"E. V. B.'s " ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANDERSEN.*
"E. V. B.'s".pictures are always original and striking, and the splendid volume in which she has illustrated a few of the most fascinating of Andersen's stories contains some of her best con- ceptions. The defect of the book is that there has been less concert than would have been desirable between the translators and the illustrator. Thus one of the tales, and only one, in- serted in this volume (" The Garden of Paradise") has no illus- tration attached to it at all, and we conjecture that it would hardly have been selected from amongst the multitude of Andersen's other tales for insertion here, but for some misun- derstanding between the literary and the pictorial editors of the volume as to the tales intended for illustration. Again, the story called in the letter-press and in the table of contents Thumbkinetta,"—the tale of a little maiden no bigger than a thumb,—is called on the back of this splendid volume, and on the fly-leaf of all the special illustrations belonging to this tale, " Tommelise," the Danish feminine, we suppose, for Thumb- ling, certainly the name which is used in the ordinary transla- tions of Andersen for this little lady. This is a slight blot on the form of this beautiful edition. Its childish readers will be a little puzzled to find the heroine of one of the tales called Thumbkinetta throughout the letter-press and Tommelise on every picture, and will probably think "The Garden of Paradise" unfairly treated in being without any illustration at all. For the rest, the pictures are not less fascinating and even more gorgeous than "E. V. B.'s" success in former works would have led us to expect, and the English of the new translation is very simple, engaging, and classical.• Any one who will compare it in any critical passage, —any passage in which Andersen's humour comes out,—with the translation in Bohn's series by Caroline Peachey,—will see how much more of vernacular force of language this translation has. The illustrations, as we have already said, are both beau- tiful and fanciful, as well as very rich and gorgeous, but "E. V. B." has hardly chosen the subjects which we should have * Fairy Tates by Hans Christian Andersen. Illustrated by Twelve Large Aligns in Colour, Vier Original Drawings by "E. V. Ii." Newly tranalated by II. L. D. Ward and gusts LOWIQII: iiiatripson Low. 1672, thought most characteristic of Hans Christian Andersen. Her. I Thumbkinetta ' or "Tommelise ' arriving at her Southern home onthe swallow's back, while the king of the flower-angels,. startled by the swallow's approach, springs up from his blossom to meet her, is an extremely beautiful bit of fanciful art- Thumbkinetta (a somewhat watery, conventional little beauty), has one arm round the swallow's neck, and a profusion of yellow hair streaming behind her which brings out the black glossy feathers of the swallow with great effect, for the bird itself is the most beautiful part of the picture. Its white breast and meek shining eyes are far more attractive than even the pretty fairies who spring up out of the flowers to receive the bird's fair little rider ; while the blue waters of the lake beneath, the ruin on the promontory, the dark cypresses, and the hills against the yellow sky, together with the fairy company who are rising from their slumbers in the lotus-flowers, all serve rather to set off the grateful swallow, by the idealism of the world in which they place her, than to fascinate the eye on their own account. And that is exactly Andersen's meaning, for he himself evidently regrets having to make Thumbkinetta happy with the fairies when he has interested himself so much more deeply in the swallow which she saved from being starved to death by cold, and which in return saved her from that unhappy engagement to, marry blind Mr. Mole. But though it is quite a true conceptiotr of Andersen's story to make the swallow the central point of Thumbkinetta's happiness, we should have said that an illustrator. of Andersen's tale who loved most the most Andersenian elements in it, would not have neglected to draw the match-making Field-mouse who was BO very anxious to marry Thumbkinetta to blind Mr: Mole, nor to give us a picture of that very narrow- minded gentleman himself, with his handsome black-velvet pelisse, and short legs, and those very utilitarian principles which naturally impressed Mrs. Field-mouse so much by their worldly wisdom. We confess we were a little disappointed that "E. V. B." did not choose the following humorous passage to illustrate with her delicate pencil and brush
Then Mr. Mole fell in love with her [Thumbkinetta] for her avreet voice ; but he did not say anything,—he was such a cautions old fellow. He had lately dug a long underground passage from his house to their's ; and the Field-mouse and Thumbkinetta had leave to take a walk in it
whenever they pleased. Ile warned them, however, not to get frightened at the dead bird that lay in the passage ; it was a whole bird, with bill and feathers, that must have died but a short time before, at the beginning of winter, and had been buried just where, Mr. Mole had made his passage. He took a piece of touchwood in his mouth—for that shines like fire in the dark—and went in front to light up the long dark passage for them. But when they came where th*, dead bird was lying, he thrust his broad nose right against the ceiling and threw up the earth, so as to drill a great hole, and let in the day- light. And there in the midst of the floor lays dead swallow, with the pretty wings pressed closely to its sides and its head and legs drawn up within the ruffled feathers. The poor bird had died, no doubt, of cold. This made Thumbkinettafool sick at heart. She was very fond indeed of, little birds, for all the summer they had sung and twittered to her delightfully. But Mr. Mole kicked at it with his short legs, and said, Now there is an end to its chirruping. It must be miserable indeed to be born a little bird. God forbid that such should be the case with any of my children Why a bird like that has nothing but its chirrup to callits own and must starve to death when the winter comes.'—' Spoken. like a sensible man as you are,' returned the Field-mouse. 'What, when the winter comes, has the bird got for his chirrup? Nothing but freezing and starvation. But all that, I suppose, is part and parcel. of his grand notions.' " Now that is what we call a passage typical of Andersen, and surely it would make a very humorous picture ; the beautiful swal- low lying apparently dead, Mr. Mole kicking at it with his short legs, and discoursing, with his broad nose held high in the air, on the worthlessness of the gift of song ; good-natured but conventional. Mrs. Field-mouse looking up at him with a genuine hero-worship for his worldly wisdom, and Thum bkinetta sad and sympathetic, strok- ing the swallow. Or again, "E. V. B." might have given us an illustration of the admirable passage in which the Misses Chafer- (the Cockchafer'adaughters)despiseThumbkinetta for her deficiency in legs and feelers. Why, she has only got two legs," said one, "how poor that looks I" "She has not got a single feeler 1" said another. "And oh ! what a stick of a waist," said a third. But all this admirable gossip of the animal world,—no doubt difficult to render,—" E. V. B." avoids. In the story of "The Snow Queen," again, we could have wished for some illustration of the delicious' passage in which the Princess asks the crows who have helped Genie, whether they choose to fly free, or "would you rather receive appointments as Court crows, with all the kitchen-leavings for your salaries ?" and the two crows, bowing low, beg for the fixed appointments, for they had both an eye to the future." But none of these passages find favour with "E. V. B." Even in "The Ugly Duckling," though we have a most admirable cottage interior,— the old woman's cottage where the ugly Duckling finds refuge for a brief season, the old woman herself spinning beside a cheerful blaze with every line on herbenevolent, wizened old features lighted up by it,—we have no illustration of the most humorous passage of all, that in which the old mother Duck remarks tenderly on the like- ness of all the other Ducklings—all except the ugly Duckling—to their father, while she inveighs against him for never visiting her during the discharge of her maternal duties in hatching the eggs, or congratulates herself that the ugly Duckling, though so big, is certainly not a turkey, when she sees him go into the water, and on the whole stands out against the universal opinion of the farm- yard, remarking "that he is my own duckling, and after all, he is rather good-looking when one sees him better." It is the defect of this splendid volume as one illustrative of Andersen that there is no attempt to render any of these most characteristic touches.
However, as regards the poetical fancy of Andersen, these illus- trations are all that we could wish and expect. The good-natured witch who keeps Gerda from her search for little Kay in the "The Snow Queen " is, for instance, a perfect specimen of the grotesque and kindly witch, and the beautiful but possessed Princess who delights to ornament her garden with the skeletons of the suitors who have failed to guess her questions, in "The Fellow-Traveller," is an admirable conception of malign and sinister beauty. 'Fhe volume, taken as a whole, is as attractive as it is splendid, though it certainly does not exhaust the characteristic pictorial elements in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy stories.
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