Copenhagen

T H E SUR ROUND INGS OF COPENHAGEN.

nals and lim e-trees, enclosed by thick bram ble-hedges. N o ­ w here can one spend a m ore delightful summ er night. He w ho w ou ld know D enm ark’s soft beauty must tarry one night at Marienlyst. Next m o rn in g he m ust take the shortest road to Gurre. Of this place h u nd red s of Danish songs have been sung. At one tim es a castle stood by the Lake of Gurre, a castle hidden by the forest. In this castle, now a mass of ruins, one of D en­ m ark ’s g reat kings, K ing Volmer, concealed his passionate love. Im agine yourself on the deck of a ship sailing past K ron­ borg, past Elsinore, into the Sound, along the coast of Z ea­ land, past country house after country house, village after village. Behind them all stretches the forest — m ighty, luxu ­ riant, radiant, and high, as only a beech forest can be — the belt of the Sound. G o ashore, where you will! Land, if you chose, at Rungsted. You have merely to cross a road and you are in the forest. N ot a heavy forest of oaks, not a forest of pines in w hose stillness the birds dare no t sing, bu t in the beech forest, w here it is light, in spite of the massive tree-tops, mild, in spite of the gian t trunks — and full of song; for in the beech w ood all the birds sing. W e proceed further along the coast of Zealand, — still from the deck of the steam er seeing country house after country house like a fringe. Now they g ro u p themselves once more into a town. It is Vedbæk. Those white banks, those high h o u ­ ses, those num erou s verandahs — that is Skodsborg, now p e r­ haps the m ost renow ned of all the beautiful places along the Sound. E lsinore is the Past, Skod sbo rg is the Present of this

101 -

-