g icicles depending from
every corner of my beard. Yet our frozen noses appeared to be much
improved by the exposure, and began to give promise of healing without
leaving a red blotch as a lasting record of what they had endured. We
finally gave up all attempts to see or to guide the horse, but plunged
along at random through the chaos, until the postillion piloted our
baggage-sled into the inn-yard of Onska, and our horse followed it. The
Swede was close upon our heels, but I engaged a separate room, so that
we were freed from the depressing influence of his company. He may have
been the best fellow in the world, so far as his heart was concerned,
but was too weak in the knees to be an agreeable associate. There was no
more stiffness of fibre in him than in a wet towel, and I would as soon
wear a damp shirt as live in the same room with such a man. After all,
it is not strange that one prefers nerve and energy, even when they are
dashed with a flavour of vice, to the negative virtues of a character
too weak and insipid to be tempted.

Our inn, in this little Norrland village, was about as comfortable and
as elegant as three-fourths of the hotels in Stockholm. The rooms were
well furnished; none of the usual appliances were wanting; the
attendance was all that could be desired; the fare good and abundant,
and the charges less than half of what would be demanded in the capital.
Yet Stockholm, small as it is, claims to be for Sweden what Paris is to
France, and its inhabitants look with an eye of compassion on those of
the provinces. Norrland, in spite of its long winter, has a bracing,
healthy climate, and had it not been for letters from home, facilities
for studying Swedish, occasional recreation and the other attractions of
a capital, I should have preferred waiting in some of those wild valleys
for the spring to open. The people, notwithstanding their seclusion from
the world, have a brighter and more intelligent look than the peasants
of Uppland, and were there a liberal system of common school education
in Sweden, the raw material here might be worked up into products alike
honourable and useful to the country.

The Norrlanders seem to me to possess an indolent, almost phlegmatic
temperament, and yet there are few who do not show a latent capacity for
exertion. The latter trait, perhaps, is the true core and substance of
their nature; the former is an overgrowth resulting from habits and
circumstances. Like the pe