Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/272

 the rest of them! Here's a true spring day for your poet! The air is so unusually clear, the clouds are so beautiful, and the trees and grass are quite fragrant. For years I have never felt as I do at this moment!"

We may already perceive that he had become a poet. To chronicle such a fact would, in most cases, be highly absurd; for it is a foolish idea to imagine a poet to be different from other men, since far more poetical natures may frequently be met with amongst the crowd than we often find in many a professed poet. The only difference is, that a poet's intellectual memory is better: he can keep hold of an idea or a feeling, till it is clearly and plainly embodied in words, which the others cannot do. Nevertheless, the transition from a humdrum, every-day sort of nature, to a more gifted one, is a great transition, and could but strike the clerk.

"What a delicious perfume!" said he; "it reminds me of my Aunt Lone's violets. Ay, that was when I was a little boy. Dear me! how long it is since I have thought of those times. She is a good old maid! She lives yonder behind the Exchange—and she used always to have a sprig, or a few green shoots, in water, let the winter be ever so severe. The violets used to scent the room, while I would lay warm copper pennies on the frozen window-panes, to make holes to peep through. And a pretty view it was that I looked upon. There lay the ships, ice-bound in the canal, and deserted by their crews; a croaking raven alone manned one of the vessels. Then when came the spring breezes, everything grew animated; the ice was sawed through amidst songs and cheers, the ships were tarred and tackled, and they sailed for foreign shores. I remained here, and here I am likely to remain, nailed to my seat in the police-office, and condemned to see others taking out their passports to go abroad. Such is my lot—alas! that it should be so!" said he, with a deep sigh. He then paused a moment. "My goodness! what has come to me?" cried he, presently; "I have never thought or felt anything of the kind before. It must be the springtime air. It makes one quite uneasy, yet it is very agreeable." He felt in his pocket for his papers. "These will afford food for very different ideas," said he, glancing his eye over the first page, when he read: Mistress Sigbrith; an Original Tragedy, in five Acts. What is this?—and in my own handwriting too. Can I have written this tragedy? An Intrigue on the Ramparts, or Fast-day: a Vaudeville. But how, in the name of fortune, did I come by them? They must have been put into my pocket—but here is a letter." This was from the manager of the theatre, who refused the pieces, and had not taken the trouble to couch his epistle in the most courteous terms either. "Hem—hem"—said the clerk, sitting down on a bench, while his thoughts grew quite elastic, and his heart waxed vastly soft. He involuntarily seized hold of the nearest flower, which proved to be a little common daisy. This tiny flower tells us in a moment that which a botanist takes many lectures to expound. It related the myth of its birth, and told the power of the sunshine, which expands its delicate leaves, and compels it to yield a perfume. He then reflected on the struggles of life that likewise awaken sensations in our bosoms. Light and air are the flower's lovers, but light is the favoured swain. The flower turns towards the light, and,