Anker,of Christiania,a man of fortune and enterprise;and I was not very anxious to see them after having viewed those at Laurvig.
Here I met with an intelligent literary man,who was anxious to gather information from me relative to the past and present situation of France.The newspapers printed at Copenhagen,as well as those in England,give the most exaggerated accounts of their atrocities and distresses,but the former without any apparent comments or inferences.Still the Norwegians,though more connected with the English,speaking their language and copying their manners,wish well to the Republican cause,and follow with the most lively interest the successes of the French arms.So determined were they,in fact,to excuse everything,disgracing the struggle of freedom,by admitting the tyrant's plea,necessity,that I could hardly persuade them that Robespierre was a monster.
The discussion of this subject is not so general as in England,being confined to the few,the clergy and physicians,with a small portion of people who have a literary turn and leisure;the greater part of the inhabitants having a variety of occupations,being owners of ships,shopkeepers,and farmers,have employment enough at home.And their ambition to become rich may tend to cultivate the common sense which characterises and narrows both their hearts and views,confirming the former to their families,taking the handmaids of it into the circle of pleasure,if not of interest,and the latter to the inspection of their workmen,including the noble science of bargain-making--that is,getting everything at the cheapest,and selling it at the dearest rate.I am now more than ever convinced that it is an intercourse with men of science and artists which not only diffuses taste,but gives that freedom to the understanding without which I have seldom met with much benevolence of character on a large scale.
Besides,though you do not hear of much pilfering and stealing in Norway,yet they will,with a quiet conscience,buy things at a price which must convince them they were stolen.I had an opportunity of knowing that two or three reputable people had purchased some articles of vagrants,who were detected.How much of the virtue which appears in the world is put on for the world?And how little dictated by self-respect?--so little,that I am ready to repeat the old question,and ask,Where is truth,or rather principle,to be found?These are,perhaps,the vapourings of a heart ill at ease--the effusions of a sensibility wounded almost to madness.But enough of this;we will discuss the subject in another state of existence,where truth and justice will reign.How cruel are the injuries which make us quarrel with human nature!At present black melancholy hovers round my footsteps;and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects,which hope no longer gilds.
A rainy morning prevented my enjoying the pleasure the view of a picturesque country would have afforded me;for though this road passed through a country a greater extent of which was under cultivation than I had usually seen here,it nevertheless retained all the wild charms of Norway.Rocks still enclosed the valleys,the great sides of which enlivened their verdure.Lakes appeared like branches of the sea,and branches of the sea assumed the appearance of tranquil lakes;whilst streamlets prattled amongst the pebbles and the broken mass of stone which had rolled into them,giving fantastic turns to the trees,the roots of which they bared.
It is not,in fact,surprising that the pine should be often undermined;it shoots its fibres in such a horizontal direction,merely on the surface of the earth,requiring only enough to cover those that cling to the crags.Nothing proves to me so clearly that it is the air which principally nourishes trees and plants as the flourishing appearance of these pines.The firs,demanding a deeper soil,are seldom seen in equal health,or so numerous on the barren cliffs.They take shelter in the crevices,or where,after some revolving ages,the pines have prepared them a footing.
Approaching,or rather descending,to Christiania,though the weather continued a little cloudy,my eyes were charmed with the view of an extensive undulated valley,stretching out under the shelter of a noble amphitheatre of pine-covered mountains.Farm houses scattered about animated,nay,graced a scene which still retained so much of its native wildness,that the art which appeared seemed so necessary,it was scarcely perceived.Cattle were grazing in the shaven meadows;and the lively green on their swelling sides contrasted with the ripening corn and rye.The corn that grew on the slopes had not,indeed,the laughing luxuriance of plenty,which I have seen in more genial climes.A fresh breeze swept across the grain,parting its slender stalks,but the wheat did not wave its head with its wonted careless dignity,as if nature had crowned it the king of plants.
The view,immediately on the left,as we drove down the mountain,was almost spoilt by the depredations committed on the rocks to make alum.I do not know the process.I only saw that the rocks looked red after they had been burnt,and regretted that the operation should leave a quantity of rubbish to introduce an image of human industry in the shape of destruction.The situation of Christiania is certainly uncommonly fine,and I never saw a bay that so forcibly gave me an idea of a place of safety from the storms of the ocean;all the surrounding objects were beautiful and even grand.But neither the rocky mountains,nor the woods that graced them,could be compared with the sublime prospects I had seen to the westward;and as for the hills,"capped with ETERNAL snow,"Mr.Coxe's description led me to look for them,but they had flown,for Ilooked vainly around for this noble background.
