that stupendous mountainous district
which in a stretch of a hundred and fifty geographical miles comprehends
all that nature possesses of magnificent, fruitful, lovely, and
charming. Here stands yet, as in the first days of the world, in Upper
Tellemark, the Fjellstuga, or rock-house, built by an invisible hand,
and whose icy walls and towers that hand alone can overthrow: here
still, as in the morning of time, meet together at Midsummer, upon the
snowy foreheads of the ancient mountains, the rose-tint of morning and
the rose-tint of evening for a brotherly kiss; still roar as then the
mountain torrents which hurl themselves into the abyss; still reflect
the ice-mirrors of the glaciers the same objects--now delighting, now
awakening horror; and still to-day, even as then, are there Alpine
tracts which the foot of man never ascended: valleys of wood, "lonesome
cells of nature," upon which only the eagle and the Midsummer-sun have
looked down. Here is the old, ever young, Norway; here the eye of the
beholder is astonished, but his heart expands itself; he forgets his own
suffering, his own joy, forgets all that is trivial, whilst with a holy
awe he has a feeling that "the shadow of God wanders through nature."

In the heart of Norway lies this country. Is the soul wearied with the
tumults of the world or fatigued with the trifles of poor every-day
life--is it depressed by the confined atmosphere of the room,--with the
dust of books, the dust of company, or any other kind of dust (there are
in the world so many kinds, and they all cover the soul with a great
dust mantle); or is she torn by deep consuming passions,--then fly, fly
towards the still heart of Norway, listen there to the fresh mighty
throbbing of the heart of nature; alone with the quiet, calm, and yet so
eloquent, objects of nature, and there wilt thou gain strength and life!
There falls no dust. Fresh and clear stand the thoughts of life there,
as in the days of their creation. "Wilt thou behold the great and the
majestic? Behold the Gausta, which raises its colossal knees six
thousand feet above the surface of the earth; behold the wild giant
forms of Hurrungen, Fannarauken, Mugnafjeld; behold the Rjukan (the
rushing), the Voering, and Vedal rivers foaming and thundering over the
mountains and plunging down in the abysses! And wilt though delight
thyself in the charming, the beautiful? They exist among these fruitful
scenes in peaceful solitude. The Saeter-