A Scandinavianism of the purely sentimental kind,--the kind that 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. King Oscar's motto was _Brödrafolkens Väl_ "The Brother-Peoples Weal!" The Scandinavian peninsula is still populated by brother-peoples, as was indicated at the time of the death of the old king. It was the week for the distribution in Norway of the Nobel prizes, always attended in Christiania with great rejoicing and merry-making. On this occasion all demonstration was prohibited, and the Norwegian capital was almost as much in mourning as was Stockholm. Though entirely devoted to the new order of things, the Norwegians did not forget, nor will they forget, the character of the king who ruled them for a generation. More democratic than the Swedes, they were peculiarly attached personally, if not politically, to one whom they felt to be really of like democratic instincts with themselves, even if he did show himself every inch a king.