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dominantly masculine. When business hours were over, the men would 
go to their tavern, where they would discuss the events of the day and 
read the few newspapers that would occasionally find their way to 
Bergen from foreign countries. Conversing with young ladies was an 
art in which the young Bergen swains of the time had but little skill. 
Holberg himself said that it was easier to make a voyage to the Spanish 
Main—which was by no means easy, for the skipper was exposed to dan¬ 
gers from privateers in the North Sea and from Algerian pirates in 
the Mediterranean—than to pay court to a woman. Therefore mar¬ 
riages were generally arranged by the parents, and they looked at the 
matter in a practical light. They were not especially eager to make 
alliances with families in a higher social sphere. It was not the official 
class that held itself too good, but it was the burghers who declined 
the honor. A merchant was generally less concerned to have his daugh¬ 
ter make a distinguished match than to have her marry a man who would 
carry on the business of her parents and be capable and industrious. 
Indeed the young ladies themselves were of the same mind. They pre¬ 
ferred, so Holberg says, a brave seafaring man or a clever tradesman, 
even if he possessed none of the charms that might win a young lady, to 
the most captivating, gallant, and distinguished suitor. 
All these things—marriage as a factor in trade and the decidedly 
unimpassioned manner in which the young people themselves express 
their preferences—we recognize. We know them from Holberg’s 
comedies. 
There is a deeper reason underneath it all. Holberg sees it clearly 
and speaks with the authority of experience when he says, “There is no 
better way of driving away the amorous passions than by incessant 
work and attention to business.” And there were no people more in¬ 
dustrious than those of Bergen. When the city, in spite of this, had a 
bad reputation for immorality, Holberg thinks it was not due to the 
nature of the people but to other causes, and he states the case in a 
manner that can not but provoke a smile. It is as though we were listen¬ 
ing to a flippant line by Henrik, the wag of his own comedies. The 
reason, he says, is “rather the hordes of foreign seamen who, when they 
return from a long voyage, run after women more than do others, and 
may be considered as starving people who suddenly become addicted to 
overeating.” 
Here we have the mischievous Henrik of the comedies and the 
merry young Bergen lad Ludvig Holberg in one and the same person. 
It was Henrik who sat there so solemnly in the guise of a dignified pro¬ 
fessor at the venerable University of Copenhagen, with a powdered 
periwig on his head, but with a smile lurking in the corner of his eyes. 
