1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
A CHEERFUL TEMPER
by Hans Christian Andersen
FROM my father I received the best inheritance, namely a "good
temper." "And who was my father?" That has nothing to do with the good
temper; but I will say he was lively, good-looking round, and fat;
he was both in appearance and character a complete contradiction to
his profession. "And pray what was his profession and his standing
in respectable society?" Well, perhaps, if in the beginning of a
book these were written and printed, many, when they read it, would
lay the book down and say, "It seems to me a very miserable title, I
don't like things of this sort." And yet my father was not a
skin-dresser nor an executioner; on the contrary, his employment
placed him at the head of the grandest people of the town, and it
was his place by right. He had to precede the bishop, and even the
princes of the blood; he always went first,- he was a hearse driver!
There, now, the truth is out. And I will own, that when people saw
my father perched up in front of the omnibus of death, dressed in
his long, wide, black cloak, and his black-edged, three-cornered hat
on his head, and then glanced at his round, jocund face, round as
the sun, they could not think much of sorrow or the grave. That face
said, "It is nothing, it will all end better than people think." So
I have inherited from him, not only my good temper, but a habit of
going often to the churchyard, which is good, when done in a proper
humor; and then also I take in the Intelligencer, just as he used to
do.
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y谢谢！