come!'--and they clapped their hands and danced, and ran to tell
their father and mother. And they threw bread and cake into the
water; and every one said, 'The new one is the best! so young, and
so beautiful!'

"Then the young one felt quite ashamed, and hid its head under its
wing; it knew not what to do: it was too happy, but yet not
proud--for a good heart is never proud. It remembered how it had
been persecuted and derided, and now it heard all say it was the
most beautiful of birds. And the syringas bent down their branches
to it in the water, and the sun shone so lovely and so warm. Then
it shook its plumes, the slender neck was lifted up, and, from its
very heart, it cried rejoicingly--'Never dreamed I of such
happiness when I was the little ugly duck!'"

It is not only in writing for children that our author succeeds; but
whenever childhood crosses his path, it calls up a true pathos, and the
playful tenderness of his nature. The commencement of his serious
novels, where he treats of the infancy and boyhood of his heroes, is
always interesting. Amongst the translated works of Andersen is one
entitled "A Picture-Book without Pictures." The author describes himself
as inhabiting a solitary garret in a large town, where no one knew him,
and no friendly face greeted him. One evening, however, he stands at the
open casement, and suddenly beholds "the face of an old friend--a round,
kind face, looking down on him. It was the moon--the dear old moon! with
the same unaltered gleam, just as she appeared when, through the
branches of the willows, she used to shine upon him as he sat on the
mossy bank beside the river." The moon becomes very sociable, and breaks
that long silence which poets have so often celebrated--breaks it, we
must confess, to very little purpose. "Sketch what I relate to you,"
says the moon, "and you will have a pretty picture-book." And
accordingly, every visit, she tells him "of one thing or another that
she has seen during the past night." One would think that such a
sketch-book, or album, as we have here, might easily have been put
together without calling in the aid of so sublime a personage. But
amongst the pictures that are presented to us, two or three, where the
moon has had her eye upon children in their sports or their distresses,
took hold of our fancy. Here Andersen is immediately at home. We give
one short extract.

"I