Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

LETTER XI

I left Portoer, the little haven I mentioned, soon after I finished my last letter.  The sea was rough, and I perceived that our pilot was right not to venture farther during a hazy night.  We had agreed to pay four dollars for a boat from Helgeraac.  I mention the sum, because they would demand twice as much from a stranger.  I was obliged to pay fifteen for the one I hired at Stromstad.  When we were ready to set out, our boatman offered to return a dollar and let us go in one of the boats of the place, the pilot who lived there being better acquainted with the coast.  He only demanded a dollar and a half, which was reasonable.  I found him a civil and rather intelligent man; he was in the American service several years, during the Revolution.

I soon perceived that an experienced mariner was necessary to guide us, for we were continually obliged to tack about, to avoid the rocks, which, scarcely reaching to the surface of the water, could only be discovered by the breaking of the waves over them.

The view of this wild coast, as we sailed along it, afforded me a continual subject for meditation.  I anticipated the future improvement of the world, and observed how much man has still to do to obtain of the earth all it could yield.  I even carried my speculations so far as to advance a million or two of years to the moment when the earth would perhaps be so perfectly cultivated, and so completely peopled, as to render it necessary to inhabit every spot—yes, these bleak shores.  Imagination went still farther, and pictured the state of man when the earth could no longer support him.  Whither was he to flee from universal famine?  Do not smile; I really became distressed for these fellow creatures yet unborn.  The images fastened on me, and the world appeared a vast prison.  I was soon to be in a smaller one—for no other name can I give to Rusoer.  It would be difficult to form an idea of the place, if you have never seen one of these rocky coasts.

We were a considerable time entering amongst the islands, before we saw about two hundred houses crowded together under a very high rock—still higher appearing above.  Talk not of Bastilles!  To be born here was to be bastilled by nature—shut out from all that opens the understanding, or enlarges the heart.  Huddled one behind another, not more than a quarter of the dwellings even had a prospect of the sea.  A few planks formed passages from house to house, which you must often scale, mounting steps like a ladder to enter.

The only road across the rocks leads to a habitation sterile enough, you may suppose, when I tell you that the little earth on the adjacent ones was carried there by the late inhabitant.  A path, almost impracticable for a horse, goes on to Arendall, still further to the westward.

I inquired for a walk, and, mounting near two hundred steps made round a rock, walked up and down for about a hundred yards viewing the sea, to which I quickly descended by steps that cheated the declivity.  The ocean and these tremendous bulwarks enclosed me on every side.  I felt the confinement, and wished for wings to reach still loftier cliffs, whose slippery sides no foot was so hardy as to tread.  Yet what was it to see?—only a boundless waste of water—not a glimpse of smiling nature—not a patch of lively green to relieve the aching sight, or vary the objects of meditation.

I felt my breath oppressed, though nothing could be clearer than the atmosphere.  Wandering there alone, I found the solitude desirable; my mind was stored with ideas, which this new scene associated with astonishing rapidity.  But I shuddered at the thought of receiving existence, and remaining here, in the solitude of ignorance, till forced to leave a world of which I had seen so little, for the character of the inhabitants is as uncultivated, if not as picturesquely wild, as their abode.

Having no employment but traffic, of which a contraband trade makes the basis of their profit, the coarsest feelings of honesty are quickly blunted.  You may suppose that I speak in general terms; and that, with all the disadvantages of nature and circumstances, there are still some respectable exceptions, the more praiseworthy, as tricking is a very contagious mental disease, that dries up all the generous juices of the heart.  Nothing genial, in fact, appears around this place, or within the circle of its rocks.  And, now I recollect, it seems to me that the most genial and humane characters I have met with in life were most alive to the sentiments inspired by tranquil country scenes.  What, indeed, is to humanise these beings, who rest shut up (for they seldom even open their windows), smoking, drinking brandy, and driving bargains?  I have been almost stifled by these smokers.  They begin in the morning, and are rarely without their pipe till they go to bed.  Nothing can be more disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening—breath, teeth, clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt.  It is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands.  Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be confined to so small a part of the world; and, entre nous, I am of the same opinion.  You must not term this innuendo saucy, for it does not come home.

If I had not determined to write I should have found my confinement here, even for three or four days, tedious.  I have no books; and to pace up and down a small room, looking at tiles overhung by rocks, soon becomes wearisome.  I cannot mount two hundred steps to walk a hundred yards many times in the day.  Besides, the rocks, retaining the heat of the sun, are intolerably warm.  I am, nevertheless, very well; for though there is a shrewdness in the character of these people, depraved by a sordid love of money which repels me, still the comparisons they force me to make keep my heart calm by exercising my understanding.

Everywhere wealth commands too much respect, but here almost exclusively; and it is the only object pursued, not through brake and briar, but over rocks and waves; yet of what use would riches be to me, I have sometimes asked myself, were I confined to live in such in a spot?  I could only relieve a few distressed objects, perhaps render them idle, and all the rest of life would be a blank.

My present journey has given fresh force to my opinion that no place is so disagreeable and unimproving as a country town.  I should like to divide my time between the town and country; in a lone house, with the business of farming and planting, where my mind would gain strength by solitary musing, and in a metropolis to rub off the rust of thought, and polish the taste which the contemplation of nature had rendered just.  Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best laid plans.  A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge.  How few authors or artists have arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment?

I was interrupted yesterday by business, and was prevailed upon to dine with the English vice-consul.  His house being open to the sea, I was more at large; and the hospitality of the table pleased me, though the bottle was rather too freely pushed about.  Their manner of entertaining was such as I have frequently remarked when I have been thrown in the way of people without education, who have more money than wit—that is, than they know what to do with.  The women were unaffected, but had not the natural grace which was often conspicuous at Tonsberg.  There was even a striking difference in their dress, these having loaded themselves with finery in the style of the sailors’ girls of Hull or Portsmouth.  Taste has not yet taught them to make any but an ostentatious display of wealth.  Yet I could perceive even here the first steps of the improvement which I am persuaded will make a very obvious progress in the course of half a century, and it ought not to be sooner, to keep pace with the cultivation of the earth.  Improving manners will introduce finer moral feelings.  They begin to read translations of some of the most useful German productions lately published, and one of our party sung a song ridiculing the powers coalesced against France, and the company drank confusion to those who had dismembered Poland.

The evening was extremely calm and beautiful.  Not being able to walk, I requested a boat as the only means of enjoying free air.

The view of the town was now extremely fine.  A huge rocky mountain stood up behind it, and a vast cliff stretched on each side, forming a semicircle.  In a recess of the rocks was a clump of pines, amongst which a steeple rose picturesquely beautiful.

The churchyard is almost the only verdant spot in the place.  Here, indeed, friendship extends beyond the grave, and to grant a sod of earth is to accord a favour.  I should rather choose, did it admit of a choice, to sleep in some of the caves of the rocks, for I am become better reconciled to them since I climbed their craggy sides last night, listening to the finest echoes I ever heard.  We had a French horn with us, and there was an enchanting wildness in the dying away of the reverberation that quickly transported me to Shakespeare’s magic island.  Spirits unseen seemed to walk abroad, and flit from cliff to cliff to soothe my soul to peace.

I reluctantly returned to supper, to be shut up in a warm room, only to view the vast shadows of the rocks extending on the slumbering waves.  I stood at the window some time before a buzz filled the drawing-room, and now and then the dashing of a solitary oar rendered the scene still more solemn.

Before I came here I could scarcely have imagined that a simple object (rocks) could have admitted of so many interesting combinations, always grand and often sublime.  Good night!  God bless you!

LETTER XII

I left East Rusoer the day before yesterday.  The weather was very fine; but so calm that we loitered on the water near fourteen hours, only to make about six and twenty miles.

It seemed to me a sort of emancipation when we landed at Helgeraac.  The confinement which everywhere struck me whilst sojourning amongst the rocks, made me hail the earth as a land of promise; and the situation shone with fresh lustre from the contrast—from appearing to be a free abode.  Here it was possible to travel by land—I never thought this a comfort before—and my eyes, fatigued by the sparkling of the sun on the water, now contentedly reposed on the green expanse, half persuaded that such verdant meads had never till then regaled them.

I rose early to pursue my journey to Tonsberg.  The country still wore a face of joy—and my soul was alive to its charms.  Leaving the most lofty and romantic of the cliffs behind us, we were almost continually descending to Tonsberg, through Elysian scenes; for not only the sea, but mountains, rivers, lakes, and groves, gave an almost endless variety to the prospect.  The cottagers were still carrying home the hay; and the cottages on this road looked very comfortable.  Peace and plenty—I mean not abundance—seemed to reign around—still I grew sad as I drew near my old abode.  I was sorry to see the sun so high; it was broad noon.  Tonsberg was something like a home—yet I was to enter without lighting up pleasure in any eye.  I dreaded the solitariness of my apartment, and wished for night to hide the starting tears, or to shed them on my pillow, and close my eyes on a world where I was destined to wander alone.  Why has nature so many charms for me—calling forth and cherishing refined sentiments, only to wound the breast that fosters them?  How illusive, perhaps the most so, are the plans of happiness founded on virtue and principle; what inlets of misery do they not open in a half-civilised society?  The satisfaction arising from conscious rectitude, will not calm an injured heart, when tenderness is ever finding excuses; and self-applause is a cold solitary feeling, that cannot supply the place of disappointed affection, without throwing a gloom over every prospect, which, banishing pleasure, does not exclude pain.  I reasoned and reasoned; but my heart was too full to allow me to remain in the house, and I walked, till I was wearied out, to purchase rest—or rather forgetfulness.

Employment has beguiled this day, and to-morrow I set out for Moss, on my way to Stromstad.  At Gothenburg I shall embrace my Fannikin; probably she will not know me again—and I shall be hurt if she do not.  How childish is this! still it is a natural feeling.  I would not permit myself to indulge the “thick coming fears” of fondness, whilst I was detained by business.  Yet I never saw a calf bounding in a meadow, that did not remind me of my little frolicker.  A calf, you say.  Yes; but a capital one I own.

I cannot write composedly—I am every instant sinking into reveries—my heart flutters, I know not why.  Fool!  It is time thou wert at rest.

Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.  Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing.  As objects merely to exercise my taste, I therefore like to see people together who have an affection for each other; every turn of their features touches me, and remains pictured on my imagination in indelible characters.  The zest of novelty is, however, necessary to rouse the languid sympathies which have been hackneyed in the world; as is the factitious behaviour, falsely termed good-breeding, to amuse those, who, defective in taste, continually rely for pleasure on their animal spirits, which not being maintained by the imagination, are unavoidably sooner exhausted than the sentiments of the heart.  Friendship is in general sincere at the commencement, and lasts whilst there is anything to support it; but as a mixture of novelty and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall with the slender stay.  The fop in the play paid a greater compliment than he was aware of when he said to a person, whom he meant to flatter, “I like you almost as well as a new acquaintance.”  Why am I talking of friendship, after which I have had such a wild-goose chase.  I thought only of telling you that the crows, as well as wild-geese, are here birds of passage.

LETTER XIII

I left Tonsberg yesterday, the 22nd of August.  It is only twelve or thirteen English miles to Moss, through a country less wild than any tract I had hitherto passed over in Norway.  It was often beautiful, but seldom afforded those grand views which fill rather than soothe the mind.

We glided along the meadows and through the woods, with sunbeams playing around us; and, though no castles adorned the prospects, a greater number of comfortable farms met my eyes during this ride than I have ever seen, in the same space, even in the most cultivated part of England; and the very appearance of the cottages of the labourers sprinkled amidst them excluded all those gloomy ideas inspired by the contemplation of poverty.

The hay was still bringing in, for one harvest in Norway treads on the heels of the other.  The woods were more variegated, interspersed with shrubs.  We no longer passed through forests of vast pines stretching along with savage magnificence.  Forests that only exhibited the slow decay of time or the devastation produced by warring elements.  No; oaks, ashes, beech, and all the light and graceful tenants of our woods here sported luxuriantly.  I had not observed many oaks before, for the greater part of the oak-planks, I am informed, come from the westward.

In France the farmers generally live in villages, which is a great disadvantage to the country; but the Norwegian farmers, always owning their farms or being tenants for life, reside in the midst of them, allowing some labourers a dwelling rent free, who have a little land appertaining to the cottage, not only for a garden, but for crops of different kinds, such as rye, oats, buck-wheat, hemp, flax, beans, potatoes, and hay, which are sown in strips about it, reminding a stranger of the first attempts at culture, when every family was obliged to be an independent community.

These cottagers work at a certain price (tenpence per day) for the farmers on whose ground they live, and they have spare time enough to cultivate their own land and lay in a store of fish for the winter.  The wives and daughters spin and the husbands and sons weave, so that they may fairly be reckoned independent, having also a little money in hand to buy coffee, brandy and some other superfluities.

The only thing I disliked was the military service, which trammels them more than I at first imagined.  It is true that the militia is only called out once a year, yet in case of war they have no alternative but must abandon their families.  Even the manufacturers are not exempted, though the miners are, in order to encourage undertakings which require a capital at the commencement.  And, what appears more tyrannical, the inhabitants of certain districts are appointed for the land, others for the sea service.  Consequently, a peasant, born a soldier, is not permitted to follow his inclination should it lead him to go to sea, a natural desire near so many seaports.

In these regulations the arbitrary government—the King of Denmark being the most absolute monarch in Europe—appears, which in other respects seeks to hide itself in a lenity that almost renders the laws nullities.  If any alteration of old customs is thought of, the opinion of the old country is required and maturely considered.  I have several times had occasion to observe that, fearing to appear tyrannical, laws are allowed to become obsolete which ought to be put in force or better substituted in their stead; for this mistaken moderation, which borders on timidity, favours the least respectable part of the people.

I saw on my way not only good parsonage houses, but comfortable dwellings, with glebe land for the clerk, always a consequential man in every country, a being proud of a little smattering of learning, to use the appropriate epithet, and vain of the stiff good-breeding reflected from the vicar, though the servility practised in his company gives it a peculiar cast.

The widow of the clergyman is allowed to receive the benefit of the living for a twelvemonth after the death of the incumbent.

Arriving at the ferry (the passage over to Moss is about six or eight English miles) I saw the most level shore I had yet seen in Norway.  The appearance of the circumjacent country had been preparing me for the change of scene which was to greet me when I reached the coast.  For the grand features of nature had been dwindling into prettiness as I advanced; yet the rocks, on a smaller scale, were finely wooded to the water’s edge.  Little art appeared, yet sublimity everywhere gave place to elegance.  The road had often assumed the appearance of a gravelled one, made in pleasure-grounds; whilst the trees excited only an idea of embellishment.  Meadows, like lawns, in an endless variety, displayed the careless graces of nature; and the ripening corn gave a richness to the landscape analogous with the other objects.

Never was a southern sky more beautiful, nor more soft its gales.  Indeed, I am led to conclude that the sweetest summer in the world is the northern one, the vegetation being quick and luxuriant the moment the earth is loosened from its icy fetters and the bound streams regain their wonted activity.  The balance of happiness with respect to climate may be more equal than I at first imagined; for the inhabitants describe with warmth the pleasures of a winter at the thoughts of which I shudder.  Not only their parties of pleasure but of business are reserved for this season, when they travel with astonishing rapidity the most direct way, skimming over hedge and ditch.

On entering Moss I was struck by the animation which seemed to result from industry.  The richest of the inhabitants keep shops, resembling in their manners and even the arrangement of their houses the tradespeople of Yorkshire; with an air of more independence, or rather consequence, from feeling themselves the first people in the place.  I had not time to see the iron-works, belonging to Mr. Anker, of Christiania, a man of fortune and enterprise; and I was not very anxious to see them after having viewed those at Laurvig.

Here I met with an intelligent literary man, who was anxious to gather information from me relative to the past and present situation of France.  The newspapers printed at Copenhagen, as well as those in England, give the most exaggerated accounts of their atrocities and distresses, but the former without any apparent comments or inferences.  Still the Norwegians, though more connected with the English, speaking their language and copying their manners, wish well to the Republican cause, and follow with the most lively interest the successes of the French arms.  So determined were they, in fact, to excuse everything, disgracing the struggle of freedom, by admitting the tyrant’s plea, necessity, that I could hardly persuade them that Robespierre was a monster.

The discussion of this subject is not so general as in England, being confined to the few, the clergy and physicians, with a small portion of people who have a literary turn and leisure; the greater part of the inhabitants having a variety of occupations, being owners of ships, shopkeepers, and farmers, have employment enough at home.  And their ambition to become rich may tend to cultivate the common sense which characterises and narrows both their hearts and views, confirming the former to their families, taking the handmaids of it into the circle of pleasure, if not of interest, and the latter to the inspection of their workmen, including the noble science of bargain-making—that is, getting everything at the cheapest, and selling it at the dearest rate.  I am now more than ever convinced that it is an intercourse with men of science and artists which not only diffuses taste, but gives that freedom to the understanding without which I have seldom met with much benevolence of character on a large scale.

Besides, though you do not hear of much pilfering and stealing in Norway, yet they will, with a quiet conscience, buy things at a price which must convince them they were stolen.  I had an opportunity of knowing that two or three reputable people had purchased some articles of vagrants, who were detected.  How much of the virtue which appears in the world is put on for the world?  And how little dictated by self-respect?—so little, that I am ready to repeat the old question, and ask, Where is truth, or rather principle, to be found?  These are, perhaps, the vapourings of a heart ill at ease—the effusions of a sensibility wounded almost to madness.  But enough of this; we will discuss the subject in another state of existence, where truth and justice will reign.  How cruel are the injuries which make us quarrel with human nature!  At present black melancholy hovers round my footsteps; and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects, which hope no longer gilds.

A rainy morning prevented my enjoying the pleasure the view of a picturesque country would have afforded me; for though this road passed through a country a greater extent of which was under cultivation than I had usually seen here, it nevertheless retained all the wild charms of Norway.  Rocks still enclosed the valleys, the great sides of which enlivened their verdure.  Lakes appeared like branches of the sea, and branches of the sea assumed the appearance of tranquil lakes; whilst streamlets prattled amongst the pebbles and the broken mass of stone which had rolled into them, giving fantastic turns to the trees, the roots of which they bared.

It is not, in fact, surprising that the pine should be often undermined; it shoots its fibres in such a horizontal direction, merely on the surface of the earth, requiring only enough to cover those that cling to the crags.  Nothing proves to me so clearly that it is the air which principally nourishes trees and plants as the flourishing appearance of these pines.  The firs, demanding a deeper soil, are seldom seen in equal health, or so numerous on the barren cliffs.  They take shelter in the crevices, or where, after some revolving ages, the pines have prepared them a footing.