Her worship of Nature, like that of Wordsworth, contains an element of profound piety. When she wrote her letters from Sweden, Mary had reached that stage in her religious life which is marked by a complete silence as far as dogma is concerned. Yet this silence should not be misconstrued into indifference. Her feelings on the subject were not of the nature of a systematic creed, and therefore never took an external organisation. They remained perfectly subjective in their vagueness, like the natural religion of Rousseau with which they have so much in common. Mary did not care to become an apostle of faith, to her religion was rather a matter of the inner life, which wanted no outlet into the world, but remained locked up in itself. She believed that her rational powers enabled her to discover certain portions of Truth, but that the mystery which veiled the presence of God could not be removed by Reason, but remained a matter of the heart. There is no touch of rationalism, or anything but pure sentiment, in the passage in which she describes her return from Fredericshall in a perfect summer night. "A vague pleasurable sentiment absorbed me, as I opened my bosom to the embraces of Nature, and my soul rose to its author, with the chirping of the solitary birds, which began to feel, rather than see, advancing day."
A great deal of attention is paid in the letters to the national character of the inhabitants of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which she holds to be the result chiefly of the climatic conditions. Never had she seen the blessings of civilisation more clearly demonstrated than by the utter lack of them among the Scandinavians. Especially in Sweden, civilisation was at that time in its earliest infancy, and what struck Mary from the first was the ignorance of the people. What she saw of their manners and customs was not calculated to make her fall in love with Rousseau's golden age of simplicity. They were full of vices, and their very virtues had their origin in considerations of a lower order. They were hospitable, but their hospitality, arising from a total want of scientific pursuits, was merely the outcome of their inordinate fondness of social pleasures, "in which, the mind not having its proportion of exercise, the bottle must be pushed about."
Being ignorant of the advantages of the cultivation of the mind, they were content to remain as they were: ignorant, sluggish and indifferent to social progress. They moved in a narrow sphere, did not care for politics, had no interest whatever in literature and no topics of conversation, and were strangely incapable of appreciating the charms of Nature. Mary's experience was chiefly gained in the small provincial towns. They necessarily presented to her—so she thought—the worst side of the picture. To her, the ideal condition was "to rub off in a metropolis the rust of thought, and polish the taste which the contemplation of Nature had rendered just." But no place seemed to her so disagreeable and unimproving as a small country-town.
The refined amusements of a cultivated society being thus inaccessible to the Swede, he will choose them of the coarsest kind. Meals occupy a prominent place in the daily routine, and a good many hours are wasted at table. A "visiting-day" means a severe strain upon the powers of digestion, and to make matters worse, the brandy-bottle,—the bane of the country—passes round freely.
What Mary saw of wedded life in Sweden did not give her a high opinion of Swedish morals. The men were generally inconstant, and also the women lacked chastity—the product of the mind. The statement that in later life "the husband becomes a sot, whilst the wife spends her time in scolding the servants", likewise finds its explanation in the Rights of Women as the natural result of vacancy of mind where youthful beauty and animal spirits have gone the way of all flesh!
Neither has the treatment of servants Mary's sympathy. "They are not termed slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages." But the lot of female servants is immeasurably harder. Their having to eat a different kind of food from their masters strikes Mary as a remnant of barbarism.
The general appearance of the women is not prepossessing. Too much attention to the delights of a well-provided table makes them fat and unwieldy and soon changes the natural pink of their complexions to a sallow hue. They are uncleanly of their persons, and vanity is more inherent in them than taste. Their ignorance is even more profound than that of the males, and Mary once had the compliment paid her that "she asked men's questions."
The peasantry of Sweden impressed her as more really polite and obliging than the better-situated classes, whose cold politeness consisted chiefly in tiresome ceremonies.
In Norway, however, the unmistakable signs of a coming dawn were noticeable. A river forms the boundary between the two countries, and yet, what a difference in the manners of the inhabitants of the two sides! Instead of the sluggishness and poverty of the Swede, here are industry and consequent prosperity. It is the patient labour of men who are only seeking for a subsistence which affords leisure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences that lift man so far above his first state. The world requires the hand of man to perfect it, and as this task naturally unfolds the faculties he exercises, it is physically impossible that he should remain in Rousseau's golden age of stupidity. And although the cultivation of science in Norway is as yet in its earliest stages—the time for universities having not yet come—yet a bright future is awaiting her.