Copenhagen, a Quaint and Ancient City.
KJOEBENHAVN, DANNMARK,
(COPENHAGEN, DENMARK), _August 28, 1902_.
The Copenhagener declares that his beloved "Kjoebenhavn" is not really
an ancient city, although he admits it has been in active business
since the middle of the tenth century, nearly one thousand years.
My Danish friends assert that it is my "Yankee eye," which is so new,
and prove the modernity of their town by telling me how many times it
has been bombarded, how often sacked and razed, how frequently burned
up; and yet, despite their facts, I still make bold to say the city
bears the markings of an ancient town.
Long, long ago, even before the time of King Gorm the Old, here were
markets by the water's side, where the fisherman brought his catch,
the peasant fetched his eggs and milk and cheese and what the soil
might yield, where the itinerant merchant came to show and trade his
wares. These handy markets by the sea were at first moved constantly
about; by and by they came to be held, year after year, in the
self-same spot; the temporary clustered settlement became a lasting
town. As the centuries rolled on these market hamlets expanded into a
single commercial rendezvous for all the northern world. Thus
Copenhagen won her name (_Kopman-haven_--merchant port) and grew until
her commerce made her the heir to the trade and traffic of the
Hanseatic League, and she was recognized as supreme mistress of the
commerce of the North by London and Bremen, Brussels and Bordeaux, as
well as by the merchant fleets of Venice and the Levant.
Those were the days when her Kings and hardy seamen would as lief
drink and fight and die as eat and live; their very recklessness made
them masters of the North; they even annexed the mighty Norseman, and
made Norway a Danish Province; they hammered and held in check their
doughty cousins, the Swedes; they brought beneath their sway the
Provinces of Skaania, of Halland and of Bleking, the southern portion
of what is now known as Sweden; they dominated the cities along the
shores of the North and Baltic Seas.
Copenhagen became, in fact as well as in name, the veritable capital
of the North. In politics and in intrigue she played the master hand.
She gathered to herself the arts and the sciences, the fashion and the
elegance, of the North; and to-day, although warlike pride and power
have fallen from her, although trade and commerce have lessened in her
midst, yet the arts and the sciences, the culture and the elegance are
still her own, and the fine old city claims to be as markedly as of
yore the intellectual center of the Scandinavian race.
[Illustration: THE OESTERGADE, COPENHAGEN.]
Copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there
are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the
sea, or as the Danes would say the _Sund_ (Sound),--that narrow strait
which links the Baltic to the Kattegat, where Denmark and Sweden
appear once to have split apart.
The buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of
wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories
high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles.
In the older parts of the city, the streets are narrow, and twist and
turn and change their names even more often than the Rues of Paris. In
the newer section, toward the north and northwest, there are long
straight boulevards and straight cross streets, and the inevitable air
of modern monotony.
The feeling and impression which stole over me the first morning I
strolled about the city became almost one of sadness. The wistful,
pensive faces of the people; their unobtrusive politeness; the
inconsequential traffic of drays and carts along the quiet streets;
canals and quays half empty where there should have been big packs of
boats; absence everywhere of bustle and ado,--all these were almost
pathetic. It might have been a Puritan Sabbath, so silent stood the
big stone docks and piers among the lapping waters. There was none of
the ponderous movement of London, none of the liveliness of Paris, nor
the busy-ness of Hamburg, of Bremen, of Amsterdam, of Rotterdam and
Antwerp, although once Copenhagen was peer of any one. The bales of
goods, the tons of merchandise which once filled her lofts and cellars
are no longer there. The commerce which once made the city rich and
gave her power has ebbed away. She is far fallen into commercial and
industrial decay.
The causes which have wrought this collapse of the once great city
are, perhaps, difficult to analyze. At least, those Danes with whom I
have talked upon the matter are not at all agreed. Nor are they united
upon the solution of the problem of restoring the city to the proud
place she once held as metropolis of the northern world.
Some tell me that after the demise of the present King, and the
passing of Sweden's ruler to the Halls of Valhalla, then will it be
possible for the Scandinavian peoples to come together in one
permanent federation, or federal pact, where the Norwegian-Democratic
spirit shall instil new energy into the now moribund political body of
the sister states, and that then Copenhagen will be the natural
capital of this free and potent Scandinavian state, and then will come
to her the splendor and dignity justly her due.
Others declare, and declare with a flash of terror in their eyes, that
the only hope for Copenhagen, the only hope for the pitiful remnant of
the once proud Kingdom of Denmark, is to be wholly devoured by the
Hohenzollern Ogre, to be by him chewed fine, gulped down, digested and
assimilated as part of the flesh and blood of the waxing German
Empire. Then will Copenhagen become the chief seaport of the German
Hinterlands to the south, then will the importance of Bremen and
Hamburg and Kiel be expanded into the new vigor that will have come to
Copenhagen. They point to the inevitableness of this destiny as
evidenced by the subtle, silent, incessant encroachment of the German
tongue among the people of the city as well as throughout the land,
and by the continuous invasion and settlement of the city and country
by men and women of German breed. They say the Imperial monster grips
them in a clutch whence there is no escape.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL THEATRE, COPENHAGEN.]
Whatever the future may have in store for stricken Denmark and
Copenhagen, it is clear enough to the apprehension of the friendly
stranger that the noble city is ailing and benumbed. She stagnates,
and only revolution and rebirth into a greater Scandinavian state, or
Germanic conquest and absorption, will restore her to her former
place. It is natural for an American to hope for Denmark and her
people a rehabilitation through the uplifting influence of a
Scandinavian Republic.
There are fine shops in Copenhagen; behind the unpretentious fronts
along the Oestergade, the Amagertorv, the Vimmelskaft and Nygade and
neighboring streets is stored great wealth of fabrics and of
merchandise. Here we saw the notably handsome pottery and artistic
porcelain ware for which Copenhagen is already famous beyond the sea;
and H and her mother have delightedly bought several charming pieces
of the latter and ordered them sent forward to New York. They have
also quite lost their hearts, and certainly their _kroners_, over the
exquisite gold and silver and enamel work manufactured here, while
they declare the laces and drawn work--particularly what is called
_Hedebo_--excels anything of the kind they have discovered in London.
The Dane is a poet, a dreamer, an artist; he is also a patient
artisan, and what he produces ranks among the world's best work.
Passing along the narrow sidewalks you would never suspect what is
stored behind the plain exteriors, for the Dane has not yet learned
the art of window display, nor has he acquired the skill of so showing
his goods that the buyer is caught at a single glance. If you would
purchase, you must have already determined what you want, and then,
upon asking for it, will be given liberal choice.
The shops are mostly small, each seller dealing in a single ware. Only
one Dane, a wide-awake newcomer from Chicago, has dared to introduce
the complex methods of "department" trade. He has opened an immense
establishment called the Magazin du Nord, where thus far is done a
rushing business. But the conservative merchants of Copenhagen have
not yet become so well assured of the success of this innovation that
they are willing to follow the example set.
[Illustration: THE EXCHANGE, COPENHAGEN.]
In company with the ladies I have been out all the afternoon along
these narrow streets--streets where the narrow sidewalks are
altogether insufficient to accommodate the passing crowds, which
consequently fill up the middle of the way--and we find the _Frus_ and
_Froekens_ of Copenhagen apparently as much devoted to what is called
"shopping" as our own fair dames at home. Buxom and yellow-haired and
rosy-cheeked, they throng the streets each afternoon. They are comely
to look upon, and carry themselves with more graceful carriage than do
the women of England. They walk deliberately, with none of the nervous
scurry of their transatlantic sisters. Indeed, it is hinted to me,
they have not come out so much to buy as to meet some friend or
neighbor, and exchange a bit of news or gossip in one of the numerous
and cozy cafes where is sold _conditterie_:--candies and chocolates
and coffee and little cakes.
Next to _conditterie_, the Copenhagener is fondest of his books and
the town abounds in bookshops, big and little. Every Dane reads and
writes his native tongue, and among the educated, English and French
and German are generally understood. In the book stores I visited I
was always addressed in English, and found French, German and English
and even American books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and
magazines are published in Copenhagen, a Danish friend declares, than
in any other city in Europe of its size. The Danes have, too, a widely
established system of free circulating libraries and book clubs,
which extend throughout the countryside of Zealand and Funen and
Jutland, as well as in the towns, while Copenhagen is supplied also
from the extensive collections of the University and Royal Libraries.
The public schools and the University we did not see, for the season
was the vacation interval, and the teachers, professors and students
were all dispersed. But the schools and University of Copenhagen are
modernly equipped. The Dane is intelligent above all else, and he has
always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. Indeed,
Copenhagen was the first city in Europe to establish real public
schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years
ago.
There are many _Torvs_ about the city, market-places where all sorts
of things have once been sold, but which are now become wide-open
public squares. The old word _Torv_ has already lost its ancient
meaning, even as has the word _Circus_, which in London first sounds
so strange to American ears. But while the Gammelstorv, the Nytorv,
the Kongen's Nytorv and many others are now degenerated into these
mere open breathing spaces between the big buildings of the town,
there are yet _Torvs_ where fish, and flowers, meats and vegetables,
and things else are offered for sale. The most attractive of them all
to me were those where are sold the flowers and the fish.
In the Amagertorv were heaps of pale and puny roses, and diminutive
asters and chrysanthemums, along with splendid pansies--"stepmother
flowers," as the Danes call them--and luxuriant piles of mignonette,
and big baskets of pinks and phloxes; where rosy-cheeked women, in
starched white caps, smilingly urged me to buy, and one _Froeken_ with
a wealth of yellow hair and cobalt-blue eyes, pinned on my coat a
monstrous pansy for _boutonnière_.
[Illustration: THE GAMMEL STRAND, COPENHAGEN.]
Among the fishwives of the Gammel Strand there was always lively stir,
for their _fisk_ must early find a buyer, and by midday they
themselves must be back to their nets and boats. These Danish
fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to
their English, German, Dutch and French sisters. Not merely must they
sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must
also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty Danish housewife
will not buy. The fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with
fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they
might do in the sea. The buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs
with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and
splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in
a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that
purpose. A fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation
in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food
by all right-acting Danish stomachs. No dead fish, preserved from
becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a Danish
kitchen. Is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and
sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet
fresh fish to any other! Sauntering along the Strand I espied the cod
and mackerel and herring under names I did not know, and everywhere
foremost among them all the now familiar _roed spoette_, the Danish
epicure's delight.
The streets of London are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn
up in line awaiting fares. In Copenhagen one is struck at once by the
absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs
anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon
the wholesale business streets. One might almost say that the streets
would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. There
must be many dove-cotes in Copenhagen and the birds certainly have
hosts of friends. But the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is
the real king of Denmark's capital. After seeing him in Holland and in
France, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling
all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master,
one almost envies the lot of the dogs of Copenhagen. These beasts
abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do
owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they
lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children
and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross
their trail. Whether they survive through performing the office of
scavenger, as do the dogs of Constantinople, I have never been
informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of Copenhagen take as full
possession of that town as do the tame vultures of Vera Cruz.
We visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is
expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the
masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also
is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics,
one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of
Charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of
the master paintings of which the Danish capital is so proud; we
admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a
squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and Peter the Great
ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised Fredriks
Kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate
dome; and H and I spent a delightful hour in the noble Vor Frue Kirke,
where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and
the Bourse, the imposing new Hotel de Ville--the finest modern
building in Denmark--the Legislative Palace, Christiansborg and
Rosenborg and Amalienborg and Fredriksberg. We saw what of them the
public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine
wide Lange Linie Boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and
umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors
and Free Port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of
the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty
of the city are wont to ride and drive. We joined in with the
multitude upon the long, straight Fredriksberggade, where the life and
movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon New
Orleans' Canal Street and New York's Broadway; and we did all else
that well instructed Americans are taught to do. But after all, these
are the things that Baedeker and the guide books tell about. To me it
is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word
and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was
only when I met some of my wife's Danish kin, and a broad and burly
Berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon
either cheek, ere I knew him to be of her relations,--that I felt my
acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the
Scandinavian race.
Other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely
Tivoli gardens, where all the Copenhagen world, high and low, rich and
poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage,
equally bent upon having a good time. "Have you seen Tivoli?" is ever
almost the first question a Copenhagener will put. There we watched
the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a
sort of Punch and Judy show; there we entered the great music hall
where the Royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving
Danes always applaud; there we drank the Danish beer which is
admitted to be the best on earth--so a Danish neighbor whispered in my
ear. Tivoli is the Copenhagener's elysium. When he is blue he gets
himself to Tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to Tivoli; alone or in
company he goes to Tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will
permit, which is usually every night.
[Illustration: ALONG THE QUAYS, COPENHAGEN.]
A most difficult problem for Copenhagen has been that of draining and
sewering the city. It lies so low, almost at the dead level of the
sea, and the tides of these Baltic waters are so insignificant--ten to
twelve inches only--that for many centuries Copenhagen has been a most
unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and
defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than
that of any other city in Europe. But at last the problem is solved.
Forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate
system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point
into the sea, and with this transformation Copenhagen has become a
measurably healthy city.
Perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic
knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed Copenhagen with
so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the
sick,--few cities in Europe are so elaborately provided. Hand in hand
with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute
and very poor. Denmark has never followed England's pauper-creating
system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while
the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand.
One of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive
public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks,
and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans
and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. The landward side of the
city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. One morning
we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely Oersteds Park, when
I caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot
learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five.
She dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of
a Duchess of the Court.
Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises
fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of
people,--about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of
coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures.
Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land,
raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are
crowded--one-fourth of them,--into the city of Copenhagen, or they are
gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. And yet this diminutive
kingdom puts up $275,000 a year for the keeping of the King, and also
provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and
estates whereon to fish and hunt and play.
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT MOAT, NOW THE LOVELY OERSTEDS PARK.]
To an American mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept
and suffer burdens such as these.
In the great state of New York, with its seven millions of people,
with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with
cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the
Governor is paid $15,000 a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein
to dwell. Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, and many other
commonwealths, pay their Governors but $1,000 per year, without a
mansion for their residence.
The mighty Republic of the United States itself, with a continent for
domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its President $50,000 per
year, and gives him the use of the White House for his home.
Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and
look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not
over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why
Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the
world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young
men continually forsake their native land for the greater
opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the
United States?
The Dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. He is called
the "Frenchman of the North." Graceful and supple in his manners, with
a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social
diplomat. The blunt Norwegian calls him a fop. The martial Swede
sneers at his want of fight. But the Dane has always held his own, and
as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best
out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing
his full share of the Scandinavian brain.
[Illustration: A VISTA OF THE SUND.]