sluggish to be curious.
It is pleasant to know that they have at least one good quality, in the
exercise of which they surpass the rich. This is politeness, the national
virtue. Mary observes:--

"The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from
being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of
tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far indeed from entering
immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at
your ease, like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is
a continual restraint on all your actions. The sort of superiority
which a fortune gives when there is no superiority of education,
excepting what consists in the observance of senseless forms, has a
contrary effect than what is intended; so that I could not help
reckoning the peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who, only
aiming at pleasing you, never think of being admired for their
behavior."

Mary found the condition of the Norwegians somewhat better. The lower
classes were freer, more industrious, and more opulent. She describes
their inns as comfortable, whereas those of the Swedes had not been even
inhabitable. The upper classes, though, like the Swedes, over-fond of the
pleasures of the table, narrow in their range of ideas, and wholly
without imagination, at least gave some signs of better days in their
dawning interest in culture. She writes:--

"The Norwegians appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little
scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they
are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the
arts and sciences.

"Most of the towns are seaports, and seaports are not favorable to
improvement. The captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by
travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of
money prevents their digesting; and the fortune that they thus
laboriously acquire is spent, as it usually is in towns of this
description, in show and good living. They love their country, but
have not much public spirit. Their exertions are, generally
speaking, only for their families; which I conceive will always be
the case, till politics, becoming a subject of discussion, enlarges
the heart by opening the understanding. The French Revolution will
have this effect. They sing at present, with great glee, many