Daily Kennebec journal., 1904-11-14
Maine College Standing.
KING OSCAR OF SWEDEN.
Short, Crisp Biography of Thorough
Going Man.

Going Man.
Among the kings of the universe
Oscar is the biggest-a few inches more
and he would be 4 freak. for Barnum
begins where the majestic ceases in
bodily measurements. During the las.
few weeks | have seen him Il dozen
times, and if my eyes, unused to great
heights. do not hetray me, this king
has good. brave face. A bearded,
white soldiers head, with the soft. pru-
dent and serious eyes of a st. Bernard.
The nose is ordinary say it with Il
heart full Of sorrow for those readers
who imagine that in king everything
must be royal-a commonplace nose
like that Of 0.0OO or 100000 Old gentle
men who look uron the wine when il
is red.
Yesterday at the academy | heard
Oscar speak for tn" fifth or sixth time
and again noticed that he contracts his
upper lip sharply whenever he opens
his mouth. On these occasions he dis
plays two long, whit" upper teeth like
& hare bemoaning the scarcity of clover
i'll mid-winter.
Five and seventy is this king-if you
and | shall he half as nimbIe on our
feet at Oscars age. We shall have rea-
son to thank our stars. He moves with
freedom. energy and grace, knows how
70 BE- a;fable without condescension and
has tn" happy knack of making one
think that his pnlit-nesS is unassumed.
The court marShalS maintain that
ore can tell a king in a million that
there is Il certain something about a
majesty indicating that his ancestors
Wore crowns a Thousand years ago"
VII know all the king Of Eui op and
several of them might as soon pass
! for butchers or $l5-a- week clerks than
heads of great states. It's different with
Oscar. Il really imposing figure, sug-
etsting one Of TWO things: Either that
il is not 50 very difficult to lcaln the
trade of kingship. or that this grand
/ son of Il shreWd FRENCH pettyfoggef is
possessed of special tatents in his line.
In his own countsy the. king is most
often mentioned in connection with
! literature, whether one talks of Tegner
Or Frithjpf Saga fame. the authnress
Of the Christ novels, Of Hjoerns or, AIM
ucist or Ibscn Oscar is in some way
mixed up with them as patron or
frl"ild. Here is a pretty speech he
used at one time towards the last
named Don't call Ee king in con-
n"ctiun with where You rule supreme,
| am trt simple i.obleman.'
Not that he ever discovered literary
! talent and by his generosity brought it
to its full bloom. Oscar was satisfied
to let genius assert itself by its own
i'm hnpcpt
is that he never attempted to mold ma
tional literature into a vehicle for his
own aggrandiZement that he neither
/ harangued nor bulldozed the writer's.
a celebrated Swedish novelist told
me: The king treats authors as es-
| teomed colleagues, and in the presence
of the greatest of them conducts him.
self as modcstly as an unknown ro-
mancer might, when he meets Tolstoi
or Anatole France
Yet oscar has just cause to be proud
! of his literary record. When crown
prince he sent manuscript volume Of
poems to the Swedish academy to be
Judged alongside of hundreds of 9TH
ers in price competition, and though
the judges did not know the names of
any of the authors, Oscar won the
prize. a friend translated the verses
for me-outbursts of a political, re-
ligiouS and social idcaliSt For 100
years royal authors have been idcalists
on paper-thc last who portrayed his
skepticism, satire and irony was the
| great Frederick.
| 1t was a King of Sweden who told
Marie Antoinette. eager to be compli-
: ~ ~
well-for a queen.R Someone para
I phrascd that clever saying with re-
| spect to Oscars translationS from Ger
man poets. but the point is not well
taken. Goethe's TorQuato Tasso and
| Herder's Cid, rendered into Swedish by
the king. are classics and if the au-
thors Of these masterpieces lived, they
would be proud of the translator.
| At scientific institution here I met
| a noted socialist who would like moth
! ing better than to see all kings pen
/ stoned off at the rate now allowed to
old soldiers. a regular king eater-in
theory. ''As to our old man. he does
not require pension. he is so clever
| in so many different ways" said the
! Marxist, and continued: From his
! lectures on the late HelmholtZ. l gath
cred my first information regarding
| optics and acoustics. Indeed as a
lecturer Oscar implanted in me the
! love for physiology. and if I have been
moderately successful in my line can
! dor compels me to admit that | owe the
! initial inspiration to the monarch, +
+ hate and revere at the same time"
! Another learned man spoke at length
of what Oscar did for music in the
empires of the North. Being a math-
ematlcian of the first order. he devel-
oped into music theorist and as such
mas been most generous patron and
advocate of the noble art was ex-
planned.
Poet. translator, physiologist. man of
figures and fugues, editor of scientific
magazines and explorer by proxy
! sven Hedin and others-the list rivals
the tifrman kaiser's record of accom-
pishments and has the additional ad-
vantage of being correct-correct but
Z NOT complete. Up to - years ago. for
instance. the King was famous evm-
mast and several noted improvements