His mother at last consented, and with a small sum of money in his pocket, he left his home to travel to Copenhagen alone.
Who can tell how much of a mother’s love and pride in her son gave her the courage to part with him, and to utter a farewell which cost her so much. No doubt she already looked forward to a glorious future for her imaginative child, who most probably inherited from her the refined and poetic fancy which in after years made him so famous.
Her fancies, indeed, had a tinge of the superstition still holding sway in the land of the Norsemen; and, strange to say, she looked forward to a time when her son would revisit his native town, and Odense would be illuminated in his honour.
This really happened many years afterwards, when the great poet and author, covered with glory and fame, entered the town of his birth.
And now the boy of fourteen was launched on the ocean of life to seek for that renown which only became his after years of disappointment and trial.
His spirit swelled with hope as he thought of the glory he could gain, and he was at that moment the veritable little drummer-boy whom he so clearly portrays in the story of “The Golden Treasure,” when the energy of his character enabled him to reach Copenhagen, the chief city of his native land.
How little he was appreciated in this great city is well known. From early childhood his keen susceptibility to the emotions of joy or sorrow made them sometimes overpowering. At nine years of age he had laughed at a comedy, or wept at a tragedy performed on a stage by Marionettes! and in after years the real, living actors would move him with equal power.
On his arrival at Copenhagen he met with a friend in one of the professors at the University, and as the boy was fond of music he proposed that Andersen should learn to sing on the stage. But this effort failed, for the boy’s voice, though harmonious, was thin and weak, and could not be heard even at a moderate distance.
After some years of struggling to earn a living, even while writing down the curious thoughts with which his imagination teemed, he determined to visit Germany; but his friend had obtained for him instruction in Latin and German, which enabled him to remain and to bring out in 1829 his first work, a play entitled “The Life of a Nicolaton,” which was very successful; and in the next year he published his first story, and soon after another,—“Shadow Pictures.”
In 1832 he carried out his intention and visited Germany, and here his books at once obtained notice, which gave him courage to continue the work he so loved with renewed zeal.
During the years from 1832 to 1838 Andersen wrote his far-famed works a “Picture Book without Pictures;” “The Improvisatore;” “He was only an Actor;” “The Story of the Year;” and several others.
But the works that made him famous were his “Fairy Tales,” the first of which appeared in 1838, while others so quickly followed that they obtained for Hans Andersen the name of “The Children’s Friend.”
These stories, though highly imaginative, were full of interest, and evidently the work of a man of deep conscientiousness and moral principle.
