thirty shillings) I was quite overjoyed at the possession of so much
wealth, and as my mother now most resolutely required that I should be
apprenticed to a tailor, I prayed and besought her that I might make a
journey to Copenhagen, that I might see the greatest city in the world.
"What wilt thou do there?" asked my mother.

"I will become famous," returned I, and I then told her all that I had
read about extraordinary men. "People have," said I, "at first an
immense deal of adversity to go through, and then they will be famous."

It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I wept, I
prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having first sent for a
so-called wise woman out of the hospital, that she might read my future
fortune by the coffee-grounds and cards.

"Your son will become a great man," said the old woman, "and in honor
of him, Odense will one day be illuminated."

My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained permission to
travel. All the neighbors told my mother that it was a dreadful thing
to let me, at only fourteen years of age, go to Copenhagen, which was
such a long way off, and such a great and intricate city, and where I
knew nobody.

"Yes," replied my mother, "but he lets me have no peace; I have
therefore given my consent, but I am sure that he will go no further
than Nyborg; when he gets sight of the rough sea, he will be frightened
and turn back again."

During the summer before my confirmation, a part of the singers and