She describes her people, so primitive in their habits

The most notable woman we have aboard is Miss Selma Borg, well known as the translator of Swedish and Finnish novels. She goes for the summer to her home in Finland. We find her a talented, warm-hearted woman, full of enthusiasm in regard to America and her institutions, yet always mindful of her people and her native land. She goes to labor for the Centennial cause, to arouse her countrymen to the importance of their having a proper representation at that time. Despite the apathy of the Russians on the subject, she is determined that Finland shall send specimens of her arts and manufactures. "How shall I go to my family," she said, in her beautiful patois, "how satisfy them about your great land? They will ask me of your government, your public schools, woman's suffrage, social science, and all the great topics of the times; and although I have been among you fifteen years, they have been so crowded with work, that I feel I know nothing thoroughly."

Miss Borg is a strong, vigorous thinker, a woman of large heart and intellect. She is an ardent reformer and searcher after the truth. In connection with Miss Marie A. Brown, she has translated the novels of Madame Schwartz and Gustav Adolph, and has lately made a collection of the lays of Sweden and Finland, which are full of feeling and replete with melodic sweetness and beauty. The weird character of the songs of the Norsemen as interpreted by the Swedish Nightingales, Jenny Lihd and Christine Nilsson, has created in our continent a desire for their translation, and Miss Borg has given them to us in all their wild, quaint, plaintive beauty.

She tells us much that is new, interesting, and instructive concerning Finland: of the days which commence at two o'clock in the morning and last until ten at night, of the fierce cold of the winter, and the warm, beautiful summer, when in three months they sow the seed, have the blossom, the fruit, and the harvest. She describes her people, so primitive in their habits, simple in their tastes, and noble, honest, and loving. But she expresses her determination to spend the remainder of her days in the land of her adoption. Her lines have fallen in pleasant places, for she has made friends with the Quakers of Philadelphia. But no language of mine can express her enthusiasm of words and manner when she speaks of the "dear people among whom I passed my time." Her compagnon de voyage is a countryman, Mr. Fagerstrom, a genuine specimen of the men of the Norseland. He has spent seven years in America in the study of machinery, and goes home to put in practice the knowledge he has gained. But I think there lurks in his heart a fear that he will not be content, after the hurry and enterprise in which he has so long mingled.

Mary H. Wills: A summer in Europe. 1876