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8G LETTERS ON SWEDEN,
There was nothing in the architecture of the building,
or the form of the furniture, to detain me from the
avenue where the aged pines stretched along majesti-
cally. Time had given a greyish cast to their ever-green
foliage ;
and they stood, like sires of the forest, shel-
tered on all sides by a rising progeny. I had not ever
seen so many oaks together in Norway as in these
woods, nor such large aspens as here were agitated by
the breeze, rendering the wind audible nay musical ;
for melody seemed on the wing around me. How
different was the fresh odour that reanimated me in
the avenue, from the damp dullness of the apartments ;
and as little did the gloomy thoughtfulness excited by
the dusty hangings, and worm-eaten pictures, resemble
the reveries inspired by the soothing melancholy of
their shade. In the winter, these august pines, tower-
ing above the snow, must relieve the eye beyond measure
and give life to the white waste.
The continual recurrence of pine and fir groves in
the day sometimes wearies the sight, but in the evening,
nothing can be more picturesque : or, more properly
speaking, better calculated to produce poetical images.
Passing through them, I have been struck with a mystic
kind of reverence, and I did, as it were, homage to their
venerable shadows. Not nymphs, but philosophers,
seemed to inhabit them ever musing; I could scarcely
conceive that they wore without some consciousness of
existence without a calm enjoyment of the pleasure
they diffused.
How often do my feelings produce ideas that remind
mo of the origin of many poetical fictions. In solitude,
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