stabbed again to the heart, hastened away from home,
"suffering and disconcerted." But before leaving he published "A
Picture-Book without Pictures", (1840), which is attached to the
American edition of his "Stories and Tales," and deserves its place. The
moon's pathetic and humorous observations on the world she looks down
upon every evening of her thirty nights' circuit have already become
classic in half-a-dozen languages. The little girl who came to kiss the
hen and beg her pardon; the ragged street gamin who died upon the throne
of France; the Hindoo maiden who burned her lamp upon the banks of the
Ganges in order to see if her lover was alive; the little maid who was
penitent because she laughed at the lame duckling with a red rag around
its leg--who does not know the whole inimitable gallery from beginning
to end? The tenderest, the softest, the most virginal spirit breathes
through all these sketches. They are sentimental, no doubt, and a trifle
too sweet. But then they belong to a period of our lives when a little
excess in that direction does not trouble us.

[22] For verification of this statement I may refer to his indignant
letter _a propos_ of the statue that was to be raised to him in
Copenhagen, in which he was represented surrounded by listening
children: "None of the sculptors," he wrote, "have known me; none of
their sketches indicate that they have seen what is characteristic
in me. Never could I read aloud when anybody was sitting behind me
or close up to me; far less if I had children on my lap or on my
back, or young Copenhageners lying all over me. It is a _facon de
parler_ to call me 'the children's poet.' My aim has been to be the
poet of all ages; children could not represent me."

In 1842 Andersen gave to the world "A Poets' Bazaar," a chronicle of his
travels through nearly all the countries of Europe. In 1844 the drama
"The King is Dreaming," and in 1845 the fairy comedy "The Flower of
Fortune." But his highest dramatic triumph he celebrated in the
anonymous comedy "The New Lying-in Room," which in a measure proved his
contention that it was personal hostility and not critical scruples
which made so large a portion of the Copenhagen literati persecute him.
For the very men who would have been the first to hold his play up to
scorn were the heartiest in their applause, as long as they did not know
that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the s