come to our
coast, in order to take our fish, our eider-down, and so on, in exchange
for their corn and furs. Besides these, the inhabitants of more southern
regions bring hither a vast number of articles of luxury and fashion,
which are eagerly purchased by the inhabitants of Kola, and the borders
of the White Sea. Long life to Commerce! My soul expands at the sight of
its life. What has not commerce done from the beginning of the world for
the embellishment of life, for promoting the friendly intercourse of
countries and people, for the refinement of manners! It has always given
me the most heartfelt delight, that the wisest and most humane of the
lawgivers of antiquity--Solon--was a merchant. "By trade," says one of
his biographers, "by wisdom and music was his soul fashioned. Long life
to commerce! What lives not through it?" What is all fresh life, all
movement, in reality, but trade, exchange, gift for gift! In love, in
friendship, in the great life of the people, in the quiet family circle,
everywhere where I see happiness and prosperity, see I also trade; nay,
what is the whole earth if not a colony from the mother country of
heaven, and whose well-being and happy condition depend upon free export
and import! The simile might be still further carried out, yet--thou
good Giver above, pardon us that we have ventured upon it!

And you must not fancy, Alette, that the great interest for trade here
excludes the nobler and more refined mental culture. Among the thousand
people who inhabit the city, one can select out an interesting circle
for social intercourse. We also have a theatre, and many pleasures of
refined life. I was yesterday at a ball, where they danced through the
whole night, till--daylight. The good music, the tasteful dresses and
lovely dancing of the ladies; but above all, the tone of social life,
the cordial cheerfulness, astonished several foreigners who were
present, and caused them to inquire whether they were really here under
the seventieth degree of latitude?

But the winter! Methinks I hear you say, "in summer it may be well
enough, but in the long, dark winter." Well then, my Alette,
winter--goes on right excellently when people love one another, when it
is warm at home. Do you remember, Alette, last autumn, how we read
together at Christiansand, in the Morning Paper, the following paragraph
from the Tromsoe News of the fourteenth of October:

"Already for several days successively have we