"In Sweden, the preference is given to her romance of Hemmet, (Home,) over all her other works. Any thing like a bold originality of invention she is generally admitted to lack, but she is skilled in throwing a poetical charm over the quiet narrow circle of domestic life. She is almost invariably successful in her female characters, but when she attempts to draw those of men, her creations are mere caricatures, full of emptiness and improbability. Her habit of indulging in a sort of aimless and objectless philosophizing vein, à propos of nothing at all, is also found highly wearisome. For my part, it has often given me an attack of nausea. She labours, however, diligently to improve herself; and, when I saw her, she had just been ordering at a bookseller's two German works—Bossen's Translation of Homer, and Creuzer's Symbolics.
"Emily Flygare is about thirty years of age. She is the daughter of a country clergyman, and has only to write down her own recollections in order to depict village life, with its pains and its pleasures. Accordingly, that is her strongest line in authorship; and her book, Kyrkoinvigningen, (the Church Festival,) has been particularly successful. Married in early life to an officer, she contracted, after his death, several engagements, all of which she broke off, whereby her reputation in some degree suffered. At last she gave her hand to Carlén, a very middling sort of poet, some years younger than she is; and she now styles herself—following the example of Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, and other celebrated singers—Flygare-Carlén. She lives very happily at Stockholm with her husband, and is at least as good a housewife as an authoress, not even thinking it beneath her dignity to superintend the kitchen. Her great modesty as to her own merits, and the esteem she expresses for her rivals, are much to her credit. She is a little restless body, and does not like sitting still. Her countenance is rather pleasing than handsome, and its charm is heightened by the lively sparkle of her quick dark eyes.
"The third person of the trio is the Baroness Knorring, a very noble lady, who lives far away from Stockholm, and is married to an officer. She is between thirty and forty years old, and it is affirmed that she would be justified in exclaiming with Wallenstein's Thekla—
'Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.'
She was described to me as nervous and delicate, which is perhaps the right temperament to enable her accurately to depict in her romances the strained artificiality and silken softness of aristocratic existence. Her style also possesses the needful lightness and grace, and she accordingly succeeds admirably in her sketches of high life, with all its elegant nullities and spiritless pomp. One of her best works is the romance of Cousinerna, (The Cousins,) which, as well as the other works of Knorring, Bremer, and Flygare, has been placed before the German public by our diligent translators."
Upon the subjects of Swedish society and conversation, Mr Boas is pleased to be unusually funny. Like the foreigner who asserted that Goddam was the root of the English language, he seems prepared to maintain that two monosyllables constitute the essence of the Swedish tongue, and that they alone are required to carry on an effective and agreeable dialogue. "It is not at all difficult," he says, "to keep up a conversation with a Swede, when you are once acquainted with a certain mystical formula, whereby all emotions and sentiments are to be expressed, and by the aid of which you may love and hate, curse and bless, be good-humoured or satirical, and even witty. The mighty and all-sufficing words are, 'Ja so!' (Yes, indeed!) usually pronounced Jassoh. It is wonderful to hear the infinite variety of modulation which a Swede gives to these two insignificant syllables. Does he hear some agreeable intelligence, he exclaims, with sparkling eyes and brisk intonation, 'Ja so!' If bad news are brought to him, he droops his head, and, after a pause, murmurs mournfully, 'Ja so!' The communication of an important affair is received with a thoughtful 'Ja so!' a joke elicits a humorous one; an attempt to banter or deceive him is met by a sarcastic repetition of the same mysterious words.
"A romance might be constructed out of these four letters. Thus:—Lucy is sitting at her window, when a well-known messenger brings her a bouquet. She joyfully exclaims, 'Ja so!' and presses the flowers to her lips. A friend comes in; she shows her the flowers, and the friend utters an envious 'Ja so!' Soon afterwards Lucy's lover hears that she is faithless; he gnashes his teeth, and vociferates a furious 'Ja so!' He writes to tell her that he despises her, and will never see her again; whereupon she weeps, and says to herself, between two tears, 'Ja so!' She manages, however, to see him, and convinces him that she has been calumniated. He clasps her in his arms, and utters a 'Ja so!' expressive of entire conviction. Suddenly his brow becomes clouded, and muttering a meditative 'Ja so!' he remembers that a peremptory engagement compels him to leave her. He seeks out the man who has sought to rob him of his mistress, and reproaches him with his perfidy. This rival replies by a cold, scornful 'Ja so!' and a meeting is agreed upon. The next day they exchange shots, and I fully believe that the man who is killed sighs out with his last breath 'Ja so!' His horror-stricken antagonist exclaims 'Ja so!' and flies the country; and surgeon, relations, friends, judge, all, in short, who hear of the affair, will inevitably cry out, 'Ja so!' Grief and joy, doubt and confidence, jest and anger, are all to be rendered by those two words."
The province of Dalarna, or Dalecarlia, which lies between Nordland and the Norwegian frontier, and in which Miss Bremer has laid the scene of one of her most recent works, is spoken of at some length by Mr Boas, who considers it to be, in various respects, the most interesting division of Sweden. Its inhabitants, unable to find means of subsistence in their own poor and mountainous land, are in the habit of wandering forth to seek a livelihood in more kindly regions, and Mr Boas likens them in this respect to the Savoyards. They might, perhaps, be more aptly compared to the Galicians, who leave their country, not, as many of the Savoyards do, to become beggars and vagabonds, by the aid of a marmoset and a grinding organ, but to strive, by the hardest labour and most rigid economy, to accumulate a sum that will enable them to return and end their lives in their native village.
"The dress of the Dalecarlians (dale carls, or men of the valley) consists of a sort of doublet and leathern apron, to the latter of which garments they get so accustomed that they scarcely lay it aside even on Sundays. Above that they wear a short overcoat of white flannel. Their round hats are decorated with red tufts, and their breeches fastened at the knees with red ties and tassels. The costume of their wives and daughters, who are called Dalecullen, (women of the valley,) is yet more peculiar and outlandish. It is composed of a coloured cap, fitting close to the head, of a boddice with red laces, a gown, usually striped with red and green, and of scarlet stockings. They wear enormous shoes, large, awkward, and heavy, made of the very thickest leather, and adorned with the eternal red frippery. The soles are an inch thick, with huge heels, stuck full of nails, and placed, not where the heel of the foot is, but in front, under the toes; and as these remarkable shoes lift at every step, the heels of the stockings are covered with leather. On Sundays, ample white shirt-sleeves, broad cap-ribands, and large wreaths of flowers are added to this singular garb, amongst the wearers of which pretty faces and laughing blue eyes are by no means uncommon.
"The occupations of these women are of the rudest and most laborious description. They may be literally said to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, and their hands are rendered callous as horn by the nature of their toil. They act as bricklayers' labourers, and carry loads of stones upon their shoulders and up ladders. Besides this, it is a monopoly of theirs to row a sort of boat, which is impelled by machinery imitating that of a steamer, but worked by hand. These are tolerably large vessels, having paddle-wheels fitted to them, which are turned from within. Each wheel is worked by two young Dalecarlian girls, who perform this severe labour with the utmost cheerfulness, while an old woman steers. They pass their lives upon the water, plying from earliest dawn till late in the night, and conveying passengers, for a trifling copper coin, across the broad canals which intersect Stockholm in every direction. Cheerful and pious, the bloom of health on her cheeks, and the fear of God in her heart, the Dalecarlian maiden is contented in her humble calling. On Sunday she would sooner lose a customer than miss her attendance at church. One sorrowful feeling, and only one, at times saddens her heart, and that is the Heimweh, the yearning after her native valley, when she longs to return to her wild and beautiful country, which the high mountains encircle, and the bright stream of the Dalelf waters. There she has her father and mother, or perhaps a lover, as poor as herself, and she sees no possibility of ever earning enough to enable her to return home, and become his wife.