The Project Gutenberg EBook of O. T., by Hans Christian Andersen

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Title: O. T.
A Danish Romance

Author: Hans Christian Andersen

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7513]
Posting Date: August 3, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Nicole Apostola

O. T.

A Danish Romance

by Hans Christian Andersen

Author of the "Improvisatore" and the "Two Baronesses"

CHAPTER I

"Quod felix faustumque sit!"

There is a happiness which no poet has yet properly sung, which no
lady-reader, let her be ever so amiable, has experienced or ever will
experience in this world. This is a condition of happiness which alone
belongs to the male sex, and even then alone to the elect. It is a
moment of life which seizes upon our feelings, our minds, our whole
being. Tears have been shed by the innocent, sleepless nights been
passed, during which the pious mother, the loving sister, have put up
prayers to God for this critical moment in the life of the son or the
brother.

Happy moment, which no woman, let her be ever so good, so beautiful,
or intellectual, can experience--that of becoming a student, or, to
describe it by a more usual term, the passing of the first examination!

The cadet who becomes an officer, the scholar who becomes an academical
burgher, the apprentice who becomes a journeyman, all know, in a greater
or less degree, this loosening of the wings, this bounding over the
limits of maturity into the lists of philosophy. We all strive after
a wider field, and rush thither like the stream which at length loses
itself in the ocean.

Then for the first time does the youthful soul rightly feel her freedom,
and, therefore, feels it doubly; the soul struggles for activity, she
comprehends her individuality; it has been proved and not found too
light; she is still in possession of the dreams of childhood, which have
not yet proved delusive. Not even the joy of love, not the enthusiasm
for art and science, so thrills through all the nerves as the words,
"Now am I a student!"

This spring-day of life, on which the ice-covering of the school is
br