Gothenburg is a clean airy town, and, having been built by the Dutch, has
canals running through each street; and in some of them there are rows of
trees that would render it very pleasant were it not for the pavement, which is intolerably bad.
There are several rich commercial houses--Scotch, French, and Swedish; but the Scotch, I believe, have been the most successful. The commerce and commission business with France since the war has been very lucrative, and enriched the merchants I am afraid at the expense of the other inhabitants, by raising the price of the necessaries of life.
As all the men of consequence--I mean men of the largest fortune--are
merchants, their principal enjoyment is a relaxation from business at the
table, which is spread at, I think, too early an hour (between one and
two) for men who have letters to write and accounts to settle after
paying due respect to the bottle.
However, when numerous circles are to be brought together, and when
neither literature nor public amusements furnish topics for conversation, a good dinner appears to be the only centre to rally round, especially as scandal, the zest of more select parties, can only be whispered. As for politics, I have seldom found it a subject of continual discussion in a country town in any part of the world. The politics of the place, being on a smaller scale, suits better with the size of their faculties; for, generally speaking, the sphere of observation determines the extent of the mind.
The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation is
a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced its
progress; for it not only refines our enjoyments, but produces a variety
which enables us to retain the primitive delicacy of our sensations. Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a substitute for the imagination, which, being impossible, it was to this weariness, I suppose, that Solomon alluded when he declared that there was nothing new under the sun!--nothing for the common sensations excited by the senses. Yet who will deny that the imagination and understanding have made many, very many discoveries since those days, which only seem harbingers of others still more noble and beneficial? I never met with much imagination amongst people who had not acquired a habit of reflection; and in that state of society in which the judgment and taste are not called forth, and formed by the cultivation of the arts and sciences, little of that delicacy of feeling and thinking is to be found characterised by the word sentiment. The want of scientific pursuits perhaps accounts for the hospitality, as well as for the cordial reception which strangers receive from the inhabitants of small towns.
Hospitality has, I think, been too much praised by travellers as a proof
of goodness of heart, when, in my opinion, indiscriminate hospitality is
rather a criterion by which you may form a tolerable estimate of the
indolence or vacancy of a head; or, in other words, a fondness for social
pleasures in which the mind not having its proportion of exercise, the
bottle must be pushed about.
These remarks are equally applicable to Dublin, the most hospitable city
I ever passed through. But I will try to confine my observations more
particularly to Sweden.
It is true I have only had a glance over a small part of it; yet of its
present state of manners and acquirements I think I have formed a
distinct idea, without having visited the capital--where, in fact, less
of a national character is to be found than in the remote parts of the
country.
The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the
polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome forms and
ceremonies. So far, indeed, from entering immediately into your
character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the well-bred
French, their over-acted civility is a continual restraint on all your
actions. The sort of superiority which a fortune gives when there is no
superiority of education, excepting what consists in the observance of
senseless forms, has a contrary effect than what is intended; so that I
could not help reckoning the peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who, only aiming at pleasing you, never think of being admired for their behaviour.