The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-01-18
THE LAND OF FIRE.
Plain Living and High Thinking of
the IcelanderS.

Iceland is, as William Morris said, 1.-The
Greece of the north. 1t produced in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries a litera-
ture unparalleled after Rome before the
golden age of England and France. In
character drawing, in passionate dramatic
power, in severe, noble simplicity in grim
humor All the characters of the Sagas
live and move today. Every hill and head,
land and valley in the island is full of
| their presence. The Icelander of today
knows them by heart. 1t is as if every
Englishman. from pauper to king, knew
Shakespeare's historical plays and could
reten them more or less in his or her own
words. 1t has kept the national times
alive through evil times. 1t has preserved
the language almost untouched by time
and foreign intercourse.
Nowhere is the contrast between man
and his surroundings SO glar1ng as in Ice
land. Buried in snow and darkness. de-
prived of every comfort, living on rancid
butter and dried fish, drinking sour whey
and milk, dressed like his servants seek
ing in a little boat his food, yet a cultured
mind, possessing an intimate knowledge
try, but of Greece and Rome: poet fond
of throwing of satires, intellectually and
morally the eaual, OF ms european guest.
ing to be ordered about by a rich English
man, owner Of several square miles of
gree going further back than the of his
visitor, a jack of all trades, blacksmith
in his smithy. boat builder and carpenter,
wood. an eager reader in books, he has
universal education up to the degree to
II a
There are no schools in Iceland, yet ev-
cry child at Il can read, according to the
parish statistics. In no country in Europe
are SO many books printed, and sold, in
proportion to the population. A popula-
ton of only &c, 900 scattered in many ham
let's. has Z printing presses. the earliest
being established as far back as 1880;
about 100 books annually, fourteen news
papers and eight periodicals are produced
to satisfy the literary needs of this little
nation.
Yet this literary people still live in a
pastoral and Homeric civilization. which
Is a modern lesson of the healthfulness of
human life lived in close contact with the
free. wild life of nature, such as would
have delighted the heart of Rousseau or
Thoreau. AS proof that this life Is
healthy I give the example of a clergyman
who died four years ago lis years old
HEALTHY and Happy on sl5o a year, the
| average stipend in the Icelandic church.
The sheep yield food and clothing. Their
spun, woven in hand looms. and worn un,
dyed. You make shoes of their skin and
spoons of the horns. Every opportunity
citing of poems. Only the milk ewes are
kept at home in the summer to be MIXED
the mountains in autumn, notice being
given ct church from the pulpit
The autumn gatherings, with people sit
ting on the walls Of the stone Enclosure
telling stories, are quite Homeric. The
winter evenings are spent with each mem
Der of the family busy at work in the
ing the wool off sheep skins. making ropes
and nets of hair; the women using spindle
still better opportunity for stories and
puns.
There are even wandering minstrels who
poetry, which they know by heart at va
rfous farmhouses till they exhaust their
| stock-National Geographic Magazine.
The watched pot never boils A gas me-
ter is acknowledgements Times.