Denmark | Page 6

C. Andersen, who felt--to use his own words--"like a poor boy who had had a King's mantle thrown over him."
[Illustration: DRAG?R 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 of the popular high-schools for peasants, was born at his father's parsonage, Udby, South Seeland. He was sent to school in Jutland, and soon learned to love his wild native moors. While attending the Latin School in Aarhus he made friends with an old shoemaker, who used to tell him interesting stories of the old Norse heroes and sagas, often repeating the old Danish folk-songs. The lad being a true Dane, a descendant of the old vikings, he soon became very interested in the history of his