Soldier though he was, Enrico Dalgas’s pick and spade brigade won greater victories for Denmark than her armies in two wars.  He literally “won for his country within what she had lost without.”  A natural organizer, a hard worker who found his greatest joy in his daily tasks, a fearless and lucid writer who yet knew how to keep his cause out of the rancorous politics that often enough seemed to mistake partisanship for patriotism, he was the most modest of men.  Praise he always passed up to others.  At the “silver wedding” of the Society he founded they toasted him jubilantly, but he sat quiet a long time.  When at last he arose, it was to make this characteristic little speech: 

“I thank you very much.  His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, who is present here, will see from this how much you think of me, and possibly my recommendation that the State make a larger contribution to the Heath Society’s treasury may thereby acquire greater weight with him.  I drink to an increased appropriation.”

On the heath Dalgas was prophet, prince, and friend of the people.  In the crowds that flocked about his bier homespun elbowed gold lace in the grief of a common loss.  Boughs of the fragrant spruce decked his coffin, the gift of the heath to the memory of him who set it free.

To Dalgas apply the words of the seer with which he himself characterized the Society that was the child of his heart and brain:  “The good men are those who plant and water,” for they add to the happiness of mankind.

KING CHRISTIAN IV

[Illustration:  Musical notation with lyrics]

   Maestoso.

King Christian stood by loft-y mast In mist and smoke; His sword was ham-mer-ing so fast, Thro’ Goth-ic helm and brain it passed; Then sank each hos-tile hulk and mast.  In mist and smoke.  “Fly,” shout-ed they, “fly, he who can!  Who braves of Denmark’s Christ-i-an, Who braves of Denmark’s Christian The stroke?”

Deep in the beech-woods between Copenhagen and Elsinore, upon the shore of a limpid lake, stands Frederiksborg, one of the most beautiful castles in Europe.  In its chapel the Danish kings were crowned for two centuries, and here was born on April 12, 1577, King Christian of the Danish national hymn which Longfellow translated into our tongue.  No Danish ruler since the days of the great Valdemars made such a mark upon his time; none lives as he in the imagination of the people.  He led armies to war and won and lost battles; indeed, he lost more than he won on land when matched against the great generals of that fighting era.  On the sea he sailed his own ship and was the captain of his own fleet, and there he had no peer.  He made laws in the days of peace and reigned over a happy, prosperous land.  In his old age misfortune in which he had no share overwhelmed Denmark, but he was ever greatest in adversity, and his courage saved the country from ruin.  The great did not love him overmuch; but to the plain people he was ever, with all his failings, which were the failings of his day, a great, appealing figure, and lives in their hearts, not merely in the dry pages of musty books.