long, chiefly of a light yellow straw, latticed off by dark lines of
wood-work, some of them entirely matted with ivy, like cottages in the
English lake district, all of them with either red-tiled or thatched
roofs, and the greater part surrounded by hedges. The thatched roofs
were delightful. The thatch is held on and fastened down at the
ridge-pole by long bits of crooked wood, one on each side, the two
crossing and lapping at the ridge-pole and held together there by
pins. The effect of a long, low roof set thick with these cross-pieces
at the top is almost as if dozens of slender fishes were set there
with forked tails up in the air; and when half a dozen sparrows are
flitting and alighting on these projecting points of board, the effect
is of a still odder trimming. Some of the red-tiled roofs have a set
pattern in white painted along the ridge-pole, corners, and eaves.
These are very gay; and some of the thatched roofs are grown thick
with a dark olive-green moss, which in a cross sunlight is as fine a
color as was ever wrought into an old tapestry, and looks more like
ancient velvet.
The church in Amager is new, brick, and ugly of exterior. But the
inside is good; the wood-work, choir, pulpit, sounding-board,
railings, pews, all carved in a simple conventional pattern, and
painted dark-olive brown, relieved by claret and green,--in a
combination borrowed no doubt from some old wood-work centuries back.
In the centre a candelabra, hanging by a red cord, marked off by six
gilded balls at intervals; the candelabra itself being simply a great
gilded ball, with the simplest possible candle-holders projecting from
it. Two high candle-holders inside the railing had each three brass
candlesticks in the shape of a bird, with his long tail curled under
his feet to stand on,--a fantastic design, but singularly graceful,
considering its absurdity. The minister wore a long black gown and
high, full ruff, exactly like those we see in the pictures of the
divines of the Reformation times. He had a fine and serious face, of
oval contour; therefore the ruff suited him. On short necks and below
round faces it is simply grotesque, and no more dignified than a
turkey-cock's ruffled feathers. He preached with great fervor and
warmth of manner; but as I could not understand a word he said, I
should have found the sermon long if I had not been very busy in
studying the bonnets and faces, and choir of little girls in the
gallery. More than half the congregation were in the ordinary modern
dress, and would have passed unnoticed anywhere. All the men looked
like well-to-do New England farmers, coloring and all; for the
blue-eyed, fair-haired type prevails. But the women who had had the
sense and sensibility to stick to their own national clothes were as
pretty as pictures, as their faces showed above the dark olive-brown
pews, framed in their front porches of bonnets,--for that is really
what they are like, the faces are so far back in them. Some were lined
with bright lavender satin, full-puffed; some with purple; some with
blue. The strings never matched the lining, but were of a violent
contrast,--light blue in the purple, gay plaid in the lavender, and so
on. The aprons were all of the same shade of vivid blue,--as blue as
the sky, and darker. They were all shirred down about two inches below
the waist; some of them trimmed down the sides at the back with lace
or velvet, but none of them on the bottom. One old woman who sat in
front of me wore a conical and pointed cap of black velvet and plush,
held on her head by broad gray silk strings, tied with a big bow under
her chin, covering her ears and cheeks. The cap was shaped like a
funnel carried out to a point, which projected far behind her, stiff
and rigid; yet it was not an ungraceful thing on the head. These, I am
told, are rarely seen now.
When the sermon was done, the minister disappeared for a moment, and
came back in gorgeous claret velvet and white robes, with a great gilt
cross on his back. The candles on the altar were lighted, and the
sacrament was administered to a dozen or more kneeling outside the
railing. This part of the ceremony seemed to me not very Lutheran; but
I suppose that is precisely the thing it was,--Luther-an,--one of the
relics he kept when he threw overboard the rest of the superstitions.
Before this ceremony the sexton came and unlocked the pew we
occupied, and I discovered for the first time that I and the
commissionnaire had been all that time locked in. After church the
sexton told us that there would be a baptismal service there in an
hour,--eleven babies to be baptized. That was something not to be
lost; so I drove away for half an hour, went to a farm-house and
begged milk, and then, after I had got my inch, asked for my habitual
ell,--that is, to see the house. The woman was, like all housekeepers,
full of apologies, but showed me her five rooms with good-will,--five
in a row, all opening together, the kitchen in the middle, and the
front door in the back yard by the hen-coop and water-barrel! The
kitchen was like the Norwegian farm-house kitchens,--a bare shed-like
place, with a table, and wall-shelves, and a great stone platform with
a funnel roof overhead; sunken hollows to make the fire in; no oven,
no lids, no arrangement for doing anything except boiling or frying. A
huge kettle of boiling porridge was standing over a few blazing
sticks. _Havremels grod_--which is Norwegian, and Danish also, for
oatmeal pudding--is half their living. All the bread they have they
buy at the baker's.
The other rooms were clean. Every one had in it a two-storied bed
curtained with calico, neat corner cupboards, and bureaus. There were
prints on the wall, and a splendid brass coffee-pot and urn under pink
mosquito netting. But the woman herself had no stockings on her feet,
and her wooden shoes stood just outside the door.
When we reached the church again, the babies were all there. A wail as
of bleating lambs reached us at the very door. A strange custom in
Denmark explained this bleating: the poor babies were in the hands of
godmothers, and not their own mothers. The mothers do not go with
their babies to the christening; the fathers, godfathers, and
godmothers go,--two godmothers and one godfather to each baby. The
women and the babies sat together, and rocked and trotted and shook
and dandled and screamed, in a perfect Babel of motion and sound.
Seven out of those eleven babies were crying at the top of their
lungs. The twenty-two godmothers looked as if they would go crazy.
Never, no, never, did I see or hear such a scene! The twenty-two
fathers and godfathers sat together on the other side of the aisle,
stolid and unconcerned. I tried to read in their faces which men owned
the babies, but I could not. They all looked alike indifferent to the
racket. Presently the sexton marshalled the women with their babies in
a row outside the outer railing. He had in his hand a paper with the
list of the poor little things' names on it, which he took round, and
called the roll, apparently so as to make sure all was right. Then the
minister came in, and went the round, saying something over each baby
and making the sign of the cross on its head and breast. I thought he
was through when he had once been round doing this; but no,--he had to
begin back again at the first baby and sprinkle them. Oh, how the poor
little things did scream! I think all eleven were crying by this time,
and I couldn't stand it; so at the third baby I signed to my
commissionnaire that we would go, and we slipped out as quietly as we
could. "Will there be much more of the service?" I asked him. "Oh,
yes," he said. "He will preach now to the fathers and to the
godfathers and godmothers." I doubt if the godmothers knew one word he
said. The babies all wore little round woollen hoods, most of them
bright blue, with three white buttons in a row on the back. Their
dresses were white, but short; and each baby had a long white apron on
to make a show with in front. This was as long as a handsome infant's
robe would be made anywhere; but it was undisguisedly an apron, open
all the way behind, and in the case of these poor little screaming
creatures flying in all directions at every kick and writhing
struggle. I was glad enough to escape the church; but twenty-two women
must have come out gladder still a little later. On the way home I
passed a windmill which I could have stayed a day to paint if I had
been an artist. It was six-sided; the sails were on red beams; a red
balcony all round it, with red beams sloping down as supports, resting
on the lower story; the first story was on piles, and the spaces
between filled up solid with sticks of wood,--the place where they
kept their winter fuel. Next to this came a narrow belt painted light
yellow; then a black belt, with windows in it rimmed with white; then
the red balcony; then a drab or gray space,--this made of plain
boards; then the rest to the top shingled like a roof; in this part
one window, with red rims in each side. A long, low warehouse of
light yellow stuccoed walls, lined off with dark brown, joined the
mill by a covered way; and the mill-owner's house was close on the
other side, also with light yellow stuccoed walls and a red-tiled
roof, and hedges and vines and an orchard in front. Paint this,
somebody; do!
This is the tale of the first two days in Copenhagen. In my next I
will tell you about the museums if I come out of them alive; it sounds
as if nobody could. One ought to be here at least two weeks to really
study the superb collections of one sort and another.
I will close this first section of my notions of Denmark with a brief
tribute to the Danish flea. I considered myself proof against fleas. I
had wintered them in Rome, had lived familiarly with them in Norway,
and my contempt for them was in direct proportion to my familiarity. I
defied them by day, and ignored them by night. But the Danish flea is
as David to Saul! He is a cross between a bedbug and a wasp. He is the
original of the famous idea of the Dragon, symbolized in all the
worships of the world. I bow before him in terror, and trust most
devoutly he never leaves the shores of Denmark.
Good-by. Bless you all!
II.
Dear People,--I promised to tell you about the museums in Copenhagen.
It was a very rash promise: and there was a rash promise which I made
to myself back of that,--that is, to _see_ the Copenhagen museums. I
had looked forward to them as the chief interest of our visit; they
are said to be among the finest in the world, in some respects
unequalled. One would suppose that the Dane's first desire and impulse
would be to make it easy for strangers to see these unrivalled
collections, the pride of his capital; on the contrary, he has done,
it would seem, all that lay in his power to make it quite out of the
power of travellers to do anything like justice to them. To really
see the three great museums of Copenhagen--the Ethnographic, the
Museum of Northern Antiquities, and the Rosenborg Castle
collection--one would need to stay in Copenhagen at least two weeks,
and even then he would have had but fourteen hours for each museum.
The Ethnographic is open only on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and
Sunday, and open only two hours at a time,--on Sunday, from twelve to
two; on the week days, from ten to twelve. There are in this museum
over thirty large rooms, and nearly six hundred cases of labelled and
numbered objects. All the rooms are of great interest; one could
easily spend the whole two hours of the allotted time in any one of
them. To attempt even to walk through the whole museum in the two
hours is undertaking too much.
The Museum of Northern Antiquities is open on Thursdays, Saturdays,
and Sundays, from twelve to two; on Tuesdays, from five to seven. On
Sundays, you see, it is at the same hour as the Ethnographic! In this
museum are eighteen large rooms filled with objects of the greatest
interest, from the old "dust heaps" of the lake dwellers down to Tycho
Brahe's watch.
The Rosenborg Castle Collection is probably, to travellers in general,
the most interesting of all the collections. It is called a
"Chronological Collection of the Kings of Denmark,"--which, being
interpreted, means that it is a collection of dresses, weapons,
ornaments, etc., the greater proportion of which have belonged to
Danish kings, from the old days of Christian IV. (1448) down to the
present time. These are most admirably arranged in chronological
order, so that you see in each room or division a graphic picture of
the royal life and luxury of that period. The whole of the great
Rosenborg Castle, three floors, is devoted to this collection. How
many rooms there are, I do not know,--certainly twenty; and there is
not one of them in which I would not like to spend a half-day. Now,
how do you think the Danish Government (for this is a national
property) arranges for the exhibition of this collection? You may see
it, on any day, by applying for a ticket the day beforehand; the hour
at which you can be admitted will be marked on your ticket; you will
arrive, with perhaps twelve others (that being the outside number for
whom tickets are issued for any one hour); you will be walked through
that whole museum in _one hour_, by one of the Government Inspectors
of the museum; he will give you a rapid enumeration of the chief
objects of interest as you pass; and you will have no clearer idea of
any one thing than if you had been _fired_ through the rooms out of a
cannon.
Have I spoken unjustly when I say that the Dane appears to have done
all in his power to shut up from the general public of travellers
these choicest collections of his country?
Now I will tell you all I know of the Rosenborg Collection, and how it
happens that I know anything; and my history begins like so many of
the old Danish histories, with a fight.
In the outset I paid for a full ticket, as there happened to be no one
else who had applied to go in that afternoon. Later, two Englishmen
wishing to see the museum, their commissionnaire came to know if I
would not like to have them go at the same time, which would reduce
the price of the tickets by two thirds. This I declined to do,
preferring to have the entire time of the Museum Inspector for my own
benefit in way of explanations, etc. With the guide all to myself, I
thought I should be able far better to understand and study the
museum.
Equipped with my note-book and pen and catalogue, and with the
faithful Harriet by my side, I entered, cheerful, confident, and full
of enthusiasm, especially about any and all relics of the famous old
Christian IV., whose impress on his city and country is so noticeable
to this day.
The first scene of my drama opens with the arrival of the Inspector
whose duty it was on that occasion to exhibit the museum. There are
three of these Inspectors, who take turns in the exhibition. He was a
singularly handsome man,--a keen blue eye; hair about white, whiter
than it should have been by age, for he could not have been more than
fifty or fifty-five; a finely cut face, with great mobility, almost a
passionateness of vivacity in its expression; a tall and graceful
figure: his whole look and bearing gave me a great and sudden pleasure
as he approached. And when he began to speak in English, my delight
was kindled anew; I warmed at once in anticipation of my afternoon.
Mistaken dream!
I said to him, "I am very sorry, indeed, that we have so short a time
in which to see these beautiful and interesting collections. Two hours
is nothing."
"Oh, I shall explain to you everything," he said hastily, and
proceeded to throw open the doors of mysterious wall-closets in the
room which was called the Presence Chamber of Christian IV.
The walls of this room are of solid oak, divided off into panels by
beautiful carved pillars, with paintings between. The ceiling is like
the walls, and the floor is of marble. In the south wall are four
closets filled with more rare and exquisite things than I could
describe in a hundred pages; all these in one side of the first room!
The first thing which my noble Dane pointed out was the famous old
Oldenborg horn, of which I had before read, and wished much to
see,--an old drinking-horn of silver, solid chased, from brim to tip.
The legend is that it was given to Count Otto of Oldenborg by a
mountain nymph in a forest one day in the year 909.
As he pointed out this horn, I opened my catalogue to find the place
where it was mentioned there, that I might make on the margin some
notes of points which I wished to recollect. I think I might have been
looking for this perhaps half of a minute, possibly one whole minute,
when thundering from the mouth of my splendid Dane came, "Do you
prefer that you read it in the catalogue than that I tell you?"
I am not sure, but my impression is that I actually jumped at his
tone. I know I was frightened enough to do so. I then explained to him
that I was not looking for it in the catalogue to read then and there,
only to associate what I saw with its place and with the illustrations
in the catalogue, and to make notes for future use. He hardly heard a
word I said. Putting out his hand and waving my poor catalogue away,
he said, "It is all there. You shall find everything there, as I tell
you; will you listen?"
Quite cowed, I tried to listen; but I found that unless I carried out
my plan of following his explanations by the list in the catalogue,
and made little marginal notes, I should remember nothing; moreover,
that it was impossible to look at half the things, as he rapidly
enumerated them. I opened my catalogue again, and began to note some
of the more interesting things. The very sight of the catalogue open
in my hands seemed to act upon him like a scarlet flag on a bull.
Instantly he burst out upon me again; and when I attempted to explain,
he interrupted me,--did not give me time to finish one sentence,--did
not apparently comprehend what I meant, or what it was that I wished
to do, except that it reflected in some way on him as a guide and
explainer. In vain I tried to stem the tide of his angry words; and
the angrier he got, the less intelligible became his English.
"Perhaps you take me for a servant in this museum," he said. "Perhaps
my name is as good in my country as yours is in your own!"
"Oh, do--do listen to me one minute," I said. "If you will only hear
me, I think I can make you understand. I do implore you not to be so
angry."
"I am not angry. I have listen to you every time,--too many time. I
have not time to listen any more!"
This he said so angrily that I felt the tears coming into my eyes. I
was in despair. I turned to Harriet and said, "Very well, Harriet, we
will go."
"You shall not go!" he exclaimed. "Twenty years I have shown this
museum, and never yet was any one before dissatisfied with what I tell
them. I have myself written this catalogue you carry," he cried,
tapping my poor book with his fingers. "Now I will nothing say, and
you can ask if you wish I should explain anything." And thereupon he
folded his arms, and stepped back, the very picture of a splendid man
in a sulk. Could anything be imagined droller, more unnecessary? I
hesitated what to do. If I had not had a very strong desire to see the
museum, I would have gone away, for he had really been almost
unpardonably rude; yet I sympathized fully in his hot and hasty
temper. I saw clearly wherein his mistake lay, and that on his theory
of the situation he was right and I was wrong; and I thought perhaps
if he watched me for a few minutes quietly he would see that I was
very much in earnest in studying the collection, and that nothing had
been further from my mind than any distrust of his knowledge. So I
gulped down my wounded feelings, and went on looking silently at the
cases and making my notes. Presently he began to cool down, to see his
mistake, and before we had gone through the second room was telling me
courteously about everything, waiting while I made my notes, and
pointing out objects of especial interest. In less than half an hour
he had ceased to be hostile, and before the end of the hour he had
become friendly, and more,--seized both my hands in his, exclaiming,
"We shall be good friends,--good!" He was as vivacious, imperious, and
overwhelming in his friendliness as in his anger. "You must come again
to Rosenborg; you must see it all. I will myself show you every room.
No matter who sends to come in, they shall not be admitted. I go alone
with you."
In vain I explained to him that I had only one more day in Copenhagen,
and that I must spend that in going to Elsinore.
"No, you are not to go to Elsinore. It is not necessary. You shall not
leave Copenhagen without seeing Rosenborg. Promise me that you will
come again to Rosenborg. Promise! Take any hour you please, and I will
come. You shall have four--five hours. Promise! Promise!" And he
seized my hand in both of his, and held it, repeating, "Promise me!
Promise! Oh, we shall be very good friends,--very good."
"Ah," I said, "I knew, if you only understood, you would be friendly;
but I really cannot come again."
He pulled out his watch, made a gesture of despair. "I have to leave
town in one little half-hour; and there are yet seventeen rooms you
have not seen. You shall not leave Copenhagen till you have seen. Do
you promise?"
I believe if I had not promised I should be still standing in the
halls of the Rosenborg. When I finally said, "Yes, I promise," he
wrung my hand again, and said,--
"Now we are good friends, we shall be all good friends. I will show to
you all Rosenborg. Do you promise?"
"Yes," I said, "I promise," and drove away, leaving him standing on
the sidewalk, his steel blue eyes flashing with determination and
fire, and a smile on his face which I shall not forget. Never before
did I see such passionate, fierce fulness of life in a man whose hair
was white.
I promised, but I did not go. From the Rosenborg I drove to the Museum
of Northern Antiquities,--from five to seven of that day being my only
chance of seeing it at all. By the time I had spent two hours in the
hurried attempt to see the most interesting things in this second
collection, my brain was in a state of chaos, and I went back to my
hotel with a sense of loathing of museums, only to be compared to the
feeling one would have about dinners if he had eaten ten hearty ones
in one day. One does not sleep off such an indigestion in one night.
The next morning, nothing save actual terror could have driven me into
a museum; and as my noble Dane was not present to cow me into
obedience, I had energy enough to write him a note of farewell and
regret. The regret was indeed heartfelt, not so much for the museum as
for him. I would have liked to see those blue eyes flash out from
under the gray eyebrows once more. I too felt that we would be "good
friends,--good."
Now I will try to tell you a little of the little I remember of the
Rosenborg. I only got as far as Frederick IV.'s time, 1730. Many of
the most beautiful things in the museum I did not see, and of many
that I did see I recollect nothing, especially of all which I looked
at while I was in disgrace with the guide; I might as well not have
seen them at all.
One little unpretending thing interested me greatly: it was a plain
gold ring, with a small uncut sapphire in it; round the circle is
engraved, "Ave Maria gr. [gratiosissima]." It was given by King
Christian to his wife, Elizabeth, on their wedding-day, Aug. 12,
1515,--three hundred years and two weeks before the day I saw it. It
lay near the great Oldenborg drinking-horn, and few people would care
much for it by the side of the other, I suppose. Then there was
another bridal ornament of a dead queen,--it had belonged to Dorothea,
wife of Christian III.,--a gold plate, four or five inches square,
with an eagle in the centre, bearing an escutcheon with the date 1557:
on the eagle's breast a large uncut sapphire; over the eagle, an
emerald and a sapphire; and under it, a sapphire and an amethyst, all
very large. There are also pearls set here and there in the plate.
This was given to the city of Copenhagen by the queen, to be worn by
the daughters of the richest and most honored of the Danish people on
their wedding-day. It was for many generations kept and used in this
way, but finally the custom fell into disuse; and now the Copenhagen
brides think no more of Queen Dorothea at their weddings, than of any
other old gone-by queen,--which is a pity, it seems to me, for it
surely was a lovely thought of hers to ally her memory to the bridals
of young maidens in her land for all time.
There was in this room, also, Frederick II.'s Order of the Elephant,
the oldest in existence, and held in great veneration by people who
esteem ornaments of that sort. It is much less beautiful than some
other orders of less distinction. The elephant is a clumsy beast,
carve him never so finely, enamel him all you will, and call him what
you like.
There is also here the Order of the Garter, of that same
king--twenty-six enamelled red roses on blue shields held together by
twists of gold cord; diamonds and pearls make it splendid, and that
bit of gospel truth "Evil to him that evil thinks," is written on it
in rubies, as it deserves to be written everywhere.