Sunday, August 11, 1839 Travel Journal

1839

August

Sunday 11

9

11 1/2

Fine, sunny morning.  Fahrenheit 66° at 10 a.m. Breakfast at 10 1/2 in about 1/2 hour –

Then at Norske till about 12 1/2, when Smith came – Had been up late – Not quite well – Would have taken wormwood or rhubard.  Just beginning our lesson when Mr. Jæger came and sat till 2 40/60, when I proposed Smith’s going to dine –

Talked over manners here – Great dinners etc. –

It seems after all, that the great dinners are chiefly public dinners, for however d’État, Storthings men and other government employés and ladies not then present –

At private dinners, the ladies remain as long as the men –

The cloth never removed – No upper cloth removed as in France when dessert is brought – but one and the same cloth remains – (not soiled one hopes) –

Dinner from 2 or 3 to 4 or 5 –

Drink toasts – a bottle to each gentleman – 7 or 8 sorts of wine chez les riches –

A side table as mentioned yesterday by the garçon –

1st soup – then 2 or more meats etc. –

True, as Laing observes, that in private, the housekeeper sits by the mistress of the house and gets and gives everyone what is wanted –

For 20 or 30 guests there would be 3 or 4 servants to wait –

Greening gives balls, one or 2 per winter, not dinners, because has 2 or 3 pretty daughters and no sons, or Smith and Jæger did not know of any –

Might have 200 people at a ball, très comme il faut.  For 200 species thalers – there are femmes (Smith calls them all dames) here who go out to arrange dinners and, according to Jæger, the lady of the house is in her salon to receive her company instead of being in the kitchen to cook –

The spruce fir, according to Jæger, who better understands the thing than Smith, is the white wood, and called Grantræ.  Pinus abies our Spruce fir.  The scotch fir, called Furru (P. Silvestris) is the red wood, the best – The trees never tapped here – The Dutch take the little wood – The French the next in size, and the English the largest, which largest comes from Østerdalen, through which passes the great road to Drontheim.  No trade in wood at Bolkesöe because no river there to float it down –

Smith’s stomach deranged.  Would have taken (artemisia wormwood) absinthe malurt with a little eau de vie, the common remedy here.  As an aperient, they commonly take rhubard – Does not know of the plant of which we make tarts in England –

At 2 55/.. in 25 minutes, Ann and I read aloud the evening service and 2nd lesson for this morning and evening (we have only Ann’s little testament with us and her little prayerbook) and the collect etc. for 12th Sunday after Trinity –

Then wrote so far of today –

Rain at 3, thunder showers and once thunder – Rain continues – Raining now at 3 50/.. and likely for rain the rest of the day –

Smith at 4 35/.. to 6 35/.. and all that time at Norsk –

Dinner at 6 3/4 – Then at Norsk and Ann at that or reading Laing, and walked about, and at Norsk again till 10 20/.. –

Rainy from 3 p.m. to between 8 and 9, then fair – Fahrenheit 65 1/2° now at 10 20/.. p.m.

Margin: the Norse drink much wine – Jæger knows a gentleman who can drink six bottles without being intoxicated.

WYAS Finding Numbers SH/ML/TR/12/0023 and SH/ML/TR/12/0024