40 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
say, that I had the satisfaction of making many very 
interesting acquaintances, of beholding a great number 
of very pretty faces, and of partaking of an innumerable 
quantity of luncheons. In fact, to break bread, or, more 
correctly speaking, to crack a bottle with the master of 
the house, is as essential an element of a morning call 
as the making a bow or shaking hands, and to refuse to 
take off your glass would be as great an incivility as to 
decline taking off your hat. From earliest times, as the 
grand old ballad of the King of Thule tells us, a beaker 
was considered the fittest token a lady could present to 
her true-love— 
2)eut ftetbenb feme SSidjIe 
©inert gofbnen 95ecf)et gab. 
And in one of the most ancient Eddaic songs it is 
written, “ Drink, Runes, must thou know, if thou wilt 
maintain thy power over the maiden thou lovest. Thou 
shalt score them on the drinking-horn, on the back of 
thy hand, and the word naud” ( need —necessity) “on 
thy nail.” Moreover, when it is remembered that the 
ladies of the house themselves minister on these occa¬ 
sions, it will be easily understood that all flinching is 
