most famous in the world. He was a genius, for what he wrote was absolutely original, and peculiar to himself. His fairy stories are beautiful inspirations with nothing to do with education or learning.
Andersen was fortunate in being appreciated, and his works were at the height of their popularity during his lifetime. It is rather pathetic that this being so, there should still have lingered in his mind wistful regrets for his serious works, the unsuccessful novels and plays. "Do you not think," he said when he was quite old, to a well-known English critic, "that the people will come back to my 'Two Baronesses'?" (a very bad novel he wrote). Fortunately his critic had not read the book.
No human being is entirely satisfied, nor should he be, for he would then become complacent and conceited, though in Andersen's case, as we know, nearly every dream of his youth came true.
Hans Andersen was seventy when he died. His last days were spent happily and peacefully with some friends in a house called "Rolighed," which means peace or quietude, outside Copenhagen. It overlooked the Sound, that sheltered and beautiful bit of coast which lies between the town of Copenhagen and the turbulent Kattegat. From his window Andersen could watch the ships going by like "a flock of wild swans," as he described it, and he could see in the distance Tycho Brahe's island sparkling in the sun.
Even when he was ill, he was able to get about the
