The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

It will surprise you—it certainly did me—to find that the people of these northern countries of Europe give far more time to mere amusements than the Americans do. I was struck with this on coming to Sweden, and saw something of it, but not so much in Norway; and here in Copenhagen they are as much given to it as the Athenians were to news.

Perhaps the French and Italians are more disposed to make themselves merry in crowds. But on recalling the habits of the masses as they are seen in public places in Paris and Florence, I think that I was never in any city in the world where so many people in proportion to the whole number go from home to be amused. On the outskirts of the city—but not so far away as to be difficult of access—there are large gardens, so called, laid off with walks and shrubbery and fountains, and in the midst are all sorts of spectacular games and plays, combining in one enclosure theatre, circus, gymnastics, music and dancing, concerts, orations, and whatever is usually found scattered in different parts of a city, and to be visited only after paying a fee for each admission. To enter this garden—for one is a type of many—you pay about ten cents, and that gives you the entrée to nearly all the shows. The theatre may charge another trifling fee, but the one admission makes all these amusements open to the visitor. Around every stage are little tables and chairs, and refreshments are served, if you choose to call for them, at an extra charge. To such places as this thousands upon thousands of respectable people resort night after night, usually coming before dark, for the days are long and nights short; men bring their wives and children, and take their evening meal together in little stalls provided for the purpose, and go home in good season. This is their refreshment after a day of toil, and it is not unlikely that it helps them to bear with patience the burdens of a working life.

These gardens are the institutions of Copenhagen, for the entertainment of the people. They are cheap, so as to be within the reach of all; and they are cheap, as one of the proprietors told me, because low prices bring more money than high. Doubtless there are other and more intellectual enjoyments provided for those who prefer them; but when you consider the enormous expense incurred to fit up and furnish every night such entertainments as these, you see it requires the attendance of many thousands, at the insignificant charge, to make them pay at all.

On certain days, the Royal Picture Galleries and Thorvaldsen’s Museum are thrown open to the people, and the throngs of working people, evidently in very humble life, as their dress and manner indicate, who pack the halls and rooms, show that the people have also a taste for something higher and better than plays. Something might be said of the effect of so much amusement upon the morals of the masses; but it is not safe for a transient visitor to speak with certainty of any thing but what he actually sees as he goes along. To me it is a pleasant, and only a pleasant reflection, that the people in these northern countries, who do not accomplish much beyond making a decent subsistence from year to year, find both time and money to spend in amusements that are not in themselves as demoralizing as the sensual and intoxicating pleasures which so many of our own poor pursue to their ruin.

You would have to go far and search long before you would find a more interesting museum than that of Northern Antiquities, which occupies part of the Christiansborg Palace. This northern country abounds in curious relics of past ages, defunct systems of religious worship, modes of warfare now wholly unknown; and by law all these remains, wherever found, belong to the crown. In every parish in Denmark the minister is made the agent of government, to have every thing discovered, and that promises to be of any interest, sent to the museum, where a fair price is paid for it to the finder.

There is scarcely an end to the number and variety of these curious objects, illustrating the manners and customs of the long-buried past. Weapons of war form the most conspicuous feature of such an exhibition, and stone is the material from which the most formidable are made; clubs and axes, arrow-heads of flint, chisels and knives most singularly and beautifully wrought; urns from ancient sepulchres, with bones of other animals than human, are here; and tradition tells us that the old Norse heroes were buried with their dogs and horses, to bear them company in the world of spirits. It is hard to say what part in the funeral rites a sieve could perform, but it is often found in the ancient tombs.

The Runic monuments are the most remarkable objects in the collection; and the one that has excited the closest scrutiny came from Greenland, in latitude 73, and is said to bear a date 1135.

Among the fire-arms of the earliest years of their use, we have old cannons to be loaded at the breech, and guns on the revolving principle, though we have been in the habit of thinking that both of these are inventions of our own times.

Besides these collections, there is the Royal Arsenal, and the Museum of Natural History, and the Royal Museum, and many others, which are but the repetition and extension of these and like objects of interest,—interesting, indeed, to look at for a few hours, tiresome after a while; and I will not weary you with the details.

Setting off by rail from Copenhagen to Hamburg, I encountered a gentleman who claimed to be a countryman of mine, because he hailed from South America. He was German born, in England bred, and he went to Uruguay, S. A., where he had been twenty-four years in business. He was now travelling with his family in the North of Europe. He was a shipping-merchant, and vessels in which he was interested come from Hamburg and Havre and England with furniture, tin-ware, and a thousand manufactured articles, and carry away hides, tallow, and so forth. It was easy to see that he had an eye to business in the midst of his pleasure travel, and that he was learning what wants of the North of Europe could be supplied from the South of America. My conversation with him developed the beautiful relations of the different parts of the earth to each other: the climate, the soil, the position of one country supplementing another, and showing that no country “liveth unto itself” any more than a man lives to himself. There is a thorough mutual dependence running through society and the whole world.