--- title: Ole the Tower-keeper — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · full text with trees description: Ole the Tower-keeper, «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: "In the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up any higher!" --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / Ole the Tower-keeper # Ole the Tower-keeper Ole the Tower-keeper of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen: the whole text, 17 sentences and 433 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/1/) — "In the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up any higher!" - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/2/) — So said Ole the tower-keeper. " - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/3/) — Most people have to try both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height." - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/4/) — Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that came into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought deep in his heart. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/5/) — Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and there were even some who said that he was the son of a privy councillor, or that he might have been. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/6/) — He had studied, too, and had been assistant teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all that to him? - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/7/) — In those days he lived in the clerk's house, and was to have everything in the house--to be at free quarters, as the saying is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/8/) — He wanted to have his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could only afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/9/) — One spoke of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking became the black cause of enmity between them, and at last they parted. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/10/) — This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely, patent blacking, and he got nothing but grease. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/11/) — Accordingly, he at last drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the church tower is the only place in a great city where hermitage, office and bread can be found together. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/12/) — So he betook himself up thither, and smoked his pipe as he made his solitary rounds. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/13/) — He looked upward and downward, and had his own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in books and in himself. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/14/) — I often lent him books--good books; and you may know by the company he keeps. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/15/) — He loved neither the English governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a mixture of empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and descriptions of the wonders of, the world. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/16/) — I visited him at least once a year, generally directly after New Year's day, and then he always spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into his head. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/135/17/) — I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will reproduce his own words whenever I can remember them. - ← previous: [Ole-luk-oie, the Dream-god](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/134/) - next →: [First Visit](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/136/) - ↑ back to [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/)