Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/31

 there never was a more affecting picture of the hopeless attempts of a genius of second-rate order to combat against and rise above poverty and adverse circumstances, than is given in the life of poor Christian, who dies at last “only a fiddler.”

In all these works Andersen has drawn from his own experience, and in this lies their extraordinary power. There is a child-like tenderness and simplicity in his writings; a sympathy with the poor and the struggling, and an elevation and purity of tone, which have something absolutely holy about them; it is the inspiration of true genius, combined with great experience of life, and a spirit baptized with the tenderness of Christianity. This is it which is the secret of the extreme charm his celebrated stories have for children. They are as simple and as touching as the old Bible narratives of Joseph and his brethren, and the little lad who died in the corn field. We wonder not at their being the most popular books of their kind in Europe.

It has been my happiness, as I said before, to translate his three principal works, his Picture Book without Pictures, and several of