The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-03
THROUGH AMERICAN EYES
HOW COPENHAGEN FIRST STRIKES
AN OBSERVING STRANGER.
Julian Ralph Finds the Language
Too Much of ThOrwaIdsen.

Very Objectionable, Also a Little
Too Much of ThOrwaIdsen.
Copenhagen Letter in London Mail
Copenhagen is a gay. bright, noisy little
place, shining like an electric lamp at night
and rafting like coffee grinder all the
time 1t has broad streets, beautiful parks
and plenty of fountains and statues and
as is the rule in all the northern continent
al places have seen, the whole population
swarms in the Streets and keeps its homes
only TO go to bed in. It's streets are laid
with cobblestones over which the wagons
rattle with riotous clatter so like the
din of New York that instantly felt quite
at home, and prepared for a superb nights
sleep. There's nothing like a cobble- paved
city for sleeping. Wherever you sleep you
need lot of noise and it must be kept
up steadily; then no hing can ha pen to dis
turb your rest. That is a serious trouble
with London. The cockneys talk of 1.-The
roar of London" but we Americans know
that it is too quiet for any except the
heaviest sleepers.
Copenhagen is the most wonderful place
for windows. The fronts of all the houses
are punctured like the tops of so many pep
per boxes. I've been looking over the town,
and | don't think l could poke in another
window if I could get a fortune for doing
1t. Whether this is because they have an
extra long night of few months dura-
tl)n, and want to get all the daylight there
is, I can't say. The worst of it is, l cannot
even find out whether they have long
nlgFt or not because 1 cannot speak Dan
lsh. 1t is an extraordinary tongue. The
simple Welsh, as we all know, have adopt
ed the expedient of spelling words just as
the letters happen along in the alphabet,
Dut these Danes have not agreed on any
system OF spelling, and are not satisfied
with the alphabet. They have invented
twenty-seventh letter, which is an o, with
a mark run through it, diagOnally, from
north-north-west to south-south-east, and
this amazing letter comes in most of the
words. They are so proud of it that they
paint It ali by itself, in heroic size, on the
front OF he second stories of the tram cars.
These tram cars, by the way, carry ON
their roofs buildings that look Ike big En-
glsh wardrobes with the doors taken out.
You stow yourself up in them, SIS if you
were an extra suit of clothes belonging to
the conductor. These wardrobes catch the
wind like mainSail, and, as a gale was
blowing to-day tried to follow tram for
the fun of seeing it blow over, but it went
too fast.
HARD LANGUAGE.
used to think that when a British, or Rus
sian, or Swedish prince came here to get
a wife all he had to say was: ''Wjin yjou
mjarry mje?" but I didn't know great
deal of Danish then. In fact, only knew
the word "Tandstikker," which means
rancid match'-at least 1 think so, after
using those matches all over the world
Since have come here I've not only dis
pOx ha wit Clxa
but find that the language is so impossi-
BILE that the Danes themselves have given
it up.
Kiobenhavn, Copenhague, Coepenhabn
Fireworks is spelled many ways, and this
is one: Fyrvaerkeri. Even wine is spelled
that wherever I have spoken a word or
two of Danish in the shops the clerks have
asked me please to speak German. They
don't like their own language. Even when
they happen on a right spelling they go
wrong in pronunciation. They spell Jenny
Lind all right and then call it Yenny Lint.
So / no longer pretend to know what a
prince says when he asks for the hand of
q Danish princess, though after he gets
her am sure he must say, Amt / in
luck?"
I came here on the same boat with the
Princess Ingeborn and her husband,
Charles of Sweden. We bumped against
one another, and were little i'll together.
and laughed at our companions without my
ever dreaming that my companions were
royalties They sat on a deck settee for
hours, went downstairs and dined at two
shillings a head. with a rather rough lot
of young men at their table, and were alto
gether as democratic as could be. At times
the girlish little princess was left by her
self on deck. and then the servants offered
civiities, and even small efforts at CONVEX
sation, and these she accepted quite freely
and with a charming manner. But for the
most part the royal pair-she in q plain
dress and he in a lounging suit and squash
hat-sat smuggling uD to each other for all
the world like a pair of German sweet
hearts making the most of a chance to be
together. She looks sixteen, is slight very
blonde very emotional and inclined to be
merry. He is tall, masterful-ooking man,
with clear-cut face, gentle eyes, and
manner toward her that is ali tenderness
and pride. They were coming home at the
end of their honeymoon.
My! what an amount of sa1uting there
was when we got off the boat at Corsor!
The Danes seem a silent race, like so many
oysters, but they have a grand habit of
by swinging their hats at arms
length, as Gladstone swings an AK. They
back but as he has an uncommon long
arm he outswung them ALL The princess
smiled on every one, right and left like
a happy girl
THE DANISH FLAG.
I found Kjobnhabn all one deep blush
with Danish flags. This flag is a patch
of red, with a white cross on it, and looked
union jack and got caught at it before they
had quite finished. I supposed all this dec
GRAFTON was in honor of the homecoming of
the happy pair, but it was for far more
uncommon event-the eightieth birthday of
Queen Louise, the mother of the loveliest
princess that England knows. or can wish
to know.
This city is a complete capital with pal
aces, national museums, galleries, botan-
ical institute, and, in fact, all the reqIIi-
sites of a. small metropolis. But it has gone
mad over sculpture. It's deity is ThorWald-
sen, the sculptor, and perhaps this is why
one finds plaster casts, china casts mar
bic and bronze figures, or else photographs
of these things, offered for sale in two
places on every block. Instead Of in lager
beer saloons, as in Hamburg, or in coffee
shops in Vienna, the dissipation here is In
statuette shops. You see a church full of
work, and then you go to
the museum and see duplicates of the same
statues. / am frank to confess I can be
happy without seeing any more of Thor
waldsens work. He was too conventional
he missed feeling" in everything he did
and he paid the very slightest attention to
the details-the finer lines and molding-
of the anatomy of his subjects. BY not
liking him l miss the cream of Copen-
hagen.
Quoted girls | see everywhere. guide books
In hand, believing that everything must be
grand lust because it Is put UP for view
and "Oh-oh-ingr' at each thing in it's turn
You have to be farther along in life, and
YOU miss lot of pleasure when you come
to know that most things IN most museums
are mere rubbish. There is a SNOWY col
Iao+io,, of voodern sfatuarV in CtOppnha gems