“ It seems like dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous to follow so ideal a benefaction with a report of so mundane a thing as a soup kitchen, but soup is as necessary to humanity at the present period of life as some of the exalted things of the intellect, and, as pauperism in Norway and Sweden is so almost unobservable, it is difficult to search out with the keenest vision any charity that is doing more than are the "steam kitchens" of Norway and Sweden. And the keenest vision would hardly observe that these "steam kitchens" are charitable institutions. ”

“ The Norwegian and Swedish peoples are racially very similar in character and habits, and mutually respect each other. King Oscar was as beloved and honored in Norway as he was in Sweden, and deservedly so. The Norwegians felt proud of his character, life, and statesmanship. They appreciated his wisdom and moderation, and gave him full credit for his earnest conviction that he was right in his differences with the Norwegian government. And yet, the dissolution was a blessing to both countries concerned. So long as Norway and Sweden were united under one king, there would have been friction. ”

“ Women in America who are working for the ballot have only to go to Norway to find that having a voice in the making of the laws of the country does not remove every obstacle to the progress of the sex; that there are still many injustices, and that the women work as hard as the men. The Norwegian woman usually carries a little more than her share of the load, and can support a husband without difficulty if he insists upon it. There is nothing so admirable in this world as a useful woman, particularly if she is married to a man inclined to leisure and loafing. ”

“ But in Norway, as in Switzerland, where it is a ceaseless struggle from the cradle to the grave, there is more national pride and patriotism than in any land, and the privilege of living and working and suffering is esteemed as the most precious inheritance of man. ”

“ He sought his ideals in life, instead of outside of it and above it in imaginary creations. He saw nature such as it is, with all its faults and sublimities, and, loving it with a true poet's devotion, he painted it simply and faithfully, without aiming at ennobling it, but seeking and finding what there is of native dignity in its humblest expressions. In his lyrical poem, The Sayings of Sergeant Stal, he portrayed incidents of the wars of Finland fighting by the side of Sweden in 1809, when the country was conquered by Russia. ”

“ The people have always been small landholders, which has developed among them an independence of character not found in countries where the mass of the inhabitants have no direct property interests. There is no class in Norway corresponding to the country gentleman of England or to the grand seigneurs and provincial noblemen of the Continent. The wealthiest landlord is only a peasant.
Honesty is one of the valuable assets of the Norwegian people. Attempts at extortion are so rare that tourists, accustomed to the proverbial dishonesty of the Latin races, find travel in Norway and Sweden a joy. ”

“ The folk-songs of Norway are singularly typical of the country and its inhabitants. Some "seem to take us into the dense forest among mocking echoes from, the life outside; others show us the trolls tobogganing down the highest peaks of Norway; in some we feel human souls hovering over reefs ”

“ The population of the kingdom not only holds its own, but shows a slight increase which seems remarkable because of the continual drain of young, able-bodied men and women who have removed to our western states. In all public movements, in all social, commercial, and industrial activities, in art, science, and literature, in wealth and prosperity, Norway stands abreast of the most advanced nations of Europe ”

“ Every citizen of Stockholm who can afford it has a place in the country, no matter how humble or primitive it may be, and if he can not afford a cabin, he pitches a tent in the woods under the pine trees, and if necessary cooks his own meals. The banks of the lakes and rivers throughout the entire kingdom—and there are more than 1,400 lakes in Sweden and 1,700 islands in the Stockholm Skärgard—are surrounded by such dwellings and camps, for the Swedes love the water. ”

“ The face, while scarcely so handsome as the profile pictures lead us to think, is a distinguished one, and has for Norway this charm, that it is markedly not of the Bernadotte type, although his mother is a Bernadotte. Those who know him describe him as an extremely intelligent and sensible young man, easy and tolerant without being weak, and capable of strenuous devotion to hard work. These things bespeak an industrious, efficient, and tractable king, such as the Norwegians, who would equally resent either vacillation or tyranny, know how to appreciate. ”

“ In his address delivered to the newly arrived sovereign on board the battleship Heimdal, Herr Michelsen, President of Council, and for six months virtual President of Norway, used these significant words: "For nearly six centuries the Norwegian people have had no king of their own. To-day a king of Norway comes to make his home in the Norwegian capital, elected by a free people to occupy, conjointly with free men, the first place in the land. The Norwegian people love their liberty, their independence, and their autonomous government which they themselves have won. ”

“ CHAPTER X HAAKON VII, THE NEW KING OF NORWAY There is something essentially, almost ludicrously, modern about the creation of Norway's new king. Not that it is the first time a sovereign has been, so to speak, "custom-made." An eligible foreign prince is tendered a seat upon an ancient throne; the form is old, but the spirit, how new! Republican though she is to the backbone, Norway has elected to be governed by monarchical methods, fearing with her isolated and primitive peasantry, to put the machinery of control into the hands of the people themselves. ”

“ From above comes the all-powerful one, he who rules everything, and whose name no one dares utter. All those who were virtuous and pure of heart will gather in Gimle in everlasting happiness, while the evil ones will go to Naastrand at the well Hvergelmer to be tortured by Nidhugger. A new earth, green and beautiful, shall rise from the ocean. The gods awake to new life and join Vidar and Vale, and the sons of Thor, Mode and Magne, who have survived the great destruction and who have been given their father's hammer, because there is to be no more war. ”

“ Every one of the provinces of Sweden which has a distinctive dress or unique custom is represented by the actual people who have always lived that way. Every man and woman continues their former occupations. There is no theatrical business about it, no imitations on the grounds; everything is genuine.
Three or four times a week at sunset, after their daily work is done, the peasants gather for a dance at a central place, which is always surrounded by a large crowd of spectators, and is the greatest attraction of Skansen. ”

“ Certainly she has done well in putting a Scandinavian prince on the throne. No alien would ever understand Norway or be understood. If reports are creditable, the Kaiser made the most of his friendship with the country in support of the claims of a son of his own. Had a German secured the throne, there would have been sown fresh seeds of discord on a peninsula which can raise a sufficient crop of dissensions without any aid from the rest of Europe. For Denmark, still nursing the rankling grievance of the Schleswig-Holstein affair, detests the thought of everything German. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI HEALTH, EXERCISE, AND AMUSEMENTS Perhaps in no other country in the world have health and exercise been united and formed into a national institution, as they have been in Sweden. The true Swede believes that exercise will cure everything, and that as a preventive of disease there is nothing like it. If you go to a Swedish physician for advice, he will invariably prescribe the movement cure, and send you to a gymnasium or a massage establishment instead of to a drug store. ”

“ It has been suggested that Russia has long had her eye on the ice-free harbors of the Norwegian coast and has coveted them; that she has built her railroads across Finland close up to the Norwegian frontier, and that there is trouble ahead for Norway, because she has isolated herself from Sweden, her natural protector. But we see in the division a Greater Scandinavia. There are now the three great Scandinavian nations, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and it can be imagined that, so close of kin, any one of them would rush to arms in defense of the others. ”

“ Any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up Danes can judge whether the hazing and horse-play on a Danish man-of-war was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case of congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. ”

“ In the energetic campaign for the betterment of the condition of women, the Swedes have taken the first place among European nations. If one seeks the cause of it, it is found in part in the fact that in Sweden, since the remotest time, women have enjoyed a respect greater than in most of the other countries, but without doubt it is also due to the superiority of the intellect, judgment, and wisdom of Swedish women, and in later years to the numerical excess of women in our population. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII THE NEWSPAPERS OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN There are seven hundred and fifty-one newspapers and periodicals in Sweden, including fifty-two dailies. Stockholm has twelve dailies, seven published in the morning and five in the evening, which is a large number for a city of three hundred and ten thousand inhabitants, and the wonder is how they all manage to exist. None of them is as large as the ordinary dailies in the United States. It is the practice of the Swedish editors to waste very little room in headlines, and to condense as much as possible. ”

“ Thor, the son of Odin, is the strongest of all the gods. His dwelling is called Thrudvang. He rides across the heavens in a cart drawn by two rams. He is always at war with the Yotuns or evil giants, and in battle with them he uses his great hammer, Mjolner, which he hurls at the heads of his enemies. The earth trembles under the wheels of his cart, and men call the noise thunder. Thor's wife is Sif, whose hair is of gold.
Balder is a son of Odin and Frigg. He is so fair that his countenance emits beams of brightness. He is wise and gentle, and is therefore loved by all. ”

“ They will walk to the corner to point out the house in the middle of the next block if that is where you want to go, and when you thank them for their attention, you get another salute that makes you feel as big as a major general, or as if you had been mistaken for a member of the royal family. Railway conductors are equally polite, and seem to understand that it is a part of their business to protect tender-footed travelers, as angels always look after good little boys. ”

“ It was during the reign of the late king, Oscar II, that Sweden attained her greatest prosperity and made most progress. Oscar II, brother of his predecessor, ascended the throne at a moment when universal peace was restored after the great conflict between France and Germany, and when an age of commercial prosperity for Sweden seemed to have begun. King Oscar had received the same superior education as his older brothers, was as brilliantly gifted as they, and of a more scholarly mind. ”

“ THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS Because of its geographic isolation, the Scandinavian peninsula is the home of the purest Teutonic ethnic stock. The Norwegians, Icelanders, Swedes, and Danes are racially closely related, and they belong to the same branch of the Aryan family as the Germans, Flemish, English, and Anglo-Americans. Physically, these people are powerfully built and tall, of the pure Scandinavian type, with fair hair and blue eyes, and their healthy, intelligent look strikes the traveler. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII NORWEGIAN FOLK SONGS If the dwellers of the deep fjords, the somber fir-clad mountain valleys, and the bleak ice-fields do not "open their lips so readily for song" as the people of southern lands where the sun creates an eternal spring, it is not because they are without lyric power, as is clearly apparent from the rich and varied folk-songs and the splendid creative work of Edvard Grieg. ”

“ Many of the wisest men in Norway consider the universal suffrage amendment to the constitution, which was passed in 1898, a mistake for this reason—because it removes a powerful incentive for men to accumulate money. The Norwegian has a large and natural fund of patriotism. He loves his country like the Swiss. Nowhere else do men and women have to work so hard for a living, but life is the more precious the harder one has to labor to sustain it. We value things according to their cost. In the tropics, where no man need work, human life is held cheaply. Men die and kill without compunction ”

“ It is an interesting sight, this bucket brigade, that stands in line and passes slowly by the serving windows, which are attended by half a dozen brawny Norwegian women with bare arms and broad, good-natured-looking faces. They wear neat white aprons and caps, and handle the food with a dexterity that shows long experience. They seem to know most of the customers and carry on a familiar conversation with them while falling their orders. ”

“ It is said that if every other book descriptive of the period were to fail, his verses would suffice to inform us how the middle classes then lived, thought, and felt. Around the poet's monument—his bust in bronze on a white marble column—there gather, on the anniversary of his birth, the crowds who love him and love his song. Every heart beats high as the Bellman choirs burst forth in turn into the well-known melodies, composed or adapted by the poet himself to his words, and sung by him to the accompaniment of his lute. ”

“ Carnegie's free libraries and educational endowments, the Duc d'Aumale's gift to the French Academy of his fine chatteau at Chantilly, with its magnificent historical and art collections; many institutions founded in the United States and elsewhere by multi-millionaires for the advancement of knowledge, are a sign of the times. They foreshadow the abolishment of pauperism and its attendant charities to give place to beneficent institutions, and Norway and Sweden are abreast with other countries in this movement. ”

“ Promotion is expected by all who deserve it. A worthy and efficient teacher, having begun in youth at the lowest grade, expects advancement to the highest, according to the judgment of the school boards and supervisors. School teaching is a career, just as a government clerkship is a career. People enter both professions with the expectation of making them their life-work, although from our point of view they offer very little inducement.
The average salary of the school teachers in Norway is only about $220 a year, the men receiving a little above the average and the women a little less. ”