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LETTERS. 227
difficult to find any place where, while health predominates,
there is so much laughter as here. At what? — it would
be difficult to tell: at childishness, at nonsense, — in fact,
at nothing. Such merriment belongs to the family myste-
ries, and by no means to the worst amongst them. It often
springs out of a number of trifling peculiarities of the
family members, which, perhaps, would have become rude
and harsh, unless they had in time been partly trimmed and
polished by love, and partly been softened by good temper.
You and your countrymen understand this better than oth-
ers. Therein lies, I believe, the source of what you call
“humor,” of which they have so much.
I am now making the acquaintance of the ancient Finn-
ish national poesy, and I am very much struck by its
originality and life. But I am not so enchanted now, after
studying the same, as I was in the anticipation. It is a
savage beauty, like that of our old, grand pine-forests, with
their gloomy recesses, their fresh, wonderfully pleasant fra-
grance; their wild, mysterious rustling; but which do not
afford any food for our imagination and our feeling. It is
a magical life of Nature, full of witchcraft, and full of strife
between the energetic, prudent spirit of man and Nature’s
fierce powers, which are conquered and bound by the for-
mer, by means of “elementary spells” and the power of
music. This latter has frequently great natural beauty,
but we miss all moral life and a higher flight. The soul,
after wandering about in these regions, longs as much for
more solid food as the body after a long, fatiguing walk
through heath and forest.
There is a Finnish proverb, which speaks to my soul
with indescribable grace :—
“Listen to the fir-tree’s rustling,
At whose root thy nest is made.”
These words are full of deep meaning ; they awaken in
me refreshing and delicious thoughts.
Simultaneously with this study, I am busy with another
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