CHAPTER V

STOCKHOLM

Of all the capitals of Europe there are few which are more beautifully situated, or that have grown up by a more natural process, than Stockholm, and yet none that appear at first sight to have been built more deliberately on a site especially chosen for its beauty.

Very little is known of its early history before the thirteenth century, except that the heathen monarchs of Svea then holding sway over the greater part of central Sweden erected a stronghold on one of a group of three islands found on the banks of the Norrström, that foaming stream hardly three-quarters of a mile long, which serves as connecting link between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic, and that around this fortress, originally constructed as a defence for the important merchant centres of Upsala and Sigtuna, a village community arose that was destined to become the capital of the land.

It was on these three islands, and in the midst of the watercourses connecting Lake Mälar with the Baltic, that Duke Birger Jarl, a powerful chieftain who was then ruler of Sweden, elected to build his capital in 1255. And taking into account the way in which the surrounding islands were being repeatedly harassed and laid waste by the rovers and pirates then infesting these seas, he strongly fortified the site of his new city, and so made it secure from any molestation.

Stockholm soon outgrew the site of Birger Jarl’s original settlement. First the wall which had been built around it was moved outward until it eventually encompassed the whole of Stadsholmen; then other islands were included within the city, which by the Middle Ages had become a typical fortified town of the age, its commerce being now controlled by German merchants who obeyed the ruling of the Hanseatic town of Lübeck. It was only under the Vasa dynasty, however, that Stockholm freed itself from the tutelage of the foreigner, and almost concurrently with the further expansion of the town, whose old wall was now destroyed as the city began to encroach on the mainland on its northern side, Norrmalm, Gustavus Vasa liberated the country from its Danish oppressors, broke away from Lübeck, and laid the foundations of Stockholm’s greatness. The seventeenth century was the Great Age of the new capital, and during this period the town grew so rapidly that it had to be laid out afresh, while her citizens made every effort and sacrifice to convert their city into a really splendid capital town; a task which, given the almost unequalled situation of Stockholm, afforded unlimited possibilities. The city, which then occupied more than a dozen islands connected one with another by bridges, now witnessed a period of extraordinary building activity, and with the aid of the great riches which the victorious Swedish armies had brought home from the Continent, many stately buildings were erected which were in the main inspired from foreign models.

As was natural in an age when Italy and France exercised a supremacy in the world of manners, art, and architecture that was almost unquestioned, the ambitious city magnates turned almost exclusively to these two countries for their architectural ideas. In 1641 was begun the building of the Riddarhuset, the Assembly Hall of the nobility, one of the most exquisite Franco-Dutch Renaissance buildings which can be seen in Sweden, while towards the close of the century Nicodemus Tessin drew up the plans for a new late Renaissance palace which on its completion was acclaimed by all as Sweden’s and Tessin’s proudest architectural masterpiece.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, and following a period when architecture was at a low ebb, the city of Stockholm entered upon a new stage of development. The plan of the town was revised and numerous magnificent buildings projected which sought to create a purely national style of architecture as well as to make good an undeniable deficiency in monuments of first-rate artistic importance. Only during the Renaissance have municipalities or other public bodies expended on art and public buildings sums in any way comparable to those which the Stockholm municipality now lavishly began to devote to the embellishment of their city. In modern times it has never been equalled.

The best way to approach Stockholm is from the sea, and the view that one then has of it is memorable. On the left, the southern part of the city rising perpendicularly from the water towers like another Edinburgh, while between the northern and southern sides the Old Town, with its many quaint Hanseatic buildings and old palaces, recalls parts of old Amsterdam. Dominating the whole and facing the new Stockholm is the imposing Royal Palace, a massive rectangular Italian Renaissance pile of grey stone with a central courtyard and lower wings projecting east and west, which many architects consider the most beautiful building in Scandinavia.

It faces the water and the North Bridge, “Norrbro”, from which approach is made to it by a stately carriage drive that is called Lejonbacken from the two massive bronze lions that adorn it, and in its Carolean sternness of exterior seeks to give expression to the very spirit of the country and to the express wish of its royal builder, Charles XII., even if the thought behind it was borrowed from Versailles, while its lavish interior decoration and its Gobelin tapestries evoke the days when strong bonds of friendship united the Royal Houses of France and Sweden. Its northern façade is almost entirely without decoration, yet strangely impressive by virtue of that very simplicity, while its southern façade, which, like the western, is richly decorated, has in its centre a triumphal arch with six massive columns, and also four groups of statuary in bronze, and a row of niches containing statues of distinguished Swedes on both sides of the entrance.

The original designs of the palace were drawn up by Nicodemus Tessin the younger, the greatest architect which northern Europe has produced, but the building operations, owing to the delays inseparable from an almost constant state of warfare, had constantly to be suspended, with the result that the Royal Family was only able to move into their new quarters about the middle of the eighteenth century. During all this period, however, and in spite of the unrest and turmoil that characterised this age, which incidentally was almost entirely due to Charles XII.’s romantic and adventurous temperament, the Royal Family and the nation as a whole continued to manifest so absorbing an interest in the building of the New Palace that everything was done to make it really representative of the best Swedish art and art industries of the period, while an equal measure of love, industry, and discrimination was lavished on its interior decoration, of which Masreliez was the principal designer.

Severe and solemn-looking, this massive building possesses a _cachet_ and beauty of its own, while it certainly gives the city that transforming touch without which it would hardly have the aspect of a capital.

Not far from the Palace is the Stortorget, or Great Market, which is flanked by interesting old gabled houses recalling those seen in Dantzig. On the façade of one of these, and below the doorway on which the builder’s coat of arms and the year 1650 are sculptured, are a number of iron crosses which are said to be a relic of the famous Blood Bath of 1520, in which over eighty Swedish noblemen were beheaded. Each one of these crosses enshrines the memory of one of the noblemen who died as a martyr for his country.

Almost everything worth seeing is found in this ancient quarter of Stockholm, and within easy distance from the Palace are a number of old churches and buildings that are among the best which Sweden possesses architecturally, if the island of Gothland is excepted. At the top of the Palace Hill is Storkyrkan, Stockholm’s oldest and principal church, supposed to have been founded by Birger Jarl in 1264, although the present building was renovated in 1736. This is an attractive red brick edifice in which I especially noted a somewhat ornate but interesting baroque pulpit in the Royal Chapel, with canopy which was the work of Burchardt Precht, and a group of statuary called “St. George and the Dragon”, the masterpiece of Bernt Notke of Lübeck, which commemorates the victory won over the Danes at Brunkeberg in 1471, when Sweden was freed from her long subjection to the national enemy. Crossing over to Riddarholmen, the Knights’ Island (formerly called Gråmunkeholmen, the Grey Friars’ Isle, after the monastery of that order which was founded here by King Magnus Ladulås at the end of the thirteenth century), I see immediately facing the city between the bridges the old Riddarholmskyrkan (the Church of the Knights), originally built in 1280 by the Franciscans—a plain red brick three-aisled building, with a long polygonal choir and a number of burial chapels on its northern and southern aspects, that was built during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which all the great men of Sweden and all her kings have been buried since the reign of Gustavus Adolphus.

Here are tombs innumerable, enclosed in exquisite chapels and shrines, in which are treasured the relics of the old dynasties and patrician families of the country, while the floor of the church is almost entirely paved with the gravestones of its illustrious dead. I found much to admire in the beautiful green marble sarcophagus of Gustavus Adolphus, or in the almost equally attractive crypt of the Bernadottes, where lie buried the departed members of the present dynasty; but I confess that my footsteps quickly led me to forsake their historical appeal after I had seen Charles XII.’s chapel, on the north side, a stately and pompous baroque mortuary chapel with sandstone columns and copper-covered cupola, in which I was shown the grey-black marbled sarcophagus in which the much-loved hero knight of the Swedish people lies buried, his head shot through and through. The lid of this sarcophagus is adorned with a lion’s skin, a laurel wreath in hammered gilt bronze, and a Hercules club; and while Nicodemus Tessin the younger himself was responsible for the designs, the stone and bronze work were executed in Holland, where the sarcophagus was finally completed about 1735. Among the other chapels and sarcophagi which abound in the Swedish Pantheon are those belonging to King Magnus Ladulås, the ill-starred Gustavus III., and many other kings, while such families as the Banérs, Lewenhaupts, and Thorstensons, all connected with the Great Age of Swedish history, are represented.

Close by and lying almost opposite Riddarholmen in the north-west corner of Gamla Staden is the House of Knights, also built by Gustavus Adolphus, an imposing building which, in spite of some pavilions that were added to it in 1672 that are architecturally poor, remains a fine example of Franco-Dutch late Renaissance style and the most exquisite seventeenth-century building in Sweden.

Begun in 1641 from the designs of the two brothers De La Vallée, the Palace contains among several finely proportioned rooms a very spacious ceremonial hall with a beautiful ceiling painted by Ehrenstrahl, on whose walls I saw displayed among other relics the coats of arms of nearly 3000 Swedish noble families, quite a fair proportion of these being of Scotch descent. Here can be seen the armouries of the Hamilton, Lewis, Bruce, Leslie, Stewart and Bennet families, descendants of the many Scotch soldiers of fortune who had distinguished themselves on many a Swedish battle-field, while a few hail from England, their ancestors having fled from that country after the Wars of the Roses.

In no ancestral picture gallery have I felt so supremely conscious of the prestige and glamour inherent in long lineage as when I was confronted by these countless coats of arms insolently blazoning the privileges and eminence which their holders had won in olden times through superior valour or might, good fortune or statecraft. Even the beautifully carved ivory arm-chair occupied by the Speaker of the House and originally presented to Gustavus Vasa by the town of Lübeck, and the long rows of comfortable velvet chairs facing the Presidential throne, seemed to possess an air and a dignity which were quite their own. One felt that one was walking on almost sacred ground, and that the plebeian foot that would tread it unceremoniously would probably be seized by the spirit of the place and hurled ignominiously from the hallowed precincts. The Assembly of the Knights is, however, only a shadow of its old self, and of the original 2890 families whose arms are displayed in its Hall only 660 remain to-day. It has lost, moreover, all its right and privileges except that which its members still possess of being able to claim death by the sword instead of by the more contumelious hanging or guillotine,[2] while it now only meets once every three years to discuss economic affairs or to render help to those of its members who require financial assistance.

[2] Capital punishment was abolished in Sweden in 1921, but the last capital execution took place long before that date.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, STOCKHOLM]

Though the Riddarhuset is consequently only a survival of an age that is no more, it is impossible to visit it without feeling supremely conscious of the sense of continuity that is bred by old institutions, even when, like the Assembly of Knights, they have outlived their utility, while in few buildings have I felt so close to the past or experienced a keener regret at that past being gone for ever.

Old Stockholm, and especially “the City between the two bridges”, contains a number of old fifteenth- and sixteenth-century houses which remain much as they were when originally erected, but fire has swept this old city so many times during the past four hundred years that the greater part of the old timber buildings which gave distinction to its streets have made way for the stone and plaster structures of a later period. Among the interesting older buildings that were spared by fire in this part of the town the most noteworthy are the Palace of Count Bonde (the old Rådhuset) near Strömmen, and the house belonging to the Petersen family in Munkbron, erected in the middle of the seventeenth century in the Dutch style, while there are a number of gabled houses pointing to a later Hanseatic period in Västerlånggatan and Österlånggatan, two narrow and tortuous streets which are well worth visiting. These thoroughfares are so narrow and their houses so high that you feel when walking through them almost as if you were traversing a deep canyon, while their many windings and the innumerable equally crooked and narrow alleys which are continually crossing them have proved the downfall of these imprudent travellers who elect to put their trust in their own bump of locality rather than in a guide. The doorways of many of these houses are surmounted by interesting sculptured coats of arms and other decorative details bearing testimony to the artistic taste of these times, and there is a certain seventeenth-century house in Västerlånggatan, erected by the wealthy burgher Van Linde, whose carved portal is perhaps the finest and best-preserved memorial of the period to be found in Stockholm.

Another characteristic of this part of the town is the number of small shops which indicate the nature of their calling by the quaint symbolic signs that are displayed over their doorways or shop fronts. Here a pewter pot indicates a café or beer-house, and a pair of wings topping a pole that is itself entwined with diminutive serpents, a bakery; there a maiden milking her cow suggests a dairy, and a gold pretzel a pastry-cook or confectioner. There appears in reality to be no end to the ingenuity that is shown by those tradesmen who would thus make known their particular craft or trade.

Crossing the bridge where lies the newer Stockholm, one finds the main shopping centre of the capital and the more modern of its streets and buildings. Everything here is of an orderly symmetry that is quite lacking in our countries of the west, and perhaps a little monotonous. The shops are nearly all of uniform size and so similar in their outward aspect and in the style of dressing of their windows that it is often difficult to differentiate between them; the buildings are mostly austere and dignified as befits a Nordic race, but a little lacking in that poetry and imagery of line and wealth of architectural ornamentation that past standards of architecture have made us love and admire.

All these characteristics, coupled with the fact that, compared with other large capitals, Stockholm is a little lacking in historic monuments of first-rate importance, might well predispose the casual observer to regard the Swedish capital mainly as a city whose only claim to distinction lies in its beauty of site, atmosphere, and accident, if it were not for the new generation of technically well-equipped architects who have lately grown up in the country and the princely patronage of art that continues to be displayed by the Swedish municipalities whenever the embellishment of their cities is in question.

Of this new spirit in architecture I. G. Clason and Ferdinand Boberg, who is Sweden’s Norman Shaw, and more especially Carl Westman and Ragnar Östberg, are the leading exponents, the architecture which they preconise being characterised not only by certain distinctive forms in towers, panelling, and decorative _motifs_ often borrowed wholesale from Swedish scenery, but by the grouping of the chief decorative designs round the entrances and a happy blending of old Swedish forms and new western tendencies which aims at creating a really national style. In many of these modern buildings one notices a strongly marked cubic effect, while the dark-toned brick hailing from Skåne that is used in their construction gives them a distinction and individuality which mark them out among their contemporaries. Assuming a measure of encouragement and financial support in any degree comparable to that which was so lavishly extended by the municipality of Stockholm to the building of their new Town Hall, it would be astonishing if the next two or three decades do not witness a striking development in Swedish architecture.

Almost equally visible from any part of the city, this tall and imposing edifice, with its mighty square bell-tower and splendid colonnades evoking the portico of the Doge’s Palace at Venice, represents all the best tendencies of the new Swedish style, while it seeks to reproduce in many of the details of its exterior, and especially in its galleries and Central Court, the old castle of Stockholm “Tre Kronor”. Beautifully situated at the most southerly point of Kungsholmen, on the shores of Lake Mälar, its building history is one of the most remarkable of modern times, Ragnar Östberg, its architect, being so determined to make it a living expression of the capital’s mystical individuality that its conception long remained an arduous one, plan after plan being devised only to be replaced by a better one. It has taken over ten years to build and has cost the municipality seventeen million crowns, Ragnar Östberg being given practically carte blanche in order that he might give of his best. Built in the form of a large rectangle, it encloses two beautiful courts: one the open and more severe Citizens’ Court, “Borgargården”, with its double portico looking out on garden and water, and its three gilded statues standing out from the red brick; the other the lighter Blue Hall with its glowing red and blue tiled walls and marble floor, while the tower which gives unity to the various parts of the building is capped by a lantern structure on top of which are the three crowns of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

Apart from the general perfection of the building when viewed as a whole, which is perhaps its chief claim to distinction, the _clou_ of the Town Hall is undoubtedly the magnificent frieze under the cornice, with its many beautiful gilt reliefs of distinguished citizens of the city, though its handsome copper cupolas, engraved with the names of their donors, are almost equally memorable. These cupolas, and also the warm Tudor-looking red brick used in the building, give quite a southern warmth and atmosphere to a monument that in its rich-hued and stately style is a reversion in part to Swedish mediæval modes, while it is impossible not to commend the superb fashion in which Ragnar Östberg has succeeded in poising what is really a massive edifice on the most slender and graceful of arcades without these appearing even slightly overweighted.

Passing through the arcade into the open gardens, which look out, Swedish fashion, on to the water, I saw three of the twelve statues which Milles originally contemplated modelling of the famous men who have shed lustre and glory on the city of Stockholm, three powerful nude live studies of Strindberg, Fröding, and Josephson, representing drama, poetry, and painting respectively, and was informed that the remaining nine had never been completed, owing to the loud outcry which a certain section of the public had raised on the ground of morality. This attitude astonished me vastly, as the Swedes, of all citizens of the world, are perhaps those who are the least prudish without being too immoral. I recalled the perfectly natural way in which any visitor to a Swedish hotel can, if he chooses, be scrubbed and rubbed down after his bath by women attendants, who not only perform these duties most efficiently but appear to run no risk of having their moral equilibrium upset by the experience, or the frankly indecent (to some) undressed wax figures which can be seen in the shop windows of any fashionable Stockholm costumier, posturing in silk stocking or aping fashionable gestures, and can only conclude that indecency is a question of degree, and that two nations equally moral may have two entirely different standards by which to estimate morality or the lack of it.

On returning to the central court I was shown a Madonna-looking crowned figure in a niche over the main entrance, which on inquiry proved to be that of St. Clara, a local saint, the crown having been purchased with a substantial money contribution sent by a schoolgirl of the town to Ragnar Östberg, who thought this the happiest way of recording her gift. After hearing this charming explanation I took the resolution never again to disbelieve any old legend which was equally charming. It is certain the world never changes.

If the other modern monuments of Stockholm cannot be compared as works of art with Ragnar Östberg’s now famous masterpiece, there are several which are interesting examples of the same school of architecture, and others which illustrate the return to a more rational classicism which has only quite lately been seen among the younger generation of architects.

Not very far from the Town Hall is the City Court, an immense brick edifice with a grey slurred surface and a short squat tower rising above the middle of the building, which is crowned by a very large copper hood. Almost overwhelming in its massiveness, and as austere-looking as the law which is daily transacted within its precincts, this uncommon structure aims at expressing, not only in its form but even in its decorative scheme, the serious purpose to which it was dedicated, and consequently often produces an impression of grim inevitableness in the mind of even those who do not pay it a visit to undergo trial. I must confess that I found it a little too oppressing for my taste, and that I derived much keener pleasure from seeing the pieces of equally vigorous and original, but ever so much less depressing, statuary by Christian Eriksson which I was shown on the portal and in the interior.

Of the other monumental buildings belonging to the same period as Westman’s and Ragnar Östberg are Lallerstedt’s Technical High School, Grut’s Stadium, which is a happy and original application of the forms displayed in the old city walls of Visby, and Östermalm’s Higher State Secondary School for boys, perhaps the most notable of the three. This is a dark-red brick building with a light-red tiled roof and Roman vaulting, which was completed by Ragnar Östberg in 1912 in the hope that the precedent which he had created in constructing a school that no longer wore the funereal and poverty-stricken aspect hitherto considered an indispensable adjunct to every educational establishment, would inspire other architects to follow his example. Dignified, and possessing a certain ponderous Nordic beauty of its own, this building contains a finely proportioned reception hall and staircase which are adorned with works of art of exceptional interest; among these Milles’ marble group entitled “Fanny and Selma”, Prince Eugen’s “The Town in Sunshine”, and Törneman’s “Thor’s Battle with the Giants”, this last picture a powerful and realistic piece of work.

Typical of the latest movement, the return to classicism to which I have already alluded, are a number of modern buildings for whose exterior effects golden brown or dark grey roughcast have usually been selected and whose principal characteristics, apart from their severe and simple symmetry, lies in the often ingenious way in which glass and metal work have been put to new artistic effects. Houses by Bergsten and Asplund; the churches of Engelbrekts and Högalids, and lastly the New Concert Hall, the work of Tengbom, probably one of the finest concert halls in existence. Built to resemble a Greek temple and with columns that are of pure concrete (this a daring experiment), this striking building impresses, not by its size, which is nothing out of the common, but by the perfection of its acoustics, lighting, and other arrangements, and the originality and varied character of the ornamentation—even the candelabra in the vestibule being unique in their kind. I particularly admired some beautiful reliefs which were the work of Tengbom, and some equally remarkable stucco work of Olsson; but what pleased me even more were some little figures in stucco which had been designed in wet plaster by Almquist, four live pieces of statuary by Milles, the Swedish Epstein, in the corridor, and several beautifully inlaid doors in the foyer, all of these in selected Swedish woods.

The larger of the two concert halls which are found in this building presents many attractive and novel features. It was opened only in April 1926, and while it has a seating accommodation of 1490, which is considerably less than that of Queen’s Hall, its lighting, stage, and other arrangements are perfection itself. A number of columns at the back of the stage, which is built in the shape of a Greek temple, give an impression of great space, while the lighting that has been obtained is so perfect that the spectator has the constant illusion of sitting in an open-air theatre and under a sky and setting sun that are so realistic that it is almost impossible for him to detect any flaw in the make-believe. The other concert hall is more intimate in character, and combines ornateness with simplicity. In both these halls I found a number of rows that were reserved for the deaf, and provided in every case with ear-trumpets. Even in Germany, that great music-loving country, I have never seen any theatre or concert hall that provides such facilities.

Another sign of the times is the renewed interest that is being taken by the Swedes generally in Swedish peasant art and crafts, and several museums have been founded which attempt to give the history of Swedish civilisation from the earliest days to the present time. Of these the Nordiska, or Northern Museum, is perhaps the most interesting; it is certainly the most original. Early in the seventies a distinguished antiquarian and collector, called Arthur Hazelius, determined to form a collection that would be representative of every condition of life that had existed in the country since the beginning of the sixteenth century, and after many years’ patient industry and labour succeeded in forming a collection that as a record of the various stages of civilisation which the country went through is unsurpassed in any part of the world, many foreign experts holding the view that the clever manner in which the exhibits are displayed to the general public might with advantage be copied in other countries. In one of the largest halls is found the Swedish Royal Armoury, which contains almost as fine a collection of old and modern weapons as the Spanish collection in Madrid. I saw many flags and banners which had been captured from the Russians, Germans, Saxons, Danes and Austrians, and also swords and suits of armour which had once been worn by famous Swedish warriors; among these was the armour of Gustavus Adolphus, the sword and pistols which he carried at the battle of Lützen, and the shirt riddled with bullets that he wore in his last battle. The Museum also possesses many well-preserved cannon, rifles, and even a mitrailleuse which is said to have been invented during the reign of Charles XII., while its annexe, the equally celebrated open-air museum of Skansen, also a creation of Hazelius, presents scenes typifying Sweden’s life in the past and present, and affords the most comprehensive study of old Swedish architectural modes and of the life and customs of the varied elements constituting the Swedish nation that can be found anywhere. Here may be seen many wild and tame animals indigenous to the soil, and a number of wooden houses of varied architecture, which have either been transported _en bloc_ from their original resting-places or constructed on the spot according to plan. Two-storied houses from Dalecarlia or turf-roofed stone cabins from Jämshög, these last representing a very common type of dwelling among labourers in parts of north-eastern Scania; curious-looking straw-roofed four-sided farms from Oktorp, or farmyards from Ravlunda covered over with thatched roofs and with woven brushwood end-walls; cabins of forest dwellers or old mediæval wooden churches, some of these with decorative slatted church steeples; pyramidal huts from Lapland, or sepulchral and runic monuments. All these are found at Skansen with all the indispensable appurtenances of peasant life and inhabited, moreover, by people who have either been imported to give the necessary atmosphere or been induced to transport their very homes with all their chattels and household gods to the wooded plateau in the Djurgården (Deer Park) for a financial consideration. I paid a visit to several of these attractive peasant dwellings and found them all stocked with old implements, vessels, and antique furniture, and was particularly impressed by their wall decorations, which in many instances were painted direct on the whitewashed wall timbers. Like those which I have seen in Dalecarlia, they usually represented scenes from the Scriptures, or country scenes that were enclosed in decorated frames in rococo, probably after the prototypes of old copper-plate prints. If these peasant buildings are not as flamboyantly picturesque as the wooden buildings of Norway, they are in their way even more attractive.

Of the many other collections and museums that abound in the city only the National Museum, an unattractive building just facing the Royal Palace, presents any particular interest. It contains a large collection of Scandinavian antiquities and is especially rich in objects of the Bronze Age, many of these having been made in Sweden over a thousand years before Christ. I was shown jewellery and arms that dated from the age of Beowulf, and a beautifully ornamented statue of Thomas à Becket dating from the fourteenth century which is one of its most cherished art treasures, while the museum, in addition to its ceramic sculpture and archæological collections, has a picture gallery that is particularly rich in examples of the older Dutch masters. Not only Rubens but also Van Dyck (A.), Jordaens, and Rembrandt are represented here, the last-named by a striking picture entitled “Claudius Civilis,” which was originally painted for the Town Hall in Amsterdam in 1662, while I also saw one or two good Cranachs and old French masters. The more modern painters include several fine Corots, Delacroix, Manets, and an Orpen (a picture of himself painted as a jockey), while the modern Swedish school is represented by Zorn (painter of portraits), Liljefors, the most powerful Swedish painter of animals to-day, Prince Eugen (landscapes), Milles (sculpture), Lafiensen (miniaturist), Cederström (the Swedish Detaille), and Carl Larsson, whose large _al fresco_ paintings in the vestibule of the Museum long held my attention.

[Illustration: DROTTNINGHOLM PALACE, STOCKHOLM]

One of the principal attractions of Stockholm, and the one which perhaps lends it its greatest charm, is the system of waterways which gives it all the picturesque glamour of an important port. It matters little whether the traveller has visited the city once or many times; he will rarely tire of loitering amid its many pleasant quays or docks, or of watching the rapid ebb and flow of a traffic that is as varied as it is picturesque.

Here is the daily market which lies on the very water edge behind the royal palace, where the market people can be seen coming by boat, tram, or cart to sell their wares; here the docks that are frequented by those hundreds of diminutive steamers which maintain constant communication between the islands of the Skärgård and the metropolis; here the quays where the larger steamers and also the fuel and timber boats are berthed, or those past Kastellholmen and near Djurgårdsstaden, under whose shelter the great ice-breaking steamers lie moored during the summer months. Plying the swiftly flowing waters are vessels of every kind, from the tiny ferries, that for a few öre will carry you across a strait, to the large looming ships whose very lines are redolent with weight and power, while scores of barges with high castles apoop are passing through the locks, and wooden ships whose graceful lines evoke a time when poetry of motion was not confined to pleasure yachts are discharging their cargoes in the very centre of the old town. Follow this pleasant shore line where you will and you will find an abundance of things to engage and captivate your attention, and everywhere you meet something that carries with it a subtle suggestion of that remoter Sweden which lies to the north and south of the capital.

At least half if not more of the feeling of beauty that is inherent in Stockholm lies in the many associations that are evoked in the mind by these waterways, and they are always equally beautiful, whether one sees them in the early morning as the white skerry steamers are speeding out to sea or casting their mooring lines over the stately stone stanchions which border the stream, or if viewed in the evening when thousands of lights along the shore and from the boats are throwing shafts and pools of glimmering brilliance on their dark waters.