ock, cried,
"Lord--into Thy hands I commend my spirit!"

The axe then fell, and one of the fairest and wisest heads that ever sat
on human shoulders fell also.

* * * * *

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

The Improvisatore

Hans Christian Andersen was born at Odense, in Denmark, on
April 2, 1805, the son of a poor bootmaker. His life was full
of exciting incidents; his early years in particular
constitute a record of hard struggle, poverty and lack of
recognition. When nine he tried his hand at tragedy and
comedy, and was sent, after his father's death in 1819, to
Copenhagen, where he engaged in various occupations with
little success, until his talents attracted the attention of a
few influential personages, who provided him with the means
for continuing his studies. He won considerable reputation
with some early poems, and was quite well known to the public
before he entered the university in 1828. He next published a
satirical story, and after a journey in Italy, his famous
novel, "The Improvisatore," which gave him an opportunity for
a brilliant series of word-pictures describing the life and
character of the parts of Italy he had visited. Apart from his
world-famous fairy tales, by which he set no great store,
being ambitious of fame as a novelist, he wrote several
successful plays, epic poems and novels. His fairy tales have
been translated practically into every language. Hans Andersen
died at the age of seventy, in Copenhagen, on August 4, 1875.

_I.--A Boyhood in Rome_

My earliest recollections take me back to my tender youth, when I lived
with my widowed mother in a little garret in a Roman square. She
supported us by sewing and by the rent of a larger room, sublet to a
young painter. On the house opposite there was an image of the Virgin,
before which, when the evening bells rang, I and the neighbours'
children used to kneel and sing in honour of the Mother of God and the
Child Jesus. Once an English family stopped to listen; and the gentleman
gave me a silver coin, "because of my fine voice," as my mother told me.

My mother's confessor, Fra Martino, always showed great kindness to me;
and I spent many hours with him at the convent. It was through him that
I became chorister in the Capuchin church, and was allowed to carry the
great censer.

Before I was nine, I