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.
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