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!"