“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks and look well to thy herds; for riches are not forever, nor doth the crown endure to every generation. The hay appeareth and the tender grass showeth itself, and the herbs of the mountains are gathered. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of thy field. And thou shalt have goat’s milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household and for the maintenance of thy maidens.”
Yes, Iceland, the grass is thine and the flocks are thine. Nature has cruelly deprived thee of mines and forests, of warmth for cultivating thy rich soil; but she has peopled thee with a noble race, cradled amidst thy fire-born hills which are crowned with everlasting ice. She has given to thee sufficient grass for thy numerous flocks that thou mayest be clothed and fed. An Arctic ocean “laves the feet of the White Lady” and its every billow teems with the choicest of fish. In exchange for these the merchant brings to thy marts those products of modern life which Europe calls necessities but which to thee are luxuries.
A land of wonder is thy birthright, marvellously wrought by fire and ice. It appeals to him who four times has visited thy shore and has explored the inmost recesses of thy deserts, it appealed to thy ancestors ten centuries since as a haven of liberty; mightily it appeals to thee to-day. Thy sons upon Dakota’s plains, thy daughters by the Winnipeg,—truants from thy hallowed dales and sloping greens,—oft feel the wrenching of the heartstrings and oft turn back to fatherland and home. Thy thousand years and more of warfare with the elements and thine own internal strife, thy centuries of thraldom to priestly power and greed of foreign merchant, thy years of famine and devastation by shaking earth and burning mountain have left their mark deep graven in thy forehead. But,—Thou art FREE. Before thee the future opens with promise her ever widening portals, a promise radiant as the bow of Baldar which oft spans thy misty vales. Let not internal strife, the copying of foreign fashions and the jealousy of prospering neighbor be thy undoing. Out of the terrible past hast thou come with many a reprimand and many a sign to point the way which thou shouldst go, as plainly as thy varðr guide the fog-bound traveller upon thy mountain moors.
If a foreigner, who has long studied the factors of thy problem and knows something from experience of thy living struggle, may offer advice and not offend,—it would be the quoted wisdom of Solomon:—
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks,” and then the words of the poet will be thy experience:—
“Still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm,”—
and thine own saying will be full of truth:—
“ICELAND IS THE BEST PLACE ON WHICH THE SUN SHINES.”