The prose facts of life had but a remote and indistinct existence to the
poet, and he blundered along miserably in his youth, supported and
upheld by a dim but unquenchable aspiration. He commiserated himself,
and yet felt that there was something great in store for him because of
his exceptional endowment. Every incident in his career he treated as if
it were a miracle, which required the suspension of the laws of the
universe for its performance. God was a benevolent old man with a long
beard (just as he was depicted in old Dr. Luther's Catechism) who sat up
in the skies and spent his time chiefly in managing the affairs of Hans
Christian Andersen as pleasantly as possible; and Hans Christian was
duly grateful, and cried on every third or fourth page at the thought of
the goodness of God and man. Sometimes, for a change, he cried at the
wickedness of the latter, and marvelled, with the _naivete_ of a spoiled
child, that there should be such dreadful people in the world, who
should persist in misunderstanding and misrepresenting him.
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