"I n the world it is always going up and down, and down and up again; but I can't go higher than I am," said OlÉ, the watchman of the church tower. "Ups and downs most people have to experience; in point of fact, we each become at last a kind of tower-watchman—we look at life and things from above." Thus spoke OlÉ up in the lofty tower—my friend the watchman, a cheerful, chatty old fellow, who seemed to blurt everything out at random, though there were, in reality, deep and earnest feelings concealed in his heart. He had come of a good stock; some people even said that he was the son of a Conferentsraad, I often lent him books, good books; and people can converse about these, as everybody knows. He did not care for fashionable English novels, he said, nor for French ones either—they were all too frivolous. No, he liked biographies, and books that relate to the wonders of nature. I visited him at least once a year, generally immediately after the New Year. He had then always something to say that the peculiar period suggested to his thoughts. I shall relate what passed during two of my visits, and give his own words as nearly as I can. THE FIRST VISIT.Among the books I had last lent OlÉ was one about pebbles, and it pleased him extremely. "Yes, sure enough they are veterans from old days, these "Is it not pleasant once and away to become like a Nix, when one is perched so high as I am, and then to remember that we all are but minute ants upon the earth's ant-hill, although some of us are distinguished ants, some are laborious, and some are indolent ants? One seems to be so excessively young by the side of these million years old, reverend pebbles. "The witches' journey on broomsticks is well known—that takes place on St. John's night, and to Bloksberg. But we have also the wild host, here at home and in our own time, which goes to Amager every New Year's eve. All the bad poets and poetesses, newspaper writers, musicians, and artists of all sorts, who come before the public, but make no sensation—those, in short, who are very mediocre, ride—on New Year's eve, out to Amager: they sit astride on their pencils or quill pens. Steel pens don't answer, they are too stiff. I see this troop, as I have said, every New Year's eve. I could name most of them, but it is not worth while to get into a scrape with them; they do not like people to know of their Amager flight upon quill pens. I have a kind of a cousin, who is a fisherman's wife, and furnishes abusive articles to three popular periodicals: she says she has been out there as an invited guest. She has described the whole affair. Half that she says, of course, are lies, but part might be true. When she was there they commenced with a song; each of the visitors had written his own song, and each sang his own composition: they all performed together, so it was a kind of 'cats' chorus'. Small groups marched about, consisting of those who labour at improving that gift which is called 'the gift of the gab:' they had their own shrill songs. Then came the little drummers, and those who write without giving their names—that is to say, whose grease is imposed on people for blacking; then there were the executioners, and the puffers of bad wares. In the midst of all the merriment, "I always watch this wild host fly past every New Year's eve; but on the last one, as I told you, I neglected to look at them, for I was rolling away in thought upon the round pebbles—rolling through thousands and thousands of years. I saw them detached from rocks far away in the distant north; saw them driven along in masses of ice before Noah's ark was put together; saw them sink to the bottom, and rise again in a sand-bank, which grew higher and higher above the water; and I said, 'That will be Zealand!' It became the resort of birds of various species unknown to us—the home of savage chiefs as little known to us, until the axe cut the Runic characters which then brought them into our chronology. As I was thus musing three or four falling stars attracted my eye. My thoughts took another turn. Do you know what falling stars are? The scientific themselves do not know what they are. I have my own ideas about them. How often in secret are not thanks and blessings poured out on those who have done anything great or good! Sometimes these thanks are voiceless, but they do not fall to the ground. I fancy that they are caught by the sunshine, and that the sunbeam brings the silent, secret praise down over the head of the benefactor. If THE SECOND VISIT.It was on a New Year's day that I again ascended to the church tower. OlÉ began to speak of toasts. We drank one to the transition from the old drop in eternity to the new drop in eternity, as he called the year. Then he gave me his story about the glasses, and there was some sense in it. "When the clocks strike twelve on New Year's night every one rises from table with a brimful glass, and drinks to the New Year. To commence the year with a glass in one's hand is a good beginning for a drunkard. To begin the year "Do you know what dwells in glasses?" he asked. "There dwell in them health, glee, and folly. Within them dwell, also, vexations and bitter calamity. When I count up the glasses I can tell the gradations in the glass for different people. The first glass, you see, is the glass of health; in it grow health-giving plants. Stick to that one glass, and at the end of the year you can sit peacefully in the leafy bowers of health. "If you take the second glass a little bird will fly out of it, chirping in innocent gladness, and men will laugh and sing with it, 'Life is pleasant. Away with care, away with fear!' "From the third glass springs forth a little winged creature—a little angel he cannot well be called, for he has Nix blood and a Nix mind. He does not come to tease, but to amuse. He places himself behind your ear, and whispers some humorous idea; he lays himself close to your heart and warms it, so that you become very merry, and fancy yourself the cleverest among a set of great wits. "In the fourth glass is neither plant, bird, nor little figure: it is the boundary line of sense, and beyond that line let no one go. "If you take the fifth glass you will weep over yourself—you will be foolishly happy, or become stupidly noisy. From this glass will spring Prince Carnival, flippant and crack-brained. He will entice you to accompany him; you will forget your respectability, if you have any; you will forget more than you ought or dare forget. All is pleasure, gaiety, "The sixth glass! In that sits Satan himself—a well-dressed, conversable, lively, fascinating little man—who never contradicts you, allows that you are always in the right—in fact, seems quite to adopt all your opinions. He comes with a lantern to convey you home to his own habitation. There is an old legend about a saint who was to choose one of the seven mortal sins, and he chose, as he thought, the least—drunkenness; but in that state he perpetrated all the other six sins. The human nature and the devilish nature mingle. This is the sixth glass; and after that all the germs of evil thrive in us, every one of them spreading with a rapidity and vigour that cause them to be like the mustard-seed in the Bible, 'which, indeed, is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree.' Most of them have nothing before them but to be cast into the furnace, and be smelted there. "This is the story of the glasses," said OlÉ, the watchman of the church tower; "and it applies both to those who use blacking, and to those who use only grease." Such was the result of the second visit to OlÉ. More may be forthcoming at some future time. Decorative Image Decorative Image
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