despised at the large theatres, but which thirty
years ago the public ran to see, and cried over--those pieces I now
make use of. I now present them before the young folks; and the young
folks--they cry just as their fathers and mothers used to do. I give
'Johanna Montfakon' and 'Dyveke,' but abbreviated; for the little
folks do not like long, twaddling love-stories. They must have it
unfortunate--but it must be brief. Now that I have travelled through
Denmark, both to the right and left, I know everybody and am known
again. Now I have come to Sweden, and if I am successful and gain much
money, I will be a Scandinavian, if the humour hold; and this I tell
you, as you are my countryman."

And I, as his countryman, naturally tell it again--only for the sake
of telling it.

THE "SKJAeRGAARDS."

* * * * *

The canal voyage through Sweden goes at first constantly upwards,
through elvs and lakes, forests and rocky land. From the heights we
look down on vast extents of forest-land and large waters, and by
degrees the vessel sinks again down through mountain torrents. At Mem
we are again down by the salt fiord: a solitary tower raises its head
between the remains of low, thick walls--it is the ruins of Stegeberg.
The coast is covered to a great extent with dark, melancholy forests,
which enclose small grass-grown valleys. The screaming sea-gulls fly
around our vessel; we are by the Baltic; we feel the fresh sea-breeze:
it blows as in the times of the ancient heroes, when the sea-kings,
sons of high-born fathers, exercised their deeds here. The same sea's
surface then appeared to them as now to us, with its numberless isles,
which lie strewed about here in the water by thousands along the whole
coast. The depth of water between the rocky isles and the solid land
is that we call "The Skjaergaards:" their waters flow into each other
with varying splendour. We see it in the sunshine, and it is like a
large English landscape garden; but the greensward plain is here the
deep sea, the flower-beds in it are rocks and reefs, rich in firs and
pines, oaks and bushes. Mark how, when the wind blows from the east,
and the sea breaks over sunken rocks and is dashed back again in spray
from the cliffs, your limbs feel--even through the ship on which you
stand--the power of the sea: you are lifted as if by supernatural
hands.

We rush on against wind and sea, as if it were the sea-god's snorting
horse