think of the shipwreck of countless boats and vessels on a winter
evening, in the hollows of the foaming waves. It would, for once, be
worth while to see such waves (usually three in succession, and the last
the worst) advancing with their crests higher than the custom-house
roof, and bearing on their shoulders a yacht, which has to be run
ashore, rushing into Kristiania's peaceful little harbour, carrying
ships up with them into the town, and followed by correspondingly fierce
bursts of wind, lifting off the very roofs. If they came, I know well it
would be _me_ they wanted, _me_ the poor visionary, hidden away in the
civilisation of the town, who, they consider, belongs to them; and I
think a moment after the terror I should greet them as friends from
home, although they came bearing death and destruction on their wings.
They would, for once, show to all this civilised littleness the terrible
grandeur and greatness of the mighty ocean, and flavour the insipidity
of the town with a little sea-salt terror. I should like to see a whale
squeezed in between Prince's Street and Custom-house Street, glaring at
a family on the upper floor, or the fine, gold-laced policemen trying to
bring into court a stranded sea-goblin. I should like, too, to see the
town's theatrical reviewers, who are accustomed to see "Haupt und
Statsaction" in vaudevilles twice a week, stand with their eye-glasses
to their eyes, before such a play, which, without more ado, would swamp
all their critical ideas and inkstands, and show them death and horror
in real downright earnest.

How such a reviewer would grow in ability to understand what is imposing
and powerful in a poetical composition, and in the desires it awakens,
if he only once in his life had seen the "Horseman," [A remarkable
mountain in Nordland.] on a stormy day, with its height of 1700 feet,
riding southwards out in the surf, while his cloak fluttered from his
shoulder towards the north, and, besides the giant himself in his