A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. True Tales of the Year 1805. IV.--THE STORY OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

On the 2nd of April, 1805, was born, amid very humble surroundings, a little Danish boy named Hans Christian Andersen, who, in later years, became the most popular tale-writer that perhaps the world has ever known. Andersen's Fairy Tales, though written in a past century, and for another generation, are just as popular to-day as they ever were, and it seems as if all children (and grown-up people who have kept their child-like hearts) could never tire of these delightful stories. We can all read, and re-read, the 'Ugly Duckling,' or the 'Eleven Wild Swans;' we can sympathise with the love of the faithful 'Tin Soldier;' and who can resist laughing at all the outrageous performances of 'Little Claus and Big Claus?' Truly, Andersen had the key to unlock all hearts!

Now for the story of the writer's life.

The father of Hans Andersen was only a poor shoe-maker, but he loved reading and poetry, and seems to have taught his little boy a similar love. The shoe-maker amused himself by making a toy theatre for his little Hans, and showed him how to work the puppets, and make them act little plays. This was a winter amusement. In the long summer days he would often take the child to the woods—and here, in the great birch forests, the two would spend the hours, hardly saying a word to each other, but each dreaming his own dreams as they sauntered along the shady paths.

But these happy childish days soon came to an end: the kind father died, and Hans had to go to a charity school, where he learnt little beyond reading and writing.

Money was now very scarce in his home, and both Hans and his mother were often hard put to it for a meal.

One day they went out into the fields to glean corn, and were chased off the ground by a cruel bailiff, who ran after them with a heavy whip. The bailiff, with his long legs, soon overtook the little eight-year-old Hans, and was about to bring his whip down on the child's shoulders, when Hans turned round, and looking full at the angry man, exclaimed: 'How dare you strike me when you know God can see you?'

The bailiff was so taken aback at this rebuke from the mouth of a child that he dropped his whip, and, fumbling in his pocket, produced some money, which he offered to Hans to make up for his unkindness.

A year or two later a widow wanted some one to read aloud to her, and Hans got the place. The widow's husband had been a poet, and, as Hans read out his poems, the boy's ambition was fired.

'I too will be a poet!' he cried, and, on returning home, he at once set to work and wrote—a tragedy!

The news of this performance spread amongst the neighbours (very likely the mother boasted of it, as mothers will), and all wished to hear it; so they came together in one of the larger cottages, and Hans read his wonderful tragedy to the company, and felt bitterly hurt when the greater part of them laughed heartily at the play.

Meanwhile the mother was growing poorer and poorer, and Hans had to leave school, and to try and earn his bread.

He went to a large factory, and here the workmen, finding Hans had a good voice and knew many ballads, would get him to sing to them, and to act scenes for their amusement from the great Danish writer, Holberg, whilst another of the boys employed in the factory was told off to do Hans' work for him.

After a time, however, the men tired of Hans and his songs, and he had to take his place amongst the other boys, who, being jealous of the notice that had been taken of Hans, led him a sorry life. At last he could bear their persecution no more, and left the factory—never to return to it.

The next few months he spent quietly at home, reading eagerly any book he could get hold of, and specially delighting in a copy of Shakespeare. The old toy theatre was had out once more, and the puppets were put through the scenes of the Merchant of Venice and King Lear.

After a short time it was decided that Hans was to be apprenticed to a tailor. Hans, however, had other ambitions than to sit cross-legged on a board; he had read much lately of famous men, and he now said to his mother, 'I want to be famous, too!'

He had his plans all made, and had, he said, plenty of money to carry them out, for he had lately earned the immense sum (as it seemed to him) of thirty shillings, by singing and reciting at the houses of rich people. With this capital he begged his mother to let him go to Copenhagen and try his fortune.

She consented unwillingly at last, and the fourteen-year-old boy set off to make his own way in the world.

He reached Copenhagen—the city which now proudly claims him for her own—late one September afternoon, and at once went to the theatre and begged for employment, telling the manager he had a good voice and loved acting.

'You are too thin for the stage,' said the manager, shortly.

'Let me have a salary of a hundred dollars, sir, and I will soon grow fat,' quickly answered the boy.

'We only take people of education here,' said the manager, and poor Hans had to go away with a heavy heart.

Could he only have foreseen that in a few years' time his own plays would be acted at that very theatre, and a throng of eager citizens would be applauding the words of the now friendless boy!

But this was all in the future. At present misery and starvation stared him in the face.

At last, after he had met with endless failures, a rich Copenhagen merchant saw there was genius in the boy, and, finding that he lacked education, sent him to school to learn Latin and mathematics.

It was, of course, very galling to Hans, now a tall lad of seventeen, to have to sit on a bench with little boys of nine and ten, and be jeered at by both master and scholars for his backwardness. But Hans persevered, and at last he passed all his examinations, and was granted a travelling scholarship.

Meanwhile he had published his first book, which was at once successful; the promise of his boyhood began to be fulfilled, for he wrote the fairy tales by which he became famous, not only in his own country, but all over Europe.

He travelled in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, and in 1847 he came to England, where, to his great delight, he found his stories better known than even in his own country. He was a welcome guest at many of our great houses, and, on a second visit to England some few years later, he stayed with Charles Dickens at Gad's Hill.

Andersen never married; he lived in Copenhagen when not on his travels, and here he loved to gather round him children of all ages and all ranks, whom he would delight with some of his wonderful tales.

On his seventieth birthday he was fairly overwhelmed with letters and presents of kindly greetings from all parts of the globe, and these tokens of love and goodwill much pleased the old man.

The end came a few months later, and on August 4th, 1875, Hans Christian Andersen died, regretted by all who had come in contact with him, and most of all by the band of children whom he had so loved to gather round him.

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