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now I have a small one, in which, among similar explanations, under the word "go," this explanation appears, "go out doctor"—that is, in Swedish, "to become doctor." When we consider that these works are meant for the use of foreigners, it is strange to find the most recherché vulgarisms and Cockneyisms inserted there. How they have been made out by the foreign compilers, is quite unintelligible.

276

CHAPTER XX.

AND now I am on Lake Mälar-lovely Mälar ! I have, indeed, loved you exceedingly; with as fond and true a love as if you had been born beneath a softer sky, and lay in the lap of a more sunny landscape.

Beautiful Mälar! the heart may warm and glow upon thy waters, as well as upon those of Como or Maggiore. Yet now as I sail over you I say to myself,

"There's something in a flying-horse,

And something in a huge balloon;
But in the air I'll never float

Until I have a little boat

In shape like to the crescent moon."

For quite in the spirit of my desires are the thoughts and resolves of the poet; and had I a little boat in shape like to a crescent moon, I should try it on Lake Mälar first. Never, no never, could the blessedness of a solitary sail, in such a little equipage, be more fully experienced elsewhere. There no cigar-smoke would dim and pollute the pure air of heaven; no huge cloak-and-smokeenveloped men would each moment startle me with a scrape and a roar and explosion, which make me think something is surely amiss in the steam-machinery, until a discharge at my feet, or, if politer, over the side of the little packet, informs me that the lining of a Swedish throat must be of some invaluable texture which never wears out a species of gutta percha perhaps. The Swedes are the politest people in the world; but I was talking of Lake Mälar.

And so when I sailed up Lake Mälar, on coming to Stockholm in the dreary autumn of 1851, I thought that all the beauties I had vaunted on a former visit were, like other dreams of the beautiful and good, pleasant attributes rashly given by the imagination to things and beings that possessed them not. I saw it then shrouded in mist and chilling gloom; its waters,

its islets, its banks, reflecting the leaden colouring of the heavy sky. I thought the beauty had never been, I blamed my rash imagination. I was wrong. It was a friend momentarily alienated a friend whose friendship was under eclipse. Now the Mälar is itself again; and I see its loveliness is not imaginary; I see I did not err in my former admiration and love.

The Lake is bright and beautiful; and we go pleasantly over it, and I ask myself if the clouds that dim and shadow the human heart can thus remove, and leave it still unchanged and smiling as before, when they pass away? Can the hearts that are darkened by cruelty, and sin, and wrong again grow bright in the glory and gladness of earth?

No; earth may not break the chain that earth has tied, but Heaven's love and Heaven's grace can ease the most galling fetter. It is the sunshine of Heaven that has restored our Lake to itself. Let us feel the emblem and cease to lament.

I almost think that Queen Victoria would enjoy herself in the water-excursions of Stockholm. The villa-palaces lying around it are all accessible by boats, and they are all, indeed, most charming retreats.

Of these summer-palaces Drottningholm is the Versailles of Stockholm, if Stockholm is the Paris of the North. Both Drottningholm and Gripsholm are among the charming islands of Lake Mälar, and the way to the latter is most lovely. We went to the former with a bridal party, and had a pleasant day amid its beautiful grounds and forest, where nature is to me a thousand times more admirable than art: though the palace of Drottningholm is adorned in imitation of the style of Louis XIV. in France, and its formal gardens have many marble and bronze statues. Yet, while far grander than the villapalace of Hoga, it does not appear so great a favourite with its royal owners.

And we went to Gripsholm, and spent a whole long day there; and I saw a Swedish fair at the little town of Mariefred-or Mary's Peace, in English-and also the curiously-dressed people of the parish of Wingoker, whose costume, like that of the Dalecarlians, has remained immovable from century to century. For men, it consists in a long, plain, and tight coat of coarse white cloth, with long coloured stockings; the women wear short, thick, and bright yellow petticoats, scarlet stockings, a tight boddice, with the wide

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