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constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you
good-for-nothing rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch
birds in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue
uniform betrays where you come from.’ This fine tirade
sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere
‘Pippi-pi.’ He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak,
and walked on.
He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper classthat
is to say as individuals, for with regard to learning
they were in the lowest class in the school; and they
bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk came to
Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family
living in Gother Street.
‘‘Tis well that I’m dreaming,’ said the clerk, ‘or I really
should get angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few
pence as a lark; no doubt it was that accursed poetical
nature which has metamorphosed me into such a poor
harmless little creature. It is really pitiable, particularly

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES(Page 3)

*A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English.
In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two
thousand of our miles up to the moon, which, as everyone
knows, was formed out of matter much lighter than our
earth; and is, so we should say, as soft as newly-fallen
snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent
mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means
of Dr. Madler’s ‘Map of the Moon.’ Within, down it sunk
perpendicularly into a caldron, about a Danish mile in
depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance we can,
in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white
of an egg in a glass Of water. The matter of which it was
built was just as soft, and formed similar towers, and
domes, and pillars, transparent and rocking in the thin air;
while above his head our earth was rolling like a large fiery
ball.

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* A.D. 1482-1513
While the conversation turned on this subject, and was
only for a moment interrupted by the arrival of a journal
that contained nothing worth reading, we will just step
out into the antechamber, where cloaks, mackintoshes,
sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two
female figures, a young and an old one. One might have
thought at first they were servants come to accompany
their mistresses home; but on looking nearer, one soon
saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their forms were
too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their dress
too striking. Two fairies were they; the younger, it is true,
was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the waitingmaids
of her handmaidens who carry about the lesser good
things that she distributes; the other looked extremely
gloomy—it was Care. She always attends to her own
serious business herself, as then she is sure of having it
done properly.
Andersen’s Fairy Tales
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Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so
excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his
money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least
about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the
theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then
afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a
different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other
king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, ‘he is sitting in
council,’ it was always said of him, ‘The Emperor is sitting
in his wardrobe.’
Time passed merrily in the large town which was his
capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day,
two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their
appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave
stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns,
the clothes manufactured from which should have the
wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone
who was unfit for the office he held, or who was
extraordinarily simple in character.