re gentle and fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and
rye. She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray
dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and
the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the
living picture do not escape her notice. She records the musical tinkling
of distant cow-bells and the mournful cry of the bittern. She even tells
how she sometimes, when she is out in her boat, lays down her oars that
she may examine the purple masses of jelly-fish floating in the water.
Truly, her ways were not as those of the Philistines around her.

The following extract from a letter written from Gothenburg gives a good
idea of the impression made upon her by the moral ugliness and natural
beauty which she met wherever she went. The passage is characteristic,
since its themes are the two to which she most frequently recurs:--

"... Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the dishes
are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table,
and, to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw
salmon or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat
then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As
the dinner advances,--pardon me for taking up a few minutes to
describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the
stretch, observing,--dish after dish is changed, in endless
rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but
should you happen not to like the first dishes, which was often my
case, it is a gross breach of politeness to ask for part of any
other till its turn comes. But have patience, and there will be
eating enough. Allow me to run over the acts of a visiting day, not
overlooking the interludes.

"Prelude, a luncheon; then a succession of fish, flesh, and fowl
for two hours; during which time the dessert--I was sorry for the
strawberries and cream--rests on the table to be impregnated by the
fumes of the viands. Coffee immediately follows in the
drawing-room, but does not preclude punch, ale, tea and cakes, raw
salmon, etc. A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the
introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. A
day of this kind you would imagine sufficient--but a to-morrow and
a to-morrow. A never-ending, still-beginning