Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/32

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26
MEMOIR OF

his stories for children. They have been likewise translated into German, and some of them into Dutch, and even Russian. He speaks nobly of this circumstance in his life. “My works,” says he, “seem to come forth under a lucky star, they fly over all lands. There is something elevating, but at the same time something terrific in seeing one’s thoughts spread so far, and among so many people; it is indeed almost a fearful thing to belong to so many. The noble and good in us becomes a blessing, but the bad, one’s errors, shoot forth also; and involuntarily the prayer forces itself from us—‘God! let me never write down a word of which I shall not be able to give an account to thee!’ a peculiar feeling, a mixture of joy and anxiety, fills my heart every time my good genius conveys my fictions to a foreign people.”

Of Andersen’s present life we need only say that he spends a great deal of his time in traveling; he goes from land to land, and from court to court, everywhere an honored guest, and enjoying the glorious reward of a manly struggle against adversity, and the