than the aesthetic Grand
Mogul, J. L. Heiberg, hailed it as a work of no mean merit. It strikes
us to-day as an exhibition of that mocking smartness of youth which
often hides a childish heart. It was because he was so excessively
sentimental and feared to betray his real physiognomy that he cut these
excruciating capers. His other alternative would have been mawkishness.
His vaudeville, "Love on the Nicholas Tower," which satirizes the drama
of chivalry, is in the same vein and made a similar hit. A volume of
"Poems" was also well received. But in 1831 he met with his first
literary reverse. A second collection of verses, entitled "Phantasies
and Sketches," was pitilessly ridiculed by Henrik Hertz, in his "Letters
from the Dead." Andersen's lack of style and violations of syntax were
rather maliciously commented upon. If Gabriel's trump had sounded from
the top of the Round Tower, it would not have startled Andersen more.
He was in despair. Like the great child he was, he went about craving
sympathy, and weeping when he failed to find it.

"I could say nothing," he writes in "the Fairy-Tale of My Life," "I
could only let the big, heavy waves roll over me; and it was the common
opinion that I was to be totally washed away. I felt deeply the wound of
the sharp knife; and was on the point of giving myself up, as I was
already given up by others."

This is one of the numerous exhibitions of that over-sensitiveness to
criticism which caused him such long and continued suffering. His mind
was like a bared nerve, quivering with delight or contracting with
violent pain. Utterly devoid, as he was, of self-criticism, he regarded
his authorship as something miraculous, and held God (who apparently
supervised each chapter) responsible for the fate of his books. "If the
Lord," he writes in solemn earnest to a friend, "will take as good care
of the remainder as he has of the first chapters, you will like it."[20]
There was to him no difference between his best and his worst. It was
all part of himself, and he could scarcely conceive of any motive for
finding fault with it, except personal malice, envy, animosity.[21] This
did not, however, always prevent him from associating with the
malevolent critic, as for instance in the case of Hertz, with whom he
presently established pleasant relations.

[20] P. Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historic, vol. ii., p.
477.

[21] I derive this impression not only from the Au