The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Soul of a Child, by Edwin Bjorkman

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Title: The Soul of a Child

Author: Edwin Bjorkman

Release Date: May 6, 2004 [EBook #12283]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE SOUL OF A CHILD

BY

EDWIN BJOeRKMAN

1922

CONTENTS

PART I.
PART II.
PART III.
PART IV.

PART I

I

The oldest part of Stockholm is a little rocky island. Once it was the
whole city. Popularly it is still spoken of as "The City." At one end of
it stands the huge square-cut pile of the Royal Palace, looking with
solemn indifference toward the more modern quarters across the ever
hurried waters of the North River. Nearer the centre, and at the very
top of the island, lies an open place called Great Square, which used to
play a most important part in Swedish history, but which now serves no
better purpose than to house the open-air toy market that operates the
last week before Christmas.

Long narrow streets loop concentrically about Great Square. They are
lined with massive structures of stone and brick, four and five stories
high, that used to be the homes of court and government officials, of
army and navy officers, of burghers made prosperous by an extensive
domestic and foreign trade, while on the ground floors were located the
choicest shops of the country's capital. The shops are still there, but
they have grown dingy and cheap, and they administer only to the casual
needs of the humble middle-class people crowded into the old-fashioned,
gloomy apartments above.

From the square to the water-fronts radiate a number of still more
narrow and squalid lanes, harbouring a population which is held inferior
to that of the streets in social rank without yet being willing to have
itself classed with the manual toilers of the suburbs. Halfway down the
slope of such a lane, and almost within the shadow of the palace, stood
the house where Keith first arrived at some sort of consciousness of
himself and the surrounding world.

On the fourth floor hi