No Feudal Despots Oppressed The Unprotected,
For All Were Noble And Udal Born; No Standing Armies
Enabled The Crown To
Set popular opinion at defiance,
for the swords of the Bonders sufficed to guard the realm;
no military barons usurped
An illegitimate authority,
for the nature of the soil forbade the erection of feudal
fortresses. Over the rest of Europe despotism rose up
rank under the tutelage of a corrupt religion; while,
year after year, amid the savage scenery of its Scandinavian
nursery, that great race was maturing whose genial
heartiness was destined to invigorate the sickly
civilization of the Saxon with inexhaustible energy, and
preserve to the world, even in the nineteenth century,
one glorious example of a free European people.
LETTER XIII.
COPENHAGEN - BERGEN - THE BLACK DEATH - SIGURDR - HOMEWARDS.
Copenhagen, Sept. 12th, 1856.
Our adventures since the date of my last letter have not
been of an exciting character. We had fine weather and
prosperous winds down the coast, and stayed a day at
Christiansund, and another at Bergen. But though the
novelty of the cruise had ceased since our arrival in
lower latitudes, there was always a certain raciness and
oddity in the incidents of our coasting voyage; such
as - waking in the morning, and finding the schooner
brought up under the lee of a wooden house, or - riding
out a foul wind with your hawser rove through an iron
ring in the sheer side of a mountain, - which took from
the comparative flatness of daily life on board.
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