These are but a tithe of the examples of people who exhibit in public and at social gatherings their ills and ailments, accompanied with dreary complainings of their bodily inflictions. It implies no indifference or lack of sympathy for physical pain and hardships to say that its victims have no right to mar the enjoyment of others by the unnecessary display of their infirmities or present sufferings. If a man will make a travelling show of his disorders, he should be obliged to carry a hand organ to give variety to his stupid entertainment. Were these fellows all compelled to furnish this accompaniment, what a musical bedlam our streets would become! Of course, there is no law against complaining and repining—it may not be immoral—but it is a very poor method of making those around us happy, which is a duty that none but selfish natures can forget. A man who goes through life with a smiling face and cheerful temper, despite the grievances common to us all, is a public benefactor in his way, as much as one who founds a library or establishes an asylum.
Misanthropy is a sublime egotism that mistakes its own distemper for a disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian fortitude, the golden mean of feeling that makes the loss of worldly things rest lightly on the heart, and spreads out before the hopeful eye the vision of better days!
DEATH OF THE BRAVE.
'How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When spring with dewy fingers cold
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She then shall dress a sweeter sod
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.'
LITERARY NOTICES
The Ice Maiden, and Other Tales. By Hans Christian Andersen. Translated by Fanny Fuller. Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt. New York: C. T. Evans. 1863.
Probably no writer of stories for the young ever equalled Hans Christian Andersen; certainly none ever succeeded as he has done in reproducing the nameless charm of the real fairy tale which springs up without an author among the people,—the best specimens of which are the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm in Germany. But this exquisite fascination of an inner life in animals and in inanimate objects, which every child's mind produces from dolls and other puppets, and which makes fairies of flowers, is by Andersen adroitly turned very often to good moral and instructive purpose, without losing the original sweet and simple charm which blends the real and the imaginary. Here he surpasses all other tale writers, nearly all of whom, in their efforts at simplicity in such narratives, generally become supremely silly.
The present volume contains four stories—'The Ice Maiden,' 'The Butterfly,' 'The Psyche,' and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree,'—all in Andersen's usual happy and successful vein; for he is preëminently an equal writer, and never falls behind himself. Perhaps the highest compliment which can be paid them is the truthful assertion that any person may read them with keen interest, and never reflect that they were written for young people. Poetry and prose meet in them on equal grounds, and any of them in verse would be charming. The main reason for this is that such stories to charm must set forth natural objects with Irving-like fidelity; nay, the writer must, with a few words, bring before us scenes and things as in a mirror. In this 'The Ice Maiden' excels; Swiss life is depicted as though we were listening to yodle songs on the mountains, and felt the superstitions of the icy winter nights taking hold of our souls.