And the Yeah, Welcome back everyone to 1001 classic short stories and tales.

This is your host, John Hagadorn.

And today we present to Hans Christian Anderson story

called The Thorny Road of Honor.

It was published in 1874. and it's a very moving essay about how

misunderstood some of the bold innovators throughout history have been. Their

accomplishments realized only after traveling a truly thorny road.

And now the thorny road of honor by Hans Christian Anderson.

An old story yet lives of the thorny road of honor of a marksman who indeed

attained to rank an office but only after a lifelong and weary strife against

difficulties. Who has not in reading this story thought of his

own strife and of his own numerous difficulties? The story is very closely akin

to reality but still it has harmonious explanation here on Earth,

while reality often points beyond the confines of life to the regions of eternity.

The history of the world is like a magic lantern that displays to us in light pictures upon the dark round of the present

how the benefactors of mankind, the martyrs of genius, wandered along the thorny road of honor.

From all periods and from every country these shining pictures display themselves to us.

Each only appears for a few moments, but each represents a whole life, sometimes a whole age, with its conflicts and victories. Let us contemplate here and there one of the company of martyrs, the company which will receive new

members until the world itself shall pass away.

We look down upon a crowded amphitheatre.

Out of the clouds of Aristophanes, satire and humor are pouring down in

streams upon the audience. On the stage, Socrates, the most remarkable man in

...