Still the reign that gave to Sweden Karl Mikael Bellman, the poet, and other illustrious men was by no means altogether barren of good results. The old French culture introduced is very far from being lost, and the Swedish Academy, which Gustavus founded in 1786, is one of a number of learned societies that have their homes in this city and have done much to make the Swedish capital pre-eminent for its devotion for letters. Another is the Academy of Sciences, in whose institution the great Linnæus had no small share. Many of their members have a reputation Europe-wide. Lost now is the position to which Sweden once attained, chief military power in the North, but higher her place in the world. The sword-won dominion of Gustavus Adolphus could not endure for very long—geography forbade—but a nobler Swedish empire was founded, or at any rate consolidated, by the genius of Linnæus, and that shows no sign of decay. There will dawn a day when mere brute force will no longer be the test of a nation's weal, but in Europe it is hardly yet.
STOCKHOLM
[Face page 206
Across a monumental bridge, adorned with statues and lamps, on the island of Djurgarden, stands a recently finished structure of Renaissance character which looks like a great cruciform church, but is in fact the Northern, or the Folk, Museum. The great hall contains figures in armour, old coaches and such like to illustrate days that are past, but more interesting are the little chambers that show us in detail the life of Sweden in bygone years. Within an old cottage we see a duck-coop under the sofa and shut-up cupboards against the walls. Carved chests and spinning wheels and lace and little looms and fishing implements and traps for bears, saddles and flutes and harps and drums give the attentive student a very fair idea of how the peasants used to pass their days. No servile breed these men who crushed the armies of the Empire in the war of Thirty Years and first subdued the woods by the Delaware.
A story told by W. W. Thomas[118] is fairly characteristic of the stern and independent nature of the farmers who have made Sweden.
"A Swedish peasant, clad in homespun and driving a rough farm wagon, pulled up at a post station in the west of Sweden. There were but two horses left in the stable, and these he immediately ordered to be harnessed into his wagon. Just as they were being hitched up, there rattled into the courtyard in great style the grand equipage of the governor of the province, with coachman and footman in livery. Learning the state of affairs and wishing to avoid a long and weary delay, the coachman ordered these two horses to be taken from the peasant's cart and harnessed into the governor's carriage. But the peasant stoutly refused to allow this to be done.
"'What,' said the governor, 'do you refuse to permit those horses to be harnessed into my carriage?'
"'Yes, I do,' said the peasant.