After his father's death, when he himself was about eleven, little Hans Christian was more solitary than before, and shut himself up still more with his doll's clothes, his toy theaters, and his books, for he was, like his father, very fond of reading. Especially did he like those books which had anything about ghosts or witches or fairies in them. While he was but a child, he wrote a play of his own, in which most of the characters were kings and queens and princesses; and because he felt that it could not be possible that such lofty personages would talk the same language as ordinary people, he picked out from a dictionary, which he managed somehow to get hold of, French words, German words, English words, and high-sounding Danish words, and strung them all together to make up the conversation of his characters.
It was no more than natural that such a strange, unattractive-looking child should be made fun of by the prosaic, commonplace people of his neighborhood, and this was untold pain to the sensitive boy. There were, however, in the town, people of a higher class, who perceived in the boy something beyond the ordinary, and who interested themselves in his behalf. They had him sent to school, but he preferred to dream away his time rather than to study, and his short period of schooling really taught him nothing.
His mother, careless as she was, began to see that matters must change— that the boy could not go on all his life in this aimless fashion; but since he steadily declined to be a tailor or a cobbler, or indeed to take up any trade, it seemed no easy question to settle. However, in 1818, there came to Odense a troupe of actors who gave plays and operas. Young Andersen, who by making acquaintance with the billposter was allowed to witness the performances from behind the scenes, decided at once that he was cut out to be an actor. There was no demand for actors in his native town, and he therefore decided to go to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, there to seek his fortune.
With about five dollars in his pocket, Andersen reached Copenhagen in September, 1819, but he found that a fortune was by no means as easily made as he had fancied. He himself felt convinced that he should be a famous actor, but how was he to convince any one else of this fact? From one actor to another, from one theater manager to another he went, but all told him that for one reason or another he was not fitted for the stage. Particularly did Andersen resent the excuse of one manager, who told him that he was too thin. This fault Andersen assured him that he was only too willing to remedy, if he would only give him a chance and a salary; but still the manager refused.
Finally the boy was destitute of money and knew not where to turn for more, for he was too proud to go back to his native town. However, an Italian singing teacher, Siboni, into whose home Andersen had almost forced himself while a dinner party was in progress, became interested in him, and with some friends provided him with enough to live on. He also gave him singing lessons until the boy's voice gave out. Other influential people gradually became interested in the strange creature, who certainly did appear to have some talent, but who had even more obvious defects; and so he lived on, supported in the most meager fashion.
Determined to write plays if he could not play them, Andersen composed drama after drama. He would rush into the house of a total stranger, of whom perhaps he had heard as a patron of genius, declaim some scenes from his plays, and then rush out, leaving his auditor in gasping amazement. Finally he made the acquaintance of one of the directors of the Royal Theatre, Jonas Collin, who was ever afterward his best friend. Through the influence of this kindly man, Anderson was sent to school at Slagelse, and as he said later, the days of his degradation were over once and for all.
Andersen did not have an entirely pleasant time at school. He loved systematic study no more than he had early in his life, and he did not fall in very readily with his young companions. However, he persisted, for he was ashamed to disappoint his patron, Collin, and by the time he left school in 1827, he had an education of which he needed not to be ashamed. After his return to Copenhagen, he was able to pass his examinations satisfactorily.
[Illustration: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 1805-1875]
From this time on, Andersen's life was in the main happy, although he was so sensitive and so sentimental that he was constantly fancying grievances where none existed, and making himself miserable over imaginary snubs. It is true that his dramatic works were not well received, but this was because there was no real merit in them, and not, as Andersen persisted in believing, because the critics to whom they were submitted had grudges against him. His first works that made a distinctly favorable impression were travel sketches, for Andersen was all his life a great traveler, and knew how to write most charmingly and humorously of all that he saw. His trips to other countries were all treated most delightfully, and every book that appeared increased the author's fame. His visit to Italy, the country which all his life he loved above any other, also resulted in a novel, THE IMPROVISATORE, which became immensely popular and caused Andersen to be hailed as a future great novelist.
However, it was neither for travel sketches nor for novels that he was to be best known, but for something entirely different, which he himself was inclined at first to look down upon, and which many of his critics at the outset regarded as mere child's play. These were the fairy tales which he began in 1835, and which he published at intervals from that time until his death. The children loved The Ugly Duckling, The Fir Tree and The Snow Queen; but it was not only the children who loved them. Gradually people all over the world began to realize that here was a man who knew how to tell tales to children in so masterly a manner that even grown folks would do well to listen to him.