There is something, too, no doubt, that appeals to the popular imagination merely in a Norman name, and Lord Lytton has cleverly exploited this predilection in many fascinating volumes of historical romance; tales of love and chivalry that in our soft mid-century days had rivaled, and for a time eclipsed, the magical creations of Scott. The later school of Scandinavian writers has not won the Kentuckian from his early love of English and Scottish romance. His conception of the actual Scandinavian—the Scandinavian in the flesh—the Scandinavian of to-day, is still undefined and vague. Until Du Chaillu came he had given the matter but little thought. And, yet, fifty years before—in the busy, brooding twenties—another Frenchman, wandering among the Scandinavians of Gothia, describes their predominant characteristics thus: "Fair hair, blue eyes, a middle stature, light and slim; a physiognomy indicating frankness, gentleness, and a certain sentimental elevation of mind, especially among the fair sex. The people in the other provinces partake of these different physical and moral qualities."
How completely this description by a Frenchman in Scandinavia verifies the casual observation of another Frenchman in Kentucky! Their hospitality, M. Du Chaillu informed us in his charming lecture, was almost without bounds, and at times to a Kentuckian would have been embarrassing in the extreme, as when those snowy-handed hostesses bathed the traveler's feet and tucked him away in bed. But Monsieur seems to have suffered no embarrassment on this account.
Among the population of the Northern provinces of Scandinavia there are men of almost gigantic stature, with dark hair, deep-set eyes, a look somewhat fierce, but full of expression and vivacity. Their muscles are large, firm, and distinct, the bones prominent, the features regular and clear cut. A cheerful temper and "an enterprising disposition" are qualities common to the whole population. A stranger is welcome in all circles. Even in the polar circles the hospitality loses none of its warmth. Probably it is in dispensing their hospitality that their passion for "strong liquor" is most marked. This liquor they drink out of horns; and that is why, said Du Chaillu, convincingly, that we say in Kentucky, "Will you take a horn?" But the Kentuckian seems to derive this peculiarity from every side. "Fill the largest horns," said the Saxon, Cedric, when his slaves were arranging the banquet for his Norman guests.
[XVII]
The impression we derive from the foregoing description of the Scandinavian physique among the more northern tribes recalls Professor Shaler's conclusions from a careful study of the measurement of fifty thousand troops from Kentucky, made by the astronomer Gould (a distinguished mathematician), who after the war took service in the Argentine Republic. "The results," he says, "are surprising. Their average height was nearly an inch greater than that of the New England troops; they exceed them equally in girth of chest, and the circumference of head is also very much larger. In size they come up to the level of the picked regiments of the Northern armies of Europe."[10] Yet these results were obtained from what was a levy en masse. It did not include "the rebel exiles" who were the "first running from the press," or, as is often said, "the flower of the State," and being in the main of a more exuberant habit of body would doubtless have given still better results. It is questionable if all Scandinavia could furnish two such heads as William Nelson's and Humphrey Marshall's. Ceteris paribus, said Leidy, "size is a measure of power"—referring to size of head. When General Marshall was warned that his great size would attract the attention of sharpshooters, he answered, "I have provided for that. I have a fat staff. There be six Richmonds in the field!" His aide and secretary was a Norman of wholly different type; of a slight figure, but of an activity, courage, vivacity, and endurance wholly unsurpassed. Captain Shaler (himself a capable soldier, with a strong dash of New England blood) singles out for special commendation the soldiers and officers of Morgan's command. He especially notes their high social quality, their physical vigor and activity, their endurance under severe tests, and their peculiar aptitude and penchant for the business of war. He waxes vigorously poetic in describing the martial qualities of the "Orphan Brigade."
Hereditary surnames are said to be memorials of race that can never be obliterated. If thousands of men, swept along in some great historic migratory movement which is followed and described by critical observers through country after country, through century after century, never "breaking ranks" except to plant and build, leaving the same names upon the official records of every dukedom, or kingdom, or commonwealth through which they pass; when their names, their features, their instincts, their mental habits, their daily speech, their terms of law, the language and routine of their courts, are impressed with the same ethnic stamp; when the same mental, physical, and moral characteristics are manifest generation after generation; when myriads of minute resemblances confirm the conclusions of the larger view, why lose one's self in the haunting mystery of apparent discrepancies in detail? Let us give full credit to each member of the triune ethnical Trust—which is charged with all the responsibilities of this magnificent modern world. If you wish to know how much can be said to thrill with delight that old Saxon element of your blood, read what the Count de Montalembert (another Frenchman) has said in his "Monks of the West." The enormous difficulties encountered by the Church in that old chaotic day approximately measure the shortcomings of the race. That the crude, repulsive Saxon should have been fashioned into the noble figure which Montalembert describes, speaks well for the essential worth of the Saxon; but what a tribute to the miraculous power of the Monk!