HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 
36 
products seem to be brought by steamer. I watched them un¬ 
loading. Wood is also brought in large open sailboats. 
“The fish-market offered the same features as the market in 
Christiania. The lobsters’ claws were tied. The politeness of 
the market-people would have caused a shudder of dismay in 
the minds of the coarse English marketwomen. As one ap¬ 
proached the stalls, the men kindly raised their hats. 
“The Swedish language when spoken is beautiful; the 
sounds are soft and musical, flowing from the lips like Italian 
words. 
“There is a refinement among the people which has been 
prompted by their surroundings, their great institutes of learn¬ 
ing, and their pride and dignity are well warranted when the 
country has given them such men as Gustavus Adolphus, 
Linnaeus, Berzelius, Charles XII, and Hildebrandt. . . . 
“Honesty in its highest expression marks the character of 
the people of Scandinavia. They seem often slow to grasp an 
idea, it being long before the transference reaches the brain. 
It may be possible that other languages do not so readily con¬ 
vey ideas as our own, and the people have developed a slow 
habit.” 
From Stockholm, Miss Abbott proceeded to Copenhagen, 
where she was everywhere welcomed and given encouragement 
to come to the laboratories of the various institutions of learn¬ 
ing. Professor Steenstrup himself, “a dear old man seventy- 
nine years of age, and very lame,” conducted her over the 
Zoological Museum of the Royal University which was housed 
in the former palace of the princes, built in 1744, and nothing 
escaped her inquisitive notice from the catches of the windows 
to the arrangement of the fossils. She could not find herself 
supporting the inartistic effect of ornamentation which she 
says, “were birds of prey coming down upon the dead animals, 
as Steenstrup observed, and above this, and as a frieze, were 
windows painted and trailing vines of a bright green.” She 
found Steenstrup witty and of artistic feeling, but was surprised 
to discover that he, like Professor Löven, was not an evolution¬ 
ist, and clung to the “old systems of classification.” 
She enjoyed “a lovely drive through the country to the 
