[6] The following composition was recently written in Copenhagen by a little maiden of ten years on the theme, "An Unexpected Joy." "There dwelt in Copenhagen a man and his wife who were very happy. All went well with them, and they were extremely fond of each other; but they felt very sorry because they had no children. They waited a long time, still they got none. At last the husband went away on a long journey and was gone ten years. When the time was at an end, he returned home, entered his house, and was happy indeed to find five little children in the nursery, some playing, some in the cradle. This was an unexpected joy!" This composition, however is an example of the kind of naivete' which Andersen never uses. The point would attract a French story-teller, but, like everything else that alludes to sex, it leaves Andersen perfectly cold. [7] There is not a single Danish poet, who, to such a degree as Andersen, has scorned to produce effect through the romance of the past; even in the nursery story, which from the beginning has been handled by the romantic school of Germany in a manner that can he compared with the style of the Middle Ages, he is always solely and entirely in the _present._ He, as well as Oersted, dares to sacrifice the interesting element in his enthusiasm for King John and his time, and he heartily joins with Ovid in exclaiming,-- Prisca juvent alios! ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor. Haec aetas moribus apta meis.--ARS. AMAT. III. 121. [8] Her life was used later as the historic foundation for the brilliant romance "Fru Marie Grubbe," by J. P. Jacobsen. [9] Here, as everywhere, the poet has his faithful allies in language, in the play of words, which dance forward under his pen as soon as he places it on paper. We see, for instance, what a swarm there is in "The Old Street Lamp" or "The Snow Man." We see how he avails himself of the sound-language of animals, for instance. "'Quack!' said the little toad, and that means the same as when men say 'Alack!'" [10] Compare, for the sake of antithesis, the method and form of the speech of the glove, the neckerchief, the flask, in Heiberg's "Christmas Pastimes and New Year's Farces" furthermore Alfred de Musset's "Le merle blanc," and Taine's "Vie et opinions philosophiques d'un chat," in his work, "Voyage aux Pyréneés." [Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL.] JOHN STUART MILL. 1879. I. One day in July, 1870, as I was pacing the floor of my room in Paris, with a book in my hand, I heard a modest knock at the door. The clock-maker, thought I, for it was the appointed time when, once each week, on the stroke of the hour, an assistant of the clock-maker was in the habit of making his appearance to wind up all the clocks of the little _hotel garni_.