bstupui_.

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
Vaermeland, Trollhaetta." 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 Trollhaetta. "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 fran 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 Trollhaetta! 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 mu