Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/410

 398 III

'I was born in the palace library,' said the second Mouse. 'I and several members of our family never knew the happiness of getting into the dining-room, much less into the store-room; on my journey, and here to-day, are the only times I have seen a kitchen. We have indeed often been compelled to suffer hunger in the library, but we got a good deal of knowledge. The rumour penetrated even to us, of the royal prize offered to those who could cook soup upon a sausage-peg; and it was my old grandmother who thereupon ferreted out a manuscript, which she certainly could not read, but which she had heard read out, and in which it was written: "Those who are poets can boil soup upon a sausage-peg." She asked me if I were a poet. I felt quite innocent of that, and then she told me I must go out, and manage to become one. I again asked what was required for that, for it was as difficult for me to find that out as to prepare the soup; but grandmother had heard a good deal of reading, and she said that three things were especially necessary: "Understanding, imagination, feeling—if you can go and get these into you, you are a poet, and the sausage-peg affair will be quite easy to you."

'And I went forth, and marched towards the west, away into the wide world, to become a poet.

'Understanding is the most important thing in every affair. I knew that, for the two other things are not held in half such respect, and consequently I went out first to seek understanding. Yes, where does that dwell? "Go to the ant and be wise," said the great King of the Jews; I knew that from the library; and I never stopped till I came to the first great ant-hill, and there I placed myself on the watch, to become wise.

'The ants are a respectable people. They are understanding itself. Everything with them is like a well-worked sum, that comes right. To work and to lay eggs, they say, is to live while you live, and to provide for posterity; and accordingly that is what they do. They were divided into the clean and the dirty ants. The rank