Vol. XLII, No. 2 



WASHINGTON 



August, 1922 



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MAT 



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 APE DC 

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COPYRIGHT, 1 922. BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D C. 



DENMARK AND THE DANES 



By Maurice Francis Egan, Litt. D. 



American Minister to Denmark, 1907-1918 



STOCKHOLM, the capital of Swe- 

 den, rather prides itself on being 

 the "Paris of Scandinavia," largely 

 because of its architecture and its mod- 

 ernness ; but the Danes, admitting with 

 pride that Copenhagen is not altogether 

 a modern city, rather claim that they are 

 more like the Parisians than their neigh- 

 bors in Sweden. 



There can be no question that Copen- 

 hagen, so far as the street life in the cen- 

 ter of the city is concerned, is extremely 

 gay. The Danes like to dine in cafes, or, 

 when the weather is pleasant, in the open 

 street. It is quite true that if one knows 

 enough Danish to understand scraps of 

 conversation heard at random, he will 

 soon discover that the amiable Dane is 

 very fond of his food, and that all ques- 

 tions of the table have much importance 

 to him ; I am not a master of the Danish 

 language, and once I listened to a conver- 

 sation with great interest and some un- 

 derstanding. 



My vocabulary was not at that time 

 large. I caught the names of "the Duke 

 of Cambridge" and "the Duke of Cum- 

 berland," and I was oppressed with the 

 seriousness of the speakers. It seemed to 

 me that some momentous political ques- 

 tion was being discussed. My companion, 

 a very distinguished Dane, suddenly 

 joined in the talk ; it was in the garden at 

 Klampenborg, where five or six children, 

 with their father and mother, were treat- 

 ing themselves to some drops of cognac 

 in small cups of black coffee. 



The talk became animated. As a di- 

 plomatist, I was interested in the matter 

 of the Hanoverian succession, which in- 

 timately concerned the Duke of Cumber- 

 land. Why the Duke of Cambridge 

 should be brought in I could not say. I 

 thought I heard the name of the Kaiser, 

 too — this was before the war ; but after a 

 period of tense attention on my part, my 

 companion interpreted the discussion for 

 me. It had centered around the question 

 as to whether the Duke of Cambridge or 

 the Duke of Cumberland had really in- 

 vented the famous Cumberland sauce, 

 without which boiled ham in Denmark is 

 not considered to be really ham at all. 

 And the opinion of the Kaiser had been 

 invoked. 



"The Danes, unlike the English, do not 

 take their amusements seriously ; never- 

 theless, they look on amusement as a very 

 serious and necessary part of life. I re- 

 call that one day, walking with a Danish 

 officer, I saw a man hurrying into his 

 apartment — very few people have houses 

 in Copenhagen — and I said, "That is an 

 edifying spectacle. See how that good 

 husband and father rushes, after his 

 business, to meet his family !" 



My friend gave me a glance of aston- 

 ishment and looked at his watch. "He is 

 five minutes late for dinner; that is the 

 reason of his haste !" 



One of the charms of Copenhagen, in- 

 deed, of Aarhus, of Odense, and of all the 

 other Danish towns, is that the business 

 of life is carried on with cheerfulness. 



