Hans Christian Andersen 
Improvisatore 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Hans Christian Andersen is one of those men who, from their earliest youth, have had to keep up a warfare with circumstances; a man, like Burns and Hogg, who seemed destined by Fate to end their lives unnoticed in a village, and yet through an instinctive sense of their destined pre-eminence in the beautiful regions of art and literature, and sustained by an irrepressible will, have made themselves a part of the great world.<br><br>During my residence in Copenhagen, says Marmier, in the year 1837, one day a tall young man entered my room. His timid, and embarrassed, and somewhat awkward manner, might, perhaps, have displeased a fine lady, yet at the same time his friendly behaviour, and his open, honest countenance, at the first meeting, must have awakened sympathy and confidence. This was Andersen. At that very moment a volume of his works was lying on my table; an acquaintance was thus soon made. Poetry is a sort of freemasonry; they who render homage to it are related, although they may come from the opposite ends of the world; they speak a word, make a sign, and immediately they know that they are brethren.