Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/337



ANALECTS FROM RICHTER.

THE HAPPY LIFE OF A PARISH PRIEST IN SWEDEN.

WEDEN apart, the condition of a parish priest is in itself sufficiently happy: in Sweden, then, much more so. There he enjoys summer and winter pure and unalloyed by any tedious interruptions: a Swedish spring, which is always a late one, is no repetition, in a lower key, of the harshness of winter, but anticipates, and is a prelibation of, perfect summer,—laden with blossoms,—radiant with the lily and the rose: insomuch, that a Swedish summer night represents implicitly one half of Italy, and a winter night one half of the world beside.

I will begin with winter, and I will suppose it to be Christmas. The priest, whom we shall imagine to be a German, and summoned from the southern climate of Germany upon presentation to the church of a Swedish hamlet lying in a high polar latitude, rises in cheerfulness about seven o'clock in the morning; and till half past nine he burns his lamp. At nine o'clock, the stars are still shining, and the unclouded moon even yet longer. This prolongation of star-light into the forenoon is to him delightful; for he is a German, and has a sense of some