FOOTNOTES:
[37]. A sample is given at the head of Chapter IV., page 61, of this volume.
[38]. “The Statesman.”
CHAPTER XXVII
MATTERS PERSONAL, LITERARY, AND GENERAL.
THE Icelanders, as I have pictured them, are intellectual in their tastes; and in domestic life they are highly social. Their amusements are few, their enjoyments being principally in the family, at their labor, and attending public worship. Throughout the country, they gather from a circuit of many miles, to hear their ministers proclaim “glad tidings,” and tell them of the reward that awaits a well-spent life. In the long winter evenings, one member of the family is much of the time reading aloud, while the others are engaged in domestic duties, spinning, weaving, knitting, and making clothing and domestic utensils, in which the males as well as the females, all engage. In their personal demeanor, the Icelanders are generally quiet, sober, and somewhat taciturn. A love of amusement, and a fondness for sport, is not common. Some of the Icelanders that I have seen, have had a great deal of vivacity, and large conversational powers. Some that have visited foreign countries, have returned home so impressed with their experience of the great and busy world; that they have infused a spirit of activity and inquiry into the whole circle where they move. They tell of one man, an Icelander, who got off to the continent, and went through all the wars of Napoleon, and after many years returned to his native land. He was so glad to see his own good island, that he fell down and embraced the earth, and declared, in the words of the national proverb, “Iceland is the best country the sun shines upon.”[[39]] With all that the poor soldier had seen of the luxury and variety of foreign countries, there was, to him, “no place like home.” While the Icelander is fond of conversation, when in the presence of strangers he rather listen than talk. They come well up to Dr. Johnson’s favorite character, a good listener. When a foreigner calls at the house of an Icelander, he attends first to the personal wants of his guest; then he is desirous of learning all the stranger has to communicate. He is shrewd and inquisitive, and asks the most pertinent and ingenious questions, and never rests satisfied till he has learned with great minuteness all that the stranger has to tell him respecting the great world, and the foreign countries he has seen. He is always most respectful and obliging, and ready to communicate information, and answer questions about every thing relating to his country or pursuits. He seems to appreciate the greater amount of wealth and luxury abroad, and the superior magnificence and splendor of cities like Copenhagen, Paris, London, or New York, as compared to his own small towns; yet his amor patriæ and contentment make him superior to all temptations to emigrate. His industry, fondness for reading and conversing, his great integrity of character, a devotional spirit, and ardent love for the precepts and practices of Christianity—these, with his contentment and love of liberty, are the most prominent characteristics of the Icelander. They do not show much fondness for exact science, though they pay some attention to the studies of geography and natural history. Having no fuel but turf—except what is imported—none of the precious or useful metals, no material, except wool, for the manufacture of textile fabrics, raising no fruits or grain, and having little use for water or steam power, they have few incentives to exert themselves in acquiring a knowledge of chemistry, mineralogy, geology, electricity, magnetism, hydraulics, pneumatics, or many of the mechanic and useful arts. “Circumstances make men,” or bring out certain traits of character; and the Icelander forms no exception to the general rule. We see how he is placed. Obtaining his subsistence from the products of the earth and the sea, engaged little in traffic, he does not experience much of the fraud and wrong that is found in the busy haunts of men; and in him we see little but the gentle and better characteristics of our nature.
The Icelander is poor, and books are to him a luxury; yet he possesses more, in proportion to his means, than the natives of any other country. We shall see by comparison and looking at facts, what their intellectual resources are. The number of books, of all sizes, published in Iceland in each of the years 1847 and 1848, was seventeen—thirty-four volumes in two years; and these for a community of 60,000 people. Were there as many in proportion printed for our population of twenty-five millions, the number of books—distinct works, independent of periodicals—published annually in the United States, would be over seven thousand. The most of the Iceland books are duodecimos and octavos; the largest volume for the year 1847 containing 928 pages. This was a sort of “Congressional Globe,” though not issued in numbers—a record of the proceedings of their Althing or Congress.[[40]] This seems like a pretty lengthy journal of a session that lasted but little over a month. They passed a number of acts of much importance to the people; and very likely the session was enlivened with as many “speeches to Buncombe,” as we hear in the same length of time on Capitol Hill.
Some of the works published in Icelandic, are issued from the press in Copenhagen; but the majority of them are printed and bound in Iceland. They have several printing-presses constantly at work, and three newspapers—one once a week, and two issued once a fortnight. In mechanical execution, their books and newspapers are turned out in better style than the average of those issued from the American press. They are, however, always without illustrations.
From what has been said, it will be seen that the Icelanders of the present day are a different people from those of an earlier period. In former times, the tyranny of rulers and the ambition of demagogues, kept up a warlike spirit, and an ardent love of political liberty. While they were less amiable and peaceful, they showed, both in letters and politics, a greater degree of activity. Lest it may be thought that I have drawn too favorable a picture of the early Icelanders, I will here give an extract from a learned dissertation on the history and literature of Iceland, by the distinguished Dr. (now Sir Henry) Holland, who visited the country in 1810, in company with Sir George Mackenzie.