Americans and Swedes alike, and on the coffin itself was a _Monitor_ made
of immortelles, in the American and Swedish colors, a white dove perched
on the turret. This was the offering of the Swedish-American ladies who
had crossed the Atlantic with the body. After these ceremonies the coffin
was borne in state through the streets of Stockholm and carried to the
little town of Filipstad, near which he was born. On the spot where the
great funeral pavilion stood, by Stockholm’s quay, is now the monument to
the inventor of the _Monitor_, the savior of the American Union, strong
and massive as the man whom it commemorates. It will always be to every
American the most admired of Stockholm’s many statues.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
EIGHTH LETTER
Wherein a jump is made from midwinter to midsummer, and
the water journey from Stockholm to Upsala is described,
during which the palace of Drottningholm is passed, and the
famous ruins of Sigtuna, Skokloster Palace, with its rare
art treasures, until we reach Upsala, the university town
of Sweden, the “City of Eternal Youth,” with its thirteen
“Nations.” Also something about the Codex Argenteus, the noble
cathedral with its noted graces, as well as Gamla Upsala with
the tumult of Odin, Thor, and Frey.
UPSALA, June 15.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
It is a long time, is it not, since last I tried to impress you with the
charm of Sweden. Do not think for a moment, however, that I have given
up the pleasant task. It is, as you know, simply because other duties
have interfered with the pleasure of telling you about this part of the
great northern peninsula, and in my more brief and fragmentary letters I
could not attempt to do justice to this interesting part of the earth’s
surface. Now it is approaching midsummer, the glad, high days of all
Scandinavia.
But to go back a little in my story. What a glorious season is spring
in these northern latitudes! I pity the people who must spend all their
lives in the tropics and never know the joy of seeing old mother earth
wake up from her long winter’s nap.
Considering its latitude, spring comes wonderfully early in Scandinavia.
Even in February you can see the yellowing of the willow trees, and
the catkins begin to show their downy faces on many a bush. Very early
in March you will see little girls from the country on the streets of
Stockholm and Upsala, selling the earliest wild flowers, that look like
our hepaticas. Soon the ice in the great lakes in the southern part of
Sweden breaks up, and from the Mälar huge cakes, on which you might build
a little house and float out to sea, come rushing down through the city
to the Baltic.
Perhaps you remember that when in midwinter I went to the far North to
see a sunless day my railway journey took me through the university city
of Upsala. In this balmy June weather I want you to go with me by boat,
for it is by far the most interesting and picturesque way. Starting from
the Riddarholmen quay of Stockholm, we are soon out upon the great lake
which adds so much beauty to Stockholm’s environments. On all sides of us
are Sweden’s vast forests of pine and birch, clothing the gentle hills to
their very top and coming down to the shore until their feet are almost
washed by Mälar’s ripples. On through a long, narrow arm of the lake we
steam, being admitted to new beauties by floating bridges that open their
doors for us as we approach. Each turn in the channel reveals something a
little more beautiful than the last scene.
Nor is it rural loveliness alone that enchants one with this journey, for
we are constantly getting glimpses of charming villas, old chateaux,
castles, and occasional ruins, each one of which is alive with historic
interest.
The great palace of Drottningholm, with its beautiful gardens, a
favorite residence of the kings of Sweden, is one of the first palaces
that we see. Soon after the chateau of Lennartsnäs appears, and we
remind ourselves that it was once owned by Lennart Torstenson, a
hero of the Thirty Years’ War, with whom I fear that neither you nor
I are acquainted. And now we come to the old city of Sigtuna, whose
inhabitants, like many of the people of Palestine, are indebted to their
ancestors for the modest degree of prosperity which they enjoy to-day.
A famous American preacher once published an oft-quoted sermon on the
“dignity of human nature as disclosed by its ruins,” if I remember the
title correctly. The former dignity of Sigtuna is certainly disclosed by
its ruins, for above the few and humble dwellings of the present day rise
the ruins of three mighty churches, St. Olaf, St. Per, and St. Lars.
Sigtuna was destroyed by the Esthonians from Russia, when they raided
Sweden away back in the year 1181. It is said that they carried off two
great silver doors from one of these churches, and if you go to Novgorod,
in Russia, perhaps you will see them doing duty in some Greek Orthodox
church of the present day.
But the most interesting palace that we see on our way to Upsala is
Skokloster. You will see that there is more than a suspicion of a
cloister in this name, for the Cistercian nuns once lived in these woods
in a forest cloister. But the palace that we see was erected by the
great Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel, and by studying its treasures
you can learn more in half a day about the Thirty Years’ War than by
reading a small library of books. It is still in the possession of the
descendants of the Field Marshal, and I venture to say there is no more
interesting collection in the world of the relics of the titanic struggle
that freed Europe from her long thralldom.
I did not count them, but I am told that there are over twelve hundred
guns and eight hundred swords and daggers, most of them the relics of
this war. An immense library, a splendid collection of old manuscripts,
rare pictures, and porcelain make the palace far more interesting than
most museums. There is one treasure which I have since read about and
which I am very sorry I did not see. It is a little gold ring containing
a ruby set in diamonds. “This is the ring the great Gustavus Adolphus
gave to his first and only true love, the beautiful and gifted Ebba
Brahe, on their betrothal. The diamond ring that Ebba gave to Gustavus in
return is preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral at Upsala.”
Five of the love letters of Gustavus are still preserved, and no lover
ever wrote more ardently or charmingly. But the course of true love is
not any more likely to run smoothly with princes than with other people.
Indeed I am not sure but the average man has a decided advantage over a
prince in that respect. For though Gustavus and Ebba were betrothed, they
were never allowed to marry. The old queen would not allow Gustavus to
have a Swedish subject for his wife, but made him marry a German princess
with few brains and small personal attractions compared with Ebba Brahe,
while Ebba married a Swedish Field Marshal. This accounts for the fact
that her engagement ring is treasured at Skokloster to-day, for the
son-in-law of Field Marshal Wrangel belonged to the Brahe family, in
whose possession it has remained ever since.
Does not this little romance seem to bring the great warrior a little
nearer to us? As we think of that little ruby ring, he is no longer a
demigod, but a disappointed lover, a lovelorn wooer, “sighing like a
furnace”; thinking, no doubt, unutterable things about the stern old
queen who would not let him have his own way.
It gives us a glimpse, too, of the influence of woman in those old days.
Even the most advanced suffragette of the present time cannot make a
British Prime Minister bend to her will, while one woman in the olden
days was enough to make the greatest warrior of Christendom quail and
give up the one on whom he had set his heart’s affection.
But if Skokloster detains us too long, I shall not be able to bring you
to Upsala to-day. A few hours after leaving Skokloster, we enter the
little Fyris River, which winds through a wide plain and takes us close
to the heart of Sweden’s most famous university town.
One can tell that he is in a college town before the boat ties up at
the wharf, for students in white caps have come down to the wharf to
meet other students in white caps, who are coming back to their college
duties. There are two thousand of them here, and nearly one hundred and
fifty professors and instructors. A beautiful name has been given to
Upsala by someone who calls it the “City of Eternal Youth.” A happy name
indeed for any college town, where every six or eight years the student
body wholly changes, and with every year new blood and young life is
injected into the veins of the old institution.
Some educationalists think that our college course in America is too
long, and that young men are consequently obliged to begin their life
work too late. What would they say to Upsala, I wonder, where the course
is from six to ten years, though the average age of entering is nineteen.
Philosophy, law, and theology exact six years of study on the average,
before the examinations can be successfully passed, while medicine
requires eight or ten. Surely the doctors of Sweden should be well
equipped for their life work.
Another unique feature of Upsala University is the institution of the
“Nations.” These Nations are something like the Greek-letter societies of
American colleges, with the important distinction that every student at
Upsala must join one of the Thirteen Nations, and there is none of the
snobbishness which is beginning to characterize some of our Greek-letter
societies.
These Thirteen Nations all have buildings or rooms of their own, and each
one is named after one of the provinces of Sweden, while a distinctive
flag waving over the building shows what Nation inhabits it. The
chief university building is worthy of any institution on either side
of the Atlantic, but there is no great group of buildings or splendid
quadrangle, and the first effect of Upsala as a university town is rather
meager and disappointing. A homely brick building with a round tower at
either end was formerly a royal palace, but is now used by the university.
Gustavus Adolphus, who had a hand in almost everything of importance in
ancient Sweden, gave the university a splendid endowment, and sent back
to it from his battlefields many of the spoils of war, among others a
great library from Wurzburg, Germany. It is said that at the same time he
forwarded the Twelve Apostles in silver and the golden Virgin Mary from
the Wurzburg cathedral to the Swedish mint to be coined into _kroner_.
He doubtless felt, like his great English prototype, Cromwell, that the
apostles should “go about doing good.”
The chief treasure of Upsala is an old, time-worn parchment manuscript,
in many respects the most interesting book in the world, for it is the
only original Gothic manuscript extant and the only early source of
information concerning the Gothic language, the oldest of all Teutonic
tongues.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
The Castle at Upsala.]
The manuscript contains a translation of the four Gospels in Gothic by
Bishop Ulphilas. The good bishop died in the year 388, and this copy was
made undoubtedly within a century of his death. Not only did Ulphilas
make this translation, but he invented the Gothic alphabet, some of whose
letters show his indebtedness to the Greek. The letters are stamped
in silver upon purple parchment, while some of the capitals and more
important words are in gold or otherwise illuminated.
It has been said: “The old monk who laboriously stamped this parchment
with his single types, a letter at a time, little knew how near he came
to inventing printing, yet had he only combined three or four types
together and stamped a word at once, the great invention would have been
made there and then.”
I am not so sure of this, for our modern printing-press uses letters set
one at a time, as the old monk used his hot metal types. But evidently
the world was not yet ripe for Gutenburg and his printing-press, and it
had to wait another thousand years for the invention that opened the
aristocratic halls of learning to the democracy of the world. A saying of
Max Müller’s is worth quoting for you here: “To come to Upsala,” he says,
“and not see the Codex Argenteus would be like going to the Holy Land
without seeing the Holy Grave.”
I am glad that the guardians of the Codex are fully alive to its unique
value. Every night, in its silver case, it is locked up in a fire and
burglar-proof safe, for the authorities remember that many years ago a
watchman stole ten leaves of the Codex. For twenty years they were lost,
and only on his death-bed the thief confessed his folly and drew them out
from the pillow beneath his head. Such a theft seems to me a good deal
like stealing a red-hot stove, or, perhaps the Mona Lisa, for how a thief
could expect to dispose of any of these treasures or profit by them
without discovery is a mystery.
Another building here, to which I must not fail to introduce you, is the
splendid cathedral, the noblest church in Sweden and the historic center
of the kingdom. It has recently been so thoroughly restored that all
the old cathedral has been renovated out of it, except its memories and
its tombs. Yet from the modern standpoint it is a magnificent building,
nearly four hundred feet long, and with three beautiful Gothic spires
that soar as many feet into the air.
The tombs have interested me the most, however. Here lies Gustavus Vasa,
in a granite sarcophagus between his two wives, who in effigy lie on
either side of him, while no thoughts of jealousy or rivalry stir their
granite hearts. Here, too, is the charming philosopher and naturalist,
Linnæus, whose statue in Stockholm I described, and Swedenborg, the
great mystic, who could look into heaven and hell and describe what he
saw there, and whose works, which have so strong a hold on a multitude
of Americans to-day, are published and re-published in a multitude of
languages.
I have been introducing you only to “new” Upsala, and to people and
books that are not more than a thousand or fifteen hundred years old;
but there is an old Upsala about three miles from the cathedral, which I
have greatly enjoyed visiting. It is within easy walking distance on this
bright June day, and I set out to find my own way to Gamla Upsala, which
was not a difficult task in spite of my slight knowledge of the Swedish
language, since the average Swede will take unlimited pains to tell a
traveler what he wishes to know.
One of these polite gentlemen upon the street happened to hear me asking
the way to Gamla Upsala. He was walking with his wife, and he told me to
follow them and they would show me the way. I naturally supposed that
they were going in that direction themselves, and trudged on behind them,
since our limited knowledge of each other’s tongues did not allow much
personal intercourse. They turned from one road into another, walking a
good mile and a half, I should judge, until we came in sight of three
singular mounds in the distance, a mile or more away. “These,” they said,
pointing to them, “mark the site of Gamla Upsala.” Then they bade me a
polite good afternoon and turned around to pursue their homeward journey.
Apparently they had come all this way to show a solitary American the
site of the ancient city and to make sure that he would not get lost on
the straight and narrow road that leads to it.
As I approached the King’s Mounds, or _Kungs Högar_, I found that they
were not unlike the _Bin Tepe_, or the Graves of the Thousand Kings on
the Lydian plain, near old Sardis in Asia Minor. To be sure the tumuli of
Lydia are for the most part far larger than the mounds of Gamla Upsala.
Still these are very considerable tumuli, about sixty feet high and two
hundred and twenty-five feet in diameter.
They are called the Mounds of Odin, Thor, and Frey, but you must not
suppose, Judicia, that the old viking gods are buried here. By the way,
where do you suppose such mythical personages are buried? But someone,
not knowing who the ancient occupants of these graves might be, gave
them these names, which certainly add to the interest of Gamla Upsala.
I almost felt, as I scrambled to the top of Odin’s Hill, which is the
largest of the three, that I was standing on the grave of one of the
ancient gods.
Of course inquisitive moderns have not allowed the ancient bones in
these tombs to rest in peace, but all that they found when they opened
them were the half-burnt remains of some old kings whose names and dates
nobody is wise enough to know, together with some pieces of gold and
copper ornaments, some glass dishes, and bones of the kings’ horses and
dogs, all of which were burnt apparently in the same great holocaust
which consumed his mortal remains. Whether his wives had to share the
fate of his horses and dogs, deponent saith not.
There is another interesting mound not far from Odin’s tumulus. It is
twenty feet lower than his grave and has a large level space on the top.
This is the hill where the ancient, open-air parliament was held and
where, as late as the days of Gustavus Vasa, the kings were accustomed to
address the people.
Gamla Upsala is now a very small hamlet with a little stone church,
whose high and narrow windows and massive tower make it look more like
a fort than a sanctuary. Upon this spot, we are told, once stood a
splendid temple to the stalwart old gods who have given their names to
the tumuli—Odin, Thor, and Frey. It is only a little more than a hundred
years since this temple was destroyed and since priests still offered
sacrifices, perhaps of human victims.
Let me close my story of Gamla Upsala with a sentence from the story
of Adam of Bremen, who wrote his Chronicle in the very last days of
heathendom, about the year 1070. “In this sacred house,” he says, “which
everywhere is adorned with gold, the people worship the images of three
gods, and this so that Thor, who is the mightiest of them, occupies the
seat of honor in the middle, while Odin and Frey have their places on
each side of him. When pest or famine is at hand, they offer to Thor’s
image; when it is war, to Odin’s; at wedding celebrations, to Frey.”[3]
Adam also relates that near the temple stood a grove in which the bodies
of victims, human beings as well as beasts, were hung up, “and this grove
is sacred in the eyes of the heathen.” He says that “every tree in it
is held to be divine on account of the death or blood of those offered
there.” What a tremendous gap in the history of the world is indicated
by the little distance between Odin’s Mound and that homely Christian
church! What a tremendous advance from the big Gamla Upsala of the
eleventh century to the little Gamla Upsala of the twentieth!
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
NINTH LETTER
Which tells of Swedish lakeland; the commodious craft on which
one sails through it; with some side remarks on the coinage of
the country and the honesty of the people. Returns to the four
great lakes, and tells of hill-climbing by steamer and going
down hill by the same route across Vettern and Venern until the
falls of Trollhätten and Gotenburg are reached.
LAKE VENERN, June 20.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
While I am sailing across this magnificent lake I must indite another
epistle to you, telling you of the fascinations of Swedish lakeland.
There will be plenty of time, too, to write you all about it, for Lake
Venern is eighty miles long, the largest lake, if I am not mistaken, in
all Europe, and our steamer traverses almost its whole length. Let me
advise you, if you ever have another long holiday, to spend it among
Sweden’s lakes. You have seen the Swiss lakes more than once, and the
Italian lakes and the Cumberland Lake region of England, but in many
respects Sweden’s lakes surpass them all in size, in picturesqueness, and
in the convenient and delightful way one may get from one to the other.
It is true that there is no Mount Pilatus in Sweden, or Monte Rosa, but
there are other charms which fully make up for the lack of the mountain
scenery one finds in France and Italy. And as for the little “waters”
which one finds in Cumberland, they pale into insignificance beside
these great reservoirs of the purest, most translucent water on the
earth’s surface.
But the great advantage that they have over every other lake region
in the world is that you can see all the great lakes in a three-days’
journey without leaving the very comfortable steamer on which you embark
at Stockholm.
At Lucerne you can have a fine excursion on the _Vierwaldstättersee_,
but, unless you come back by land, you must return by the same route
to Lucerne. Your steamer cannot climb the hills and get over into Lake
Geneva, or strike across country and find its way into Lake Thun and Lake
Brienz; but that is just what you can do in Sweden. You can journey clear
across the lower end of Scandinavia, from the Baltic to the Kattegat,
passing through a continuous succession of the most delightful scenes,
through rivers and canals, across lake after lake, past ancient castles
that will tell you the whole story of Sweden, until at last you come out
on the western sea and land at Sweden’s second greatest city, Gotenburg.
In this journey you even climb some considerable hills without leaving
your stateroom, unless you choose, or your comfortable seat on the
steamer’s deck, and at some places in your journey you are more than
three hundred feet above your starting point on the Baltic, or your
arrival point on the Kattegat.
But let us begin at the beginning, for this journey is worth describing
in detail. To begin with, the craft on which we set sail is no little
motor boat or steam launch, as you might imagine when I tell you of its
ability to climb hills, but a very substantial and commodious little
steamer, with quite elegant staterooms, upholstered abundantly in red
satin, and with two wide berths and ample toilet accommodations.
What a travesty it is, Judicia, to speak of many of the steamer cabins
even on Atlantic steamers as “staterooms.” Rooms of state! Call them
vaults, closets, or any other appropriate name. But, really, it is not
very much of an exaggeration to call the cabins on the great Göta Canal
line of Sweden staterooms. They are quite good enough for statesmen of
average quality, and even royalty need not object to them for a three
days’ occupancy.
The berths are not one above the other, to which the unfortunate man in
the upper berth must climb by a precarious ladder, but are on either
side of the room, and make very comfortable lounges by day. The table,
too, on these steamers, is everything that could be desired; but that
is to be taken for granted in Sweden. The _Smörgåsbord_ is abundant and
varied, and the hot dishes are always admirably cooked. When your meal
is finished you simply write down on a long account book which hangs on
the wall what you have had, whether merely coffee (which includes all the
cakes and sweet bread that you wish), or _Smörgåsbord_, or perhaps a full
dinner.
At the end of the voyage the amount is reckoned up, and the cashier takes
your word for what you have eaten. You are very likely to be surprised
at the smallness of your bill, whether she is or not.
This trustfulness in your probity tempts me to dilate upon the refreshing
honesty of these Scandinavian nations. Especially if you come direct
from Italy, the contrast is most refreshing. You never have to scan your
bills and add up the items to see that the cashier has not slipped in
a few extra francs for his or her perquisite. You need not even count
your change, unless you want to make sure that the change-maker has
not cheated himself. You need never bite your money or ring it on the
pavement to be certain that it is not bad; or examine the date on the
coins to find out whether the smiling clerk who gives you the change is
not working off some obsolete coins on you which you cannot honestly
dispose of without a loss of fifty per cent.
In Scandinavia a _kroner_ is a _kroner_ and an _öre_ is an _öre_, and I
should be as much surprised to find a bad coin in any of these kingdoms
as to find one of the unmentionable little creatures, so common in some
other countries, in a Scandinavian bed.
The coinage of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway is interchangeable. At any
bank in any of the three kingdoms, or at any store where you may trade,
you will receive money that is good in every other place, from Korsör to
Hammerfest.
Each of these three kingdoms had its own money, with the head of its king
stamped on its own coins, and its bank notes issued by its own banks.
But Denmark’s money is exactly the same value as Sweden’s, and Sweden’s
of precisely the same worth as Norway’s, and the money of each passes
current at its face value in all.