I Like To See
Animals Sporting, And Sympathise In Their Pains And Pleasures.
Still I Love Sometimes To View The Human Face Divine, And Trace The
Soul, As Well As The Heart, In Its Varying Lineaments.
A journey to the country, which I must shortly make, will enable me
to extend my remarks.
- Adieu!
LETTER V.
Had I determined to travel in Sweden merely for pleasure, I should
probably have chosen the road to Stockholm, though convinced, by
repeated observation, that the manners of a people are best
discriminated in the country. The inhabitants of the capital are
all of the same genus; for the varieties in the species we must,
therefore, search where the habitations of men are so separated as
to allow the difference of climate to have its natural effect. And
with this difference we are, perhaps, most forcibly struck at the
first view, just as we form an estimate of the leading traits of a
character at the first glance, of which intimacy afterwards makes us
almost lose sight.
As my affairs called me to Stromstad (the frontier town of Sweden)
in my way to Norway, I was to pass over, I heard, the most
uncultivated part of the country. Still I believe that the grand
features of Sweden are the same everywhere, and it is only the grand
features that admit of description. There is an individuality in
every prospect, which remains in the memory as forcibly depicted as
the particular features that have arrested our attention; yet we
cannot find words to discriminate that individuality so as to enable
a stranger to say, this is the face, that the view. We may amuse by
setting the imagination to work; but we cannot store the memory with
a fact.
As I wish to give you a general idea of this country, I shall
continue in my desultory manner to make such observations and
reflections as the circumstances draw forth, without losing time, by
endeavouring to arrange them.
Travelling in Sweden is very cheap, and even commodious, if you make
but the proper arrangements. Here, as in other parts of the
Continent, it is necessary to have your own carriage, and to have a
servant who can speak the language, if you are unacquainted with it.
Sometimes a servant who can drive would be found very useful, which
was our case, for I travelled in company with two gentlemen, one of
whom had a German servant who drove very well. This was all the
party; for not intending to make a long stay, I left my little girl
behind me.
As the roads are not much frequented, to avoid waiting three or four
hours for horses, we sent, as is the constant custom, an avant
courier the night before, to order them at every post, and we
constantly found them ready. Our first set I jokingly termed
requisition horses; but afterwards we had almost always little
spirited animals that went on at a round pace.
The roads, making allowance for the ups and downs, are uncommonly
good and pleasant.
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