tion>Sydney Clark, Francis E. Clark
The Charm of Scandinavia
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066135027
Table of Contents
PHILLIPS WRITES OF SWEDEN AND FINLAND
AYLMER WRITES OF NORWAY AND DENMARK
PHILLIPS WRITES OF SWEDEN AND FINLAND
FIRST LETTER
In which Phillips descants on his route to Scandinavia from Berlin; on the gastronomic delights of a Swedish railway restaurant; on the lavish comfort and economy as well as the safety of travel in Sweden; on the quiet charms of the scenery in southern Sweden, as well as on the well-earned social position and independence of the Swedish farmer.
Stockholm, January 1.
My dear Judicia,
You have brought this upon yourself, you know, for it was your proposition that Aylmer and I should try to make you feel the charm of Scandinavia as we have felt it. But do not suppose that we are going to enter upon a contest of wits in order to make our respective countries shine upon the written page, or that we are going to indulge in high-flown descriptions. We shall try to tell you of things as we see them; of the peasant in his low-thatched roof, who is as interesting as the king in his palace. We may not even think it beneath our dignity to tell you of the Smörgåsbörd, and of the different kinds of cheese of many colors which grace the breakfast table, for all these different, homely, commonplace things enter into the spell of Scandinavia.
As you know, we started on this long northern journey at Berlin. This trip has been robbed of all its terrors, since keen competition has compelled the railway and steamboat companies to exchange the little Dampfschiff, little bigger than tugboats, which used to connect Germany with Scandinavia, for great ferry steamers, which take within their capacious maws whole railway trains, so that now we can go to sleep in Berlin, in a very comfortable sofwagn, and wake up the next morning on Swedish soil, with no consciousness of the fact that in the middle of the night we had a four hours’ voyage across a bit of blue sea which is often as stormy as the broad Atlantic itself.
You remember that I wrote you about a former journey across this same bit of water during an equinoctial gale, how our boat was tossed about like a cork, how the port was stove in, and I was washed out of my bunk. Well, last night I was reminded of that former journey by contrast, for I never knew when we were trundled aboard ship at Sassnitz, or when
