Denmark | Page 6

town, which he left as a poor boy, was illuminated and
decorated to welcome his return. Thus the gipsy's prophecy came true.
He died after the public celebration of his seventieth birthday, leaving
all his fortune to the family of his beloved benefactor, the director of
the theatre. A beautiful bronze monument is erected to his memory in
the children's garden of the King's Park, Copenhagen. Here the little
Danes have ever a gentle reminder of their great friend, Hans C.
Andersen, who felt--to use his own words--"like a poor boy who had
had a King's mantle thrown over him."
[Illustration: DRAGÖR PEASANT.]
CHAPTER IV
FAMOUS DANES
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), the famous Danish sculptor, was born
in Copenhagen. His father was an Icelander, his mother a Dane, and
both very poor. Bertel's ambition when a little boy was to work his
mother's spinning-wheel, which, of course, he was never permitted to
do. One bright, moonlight night his parents were awakened by a soft,
whirring sound, and found their little son enjoying his realized
ambition. In the moonlit room he had successfully started the wheel
and begun to spin, much to his parents' astonishment. This was the
beginning of his creative genius, but many years went over his youthful
head before he created the works which made him famous. His father
carved wooden figure-heads for ships, and intended his son to follow
the same calling. Bertel, however, soon showed talent and inclination
for something better, and was sent to the Free School of the Art
Academy, there making great progress. He received very little
education beyond what the Art School gave him, and his youthful days
were hard and poverty-stricken. When his hours at the Academy were
over he went from house to house trying to sell his models, and in this
way eked out a scanty living. In spite of his poverty he was wholly

satisfied, for his wants were few. His dog and his pipe, both necessities
for happiness, accompanied him in all his wanderings.
His true artistic career only began in earnest when he won a travelling
scholarship and went to Rome, where he arrived on his twenty-seventh
birthday. Stimulated to do his best by the many beautiful works of art
which surrounded him, he found production easy, and the classical
beauty of the Roman school appealed to him. Regretting his wasted
years, he set to work in great earnest, and during the rest of his life
produced a marvellous amount of beautiful work. A rich Scotsman
bought his first important work, and the money thus obtained was the
means of starting him firmly on his upward career. This highly talented
Dane founded the famous Sculpture School of Denmark, which is of
world-wide reputation. Thorvaldsen's beautiful designs--which were
mainly classical--were conceived with great rapidity, and his pupils
carried many of them out, becoming celebrated sculptors also. Dying
suddenly in 1844, while seated in the stalls of the theatre watching the
play, his loss was a national calamity. He bequeathed all his works to
the nation, and these now form the famous Thorvaldsen Museum,
which attracts the artistic-loving people of all nations to the city of
Copenhagen.
In the courtyard of this museum lies the great man's simple grave, his
beautiful works being contained in the building which surrounds it.
At the top of this Etruscan tomb stands a fine bronze allegorical
group--the Goddess of Victory in her car, drawn by prancing
horses--fitting memorial to this greatest of northern sculptors.
Holger Drachmann was the son of a physician, and quite early in life
became a man of letters. Following the profession of an artist, he
became a very good marine painter. This poet loved the sea in all its
moods, and was never happier than when at Skagen--the extreme
northern point of Jutland--where he spent most of his summers. His
painting was his favourite pastime, but poetry the serious work of his
life. He was a very prolific writer, not only of verse and lyrical poems,
but of plays and prose works, and was a very successful playwright.
Drachmann's personality was a strong one, though not always agreeable

to his countrymen. He had a freedom-loving spirit, and lived every
moment of his life. Some of his best poems are about the Skaw
fishermen, and later in life he settled down among them, dying at
Skagen in 1907. He was a picturesque figure, with white flowing locks,
erratic and unpractical, as poets often are. Like other famous Danes, he
chose a unique burial-place. Away at Grenen, in the sand-dunes,
overlooking the fighting waters of the Skagerack and Cattegat, stands
his cromlech-shaped tomb, near the roar of the sea he loved so much,
where time and sand will soon obliterate all that remains of the Byron
of Denmark.
Nikolai Frederik Grundtvig, the founder