ren Groenlund, the daughter of a clergyman in Jutland, with a
son, who at his baptism received the name of Bertel, or Albert.

The father had come from Iceland, and lived in poor circumstances.
They dwelt in _Lille Groennegade_ (Little Green Street), not far from
the Academy of Arts. The moon has often peeped into their poor room;
she has told us about it in "A Picture-book without Pictures":

[Illustration: Thorwaldsen.]

"The father and mother slept, but their little son did not sleep;
where the flowered cotton bed-curtains moved I saw the child peep out.
I thought at first that he looked at the Bornholm clock, for it was
finely painted with red and green, and there was a cuckoo on the top;
it had heavy leaden weights, and the pendulum with its shining brass
plate went to and fro with a 'tick! tick!' But it was not that he
looked at; no, it was his mother's spinning-wheel, which stood
directly under the clock; this was the dearest piece of furniture in
the whole house for the boy; but he dared not touch it, for if he did,
he got a rap over the fingers. While his mother spun, he would sit for
hours together looking at the buzzing spindle and the revolving wheel,
and then he had his own thoughts. Oh! if he only durst spin that
wheel! His father and mother slept; he looked at them, he looked at
the wheel, and then by degrees a little naked foot was stuck out of
bed, and then another naked foot, then there came two small legs, and,
with a jump, he stood on the floor. He turned round once more, to see
if his parents slept; yes, they did, and so he went softly, quite
softly, only in his little shirt, up to the wheel, and began to spin.
The cord flew off, and the wheel then ran much quicker. His mother
awoke at the same moment; the curtains moved; she looked out and
thought of the brownie, or another little spectral being. 'Have mercy
on us!' said she, and in her fear she struck her husband in the side;
he opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the busy
little fellow. 'It is Bertel, woman,' said he."

What the moon relates we see here as the first picture in
Thorwaldsen's life's gallery; for it is a reflection of the reality.
Thorwaldsen has himself, when in familiar conversation at Nysoee, told
the author almost word for word what he, in his "Picture-book," lets
the moon say. It was one of his earliest remembrances, how he, in his
little short shirt, sat in the moonlight and spun his mother's wheel,