earance, came into the room
and sat down; he laughed aloud at the telling parts, and applauded
quite appropriately. That was quite an unusual spectator for me! I
felt anxious to know who he was, and I heard he was a candidate from
the Polytechnic Institution in Copenhagen, who had been sent out to
instruct the folks in the provinces. Punctually at eight o'clock my
performance closed; for children must go early to bed, and a manager
must consult the convenience of his public. At nine o'clock the
candidate commenced his lecture, with experiments, and now I formed
part of _his_ audience. It was wonderful to hear and to see. The
greater part of it was beyond my scope; but still it made me think
that if we men can find out so much, we must be surely intended to
last longer than the little span until we are hidden away in the
earth. They were quite miracles in a small way that he showed, and yet
everything flowed as naturally as water! At the time of Moses and the
prophets such a man would have been received among the sages of the
land; in the middle ages they would have burned him at a stake. All
night long I could not go to sleep. And the next evening, when I gave
another performance, and the candidate was again present, I felt
fairly overflowing with humour. I once heard from a player that when
he acted a lover he always thought of one particular lady among the
audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of the
house; and now the Polytechnic candidate was my 'she,' my only
auditor, for whom alone I played. And when the performance was over,
all the puppets were called before the curtain, and the Polytechnic
candidate invited me into his room to take a glass of wine; and he
spoke of my comedies, and I of his science; and I believe we were both
equally pleased. But I had the best of it, for there was much in what
he did of which he could not always give me an explanation. For
instance, that a piece of iron that falls through a spiral should
become magnetic. Now, how does that happen? The spirit comes upon it;
but whence does it come? It is as with people in this world; they are
made to tumble through the spiral of this world, and the spirit comes
upon them, and there stands a Napoleon, or a Luther, or a person of
that kind. 'The whole world is a series of miracles,' said the
candidate; 'but we are so accustomed to them that we call them
every-day matters.' And he went on explaining things to me until my
skull s