Summer disappears almost before it has ripened the fruit of autumn -
even, as it were, slips from your embraces, whilst the satisfied
senses seem to rest in enjoyment.
You will ask, perhaps, why I wished to go farther northward. Why?
not only because the country, from all I can gather, is most
romantic, abounding in forests and lakes, and the air pure, but I
have heard much of the intelligence of the inhabitants, substantial
farmers, who have none of that cunning to contaminate their
simplicity, which displeased me so much in the conduct of the people
on the sea coast. A man who has been detected in any dishonest act
can no longer live among them. He is universally shunned, and shame
becomes the severest punishment.
Such a contempt have they, in fact, for every species of fraud, that
they will not allow the people on the western coast to be their
countrymen; so much do they despise the arts for which those traders
who live on the rocks are notorious.
The description I received of them carried me back to the fables of
the golden age: independence and virtue; affluence without vice;
cultivation of mind, without depravity of heart; with "ever smiling
Liberty;" the nymph of the mountain. I want faith!
My imagination hurries me forward to seek an asylum in such a
retreat from all the disappointments I am threatened with; but
reason drags me back, whispering that the world is still the world,
and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must
occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt. But
this description, though it seems to have been sketched by a fairy
pencil, was given me by a man of sound understanding, whose fancy
seldom appears to run away with him.
A law in Norway, termed the odels right, has lately been modified,
and probably will be abolished as an impediment to commerce. The
heir of an estate had the power of re-purchasing it at the original
purchase money, making allowance for such improvements as were
absolutely necessary, during the space of twenty years. At present
ten is the term allowed for afterthought; and when the regulation
was made, all the men of abilities were invited to give their
opinion whether it were better to abrogate or modify it. It is
certainly a convenient and safe way of mortgaging land; yet the most
rational men whom I conversed with on the subject seemed convinced
that the right was more injurious than beneficial to society; still
if it contribute to keep the farms in the farmers' own hands, I
should be sorry to hear that it were abolished.
The aristocracy in Norway, if we keep clear of Christiania, is far
from being formidable; and it will require a long the to enable the
merchants to attain a sufficient moneyed interest to induce them to
reinforce the upper class at the expense of the yeomanry, with whom
they are usually connected.
