The severity of the long Swedish winter tends to render the people
sluggish, for though this season has its peculiar pleasures, too much
time is employed to guard against its inclemency. Still as warm clothing
is absolutely necessary, the women spin and the men weave, and by these
exertions get a fence to keep out the cold. I have rarely passed a knot
of cottages without seeing cloth laid out to bleach, and when I entered,
always found the women spinning or knitting.
A mistaken tenderness, however, for their children, makes them even in
summer load them with flannels, and having a sort of natural antipathy
to cold water, the squalid appearance of the poor babes, not to speak of
the noxious smell which flannel and rugs retain, seems a reply to a
question I had often asked--Why I did not see more children in the
villages I passed through? Indeed the children appear to be nipt in the
bud, having neither the graces nor charms of their age. And this, I am
persuaded, is much more owing to the ignorance of the mothers than to
the rudeness of the climate. Rendered feeble by the continual
perspiration they are kept in, whilst every pore is absorbing
unwholesome moisture, they give them, even at the breast, brandy, salt
fish, and every other crude substance which air and exercise enables the
parent to digest.
The women of fortune here, as well as everywhere else, have nurses to
suckle their children; and the total want of chastity in the lower class
of women frequently renders them very unfit for the trust.
You have sometimes remarked to me the difference of the manners of the
country girls in England and in America; attributing the reserve of the
former to the climate--to the absence of genial suns. But it must be
their stars, not the zephyrs, gently stealing on their senses, which
here lead frail women astray. Who can look at these rocks, and allow the
voluptuousness of nature to be an excuse for gratifying the desires it
inspires? We must therefore, find some other cause beside
voluptuousness, I believe, to account for the conduct of the Swedish and
American country girls; for I am led to conclude, from all the
observations I have made, that there is always a mixture of sentiment
and imagination in voluptuousness, to which neither of them have much
pretension.
The country girls of Ireland and Wales equally feel the first impulse of
nature, which, restrained in England by fear or delicacy, proves that
society is there in a more advanced state. Besides, as the mind is
cultivated, and taste gains ground, the passions become stronger, and
rest on something more stable than the casual sympathies of the moment.
Health and idleness will always account for promiscuous amours; and in
some degree I term every person idle, the exercise of whose mind does
not bear some proportion to that of the body.
The Swedish ladies exercise neither sufficiently; of course, grow very
fat at an early age; and when they have not this downy appearance, a
comfortable idea, you will say, in a cold climate, they are not
remarkable for fine forms. They have, however, mostly fine complexions;
but indolence makes the lily soon displace the rose. The quantity of
coffee, spices, and other things of that kind, with want of care, almost
universally spoil their teeth, which contrast but ill with their ruby
lips.
The manners of Stockholm are refined, I hear, by the introduction of
gallantry; but in the country, romping and coarse freedoms, with coarser
allusions, keep the spirits awake. In the article of cleanliness, the
women of all descriptions seem very deficient; and their dress shows
that vanity is more inherent in women than taste.
The men appear to have paid still less court to the graces. They are a
robust, healthy race, distinguished for their common sense and turn for
humour, rather than for wit or sentiment. I include not, as you may
suppose, in this general character, some of the nobility and officers,
who having travelled, are polite and well informed.
I must own to you that the lower class of people here amuse and interest
me much more than the middling, with their apish good breeding and
prejudices. The sympathy and frankness of heart conspicuous in the
peasantry produces even a simple gracefulness of deportment which has
frequently struck me as very picturesque; I have often also been touched
by their extreme desire to oblige me, when I could not explain my wants,
and by their earnest manner of expressing that desire. There is such a
charm in tenderness! It is so delightful to love our fellow-creatures,
and meet the honest affections as they break forth. Still, my good
friend, I begin to think that I should not like to live continually in
the country with people whose minds have such a narrow range. My heart
would frequently be interested; but my mind would languish for more
companionable society.
The beauties of nature appear to me now even more alluring than in my
youth, because my intercourse with the world has formed without
vitiating my taste. But, with respect to the inhabitants of the country,
my fancy has probably, when disgusted with artificial manners, solaced
itself by joining the advantages of cultivation with the interesting
sincerity of innocence, forgetting the lassitude that ignorance will
naturally produce. I like to see animals sporting, and sympathise in
their pains and pleasures. Still I love sometimes to view the human face
divine, and trace the soul, as well as the heart, in its varying
lineaments.
A journey to the country, which I must shortly make, will enable me to
extend my remarks.--Adieu!