Swedish people

“ PREFACE The Swedish people are a hospitable, peace-loving race, kindly and industrious, making the most of their resources. In the south of Sweden are broad farming-lands with well-tilled fields and comfortable red farmhouses; in the central portion are hills and dales, rich in mines of copper and iron which have been famous for hundreds of years. In the cities and towns are factories where thousands of workers are employed, making all sorts of useful articles, from matches to steam-engines. ”

“ An interest in the Swedish people, their language, their literature and history; the important part the traditions of a people play in their history, character and domestic life, and that the traditions of the world play in its history and that of mankind, and that I would, if possible, add to the growing interest in that far-away, beautiful country, and that generous, hospitable people, have been the incentives to the labor involved in this translation; a labor not unmixed with pleasure, and not a little of that pleasure coming from the encouragement of my Swedish acquaintances. ”

“ The mass of the Swedish people was penetrated by a justifiable fear that the external, artificial greatness of their country might, in the long run, be purchased with the loss of their civil and political liberties. ”

“ Swedish tongue, and to exchange the indifference and reserve of Norway for the friendly, genial, courteous manner of Sweden. What I have said about the formality and affectation of manners, and the rigidity of social etiquette, in the chapters relating to Stockholm, was meant to apply especially to the capital. Far be it from me to censure that natural and spontaneous courtesy which is a characteristic of the whole people. The more I see of the Swedes, the more I am convinced that there is no kinder, simpler, and honester people in the world. ”

“ We have already seen how completely, in the centuries preceding the Reformation, the Church in Sweden had freed herself from all authority of the people, and had gradually accumulated for herself a vast amount of wealth. ”

“ The heroism of the Swedish people during the preceding period of suffering and distress bore fruit in [Pg 321] men like Emanuel Swedenborg, the inventor, naturalist, philosopher and founder of a new religion; Charles Linnæus; the founder of modern botany; Andrew Celsius, Junior, the inventor of the centigrade thermometer; John Ahlstrœmer, the pioneer of industry; John Ihre, the able philologist, and Olof von Dalin, the poet, humorist, and, with Sven Lagerbring, the first modern historian of Sweden. ”

“ The Swedish people are of Teutonic stock and have lived in the land they still inhabit for at least four thousand years, during this entire period not having assimilated other nationalities, or at least to no extent worth mentioning, so that the Swedish nation is of an origin far purer than any other at present existing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No northern people understand as well as the Swedes how to conduct a procession, a festival, a public ceremony, a grand entrance, or a coronation, with the tout ensemble requisite to secure a good effect. To this national love of representation, whose nursery gardens, from readily intelligible reasons, were always the Church and the universities, corresponds a peculiar kind of national, festive eloquence. Swedish eloquence is at the same time more pathetic and more pompous than that of the other Scandinavian people. ”

“ The United States of America receive a large majority of the emigrants, and only a very small percentage returns. The Swedish people belong to the Scandinavian branch, but the population includes in the north about 20,000 Finns and 7000 Lapps. Other foreigners, however, are few, and the population is as a whole homogeneous. ”

“ And on the left hand of our line shall the men be whom the Swedish king gave us, together with all the people who came to us in Sweden; and they shall have the third banner. I will also have the people divide themselves into distinct flocks or parcels, so that relations and acquaintances should be together; for thus they defend each other best, and know each other. We will have all our men distinguished by a mark, so as to be a field-token upon their helmets and shields, by painting the holy cross thereupon with white colour. ”

“ What has Sweden done for the preservation and promotion of all that which is typically Swedish among her emigrated sons and daughters in America? The answer is: Practically nothing. In fact, one might say with a good deal of truth that the people at home always have done, and are still doing, their level best to minimize and destroy the cultural efforts of their nationals in this country. Swedish authors and publishers are charging all that the trade will stand. Their slogan seems to be, "Let the Swedish-Americans pay". ”

“ The Forn-Svenskan, or Old Swedish, can scarcely be said to have lost its status as the spoken tongue of the people till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when, with the emancipation of Sweden from the dominion of Denmark, and its political and social regeneration under Gustaf Vasa, a new era began in the language, as well as in the political and national life of the people. ”

“ Those who think it is possible and desirable to establish a second Sweden herein America are greatly mistaken. But we Swedish-Americans should try to preserve the best of what we brought with us from the old country, especially the language, and we are doing just that. ”

“ Thus far, we had no difficulty: my scanty stock of Swedish went a great way, and I began to understand with more facility, even the broad Norrland dialect.
The people of this region are noble specimens of the physical man—tall, broad-shouldered, large-limbed, ruddy and powerful; and they are mated with women who, I venture to say, do not even suspect the existence of a nervous system. The natural consequences of such health are: morality and honesty—to say nothing of the quantities of rosy and robust children which bless every household. ”

“ America also exerts a great influence on the mental and moral development of the people of Sweden, although this may not be so apparent on the surface. The thousands and hundreds of thousands of letters written every year by Swedish-Americans to the people of the working classes of Sweden arouse the latter’s ambition, and develop liberal, political and religious ideas among them. ”

“ In early times, before civilization had advanced enough to give [Pg 7] everybody continuous employment, most people spent their leisure moments in making war. Hence the Swedish kings, whose duty it was to keep the peace, could accomplish that result only by having a large retinue of armed warriors at their command. The expense which this entailed was great. Meantime the crown estates had continually increased in number through merger of private estates of different kings, through crown succession to estates of foreigners dying without descendants in the realm, and through other sources. ”

“ If we take a retrospective view of the development of this nature in whose rich soil the germs of genius and insanity lay as close together as in a double nut, we shall see the vigorous and cheerful temperament burst forth like a spark of fire from the flint-like ground of the Swedish peasantry. He draws nourishment from the natural beauties of Sweden and from the old sagas of Scandinavia. He raves about deeds of valor and combat, and expresses his enthusiasm in language of flame-gilded imagery. ”

“ Those meaningless social courtesies which sit well enough upon the gay, volatile, mercurial Frenchman, seem absurd affectations when practiced by the tall, grave, sedate Scandinavian. The intelligent Swedes feel this, but they are powerless to make headway against the influence of a court which was wholly French, even before Bernadotte's time. "We are a race of apes," said one of them to me bitterly. Gustavus III. was thoroughly French in his tastes, but the ruin of Swedish nationality in Stockholm was already commenced when he ascended the throne. ”

“ The name of Sweden is not even mentioned, a fact which does not point to a narrow or antiquated form of patriotism. There is in the nature of the Swedes a tendency to delight in the display of dignified luxury, which was known to Tacitus. The Swedes love to see the crown of one of the oldest states of Europe carried with dignity as an emblem of their ancient independence. The Swedish king has in reality less power than the President of the United States, but the Swedes have an inherited faculty of confidence and loyalty of which their king receives his full share. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Swedes are no more Swedes than I am; else how could I have understood the oaths of the Swedish dragoon that fired at me to-day? He swore in good round German, and it was one of the most wonderful oaths I ever heard. He said'—
The journeyman sprang up hastily, and put his hand before the lad's mouth. 'Silence!' he cried earnestly. 'Do not repeat the oath you heard to any one. When a man has once heard a wicked thing, it sticks in his memory for years. It is the good things we find so hard to remember. But to return to the Swedes. Their anger against us is not altogether without excuse. ”

“ The tidings of the manner in which the new king of Sweden occupied himself spread to the neighboring monarchs, who, fancying that they had nothing to fear from a frivolous and pleasure-loving boy, deemed this a good opportunity to recover some of the lands conquered from them by the preceding Swedish kings. ”

“ Her possessions made the Baltic almost an “inland lake of Sweden,” and efforts soon followed to make it completely so. Sweden exerted a beneficent influence throughout her large [Pg 230] possessions, which, from a cultural point of view, hardly can be overestimated. Her methods of planting the seeds of culture, by establishing Swedish and German universities, and by abolishing serfdom in the conquered lands, are worthy of the highest respect. But with her new political grandeur Sweden acquired formidable enemies ”

“ During the more than eighty years of peace which Sweden has enjoyed under the rule of the Bernadotte dynasty, she has developed her constitutional liberty and her material prosperity in a high degree. The dreams of glory by conquest belong to days gone by, but in the fields of peaceable industries she has attained a greatness which the world begins to realize. At the expositions of Paris in 1867, 1878 and 1889, of Vienna in 1873, of Philadelphia in 1876 and of Chicago in 1893, Swedish industry and art have taken part with honor in the international competition. ”

“ No matter which way he turned, he heard only rumors of fresh preparations to conquer Sweden. When guests visited the castle, they talked from morn till night of the splendid armaments of Christiern. On one occasion he heard them declare that so soon as Sweden fell, her aristocracy were to be put to the sword and their wives and daughters parted out among the peasantry of Denmark. The Swedish peasants, they said, would soon learn to drive the plough with one arm and a wooden leg. ”

“ And the qualities which one finds in the Swedish peasants in general are noticeable to a marked degree in the Dalecarlians, who are regarded by scientists as the purest representatives of the old Swedish type. They are exceedingly independent and democratic. They seem to feel that they are second to none. In times past, in recognition of their services in establishing the freedom of Sweden, they had the privilege of shaking hands with the king whenever they met him, and they regard themselves as his equal. ”

“ The Period of “Liberty,” viz., of an Aristocratic Republic, was the golden era of Swedish science, the latter for the first time becoming of universal fame and of universal importance. The scientists of this period belong to the fathers of modern research, basing their conclusions upon personal observation, in strong contrast to their fathers and precursors of the chauvinistic barocco period.
Emanuel Swedenborg, the most remarkable man whom Sweden has ever brought forth, was born in Stockholm, June 29, 1688. ”