Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/16

 trials, privations, and its tears, is to him a holy thing; he lays bare the heart, not to bring forth hidden and revolting passions or crimes, but to show how lovely it is in its simplicity and truth: how touching in its weaknesses and its short-comings; how much it is to be loved and pitied, and borne and striven with. In short, this great writer, with all the ardor of a strong poetical nature, and with great power in delineating passion, is eminently Christian in spirit.

It is a great pleasure to me that I have been the means of making the principal works of Hans Christian Andersen known, through my translations, to English readers; they have been well received by them, and I now give a slight memoir of their author, drawn from the True Story of his own Life, sent by him to me for translation, and which has lately been published.

The father of Hans Christian Andersen was a shoemaker of Odense. When scarcely twenty, he married a young girl about as poor as himself. The poverty of this couple may be imagined from the circumstance that the house afforded no better bedstead than a