butter. Don’t you remember in far-off Sidon in Syria we had for dinner
one day, as a special treat, a little can of Danish butter? While I am
on the subject of food, let me tell you of one custom Copenhagen has
which New York ought to copy. The fishermen bring in their fish, alive,
in great tanks inside the ship, and when they reach the city these fish
are transferred, still alive, to portable tanks, and peddlers then wheel
them all over the city. The customer picks out his fish and the victim is
harpooned and killed and delivered on the spot. There is no doubt that
the Copenhageners have fresh fish.
I have scarcely begun to tell you about this city yet, but I think I
will give you a rest. When I get time to write again I shall tell you
something about some of Denmark’s celebrities, such as Thorvaldsen, and
Hans Christian Andersen, and Hamlet. I am afraid this last gentleman is
an invention of Saxo Grammaticus and Shakespeare, but he is interesting
nevertheless. Alors, au revoir.
Yours as ever,
AYLMER.
THIRD LETTER
Written on the train between Helsingör and Christiania. A
little geography; who’s who in Denmark; Bertel Thorvaldsen and
the Thorvaldsen Museum; Hans Christian Andersen; his experience
with the “danseuse” of the Royal Theater; the final fulfillment
of the gypsy woman’s prophecy; Frederiksborg; some “cute”
tricks of Norse nobility in the past; Elsinore and “Prince
Amleth”; the “Norges Communicationer.”
_En route._ HELSINGÖR to CHRISTIANIA, December 24.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I am in Sweden now, and in spite of a troubled conscience I am enjoying
my view from the car window. I suppose I ought not to allow myself to
enjoy Sweden, as that is Phillips’ country, and honor should compel me
to find fault with it. The country is really beautiful, with its long,
rolling expanse of snow-covered land on one side and the Kattegat and
Skager-Rack shaking hands on the other. However, I comfort myself and
soothe my conscience by remembering that this part of Sweden is between
Norway and Denmark, and with two such neighbors it could hardly be
entirely without charm. The train was ferried across from Helsingör to
Helsingborg, and we are now speeding along close to the Kattegat.
I am not forgetting that I left you in my last letter with the promise
to tell you something about Denmark’s celebrities, but first I must
treat you as a schoolgirl and tell you about the geography of this
little country. Tell me, Judicia, how many principal islands are there
in Denmark, and what are their names? What is Jutland? What is the
difference between the Kattegat and the Skager-Rack? I am so sure that
you don’t exactly know the answers to these abstruse problems (any more
than I did two months ago) that I am going to take the liberty of telling
you.
Jutland has earned its name, for it juts out into the North Sea and
separates the Skager-Rack on the northwest from the Kattegat on the
southeast, and it also looks like a sort of wedge thrust into the crevice
between the two halves of the dividing Scandinavian peninsula. I am
afraid the etymologist would say that it earned its name more from being
the home of the Jutes than from its geographical propensity of “jutting.”
It is a sandy peninsula, and boasts only one hill, which is made much of
by the Danes. Schleswig-Holstein, as of course you know, should properly
belong to Jutland and to the Danes. It is unmistakably a part of Denmark
geographically and ethnographically, but the great and greedy Bismarck
thought it would be a choice morsel to add to Germany, and, not being
troubled by a very tender diplomatic conscience, he contrived to snatch
it from poor little helpless Denmark. That was long ago, but the Danes
still bristle at the name of Bismarck.
East of Jutland lie Denmark’s three large islands—Fyen, Zealand, and
Lapland—and her countless smaller ones. If you will take the trouble to
look at the map I suppose you can picture Denmark’s geography in your
mind even more clearly than by reading my lucid and detailed description.
At this minute I am sure you are thinking of Bertel Thorvalsden, for he
is sure to come first into your mind when you begin to inquire who’s
who. You remember I quoted Professor Jevons as ranking the Thorvaldsen
Museum even as high as Tivoli, as a civilizing influence. That is rather
hard though on the museum, for this is really one of the world’s famous
monuments. It stands in the very front rank of museums. Moreover it is
unique in being the work of and the monument to one single man, the
greatest artist-genius of the north. Really I am amazed at the greatness
of Thorvaldsen. I have heard about him since I was in kindergarten, but I
was struck anew by the greatness of his genius when I visited Copenhagen.
He was the son of an Iceland ship’s carpenter, and the poorest of the
poor. He was born at sea between Iceland and Copenhagen, and through all
the early years of his life he assisted his father in his business. Those
who know declare him the greatest classical sculptor of modern times.
The museum has the appearance of a huge tomb, and is anything but
attractive from the outside. Inside is a mighty collection of the
sculptor’s work. Many of the originals are here, and plaster models
represent the rest. Among these models are two of his greatest works,
the Lion of Lucerne, and the statue of Christ, which stands in the
Frue Kirke. As I had seen the originals of both of these, I was not so
thrilled by the plaster models. Inside, in a courtyard, is the sculptor’s
grave, and it must be comforting to him to have his own beloved
creations looking down upon his grave. Outside, all around the wall, are
frescoes representing Thorvaldsen’s triumphant return from Rome in 1838.
Hans Christian Andersen says of this home-coming: “It was a national
festival; boats, decorated with flowers and flags, passed backward
and forward between Langelinie and Trekoner. Joyous shouts were heard
from the shore, where the people harnessed themselves to Thorvaldsen’s
carriage and dragged it through Amalienborg to his dwelling.”
Thorvaldsen did not achieve this distinction, however, without a hard,
discouraging, up-hill climb. He went to Rome to study first in 1796, and
he labored so obscurely that even his friends lost faith in his talent.
He could not afford to buy plaster of Paris, so he made from clay a model
of Jason, which quickly fell to pieces. A second model failed to find
a purchaser, and discouraged and heartbroken he prepared to sail for
Denmark, when Thomas Hope, a wealthy English banker, justified nature in
the bestowal of his surname by asking Thorvaldsen to reproduce in marble
his statue of Jason. From this point the sculptor’s ambition revived, and
in a few years he was hailed far and wide as the greatest living master
of his profession.
Andersen’s autobiography contains many interesting bits about his friend
Thorvaldsen. On his seventy-third birthday, and his last, the sculptor
was greeted very early in the morning by a throng of friends who were
celebrating the day by the use of “gongs, fire tongs, flasks, knives,”
and other noisy implements. The old man threw on a dressing gown and
slippers, and thus attired danced out of his bedroom and joined the
hilarity. A few months later he died, and the news caused a whole nation
to go into mourning.
But Hans Christian Andersen, the children’s poet, survived him. Andersen
is to-day one of the best beloved writers in the world, as you will not
hesitate to admit, Judicia. I am positive that Phillips can’t refer you
to any Swedish author who is half as much loved, at least by people
outside of his own land. One writer whose book I have recently read
refers to this author as “H. C. Andersen.” Doesn’t that strike you as
almost a sacrilege? Hans Christian Andersen is in a class by himself, and
he ought to be called Hans Christian and not H. C. His fairy tales lose
half their charm if we discover that the author is only H. C. Andersen.
Hans Christian Andersen by any other name would not—well, he would not be
as fragrant—I am getting involved here.
He was born in Odense, on the island of Fyen. Right here let me say
that this town of Odense is not named for the much-advertised five-cent
cigar, but for Odin, the same old god who gave us our name for the
fourth day in the week. Hans was the son of a cobbler, and he spent
the earliest years of his life, or parts of them, in a crib fashioned
from a nobleman’s coffin, on which tatters of black cloth continued to
hang. His mother wanted him to become a tailor, and he would perhaps
have fulfilled her wish if a gypsy wise-woman had not chanced to cross
his path and prophesy that Hans would some day become a great man. His
parents believed the prophecy, and later their faith in the gypsy woman
was justified.
Even as a boy Hans was in love with the drama. He could scrape up money
enough to go to the theater only once a year, but the rest of the time he
would get hold of the bill and imagine the whole play for himself. His
introduction to dramatic society was most pathetic. An old bookseller
in Odense gave him an introduction to a _danseuse_ at the Royal Theater
at Copenhagen. Poor little Hans was frightened almost out of his wits
when he met the lady dancer. He was “candidating,” as it were, and the
meeting was very critical. He was so nervous that everything went wrong.
His hat was too big for him, and, as he forgot to take it off, it fell
over his ears. His new, confirmation shoes creaked, and he was forced
to “ask his hostess’ permission to remove them, that he might be able
to dance with more grace.” The peculiarity of this request, combined
with the strange gestures he made, frightened the poor _danseuse_. She
thought he was mad, and escaped under a pretext. Poor Hans, with tears
in his eyes, and as utterly miserable as possible, hurried away. Yet he
had inborn genius, and, like a city that is set on a hill, it could not
be hid. A few years later he was received in his native town as a hero.
The city was illuminated; the bishop met him at the station; the school
children had a whole holiday; he received a congratulatory telegram from
the king, and the man whom all Denmark delighted to honor says: “I felt
as humble and small as if I stood before my God. It was as if every
weakness, fault, and sin in thought, word, and deed was brought home to
me.” As a matter of fact he had about as few faults and sins as it would
be possible to have and still be human, and his one weakness was a too
great sensitiveness.
He tells of how on one occasion he was anxious to obtain a traveling
scholarship, and he also had a book of poems which he wished to present
to the king, Frederick VI. His friends, being versed in the ways of the
world, advised him to present his book at the same time he made his
request for the scholarship. The same principle was of course involved as
that which to-day implies that the giver of compliments has a request to
follow. Well, such a proceeding seemed to the sensitive Hans as verging
on dishonesty, and he was troubled to know what to do. He thus describes
his interview with the king:
“I must have looked to the king extremely funny as I entered the room,
for my heart was beating fast with anxiety. When the king came toward me
in the quick way he had, and asked me what kind of a book I had brought
him, I answered: ‘A cycle of poems, your Majesty.’ ‘Cycle, Cycle! what do
you mean?’ Then I lost heart and said: ‘It is some verses on Denmark.’ He
smiled. ‘Well, well, that is all right; thanks, thanks,’ and he bowed a
dismissal. But I, who had not even begun my real errand, explained that
I had much still to say, and then I told him about my studies, and how
I had got through them. ‘That is very praiseworthy,’ said the king, and
when I came to the point of my wish for a scholarship he answered, as
they had told me he would: ‘Very well, then bring an application.’ ‘Yes,
your Majesty,’ I burst out, all my self-consciousness gone, ‘I have it
here with me, and it seems so dreadful to me that I should bring it with
the book. I have been told to do so, as it is the custom, but I think it
is horrid. I do hate it so.’ My eyes were full of tears. The good king
laughed right out, nodded kindly, and took the application form.”
This bashful, timid Hans was really a wonderful man. He could take an old
bottle or a piece of string or a barnyard hen and make a story out of it
that the world, particularly the child’s world, will not willingly let
die. Did you know that he invented the mission of the stork, and that
every time _Life_ or _Judge_ gets off a joke in which a stork figures
they have Hans Christian Andersen to thank for the idea?
Part of Andersen’s life was spent as a student at Elsinore or Helsingör,
and so I think I will tear myself away from Copenhagen and go up to see
the sights of northern Zealand. Before I tell you about Helsingör I
must mention some of these castles of North Zealand. The island swarms
with them, but the most interesting are Kronborg, Fredensborg, and
Frederiksborg. In Kronborg, Holger Danske sits in confinement, and must
remain there until the end of time. “He is clad in iron and steel, and
rests his head upon his strong arms; his long beard hangs out over the
marble table where it has grown fast. He sleeps and dreams in his dreams
that he sees all that is happening above in Denmark. Every Christmas
evening one of God’s angels comes to tell him that it is right what
he has dreamt, and that he may sleep again, for no danger out of the
ordinary is threatening Denmark.”
Fredensborg Castle, a few miles south, is the place where the clans
gather for the annual Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps they don’t call it by
that name, and perhaps the gathering isn’t annual, but at least it is
true that now and then the whole royal family of Denmark gathers together
here in Fredensborg. As you know, the royal family of Denmark includes
the King of Greece, Queen Alexandra, the Czarina of Russia, the King of
Norway, and numerous princes and princesses. The name Fredensborg means
“Castle of Peace” and the castle was built a century ago to commemorate
the peace between Denmark and Sweden.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen.]
Frederiksborg I am sure I have mentioned before as the joint product
of Christian IV and Brewer Jacobsen, who have given us one of the most
interesting and valuable historical museums in the world. Here are all
the old heroes and heroines of Denmark, as well as all the sculptors and
story-tellers and doctors and inventors and philosophers and musicians
and merchants. Here, in short, you can find a collection of who’s who in
Denmark, or rather of who has been who in the past. You could spend a
week here studying these different celebrities and the stories connected
with them. In the room called the Council Chamber is a colossal portrait
of all the Danish royalties who were alive in 1886. There are no less
than thirty-two persons in the picture, and the artist thought nothing of
tucking away eight or ten royal children in one corner.
In another room the most celebrated of the ancients are collected, among
them Gorm the Old, Canute the Great, who as you know was the king that
could not be flattered, and Thyra Danebod. This Thyra is not so well
known as the other two, but she was an interesting old shrew. I am not
positive of her identity, as names were repeated so much in the old days,
but I think she was sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark at the
end of the tenth century. Whether or not my guess is correct, I want to
tell you a little about this Thyra. She was a spoiled child, and wanted
to be married to as many kings as possible. At least two kings, Burislav
the Wend and Olaf Tryggvesson the Norwegian, claimed her at the same time
as lawful wife, or rather she claimed them. She positively bullied Olaf
into marrying her because she had had a tiff with Burislav. But Olaf
could not please her. One day, a Palm Sunday, he bought her some spring
vegetables as a special treat. She threw them in his face, remarking that
her father, Harald Bluetooth, had given her a better present than that
when she got her first tooth; what she wanted was land and revenue. She
pestered him so continually that finally, for the sake of domestic peace,
he started on a piratical expedition. He gained no land and lost his
life, whereupon Thyra retrieved herself somewhat by dying nine days later
of a broken heart.
In another room there are many pictures of different events of Danish
history. One portrays the foul murder of Erik Glipping, son of Erik
Plowpenny. His only fault was that he happened to be king of Denmark.
Another picture shows the great Valdemar Atterdag, whose mission in life
was to regain the territory which his father had pawned. This Valdemar
Atterdag, by the way, was not particularly gentle in his estimate of
human life.
However, killing people, particularly sons or defenceless children,
was the favorite sport of some of the old kings and queens. Christina,
mistress of Haakon Galen, an aspirant to the throne of Norway, one day
took in her lap a little boy named Guttorm Siggurdsson, who happened to
be the legitimate heir to the throne. She stroked the child lovingly over
his whole body, and soon after little Guttorm complained that needles
were sticking into him all over. After a few minutes he died in great
agony. Haakon Galen was immensely amused. He kissed his mistress and soon
after rewarded her by actually making her his wife.
I seem to be getting into a morbid strain, but fortunately there are
many noble and cheerful tales which the history of Denmark and Norway
affords. When I get time I will write you more about these. We are fast
approaching Kornsjö, where, since it is on Norwegian soil, I can lawfully
begin to take an interest in the scenery. But before we get there I
must tell you something about Helsingör, for that is as well known to
foreigners, thanks to Mr. Shakespeare, as any spot in Denmark. The
statue of Saxo Grammaticus, who originally wrote of “Prince Amleth,” is
made to wear an amused smile, as if he did not take himself or the story
of Hamlet quite seriously. The following quotation from Horace Marryat
will show you the source of some doubts:
“Hans Andersen assured me that it [Hamlet’s grave] did not exist.
In the good old times, when Sound duties still were, and myriads of
ships stopped at Elsinore to pay their dues and be plundered by the
inhabitants, each fresh English sailor, on his first arrival, demanded
to be conducted to the tomb of Hamlet. Now, on the outside of the town,
by the Strandvej, in the garden of a resident merchant, stood or still
stands a _hoi_ or barrow, one of the twenty thousand which are scattered
so plentifully over the Danish domains. This barrow, to the great
annoyance of its owner, was settled upon as a fitting resting place for
Shakespeare’s hero. Worried and tormented by the numerous visitors who
allowed him no peace, he, at his own expense, erected this monument in
the public garden of Marienlyst, caused it to be surmounted by a cross
and a half-erased inscription, fixing the date of Hamlet’s death the 32d
of October, Old Style, the year a blank. Admirably, too, it succeeded.
The British public was content, and the worthy merchant was allowed to
smoke his pipe in peace under the grateful shade of his veranda.”
Butlin says of his first visit to Denmark that on inquiring for Hamlet’s
grave he was told by a sarcastic Dane—the time being early autumn—that
it was not usually built up before the spring, in time for English and
American tourists to carry it away in chopped-off morsels during the
summer.
As to Elsinore, that is an interesting place, with or without the actual
grave of Hamlet. It is the scene of more historical events, connected
with Norway, than almost any other place in Denmark. You remember that
Marryat refers to the fact that it collected tolls from all the ships
that passed through the Sound; and think of the nerve of it—it continued
to do so even after Sweden had won the opposite coast of Skaane. All the
nations concerned finally clubbed together and gave little Elsinore an
immense ransom as token of future exemption from duty.
I have just discovered by referring to my _Norges Communicationer_ that
we are due in Kornsjö in twenty minutes, so I shall soon be taking in
the delights of Norway. As to this _Norges Communicationer_, let me tell
you what an absurd system of time-tables they have here. This foolish
_Communicationer_ is published every week and costs thirty _öre_ (about
eight cents). This week’s edition has one hundred and eighty-four big
pages, and a whole year’s edition takes up actually almost as much
room as the new _Encyclopædia Britannica_. By subscribing to this very
interesting weekly magazine you can get it for about a dollar per
quarter, and less than two dollars and a half for the entire year. Think
of that! The price includes postage, too. Oh, it’s a shame to pay so
little; therefore I think I won’t subscribe.
I don’t know when I shall have time to write again. I am planning to go
to Bergen in a few days and take from there one of the Bergenske and
Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab boats up along the coast. Every one has
taken this trip in summer, when the country is looking for tourists all
along the line, but I want to see the country out of season, and so I am
planning to visit it in winter, regardless of warnings about the gloomy,
perpetual night.
I shall write to you from somewhere, sometime.
As always,
AYLMER.
FOURTH LETTER
The color scheme of a Norwegian winter night; a trip up the
coast; the “Maiden of Lekö” and Torg’s Hat; the home of Haarek
remind us of the early methods of introducing Christianity
into Norway; Thangbrand, the ferocious Saxon priest; Olaf
Tryggvesson; some interesting sights en route for the Lofotens;
the Maelström and Pontoppidan’s sea serpent; the great
Lofoten fisheries; the long war between cod and herring; sea
life in the Lofotens; approach to Narvik; certain Norwegian
characteristics.
NARVIK, NORWEGIAN LAPLAND, January 12.
N. Lat. 68° 30´: E. Long. 17° 30´ (circa).
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I would just as soon wager that you never heard of Narvik before, and
that you don’t know any more of its whereabouts than the heading of
this letter tells you. I am basing my wager on the assumption that your
knowledge of Norway is just about as extensive as mine was before I came
here. Well, I cannot blame you much for your ignorance (if ignorant you
are), for Narvik is a very young thing. It was born on January 1, 1902,
but it is fast getting to be one of the important towns of this country,
thanks to the iron hills of Lapland. However, I mustn’t tell you about
Narvik before you get there. First I will ask you to go up along the
coast with me by steamer and get something of the unconscious spell of
northern Norway in winter, when it doesn’t suspect that it is showing off.
I decided to come to Trondhjem by rail instead of by steamer, so I
hunted things up in my _Norges Communicationer_ and found that I could
go direct from Christiania to Trondhjem in sixteen hours and there take
one of the mail boats of that Dampskibsselskab (I love to pronounce
that word) up to Narvik. I have several thousand things to tell you
about Christiania and Trondhjem, but these must wait until later, as I
am planning to visit these cities again. In this letter I shall simply
tell you about northern Norway in the cold, gloomy winter, which is
really neither cold nor gloomy. It is wonderful, this Norwegian winter.
The whole country does not realize that there is an American tourist
north of Trondhjem, and if it did realize, it wouldn’t care, for it is
attending to its own business. I get the same pleasure out of seeing this
tourist-ridden country out of season that I got from seeing Oberammergau
in the winter of 1905, when the natives had forgotten the previous
decennial Passion Play and had not begun to think seriously of the next.