We now went through the great manufactory in Motala.  What ticks in the clock, beats here with strong strokes of the hammer.  It is Bloodless, who drank life from human thought and thereby got limbs of metals, stone and wood; it is Bloodless, who by human thought gained strength, which man himself does not physically possess. Bloodless reigns in Motala, and through the large foundries and factories he extends his hard limbs, whose joints and parts consist of wheel within wheel, chains, bars, and thick iron wires.  Enter, and see how the glowing iron masses are formed into long bars. Bloodless spins the glowing bar! see how the shears cut into the heavy metal plates; they cut as quietly and as softly as if the plates were paper.  Here where he hammers, the sparks fly from the anvil.  See how he breaks the thick iron bars; he breaks them into lengths; it is as if it were a stick of sealing-wax that is broken.  The long iron bars rattle before your feet; iron plates are planed into shavings; before you rolls the large wheel, and above your head runs living wire—­long heavy wire!  There is a hammering and buzzing, and if you look around in the large open yard, amongst great up-turned copper boilers, for steam-boats and locomotives, Bloodless also here stretches out one of his fathom-long fingers, and hauls away.  Everything is living; man alone stands and is silenced by—­stop!

The perspiration oozes out of one’s fingers’-ends:  one turns and turns, bows, and knows not one’s self, from pure respect for the human thought which here has iron limbs.  And yet the large iron hammer goes on continually with its heavy strokes:  it is as if it said:  “Banco, Banco! many thousand dollars; Banco, pure gain!  Banco!  Banco!”—­Hear it, as I heard it; see, as I saw!

The old gentleman from Trollhaetta walked up and down in full contemplation; bent and swung himself about; crept on his knees, and stuck his head into corners and between the machines, for he would know everything so exactly; he would see the screw in the propelling vessels, understand their mechanism and effect under water—­and the water itself poured like hail-drops down his forehead.  He fell unconscious, backwards into my arms, or else he would have been drawn into the machinery, and been crushed:  he looked at me, and pressed my hand.

“And all this goes on naturally,” said he; “simply and comprehensibly.  Ships go against the wind, and against the stream, sail higher than forests and mountains.  The water must raise, steam must drive them!”

“Yes,” said I.

“Yes,” said he, and again yes, with a sigh which I did not then understand; but, months after, I understood it, and I will at once make a spring to that time, and we are again at Trollhaetta.

I came here in the autumn, on my return home; stayed some days in this mighty piece of nature, where busy human life forces its way more and more in, and, by degrees, transforms the picturesque to the useful manufactory.  Trollhaetta must do her work; saw beams, drive mills, hammer and break to pieces:  one building grows up by the side of the other, and in half a century hence here will be a city.  But that was not the story.