Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1899-03-26

lyour customary furs behind when you
lstart for your noontide drive. Inc neat
ling of your house depends upon the Jucs-
lment Of no Unbalanced furnace-slave, but
lis maintained by unvarying means al a
pltch az changeless. And above all, every
building IS put together with a special
view to warmth and tightness. The other
day saw, in one Of the suburbs, pGelly
! little wooden villa entirely sheathed. on
| its windward side, in ne&uy apphed TAR
papor The effect was naive. but the
/ principle involved IS that which makes
the season actually more comfortable in
Christiania than in London.
Remarkably few foreigners. however,
really know anything about the Norway
of the Norwcgians. Summer tourists.
swarning like summer flies over the face
OF the land, carry away certain geograph-
zeal Impressions; but for the same
reasons that would hold good in any other
country, they see nothing OF the peo-
pies life, or lack the key TO the under
standing of such odds and ends as chance
may expose 10 their vision. Herein be-
hold, incidentally. the chief reason why
Ibsens social dramas" to a Norseman
thoroughly eXplicable, even when not sym
pathetic, ring false and strained on
foreign ears. Intelligent criticism OF these
some aspects, quite impossible without ac-
ouaintance with the peculiar social condi-
lions from which they spring.
ANY open-minded foreigner must, j
think. find special pleasure in sharing
the winter life Of this remote little capt.
TAI. It's two strongest aliurements per-
haps. are its intense lOcalism and its
keen intellectual vitality. Norway is I'M
compromisingly noncosmopolitan. If she
progresses, she progresses Norskly, not
in the wake Of strangers and Phliistines;
and she feels, meantime, but the mildest
curiosity as TO what strangers and Philis-
tines may be thinking of her. So intense
a self satisfaction must have bred colossal
dulness but for the ieaven Of the follow
ing graces: Society is small and centred
IN the capital; the standard Of general in
tellectual development is high; the upper
stratum of The intellectual COM
monaliy contains many men and
women Of remarkable attainments;
and soaring over all are a few
true geniuses, like Bjornson, whose
electric flashes now and again project en-
llvening thrills through the entire body
social. setting hot young blood ahame and
startling phlegmatc old heads into
healthfui action. Nothing stagnant can
count on peace and safety. Some adven-
his thoroughly Norsk way, at some hoary
condition or prejudice. and dynamic ideas
spring up, like mushrooms. in the night.
10 be brought in with the newspapers at
breakfast, and there vrestled over with
single-hearted intensity.
The credit of the almighty dollar stands
at nought, or is recognized, rather, only
in the circle Of the prosperous trades
families. Money bears no relation what
ever 10 social standing, and the richest
man In the town openly rates as the chief
privilege of his wealth the ability that 1t
gives him to make mis- house a centre Of
learning, and to entertain certain rusty,
dusty university professors, whose yearly
incomes would hardly keep his horses for
a month. As would be supposed, this ig-
noring of financial circumstances acts inn
mediately on the mental life OF the city.
Because Of 1t, society in general gets the
worth of every man or womans brains
and talents. Nothing IS sacrificed 10 ex-
ternals Hospitality fourishes untram-
melled by ambition Of display, and such
noble liberty Of plain living prevails as
would, perhaps. be hard 10 parallel, now
that our American Cambridge of fifty
years ago has faded into n memory
Well, indeed, it is for those of smaller
purse that the liberty Of plain living does
eXist-that the spirit Of hospitality does
outrank the fesh-pots Of Egypt: for the
true Norsk table, when expanded to it's
preferred dimensions. is one TO stagger