talked without ever dreaming of putting the talk into deeds,--had
prevailed until then on the peninsula. Intermixed with it was an
equally sentimental sympathy with France. Though himself the grandson
of a Frenchman and still keenly devoted to French literature and art,
King Oscar had the foresightedness to recognize that the interests of
the country were more closely bound up with those of Germany. And one
of the most striking features of his reign was the growing cultural
intercourse between the nations in the north and their neighbor south
of the Baltic. And while the king discouraged the speech-making, empty
Scandinavianism against which Ibsen was fond of launching his most
vitriolic invectives, he fostered instead a fellow-feeling between
Sweden, Norway and Denmark that found its expression in practical
co-operation, in the equalization of commercial and industrial
regulations, in the breaking down of as many as possible of the
unnecessary barriers between them. As the years passed on and the
trend of his labors became understood and appreciated, he found a part
of his reward in a steadily increasing respect for him throughout
the civilized world, a respect that repeatedly found expression in
requests that he act as arbiter of international differences. He had
always been fond of traveling, and this fondness he continued to
indulge up to the last. Unlike those of some other monarchs having a
similar taste, his comings and goings on the Continent were always the
objects of pleasant and welcoming comment. If gossip had to name King
Christian of Denmark "the father-in-law of all Europe," King Oscar was
surely "the friend of all the world." Apace with his own fame grew
the prosperity of his people. On either side of the Kjölen his reign
marked an era of unprecedented economical, social, and spiritual
progress which not even the internal dissensions of the sister nation
could interrupt.