bring the figures out from the gray rock in which they are cut, but as
the water trickles down from the bucket which the stout maiden who acts
as guide and guardian of this picture gallery splashes upon the rock,
wonderful shapes appear: viking ships, some large enough to be manned by
a crew of one hundred men, evidently the warships of the long ago; men on
horseback and men on foot; men plowing with yokes of oxen, while now and
then there towers above all the men and beasts a gigantic figure with an
ax or a thunderbolt in his hand, no doubt the God of War under whose ægis
the old Northmen went out to battle.
The most common of these rock pictures are the representations of the
viking ships, showing that in those days, as in these, the Scandinavians
were great sea-faring people. The prows of these ancient piratical craft
one often sees reproduced on the roofs of Swedish and Norwegian houses
to-day. Of course these pictures are very crude, very much such as a
child of five years of age would draw upon his slate to-day. But that is
natural, for you must remember that they were drawn in the childhood of
Scandinavia, at least twenty-five if not thirty-five hundred years ago,
for it has been proved conclusively that they were chiseled by men of the
Bronze Age of Sweden, which lasted from fifteen hundred to five hundred
years before Christ.
We are very grateful to you, crude artists of the older time, for your
pictures, for they tell us many things about ancient Sweden. They tell us
that you sailed the seas in great ships rowed by a hundred men, though
you do not seem to have known how to harness the winds to your craft, for
we see no signs of masts or sails. We know that you had dogs and cows and
horses, and that you plowed your fields with a crooked stick drawn by a
pair of oxen. We know that you had carts that ran on two wheels, and that
you were expert with spear and shield, and I venture to say that your
art museum, old as it is to-day, will last longer than the Pitti or the
Uffizi; and long after Macaulay’s New Zealander has gazed upon the ruins
of London from his picturesque position upon the bridge, the pictures in
your gallery will still lead mankind to speculate upon the kind of folk
whom you chiseled in the everlasting rocks. No fire can destroy your
gallery, no thief can steal your Mona Lisa, no conqueror can carry away
your art treasures.
It is a far cry from the rock galleries of Bohus to the fine collections
of old and new masters of which Stockholm and Gotenburg boast. Some of
the finest pictures, too, are not found in the metropolis of either
eastern or western Sweden, but in the palaces and castles which dot the
interior of the country. I have already told you about some of these
palaces like Skokloster and others, which contain Correggios and Titians
and pictures of Paul Veronese, for in the Thirty Years’ War the mighty
Swedish generals fell heir to many of the splendid picture galleries
of southern Germany, and all they had to do was to pick out the best
pictures by the greatest masters and send them to their northern home.
In those days “looting” was not “stealing,” at least in the eyes of the
victors, and they had this excuse at least, that the pictures and works
of art, if _they_ had not taken them, would have fallen into worse hands.
They would have reminded you that their great opponent Tilly, when he
captured Heidelberg and destroyed the library, could find no better use
for the most valuable manuscripts than to use them as a litter for his
horses. In this way the Codex Argenteus, of which I have before written
you, was taken when the Swedes captured Prague and sent on its far
journey to Upsala.
I am afraid that most of the names of Swedish artists would hardly
be recognized by you, though I think you would admire some of their
paintings as much as I do. I have time and room in this letter to tell
you of only two that greatly interested me.
Baron Cederstrom devoted himself to the period of Charles XII, whose
tragic story you remember. Cederstrom’s greatest picture shows the body
of the king borne on a stretcher by a dozen soldiers over the dreary,
snow-covered, mountainous defiles that separate Norway from Sweden.
“The pathos of this pitiable end to so glorious a career appears in
the attitude of a solitary mountain huntsman, who, with his boy and
dog, stands by the wayside as the procession passes. He is the only
one to doff his fur cap and salute the remains of one who but a short
time before made half Europe tremble, while the other half was lost in
amazement at his extraordinary fortunes and prodigious victories.”
Another artist whose pictures are of unusual interest is Carl Larsson,
the most popular artist in Sweden to-day. He is the painter of the home,
of the fireside and the nursery, of the sitting room and the kitchen, of
the boy and girl and the grandmother as well. His own son and daughter
figure in many of his pictures.
One that especially impressed me was a canvas representing this same son
and daughter gazing at a skull on the center table in their home. The
look of serious half-comprehension on the girl’s face as she points out
the skull to her brother, and of half-frightened awe with which he gazes
at it, will not soon fade from my mind. Another portrait of his daughter
leaning against a birch tree, the white bark and new leaves no purer
than her own sweet face, is also a picture to be remembered. It has been
copied upon so many postcards that the Swedes, at least, are not likely
to forget it.
Mr. Von Heidenstam well characterized Larsson when he says: “His
audacity, his love of novelty and adventure, the freshness of his
impressions, the youthfulness of his enthusiasms, and his whole vision of
life are Scandinavian to the core. In his pictures of home life, mostly
taken from his own home, he is genial, happy, fond of bright colors, of
flowers and sunshine, enraptured with existence, and prone to see its
bright side.”
The Swedes are wise in not relegating all the paintings of their best
artists to museums or picture galleries, which are seldom visited by the
people, but many of the higher and even primary schools in Stockholm
and other cities have been adorned with mural paintings by their best
artists: Larsson, Prince Eugene, Oscar Björck, Thegerstrom, and Nils
Kreuger are all well-known painters, who have put some of their best work
upon the walls of Sweden’s schoolhouses, picturing landscapes, national
customs, and some of the great events in Sweden’s history, and placing
them where Sweden’s children cannot help being impressed by them.
I cannot honestly say that the chief charm of Sweden consists in the
spell which her artists have woven about her, and I suppose few people
would come to Sweden to study art. Her real fascination lies in her
glorious out-of-doors—in her noble forests, her shimmering lakes, her
glorious snow fields and frost sculpture in winter, her rushing rivers
and turbulent rapids—all these things I have tried to tell you about, and
this is the raw material of the artist.
Compared with Italy or Spain, Sweden’s art is yet very young, but, with
such models as nature’s lavish hands has furnished on every side, it
seems to me very probable that the great artists of the future will be
found in these Scandinavian lands.
I wish they would spend more time in Lapland in midwinter. I wish they
would paint for us the little trees that Jack Frost converts into white
coral every day. I wish they would paint for us the rare combination of
sunrise and sunset, and the glowing sky where the sun never rises at
all. I wish they would show him to us not only on the longest day of the
year at midnight, as they have often done, but on the shortest days, as
he peers timidly above the horizon, or goes bowling along for an hour
or two on its very edge. These are pictures which no country but Sweden
furnishes in their perfection, and pictures which the Swedish artist
could most easily reproduce and which would make his canvas immortal.
The authors of Sweden are many and well beloved. I can name but two of
them here, though I fear the Swedes will never forgive me if I do not
mention Bellman, their Robert Burns, and some others. I pick out these
two because they are as well beloved in America as in Sweden. Tegnér is
one of them. He may be called, perhaps, the Macaulay of Sweden, only his
lays are not those of ancient Rome, but of ancient Sweden. Someone has
said that “his heroic poems sent a thrill through old and young when
first they were published.” He became popular throughout all Europe, and
more than fifty translations of his poems are found in a dozen different
European languages.
Longfellow made him known and loved by American readers by his beautiful
translation of the _Children of the Lord’s Supper_. “The scene in the
country church, decked out with flowers and evergreens for the solemn
ceremony, the rustic boys and girls bowing and curtsying as they made
their responses before the assembled congregation, and the attitude and
words of the patriarchal pastor are all true to life.”
Another of your best-loved authors, Judicia, I must remind you, was also
a Swede—Frederika Bremer. She was also more than a writer of charming
tales. She was an ardent champion of woman’s rights, but I warrant you
she would never have used dynamite in obtaining them, or have poured
paint into letter boxes to secure “votes for women.” Her good work for
their uplift is still carried on by the “Frederika Bremer Union.” It
protects and encourages women who are struggling to make a place for
themselves in the world, and seeks in every way to raise the standard of
woman’s work and wages. Our former American Minister, Mr. Thomas, gives
an interesting account of a call he made upon her in 1864, nearly fifty
years ago, only a year before her death:
“Up three flights of a stone stairway to a little landing, I make my
way,” he says. “A curtsying Swedish maid answers my knock and shows me
into a cozy sitting room. Presently a little old woman with a decided
stoop in her shoulders enters and meets me with extended hand and a
pleasant smile, bidding me welcome with one of the sweetest voices I ever
listened to. This was one forenoon in January, 1864. The cozy sitting
room was in Stockholm in the fourth story of a brick house, on the long
Drottning-Gatan, and the little old woman was Frederika Bremer, the great
Swedish novelist.”
This was in the darkest period of our Civil War. Mr. Thomas asked Miss
Bremer for her autograph for the Sanitary Commission Fair, soon to be
held in New York, explaining that the proceeds would be devoted to the
sick and wounded soldiers. “It will give me real joy,” she said, “to do
anything to help on liberty in America, or to comfort the soldiers who
have become disabled in fighting for it.” Her eyes beamed brightly as she
spoke, and her whole manner showed how actively she was interested in our
cause and country.
“This interesting _tête-à-tête_ gave me the best opportunity for
observing Miss Bremer,” continues Mr. Thomas. “The stoop of her shoulders
was hid in the ample cushions of her easy chair. A neat, white lace
cap covered her head. Her gray hair was brushed straight back from a
noble, lofty forehead, white as marble, and her mild blue eyes beamed
with a tender compassion that made one forget the great author in the
sympathizing friend and compelled me to call her beautiful, for beauty of
soul shone forth in every glance.”
I have quoted this intimate description, for there are few living
Americans who have actually seen and talked with the gentle authoress,
and I fear me there are few Americans who read her books to-day, but you
have not forgotten how, in our early days, her pure and wholesome novels
were justly admired and loved.
Do you remember the little girl who for some childish misdemeanor was
shut up in a dark closet as a punishment, and how she found there Miss
Bremer’s _Home Life_, and how she lay down at full length on the floor,
placing the book as near the crack of the door as she could, reading the
story nearly half through before the time of her punishment had expired?
She gained more from her punishment than anyone but herself knew, for
Frederika Bremer’s charming picture of home life remained with her as an
inspiration through all her life.
Speaking of our early days, Judicia, I was reminded that we must belong
to a former generation when I asked Aylmer when we were together in
Luleå what he knew about Jenny Lind, the great Swedish soprano. Would
you believe it, he had never heard of her? The singer who made the
greatest sensation in America of anyone that ever crossed the ocean;
the singer who was as good as she was beautiful, and whose voice was
no purer or sweeter than her life! We at least know how the ticket
offices were besieged by eager thousands who wished to hear her voice,
and what extravagant prices, as they were then considered, were paid
for her concerts. And yet Aylmer had never heard of this most famous of
all northern warblers, of this great philanthropist, as she became in
her later life! Moreover he confided to me that he had never heard of
Christine Nilsson, a more modern singer of almost equal fame. Well, well,
we must be growing antiquated!
There is one man who to be sure cannot be classed as an artist or an
author, and yet I suppose he has done more for literature as well as
for science and the cause of peace than any other man in Sweden. This
is Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, an article which we chiefly
associate with war, but which has really done more to revolutionize
mining and engineering. Thanks to dynamite, it has been possible to bore
the mighty tunnels through the Alps; to knock down the iron mountains of
northern Sweden and send them off piecemeal to other parts of the earth;
to dig the subways of New York and Boston and Chicago, and to tunnel the
North River for the commuters of Manhatten. No man ever did more good
with his vast wealth, or disposed of it more wisely when he died, than
Alfred Nobel, and now each year magnificent awards of some forty thousand
dollars each are given by this foundation to people who have achieved
great things in physics, in medicine, in literature, and for peace.
You will observe, Judicia, that I have not bored you with any stories
of Swedish games and sports, of skiing and ski jumping, of bobsleighing
and rodeling, and that I have not even alluded to Swedish gymnastics.
There is a method in my seeming madness, for though I am much interested
in these matters, especially in the out-of-door sports, I am not quite
so wild about them as is Aylmer, and, since they are common to all
Scandinavia, I will leave them for him to describe and thus give his
Norway a great advantage, when you come to hold the scales of justice
between the eastern and western lands of the peninsula. But I beg you
to remember that Sweden is quite as famous in these particulars as her
sister kingdom across the mountains.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
TWELFTH LETTER
Relates to Finland; why it should be included in Scandinavia;
its earlier and later history; its degradation by Russia; the
charming journey from Stockholm to Åbo; and tells of a winter
adventure in the Gulf of Bothnia.
ÅBO, FINLAND, July 1.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I wonder if you are asking why I include Finland in the letters which we
submit to you in regard to the relative merits of the different parts
of Scandinavia. Do I hear you say that Finland is a part of Russia, and
that the Finns are not even of Aryan stock like the Swedes, but are
descendants of Turanian tribes, “first cousins to the Hungarians, and
forty-second cousins to the Turks”?
Nevertheless, in spite of all this, I must maintain that Finland is
more a part of Scandinavia and more nearly related to the Swedes in
customs, temperament, and manner of life than to any other nation. The
Swedes were the people who found the Finns in barbaric heathenism, who
Christianized and civilized them, though it must be acknowledged that, in
doing this, they conquered and sometimes exploited them at the same time.
For four hundred and fifty years after this conquest by Sweden the Finns
constituted a loyal and devoted part of the Swedish kingdom, speaking the
Swedish language almost as freely as their own, adopting Swedish laws
and customs, and equal in political and social rights to their neighbors
across the Gulf of Bothnia.
It was only about a hundred years ago that they were conquered by the
Russians, when, after centuries of struggle, Sweden’s domains were rent
in twain.
To prove my contention that to all intents and purposes Finland should be
considered a part of Scandinavia, I must remind you that long before the
Finns came to Finland the southern part of their country was doubtless
inhabited by Scandinavians. One writer tells us that they were there
“thousands of years before the Finns arrived.” But way off beyond Persia
were some Turanian tribes, related to the Mongols and the Manchus, who
started on that everlasting trek toward the west, which, since the days
of the Pharaohs, seems to have urged the Eastern peoples on toward the
setting sun.
They seem to have tarried in Persia for awhile and to have brought with
them some Persian coins, which to this day are occasionally unearthed in
Finland. On and on they pressed, the first of the Eastern hordes to cross
the Ural mountains, until they came, some to the banks of the Danube and
others to the shores of the Baltic. The tribes who settled the fertile
plains of Hungary are the Magyars of to-day; those who pushed on to the
Baltic Sea are the Finns.
Eric XI of Sweden was the first king to turn his attention particularly
toward Finland. He seems to have desired not only the conquest of the
Finns but their conversion to Christianity, and so he is known both
as King Eric and St. Eric. It was no easy job, however, to conquer
this slow, obstinate, patient race, and it was one hundred and fifty
years, or, to be exact, in 1293, that Sweden’s conquest was complete.
She soon set an example to all future conquerors, an example by which
Great Britain has so well profited in these later days by giving perfect
liberty to the conquered peoples and confirming their liberties by an
irrevocable law.
Nothing better ever happened to the Finns than this conquest by the
Swedes. Christianity, civilization, education, and an invaluable training
in liberty under law was the result, until the descendants of those wild
tribes from the steppes of Asia have become one of the most civilized,
enlightened, and perhaps the best educated nation in the world.
Says Ernest Young, in his interesting book on Finland: “It is a
remarkable fact that the Finnish and Swedish populations of Finland,
though running like two different streams beside each other without
blending, never rose against each other, but, on the contrary, always
stood side by side in the same rank whenever sword was drawn at home or
abroad. There was rivalry between them, but no oppression.… The laws
and social order of Sweden were introduced without resistance into a
country where law and society did not exist before. The people grew into
these new forms, applied them according to their characters, and became
familiar with them as their own.”
Would that Russia could have learned a lesson that Sweden taught to all
the world, concerning conquered provinces. At first it seemed as though
she had done so, and no one ever spoke fairer words to a conquered people
than Czar Alexander I spoke to the Finns through the Governor-general in
the “Act of Assurance,” given to the first Finnish Diet that convened
after the cession of Finland to Russia by the Swedes.
At first it seemed as though these fair promises would be fulfilled, and
for a time, doubtless, Finland was better off under Russian rule than she
had been during the hundreds of years previously when she had been the
battleground, continually tramped over by Swedish and Russian soldiers,
and reddened with their blood as well as by that of her own citizens.
Each succeeding Czar seems to have treated Finland according to his own
whims, or those of his prime minister, and with little consideration to
the fundamental laws of the land so solemnly guaranteed and sworn to by
each Czar as he came to the throne.
Little by little the Russians have been filching away the liberties of
the Finns, depriving them of one boon after another, and ever threatening
them with still direr evils. Finnish soldiers are no longer allowed to
enlist for the defense of their fatherland, but instead they must pay a
tribute to Russia and allow uncleanly Russian soldiers to be quartered in
the beautiful barracks built for their own troops. Finnish stamps are no
longer good for letters that go outside of Finland, and the _marks_ and
_pennys_ in which they have reckoned their currency from time immemorial
must give way to the more awkward _ruble_ and _kopeck_ with which they
would prefer to have nothing to do.
In mean and picayunish ways the government interferes with their
liberties. For instance, the people voted not long ago for the
prohibition of alcoholic drinks, but the Czar, in his superior wisdom,
doubtless absolutely inspired by his ministers, decreed that prohibition
was not good for the Finns (and very likely not good for the Russian
revenues), and so vetoed the law which had met with universal favor.
The Finnish Diet meets in a rather shabby and antequated building, but
the people have obtained a good site for a new parliament house and have
raised the money for the construction of a splendid building that would
ornament the fine city of Helsingfors. Now the Czar tells them that they
cannot afford a new building, and withholds his approval, so that they
cannot do what they please with their own money. Some think that since he
has had no use for a Finnish parliament, and soon intends to suppress it
altogether, he sees no use for a parliament house.
The Finns number only three millions of people, and the Russians on their
very borders, people of an alien race and an alien religion, who have
scarcely yet emerged from barbarism, are more than a hundred million
strong, and that tells the whole story.
The trek that was begun by the Finns before the Christian Era has been
again taken up since Russia began to stamp out their liberties. More than
three hundred thousand of them have come to our shores, and no people
should receive a heartier welcome in Yankee land than they.
“In 1894 a statue to their beloved Czar, Alexander II, was unveiled at
Helsingfors, a statue which is one of the noblest works of art in the
capital and which is still often decorated with wreaths and flowers by
the grateful Finns. It is almost unbelievable that when this statue was
unveiled the Governor-general forbade the singing of an ode written
for that occasion, because he took the phrase ‘The Father of Finnish
liberties’ to imply a condemnation of his less enlightened successor.”
Perhaps you would like to read a translation of one verse of this ode,
which tells of the gratitude of the Finnish people to the one who
restored their liberties, while at the same time it shows how far removed
from such praise is a government which could prohibit the singing of such
a hymn. Here is the first verse:
“Hail noble prince! From town and land
Our greetings come, from isle and strand,
From forest, hill and dale.
Wherever Finland’s folks may rest,
Their debt for all they value best,
In love to thee they pay.”
This excursion into Swedish history is longer than I intended, and has
prevented me from telling you before that I left Stockholm last night on
one of the delightful little steamers that ply across the Gulf of Bothnia
from Sweden’s capital to Åbo, the ancient capital of Finland.