youngest man for his years that I ever knew.
"When I was sixteen," said he, "I used to think to myself, 'when I am
twenty-four, then will I be old indeed'--but now I am fifty-two, and I
have just the same feeling of youth as at twenty." He was greatly
delighted when Braisted, who was in the room with me, spoke of having
read his "Improvisatore" in the Sandwich Islands. "Why, is it
possible?" he exclaimed: "when I hear of my books going so far around
the earth, I sometimes wonder if it can be really true that I have
written them." He explained to me the plot of his new novel, "To Be, or
Not To Be," and ended by presenting me with the illustrated edition of
his stories. "Now, don't forget me," said he, with a delightful entreaty
in his, voice, as he rose to leave, "for we shall meet again. Were it
not for sea-sickness, I should see you in America; and who knows but I
may come, in spite of it?" God bless you, Andersen! I said, in my
thoughts. It is so cheering to meet a man whose very weaknesses are made
attractive through the perfect candour of his nature!

Goldschmidt, the author of "The Jew," whose acquaintance I made, is
himself a Jew, and a man of great earnestness and enthusiasm. He is the
editor of the "North and South," a monthly periodical, and had just
completed, as he informed me, a second romance, which was soon to be
published. Like most of the authors and editors in Northern Europe, he
is well acquainted with American literature.

Professor Rafn, the distinguished archaeologist of Northern lore, is
still as active as ever, notwithstanding he is well advanced in years.
After going up an innumerable number of steps, I found him at the very
top of a high old building in the _Kronprinzensgade_, in a study crammed
with old Norsk and Icelandic volumes. He is a slender old man, with a
thin face, and high, narrow head, clear grey eyes, and a hale red on his
cheeks. The dust of antiquity does not lie very heavily on his grey
locks; his enthusiasm for his studies is of that fresh and lively
character which mellows the whole nature of the man. I admired and
enjoyed it, when, after being fairly started on his favourite topic, he
opened one of his own splendid folios, and read me some ringing stanzas
of Icelandic poetry. He spoke much of Mr. Marsh, our former minister to
Turkey, whose proficiency in the northern languages he considered very
remarkable.

CHAPTER XX.

RETURN TO THE NORTH.--CHRISTIANIA.

I was