One has written: "I have seen nature's master-piece pervade that of art;" another cannot say what he saw, and what he saw he cannot say. A mine owner and manufacturer, full of the doctrine of utility, has written: "Seen with the greatest pleasure this useful work for us in Värmeland, Trollhätta." The wife of a dean from Scania expresses herself thus. She has kept to the family, and only signed in the remembrance book, as to the effect of her feelings at Trollhätta. "God grant my brother-in-law fortune, for he has understanding!" Some few have added witticisms to the others' feelings; yet as a pearl on this heap of writing shines Tegner's poem, written by himself in the book on the 28th of June, 1804:
"Gotha kom i dans från Seves fjallar, &c."
I looked up from the book and who should stand before me, just about to depart again, but the old man from Trollhätta! Whilst I had wandered about, right up to the shores of Siljan, he had continually made voyages on the canal; seen the sluices and manufactories, studied steam in all its possible powers of service, and spoke about a projected railway in Sweden, between the Hjalmar and Venern. He had, however, never yet seen a railway, and I described to him these extended roads, which sometimes rise like ramparts, sometimes like towering bridges, and at times like halls of miles in length, cut through rocks. I also spoke of America and England.
"One takes breakfast in London, and the same day one drinks tea in Edinburgh."
"That I can do!" said the man, and in as cool a tone as if no one but himself could do it, "I can also," said I; "and I have done it."
"And who are you, then?" he asked.
"A common traveller," I replied; "a traveller who pays for his conveyance. And who are you?"
The man sighed.
"You do not know me: my time is past; my power is nothing! Bloodless is stronger than I!" and he was gone.
I then understood who he was. Well, in what humour must a poor mountain sprite be, who only comes up every hundred years to see how things go forward here on the earth!
It was the mountain sprite and no other, for in our time every intelligent person is considerably wiser; and I looked with a sort of proud feeling on the present generation, on the gushing, rushing, whirling wheel, the heavy blows of the hammer, the shears that cut so softly through the metal plates, the thick iron bars that were broken like sticks of sealing-wax, and the music to which the heart's pulsations vibrate: "Banco, Banco, a hundred thousand Banco!" and all by steamby mind and spirit.
It was evening. I stood on the heights of Trollhätta's old sluices, and saw the ships with outspread sails glide away through the meadows like spectres, large and white. The sluice gates were opened with a ponderous and crashing sound, like that related of the copper gates of the secret council in Germany. The evening was so still that Trollhätta's Fall was as audible in the deep stillness, as if it were a chorus from a hundred water-millsever one and the same tone. In one, however, there sounded a mightier crash that seemed to pass sheer through the earth; and yet with all this the endless silence of nature was felt. Suddenly a large bird flew out from the trees, far in the forest, down towards the Falls. Was it the mountain sprite?We will imagine so, for it is the most interesting fancy.
THE BIRD PHOENIX
In the garden of Paradise, under the tree of knowledge, stood a hedge of roses. In the first rose a bird was hatched; its flight was like that of light, its colours beautiful, its song magnificent.
But when Eve plucked the fruit of knowledge, when she and Adam were driven from the garden of Paradise, a spark from the avenging angel's flaming sword fell into the bird's nest and kindled it. The bird died in the flames, but from the red egg there flew a new onethe only onethe ever only bird Phoenix. The legend states that it takes up its abode in Arabia; that every hundred years it burns itself up in its nest, and that a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, flies out from the red egg.
The bird hovers around us, rapid as the light, beautiful in colour, glorious in song. When the mother sits by the child's cradle, it is by the pillow, and with its wings flutters a glory around the child's head. It flies through the chamber of contentment, and there is the sun's radiance within:the poor chest of drawers is odoriferous with violets.
But the bird Phoenix is not alone Arabia's bird: it flutters in the rays of the Northern Lights on Lapland's icy plains; it hops amongst the yellow flowers in Greenland's short summer. Under Fahlun's copper rocks, in England's coal mines, it flies like a powdered moth over the hymn-book in the pious workman's hands. It sails on the lotus-leaf down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eyes of the Hindoo girl glisten on seeing it.
The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? The bird of Paradise, song's sacred swan! It sat on the car of Thespis, like a croaking raven, and flapped its black, dregs-besmeared wings; over Iceland's minstrel-harp glided the swan's red, sounding bill. It sat on Shakspeare's shoulder like Odin's raven, and whispered in his ear: "Immortality!" It flew at the minstrel competition, through Wartzburg's knightly halls.
The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? It sang the Marseillaise for thee, and thou didst kiss the plume that fell from its wing: it came in the lustre of Paradise, and thou perhaps didst turn thyself away to some poor sparrow that sat with merest tinsel on its wings.
The bird of Paradise! regenerated every century, bred in flames, dead in flames; thy image set in gold hangs in the saloons of the rich, even though thou fliest often astray and alone. "The bird Phoenix in Arabia"is but a legend.
In the garden of Paradise, when thou wast bred under the tree of knowledge, in the first rose, our Lord kissed thee and gave thee thy proper namePoetry.
KINNAKULLA
Kinnakulla, Sweden's hanging gardens! Thee will we visit. We stand by the lowest terrace in a plenitude of flowers and verdure; the ancient village church leans its grey pointed wooden tower, as if it would fall; it produces an effect in the landscape: we would not even be without that large flock of birds, which just now chance to fly away over the mountain forest.
The high road leads up the mountain with short palings on either side, between which we see extensive plains with hops, wild roses, corn-fields, and delightful beech woods, such as are not to be found in any other place in Sweden. The ivy winds itself around old trees and stoneseven to the withered trunk green leaves are lent. We look out over the flat, extended woody plain, to the sunlit church-tower of Maristad, which shines like a white sail on the dark green sea: we look out over the Venern Lake, but cannot see its further shore. Skjärgaardens' wood-crowned rocks lie like a wreath down in the lake; the steam-boat comessee! down by the cliff under the red-roofed mansions, where the beech and walnut trees grow in the garden.
The travellers land; they wander under shady trees away over that pretty light green meadow, which is enwreathed by gardens and woods: no English park has a finer verdure than the meadows near Hellekis. They go up to "the grottos," as they call the projecting masses of red stone higher up, which, being thoroughly kneaded with petrifactions, project from the declivity of the earth, and remind one of the mouldering colossal tombs in the Campagna of Rome. Some are smooth and rounded off by the streaming of the water, others bear the moss of ages, grass and flowers, nay, even tall trees.
The travellers go from the forest road up to the top of Kinnakulla, where a stone is raised as the goal of their wanderings. The traveller reads in his guide-book about the rocky strata of Kinnakulla: "At the bottom is found sandstone, then alum-stone, then limestone, and above this red-stone, higher still slate, and lastly, trap." And, now that he has seen this, he descends again, and goes on board. He has seen Kinnakulla:yes, the stony rock here, amidst the swelling verdure, showed him one heavy, thick stone finger, and most of the travellers think that they are like the devil, if they lay hold upon one finger, they have the bodybut it is not always so. The least visited side of Kinnakulla is just the most characteristic, and thither will we go.