f the human race stood in the humble room, bent down
over the bed and imprinted a kiss on the boy's forehead: "Be thou
strong in fame and strong in the battle of life! With truth in thy
heart fly toward the land of truth!"

The elder brother was not yet in bed; he was standing at the
window looking out at the mist which rose from the meadows. They
were not elves dancing out there, as their old nurse had told him;
he knew better--they were vapours which were warmer than the air,
and that is why they rose. A shooting star lit up the sky, and the
boy's thoughts passed in a second from the vapours of the earth up
to the shining meteor. The stars gleamed in the heavens, and it seemed
as if long golden threads hung down from them to the earth.

"Fly with me," sang a voice, which the boy heard in his heart. And
the mighty genius of mankind, swifter than a bird and than an
arrow--swifter than anything of earthly origin--carried him out into
space, where the heavenly bodies are bound together by the rays that
pass from star to star. Our earth revolved in the thin air, and the
cities upon it seemed to lie close to each other. Through the
spheres echoed the words:

"What is near, what is far, when thou art lifted by the mighty
genius of mind?"

And again the boy stood by the window, gazing out, whilst his
younger brother lay in bed. Their mother called them by their names:
"Anders Sandoe" and "Hans Christian."

Denmark and the whole world knows them--the two brothers Oersted.

TWO MAIDENS

Have you ever seen a maiden? I mean what our pavers call a maiden,
a thing with which they ram down the paving-stones in the roads. A
maiden of this kind is made altogether of wood, broad below, and
girt round with iron rings. At the top she is narrow, and has a
stick passed across through her waist, and this stick forms the arms
of the maiden.

In the shed stood two Maidens of this kind. They had their place
among shovels, hand-carts, wheelbarrows, and measuring-tapes; and to
all this company the news had come that the Maidens were no longer
to be called "maidens," but "hand-rammers," which word was the
newest and the only correct designation among the pavers for the thing
we all know from the old times by the name of "the maiden."

Now, there are among us human creatures certain individuals who
are known as "emancipated women," as, for instance, principals of
institutions, dancers who stand professionally on one leg,
milline