Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Letter XIII
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almost exempt from taxes, and the peasantry born on
their estates, as well as those on the counts’, are not
born soldiers or sailors.
One distinction, or rather trophy of nobility, which
might have occurred to the Hottentots, amused me; it
was a bunch of hog’s bristles placed on the horses
heads, surmounting that part of the harness to which
a round piece of brass often dangles, fatiguing the eye
with its idle motion.
From the fortress I returned to my lodging, and
quickly was taken out of town to be shown a pretty
villa, and English garden. To a Norwegian both
might have been objects of curiosity; and of use, by
exciting to the comparison which leads to improvement.
But whilst I gazed, I was employed in restoring the
place to nature, or taste, by giving it the character of
the surrounding scene. Serpentine walks, and
flowering shrubs, looked trifling in a grand recess of the
rocks, shaded by towering pines. Groves of smaller
trees might have been sheltered under them, which
would have melted into the landscape, displaying only
the art which ought to point out the vicinity of a
human abode, furnished with some elegance. But few
people have sufficient taste to discern, that the art of
embellishing consists in interesting, not in astonishing.
Christiania is certainly very pleasantly situated, and
the environs I passed through, during this ride,
afforded many fine and cultivated prospects; but,
excepting the first view approaching to it, rarely present any
combination of objects so strikingly new, or picturesque,
as to command remembrance. Adieu!
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