Thus it will be seen we can study the poet's art by studying the ideas which are his inspiration. To contemplate these in their origin and their ramifications, in their abstract essence and their concrete power, is, therefore, no superfluous act, when it becomes our task to make a study of individual poetic fancies. For the bare idea cannot make poetry; but neither can the poet make poetry without the idea and without the surroundings which give it its impetus. About the fortunate poet there gathers a multitude who, in a less felicitous way, are working in his own vein; and about this multitude the people swarm as mute but interested fellow-laborers. For genius is like a burning reflector, which collects and unites the scattered rays of light. It never stands alone. It is merely the noblest tree in the forest, the highest ear in the sheaf, and it is first recognized in its real significance and in its true attitude when it is seen in its rightful place. III. It does not suffice to indicate the quarter of the globe in which a genius dwells; we cannot travel through Denmark with a map of Europe for our guide. In the first place, it is necessary to see the locality more accurately described, and, even then, we no more know a genius because we happen to be familiar with his relations and surroundings than we know a city because we have walked around its walls. For though a genius may be partially, he cannot be exhaustively, explained by the period in which he lives. What is transmitted to him he combines under a new law; a product himself, he brings forth products which he alone of the whole world is able to bring forth. We need only exert our powers of observation a little, or hearken perhaps to the opinion of a foreigner, to feel how much there is that is national, local, and individual in Andersen's nursery stories. I was once talking with a young Frenchman about Denmark. "I am very well acquainted with your country," said he. "I know that your king is named Christian, that your greatest author is an unrecognized genius whose name is Hr. Schmidt, that Hr. Ploug is your fatherland's most valiant warrior, whom no battle-field ever saw retreat, and that Hr. Bille is the Gambetta of Denmark. I know that you have a body of learned men who are distinguished for their scientific independence and free investigations, and I know Hr. Holst, whom you call the 'Tyrtäus of Danebrog.'" Seeing that he had oriented himself pretty well, I interrupted him with the question, "Have you read Andersen's nursery stories?" "Have I read them?" cried he, in reply. "Why, I have read no other Danish book." "What do you think of them?" asked I. "_Un peu trop enfantin,_" was the answer, and I am convinced that if Andersen's nursery stories were submitted to a French child five years old, he, too, would find them '_un peu trop enfantin_.'