Pictures of Sweden

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Ti­tle: Pic­tures of Swe­den

Au­thor: Hans Chris­tian An­der­sen

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PIC­TURES OF SWE­DEN

By

HANS CHRIS­TIAN AN­DER­SEN

Au­thor of “The Im­pro­visatore,” &c.

LON­DON:

RICHARD BENT­LEY, NEW BURLING­TON STREET.

1851.

CON­TENTS.

IN­TRO­DUC­TION

TROLL­HÄT­TA

THE BIRD PHOENIX

KIN­NAKUL­LA

GRAND­MOTH­ER

THE PRISON-​CELLS

BEG­GAR-​BOYS

VAD­STENE

THE PUP­PET-​SHOW­MAN

THE “SKJÄR­GAARDS”

STOCK­HOLM

DI­UR­GAER­DEN

A STO­RY

UP­SALA

SALA

THE MUTE BOOK

THE ZÄTHER DALE

THE MID­SUM­MER FES­TI­VAL IN LACK­SAND

FAITH AND KNOWL­EDGE

IN THE FOR­EST

FAHLUN

WHAT THE STRAWS SAID

THE PO­ET'S SYM­BOL

THE DAL-​ELV

DANEMO­RA

THE SWINE

PO­ET­RY'S CAL­IFOR­NIA

* * * * *

IN­TRO­DUC­TION.

We Trav­el.

* * * * *

It is a de­light­ful spring: the birds war­ble, but you do not un­der­stand their song? Well, hear it in a free trans­la­tion.

“Get on my back,” says the stork, our green is­land's sa­cred bird, “and I will car­ry thee over the Sound. Swe­den al­so has fresh and fra­grant beech woods, green mead­ows and corn-​fields. In Sca­nia, with the flow­er­ing ap­ple-​trees be­hind the peas­ant's house, you will think that you are still in Den­mark.”

“Fly with me,” says the swal­low; “I fly over Hol­land's moun­tain ridge, where the beech-​trees cease to grow; I fly fur­ther to­wards the north than the stork. You shall see the veg­etable mould pass over in­to rocky ground; see snug, neat towns, old church­es and man­sions, where all is good and com­fort­able, where the fam­ily stand in a cir­cle around the ta­ble and say grace at meals, where the least of the chil­dren says a prayer, and, morn­ing and evening, sings a psalm. I have heard it, I have seen it, when lit­tle, from my nest un­der the eaves.”

“Come with me! come with me!” screams the rest­less sea-​gull, and flies in an ex­pect­ing cir­cle. “Come with me to the Skjär­gaards, where rocky isles by thou­sands, with fir and pine, lie like flow­er-​beds along the coast; where the fish­er­men draw the well-​filled nets!”

“Rest thee be­tween our ex­tend­ed wings,” sing the wild swans. "Let us bear thee up to the great lakes, the per­pet­ual­ly roar­ing elvs (rivers), that rush on with ar­rowy swift­ness; where the oak for­est has long ceased, and the birch-​tree be­comes stunt­ed. Rest thee be­tween our ex­tend­ed wings: we fly up to Sulitel­ma, the is­land's eye, as the moun­tain is called; we fly from the ver­nal green val­ley, up over the snow-​drifts, to the moun­tain's top, whence thou canst see the North Sea, on yon­der side of Nor­way.

“We fly to Jemte­land, where the rocky moun­tains are high and blue; where the Foss roars and rush­es; where the torch­es are light­ed as _bud­stikke_[A] to an­nounce that the fer­ry­man is ex­pect­ed. Up to the deep, cold-​run­ning wa­ters, where the mid­sum­mer sun does not set; where the rosy hue of eve is that of morn.”

[Foot­note A: A chip of wood in the form of a hal­berd, cir­cu­lat­ed for the pur­pose of con­ven­ing the in­hab­itants of a dis­trict in Swe­den and Nor­way.]

That is the birds' song. Shall we lay it to heart? Shall we ac­com­pa­ny them?--at least a part of the way. We will not sit up­on the stork's back, or be­tween the swans' wings. We will go for­ward with steam, and with hors­es--yes, al­so on our own legs, and glance now and then from re­al­ity, over the fence in­to the re­gion of thought, which is al­ways our near neigh­bour-​land; pluck a flow­er or a leaf, to be placed in the note-​book--for it sprung out dur­ing our jour­ney's flight: we fly and we sing. Swe­den, thou glo­ri­ous land! Swe­den, where, in an­cient times, the sa­cred gods came from Asia's moun­tains! land that still re­tains rays of their lus­tre, which streams from the flow­ers in the name of “Lin­naeus;” which beams for thy chival­rous men from Charles the Twelfth's ban­ner; which sounds from the obelisk on the field of Lutzen! Swe­den, thou land of deep feel­ing, of heart-​felt songs! home of the limpid elvs, where the wild swans sing in the gleam of the North­ern Lights! Thou land, on whose deep, still lakes Scan­di­navia's fairy builds her colon­nades, and leads her bat­tling, shad­owy host over the icy mir­ror! Glo­ri­ous Swe­den! with thy fra­grant Lin­naeus, with Jen­ny's soul-​en­liven­ing songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and the swal­low, with the rest­less sea-​gull and the wild swans. Thy birch-​woods ex­hale re­fresh­ing fra­grance un­der their sober, bend­ing branch­es; on the tree's white stem the harp shall hang: the North's sum­mer wind shall whis­tle there­in!

TROLL­HÄT­TA.

* * * * *

Who did we meet at Troll­hät­ta? It is a strange sto­ry, and we will re­late it.

We land­ed at the first sluice, and stood as it were in a gar­den laid out in the En­glish style. The broad walks are cov­ered with grav­el, and rise in short ter­races be­tween the sun­lit greensward: it is charm­ing, de­light­ful here, but by no means im­pos­ing. If one de­sires to be ex­cit­ed in this man­ner, one must go a lit­tle high­er up to the old­er sluices, which deep and nar­row have burst through the hard rock. It looks mag­nif­icent, and the wa­ter in its dark bed far be­low is lashed in­to foam. Up here one over­looks both elv and val­ley; the bank of the riv­er on the oth­er side, ris­es in green un­du­lat­ing hills, grouped with leafy trees and red-​paint­ed wood­en hous­es, which are bound­ed by rocks and pine forests. Steam-​boats and sail­ing ves­sels as­cend through the sluices; the wa­ter it­self is the at­ten­dant spir­it that must bear them up above the rock, and from the for­est it­self it buzzes, roars and rat­tles. The din of Troll­hät­ta Falls min­gles with the noise from the saw-​mills and smithies.

“In three hours we shall be through the sluices,” said the Cap­tain: “in that time you will see the Falls. We shall meet again at the inn up here.”

We went from the path through the for­est: a whole flock of bare-​head­ed boys sur­round­ed us. They would all be our guides; the one screamed longer than the oth­er, and ev­ery one gave his con­tra­dic­to­ry ex­pla­na­tion, how high the wa­ter stood, and how high it did not stand, or could stand. There was al­so a great dif­fer­ence of opin­ion amongst the learned.

We soon stopped on a ling-​cov­ered rock, a dizzy­ing ter­race. Be­fore us, but far be­low, was the roar­ing wa­ter, the Hell Fall, and over this again, fall af­ter fall, the rich, rapid, rush­ing elv--the out­let of the largest lake in Swe­den. What a sight! what a foam­ing and roar­ing, above--be­low! It is like the waves of the sea, but of ef­fer­vesc­ing cham­pagne--of boil­ing milk. The wa­ter rush­es round two rocky is­lands at the top so that the spray ris­es like mead­ow dew. Be­low, the wa­ter is more com­pressed, then hur­ries down again, shoots for­ward and re­turns in cir­cles like smooth wa­ter, and then rolls dart­ing its long sea-​like fall in­to the Hell Fall. What a tem­pest rages in the deep--what a sight! Words can­not ex­press it!

Nor could our scream­ing lit­tle guides. They stood mute; and when they again be­gan with their ex­pla­na­tions and sto­ries, they did not come far, for an old gen­tle­man whom none of us had no­ticed (but he was now amongst us), made him­self heard above the noise, with his sin­gu­lar­ly sound­ing voice. He knew all the par­tic­ulars about the place, and about for­mer days, as if they had been of yes­ter­day.

“Here, on the rocky holms,” said he, “it was that the war­riors in the hea­then times, as they are called, de­cid­ed their dis­putes. The war­rior Stärkod­der dwelt in this dis­trict, and liked the pret­ty girl Ogn right well; but she was fonder of Her­grim­mer, and there­fore he was chal­lenged by Stärkod­der to com­bat here by the falls, and met his death; but Ogn sprung to­wards them, took her bride­groom's bloody sword, and thrust it in­to her own heart. Thus Stärkod­der did not gain her. Then there passed a hun­dred years, and again a hun­dred years: the forests were then thick and close­ly grown; wolves and bears prowled here sum­mer and win­ter; the place was in­fest­ed with ma­lig­nant rob­bers, whose hid­ing-​place no one could find. It was yon­der, by the fall be­fore Top Is­land, on the Nor­we­gian side--there was their cave: now it has fall­en in! The cliff there over­hangs it!”

“Yes, the Tai­lor's Cliff!” shout­ed all the boys. “It fell in the year 1755!”

“Fell!” said the old man, as if in as­ton­ish­ment that any one but him­self could know it. “Ev­ery­thing will fall once, and the tai­lor di­rect­ly.” The rob­bers had placed him up­on the cliff and de­mand­ed that if he would be lib­er­at­ed from them, his ran­som should be that he should sew a suit of clothes up there; and he tried it; but at the first stitch, as he drew the thread out, he be­came gid­dy and fell down in­to the gush­ing wa­ter, and thus the rock got the name of 'The Tai­lor's Cliff.' One day the rob­bers caught a young girl, and she be­trayed them, for she kin­dled a fire in the cav­ern. The smoke was seen, the cav­erns dis­cov­ered, and the rob­bers im­pris­oned and ex­ecut­ed. That out­side there is called 'The Thieves' Fall,' and down there un­der the wa­ter is an­oth­er cave, the elv rush­es in there and re­turns boil­ing; one can see it well up here, one hears it too, but it can be heard bet­ter un­der the bergman's loft.

And we went on and on, along the Fall, to­wards Top Is­land, con­tin­uous­ly on smooth paths cov­ered with saw-​dust, to Pol­ham's Sluice. A cleft had been made in the rock for the first in­tend­ed sluice-​work, which was not fin­ished, but where­by art has cre­at­ed the most im­pos­ing of all Troll­hät­ta's Falls; the hur­ry­ing wa­ter falling here per­pen­dic­ular­ly in­to the black deep. The side of the rock is here placed in con­nec­tion with Top Is­land by means of a light iron bridge, which ap­pears as if thrown over the abyss. We ven­ture on to the rock­ing bridge over the stream­ing, whirling wa­ter, and then stand on the lit­tle cliff is­land, be­tween firs and pines, that shoot forth from the crevices. Be­fore us darts a sea of waves, which are bro­ken by the re­bound against the stone block where we stand, bathing us with the fine spray. The tor­rent flows on each side, as if shot out from a gi­gan­tic can­non, fall af­ter fall: we look out over them all, and are filled with the har­mon­ic sound, which since time be­gan, has ev­er been the same.

“No one can ev­er get to the is­land there,” said one of our par­ty, point­ing to the large is­land above the top­most fall.

“I how­ev­er know one!” said the old man, and nod­ded with a pe­cu­liar smile.

“Yes, my grand­fa­ther could!” said one of the boys, “scarce­ly any one be­sides has crossed dur­ing a hun­dred years. The cross that is set up over there was placed there by my grand­fa­ther. It had been a se­vere win­ter, the whole of Lake Ven­ern was frozen; the ice dammed up the out­let, and for many hours there was a dry bot­tom. Grand­fa­ther has told about it: he went over with two oth­ers, placed the cross up, and re­turned. But then there was such a thun­der­ing and crack­ing noise, just as if it were can­nons. The ice broke up and the elv came over the fields and for­est. It is true, ev­ery word I say!”

One of the trav­ellers cit­ed Teg­ner:

“Vildt Gö­ta stor­tade från Fjallen, Hem­sk Trol­let från sat Topp­fall röt! Men Snil­let kom och sprängt stod Hallen, Med Skep­pen i sitt sköt!”

“Poor moun­tain sprite,” he con­tin­ued, “thy pow­er and glo­ry re­cede! Man flies over thee--thou mayst go and learn of him.”

The gar­ru­lous old man made a gri­mace, and mut­tered some­thing to him­self--but we were just by the bridge be­fore the inn. The steam-​boat glid­ed through the opened way, ev­ery one has­tened to get on board, and it di­rect­ly shot away above the Fall, just as if no Fall ex­ist­ed.

“And that can be done!” said the old man. He knew noth­ing at all about steam-​boats, had nev­er be­fore that day seen such a thing, and ac­cord­ing­ly he was some­times up and some­times down, and stood by the ma­chin­ery and stared at the whole con­struc­tion, as if he were count­ing all the pins and screws. The course of the canal ap­peared to him to be some­thing quite new; the plan of it and the guide-​books were quite for­eign ob­jects to him: he turned them and turned them--for read I do not think he could. But he knew all the par­tic­ulars about the coun­try--that is to say, from old­en times.

I heard that he did not sleep at all the whole night. He stud­ied the pas­sage of the steam-​boat; and when we in the morn­ing as­cend­ed the sluice ter­races from Lake Ven­ern, high­er and high­er from lake to lake, away over the high-​plain--high­er, con­tin­ual­ly high­er--he was in such ac­tiv­ity that it ap­peared as if it could not be greater--and then we reached Mo­ta­la.

The Swedish au­thor Tjörn­erös re­lates of him­self, that when a child he once asked what it was that ticked in the clock, and they an­swered him that it was one named “_Blood­less_.” What brought the child's pulse to beat with fever­ish throbs and the hair on his head to rise, al­so ex­er­cised its pow­er in Mo­ta­la, over the old man from Troll­hät­ta.

We now went through the great man­ufac­to­ry in Mo­ta­la. What ticks in the clock, beats here with strong strokes of the ham­mer. It is _Blood­less_, who drank life from hu­man thought and there­by got limbs of met­als, stone and wood; it is _Blood­less_, who by hu­man thought gained strength, which man him­self does not phys­ical­ly pos­sess. _Blood­less_ reigns in Mo­ta­la, and through the large foundries and fac­to­ries he ex­tends his hard limbs, whose joints and parts con­sist of wheel with­in wheel, chains, bars, and thick iron wires. En­ter, and see how the glow­ing iron mass­es are formed in­to long bars. _Blood­less_ spins the glow­ing bar! see how the shears cut in­to the heavy met­al plates; they cut as qui­et­ly and as soft­ly as if the plates were pa­per. Here where he ham­mers, the sparks fly from the anvil. See how he breaks the thick iron bars; he breaks them in­to lengths; it is as if it were a stick of seal­ing-​wax that is bro­ken. The long iron bars rat­tle be­fore your feet; iron plates are planed in­to shav­ings; be­fore you rolls the large wheel, and above your head runs liv­ing wire--long heavy wire! There is a ham­mer­ing and buzzing, and if you look around in the large open yard, amongst great up-​turned cop­per boil­ers, for steam-​boats and lo­co­mo­tives, _Blood­less_ al­so here stretch­es out one of his fath­om-​long fin­gers, and hauls away. Ev­ery­thing is liv­ing; man alone stands and is si­lenced by--_stop!_

The per­spi­ra­tion oozes out of one's fin­gers'-ends: one turns and turns, bows, and knows not one's self, from pure re­spect for the hu­man thought which here has iron limbs. And yet the large iron ham­mer goes on con­tin­ual­ly with its heavy strokes: it is as if it said: “Ban­co, Ban­co! many thou­sand dol­lars; Ban­co, pure gain! Ban­co! Ban­co!”--Hear it, as I heard it; see, as I saw!

The old gen­tle­man from Troll­hät­ta walked up and down in full con­tem­pla­tion; bent and swung him­self about; crept on his knees, and stuck his head in­to cor­ners and be­tween the ma­chines, for he would know ev­ery­thing so ex­act­ly; he would see the screw in the pro­pelling ves­sels, un­der­stand their mech­anism and ef­fect un­der wa­ter--and the wa­ter it­self poured like hail-​drops down his fore­head. He fell un­con­scious, back­wards in­to my arms, or else he would have been drawn in­to the ma­chin­ery, and been crushed: he looked at me, and pressed my hand.

“And all this goes on nat­ural­ly,” said he; “sim­ply and com­pre­hen­si­bly. Ships go against the wind, and against the stream, sail high­er than forests and moun­tains. The wa­ter must raise, steam must drive them!”

“Yes,” said I.

“Yes,” said he, and again _yes_, with a sigh which I did not then un­der­stand; but, months af­ter, I un­der­stood it, and I will at once make a spring to that time, and we are again at Troll­hät­ta.

I came here in the au­tumn, on my re­turn home; stayed some days in this mighty piece of na­ture, where busy hu­man life forces its way more and more in, and, by de­grees, trans­forms the pic­turesque to the use­ful man­ufac­to­ry. Troll­hät­ta must do her work; saw beams, drive mills, ham­mer and break to pieces: one build­ing grows up by the side of the oth­er, and in half a cen­tu­ry hence here will be a city. But that was not the sto­ry.

I came, as I have said, here again in the au­tumn. I found the same rush­ing and roar­ing, the same din, the same ris­ing and sink­ing in the sluices, the same chat­ter­ing boys who con­duct­ed fresh trav­ellers to the Hell Fall, to the iron-​bridge is­land, and to the inn. I sat here, and turned over the leaves of books, col­lect­ed here through a se­ries of years, in which trav­ellers have in­scribed their names, feel­ings and thoughts at Troll­hät­ta--al­most al­ways the same as­ton­ish­ment, ex­pressed in dif­fer­ent lan­guages, though gen­er­al­ly in Latin: _veni, vi­di, ob­stupui_.

One has writ­ten: “I have seen na­ture's mas­ter-​piece per­vade that of art;” an­oth­er can­not say what he saw, and what he saw he can­not say. A mine own­er and man­ufac­tur­er, full of the doc­trine of util­ity, has writ­ten: “Seen with the great­est plea­sure this use­ful work for us in Värme­land, Troll­hät­ta.” The wife of a dean from Sca­nia ex­press­es her­self thus. She has kept to the fam­ily, and on­ly signed in the re­mem­brance book, as to the ef­fect of her feel­ings at Troll­hät­ta. “God grant my broth­er-​in-​law for­tune, for he has un­der­stand­ing!” Some few have added wit­ti­cisms to the oth­ers' feel­ings; yet as a pearl on this heap of writ­ing shines Teg­ner's po­em, writ­ten by him­self in the book on the 28th of June, 1804:

“Gotha kom i dans från Seves fjal­lar, &c.”

I looked up from the book and who should stand be­fore me, just about to de­part again, but the old man from Troll­hät­ta! Whilst I had wan­dered about, right up to the shores of Sil­jan, he had con­tin­ual­ly made voy­ages on the canal; seen the sluices and man­ufac­to­ries, stud­ied steam in all its pos­si­ble pow­ers of ser­vice, and spoke about a pro­ject­ed rail­way in Swe­den, be­tween the Hjal­mar and Ven­ern. He had, how­ev­er, nev­er yet seen a rail­way, and I de­scribed to him these ex­tend­ed roads, which some­times rise like ram­parts, some­times like tow­er­ing bridges, and at times like halls of miles in length, cut through rocks. I al­so spoke of Amer­ica and Eng­land.

“One takes break­fast in Lon­don, and the same day one drinks tea in Ed­in­burgh.”

“That I can do!” said the man, and in as cool a tone as if no one but him­self could do it, “I can al­so,” said I; “and I have done it.”

“And who are you, then?” he asked.

“A com­mon trav­eller,” I replied; “a trav­eller who pays for his con­veyance. And who are you?”

The man sighed.

“You do not know me: my time is past; my pow­er is noth­ing! _Blood­less_ is stronger than I!” and he was gone.

I then un­der­stood who he was. Well, in what hu­mour must a poor moun­tain sprite be, who on­ly comes up ev­ery hun­dred years to see how things go for­ward here on the earth!

It was the moun­tain sprite and no oth­er, for in our time ev­ery in­tel­li­gent per­son is con­sid­er­ably wis­er; and I looked with a sort of proud feel­ing on the present gen­er­ation, on the gush­ing, rush­ing, whirling wheel, the heavy blows of the ham­mer, the shears that cut so soft­ly through the met­al plates, the thick iron bars that were bro­ken like sticks of seal­ing-​wax, and the mu­sic to which the heart's pul­sa­tions vi­brate: “Ban­co, Ban­co, a hun­dred thou­sand Ban­co!” and all by steam--by mind and spir­it.

It was evening. I stood on the heights of Troll­hät­ta's old sluices, and saw the ships with out­spread sails glide away through the mead­ows like spec­tres, large and white. The sluice gates were opened with a pon­der­ous and crash­ing sound, like that re­lat­ed of the cop­per gates of the se­cret coun­cil in Ger­many. The evening was so still that Troll­hät­ta's Fall was as au­di­ble in the deep still­ness, as if it were a cho­rus from a hun­dred wa­ter-​mills--ev­er one and the same tone. In one, how­ev­er, there sound­ed a might­ier crash that seemed to pass sheer through the earth; and yet with all this the end­less si­lence of na­ture was felt. Sud­den­ly a large bird flew out from the trees, far in the for­est, down to­wards the Falls. Was it the moun­tain sprite?--We will imag­ine so, for it is the most in­ter­est­ing fan­cy.

THE BIRD PHOENIX.

* * * * *

In the gar­den of Par­adise, un­der the tree of knowl­edge, stood a hedge of ros­es. In the first rose a bird was hatched; its flight was like that of light, its colours beau­ti­ful, its song mag­nif­icent.

But when Eve plucked the fruit of knowl­edge, when she and Adam were driv­en from the gar­den of Par­adise, a spark from the aveng­ing an­gel's flam­ing sword fell in­to the bird's nest and kin­dled it. The bird died in the flames, but from the red egg there flew a new one--the on­ly one--the ev­er on­ly bird Phoenix. The leg­end states that it takes up its abode in Ara­bia; that ev­ery hun­dred years it burns it­self up in its nest, and that a new Phoenix, the on­ly one in the world, flies out from the red egg.

The bird hov­ers around us, rapid as the light, beau­ti­ful in colour, glo­ri­ous in song. When the moth­er sits by the child's cra­dle, it is by the pil­low, and with its wings flut­ters a glo­ry around the child's head. It flies through the cham­ber of con­tent­ment, and there is the sun's ra­di­ance with­in:--the poor chest of draw­ers is odor­if­er­ous with vi­olets.

But the bird Phoenix is not alone Ara­bia's bird: it flut­ters in the rays of the North­ern Lights on La­pland's icy plains; it hops amongst the yel­low flow­ers in Green­land's short sum­mer. Un­der Fahlun's cop­per rocks, in Eng­land's coal mines, it flies like a pow­dered moth over the hymn-​book in the pi­ous work­man's hands. It sails on the lo­tus-​leaf down the sa­cred wa­ters of the Ganges, and the eyes of the Hin­doo girl glis­ten on see­ing it.

The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? The bird of Par­adise, song's sa­cred swan! It sat on the car of Thes­pis, like a croak­ing raven, and flapped its black, dregs-​be­smeared wings; over Ice­land's min­strel-​harp glid­ed the swan's red, sound­ing bill. It sat on Shak­speare's shoul­der like Odin's raven, and whis­pered in his ear: “Im­mor­tal­ity!” It flew at the min­strel com­pe­ti­tion, through Wartzburg's knight­ly halls.

The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? It sang the Mar­seil­laise for thee, and thou didst kiss the plume that fell from its wing: it came in the lus­tre of Par­adise, and thou per­haps didst turn thy­self away to some poor spar­row that sat with mer­est tin­sel on its wings.

The bird of Par­adise! re­gen­er­at­ed ev­ery cen­tu­ry, bred in flames, dead in flames; thy im­age set in gold hangs in the sa­loons of the rich, even though thou fli­est of­ten astray and alone. “The bird Phoenix in Ara­bia”--is but a leg­end.

In the gar­den of Par­adise, when thou wast bred un­der the tree of knowl­edge, in the first rose, our Lord kissed thee and gave thee thy prop­er name--Po­et­ry.

KIN­NAKUL­LA.

* * * * *

Kin­nakul­la, Swe­den's hang­ing gar­dens! Thee will we vis­it. We stand by the low­est ter­race in a plen­itude of flow­ers and ver­dure; the an­cient vil­lage church leans its grey point­ed wood­en tow­er, as if it would fall; it pro­duces an ef­fect in the land­scape: we would not even be with­out that large flock of birds, which just now chance to fly away over the moun­tain for­est.

The high road leads up the moun­tain with short pal­ings on ei­ther side, be­tween which we see ex­ten­sive plains with hops, wild ros­es, corn-​fields, and de­light­ful beech woods, such as are not to be found in any oth­er place in Swe­den. The ivy winds it­self around old trees and stones--even to the with­ered trunk green leaves are lent. We look out over the flat, ex­tend­ed woody plain, to the sun­lit church-​tow­er of Maris­tad, which shines like a white sail on the dark green sea: we look out over the Ven­ern Lake, but can­not see its fur­ther shore. Skjär­gaar­dens' wood-​crowned rocks lie like a wreath down in the lake; the steam-​boat comes--see! down by the cliff un­der the red-​roofed man­sions, where the beech and wal­nut trees grow in the gar­den.

The trav­ellers land; they wan­der un­der shady trees away over that pret­ty light green mead­ow, which is en­wreathed by gar­dens and woods: no En­glish park has a fin­er ver­dure than the mead­ows near Hellekis. They go up to “the grot­tos,” as they call the pro­ject­ing mass­es of red stone high­er up, which, be­ing thor­ough­ly knead­ed with pet­ri­fac­tions, project from the de­cliv­ity of the earth, and re­mind one of the moul­der­ing colos­sal tombs in the Cam­pagna of Rome. Some are smooth and round­ed off by the stream­ing of the wa­ter, oth­ers bear the moss of ages, grass and flow­ers, nay, even tall trees.

The trav­ellers go from the for­est road up to the top of Kin­nakul­la, where a stone is raised as the goal of their wan­der­ings. The trav­eller reads in his guide-​book about the rocky stra­ta of Kin­nakul­la: “At the bot­tom is found sand­stone, then alum-​stone, then lime­stone, and above this red-​stone, high­er still slate, and last­ly, trap.” And, now that he has seen this, he de­scends again, and goes on board. He has seen Kin­nakul­la:--yes, the stony rock here, amidst the swelling ver­dure, showed him one heavy, thick stone fin­ger, and most of the trav­ellers think that they are like the dev­il, if they lay hold up­on one fin­ger, they have the body--but it is not al­ways so. The least vis­it­ed side of Kin­nakul­la is just the most char­ac­ter­is­tic, and thith­er will we go.

The road still leads us a long way on this side of the moun­tain, step by step down­wards, in long ter­races of rich fields: fur­ther down, the slate-​stone peers forth in flat lay­ers, a green moss up­on it, and it looks like thread­bare patch­es in the green vel­vet car­pet. The high road leads over an ex­tent of ground where the slate-​stone lies like a firm floor. In the Cam­pagna of Rome, one would say it is a piece of _via ap­pia_, or an­tique road; but it is Kin­nakul­la's naked skin and bones that we pass over. The peas­ant's house is com­posed of large slate-​stones, and the roof is cov­ered with them; one sees noth­ing of wood ex­cept that of the door, and above it, of the large paint­ed shield, which states to what reg­iment the sol­dier be­longs who got this house and plot of ground in lieu of pay.

We cast an­oth­er glance over Ven­ern, to Lockö's old palace, to the town of Lend­kjob­ing, and are again near ver­dant fields and no­ble trees, that cast their shad­ows over Blomberg, where, in the gar­den, the po­et Geier's spir­it seeks the flow­er of Kin­nakul­la in his grand-​daugh­ter, lit­tle An­na.

The plain ex­pands here be­hind Kin­nakul­la; it ex­tends for miles around, to­wards the hori­zon. A show­er stands in the heav­ens; the wind has in­creased: see how the rain falls to the ground like a dark­en­ing veil. The branch­es of the trees lash one an­oth­er like pen­iten­tial dryades. Old Hus­aby church lies near us, yon­der; though the show­er lash­es the high walls, which alone stand, of the old Catholic Bish­op's palace. Crows and ravens fly through the long glass-​less win­dows, which time has made larg­er; the rain pours down the crevices in the old grey walls, as if they were now to be loos­ened stone from stone: but the church stands--old Hus­aby church--so grey and ven­er­able, with its thick walls, its small win­dows, and its three spires stuck against each oth­er, and stand­ing, like nuts, in a clus­ter.

The old trees in the church­yard cast their shade over an­cient graves. Where is the dis­trict's “Old Mor­tal­ity,” who weeds the grass, and ex­plains the an­cient memo­ri­als? Large gran­ite stones are laid here in the form of coffins, or­na­ment­ed with rude carv­ings from the times of Catholi­cism. The old church-​door creaks in the hinges. We stand with­in its walls, where the vault­ed roof was filled for cen­turies with the fra­grance of in­cense, with monks, and with the song of the cho­ris­ters. Now it is still and mute here: the old men in their monas­tic dress­es have passed in­to their graves; the bloom­ing boys that swung the censer are in their graves; the con­gre­ga­tion--many gen­er­ations--all in their graves; but the church still stands the same. The moth-​eat­en, dusty cowls, and the bish­ops' man­tle, from the days of the clois­ter, hang in the old oak press­es; and old manuscripts, half eat­en up by the rats, lie strewed about on the shelves in the sac­risty.

In the left aisle of the church there still stands, and has stood time out of mind, a carved im­age of wood, paint­ed in var­ious colours which are still strong: it is the Vir­gin Mary with the child Je­sus. Fresh flow­er wreaths are hung around hers and the child's head; fra­grant gar­lands are twined around the pedestal, as fes­tive as on Madon­na's birth­day feast in the times of Pop­ery. The young folks who have been con­firmed, have this day, on re­ceiv­ing the sacra­ment for the first time, or­na­ment­ed this old im­age--nay, even set the priest's name in flow­ers up­on the al­tar; and he has, to our as­ton­ish­ment, let it re­main there.

The im­age of Madon­na seems to have be­come young by the fresh wreaths: the fra­grant flow­ers here have a pow­er like that of po­et­ry--they bring back the days of past cen­turies to our own times. It is as if the ex­tin­guished glo­ry around the head shone again; the flow­ers ex­hale per­fume: it is as if in­cense again streamed through the aisles of the church--it shines around the al­tar as if the con­se­crat­ed ta­pers were light­ed--it is a sun­beam through the win­dow.

The sky with­out has be­come clear: we drive again in un­der Cleven, the bar­ren side of Kin­nakul­la: it is a rocky wall, dif­fer­ent from al­most all the oth­ers. The red stone blocks lie, stra­ta on stra­ta, form­ing for­ti­fi­ca­tions with em­bra­sures, pro­ject­ing wings and round tow­ers; but shak­en, split and fall­en in ru­ins--it is an ar­chi­tec­tural fan­tas­tic freak of na­ture. A brook falls gush­ing down from one of the high­est points of the Cleven, and drives a lit­tle mill. It looks like a play­thing which the moun­tain sprite had placed there and for­got­ten.

Large mass­es of fall­en stone blocks lie dis­persed round about; na­ture has spread them in the forms of carved cor­nices. The most sig­nif­icant way of de­scrib­ing Kin­nakul­la's rocky wall is to call it the ru­ins of a mile-​long Hin­dosta­nee tem­ple: these rocks might be eas­ily trans­formed by the ham­mer in­to sa­cred places like the Ghaut moun­tains at El­lara. If a Brah­min were to come to Kin­nakul­la's rocky wall, he would recog­nise the tem­ple of Cailasa, and find in the clefts and crevices whole rep­re­sen­ta­tions from Ra­ma­ge­na and Ma­hab­hara­ta. If one should then speak to him in a sort of gib­ber­ish--no mat­ter what, on­ly that, by the help of Brock­haus's “Con­ver­sa­tion-​Lex­icon” one might min­gle there­in the names of some of the In­di­an spec­ta­cles:--Sakan­ta­la, Vikramerivati, Ut­taram Ra­matscher­itram, &c.--the Brah­min would be com­plete­ly mys­ti­fied, and write in his note-​book: “Kin­nakul­la is the re­mains of a tem­ple, like those we have in El­lara; and the in­hab­itants them­selves know the most con­sid­er­able works in our old­est San­scrit lit­er­ature, and speak in an ex­treme­ly spir­itu­al man­ner about them.” But no Brah­min comes to the high rocky walls--not to speak of the com­pa­ny from the steam-​boat, who are al­ready far over the lake Ven­ern. They have seen wood-​crowned Kin­nakul­la, Swe­den's hang­ing gar­dens--and we al­so have now seen them.

GRAND­MOTH­ER.

* * * * *

Grand­moth­er is so old, she has so many wrin­kles, and her hair is quite white; but her eyes! they shine like two stars, nay, they are much fin­er--they are so mild, so bliss­ful to look in­to. And then she knows the most amus­ing sto­ries, and she has a gown with large, large flow­ers on it, and it is of such thick silk that it ac­tu­al­ly rus­tles. Grand­moth­er knows so much, for she has lived long be­fore fa­ther and moth­er--that is quite sure.

Grand­moth­er has a psalm-​book with thick sil­ver clasps, and in that book she of­ten reads. In the mid­dle of it lies a rose, which is quite flat and dry; but it is not so pret­ty as the ros­es she has in the glass, yet she smiles the kindli­est to it, nay, even tears come in­to her eyes!

Why does Grand­moth­er look thus on the with­ered flow­er in the old book? Do you know why?

Ev­ery time that Grand­moth­er's tears fall on the with­ered flow­er the colours be­come fresh­er; the rose then swells and the whole room is filled with fra­grance; the walls sink as if they were but mists; and round about, it is the green, the de­light­ful grove, where the sun shines be­tween the leaves. And Grand­moth­er--yes, she is quite young; she is a beau­ti­ful girl, with yel­low hair, with round red cheeks, pret­ty and charm­ing--no rose is fresh­er. Yet the eyes, the mild, bliss­ful eyes,--yes, they are still Grand­moth­er's! By her side sits a man, young and strong: he presents the rose to her and she smiles. Yet grand­moth­er does not smile so,--yes; the smile comes,--he is gone.--Many thoughts and many forms go past! That hand­some man is gone; the rose lies in the psalm-​book, and grand­moth­er,--yes, she again sits like an old wom­an, and looks on the with­ered rose that lies in the book.

Now grand­moth­er is dead!

She sat in the arm-​chair, and told a long, long, sweet sto­ry. “And now it is end­ed!” said she, “and I am quite tired: let me now sleep a lit­tle!” And so she laid her head back to rest. She drew her breath, she slept, but it be­came more and more still; and her face was so full of peace and hap­pi­ness--it was as if the sun's rays passed over it. She smiled, and then they said that she was dead.

She was laid in the black cof­fin; she lay swathed in the white linen: she was so pret­ty, and yet the eyes were closed--but all the wrin­kles were gone. She lay with a smile around her mouth: her hair was so sil­very white, so ven­er­able, one was not at all afraid to look on the dead, for it was the sweet, be­nign grand­moth­er. And the psalm-​book was laid in the cof­fin un­der her head (she her­self had re­quest­ed it), and the rose lay in the old book--and then they buried grand­moth­er.

On the grave, close un­der the church-​wall, they plant­ed a rose-​tree, and it be­came full of ros­es, and the nightin­gale sang over it, and the or­gan in the church played the finest psalms that were in the book un­der the dead one's head. And the moon shone straight down on the grave--but the dead was not there: ev­ery child could go qui­et­ly in the night-​time and pluck a rose there by the church­yard-​wall. The dead know more than all we liv­ing know--the dead know the awe we should feel at some­thing so strange as their com­ing to us. The dead are bet­ter than us all, and there­fore they do not come.

There is earth over the cof­fin, there is earth with­in it; the psalm-​book with its leaves is dust the rose with all its rec­ol­lec­tions has gone to dust. But above it bloom new ros­es, above is sings the nightin­gale, and the or­gan plays:--we think of the old grand­moth­er with the mild, eter­nal­ly young eyes. Eyes can nev­er die! Ours shall once again see her young, and beau­ti­ful, as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose which is now dust in the grave.

THE PRISON-​CELLS.

* * * * *

By sep­ara­tion from oth­er men, by soli­tary con­fine­ment, in con­tin­ual si­lence, the crim­inal is to be pun­ished and amend­ed; there­fore were prison-​cells con­trived. In Swe­den there were sev­er­al, and new ones have been built. I vis­it­ed one for the first time in Mari­es­tad. This build­ing lies close out­side the town, by a run­ning wa­ter, and in a beau­ti­ful land­scape. It re­sem­bles a large white-​washed sum­mer res­idence, win­dow above win­dow.

But we soon dis­cov­er that the still­ness of the grave rests over it. It is as if no one dwelt here, or like a de­sert­ed man­sion in the time of the plague. The gates in the walls are locked: one of them is opened for us: the gaol­er stands with his bunch of keys: the yard is emp­ty, but clean--even the grass weed­ed away be­tween the stone paving. We en­ter the wait­ing-​room, where the pris­on­er is re­ceived: we are shown the bathing-​room, in­to which he is first led. We now as­cend a flight of stairs, and are in a large hall, ex­tend­ing the whole length and breadth of the build­ing. Gal­leries run along the floors, and be­tween these the priest has his pul­pit, where he preach­es on Sun­days to an in­vis­ible con­gre­ga­tion. All the doors fac­ing the gallery are half opened: the pris­on­ers hear the priest, but can­not see him, nor he them. The whole is a well-​built ma­chine--a night­mare for the spir­it. In the door of ev­ery cell there is fixed a glass, about the size of the eye: a slide cov­ers it, and the gaol­er can, un­ob­served by the pris­on­er, see ev­ery­thing he does; but he must come gen­tly, noise­less­ly, for the pris­on­er's ear is won­der­ful­ly quick­ened by soli­tude. I turned the slide quite soft­ly, and looked in­to the closed space, when the pris­on­er's eye im­me­di­ate­ly met mine. It is airy, clean, and light with­in the cell, but the win­dow is placed so high that it is im­pos­si­ble to look out of it. A high stool, made fast to a sort of ta­ble, and a ham­mock, which can be hung up­on hooks un­der the ceil­ing, and cov­ered with a quilt, com­pose the whole fur­ni­ture.

Sev­er­al cells were opened for us. In one of these was a young, and ex­treme­ly pret­ty girl. She had lain down in her ham­mock, but sprang out di­rect­ly the door was opened, and her first em­ploy­ment was to lift her ham­mock down, and roll it to­geth­er. On the lit­tle ta­ble stood a pitch­er with wa­ter, and by it lay the re­mains of some oat­meal cakes, be­sides the Bible and some psalms.

In the cell close by sat a child's mur­der­ess. I saw her on­ly through the lit­tle glass in the door. She had had heard our foot­steps; heard us speak; but she sat still, squeezed up in­to the cor­ner by the door, as if she would hide her­self as much as pos­si­ble: her back was bent, her head al­most on a lev­el with her lap, and her hands fold­ed over it. They said this un­for­tu­nate crea­ture was very young. Two broth­ers sat here in two dif­fer­ent cells: they were pun­ished for horse steal­ing; the one was still quite a boy.

In one cell was a poor ser­vant girl. They said: “She has no place of re­sort, and with­out a sit­ua­tion, and there­fore she is placed here.” I thought I had not heard right­ly, and re­peat­ed my ques­tion, “why she was here,” but got the same an­swer. Still I would rather be­lieve that I had mis­un­der­stood what was said--it would oth­er­wise be abom­inable.

Out­side, in the free sun­shine, it is the busy day; in here it is al­ways mid­night's still­ness. The spi­der that weaves its web down the wall, the swal­low which per­haps flies a sin­gle time close un­der the panes there high up in the wall--even the stranger's foot­step in the gallery, as he pass­es the cell-​doors, is an event in that mute, soli­tary life, where the pris­on­ers' thoughts are wrapped up in them­selves. One must read of the mar­tyr-​filled pris­ons of the In­qui­si­tion, of the crowds chained to­geth­er in the Bagnes, of the hot, lead cham­bers of Venice, and the black, wet gulf of the wells--be thor­ough­ly shak­en by these pic­tures of mis­ery, that we may with a qui­eter pul­sa­tion of the heart wan­der through the gallery of the prison-​cells. Here is light, here is air;--here it is more hu­mane. Where the sun­beam shines mild­ly in on the pris­on­er, there al­so will the ra­di­ance of God shine in­to the heart.

BEG­GAR-​BOYS.

* * * * *

The painter Cal­lot--who does not know the name, at least from Hoff­mann's “in Cal­lot's man­ner?”--has giv­en a few ex­cel­lent pic­tures of Ital­ian beg­gars. One of these is a fel­low, on whom the one rag lash­es the oth­er: he car­ries his huge bun­dle and a large flag with the in­scrip­tion, “Cap­itano de Ba­roni.” One does not think that there can in re­al­ity be found such a wan­der­ing rag-​shop, and we con­fess that in Italy it­self we have not seen any such; for the beg­gar-​boy there, whose whole cloth­ing of­ten con­sists on­ly of a waist­coat, has in it not suf­fi­cient cos­tume for such rags.

But we see it in the North. By the canal road be­tween the Ven­ern and Vi­gen, on the bare, dry rocky plain there stood, like beau­ty's this­tles in that poor land­scape, a cou­ple of beg­gar-​boys, so ragged, so tat­tered, so pic­turesque­ly dirty, that we thought we had Cal­lot's orig­inals be­fore us, or that it was an ar­range­ment of some in­dus­tri­ous par­ents, who would awak­en the trav­eller's at­ten­tion and benev­olence. Na­ture does not form such things: there was some­thing so bold in the hang­ing on of the rags, that each boy in­stant­ly be­came a Cap­itano de Ba­roni.

The younger of the two had some­thing round him that had cer­tain­ly once been the jack­et of a very cor­pu­lent man, for it reached al­most to the boy's an­cles; the whole hung fast by a piece of the sleeve and a sin­gle brace, made from the seam of what was now the rest of the lin­ing. It was very dif­fi­cult to see the tran­si­tion from jack­et to trowsers, the rags glid­ed so in­to one an­oth­er. The whole cloth­ing was ar­ranged so as to give him an air-​bath: there were draught holes on all sides and ends; a yel­low linen clout fas­tened to the nether­most re­gions seemed as if it were to sig­ni­fy a shirt. A very large straw hat, that had cer­tain­ly been driv­en over sev­er­al times, was stuck side­ways on his head, and al­lowed the boy's wiry, flax­en hair to grow freely through the open­ing where the crown should have been: the naked brown shoul­der and up­per part of the arm, which was just as brown, were the pret­ti­est of the whole.

The oth­er boy had on­ly a pair of trowsers on. They were al­so ragged, but the rags were bound fast in­to the pock­ets with pack­thread; one string round the an­cles, one un­der the knee, and an­oth­er round about the waist. He, how­ev­er, kept to­geth­er what he had, and that is al­ways re­spectable.

“Be off!” shout­ed the Cap­tain, from the ves­sel; and the boy with the tied-​up rags turned round, and we--yes, we saw noth­ing but pack­thread, in bows, gen­teel bows. The front part of the boy on­ly was cov­ered: he had on­ly the foreparts of trowsers--the rest was pack­thread, the bare, naked pack­thread.

VAD­STENE.

* * * * *

In Swe­den, it is not on­ly in the coun­try, but even in sev­er­al of the provin­cial towns, that one sees whole hous­es of grass turf or with roofs of grass turf; and some are so low that one might eas­ily spring up to the roof, and sit on the fresh greensward. In the ear­ly spring, whilst the fields are still cov­ered with snow, but which is melt­ed on the roof, the lat­ter af­fords the first an­nounce­ment of spring, with the young sprout­ing grass where the spar­row twit­ters: “Spring comes!”

Be­tween Mo­ta­la and Vad­stene, close by the high road, stands a grass-​turf house--one of the most pic­turesque. It has but one win­dow, broad­er than it is high, and a wild rose branch forms the cur­tain out­side.

We see it in the spring. The roof is so de­light­ful­ly fresh with grass, it has quite the tint of vel­vet; and close to it is the chim­ney, nay, even a cher­ry-​tree grows out of its side, now full of flow­ers: the wind shakes the leaves down on a lit­tle lamb that is teth­ered to the chim­ney. It is the on­ly lamb of the fam­ily. The old dame who lives here, lifts it up to its place her­self in the morn­ing and lifts it down again in the evening, to give it a place in the room. The roof can just bear the lit­tle lamb, but not more--this is an ex­pe­ri­ence and a cer­tain­ty. Last au­tumn--and at that time the grass turf roofs are cov­ered with flow­ers, most­ly blue and yel­low, the Swedish colours--there grew here a flow­er of a rare kind. It shone in the eyes of the old Pro­fes­sor, who on his botan­ical tour came past here. The Pro­fes­sor was quick­ly up on the roof, and just as quick was one of his boot­ed legs through it, and so was the oth­er leg, and then half of the Pro­fes­sor him­self--that part where the head does not sit; and as the house had no ceil­ing, his legs hov­ered right over the old dame's head, and that in very close con­tact. But now the roof is again whole; the fresh grass grows where learn­ing sank; the lit­tle lamb bleats up there, and the old dame stands be­neath, in the low door­way, with fold­ed hands, with a smile on her mouth, rich in re­mem­brances, leg­ends and songs, rich in her on­ly lamb on which the cher­ry-​tree strews its flow­er-​blos­soms in the warm spring sun.

As a back­ground to this pic­ture lies the Vet­tern--the bot­tom­less lake as the com­mon­al­ty be­lieve--with its trans­par­ent wa­ter, its sea-​like waves, and in calm, with “Hegring,” or fa­ta mor­gana on its steel-​like sur­face. We see Vad­stene palace and town, “the city of the dead,” as a Swedish au­thor has called it--Swe­den's Her­cu­la­neum, rem­inis­cence's city. The grass-​turf house must be our box, whence we see the rich me­men­tos pass be­fore us--memo­ri­als from the chron­icle of saints, the chron­icle of kings and the love songs that still live with the old dame, who stands in her low house there, where the lamb crops the grass on the roof. We hear her, and we see with her eyes; we go from the grass-​turf house up to the town, to the oth­er grass-​turf hous­es, where poor wom­en sit and make lace, once the cel­ebrat­ed work of the rich nuns here in the clois­ter's wealthy time.

How still, soli­tary and grass-​grown are these streets! We stop by an old wall, mouldy-​green for cen­turies al­ready. With­in it stood the clois­ter; now there is but one of its wings re­main­ing. There, with­in that now poor gar­den still bloom Saint Brid­get's leek, and once ran flow­ers. King John and the Abbess, Ana Gylte, wan­dered one evening there, and the King cun­ning­ly asked: “If the maid­ens in the clois­ter were nev­er tempt­ed by love?” and the Abbess an­swered, as she point­ed to a bird that just then flew over them: “It may hap­pen! One can­not pre­vent the bird from fly­ing over the gar­den; but one may sure­ly pre­vent it from build­ing its nest there!”

Thus thought the pi­ous Abbess, and there have been sis­ters who thought and act­ed like her. But it is quite as sure that in the same gar­den there stood a pear-​tree, called the tree of death; and the leg­end says of it, that who­ev­er ap­proached and plucked its fruit would soon die. Red and yel­low pears weighed down its branch­es to the ground. The trunk was un­usu­al­ly large; the grass grew high around it, and many a morn­ing hour was it seen trod­den down. Who had been here dur­ing the night?

A storm arose one evening from the lake, and the next morn­ing the large tree was found thrown down; the trunk was bro­ken, and out from it there rolled in­fants' bones--the white bones of mur­dered chil­dren lay shin­ing in the grass.

The pi­ous but love-​sick sis­ter In­grid, this Vad­stene's Heloise, writes to her heart's beloved, Ax­el Nil­sun--for the chron­icles have pre­served it for us:--

“Broderne og Sys­tarne le­ka paa Spil, drikke Vin och dansa med hvaran­dra i Tradgår­den!”

(The broth­ers and sis­ters amuse them­selves in play, drink wine and dance with one an­oth­er in the gar­den).

These words may ex­plain to us the his­to­ry of the pear-​tree: one is led to think of the or­gies of the nun-​phan­toms in “Robert le Di­able,” the daugh­ters of sin on con­se­crat­ed ground. But “judge not, lest ye be judged,” said the purest and best of men that was born of wom­an. We will read Sis­ter In­grid's let­ter, sent se­cret­ly to him she tru­ly loved. In it lies the his­to­ry of many, clear and hu­man to us:--

“Jag djer­fues for in­gen utan for dig al­lena bekän­na, att jag for­mår il­ia ån­da mit Ave Maria eller läsa mit Pa­ter­nos­ter, utan du kom­mer mig ichå­gen. Ja i sjelfa messen kom­mer mig fore dit täck­leli­ga An­sigte och vart kårli­ga om­gange. Jag ty­ck­er jag kan icke skif­ta mig for n genann an Men­niska, jungfru Maria, St. Bir­git­ta och him­me­lens Härskaror skalla kanske straffe mig hår­far? Men du vet det val, hjer­tans käraste att jag med fri vil­ja och up­psät aldrig dis­sa reglar sam­tykt. Mine foräl­dr­er haf­va väl min kropp i dette fan­gelset in­satt, men hjertät kan in­tet så snart från verlden ater kalles!”

(I dare not con­fess to any oth­er than to thee, that I am not able to re­peat my Ave Maria or read my Pa­ter­nos­ter, with­out call­ing thee to mind. Nay, even in the mass it­self thy come­ly face ap­pears, and our af­fec­tion­ate in­ter­course re­curs to me. It seems to me that I can­not con­fess to any oth­er hu­man be­ing--the Vir­gin Mary, St. Brid­get, and the whole host of heav­en will per­haps pun­ish me for it. But thou know­est well, my heart's beloved, that I have nev­er con­sent­ed with my free-​will to these rules. My par­ents, it is true, have placed my body in this prison, but the heart can­not so soon be weaned from the world).

How touch­ing is the dis­tress of young hearts! It of­fers it­self to us from the mouldy parch­ment, it re­sounds in old songs. Beg the grey-​haired old dame in the grass turf-​house to sing to thee of the young, heavy sor­row, of the sav­ing an­gel--and the an­gel came in many shapes. You will hear the song of the clois­ter rob­bery; of Herr Carl who was sick to death; when the young nun en­tered the corpse cham­ber, sat down by his feet and whis­pered how sin­cere­ly she had loved him, and the knight rose from his bier and bore her away to mar­riage and plea­sure in Copen­hagen. And all the nuns of the clois­ter sang: “Christ grant that such an an­gel were to come, and take both me and thee!”

The old dame will al­so sing for thee of the beau­ti­ful Og­da and Oluf Tyste; and at once the clois­ter is re­vived in its splen­dour, the bells ring, stone hous­es arise--they even rise from the wa­ters of the Vet­tern: the lit­tle town be­comes church­es and tow­ers. The streets are crowd­ed with great, with sober, well-​dressed per­sons. Down the stairs of the town hall de­scends with a sword by his side and in fur-​lined cloak, the most wealthy cit­izen of Vad­stene, the mer­chant Michael. By his side is his young, beau­ti­ful daugh­ter Ag­da, rich­ly-​dressed and hap­py; youth in beau­ty, youth in mind. All eyes are turned on the rich man--and yet for­get him for her, the beau­ti­ful. Life's best bless­ings await her; her thoughts soar up­wards, her mind as­pires; her fu­ture is hap­pi­ness! These were the thoughts of the many--and amongst the many there was one who saw her as Romeo saw Juli­et, as Adam saw Eve in the gar­den of Par­adise. That one was Oluf, the hand­somest young man, but poor as Ag­da was rich. And he must con­ceal his love; but as on­ly he lived in it, on­ly he knew of it; so he be­came mute and still, and af­ter months had passed away, the town's folk called him Oluf Tyste (Oluf the silent).

Nights and days he com­bat­ed his love; nights and days he suf­fered in­ex­press­ible tor­ment; but at last--one dew-​drop or one sun­beam alone is nec­es­sary for the ripe rose to open its leaves--he must tell it to Ag­da. And she lis­tened to his words, was ter­ri­fied, and sprang away; but the thought re­mained with him, and the heart went af­ter the thought and stayed there; she re­turned his love strong­ly and tru­ly, but in mod­esty and hon­our; and there­fore poor Oluf came to the rich mer­chant and sought his daugh­ter's hand. But Michael shut the bolts of his door and his heart too. He would nei­ther lis­ten to tears nor sup­pli­ca­tions, but on­ly to his own will; and as lit­tle Ag­da al­so kept firm to her will, her fa­ther placed her in Vad­stene clois­ter. And Oluf was obliged to sub­mit, as it is record­ed in the old song, that they cast

“----den svar­ta Muld Alt öfver skön Ag­das arm.”[B]

[Foot­note B: The black mould over the beau­ti­ful Ag­da's arm.]

She was dead to him and the world. But one night, in tem­pes­tu­ous weath­er, whilst the rain streamed down, Oluf Tyste came to the clois­ter wall, threw his rope-​lad­der over it, and how­ev­er high the Vet­tern lift­ed its waves, Oluf and lit­tle Ag­da flew away over its fath­om­less depths that au­tumn night.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing the nuns missed lit­tle Ag­da. What a scream­ing and shout­ing--the clois­ter is dis­graced! The Abbess and Michael the mer­chant swore that vengeance and death should reach the fugi­tives. Lind­kjöping's se­vere bish­op, Hans Brask, ful­mi­nat­ed his ban over them, but they were al­ready across the wa­ters of the Vet­tern; they had reached the shores of the Ven­ern, they were on Kin­nakul­la, with one of Oluf's friends, who owned the de­light­ful Hellekis.

Here their mar­riage was to be cel­ebrat­ed. The guests were in­vit­ed, and a monk from the neigh­bour­ing clois­ter of Hus­aby, was fetched to mar­ry them. Then came the mes­sen­ger with the bish­op's ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and this--but not the mar­riage cer­emo­ny--was read to them.

All turned away from them ter­ri­fied. The own­er of the house, the friend of Oluf's youth, point­ed to the open door and bade them de­part in­stant­ly. Oluf on­ly re­quest­ed a car and horse where­with to con­vey away his ex­haust­ed Ag­da; but they threw sticks and stones af­ter them, and Oluf was obliged to bear his poor bride in his arms far in­to the for­est.

Heavy and bit­ter was their wan­der­ing. At last, how­ev­er, they found a home: it was in Guld­kro­ken, in West Goth­land. An hon­est old cou­ple gave them shel­ter and a place by the hearth: they stayed there till Christ­mas, and on that holy eve there was to be a re­al Christ­mas fes­ti­val. The guests were in­vit­ed, the fur­men­ty set forth; and now came the cler­gy­man of the parish to say prayers; but whilst he spoke he recog­nised Oluf and Ag­da, and the prayer be­came a curse up­on the two. Anx­iety and ter­ror came over all; they drove the ex­com­mu­ni­cat­ed pair out of the house, out in­to the bit­ing frost, where the wolves went in flocks, and the bear was no stranger. And Oluf felled wood in the for­est, and kin­dled a fire to fright­en away the nox­ious an­imals and keep life in Ag­da--he thought that she must die. But just then she was stronger of the two.

“Our Lord is almighty and gra­cious; He will not leave us!” said she. “He has one here on the earth, one who can save us, one, who has proved like us, what it is to wan­der amongst en­emies and wild an­imals. It is the King--Gus­tavus Vasa! He has lan­guished like us!--gone astray in Dale­car­lia in the deep snow! he has suf­fered, tried, knows it--he can and he will help us!”

The King was in Vad­stene. He had called to­geth­er the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the king­dom there. He dwelt in the clois­ter it­self, even there where lit­tle Ag­da, if the King did not grant her par­don, must suf­fer what the an­gry Abbess dared to ad­vise: penance and a painful death await­ed her.

Through forests and by un­trod­den paths, in storm and snow, Oluf and Ag­da came to Vad­stene. They were seen: some showed fear, oth­ers in­sult­ed and threat­ened them. The guard of the clois­ter made the sign of the cross on see­ing the two sin­ners, who dared to ask ad­mis­sion to the King.

“I will re­ceive and hear all,” was his roy­al mes­sage, and the two lovers fell trem­bling at his feet.

And the King looked mild­ly on them; and as he long had had the in­ten­tion to hu­mil­iate the proud Bish­op of Lind­kjöping, the mo­ment was not un­favourable to them; the King lis­tened to the re­la­tion of their lives and suf­fer­ings, and gave them his word, that the ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be an­nulled. He then placed their hands one in the oth­er, and said that the priest should al­so do the same soon; and he promised them his roy­al pro­tec­tion and favour.

And old Michael, the mer­chant, who feared the King's anger, with which he was threat­ened, be­came so mild and gen­tle, that he, as the King com­mand­ed, not on­ly opened his house and his arms to Oluf and Ag­da, but dis­played all his rich­es on the wed­ding-​day of the young cou­ple. The mar­riage cer­emo­ny took place in the clois­ter church, whith­er the King him­self led the bride, and where, by his com­mand, all the nuns were obliged to be present, in or­der to give still more ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal pomp to the fes­ti­val. And many a heart there silent­ly re­called the old song about the clois­ter rob­bery and looked at Oluf Tyste:

“Krist gif en sadan An­gel Kom, tog båd mig och dig!”[C]

[Foot­note C: Christ grant that such an an­gel were to come, and take both me and thee!]

The sun now shines through the open clois­ter-​gate. Let truth shine in­to our hearts; let us like­wise ac­knowl­edge the clois­ter's share of God's in­flu­ence. Ev­ery cell was not quite a prison, where the im­pris­oned bird flew in de­spair against the win­dow-​pane; here some­times was sun­shine from God in the heart and mind, from hence al­so went out com­fort and bless­ings. If the dead could rise from their graves they would bear wit­ness there­of: if we saw them in the moon­light lift the tomb­stone and step forth to­wards the clois­ter, they would say: “Blessed be these walls!” if we saw them in the sun­light hov­er­ing in the rain­bow's gleam, they would say: “Blessed be these walls!”

How changed the rich, mighty Vad­stene clois­ter, where the first daugh­ters of the land were nuns, where the young no­bles of the land wore the monk's cowl. Hith­er they made pil­grim­ages from Italy, from Spain: from far dis­tant lands, in snow and cold, the pil­grim came bare­foot­ed to the clois­ter door. Pi­ous men and wom­en bore the corpse of St. Brid­get hith­er in their hands from Rome, and all the church-​bells in all the lands and towns they passed through, tolled when they came.

We go to­wards the clois­ter--the re­mains of the old ru­in. We en­ter St. Brid­get's cell--it still stands un­changed. It is low, small and nar­row: four diminu­tive frames form the whole win­dow, but one can look from it out over the whole gar­den, and far away over the Vet­tern. We see the same beau­ti­ful land­scape that the fair Saint saw as a frame around her God, whilst she read her morn­ing and evening prayers. In the tile-​stone of the floor there is en­graved a rosary: be­fore it, on her bare knees, she said a pa­ter-​nos­ter at ev­ery pearl there point­ed out. Here is no chim­ney--no hearth, no place for it. Cold and soli­tary it is, and was, here where the world's most far-​famed wom­an dwelt, she who by her own sagac­ity, and by her con­tem­po­raries was raised to the throne of fe­male saints.

From this poor cell we en­ter one still mean­er, one still more nar­row and cold, where the faint light of day strug­gles in through a long crevice in the wall. Glass there nev­er was here: the wind blows in here. Who was she who once dwelt in this cell?

In our times they have ar­ranged light, warm cham­bers close by: a whole range opens in­to the broad pas­sage. We hear mer­ry songs; laugh­ter we hear, and weep­ing: strange fig­ures nod to us from these cham­bers. Who are these? The rich clois­ter of St. Brid­get's, whence kings made pil­grim­ages, is now Swe­den's mad-​house. And here the nu­mer­ous trav­ellers write their names on the wall. We has­ten from the hideous scene in­to the splen­did clois­ter church,--the blue church, as it is called, from the blue stones of which the walls are built--and here, where the large stones of the floor cov­er great men, abbess­es and queens, on­ly one mon­ument is no­tice­able, that of a knight­ly fig­ure carved in stone, which stands aloft be­fore the al­tar. It is that of the in­sane Duke Mag­nus. Is it not as if he stepped forth from amongst the dead, and an­nounced that such af­flict­ed crea­tures were to be where St. Brid­get once ruled?

Pace light­ly over the floor! Thy foot treads on the graves of the pi­ous: the flat, mod­est stone here in the cor­ner cov­ers the dust of the no­ble Queen Philip­pa. She, that mighty Eng­land's daugh­ter, the great-​heart­ed, the im­mor­tal wom­an, who with wis­dom and courage de­fend­ed her con­sort's throne, that con­sort who rude­ly and bar­barous­ly cast her off! Vad­stene's clois­ter gave her shel­ter--the grave here gave her rest.

We seek one grave. It is not known--it is for­got­ten, as she was in her life­time. Who was she? The clois­tered sis­ter Eliz­abeth, daugh­ter of the Hol­stein Count, and once the bride of King Hakon of Nor­way. Sweet crea­ture! she proud­ly--but not with un­be­com­ing pride--ad­vanced in her bridal dress, and with her court ladies, up to her roy­al con­sort. Then came King Valde­mar, who by force and fraud stopped the voy­age, and in­duced Hakon to mar­ry Mar­garet, then eleven years of age, who there­by got the crown of Nor­way. Eliz­abeth was sent to Vad­stene clois­ter, where her will was not asked. Af­ter­wards when Mar­garet--who just­ly oc­cu­pies a great place in the his­to­ry of Scan­di­navia, but on­ly com­par­ative­ly a small one in the hearts--sat on the throne, pow­er­ful and re­spect­ed, vis­it­ed the then flour­ish­ing Vad­stene, where the Abbess of the clois­ter was St. Brid­get's grand-​daugh­ter, her child­hood's friend, Mar­garet kissed ev­ery monk on the cheek. The leg­end is well known about him, the hand­somest, who there­upon blushed. She kissed ev­ery nun on the hand, and al­so Eliz­abeth, her, whom she would on­ly see here. Whose heart throbbed loud­est at that kiss? Poor Eliz­abeth, thy grave is for­got­ten, but not the wrong thou didst suf­fer.

We now en­ter the sac­risty. Here, un­der a dou­ble cof­fin lid, rests an age's holi­est saint in the North, Vad­stene clois­ter's di­adem and lus­tre--St. Brid­get.

On the night she was born, says the leg­end, there ap­peared a beam­ing cloud in the heav­ens, and on it stood a ma­jes­tic vir­gin, who said: “Of Birg­er is born a daugh­ter whose ad­mirable voice shall be heard over the whole world.” This del­icate and sin­gu­lar child grew up in the cas­tle of her fa­ther, Knight Brake. Vi­sions and rev­ela­tions ap­peared to her, and these in­creased when she, on­ly thir­teen years of age, was mar­ried to the rich Ulf Gud­mund­sen, and be­came the moth­er of many chil­dren. “Thou shalt be my bride and my agent,” she heard Christ say, and ev­ery one of her ac­tions was, as she averred, ac­cord­ing to his an­nounce­ment. Af­ter this she went to Nid­daros, to St. Oluf's holy shrine: she then went to Ger­many, France, Spain and Rome.

Some­times hon­oured and some­times mocked, she trav­elled, even to Cyprus and Pales­tine. Con­scious of ap­proach­ing death, she again reached Rome, where her last rev­ela­tion was, that she should rest in Vad­stene, and that this clois­ter es­pe­cial­ly should be sanc­ti­fied by God's love. The splen­dour of the North­ern lights does not ex­tend so far around the earth as the glo­ry of this fair saint, who now is but a leg­end. We bend with silent, se­ri­ous thoughts be­fore the moul­der­ing re­mains in the cof­fin here--those of St. Brid­get and her daugh­ter St. Cather­ine; but even of these the re­mem­brance will be ex­tin­guished. There is a tra­di­tion amongst the peo­ple, that in the time of the Ref­or­ma­tion the re­al re­mains were car­ried off to a clois­ter in Poland, but this is not cer­tain­ly known. Vad­stene, at least, is not the repos­ito­ry of St. Brid­get and her daugh­ter's dust.

Vad­stene was once great and glo­ri­ous. Great was the clois­ter's pow­er, as St. Brid­get saw it in the prospect of death. Where is now the clois­ter's might? It re­pos­es un­der the tomb-​stones--the graves alone speak of it. Here, un­der our feet, on­ly a few steps from the church door, is a stone in which are carved four­teen rings: they an­nounce that four­teen farms were giv­en to the clois­ter, in or­der that he who moul­ders here might have this place, four­teen feet with­in the church door. It was Boa John­son Grip, a great sin­ner; but the clois­ter's pow­er was greater than that of all sin­ners: the stone on his grave records it with no or­di­nary sig­nif­icance of lan­guage.

Gus­tavus, the first Vasa, was the sun--the rul­ing pow­er: the bright­ness of the clois­ter star must needs pale be­fore him.

There yet stands a stone out­line of Vad­stene's rich palace which he erect­ed, with tow­ers and spires, close by the clois­ter. At a far dis­tance on the Vet­tern, it looks as if it still stood in all its splen­dour; near, in moon­light nights, it ap­pears the same un­changed ed­ifice, for the fath­om-​thick walls yet re­main; the carv­ings over the win­dows and gates stand forth in light and shade, and the moat round about, which is on­ly sep­arat­ed from the Vet­tern by the nar­row car­riage road, takes the re­flec­tion of the im­mense build­ing as a mir­rored im­age.

We now stand be­fore it in day­light. Not a pane of glass is to be found in it; planks and old doors are nailed fast to the win­dow frames; the balls alone still stand on the two tow­ers, broad, heavy, and re­sem­bling colos­sal toad­stools. The iron spire of the one still tow­ers aloft in the air; the oth­er spire is bent: like the hands on a sun-​di­al it shows the time--the time that is gone. The oth­er two balls are half fall­en down; lambs frisk about be­tween the beams, and the space be­low is used as a cow-​stall.

The arms over the gate­way have nei­ther spot nor blem­ish: they seem as if carved yes­ter­day; the walls are firm, and the stairs look like new. In the palace yard, far above the gate­way, the great fold­ing door was opened, whence once the min­strels stepped out and played a wel­come greet­ing from the bal­cony, but even this is bro­ken down: we go through the spa­cious kitchen, from whose white walls, a sketch of Vad­stene palace, ships, and flow­er­ing trees, in red chalk, still at­tract the eye.

Here where they cooked and roast­ed, is now a large emp­ty space: even the chim­ney is gone; and from the ceil­ing where thick, heavy beams of tim­ber have been placed close to one an­oth­er, there hangs the dust-​cov­ered cob­web, as if the whole were a mass of dark grey drop­ping stones.

We walk from hall to hall, and the wood­en shut­ters are opened to ad­mit day­light. All is vast, lofty, spa­cious, and adorned with an­tique chim­ney-​pieces, and from ev­ery win­dow there is a charm­ing prospect over the clear, deep Vet­tern. In one of the cham­bers in the ground floor sat the in­sane Duke Mag­nus, (whose stone im­age we late­ly saw con­spic­uous in the church) hor­ri­fied at hav­ing signed his own broth­er's death-​war­rant; dream­ing­ly in love with the por­trait of Scot­land's Queen, Mary Stu­art; pay­ing court to her and ex­pect­ing to see the ship, with her, glide over the sea to­wards Vad­stene. And she came--he thought she came--in the form of a mer­maid, rais­ing her­self aloft on the wa­ter: she nod­ded and called to him, and the un­for­tu­nate Duke sprang out of the win­dow down to her. We gazed out of this win­dow, and be­low it we saw the deep moat in which he sank.

We en­ter the yeo­man's hall, and the coun­cil hall, where, in the re­cess­es of the win­dows, on each side, are paint­ed yeomen in strange dress­es, half Dale­car­lians and half Ro­man war­riors.

In this once rich sa­loon, Svan­ta Steen­son Sture knelt to Swe­den's Queen, Cather­ine Léjon­hufved: she was Svan­ta Sture's love, be­fore Gus­tavus Vasa's will made her his Queen. The lovers met here: the walls are silent as to what they said, when the door was opened and the King en­tered, and saw the kneel­ing Sture, and asked what it meant. Mar­garet an­swered crafti­ly and hasti­ly: “He de­mands my sis­ter Martha's hand in mar­riage!” and the King gave Svan­ta Sture the bride the Queen had asked for him.

We are now in the roy­al bridal cham­ber, whith­er King Gus­tavus led his third con­sort. Cather­ine Steen­bock, al­so an­oth­er's bride, the bride of the Knight Gus­tavus. It is a sad sto­ry.

Gus­tavus of the three ros­es, was in his youth hon­oured by the King, who sent him on a mis­sion to the Em­per­or Charles the Fifth. He re­turned adorned with the Em­per­or's cost­ly gold­en chain--young, hand­some, joy­ous and rich­ly clad, he re­turned home, and knew well how to re­late the mag­nif­icence and charms of for­eign lands: young and old lis­tened to him with ad­mi­ra­tion, but young Cather­ine most of all. Through him the world in her eyes be­came twice as large, rich, and beau­ti­ful; they be­came dear to each oth­er, and their par­ents blessed their love. The love-​pledge was to be drunk,--when there came a mes­sage from the King, that the young Knight must, with­out de­lay, again bear a let­ter and greet­ing to the Em­per­or Charles. The be­trothed pair sep­arat­ed with heavy hearts, but with a promise of mu­tu­al in­vi­olable troth. The King then in­vit­ed Cather­ine's par­ents to come to Vad­stene palace. Cather­ine was obliged to ac­com­pa­ny them; here King Gus­tavus saw her for the first time, and the old man fell in love with her.

Christ­mas was kept with great hi­lar­ity; there were song and harp in these halls, and the King him­self played the lute. When the time came for de­par­ture, the King said to Cather­ine's moth­er, that he would mar­ry the young girl.

“But she is the bride of the Knight Gus­tavus!” stam­mered the moth­er.

“Young hearts soon for­get their sor­rows,” thought the King. The moth­er thought so like­wise, and as there chanced to come a let­ter the same day and hour from the young Knight Gus­tavus, Fra Steen­bock com­mit­ted it to the flames. All the let­ters that came af­ter­wards and all the let­ters that Cather­ine wrote, were burnt by her moth­er, and doubts and evil re­ports were whis­pered to Cather­ine, that she was for­got­ten abroad by her young lover. But Cather­ine was se­cure and firm in her be­lief of him. In the spring her par­ents made known to her the King's pro­pos­al, and praised her good for­tune. She an­swered se­ri­ous­ly and de­ter­mined­ly, “No!” and when they re­peat­ed to her that it should and must hap­pen, she re­peat­ed­ly screamed in the great­est an­guish, “No no!” and sank ex­haust­ed at her fa­ther and moth­er's feet, and humbly prayed them not to force her.

And the moth­er wrote to the King that all was go­ing on well, but that her child was bash­ful. The King now an­nounced his vis­it to Tor­pe, where her par­ents, the Steen­bocks, dwelt. The King was re­ceived with re­joic­ing and feast­ing, but Cather­ine had dis­ap­peared and the King him­self was the suc­cess­ful one who found her. She sat dis­solved in tears un­der the wild rose tree, where she had bid­den farewell to her heart's beloved.

There was mer­ry song and joy­ous life in the old man­sion; Cather­ine alone was sor­row­ful and silent. Her moth­er had brought her all her jew­els and or­na­ments, but she wore none of them: she had put on her sim­plest dress, but in this she on­ly fas­ci­nat­ed the old King the more, and he would have that their be­trothal should take place be­fore he de­part­ed. Fra Steen­bock wrest­ed the Knight Gus­tavus's ring from Cather­ine's fin­ger, and whis­pered in her ear: “It will cost the friend of thy youth his life and for­tune; the King can do ev­ery­thing!” And the par­ents led her to King Gus­tavus, showed him that the ring was from the maid­en's hand; and the King placed his own gold­en ring on her fin­ger in the oth­er's stead. In the month of Au­gust the flag waved from the mast of the roy­al yacht which bore the young Queen over the Vet­tern. Princes and knights, in cost­ly robes, stood by the shore, mu­sic played, and the peo­ple shout­ed. Cather­ine made her en­try in­to Vad­stene Palace. The nup­tials were cel­ebrat­ed the fol­low­ing day, and the walls were hung with silk and vel­vet, with cloth of gold and sil­ver! It was a fes­ti­val and re­joic­ing. Poor Cather­ine!

In Novem­ber, the Knight Gus­tavus of the three ros­es, re­turned home. His pru­dent, no­ble moth­er, Christi­na Gylden­st­jerne, met him at the fron­tiers of the king­dom, pre­pared him, con­soled him, and soothed his mind: she ac­com­pa­nied him by slow stages to Vad­stene, where they were both in­vit­ed by the King to re­main dur­ing the Christ­mas fes­ti­val. They ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion, but the Knight Gus­tavus was not to be moved to come to the King's ta­ble or any oth­er place where the Queen was to be found. The Christ­mas ap­proached. One Sun­day evening, Gus­tavus was dis­con­so­late; the Knight was long sleep­less, and at day­break he went in­to the church, to the tomb of his an­ces­tress, St. Brid­get. There he saw, at a few paces from him, a fe­male kneel­ing be­fore Philip­pa's tomb. It was the Queen he saw; their eyes met, and Gus­tavus has­tened away. She then men­tioned his name, begged him to stay, and com­mand­ed him to do so.

“I com­mand it, Gus­tavus!” said she; “the Queen com­mands it.”

And she spoke to him; they con­versed to­geth­er, and it be­came clear to them both what had been done against them and with them; and she showed him a with­ered rose which she kept in her bo­som, and she bent to­wards him and gave him a kiss, the last--their eter­nal leave-​tak­ing--and then they sep­arat­ed. He died short­ly af­ter­wards, but Cather­ine was stronger, yet not strong enough for her heart's deep sor­row. Here, in the bed-​cham­ber, in un­easy dreams, says the sto­ry, she be­trayed in sleep the con­stant thought of her heart, her youth's love, to the King, say­ing: “Gus­tavus I love dear­ly; but the rose--I shall nev­er for­get.”

From a se­cret door we walk out on to the open ram­part, where the sheep now graze; the cat­tle are driv­en in­to one of the ru­ined tow­ers. We see the palace-​yard, and look from it up to a win­dow. Come, thou birch-​wood's thrush, and war­ble thy lays; sing, whilst we re­cal the bit­ter­ness of love in the rude--the chival­rous ages.

Un­der that win­dow there stood, one cold win­ter's night, wrapped in his white cloak, the young Count John of East Fries­land. His broth­er had mar­ried Gus­tavus Vasa's el­dest daugh­ter, and de­part­ed with her to his home: wher­ev­er they came on their jour­ney, there was mirth and feast­ing, but the most splen­did was at Vad­stene Palace. Ce­cil­ia, the King's younger daugh­ter, had ac­com­pa­nied her sis­ter hith­er, and was here, as ev­ery­where, the first, the most beau­ti­ful in the chase as well as at the tour­na­ment. The win­ter be­gan di­rect­ly on their ar­rival at Vad­stene; the cold was se­vere, and the Vet­tern frozen over. One day, Ce­cil­ia rode out on the ice and it broke; her broth­er, Prince Erik, came gal­lop­ing to her aid. John, of East Fries­land, was al­ready there, and begged Erik to dis­mount, as he would, be­ing on horse­back, break the ice still more. Erik would not lis­ten to him, and as John saw that there was no time for dis­pute, he dragged Erik from the horse, sprang in­to the wa­ter him­self, and saved Ce­cil­ia. Prince Erik was fu­ri­ous with wrath, and no one could ap­pease him. Ce­cil­ia lay long in a fever, and dur­ing its con­tin­uance, her love for him who had saved her life in­creased. She re­cov­ered, and they un­der­stood each oth­er, but the day of sep­ara­tion ap­proached. It was on the night pre­vi­ous that John, in his white cloak, as­cend­ed from stone to stone, hold­ing by his silk lad­der, un­til he at length en­tered the win­dow; here they would con­verse for hours in all mod­esty and hon­our, speak about his re­turn and their nup­tials the fol­low­ing year; and whilst they sat there the door was hewn down with ax­es. Prince Erik en­tered, and raised the mur­der­ous weapon to slay the young Lord of East Fries­land, when Ce­cil­ia threw her­self be­tween them. But Erik com­mand­ed his me­nials to seize the lover, whom they put in irons and cast in­to a low, dark hole, that cold frosty night, and the next day, with­out even giv­ing him a morsel of bread or a drop of wa­ter, he was thrown on to a peas­ant's sledge, and dragged be­fore the King to re­ceive judg­ment. Erik him­self cast his sis­ter's fair name and fame in­to slan­der's bab­bling pool, and high dames and cit­izens' wives washed unspot­ted in­no­cence in calum­ny's im­pure wa­ters.

It is on­ly when the large wood­en shut­ters of the sa­loons are opened, that the sun­beams stray in here; the dust ac­cu­mu­lates in their twist­ed pil­lars, and is on­ly just dis­turbed by the draught of air. In here is a ware­house for corn. Great fat rats make their nests in these halls. The spi­der spins mourn­ing ban­ners un­der the beams. This is Vad­stene Palace!

We are filled with sad thoughts. We turn our eyes from this place to­wards the low­ly house with the grass-​turf roof, where the lit­tle lamb crops the grass un­der the cher­ry-​tree, which strews its fra­grant leaves over it. Our thoughts de­scend from the rich clois­ter, from the proud palace, to the grassy turf, and the sun fades away over the grassy turf, and the old dame goes to sleep un­der the grassy turf, be­low which lie the mighty memo­ri­als of Vad­stene.

THE PUP­PET-​SHOW­MAN.

* * * * *

There was an el­der­ly man on the steam-​boat, with such a con­tent­ed face that, if it did not lie, he must be the hap­pi­est man on earth. That he in­deed said he was: I heard it from his own mouth. He was a Dane, con­se­quent­ly my coun­try­man, and was a trav­el­ling the­atri­cal man­ag­er. He had the whole _corps dra­ma­tique_ with him; they lay in a large chest--he was a pup­pet show­man. His in­nate good-​hu­mour, said he, had been tried by a poly­tech­nic can­di­date,[D] and from this ex­per­iment on his pa­tience he had be­come com­plete­ly hap­py. I did not un­der­stand him at the mo­ment, but he soon laid the whole case clear­ly be­fore me; and here it is.

[Foot­note D: One who has passed his ex­am­ina­tion at a poly­tech­nic school.]

“It was in Slagelse,” said he, "that I gave a rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the par­son­age, and had a bril­liant house and a bril­liant com­pa­ny of spec­ta­tors, all young per­sons, un­con­firmed, ex­cept a few old ladies. Then there came a per­son dressed in black, hav­ing the ap­pear­ance of a stu­dent: he sat down amongst the oth­ers, laughed quite at the prop­er time, and ap­plaud­ed quite cor­rect­ly; that was an un­usu­al spec­ta­tor!

"I was bent on as­cer­tain­ing who he was, and then I heard that he was a can­di­date from the poly­tech­nic school, who had been sent out to in­struct peo­ple in the provinces. At eight o'clock my rep­re­sen­ta­tion was over; the chil­dren were to go ear­ly to bed, and one must think of the con­ve­nience of the pub­lic.

"At nine o'clock the can­di­date be­gan his lec­tures and ex­per­iments, and now _I_ was one of _his_ au­di­to­ry.

"It was re­mark­able to hear and look at! The chief part of it went over my head and in­to the par­son's, as one says. Can it be pos­si­ble, thought I, that we hu­man be­ings can find out such things? in that case, we must al­so be able to hold out longer, be­fore we are put in­to the earth. It was mere­ly small mir­acles that he per­formed, and yet all as easy as an old stock­ing--quite from na­ture. In the time of Moses and the prophets, such a poly­tech­nic can­di­date would have been one of the wise men of the land, and in the Mid­dle Ages he would have been burnt. I could not sleep the whole night, and as I gave a rep­re­sen­ta­tion the next evening, and the can­di­date was there again, I got in­to a re­al mer­ry hu­mour.

"I have heard of an ac­tor, who when play­ing the lovers' parts, on­ly thought of one of the spec­ta­tors; he played for _her_ alone, and for­got all the rest of the house; the poly­tech­nic can­di­date was my _her_, my on­ly spec­ta­tor, for whom I played. And when the per­for­mance was over, all the pup­pets were called for­ward, and I was in­vit­ed by the poly­tech­nic can­di­date to take a glass of wine with him; and he spoke about my com­edy, and I of his sci­ence; and I be­lieve we each de­rived equal plea­sure from the oth­er. But yet I had the ad­van­tage, for there was so much in his per­for­mance that he could not ac­count for: as for in­stance, that a piece of iron which falls through a spi­ral line, be­comes mag­net­ic,--well, how is that? The spir­it comes over it, but whence does it come from? it is just as with the hu­man be­ings of this world, I think; our Lord lets them fall through the spi­ral line of time, and the spir­it comes over them--and there stands a Napoleon, a Luther, or a sim­ilar per­son.

"'All na­ture is a se­ries of mir­acles,' said the can­di­date, 'but we are so ac­cus­tomed to them that we call them things of ev­ery-​day life.' And he spoke and he ex­plained, so that it seemed at last as if he lift­ed my scull, and I hon­est­ly con­fessed, that if I were not an old fel­low, I would go di­rect­ly to the poly­tech­nic school, and learn to ex­am­ine the world in the sum­mer, al­though I was one of the hap­pi­est of men.

"'One of the hap­pi­est!' said he, and it was just as if he tast­ed it. 'Are you hap­py?' 'Yes!' said I, 'I am hap­py, and I am wel­come in all the towns I come to with my com­pa­ny! There is cer­tain­ly one wish, that comes now and then like a night-​mare, which rides on my good-​hu­mour, and that is to be a the­atri­cal man­ag­er for a liv­ing com­pa­ny--a com­pa­ny of re­al men and wom­en.'

"'You wish to have your pup­pets an­imat­ed; you would have them be­come re­al ac­tors and ac­tress­es,' said he, 'and your­self be the man­ag­er? you then think that you would be per­fect­ly hap­py?'

"Now he did not think so, but I thought so; and we talked for and against; and we were just as near in our opin­ions as be­fore. But we clinked our glass­es to­geth­er, and the wine was very good; but there was witchcraft in it, or else the short and the long of the sto­ry would be--that I was in­tox­icat­ed.

"That I was not; my eyes were quite clear; it was as if there was sun­shine in the room, and it shone out of the face of the poly­tech­nic can­di­date, so that I be­gan to think of the old gods in my youth, and when they went about in the world. And I told him so, and then he smiled, and I durst have sworn that he was a dis­guised god, or one of the fam­ily!--And he was so--my first wish was to be ful­filled: the pup­pets be­come liv­ing be­ings and I the man­ag­er of men and wom­en. We drank that it should be so! he put all my pup­pets in the wood­en chest, fas­tened it on my back, and then let me fall through a spi­ral line. I can still hear how I came down, slap! I lay on the floor, that is quite sure and cer­tain, and the whole com­pa­ny sprang out of the chest. The spir­it had come over us all to­geth­er; all the pup­pets had be­come ex­cel­lent artists--they said so them­selves--and I was the man­ag­er. Ev­ery­thing was in or­der for the first rep­re­sen­ta­tion; the whole com­pa­ny must speak with me, and the pub­lic al­so. The fe­male dancer said, that if she did not stand on one leg, the house would be in an up­roar: she was mas­ter of the whole and would be treat­ed as such.

"She who played the queen, would al­so be treat­ed as a queen when off the stage, or else she should get out of prac­tice, and he who was em­ployed to come in with a let­ter made him­self as im­por­tant as the first lover. 'For,' said he, 'the small are of just as much im­por­tance as the great, in an artis­tic whole.' Then the hero de­mand­ed that the whole of his part should on­ly be re­torts on mak­ing his ex­it, for these the pub­lic ap­plaud­ed; the pri­ma don­na would on­ly play in a red light, for that suit­ed her best--she would not be blue: they were all like flies in a bot­tle, and I was al­so in the bot­tle--for I was the man­ag­er. I lost my breath, my head was quite dizzy! I was as mis­er­able as a man can be; it was a new race of be­ings I had come amongst; I wished that I had them al­to­geth­er again in the chest, that I had nev­er been a man­ag­er: I told them that they were in fact on­ly pup­pets, and so they beat me to death. That was my feel­ing!

"I lay on the bed in my cham­ber; but how I had come there from the poly­tech­nic can­di­date, he must know best--for I do not. The moon shone in on the floor where the pup­pet-​chest lay up­set, and all the pup­pets spread about--great and small, the whole lot. But I was not floored! I sprang out of bed, and threw them all in­to the chest; some on their heads, and some on their legs; I smacked the lid down and sat my­self up­on it: it was worth paint­ing, can't you con­ceive it? I can! 'Now you shall be there!' said I, 'and I will nev­er more wish that you may be­come flesh and blood!' I was so glad; I was the hap­pi­est man alive--the poly­tech­nic can­di­date had tried me! I sat in per­fect bliss, and fell asleep on the chest; and in the morn­ing--it was, prop­er­ly speak­ing, at noon, for I slept so very long that morn­ing--I sat there still, hap­py and ed­ified--I saw that my pre­vi­ous and on­ly wish had been stupid. I in­quired for the poly­tech­nic can­di­date, but he was gone, like the Greek and Ro­man gods.

“And from that time I have been the hap­pi­est man alive. I am a for­tu­nate man­ag­er; my com­pa­ny does not ar­gue with me, nei­ther does the pub­lic; they are amused to their heart's con­tent, and I can my­self put all my pieces nice­ly to­geth­er. I take the best parts out of all sorts of come­dies that I choose, and no one trou­bles him­self about it. Pieces that are now de­spised at the large the­atres, but which thir­ty years ago the pub­lic ran to see, and cried over--those pieces I now make use of. I now present them be­fore the young folks; and the young folks--they cry just as their fa­thers and moth­ers used to do. I give 'Jo­han­na Mont­fakon' and 'Dyveke,' but ab­bre­vi­at­ed; for the lit­tle folks do not like long, twad­dling love-​sto­ries. They must have it un­for­tu­nate--but it must be brief. Now that I have trav­elled through Den­mark, both to the right and left, I know ev­ery­body and am known again. Now I have come to Swe­den, and if I am suc­cess­ful and gain much mon­ey, I will be a Scan­di­na­vian, if the hu­mour hold; and this I tell you, as you are my coun­try­man.”

And I, as his coun­try­man, nat­ural­ly tell it again--on­ly for the sake of telling it.

THE “SKJÄR­GAARDS.”

* * * * *

The canal voy­age through Swe­den goes at first con­stant­ly up­wards, through elvs and lakes, forests and rocky land. From the heights we look down on vast ex­tents of for­est-​land and large wa­ters, and by de­grees the ves­sel sinks again down through moun­tain tor­rents. At Mem we are again down by the salt fiord: a soli­tary tow­er rais­es its head be­tween the re­mains of low, thick walls--it is the ru­ins of Stege­berg. The coast is cov­ered to a great ex­tent with dark, melan­choly forests, which en­close small grass-​grown val­leys. The scream­ing sea-​gulls fly around our ves­sel; we are by the Baltic; we feel the fresh sea-​breeze: it blows as in the times of the an­cient heroes, when the sea-​kings, sons of high-​born fa­thers, ex­er­cised their deeds here. The same sea's sur­face then ap­peared to them as now to us, with its num­ber­less isles, which lie strewed about here in the wa­ter by thou­sands along the whole coast. The depth of wa­ter be­tween the rocky isles and the sol­id land is that we call “The Skjär­gaards:” their wa­ters flow in­to each oth­er with vary­ing splen­dour. We see it in the sun­shine, and it is like a large En­glish land­scape gar­den; but the greensward plain is here the deep sea, the flow­er-​beds in it are rocks and reefs, rich in firs and pines, oaks and bush­es. Mark how, when the wind blows from the east, and the sea breaks over sunken rocks and is dashed back again in spray from the cliffs, your limbs feel--even through the ship on which you stand--the pow­er of the sea: you are lift­ed as if by su­per­nat­ural hands.

We rush on against wind and sea, as if it were the sea-​god's snort­ing horse that bore us; from Skjär­gaard to Skjär­gaard. The sig­nal-​gun is fired, and the pi­lot comes from that soli­tary wood­en house. Some­times we look up­on the open sea, some­times we glide again in be­tween dark, stony is­lands; they lie like gi­gan­tic mon­sters in the wa­ter: one has the form of the tor­toise's arched shell, an­oth­er has the ele­phant's back and rough grey colour. Moul­der­ing, light grey rocks in­di­cate that the wind and weath­er past cen­turies has lashed over them.

We now ap­proach larg­er rocky is­lands, and the huge, grey, bro­ken rocks of the main land, where dwarfish pine woods grow in a con­tin­ual com­bat with the blast; the Skjär­gaards some­times be­come on­ly a nar­row canal, some­times an ex­ten­sive lake strewed with small islets, all of stone, and of­ten on­ly a mere block of stone, to which a sin­gle lit­tle fir-​tree clings fast: scream­ing sea-​gulls flut­ter around the land-​marks that are set up; and now we see a sin­gle farm-​house, whose red-​paint­ed sides shine forth from the dark back­ground. A group of cows lies bask­ing in the sun on the stony sur­face, near a lit­tle smil­ing pas­ture, which ap­pears to have been cul­ti­vat­ed here or cut out of a mead­ow in Sca­nia. How soli­tary must it not be to live on that lit­tle is­land! Ask the boy who sits there by the cat­tle, he will be able to tell us. “It is live­ly and mer­ry here,” says he. "The day is so long and light, the seal sits out there on the stone and barks in the ear­ly morn­ing hour, and all the steam­ers from the canal must pass here. I know them all; and when the sun goes down in the evening, it is a whole his­to­ry to look in­to the clouds over the land: there stand moun­tains with palaces, in sil­ver and in gold, in red and in blue; sail­ing drag­ons with gold­en crowns, or an old gi­ant with a beard down to his waist--al­to­geth­er of clouds, and they are al­ways chang­ing.

"The storms come on in the au­tumn, and then there is of­ten much anx­iety when fa­ther is out to help ships in dis­tress; but one be­comes, as it were, a new be­ing.

“In win­ter the ice is locked fast and firm, and we drive from is­land to is­land and to the main land; and if the bear or the wolf pays us a vis­it we take his skin for a win­ter cov­er­ing: it is warm in the room there, and they read and tell sto­ries about old times!”

Yes, old Time, how thou dost un­fold thy­self with re­mem­brances of these very Skjär­gaards--old Time which be­longed to the brave. These wa­ters, these rocky isles and strands, saw heroes more great­ly ac­tive than ac­tive­ly good: they swung the axe to give the mor­tal blow, or as they called it, “the whin­ing Jet­te­qvin­de.”[E]

[Foot­note E: Gi­ant­ess.]

Here came the Vikings with their ships: on the head­land yon­der they levied pro­vi­sions; the graz­ing cat­tle were slaugh­tered and borne away. Ye moul­der­ing cliffs, had ye but a tongue, ye might tell us about the du­els with the two-​hand­ed sword--about the deeds of the gi­ants. Ye saw the hero hew with the sword, and cast the javelin: his left hand was as cun­ning as his right The sword moved so quick­ly in the air that there seemed to be three. Ye saw him, when he in all his mar­tial ar­ray sprang for­wards and back­wards, high­er than he him­self was tall, and if he sprang in­to the sea he swam like a whale. Ye saw the two com­bat­ants: the one dart­ed his javelin, the oth­er caught it in the air, and cast it back again, so that it pierced through shield and man down in­to the earth. Ye saw war­riors with sharp swords and an­gry hearts; the sword was struck down­wards so as to cut the knee, out the com­bat­ant sprang in­to the air, and the sword whizzed un­der his feet. Mighty Sagas from the old­en times! Moul­der­ing rocks, could ye but tell us of these things!

Ye, deep wa­ters, bore the Vikings' ships, and when the strong in bat­tle lift­ed the iron an­chor and cast it against the en­emy's ves­sel, so that the planks were rent asun­der, ye poured your dark heavy seas in­to the hold, so that the bark sank. The wild _Berserk_ who with naked breast stood against his en­emy's blows, mad as a dog, howl­ing like a bear, tear­ing his shield asun­der, rush­ing to the bot­tom of the sea here, and fetch­ing up stones, which or­di­nary men could not raise--his­to­ry peo­ples these wa­ters, these cliffs for us! A fu­ture po­et will con­jure them to this Scan­di­na­vian Archipela­go, chis­el the true forms out of the old Sagas, the bold, the rude, the great­ness and im­per­fec­tions of the time, in their habits as they lived.

They rise again for us on yon­der is­land, where the wind is whistling through the young fir wood. The house is of beams, roofed with bark; the smoke from the fire on the broad stone in the hall, whirls through the air-​hole, near which stands the cask of mead; the cush­ions lie on the bench be­fore the closed bed­steads; deer-​skins hang over the balk walls, or­na­ment­ed with shields, hel­mets, and ar­mour. Ef­fi­gies of gods, carved, on wood­en poles, stand be­fore the high seat where the no­ble Viking sits, a high-​born fa­ther's youngest son, great in fame, but still greater in deeds; the sk­jalds (bards) and fos­ter-​broth­ers sit near­est to him. They de­fend­ed the coasts of their coun­try­men, and the pi­ous wom­en; they fetched wheat and hon­ey from Eng­land, they went to the White Sea for sables and furs--their ad­ven­tures are re­lat­ed in song. We see the old man ride in rich cloth­ing, with gloves sewn with gold­en thread, and with a hat brought from Garderige; we see the youth with a gold­en fil­let around his brow; we see him at the _Thing_; we see him in bat­tle and in play, where the best is he that can cut off the oth­er's eye­brows with­out scratch­ing the skin, or caus­ing a wink with the eyes, on pain of los­ing his sta­tion. The wom­an sits in the log-​house at her loom, and in the late moon­light nights the spir­its of the fall­en come and sit down around the fire, where they shake the wet, drip­ping clothes; but the serf sleeps in the ash­es, and on the kitchen bench, and dreams that he dips his bread in the fat soup, and licks his fin­gers.

Thou fu­ture po­et, thou wilt call forth the van­ished forms from the Sagas, thou wilt peo­ple these is­lands, and let us glide past these rem­inis­cences of the old­en time with the mind full of them; clear­ly and tru­ly wilt thou let us glide, as we now with the pow­er of steam fly past that firm­ly stand­ing scenery, the swelling sea, rocks and reefs, the main land, and wood-​grown is­lands.

We are al­ready past Braav­igen, where num­ber­less ships from the north­ern king­doms lay, when Up­sala's King, Sig­urd Ring, came, chal­lenged by Har­ald Hilde­tand, who, old and grey, feared to die on a sick bed, and would fall in bat­tle; and the main­land thun­dered like the plains of Marathon be­neath the tramp of hors­es' hoofs dur­ing the bat­tle:[F] bards and fe­male war­riors sur­round­ed the Dan­ish King. The blind old man raised him­self high in his char­iot, gave his horse free rein, and hewed his way. Odin him­self had due rev­er­ence paid to Hilde­tand's bones; and the pile was kin­dled, and the King laid on it, and Sig­urd con­jured all to cast gold and weapons, the most valu­able they pos­sessed, in­to the fire; and the bards sang to it, and the fe­male war­riors struck the spears on the bright shields. Up­sala's Lord, Sig­urd Ring, be­came King of Swe­den and Den­mark: so says the Saga, which sound­ed over the land and wa­ter from these coasts.

[Foot­note F: The bat­tle of Braaval­la.]

The memo­ri­als of old­en times pass swift­ly through our thoughts; we fly past the scene of man­ly ex­er­cis­es and great deeds in the old­en times--the ship cleaves the mighty wa­ters with its iron pad­dles, from Skjär­gaard to Skjär­gaard.

STOCK­HOLM.

* * * * *

We cast runes[G] here on the pa­per, and from the white ground the pic­ture of Birg­er Jarl's six hun­dred years old city ris­es be­fore thee.

[Foot­note G: “To cast runes” was, in the old­en time, to ex­er­cise witchcraft. When the ap­ple, with ci­phers cut in it, rolled in­to the maid­en's lap, her heart and mind were in­fat­uat­ed.]

The runes roll, you see! Wood-​grown rocky isles ap­pear in the light, grey morn­ing mist; num­ber­less flocks of wild birds build their nests in safe­ty here, where the fresh wa­ters of the Mälaren rush in­to the salt sea. The Viking's ship comes; King Agna stands by the prow--he brings as booty the King of Fin­land's daugh­ter. The oak-​tree spreads its branch­es over their bridal cham­ber; at day­break the oak-​tree bears King Agna, hanged in his long gold­en chain: that is the bride's work, and the ship sails away again with her and the res­cued Fins.

The clouds drive past--the years too.

Hunters and fish­er­men erect them­selves huts;--it is again de­sert­ed here, where the sea-​birds alone have their homes. What is it that so fright­ens these num­ber­less flocks? the wild duck and sea-​gull fly scream­ing about, there is a ham­mer­ing and driv­ing of piles. Oluf Skötkonge has large beams bored down in­to the ground, and strong iron chains fas­tened across the stream: “Thou art caught, Oluf Har­ald­son,[H] caught with the ships and crews, with which thou didst dev­as­tate the roy­al city Sig­tu­na; thou canst not es­cape from the closed Mälar lake!”

[Foot­note H: Af­ter­wards called Saint Oluf.]

It is but the work of one night; the same night when Oluf Hakon­son, with iron and with fire, burst his on­ward way through the stub­born ground; be­fore the day breaks the wa­ters of the Mälar roll there; the Nor­we­gian prince, Oluf sailed through the roy­al chan­nel he had cut in the east. The stock­ades, where the iron chains hang, must bear the de­fences; the cit­izens from the burnt-​down Sig­tu­na erect them­selves a bul­wark here, and build their new, lit­tle town on stock-​holms.[I]

[Foot­note I: Stock, sig­ni­fies bulks, or beams; holms, i.e. islets, or riv­er is­lands; hence Stock­holm.]

The clouds go, and the years go! Do you see how the gables grow? there rise tow­ers and forts. Birg­er Jarl makes the town of Stock­holm a fortress; the warders stand with bow and ar­row on the walls, re­con­noitring over lake and fjord, over Brunk­aberg sand-​ridge. There were the sand-​ridge slopes up­wards from Rörstrand's Lake they build Clara clois­ter, and be­tween it and the town a street springs up: sev­er­al more ap­pear; they form an ex­ten­sive city, which soon be­comes the place of con­test for dif­fer­ent par­ti­sans, where Lade­laas's sons plant the ban­ner, and where the Ger­man Al­brecht's re­tain­ers burn the Swedes alive with­in its walls. Stock­holm is, how­ev­er, the heart of the king­dom: that the Danes know well; that the Swedes know too, and there is strife and bloody com­bat­ing. Blood flows by the ex­ecu­tion­er's hand, Den­mark's Chris­tian the Sec­ond, Swe­den's ex­ecu­tion­er, stands in the mar­ket-​place.

Roll, ye runes! see over Brunk­aberg sand-​ridge, where the Swedish peo­ple con­quered the Dan­ish host, there they raise the May-​pole: it is mid­sum­mer-​eve--Gus­tavus Vasa makes his en­try in­to Stock­holm.

Around the May-​pole there grow fruit and kitchen-​gar­dens, hous­es and streets; they van­ish in flames, they rise again; that gloomy fortress to­wards the tow­er is trans­formed in­to a palace, and the city stands mag­nif­icent­ly with tow­ers and draw-​bridges. There grows a town by it­self on the sand-​ridge, a third springs up on the rock to­wards the south; the old walls fall at Gus­tavus Adol­phus's com­mand; the three towns are one, large and ex­ten­sive, pic­turesque­ly var­ied with old stone hous­es, wood­en shops, and grass-​roofed huts; the sun shines on the brass balls of the tow­ers, and a for­est of masts stands in that se­cure har­bour.

Rays of beau­ty shoot forth in­to the world from Ver­sailles' paint­ed di­vin­ity; they reach the Mälar's strand in­to Tessin's[J] palace, where art and sci­ence are in­vit­ed as guests with the King, Gus­tavus the Third, whose ef­fi­gy cast in bronze is raised on the strand be­fore the splen­did palace--it is in our times. The aca­cia shades the palace's high ter­race on whose broad balustrades flow­ers send forth their per­fume from Sax­on porce­lain; var­ie­gat­ed silk cur­tains hang half-​way down be­fore the large glass win­dows; the floors are pol­ished smooth as a mir­ror, and un­der the arch yon­der, where the ros­es grow by the wall, the Endymion of Greece lives eter­nal­ly in mar­ble. As a guard of hon­our here, stand Fo­gel­berg's Odin, and Sergei's Amor and Psy­che.

[Foot­note J: The ar­chi­tect Tessin.]

We now de­scend the broad, roy­al stair­case, and be­fore it, where, in by-​gone times, Oluf Skötkonge stretched the iron chains across the mouth of the Mälar Lake, there is now a splen­did bridge with shops above and the Stream­parterre be­low: there we see the lit­tle steam­er 'Nock­en,'[K] steer­ing its way, filled with pas­sen­gers from Di­ur­gar­den to the Stream­parterre. And what is the Stream­parterre? The Neapoli­tans would tell us: It is in minia­ture--quite in minia­ture--the Stock­holmers' “Vil­la Reale.” The Ham­burg­ers would say: It is in minia­ture--quite in minia­ture--the Stock­holmers' “Jungfern­stieg.”

[Foot­note K: The wa­ter-​sprite.]

It is a very lit­tle se­mi-​cir­cu­lar is­land, on which the arch­es of the bridge rest; a gar­den full of flow­ers and trees, which we over­look from the high para­pet of the bridge. Ladies and gen­tle­men prom­enade there; mu­si­cians play, fam­ilies sit there in groups, and take re­fresh­ments in the vault­ed halls un­der the bridge, and look out be­tween the green trees over the open wa­ter, to the hous­es and man­sions, and al­so to the woods and rocks: we for­get that we are in the midst of the city.

It is the bridge here that unites Stock­holm with Nord­malen, where the great­est part of the fash­ion­able world live, in two long Berlin-​like streets; yet amongst all the great hous­es we will on­ly vis­it one, and that is the the­atre.

We will go on the stage it­self--it has an his­tor­ical sig­ni­fi­ca­tion. Here, by the third side-​scene from the stage-​lights, to the right, as we look down to­wards the au­di­ence, Gus­tavus the Third was as­sas­si­nat­ed at a mas­quer­ade; and he was borne in­to that lit­tle cham­ber there, close by the scene, whilst all the out­lets were closed, and the mot­ley group of harlequins, polichinel­los, wild men, gods and god­dess­es with un­masked faces, pale and ter­ri­fied crept to­geth­er; the danc­ing bal­let-​farce had be­come a re­al tragedy.

This the­atre is Jen­ny Lind's child­hood's home. Here she has sung in the cho­rus­es when a lit­tle girl; here she first made her ap­pear­ance in pub­lic, and was cheer­ing­ly en­cour­aged when a child; here, poor and sor­row­ful, she has shed tears, when her voice left her, and sent up pi­ous prayers to her Mak­er. From hence the world's nightin­gale flew out over dis­tant lands, and pro­claimed the pu­ri­ty and ho­li­ness of art.

How beau­ti­ful it is to look out from the win­dow up here, to look over the wa­ter and the Stream­parterre to that great, mag­nif­icent palace, to Lade­gaards land, with the large bar­racks, to Skiphol­men and the rocks that rise straight up from the wa­ter, with Sö­der­malm's gar­dens, vil­las, streets, and church cupo­las be­tween the green trees: the ships lie there to­geth­er, so many and so close, with their wav­ing flags. The beau­ti­ful, that a po­et's eye sees, the world may al­so see! Roll, ye runes!

There sketch­es the whole var­ied prospect; a rain­bow ex­tends its arch like a frame around it. On­ly see! it is sun­set, the sky be­comes cloudy over Sö­der­malm, the grey sky be­comes dark­er and dark­er--a pitch-​dark ground--and on it rests a dou­ble rain­bow. The hous­es are il­lu­mined by so strong a sun­light that the walls seem trans­par­ent; the lin­den-​trees in the gar­dens, which have late­ly put forth their leaves, ap­pear like fresh, young woods; the long, nar­row win­dows in the Goth­ic build­ings on the is­land shine as if it were a fes­tal il­lu­mi­na­tion, and be­tween the dark firs there falls a lus­tre from the panes be­hind them as of a thou­sand flames, as if the trees were cov­ered with flick­er­ing--Christ­mas lights; the colours of the rain­bow be­come stronger and stronger, the back­ground dark­er and dark­er, and the white sun-​lit sea-​gulls fly past.

The rain­bow has placed one foot high up on Sö­der­malm's church­yard. Where the rain­bow touch­es the earth, there lie trea­sures buried, is a pop­ular be­lief here. The rain­bow rests on a grave up there: Stag­nal­ius rests here, Swe­den's most gift­ed singer, so young and so un­hap­py; and in the same grave lies Nican­der, he who sang about King En­zio, and of “Lejonet i Oken;”[L] who sang with a bleed­ing heart: the fresh vine-​leaf cooled the wound and killed the singer. Peace be with his dust--may his songs live for ev­er! We go to your grave where the rain­bow points. The view from here is splen­did. The hous­es rise ter­race-​like in the steep, paved streets; the foot-​pas­sen­gers can, how­ev­er, short­en the way by go­ing through nar­row lanes, and up steps made of thick beams, and al­ways with a prospect down­wards of the wa­ter, of the rocks and green trees! It is de­light­ful to dwell here, it is healthy to dwell here, but it is not gen­teel, as it is by Brunk­aberg's sand-​ridge, yet it will be­come so: Stock­holm's “Stra­da Bal­bi” will one day arise on Sö­der­malm's rocky ground.

[Foot­note L: “The Li­on in the desert;” i.e. Napoleon.]

We stand up here. What oth­er city in the world has a bet­ter prospect over the salt fjord, over the fresh lake, over tow­ers, cupo­las, heaped-​up hous­es, and a palace, which King En­zio him­self might have built, and round about the dark, gloomy forests with oaks, pines and firs, so Scan­di­na­vian, dream­ing in the de­clin­ing sun? It is twi­light; the night comes on, the lamps are light­ed in the city be­low, the stars are kin­dled in the fir­ma­ment above, and the tow­er of Red­der­holm's church ris­es aloft to­wards the star­ry space. The stars shine through there; it is as if cut in lace, but ev­ery thread is of cast-​iron and of the thick­ness of beams.

We go down there, and in there, in the stil­ly eve.--A world of spir­its reigns with­in. See, in the vault­ed isles, on carved wood­en hors­es, sits ar­mour, that was once borne by Mag­nus Lade­laas, Chris­tian the Sec­ond, and Charles the Ninth. A thou­sand flags that once waved to the peal of mu­sic and the clang of arms, to the dart­ed javelin and the can­non's roar, moul­der away here: they hang in long rags from the staff, and the staves lie cast aside, where the flag has long since be­come dust. Al­most all the Kings of Swe­den slum­ber in sil­ver and cop­per coffins with­in these walls. From the al­tar aisle we look through the open-​grat­ed door, in be­tween piled-​up drums and hang­ing flags: here is pre­served a bloody tu­nic, and in the cof­fin are the re­mains of Gus­tavus Adol­phus. Who is that dead op­po­site neigh­bour in the chapel, across there in the oth­er side-​aisle of the church? There, be­low a glass lid, lies a dress shot through, and on the floor stands a pair of long, thick boots--they be­longed to the hero-​King, the wan­der­er, Charles XII., whose realm is now this nar­row cof­fin.

How sa­cred it is here un­der this vault­ed roof! The might­iest men of cen­turies are gath­ered to­geth­er here, per­ish­able as these moth-​eat­en flags--mute and yet so elo­quent. And with­out there is life and ac­tiv­ity: the world goes on in its old course; gen­er­ations change in the old hous­es; the hous­es change--yet Stock­holm is al­ways the heart of Swe­den, Birg­er's city, whose fea­tures are con­tin­ual­ly re­newed, con­tin­ual­ly beau­ti­fied.

DI­UR­GAER­DEN.

* * * * *

Di­ur­gaer­den is a large piece of land made in­to a gar­den by our Lord him­self. Come with us over there. We are still in the city, but be­fore the palace lie the broad hewn stone stairs, lead­ing down to the wa­ter, where the Dalkulls--i.e., the Dale­car­lian wom­en--stand and ring with met­al bells. On board! here are boats enough to choose amongst, all with wheels, which the Dalkulls turn. In coarse white linen, red stock­ings, with green heels, and sin­gu­lar­ly thick-​soled shoes, with the up­per-​leather right up the shin-​bone, stands the Dalkull; she has or­na­ment­ed the boat, that now shoots away, with green branch­es. Hous­es and streets rise and un­fold them­selves; church­es and gar­dens start forth; they stand on Sö­der­malm high above the tops of the ships' masts. The scenery re­minds one of the Bhos­pho­rus and Pera; the mot­ley dress of the Dalkulls is quite Ori­en­tal--and lis­ten! the wind bears melan­choly Skalmeie tones out to us. Two poor Dale­car­lians are play­ing mu­sic on the quay; they are the same drawn-​out, melan­choly tones that are played by the Bul­gar­ian mu­si­cians in the streets of Pera. We stept out, and are in the Di­ur­gar­den.

What a crowd of equipages pass in rows through the broad av­enue! and what a throng of well-​dressed pedes­tri­ans of all class­es! One thinks of the gar­den of the Vil­la Borgh­ese, when, at the time of the wine feast, the Ro­man peo­ple and strangers take the air there. We are in the Borgh­ese gar­den; we are by the Bospho­rus, and yet far in the North. The pine-​tree ris­es large and free; the birch droops its branch­es, as the weep­ing wil­low alone has pow­er to do--and what mag­nif­icent­ly grand oaks! The pine-​trees them­selves are mighty trees, beau­ti­ful to the painter's eye; splen­did green grass plains lie stretched be­fore us, and the fiord rolls its green, deep wa­ters close past, as if it were a riv­er. Large ships with swelling sails, the one high above the oth­er, steam­ers and boats, come and go in var­ied num­bers.

Come! let us up to Byström's vil­la; it lies on the stony cliff up there, where the large oak-​trees stand in their stub­born grandeur: we see from here the whole tri­par­tite city, Sö­der­malm, Nord­malm and the is­land with that huge palace. It is de­light­ful, the build­ing here on this rock, and the build­ing stands, and that al­most en­tire­ly of mar­ble, a “Casa san­ta d'Italia,” as if borne through the air here in the North. The walls with­in are paint­ed in the Pom­peian style, but heavy: there is noth­ing ge­nial. Round about stand large mar­ble fig­ures by Byström, which have not, how­ev­er, the soul of an­tiq­ui­ty. Madon­na is en­cum­bered by her heavy mar­ble drap­ery, the girl with the flow­er-​gar­land is an ug­ly young thing, and on see­ing Hero with the weep­ing Cu­pid, one thinks of a _pose_ ar­ranged by a bal­let-​mas­ter.

Let us, how­ev­er, see what is pret­ty. The lit­tle Cu­pid-​sell­er is pret­ty, and the stone is made as flex­ible as life in the waists of the bathing-​wom­en. One of them, as she steps out, feels the wa­ter with her feet, and we feel, with her, a sen­sa­tion that the wa­ter is cold. The cool­ness of the mar­ble-​hall re­al­izes this feel­ing. Let us go out in­to the sun­shine, and up to the neigh­bour­ing cliff, which ris­es above the man­sions and hous­es. Here the wild ros­es shoot forth from the crevices in the rock; the sun­beams fall pret­ti­ly be­tween the splen­did pines and the grace­ful birch­es, up­on the high grass be­fore the colos­sal bronze bust of Bell­mann. This place was the favourite one of that Scan­di­na­vian im­pro­visatore. Here he lay in the grass, com­posed and sang his anacre­on­tic songs, and here, in the sum­mer-​time, his an­nu­al fes­ti­val is held. We will raise his al­tar here in the red evening sun­light. It is a flam­ing bowl, raised high on the jol­ly tun, and it is wreathed with ros­es. Morits tries his hunt­ing-​horn, that which was Oberon's horn in the inn-​par­lour, and ev­ery­thing danced, from Ul­la to “Mut­ter paa Top­pen:”[M] they stamped with their feet and clapped their hands, and clinked the pewter lid of the ale-​tankard; “hej kara Sjæl! fuk­ta din aske!” (Hey! dear soul! moist­en your clay).

[Foot­note M: The land­la­dy of an ale­house.]

A Te­niers' pic­ture be­came an­imat­ed, and still lives in song. Morits blows the horn on Bell­mann's place around the flow­ing bowl, and whole crowds dance in a cir­cle, young and old; the car­riages too, hors­es and wag­gons, filled bot­tles and clat­ter­ing tankards: the Bell­mann dithyra­mbic clangs melo­di­ous­ly; hu­mour and low life, sad­ness--and amongst oth­ers, about

“----hur ögat gret Ved de Cy­press­er, som ströd­des.”[N]

[Foot­note N: How the eyes wept by the cy­press­es that were strewn around.]

Painter, seize thy brush and palette and paint the Mae­nade--but not her who treads the winebag, whilst her hair flut­ters in the wind, and she sings ec­stat­ic songs. No, but the Mae­nade that as­cends from Bell­mann's steam­ing bowl is the Punch's Anady­omene--she, with the high heels to the red shoes, with rosettes on her gown and with flut­ter­ing veil and man­til­la--flut­ter­ing, far too flut­ter­ing! She plucks the rose of po­et­ry from her breast and sets it in the ale-​can's spout; clinks with the lid, sings about the clang of the hunt­ing horn, about breech­es and old shoes and all man­ner of stuff. Yet we are sen­si­ble that he is a true po­et; we see two hu­man eyes shin­ing, that an­nounce to us the hu­man heart's sad­ness and hope.

A STO­RY.

* * * * *

All the ap­ple-​trees in the gar­den had sprung out. They had made haste to get blos­soms be­fore they got green leaves; and all the duck­lings were out in the yard--and the cat too! He was, so to speak, per­me­at­ed by the sun­shine; he licked it from his own paws; and if one looked to­wards the fields, one saw the corn stand­ing so charm­ing­ly green! And there was such a twit­ter­ing and chirp­ing amongst all the small birds, just as if it were a great feast. And that one might in­deed say it was, for it was Sun­day. The bells rang, and peo­ple in their best clothes went to church, and looked so pleased. Yes, there was some­thing so pleas­ant in ev­ery­thing: it was in­deed so fine and warm a day, that one might well say: “Our Lord is cer­tain­ly un­speak­ably good to­wards us poor mor­tals!”

But the cler­gy­man stood in the pul­pit in the church, and spoke so loud and so an­gri­ly! He said that mankind was so wicked, and that God would pun­ish them for it, and that when they died, the wicked went down in­to hell, where they would burn for ev­er; and he said that their worm would nev­er die, and their fire nev­er be ex­tin­guished, nor would they ev­er get rest and peace!

It was ter­ri­ble to hear, and he said it so de­ter­mined­ly. He de­scribed hell to them as a pesti­len­tial hole, where all the filth­iness of the world flowed to­geth­er. There was no air ex­cept the hot, sul­phurous flames; there was no bot­tom; they sank and sank in­to ev­er­last­ing si­lence! It was ter­ri­ble, on­ly to hear about it; but the cler­gy­man said it right hon­est­ly out of his heart, and all the peo­ple in the church were quite ter­ri­fied. But all the lit­tle birds out­side the church sang so pleas­ant­ly, and so pleased, and the sun shone so warm:--it was as if ev­ery lit­tle flow­er said: “God is so won­drous good to us al­to­geth­er!” Yes, out­side it was not at all as the cler­gy­man preached.

In the evening, when it was bed-​time, the cler­gy­man saw his wife sit so still and thought­ful.

“What ails you?” said he to her.

“What ails me?” she replied; “what ails me is, that I can­not col­lect my thoughts right­ly--that I can­not right­ly un­der­stand what you said; that there were so many wicked, and that they should burn eter­nal­ly!--eter­nal­ly, alas, how long! I am but a sin­ful be­ing; but I could not bear the thought in my heart to al­low even the worst sin­ner to burn for ev­er. And how then should our Lord per­mit it? he who is so won­drous­ly good, and who knows how evil comes both from with­out and with­in. No, I can­not be­lieve it, though you say it.”

* * * * *

It was au­tumn. The leaves fell from the trees; the grave, se­vere cler­gy­man sat by the bed­side of a dy­ing per­son; a pi­ous be­liev­er closed her eyes--it was the cler­gy­man's own wife.

“If any one find peace in the grave, and grace from God, then it is thou,” said the cler­gy­man, and he fold­ed her hands, and read a psalm over the dead body.

And she was borne to the grave: two heavy tears trick­led down that stern man's cheeks; and it was still and va­cant in the par­son­age; the sun­shine with­in was ex­tin­guished:--she was gone.

It was night. A cold wind blew over the cler­gy­man's head; he opened his eyes, and it was just as if the moon shone in­to his room. But the moon did not shine. It was a fig­ure which stood be­fore his bed--he saw the spir­it of his de­ceased wife. She looked on him so sin­gu­lar­ly af­flict­ed; it seemed as though she would say some­thing.

The man raised him­self half erect in bed, and stretched his arms out to­wards her.

“Not even to thee is grant­ed ev­er­last­ing peace. Thou dost suf­fer; thou, the best, the most pi­ous!”

And the dead bent her head in con­fir­ma­tion of his words, and laid her hand on her breast.

“And can I pro­cure you peace in the grave?”

“Yes!” it sound­ed in his ear.

“And how?”

“Give me a hair, but a sin­gle hair of the head of that sin­ner, whose fire will nev­er be quenched; that sin­ner whom God will cast down in­to hell, to ev­er­last­ing tor­ment.”

“Yes; so eas­ily thou canst be lib­er­at­ed, thou pure, thou pi­ous one!” said he.

“Then fol­low me,” said the dead; “it is so grant­ed us. Thou canst be by my side, where­so­ev­er thy thoughts will. In­vis­ible to mankind, we stand in their most se­cret places; but thou must point with a sure hand to the one des­tined to eter­nal pun­ish­ment, and ere the cock crow he must be found.”

And swift, as if borne on the wings of thought, they were in the great city, and the names of the dy­ing sin­ners shone from the walls of the hous­es in let­ters of fire: “Ar­ro­gance, Avarice, Drunk­en­ness, Volup­tuous­ness;” in short, sin's whole sev­en-​coloured arch.

“Yes, in there, as I thought it, as I knew it,” said the cler­gy­man, “are housed those con­demned to eter­nal fire.”

And they stood be­fore the splen­did­ly-​il­lu­mined por­ti­co, where the broad stairs were cov­ered with car­pets and flow­ers, and the mu­sic of the dance sound­ed through the fes­tal sa­loons. The porter stood there in silk and vel­vet, with a large sil­ver-​head­ed stick.

“_Our_ ball can match with the King's,” said he, and turned to­wards the crowd in the street--his mag­nif­icent thoughts were vis­ible in his whole per­son. “Poor dev­ils! who stare in at the por­ti­co, you are al­to­geth­er raga­muffins, com­pared to me!”

“Ar­ro­gance,” said the dead; “dost thou see him?”

“Him!” re­peat­ed the cler­gy­man; “he is a sim­ple­ton--a fool on­ly, and will not be con­demned to eter­nal fire and tor­ment.”

“A fool on­ly,” sound­ed through the whole house of Ar­ro­gance.

And they flew in­to the four bare walls of Avarice, where skin­ny, mea­gre, shiv­er­ing with cold, hun­gry and thirsty, the old man clung fast with all his thoughts to his gold. They saw how he, as in a fever, sprang from his wretched pal­let, and took a loose stone out of the wall. There lay gold coins in a stock­ing-​foot; he fum­bled at his ragged tu­nic, in which gold coins were sewed fast, and his moist fin­gers trem­bled.

“He is ill: it is in­san­ity; en­cir­cled by fear and evil dreams.”

And they flew away in haste, and stood by the crim­inals' wood­en couch, where they slept side by side in long rows. One of them start­ed up from his sleep like a wild an­imal, and ut­tered a hideous scream: he struck his com­pan­ion with his sharp el­bow, and the lat­ter turned sleep­ily round.

“Hold your tongue, you beast, and sleep! this is your way ev­ery night! Ev­ery night!” he re­peat­ed; “yes, you come ev­ery night, howl­ing and chok­ing me! I have done one thing or an­oth­er in a pas­sion; I was born with a pas­sion­ate tem­per, and it has brought me in here a sec­ond time; but if I have done wrong, so have I al­so got my pun­ish­ment. But one thing I have not con­fessed. When I last went out from here, and passed by my mas­ter's farm, one thing and an­oth­er boiled up in me, and I di­rect­ly stroked a lu­cifer against the wall: it came a lit­tle too near the thatch, and ev­ery­thing was burnt--hot-​head­ed­ness came over it, just as it comes over me, I helped to save the cat­tle and fur­ni­ture. Noth­ing liv­ing was burnt, ex­cept a flock of pi­geons: they flew in­to the flames, and the yard dog. I had not thought of the dog. I could hear it howl, and that howl I al­ways hear yet, when I would sleep; and if I do get to sleep, the dog comes al­so--so large and hairy! He lies down on me, howls, and stran­gles me! Do but hear what I am telling you. Snore--yes, that you can--snore the whole night through, and I not even a quar­ter of an hour!”

And the blood shone from the eyes of the fiery one; he fell on his com­pan­ion, and struck him in the face with his clenched fist.

“An­gry Mads has be­come mad again!” re­sound­ed on all sides, and the oth­er ras­cals seized hold of him, wres­tled with him, and bent him dou­ble, so that his head was forced be­tween his legs, where they bound it fast, so that the blood was near­ly spring­ing out of his eyes, and all the pores.

“You will kill him!” said the cler­gy­man,--“poor un­for­tu­nate!” and as he stretched his hands out over him, who had al­ready suf­fered too severe­ly, in or­der to pre­vent fur­ther mis­chief, the scene changed.

They flew through rich halls, and through poor cham­bers; volup­tuous­ness and en­vy, all mor­tal sins strode past them. A record­ing an­gel read their sin and their de­fence; this was as­sured­ly lit­tle for God, for God reads the heart; He knows per­fect­ly the evil that comes with­in it and from with­out, He, grace, all-​lov­ing kind­ness. The hand of the cler­gy­man trem­bled: he did not ven­ture to stretch it out, to pluck a hair from the sin­ner's head. And the tears streamed down from his eyes, like the wa­ters of _grace_ and love, which quenched the eter­nal fire of hell.

The cock then crowed.

“Mer­ci­ful God! Thou wilt grant her that peace in the grave which I have not been able to re­deem.”

“That I now have!” said the dead; “it was thy hard words, thy dark, hu­man be­lief of God and his crea­tures, which drove me to thee! Learn to know mankind; even in the bad there is a part of God--a part that will con­quer and quench the fire of hell.”

And a kiss was pressed on the cler­gy­man's lips:--it shone around him. God's clear, bright sun shone in­to the cham­ber, where his wife, liv­ing, mild, and af­fec­tion­ate, awoke him from a dream, sent from God!

UP­SALA.

* * * * *

It is com­mon­ly said, that Mem­ory is a young girl with light blue eyes. Most po­ets say so; but we can­not al­ways agree with most po­ets. To us mem­ory comes in quite dif­fer­ent forms, all ac­cord­ing to that land, or that town to which she be­longs. Italy sends her as a charm­ing Mignon, with black eyes and a melan­choly smile, singing Belli­ni's soft, touch­ing songs. From Scot­land Mem­ory's sprite ap­pears as a pow­er­ful lad with bare knees; the plaid hangs over his shoul­der, the this­tle-​flow­er is fixed on his cap; Burns's songs then fill the air like the heath-​lark's song, and Scot­land's wild this­tle flow­ers beau­ti­ful­ly fra­grant as the fresh rose. But now for Mem­ory's sprite from Swe­den, from Up­sala. He comes thence in the form of a stu­dent--at least, he wears the Up­sala stu­dent's white cap with the black rim. To us it points out its home, as the Phry­gian cap de­notes Ganymede.

It was in the year 1843, that the Dan­ish stu­dents trav­elled to Up­sala. Young hearts met to­geth­er; eyes sparkled: they laughed, they sang. Young hearts are the fu­ture--the con­quer­ing fu­ture--in the beau­ti­ful, true and good; it is so good that broth­ers should know and love each oth­er. Friend­ship's meet­ing is still an­nu­al­ly re­mem­bered in the palace-​yard of Up­sala, be­fore the mon­ument of Gus­tavus Vasa--by the hur­ra! for Den­mark, in warm-​heart­ed com­pli­ment to me.

Two sum­mers af­ter­wards, the vis­it was re­turned. The Swedish stu­dents came to Copen­hagen, and that they might there be known amongst the mul­ti­tude, the Up­sala stu­dents wore a white cap with a black rim: this cap is ac­cord­ing­ly a memo­ri­al,--the sign of friend­ship's bridge over that riv­er of blood which once flowed be­tween kin­dred na­tions. When one meets in heart and spir­it, a bliss­ful seed is then sown. Mem­ory's sprite, come to us! we know thee by the cap from Up­sala: be thou our guide, and from our more south­ern home, af­ter years and days, we will make the voy­age over again, quick­er than if we flew in Doc­tor Faus­tus' mag­ic cloak. We are in Stock­holm: we stand on the Rid­der­holm where the steam­ers lie along­side the bul­warks: one of them sends forth clouds of thick smoke from its chim­ney; the deck is crowd­ed with pas­sen­gers, and the white cap with the black rim is not want­ing.

We are off to Up­sala; the pad­dles strike the wa­ters of the Mälar, and we shoot away from the pic­turesque city of Stock­holm. The whole voy­age, di­rect to Up­sala, is a kalei­descope on a large scale. It is true, there is noth­ing of the mag­ical in the scenery, but land­scape gives place to land­scape, and clouds and sun­shine re­fresh their var­ie­gat­ed beau­ty. The Mälar lake curves, is com­pressed, and widens again: it is as if one passed from lake to lake through nar­row canals and broad rivers. Some­times it ap­pears as if the lake end­ed in small rivulets be­tween dark pines and rocks, when sud­den­ly an­oth­er large lake, sur­round­ed by corn fields and mead­ows, opens it­self to view: the light-​green lin­den trees, which have just un­fold­ed their leaves, shine forth be­fore the dark grey rocks. Again a new lake opens be­fore us, with islets, trees and red paint­ed hous­es, and dur­ing the whole voy­age there is a live­ly ar­rival and de­par­ture of pas­sen­gers, in flat bot­tomed boats, which are near­ly up­set in the bil­lowy wake of the ves­sel.

It ap­pears most dan­ger­ous op­po­site to Sig­tu­na, Swe­den's old roy­al city: the lake is broad here; the waves rise as if they were the wa­ters of the ocean; the boats rock--it is fear­ful to look at! But here there must be a calm; and Sig­tu­na, that lit­tle in­ter­est­ing town where the old tow­ers stand in ru­ins, like out­posts along the rocks, re­flects it­self in the wa­ter.

We fly past! and now we are in Tyris rivulet! Part of a mead­ow is flood­ed; a herd of hors­es be­come shy from the snort­ing of the steam­er's en­gine; they dash through the wa­ter in the mead­ow, and it spurts up all over them. It glit­ters there be­tween the trees on the de­cliv­ity: the Up­sala stu­dents lie en­camped there, and ex­er­cise them­selves in the use of arms.

The rivulet forms a bay, and the high plain ex­tends it­self. We see old Up­sala's hills; we see Up­sala's city with its church, which, like Notre Dame, rais­es its stony arms to­wards heav­en. The uni­ver­si­ty ris­es to the view, in ap­pear­ance half palace and half bar­racks, and there aloft, on the greensward-​clothed bank, stands the old red-​paint­ed huge palace with its tow­ers.

We stop at the bul­wark near the arched bridge, and so go on shore. Whith­er wilt thou con­duct us first, thou our guide with the white-​and-​black stu­dent's cap? Shall we go up to the palace, or to Lin­naeus's gar­den! or shall we go to the church-​yard where the net­tles grow over Geier's and Törn­ro's graves? No, but to the young and the liv­ing Up­sala's life--the stu­dents. Thou tellest us about them; we hear the heart's pul­sa­tions, and our hearts beat in sym­pa­thy!

In the first year of the war be­tween Den­mark and the in­sur­gents, many a brave Up­sala stu­dent left his qui­et, com­fort­able home, and en­tered the ranks with his Dan­ish broth­ers. The Up­sala stu­dents gave up their most joy­ous fes­ti­val--the May-​day fes­ti­val--and the mon­ey they at oth­er times used to con­tribute an­nu­al­ly to­wards the cel­ebra­tion there­of, they sent to the Danes, af­ter the sum had been in­creased by con­certs which were giv­en in Stock­holm and Vester­aas. That cir­cum­stance will not be for­got­ten in Den­mark.

Up­sala stu­dent, thou art dear to us by thy dis­po­si­tion! thou art dear to us from thy live­ly jests! We will men­tion a trait there­of. In Up­sala, it had be­come the fash­ion to be Hegelian­ers--that is to say, al­ways to in­ter­weave Hegel's philo­soph­ical terms in con­ver­sa­tion. In or­der to put down this prac­tice, a few clever fel­lows took up­on them­selves the task of ham­mer­ing some of the most dif­fi­cult tech­ni­cal words in­to the mem­ory of a hu­mor­ous and com­mon­ly drunk­en coun­try innkeep­er, at whose house many a _Sexa_ was of­ten held; and the man spoke Hegelian­ic in his mel­low hours, and the ef­fect was so ab­surd, that the em­ploy­ment of philo­soph­ical scraps in his speech was ridiculed, un­der­stood, and the nui­sance aban­doned.

Beau­ti­ful songs re­sound as we ap­proach: we hear Swedish, Nor­we­gian and Dan­ish. The melody's var­ied bea­con makes known to us where Up­sala's stu­dents are as­sem­bled. The song pro­ceeds from the as­sem­bly-​room--from the tav­ern sa­loon, and like ser­enades in the silent evening, when a young friend de­parts, or a dear guest is hon­oured. Glo­ri­ous melodies! ye en­thral, so that we for­get that the sun goes down, and the moon ris­es.

“Herre min Gud hvad din Må­nen lyser Se, hvilken Glands ut ofver Land och Stad!”

is now sung, and we see:

“Högt opp i Slot­tet hvaren­da ru­ta Blix­trar some vore den en ädel­sten.”[O]

[Foot­note O: Lord, my God, how Thy moon shines! See what lus­tre over land and city! High up in the palace ev­ery pane glis­tens as if it were a gem.]

Up thith­er then is our way! lead us, mem­ory's sprite, in­to the palace, the cour­te­ous gov­er­nor of Up­land's dwelling; mild glances greet us; we see dear be­ings in a hap­py cir­cle, and all the lead­ing char­ac­ters of Up­sala. We again see him whose cun­ning quick­ened our per­cep­tions as to the mys­ter­ies of veg­etable life, so that even the toad-​stool is un­veiled to us as a build­ing more art­ful­ly con­struct­ed than the labyrinths of the old­en time. We see “The Flow­ers'” singer, he who led us to “The Is­land of Bliss;” we meet with him whose pop­ular lays are borne on melodies in­to the world; his wife by his side. That qui­et, gen­tle wom­an with those faith­ful eyes is the daugh­ter of Frithiof's bard; we see no­ble men and wom­en, ladies of the high no­bil­ity, with sound­ing and sig­nif­icant fam­ily names with _sil­ver_ and _lilies_,--_stars_ and _swords_.

Hark! lis­ten to that live­ly song. Gun­nar Wen­ner­berg, Glun­tar­ra's po­et and com­pos­er, sings his songs with Boronees,[P] and they ac­quire a dra­mat­ic life and re­al­ity.

[Foot­note P: Glun­tar­ra duets, by Gun­nar Wen­ner­berg.]

How spir­itu­al and en­joy­able! one be­comes hap­py here, one feels proud of the age one lives in, hap­py in be­ing dis­tant from the hor­ri­ble tragedies that his­to­ry speaks of with­in these walls.

We can hear about them when the song is silent, when those friend­ly forms dis­ap­pear, and the fes­tal lights are ex­tin­guished: from the pages of his­to­ry that tale re­sounds with a clang of hor­ror. It was in those times, which the many still call po­et­ic--the ro­man­tic mid­dle ages--that bards sang of its most bril­liant pe­ri­ods, and cov­ered with the ra­di­ance of their ge­nius the san­guinary gulf of bru­tal­ity and su­per­sti­tion. Ter­ror seizes us in Up­sala's palace: we stand in the vault­ed hall, the wax ta­pers burn from the walls, and King Erik the Four­teenth sits with Saul's dark de­spon­den­cy, with Cain's wild looks. Niels Sture oc­cu­pies his thoughts, the rec­ol­lec­tion of in­jus­tice ex­er­cised against him lash­es his con­science with scourges and scor­pi­ons, as dead­ly ter­ri­ble as they are re­vealed to us in the page of his­to­ry.

King Erik the Four­teenth, whose gloomy dis­trust of­ten amount­ed to in­san­ity, thought that the no­bil­ity aimed at his life. His favourite, Goran Pers­son, found it to his ad­van­tage to strength­en him in this be­lief. He hat­ed most the pop­ular­ly favoured race of the Stures, and of them, the light-​haired Niels Sture in par­tic­ular; for Erik thought that he had read in the stars that a man with light hair should hurl him from the throne; and as the Swedish Gen­er­al af­ter the lost bat­tle of Svarteaa, laid the blame on Niels Sture, Erik di­rect­ly be­lieved it, yet dared not to act as he de­sired, but even gave Niels Sture roy­al presents. Yet be­cause he was again ac­cused by one sin­gle per­son of hav­ing checked the ad­vance of the Swedish army at Bähüs, Erik in­vit­ed him to his palace at Svart­sjö, gave him an hon­ourable place at his roy­al ta­ble, and let him de­part in ap­par­ent good faith for Stock­holm, where, on his ar­rival, the her­alds were or­dered to pro­claim in the streets: “Niels Sture is a traitor to his coun­try!”

There Goran Pers­son and the Ger­man re­tain­ers seized him, and sat him by force on the ex­ecu­tion­er's most mis­er­able hack; struck him in the face so that the blood streamed down, placed a tarred straw crown on his head, and fas­tened a pa­per with de­ri­sive words, on the sad­dle be­fore him. They then let a row of hired beg­gar-​boys and old fish-​wives go in cou­ples be­fore, and to the tail of the horse they bound two fir-​trees, the roots of which dragged on the ground and swept the street af­ter the traitor. Niels Sture ex­claimed that he had not de­served this treat­ment from his King and he begged the groom, who went by his side, and had served him in the field of bat­tle, to at­test the truth like an hon­est man; when they all shout­ed aloud, that he suf­fered in­no­cent­ly, and had act­ed like a true Swede. But the pro­ces­sion was driv­en for­ward through the streets with­out stop­ping, and at night Niels Sture was con­duct­ed to prison.

King Erik sits in his roy­al palace: he or­ders the torch­es and can­dles to be light­ed, but they are of no avail--his thoughts' scor­pi­ons sting his soul.

“I have again lib­er­at­ed Niels Sture,” he mut­ters; “I have had plac­ards put up at ev­ery street-​cor­ner, and let the her­alds pro­claim that no one shall dare to speak oth­er­wise than well of Niels Sture! I have sent him on an hon­ourable mis­sion to a for­eign court, in or­der to sue for me in mar­riage! He has had repa­ra­tion enough made to him; but nev­er will he, nor his mighty race, for­get the de­ri­sion and shame I have made him suf­fer. They will all be­tray me--kill me!”

And King Erik com­mands that all Sture's kin­dred shall be made pris­on­ers.

King Erik sits in his roy­al palace: the sun shines, but not in­to the King's heart. Niels Sture en­ters the cham­ber with an an­swer of con­sent from the roy­al bride, and the King shakes him by the hand, mak­ing fair promis­es--and the fol­low­ing evening Niels Sture is a pris­on­er in Up­sala Palace.

King Erik's gloomy mind is dis­turbed; he has no rest; he has no peace, be­tween fear and dis­trust. He hur­ries away to Up­sala Palace; he will make all straight and just again by mar­ry­ing Niels Sture's sis­ter. Kneel­ing, he begs her im­pris­oned fa­ther's con­sent, and ob­tains it; but in the very mo­ment, the spir­it of dis­trust is again up­on him, and he cries in his in­san­ity:

“But you will not for­give me the shame I brought on Niels!”

At the same time, Goran Pers­son an­nounced that King Erik's broth­er, John, had es­caped from his prison, and that a re­volt was break­ing out. And Erik ran, with a sharp dag­ger in­to Niels Sture's prison.

“Art thou there, traitor to thy coun­try!” he shout­ed, and thrust the dag­ger in­to Shire's arm; and Sture drew it out again, wiped off the blood, kissed the hilt, and re­turned the weapon to the King, say­ing:

“Be le­nient with me, Sire; I have not de­served your dis­favour.”

Erik laughed aloud.

“Ho! ho! do but hear the vil­lain! how he can pray for him­self!”

And the King's hal­berdier stuck his lance through Niels Sture's eye, and thus gave him his death. Sture's blood cleaves to Up­sala Palace--to King Erik al­ways and ev­er­last­ing­ly. No church mass­es can ab­solve his soul from that base crime.

Let us now go to the church.

A lit­tle flight of stairs in the side aisle leads us up to a vault­ed cham­ber, where kings' crowns and scep­tres, tak­en from the coffins of the dead, are de­posit­ed in wood­en clos­ets. Here, in the cor­ner, hangs Niels Sture's blood-​cov­ered clothes and knight's hat, on the out­side of which a small silk glove is fas­tened. It was his be­trothed one's dain­ty glove--that which he, knight-​like, al­ways bore.

O, bar­barous era! high­ly vaunt­ed as you are in song, re­treat, like the storm-​cloud, and be po­et­ical­ly beau­ti­ful to all who do not see thee in thy true light.

We de­scend from the lit­tle cham­ber, from the gold and sil­ver of the dead, and wan­der in the church's aisles. The cold mar­ble tombs, with shields of arms and names, awak­en oth­er, milder thoughts.

The walls shine bright­ly, and with var­ied hues, in the great chapel be­hind the high al­tar. The fres­co paint­ings present to us the most event­ful cir­cum­stances of Gus­tavus Vasa's life. Here his clay moul­ders, with that of his three con­sorts. Yon­der, a work in mar­ble, by Sargel, so­lic­its our at­ten­tion: it adorns the buri­al-​chapel of the De Geers; and here, in the cen­tre aisle, un­der that flat stone, rests Lin­naeus. In the side chapel, is his mon­ument, erect­ed by _am­ici_ and _dis­cip­uli_: a suf­fi­cient sum was quick­ly raised for its erec­tion, and the King, Gus­tavus the Third, him­self brought his roy­al gift. The pro­jec­tor of the sub­scrip­tion then ex­plained to him, that the pur­posed in­scrip­tion was, that the mon­ument was erect­ed on­ly by friends and dis­ci­ples, and King Gus­tavus an­swered: “And am not I al­so one of Lin­naeus's dis­ci­ples?”

The mon­ument was raised, and a hall built in the botan­ical gar­den, un­der splen­did trees. There stands his bust; but the re­mem­brance of him­self, his home, his own lit­tle gar­den--where is it most vivid? Lead us thith­er.

On yon­der side of Fyri's rivulet, where the street forms a de­cliv­ity, where red-​paint­ed, wood­en hous­es boast their liv­ing grass roofs, as fresh as if they were plant­ed ter­races, lies Lin­naeus's gar­den. We stand with­in it. How soli­tary! how over­grown! Tall net­tles shoot up be­tween the old, untrimmed, rank hedges. No wa­ter-​plants ap­pear more in that lit­tle, dried-​up basin; the hedges that were for­mer­ly clipped, put forth fresh leaves with­out be­ing checked by the gar­den­er's shears.

It was be­tween these hedges that Lin­naeus at times saw his own dou­ble--that op­ti­cal il­lu­sion which presents the ex­press im­age of a sec­ond self--from the hat to the boots.

Where a great man has lived and worked, the place it­self be­comes, as it were, a part and par­cel of him: the whole, as well as a part, has mir­rored it­self in his eye; it has en­tered in­to his soul, and be­come linked with it and the whole world.

We en­ter the or­angeries: they are now trans­formed in­to as­sem­bly-​rooms; the bloom­ing win­ter-​gar­den has dis­ap­peared; but the walls yet show a sort of herbar­ium. They are hung round with the por­traits of learned Swedes--herbar­ium from the gar­den of sci­ence and knowl­edge. Un­known faces--and, to the stranger, the great­est part are un­known names--meet us here.

One por­trait amongst the many at­tracts our at­ten­tion: it looks sin­gu­lar; it is the half-​length fig­ure of an old man in a shirt, ly­ing in his bed. It is that of the learned the­olo­gian, Oed­mann, who af­ter he had been com­pelled to keep his bed by a fever, found him­self so com­fort­able in it, that he con­tin­ued to lie there dur­ing the re­main­der of his long life, and was not to be in­duced to get up. Even when the next house was burn­ing, they were obliged to car­ry him out in his bed in­to the street. Death and cold were his two bug­bears. The cold would kill him, was his opin­ion; and so, when the stu­dents came with their es­says and trea­tis­es, the manuscripts were warmed at the stove be­fore he read them. The win­dows of his room were nev­er opened, so that there was a suf­fo­cat­ing and im­pure air in his dwelling. He had a writ­ing-​desk on the bed; books and manuscripts lay in con­fu­sion round about; dish­es, plates, and pots stood here or there, as the con­ve­nience of the mo­ment dic­tat­ed, and his on­ly com­pan­ion was a deaf and dumb laugh­ter.

She sat still in a cor­ner by the win­dow, wrapped up in her­self, and star­ing be­fore her, as if she were a fig­ure that had flown out of the frame around the dark, mouldy can­vas, which had once shown a pic­ture on the wall.

Here, in the room, in this im­pure at­mo­sphere, the old man lived hap­pi­ly, and reached his sev­en­ti­eth year, oc­cu­pied with the trans­la­tion of trav­els in Africa. This taint­ed at­mo­sphere, in which he lay, be­came, to his con­ceit, the dromedary's high back, which lift­ed him aloft in the burn­ing sun; the long, hang­ing-​down cob­webs were the palm-​trees' wav­ing ban­ners, and the car­avan went over rivers to the wild bush­men. Old Oed­mann was with the hunters, chas­ing the ele­phants in the midst of the thick reeds; the ag­ile tiger-​cat sprang past, and the ser­pents shone like gar­lands around the boughs of the trees: there was ex­cite­ment, there was dan­ger--and yet he lay so com­fort­ably in his good and beloved bed in Up­sala.

One win­ter's day, it hap­pened that a Dale­car­lian peas­ant mis­took the house, and came in­to Oed­mann's cham­ber in his snow-​cov­ered skin cloak, and with his beard full of ice. Oed­mann shout­ed to him to go his way, but the peas­ant was deaf, and there­fore stepped quite close up to the bed. He was the per­son­ifi­ca­tion of Win­ter him­self, and Oed­mann fell ill from this vis­it: it was his on­ly sick­ness dur­ing the many years he lay here as a poly­pus, grown fast, and where he was paint­ed, as we see his por­trait in the as­sem­bly-​room.

From the hall of learn­ing we will go to its buri­al-​place--that is to say, its open buri­al-​place--the great li­brary. We wan­der from hall to hall, up stairs and down stairs. Along the shelves, be­hind them and round about, stand books, those pet­ri­fac­tions of the mind, which might again be viv­ified by spir­it. Here lives a kind-​heart­ed and mild old man, the li­brar­ian, Pro­fes­sor Schröder. He smiles and nods as he hears how mem­ory's sprite takes his place here as guide, and tells of and shows, as we see, Teg­ner's copy and trans­la­tion of Ochlen­schloeger's “Hakon Jarl and Pal­na­toke.” We see Vad­stene clois­ter's li­brary, in thick hog's leather bind­ings, and think of the fair hands of the nuns that have borne them, the pi­ous, mild eyes that con­jured the spir­it out of the dead let­ters. Here is the cel­ebrat­ed Codex Ar­gen­tius, the trans­la­tion of the “Four Evan­ge­lists.”[Q] Gold and sil­ver let­ters glis­ten from the red parch­ment leaves. We see an­cient Ice­landic manuscripts, from de la Gardie's re­fined French sa­loon, and Thauberg's Japanese manuscripts. By mere­ly look­ing at these books, their bind­ings and names, one at last be­comes, as it were, quite worm-​eat­en in spir­it, and longs to be out in the free air--and we are there; by Up­sala's an­cient hills. Thith­er do thou lead us, re­mem­brance's elf, out of the city, out on the far ex­tend­ed plain, where Den­mark's church stands--the church that was erect­ed from the booty which the Swedes gained in the war against the Danes. We fol­low the broad high road: it leads us close past Up­sala's old hills--Odin's, Thor's and Freia's graves, as they are called.

[Foot­note Q: A Goth­ic trans­la­tion of the Four Evan­ge­lists, and as­cribed to the Moe­so­goth­ic Arch­bish­op Ul­phi­las.]

There once stood an­cient Up­sala, here now are but a few peas­ants' farms. The low church, built of gran­ite blocks, dates from a very re­mote age; it stands on the re­mains of the hea­then tem­ple. Each of the hills is a lit­tle moun­tain, yet each was raised by hu­man hands. Let­ters an ell long, and whole names, are cut deep in the thin greensward, which the new sprout­ing grass grad­ual­ly fills up. The old house­wife, from the peas­ant's cot close by the hill, brings the sil­ver-​bound horn, a gift of Charles John XIV., filled with mead. The wan­der­er emp­ties the horn to the mem­ory of the old­en time, for Swe­den, and for the heart's con­stant thoughts--young love!

Yes, thy toast is drunk here, and many a beau­teous rose has been re­mem­bered here with a heart­felt hur­ra! and years af­ter, when the same wan­der­er again stood here, she, the bloom­ing rose, had been laid in the earth; the spring ros­es had strown their leaves over her coffined clay; the sweet mu­sic of her lips sound­ed but in mem­ory; the smile in her eyes and around her mouth, was gone like the sun­beams, which then shone on Up­sala's hills. Her name in the greensward is grown over; she her­self is in the earth, and it is closed above her; but the hill here, closed for a thou­sand years, is open.

Through the pas­sage which is dug deep in­to the hills, we come to the fu­ne­re­al urns which con­tain the bones of youth­ful kin­dred; the dust of kings, the gods of the earth.

The old house­wife, from the peas­ant's cot, has light­ed half a hun­dred wax can­dles and placed them in rows in the oth­er­wise pitchy-​dark, stone-​paved pas­sage. It shines so fes­tal­ly in here over the bones of the old­en time's mighty ones, bones that are now charred and burnt to ash­es. And whose were they? Thou world's pow­er and glo­ry, thou world's posthu­mous fame--dust, dust like beau­ty's rose, laid in the dark earth, where no light shines; thy memo­ri­als are but a name, the name but a sound. Away hence, and up on the hill where the wind blows, the sun shines, and the eye looks over the green plain, to the sun­lit, dear Up­sala, the stu­dent's city.

SALA.

* * * * *

Swe­den's great King, Ger­many's pre­serv­er, Gus­tavus Adol­phus, found­ed Sala. The lit­tle wood, close by, still pre­serves leg­ends of the hero­ic King's youth­ful love--of his meet­ing here with Eb­ba Bra­he.

Sala's sil­ver mines are the largest, the deep­est, and old­est in Swe­den: they reach to the depth of one hun­dred and sev­en­ty fath­oms, con­se­quent­ly they are al­most as deep as the Baltic. This of it­self is enough to awak­en an in­ter­est for a lit­tle town; but what is its ap­pear­ance? “Sala,” says the guide-​book, “lies in a val­ley, in a flat, and not very pleas­ant dis­trict.” And so tru­ly it is: it was not very at­trac­tive ap­proach­ing it our way, and the high road led di­rect­ly in­to the town, which is with­out any dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter. It con­sists of a long street with what we may term a nu­cle­us and a few fi­bres. The nu­cle­us is the mar­ket-​place, and the fi­bres are the few lanes di­verg­ing from it. The long street--that is to say, long in a lit­tle town--is quite with­out pas­sen­gers; no one comes out from the doors, no one is to be seen at the win­dows.

It was there­fore with pleased sur­prise that I at length de­scried a hu­man be­ing: it was at an iron­mon­ger's, where there hung a pa­per of pins, a hand­ker­chief and two tea-​pots in the win­dow. There I saw a soli­tary shop-​boy, stand­ing quite still, but lean­ing over the counter and look­ing out of the open door. He cer­tain­ly wrote in his jour­nal, if he had one, in the evening: “To-​day a trav­eller drove through the town; who he was, God knows, for I don't!”--yes, that was what the shop-​boy's face said, and an hon­est face it was.

In the inn at which I ar­rived, there was the same grave-​like still­ness as in the street. The gate was cer­tain­ly closed, but all the in­ner doors were wide open; the farm-​yard cock stood up­lift­ed in the mid­dle of the trav­eller's room and crowed, in or­der to show that there was some­body at home. The house, how­ev­er, was quite pic­turesque: it had an open bal­cony, from which one might look out up­on the yard, for it would have been far too live­ly had it been fac­ing the street. There hung the old sign and creaked in the wind, as if to show that it at least was alive. I saw it from my win­dow; I saw al­so how the grass in the street had got the mas­tery over the pave­ment. The sun shone bright­ly, but shone as in­to the bach­elor's soli­tary room, and on the old maid's bal­sams in the flow­er-​pots. It was as still as a Scotch Sun­day--and yet it was a Tues­day. One was dis­posed for Young's “Night Thoughts.”

I looked out from the bal­cony in­to the neigh­bour­ing yard: there was not a soul to be seen, but chil­dren had been play­ing there. There was a lit­tle gar­den made of dry sticks: they were stuck down in the soft soil and had been wa­tered; a bro­ken pan, which had cer­tain­ly served by way of wa­ter­ing-​pot, lay there still. The sticks sig­ni­fied ros­es and gera­ni­ums.

It had been a de­light­ful gar­den--alas, yes! We great, grown-​up men--we play just so: we make our­selves a gar­den with what we call love's ros­es and friend­ship's gera­ni­ums; we wa­ter them with our tears and with our heart's blood; and yet they are, and re­main, dry sticks with­out root. It was a gloomy thought; I felt it, and in or­der to get the dry sticks in my thoughts to blos­som, I went out. I wan­dered in the fi­bres and in the long threads--that is to say, in the small lanes--and in the great street; and here was more life than I dared to ex­pect. I met a herd of cat­tle re­turn­ing or go­ing--which I know not--for they were with­out a herds­man. The shop-​boy still stood be­hind the counter, leaned over it and greet­ed me; the stranger took his hat off again--that was my day's em­ploy­ment in Sala.

Par­don me, thou silent town, which Gus­tavus Adol­phus built, where his young heart felt the first emo­tions of love, and where the sil­ver lies in the deep shafts--that is to say, out­side the town, “in a flat, and not very pleas­ant dis­trict.”

I knew no one in the town; I had no one to be my guide, so I ac­com­pa­nied the cows, and came to the church­yard. The cows went past, but I stepped over the stile, and stood amongst the graves, where the grass grew high, and al­most all the tomb­stones lay with worn-​out in­scrip­tions. On a few on­ly the date of the year was leg­ible. “An­no”--yes, what then? And who rest­ed here? Ev­ery­thing on the stone was erased--blot­ted out like the earth­ly life of those mor­tals that here were earth in earth. What life's dream have ye dead played here in silent Sala?

The set­ting sun shone over the graves; not a leaf moved on the trees; all was still--still as death--in the city of the sil­ver-​mines, of which this trav­eller's rem­inis­cence is but a frame around the shop-​boy who leaned over the counter.

THE MUTE BOOK.

* * * * *

By the high road in­to the for­est there stood a soli­tary farm-​house. Our way lay right through the farm-​yard; the sun shone; all the win­dows were open; there was life and bus­tle with­in, but in the yard, in an ar­bour of flow­er­ing lilacs, there stood an open cof­fin. The corpse had been placed out here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood by and wept over that dead man; no one hung sor­row­ful­ly over him; his face was cov­ered with a white cloth, and un­der his head there lay a large, thick book, ev­ery leaf of which was a whole sheet of grey pa­per, and be­tween each lay with­ered flow­ers, de­posit­ed and for­got­ten--a whole herbar­ium, gath­ered in dif­fer­ent places. He him­self had re­quest­ed that it should be laid in the grave with him. A chap­ter of his life was blend­ed with ev­ery flow­er.

“Who is that dead man?” we asked, and the an­swer was: "The old stu­dent from Up­sala. They say he was once very clever; he knew the learned lan­guages, could sing and write vers­es too; but then there was some­thing that went wrong, and so he gave both his thoughts and him­self up to drink­ing spir­its, and as his health suf­fered by it, he came out here in­to the coun­try, where they paid for his board and lodg­ing.

“He was as gen­tle as a child, when the dark hu­mour did not come over him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the for­est like a hunt­ed deer; but when we got him home, we per­suad­ed him to look in­to the book with the dry plants. Then he would sit the whole day and look at one plant, and then at an­oth­er, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have the book with him in his cof­fin; and now it lies there, and the lid will soon be fas­tened down, and then he will take his peace­ful rest in the grave!”

They raised the wind­ing-​sheet. There was peace in the face of the dead: a sun­beam fell on it; a swal­low in its ar­rowy flight, dart­ed in­to the new-​made ar­bour, and in its flight cir­cled twit­ter­ing over the dead man's head.

How strange it is!--we all as­sured­ly know it--to take out old let­ters from the days of our youth and read them: a whole life, as it were, then ris­es up with all its hopes, and all its trou­bles. How many of those with whom we, in their time, lived so de­vot­ed­ly, are now even as the dead to us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them for many years--them whom we once thought we should al­ways cling to, and share our mu­tu­al joys and sor­rows with.

The with­ered oak-​leaf in the book here, is a memo­ri­al of the friend--the friend of his school-​days--the friend for life. He fixed this leaf on the stu­dent's cap in the green wood, when the vow of friend­ship was con­clud­ed for the whole of life. Where does he now live? The leaf is pre­served; friend­ship for­got­ten. Here is a for­eign con­ser­va­to­ry-​plant, too fine for the gar­dens of the North--it looks as if there still were fra­grance in these leaves!--_she_ gave it to him--she, the young la­dy of that no­ble gar­den.

Here is the marsh-​lo­tus which he him­self has plucked and wa­tered with salt tears--the marsh-​lo­tus from the fresh wa­ters. And here is a net­tle: what does its leaf say? What did he think on pluck­ing it--on pre­serv­ing it? Here are lilies of the val­ley from the wood­land soli­tudes; here are hon­ey­suck­le leaves from the vil­lage ale-​house flow­er-​pot; and here the bare, sharp blade of grass.

The flow­er­ing lilac bends its fresh, fra­grant clus­ters over the dead man's head; the swal­low again flies past; “quiv­it! quiv­it!” Now the men come with nails and ham­mer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head rests on the Mute-​Book--pre­served--for­got­ten!

THE ZÄTHER DALE.

* * * * *

Ev­ery­thing was in or­der, the car­riage ex­am­ined, even a whip with a good lash was not for­got­ten. “Two whips would be best,” said the iron­mon­ger, who sold it, and the iron­mon­ger was a man of ex­pe­ri­ence, which trav­ellers of­ten are not. A whole bag full of “slanter”--that is, cop­per coins of small val­ue--stood be­fore us for bridge-​mon­ey, for beg­gars, for shep­herd's boys, or who­ev­er might open the many field-​gates for us that ob­struct­ed our progress. But we had to do this our­selves, for the rain pat­tered down and lashed the ground; no one had any de­sire to come out in such weath­er. The rush­es in the marsh bent and waved; it was a re­al rain feast for them, and it whis­tled from the tops of the rush­es: “We drink with our feet, we drink with our heads, we drink with the whole body, and yet we stand on one leg, hur­ra! We drink with the bend­ing wil­low, with the drip­ping flow­ers on the bank; their cups run over--the marsh marigold, that fine la­dy, can bear it bet­ter! Hur­ra! it is a feast! it pours, it pours; we whis­tle and we sing; it is our own song. To­mor­row the frogs will croak the same af­ter us and say, 'it is quite new!'”

And the rush­es waved, and the rain pat­tered down with a splash­ing noise--it was fine weath­er to trav­el in to Zäther Dale, and to see its far-​famed beau­ties. The whip-​lash now came off the whip; it was fas­tened on again, and again, and ev­ery time it was short­er, so that at last there was not a lash, nor was there any han­dle, for the han­dle went af­ter the lash--or sailed af­ter it--as the road was quite nav­iga­ble, and gave one a vivid idea of the be­gin­ning of the del­uge.

One poor jade now drew too much, the oth­er drew too lit­tle, and one of the splin­ter bars broke; well, by all that is vex­atious, that was a fine drive! The leather apron in front had a deep pond in its folds with an out­let in­to one's lap. Now one of the linch-​pins came out; now the twist­ing of the rope har­ness be­came loose, and the cross-​strap was tired of hold­ing any longer. Glo­ri­ous inn in Zäther, how I now long more for thee than thy far-​famed dale. And the hors­es went slow­er, and the rain fell faster, and so--yes, so we were not yet in Zäther.

Pa­tience, thou lank spi­der, that in the ante-​cham­ber qui­et­ly dost spin thy web over the ex­pec­tant's foot, spin my eye­lids close in a sleep as still as the horse's pace! Pa­tience? no, she was not with us in the car­riage to Zäther. But to the inn, by the road side, close to the far-​famed val­ley, I got at length, to­wards evening.

And ev­ery­thing was flow­ing in the yard, chaot­ical­ly min­gled; ma­nure and farm­ing im­ple­ments, staves and straw. The poul­try sat there washed to shad­ows, or at least like stuck-​up hens' skins with feath­ers on, and even the ducks crept close up to the wet wall, sat­ed with the wet. The sta­ble-​man was cross, the girl still more so; it was dif­fi­cult to get them to be­stir them­selves: the steps were crooked, the floor slop­ing and but just washed, sand strewn thick­ly on it, and the air was damp and cold. But with­out, scarce­ly twen­ty paces from the inn, on the oth­er side of the road, lay the cel­ebrat­ed val­ley, a gar­den made by na­ture her­self, and whose charm con­sists of trees and bush­es, wells and purl­ing brooks.

It was a long hol­low; I saw the tops of the trees loom­ing up, and the rain drew its thick veil over it. The whole of that long evening did I sit and look up­on it dur­ing that show­er of show­ers. It was as if the Ven­ern, the Vet­tern and a few more lakes ran through an im­mense sieve from the clouds. I had or­dered some­thing to eat and drink, but I got noth­ing. They ran up and they ran down; there was a hiss­ing sound of roast­ing by the hearth; the girls chat­tered, the men drank “sup,”[R] strangers came, were shown in­to their rooms, and got both roast and boiled. Sev­er­al hours had passed, when I made a forcible ap­peal to the girl, and she an­swered phleg­mat­ical­ly: “Why, Sir, you sit there and write with­out stop­ping, so you can­not have time to eat.”

[Foot­note R: Swedish, _sup_. Dan­ish, _snaps_. Ger­man, _schnaps_. En­glish, _drams_.]

It was a long evening, “but the evening passed!” It had be­come quite still in the inn; all the trav­ellers, ex­cept my­self, had again de­part­ed, cer­tain­ly in or­der to find bet­ter quar­ters for the night at Hede­more or Brun­beck. I had seen, through the half-​open door in­to the dirty tap-​room, a cou­ple of fel­lows play­ing with greasy cards; a huge dog lay un­der the ta­ble and glared with its large red eyes; the kitchen was de­sert­ed; the rooms too; the floor was wet, the storm rat­tled, the rain beat against the win­dows--“and now to bed! said I.”

I slept an hour, per­haps two, and was awak­ened by a loud bawl­ing from the high road. I start­ed up: it was twi­light, the night at that pe­ri­od is not dark­er--it was about one o'clock. I heard the door shak­en rough­ly; a deep man­ly voice shout­ed aloud, and there was a ham­mer­ing with a cud­gel against the planks of the yard-​gate. Was it an in­tox­icat­ed or a mad man that was to be let in? The gate was now opened, but many words were not ex­changed. I heard a wom­an scream at the top of her voice from ter­ror. There was now a great bustling about; they ran across the yard in wood­en shoes; the bel­low­ing of cat­tle and the rough voic­es of men were min­gled to­geth­er. I sat on the edge of the bed. Out or in! what was to be done? I looked from the win­dow; in the road there was noth­ing to be seen, and it still rained. All at once some one came up stairs with heavy foot­steps: he opened the door of the room ad­join­ing mine--now he stood still! I lis­tened--a large iron bolt fas­tened my door. The stranger now walked across the floor, now he shook my door, and then kicked against it with a heavy foot, and whilst all this was pass­ing, the rain beat against the win­dows, and the blast made them rat­tle.

“Are there any trav­ellers here?” shout­ed a voice; “the house is on fire!”

I now dressed my­self and has­tened out of the room and down the stairs. There was no smoke to be seen, but when I reached the yard, I saw that the whole build­ing--a long and ex­ten­sive one of wood--was en­veloped in flames and clouds of smoke. The fire had orig­inat­ed in the bak­ing oven, which no one had looked to; a trav­eller, who ac­ci­dent­ly came past, saw it, called out and ham­mered at the door: and the wom­en screamed, and the cat­tle bel­lowed, when the fire stuck its red tongue in­to them.

Now came the fire-​en­gine and the flames were ex­tin­guished. By this time it was morn­ing. I stood in the road, scarce­ly a hun­dred steps from the far-​famed dale. “One may as well spring in­to it as walk in­to it!” and I sprang in­to it; and the rain poured down, and the wa­ter flowed--the whole dale was a well.

The trees turned their leaves the wrong side out, pure­ly be­cause of the pour­ing rain, and they said, as the rush­es did the day be­fore: “We drink with our heads, we drink with our feet, and we drink with the whole body, and yet stand on our legs, hur­ra! it rains, and it pours; we whis­tle and we sing; it is our own song--and it is quite new!”

Yes, that the rush­es al­so sang yes­ter­day--but it was the same, ev­er the same. I looked and looked, and all I know of the beau­ty of Zäther Dale is, that she had washed her­self!

THE MID­SUM­MER FES­TI­VAL IN LACK­SAND.

* * * * *

Lack­sand lay on the oth­er side of the dal-​elv which the road now led us over for the third or fourth time. The pic­turesque bell-​tow­er of red paint­ed beams, erect­ed at a dis­tance from the church, rose above the tall trees on the clayey de­cliv­ity: old wil­lows hung grace­ful­ly over the rapid stream. The float­ing bridge rocked un­der us--nay, it even sank a lit­tle, so that the wa­ter splashed un­der the horse's hoofs; but these bridges have such qual­ities! The iron chains that held it rat­tled, the planks creaked, the boards splashed, the wa­ter rose, and mur­mured and roared, and so we got over where the road slants up­wards to­wards the town. Close op­po­site here the last year's May-​pole still stood with with­ered flow­ers. How many hands that bound these flow­ers are now with­ered in the grave?

It is far pret­ti­er to go up on the slop­ing bank along the elv, than to fol­low the straight high-​road in­to the town. The path con­ducts us, be­tween pas­ture fields and leaf trees, up to the par­son­age, where we passed the evening with the friend­ly fam­ily. The cler­gy­man him­self was but late­ly dead, and his rel­atives were all in mourn­ing. There was some­thing about the young daugh­ter--I knew not my­self what it was--but I was led to think of the del­icate flax flow­er, too del­icate for the short north­ern sum­mer.

They spoke about the Mid­sum­mer fes­ti­val the next day, and of the win­ter sea­son here, when the swans, of­ten more than thir­ty at a time, sit (mo­tion­less them­selves) on the elv, and ut­ter strange, mourn­ful tones. They al­ways come in pairs, they said, two and two, and thus they al­so fly away again. If one of them dies, its part­ner al­ways re­mains a long time af­ter all the oth­ers are gone; lingers, laments, and then flies away alone and soli­tary.

When I left the par­son­age in the evening, the moon, in its first quar­ter, was up. The May-​pole was raised; the lit­tle steam­er, 'Prince Au­gus­tus,' with sev­er­al small ves­sels in tow, came over the Sil­jan lake and in­to the elv; a mu­si­cian sprang on shore, and be­gan to play dances un­der the tall wreathed May-​pole. And there was soon a mer­ry cir­cle around it--all so hap­py, as if the whole of life were but a de­light­ful sum­mer night.

Next morn­ing was the Mid­sum­mer Fes­ti­val. It was Sun­day, the 24th of June, and a beau­ti­ful sun­shiny day it was. The most pic­turesque sight at the fes­ti­val is to see the peo­ple from the dif­fer­ent parish­es com­ing in crowds, in large boats over Sil­jan's lake, and land­ing on its shores. We drove out to the land­ing-​place, Barkedale, and be­fore we got out of the town, we met whole troops com­ing from there, as well as from the moun­tains.

Close by the town of Lack­sand, there is a row of low wood­en shops on both sides of the way, which on­ly get their in­te­ri­or light through the door­way. They form a whole street, and serve as sta­bles for the parish­ioners, but al­so--and it was par­tic­ular­ly the case that morn­ing--to go in­to and ar­range their fin­ery. Al­most all the shops or sheds were filled with peas­ant wom­en, who were anx­ious­ly busy about their dress­es, care­ful to get them in­to the right folds, and in the mean time peeped con­tin­ual­ly out of the door to see who came past. The num­ber of ar­riv­ing church-​go­ers in­creased; men, wom­en, and chil­dren, old and young, even in­fants; for at the Mid­sum­mer fes­ti­val no one stays at home to take care of them, and so of course they must come too--all must go to church.

What a daz­zling army of colours! Fiery red and grass green aprons meet our gaze. The dress of the wom­en is a black skirt, red bodice, and white sleeves: all of them had a psalm-​book wrapped in the fold­ed silk pock­et-​hand­ker­chief. The lit­tle girls were en­tire­ly in yel­low, and with red aprons; the very least were in Turk­ish-​yel­low clothes. The men were dressed in black coats, like our paletôts, em­broi­dered with red woollen cord; a red band with a tas­sel hung down from the large black hat; with dark knee breech­es, and blue stock­ings, with red leather gaiters--in short, there was a daz­zling rich­ness of colour, and that, too, on a bright sun­ny morn­ing in the for­est road.

This road led down a steep to the lake, which was smooth and blue. Twelve or four­teen long boats, in form like gon­do­las, were al­ready drawn up on the flat strand, which here is cov­ered with large stones. These stones served the per­sons who land­ed, as bridges; the boats were laid along­side them, and the peo­ple clam­bered up, and went and bore each oth­er on land. There cer­tain­ly were at least a thou­sand per­sons on the strand; and far out on the lake, one could see ten or twelve boats more com­ing, some with six­teen oars, oth­ers with twen­ty, nay, even with four-​and-​twen­ty, rowed by men and wom­en, and ev­ery boat decked out with green branch­es. These, and the var­ied clothes, gave to the whole an ap­pear­ance of some­thing so fes­tal, so fan­tas­ti­cal­ly rich, as one would hard­ly think the north pos­sessed. The boats came near­er, all crammed full of liv­ing freight; but they came silent­ly, with­out noise or talk­ing, and rowed up to the de­cliv­ity of the for­est.

The boats were drawn up on the sand: it was a fine sub­ject for a painter, par­tic­ular­ly one point--the way up the slope, where the whole mass moved on be­tween the trees and bush­es. The most promi­nent fig­ures there, were two ragged urchins, clothed en­tire­ly in bright yel­low, each with a skin bun­dle on his shoul­ders. They were from Gagne, the poor­est parish in Dale­car­lia. There was al­so a lame man with his blind wife: I thought of the fa­ble of my child­hood, of the lame and the blind man: the lame man lent his eyes, and the blind his legs, and so they reached the town.

And we al­so reached the town and the church, and thith­er they all thronged: they said there were above five thou­sand per­sons as­sem­bled there. The church-​ser­vice be­gan at five o'clock. The pul­pit and or­gan were or­na­ment­ed with flow­er­ing lilacs; chil­dren sat with lilac-​flow­ers and branch­es of birch; the lit­tle ones had each a piece of oat-​cake, which they en­joyed. There was the sacra­ment for the young per­sons who had been con­firmed; there was or­gan-​play­ing and psalm-​singing; but there was a ter­ri­ble scream­ing of chil­dren, and the sound of heavy foot­steps; the clum­sy, iron-​shod Dal shoes tramped loud­ly up­on the stone floor. All the church pews, the gallery pews, and the cen­tre aisle were quite filled with peo­ple. In the side aisle one saw var­ious groups--play­ing chil­dren, and pi­ous old folks: by the sac­risty there sat a young moth­er giv­ing suck to her child--she was a liv­ing im­age of the Madon­na her­self.

The first im­pres­sion of the whole was strik­ing, but on­ly the first--there was too much that dis­turbed. The scream­ing of chil­dren, and the noise of per­sons walk­ing were heard above the singing, and be­sides that, there was an in­sup­port­able smell of gar­lic: al­most all the con­gre­ga­tion had small bunch­es of gar­lic with them, of which they ate as they sat. I could not bear it, and went out in­to the church­yard: here--as it al­ways is in na­ture--it was af­fect­ing, it was holy. The church door stood open; the tones of the or­gan, and the voic­es of the psalm-​singers were waft­ed out here in the bright sun­light, by the open lake: the many who could not find a place in the church, stood out­side, and sang with the con­gre­ga­tion from the psalm-​book: round about on the mon­uments, which are al­most all of cast-​iron, there sat moth­ers suck­ling their in­fants--the foun­tain of life flowed over death and the grave. A young peas­ant stood and read the in­scrip­tion on a grave:

“Ach hur södt al hafve lefvet, Ach hur skjöut al kunne döe!”[S]

[Foot­note S: “How sweet to live--how beau­ti­ful to die!”]

Beau­ti­ful Chris­tian, scrip­tural lan­guage, vers­es cer­tain­ly tak­en from the psalm-​book, were read on the graves; they were all read, for the ser­vice last­ed sev­er­al hours. This, how­ev­er, can nev­er be good for de­vo­tion.

The crowd at length streamed from the church; the fiery-​red and grass-​green aprons glit­tered; but the mass of hu­man be­ings be­came thick­er, and clos­er, and pressed for­ward. The white head-​dress­es, the white band over the fore­head, and the white sleeves, were the pre­vail­ing colours--it looked like a long pro­ces­sion in Catholic coun­tries. There was again life and mo­tion on the road; the over-​filled boats again rowed away; one wag­gon drove off af­ter the oth­er; but yet there were peo­ple left be­hind. Mar­ried and un­mar­ried men stood in groups in the broad street of Lack­sand, from the church up to the inn. I was stay­ing there, and I must ac­knowl­edge that my Dan­ish tongue sound­ed quite for­eign to them all. I then tried the Swedish, and the girl at the inn as­sured me that she un­der­stood me bet­ter than she had un­der­stood the French­man, who the year be­fore had spo­ken French to her.

As I sit in my room, my host­ess's grand-​daugh­ter, a nice lit­tle child, comes in, and is pleased to see my par­ti-​coloured car­pet-​bag, my Scotch plaid, and the red leather lin­ing of the port­man­teau. I di­rect­ly cut out for her, from a sheet of white pa­per, a Turk­ish mosque, with minarets and open win­dows, and away she runs with it--so hap­py, so hap­py!

Short­ly af­ter, I heard much loud talk­ing in the yard, and I had a pre­sen­ti­ment that it was con­cern­ing what I had cut out; I there­fore stepped soft­ly out in­to the bal­cony, and saw the grand­moth­er stand­ing be­low, and with beam­ing face, hold­ing my clipped-​out pa­per at arm's length. A whole crowd of Dale­car­lians, men and wom­en, stood around, all in artis­tic ec­sta­cy over my work; but the lit­tle girl--the sweet lit­tle child--screamed, and stretched out her hands af­ter her law­ful prop­er­ty, which she was not per­mit­ted to keep, as it was too fine.

I sneaked in again, yet, of course, high­ly flat­tered and cheered; but a mo­ment af­ter there was a knock­ing at my door: it was the grand­moth­er, my host­ess, who came with a whole plate full of spice-​nuts.

“I bake the best in all Dale­car­lia,” said she; “but they are of the old fash­ion, from my grand­moth­er's time. You cut out so well, Sir, should you not be able to cut me out some new fash­ions?”

And I sat the whole of Mid­sum­mer night, and clipped fash­ions for spice-​nuts. Nutcrack­ers with knights' boots, wind­mills which were both mill and miller--but in slip­pers, and with the door in the stom­ach--and bal­let-​dancers that point­ed with one leg to­wards the sev­en stars. Grand­moth­er got them, but she turned the bal­let-​dancers up and down; the legs went too high for her; she thought that they had one leg and three arms.

“They will be new fash­ions,” said she; “but they are dif­fi­cult.”

FAITH AND KNOWL­EDGE.

* * * * *

Truth can nev­er be at vari­ance with truth, sci­ence can nev­er mil­itate against faith: we nat­ural­ly speak of them both in their pu­ri­ty: they re­spond to and they strength­en man's most glo­ri­ous thought: _im­mor­tal­ity_. And yet you may say, “I was more peace­ful, I was safer when, as a child, I closed my eyes on my moth­er's breast and slept with­out thought or care, wrap­ping my­self up sim­ply in faith.” This pre­science, this com­pound of un­der­stand­ing in ev­ery­thing, this en­ter­ing of the one link in­to the oth­er from eter­ni­ty to eter­ni­ty, tears away from me a sup­port--my con­fi­dence in prayer; that which is, as it were, the wings where­with to fly to my God! If it be loos­ened, then I fall pow­er­less in the dust, with­out con­so­la­tion or hope.

I bend my en­er­gies, it is true, to­wards at­tain­ing the great and glo­ri­ous light of knowl­edge, but it ap­pears to me that there­in is hu­man ar­ro­gance: it is, as one should say, “I will be as wise as God.” “That you shall be!” said the ser­pent to our first par­ents when it would se­duce them to eat of the tree of knowl­edge. Through my un­der­stand­ing I must ac­knowl­edge the truth of what the as­tronomer teach­es and proves. I see the won­der­ful, eter­nal om­ni­science of God in the whole cre­ation of the world--in the great and in the small, where the one at­tach­es it­self to the oth­er, is joined with the oth­er, in an end­less har­mo­nious en­tire­ness; and I trem­ble in my great­est need and sor­row. What can my prayer change, where ev­ery­thing is law, from eter­ni­ty to eter­ni­ty?

You trem­ble as you see the Almighty, who re­veals Him­self in all lov­ing-​kind­ness--that Cre­ator, ac­cord­ing to man's ex­pres­sion, whose un­der­stand­ing and heart are one--you trem­ble when you know that he has elect­ed you to im­mor­tal­ity.

I know it in the faith, in the holy, eter­nal words of the Bible. Knowl­edge lays it­self like a stone over my grave, but my faith is that which breaks it.

Now, thus it is! The small­est flow­er preach­es from its green stalk, in the name of knowl­edge--_im­mor­tal­ity_. Hear it! the beau­ti­ful al­so bears proofs of im­mor­tal­ity, and with the con­vic­tion of faith and knowl­edge, the im­mor­tal will not trem­ble in his great­est need; the wings of prayer will not droop: you will be­lieve in the eter­nal laws of love, as you be­lieve in the laws of sense.

When the child gath­ers flow­ers in the fields and brings us the whole hand­ful, where one is erect and the oth­er hangs the head, thrown as it were among one an­oth­er, then it is that we see the beau­ty in ev­ery one by it­self--that har­mo­ny in colour and in form, which pleas­es our eye so well. We ar­range them in­stinc­tive­ly, and ev­ery sin­gle beau­ty is blend­ed to­geth­er in one en­tire beau­teous group. We do not look at the flow­er, but on the whole bou­quet. The beau­ty of har­mo­ny is an in­stinct in us; it lies in our eyes and in our ears, those bridges be­tween our soul and the cre­ation around us--in all our sens­es there is such a di­vine, such an en­tire and per­fect stream in our whole be­ing, a striv­ing af­ter the har­mo­nious, as it shows it­self in all cre­at­ed things, even in the pul­sa­tions of the air, made vis­ible in Chlad­ni's fig­ures.

In the Bible we find the ex­pres­sion: “God in spir­it and in truth,”--and hence we most sig­nif­icant­ly find an ex­pres­sion for the ad­mis­sion of what we call a feel­ing of the beau­ti­ful; for what else is this rev­ela­tion of God but spir­it and truth? And just as our own soul shines out of the eye and the fine move­ment around the mouth, so does the cre­at­ed im­age shine forth from God in spir­it and truth. There is har­mo­nious beau­ty from the small­est leaf and flow­er to the large, swelling bou­quet, from our earth it­self to the num­ber­less globes in the fir­ma­men­tal space--as far as the eye sees, as far as sci­ence ven­tures, all, small and great, is beau­ty and har­mo­ny.

But if we turn to mankind, for whom we have the high­est, the holi­est ex­pres­sion; “cre­at­ed in God's im­age,” man, who is able to com­pre­hend and ad­mit in him­self all God's cre­ation, the har­mo­ny in the har­mo­ny then seems to be de­fec­tive, for at our birth we are all equal! as crea­tures we have equal­ly “no right to de­mand;” yet how dif­fer­ent­ly God has grant­ed us abil­ities! some few so im­mense­ly great, oth­ers so mean! At our birth God places us in our homes and po­si­tions; and to how many of us are al­lot­ted the hard­est strug­gles! We are placed _there_, in­tro­duced _there_--how many may not say just­ly: “It were bet­ter for me that I had nev­er been born!”

Hu­man life, con­se­quent­ly--the high­est here on the earth--does not come un­der the laws of har­mo­nious beau­ty: it is in­con­ceiv­able, it is an in­jus­tice, and thus can­not take place.

The de­fect of har­mo­ny in life lies in this:--that we on­ly see a small part there­of, name­ly, ex­is­tence here on the earth: there must be a life to come--an im­mor­tal­ity.

That, the small­est flow­er preach­es to us, as does all that is cre­at­ed in beau­ty and har­mo­ny.

If our ex­is­tence ceased with death here, then the most per­fect work of God was not per­fect; God was not jus­tice and love, as ev­ery­thing in na­ture and rev­ela­tion af­firms; and if we be re­ferred to the whole of mankind, as that where­in har­mo­ny will re­veal it­self, then our whole ac­tions and en­deav­ours are but as the labours of the coral-​in­sect: mankind be­comes but a mon­ument of great­ness to the Cre­ator: he would then on­ly have raised His _glo­ry_, not shown His great­est _love_. Lov­ing-​kind­ness is not self-​love.

We are im­mor­tal! In this rich con­scious­ness we are raised to­wards God, fun­da­men­tal­ly sure, that what­ev­er hap­pens to us, is for our good. Our earth­ly eye is on­ly able to reach to a cer­tain bound­ary in space; our soul's eye al­so has but a lim­it­ed scope; but be­yond _that,_ the same laws of lov­ing-​kind­ness must reign, as here. The pre­science of eter­nal om­ni­science can­not alarm us; we hu­man be­ings can ap­pre­hend the no­tion there­of in our­selves. We know per­fect­ly what de­vel­op­ment must take place in the dif­fer­ent sea­sons of the year; the time for flow­ers and for fruits; what kinds will come forth and thrive; the time of ma­tu­ri­ty, when the storms must pre­vail, and when it is the rainy sea­son. Thus must God, in an in­finite­ly greater de­gree, have the same knowl­edge of the whole cre­at­ed globes of His uni­verse, as of our earth and the hu­man race here. He must know when that de­vel­op­ment, that flow­er­ing in the hu­man race or­dained by Him­self, shall come to pass; when the pow­ers of in­tel­lect, of full de­vel­op­ment, are to reign; and un­der these char­ac­ters, come to a ma­tu­ri­ty of de­vel­op­ment, men will be­come mighty, driv­ing wheels--ev­ery one be the eter­nal God's like­ness in­deed.

His­to­ry shows us these things: joint en­ters in­to joint, in the world of spir­its, as well as in the ma­te­ri­al­ly cre­at­ed world; the eye of wis­dom--the all-​see­ing eye--en­com­pass­es the whole! And should we then not be able, in our heart's dis­tress, to pray to this Fa­ther with con­fi­dence--to pray as the Saviour prayed: “If it be pos­si­ble, let this cup pass from me; nev­er­the­less, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

These last words we do not for­get! and our prayer will be grant­ed, if it be for our good; or if it be not, then let us, as the child here, that in its trou­ble comes to its earth­ly Fa­ther, and does not get its wish ful­filled, but is re­freshed by mild words, and the af­fec­tion­ate lan­guage of rea­son, so that the eye weeps, which there­by mit­igates sor­row, and the child's pain is soothed. This, will prayer al­so grant us: the eye will be filled with tears, but the heart will be full of con­so­la­tion! And who has pen­etrat­ed so deeply in­to the ways of the soul, that he dare de­ny that prayer is the wings that bear thee to that sphere of in­spi­ra­tion whence God will ex­tend to thee the olive-​branch of help and grace?

By walk­ing with open eyes in the path of knowl­edge, we see the glo­ry of the An­nun­ci­ation. The wis­dom of gen­er­ations is but a span on the high pil­lar of rev­ela­tion, above which sits the Almighty; but this short span will grow through eter­ni­ty, in faith and with faith. Knowl­edge is like a chem­ical test that pro­nounces the gold pure!

IN THE FOR­EST

* * * * *

We are a long way over the elv. We have left the corn-​fields be­hind, and have just come in­to the for­est, where we halt at that small inn, which is or­na­ment­ed over the doors and win­dows with green branch­es for the Mid­sum­mer fes­ti­val. The whole kitchen is hung round with branch­es of birch and the berries of the moun­tain-​ash: the oat-​cakes hang on long poles un­der the ceil­ing; the berries are sus­pend­ed above the head of the old wom­an who is just scour­ing her brass ket­tle bright.

The tap-​room, where the peas­ant sits and carouse, is just as fine­ly hung round with green. Mid­sum­mer rais­es its leafy ar­bour ev­ery­where, yet it is most flush in the for­est--it ex­tends for miles around. Our road goes for miles through that for­est, with­out see­ing a house, or the pos­si­bil­ity of meet­ing trav­ellers, driv­ing, rid­ing or walk­ing. Come! The ostler puts fresh hors­es to the car­riage; come with us in­to the large woody desert: we have a reg­ular trod­den way to trav­el, the air is clear, here is sum­mer's warmth and the fra­grance of birch and lime. It is an up and down hill road, al­ways bend­ing, and so, ev­er chang­ing, but yet al­ways for­est scenery--the close, thick for­est. We pass small lakes, which lie so still and deep, as if they con­cealed night and sleep un­der their dark, glassy sur­faces.

We are now on a for­est plain, where on­ly charred stumps of trees are to be seen: this long tract is black, burnt, and de­sert­ed--not a bird flies over it. Tall, hang­ing birch­es now greet us again; a squir­rel springs play­ful­ly across the road, and up in­to the tree; we cast our eye search­ing­ly over the wood-​grown moun­tain-​side, which slopes so far, far for­ward; but not a trace of a house is to be seen: nowhere does that blueish smoke-​cloud rise, that shows us, here are fel­low-​men.

The sun shines warm; the flies dance around the hors­es, set­tle on them, fly off again, and dance, as though it were to qual­ify them­selves for rest­ing and be­ing still. They per­haps think: “Noth­ing is go­ing on with­out us: there is no life while we are do­ing noth­ing.” They think, as many per­sons think, and do not re­mem­ber that Time's hors­es al­ways fly on­ward with us!

How soli­tary it is here!--so de­light­ful­ly soli­tary! one is so en­tire­ly alone with God and one's self. As the sun­light streams forth over the earth, and over the ex­ten­sive soli­tary forests, so does God's spir­it stream over and in­to mankind; ideas and thoughts un­fold them­selves--end­less, in­ex­haustible, as he is--as the mag­net which ap­por­tions its pow­ers to the steel, and it­self los­es noth­ing there­by. As our jour­ney through the for­est-​scenery here along the ex­tend­ed soli­tary road, so, trav­el­ling on the great high-​road of thought, ideas pass through our head. Strange, rich car­avans pass by from the works of po­ets, from the home of mem­ory, strange and nov­el--for capri­cious fan­cy gives birth to them at the mo­ment. There comes a pro­ces­sion of pi­ous chil­dren with wav­ing flags and joy­ous songs; there come danc­ing Moe­nades, the blood's wild Bac­cha­ntes. The sun pours down hot in the open for­est: it is as if the South­ern sum­mer had laid it­self up here to rest in Scan­di­na­vian for­est-​soli­tude, and sought it­self out a glade where it might lie in the sun's hot beams and sleep: hence this still­ness, as if it were night. Not a bird is heard to twit­ter, not a pine-​tree moves: of what does the South­ern sum­mer dream here in the North, amongst pines and fra­grant birch­es?

In the writ­ings of the old­en time, from the clas­sic soil of the South, are _sagas_ of mighty fairies who, in the skins of swans, flew to­wards the North, to the Hy­per­bore­an's land, to the east of the north wind; up there, in the deep, still lakes, they bathed them­selves, and ac­quired a re­newed form. We are in the for­est by these deep lakes; we see swans in flocks fly over us, and swim up­on the rapid elv and on the still wa­ters. The forests, we per­ceive, con­tin­ue to ex­tend fur­ther to­wards the west and the north, and are more dense as we pro­ceed: the car­riage-​roads cease, and one can on­ly pur­sue one's way along the out­skirts by the soli­tary path, and on horse­back.

The saga, from the time of the plague (A.D., 1350), here im­press­es it­self on the mind, when the pesti­lence passed through the land, and trans­formed cul­ti­vat­ed fields and towns--nay, whole parish­es, in­to bar­ren fields and wild forests. De­sert­ed and for­got­ten, over­grown with moss, grass, and bush­es, church­es stood for years far in the for­est; no one knew of their ex­is­tence, un­til, in a lat­er cen­tu­ry, a hunts­man lost him­self here: his ar­row re­bound­ed from the green wall, the moss of which he loos­ened, and the church was found. The wood-​cut­ter felled the trees for fu­el; his axe struck against the over­grown wall, and it gave way to the blow; the fir-​planks fell, and the church, from the time of the pesti­lence, was dis­cov­ered; the sun again shone bright through the open­ings of the doors and win­dows, on the brass can­de­labra and the al­tar, where the com­mu­nion-​cup still stood. The cuck­oo came, sat there, and sang: “Many, many years shalt thou live!”

Wood­land soli­tude! what im­ages dost thou not present to our thoughts! Wood­land soli­tude! through thy vault­ed halls peo­ple now pass in the sum­mer-​time with cat­tle and do­mes­tic uten­sils; chil­dren and old men go to the soli­tary pas­ture where echo dwells, where the na­tion­al song springs forth with the wild moun­tain flow­er! Dost thou see the pro­ces­sion?--paint it if thou canst! The broad wood­en cart laden high with chests and bar­rels, with jars and with crock­ery. The bright cop­per ket­tle and the tin dish shine in the sun. The old grand­moth­er sits at the top of the load and holds her spin­ning-​wheel, which com­pletes the pyra­mid. The fa­ther drives the horse, the moth­er car­ries the youngest child on her back, sewed up in a skin, and the pro­ces­sion moves on step by step. The cat­tle are driv­en by the half-​grown chil­dren: they have stuck a birch branch be­tween one of the cows' horns, but she does not ap­pear to be proud of her fin­ery, she goes the same qui­et pace as the oth­ers and lash­es the saucy flies with her tail. If the night be­comes cold on this soli­tary pas­ture, there is fu­el enough here--the tree falls of it­self from old age and lies and rots.

But take es­pe­cial care of the fire fear the fire-​spir­it in the for­est desert! He comes from the un­ex­tin­guish­able pile--he comes from the thun­der-​cloud, rid­ing on the blue light­ning's flame, which kin­dles the thick, dry moss of the earth: trees and bush­es are kin­dled, the flames run from tree to tree--it is like a snow-​storm of fire! the flame leaps to the tops of the trees--what a crack­ling and roar­ing, as if it were the ocean in its course! The birds fly up­ward in flocks, and fall down suf­fo­cat­ed by the smoke; the an­imals flee, or, en­cir­cled by the fire, are con­sumed in it! Hear their cries and roars of agony! The howl­ing of the wolf and the bear, dos't thou know it? A calm, rainy-​day, and the for­est-​plains them­selves, alone are able to con­fine the fiery sea, and the burnt for­est stands charred, with black trunks and black stumps of trees, as we saw them here in the for­est by the broad high-​road. On this road we con­tin­ue to trav­el, but it be­comes worse and worse; it is, prop­er­ly speak­ing, no road at all, but it is about to be­come one. Large stones lie half dug up, and we drive past them; large trees are cast down, and ob­struct our way, and there­fore we must de­scend from the car­riage. The hors­es are tak­en out, and the peas­ants help to lift and push the car­riage for­ward over ditch­es and opened paths.

The sun now ceas­es to shine; some few rain-​drops fall, and now it is a steady rain. But how it caus­es the birch to shed its fra­grance! At a dis­tance there are huts erect­ed, of loose trunks of trees and fresh green boughs, and in each there is a large fire burn­ing. See where the blue smoke curls through the green leafy roof; peas­ants are with­in at work, ham­mer­ing and forg­ing; here they have their meals. They are now lay­ing a mine in or­der to blast a rock, and the rain falls faster and faster, and the pine and birch emit a fin­er fra­grance. It is de­light­ful in the for­est.

FAHLUN.

* * * * *

We made our way at length out of the for­est, and saw a town be­fore us en­veloped in thick smoke, hav­ing a sim­ilar ap­pear­ance to most of the En­glish man­ufac­tur­ing towns, save that the smoke was green­ish--it was the town Fahlun.

The road now went down­wards be­tween large banks, formed by the dross de­posit­ed here from the smelt­ing fur­naces, and which looks like burnt-​out hard­ened la­va. No sprout or shrub was to be seen, not a blade of grass peeped forth by the way-​side, not a bird flew past, but a strong sul­phurous smell, as from among the craters in Sol­fa­tara, filled the air. The cop­per roof of the church shone with cor­ro­sive green.

Long straight streets now ap­peared in view. It was as death­ly still here as if sick­ness and dis­ease had lain with­in these dark wood­en hous­es, and fright­ened the in­hab­itants from com­ing abroad; yet sick­ness and dis­ease come but to few here, for when the plague raged in Swe­den, the rich and pow­er­ful of the land has­tened to Fahlun, whose sul­phure­ous air was the most healthy. An ochre-​yel­low wa­ter runs through the brook, be­tween the hous­es; the smoke from the mines and smelt­ing fur­naces has im­part­ed its tinge to them; it has even pen­etrat­ed in­to the church, whose slen­der pil­lars are dark from the fumes of the cop­per. There chanced to come on a thun­der-​storm when we ar­rived, but its roar­ing and the light­ning's flash­es har­mo­nized well with this town, which ap­pears as if it were built on the edge of a crater.

We went to see the cop­per mine which gives the whole dis­trict the name of “Sto­ra Kop­par­ber­get,” (the great cop­per moun­tain). Ac­cord­ing to the leg­end, its rich­es were dis­cov­ered by two goats which were fight­ing--they struck the ground with their horns and some cop­per ore ad­hered to them.

From the soli­tary red-​ochre street we wan­dered over the great heaps of burnt-​out dross and frag­ments of stone, ac­cu­mu­lat­ed to whole ram­parts and hills. The fire shone from the smelt­ing fur­naces with green, yel­low and red tongues of flame un­der a blue-​green smoke; half-​naked, black-​smeared fel­lows threw out large glow­ing mass­es of fire, so that the sparks flew around and about:--one was re­mind­ed of Schiller's “Fridolin.”

The thick sul­phure­ous smoke poured forth from the heaps of cleansed ore, un­der which the fire was in full ac­tiv­ity, and the wind drove it across the road which we must pass. In smoke, and im­preg­nat­ed with smoke, stood build­ing af­ter build­ing: three build­ings had been strange­ly thrown, as it were, by one an­oth­er: earth and stone-​heaps, as if they were un­fin­ished works of de­fence, ex­tend­ed around. Scaf­fold­ing, and long wood­en bridges, had been erect­ed there; large wheels turned round; long and heavy iron chains were in con­tin­ual mo­tion.

We stood be­fore an im­mense gulf, called “Sto­ra Stöten,” (the great mine). It had for­mer­ly three en­trances, but they fell in and now there is but one. This im­mense sunken gulf now ap­pears like a vast val­ley: the many open­ings be­low, to the shafts of the mine, look, from above, like the sand-​mar­tin's dark nest-​holes in the de­cliv­ities of the shore: there were a few wood­en huts down there. Some strangers in min­ers' dress­es, with their guide, each car­ry­ing a light­ed fir-​torch, ap­peared at the bot­tom, and dis­ap­peared again in one of the dark holes. From with­in the dark wood­en hous­es, in which great wa­ter-​wheels turned, is­sued some of the work­men. They came from the dizzy­ing gulf--from nar­row, deep wells: they stood in their wood­en shoes two and two, on the edge of the tun which, at­tached to heavy chains, is hoist­ed up, singing and swing­ing the tun on all sides: they came up mer­ry enough. Habit makes one dar­ing.

They told us that, dur­ing the pas­sage up­wards, it of­ten hap­pened that one or an­oth­er, from pure wan­ton­ness, stepped quite out of the tun, and sat him­self be­tween the loose stones on the pro­ject­ing piece of rock, whilst they fired and blast­ed the rock be­low so that it shook again, and the stones about him thun­dered down. Should one ex­pos­tu­late with him on his fool-​har­di­ness, he would an­swer with the usu­al wit­ti­cism here: “I have nev­er be­fore killed my­self.”

One de­scends in­to some of the shafts by a sort of ma­chin­ery, which looks as if they had placed two iron lad­ders against each oth­er, each hav­ing a rock­ing move­ment, so that by tread­ing on the as­cend­ing-​step on the one side and then on the oth­er, which goes up­wards, one grad­ual­ly as­cends, and by go­ing on the down­ward sink­ing-​step one gets by de­grees to the bot­tom. They said it was very easy, on­ly one must step bold­ly, so that the foot should not come be­tween and get crushed; and then one must re­mem­ber that there is no rail­ing or balustrade here, and di­rect­ly out­side these stairs there is the deep abyss in­to which one may fall head­long. The deep­est shaft has a per­pen­dic­ular depth of more than a hun­dred and nine­ty fath­oms, but for this there is no dan­ger, they say, on­ly one must not be dizzy, nor get alarmed. One of the work­men, who had come up, de­scend­ed with a light­ed pine-​branch as a torch: the flame il­lu­mined the dark rocky wall, and by de­grees be­came on­ly a faint streak of light which soon van­ished.

We were told that a few days be­fore, five or six school­boys had un­ob­served stolen in here, and amused them­selves by go­ing from step to step on these ma­chine-​like rock­ing stairs, in pitchy dark­ness, but at last they knew not right­ly which way to go, up or down, and had then be­gun to shout and scream lusti­ly. They es­caped luck­ily that bout.

By one of the large open­ings, called “Fat Mads,” there are rich cop­per mines, but which have not yet been worked. A build­ing stands above it: it was at the bot­tom of this that they found, in the year 1719, the corpse of a young min­er. It ap­peared as if he had fall­en down that very day, so un­changed did the body seem--but no one knew him. An old wom­an then stepped for­ward and burst in­to tears: the de­ceased was her bride­groom, who had dis­ap­peared forty nine years ago. She stood there old and wrin­kled; he was young as when they had met for the last time near­ly half a cen­tu­ry be­fore.[T]

[Foot­note T: In an­oth­er mine they found, in the year 1635, a corpse per­fect­ly fresh, and al­most with the ap­pear­ance of one asleep; but his clothes, and the an­cient cop­per coins found on him, bore wit­ness that it was two hun­dred years since he had per­ished there.]

We went to “The Plant House,” as it is called, where the vit­ri­olat­ed liq­uid is crys­tal­lized to sul­phate of cop­per. It grew up long sticks placed up­right in the boil­ing wa­ter, re­sem­bling long pieces of grass-​green sug­ar. The steam was pun­gent, and the air in here pen­etrat­ed our tongues--it was just as if one had a cor­rod­ed spoon in one's mouth. It was re­al­ly a lux­ury to come out again, even in­to the rar­efied cop­per smoke, un­der the open sky.

Steam­ing, burnt-​out, and herb­less as the dis­trict is on this side of the town, it is just as re­fresh­ing, green, and fer­tile on the op­po­site side of Fahlun. Tall leafy trees grow close to the far­thest hous­es. One is di­rect­ly in the fresh pine and birch forests, thence to the lake and to the dis­tant blueish moun­tain sides near Zäther.

The peo­ple here can tell you and show you memo­ri­als of En­gel­brekt and his Dale­car­lians' deeds, and of Gus­tavus Vasa's ad­ven­tur­ous wan­der­ings. But we will re­main here in this smoke-​en­veloped town, with the silent street's dark hous­es. It was al­most mid­night when we went out and came to the mar­ket-​place. There was a wed­ding in one of the hous­es, and a great crowd of per­sons stood out­side, the wom­en near­est the house, the men a lit­tle fur­ther back. Ac­cord­ing to an old Swedish cus­tom, they called for the bride and bride­groom to come for­ward, and they did so--they durst not do oth­er­wise. Peas­ant girls, with can­dles in their hands, stood on each side; it was a per­fect tableau: the bride with down­cast eyes, the bride­groom smil­ing, and the young brides­maids each with a laugh­ing face. And the peo­ple shout­ed: “Now turn your­selves a lit­tle! now the back! now the face! the bride­groom quite round, the bride a lit­tle near­er!” And the bridal pair turned and turned--nor was crit­icism want­ing. In this in­stance, how­ev­er, it was to their praise and hon­our, but that is not al­ways the case. It may be a painful and ter­ri­ble hour for a new­ly-​wed­ded pair: if they do not please the pub­lic, or if they have some­thing to say against the match, or the per­sons them­selves, they are then soon made to know what is thought of them. There is per­haps al­so heard some rude jest or an­oth­er, ac­com­pa­nied by the laugh­ter of the crowd. We were told, that even in Stock­holm the same cus­tom was ob­served among the low­er class­es un­til a few years ago, so that a bridal pair, who, in or­der to avoid this ex­po­sure, want­ed to drive off, were stopped by the crowd, the car­riage-​door was opened on each side, and the whole pub­lic marched through the car­riage. They would see the bride and bride­groom--that was their right.

Here, in Fahlun, the ex­hi­bi­tion was friend­ly; the bridal pair smiled, the brides­maids al­so, and the as­sem­bled crowd laughed and shout­ed, hur­ra! In the rest of the mar­ket-​place and the streets around, there was dead si­lence and soli­tude.

The roseate hue of eve still shone: it passed, changed in­to that of morn--it was the Mid­sum­mer time.

WHAT THE STRAWS SAID.

* * * * *

On the lake there glid­ed a boat, and the par­ty with­in it sang Swedish and Dan­ish songs; but by the shore, un­der that tall, hang­ing birch, sat four young girls--so pret­ty--so sylph-​like! and they each plucked up from the grass four long straws, and bound these straws two and two to­geth­er, at the top and the bot­tom.

“We shall now see if they will come to­geth­er in a square,” said the girls: “if it be so, then that which I think of will be ful­filled,” and they bound them, and they thought.

No one got to know the se­cret thought, the heart's silent wish of the oth­ers. But yet a lit­tle bird sings about it.

The thoughts of one flew over sea and land, over the high moun­tains, where the mule finds its way in the mists, down to Mignon's beau­ti­ful land, where the old gods live in mar­ble and paint­ing. “Thith­er, thith­er! shall I ev­er get there?” That was the wish, that was the thought, and she opened her hand, looked at the bound straws, and they ap­peared on­ly two and two bound to­geth­er.

And where were the sec­ond one's thoughts? al­so in for­eign lands, in the gun­pow­der's smoke, amongst the glit­ter of arms and can­nons, with him, the friend of her child­hood, fight­ing for im­pe­ri­al pow­er, against the Hun­gar­ian peo­ple. Will he re­turn joy­ful and un­harmed--re­turn to Swe­den's peace­ful, well-​con­sti­tut­ed, hap­py land? The straws showed no square: a tear dwelt in the girl's eye.

The third smiled: there was a sort of mis­chief in the smile. Will our aged bach­elor and that old maid­en-​la­dy yon­der, who now wan­der along so young, smile so young, and speak so youth­ful­ly to each oth­er, not be a mar­ried cou­ple be­fore the cuck­oo sings again next year? See--that is what I should like to know! and the smile played around the thinker's mouth, but she did not speak her thoughts. The straws were sep­arat­ed--con­se­quent­ly the bach­elor and the old maid al­so. “It may, how­ev­er, hap­pen nev­er­the­less,” she cer­tain­ly thought: it was ap­par­ent in the smile; it was ob­vi­ous in the man­ner in which she threw the straws away.

“There is noth­ing I would know--noth­ing that I am cu­ri­ous to know!” said the fourth; but yet she bound the straws to­geth­er; for with­in her al­so there was a wish alive; but no bird has sung about it; no one guess­es it.

Rock thy­self se­cure­ly in the heart's lo­tus flow­er, thou shin­ing hum­ming-​bird, thy' name shall not be pro­nounced: and be­sides the straws said as be­fore--“with­out hope!”

“Now you! now you!” cried the young girls to a stranger, far from the neigh­bour­ing land, from the green isle, that Gylfe ploughed from Swe­den. “What dear thing do you wish shall hap­pen, or not hap­pen!--tell us the wish!”--“If the or­acle speaks well for me,” said he, “then I will tell you the silent wish and prayer, with which I bind these knots on the grass straw; but if I have no bet­ter suc­cess than you have had, I will then be silent!” and he bound straw to straw, and as he bound, he re­peat­ed: “it sig­ni­fies noth­ing!” He now opened his hand, his eyes shone brighter, his heart beat faster. The straws formed a square! “It will hap­pen, it will hap­pen!” cried the young girls. “What did you wish for?” “That Den­mark may soon gain an hon­ourable peace!”

“It will hap­pen! it will hap­pen!” said the young girls; “and when it hap­pens, we will re­mem­ber that the straws have told it be­fore-​hand.”

“I will keep these four straws, bound in a prophet­ic wreath for vic­to­ry and peace!” said the stranger; “and if the or­acle speaks truth, then I will draw the whole pic­ture for you, as we sit here un­der the hang­ing birch by the lake, and look on Zäther's blue moun­tains, each of us bind­ing straw to straw.”

A red mark was made in the al­manack; it was the 6th of Ju­ly, 1849. The same day a red page was writ­ten in Den­mark's his­to­ry. The Dan­ish sol­dier made a red, vic­to­ri­ous mark with his blood, at the bat­tle of Fred­eri­cia.

THE PO­ET'S SYM­BOL.

* * * * *

If a man would seek for the sym­bol of the po­et, he need not look far­ther than “The Ara­bi­an Nights' Tales.” Scherezade who in­ter­prets the sto­ries for the Sul­tan--Scherezade is the po­et, and the Sul­tan is the pub­lic who is to be agree­ably en­ter­tained, or else he will de­cap­itate Scherezade.

Pow­er­ful Sul­tan! Poor Scherezade!

The Sul­tan-​pub­lic sits in more than a thou­sand and one forms, and lis­tens. Let us re­gard a few of these forms.

There sits a sal­low, pee­vish, schol­ar; the tree of his life bears leaves im­pressed with long and learned words: dili­gence and per­se­ver­ance crawl like snails on the hog's leather bark: the moths have got in­to the in­side--and that is bad, very bad! Par­don the rich ful­ness of the song, the in­con­sid­er­ate en­thu­si­asm, the fresh young, in­tel­lect. Do not be­head Scherezade! But he be­heads her out of hand, _sans_ re­morse.

There sits a dress-​mak­er, a semp­stress who has had some ex­pe­ri­ence of the world. She comes from strange fam­ilies, from a soli­tary cham­ber where she sat and gained a knowl­edge of mankind--she knows and loves the ro­man­tic. Par­don, Miss, if the sto­ry has not ex­cite­ment enough for you, who have sat over the nee­dle and the muslin, and hav­ing had so much of life's prose, gasp af­ter ro­mance.

“Be­head her!” says the dress-​mak­er.

There sits a fig­ure in a dress­ing gown--this ori­en­tal dress of the North, for the lord­ly min­ion, the pet­ty prince, the rich brew­er's son, &c., &c., &c. It is not to be learned from the dress­ing gown, nor from that lord­ly look and the fine smile around the mouth, to what stem he be­longs: his de­mands on Scherezade are just the same as the dress-​mak­er's: he must be ex­cit­ed, he must be brought to shud­der all down the ver­te­brae, through the very spine: he must be crammed with mys­ter­ies, such as those which Spriez knew how to con­nect and thick­en.

Scherezade is be­head­ed!

Wise, en­light­ened Sul­tan! Thou comest in the form of a school­boy; thou bear­est the Ro­mans and Greeks to­geth­er in a satchel on thy back, as At­las sus­tained the world. Do not cast an evil eye up­on poor Scherezade; do not judge her be­fore thou hast learned thy les­son, and art a child again,--do not be­head Scherezade!

Young, full-​dressed diplo­ma­tist, on whose breast we can count, by the badges of hon­our, how many courts thou hast vis­it­ed with thy prince­ly mas­ter, speak mild­ly of Scherezade's name! speak of her in French, that she may be en­no­bled above her moth­er tongue! trans­late but one stro­phe of her song, as bad­ly as thou canst, but car­ry it in­to the bril­liant sa­loon, and her sen­tence of death is an­nulled in the sweet, ab­solv­ing _char­mant_!

Mighty an­ni­hi­la­tor and el­eva­tor!--the news­pa­pers' Zeus--thou week­ly, month­ly, and dai­ly jour­nals' Jupiter, shake not thy locks in anger! Cast not thy light­nings forth, if Scherezade sing oth­er­wise than thou art ac­cus­tomed to in thy fam­ily, or if she go with­out a _suite_ of thine own clique. Do not be­head her!

We will see one fig­ure more--the most dan­ger­ous of them all; he with the praise on his lips, like that of the stormy riv­er's swell--the blind en­thu­si­ast. The wa­ter in which Scherezade dipped her fin­gers, is for him a foun­tain of Castalia; the throne he erects to her apotheo­sis be­comes her scaf­fold.

This is the po­et's sym­bol--paint it:

“THE SUL­TAN AND SCHEREZADE.”

But why none of the wor­thi­er fig­ures--the can­did, the hon­est, and the beau­ti­ful? They come al­so, and on them Scherezade fix­es her eye. En­cour­aged by them, she bold­ly rais­es her proud head aloft to­wards the stars, and sings of the har­mo­ny there above, and here be­neath, in man's heart.

_That_ will not clear­ly show the sym­bol:

“THE SUL­TAN AND SCHEREZADE.”

The sword of death hangs over her head whilst she re­lates--and the Sul­tan-​fig­ure bids us ex­pect that it will fall. Scherezade is the vic­tor: the po­et is, like her, al­so a vic­tor. He is rich, vic­to­ri­ous--even in his poor cham­ber, in his most soli­tary hours. There, in that cham­ber, rose af­ter rose shoots forth; bub­ble af­ter bub­ble sparkles on the mag­ic stream. The heav­ens shine with shoot­ing stars, as if a new fir­ma­ment were cre­at­ed, and the old rolled away. The world does not know it, for it is the po­et's own cre­ation, rich­er than the king's cost­ly il­lu­mi­na­tions. He is hap­py, as Scherezade is; he is vic­to­ri­ous, he is mighty. _Imag­ina­tion_ adorns his walls with tapestry, such as no land's ruler owns; _feel­ing_ makes the beau­teous chords sound to him from the hu­man breast; _un­der­stand­ing_ rais­es him, through the mag­nif­icence of cre­ation, up to God, with­out his for­get­ting that he stands fast on the firm earth. He is mighty, he is hap­py, as few are. We will not place him in the stocks of mis­con­struc­tion, for pity and lamen­ta­tion; we mere­ly paint his sym­bol, dip in­to the colours on the world's least at­trac­tive side, and ob­tain it most com­pre­hen­si­bly from

“THE SUL­TAN AND SCHEREZADE.”

See--that is it! Do not be­head Scherezade!

THE DAL-​ELV.

* * * * *

Be­fore Homer sang there were heroes; but they are not known; no po­et cel­ebrat­ed their fame. It is just so with the beau­ties of na­ture, they must be brought in­to no­tice by words and de­lin­eations, be brought be­fore the eyes of the mul­ti­tude; get a sort of world's patent for what they are, and then they may be said first to ex­ist. The elvs of the north have rushed and whirled along for thou­sands of years in un­known beau­ty. The world's great high­road does take this di­rec­tion; no steam-​pack­et con­veys the trav­eller com­fort­ably along the streams of the Dal-​elvs; fall on fall makes sluices in­dis­pens­able and in­valu­able. Schu­bert is as yet the on­ly stranger who has writ­ten about the wild mag­nif­icence and south­ern beau­ty of Dale­car­lia, and spo­ken of its great­ness.

Clear as the waves of the sea does the mighty elv stream in end­less wind­ings through for­est deserts and vary­ing plains, some­times ex­tend­ing its deep bed, some­times con­fin­ing it, re­flect­ing the bend­ing trees and the red paint­ed block hous­es of soli­tary towns, and some­times rush­ing like a cataract over im­mense blocks of rock.

Miles apart from one an­oth­er, out of the ridge of moun­tains be­tween Swe­den and Nor­way, come the east and west Dal-​elvs, which first be­come con­flu­ent and have one bed above Bål­stad. They have tak­en up rivers and lakes in their wa­ters. Do but vis­it this place! here are pic­to­ri­al rich­es to be found; the most pic­turesque land­scapes, dizzy­ing­ly grand, smil­ing­ly pas­toral--idyl­lic: one is drawn on­ward up to the very source of the elv, the bub­bling well above Fin­man's hut: one feels a de­sire to fol­low ev­ery branch of the stream that the riv­er takes in.

The first mighty fall, Nju­pesko­ers cataract, is seen by the Nor­we­gian fron­tier in Ser­na­sog. The moun­tain stream rush­es per­pen­dic­ular­ly from the rock to a depth of sev­en­ty fath­oms.

We pause in the dark for­est, where the elv seems to col­lect with­in it­self na­ture's whole deep grav­ity. The stream rolls its clear wa­ters over a por­phyry soil where the mill-​wheel is driv­en, and the gi­gan­tic por­phyry bowls and sar­copha­gi are pol­ished.

We fol­low the stream through Sil­jan's lake, where su­per­sti­tion sees the wa­ter-​sprite swim, like the sea-​horse with a mane of green sea-​weed, and where the aëri­al im­ages present vi­sions of witchcraft in the warm sum­mer days.

We sail on the stream from Sil­jan's lake, un­der the weep­ing wil­lows of the par­son­age, where the swans as­sem­ble in flocks; we glide along slow­ly with hors­es and car­riages on the great fer­ry-​boat, away over the rapid cur­rent un­der Bål­stad's pic­turesque shore. Here the elv widens and rolls its bil­lows ma­jes­ti­cal­ly in a wood­land land­scape, as large and ex­tend­ed as if it were in North Amer­ica.

We see the rush­ing, rapid stream un­der Avista's yel­low clay de­cliv­ities: the yel­low wa­ter falls like flu­id am­ber in pic­turesque cataracts be­fore the cop­per-​works, where rain­bow-​coloured tongues of fire shoot them­selves up­wards, and the ham­mer's blows on the cop­per plates re­sound to the monotonous, roar­ing rum­ble of the elv-​fall.

And now, as a con­clud­ing pas­sage of splen­dour in the life of the Dal-​elvs, be­fore they lose them­selves in the wa­ters of the Baltic, is the view of Elvkar­le­by Fall. Schu­bert com­pares it with the fall of Schafhausen; but we must re­mem­ber, that the Rhine there has not such a mass of wa­ter as that which rush­es down Elvkar­le­by.

Two and a half Swedish miles from Gefle, where the high road to Up­sala goes over the Dal-​elv, we see from the walled bridge, which we pass over, the whole of that im­mense fall. Close up to the bridge, there is a house where the bridge toll is paid. There the stranger can pass the night, and from his lit­tle win­dow look over the falling wa­ters, see them in the clear moon­light, when dark­ness has laid it­self to rest with­in the thick­et of oaks and firs, and all the ef­fect of light is in those foam­ing, flow­ing wa­ters, and see them when the morn­ing sun stretch­es his rain­bow in the trem­bling spray, like an airy bridge of colours, from the shore to the wood-​grown rock in the cen­tre of the cataract.

We came hith­er from Gefle, and saw at a great dis­tance on the way, the blue clouds from the bro­ken, ris­ing spray, as­cend above the dark-​green tops of the trees. The car­riage stopped near the bridge; we stepped out, and close be­fore us fell the whole re­dun­dant elv.

The painter can­not give us the true, liv­ing im­age of a wa­ter­fall on can­vas--the move­ment is want­ing; how can one de­scribe it in words, de­lin­eate this ma­jes­tic grandeur, bril­lian­cy of colour, and ar­rowy flight? One can­not do it; one may how­ev­er at­tempt it; get to­geth­er, by lit­tle and lit­tle, with words, an out­line of that mir­rored im­age which our eye gave us, and which even the strongest re­mem­brance can on­ly re­tain--if not vague­ly, du­bi­ous­ly.

The Dal-​elv di­vides it­self in­to three branch­es above the fall: the two en­close a wood-​grown rocky is­land, and rush down round its smooth-​worn stony wall. The one to the right of these two falls is the fin­er; the third branch makes a cir­cuit, and comes again to the main stream, close out­side the unit­ed fall; here it dash­es out as if to meet or stop the oth­ers, and is now hur­ried along in boil­ing ed­dies with the ar­rowy stream, which rush­es on foam­ing against the walled pil­lars that bear the bridge, as if it would tear them away along with it.

The land­scape to the left was en­livened by a herd of goats, that were brows­ing amongst the hazel bush­es. They ven­tured quite out to the very edge of the de­cliv­ity, as they were bred here and ac­cus­tomed to the hol­low, thun­der­ing rum­ble of the wa­ter. To the right, a flock of scream­ing birds flew over the mag­nif­icent oaks. Cars, each with one horse, and with the driv­er stand­ing up­right in it, the reins in his hand, came on the broad for­est road from Oens Brück.

Thith­er we will go in or­der to take leave of the Dal-​elv at one of the most de­light­ful of places, which vivid­ly re­moves the stranger, as it were, in­to a far more south­ern land, in­to a far rich­er na­ture, than he sup­posed was to be found here. The road is so pret­ty--the oak grows here so strong and vig­or­ous­ly with mighty crowns of rich fo­liage.

Oens Brück lies in a de­light­ful­ly pas­toral sit­ua­tion. We came thith­er; here was life and bus­tle in­deed! The mill-​wheels went round; large beams were sawn through; the iron forged on the anvil, and all by wa­ter-​pow­er. The hous­es of the work­men form a whole town: it is a long street with red-​paint­ed wood­en hous­es, un­der pic­turesque oaks, and birch trees. The greensward was as soft as vel­vet to look at, and up at the manor-​house, which ris­es in front of the gar­den like a lit­tle palace, there was, in the rooms and sa­loon, ev­ery­thing that the En­glish call com­fort.

We did not find the host at home; but hos­pi­tal­ity is al­ways the house-​fairy here. We had ev­ery­thing good and home­ly. Fish and wild fowl were placed be­fore us, steam­ing and fra­grant, and al­most as quick­ly as in beau­ti­ful en­chant­ed palaces. The gar­den it­self was a piece of en­chant­ment. Here stood three trans­plant­ed beech-​trees, and they throve well. The sharp north wind had round­ed off the tops of the wild ches­nut-​trees of the av­enue in a sin­gu­lar man­ner: they looked as if they had been un­der the gar­den­er's shears. Gold­en-​yel­low or­anges hung in the con­ser­va­to­ry; the splen­did south­ern ex­otics had to-​day got the win­dows half open, so that the ar­ti­fi­cial warmth met the fresh, warm, sun­ny air of the north­ern sum­mer.

That branch of the Dal-​elv which goes round the gar­den is strewn with small is­lands, where beau­ti­ful hang­ing birch­es and fir-​trees grow in Scan­di­na­vian splen­dour. There are small is­lands with green, silent groves; there are small is­lands with rich grass, tall brack­ens, var­ie­gat­ed bell-​flow­ers, and cowslips--no Turkey car­pet has fresh­er colours. The stream be­tween these is­lands and holms is some­times rapid, deep, and clear; some­times like a broad rivulet with silky-​green rush­es, wa­ter-​lilies, and brown-​feath­ered reeds; some­times it is a brook with a stony ground, and now it spreads it­self out in a large, still mill-​dam.

Here is a land­scape in Mid­sum­mer for the games of the riv­er-​sprites, and the dancers of the elves and fairies! Here, in the lus­tre of the full moon, the dryads can tell their tales, the wa­ter-​sprite seize the gold­en harp, and be­lieve that one can be blessed, at least for one sin­gle night like this.

On the oth­er side of Oens Brück is the main stream--the full Dal-​elv. Do you hear the monotonous rum­ble? it is not from Elvkar­le­by Fall that it reach­es hith­er; it is close by; it is from Laa-​Foss, in which lies Ash Is­land: the elv streams and rush­es over the leap­ing salmon.

Let us sit here, be­tween the frag­ments of rock by the shore, in the red evening sun­light, which sheds a gold­en lus­tre on the wa­ters of the Dal-​elv.

Glo­ri­ous riv­er! But a few sec­onds' work hast thou to do in the mills yon­der, and thou rush­est foam­ing on over Elvkar­le­by's rocks, down in­to the deep bed of the riv­er, which leads thee to the Baltic--thy eter­ni­ty.

DANEMO­RA.

* * * * *

Read­er, do you know what gid­di­ness is? Pray that she may not seize you, this mighty “Lore­ley” of the heights, this evil-​ge­nius from the land of the syl­phides; she whizzes around her prey, and whirls it in­to the abyss. She sits on the nar­row rocky path, close by the steep de­cliv­ity, where no tree, no branch is found, where the wan­der­er must creep close to the side of the rock, and look steadi­ly for­ward. She sits on the church spire and nods to the plumber who works on his sway­ing scaf­fold; she glides in­to the il­lu­mined sa­loon, and up to the ner­vous, soli­tary one, in the mid­dle of the bright pol­ished floor, and it sways un­der him--the walls van­ish from him.

Her fin­gers touch one of the hairs of our head, and we feel as if the air had left us, and we were in a vac­uum.

We met with her at Danemo­ra's im­mense gulf, whith­er we came on broad, smooth, ex­cel­lent high-​roads, through the fresh for­est. She sat on the ex­treme edge of the rocky wall, above the abyss, and kicked at the tun with her thin, awl-​like legs, as it hung in iron chains on large beams, from the tow­er-​high cor­ner of the bridge by the precipice.

The trav­eller raised his foot over the abyss, and set it on the tun, in­to which one of the work­men re­ceived him, and held him; and the chains rat­tled; the pul­leys turned; the tun sank slow­ly, hov­er­ing through the air. But he felt the de­scent; he felt it through his bones and mar­row; through all the nerves. Her icy breath blew in his neck, and down the spine, and the air it­self be­came cold­er and cold­er. It seemed to him as if the rocks grew over his head, al­ways high­er and high­er: the tun made a slight swing­ing, but he felt it, like a fall--a fall in sleep, that shock in the blood. Did it go quick­er down­wards, or was it go­ing up again? He could not dis­tin­guish by the sen­sa­tion.

The tun touched the ground, or rather the snow--the dirty trod­den, eter­nal snow, down to which no sun­beam reach­es, which no sum­mer warmth from above ev­er melts. A hol­low sound was heard from with­in the dark, yawn­ing cav­ern, and a thick vapour rolled out in­to the cold air. The stranger en­tered the dark halls; there seemed to be a crash­ing above him: the fire burned; the fur­naces roared; the beat­ing of ham­mers sound­ed; the wa­tery damps dripped down--and he again en­tered the tun, which was hov­en up in the air. He sat with closed eyes, but gid­di­ness breathed on his head, and on his breast; his in­ward­ly-​turned eye mea­sured the gid­dy depth through the tun: “It is ap­palling,” said he.

“Ap­palling!” echoed the brave and es­timable stranger, whom we met at Danemo­ra's great gulf. He was a man from Sca­nia, con­se­quent­ly from the same street as the Sealan­der--if the Sound be called a street (strait). “But, how­ev­er, one can say one has been down there,” said he, and he point­ed to the gulf; “right down, and up again; but it is no plea­sure at all.”

“But why de­scend at all?” said I. “Why will men do these things?”

“One must, you know, when one comes here,” said he. “The plague of trav­el­ling is, that one must see ev­ery­thing: one would not have it sup­posed oth­er­wise. It is a shame to a man, when he gets home again, not to have seen ev­ery­thing, that oth­ers ask him about.”

“If you have no de­sire, then let it alone. See what pleas­es you on your trav­els. Go two paces near­er than where you stand, and be­come quite gid­dy: you will then have formed some con­cep­tion of the pas­sage down­ward. I will hold you fast, and de­scribe the rest of it for you.” And I did so, and the per­spi­ra­tion sprang from his fore­head.

“Yes, so it is: I ap­pre­hend it all,” said he: “I am clear­ly sen­si­ble of it.”

I de­scribed the dirty grey snow cov­er­ing, which the sun's warmth nev­er thaws; the cold down there, and the cav­erns, and the fire, and the work­men, &c.

“Yes; one should be able to tell all about it,” said he. “That _you_ can, for you have seen it.”

“No more than you,” said I. “I came to the gulf; I saw the depth, the snow be­low, the smoke that rolled out of the cav­erns; but when it was time I should get in­to the tun--no, thank you. Gid­di­ness tick­led me with her long, awl-​like legs, and so I stayed where I was I have felt the de­scent, through the spine and the soles of the feet, and that as well as any one: the de­scent is the pinch. I have been in the Hartz, un­der Ram­mels­berg; glid­ed, as on Rus­sian moun­tains, at Hallein, through the moun­tain, from the top down to the salt-​works; wan­dered about in the cat­acombs of Rome and Mal­ta: and what does one see in the deep pas­sages? Gloom--dark­ness! What does one feel? Cold, and a sense of op­pres­sion--a long­ing for air and light, which is by far the best; and that we have now.”

“But nev­er­the­less, it is so very re­mark­able!” said the man; and he drew forth his “Hand-​book for Trav­ellers in Swe­den,” from which he read: “Danemo­ra's iron-​works are the old­est, largest, and rich­est in Swe­den; the best in Eu­rope. They have sev­en­ty-​nine open­ings, of which sev­en­teen on­ly are be­ing worked. The ma­chine mine is nine­ty-​three fath­oms deep.”

Just then the bells sound­ed from be­low: it was the sig­nal that the time of labour for that day was end­ed. The hue of eve still shone on the tops of the trees above; but down in that deep, far-​ex­tend­ed gulf, it was a per­fect twi­light. Thence, and out of the dark cav­erns, the work­men swarmed forth. They looked like flies, quite small in the space be­low: they scram­bled up the long lad­ders, which hung from the steep sides of the rocks, in sep­arate land­ing-​places: they climbed high­er and high­er--up­wards, up­wards--and at ev­ery step they be­came larg­er. The iron chains creaked in the scaf­fold­ing of beams, and three or four young fel­lows stood in their wood­en shoes on the edge of the tun; chat­ted away right mer­ri­ly, and kicked with their feet against the side of the rock, so that they swung from it: and it be­came dark­er and dark­er be­low; it was as if the deep abyss be­came still deep­er!

“It is ap­palling!” said the man from Sca­nia. “One ought, how­ev­er, to have gone down there, if it were on­ly to swear that one _had_ been. You, how­ev­er, have cer­tain­ly been down there,” said he again to me.

“Be­lieve what you will,” I replied; and I say the same to the read­er.

THE SWINE.

* * * * *

That cap­ital fel­low, Charles Dick­ens, has told us about the swine, and since then it puts us in­to a good hu­mour when­ev­er we hear even the grunt of one. Saint An­tho­ny has tak­en them un­der his pa­tron­age, and if we think of the “prodi­gal son,” we are at once in the midst of the sty, and it was just be­fore such a one that our car­riage stopped in Swe­den. By the high road, close­ly ad­join­ing his house, the peas­ant had his sty, and that such a one as there is prob­ably scarce­ly its like in the world. It was an old state-​car­riage, the seats were tak­en out of it, the wheels tak­en off, and thus it stood, with­out fur­ther cer­emo­ny, on its own bot­tom, and four swine were shut in there. If these were the first that had been in it one could not de­ter­mine; but that it was once a state-​car­riage ev­ery­thing about it bore wit­ness, even to the strip of mo­roc­co that hung from the roof in­side, all bore wit­ness of bet­ter days. It is true, ev­ery word of it.

“Uff,” said the oc­cu­piers with­in, and the car­riage creaked and com­plained--it was a sor­row­ful end it had come to.

“The beau­ti­ful is past!” so it sighed; so it said, or it might have said so.

We re­turned here in the au­tumn. The car­riage, or rather the body of the car­riage, stood in its old place, but the swine were gone: they were lords in the forests; rain and driz­zle reigned there; the wind tore the leaves off all the trees, and al­lowed them nei­ther rest nor qui­et: the birds of pas­sage were gone.

“The beau­ti­ful is past!” said the car­riage, and the same sigh passed through the whole of na­ture, and from the hu­man heart it sound­ed: “The beau­ti­ful is past! with the de­light­ful green for­est, with the warm sun­shine, and the song of birds--past! past!” So it said, and so it creaked in the trunks of the tall trees, and there was heard a sigh, so in­ward­ly deep, a sigh di­rect from the heart of the wild rose-​bush, and he who sat there was the rose-​king. Do you know him! he is of a pure breed, the finest red-​green breed: he is eas­ily known. Go to the wild rose hedges, and in au­tumn, when all the flow­ers are gone, and the red hips alone re­main, one of­ten sees amongst these a large red-​green moss-​flow­er: that is the rose-​king. A lit­tle green leaf grows out of his head--that is his feath­er: he is the on­ly male per­son of his kind on the rose-​bush, and he it was who sighed.

“Past! past! the beau­ti­ful is past! The ros­es are gone; the leaves of the trees fall off!--it is wet here, and it is cold and raw!--The birds that sang here are now silent; the swine live on acorns; the swine are lords in the for­est!”

They were cold nights, they were gloomy days; but the raven sat on the bough and croaked nev­er­the­less: “brah, brah!” The raven and the crow sat on the top­most bough: they have a large fam­ily, and they all said: “brah, brah! caw, caw!” and the ma­jor­ity is al­ways right.

There was a great miry pool un­der the tall trees in the hol­low, and here lay the whole herd of swine, great and small--they found the place so ex­cel­lent. “Oui! oui!” said they, for they knew no more French, but that, how­ev­er, was some­thing. They were so wise, and so fat, and al­to­geth­er lords in the for­est.

The old ones lay still, for they thought; the young ones, on the con­trary, were so brisk--busy, but ap­par­ent­ly un­easy. One lit­tle pig had a curly tail--that curl was the moth­er's de­light. She thought that they all looked at the curl, and thought on­ly of the curl; but that they did not. They thought of them­selves, and of what was use­ful, and of what the for­est was for. They had al­ways heard that the acorns they ate grew on the roots of the trees, and there­fore they had al­ways root­ed there; but now there came a lit­tle one--for it is al­ways the young ones that come with news--and he as­sert­ed that the acorns fell down from the branch­es: he him­self had felt one fall right on his head, and that had giv­en him the idea, so he had made ob­ser­va­tions, and now he was quite sure of what he as­sert­ed. The old ones laid their heads to­geth­er. “Uff,” said the swine, “uff! the fin­ery is past! the twit­ter­ing of the birds is past! we will have fruit! what­ev­er can be eat­en is good, and we eat ev­ery­thing!”

“Oui! oui!” said they al­to­geth­er.

But the moth­er sow looked at her lit­tle pig with the curly tail.

“One must not, how­ev­er, for­get the beau­ti­ful!” said she.

“Caw! caw!” screamed the crow, and flew down, in or­der to be ap­point­ed nightin­gale: one there should be--and so the crow was di­rect­ly ap­point­ed.

“Past! past!” sighed the Rose King, “all the beau­ti­ful is past!”

It was wet; it was gloomy; there was cold and wind, and the rain pelt­ed down over the fields, and through the for­est, like long wa­ter jets. Where are the birds that sang? where are the flow­ers in the mead­ows, and the sweet berries in the wood?--past! past!

A light shone from the forester's house: it twin­kled like a star, and shed its long rays out be­tween the trees. A song was heard from with­in; pret­ty chil­dren played around their old grand­fa­ther, who sat with the Bible on his lap and read about God, and eter­nal life, and spoke of the spring that would come again: he spoke of the for­est that would re­new its green leaves, of the ros­es that would flow­er, of the nightin­gales that would sing, and of the beau­ti­ful that would again be paramount.

But the Rose King did not hear it; he sat in the raw, cold weath­er, and sighed:

“Past! past!”

And the swine were lords in the for­est, and the moth­er sow looked at her lit­tle pig, and his curly tail.

“There will al­ways be some, who have a sense for the beau­ti­ful!” said the moth­er sow.

PO­ET­RY'S CAL­IFOR­NIA.

* * * * *

Na­ture's trea­sures are most of­ten un­veiled to us by ac­ci­dent. A dog's nose was dyed by the bruised pur­ple fish, and the gen­uine pur­ple dye was dis­cov­ered; a pair of wild buf­fa­los were fight­ing on Amer­ica's au­rif­er­ous soil, and their horns tore up the green sward that cov­ered the rich gold vein.

“In for­mer days,” as it is said by most, "ev­ery­thing came spon­ta­neous­ly. Our age has not such rev­ela­tions; now one must slave and drudge if one would get any­thing; one must dig down in­to the deep shafts af­ter the met­als, which de­crease more and more;--when the earth sud­den­ly stretch­es forth her gold­en fin­ger from Cal­ifor­nia's penin­su­la, and we there see Monte Chris­to's fool­ish­ly in­vent­ed rich­es re­al­ized; we see Al­addin's cave with its in­es­timable trea­sures. The world's trea­sury is so end­less­ly rich that we have, to speak plain and straight­for­ward, scraped a lit­tle off the up-​heaped mea­sure; but the bushel is still full, the whole of the re­al mea­sure is now re­filled. In sci­ence al­so, such a world lies open for the dis­cov­er­ies of the hu­man mind!

“But in po­et­ry, the great­est and most glo­ri­ous is al­ready found, and gained!” says the po­et. “Hap­py he who was born in for­mer times; there was then many a land still undis­cov­ered, on which po­et­ry's rich gold lay like the ore that shines forth from the earth's sur­face.”

Do not speak so! hap­py po­et thou, who art born in our time! thou dost in­her­it all the glo­ri­ous trea­sures which thy pre­de­ces­sors gave to the world; thou dost learn from them, that truth on­ly is eter­nal,--the true in na­ture and mankind.

Our time is the time of dis­cov­er­ies--po­et­ry al­so has its new Cal­ifor­nia.

“Where does it ex­ist?” you ask.

The coast is so near, that you do not think that _there_ is the new world. Like a bold Le­an­der, swim with me across the stream: the black words on the white pa­per will waft you--ev­ery pe­ri­od is a heave of the waves.

* * * * *

It was in the li­brary's sa­loon. Book-​shelves with many books, old and new, were ranged around for ev­ery one; manuscripts lay there in heaps; there were al­so maps and globes. There sat in­dus­tri­ous men at lit­tle ta­bles, and wrote out and wrote in, and that was no easy work. But sud­den­ly, a great trans­for­ma­tion took place; the shelves be­came ter­races for the no­blest trees, with flow­ers and fruit; heavy clus­ters of grapes hung amongst leafy vines, and there was life and move­ment all around.

The old fo­lios and dusty manuscripts rose in­to flow­er-​cov­ered tu­muli, and there sprang forth knights in mail, and kings with gold­en crowns on, and there was the clang of harp and shield; his­to­ry ac­quired the life and full­ness of po­et­ry--for a po­et had en­tered there. He saw the liv­ing vi­sions; breathed the flow­ers' fra­grance; crushed the grapes, and drank the sa­cred juice. But he him­self knew not yet that he was a po­et--the bear­er of-​light for times and gen­er­ations yet to come.

It was in the fresh, fra­grant for­est, in the last hour of leave-​tak­ing. Love's kiss, as the farewell, was the ini­tia­to­ry bap­tism for the fu­ture po­et­ic life; and the fresh fra­grance of the for­est be­came sweet­er, the chirp­ing of the birds more melo­di­ous: there came sun­light and cool­ing breezes. Na­ture be­comes dou­bly de­light­ful where a po­et walks.

And as there were two roads be­fore Her­cules, so there were be­fore him two roads, shown by two fig­ures, in or­der to serve him; the one an old crone, the oth­er a youth, beau­ti­ful as the an­gel that led the young To­bias.

The old crone had on a man­tle, on which were wrought flow­ers, an­imals, and hu­man be­ings, en­twined in an arabesque man­ner. She had large spec­ta­cles on, and be­side her lantern she held a bag filled with old gilt cards--ap­pa­ra­tus for witchcraft, and all the amulets of su­per­sti­tion: lean­ing on her crutch, wrin­kled and shiv­er­ing, she was, how­ev­er, soar­ing, like the mist over the mead­ow.

“Come with me, and you shall see the world, so that a po­et can have ben­efit from it,” said she. “I will light my lantern; it is bet­ter than that which Dio­genes bore; I shall light­en your path.”

And the light shone; the old crone lift­ed her head, and stood there strong and tall, a pow­er­ful fe­male fig­ure. She was Su­per­sti­tion.

“I am the strongest in the re­gion of ro­mance,” said she,--and she her­self be­lieved it.

And the lantern's light gave the lus­tre of the full moon over the whole earth; yes, the earth it­self be­came trans­par­ent, as the still wa­ters of the deep sea, or the glass moun­tains, in the fairy tale.

“My king­dom is thine! sing what thou see'st; sing as if no bard be­fore thee had sung there­of.”

And it was as if the scene con­tin­ual­ly changed. Splen­did Goth­ic church­es, with paint­ed im­ages in the panes, glid­ed past, and the mid­night-​bell struck, and the dead arose from the graves. There, un­der the bend­ing el­der tree, sat the moth­er, and swathed her new­ly-​born child; old, sunken knights' cas­tles rose again from the marshy ground; the draw­bridge fell, and they saw in­to the emp­ty halls, adorned with im­ages, where, un­der the gloomy stairs of the gallery, the death-​pro­claim­ing white wom­an came with a rat­tling bunch of keys. The basilisk brood­ed in the deep cel­lar; the mon­ster bred from a cock's egg, in­vul­ner­able by ev­ery weapon, but not from the sight of its own hor­ri­ble form: at the sight of its own im­age, it bursts like the steel that one breaks with the blow of a stout staff. And to ev­ery­thing that ap­peared, from the gold­en chal­ice of the al­tar-​ta­ble, once the drink­ing-​cup of evil spir­its, to the nod­ding head on the gal­lows-​hill, the old crone hummed her songs; and the crick­ets chirped, and the raven croaked from the op­po­site neigh­bour's house, and the wind­ing-​sheet rolled from the can­dle. Through the whole spec­tral world sound­ed, “death! death!”

“Go with me to life and truth,” cried the sec­ond form, the youth who was beau­ti­ful as a cherub. A flame shone from his brow--a cherub's sword glit­tered in his hand. “I am _Knowl­edge_,” said he: “my world is greater--its aim is truth.”

And there was a bright­ness all around; the spec­tral im­ages paled; it did not ex­tend over the world they had seen. Su­per­sti­tion's lantern had on­ly ex­hib­it­ed _mag­ic-​lantern_ im­ages on the old ru­ined wall, and the wind had driv­en wet misty vapours past in fig­ures.

“I will give thee a rich rec­om­pense. Truth in the cre­at­ed--truth in God!”

And through the stag­nant lake, where be­fore the misty spec­tral fig­ures rose, whilst the bells sound­ed from the sunken cas­tle, the light fell down on a sway­ing veg­etable world. One drop of the marsh wa­ter, raised against the rays of light, be­came a liv­ing world, with crea­tures in strange forms, fight­ing and rev­el­ling--a world in a drop of wa­ter. And the sharp sword of Knowl­edge cleft the deep vault, and shone there­in, where the basilisk killed, and the an­imal's body was dis­solved in a death-​bring­ing vapour: its claw ex­tend­ed from the fer­ment­ing wine-​cask; its eyes were air, that burnt when the fresh wind touched it.

And there resid­ed a pow­er­ful force in the sword; _so_ pow­er­ful, that the grain of gold was beat­en to a flat sur­face, thin as the cov­er­ing of mist that we breathe on the glass-​pane; and it shone at the sword's point, so that the thin threads of the cob­web seemed to swell to ca­bles, for one saw the strong twist­ings of num­ber­less small threads. And the voice of Knowl­edge seemed over the whole world, so that the age of mir­acles ap­peared to have re­turned. Thin iron ties were laid over the earth, and along these the heav­ily-​laden wag­gons flew on the wings of steam, with the swal­low's flight; moun­tains were com­pelled to open them­selves to the in­quir­ing spir­it of the age; the plains were obliged to raise them­selves; and then thought was borne in words, through met­al wires, with the light­ning's speed, to dis­tant towns. “Life! life!” it sound­ed through the whole of na­ture. “It is our time! Po­et, thou dost pos­sess it! Sing of it in spir­it and in truth!”

And the ge­nius of Knowl­edge raised the shin­ing sword; he raised it far out in­to space, and then--what a sight! It was as when the sun­beams shine through a crevice in the wall in a dark space, and ap­pear to us a re­volv­ing col­umn of myr­iads of grains of dust; but ev­ery grain of dust here was a world! The sight he saw was our star­ry fir­ma­ment!

Thy earth is a grain of dust here, but a speck whose won­ders as­ton­ish thee; on­ly a grain of dust, and yet a star un­der stars. That long col­umn of worlds thou callest thy star­ry fir­ma­ment, re­volves like the myr­iads of grains of dust, vis­ibly hov­er­ing in the sun­beam's re­volv­ing col­umn, from the crevice in the wall in­to that dark space. But still more dis­tant stands the milky way's whitish mist, a new star­ry heav­en, each col­umn but a ra­dius in the wheel! But how great is this it­self! how many radii thus go out from the cen­tral point--God!

So far does thine eye reach, so clear is thine age's hori­zon! Son of time, choose, who shall be thy com­pan­ion? Here is thy new ca­reer! with the great­est of thy time, fly thou be­fore thy time's gen­er­ation! Like twin­kling Lu­cifer, shine thou in time's roseate morn.

* * * * *

Yes, in knowl­edge lies Po­et­ry's Cal­ifor­nia! Ev­ery one who on­ly looks back­ward, and not clear­ly for­ward, will, how­ev­er high and hon­ourably he stands, say, that if such rich­es lie in knowl­edge, they would long since have been made avail­able by great and im­mor­tal bards, who had a clear and saga­cious eye for the dis­cov­ery of truth. But let us re­mem­ber that when Thes­pis spoke from his car, the world had al­so wise men. Homer had sung his im­mor­tal songs, and yet a new form of ge­nius ap­peared, to which a Sopho­cles and Aristo­phanes gave birth; the Sagas and mythol­ogy of the North were as an un­known trea­sure to the stage, un­til Oehlen­schläger showed what mighty forms from thence might be made to glide past us.

It is not our in­ten­tion that the po­et shall ver­si­fy sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies. The di­dac­tic po­em is and will be, in its best form, al­ways but a piece of mech­anism, or wood­en fig­ure, which has not the true life. The sun­light of sci­ence must pen­etrate the po­et; he must per­ceive truth and har­mo­ny in the minute and in the im­mense­ly great with a clear eye: it must pu­ri­fy and en­rich the un­der­stand­ing and imag­ina­tion, and show him new forms which will sup­ply to him more an­imat­ed words. Even sin­gle dis­cov­er­ies will fur­nish a new flight. What fairy tales can­not the world un­fold un­der the mi­cro­scope, if we trans­fer our hu­man world there­to? Elec­tro-​mag­netism can present or sug­gest new plots in new come­dies and ro­mances; and how many hu­mor­ous com­po­si­tions will not spring forth, as we from our grain of dust, our lit­tle earth, with its lit­tle haughty be­ings look out in­to that end­less world's uni­verse, from milky way to milky way? An in­stance of what we here mean is dis­cov­er­able in that old no­ble la­dy's words: “If ev­ery star be a globe like our earth, and have its king­doms and courts--what an end­less num­ber of courts--the con­tem­pla­tion is enough to make mankind gid­dy!”

We will not say, like that French au­thoress: “Now, then, let me die: the world has no more dis­cov­er­ies to make!” O, there is so end­less­ly much in the sea, in the air, and on the earth--won­ders, which sci­ence will bring forth!--won­ders, greater than the po­et's phi­los­ophy can cre­ate! A bard will come, who, with a child's mind, like a new Al­addin, will en­ter in­to the cav­ern of sci­ence,--with a child's mind, we say, or else the puis­sant spir­its of nat­ural strength would seize him, and make him their ser­vant; whilst he, with the lamp of po­et­ry, which is, and al­ways will be, the hu­man heart, stands as a ruler, and brings forth won­der­ful fruits from the gloomy pas­sages, and has strength to build po­et­ry's new palace, cre­at­ed in one night by at­ten­dant spir­its.

In the world it­self events re­peat them­selves; the hu­man char­ac­ter was and will be the same dur­ing long ages and all ages; and as they were in the old writ­ings, they must be in the new. But sci­ence al­ways un­folds some­thing new; light and truth are ev­ery­thing that is cre­at­ed--beam out from hence with eter­nal­ly di­vine clear­ness. Mighty im­age of God, do thou il­lu­mine and en­light­en mankind; and when its in­tel­lec­tu­al eye is ac­cus­tomed to the lus­tre, the new Al­addin will come, and thou, man, shalt with him, who con­cise­ly dear, and rich­ly sings the beau­ty of truth, wan­der through Po­et­ry's Cal­ifor­nia.

THE END.

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