Small steamers lie in little coves so near the rockbound shore that it almost seems their rigging is likely to get tangled among boughs of oak, and their crews can pick wild strawberries the moment they step on land. For a mile or two the channel from the Baltic to Stockholm is most intricate and extremely narrow, then great lake-like expanses are traversed before the vessel enters another narrow gate. Little painted houses dot the woods, but they are few. The general effect of the constantly shifting shores is of almost fairy-like beauty, especially with the peculiarly Scandinavian interlocking of the water and the land.
At length across a stretch of island-dotted lake the spires and roofs of the capital seem to rise right out of the woods. Eventually one lands in the very middle of the town. The whole place is intensely modern, the metropolis of a most progressive folk. Large numbers of Stockholmers dwell in flats despite their love of flowers. One of the chief landmarks of the city is the tall network tower of iron bars that surmounts the telephone centre. This repose-disturbing, but extremely useful, invention has fascinated the Swedes. The charges are extremely low, and Stockholm actually boasts of having more telephone numbers than New York.
The first impression is that of a distinctly striking town; the vast Royal Palace and the huge Northern Museum produce a very individual effect, though hardly perhaps one that can be called monumental. All the conspicuous buildings are in some variety of the Classic style, several erected during the last few years. The streets are broad, but geography forbids any great regularity, excepting to the north and south. All roads lead to the water, except a few that lead to the woods; the chief ones pass through wide squares and parks. Immensely improved is the city since 1847, when an English traveller wrote: "The natural advantages of approach are not adequately appreciated, or rather done justice to by the Swedes. Their whole style of architecture is mean to a degree; and their houses on each side of the Mälar quite unworthy that superb piece of water. With a few of the old palaces of Venice on each bank, and trees at intervals, and a gondola or two afloat, the northern capital, from its more romantic environs, would far exceed the other."[112]
The site indeed is almost unexcelled. So far as natural beauty goes, the owners of these nine bridge-linked islands[113] need not envy the dwellers on the Seven Hills. From the narrows that the islands guard broad waters spread far on almost every side; Lake Mälar ripples gently for nearly eighty miles toward the west, splashing towns and villages and rocks and woods, and pours its broad waters swiftly past the islands toward the sea. Ocean steamers are moored by the wide busy quays of the prosperous city: small steamboats supplement the trolley trams to provide communications for the town. Toward the interior four lines of railway thread their way among the farms and the woods. For the vast silent forests of the North touch the immediate outskirts of the town; and trees are planted wherever the streets leave a small space unused.
By far the most conspicuous building, weirdly attractive by its complete incongruity with its surroundings, is the immense Royal Palace, a magnific pile in the heaviest French Classic style, whose rectangular courtyard is enclosed by a block measuring no less than 408 by 381 feet, and rising in three storeys to a height of nearly a hundred feet. These ample dimensions are increased by wings of about half the elevation projecting eastward toward the water front, and by another on the west that greatly lengthens the north façade. This structure, whose simplicity and grandeur made an impression on Fergusson, occupies quite a considerable portion of the original island of Staden.
The architect was a Frenchman, Nicodemus de Tessin, and so much impressed with the designs was Louis XIV. that he specially congratulated his Swedish brother on the magnificent edifice he was proposing to erect. This king had planned to incorporate part of an older building on the site, but a fire which occurred while he was himself lying-in-state in the unfinished structure nearly cremated the body of the monarch and quite gave the architect complete liberty of design. The present building was begun by the renowned Charles XII. on his accession in 1697, and, much delayed by war and turmoil, its erection dragged on till 1760. For a wonder the later architects employed, including De Tessin's son, resisted the temptation to modify the plans.[114] Simplicity is by far the chief merit of the palace, only in the centre of each side are pilasters introduced; the top is finished with the plainest cornice and balustrade and the sky line is as horizontal as that of the sea.
The building made a great impression in Europe when it was erected, and several travellers speak of it in terms of rather exaggerated praise. Thus Laing,[115] himself a Scot, after a very appreciative description, exclaims, "What are our public buildings about Edinburgh, our churches, hospitals, squares, street-fronts, with all their pillars, porticos, pilasters, cornices and carved work, compared to the composition and effect of this chaste and grand building?—minced pies, pastry-cook work in freestone." The only really serious defect is that the design is not adapted to the site and the material is not adapted to the design. Such a structure requires a vast space all round and looks cramped on a small island; it needs material of the most substantial, set off by avenues of trees and formal gardens on a lavish scale, but amid the rocks of Stockholm it is plastered and in the City of Flowers its immediate environs are comparatively destitute of vegetation.[116]
In the same general style as the palace and close to it are other public buildings, but unfortunately the topography of the islands forbids their forming parts of a single great design. The beautiful Riddarhus, or Hall of Knights, the headquarters of the Swedish nobles in the capital, is a seventeenth century structure of brick and stone, designed by Simon de la Vallée, adorned with Corinthian pilasters and floral bands between the storeys. The Riksdaghuset, or Houses of Parliament, recently erected, form a fine block of red granite buildings that rather crush the little island of the Holy Ghost, on which they stand. The two upper storeys have Corinthian columns or pilasters and the sky-line is broken by sculpture rising over the balustrade. Both chambers are octagonal, and their members, for whom women vote, reach them by a most striking stairway, excellently adorned with marble, mottled, white and green. (See [chapter-heading].)
Close to the palace, looking over the harbour, is a very impressive statue of Gustavus III.; it was the work of J. T. Sergel, second only to Thorwaldsen among the sculptors of the North. Brilliantly this charmer king, this monarch of the double face,[117] taught Sweden to sin, fatuously he sought to bring to the icy pine-woods of the North the tinsel trinkets of Versailles. The country did not prosper, the royal house was undermined, the king was murdered, and soon a brave French soldier came to restore vigour and virtue to the long-suffering land.