Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Wollstonecraft Mary

resumed an aspect ruder and ruder, or rather seemed the bones of the world waiting to be clothed with everything necessary to give life and beauty.  Still it was sublime.

      The clouds caught their hue of the rocks that menaced them.  The sun appeared afraid to shine, the birds ceased to sing, and the flowers to bloom; but the eagle fixed his nest high amongst the rocks, and the vulture hovered over this abode of desolation.  The farm houses, in which only poverty resided, were formed of logs scarcely keeping off the cold and drifting snow: out of them the inhabitants seldom peeped, and the sports or prattling of children was neither seen or heard.  The current of life seemed congealed at the source: all were not frozen, for it was summer, you remember; but everything appeared so dull that I waited to see ice, in order to reconcile me to the absence of gaiety.

      The day before, my attention had frequently been attracted by the wild beauties of the country we passed through.

      The rocks which tossed their fantastic heads so high were often covered with pines and firs, varied in the most picturesque manner.  Little woods filled up the recesses when forests did not darken the scene, and valleys and glens, cleared of the trees, displayed a dazzling verdure which contrasted with the gloom of the shading pines.  The eye stole into many a covert where tranquillity seemed to have taken up her abode, and the number of little lakes that continually presented themselves added to the peaceful composure of the scenery.  The little cultivation which appeared did not break the enchantment, nor did castles rear their turrets aloft to crush the cottages, and prove that man is more savage than the natives of the woods.  I heard of the bears but never saw them stalk forth, which I was sorry for; I wished to have seen one in its wild state.  In the winter, I am told, they sometimes catch a stray cow, which is a heavy loss to the owner.

      The farms are small.  Indeed most of the houses we saw on the road indicated poverty, or rather that the people could just live.  Towards the frontiers they grew worse and worse in their appearance, as if not willing to put sterility itself out of countenance.  No gardens smiled round the habitations, not a potato or cabbage to eat with the fish drying on a stick near the door.  A little grain here and there appeared, the long stalks of which you might almost reckon.  The day was gloomy when we passed over this rejected spot, the wind bleak, and winter seemed to be contending with nature, faintly struggling to change the season.  Surely, thought I, if the sun ever shines here it cannot warm these stones; moss only cleaves to them, partaking of their hardness, and nothing like vegetable life appears to cheer with hope the heart.

      So far from thinking that the primitive inhabitants of the world lived in a southern climate where Paradise spontaneously arose, I am led to infer, from various circumstances, that the first dwelling of man happened to be a spot like this which led him to adore a sun so seldom seen; for this worship, which probably preceded that of demons or demigods, certainly never began in a southern climate, where the continual presence of the sun prevented its being considered as a good; or rather the want of it never being felt, this glorious luminary would carelessly have diffused its blessings without being hailed as a benefactor.  Man must therefore have been placed in the north, to tempt him to run after the sun, in order that the different parts of the earth might be peopled.  Nor do I wonder that hordes of barbarians always poured out of these regions to seek for milder climes, when nothing like cultivation attached them to the soil, especially when we take into the view that the adventuring spirit, common to man, is naturally stronger and more general during the infancy of society.  The conduct of the followers of Mahomet, and the crusaders, will sufficiently corroborate my assertion.

      Approaching nearer to Stromstad, the appearance of the town proved to be quite in character with the country we had just passed through.  I hesitated to use the word country, yet could not find another; still it would sound absurd to talk of fields of rocks.

      The town was built on and under them.  Three or four weather-beaten trees were shrinking from the wind, and the grass grew so sparingly that I could not avoid thinking Dr. Johnson’s hyperbolical assertion “that the man merited well of his country who made a few blades of grass grow where they never grew before,” might here have been uttered with strict propriety.  The steeple likewise towered aloft, for what is a church, even amongst the Lutherans, without a steeple?  But to prevent mischief in such an exposed situation, it is wisely placed on a rock at some distance not to endanger the roof of the church.

      Rambling about, I saw the door open, and entered, when to my great surprise I found the clergyman reading prayers, with only the clerk attending.  I instantly thought of Swift’s “Dearly beloved Roger,” but on inquiry I learnt that some one had died that morning, and in Sweden it is customary to pray for the dead.