eyes,
which had been lit up this evening in honor of him, must
conceal treasures, treasures of heart and mind, richer than
all the glories of Rome; and so when he left the party that
night, he had lost it completely to the young lady. The house
of the naval officer's widow was the one most constantly
visited by Mr. Alfred, the sculptor. It was soon understood
that his visits were not intended for that lady, though they
were the persons who kept up the conversation. He came for the
sake of the daughter. They called her Kaela. Her name was
really Karen Malena, and these two names had been contracted
into the one name Kaela. She was really beautiful; but some
said she was rather dull, and slept late of a morning.

"She has been accustomed to that," her mother said. "She
is a beauty, and they are always easily tired. She does sleep
rather late; but that makes her eyes so clear."

What power seemed to lie in the depths of those dark eyes!
The young man felt the truth of the proverb, "Still waters run
deep:" and his heart had sunk into their depths. He often
talked of his adventures, and the mamma was as simple and
eager in her questions as on the first evening they met. It
was a pleasure to hear Alfred describe anything. He showed
them colored plates of Naples, and spoke of excursions to
Mount Vesuvius, and the eruptions of fire from it. The naval
officer's widow had never heard of them before.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "So that is a burning
mountain; but is it not very dangerous to the people who live
near it?"

"Whole cities have been destroyed," he replied; "for
instance, Herculaneum and Pompeii."

"Oh, the poor people! And you saw all that with your own
eyes?"

"No; I did not see any of the eruptions which are
represented in those pictures; but I will show you a sketch of
my own, which represents an eruption I once saw."

He placed a pencil sketch on the table; and mamma, who had
been over-powered with the appearance of the colored plates,
threw a glance at the pale drawing and cried in astonishment,
"What, did you see it throw up white fire?"

For a moment, Alfred's respect for Kaela's mamma underwent
a sudden shock, and lessened considerably; but, dazzled by the
light which surrounded Kaela, he soon found it quite natural
that the old lady should have no eye for color. After all, it
was of very little consequence; for Kaela's mamma had the best
of all possessions; namely, Kaela herself.

Alfred and Kaela were betrothed, which was a very natural
result; and the betrothal was announced in the newspaper of
the little town. Mama purchased thirty copies of the paper,
that she might cut out the paragraph and send it to friends
and acquaintances. The betrothed pair were very happy, and the
mother was happy too. She said it seemed like connecting
herself with Thorwalsden.

"You are a true successor of Thorwalsden," she said to
Alfred; and it seemed to him as if, in this instance, mamma
had said a clever thing. Kaela was silent; but her eyes shone,
her lips smiled, every movement was graceful,- in fact, she
was beautiful; that cannot be repeated too often. Alfred
decided to take a bust of Kaela as well as of her mother. They
sat to him accordingly, and saw how he moulded and formed the
soft clay with his fingers.

"I suppose it is only on our account that you perform this
common-place work yourself, instead of leaving it to your
servant to do all that sticking together."

"It is really necessary that I should mould the clay
myself," he replied.

"Ah, yes, you are always so polite," said mamma, with a
smile; and Kaela silently pressed his hand, all soiled as it
was with the clay.

Then he unfolded to them both the beauties of Nature, in
all her works; he pointed out to them how, in the scale of
creation, inanimate matter was inferior to animate nature; the
plant above the mineral, the animal above the plant, and man
above them all. He strove to show them how the beauty of the
mind could be displayed in the outward form, and that it was
the sculptor's task to seize upon that beauty of expression,
and produce it in his works. Kaela stood silent, but nodded in
approbation of what he said, while mamma-in-law made the
following confession:-

"It is difficult to follow you; but I go hobbling along
after you with my thoughts, though what you say makes my head
whirl round and round. Still I contrive to lay hold on some of
it."

Kaela's beauty had a firm hold on Alfred; it filled his
soul, and held a mastery over him. Beauty beamed from Kaela's
every feature, glittered in her eyes, lurked in the corners of
her mouth, and pervaded every movement of her agile fingers.
Alfred, the sculptor, saw this. He spoke only to her, thought
only of her, and the two became one; and so it may be said she
spoke much, for he was always talking to her; and he and she
were one. Such was the betrothal, and then came the wedding,
with bride's-maids and wedding presents, all duly mentioned in
the wedding speech. Mamma-in-law had set up Thorwalsden's bust
at the end of the table, attired in a dressing-gown; it was
her fancy that he should be a guest. Songs were sung, and
cheers given; for it was a gay wedding, and they were a
handsome pair. "Pygmalion loved his Galatea," said one of the
songs.

"Ah, that is some of your mythologies," said mamma-in-law.

Next day the youthful pair started for Copenhagen, where
they were to live; mamma-in-law accompanied them, to attend to
the "coarse work," as she always called the domestic
arrangements. Kaela looked like a doll in a doll's house, for
everything was bright and new, and so fine. There they sat,
all three; and as for Alfred, a proverb may describe his
position- he looked like a swan amongst the geese. The magic
of form had enchanted him; he had looked at the casket without
caring to inquire what it contained, and that omission often
brings the greatest unhappiness into married life. The casket
may be injured, the gilding may fall off, and then the
purchaser regrets his bargain.

In a large party it is very disagreeable to find a button
giving way, with no studs at hand to fall back upon; but it is
worse still in a large company to be conscious that your wife
and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot
depend upon yourself to produce a little ready wit to carry
off the stupidity of the whole affair.

The young married pair often sat together hand in hand; he
would talk, but she could only now and then let fall a word in
the same melodious voice, the same bell-like tones. It was a
mental relief when Sophy, one of her friends, came to pay them
a visit. Sophy was not, pretty. She was, however, quite free
from any physical deformity, although Kaela used to say she
was a little crooked; but no eye, save an intimate
acquaintance, would have noticed it. She was a very sensible
girl, yet it never occurred to her that she might be a
dangerous person in such a house. Her appearance created a new
atmosphere in the doll's house, and air was really required,
they all owned that. They felt the want of a change of air,
and consequently the young couple and their mother travelled
to Italy.

"Thank heaven we are at home again within our own four
walls," said mamma-in-law and daughter both, on their return
after a year's absence.

"There is no real pleasure in travelling," said mamma; "to
tell the truth, it's very wearisome; I beg pardon for saying
so. I was soon very tired of it, although I had my children
with me; and, besides, it's very expensive work travelling,
very expensive. And all those galleries one is expected to
see, and the quantity of things you are obliged to run after!
It must be done, for very shame; you are sure to be asked when
you come back if you have seen everything, and will most
likely be told that you've omitted to see what was best worth
seeing of all. I got tired at last of those endless Madonnas;
I began to think I was turning into a Madonna myself."

"And then the living, mamma," said Kaela.

"Yes, indeed," she replied, "no such a thing as a
respectable meat soup- their cookery is miserable stuff."

The journey had also tired Kaela; but she was always
fatigued, that was the worst of it. So they sent for Sophy,
and she was taken into the house to reside with them, and her
presence there was a great advantage. Mamma-in-law
acknowledged that Sophy was not only a clever housewife, but
well-informed and accomplished, though that could hardly be
expected in a person of her limited means. She was also a
generous-hearted, faithful girl; she showed that thoroughly
while Kaela lay sick, fading away. When the casket is
everything, the casket should be strong, or else all is over.
And all was over with the casket, for Kaela died.

"She was beautiful," said her mother; "she was quite
different from the beauties they call 'antiques,' for they are
so damaged. A beauty ought to be perfect, and Kaela was a
perfect beauty."

Alfred wept, and mamma wept, and they both wore mourning.
The black dress suited mamma very well, and she wore mourning
the longest. She had also to experience another grief in
seeing Alfred marry again, marry Sophy, who was nothing at all
to look at. "He's gone to the very extreme," said
mamma-in-law; "he has gone from the most beautiful to the
ugliest, and he has forgotten his first wife. Men have no
constancy. My husband was a very different man,- but then he
died before me."

"'Pygmalion loved his Galatea,' was in the song they sung
at my first wedding," said Alfred; "I once fell in love with a
beautiful statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the
kindred soul, which is a gift from heaven, the angel who can
feel and sympathize with and elevate us, I have not found and
won till now. You came, Sophy, not in the glory of outward
beauty, though you are even fairer than is necessary. The
chief thing still remains. You came to teach the sculptor that
his work is but dust and clay only, an outward form made of a
material that decays, and that what we should seek to obtain
is the ethereal essence of mind and spirit. Poor Kaela! our
life was but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world,
where we shall know each other from a union of mind, we shall
be but mere acquaintances."

"That was not a loving speech," said Sophy, "nor spoken
like a Christian. In a future state, where there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage, but where, as you say, souls
are attracted to each other by sympathy; there everything
beautiful develops itself, and is raised to a higher state of
existence: her soul will acquire such completeness that it may
harmonize with yours, even more than mine, and you will then
once more utter your first rapturous exclamation of your love,
'Beautiful, most beautiful!'"


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~

~*THE BELL*~


IN the narrow streets of a large town people often heard
in the evening, when the sun was setting, and his last rays
gave a golden tint to the chimney-pots, a strange noise which
resembled the sound of a church bell; it only lasted an
instant, for it was lost in the continual roar of traffic and
hum of voices which rose from the town. "The evening bell is
ringing," people used to say; "the sun is setting!" Those who
walked outside the town, where the houses were less crowded
and interspersed by gardens and little fields, saw the evening
sky much better, and heard the sound of the bell much more
clearly. It seemed as though the sound came from a church,
deep in the calm, fragrant wood, and thither people looked
with devout feelings.

A considerable time elapsed: one said to the other, "I
really wonder if there is a church out in the wood. The bell
has indeed a strange sweet sound! Shall we go there and see
what the cause of it is?" The rich drove, the poor walked, but
the way seemed to them extraordinarily long, and when they
arrived at a number of willow trees on the border of the wood
they sat down, looked up into the great branches and thought
they were now really in the wood. A confectioner from the town
also came out and put up a stall there; then came another
confectioner who hung a bell over his stall, which was covered
with pitch to protect it from the rain, but the clapper was
wanting.

When people came home they used to say that it had been
very romantic, and that really means something else than
merely taking tea. Three persons declared that they had gone
as far as the end of the wood; they had always heard the
strange sound, but there it seemed to them as if it came from
the town. One of them wrote verses about the bell, and said
that it was like the voice of a mother speaking to an
intelligent and beloved child; no tune, he said, was sweeter
than the sound of the bell.

The emperor of the country heard of it, and declared that
he who would really find out where the sound came from should
receive the title of "Bellringer to the World," even if there
was no bell at all.

Now many went out into the wood for the sake of this
splendid berth; but only one of them came back with some sort
of explanation. None of them had gone far enough, nor had he,
and yet he said that the sound of the bell came from a large
owl in a hollow tree. It was a wisdom owl, which continually
knocked its head against the tree, but he was unable to say
with certainty whether its head or the hollow trunk of the
tree was the cause of the noise.

He was appointed "Bellringer to the World," and wrote
every year a short dissertation on the owl, but by this means
people did not become any wiser than they had been before.

It was just confirmation-day. The clergyman had delivered
a beautiful and touching sermon, the candidates were deeply
moved by it; it was indeed a very important day for them; they
were all at once transformed from mere children to grown-up
people; the childish soul was to fly over, as it were, into a
more reasonable being.

The sun shone most brightly; and the sound of the great
unknown bell was heard more distinctly than ever. They had a
mind to go thither, all except three. One of them wished to go
home and try on her ball dress, for this very dress and the
ball were the cause of her being confirmed this time,
otherwise she would not have been allowed to go. The second, a
poor boy, had borrowed a coat and a pair of boots from the son
of his landlord to be confirmed in, and he had to return them
at a certain time. The third said that he never went into
strange places if his parents were not with him; he had always
been a good child, and wished to remain so, even after being
confirmed, and they ought not to tease him for this; they,
however, did it all the same. These three, therefore did not
go; the others went on. The sun was shining, the birds were
singing, and the confirmed children sang too, holding each
other by the hand, for they had no position yet, and they were
all equal in the eyes of God. Two of the smallest soon became
tired and returned to the town; two little girls sat down and
made garlands of flowers, they, therefore, did not go on. When
the others arrived at the willow trees, where the confectioner
had put up his stall, they said: "Now we are out here; the
bell does not in reality exist- it is only something that
people imagine!"

Then suddenly the sound of the bell was heard so
beautifully and solemnly from the wood that four or five made
up their minds to go still further on. The wood was very
thickly grown. It was difficult to advance: wood lilies and
anemones grew almost too high; flowering convolvuli and
brambles were hanging like garlands from tree to tree; while
the nightingales were singing and the sunbeams played. That
was very beautiful! But the way was unfit for the girls; they
would have torn their dresses. Large rocks, covered with moss
of various hues, were lying about; the fresh spring water
rippled forth with a peculiar sound. "I don't think that can
be the bell," said one of the confirmed children, and then he
lay down and listened. "We must try to find out if it is!" And
there he remained, and let the others walk on.

They came to a hut built of the bark of trees and
branches; a large crab-apple tree spread its branches over it,
as if it intended to pour all its fruit on the roof, upon
which roses were blooming; the long boughs covered the gable,
where a little bell was hanging. Was this the one they had
heard? All agreed that it must be so, except one who said that
the bell was too small and too thin to be heard at such a
distance, and that it had quite a different sound to that
which had so touched men's hearts.

He who spoke was a king's son, and therefore the others
said that such a one always wishes to be cleverer than other
people.

Therefore they let him go alone; and as he walked on, the
solitude of the wood produced a feeling of reverence in his
breast; but still he heard the little bell about which the
others rejoiced, and sometimes, when the wind blew in that
direction, he could hear the sounds from the confectioner's
stall, where the others were singing at tea. But the deep
sounds of the bell were much stronger; soon it seemed to him
as if an organ played an accompaniment- the sound came from
the left, from the side where the heart is. Now something
rustled among the bushes, and a little boy stood before the
king's son, in wooden shoes and such a short jacket that the
sleeves did not reach to his wrists. They knew each other: the
boy was the one who had not been able to go with them because
he had to take the coat and boots back to his landlord's son.
That he had done, and had started again in his wooden shoes
and old clothes, for the sound of the bell was too enticing-
he felt he must go on.

"We might go together," said the king's son. But the poor
boy with the wooden shoes was quite ashamed; he pulled at the
short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was afraid he
could not walk so fast; besides, he was of opinion that the
bell ought to be sought at the right, for there was all that
was grand and magnificent.

"Then we shall not meet," said the king's son, nodding to
the poor boy, who went into the deepest part of the wood,
where the thorns tore his shabby clothes and scratched his
hands, face, and feet until they bled. The king's son also
received several good scratches, but the sun was shining on
his way, and it is he whom we will now follow, for he was a
quick fellow. "I will and must find the bell," he said, "if I
have to go to the end of the world."

Ugly monkeys sat high in the branches and clenched their
teeth. "Shall we beat him?" they said. "Shall we thrash him?
He is a king's son!"

But he walked on undaunted, deeper and deeper into the
wood, where the most wonderful flowers were growing; there
were standing white star lilies with blood-red stamens,
sky-blue tulips shining when the wind moved them; apple-trees
covered with apples like large glittering soap bubbles: only
think how resplendent these trees were in the sunshine! All
around were beautiful green meadows, where hart and hind
played in the grass. There grew magnificent oaks and
beech-trees; and if the bark was split of any of them, long
blades of grass grew out of the clefts; there were also large
smooth lakes in the wood, on which the swans were swimming
about and flapping their wings. The king's son often stood
still and listened; sometimes he thought that the sound of the
bell rose up to him out of one of these deep lakes, but soon
he found that this was a mistake, and that the bell was
ringing still farther in the wood. Then the sun set, the
clouds were as red as fire; it became quiet in the wood; he
sank down on his knees, sang an evening hymn and said: "I
shall never find what I am looking for! Now the sun is
setting, and the night, the dark night, is approaching. Yet I
may perhaps see the round sun once more before he disappears
beneath the horizon. I will climb up these rocks, they are as
high as the highest trees!" And then, taking hold of the
creepers and roots, he climbed up on the wet stones, where
water-snakes were wriggling and the toads, as it were, barked
at him: he reached the top before the sun, seen from such a
height, had quite set. "Oh, what a splendour!" The sea, the
great majestic sea, which was rolling its long waves against
the shore, stretched out before him, and the sun was standing
like a large bright altar and there where sea and heaven met-
all melted together in the most glowing colours; the wood was
singing, and his heart too. The whole of nature was one large
holy church, in which the trees and hovering clouds formed the
pillars, the flowers and grass the woven velvet carpet, and
heaven itself was the great cupola; up there the flame colour
vanished as soon as the sun disappeared, but millions of stars
were lighted; diamond lamps were shining, and the king's son
stretched his arms out towards heaven, towards the sea, and
towards the wood. Then suddenly the poor boy with the
short-sleeved jacket and the wooden shoes appeared; he had
arrived just as quickly on the road he had chosen. And they
ran towards each other and took one another's hand, in the
great cathedral of nature and poesy, and above them sounded
the invisible holy bell; happy spirits surrounded them,
singing hallelujahs and rejoicing.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*THE BIRD OF POPULAR SONG*~


IT is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and
looks like marble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and
clear; the wind is sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the
trees stand like branches of white coral or blooming almond
twigs, and here it is keen as on the lofty Alps.

The night is splendid in the gleam of the Northern Lights,
and in the glitter of innumerable twinkling stars.

But we sit in the warm room, by the hot stove, and talk
about the old times. And we listen to this story:

By the open sea was a giant's grave; and on the
grave-mound sat at midnight the spirit of the buried hero, who
had been a king. The golden circlet gleamed on his brow, his
hair fluttered in the wind, and he was clad in steel and iron.
He bent his head mournfully, and sighed in deep sorrow, as an
unquiet spirit might sigh.

And a ship came sailing by. Presently the sailors lowered
the anchor and landed. Among them was a singer, and he
approached the royal spirit, and said,

"Why mournest thou, and wherefore dost thou suffer thus?"

And the dead man answered,

"No one has sung the deeds of my life; they are dead and
forgotten. Song doth not carry them forth over the lands, nor
into the hearts of men; therefore I have no rest and no
peace."

And he spoke of his works, and of his warlike deeds, which
his contemporaries had known, but which had not been sung,
because there was no singer among his companions.

Then the old bard struck the strings of his harp, and sang
of the youthful courage of the hero, of the strength of the
man, and of the greatness of his good deeds. Then the face of
the dead one gleamed like the margin of the cloud in the
moonlight. Gladly and of good courage, the form arose in
splendor and in majesty, and vanished like the glancing of the
northern light. Nought was to be seen but the green turfy
mound, with the stones on which no Runic record has been
graven; but at the last sound of the harp there soared over
the hill, as though he had fluttered from the harp, a little
bird, a charming singing-bird, with ringing voice of the
thrush, with the moving voice pathos of the human heart, with
a voice that told of home, like the voice that is heard by the
bird of passage. The singing-bird soared away, over mountain
and valley, over field and wood- he was the Bird of Popular
Song, who never dies.

We hear his song- we hear it now in the room while the
white bees are swarming without, and the storm clutches the
windows. The bird sings not alone the requiem of heroes; he
sings also sweet gentle songs of love, so many and so warm, of
Northern fidelity and truth. He has stories in words and in
tones; he has proverbs and snatches of proverbs; songs which,
like Runes laid under a dead man's tongue, force him to speak;
and thus Popular Song tells of the land of his birth.

In the old heathen days, in the times of the Vikings, the
popular speech was enshrined in the harp of the bard.

In the days of knightly castles, when the strongest fist
held the scales of justice, when only might was right, and a
peasant and a dog were of equal importance, where did the Bird
of Song find shelter and protection? Neither violence nor
stupidity gave him a thought.

But in the gabled window of the knightly castle, the lady
of the castle sat with the parchment roll before her, and
wrote down the old recollections in song and legend, while
near her stood the old woman from the wood, and the travelling
peddler who went wandering through the country. As these told
their tales, there fluttered around them, with twittering and
song, the Bird of Popular Song, who never dies so long as the
earth has a hill upon which his foot may rest.

And now he looks in upon us and sings. Without are the
night and the snow-storm. He lays the Runes beneath our
tongues, and we know the land of our home. Heaven speaks to us
in our native tongue, in the voice of the Bird of Popular
Song. The old remembrances awake, the faded colors glow with a
fresh lustre, and story and song pour us a blessed draught
which lifts up our minds and our thoughts, so that the evening
becomes as a Christmas festival.

The snow-flakes chase each other, the ice cracks, the
storm rules without, for he has the might, he is lord- but not
the LORD OF ALL.

It is winter time. The wind is sharp as a two-edged sword,
the snow-flakes chase each other; it seems as though it had
been snowing for days and weeks, and the snow lies like a
great mountain over the whole town, like a heavy dream of the
winter night. Everything on the earth is hidden away, only the
golden cross of the church, the symbol of faith, arises over
the snow grave, and gleams in the blue air and in the bright
sunshine.

And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the
small and the great; they twitter and they sing as best they
may, each bird with his beak.

First comes the band of sparrows: they pipe at every
trifle in the streets and lanes, in the nests and the houses;
they have stories to tell about the front buildings and the
back buildings.

"We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in
it is piep! piep! piep!"

The black ravens and crows flew on over the white snow.

"Grub, grub!" they cried. "There's something to be got
down there; something to swallow, and that's most important.
That's the opinion of most of them down there, and the opinion
is goo-goo-good!"

The wild swans come flying on whirring pinions, and sing
of the noble and the great, that will still sprout in the
hearts of men, down in the town which is resting beneath its
snowy veil.

No death is there- life reigns yonder; we hear it on the
notes that swell onward like the tones of the church organ,
which seize us like sounds from the elf-hill, like the songs
of Ossian, like the rushing swoop of the wandering spirits'
wings. What harmony! That harmony speaks to our hearts, and
lifts up our souls! It is the Bird of Popular Song whom we
hear.

And at this moment the warm breath of heaven blows down
from the sky. There are gaps in the snowy mountains, the sun
shines into the clefts; spring is coming, the birds are
returning, and new races are coming with the same home sounds
in their hearts.

Hear the story of the year: "The night of the snow-storm,
the heavy dream of the winter night, all shall be dissolved,
all shall rise again in the beauteous notes of the Bird of
Popular Song, who never dies!"


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*THE BOTTLE NECK*~



CLOSE to the corner of a street, among other abodes of
poverty, stood an exceedingly tall, narrow house, which had
been so knocked about by time that it seemed out of joint in
every direction. This house was inhabited by poor people, but
the deepest poverty was apparent in the garret lodging in the
gable. In front of the little window, an old bent bird-cage
hung in the sunshine, which had not even a proper water-glass,
but instead of it the broken neck of a bottle, turned upside
down, and a cork stuck in to make it hold the water with which
it was filled. An old maid stood at the window; she had hung
chickweed over the cage, and the little linnet which it
contained hopped from perch to perch and sang and twittered
merrily.

"Yes, it's all very well for you to sing," said the bottle
neck: that is, he did not really speak the words as we do, for
the neck of a bottle cannot speak; but he thought them to
himself in his own mind, just as people sometimes talk quietly
to themselves.

"Yes, you may sing very well, you have all your limbs
uninjured; you should feel what it is like to lose your body,
and only have a neck and a mouth left, with a cork stuck in
it, as I have: you wouldn't sing then, I know. After all, it
is just as well that there are some who can be happy. I have
no reason to sing, nor could I sing now if I were ever so
happy; but when I was a whole bottle, and they rubbed me with
a cork, didn't I sing then? I used to be called a complete
lark. I remember when I went out to a picnic with the
furrier's family, on the day his daughter was betrothed,- it
seems as if it only happened yesterday. I have gone through a
great deal in my time, when I come to recollect: I have been
in the fire and in the water, I have been deep in the earth,
and have mounted higher in the air than most other people, and
now I am swinging here, outside a bird-cage, in the air and
the sunshine. Oh, indeed, it would be worth while to hear my
history; but I do not speak it aloud, for a good reason-
because I cannot."

Then the bottle neck related his history, which was really
rather remarkable; he, in fact, related it to himself, or, at
least, thought it in his own mind. The little bird sang his
own song merrily; in the street below there was driving and
running to and fro, every one thought of his own affairs, or
perhaps of nothing at all; but the bottle neck thought deeply.
He thought of the blazing furnace in the factory, where he had
been blown into life; he remembered how hot it felt when he
was placed in the heated oven, the home from which he sprang,
and that he had a strong inclination to leap out again
directly; but after a while it became cooler, and he found
himself very comfortable. He had been placed in a row, with a
whole regiment of his brothers and sisters all brought out of
the same furnace; some of them had certainly been blown into
champagne bottles, and others into beer bottles, which made a
little difference between them. In the world it often happens
that a beer bottle may contain the most precious wine, and a
champagne bottle be filled with blacking, but even in decay it
may always be seen whether a man has been well born. Nobility
remains noble, as a champagne bottle remains the same, even
with blacking in its interior. When the bottles were packed
our bottle was packed amongst them; it little expected then to
finish its career as a bottle neck, or to be used as a
water-glass to a bird's-cage, which is, after all, a place of
honor, for it is to be of some use in the world. The bottle
did not behold the light of day again, until it was unpacked
with the rest in the wine merchant's cellar, and, for the
first time, rinsed with water, which caused some very curious
sensations. There it lay empty, and without a cork, and it had
a peculiar feeling, as if it wanted something it knew not
what. At last it was filled with rich and costly wine, a cork
was placed in it, and sealed down. Then it was labelled "first
quality," as if it had carried off the first prize at an
examination; besides, the wine and the bottle were both good,
and while we are young is the time for poetry. There were
sounds of song within the bottle, of things it could not
understand, of green sunny mountains, where the vines grow and
where the merry vine-dressers laugh, sing, and are merry. "Ah,
how beautiful is life." All these tones of joy and song in the
bottle were like the working of a young poet's brain, who
often knows not the meaning of the tones which are sounding
within him. One morning the bottle found a purchaser in the
furrier's apprentice, who was told to bring one of the best
bottles of wine. It was placed in the provision basket with
ham and cheese and sausages. The sweetest fresh butter and the
finest bread were put into the basket by the furrier's
daughter herself, for she packed it. She was young and pretty;
her brown eyes laughed, and a smile lingered round her mouth
as sweet as that in her eyes. She had delicate hands,
beautifully white, and her neck was whiter still. It could
easily be seen that she was a very lovely girl, and as yet she
was not engaged. The provision basket lay in the lap of the
young girl as the family drove out to the forest, and the neck
of the bottle peeped out from between the folds of the white
napkin. There was the red wax on the cork, and the bottle
looked straight at the young girl's face, and also at the face
of the young sailor who sat near her. He was a young friend,
the son of a portrait painter. He had lately passed his
examination with honor, as mate, and the next morning he was
to sail in his ship to a distant coast. There had been a great
deal of talk on this subject while the basket was being
packed, and during this conversation the eyes and the mouth of
the furrier's daughter did not wear a very joyful expression.
The young people wandered away into the green wood, and talked
together. What did they talk about? The bottle could not say,
for he was in the provision basket. It remained there a long
time; but when at last it was brought forth it appeared as if
something pleasant had happened, for every one was laughing;
the furrier's daughter laughed too, but she said very little,
and her cheeks were like two roses. Then her father took the
bottle and the cork-screw into his hands. What a strange
sensation it was to have the cork drawn for the first time!
The bottle could never after that forget the performance of
that moment; indeed there was quite a convulsion within him as
the cork flew out, and a gurgling sound as the wine was poured
forth into the glasses.

"Long life to the betrothed," cried the papa, and every
glass was emptied to the dregs, while the young sailor kissed
his beautiful bride.

"Happiness and blessing to you both," said the old
people-father and mother, and the young man filled the glasses
again.

"Safe return, and a wedding this day next year," he cried;
and when the glasses were empty he took the bottle, raised it
on high, and said, "Thou hast been present here on the
happiest day of my life; thou shalt never be used by others!"
So saying, he hurled it high in the air.

The furrier's daughter thought she should never see it
again, but she was mistaken. It fell among the rushes on the
borders of a little woodland lake. The bottle neck remembered
well how long it lay there unseen. "I gave them wine, and they
gave me muddy water," he had said to himself, "but I suppose
it was all well meant." He could no longer see the betrothed
couple, nor the cheerful old people; but for a long time he
could hear them rejoicing and singing. At length there came by
two peasant boys, who peeped in among the reeds and spied out
the bottle. Then they took it up and carried it home with
them, so that once more it was provided for. At home in their
wooden cottage these boys had an elder brother, a sailor, who
was about to start on a long voyage. He had been there the day
before to say farewell, and his mother was now very busy
packing up various things for him to take with him on his
voyage. In the evening his father was going to carry the
parcel to the town to see his son once more, and take him a
farewell greeting from his mother. A small bottle had already
been filled with herb tea, mixed with brandy, and wrapped in a
parcel; but when the boys came in they brought with them a
larger and stronger bottle, which they had found. This bottle
would hold so much more than the little one, and they all said
the brandy would be so good for complaints of the stomach,
especially as it was mixed with medical herbs. The liquid
which they now poured into the bottle was not like the red
wine with which it had once been filled; these were bitter
drops, but they are of great use sometimes-for the stomach.
The new large bottle was to go, not the little one: so the
bottle once more started on its travels. It was taken on board
(for Peter Jensen was one of the crew) the very same ship in
which the young mate was to sail. But the mate did not see the
bottle: indeed, if he had he would not have known it, or
supposed it was the one out of which they had drunk to the
felicity of the betrothed and to the prospect of a marriage on
his own happy return. Certainly the bottle no longer poured
forth wine, but it contained something quite as good; and so
it happened that whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his
messmates gave it the name of "the apothecary," for it
contained the best medicine to cure the stomach, and he gave
it out quite willingly as long as a drop remained. Those were
happy days, and the bottle would sing when rubbed with a cork,
and it was called a great lark," "Peter Jensen's lark."

Long days and months rolled by, during which the bottle
stood empty in a corner, when a storm arose- whether on the
passage out or home it could not tell, for it had never been
ashore. It was a terrible storm, great waves arose, darkly
heaving and tossing the vessel to and fro. The main mast was
split asunder, the ship sprang a leak, and the pumps became
useless, while all around was black as night. At the last
moment, when the ship was sinking, the young mate wrote on a
piece of paper, "We are going down: God's will be done." Then
he wrote the name of his betrothed, his own name, and that of
the ship. Then he put the leaf in an empty bottle that
happened to be at hand, corked it down tightly, and threw it
into the foaming sea. He knew not that it was the very same
bottle from which the goblet of joy and hope had once been
filled for him, and now it was tossing on the waves with his
last greeting, and a message from the dead. The ship sank, and
the crew sank with her; but the bottle flew on like a bird,
for it bore within it a loving letter from a loving heart. And
as the sun rose and set, the bottle felt as at the time of its
first existence, when in the heated glowing stove it had a
longing to fly away. It outlived the storms and the calm, it
struck against no rocks, was not devoured by sharks, but
drifted on for more than a year, sometimes towards the north,
sometimes towards the south, just as the current carried it.
It was in all other ways its own master, but even of that one
may get tired. The written leaf, the last farewell of the
bridegroom to his bride, would only bring sorrow when once it
reached her hands; but where were those hands, so soft and
delicate, which had once spread the table-cloth on the fresh
grass in the green wood, on the day of her betrothal? Ah, yes!
where was the furrier's daughter? and where was the land which
might lie nearest to her home?

The bottle knew not, it travelled onward and onward, and
at last all this wandering about became wearisome; at all
events it was not its usual occupation. But it had to travel,
till at length it reached land- a foreign country. Not a word
spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it was a
language it had never before heard, and it is a great loss not
to be able to understand a language. The bottle was fished out
of the water, and examined on all sides. The little letter
contained within it was discovered, taken out, and turned and
twisted in every direction; but the people could not
understand what was written upon it. They could be quite sure
that the bottle had been thrown overboard from a vessel, and
that something about it was written on this paper: but what
was written? that was the question,- so the paper was put back
into the bottle, and then both were put away in a large
cupboard of one of the great houses of the town. Whenever any
strangers arrived, the paper was taken out and turned over and
over, so that the address, which was only written in pencil,
became almost illegible, and at last no one could distinguish
any letters on it at all. For a whole year the bottle remained
standing in the cupboard, and then it was taken up to the
loft, where it soon became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah!
how often then it thought of those better days- of the times
when in the fresh, green wood, it had poured forth rich wine;
or, while rocked by the swelling waves, it had carried in its
bosom a secret, a letter, a last parting sigh. For full twenty
years it stood in the loft, and it might have stayed there
longer but that the house was going to be rebuilt. The bottle
was discovered when the roof was taken off; they talked about
it, but the bottle did not understand what they said- a
language is not to be learnt by living in a loft, even for
twenty years. "If I had been down stairs in the room," thought
the bottle, "I might have learnt it." It was now washed and
rinsed, which process was really quite necessary, and
afterwards it looked clean and transparent, and felt young
again in its old age; but the paper which it had carried so
faithfully was destroyed in the washing. They filled the
bottle with seeds, though it scarcely knew what had been
placed in it. Then they corked it down tightly, and carefully
wrapped it up. There not even the light of a torch or lantern
could reach it, much less the brightness of the sun or moon.
"And yet," thought the bottle, "men go on a journey that they
may see as much as possible, and I can see nothing." However,
it did something quite as important; it travelled to the place
of its destination, and was unpacked.

"What trouble they have taken with that bottle over
yonder!" said one, and very likely it is broken after all."
But the bottle was not broken, and, better still, it
understood every word that was said: this language it had
heard at the furnaces and at the wine merchant's; in the
forest and on the ship,- it was the only good old language it
could understand. It had returned home, and the language was
as a welcome greeting. For very joy, it felt ready to jump out
of people's hands, and scarcely noticed that its cork had been
drawn, and its contents emptied out, till it found itself
carried to a cellar, to be left there and forgotten. "There's
no place like home, even if it's a cellar." It never occurred
to him to think that he might lie there for years, he felt so
comfortable. For many long years he remained in the cellar,
till at last some people came to carry away the bottles, and
ours amongst the number.

Out in the garden there was a great festival. Brilliant
lamps hung in festoons from tree to tree; and paper lanterns,
through which the light shone till they looked like
transparent tulips. It was a beautiful evening, and the
weather mild and clear. The stars twinkled; and the new moon,
in the form of a crescent, was surrounded by the shadowy disc
of the whole moon, and looked like a gray globe with a golden
rim: it was a beautiful sight for those who had good eyes. The
illumination extended even to the most retired of the garden
walks, at least not so retired that any one need lose himself
there. In the borders were placed bottles, each containing a
light, and among them the bottle with which we are acquainted,
and whose fate it was, one day, to be only a bottle neck, and
to serve as a water-glass to a bird's-cage. Everything here
appeared lovely to our bottle, for it was again in the green
wood, amid joy and feasting; again it heard music and song,
and the noise and murmur of a crowd, especially in that part
of the garden where the lamps blazed, and the paper lanterns
displayed their brilliant colors. It stood in a distant walk
certainly, but a place pleasant for contemplation; and it
carried a light; and was at once useful and ornamental. In
such an hour it is easy to forget that one has spent twenty
years in a loft, and a good thing it is to be able to do so.
Close before the bottle passed a single pair, like the bridal
pair- the mate and the furrier's daughter- who had so long ago
wandered in the wood. It seemed to the bottle as if he were
living that time over again. Not only the guests but other
people were walking in the garden, who were allowed to witness
the splendor and the festivities. Among the latter came an old
maid, who seemed to be quite alone in the world. She was
thinking, like the bottle, of the green wood, and of a young
betrothed pair, who were closely connected with herself; she
was thinking of that hour, the happiest of her life, in which
she had taken part, when she had herself been one of that
betrothed pair; such hours are never to be forgotten, let a
maiden be as old as she may. But she did not recognize the
bottle, neither did the bottle notice the old maid. And so we
often pass each other in the world when we meet, as did these
two, even while together in the same town.

The bottle was taken from the garden, and again sent to a
wine merchant, where it was once more filled with wine, and
sold to an aeronaut, who was to make an ascent in his balloon
on the following Sunday. A great crowd assembled to witness
the sight; military music had been engaged, and many other
preparations made. The bottle saw it all from the basket in
which he lay close to a live rabbit. The rabbit was quite
excited because he knew that he was to be taken up, and let
down again in a parachute. The bottle, however, knew nothing
of the "up," or the "down;" he saw only that the balloon was
swelling larger and larger till it could swell no more, and
began to rise and be restless. Then the ropes which held it
were cut through, and the aerial ship rose in the air with the
aeronaut and the basket containing the bottle and the rabbit,
while the music sounded and all the people shouted "Hurrah."

"This is a wonderful journey up into the air," thought the
bottle; "it is a new way of sailing, and here, at least, there
is no fear of striking against anything."

Thousands of people gazed at the balloon, and the old maid
who was in the garden saw it also; for she stood at the open
window of the garret, by which hung the cage containing the
linnet, who then had no water-glass, but was obliged to be
contented with an old cup. In the window-sill stood a myrtle
in a pot, and this had been pushed a little on one side, that
it might not fall out; for the old maid was leaning out of the
window, that she might see. And she did see distinctly the
aeronaut in the balloon, and how he let down the rabbit in the
parachute, and then drank to the health of all the spectators
in the wine from the bottle. After doing this, he hurled it
high into the air. How little she thought that this was the
very same bottle which her friend had thrown aloft in her
honor, on that happy day of rejoicing, in the green wood, in
her youthful days. The bottle had no time to think, when
raised so suddenly; and before it was aware, it reached the
highest point it had ever attained in its life. Steeples and
roofs lay far, far beneath it, and the people looked as tiny
as possible. Then it began to descend much more rapidly than
the rabbit had done, made somersaults in the air, and felt
itself quite young and unfettered, although it was half full
of wine. But this did not last long. What a journey it was!
All the people could see the bottle; for the sun shone upon
it. The balloon was already far away, and very soon the bottle
was far away also; for it fell upon a roof, and broke in
pieces. But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that
they could not stop themselves. They went jumping and rolling
about, till at last they fell into the court-yard, and were
broken into still smaller pieces; only the neck of the bottle
managed to keep whole, and it was broken off as clean as if it
had been cut with a diamond.

"That would make a capital bird's glass," said one of the
cellar-men; but none of them had either a bird or a cage, and
it was not to be expected they would provide one just because
they had found a bottle neck that could be used as a glass.
But the old maid who lived in the garret had a bird, and it
really might be useful to her; so the bottle neck was provided
with a cork, and taken up to her; and, as it often happens in
life, the part that had been uppermost was now turned
downwards, and it was filled with fresh water. Then they hung
it in the cage of the little bird, who sang and twittered more
merrily than ever.

"Ah, you have good reason to sing," said the bottle neck,
which was looked upon as something very remarkable, because it
had been in a balloon; nothing further was known of its
history. As it hung there in the bird's-cage, it could hear
the noise and murmur of the people in the street below, as
well as the conversation of the old maid in the room within.
An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not
about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window.

"No, you must not spend a dollar for your daughter's
bridal bouquet," said the old maid; "you shall have a
beautiful little bunch for a nosegay, full of blossoms. Do you
see how splendidly the tree has grown? It has been raised from
only a little sprig of myrtle that you gave me on the day
after my betrothal, and from which I was to make my own bridal
bouquet when a year had passed: but that day never came; the
eyes were closed which were to have been my light and joy
through life. In the depths of the sea my beloved sleeps
sweetly; the myrtle has become an old tree, and I am a still
older woman. Before the sprig you gave me faded, I took a
spray, and planted it in the earth; and now, as you see, it
has become a large tree, and a bunch of the blossoms shall at
last appear at a wedding festival, in the bouquet of your
daughter."

There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke
of the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the
wood. Many thoughts came into her mind; but the thought never
came, that quite close to her, in that very window, was a
remembrance of those olden times,- the neck of the bottle
which had, as it were shouted for joy when the cork flew out
with a bang on the betrothal day. But the bottle neck did not
recognize the old maid; he had not been listening to what she
had related, perhaps because he was thinking so much about
her.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*THE BUCKWHEAT*~


VERY often, after a violent thunder-storm, a field of
buckwheat appears blackened and singed, as if a flame of fire
had passed over it. The country people say that this
appearance is caused by lightning; but I will tell you what
the sparrow says, and the sparrow heard it from an old
willow-tree which grew near a field of buckwheat, and is there
still. It is a large venerable tree, though a little crippled
by age. The trunk has been split, and out of the crevice grass
and brambles grow. The tree bends for-ward slightly, and the
branches hang quite down to the ground just like green hair.
Corn grows in the surrounding fields, not only rye and barley,
but oats,-pretty oats that, when ripe, look like a number of
little golden canary-birds sitting on a bough. The corn has a
smiling look and the heaviest and richest ears bend their
heads low as if in pious humility. Once there was also a field
of buckwheat, and this field was exactly opposite to old
willow-tree. The buckwheat did not bend like the other grain,
but erected its head proudly and stiffly on the stem. "I am as
valuable as any other corn," said he, "and I am much
handsomer; my flowers are as beautiful as the bloom of the
apple blossom, and it is a pleasure to look at us. Do you know
of anything prettier than we are, you old willow-tree?"

And the willow-tree nodded his head, as if he would say,
"Indeed I do."

But the buckwheat spread itself out with pride, and said,
"Stupid tree; he is so old that grass grows out of his body."

There arose a very terrible storm. All the field-flowers
folded their leaves together, or bowed their little heads,
while the storm passed over them, but the buckwheat stood
erect in its pride. "Bend your head as we do," said the
flowers.

"I have no occasion to do so," replied the buckwheat.

"Bend your head as we do," cried the ears of corn; "the
angel of the storm is coming; his wings spread from the sky
above to the earth beneath. He will strike you down before you
can cry for mercy."

"But I will not bend my head," said the buckwheat.

"Close your flowers and bend your leaves," said the old
willow-tree. "Do not look at the lightning when the cloud
bursts; even men cannot do that. In a flash of lightning
heaven opens, and we can look in; but the sight will strike
even human beings blind. What then must happen to us, who only
grow out of the earth, and are so inferior to them, if we
venture to do so?"

"Inferior, indeed!" said the buckwheat. "Now I intend to
have a peep into heaven." Proudly and boldly he looked up,
while the lightning flashed across the sky as if the whole
world were in flames.

When the dreadful storm had passed, the flowers and the
corn raised their drooping heads in the pure still air,
refreshed by the rain, but the buckwheat lay like a weed in
the field, burnt to blackness by the lightning. The branches
of the old willow-tree rustled in the wind, and large
water-drops fell from his green leaves as if the old willow
were weeping. Then the sparrows asked why he was weeping, when
all around him seemed so cheerful. "See," they said, how the
sun shines, and the clouds float in the blue sky. Do you not
smell the sweet perfume from flower and bush? Wherefore do you
weep, old willow-tree?" Then the willow told them of the
haughty pride of the buckwheat, and of the punishment which
followed in consequence.

This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when
I begged them to relate some tale to me.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*BY THE ALMSHOUSE WINDOW*~


NEAR the grass-covered rampart which encircles Copenhagen
lies a great red house. Balsams and other flowers greet us
from the long rows of windows in the house, whose interior is
sufficiently poverty-stricken; and poor and old are the people
who inhabit it. The building is the Warton Almshouse.

Look! at the window there leans an old maid. She plucks
the withered leaf from the balsam, and looks at the
grass-covered rampart, on which many children are playing.
What is the old maid thinking of? A whole life drama is
unfolding itself before her inward gaze.

"The poor little children, how happy they are- how merrily
they play and romp together! What red cheeks and what angels'
eyes! but they have no shoes nor stockings. They dance on the
green rampart, just on the place where, according to the old
story, the ground always sank in, and where a sportive,
frolicsome child had been lured by means of flowers, toys and
sweetmeats into an open grave ready dug for it, and which was
afterwards closed over the child; and from that moment, the
old story says, the ground gave way no longer, the mound
remained firm and fast, and was quickly covered with the green
turf. The little people who now play on that spot know nothing
of the old tale, else would they fancy they heard a child
crying deep below the earth, and the dewdrops on each blade of
grass would be to them tears of woe. Nor do they know anything
of the Danish King who here, in the face of the coming foe,
took an oath before all his trembling courtiers that he would
hold out with the citizens of his capital, and die here in his
nest; they know nothing of the men who have fought here, or of
the women who from here have drenched with boiling water the
enemy, clad in white, and 'biding in the snow to surprise the
city.

"No! the poor little ones are playing with light, childish
spirits. Play on, play on, thou little maiden! Soon the years
will come- yes, those glorious years. The priestly hands have
been laid on the candidates for confirmation; hand in hand
they walk on the green rampart. Thou hast a white frock on; it
has cost thy mother much labor, and yet it is only cut down
for thee out of an old larger dress! You will also wear a red
shawl; and what if it hang too far down? People will only see
how large, how very large it is. You are thinking of your
dress, and of the Giver of all good- so glorious is it to
wander on the green rampart!

"And the years roll by; they have no lack of dark days,
but you have your cheerful young spirit, and you have gained a
friend- you know not how. You met, oh, how often! You walk
together on the rampart in the fresh spring, on the high days
and holidays, when all the world come out to walk upon the
ramparts, and all the bells of the church steeples seem to be
singing a song of praise for the coming spring.

"Scarcely have the violets come forth, but there on the
rampart, just opposite the beautiful Castle of Rosenberg,
there is a tree bright with the first green buds. Every year
this tree sends forth fresh green shoots. Alas! It is not so
with the human heart! Dark mists, more in number than those
that cover the northern skies, cloud the human heart. Poor
child! thy friend's bridal chamber is a black coffin, and thou
becomest an old maid. From the almshouse window, behind the
balsams, thou shalt look on the merry children at play, and
shalt see thine own history renewed."

And that is the life drama that passes before the old maid
while she looks out upon the rampart, the green, sunny
rampart, where the children, with their red cheeks and bare
shoeless feet, are rejoicing merrily, like the other free
little birds.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE *~

IT was a very sad day, and every heart in the house felt
the deepest grief; for the youngest child, a boy of four years
old, the joy and hope of his parents, was dead. Two daughters,
the elder of whom was going to be confirmed, still remained:
they were both good, charming girls; but the lost child always
seems the dearest; and when it is youngest, and a son, it
makes the trial still more heavy. The sisters mourned as young
hearts can mourn, and were especially grieved at the sight of
their parents' sorrow. The father's heart was bowed down, but
the mother sunk completely under the deep grief. Day and night
she had attended to the sick child, nursing and carrying it in
her bosom, as a part of herself. She could not realize the
fact that the child was dead, and must be laid in a coffin to
rest in the ground. She thought God could not take her darling
little one from her; and when it did happen notwithstanding
her hopes and her belief, and there could be no more doubt on
the subject, she said in her feverish agony, "God does not
know it. He has hard-hearted ministering spirits on earth, who
do according to their own will, and heed not a mother's
prayers." Thus in her great grief she fell away from her faith
in God, and dark thoughts arose in her mind respecting death
and a future state. She tried to believe that man was but
dust, and that with his life all existence ended. But these
doubts were no support to her, nothing on which she could
rest, and she sunk into the fathomless depths of despair. In
her darkest hours she ceased to weep, and thought not of the
young daughters who were still left to her. The tears of her
husband fell on her forehead, but she took no notice of him;
her thoughts were with her dead child; her whole existence
seemed wrapped up in the remembrances of the little one and of
every innocent word it had uttered.

The day of the little child's funeral came. For nights
previously the mother had not slept, but in the morning
twilight of this day she sunk from weariness into a deep
sleep; in the mean time the coffin was carried into a distant
room, and there nailed down, that she might not hear the blows
of the hammer. When she awoke, and wanted to see her child,
the husband, with tears, said, "We have closed the coffin; it
was necessary to do so."

"When God is so hard to me, how can I expect men to be
better?" she said with groans and tears.

The coffin was carried to the grave, and the disconsolate
mother sat with her young daughters. She looked at them, but
she saw them not; for her thoughts were far away from the
domestic hearth. She gave herself up to her grief, and it
tossed her to and fro, as the sea tosses a ship without
compass or rudder. So the day of the funeral passed away, and
similar days followed, of dark, wearisome pain. With tearful
eyes and mournful glances, the sorrowing daughters and the
afflicted husband looked upon her who would not hear their
words of comfort; and, indeed, what comforting words could
they speak, when they were themselves so full of grief? It
seemed as if she would never again know sleep, and yet it
would have been her best friend, one who would have
strengthened her body and poured peace into her soul. They at
last persuaded her to lie down, and then she would lie as
still as if she slept.

One night, when her husband listened, as he often did, to
her breathing, he quite believed that she had at length found
rest and relief in sleep. He folded his arms and prayed, and
soon sunk himself into healthful sleep; therefore he did not
notice that his wife arose, threw on her clothes, and glided
silently from the house, to go where her thoughts constantly
lingered- to the grave of her child. She passed through the
garden, to a path across a field that led to the churchyard.
No one saw her as she walked, nor did she see any one; for her
eyes were fixed upon the one object of her wanderings. It was
a lovely starlight night in the beginning of September, and
the air was mild and still. She entered the churchyard, and
stood by the little grave, which looked like a large nosegay
of fragrant flowers. She sat down, and bent her head low over
the grave, as if she could see her child through the earth
that covered him- her little boy, whose smile was so vividly
before her, and the gentle expression of whose eyes, even on
his sick-bed, she could not forget. How full of meaning that
glance had been, as she leaned over him, holding in hers the
pale hand which he had no longer strength to raise! As she had
sat by his little cot, so now she sat by his grave; and here
she could weep freely, and her tears fell upon it.

"Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child," said
a voice quite close to her,- a voice that sounded so deep and
clear, that it went to her heart.

She looked up, and by her side stood a man wrapped in a
black cloak, with a hood closely drawn over his face; but her
keen glance could distinguish the face under the hood. It was
stern, yet awakened confidence, and the eyes beamed with
youthful radiance.

"Down to my child," she repeated; and tones of despair and
entreaty sounded in the words.

"Darest thou to follow me?" asked the form. "I am Death."

She bowed her head in token of assent. Then suddenly it
appeared as if all the stars were shining with the radiance of
the full moon on the many-colored flowers that decked the
grave. The earth that covered it was drawn back like a
floating drapery. She sunk down, and the spectre covered her
with a black cloak; night closed around her, the night of
death. She sank deeper than the spade of the sexton could
penetrate, till the churchyard became a roof above her. Then
the cloak was removed, and she found herself in a large hall,
of wide-spreading dimensions, in which there was a subdued
light, like twilight, reigning, and in a moment her child
appeared before her, smiling, and more beautiful than ever;
with a silent cry she pressed him to her heart. A glorious
strain of music sounded- now distant, now near. Never had she
listened to such tones as these; they came from beyond a large
dark curtain which separated the regions of death from the
land of eternity.

"My sweet, darling mother," she heard the child say. It
was the well-known, beloved voice; and kiss followed kiss, in
boundless delight. Then the child pointed to the dark curtain.
"There is nothing so beautiful on earth as it is here. Mother,
do you not see them all? Oh, it is happiness indeed."

But the mother saw nothing of what the child pointed out,
only the dark curtain. She looked with earthly eyes, and could
not see as the child saw,- he whom God has called to be with
Himself. She could hear the sounds of music, but she heard not
the words, the Word in which she was to trust.

"I can fly now, mother," said the child; "I can fly with
other happy children into the presence of the Almighty. I
would fain fly away now; but if you weep for me as you are
weeping now, you may never see me again. And yet I would go so
gladly. May I not fly away? And you will come to me soon, will
you not, dear mother?"

"Oh, stay, stay!" implored the mother; "only one moment
more; only once more, that I may look upon thee, and kiss
thee, and press thee to my heart."

Then she kissed and fondled her child. Suddenly her name
was called from above; what could it mean? her name uttered in
a plaintive voice.

"Hearest thou?" said the child. "It is my father who calls
thee." And in a few moments deep sighs were heard, as of
children weeping. "They are my sisters," said the child.
"Mother, surely you have not forgotten them."

And then she remembered those she left behind, and a great
terror came over her. She looked around her at the dark night.
Dim forms flitted by. She seemed to recognize some of them, as
they floated through the regions of death towards the dark
curtain, where they vanished. Would her husband and her
daughters flit past? No; their sighs and lamentations still
sounded from above; and she had nearly forgotten them, for the
sake of him who was dead.

"Mother, now the bells of heaven are ringing," said the
child; "mother, the sun is going to rise."

An overpowering light streamed in upon her, the child had
vanished, and she was being borne upwards. All around her
became cold; she lifted her head, and saw that she was lying
in the churchyard, on the grave of her child. The Lord, in a
dream, had been a guide to her feet and a light to her spirit.
She bowed her knees, and prayed for forgiveness. She had
wished to keep back a soul from its immortal flight; she had
forgotten her duties towards the living who were left her. And
when she had offered this prayer, her heart felt lighter. The
sun burst forth, over her head a little bird carolled his
song, and the church-bells sounded for the early service.
Everything around her seemed holy, and her heart was
chastened. She acknowledged the goodness of God, she
acknowledged the duties she had to perform, and eagerly she
returned home. She bent over her husband, who still slept; her
warm, devoted kiss awakened him, and words of heartfelt love
fell from the lips of both. Now she was gentle and strong as a
wife can be; and from her lips came the words of faith:
"Whatever He doeth is right and best."

Then her husband asked, "From whence hast thou all at once
derived such strength and comforting faith?"

And as she kissed him and her children, she said, "It came
from God, through my child in the grave."


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~* THE CONCEITED APPLE-BRANCH *~


IT was the month of May. The wind still blew cold; but
from bush and tree, field and flower, came the welcome sound,
"Spring is come." Wild-flowers in profusion covered the
hedges. Under the little apple-tree, Spring seemed busy, and
told his tale from one of the branches which hung fresh and
blooming, and covered with delicate pink blossoms that were
just ready to open. The branch well knew how beautiful it was;
this knowledge exists as much in the leaf as in the blood; I
was therefore not surprised when a nobleman's carriage, in
which sat the young countess, stopped in the road just by. She
said that an apple-branch was a most lovely object, and an
emblem of spring in its most charming aspect. Then the branch
was broken off for her, and she held it in her delicate hand,
and sheltered it with her silk parasol. Then they drove to the
castle, in which were lofty halls and splendid drawing-rooms.
Pure white curtains fluttered before the open windows, and
beautiful flowers stood in shining, transparent vases; and in
one of them, which looked as if it had been cut out of newly
fallen snow, the apple-branch was placed, among some fresh,
light twigs of beech. It was a charming sight. Then the branch
became proud, which was very much like human nature.

People of every description entered the room, and,
according to their position in society, so dared they to
express their admiration. Some few said nothing, others
expressed too much, and the apple-branch very soon got to
understand that there was as much difference in the characters
of human beings as in those of plants and flowers. Some are
all for pomp and parade, others have a great deal to do to
maintain their own importance, while the rest might be spared
without much loss to society. So thought the apple-branch, as
he stood before the open window, from which he could see out
over gardens and fields, where there were flowers and plants
enough for him to think and reflect upon; some rich and
beautiful, some poor and humble indeed.

"Poor, despised herbs," said the apple-branch; "there is
really a difference between them and such as I am. How unhappy
they must be, if they can feel as those in my position do!
There is a difference indeed, and so there ought to be, or we
should all be equals."

And the apple-branch looked with a sort of pity upon them,
especially on a certain little flower that is found in fields
and in ditches. No one bound these flowers together in a
nosegay; they were too common; they were even known to grow
between the paving-stones, shooting up everywhere, like bad
weeds; and they bore the very ugly name of "dog-flowers" or
"dandelions."

"Poor, despised plants," said the apple-bough, "it is not
your fault that you are so ugly, and that you have such an
ugly name; but it is with plants as with men,- there must be a
difference."

"A difference!" cried the sunbeam, as he kissed the
blooming apple-branch, and then kissed the yellow dandelion
out in the fields. All were brothers, and the sunbeam kissed
them- the poor flowers as well as the rich.

The apple-bough had never thought of the boundless love of
God, which extends over all the works of creation, over
everything which lives, and moves, and has its being in Him;
he had never thought of the good and beautiful which are so
often hidden, but can never remain forgotten by Him,- not only
among the lower creation, but also among men. The sunbeam, the
ray of light, knew better.

"You do not see very far, nor very clearly," he said to
the apple-branch. "Which is the despised plant you so
specially pity?"

"The dandelion," he replied. "No one ever places it in a
nosegay; it is often trodden under foot, there are so many of
them; and when they run to seed, they have flowers like wool,
which fly away in little pieces over the roads, and cling to
the dresses of the people. They are only weeds; but of course
there must be weeds. O, I am really very thankful that I was
not made like one of these flowers."

There came presently across the fields a whole group of
children, the youngest of whom was so small that it had to be
carried by the others; and when he was seated on the grass,
among the yellow flowers, he laughed aloud with joy, kicked
out his little legs, rolled about, plucked the yellow flowers,
and kissed them in childlike innocence. The elder children
broke off the flowers with long stems, bent the stalks one
round the other, to form links, and made first a chain for the
neck, then one to go across the shoulders, and hang down to
the waist, and at last a wreath to wear round the head, so
that they looked quite splendid in their garlands of green
stems and golden flowers. But the eldest among them gathered
carefully the faded flowers, on the stem of which was grouped
together the seed, in the form of a white feathery coronal.
These loose, airy wool-flowers are very beautiful, and look
like fine snowy feathers or down. The children held them to
their mouths, and tried to blow away the whole coronal with
one puff of the breath. They had been told by their
grandmothers that who ever did so would be sure to have new
clothes before the end of the year. The despised flower was by
this raised to the position of a prophet or foreteller of
events.

"Do you see," said the sunbeam, "do you see the beauty of
these flowers? do you see their powers of giving pleasure?"

"Yes, to children," said the apple-bough.

By-and-by an old woman came into the field, and, with a
blunt knife without a handle, began to dig round the roots of
some of the dandelion-plants, and pull them up. With some of
these she intended to make tea for herself; but the rest she
was going to sell to the chemist, and obtain some money.

"But beauty is of higher value than all this," said the
apple-tree branch; "only the chosen ones can be admitted into
the realms of the beautiful. There is a difference between
plants, just as there is a difference between men."

Then the sunbeam spoke of the boundless love of God, as
seen in creation, and over all that lives, and of the equal
distribution of His gifts, both in time and in eternity.

"That is your opinion," said the apple-bough.

Then some people came into the room, and, among them, the
young countess,- the lady who had placed the apple-bough in
the transparent vase, so pleasantly beneath the rays of the
sunlight. She carried in her hand something that seemed like a
flower. The object was hidden by two or three great leaves,
which covered it like a shield, so that no draught or gust of
wind could injure it, and it was carried more carefully than
the apple-branch had ever been. Very cautiously the large
leaves were removed, and there appeared the feathery
seed-crown of the despised dandelion. This was what the lady
had so carefully plucked, and carried home so safely covered,
so that not one of the delicate feathery arrows of which its
mist-like shape was so lightly formed, should flutter away.
She now drew it forth quite uninjured, and wondered at its
beautiful form, and airy lightness, and singular construction,
so soon to be blown away by the wind.

"See," she exclaimed, "how wonderfully God has made this
little flower. I will paint it with the apple-branch together.
Every one admires the beauty of the apple-bough; but this
humble flower has been endowed by Heaven with another kind of
loveliness; and although they differ in appearance, both are
the children of the realms of beauty."

Then the sunbeam kissed the lowly flower, and he kissed
the blooming apple-branch, upon whose leaves appeared a rosy
blush.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~*THE DARNING-NEEDLE*~

THERE was once a darning-needle who thought herself so
fine that she fancied she must be fit for embroidery. "Hold me
tight," she would say to the fingers, when they took her up,
"don't let me fall; if you do I shall never be found again, I
am so very fine."

"That is your opinion, is it?" said the fingers, as they
seized her round the body.

"See, I am coming with a train," said the darning-needle,
drawing a long thread after her; but there was no knot in the
thread.

The fingers then placed the point of the needle against
the cook's slipper. There was a crack in the upper leather,
which had to be sewn together.

"What coarse work!" said the darning-needle, "I shall
never get through. I shall break!- I am breaking!" and sure
enough she broke. "Did I not say so?" said the darning-needle,
"I know I am too fine for such work as that."

"This needle is quite useless for sewing now," said the
fingers; but they still held it fast, and the cook dropped
some sealing-wax on the needle, and fastened her handkerchief
with it in front.

"So now I am a breast-pin," said the darning-needle; "I
knew very well I should come to honor some day: merit is sure
to rise;" and she laughed, quietly to herself, for of course
no one ever saw a darning-needle laugh. And there she sat as
proudly as if she were in a state coach, and looked all around
her. "May I be allowed to ask if you are made of gold?" she
inquired of her neighbor, a pin; "you have a very pretty
appearance, and a curious head, although you are rather small.
You must take pains to grow, for it is not every one who has
sealing-wax dropped upon him;" and as she spoke, the
darning-needle drew herself up so proudly that she fell out of
the handkerchief right into the sink, which the cook was
cleaning. "Now I am going on a journey," said the needle, as
she floated away with the dirty water, "I do hope I shall not
be lost." But she really was lost in a gutter. "I am too fine
for this world," said the darning-needle, as she lay in the
gutter; "but I know who I am, and that is always some
comfort." So the darning-needle kept up her proud behavior,
and did not lose her good humor. Then there floated over her
all sorts of things,- chips and straws, and pieces of old
newspaper. "See how they sail," said the darning-needle; "they
do not know what is under them. I am here, and here I shall
stick. See, there goes a chip, thinking of nothing in the
world but himself- only a chip. There's a straw going by now;
how he turns and twists about! Don't be thinking too much of
yourself, or you may chance to run against a stone. There
swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been
forgotten long ago, and yet it gives itself airs. I sit here
patiently and quietly. I know who I am, so I shall not move."

One day something lying close to the darning-needle
glittered so splendidly that she thought it was a diamond; yet
it was only a piece of broken bottle. The darning-needle spoke
to it, because it sparkled, and represented herself as a
breast-pin. "I suppose you are really a diamond?" she said.

"Why yes, something of the kind," he replied; and so each
believed the other to be very valuable, and then they began to
talk about the world, and the conceited people in it.

"I have been in a lady's work-box," said the
darning-needle, "and this lady was the cook. She had on each
hand five fingers, and anything so conceited as these five
fingers I have never seen; and yet they were only employed to
take me out of the box and to put me back again."

"Were they not high-born?"

"High-born!" said the darning-needle, "no indeed, but so
haughty. They were five brothers, all born fingers; they kept
very proudly together, though they were of different lengths.
The one who stood first in the rank was named the thumb, he
was short and thick, and had only one joint in his back, and
could therefore make but one bow; but he said that if he were
cut off from a man's hand, that man would be unfit for a
soldier. Sweet-tooth, his neighbor, dipped himself into sweet
or sour, pointed to the sun and moon, and formed the letters
when the fingers wrote. Longman, the middle finger, looked
over the heads of all the others. Gold-band, the next finger,
wore a golden circle round his waist. And little Playman did
nothing at all, and seemed proud of it. They were boasters,
and boasters they will remain; and therefore I left them."

"And now we sit here and glitter," said the piece of
broken bottle.

At the same moment more water streamed into the gutter, so
that it overflowed, and the piece of bottle was carried away.

"So he is promoted," said the darning-needle, "while I
remain here; I am too fine, but that is my pride, and what do
I care?" And so she sat there in her pride, and had many such
thoughts as these,- "I could almost fancy that I came from a
sunbeam, I am so fine. It seems as if the sunbeams were always
looking for me under the water. Ah! I am so fine that even my
mother cannot find me. Had I still my old eye, which was
broken off, I believe I should weep; but no, I would not do
that, it is not genteel to cry."

One day a couple of street boys were paddling in the
gutter, for they sometimes found old nails, farthings, and
other treasures. It was dirty work, but they took great
pleasure in it. "Hallo!" cried one, as he pricked himself with
the darning-needle, "here's a fellow for you."

"I am not a fellow, I am a young lady," said the
darning-needle; but no one heard her.

The sealing-wax had come off, and she was quite black; but
black makes a person look slender, so she thought herself even
finer than before.

"Here comes an egg-shell sailing along," said one of the
boys; so they stuck the darning-needle into the egg-shell.

"White walls, and I am black myself," said the
darning-needle, "that looks well; now I can be seen, but I
hope I shall not be sea-sick, or I shall break again." She was
not sea-sick, and she did not break. "It is a good thing
against sea-sickness to have a steel stomach, and not to
forget one's own importance. Now my sea-sickness has past:
delicate people can bear a great deal."

Crack went the egg-shell, as a waggon passed over it.
"Good heavens, how it crushes!" said the darning-needle. "I
shall be sick now. I am breaking!" but she did not break,
though the waggon went over her as she lay at full length; and
there let her lie.


THE END

 

[TS Sailor Mercury]

~*An Hans Christian Anderson Fable*~



~* THE DROP OF WATER *~

OF course you know what is meant by a magnifying glass-
one of those round spectacle-glasses that make everything look
a hundred times bigger than it is? When any one takes one of
these and holds it to his eye, and looks at a drop of water
from the pond yonder, he sees above a thousand wonderful
creatures that are otherwise never discerned in the water. But
there they are, and it is no delusion. It almost looks like a
great plateful of spiders jumping about in a crowd. And how
fierce they are! They tear off each other's legs. and arms and
bodies, before and behind; and yet they are merry and joyful
in their way.

Now, there once was an old man whom all the people called
Kribble-Krabble, for that was his name. He always wanted the
best of everything, and when he could not manage it otherwise,
he did it by magic.

There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his
eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of
a puddle by the ditch. But what a kribbling and krabbling was
there! All the thousands of little creatures hopped and sprang
and tugged at one another, and ate each other up.

"That is horrible!" said old Kribble-Krabble. "Can one not
persuade them to live in peace and quietness, so that each one
may mind his own business?"

And he thought it over and over, but it would not do, and
so he had recourse to magic.

"I must give them color, that they may be seen more
plainly," said he; and he poured something like a little drop
of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches' blood
from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind, at ninepence a
drop. And now the wonderful little creatures were pink all
over. It looked like a whole town of naked wild men.

"What have you there?" asked another old magician, who had
no name- and that was the best thing about him.

"Yes, if you can guess what it is," said Kribble-Krabble,
"I'll make you a present of it."

But it is not so easy to find out if one does not know.

And the magician who had no name looked through the
magnifying-glass.

It looked really like a great town reflected there, in
which all the people were running about without clothes. It
was terrible! But it was still more terrible to see how one
beat and pushed the other, and bit and hacked, and tugged and
mauled him. Those at the top were being pulled down, and those
at the bottom were struggling upwards.

"Look! look! his leg is longer than mine! Bah! Away with
it! There is one who has a little bruise. It hurts him, but it
shall hurt him still more."

And they hacked away at him, and they pulled at him, and
ate him up, because of the little bruise. And there was one
sitting as still as any little maiden, and wishing only for
peace and quietness. But now she had to come out, and they
tugged at her, and pulled her about, and ate her up.

"That's funny!" said the magician.

"Yes; but what do you think it is?" said Kribble-Krabble.
"Can you find that out?"

"Why, one can see that easily enough," said the other.
"That's Paris, or some other great city, for they're all
alike. It's a great city!"

"It's a drop of puddle water!" said Kribble-Krabble.


THE END