"On the other side of Ens Bruck is the main stream—the full Dal-elv. Do you hear the monotonous rumble? It is not from Elvkarleby Fall that it reaches hither; it is close by; it is from Laa Foss in which lies Ash Island: the elv streams and rushes over the leaping salmon.
"Let us sit here, between the fragments of rock by the shore, in the red evening sunlight, which sheds a golden lustre on the waters of the Dal-elv.
"Glorious river! But a few seconds' work hast thou to do in the mills yonder, and thou rushest foaming on over Elvkarleby's rocks, down into the deep bed of the river, which leads thee to the Baltic—thy eternity."
We could fill half our number with passages just as beautiful; but will leave the rest of the poet's landscapes till some American publisher brings out the book. We must nevertheless quote one picture of a different kind. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" and the sorrows of the palace and the cottage alike find their level and their rest in the grave. The "Mute Book" speaks with a moving eloquence to those who can read it aright:
"By the high-road into the forest there stood a solitary farm-house. One way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle within, but in the yard, in an arbor of flowering lilacs, there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood by, and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully over him. His face was covered with a white cloth, and under his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which was a whole sheet of gray paper, and, between each, lay withered flowers, deposited and forgotten,—a whole herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A chapter of his life was blended with every flower! 'Who is that dead man?' we asked, and the answer was, 'The old student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too; but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and, as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the country, where they paid for his board and lodging. He was as gentle as a child when the dark humor did not come over him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would sit the whole day, and look at one plant, and then at another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take his peaceful rest in the grave!'
"They raised the winding sheet. There was peace in the face of the dead. A sunbeam fell on it; a swallow, in its arrow-flight, darted into the new-made arbor, and in its flight circled twittering over the dead man's head.
"How strange it is!—we all assuredly know it—to take out old letters from the days of one's youth, and read them: a whole life, as it were, then rises up, with all its hopes and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them for many years—them whom we once thought we should always cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with!
"The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of the friend—the friend of his school days—the friend for life. He fixed this leaf on the student's cap, in the greenwood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the whole life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved; friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory plant, too fine for the gardens of the North. It looks as if there still were fragrance in it. She gave it to him—she, the lady of that noble garden!
"Here is the marsh-lotus, which, he himself has plucked and watered with salt tears—the marsh-lotus from the fresh waters! And here is a nettle; what do its leaves say! What did he think on plucking it?—on preserving it? Here are lilies of the valley, from the woodland solitudes; here are honeysuckles from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here the bare, sharp blade of grass. The flowering lilac bends its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man's head; the swallow again flies past—'qui-vit! qui-vit!' Now the men come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head rests on the 'Mute Book'—preserved—forgotten!"
The book, to those who are not repelled by a certain quaintness of manner from the enjoyment of a work of true genius, will form a permanent and delightful addition to those pictures of many lands which the enterprise and accomplishment of modern travellers is creating for the delight of those whose range of locomotion is bounded by the limits of their own country, or by the four walls of a sick chamber.