Swede

“ This is the heart of your country, Clement. All the change you have in your pocket is coined here, and the postage stamps you stick on your letters are made here. There is something here for every Swede. Here no one need feel homesick, for here all Swedes are at home.
"And when you read of all that has been brought here to Stockholm, think too of the latest that the city has attracted to itself: these old-time peasant cottages here at Skansen; the old dances; the old costumes and house-furnishings; the musicians and story-tellers. ”

“ To the melancholy trait in the Swedish character is contrasted a great desire for the pleasures of life and exuberant animal spirits. Under a quiet surface, the Swede conceals a rapid [Pg 10] comprehension and an almost morbid sensitiveness, sometimes causing people of other nationalities to judge him slow of intellect or perfidious, when he is only slow of action or indisposed to show his feelings. The most valuable inheritance from his ancestors is his moral courage, while the ancient Northern trait of self-restraint is often carried to an extreme. ”

“ THE SWEDES AT WORK Let us now have a peep at the Swede at work, for, although he is very fond of pleasure, he is very hard-working and industrious, and is taking a foremost place among the manufacturers of the world.
Although only about one-tenth of the country is under cultivation, nearly one-half of the people are engaged in the fields. ”

“ The Swede of the seventeenth century and the Swede of the nineteenth century are essentially one in character, for two hundred years have wrought less change in him than in his cousins of Germany and England. ”

“ Sweden has its wild beasts as well as its ordinary game,—he who destroys a wolf or a bear is a public benefactor, and Moodie had a peculiar talent for tracking them. Every farmer within a hundred miles of Gäddebäck would pull off his hat to him; but that is not saying much, for a Swede is always pulling off his hat, and if he had nothing else to pull it off to he would be making his salaams to the cows and sheep. ”

“ Another name that is honoured by every true Swede, and by many who are not Swedes, is Gustavus Adolphus I. He is chiefly and justly held in honour because of what he did for the Protestant cause [Pg 6] in Europe. The Protestant Princes had lost heart, as they had suffered very much at the hands of Generals Tilly and Wallenstein. Gustavus resolved to go to the aid of the Princes. With only 13,000 Swedes he set sail, but as soon as he reached Germany, large numbers of men joined his army. ”

“ Their general is their god, and they follow him or desert him just according as he leads them to victory and plunder, or to defeat. They march from country to country, selling their services to whichever side they think will give them the richest booty. Swedes! I can assure you, there is not a Swede left in the Swedish army, or, at all events, very few. ”

“ Our party consisted of the captain, the chief officer, who was his brother-in-law, the Pole, who was a second-cousin of Kosciusko, and had a name consisting of eight consonants and two vowels, a grave young Swede with a fresh Norse complexion, and our two selves. The steward, Hildebrand, and the silent [Pg 15] stewardess, Marie, were our attendants and purveyors. The ship's officers were rather slow and opaque, and the Swede sublimely self-possessed and indifferent ”

“ The Swede called out a number of times before he could obtain a reply from the village, and then only because he had been expected, so fearful are the natives of voices out of the darkness of the night. He helped Jane Clayton ashore with the baby, tied the boat to a small bush, and picking up their blankets, led her toward the boma. ”

“ Here is the nature that the Swedes love so profoundly: the mountains in which are buried vast deposits of ore and fertilizing minerals, the woods and fields still unexhausted of their wealth, the waters with hidden incalculable energy. ”

“ Their star shall rise with brighter beam
From slumbering in the ocean-stream.
[Pg 136] Dalecarlia, grasp the spear!
Hail thy great Deliverer near,
To alter Sweden's doom!
Born to raise her darken'd name,
Heir of all her former fame,
And source of all to come,
Past and future glories shine
Centred in the youth divine.
Sweden, rise! I bid thee brave,
Unappall'd, War's dubious wave,
'Till the doom'd period close!
War in vain shall spend his rage,
Prelude to a peaceful age
That shall redress his woes.
Sweden! rouse thy martial band ”

“ But how much better, to call themselves Swedes?—to preserve the fine, manly characteristics of their ancient stock, rather than imitate a people so alien to them in blood, in character, and in antecedents. ”

“ Very few foreigners travel in Sweden in the winter, on account of the intense cold. As you go northward from Stockholm, the capital, the country becomes ruder and wilder, and the climate more severe. In the sheltered valleys along the Gulf of Bothnia and the rivers which empty into it, there are farms and villages for a distance of seven or eight hundred miles, after which fruit-trees disappear, and nothing will grow in the short, cold summers except potatoes and a little barley. ”

“ Sweden, in the winter, is as different from the same country in the summer as Connaught from Paradise. In the winter, they are fiddling, and dancing, and singing, from night to morn, and from morn to snowy eve. There is not much else to do, as you say, that is the truth of it, unless one happens to hear of a bear ”

“ What a different country that Sweden was which Charles XII. left in August, 1699, at the very summit of her political grandeur, to the impoverished and suffering Sweden in which he had now landed! And what a different man he had himself become during these sixteen years of absence! Sweden had won a new hero king, of greater fame than any of his predecessors or successors, but lost her prosperity for the time being and her political grandeur forever. The people received the king with demonstrations of joy and with reviving hope for an honorable peace. ”

“ Proofs of extensive Scandinavian settlement in Russia are to be found partly in the Russian names assigned to the Dnieper rapids by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, partly in references to this people made by foreign representatives at the court of Byzantium. The fact that many of the names which occur in Russian chronicles seem to be peculiarly Swedish suggests that Sweden was the home of the settlers, and the best authorities consider that the original Scandinavian conquerors were Swedes who had settled on the east coast of the Baltic. ”

“ However, as I did not come to Sweden to inculcate my peculiar principles, I refrained from calling attention to the fact—which is very patent to all who have any sort of knowledge of Swedish history—that a large proportion of the men and women who have made Scandinavia the truly great land that it is, and whose memory all Scandinavians delight to honor, were of the so-called “common people.” ”

“ The sacred word of ancient prophecy,—
"When gather'd mists from Denmark's sky shall crowd,
And blot the North with one continued cloud,
Then shall a second sun to Sweden rise,
And with unchanging glory gild her skies."
Reflect on this, and let my words have way,
Nor spurn the needful counsels of delay.
[Pg 101] Should all our province with united strength
Assail the foe, the foe may yield at length,
And backward shrink, while in the favouring hour
All Sweden aids us with collective power. ”

“ Sweden, which towards the west is separated from Denmark only by the Sound and Cattegat, is in like manner towards the east separated from the vast plains of northern Europe by a confined and narrow sea. When, therefore, the thirst of glory and conquest urged the Swedish warriors from their homes, it was only necessary for them to cross over to the opposite shores, or at most to sail along the coasts of the Baltic. In Sweden, forests, valleys, and rivers, are the most prominent natural features, whilst the sea is but a subordinate one. ”

“ No great character had arisen in Sweden of exalted fame, neither king nor poet, nor philosopher, nor even singer. The little kingdom, to all appearance, was rich only in mines of iron and hills of snow. It was not till the middle of the sixteenth century that Sweden was even delivered from base dependence on Denmark. ”

“ The sun set; but even here again all wore a northern aspect; it was cold and without that splendid glow of colouring which is so general in American sunsets.
Returning to the log-house, we spent the evening, one and twenty Swedes altogether, in games, songs, and dancing, exactly as if in Sweden. I had during the whole time of my journey to the West, been conning over in my mind a speech which I would make to my countrymen in the West; I thought how I would bear to them a salutation from their mother country, and exhort them to create a new Sweden, in that new land! ”

“ I do not wish to be understood as saying a word in censure of that genial courtesy which is characteristic of the Swedes, not less of the bonder, or country farmers, than of the nobility. They are by nature a courteous people, and if, throughout the country, something of the primness and formality of ancient manners has been preserved, it the rather serves to give a quaint and picturesque grace to society. ”

“ I saw the north, the south, and the central parts of Sweden, its east and its west, illumined by rays of light which till then had not penetrated them; and the popular consciousness and popular life guided by representatives, worthy through their knowledge and their personal character to represent each individual province in its peculiarities and its life, as a portion of a great whole, of a country, a people with an inheritance as large as the former history of Sweden; with a future which may emulate in human greatness that of the greatest people on the earth. ”

“ With their many virtues, the Swedes are a most self-helping people. They are hard-working and honest, true and straightforward. In matters of commerce they are men of their word. They are clear-headed, honest-minded, and keen in their desire for knowledge. Their natural simple common sense enables them to clear away all parasitical and traditional rubbish from their minds, and to stand before us as men of the highest excellence. All happiness and prosperity to dear old Sweden! ”

“ In his days there was peace in Sweden, and he became rich in valuable goods. King Onund went with his army to Estland to avenge his father, and landed and ravaged the country round far and wide, and returned with a great booty in autumn to Sweden. In his time there were fruitful seasons in Sweden, so that he was one of the most popular of kings. Sweden is a great forest land, and there are such great uninhabited forests in it that it is a journey of many days to cross them. ”

“ Modern Sweden is bounded by the Baltic; during the 17th century the Baltic was merely the bond between her various widely dispersed dominions. All the islands in the Baltic, except the Danish group, belonged to Sweden. The estuaries of all the great German rivers (for the Niemen and Vistula are properly Polish rivers) debouched in Swedish territory, within which also lay two-thirds of Lake Ladoga and one-half of Lake Peipus. Stockholm, the capital, lay in the very centre of the empire, whose second greatest city was Riga, on theother side of the sea. ”

“ Sweden is politically united with Norway and ruled by the same king, these united kingdoms forming the largest realm in Europe next to Russia, Sweden herself ranking as the sixth in size.
Sweden is a country which offers striking varieties in scenery and conditions. In the southernmost province of Scania, an ancient home of culture, the nightingale and the stork dwell in the fertile plains, and the walnut, mulberry and chestnut trees render ripening fruit. Central Sweden is a wooded plateau, rich in rocky hills and inland seas. ”

“ Heartfelt kindness and hospitality, seriousness and mirth in pure family life; these characteristics of Swedish life, where it is good, should be transplanted into the Western wilderness by the Swedish colonists, as they are in this instance. That day among the Swedes by Pine Lake; that splendid old lady; those handsome, warm-hearted men; those lovely, modest, and kind young women; that affectionate domestic life; that rich hospitality in poor cottagers,—all are to me a pledge of it. The Swedes must continue to be Swedes, even in the New World ”

“ If you have ever read the history of Sweden—I fear you have not—you will remember that certain of the Swedes were always revolting against the established order of things. These were the Dalecarlians. Sometimes they were in the right, and other times they were not; but they never lacked the courage of their convictions. With sufficiently strong convictions always came revolt. ”

“ You have still some hours to journey before you reach Gothenburg, the second city of Sweden. The steamer threads its way through a crowd of rocky islands, very bare, barren, and desolate, with scarcely any vegetation. Here and there can be seen a lonely fisherman’s hut, painted red, and perhaps an occasional lighthouse. If it be a Sunday afternoon or a holiday, there is plenty of life. There in summer can be seen hundreds of men and women bathing in the water, or basking in the open air on the banks of the river or on the islands. ”

“ Henceforth till her collapse, seventy years later, she was the recognized leader of Continental Protestantism. A more questionable benefit was her rapid elevation to the rank of an imperial power, an elevation which imposed the duty of remaining a military monarchy, armed cap-à-pie for every possible emergency. Every one recognizes now that the poverty and sparse population of Sweden unfitted her for such a tremendous destiny. ”