Ian C. Hannah

“ Street upon street of houses, white stucco or red brick, adorned with pilaster and pediment and cornice, covered with tall pantiled roofs; many bearing the dates of their birth-years two or three centuries ago; these give the capital an old-world, most attractive look, a picturesqueness that is sternly denied to most so modern towns. Steeples of character to match, frequently tower above the roofs, while very constant parks and squares, long avenues of broad-leafed trees and cool-looking fountains, some of them real works of art, do much to make this town a very delightful place. ”

“ Arms of water stretch away in all directions till in many cases they become so narrow that they are lost among the trees; the broad end of Mälar, myriad island lake, suggests itself on the western horizon, and, the very last thing one would naturally expect to see amid the silent woods, rises the great modern city with its towers and spires and domes and factory chimneys—the Venice of the North. Round the far horizon stand peaceful, peakless hills. ”

“ Lost now is the position to which Sweden once attained, chief military power in the North, but higher her place in the world. The sword-won dominion of Gustavus Adolphus could not endure for very long—geography forbade—but a nobler Swedish empire was founded, or at any rate consolidated, by the genius of Linnæus, and that shows no sign of decay. There will dawn a day when mere brute force will no longer be the test of a nation's weal, but in Europe it is hardly yet. ”

“ But even yet there is not the sleep of some little English cathedral towns. The railway runs along the quays by the harbour, where is sometimes a busy scene. Southward the chimneys of a factory pour their smoke into the clear air. The vigorous life of an older day still stirs in the picturesque market-place by the ruined Friars' Church. From it wind about to every part of the city narrow streets between garden walls that tunnel here and there under the whitewashed houses. ”

“ Here, over the altar, stands the famous statue of Christ, one of the most striking in the world; the face radiates divine compassion, the hands are stretched out to all who come. In front an angel holds a font-shell, and against each pier is the figure of one of the Apostles. The supreme excellence of these glorious statues in white marble with their effective drapery and the absence of any other attempt at ornament renders the interior of this church striking in an extraordinary degree. ”

“ Chains of gold clinked on the temple roof, as chains of baser metal hang on many a Russian church to-day. A square, stone pile, of massive work but rude, stands high above the plain: two gateways toward the north, two toward the south, and two toward the west, only toward the east but one. It seems more likely, notwithstanding, that this gable-roofed structure was always what it is to-day, the central tower of a cruciform church, round-arched in style, opening to transepts and nave by two arches, but to the quire by only one. ”

“ Much of the spirit of the Norse fills the air of the Danish capital, but the town is too young to be mentioned in the sagas; to many of the heroes of the Danes there are monuments in streets and memorials in galleries, but they do not give their atmosphere to the town. The spirit of the city is rather that of solid achievement by a great people which no longer rests its pride on glory gotten in war. And if the nations of mankind were to be judged on the same principle that was applied to the holders of the Talents Denmark would be very near the top. ”

“ On a promontory overlooking the town and the rocks covered with shells and pink and dark green sea-weed, there frowns a picturesque old fort; more interesting to the antiquary than formidable to the soldier. What higher praise than that could any place of strength deserve? The two lines of defence are each formed of boulders and earth. Though Thorshavn in the past has known unpeace, many an empire has risen to high power or crumbled to decay since these grass-grown ramparts were stained with human gore. ”

“ A magnificent monument in the quire fitly commemorates the greatest of all the honoured dead that rest within this simple and most impressive church. On an altar-tomb of great beauty and well restored is the canopied effigy of a lovely woman, who died in 1412. No student of history can tread here unmoved. We are in the presence of the most far-seeing of all the sovereigns of the North: the noble Margaret of whom the great Chronicle of Lübeck says, "When men saw the wisdom and strength that were in this royal lady, wonder and fear filled their hearts." ”

“ Nearer the sea are the hot springs whose waters send up steam that is visible from far, and gave the capital its name. The ponies are kept from burning their noses by stretches of barbed wire. In water heated by the fires that burn far down, beyond the reach of man, the people of Reykjavik have long been wont to wash their linen and their clothes. A constant procession of women bear soiled things to the spring and clean things to the town. ”

“ From the top of one of the great howes we may peer beyond the history of unnumbered years to the days when history was not. About the early dawn of man's activity on earth we may read in any part of the world, but not in many places may we feel its spell as here. Close by was the most famous temple in all the North; and not far off was Odin's grove, whose trees were the sacredest on earth. And near the temple grew one tree whose sort might no man know whose branches were for ever green. ”

“ It is remarkable that in the capital of a country so extremely democratic, that has swept its nobility into the mass of the commons, by far the most conspicuous building should be the Palace of the King, and that in the chief town of a land of such strong national feeling, the main street should bear the name of one who gained the crown of Norway only at the point of the sword. ”

“ A vast city of more than a quarter of a million souls rises straight from the [200] primeval forest and clear blue water. The Swedish capital reposes on islands and spreads to the mainland north and south, surrounded by the woods and the lakes. Westward to the Cattegat is a shipway, hollowed partly by the spade of man and partly by the tooth of time; northward stretches a natural waterway to the ancient capital of Lofty Halls. And the winding fjord that leads up from the open sea, through which the great lake drains, is of wonderful beauty. ”

“ This must have been a most exceptional state of affairs, if one may judge from Danes one has the pleasure of knowing, or from what one may see of the race making holiday at these seaside resorts. No European people seems to get more out of life and into life than the always cheerful inhabitants of this small land. It is the mark of true genius that, shut out from so much, they have made still more of what remains.
Less than thirty miles north of Copenhagen, where the Sound is straitest, stands the town that is next best known to the world of all on Danish earth. ”

“ Many of the capitals of Europe know at least traditional founders, but on none is impressed the stamp of an individual to such an extent as here. No city on earth of anything like equal importance is so entirely the creation of a single mind, nor so truly [235] a monument to individual force of character. No capital except Tokyo is to such an extent the symbol of a new era in a nation's life.
Peter heard the call of Europe and saw that it had something to offer that Asia could not give. Asiatics have felt a strange attraction toward European lands in all the ages of the world. ”

“ Midst all the charms of low limestone hills and peaceful fields by the sea, midst all the delights of wide gardens fragrant with the scent of roses, midst all the picturesqueness of a delightful little country town, may be studied in crumbling ruin, yet lovingly preserved, the uniquely interesting churches and stoutly buttressed walls of a city that once dominated the Mediterranean of the North. ”

“ There is but little rotten in the state of Denmark to-day. Though fallen from possessing the widest empire of the north to the limits of a mere province, she yet thrills with vigorous life, an object lesson on many points that no land can afford to ignore. Copenhagen is not really very unlike a large German town, though the Danes are not pleased to be told so, and it lacks the numerous uniforms and those minute and detailed regulations for the welfare and good order of the population that so characterise the Fatherland itself. ”

“ Across a monumental bridge, adorned with statues and lamps, on the island of Djurgarden, stands a recently finished structure of Renaissance character which looks like a great cruciform church, but is in fact the Northern, or the Folk, Museum. The great hall contains figures in armour, old coaches and such like to illustrate days that are past, but more interesting are the little chambers that show us in detail the life of Sweden in bygone years. Within an old cottage we see a duck-coop under the sofa and shut-up cupboards against the walls. ”

“ The great rose windows, west and north, the clustered piers and moulded arches, the plainly ribbed vaulting and indeed the general effect of the interior remind one of the fairest contemporary churches of France, but the blind storey (or triforium) , pierced [195] only by meaningless little circles, does nothing to recall the beautiful arcades that open to the galleries of Notre Dame, while the plain pinnacles and flying buttresses without are destitute of any substitutes for the world-famed devils that look down on the Paris streets. ”

“ The wooden houses, mostly Stockholm-tarred, some painted different shades, rest on rude foundations of boulders; some buildings are wholly of rough stone. Most of the roofs are covered with grass—amidst which wild flowers grow—so green that they are not to be distinguished from the hill-sides just behind, and the first impression is almost that of a ruined, roofless town. ”

“ But, even if one has not realised the fact amid the romantic scenery of those fjords where the works of man are confined to tiny fields like handkerchiefs scantily stretched upon the mountain sides, and settlements of wooden huts which are lost among the towering mountains of God, in Trondhjem Fjord one can hardly ignore the fact that this northern land has a history and a mythology of no mean kind, and one that is her very own. ”

“ Denmark is a country where education is a serious thing, and in few capitals may one learn so much as here. No amount of merely technical instruction would give the Danes the technical skill that they possess. If any doubt the real and practical usefulness of good general education, this small country can supply the object-lesson that he needs; if any do not know just what education means, the Danes have hit upon a definition that is of real value and much comfort too. "Education is that which survives when all that was learned has been forgotten." ”

“ But in later days a far less seemly custom has grown up; the coffins are merely ranged in rows upon the chapel floors. They seem to be at rest when they are of marble or stone, and so, too, perhaps when of solid metal, but most are only of oak, covered with black velvet. It is almost impossible to dismiss the idea that the victims of some disaster await the last solemn rites. There is something weirdly gruesome in this vast Valhalla of the unburied dead. Abraham desired decorously to bury his dead out of his sight, but the rulers of Denmark must for ever merely lie in state. ”

“ To Harald's messengers she answered in this wise: "I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few folks. Marvellous it seems to me that there is no king minded to make Norway his own, and be sole lord thereof in such wise as Gorm of Denmark or Eric of Upsala have done." ”

“ So heavenly are the environs of the city that they could not easily be spoiled; the Swedes have made the very most of the lavish gifts of Nature to add to the delights of their capital. They are not infected with a mania for cutting trees and building mile-long lines of slate and brick, nor apparently is every landowner consumed with a burning zeal to pile as many dwellings as he possibly can onto each square inch of ground. Parks are numerous and beautiful, largely because the woods are left alone. ”

“ What must the man have been who, born and bred in this atmosphere, conceived and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own manual labour and his own sole gigantic strength, executed the prodigious idea of dragging the nation, against its will, into the light of Europe, and erecting a new capital and a new empire among the cities and kingdoms of the world. ”

“ Vast mountains rising from the very sea, and never destitute of whitest clouds, fold upon fold of country devoid of trees and yet so fertile and kept so moist by shower and mist that the grass grows over house-top as well as ground, the close proximity of fjord and hay-field and fish and flowers, give a combined impression so individual that the widest wanderer will but faintly be reminded of any other part of the world. ”

“ Still closer to the streets of Stockholm the forests come, but there the hills stand back. In being both girdled by mountains and splashed by the sea Christiania is almost alone among the capitals of the world.
Norway is almost always seen by visitors under summer skies, unless it chances that they come for winter sports; it is well somewhat to correct the impressions received by recalling Björnson's holding description of his own country: "There is something in Nature here which challenges whatever is extraordinary in us. Nature herself here goes beyond all ordinary measure. ”

“ Nave of five bays, quire of three, triple apse to the east, clumsy-looking tower to the west. Round pillars hold up a heavy vault, whitewash daubed, and, as is so commonly the case in Scandinavia, unrelieved by any clearstorey. On to the tower has been hoisted a cast iron spire that rises 290 feet into the clear air and looks as awkward and unhappy as the similar feature over the cathedral at Rouen. The great interest of the church is that it has become the valhalla of warrior, sage and king ”