The severity of the
long Swedish winter tends to render the people sluggish, for though this season
has its peculiar pleasures, too much time is employed to guard against its
inclemency. Still as warm clothing is absolutely necessary, the women
spin and the men weave, and by these exertions get a fence to keep out the
cold. I have rarely passed a knot of cottages without seeing cloth laid
out to bleach, and when I entered, always found the women spinning or knitting.
A mistaken
tenderness, however, for their children, makes them even in summer load them
with flannels, and having a sort of natural antipathy to cold water, the
squalid appearance of the poor babes, not to speak of the noxious smell which
flannel and rugs retain, seems a reply to a question I had often asked—Why I
did not see more children in the villages I passed through? Indeed the
children appear to be nipt in the bud, having neither
the graces nor charms of their age. And this, I am persuaded, is much
more owing to the ignorance of the mothers than to the rudeness of the
climate. Rendered feeble by the continual perspiration they are kept in,
whilst every pore is absorbing unwholesome moisture, they give them, even at
the breast, brandy, salt fish, and every other crude substance which air and
exercise enables the parent to digest.
The women of fortune
here, as well as everywhere else, have nurses to suckle their children; and the
total want of chastity in the lower class of women frequently renders them very
unfit for the trust.
You have sometimes
remarked to me the difference of the manners of the country girls in England
and in America; attributing the reserve of the former to the climate—to the
absence of genial suns. But it must be their stars, not the zephyrs,
gently stealing on their senses, which here lead frail women astray. Who
can look at these rocks, and allow the voluptuousness of nature to be an excuse
for gratifying the desires it inspires? We must therefore, find some other
cause beside voluptuousness, I believe, to account for the conduct of the
Swedish and American country girls; for I am led to conclude, from all the
observations I have made, that there is always a mixture of sentiment and
imagination in voluptuousness, to which neither of them have much pretension.
The country girls of
Ireland and Wales equally feel the first impulse of nature, which, restrained
in England by fear or delicacy, proves that society is there in a more advanced
state. Besides, as the mind is cultivated, and taste gains ground, the
passions become stronger, and rest on something more stable than the casual
sympathies of the moment. Health and idleness will always account for
promiscuous amours; and in some degree I term every person
idle, the exercise of whose mind does not bear some proportion to that of the
body.
The Swedish ladies
exercise neither sufficiently; of course, grow very fat at an early age; and
when they have not this downy appearance, a comfortable idea, you will say, in
a cold climate, they are not remarkable for fine forms. They have,
however, mostly fine complexions; but indolence makes the lily soon displace
the rose. The quantity of coffee, spices, and other
things of that kind, with want of care, almost universally spoil their teeth,
which contrast but ill with their ruby lips.
The manners of
Stockholm are refined, I hear, by the introduction of gallantry; but in the
country, romping and coarse freedoms, with coarser allusions, keep the spirits
awake. In the article of cleanliness, the women of all descriptions seem
very deficient; and their dress shows that vanity is more inherent in women
than taste.
The men appear to
have paid still less court to the graces. They are a robust, healthy
race, distinguished for their common sense and turn for humour,
rather than for wit or sentiment. I include not, as you may suppose, in
this general character, some of the nobility and officers, who having
travelled, are polite and well informed.
I must own to you
that the lower class of people here amuse and interest me much more than the
middling, with their apish good breeding and prejudices. The sympathy and
frankness of heart conspicuous in the peasantry produces even a simple
gracefulness of deportment which has frequently struck me as very picturesque;
I have often also been touched by their extreme desire to oblige me, when I
could not explain my wants, and by their earnest manner of expressing that
desire. There is such a charm in tenderness! It is so delightful to
love our fellow-creatures, and meet the honest affections as they break
forth. Still, my good friend, I begin to think that I should not like to
live continually in the country with people whose minds have such a narrow
range. My heart would frequently be interested; but my mind would
languish for more companionable society.
The beauties of
nature appear to me now even more alluring than in my youth, because my
intercourse with the world has formed without vitiating my taste. But,
with respect to the inhabitants of the country, my fancy has probably, when
disgusted with artificial manners, solaced itself by joining the advantages of
cultivation with the interesting sincerity of innocence, forgetting the
lassitude that ignorance will naturally produce. 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!