The Want Of Scientific Pursuits Perhaps Accounts For The
Hospitality, As Well As For The Cordial Reception Which Strangers
Receive From The Inhabitants Of Small Towns.
Hospitality has, I think, been too much praised by travellers as a
proof of goodness of heart, when, in
My opinion, indiscriminate
hospitality is rather a criterion by which you may form a tolerable
estimate of the indolence or vacancy of a head; or, in other words,
a fondness for social pleasures in which the mind not having its
proportion of exercise, the bottle must be pushed about.
These remarks are equally applicable to Dublin, the most hospitable
city I ever passed through. But I will try to confine my
observations more particularly to Sweden.
It is true I have only had a glance over a small part of it; yet of
its present state of manners and acquirements I think I have formed
a distinct idea, without having visited the capital - where, in fact,
less of a national character is to be found than in the remote parts
of the country.
The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being
the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome
forms and ceremonies. So far, indeed, from entering immediately
into your character, and making you feel instantly at your ease,
like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is a continual
restraint on all your actions. The sort of superiority which a
fortune gives when there is no superiority of education, excepting
what consists in the observance of senseless forms, has a contrary
effect than what is intended; so that I could not help reckoning the
peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who, only aiming at
pleasing you, never think of being admired for their behaviour.
Their tables, like their compliments, seem equally a caricature of
the French. The dishes are composed, as well as theirs, of a
variety of mixtures to destroy the native taste of the food without
being as relishing. Spices and sugar are put into everything, even
into the bread; and the only way I can account for their partiality
to high-seasoned dishes is the constant use of salted provisions.
Necessity obliges them to lay up a store of dried fish and salted
meat for the winter; and in summer, fresh meat and fish taste
insipid after them. To which may be added the constant use of
spirits. Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the
dishes are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-
table; and to obtain an appetite eat bread-and-butter, cheese, raw
salmon, or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat
then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As
the dinner advances, pardon me for taking up a few minutes to
describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the
stretch observing, dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation,
and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but should you
happen not to like the first dishes, which was often my case, it is
a gross breach of politeness to ask for part of any other till its
turn comes.
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