In the most national of Swedish cultural elements, the song, the epoch of dilettantism found its most beautiful and lasting expressions. The quartet and chorus singing at the universities of Upsala and Lund was cultivated to the highest standards of excellence and had a splendid repertory in the songs of Otto Lindblad, Vennerberg, Prince Gustavus, Josephsson, Crusell, Cronhamn, etc. The Upsala students caused a great sensation by their singing at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and have repeated their successes at the Paris Exposition of 1878, and in Berlin in 1898. Swedish quartets of men’s and women’s voices have travelled all over the world and made a lasting fame for this minor but bewitching branch of musical art. As dramatic singers of the first rank, Louise Michaëli and Christine Nilsson have been the worthy successors of Jenny Lind. To this period, as well as to the next, belongs Elisa Hvasser, the greatest and most versatile actress Sweden has ever had. This artist was equally at home in the farce and melodrama, but excelled in the tragic parts of the Shakespeare, Schiller, and Ibsen repertory. Indispensable in their positions at the Royal Theatre of Stockholm, Michaëli, the songstress, and Hvasser, the tragedienne, did not travel, thereby losing the fame a world would have been only too glad to give them. CHAPTER XVIII _Progress and Prosperity--Oscar II_ Oscar II. ascended the throne at a moment when universal peace was restored after the great conflict between France and Germany, and when an age of commercial prosperity for Sweden seemed to have begun. King Oscar had received the same superior education as his older brothers, is as brilliantly gifted as they were and of a more scholarly mind. As a writer on scientific subjects, a poet and an orator, Oscar II. had distinguished himself before his succession to the throne. The new king offered the best of securities for a sound administration in his thorough and versatile knowledge, wide experience in public affairs, and rich and harmonious endowment. Oscar II. still did not find it easy to gain the love and admiration of the Swedish people, of which he is so eminently worthy. He was the successor of one of the most popular of rulers that the country ever saw, but King Oscar has lived to see his own popularity almost outrival that of his predecessor. King Oscar is, at seventy, a handsome, spirited gentleman, with that dignity which age, rare attainments, high intelligence and a noble soul grant their common possessor. This the most learned and popular monarch of Europe is of a tall, commanding figure, six feet three inches in height, of a handsome, expressive face, with cheeks of a ruddy color and mild blue eyes.