Sweden

The Swedes are marked by a gentle democracy, by hearty eating and light drinking, along with a social enlightenment resting on a culture of firmly established foundations. And although the people are alert and wary of the world's events, they trust in peace. This trust has taken hold of their hearts entire, and so you find the people there devoted to building, to progress, and to securing order in their homeland, on the verge of divorcing altogether the idea of caution and of fear of fate.

Yet what strikes the mind at first glance in that country is a habit that has become tiresome — namely, their eagerness to draw from you expressions of admiration for themselves and their country.

Do you like Sweden? ... That is the question anyone at all will put to you, at any time and in any circumstance.

The vast distances there are covered in trains that are warm, clean, and uncrowded, yet keep their timetables with perfect precision. The traveler enters along a carpeted passageway after hanging up his overcoat and removing his galoshes, which he places neatly with the others in the spots prepared for them, as though he were entering the hall of a dearest friend's home. Each takes his seat calmly and silently, letting his gaze wander through the windows over the snow and the evergreen growth around him. You may travel the length and breadth of the country, from the frozen northern zone to the Baltic ports, and find in their principal cities nothing but markets of the utmost order and arrangement, leaving no room for criticism from even the most refined and exacting of tastes. Goods have flowed in to them from East and West. And although the six and a half million Swedes still follow the ration-card system for all necessities, even bread, the cards are plentiful, the goods abundant, and the people generous.

But this people has not been spoiled by plenty, nor has material prosperity bent its resolve. There is much there that breeds fertile thought, and an abundance of the products of sound taste and high art. And it is distributed justly, with no favoritism toward those of ease and comfort; rather it embraces all classes, who enjoy it without distinction. If you should stay as a guest at a hotel in the far north, for example, you would find it no less in comforts, elegance of furnishings, and beauty of style than the hotels of Stockholm, the country's capital in the far south. And wherever you roam you meet numbers of accomplished writers, men of letters, and artists, in a way that stirs astonishment and admiration.

Yes, all is well in Sweden — this country over which two world wars have passed without its being touched by harm; it has remained far from tears and blood. And everything is plentiful in the markets, though the standard of living is as high as the standard of culture is high.

And if internal problems arise in the country, their causes are weighed with deliberation and treated with open-mindedness and in a practical manner, in accordance with a just code that evolves with the times, admitting of no ambiguity and no injustice.