Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

Perhaps you would be interested in learning how I spent yesterday, which was Sunday. Like all of my Danish days, this was crammed with new impressions. In the morning I attended services at Vor Frue Kirke—the Church of Our Lady. In this church are the greyish blue marble originals of Thorwaldsen’s “Christ and Apostles.” The statues are of heroic size and are exceedingly impressive. Besides myself, there were six other tourists viewing the church—five alert-looking boys and a middle aged man, evidently their tutor. One glance was sufficient to tell me that they were Americans. I, too, must have had a “Made-in-America” appearance, for before I had uttered a sound one of the boys who happened to stand near me while I was studying the “Christ,” began to address me in “American,” commenting intelligently upon the beautiful figure. The unassuming friendliness of the boy quite warmed my heart. When services began the party seated themselves in the rear of the room and took notes and read their guide-books for a time; and then tiptoed quietly out. I felt lonesome when they had gone, and decided to go cousin-hunting the very next day.

Like the vast majority of Scandinavian churches, Our Lady is State Lutheran. But the Scandinavians, though instinctively religious, are by no means regular church-goers; and summer Sundays in Copenhagen are more likely to be devoted to recreation than to formal worship. Consequently, the congregation was a mere scattered handful; most of the worshipers were old people who came early, wearing solemn expressions, and carrying prayer-books. The preacher was a little old man in black gown and white linen ruff, suggestive of pictures of Sir Walter Raleigh. From a lofty and magnificent pulpit, reached by a staircase, he preached his sermon. The solemn faces of the congregation had led me to expect a self-righteous, theological presentation containing conspicuous thanks to God that Danish State Lutherans are not as other men; but I was much relieved to hear a live human message, not read, but clearly and feelingly spoken, in which the pastor urged his hearers to lives of loving service to their fellow humans. I liked the little old pastor, and forgot that I was homesick for “my own United States.”

I think that you would have enjoyed the music, Cynthia, for it possessed a dignity and reserve conducive to reverence. You may be interested to learn that the choir was composed entirely of women, and that a woman played the pipe organ.

After the services were ended, I had luncheon in a restaurant close at hand; and then I went for a long, rambling walk, visiting some places which I had seen before and others that were new. I passed Runde Taarn again, bound for Kongens Nytorv, one of the finest squares of the capital, pleasant with shade trees, well-kept lawns, and an abundance of flowers, among which the cosmopolitan scarlet geranium seemed as much at home as in California. On the Nytorv is the Royal Theatre, an imposing Renaissance structure.

Twelve different streets lead out of the square. I made my exit by the most famous one, Bredgade (Broad Street), which for part of its length is lined with handsome shops. Copenhagen shopkeepers have a shrewd but gratifying way of keeping up the shades of their windows on Sundays, thus enabling the worldly-minded to enjoy gratuitously the beauty of the wares and to select the very articles which they would purchase were they rich. As I long since learned to ‘name the birds without a gun, to love the wood-rose and leave it on its stalk,’ I am particularly fond of this mental shopping; it is a pleasant pastime, devoid of the worry and wear of the physical kind. The display of antiques, pictures, and porcelains on Bredgade is unusually interesting. Antiques, in general, but rarely attract me—except as do curios in a museum—for many of them have little else than their age to recommend them; and age, in itself, is no virtue. Some of the old furniture, and the bronzes which I saw in the windows on Bredgade, were, however, very handsome.

But the paintings and the porcelains especially caught my eye. To my mind (and I believe you would agree with me), many of the works by young Scandinavian artists would hold their own against modern paintings in any European country. They are genuinely Scandinavian. It is such a satisfaction to know that the Scandinavian lands have really begun to make a distinct contribution to the art treasures of the world. And as for porcelain, I am simply mad over the Royal Copenhagen variety; it is almost as difficult for me to pass a display of this ware without stopping, and gazing, and lingering, as it is for a toper to resist a grog shop. The makers of the Copenhagen pieces are high-grade artists, and their work beggars my attempts at description. Much of the attractiveness seems to lie in the glaze; it is exquisite, and it gives to the delicate colors an appearance of remoteness and a subtlety of charm and refinement which seems almost to belong to the realm of the spiritual. Compared with the Royal Copenhagen, most other “China” impresses me as loud and bizarre. But the prices of the pieces which I should have wanted to buy, had I been anything more than a mental shopper, would pay for my whole Scandinavian tour; hence, I am not likely to carry home with me very extensive samples of the ware.

In the course of my rambles I reached the Marble Church. This building was begun more than a century and a half ago, but lack of funds delayed its completion until within the last thirty years, when it was finished at the expense of Herr Tietgen, a philanthropic Danish banker. In architectural style and richness of material, this building contrasts strongly with Our Lady, which is really conspicuous by its plainness—except for Thorwaldsen’s sculptures. The Marble Church, as its name implies, is constructed primarily of marble; and it is crowned with a great dome—suggestive of Saint Paul’s in London—covered with copper partially gilded. A large number of busts and statues of ecclesiastics and saints also decorate the exterior. Outside, above the entrance, are the words, “Herrens Ord bliver evendelig” (The Word of God is everlasting). The main room beneath the dome is perfectly circular and is rich with wood-carvings, colored marbles, mosaics, paintings, and statues. There is a fortune of gold-leaf in the crucifixes and candle-sticks.

The guard at the door to whom I paid my entrance fee recommended the view from the dome and supplied me with a pair of opera glasses; so after viewing the interior I mounted to the top. This I accomplished by groping my way up a dark, narrow, winding stair-case, some parts of which were as dark as a pocket—and in the darkest part bumping squarely into a couple of women who were on their way down. As the Marble Church is quite a distance from Runde Taarn, I gained a new and different view of Copenhagen from its dome; and I also gained considerable information about the most important buildings from a friendly Danish lady whom I found at the top.

Amalienborgtorv, or square, which is near the Marble Church, was my next objective point. It is a stone-paved place, ungladdened by trees or grass or flowers, with a large bronze equestrian statue of Christian V in the center. On each of the four sides is a royal palace in rococo style, in which the king and queen and other members of the royal family reside during most of the year. When I crossed the Torv, soldiers in high, bearskin caps stood on guard at the street entrances—a sign that the king was in residence.

After Rosenborg, Amalienborg seemed so dreary and uninteresting—especially since common visitors get no glimpse of the interior—that I did not linger, but walked on to Grönningens Esplanade, where St. Alban’s, the first English church to be built in Denmark, peeps out with a charm peculiarly English from a clump of trees bordering an arm of the Baltic.