“No; but coffee to perfection.”
“Very well, make some. I will take charge of the tea.”
“Are you fond of such an insipid, melancholy drink?”
“Yes,—diluted with a full third of brandy or old rum.”
“Ah, that makes a difference! Doctor, I am surprised at finding here a table as well spread as if at Paris or London.”
“Well, why not? Are we at the end of the world? It is only six hours’ sail to Prussia, where they live just as they do in Paris.”
“Yes; but off at the furthest end of this province, sixty or seventy leagues away inland, and in so poor a country—”
“So poor! Do you think a country must be poor because it is not well adapted to tillage? You forget that, amongst us, wealth lies under the ground, not above it; and that the mines of Dalecarlia are the very treasury of Sweden. You have noticed that this region, bordering on Norway, is thinly peopled, and you have concluded that it would not support a larger population. Let me tell you that if the government only knew how to develop its resources, and had the power to do so, our mineral wealth would afford the means of increasing a hundredfold our prosperity, and the number of our inhabitants. One day, things will go better with us, if we can only escape, on the one hand, from the claws of England, whose intrigues oppress us, and, on the other, from the pincers of Russia, who paralyzes us with her threats. In the meanwhile, my son, understand that if there are poor people amongst us, it is not the fault of this good land of God’s, so much calumniated by the ignorance, indifference, or false notions of the men who inhabit it. People here complain of the severity of the winter and the hardness of the rocks. But there is a warm heart down underneath in the earth! Dig down anywhere, yes, I guarantee you, anywhere, and you will come upon some of the innumerable veins of valuable metals that ramify throughout beneath our feet. With those metals we can buy all the rarities, all the luxuries, all the productions of Europe, if we only have arms enough to lift the wealth to the surface of the ground. We complain of the earth, when it is men who are wanting. It is she who ought to complain of us, rather!”
“God forbid that I should speak ill of Sweden, my dear Monsieur Goefle! I only say that there are great areas of land lying uncultivated and waste, and that what few inhabitants there are, are so frugal that the traveller can find nothing at all to eat except gruel and milk;—healthful food, no doubt, but not much calculated to stimulate the imagination or to give energy to the character.”
“There you completely deceive yourself again, my dear fellow! This region may be called the very head and heart of Sweden; an enthusiastic head, full of strange poetry, and sublime or graceful imaginations; an ardent and generous heart, where the main artery of patriotism is throbbing. Are you familiar with its history?”