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8
FOREWORD
goes cheerly on. Punch and brandy pass round between
the courses, and here and there a pipe is smoked, while
waiting for the next dish. They sit long at table; but, as
all things must have an end, so must a Swedish dinner.
Then the dance begins. It is led off by the bride and the
priest, who perform a solemn minuet together. Not till after
midnight comes the Last Dance. The girls form a ring
around the bride, to keep her from the hands of the
married women, who endeavor to break through the magic
circle, and seize their new sister. After long struggling they
succeed; and the crown is taken from her head and the
jewels from her neck, and her boddice is unlaced and her
kirtle taken off; and like a vestal virgin clad all in white she
goes, but it is to her marriage chamber, not to her grave;
and the wedding guests follow her with lighted candles in
their hands. And this is a village bridal.
Nor must I forget the suddenly changing seasons of the
Northern clime. There is no long and lingering spring,
unfolding leaf and blossom one by one;—no long and
lingering autumn,pompous with many-colored leaves and the
glow of Indian summers. But winter and summer are
wonderful,and pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased
piping in the corn, when winter from the folds of trailing
clouds sows broad-cast over the land snow, icicles, and
rattling hail. The days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly
rises above the horizon,or does not rise at all. The moon
and the stars shine through the day; only, at noon, they
are pale and wan, and in the southern sky a red, fiery
glow, as of sunset,burns along the horizon,and then goes
out. And pleasantly under the silver moon, and under the
silent, solemn stars, ring the steel-shoes of the skaters on
the frozen sea, and voices, and the sound of bells.
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