Memorials of Willard Fiske Author:Willard Fiske Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTERS FROM SCANDINAVIA—NO. HI Copenhagen, Saturday, October I2, 1850 the Editor of The Tribune: There is much about this Scandinavian race of men, whi... more »ch to one either contemplating them from a distant point of view, or living and working among them, is full of interest and productive of thought. Their chief characteristic as it seems to me, is a calm, patient, enduring energy, which is wholly unlike the fiery, unsteady enthusiasm of the south. This latter develops itself in holy wars and fanatical crusades, in burning poetry and abortive revolutions, and resembles the coals of a forge, which at one moment glow with a startling brilliance and fervor, and at the next are a heap of dead, useless cinders. Within the last fifty years much has been done towards developing the Norse character in a more peaceful and useful direction. The polar nations had been engaged in a long series of wars, which extended almost uninterruptedly from the days of the Vikings to the beginning of the present century. As pagan, papal, and protestant, they had been actuated by the same warlike and war-loving spirit,which was only different by circumstances, in the case of Rolf in France, Knut in England, and Gus- tavus Adolphus in Germany. By conquest they had acquired a vast territory which once stretched from the city of the Czars along both sides of the Baltic and across the North sea to the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Almost all of this had been torn from them by treaties and otherwise, until at length they found themselves none the better for all the blood that had been shed, all the manly strength that had been wasted. Since which they have wisely labored in another field and reaped a better, richer harvest. The Scandinavians are a domestic people. The warmth that is wanting in the air ...« less