Denmark

“ Sweden gave back the province of Trondhjem and the isle of Bornholm and released Denmark from the most onerous of the obligations of the treaty of Roskilde. In fact the peace of Copenhagen came as a welcome break in an interminable series of disasters and humiliations. Anyhow, it confirmed the independence of the Danish state. On the other hand, if Denmark had emerged from the war with her honour and dignity unimpaired, she had at the same time tacitly surrendered the dominion of the North to her Scandinavian rival. ”

“ But the greater the hatred and contempt of England, the greater the loyal attachment of Denmark to the king. Thus while he stretched out his two hands to both provinces in his desire for sway, he gained one, but lost the lordship of the other irretrievably; for he never made any bold effort to regain it. So hard is it to keep a hold on very large empires.
After this man his son HARALD came to be king of Denmark; he is half-forgotten by posterity, and lacks all record for famous deeds, because he rather preserved than extended the possessions of the realm. ”

“ I was very sorry indeed to leave dear little Denmark where we had had such a warm welcome. Denmark is, of course, officially, absolutely neutral, but she cannot forget the ties of blood and friendship that bind the two island countries together. They are indeed a splendid people to be kin to, tall and fair and strong, as becomes an ancient race of sea-kings. I only hope that it may be my good fortune, some day, to be able to repay in some small measure all the wealth of kindness so freely poured out for us. ”

“ I am very fond of Denmark; the people there seem to me to be happy, despite everything, and the country not to be over-populated. In any case, the population finds ample means of outlet in sea-life and emigration. Denmark is an idyllic little country. Now you want to declare war there. My thoughts seek down in dark places, and I ask myself whether I really believe that truth does any good, whether in my secret heart I am convinced that strife is better than stagnation? ”

“ The inhabitants of Denmark, during the bronze-period, were the people who first brought with them a peculiar degree of civilization. To them were owing the introduction of metals, the progress of agriculture and of navigation, not to mention that the previously uninhabited districts in the interior of the country were, by them, cleared of wood and rendered productive. This people stood therefore in the same degree of civilization as the Celts, and exercised as important an influence over the civilization of the north, as the Celts over that of the west of Europe. ”

“ In Denmark, God be praised, thoughts, and their rudest expression, are still free, when the law of the land is not transgressed; and I regard no Dane as the enemy of his country because, perhaps, he does not join in our common wish for its welfare, and in personal attachment to the royal house, with the same warmth as myself. In such unsettled and unhappy times as the present, we must, alas! experience that the opinions of the best Danish men differ on many important matters. ”

“ In reviewing the literature of Denmark, one is surprised to see, not so few but so many authors—many, when the limited size of the country and extent of the population be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that the Danish language is not much known, and that it is spoken and read only by the inhabitants of Denmark Proper, its dependencies, and a portion of its colonists in the East and West Indies; yet it can boast of more writers than countries of an equal or larger size—than Holland, Italy, Spain, or Portugal. ”

“ Now Sweden faces Denmark and Norway on the west, but on the south and on much of its eastern side it is skirted by the ocean. Past this eastward is to be found a vast accumulation of motley barbarism.
That the country of Denmark was once cultivated and worked by giants, is attested by the enormous stones attached to the barrows and caves of the ancients. Should any man question that this is accomplished by superhuman force, let him look up at the tops of certain mountains and say, if he knows how, what man hath carried such immense boulders up to their crests. ”

“ Denmark consists of the islands in the Baltic, and the peninsula lying in the north-west of Germany, comprizing Jutland, Sleswig, and Holstein. The face of the country, both insular and continental, presents a striking contrast to that of Norway, being flat, and fertile in corn and cattle. Denmark possesses a large extent of sea coast, but the havens do not admit large vessels. The communication between the insular and continental possessions, the German ocean and the Baltic, and consequently the commerce of Denmark, was much facilitated by the canal of Keil, which was finished in 1785. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The time once was when, as we have seen, all Scandinavia, and England also, were governed by Danish kings, and Denmark was one of the great powers of Europe. Since that proud time the power of the Danish throne has steadily declined, until now it is but the shadow of its former self.
A great blow came in 1814, when it was forced to yield Norway to Sweden. All its possessions on the Baltic had vanished and its dominion was compressed into the Danish peninsula and its neighboring islands, with the exception of the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg lying south of the peninsula. ”

“ The commercial history of Denmark, during the period to which we are at present confined, presents no other circumstance sufficiently striking or interesting to detain us; for the establishments of this country in the East Indies are too trifling to deserve or require notice in a work whose limits and objects equally confine it to those points which are of primary importance. ”

“ It should not pass altogether unnoticed that the sympathies of the English for Denmark, and their fraternal feeling towards the Danish people, have increased in proportion as they have been obliged to acknowledge that the Danes of modern times still know how to defend their independence, liberty, and honour, with the bravery inherited from their forefathers. Not to speak of the last contest, so glorious for Denmark, it is particularly the battle in Copenhagen Roads, the 2nd of April, 1801, which has maintained in England the ancient fame of Danish valour. ”

“ This rational and pragmatic approach to politics is a latter-day phenomenon for Denmark, which has experienced during the millennium of its political existence various political forms and various levels of national power. The Danes derive satisfaction from the history of their ancient kingdom and its long-lived independence, recalling with pride those days when Copenhagen was the capital of northern Europe. ”

“ The great powers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were to be the strong, highly centralized, hereditary monarchies, like France, Spain and Sweden. There seemed to be no reason why Denmark also should not become a powerful state under the guidance of a powerful monarchy, especially as the sister state of Sweden was developing into a great power under apparently identical conditions. Yet, while Sweden was surely ripening into the dominating power of northern Europe, Denmark had as surely entered upon a period of uninterrupted and apparently incurable decline. ”

“ It is the capital of Denmark, and was, at one time, the capital of the united kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It is a beautiful city, strongly fortified, numbering about 140,000 inhabitants, and is by far the largest and most influential town in the kingdom; and from its central position, on the east side of the Island of Zealand, within sixteen miles of the Swedish shore, it affords an easy communication by steamboat to the principal places of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. It is the seat of learning for all the north of Europe ”

“ The Denmark of to-day, typified by Copenhagen its capital, is a great centre of science and of art, quite as much so as are Munich or Dresden. It is surprising that so few travellers, comparatively, resort thither. For the study of ethnological subjects, there is no country which affords greater facilities, or which is more interesting to scientists generally. ”

“ I missed that point as a child, or had forgotten it since leaving childhood behind.
“Holger Danske” is the strong, courageous spirit of the people of Denmark, which has never been shown more fully than in the last half century. In this period the Danes have shown remarkable co-operative strength; they have conquered the heath lands, developed their magnificent public-school system, and put their country in spick and span shape generally.
I soon had my fill of dungeons and things underground generally, so we went to the art gallery. Here, as one would expect, is a statue of Shakespeare. ”

“ In November the King of Denmark died. The death of the King of Denmark entirely changed the character of the question between Germany and Denmark. The question was a federal question before, as the noble lord, from the dispatches I have read, was perfectly aware; but by the death of the King of Denmark it became an international question, because the controversy of the King of Denmark was with the Diet of Germany, which had not recognized the change in the lex regia, or the changes in the succession to the various dominions of the King. ”

“ Canute the Dane was king of all the regions of the northwest of Europe. His kingdom embraced Denmark, England, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, and Cumberland. Such is the second wonderful period of Denmark’s history.
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF DENMARK.
Royal people, as well as “self-made men,” often undergo remarkable changes of fortune. No one, however high or low, is free from the accidents of this world. All men have surprises, either good or bad, in store for them. ”

“ Denmark when we have got away from the heroic age into the dawn of the true historical period, is definitely separated from Germany in the parts about the Eyder—perhaps by the river itself. It is Pagan and Anti-Imperial; the Danes being, in the eyes of the Carlovingians, little better than the hated Saxons. Nor is it ever an integral part of the Empire; though Danish and German alliances are common. ”

“ Besides Denmark proper, under the rule of the Danish king, are now the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and the Danish West Indies of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. The area of Denmark proper is 15,592 square miles; that of Iceland, Greenland and the West Indies 86,634 square miles, with a total population of 2,775,076. Denmark is separated from Norway on the north by the Skager Rack, from Sweden on the east by the Sound and the Cattegat, and on the south it is bounded by the Prussian provinces of Schleswig-Holstein. ”

“ The limited influence which Denmark has exercised over the destinies and international relations of the greater part of the European governments, the influx of travellers to the sunny south rather than to the bleak north, have tended, and united to prevent that intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of Denmark, which has taken place in regard to those of countries within more easy reach, and which are brought more prominently into contact with England. ”

“ This assumption is also supported by the fact that according to the incontrovertible testimony of Northern antiquities, there existed in the middle iron age a rich and varied culture in Denmark, in that very time to which doubtless the bloom of Norse poetry is to be referred. Denmark is, upon the whole, throughout antiquity the one of northern countries, which seems to have acted the most conspicuous part at least in the field of culture, since the waves and movements that passed over the North proceeded from Denmark, or at least reached this country first. ”

“ Denmark and Norway, as is known, are not distinguished by any remarkable extent of fertile and densely-populated country. The whole population in both those kingdoms does not at present amount to three millions; and in ancient times it scarcely seems to have been greater, even when the southern portion of the present kingdom of Sweden still belonged to Denmark. ”

“ Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of people,—about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are crowded—one-fourth of them,—into the city of Copenhagen, or they are gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. ”

“ Discontent and Dissidence Denmark is a well-knit democracy with an advanced system of social welfare. In ethnic origin and culture the Danes are extraordinarily homogenous. The country has one of the highest per capita gross national products in the world, little unemployment, and virtually no poverty. Neither the nation nor its citizens appear to have any significant grievances. ”

“ His astonishing talents were wasted on trifling themes and in a fruitless resistance to the modern spirit in literature.
Romanticism.—With the beginning of the 19th century the new light in philosophy and poetry, which radiated from Germany through all parts of Europe, found its way into Denmark also. In scarcely any country was the result so rapid or so brilliant. There arose in Denmark a school of poets who created for themselves a reputation in all parts of Europe, and would have done honour to any nation or any age. ”