In fact, the laws here, as well as in Norway, are so relaxed that
they rather favour than restrain knavery.
Whilst I was at Gothenburg, a man who had been confined for breaking
open his master's desk and running away with five or six thousand
rix-dollars, was only sentenced to forty days' confinement on bread
and water; and this slight punishment his relations rendered
nugatory by supplying him with more savoury food.
The Swedes are in general attached to their families, yet a divorce
may be obtained by either party on proving the infidelity of the
other or acknowledging it themselves. The women do not often recur
to this equal privilege, for they either retaliate on their husbands
by following their own devices or sink into the merest domestic
drudges, worn down by tyranny to servile submission. Do not term me
severe if I add, that after youth is flown the husband becomes a
sot, and the wife amuses herself by scolding her servants. In fact,
what is to be expected in any country where taste and cultivation of
mind do not supply the place of youthful beauty and animal spirits?
Affection requires a firmer foundation than sympathy, and few people
have a principle of action sufficiently stable to produce rectitude
of feeling; for in spite of all the arguments I have heard to
justify deviations from duty, I am persuaded that even the most
spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle
than weak people are willing to allow.
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