Kitabı oku: «Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark», sayfa 10
If travelling, as the completion of a liberal education, were to be adopted on rational grounds, the northern states ought to be visited before the more polished parts of Europe, to serve as the elements even of the knowledge of manners, only to be acquired by tracing the various shades in different countries. But, when visiting distant climes, a momentary social sympathy should not be allowed to influence the conclusions of the understanding, for hospitality too frequently leads travellers, especially those who travel in search of pleasure, to make a false estimate of the virtues of a nation, which, I am now convinced, bear an exact proportion to their scientific improvements.
Adieu.
LETTER XX
I have formerly censured the French for their extreme attachment to theatrical exhibitions, because I thought that they tended to render them vain and unnatural characters; but I must acknowledge, especially as women of the town never appear in the Parisian as at our theatres, that the little saving of the week is more usefully expended there every Sunday than in porter or brandy, to intoxicate or stupify the mind. The common people of France have a great superiority over that class in every other country on this very score. It is merely the sobriety of the Parisians which renders their fêtes more interesting, their gaiety never becoming disgusting or dangerous, as is always the case when liquor circulates. Intoxication is the pleasure of savages, and of all those whose employments rather exhaust their animal spirits than exercise their faculties. Is not this, in fact, the vice, both in England and the northern states of Europe, which appears to be the greatest impediment to general improvement? Drinking is here the principal relaxation of the men, including smoking, but the women are very abstemious, though they have no public amusements as a substitute. I ought to except one theatre, which appears more than is necessary; for when I was there it was not half full, and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed much fancy in their dress.
The play was founded on the story of the “Mock Doctor;” and, from the gestures of the servants, who were the best actors, I should imagine contained some humour. The farce, termed ballet, was a kind of pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient to show the state of the dramatic art in Denmark, and the gross taste of the audience. A magician, in the disguise of a tinker, enters a cottage where the women are all busy ironing, and rubs a dirty frying-pan against the linen. The women raise a hue-and-cry, and dance after him, rousing their husbands, who join in the dance, but get the start of them in the pursuit. The tinker, with the frying-pan for a shield, renders them immovable, and blacks their cheeks. Each laughs at the other, unconscious of his own appearance; meanwhile the women enter to enjoy the sport, “the rare fun,” with other incidents of the same species.
The singing was much on a par with the dancing, the one as destitute of grace as the other of expression; but the orchestra was well filled, the instrumental being far superior to the vocal music.
I have likewise visited the public library and museum, as well as the palace of Rosembourg. This palace, now deserted, displays a gloomy kind of grandeur throughout, for the silence of spacious apartments always makes itself to be felt; I at least feel it, and I listen for the sound of my footsteps as I have done at midnight to the ticking of the death-watch, encouraging a kind of fanciful superstition. Every object carried me back to past times, and impressed the manners of the age forcibly on my mind. In this point of view the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished furniture is useful, for they may be considered as historical documents.
The vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable, whilst the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you who had here excited revelry after retiring from slaughter, or dismissed pageantry in search of pleasure. It seemed a vast tomb full of the shadowy phantoms of those who had played or toiled their hour out and sunk behind the tapestry which celebrated the conquests of love or war. Could they be no more—to whom my imagination thus gave life? Could the thoughts, of which there remained so many vestiges, have vanished quite away? And these beings, composed of such noble materials of thinking and feeling, have they only melted into the elements to keep in motion the grand mass of life? It cannot be!—as easily could I believe that the large silver lions at the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned. But avaunt! ye waking dreams! yet I cannot describe the curiosities to you.
There were cabinets full of baubles and gems, and swords which must have been wielded by giant’s hand. The coronation ornaments wait quietly here till wanted, and the wardrobe exhibits the vestments which formerly graced these shows. It is a pity they do not lend them to the actors, instead of allowing them to perish ingloriously.
I have not visited any other palace, excepting Hirsholm, the gardens of which are laid out with taste, and command the finest views the country affords. As they are in the modern and English style, I thought I was following the footsteps of Matilda, who wished to multiply around her the images of her beloved country. I was also gratified by the sight of a Norwegian landscape in miniature, which with great propriety makes a part of the Danish King’s garden. The cottage is well imitated, and the whole has a pleasing effect, particularly so to me who love Norway—its peaceful farms and spacious wilds.
The public library consists of a collection much larger than I expected to see; and it is well arranged. Of the value of the Icelandic manuscripts I could not form a judgment, though the alphabet of some of them amused me, by showing what immense labour men will submit to, in order to transmit their ideas to posterity. I have sometimes thought it a great misfortune for individuals to acquire a certain delicacy of sentiment, which often makes them weary of the common occurrences of life; yet it is this very delicacy of feeling and thinking which probably has produced most of the performances that have benefited mankind. It might with propriety, perhaps, be termed the malady of genius; the cause of that characteristic melancholy which “grows with its growth, and strengthens with its strength.”
There are some good pictures in the royal museum. Do not start, I am not going to trouble you with a dull catalogue, or stupid criticisms on masters to whom time has assigned their just niche in the temple of fame; had there been any by living artists of this country, I should have noticed them, as making a part of the sketches I am drawing of the present state of the place. The good pictures were mixed indiscriminately with the bad ones, in order to assort the frames. The same fault is conspicuous in the new splendid gallery forming at Paris; though it seems an obvious thought that a school for artists ought to be arranged in such a manner, as to show the progressive discoveries and improvements in the art.
A collection of the dresses, arms, and implements of the Laplanders attracted my attention, displaying that first species of ingenuity which is rather a proof of patient perseverance, than comprehension of mind. The specimens of natural history, and curiosities of art, were likewise huddled together without that scientific order which alone renders them useful; but this may partly have been occasioned by the hasty manner in which they were removed from the palace when in flames.
There are some respectable men of science here, but few literary characters, and fewer artists. They want encouragement, and will continue, I fear, from the present appearance of things, to languish unnoticed a long time; for neither the vanity of wealth, nor the enterprising spirit of commerce, has yet thrown a glance that way.
Besides, the Prince Royal, determined to be economical, almost descends to parsimony; and perhaps depresses his subjects, by labouring not to oppress them; for his intentions always seem to be good—yet nothing can give a more forcible idea of the dulness which eats away all activity of mind, than the insipid routine of a court, without magnificence or elegance.
The Prince, from what I can now collect, has very moderate abilities; yet is so well disposed, that Count Bernstorff finds him as tractable as he could wish; for I consider the Count as the real sovereign, scarcely behind the curtain; the Prince having none of that obstinate self-sufficiency of youth, so often the forerunner of decision of character. He and the Princess his wife, dine every day with the King, to save the expense of two tables. What a mummery it must be to treat as a king a being who has lost the majesty of man! But even Count Bernstorff’s morality submits to this standing imposition; and he avails himself of it sometimes, to soften a refusal of his own, by saying it is the will of the King, my master, when everybody knows that he has neither will nor memory. Much the same use is made of him as, I have observed, some termagant wives make of their husbands; they would dwell on the necessity of obeying their husbands, poor passive souls, who never were allowed to will, when they wanted to conceal their own tyranny.
A story is told here of the King’s formerly making a dog counsellor of state, because when the dog, accustomed to eat at the royal table, snatched a piece of meat off an old officer’s plate, he reproved him jocosely, saying that he, monsieur le chien, had not the privilege of dining with his majesty, a privilege annexed to this distinction.
The burning of the palace was, in fact, a fortunate circumstance, as it afforded a pretext for reducing the establishment of the household, which was far too great for the revenue of the Crown. The Prince Royal, at present, runs into the opposite extreme; and the formality, if not the parsimony, of the court, seems to extend to all the other branches of society, which I had an opportunity of observing; though hospitality still characterises their intercourse with strangers.
But let me now stop; I may be a little partial, and view everything with the jaundiced eye of melancholy—for I am sad—and have cause.
God bless you!
LETTER XXI
I have seen Count Bernstorff; and his conversation confirms me in the opinion I had previously formed of him; I mean, since my arrival at Copenhagen. He is a worthy man, a little vain of his virtue à la Necker; and more anxious not to do wrong, that is to avoid blame, than desirous of doing good; especially if any particular good demands a change. Prudence, in short, seems to be the basis of his character; and, from the tenor of the Government, I should think inclining to that cautious circumspection which treads on the heels of timidity. He has considerable information, and some finesse; or he could not be a Minister. Determined not to risk his popularity, for he is tenderly careful of his reputation, he will never gloriously fail like Struensee, or disturb, with the energy of genius, the stagnant state of the public mind.
I suppose that Lavater, whom he invited to visit him two years ago—some say to fix the principles of the Christian religion firmly in the Prince Royal’s mind, found lines in his face to prove him a statesman of the first order; because he has a knack at seeing a great character in the countenances of men in exalted stations, who have noticed him or his works. Besides, the Count’s sentiments relative to the French Revolution, agreeing with Lavater’s, must have ensured his applause.
The Danes, in general, seem extremely averse to innovation, and if happiness only consist in opinion, they are the happiest people in the world; for I never saw any so well satisfied with their own situation. Yet the climate appears to be very disagreeable, the weather being dry and sultry, or moist and cold; the atmosphere never having that sharp, bracing purity, which in Norway prepares you to brave its rigours. I do not hear the inhabitants of this place talk with delight of the winter, which is the constant theme of the Norwegians; on the contrary, they seem to dread its comfortless inclemency.
The ramparts are pleasant, and must have been much more so before the fire, the walkers not being annoyed by the clouds of dust which, at present, the slightest wind wafts from the ruins. The windmills, and the comfortable houses contiguous, belonging to the millers, as well as the appearance of the spacious barracks for the soldiers and sailors, tend to render this walk more agreeable. The view of the country has not much to recommend it to notice but its extent and cultivation: yet as the eye always delights to dwell on verdant plains, especially when we are resident in a great city, these shady walks should be reckoned amongst the advantages procured by the Government for the inhabitants. I like them better than the Royal Gardens, also open to the public, because the latter seem sunk in the heart of the city, to concentrate its fogs.
The canals which intersect the streets are equally convenient and wholesome; but the view of the sea commanded by the town had little to interest me whilst the remembrance of the various bold and picturesque shores I had seen was fresh in my memory. Still the opulent inhabitants, who seldom go abroad, must find the spots were they fix their country seats much pleasanter on account of the vicinity of the ocean.
One of the best streets in Copenhagen is almost filled with hospitals, erected by the Government, and, I am assured, as well regulated as institutions of this kind are in any country; but whether hospitals or workhouses are anywhere superintended with sufficient humanity I have frequently had reason to doubt.
The autumn is so uncommonly fine that I am unwilling to put off my journey to Hamburg much longer, lest the weather should alter suddenly, and the chilly harbingers of winter catch me here, where I have nothing now to detain me but the hospitality of the families to whom I had recommendatory letters. I lodged at an hotel situated in a large open square, where the troops exercise and the market is kept. My apartments were very good; and on account of the fire I was told that I should be charged very high; yet, paying my bill just now, I find the demands much lower in proportion than in Norway, though my dinners were in every respect better.
I have remained more at home since I arrived at Copenhagen than I ought to have done in a strange place, but the mind is not always equally active in search of information, and my oppressed heart too often sighs out—
“How dull, flat, and unprofitable
Are to me all the usages of this world:
That it should come to this!”
Farewell! Fare thee well, I say; if thou canst, repeat the adieu in a different tone.
LETTER XXII
I arrived at Corsoer the night after I quitted Copenhagen, purposing to take my passage across the Great Belt the next morning, though the weather was rather boisterous. It is about four-and-twenty miles but as both I and my little girl are never attacked by sea-sickness—though who can avoid ennui?—I enter a boat with the same indifference as I change horses; and as for danger, come when it may, I dread it not sufficiently to have any anticipating fears.
The road from Copenhagen was very good, through an open, flat country that had little to recommend it to notice excepting the cultivation, which gratified my heart more than my eye.
I took a barge with a German baron who was hastening back from a tour into Denmark, alarmed by the intelligence of the French having passed the Rhine. His conversation beguiled the time, and gave a sort of stimulus to my spirits, which had been growing more and more languid ever since my return to Gothenburg; you know why. I had often endeavoured to rouse myself to observation by reflecting that I was passing through scenes which I should probably never see again, and consequently ought not to omit observing. Still I fell into reveries, thinking, by way of excuse, that enlargement of mind and refined feelings are of little use but to barb the arrows of sorrow which waylay us everywhere, eluding the sagacity of wisdom and rendering principles unavailing, if considered as a breastwork to secure our own hearts.
Though we had not a direct wind, we were not detained more than three hours and a half on the water, just long enough to give us an appetite for our dinner.
We travelled the remainder of the day and the following night in company with the same party, the German gentleman whom I have mentioned, his friend, and servant. The meetings at the post-houses were pleasant to me, who usually heard nothing but strange tongues around me. Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of thoughts had nothing in common. Marguerite, it is true, was much amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless vanity, which thus produced a gaité du coeur worth all my philosophy!
The man I had hired at Copenhagen advised me to go round about twenty miles to avoid passing the Little Belt excepting by a ferry, as the wind was contrary. But the gentlemen overruled his arguments, which we were all very sorry for afterwards, when we found ourselves becalmed on the Little Belt ten hours, tacking about without ceasing, to gain the shore.
An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious, nay, almost insupportable. When I went on board at the Great Belt, I had provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining untouched I thought not then any such precaution necessary for the second passage, misled by the epithet of “little,” though I have since been informed that it is frequently the longest. This mistake occasioned much vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so bitterly for bread, that fancy conjured up before me the wretched Ugolino, with his famished children; and I, literally speaking, enveloped myself in sympathetic horrors, augmented by every fear my babe shed, from which I could not escape till we landed, and a luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed the spectres of fancy.
I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for ever—always a most melancholy death-like idea—a sort of separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us seems to be something torn from ourselves. These were strangers I remember; yet when there is any originality in a countenance, it takes its place in our memory, and we are sorry to lose an acquaintance the moment he begins to interest us, through picked up on the highway. There was, in fact, a degree of intelligence, and still more sensibility, in the features and conversation of one of the gentlemen, that made me regret the loss of his society during the rest of the journey; for he was compelled to travel post, by his desire to reach his estate before the arrival of the French.
This was a comfortable inn, as were several others I stopped at; but the heavy sandy roads were very fatiguing, after the fine ones we had lately skimmed over both in Sweden and Denmark. The country resembled the most open part of England—laid out for corn rather than grazing. It was pleasant, yet there was little in the prospects to awaken curiosity, by displaying the peculiar characteristics of a new country, which had so frequently stole me from myself in Norway. We often passed over large unenclosed tracts, not graced with trees, or at least very sparingly enlivened by them, and the half-formed roads seemed to demand the landmarks, set up in the waste, to prevent the traveller from straying far out of his way, and plodding through the wearisome sand.
The heaths were dreary, and had none of the wild charms of those of Sweden and Norway to cheat time; neither the terrific rocks, nor smiling herbage grateful to the sight and scented from afar, made us forget their length. Still the country appeared much more populous, and the towns, if not the farmhouses, were superior to those of Norway. I even thought that the inhabitants of the former had more intelligence—at least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their countenances than I had seen during my northern tour: their senses seemed awake to business and pleasure. I was therefore gratified by hearing once more the busy hum of industrious men in the day, and the exhilarating sounds of joy in the evening; for, as the weather was still fine, the women and children were amusing themselves at their doors, or walking under the trees, which in many places were planted in the streets; and as most of the towns of any note were situated on little bays or branches of the Baltic, their appearance as we approached was often very picturesque, and, when we entered, displayed the comfort and cleanliness of easy, if not the elegance of opulent, circumstances. But the cheerfulness of the people in the streets was particularly grateful to me, after having been depressed by the deathlike silence of those of Denmark, where every house made me think of a tomb. The dress of the peasantry is suited to the climate; in short, none of that poverty and dirt appeared, at the sight of which the heart sickens.
As I only stopped to change horses, take refreshment, and sleep, I had not an opportunity of knowing more of the country than conclusions which the information gathered by my eyes enabled me to draw, and that was sufficient to convince me that I should much rather have lived in some of the towns I now pass through than in any I had seen in Sweden or Denmark. The people struck me as having arrived at that period when the faculties will unfold themselves; in short; they look alive to improvement, neither congealed by indolence, nor bent down by wretchedness to servility.
From the previous impression—I scarcely can trace whence I received it—I was agreeably surprised to perceive such an appearance of comfort in this part of Germany. I had formed a conception of the tyranny of the petty potentates that had thrown a gloomy veil over the face of the whole country in my imagination, that cleared away like the darkness of night before the sun as I saw the reality. I should probably have discovered much lurking misery, the consequence of ignorant oppression, no doubt, had I had time to inquire into particulars; but it did not stalk abroad and infect the surface over which my eye glanced. Yes, I am persuaded that a considerable degree of general knowledge pervades this country, for it is only from the exercise of the mind that the body acquires the activity from which I drew these inferences. Indeed, the King of Denmark’s German dominions—Holstein—appeared to me far superior to any other part of his kingdom which had fallen under my view; and the robust rustics to have their muscles braced, instead of the, as it were, lounge of the Danish peasantry.
Arriving at Sleswick, the residence of Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel, the sight of the soldiers recalled all the unpleasing ideas of German despotism, which imperceptibly vanished as I advanced into the country. I viewed, with a mixture of pity and horror, these beings training to be sold to slaughter, or be slaughtered, and fell into reflections on an old opinion of mine, that it is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of the Deity throughout the whole of Nature. Blossoms come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their spawn where it will be devoured; and what a large portion of the human race are born merely to be swept prematurely away! Does not this waste of budding life emphatically assert that it is not men, but Man, whose preservation is so necessary to the completion of the grand plan of the universe? Children peep into existence, suffer, and die; men play like moths about a candle, and sink into the flame; war, and “the thousand ills which flesh is heir to,” mow them down in shoals; whilst the more cruel prejudices of society palsy existence, introducing not less sure though slower decay.
The castle was heavy and gloomy, yet the grounds about it were laid out with some taste; a walk, winding under the shade of lofty trees, led to a regularly built and animated town.
I crossed the drawbridge, and entered to see this shell of a court in miniature, mounting ponderous stairs—it would be a solecism to say a flight—up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all the generations of the Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been mustered rank and file, though not the phantoms of all the wretched they had bartered to support their state, unless these airy substances could shrink and expand, like Milton’s devils, to suit the occasion.
The sight of the presence-chamber, and of the canopy to shade the fauteuil which aped a throne, made me smile. All the world is a stage, thought I; and few are there in it who do not play the part they have learnt by rote; and those who do not, seem marks set up to be pelted at by fortune, or rather as sign-posts which point out the road to others, whilst forced to stand still themselves amidst the mud and dust.
Waiting for our horses, we were amused by observing the dress of the women, which was very grotesque and unwieldy. The false notion of beauty which prevails here as well as in Denmark, I should think very inconvenient in summer, as it consists in giving a rotundity to a certain part of the body, not the most slim, when Nature has done her part. This Dutch prejudice often leads them to toil under the weight of some ten or a dozen petticoats, which, with an enormous basket, literally speaking, as a bonnet, or a straw hat of dimensions equally gigantic, almost completely conceal the human form as well as face divine, often worth showing; still they looked clean, and tripped along, as it were, before the wind, with a weight of tackle that I could scarcely have lifted. Many of the country girls I met appeared to me pretty—that is, to have fine complexions, sparkling eyes, and a kind of arch, hoyden playfulness which distinguishes the village coquette. The swains, in their Sunday trim, attended some of these fair ones in a more slouching pace, though their dress was not so cumbersome. The women seem to take the lead in polishing the manners everywhere, this being the only way to better their condition.
From what I have seen throughout my journey, I do not think the situation of the poor in England is much, if at all, superior to that of the same class in different parts of the world; and in Ireland I am sure it is much inferior. I allude to the former state of England; for at present the accumulation of national wealth only increases the cares of the poor, and hardens the hearts of the rich, in spite of the highly extolled rage for almsgiving.
You know that I have always been an enemy to what is termed charity, because timid bigots, endeavouring thus to cover their sins, do violence to justice, till, acting the demigod, they forget that they are men. And there are others who do not even think of laying up a treasure in heaven, whose benevolence is merely tyranny in disguise; they assist the most worthless, because the most servile, and term them helpless only in proportion to their fawning.
After leaving Sleswick, we passed through several pretty towns; Itzchol particularly pleased me; and the country, still wearing the same aspect, was improved by the appearance of more trees and enclosures. But what gratified me most was the population. I was weary of travelling four or five hours, never meeting a carriage, and scarcely a peasant; and then to stop at such wretched huts as I had seen in Sweden was surely sufficient to chill any heart awake to sympathy, and throw a gloom over my favourite subject of contemplation, the future improvement of the world.
The farmhouses, likewise, with the huge stables, into which we drove whilst the horses were putting to or baiting, were very clean and commodious. The rooms, with a door into this hall-like stable and storehouse in one, were decent; and there was a compactness in the appearance of the whole family lying thus snugly together under the same roof that carried my fancy back to the primitive times, which probably never existed with such a golden lustre as the animated imagination lends when only able to seize the prominent features.
At one of them, a pretty young woman, with languishing eyes of celestial blue, conducted us into a very neat parlour, and observing how loosely and lightly my little girl was clad, began to pity her in the sweetest accents, regardless of the rosy down of health on her cheeks. This same damsel was dressed—it was Sunday—with taste and even coquetry, in a cotton jacket, ornamented with knots of blue ribbon, fancifully disposed to give life to her fine complexion. I loitered a little to admire her, for every gesture was graceful; and, amidst the other villagers, she looked like a garden lily suddenly rearing its head amongst grain and corn-flowers. As the house was small, I gave her a piece of money rather larger than it was my custom to give to the female waiters—for I could not prevail on her to sit down—which she received with a smile; yet took care to give it, in my presence, to a girl who had brought the child a slice of bread; by which I perceived that she was the mistress or daughter of the house, and without doubt the belle of the village. There was, in short, an appearance of cheerful industry, and of that degree of comfort which shut out misery, in all the little hamlets as I approached Hamburg, which agreeably surprised me.
