“A vigorous and cultivated intellect easily accommodates itself to new occupations. The notion that individual genius can only excel in one thing is a vulgar error. A mind endued by nature with strong powers and quick sensibility, and by culture furnished in an uncommon degree with habits of attention and reflection, wherever it is placed will find itself employment, and whatever it undertakes will execute it well. After the repeated proofs which the ingenious and justly admired writer of these letters has given the public, that her talents are far above the ordinary level, it will not be thought surprising that she could excel in different kinds of writing; that the qualifications which have enabled her to instruct young people by moral lessons and tales, and to furnish the philosopher with original and important speculations, should also empower her to entertain and interest the public in a manner peculiarly her own by writing a book of travels.
“We have no hesitation in assuring our readers that Mrs. Wollstonecraft has done this in the present volume.”
The qualities most desirable in a writer of travels are quickness of perception, active interest in the places and people described, appreciation of local color, a nice sense of discrimination, and a pleasant, simple style. It is true that occasionally affected and involved phrases occur in Mary’s letters from the North, and that the tone of many passages is a trifle too sombre. But the former defects are much less glaring and fewer in number than those of her earlier writings; while, when it is remembered that during her journey her heart was heavy-laden with disappointment and despair, her melancholy reflections must be forgiven her. With the exception of these really trifling shortcomings, she may be said to have ably fulfilled the required conditions. It may be asserted of her, in almost the identical words which Heine uses in praise of Goethe’s “Italian Journey,” that she, during her travels, saw all things, the dark and the light, colored nothing with her individual feelings, and pictured the land and its people in the true outlines and true colors in which God clothed it.
Determined to avoid the mistake common to most travellers, of speaking from feeling rather than from reason, she shows her readers the virtues and faults of the people among whom she travelled, without overestimating the former or exaggerating the latter. She found Swedes and Norwegians unaffected and hospitable, but sensual and indolent. Both good and evil she attributes to the influence of climate and to the comparatively low stage of culture attained in these northern countries. The long winter nights, she explains in her letters, have made the people sluggish. Their want of interest in politics, literature, and scientific pursuits have concentrated their attention upon the pleasures of the senses. They are hospitable because of the excitement and social amusements hospitality insures. They care for the flesh-pots of Egypt because they have not yet heard of the joys of the Promised Land. The women of the upper classes are so indolent that they exercise neither mind nor body; consequently the former has but a narrow range, the latter soon loses all beauty. The men seek no relaxation from their business occupations save in Brobdingnagian dinners and suppers. If they are godly, they are never cleanly, cleanliness requiring an effort of which they are incapable. Indolence and indifference to culture throughout Sweden and Norway are the chief characteristics of the natives.
To Mary the coarseness of the people seemed the more unbearable because of the wonderful beauty of their country as she saw it in midsummer. She could not understand their continued indifference to its loveliness. Her own keen enjoyment of it shows itself in all her letters. She constantly pauses in relating her experiences to dwell upon the grandeur of cliffs and sea, upon the impressive wildness of certain districts, full of great pine-covered mountains and endless fir woods, contrasting with others more gentle and fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and rye. She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the living picture do not escape her notice. She records the musical tinkling of distant cow-bells and the mournful cry of the bittern. She even tells how she sometimes, when she is out in her boat, lays down her oars that she may examine the purple masses of jelly-fish floating in the water. Truly, her ways were not as those of the Philistines around her.
The following extract from a letter written from Gothenburg gives a good idea of the impression made upon her by the moral ugliness and natural beauty which she met wherever she went. The passage is characteristic, since its themes are the two to which she most frequently recurs:—
“... Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the dishes are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table, and, to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw salmon or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As the dinner advances,—pardon me for taking up a few minutes to describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the stretch, observing,—dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but should you happen not to like the first dishes, which was often my case, it is a gross breach of politeness to ask for part of any other till its turn comes. But have patience, and there will be eating enough. Allow me to run over the acts of a visiting day, not overlooking the interludes.
“Prelude, a luncheon; then a succession of fish, flesh, and fowl for two hours; during which time the dessert —I was sorry for the strawberries and cream—rests on the table to be impregnated by the fumes of the viands. Coffee immediately follows in the drawing-room, but does not preclude punch, ale, tea and cakes, raw salmon, etc. A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. A day of this kind you would imagine sufficient—but a to-morrow and a to-morrow. A never-ending, still-beginning feast may be bearable, perhaps, when stern Winter frowns, shaking with chilling aspect his hoary locks; but during a summer sweet as fleeting, let me, my kind strangers, escape sometimes into your fir groves, wander on the margin of your beautiful lakes, or climb your rocks to view still others in endless perspective; which, piled by more than giant’s hand, scale the heavens to intercept its rays, or to receive the parting tinge of lingering day,—day that, scarcely softened into twilight, allows the freshening breeze to wake, and the moon to burst forth in all her glory to glide with solemn elegance through the azure expanse.
“The cow’s bell has ceased to tinkle the herd to rest; they have all paced across the heath. Is not this the witching time of night? The waters murmur, and fall with more than mortal music, and spirits of peace walk abroad to calm the agitated breast. Eternity is in these moments; worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of; and reveries, mild and enchanting as the first hopes of love, or the recollection of lost enjoyment, carry the hapless wight into futurity, who, in bustling life, has vainly strove to throw off the grief which lies heavy at the heart. Good-night! A crescent hangs out in the vault before, which [wooes] me to stray abroad: it is not a silvery reflection of the sun, but glows with all its golden splendor. Who fears the falling dew? It only makes the mown grass smell more fragrant.”
As might be expected, judging from Mary’s natural benevolence, the poverty and misery she saw during her journey awakened feelings of deep compassion. She describes in tones of pity the wretched condition of the lower classes in Sweden. Servants, she writes, are no better than slaves. They are beaten and maltreated by their masters, and are paid so little that they cannot afford to wear sufficient clothing or to eat decent food. Laborers live in huts wretched beyond belief, and herd together like animals. They have so accustomed themselves to a stifling atmosphere, that fresh air is never let into their houses even in summer, and the mere idea of cleanliness is beyond their comprehension. Indolence is their failing as well as that of their superiors in rank. Many in their brutishness refuse to exert themselves save to find the food absolutely necessary to support life, and are too sluggish to be curious. It is pleasant to know that they have at least one good quality, in the exercise of which they surpass the rich. This is politeness, the national virtue. Mary observes:—