Page 38 - To Dragma October 1930

36 To DRAGMA J

I was allowed to enter the pool. But what a pool! What a marvelous M
sensation it was to slip into it! The water is salted to increase bouyancy
and to nearly approach salt water bathing. Perhaps some facetious g
person might say, perhaps I needed such a thorough scrubbing, but I w
assure you, it is the rule and not the exception. a
a
The province where dwell my people is Varmland, famed in song t
and story for its beauty. I t is also the province of Selma Lagerlof and t
my home is not far from the scenes of "Gosla Berlings Saga." I t is a b
land of evergreen forests, blue terns and lakes. The Swedish country D
side is charming. Nearly all farm houses and farm buildings are ver- c
milion red with white corners. Why? Undoubtedly to relieve the som- c
berness of the forest background. An English woman scornfully said b
it was a "beet-root red." What if it is, sometime, when the vermilion hue a
has been weathered I adore beet-root red, but then, I'm Swedish born, M
not English. W

The cities and towns are lovely. Stockholm has been called the
"Venice of the North," I imagine more or less imperfectly, yet Stockholm
has a perfect setting of water and islands, country and sea. I t is a
cosmopolitan and cultured city.

Gothenburg on the west side is unlike any seaport I've ever seen.
It lies on and between windswept cliffs. I t is traversed by river and
canals. I t has gorgeous "alles" bordered by dignified oaks, horse-
chestnuts and maples. Everything looks clean, is clean and smells clean.
A traveler in Sweden, in contrasting southern and northern cities para-
phrased the facts, "See Naples and die," into "Smell Naples, and you
will die," whereas in Sweden "all senses are tickled agreeably and in
equal measure.

Do you know what a "smorgasbord" is? Ask Marion Abele (Rho),
she loves it. This summer, Marion, her mother and I wound up at a
"smorgasbord" in Sweden after we had seen, heard and eaten many
strange things in England, France and Germany. I f , when we entered a
restaurant, the "smorgasbord" was not in sight, Marion would say,
"Don't you suppose we will have it?" But we usually did. There is
a saying about, "fish, flesh, and fowl," and this is all that with much
more beside. A "smorgasbord" is a table laden with hors d'oeuvres.
I t has everything, caviar, anchovies, cheese, eggs, salads, strange fish,
familiar fish, headcheese, puddings, sweet and sour, jams and jellies.
You help yourself to any or all of this and eat it with bread and butter.
When you are in the small boy's vernacular "stuffed", you still have
your meal to eat, but you eat it. And the coffee! After vainly drinking
cup after cup of bitter chicory on the continent in hope of accidentally
getting a cup of coffee, what nectar that cup of lovely amber fluid com-
monly known as coffee!

These are but inadequate glimpses of the land where I was born, a
place that I adore because that is where I spent a happy childhood, and
because it is there my family lives, and I think my family is very nice.
Some day I ' l l go back again, perhaps to hunt the first snowdrop in the
spring or to capture once more the charm of a midsummer night.