moment by this little flower. It spoke of the glory of its birth; it
told of the strength of the sunlight, which had caused its delicate
leaves to expand, and given to it such sweet perfume. The struggles of
life which arouse sensations in the bosom have their type in the
tiny flowers. Air and light are the lovers of the flowers, but light
is the favored one; towards light it turns, and only when light
vanishes does it fold its leaves together, and sleep in the embraces
of the air."
"It is light that adorns me," said the flower.
"But the air gives you the breath of life," whispered the poet.
Just by him stood a boy, splashing with his stick in a marshy
ditch. The water-drops spurted up among the green twigs, and the clerk
thought of the millions of animalculae which were thrown into the
air with every drop of water, at a height which must be the same to
them as it would be to us if we were hurled beyond the clouds. As
the clerk thought of all these things, and became conscious of the
great change in his own feelings, he smiled, and said to himself, "I
must be asleep and dreaming; and yet, if so, how wonderful for a dream
to be so natural and real, and to know at the same time too that it is
but a dream. I hope I shall be able to remember it all when I wake
tomorrow. My sensations seem most unaccountable. I have a clear
perception of everything as if I were wide awake. I am quite sure if I
recollect all this tomorrow, it will appear utterly ridiculous and
absurd. I have had this happen to me before. It is with the clever
or wonderful things we say or hear in dreams, as with the gold which
comes from under the earth, it is rich and beautiful when we possess
it, but when seen in a true light it is but as stones and withered
leaves."
"Ah!" he sighed mournfully, as he gazed at the birds singing
merrily, or hopping from branch to branch, "they are much better off
than I. Flying is a glorious power. Happy is he who is born with
wings. Yes, if I could change myself into anything I would be a little
lark." At the same moment his coat-tails and sleeves grew together and
formed wings, his clothes changed to feathers, and his goloshes to
claws. He felt what was taking place, and laughed to himself. "Well,
now it is evident I must be dreaming; but I never had such a wild
dream as this." And then he flew up into the green boughs and sang,
but there was no poetry in the song, for his poetic nature had left
him. The goloshes, like all persons who wish to do a thing thoroughly,
could only attend to one thing at a time. He wished to be a poet,
and he became one. Then he wanted to be a little bird, and in this
change he lost the characteristics of the former one. "Well,"
thought he, "this is charming; by day I sit in a police-office,
amongst the dryest law papers, and at night I can dream that I am a
lark, flying about in the gardens of Fredericksburg. Really a complete
comedy could be written about it." Then he flew down into the grass,
turned his head about in every direction, and tapped his beak on the
bending blades of grass, which, in proportion to his size, seemed to
him as long as the palm-leaves in northern Africa.
In another moment all was darkness around him. It seemed as if
something immense had been thrown over him. A sailor boy had flung his
large cap over the bird, and a hand came underneath and caught the
clerk by the back and wings so roughly, that he squeaked, and then
cried out in his alarm, "You impudent rascal, I am a clerk in the
police-office!" but it only sounded to the boy like "tweet, tweet;" so
he tapped the bird on the beak, and walked away with him. In the
avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a better
class of society, but whose inferior abilities kept them in the lowest
class at school. These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the
clerk returned to Copenhagen. "It is well for me that I am
dreaming," he thought; "otherwise I should become really angry.
First I was a poet, and now I am a lark. It must have been the
poetic nature that changed me into this little creature. It is a
miserable story indeed, especially now I have fallen into the hands of
boys. I wonder what will be the end of it." The boys carried him
into a very elegant room, where a stout, pleasant-looking lady
received them, but she was not at all gratified to find that they
had brought a lark- a common field-bird as she called it. However, she
allowed them for one day to place the bird in an empty cage that
hung near the window. "It will please Polly perhaps," she said,
laughing at a large gray parrot, who was swinging himself proudly on a
ring in a handsome brass cage. "It is Polly's birthday," she added
in a simpering tone, "and the little field-bird has come to offer
his congratulations."
Polly did not answer a single word, he continued to swing
proudly to and fro; but a beautiful canary, who had been brought
from his own warm, fragrant fatherland, the summer previous, began
to sing as loud as he could.
"You screamer!" said the lady, throwing a white handkerchief
over the cage.
"Tweet, tweet," sighed he, "what a dreadful snowstorm!" and then
he became silent.
The clerk, or as the lady called him the field-bird, was placed in
a little cage close to the canary, and not far from the parrot. The
only human speech which Polly could utter, and which she sometimes
chattered forth most comically, was "Now let us be men." All besides
was a scream, quite as unintelligible as the warbling of the
canary-bird, excepting to the clerk, who being now a bird, could
understand his comrades very well.
"I flew beneath green palm-trees, and amidst the blooming
almond-trees," sang the canary. "I flew with my brothers and sisters
over beautiful flowers, and across the clear, bright sea, which
reflected the waving foliage in its glittering depths; and I have seen
many gay parrots, who could relate long and delightful stories.
"They were wild birds," answered the parrot, "and totally
uneducated. Now let us be men. Why do you not laugh? If the lady and
her visitors can laugh at this, surely you can. It is a great
failing not to be able to appreciate what is amusing. Now let us be
men."
"Do you remember," said the canary, "the pretty maidens who used
to dance in the tents that were spread out beneath the sweet blossoms?
Do you remember the delicious fruit and the cooling juice from the
wild herbs?"
"Oh, yes," said the parrot; "but here I am much better off. I am
well fed, and treated politely. I know that I have a clever head;
and what more do I want? Let us be men now. You have a soul for
poetry. I have deep knowledge and wit. You have genius, but no
discretion. You raise your naturally high notes so much, that you
get covered over. They never serve me so. Oh, no; I cost them
something more than you. I keep them in order with my beak, and
fling my wit about me. Now let us be men.
"O my warm, blooming fatherland," sang the canary bird, "I will
sing of thy dark-green trees and thy quiet streams, where the
bending branches kiss the clear, smooth water. I will sing of the
joy of my brothers and sisters, as their shining plumage flits among
the dark leaves of the plants which grow wild by the springs."
"Do leave off those dismal strains," said the parrot; "sing
something to make us laugh; laughter is the sign of the highest
order of intellect. Can a dog or a horse laugh? No, they can cry;
but to man alone is the power of laughter given. Ha! ha! ha!"
laughed Polly, and repeated his witty saying, "Now let us be men."
"You little gray Danish bird," said the canary, "you also have
become a prisoner. It is certainly cold in your forests, but still
there is liberty there. Fly out! they have forgotten to close the
cage, and the window is open at the top. Fly, fly!"
Instinctively, the clerk obeyed, and left the cage; at the same
moment the half-opened door leading into the next room creaked on
its hinges, and, stealthily, with green fiery eyes, the cat crept in
and chased the lark round the room. The canary-bird fluttered in his
cage, and the parrot flapped his wings and cried, "Let us be men;" the
poor clerk, in the most deadly terror, flew through the window, over
the houses, and through the streets, till at length he was obliged
to seek a resting-place. A house opposite to him had a look of home. A
window stood open; he flew in, and perched upon the table. It was
his own room. "Let us be men now," said he, involuntarily imitating
the parrot; and at the same moment he became a clerk again, only
that he was sitting on the table. "Heaven preserve us!" said he;
"How did I get up here and fall asleep in this way? It was an uneasy
dream too that I had. The whole affair appears most absurd.
THE BEST THING THE GOLOSHES DID
Early on the following morning, while the clerk was still in
bed, his neighbor, a young divinity student, who lodged on the same
storey, knocked at his door, and then walked in. "Lend me your
goloshes," said he; "it is so wet in the garden, but the sun is
shining brightly. I should like to go out there and smoke my pipe." He
put on the goloshes, and was soon in the garden, which contained
only one plum-tree and one apple-tree; yet, in a town, even a small
garden like this is a great advantage.
The student wandered up and down the path; it was just six
o'clock, and he could hear the sound of the post-horn in the street.
"Oh, to travel, to travel!" cried he; "there is no greater happiness
in the world: it is the height of my ambition. This restless feeling
would be stilled, if I could take a journey far away from this
country. I should like to see beautiful Switzerland, to travel through
Italy, and,"- It was well for him that the goloshes acted immediately,
otherwise he might have been carried too far for himself as well as
for us. In a moment he found himself in Switzerland, closely packed
with eight others in the diligence. His head ached, his back was
stiff, and the blood had ceased to circulate, so that his feet were
swelled and pinched by his boots. He wavered in a condition between
sleeping and waking. In his right-hand pocket he had a letter of
credit; in his left-hand pocket was his passport; and a few louis
d'ors were sewn into a little leather bag which he carried in his
breast-pocket. Whenever he dozed, he dreamed that he had lost one or
another of these possessions; then he would awake with a start, and
the first movements of his hand formed a triangle from his
right-hand pocket to his breast, and from his breast to his
left-hand pocket, to feel whether they were all safe. Umbrellas,
sticks, and hats swung in the net before him, and almost obstructed
the prospect, which was really very imposing; and as he glanced at it,
his memory recalled the words of one poet at least, who has sung of
Switzerland, and whose poems have not yet been printed:-
"How lovely to my wondering eyes
Mont Blanc's fair summits gently rise;
'Tis sweet to breathe the mountain air,-
If you have gold enough to spare."
Grand, dark, and gloomy appeared the landscape around him. The
pine-forests looked like little groups of moss on high rocks, whose
summits were lost in clouds of mist. Presently it began to snow, and
the wind blew keen and cold. "Ah," he sighed, "if I were only on the
other side of the Alps now, it would be summer, and I should be able
to get money on my letter of credit. The anxiety I feel on this matter
prevents me from enjoying myself in Switzerland. Oh, I wish I was on
the other side of the Alps."
And there, in a moment, he found himself, far away in the midst of
Italy, between Florence and Rome, where the lake Thrasymene
glittered in the evening sunlight like a sheet of molten gold
between the dark blue mountains. There, where Hannibal defeated
Flaminius, the grape vines clung to each other with the friendly grasp
of their green tendril fingers; while, by the wayside, lovely
half-naked children were watching a herd of coal-black swine under the
blossoms of fragrant laurel. Could we rightly describe this
picturesque scene, our readers would exclaim, "Delightful Italy!"
But neither the student nor either of his travelling companions
felt the least inclination to think of it in this way. Poisonous flies
and gnats flew into the coach by thousands. In vain they drove them
away with a myrtle branch, the flies stung them notwithstanding. There
was not a man in the coach whose face was not swollen and disfigured
with the stings. The poor horses looked wretched; the flies settled on
their backs in swarms, and they were only relieved when the coachmen
got down and drove the creatures off.
As the sun set, an icy coldness filled all nature, not however
of long duration. It produced the feeling which we experience when
we enter a vault at a funeral, on a summer's day; while the hills
and the clouds put on that singular green hue which we often notice in
old paintings, and look upon as unnatural until we have ourselves seen
nature's coloring in the south. It was a glorious spectacle; but the
stomachs of the travellers were empty, their bodies exhausted with
fatigue, and all the longings of their heart turned towards a
resting-place for the night; but where to find one they knew not.
All the eyes were too eagerly seeking for this resting-place, to
notice the beauties of nature.
The road passed through a grove of olive-trees; it reminded the
student of the willow-trees at home. Here stood a lonely inn, and
