A WINTER IN NORWAY.*

IN one of the most amusing of the little essays of the American humourist who calls himself "Mark Twain,"—if, indeed, it is not the gem of all of them,—a dissertation on Benjamin Franklin, the author pathetically complains how the example of that great light was made the terror of his 'childhood. "Anybody can do that," he says, when informed that Franklin came to Philadelphia with half-a-crown in his pocket. And that "everybody can't be a bricklayer," is his further remonstrance with his too assiduous monitors. With something of the same defensive feeling did we begin the book before us. "Everybody can't go to Norway for the winter" is the answer which rises to one's lips, when ad- inonished by its accomplished authoress that "anybody can pass a summer holiday in Norway," and know nothing about the business or the pleasure of it. Though in Norway, as, in- deed, in all other countries, winter is the most characteristic season for bringing out home-life and putting home to the test, those who, like the present writer, have sinned by being conducted thither on a tripper's vessel in the summer, and have so made a passing acquaintance with her fiords and falls, cannot be prepared to admit that, as they couldn't go in the winter, they had better not have gone at all. We must add that Mrs. Tweedie is perhaps a little too aggressively muscular, .and a little too suggestive of the movement of the day, which seems to make of physical exercise almost the be-all and the end-all of the Briton's being ; and beyond that we have little but commendation for a book which will be very widely read by all the lovers of adventurous travel on the one hand, and on the other, by those who will be more especially interested in the personal chapters upon such names of fame as Nansen, the latest inquirer into the secrets of the North Pole, and the later-day dramatists of Norway, Ibsen and Bjornson.

"Dr. Nansen is quite a young man, being only thirty-one years • A Winter Jaunt to Nortcau. By Mrs. Alec Tweedie (nie Harley). With accounts of Manson, Ibsen, Bjornson, Brandes, and many others. Twenty-six Illustrations. London: Bliss, Bands, and Foster. 11394. of age. By birth a Norwegian, with characteristically fair hair, which he wears brushed straight back from his high brow, he has the clear Norwegian blue eye. His small fair moustache sur- mounts a still smaller imperial. He is over six feet in height, and with a figure unusually muscular, which, combined with great lithesomeness of movement, and his long stride and swinging gait, is curiously characteristic ; this is rendered even more noticeable by the strange dress and slouching felt hat he always wears. He rarely dons a topcoat, even in winter, and then only carries it thrown across one shoulder, with its long capes hanging down like a piece of drapery."

To the doctor our travelling ladies (for Mrs. Tweedie's sister was with her) had introductions, which were warmly acknowledged; and again they must remember that everybody is not in a posi- tion to carry such introductions with them. Nansen met and conducted them himself, a kind of personal conductor whom few can secure. His wife—his devoted companion and the sharer of all his work—his boat, and his schemes, and all that pertain thereto, are carefully and fully described; and so is the en- thusiastic assurance with which he looks to his return from the North Pole, even if his ice-proof boat with all her wonderful fittings and appliances should break down and fail him. He will find his way over the ice-fields somehow, and rejoin the wife whom he feels on the whole unable to take with him. He is a man who, as shown by an anecdote given by the writer, of his keeping a dinner appointment to the minute under very difficult circumstances during a visit to London, is Monte Cristo-like in his fidelity to his promises. It is part of his character to appreciate highly the rapidity and despatch of English transactions. "With your speed and our railway carriages, railway travelling would be quite perfect," he once remarked. Of his wife's accomplishments Dr. Nansen is especially proud, not only of her home qualities, but of her musical skill, for she is very popular in Norway as a professional singer, and follows her calling assiduously. She makes a speciality of the old Norse songs. Quite as proficient is she in athletics, and often accompanies her husband as a " skilober " on his tours in the mountain snow, dressed in the Lapp costume of high reindeer-fur mocassins and short-skirted trousers to the knees; and can, on occasion, sleep out in the snow at night in one of her hus- band's wonderful fur-lined sleeping pockets. About this same skilobering we have a great deal to be told. The " ski " (pronounced "she ") are simply snowshoes, which our ladies put on for the first time with much hesitation, but only to become, by their own account, great proficients in the use of them afterwards. The ski are heavy and clumsy, and become so entangled, unless kept apart, that the wearer cannot move. On their first expedition their ski ran away with the visitors, and gave them a succession of spills in the snow, till they reached their destination, much to the amusement of the onlookers, who had to pick them up every time they fell, as they lay entangled in their ski. The " kjcelke," which is a snowshoe aggravated into a carriage, about a foot wide and six feet long, is raised on runners about eight or ten inches, the occupant sitting out- side, rather far back, with feet tucked in under the seat, and resting on the runners. He steers with a pole from twelve to eighteen feet long, and goes five or six miles down a mountain in about twenty minutes. We are not surprised to hear that kkelke-racing requires a great deal of care, and is indeed so dangerous that there has been some talk of sup- pressing it. It is, however, according to the account in the book, far more refined and poetical, and not a whit more rough, than the footballing which has become so prominent of late at home. As for the ski, people may tumble about and hurt themselves to their hearts' content, and be never the worse for it. The women generally prefer to go on the kjcelke with a man who guides it while the woman sits in front, when only a spill can part them, once started, till they reach the bottom.

"A friend," says Mrs. Tweedie, "told us a funny little story He was riding his kjcelke down from Holmen.kollen, and before him in the road, to his surprise, he saw a lady and gentleman walking. He called loudly to them to get out of the way; but either they did not hear, or his pace was too great, or they could not move aside. On he rushed madly on his little kjcelke, which, before he knew what had happened, whipped the lady up, an. d there she was sitting in front of him! What was his astonish- ment to find he was carrying an utter stranger down the mountain side at this breakneck pace ! He was too busy and too breathless to speak, and they sped away. It was a curious position, to say the least of it, for neither could see the other's face. The lady knew she must sit quite still, and after the first shock tucked her feet away, and remained in quiet bewilderment till they reached

the bottom. There they stood aghast. Each bowed to the other. Each apologised,—the • one for being in the way, the other for bearing the fair lady off so unceremoniously. All reserve quickly wore off, and they were soon laughing and chatting together, so that by the time the brother_arrived, he found them the best of friends."

We quite agree with Mrs. Tweedie:that such an involuntary Lochinvar-like feat ought to have ended in a marriage, and regret, with her, that nothing camelof it.

As for the ski, for an ordinary:man, they are eight or nine feet long, "and about four-and-a-half inches wide, and an inch at the thickest part, that is to say, immediately under the foot, but towards either end they taper to half this thick- ness." We give the proportions as the lady gives them, pre- suming that the inch means an inch deep. Where snow covers the ground for six or seven feet for months, with abso- lately dry air and seldom any wind, the ski are an absolute necessity. "Everything is done on ski—the farmer goes to milk his cows on ski, the children go to school on ski, the postman carries the letters on ski ; without ski life would become impossible. With them, Norway's mountains can be traversed from end to end during the many months of winter's snow." The result of this is, of course, any amount of com- petition in the use of ski, till it seems to combine in Norway the purpose of ordinary locomotion with those of athletic exercise. Every village has its snowshoe club, which holds competitions and gives prizes, and once a year sends its beet representative to Christiania to compete in the "great skirend," the annual snowshoe race, which surpasses the Derby as a national excitement; and the picture given by our authoress of the competition which she fortunately witnessed in the February of 1891 and 1893, is vivid and fascinating enough to be heartily commended to our readers. Perhaps in a spell of home-cold, where ski are not, and where winds very decidedly are, we rather prefer to read of Capri and the Soath, to "thinking of the frosty Caucasus ; " but that does not affect the value of the description :—" To see a man go uphill, his legs apart, and stamping the snow at each step, is most amusing from behind, the movement so closely resembles a frog with his little bent legs. The less experienced, and the women, travel uphill sideways, making a series of crab-like movements." When the snow is very soft, or sticky, the ski is greased with a candle; and the lovers of " records " will like to be told that Carl Hegebro did his twelve English miles, in spite of steepness and turns and everYthing, in 1 hour, 46 minutes, 36 seconds; the next man in nineteen seconds more,—surely a wonderfully close thing. As for the jumping, the Arabian nights are prosaic to these Norwegian days :— "The descent of some four hundred feet was very steep, almost perpendicular, if one may say so. [Indeed, one may almost say anything.] At the given word, No. 1 rushed from the plateau on the hill-top, down the hill itself. The pace, in consequence of the steepness, was tremendous. On he came ; on to the platform built out from the mountain-side he rushed; then, with a huge spring, his legs doubled up, and whirling his arms like a windmill to keep his balance, he jumped. Oh, what a moment of profound excitement! Would he regain his footing all that distance below ? No, he did not ; but rolled over and over again down the hillside in the snow. How it happened he did not kill himself during his series of summersaults, with nine feet of wood strapped to each foot, seemed to be miraculous. But the snow was so profound, he simply disappeared into its depth, while it rose like the foam of the sea around him, and he ultimately emerged none the worse for his bath Out of all those hundred competitors, the average was over 60 ft. It sounds incredible, but it is neverthe- less a fact. The longest jump of all was 264 metres, that is, to very nearly 88 ft., but the man did not regain his footing. One who jumped 22 metres, and landed on his feet to continue his course. won the King's cup and the ladies' purse. We looked on and marvelled."

As for us, we read and marvel more, and think it nothing when the lady tells us that, finding the road impassable for their sledge, she and her sister got out and walked up and down on their ski till they had trampled the snow down, and could proceed comfortably. We only trust that the shades of Mandeville and Manchausen can listen all unmoved.

Anyhow, many of our authoress's chapters are immensely entertaining, and we really do not much care to select where all is quotable. It is very amusing to read of the arrival of the travellers at the little hostelry of Hitterdal, so benumbed with cold that they had to be unpacked, to descend hungry to .a nine-o'clock dinner, and refuse cheese in fond anticipation of a, sweet, to be offered an ice-pudding, hard as the miller's millstone, and white as a snow-capped peak. The beaming

handmaiden—and very nice they are in Norway, even in summer—informed them, in answer to their "Why, oh why?" that they bad made it by standing it outside the window all day, and that "all English people like an ice-pudding when they come here." Well, we remember that we did, and feel more guilty than ever for our national summer sins. No, there must be no more Cooks and Gazes, and all must winter upon ski. As for another diet-story, we can sympathise about the terrible " negsost," or brown goats'-milk cheese, for which "a liking takes some time to acquire," and laugh at the ben &ovate anecdote which tells of a Norwegian who sent some to a German friend, to be answered : "The soap is very nice; but we find great difficulty in making it lather." With the round-faced blonde who waited on the ladies, we answer in Norwegian, " Tak," or "Thank you," as she said to every- thing. On our Norwegian trip-ship, we remember that the maiden answered always just the same.

"As the Mahometan slips off his boots before entering his temple, the visitor leaves his snow-coverings in the hall before entering a Norwegian sitting-room. The girl waited, and we nodded; but she still waited. What could she want P At last, by her gesticulations, we discovered she wanted our goloshea ; but unfortunately we could not oblige her, as we bad none on. Having at last made her understand this fact, she looked dis- appointed, and calmly beckoned us back to the mat to wipe our feet again."

There is another characteristic introduction to the mighty Ibsen, that exceedingly strange and very much discussed author who has become so great a fact of the day. Here, too, we have interesting and vivid description, which confirms all that we have read of the Norwegian playwright,—his shyness and politeness, his retired and reserved nature, his love of minute neatness and simplicity of surrounding, and his own

want of apparent sympathy with the morbid teachings of his own drama. His life is interestingly told ; how, after being brought up to wealth, he had entirely to make his own way in the world through his father's loss of fortune ; began as a doctor, turned Radical politician, was plucked in Greek and mathematics, was made stage-manager for seven years at Bergen through the influence of Ole Bull at 267 a year ; and so learning his dramatist's trade (very rarely learned, it must.

be said, except through some such intimate association), became manager of a new theatre at Christiania, and blos- somed into the playwright who has made, it is said, more money by his pen than any other living author. He still retains, the authoress tells us, his love of stage-management, and takes the greatest interest in the production of his own work, carefully instructing his actors in their parts. His son married Bjornson's daughter ; and the two, who were once great friends and then estranged, are reunited with a difference through a common grandson called Tailored :— "They remain friends, but they agree to differ on almost every point in life. Two men more utterly unlike in temperament and style could not possibly be found. They look upon life with totally different eyes ; they enjoy absolutely dissimilar surround- ings; they do not agree on any one subject; yet each is deferential to the other's opinions."

Bjornson, certainly very unlike his rival from the striking photographs which appear of them, with nothing but spectacles

in common, is the subject of another chapter. He has attained, of course, nothing like the European reputation of Ibsen, but must be the pleasanter companion. Unlike the Ibsen of the present day, he throws his heart chiefly into politics, where he is great on the Nationalist aide. Between Swedish Pro- tection and Norwegian Free-trade—a Swedish army and a Norwegian navy, Sweden with a nobility and Norway with 'none—the struggle is constant, and BjOrnson one of its chief fighters. But he has also his "fad," like Ibsen, on heredity, which, according to him, however, is a blessing in

that it enables men to know the tendencies they have to combat, whereas with Ibsen it is a curse which cannot be overcome. His father was the parson of a little Norwegian village, and at twenty, after "cramming" with Ibsen at the

Christiania. University, he took to the profession of journalism. His eldest son is an actor and manager of the National Theatre at Christiania., a post for which he is trained, excel- ling in some of his father's creations. In one part he is famous for a direct imitation of his father. Our ladies, who seem to know everybody, made friends with the leading Nor- wegian actress, and so became as familiar with theatres as with snowshoes or with Arctic exploration.

Our space forbids us farther dealing with Mrs. Tweedie's. pages, which, from start to finish, are really a treat. At the very outset at Victoria she was nearly prevented from going by what looked like detective interference. And moonlight and stars, adventures and oddities, follow in fast succession through a book introduced to us with a modest little preface which makes us feel that we have found a pleasant com- panion. We "rose with purpose dread" when we found that she thinks it so wicked or feeble to go to Norway in the summer, and can assure her that the present writer was neither "eaten by flies, deprived of proper accommodation, or starved for want of food," even though guilty of that heinous sin. And we gasp at Mrs. Tweedie's tales sometimes. But her book of travel is altogether too racy, too breezy, too observant, and too new to let us part from her with anything but the most sincere compliments, and the best wishes for an unlimited number of readers.