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THE CHARM OF SCANDINAVIA
[Illustration: The Old Borgund Stave-kirke.
FRONTISPIECE. _See page 314._]
THE CHARM OF SCANDINAVIA
by
FRANCIS E. CLARK and SYDNEY A. CLARK
Illustrated
[Illustration]
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1918
Copyright, 1914,
by Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
DEDICATED TO
JUDICIA
F. E. C.
S. A. C.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While this book is largely based upon personal observation in the
countries described, the authors have taken pains to consult many recent
and some older authors who have written about Scandinavia, that they
might become familiar with the history and customs of the countries which
a traveler could not otherwise so readily understand.
Among these authorities may be mentioned Paul Du Chaillu’s work on “The
Viking Age”; Boyesen’s “History of Norway” in the “Story of the Nations”
series, a most excellent and informing book, as interesting as it is
accurate; Goodman’s “The Best Tour in Norway”; F. M. Butlin’s recent
valuable book, “Among the Danes”; “Swedish Life in Town and Country,” by
Oscar G. von Heidenstam; Emil Svenson, Holger Rosman, Gunnar Anderson,
and C. G. Lawins, who have combined to write a handbook about Sweden’s
history, industries, social systems, art, etc.
We should like to acknowledge especial indebtedness to a book by Hon. W.
W. Thomas, entitled “Sweden and the Swedes.” No American has written so
sympathetically about the Swedes from a long and intimate knowledge of
them as Mr. Thomas, who as Consul, United States Minister, and private
citizen has spent nearly half a century among them. This book, like
Ernest Young’s admirable volume on Finland, has been used chiefly, as
have the other authorities, to confirm, modify, or correct our own
impressions.
Since this book is the result of more than one journey throughout the
length and breadth of Scandinavia, the dates appended to the different
letters do not necessarily refer to the time they were written, but
rather to the season and the part of the country described.
In all essential particulars the book is a record of the actual
experiences that brought the authors under the spell of Scandinavia. They
hope this story of the sturdy, liberty-loving peoples may impart to the
reader something of the same charm.
F. E. C.
S. A. C.
BY WAY OF EXPLANATION
(An introduction which the authors, earnestly but with becoming
modesty, ask their readers to peruse, that the scheme of the
book may be understood.)
Phillips and Aylmer had engagements which required them to take long
journeys in Sweden and Norway, Denmark and Finland, and a friendly
discussion arose as to the relative beauties and merits of these
countries. Aylmer upheld the charms of Norway and Denmark with youthful
vehemence, and Phillips, with equal vigor, asserted the superiority of
Sweden and Finland. Judicia, to whom they appealed, suggested that each
one, while on his journey, write her full and interesting accounts of
the things in Scandinavia that charmed them most, and she would then
render her decision. But, the letters written, she begged the question
by proposing that the letters be published, and each reader decide for
himself. The writers agreed, and “The Charm of Scandinavia” is the
result.
“To the northward stretched the desert,
How far I fain would know;
So at last I sallied forth,
And three days sailed due north,
As far as the whale ships go.
“The days grew longer and longer,
Till they became as one,
And northward through the haze
I saw the sullen blaze
Of the red midnight sun.”
CONTENTS
PAGE
PART I
PHILLIPS WRITES OF SWEDEN AND FINLAND 1
PART II
AYLMER WRITES OF NORWAY AND DENMARK 175
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Old Borgund Stave-kirke _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Map of Scandinavia 1
Skikjoring, a Highly Enjoyable Sport 8
Skate Sailing, a Favorite Sport in Sweden 8
The Royal Palace, Stockholm 16
Tea House on Banks of Mälar 20
Some Girls of Dalecarlia 34
Where Gustavus Adolphus Rests among Hard-Won Battle Flags 42
A Typical Swedish Landscape in Winter 46
Reindeer and Lapps from North Sweden 66
Lion-Guarded Statue of Charles XIII, in King’s Garden, Stockholm 74
The Castle at Upsala 86
The Locks, Borenshult, Göta Canal 96
The Gorge of the Göta at Trölhatten 100
Ruins of St. Nikolaus Cathedral, Visby, Gotland 110
Interior of a Finnish Cottage 136
In Finnish Lakeland 144
In Eastern Finland 150
Fish Harbor, Helsingfors 164
Copenhagen Exchange 182
Watch Parade in Amalienborg Square 196
The Splendor of Tivoli on a Gala Night in Summer 196
Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen 208
Trondhjem Cathedral 250
On the Sognefjord 256
Ski Jumping 260
The Railroad between Bergen and Christiania 268
Bergen, Northeast from Laksevaag 278
Across the Glassy Geirangerfjord 286
German Battleships in Norwegian Waters 292
A Stolkjaerre 296
Fishermen Arranging their Nets at Balestrand on the Sognefjord 300
Three Little Belles of the Arctic at Tromsö 304
The Hardanger Glacier and Rembesdal Lake 308
View from Hammerfest 310
[Illustration: NORWAY, SWEDEN AND DENMARK
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE J. N. MATTHEWS CO., BUFFALO, N. Y.]
THE CHARM OF SCANDINAVIA
PHILLIPS WRITES OF SWEDEN AND FINLAND
FIRST LETTER
In which Phillips descants on his route to Scandinavia from
Berlin; on the gastronomic delights of a Swedish railway
restaurant; on the lavish comfort and economy as well as the
safety of travel in Sweden; on the quiet charms of the scenery
in southern Sweden, as well as on the well-earned social
position and independence of the Swedish farmer.
STOCKHOLM, January 1.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
You have brought this upon yourself, you know, for it was your
proposition that Aylmer and I should try to make you feel the charm
of Scandinavia as we have felt it. But do not suppose that we are
going to enter upon a contest of wits in order to make our respective
countries shine upon the written page, or that we are going to indulge
in high-flown descriptions. We shall try to tell you of things as we see
them; of the peasant in his low-thatched roof, who is as interesting as
the king in his palace. We may not even think it beneath our dignity to
tell you of the _Smörgåsbörd_, and of the different kinds of cheese of
many colors which grace the breakfast table, for all these different,
homely, commonplace things enter into the spell of Scandinavia.
As you know, we started on this long northern journey at Berlin. This
trip has been robbed of all its terrors, since keen competition has
compelled the railway and steamboat companies to exchange the little
_Dampfschiff_, little bigger than tugboats, which used to connect Germany
with Scandinavia, for great ferry steamers, which take within their
capacious maws whole railway trains, so that now we can go to sleep in
Berlin, in a very comfortable _sofwagn_, and wake up the next morning on
Swedish soil, with no consciousness of the fact that in the middle of the
night we had a four hours’ voyage across a bit of blue sea which is often
as stormy as the broad Atlantic itself.
You remember that I wrote you about a former journey across this same
bit of water during an equinoctial gale, how our boat was tossed about
like a cork, how the port was stove in, and I was washed out of my bunk.
Well, last night I was reminded of that former journey by contrast, for I
never knew when we were trundled aboard ship at Sassnitz, or when we were
trundled on to dry land again at Trelleborg. I was sorry to cross the
island of Rügen in the night, for this bit of wind-swept, sea-washed land
will always be associated for us with “Elizabeth” and her adventures,
though to be sure her German garden was not on Rügen, but on the mainland
near by.
However, if I did not know when we passed from Germany to Sweden, it was
very evident that we were in a different country when the window curtain
was raised in the morning, and the porter informed me deferentially, in
his musical Swedish voice, that “_caffe_ and _Smörbröd_” would be served
in the compartment if I wished. Everything is different here. This little
four hours’ voyage in the middle of the night seems to have put a wide
ocean between the experiences of to-day and yesterday. The brick houses
are exchanged for wooden ones. The pine trees which abound in the sandy
wastes north of Berlin have been exchanged for graceful white birches,
sprinkled with spruce and fir. Instead of the gutturals of the south we
hear the open, flowing vowels of the north. Even the signs with which
the railway stations are so abundantly plastered that one has difficulty
in finding their names, are different from those in Germany, and our
attention is called to wholly different brands of beer, whisky, and
margarine.
One thing you will rejoice in, I am sure, Judicia, and that is, that I am
assured by every responsible authority that railway accidents are almost
unknown in Sweden, or at least that the risk is quite infinitesimal.
It is said that even in America, which has such an evil reputation for
railway smashups, you can travel by rail on the average a distance one
hundred and fifty-six times around the world without getting a scratch. I
wonder how many thousands of times one would have to travel twenty-five
thousand miles in Sweden before the train would run off the track or bump
into another train. One would think that the railway accident insurance
companies in Sweden would get very little business.
I concluded not to accept the porter’s kind invitation to “_caffe_
and _Smörbröd_,” for I wanted to indulge at the first opportunity in a
genuine Swedish railway restaurant. Think of anticipating _with pleasure_
a railway restaurant breakfast in America or England!
I waited for breakfast until we reached Alfvesta, well on toward noon,
and then made the most of the twenty-five minutes generously allowed for
refreshments. “Can this be a railway restaurant?” a stranger would say
to himself. Here is a bountifully filled table covered with all sorts of
viands, fish, flesh, and fowl, and good red herring besides. And around
this tempting table a number of gentlemen, hats and overcoats laid aside,
are wandering nonchalantly, as though they had the whole day at their
disposal; picking up here a ball of golden butter and there a delicate
morsel of cheese; from another dish a sardine, or a slice of tongue or
cold roast beef, or possibly some appetizing salad. If you would do in
Sweden as the Swedes do and not declare your foreign extraction, you,
too, will wander around this table in a most careless and casual way,
and, when you have heaped your plate with the fat of the land, and spread
a piece of crisp rye flatbread thick with fresh and fragrant butter,
when you have poured out a cup of delicious coffee reduced to exactly
the right shade of amber by abundant cream, then you take your spoil to
a side table near by and try to feel as much at leisure in eating it as
your Swedish fellow passengers appear to be.
But this is only the beginning. This is just to whet the appetite
for what is to come. I counted twenty-seven different dishes on the
_Smörgåsbörd_ table from which one might choose; or one might take
something from each of the twenty-seven if he so desired. Then comes the
real meal: fish and potatoes, meat and vegetables of several different
kinds, salad, puddings, and cheese—and to all of these viands you help
yourself. No officious waiter hovers over you, impatient for your order
and eager to snatch away your plate before the last mouthful is finished,
an eagerness only equaled by his rapacious desire for the expected tip.
No, the only official in the room is the modest young lady who sits at a
table in the far corner, and who seems to take no notice of your coming
and going. If you get up a dozen times to help yourself from either end
of the table; if you pour out half a dozen cups of coffee, or indulge in
a quart of milk from the capacious pitchers, it seems to be no concern of
hers. Her only duty is to sit behind the table and take your money when
you get through, and a very small amount she takes at that.
If you have “put a knife to your throat,” and have contented yourself
with coffee and cakes, the charge will be fifty _öre_, or thirteen and a
half cents. If you have helped yourself, however liberally, only from the
cold dishes, the _Smörgåsbörd_, the charge will be seventy-five _öre_, or
twenty cents, while even the most extravagant meal, where everything hot
and cold is sampled, would be but two _kronor_, or a trifle over fifty
cents.
I shall not tell you, Judicia, how much I paid for that particular
breakfast, for I know that your first remark would be: “All that in
twenty-five minutes, and you a Fletcherite!”
What strikes the uninitiated traveler with wonder and amaze on reaching
Sweden is the lavishness of everything and its cheapness. On this table
in Alfvesta, for instance, there were great mounds of butter nearly
a foot high, instead of the little minute dabs that we see on most
continental tables, with which you are supposed to merely smear your
bread. The big joints of beef, the great legs of mutton, the bright
silver pudding dishes of capacious size, all seem to say to the tourist:
“Help yourself, and don’t be stingy.” But elegance is not sacrificed to
abundance. Everything is neat and clean. The silver is polished to the
last degree. The glasses are crystal clear. You do not have to scrub your
plate with your napkin, as is the custom at some continental hotels, and
the cooking is as delicious as the food is abundant.
Am I dwelling too long upon these merely temporal and gastronomic
features of Sweden? Do you remind me that the charm of a country does not
depend upon what we shall eat or what we shall drink? I reply that the
first thing for a traveler, like an army, to consider, is the base of
supplies. What famous general was that who made the immortal remark that
every army marched upon its stomach? Why is not that equally true of a
traveler?
But though the dinner table is one of the initial experiences in Sweden,
it does not often need to be described. _Ex uno disce omnes_, and from
this one meal you may learn what to expect from Trelleborg on the south
to Riksgränsen, some twelve hundred miles farther north, the Dan and
Beersheba of Sweden. At every stopping-place, large or small, which the
railway time-table kindly marks with a diminutive knife and fork, to show
that the needs of the inner man are here met, you will find just such
lavish, well-cooked, moderate-priced refreshments. Indeed the favorite
English phrase, “cheap and nahsty”, has no equivalent in Swedish, for
there is no such thing known. Cheapness does not imply poor quality or
slatternly service.
You are reminded of this fact even before you leave Berlin, for a
sleeping-car berth which costs more than twelve _marks_, something over
three dollars on the south side of Berlin, costs for a longer distance on
the north side, since most of the journey is to be in Sweden, less than
six _marks_, or not quite one half as much, while the compartments are
even more comfortable and better fitted. Yes, dear Judicia, Scandinavia
is the country for you and me to travel in as well as for the very few
other Americans, who, according to European notions, are not millionaires.
When I took my seat again after breakfast at Alfvesta, in the comfortable
second-class compartment, we were soon flying, as rapidly as Swedish
trains ever fly, which is rarely more than thirty miles an hour, through
the heart of southern Sweden, and I had time to refresh my memory
concerning this great Scandinavian peninsula, which, as some people
think, hangs like a huge icicle from the roof of the world. The icicle
idea, however, is entirely erroneous, so far at least as the southern
part of Sweden and Norway go. The average temperature is about that
of Washington, though it is cooler in summer; and very often in the
neighborhood of the west coast, where the Gulf Stream, that mighty wizard
of the Atlantic, does its work, there is little snow or ice from one
year’s end to another.
This southern section of Sweden is called Gothland, or, literally,
the Land of the Gota or Goths, a name which we always couple with the
Vandals. Indeed, one of the titles by which the King of Sweden is still
addressed at his coronation is “Lord of the Goths and Vandals.” Truly
these old Goths and Vandals were the “scourge of God”, as Attila their
leader was called, when they sailed away in their great viking ships,
carrying their conquests as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and founding
colonies and kingdoms along all the shores of Europe, and even across the
Mediterranean, in Africa.
Scandinavia, when judged by its square miles, is certainly no mean
country. Sweden alone, which claims a little more than half of the great
peninsula, is as large as France or Germany, and half as large again
as all Great Britain. If we should compare Sweden with some of our own
more familiar boundaries, we should see that it is a little larger
than California, and not unlike that Golden State in its geographical
outlines. We should see also that it is about three times as large as all
New England, and more than three times as large as Illinois.
[Illustration: Skikjoring, a Highly Enjoyable Sport.]
[Illustration: Skate Sailing, a Favorite Sport in Sweden.]
Before I finish this journey I shall have a realizing sense of Sweden’s
long-drawn-out provinces, for it takes nearly sixty hours of continuous
railway travel to go even as far north as the railway will carry us.
Gothland in the south, Svealand in the center, and Norrland in the north
are the three great divisions of Sweden, the latter larger than the other
two put together.
From the car window I see many charming sights, even in this wintry
season. Indeed I am not sure that Sweden is not quite as lovely in winter
as in summer. The red farmhouses, half buried in snow (for the winter
is more severe now that we are getting away from the coast); the great
stacks of hay that enable the patient cows to chew the cud contentedly
through the long winter days; the splendid forests of white birch, the
most graceful tree that grows; the ice-locked lakes, and the rushing
streamlets that are making their way to the Baltic—all these combine to
give us a landscape which is charming in the extreme.
I suppose that Aylmer will surfeit you with eloquent descriptions of
far-reaching fjords, mighty mountains, and abysmal cañons when he comes
to write about his beloved Norway, but I am sure he will find nothing
more peacefully lovely and harmonious than the farmlands of southern and
central Sweden. These are the lands, too, which raise not only grass and
turnips and sugar beets, but a grand crop of men and women, who are the
very backbone of the Swedish commonwealth. More than eighty-five per cent
of the land is owned and farmed by its proprietors, and mostly small
proprietors at that. Absentee landlordism is little known. A country
whose people thus have their roots in the soil has little fear from
anarchists and revolutionists.
These peasant proprietors, as they are called, are by no means the
dense yokels with which we associate the word “peasant” in many parts
of Europe. The peasants of Sweden are simply farmers, and not always
small farmers at that, for they sometimes own hundreds of acres. They
are farmers who enjoy the daily newspapers and the monthly magazines,
whose children all go to school, and who can aspire to the university
for their sons and daughters, if they so elect. They are farmers who
hold the balance of power among the law-makers of Sweden, and who always
have a hundred or more of their own number in the Riksdag, some of whom
are among the best orators and debaters in the Assembly. They know that
no important piece of legislation to which they are opposed can ever be
enacted in Sweden, and they are as proud as the nobility itself of their
ancient history, and more tenacious of their ancient privileges.
Honorable W. W. Thomas, for many years the American Minister to Sweden
and Norway, and who has written entertainingly concerning the people
of the country, which he came to consider his adopted land, tells a
good story that illustrates the independence of the Swedish peasant. It
is worth quoting to you, as the train rushes by hundreds of just such
peasant homes.
“Clad in homespun, and driving a rough farm wagon, this peasant pulled
up at a post station in the west of Sweden. There were but two horses
left in the stable, and these he immediately ordered to be harnessed
into his wagon. Just as they were being hitched up, there rattled into
the courtyard in great style the grand equipage of the Governor of
the Province, with coachman and footman in livery. Learning the state
of affairs, and wishing to avoid a long and weary delay, the coachman
ordered these two horses to be taken from the peasant’s cart and
harnessed into the Governor’s carriage, but the peasant stoutly refused
to allow this to be done.
“‘What,’ said the Governor, ‘do you refuse to permit those horses to be
harnessed into my carriage?’
“‘Yes, I do,’ said the peasant.
“‘And do you know who I am,’ quoth the Governor, somewhat in a rage; ‘I
am the Governor of this Province; a Knight of the Royal Order of the
North Star, and one of the chamberlains of his Majesty the King.’
“‘Oh ho,’ said the peasant, ‘and do you, sir, know who I am?’
“He said this in such a bold and defiant manner that the Governor was
somewhat taken aback. He began to think that the fellow might be some
great personage after all, some prince perhaps, traveling in disguise.
“‘No,’ said he in an irresolute voice, ‘I do not know who you are. Who
are you?’
“‘Well,’ replied the peasant, walking up to him and looking him firmly in
the eye, ‘I’ll tell you who I am—I am the man that ordered those horses!’
“After this there was nothing more to be said. The peasant quietly drove
away on his journey, and the Governor waited until such time as he could
legally procure fresh means of locomotion.”
As I said, I thought of this characteristic story of peasant independence
as my train sped by many a comfortable farmhouse, whose occupants, I
have no doubt, would defy the authority of the governor, or of the king
himself, if he should attempt to trample upon their rights.
But we are now drawing near to Sweden’s capital, and perhaps you will
think that this letter is quite long enough for my first promised
installment concerning the charms of Sweden.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
SECOND LETTER
In which Phillips lauds Stockholm as the most beautiful of
European cities; tells the tragic story of the royal palace;
remarks casually upon the superabundance of telephones, for
which Stockholm is famous; describes the Riksdag and the
medieval ceremony of opening Parliament, and comments briefly
on the relations of Church and State in Sweden.
STOCKHOLM, January 3.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
When last I wrote you, if I remember rightly, I was just approaching
Stockholm, after the six-hundred-mile journey from Berlin. It was quite
dark, and for that I was not sorry, for Stockholm is so brilliantly
lighted that it is almost as beautiful by night as by day. As we
approached, the many quays, from which scores of little steamers are
constantly darting to and fro, were all picked out by globes of electric
light. Old Stockholm, climbing the hill to the left, looked like a
constellation of stars in the bright heavens, and the occasional glimpses
of broad streets which one gets as he approaches the central station were
flooded with the soft glow of the incandescent burners. Nevertheless,
beautiful as was the night scene, I was quite impatient for the morning
light to reveal the glories of the most beautiful capital of Europe,
which I remembered so well, but was none the less anxious to see again.
“The most beautiful capital in Europe!” did I hear you say, Judicia,
with a suspicion of skepticism in your rising inflection? “Have you
forgotten Paris, and Rome, and Budapest, and Vienna? Are you not somewhat
carried away by your desire to make out a good case for Sweden?” No, I
cannot plead guilty to any of these charges, which I am sure are lurking
in your mind, for ever since my first visit, years ago, I have considered
Stockholm, for beauty of situation, for freshness and vigor, and (though
this might be disputed) a certain originality of architecture, not only
in the first rank of cities, but the first in the first rank. To be sure,
it is not as large as many another city, but bigness is not beauty. It
has not the picture galleries of Florence, or the antiquities of London,
or the palaces of Paris, but it has charms all its own, which, in my
opinion, weave about it a spell which no other city possesses.
The morning light did not dissipate the impressions of the evening
before, nor the happy memories of the past, for I found that Stockholm
had improved in its architecture since my last visit, though its glorious
situation can never be improved.
Through half a dozen different channels the waters of the great lake
Mälar rush to join the Baltic, for, though the lake is only eighteen
inches above the sea, so great is the volume of water that it is always
pressing through the narrow channels in swirls and eddies, and it dances
forward with an eager joy that gives one a sense of marvelous life and
abounding vigor and seems to impart its character to the whole city.
Around the city on one side are the stern, fir-clad promontories, the
great lake and the black forests to the west, and one can seem to step
from the heart of nature’s wilds into the heart of the most advanced
civilization. Out toward the Baltic on the east is an archipelago
forty miles in length, dotted with islands and headlands, smiling and
peaceful in summer, ice-bound and storm-lashed in the winter, but equally
beautiful in January or June.
The first building that strikes the eye is naturally the royal palace,
which, I must say, to republican eyes, looks square and somber and
lacking in ornamentation, but which connoisseurs in palaces say is one of
the most beautiful in Europe.
Do you remember my writing you some years ago about my interview with
good King Oscar in this old palace? After waiting in the public reception
room for a little while I was announced by the lord chamberlain and
stepped into a little room leading off the large reception hall, and
there, all alone, stood a very tall and very handsome man in a light blue
military uniform, with two or three jeweled decorations on his breast.
This was Oscar II, by the grace of God, King of Sweden and Norway, of the
Goths and Vandals. He bowed and smiled with a most winning and gracious
expression, and, coming forward, took me by the hand and led me to a
seat on one side of a small table, on the other side of which he seated
himself. I do not think it was the glamour of royalty that dazzled my
eyes when I wrote of his winning smile. Many others have spoken of his
charm of manner, and he was noted as being the most courtly, affable,
and gracious monarch that sat upon any throne of Europe.
But alas, the good king has died since my last visit to Stockholm, his
later years being embittered by the partition of his kingdom, when Norway
decided to set up a king of her own. But though kings may come and kings
may go, the grim old palace which has harbored all the rulers of Sweden
for eight hundred years still stands on the banks of the tumultuous Mälar.
When the palace was rebuilt, or restored, some two hundred and twenty
years ago, it was the scene of a most tragic event. In 1692 Charles XI
decided that it was time to remodel the old home of the Swedish kings,
which had already stood upon that spot for six centuries. He commanded
Tessin, a great architect, who has left his impress upon Stockholm and
all Sweden, to rebuild the palace. Accordingly the architect traveled
in Italy and France and England to make a study of the best palaces
he could find. When his plans were completed, he showed them to Louis
XIV of France, who was so much pleased with them that he commanded his
ambassador to Sweden to congratulate Charles XI “on this beautiful
edifice he was proposing to erect.”
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
The Royal Palace, Stockholm.]
But Charles XI never lived to see the plans carried out. He died after
the work had been well begun, and when the scaffoldings surrounded
the palace on every side. The work of reconstruction was of course
interrupted while the king’s body was lying in state, but just before
the funeral procession moved out of the palace a fire broke out, and the
whole edifice was destroyed, save the great walls, which are standing to
this day. With extreme difficulty the king’s body was saved and carried
into the royal stables, where his grandson, a lad fifteen years of age,
who was destined to become Charles XII, one of the most famous kings of
Sweden, had taken refuge.
A picture in the National Museum makes the scene live over again: the old
queen, frightened by the double catastrophe; the boy king, helping his
frightened grandmother down the steps, while the tongues of fire leap out
at them from behind; the courtiers in hot haste carrying the coffin of
the old king, while the little princesses look on with childish interest,
scarcely realizing the gravity of the situation.
Again the great architect had to go to work on his task, so sadly
interrupted. For thirty years it was pursued, during the days of Sweden’s
greatest poverty, and only in 1754, nearly sixty years after Tessin began
his work of rebuilding, was it completed, and nearly thirty years after
the death of the master builder.
The palace has at least the merit of commodiousness, for we are told
that “when King Oscar celebrated his Jubilee in 1897, all his guests,
including more than twenty princes and half as many princesses, belonging
to all the thrones of Europe, were lodged there with their numerous
suites.”
But your republican soul, Judicia, will be more interested in some of the
other buildings of Stockholm, perhaps even in the hideous excrescence
which towers up above the roofs of the houses, and which shows us where
the telephone exchange is situated, to which ten thousand wires, more
or less (I did not count them), converge. I should think, however, that
it would require at least ten thousand wires to satisfy the rapacious
demands of the Stockholmers for telephone service. Every hotel room, even
in the modest hostelries, has one, and most of them have two telephones,
a city telephone and a long-distance one.
In every little park and open space are two telephone booths, for long
and short distances. Stockholm, with a population about the twentieth
part of greater London, has nearly twice as many telephones as the
British metropolis, and the service is always prompt, cheap, and obliging.
Then there is the great Lift, a conspicuous feature of Old Stockholm,
which hoists passengers in a jiffy from the level of the Baltic to the
heights of the old town. That, too, would interest you, Judicia, for I
remember your strenuous objections to hill-climbing.
To turn from structures, useful but hideous, to one more beautiful, and,
shall I say, less useful? there is the Riksdag, a modern building of
very handsome and generous proportions, where the law-makers of Sweden
assemble, and where, I suppose, rival parties fire hot shot at one
another as freely as they do in Washington or London. Every year the
Swedish parliament meets in the middle of January and closes its sessions
on the fifteenth of May, and this is the one place which the king may
not enter, as one of the guardians of the Riksdag proudly informed me.
Both houses of Parliament go to him, but he may not return to them. At
the opening of Parliament, the legislators assemble in the palace, where
the king addresses them, and the medieval ceremony connected with this
function is worth telling you about.
After prayers and a special sermon in the cathedral relating to the
duties of legislation (a religious custom that reminds us of the old
Election Day Sermon of the good State of Massachusetts, a custom now
unhappily abolished), the members of the upper and lower houses march
into a great hall in the palace, the speakers of the two houses leading
the way, and take their seats on either side of the throne. This throne
is of solid silver, on a raised platform, and on either side of it are
seats for the princes and members of the royal family. The queen and
princesses sit in the gallery, surrounded by members of the court.
“All sorts and conditions of men are represented—bishops and country
clergymen, provincial governors and landed noblemen, freehold peasants,
rural schoolmasters, university dons, and industrial kings.”
We are reminded of the past history of Sweden by the uniforms of the
military guards, some of whom are in the costume of Charles XII, and
others in that of Gustavus III. The courtiers are arrayed in gorgeous
uniforms, and their breasts blaze with their many decorations. After the
guard and the gentlemen-in-waiting come the princes, in the march to the
throne room, and last of all the king himself. He seats himself upon the
throne and commences his address, which always begins with the words,
“Good Sirs and Swedish Men” and ends with his assurance of good will to
all.
The presidents of the two houses respond to the speech of the king. The
heads of the departments read their reports and present their budgets.
Then, the stately ceremony being over, the gorgeous procession files out
in the same order in which it came in, and the two houses proceed to the
Parliament Building to begin the work of the new session.
If the fad that prevailed among our novelists a few years ago in finding
titles for their stories should ever reach Sweden, I am sure that there
would be a novel called “The Man from Dalecarlia,” for he is certainly
the most picturesque figure in the Riksdag. In the midst of the sober,
black coats and white shirt fronts and patent-leather shoes and top hats,
he stands out like a very bird of paradise in his navy blue coat, trimmed
with red piping, bright red waistcoat, knee breeches tied with heavy
tassels, and bright shoe-buckles. He might have stepped into the Riksdag
out of the century before last. But I am glad he has not discarded his
national costume, and, whenever I see a Dalecarlian girl on the street
in her bright striped apron and piquant cap (and these girls often seek
service in Stockholm), I am again grateful for the bit of color which
they bring into the gray, wintry streets.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
Tea House on Banks of Mälar. In the distance, the Grand Hotel,
Stockholm.]
Most of the Swedes are decidedly conventional in their costume in these
days, and you see more shiny beavers and Prince Albert coats than you
would in the streets of London, though it cannot be said that Swedes
despise brilliant uniforms on state occasions. At such times the
diplomatic representatives of the United States look like crows in a
flock of peacocks.
While I am writing you about the government and the court, let me tell
you a few words about the church, for Church and State are very closely
connected in Sweden. To be sure, there are many free churches—Independent
(or Congregational), Baptist, and Methodist—but the prevailing religion,
to which I suppose three fourths of the people in the country adhere, is
the State Lutheran Church. There are some exceedingly fine churches in
Stockholm, though, considering the size of the city, it strikes a visitor
that there are surprisingly few. Some of the parishes are very large, and
contain twenty or thirty thousand nominal adherents. The Church of the
Knights is perhaps the most interesting one, where many of the kings of
Sweden, even down to our own time, are buried.
The parish priest is appointed by the king, or consistory, at least
nominally, and is paid out of the taxes. Yet there is a good degree
of self-government in the churches, for the parish elects the boards
of administration of church affairs, and even votes on ministerial
candidates. Each candidate has to preach a trial sermon before the
congregation, while the king, if it is a royal benefice, as many of
the churches are, appoints one of the three candidates who receive the
highest number of votes, usually appointing the one who is the candidate
of the majority.
It must be even a more trying thing to “candidate” in Sweden than in
America, for here it is frankly admitted that the preacher and his sermon
are on trial, and there is no polite fiction about an exchange with a
brother minister, with a suggestion that the health of the candidate’s
wife requires a change of parishes.
I had it in mind, Judicia, to tell you in this letter about certain
things less lofty than affairs of Church and State, but must reserve the
story for another epistle.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
THIRD LETTER
In which Phillips suggests that Stockholm should be called the
“Automatic City”; describes the queer statistical animals,
called “unified cattle”; extracts some interesting facts from
the census; does not consider the stores or the bathtubs
beneath his notice; treats of the effective temperance
legislation of Sweden, and tells why a fire is so rare an
excitement in Stockholm.
STOCKHOLM, January 7.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
You know how our American cities often strain themselves to find an
appropriate name or nickname by which they shall be known among their
sister municipalities. Stockholm is certainly the “Queen City of the
North,” and is deserving of any other high-flown title you have a mind to
give her. But if we descend to more prosaic designations, we might well
call it the “Automatic City.” Nowhere in the world can you drop a penny
in the slot and get so much back for it as you can in Stockholm.
The automobile, which abounds everywhere, is an automatic machine which
registers in its taximeter the distance run, and thus avoids all disputes
with the chauffeur. The telephones, whose little green pagodas dot the
city in every direction, are also penny-in-the-slot affairs, and you can
talk, as I think I have already told you, with any town on the map of
Scandinavia for a very reasonable sum.
But when it comes time for _frokost_ (breakfast), or _middag_ (dinner),
then the automat is very much in evidence. It seems at first to the
traveler that the keeping of automat restaurants is the chief business
in Stockholm, for we find one at almost every corner. Drop a ten _öre_
piece in the slot, and, according to your choice of viands, a glass
of milk, a cup of tea or coffee, a cheese sandwich, a sausage, or a
boiled egg drops out of the spout. Or, if you wish a more extravagant
meal, twenty-five _öre_ (about seven cents) will give you your choice
of a dozen hot dishes. One writer with a sense of humor speaks of such
establishments as I have described as the “rich man’s automat,” but
he is not far from wrong when you compare this establishment with the
little wooden buildings which you see in the market squares and along
the docks of Stockholm, for this is the automat reduced to its lowest
terms for cheapness and simplicity. There is no apparent opening in this
wooden box, but a shelf runs around it, and large cups are chained to it,
with a tap in the wall at every few feet. Inside is a tank of hot milk.
The marketmen drop a five _öre_ piece (a trifle over a cent) into the
slot, and out runs nearly a pint of rich, hot milk. No wonder that there
are enough cattle to give every man, woman, and child in Sweden on the
average one milch cow, or else the “poor man’s automat” could never be
maintained at any such figures.
The process of arithmetic, however, by which this milch cow is allotted
to every man, woman, and child, is interesting and peculiar, since for
the purpose of comparative statistics the Swedish Bureau has invented
fictitious animals called “unified cattle.” This is explained by Mr.
Sundbarg in his _Swedish Land and Folk_ as follows: The milch cow is the
unit, and all other animals the multiples. For instance, a horse is equal
to a cow and a third; a sheep is reckoned as a tenth of a cow; a goat as
only a twelfth of a cow, while it takes four pigs to make a cow. I cannot
for the life of me see why a pig should be worth two and a half sheep;
can you? A reindeer is only worth a fifth of a cow, which seems to me
altogether too small a value to put upon these indispensable animals of
snowland.
Well, the result is that in the last census which is available to me
Sweden possessed something over five millions of these composite animals
called “unified cattle,” and, as I before told you, every mother’s son
and daughter in Sweden, on the average, possesses one milch cow, or it
may be three quarters of a horse, ten sheep, twelve goats, four pigs, or
five and a half reindeer. If I were a Swede I think I would choose to
have my share in reindeer.
While we are dealing with statistics, Judicia, let us have it out and
squeeze the census dry of interesting facts and be done with it. How
many wealthy persons do you suppose there are among the five and a half
millions of Swedes who have not yet crossed the Atlantic to seek a home
in the New World? Well, if at your leisure you can find out what 13.75
per cent of five and a half millions is you will know exactly the number
of people that can be called “wealthy.” It would not be far from seven
hundred thousand. Then in “easy” circumstances we find sixty-seven per
cent of the people, or about three and a half millions. In “straightened”
circumstances there are rather more than could be called wealthy, while
we find that there are only about three per cent of the people who are
in genuine poverty and have to receive help from the State or from their
richer neighbors.
I think these statistics speak exceedingly well, for the Swedes. Agur’s
prayer, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient
for me,” seems to have been answered for them. Even those in wealthy
circumstances are not so enormously rich that they are in danger of
losing heaven by such a burden of wealth as would prevent the camel from
passing through the eye of the needle.
Since I have told you how many cows, how many fractions of a pig or of
a reindeer every Swede possesses, you may also be glad to know that if
all the land were divided up evenly every old grandam and every baby in
the cradle would have twenty and a half acres. Only two and a quarter
acres of these are under cultivation, but he would have nearly ten acres
of woodland, which would surely furnish him with enough fuel, while his
seven and a half acres of uncultivated land would furnish plenty of
pasturage for his cow, or his three-quarters of a horse.
Speaking of fuel, I must launch into a mild eulogy of these Swedish
stoves. Even Aylmer will admit that they are better than the air-tight,
iron monstrosities which they have in Norway, and in America too, for
that matter, where “central heating” has not replaced them. These Swedish
stoves are much like the German porcelain heaters, only they are built
on a more generous scale. They occupy a whole corner of the room, and
often extend from floor to ceiling. Usually they are of white porcelain,
though often other colored tiles are used, and sometimes they are highly
ornamented with cupids or dragons, or like allegorical animals.
In the morning, quite early, the pretty chambermaid makes a fire of short
birch sticks, filling the firebox up to the top. Then the drafts must be
left open until all the gases and smoke have escaped, which have such a
tortuous course to travel through the many pipes concealed within the
porcelain that gradually they heat the great white monument through and
through. When the birch is reduced to living coals, the dampers are shut
off; the heat is thus retained, and a genial warmth is given out for
the rest of the day. Even at night the tilings of the stove are quite
warm, and you seldom want more than one “heating” in the course of the
twenty-four hours, except in the most extreme weather.
After this little excursion into stoveland, let me return for a moment
to our fascinating statistics. It is said that the Swedes are the
longest-lived people in the world, and within a hundred years they have
reduced the death rate nearly one half. I wonder if this low death rate
is not due in part to their cleanly habits. I suppose the fresh, northern
mountain air, crisp and frosty in the winter, and the out-of-door life
which a people largely agricultural live has much to do with it, but
I am also inclined to think that their love of the prosaic bathtub is
partly responsible, for I suppose that the Scandinavians, with the
exception of the Japanese, and perhaps the Finns, are the cleanliest
people in the world.
I have seen a funny picture which represents a school bath. It is a
photograph, too. Here is a big school bathroom with a dozen tubs shaped
like washtubs setting on the floor, each one occupied by a sturdy little
youngster of some ten summers. Each one is industriously scrubbing the
back of his next neighbor, while he is immersed up to his middle in
the warm water. Over each boy’s head is a shower bath, and if friendly
competition does not make the back of each of those boys immaculate I do
not know how cleanliness can be achieved.
However much the school tub may have to do with the longevity of the
Swede, I know that the blue ribboners would ascribe the increasing
span of his years to the temperance law which the last parliamentary
half-century has seen enacted and enforced. Sweden once had the sad
reputation of being the most drunken country in Europe, and no wonder,
for in 1775 Gustavus III made liquor selling and liquor making a State
monopoly, and much revenue was derived from intoxicating fluids. The
heaviest drinker was the greatest benefactor of the State, for he was
thus adding with every dram to the public revenues. Tea and coffee were
shut out of the country by the laws, lest some poor toper should prefer
them. Beer even was unknown, and wine was rare and costly.
Who do you think was the first man to protest against this wholesale
drunkard making? It was no other than Linnæus, the gentle botanist, to
whom the world is indebted for naming more plants than Adam ever named.
He tried to convince the people of the awful effects of alcoholism upon
the national life. After about a decade and a half the government became
ashamed of itself and abolished its monopoly. But then things went from
bad to worse, for the making and selling of liquor became absolutely
free. Everybody who had a little grain made it into whisky. Every large
farm had its distillery, and to make drunkards became, not the business
of the State, but of everybody who wished to make money.