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Title: Esaias Tegner Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen [More Titles by Boyesen] The genius of the Scandinavian north has never found a more complete and brilliant incarnation than the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér. Strong, cheerful, thoroughly wholesome, with a boyish delight in prowess, adventure, and daring deeds, he presents a most agreeable contrast to the moonshine singers and graveyard bards of the phosphoristic school, who were his contemporaries. To Tegnér, in his prime, life was a brisk and exhilarating sail, with a fresh breeze, over sunny waters; and he had no patience with those who described it as a painful and troublous groping through the valley of the shadow of death. There was, in other words, a certain charming juvenility in his attitude toward existence, which presented to him no riddles that a man with a strong arm and an honest heart might not solve with comparative ease. All problems were to him soluble with the sword; and Alexander, when he cut the Gordian knot, must have appeared to him wiser, as he was surely more admirable, than either Plato or Socrates. This scorn of all metaphysical subtleties, and reliance upon strength and Swedish manhood, are, perhaps (from an advanced European point of view), indicative of a little intellectual immaturity; but they are thoroughly characteristic of the Scandinavian nationalities. The love of brave words and brave deeds, the exaltation of the man of action above the man of thought, the pleasure in reckless gallantry and foolhardy adventure, are, however, not confined to Swedes and Norwegians, but are characteristic of the boyhood of every nation. In the Scotchman, Robert Louis Stevenson, this jaunty juvenility, this rich enjoyment of bloody buccaneers and profane sea-dogs, is carried to far greater lengths, and the great juvenile public of England and America, both young and old, rises up and calls him blessed. There is, however, a vast difference between Tegnér's youthfulness and that of Stevenson. The latter (in spite of the charm of his style, which is irresistible) strikes me as a sort of mediæval survival--a boyish feudal sixteenth-century spirit astray in the nineteenth. I am by no means insensible to the fascination of his capricious confidences, his beautiful insight, and his exquisite humor; but for all that, he always leaves me with a vague regret at his whimsicality and a certain lack of robustness in his intellectual equipment. In Tegnér, on the other hand, it is primarily the man who is impressive; and the author is interesting as the revelation of the man. He has no literary airs and graces, but speaks with a splendid authority, e plena pectore, from the fulness of his manly conviction. He seems a very personification of the national genius--fair, vigorous, and beautiful--with the glow of health in his cheeks and the light of courage in his eye. His vision of the world is bright and vivid, and he swims with a joyous ease in the high-tide of the moment, like a beautiful fish in the luminous summer sea. As a specimen of magnificent manhood Tegnér had few equals in his day. Tall, robust, and finely proportioned as he was, with a profile of almost classic purity, he was equally irresistible to men and women. There was a breezy, out-of-door air about him, and a genial straightforwardness and affability in his manner which took all hearts captive. His was not only the beauty of perfect health, but a certain splendid virility in his demeanor and appearance heightened the charm of his personality. It is a matter of wonder that a man in whom the race-type had reached such perfection was but two generations removed from the soil. Tegnér's grandfathers on both sides were peasants; and his father, Esaias Lucasson, was a peasant lad who by industry and ambition had obtained an education and become a clergyman. He owed his aristocratic name to the custom, prevalent in those days, to Latinize all vulgar appellations. Esaias Lucasson, of Tegnaby (the little Småland village where he was born), became, in the Latin school, Esaias Tegnerus. He married in the course of time a clergyman's daughter, Sara Maria Seidelius, who bore him a large family of sons and daughters. The fifth son, named Esaias after his father, first saw the light of day in the parsonage of Kyrkerud, in Wermland, November 13, 1782. When he was nine years old his father died, leaving behind him poverty and sorrow. Happily a friend of the family, the Assessor Branting, took a fancy to the handsome and clever boy and offered him a home in his house. Esaias wrote a very clear, good hand, and soon got a desk and a high three-legged stool in the assessor's office. So far from rebelling against this tedious discipline, he applied himself with zeal to his task, and became, in a short time, an excellent clerk. And a clerk he might have remained if his patron had not had the wit to discover that very unusual talents slumbered in the lad. Being fond of his society, Mr. Branting got into the habit of taking him along on his official journeys; and from the back seat of his chaise Esaias made the acquaintance of the beautiful rivers, heights, and valleys of Wermland. The unconscious impressions which a boy absorbs at this period of his life are apt to play a decisive part in fashioning his future. Nature, however picturesque, never yet made a poet of a dullard; but many a time has she aroused to poetic consciousness a soul which without this stimulating influence might never have discovered its calling, might never have felt that strange, tremulous exaltation which demands utterance in song. Esaias Tegnér stored his mind during these journeys with that wealth of imagery, drawn from the scenery of his native land, which constitutes the most national element in his verse. He also contracted, during his residence in Branting's house, an inordinate love of books. Once during the harvest-time he was placed on guard at an open gate, so as to prevent the cattle from breaking into the adjoining field. To the great chagrin of his patron, however, the cows made their way unhindered and unnoticed into the forbidden territory, while their watchman was lying on his belly in the grass, deeply absorbed in a book. Wherever he happened to be, his idea of happiness was to hide himself away with a cherished volume. Sometimes he was found sitting on the top rung of a ladder, sometimes on the roof of a turf-thatched cottage, oblivious of the world about him, plunged up to his ears in some historic or mythological tale. He was voracious, nay, omnivorous, in his reading. A book was a book to him; no matter what was its subject, whether it were poetry, history, heraldry, or horticulture, he was always likely to find something in it to interest him. But his favorite reading was the old Norse sagas, with their tremendous recitals of war and song and fabulous prowess. It was not, however, his delight in books which made the change in his destiny. Professor C. W. Böttiger, Tegnér's son-in-law, quotes, in his life of the poet, the following incident in the latter's own words: "One evening, as I was travelling homeward with Assessor Branting, from Carlstad to Högvalta, the stars were bright and my religious foster-father seized this opportunity to talk with me about God's omnipotence, and its visible traces throughout nature. I had just been reading Bastholm's 'Philosophy for Laymen,' and I began to give an account of what I had there learned concerning the movements of the heavenly bodies. This made an impression upon the old man, who, a few days later, informed me that he had determined to give me a scholarly education. This had long been my secret desire, though I had never dared to express it. 'You can learn nothing more with me,' he said, 'and I believe you were born for something better. If that is the case,' he added, 'do not forget to thank the Giver of all good things.'" The boy, who was now fourteen years old, was sent to the house of a neighbor, where his elder brother, Lars Gustaf, was tutor, and was initiated by him into the classical languages. He also taught himself English by reading McPherson's "Ossian," which kept ringing in his memory for many years to come. It was during his first enthusiasm for "Ossian" that, in order to rid himself of the line "the spear of Connell is keen," he cut it into his chamber-door, where probably it is yet to be seen. At the end of fifteen months the elder brother accepted a more profitable position as tutor in the family of the great iron-manufacturer Myhrman, at Rämen, and stipulated that Esaias should be permitted to accompany him. Very charming is the description of this hospitable, patriarchal household, in Böttiger's biography; and doubly interesting it becomes when we recognize on every page scenes and incidents which were later woven into "Frithjof's Saga." There was a large library on the estate, consisting of French, Latin, and Greek classics. With great zest Esaias attacked this storehouse of delight; and scarcely would he grant himself the needed sleep, because every hour seemed to him lost which had been robbed from his beloved authors. The instruction in Latin and Greek which his brother imparted to the young Myhrmans was to him far too slow. In his eagerness to plunge into Homer's enchanted world, he rapidly finished his grammar, and began to read ahead, book after book, so as to get the connection, even though understanding but half the words. Without knowing it, he had adopted a modern and really most excellent method of acquiring the language. For Homer became literature to him instead of a mere text for excruciating grammatical gymnastics. It was Tegnér's good fortune that his playfellows, the seven young Myhrmans, were not so fond of Greek as he was. Often, when he was revelling in a glorious Homeric passage, these lusty barbarians would come storming into his room and carry him off bodily, compelling him to share in their sports; for Esaias was a capital hand at inventing new games, and they willingly accepted his leadership and acted upon his suggestions. Particularly his Homeric games were greatly enjoyed. They divided their troop into Greeks and Trojans and captured Troy. Esaias was always Hector, and the other boys became the raging Ajax, the swift-footed Achilles, the wily Ulysses, etc. The youngest daughter of the house, Anna Myhrman, must, I should fancy, have played somewhat more of a part in Tegnér's boyhood than his biographer allows, for the descriptions of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's childhood in Hilding's house are obviously personal reminiscences:
At the age of seventeen Tegnér entered the University of Lund, accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess. At the University Tegnér soon made his mark, and two years later took his degree of Magister Artium with great distinction, being, according to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegnér was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their careers. Tegnér was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the professors saved him from the consilium abeundi cum infamia, with which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed docent in æsthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Rämen with the Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found up in the woods above Rämen which yet shows under its coating of moss the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in "Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge:
"They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay, "She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood, [2] Strong's translation.
His insecure position in life, as one dependent upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegnér, and at times made him moody and despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed him with a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, have succumbed to the strain of this perpetual over-exertion. But after his marriage a happy change came over him. The joyous substratum of his nature (what he himself called his pagan self) broke through its sombre integuments and asserted itself. No sooner had he taken his place among the teachers of the University than his clear and weighty personality commanded admiration and respect. In social intercourse his ready wit and cheerful conviviality made him a general favorite. His talk, without being in the least forced, was full of surprises; and there was a charm, in the redundant vigor and virility that seemed to radiate from him. But it may as well be admitted that he began at this time to show what may euphemistically be styled his paganism, in the relish which he evinced for jests of doubtful propriety. He was indeed as far as possible from being a prude; many years later, when he was a bishop and a great ecclesiastical dignitary, he wrote to his friend the poet Franzén: "I thank God that I can yet, at times, be merry and give vent to my mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to make a good joke even though its subject be the bridal bed. All prudery--and frequently the clerical dignity is, in social intercourse, nothing else--I detest and despise." His inability to restrain his wit in this particular direction has done some injury to his memory. Not that his fancy had any taint of uncleanness. It was open and cheerful as the sunlight; and as the sunlight played brightly over all things without fastidious discrimination. There was a rich, and healthy humanity about him which manifested itself in an impartial, all-embracing delight in the glow and color of mere sensuous existence. There has scarcely ever been a great poet (Dante perhaps excepted) who has not had his share of this pagan joy in nudity. Goethe's "Roman Elegies" are undisguisedly Anacreontic, and the most spiritual of modern poets, Robert Browning, is as deep and varied and bountiful in the expression he gives to life in its sensuous phases as in its highest ascetic transports. Do not imagine, then, that I am apologizing for Tegnér, I am merely trying to account for him. From his Homer, whom he loved above all other poets, he had in a measure derived that artistic paganism which perceptibly colored his personality. There was nothing of the scholarly prig or pedant about him. In his lectures he gave himself, his own view of life, and his own interpretation of his authors. And it was because of the greatness of the man, the unhackneyed vigor of his speech, and the power of his intellect that the students flocked to his lecture-hall and listened with enthusiasm to his teaching. I am not by any means sure, however, that much of his popularity was also due to what, at this stage of his career, may without disrespect be called his immaturity. That wholesome robustness in his acceptance of life which finds utterance in his early songs must have established a quick bond of sympathy between him and his youthful hearers. The instincts of the predatory man were yet strong in him. The tribal feeling which we call patriotism, the juvenile defiance which carries a chip on its shoulder as a challenge to the world, the boastful self-assertion which is always ridiculous in every nation but our own--impart a splendid martial resonance to his first notable poem, "War-Song for the Scanian Reserves" (1808). There was a charming, frank ferocity in this patriotic bugle-blast which found an echo in every Swedish heart. The rapid dactylic metres, with the captivating rhymes, alternating with the more contemplative trochees, were admirably adapted for conveying the ebullient indignation and wrath which hurls its gauntlet into the face of fate itself,[3] checked, as it were, and cooled by soberer reflection and retrospective regret. It is the sorrow for the yet recent loss of Finland which inspires the elegiac tones in Tegnér's war-song; and it is his own ardent, youthful spirit, his own deep and sincere love of country, which awakes the martial melody with the throbbing of the drum and the rousing alarum of trumpets. What can be more delightfully--shall I say juvenile--than this reference to the numerical superiority of the Muscovites:
[3] "Vi Kaste var handske
The popularity which Tegnér gained by "The Scanian Reserves" was the immediate cause of his appointment to a professorship at the University of Lund, and his next notable poem, "Svea," which won him the great prize of the Swedish Academy, raised him to a height of fame which naturally led to further promotion. According to the curious custom of Sweden, a professor may, even though he has never studied theology, take orders and accept the charge of a parish. He is regarded as being, by dint of his learning, in the regular line of clerical promotion; and the elevation from a professorship (though it be not a theological one) into a bishopric is no infrequent occurrence. There was therefore nothing anomalous in Tegnér's appointment (February, 1812) as pastor of Stäfvie and Lackalänge, and his subsequent promotion (February, 1824) to the bishopric of Wexiö. His pastorate he was permitted to combine with his professorship of Greek, to which he was simultaneously transferred from that of æsthetics, and the office was chiefly valuable to him on account of the addition which it procured him to his income. The nearness of his parish to Lund enabled him to preach in the country on Sundays as regularly as he lectured in the city on week-days. His other pastoral duties he could not very well discharge in absentia, and they probably remained in a measure undischarged. He had not sought the parish; it was the parish which had sought him; and he exerted himself to the utmost to fill the less congenial office as conscientiously as he did his academic chair. The peasants of Stäfvie and Lackalänge were always welcome at his hospitable board; he gave them freely his advice, and in order to recall and emphasize his own kinship with them, he invited a peasant woman to become the godmother of his youngest son, and selected all the sponsors from the same class. This was not the only occasion on which Tegnér demonstrated his superiority to all snobbish pretensions. He was not only not ashamed of his peasant descent, but he was proud of it. Once (1811) during a visit to Rämen, he took it into his head that he desired to know, from actual experience, the kind of lives which his ancestors must have lived; and to that end he dressed himself in wadmal, loaded a dray with pig-iron, greased its axles, harnessed his team, and drove it to the nearest city, a distance of ten to twelve miles. He induced three of his brothers-in-law, two of whom were army officers and one a government clerk, to follow his example. Up hill and down hill they trudged, and arrived late in the afternoon, footsore and with blistered hands, in the town, where they reported at the office of a commission merchant, sold their iron and obtained their receipts. That of Tegnér was made out to Esaias Esaiasson, which would have been his name, if his father had never risen from the soil. The four sham peasants now bought seed-corn with the money they had obtained for their iron, loaded again their wagons, and started for home. But they had forgotten to take into account the robustness of the rustic appetite, and before they had proceeded far their bag of provisions was empty. To add to their discomfort the rain began to pour down, but they would not seek shelter. After midnight they arrived at Rämen, hungry and drenched, not having slept for two nights, but happy and proud of their feat of endurance. It was in 1811 that Tegnér's poem "Svea" received the prize of the Swedish Academy; and the fact that it recalled (in single passages at least) Oehlenschläger's "The Golden Horns," does not seem to have weighed in the verdict. It is not in any sense an imitation; but there is an audible reminiscence which is unmistakable in the metre and cadence of the short-lined verses, descriptive of the vision. Never, I fancy, had the Swedish language been made to soar with so strong a wing-beat, never before had it been made to sing so bold a melody. To me, I admit, "Svea" is too rhetorical to make any deep impression. It has a certain stately academic form, which, as it were, impedes its respiration and freedom of movement. When, for all that, I speak of wing-beat and melody, it must be borne in mind that Sweden had produced no really great poet[4] before Tegnér; and that thus, relatively considered, the statement is true. But Tegnér seems himself to have been conscious of the strait-jacket in which the old academic rules confined him, for in the middle of the poem he suddenly discards the stilted Alexandrines with which he had commenced and breaks into a rapturous old-Norse chant, the abrupt metres of which recall the fornyrdhalag of the Elder Edda. Soon after "Svea" followed, in 1812, "The Priestly Consecration," the occasion of which was the poet's own ordination. Here the oratorical note and a certain clerical rotundity of utterance come very near spoiling the melody. "At the Jubilee in Lund" (1817) is very much in the same strain, and begins with the statement so characteristic of Tegnér:
He was, in fact, never very orthodox; and if he had belonged to the American branch of his denomination would surely have been tried for heresy. Rarely has a deadlier foe of priestly obscurantism and mediæval mysteries worn the episcopal robes. With doctrinal subtleties and ingenious hair-splitting he had no patience; conduct was with him the main, if not the only, thing to be considered. The Christian Church, as he conceived it, was primarily a civilizer, and the expression of the highest ethical sentiment of the age. "The Church," he writes, "can surely not be re-established in its former religious significance, for the system upon which it rests has slept away three centuries of history; and it is of no use that this man or that man yet pretends to believe in the somnambulist. But the church has also a civic significance as an integral part of the social order of humanity. If you abandon that to the spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I can see no reason why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and their costs covered into the treasury." These are not highly episcopal sentiments; but they are in keeping with Tegnér's whole personality and his conception of his duty. His first concern was to purge his diocese of drunken clergymen, a task in which he encountered many unforeseen difficulties. "It is nowadays less difficult," he says, "to get rid of a king than a drunken clergyman." He was, indeed, very moderate in his demands, stipulating only that no shepherd of souls should show himself drunk in public. But the bibulous parsons frequently had influential relatives, who exerted themselves with the government to thwart the bishop's reformatory schemes. If Tegnér had not been the masterful, tireless, energetic prelate that he was, his ardor would have cooled; and he would have contented himself with drawing the revenues of his office, and left with the lukewarm government the responsibility for frustrating his purposes. But this was contrary to his nature. He could not calmly contemplate abuses which it was his duty to remedy; and no discouragement ever sufficed to dampen his noble zeal. The marked and fanatical pietism which then was much diffused among the Småland peasantry he fought with his cheerful gospel of reason and sanity. Just as poetry to him meant the highest bloom of life, and his radiant lyre resounded with noble music like the statue of Memnon, when touched by the rays of the dawn; so religion was, in its essence, perfect sanity of soul, a beautiful equilibrium of mind, and complete self-mastery. His Christ was not primarily the bleeding, the scourged, the crucified, but rather a benigner and lovelier Phoebus Apollo, the bringer of clearness and light, the dispeller of the unwholesome mists and barbaric gloom that yet brood over the human soul. Like Goethe, he cherished a veritable abhorrence of the mystic symbolism of the mediæval church; and was rather inclined to minimize the significance of Christ's death and passion. He had undeniably imparted into his Christianity a great deal of sunny Hellenic paganism--a fact which in his familiar correspondence with Franzén he scarcely cares to disguise. Having this conception of the episcopal office, he could not escape emphasizing his function as the supervisor of the schools of his diocese. If he was to be a civilizer on any great scale, the chance which was here afforded him to impress his ideals upon the rising generation was not one to be neglected. And, as a matter of fact, Tegnér was indefatigable in his labors as an educator. His many speeches at school celebrations preached, as ever, a gospel derived from Greece rather than Judæa; and half-improvised though some of them appear to be, they contain passages of lofty eloquence. It was inevitable that a bishop of such commanding personality, who wielded his authority at times somewhat ruthlessly, should make enemies. But, on the other hand, the beautiful beneficence and sincere humanity of the man often obliterated the ill-feeling which his official severity had aroused. To the widows of deceased clergymen in his diocese he was a veritable guardian, to their children a father, to his peasantry a friend, adviser, and monitor. He was an expert at detecting errors in ecclesiastical balance-sheets; and woe to the cleric who dared present to him inaccurate accounts of income and expenditures. By sheer dint of his personal superiority and that quality of soul which George Eliot calls dynamic, he impressed himself strongly upon all with whom he came in contact; and though he was feared, he was also beloved as few. A very delightful instance of the reverence with which he was regarded is recorded by Böttiger. One summer evening he arrived at a remote parsonage which had never, in the memory of man, been visited by a bishop. Some time after his arrival Tegnér observed two young ladies, the daughters of the house, coming across the yard carrying between them a big tub, full of water. When he asked them, in a friendly way, why they subjected themselves to such hard labor, one of them replied: "Should we not regard it as an honor to be allowed to water the bishop's horses?" In order to give a clear and coherent idea of Tegnér in his prime, I have been obliged to anticipate events. Many literary achievements which I have left unrecorded belong to the period previous to his assumption of the bishopric of Wexiö. Unhappily Professor Böttiger's edition is very chary of dates, and as Dr. Brandes has truly observed, is arranged with the obvious purpose of falsifying the sequence of Tegnér's poems and confusing the reader. The three periods--previous to 1812, 1812-40, and 1840-46--are entirely arbitrary, and plainly devised with a view to concealing, in so far as they are capable of concealment, the unhappy events which undermined the strength of the Titan and wrecked his splendid powers. But such a purpose is utterly futile, as long as the poems themselves had once escaped into publicity. It was during the period while his sky was yet unclouded that Tegnér enriched Swedish literature with a series of lyrics which in point of lucidity of thought and brilliancy of diction have rarely been surpassed. It may be admitted, without materially detracting from his merit, that in some of them the foreign models from which they were in a measure fashioned shimmer through. Just as the Germans, Gottsched and Bodmer, held foreign models to be indispensable, and only disagreed as to which were the best, so the Swedish Academy, which in its predilections was French, had no scruple in recommending this or that literary form for imitation. That degree of literary independence which Germany reached with Goethe and Schiller, who discarded all models, the Scandinavian countries did not reach until a much later period; and Tegnér was one of those who stimulated that national self-respect without which independence is impossible. A strong spiritual kinship drew him to Schiller, whose splendor of imagery and impassioned rhetoric were the very gifts which he himself in a superlative degree possessed. The breath of political and religious liberalism which pervades the writings of the German poet was also highly congenial to Tegnér, and last, but not least, they were both light-loving, beauty-worshipping Hellenists, and, though externally conformists, hid joyous pagan souls under imperfect Christian draperies. Small blame it is therefore to Tegnér that Schiller's poems furnished him with frequent suggestions and sometimes also with metres. Schiller had, in "The Gods of Greece," sung a glorious elegy on the Olympian age which stimulated his Swedish rival to write "The Asa Age," in which he regretted, though in a rather half-hearted way, the disappearance of Odin, Thor, and Freya. The poem, it must be admitted, falls much below Tegnér at his best. Schiller's "Three Words of Faith," in which liberty, virtue, and God are declared to be the only essentials of religion, finds a parallel (which even retains the metre) in Tegnér's "The Eternal," in which truth, justice, and beauty are substituted. A kindred poetic creed is far more consciously proclaimed in the famous poem Sangen (Poetry), which was primarily a protest against the gloomy and morbid view of poetry entertained by the Swedish Romanticists (the so-called Phosphorists). Tegnér here declares that the poet "with heavenly joy embraces life," that "he knows no weak lament" (at its misery), "no dissonance which is not dissolved" (in harmony). His temple stands in light and flame; and at its base a fountain gurgles, a draught from which is an elixir of strength and a panacea for all ills. "Well, then," he continues, "from this fountain will I drink, if I am worthy of such a draught. With healthy eyes will I look about me in the sick world. My golden lyre shall not resound with sorrows which I myself have invented. For the poet's sorrows are none; and the sky of song is forever bright." Peter Amadeus Atterbom, the leader of the Phosphorists, replied with much moderation and good sense to the obvious reflections upon his school which this poem contained. He intimates plainly enough that Tegnér's philosophy of life, in so far as it ignores sin and sorrow, which are too real to be banished by song, is a hopelessly shallow one. "The undissolved dissonances," he says, "in the sense in which Mr. Tegnér uses the expression, certainly betray a disease of the soul, but this disease is not peculiar to a temperament which is fostered by a personal emotional affinity for lugubrious topics and ideas given by birth and developed by circumstances; but it is inherent in the weakness (which at times doubtless surprises even the strongest ...) of desiring to set up its sorrowful view of the world as a theory, and treat it as absolutely true and fundamentally valid for all. Sorrow, as such, is no more a diseased state than is joy; both are alike primordial, necessary, indispensable elements and halves of human life. Who would venture to assert that the day might dispense with the night? And does not the latter's glorious starry sky rival in majesty (though different in kind) the former's bright and dazzling blitheness?" The fact was that Tegnér's cheery sun-worship was as much temperamental as was Atterbom's sentimental reveries and nocturnal melancholy. The Phosphorist is unquestionably right, however, in asserting that as a theory of life the one is as limited and imperfect as the other. It was because of the abhorrence of all the darker phases of existence that Tegnér's bright Hellenic muse never struck those notes which thrill with deepest resonance through the human heart. Tegnér's acquaintance with suffering during the early part of his career was chiefly a literary one, and like Goethe he went far out of his way to avoid the sight of it. As there can be no victory without combat--no laurel without dust--the Mount of Transfiguration is not reached except through the valley of the Shadow of Death. There are, however, many fair flowers to be plucked in Tempe and the blooming vales of Arcady. Goethe had in 1798 published "Hermann and Dorothea," the form of which was Greek, though the theme was Teutonic; and Tegnér's "Children of the Lord's Supper" (1820), which Longfellow has translated so admirably into English, derived its inspiration primarily from the German idyl: "Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, the church of the village Stood, gleaming white in the morning sheen. On the spire of the belfry, Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the spring sun Glanced like the tongues of fire beheld by Apostles aforetime." Thus run the beautiful, stately hexameters, which, whatever cavilling critics may say, are delightfully adapted for epic narrative in any fairly polysyllabic language. And Swedish, which is the most sonorous of all Germanic tongues, and full of Gothic strength, produces the most delectable effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegnér, which shuns all that is harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth which we miss in the more declamatory passages. If, however, declamation is anywhere in place it is in the three orations of the rural parson, which occupy the larger portion of the poem. It is all very lovely and edifying; full of sacred eloquence and a grand amplitude of phrase which is distinctly clerical. The romantic tale of "Axel" (1822), modelled after Byron's narrative poems, rejoiced in a greater popularity, in spite of the carping criticism with which it was received by the Svensk Litteratur-Tidning, the organ of the Phosphorists. Though, to be sure, the merits of the poem are largely ignored in this review, it is undeniable that the faults which are emphasized do exist. First, the frequent violations of probability (which, by the way, ought not to have been so offensive to a romanticist) draw tremendous draughts upon the reader's credulity; and secondly, the lavish magnificence of imagery rarely adds to the vividness of the situations, but rather obscures and confuses them. It reminds one of a certain style of barocque architecture in which the rage for ornamentation twists every line into a scroll or spiral or arabesque, until whatever design there originally was is lost in a riot of decoration. The metaphors exist for their own sake, and are in nowise subordinate to the themes which they profess to illustrate. Take, for instance, the oft-quoted passage:
[6] L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges Litteratur. Kjöbenhavn, 1862. See also Svensk Litteratur-Tidning as quoted in B. E. Malmström: Grunddragen af Svenska Vitterhetens Historia, vol. v., p. 423. Oerebro. The story of the Swedish officer Axel and his beloved, the Cossack Amazon, Maria, has from beginning to end a flavor of Byron, and recalls alternately "the Corsair" and "Lara." The extravagant sentimentality of the tale appealed, however, powerfully to the contemporary taste, and the dissenting voice of criticism was drowned like the shrill note of a single fife in the noisy orchestra of praise. The Swedish matrons and maidens wept over Axel's and Maria's heroic, but tragic love, as those of England, nay, of all Europe, wept over that of Conrad and Medora. Maria, when she hears that Axel has a betrothed at home, enlists as a man in the Russian army (a very odd proceeding by the way, and scarcely conducive to her purpose) and resolves to kill her rival. She is, however, mortally wounded, and Axel finds her dying upon the battlefield.
[7] The original is in the rhymed Byronic metre, mostly in
"Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom,
This is the spirit that breathes through Tegnér's speeches and poems, during his most vigorous manhood; and even, when the rift in his lute made its music harsh and uncertain, the strain was yet essentially the same, though transposed into an alien key. It is very tempting to quote the many noble sayings of this master of the commanding phrase, but one or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. What clarity of political vision there is in such passages as these: (1813.) "He who fancies that Europe will be delivered by Russia and her confederates, or that the progress of the Cossacks is for the advantage of Sweden, may perhaps be in the right; but his views are very different from mine. In the hatred of the Barbarians I am born and bred, and I hope to die in it, unbewildered by modern sophisms." (1814.) "Who can believe in the re-establishment of the European balance of power or rejoice in the victory of wretched mediocrity over power and genius. The upheavals of the age will soon affect us all--at least us Swedes." (1817) "That we are living on an earth yet quaking from the French Revolution is undeniable; and extremely foolish seems to me the speech of those who insist that the Revolution is finished, or even approaching its end." "Napoleon fell, not on account of his wretched opponents, but because despotism is the livery of all strong souls, because his spirit was opposed to the spirit of the age, with which he wrestled, and which was stronger than he."[8]
"Luther was one of those rare historical characters who always, in whatever they undertake, by their very manner, surprise, and indelibly impress themselves upon the memory. There was something chivalrous, I could almost say adventurous, in his whole personality, in his whole way of beginning and prosecuting an enterprise. He put upon whatever he did the stamp of an almost inconceivable greatness--of an almost overwhelming force. His mere word was half a battle, his deed was a whole one. He was one of those mighty souls which, like certain trees, can only bloom in a storm. His whole great, rich, marvellous life has always seemed to me like an epic with its battles and its final victory. Such a spirit must of necessity make room for itself, and decisively assert itself in history, in whatever direction its activity may be turned, under whatever circumstances and at whatever time it enters upon its career. The time when Luther came was one of those great historical epochs when the world-serpent sheds its skin and reappears in rejuvenated shape.... A great man, even the very greatest, is always the son of his age--only he is the eldest son; he is the deputy and executor of the age. The age is his, and he administers its substance according to his judgment. He finds the scattered elements to his hand, but usually tangled up and struggling in chaotic disorder. To gather and arrange them into a creation, to direct them toward a definite goal, ... this is his greatness; this is his creative powers.... In this ... sense Luther created his age."[9] [9] Esaias Tegnér's Samlade Skrifter, vol. v., pp. 6, 7, 9, and 10. Dr. Brandes has anticipated me in calling attention to the fact that the orator's characterization of Luther, though highly interesting, is one-sided. But as his admirable monograph on Tegnér is not accessible to English readers, I feel justified in repeating his argument in abbreviated form. There is a great uniformity, he says, in substance, in all Tegnér's heroes. They are all men of action--bold, strong, adventurous heroes, such as boys delight in. They have a striking family resemblance. With the change of a few attributes Tegnér applies his characterization of Luther to such a widely differing personality as King Gustavus III. of Sweden, a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, infidel monarch. And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are forced into the same livery, in spite of their diversity of structure, because Tegnér admired them all, and had practically but one type which appeared to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy wholly worthy of admiration.[10] [10] Georg Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 17-19. In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegnér's collected works I am much struck with the force of this criticism. The brave man who defies the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears into dangers, without counting the odds against him, is the typical juvenile hero; and it is strange, though by no means incomprehensible, that a man like Tegnér, who could betray such political insight as is shown in his letters to Franzén and Leopold had not really gotten beyond this primitive type of excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not desirable that he should. For the tremendous popularity which greeted "Frithjof's Saga" was due in no small measure to this half-juvenile robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot help regretting in myself the loss of my boyish appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and mysterious treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from deploring Tegnér's delight in the insane prowess of Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous gallantry of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness in it which makes one, on the whole, like him the more. It might well be said of Tegnér, as he said of Luther, that his word was half a battle. At all events he accomplished by his speeches a complete overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without engaging in the barren polemics to which they invited him. He waited until some appropriate public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of the fulness of his conviction. And his words spread like undulating waves of light from one end of the land to the other, finding lodgement in thousands of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at the "magister promotion"[11] in Lund (1820) was a direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against that mystic obscurity which, according to the Phosphorists, was inseparable from the highest and deepest poetic utterance:
[11] A magister promotion corresponds approximately to our
For all that, Tegnér's doctrine was in its effect wholesome. It discouraged the writers of the Romantic School, who under the guise of profundity gave publicity to much immature and confused thinking. He was no doubt right in saying that "a poetry which commences with whooping-cough is likely to end in consumption." His frequently repeated maxim, that poetry is nothing but the health of life, "occasioned by an abounding intellectual vigor, a joyous leap over the barriers of everyday life," applied, however, to his own poetry only so long as his vigor was unimpaired. His terrible poem "Hypochondria" (Mjeltsjukan) is to me no less poetical because it is not "a petrified drop of heavenly light," and mocks all the cheerful theories of its author's prime. Tegnér had yet a few years in which to rejoice in this "health of life" in which he found the inspiration for his song; and these last years were the most fruitful in his entire career. He was about forty years of age when, in 1820, he began to compose the first cantos of "Frithjof's Saga." He was living in modest comfort, happy in his marital relation, and surrounded by a family of children to whom he was a most affectionate father. He could romp and play with his curly-headed boys and girls without any loss of dignity; and they loved nothing better than to invade his study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied him to his lectures and remained sitting at his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his master, in his zeal for his own poetry, forgot the lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully pull him by the tails of his coat. No man at the University of Lund was more generally beloved than Tegnér, and all honors which the University could bestow had been offered to him. The office of Rector Magnificus he had, however, persisted in declining. There was at that time a general revival of interest in the so-called saga-age. The Danish poet, Oehlenschläger, had published his old-Norse cycle of poems, "Helge," which aroused a sympathetic reverberation in Tegnér's mind. The idea took possession of him that here was a theme which lay well within the range of his own voice, and full of alluring possibilities. Accordingly he chose the ancient "Saga of Frithjof the Bold," and resolved to embody in it all the characteristic features of the old heroic life. And what Oehlenschläger had attempted to do, and partly succeeded in doing, he accomplished with a completeness of success which was a surprise to himself. No sooner had "Iduna," the organ of the Gothic League, published the first nine cantos (1821), than all Sweden resounded with enthusiastic applause; and even from beyond the boundaries of the fatherland came voices of praise. When the completed poem appeared in book-form, it was translated into all civilized languages, and everywhere, in spite of the translators' shortcomings, it was hailed with delight. Not only England, France, and Germany hastened to appropriate it, but even in Spain, Greece, and Russia tears were shed over "Ingeborg's Lament," and tender bosoms palpitated with sympathy for Frithjof's sorrows. I know a dozen English translations of "Frithjof's Saga" (a friend of mine, who is a bibliophile, assures me that the exact number is at present twenty-one), and of German versions the number is not very much less. A Norwegian (or rather Danish) rendering was presented to me on my twelfth birthday; and the sentiment which then most forcibly appealed to me was, as I vividly remember, embodied in the following verse, in which Björn chides his friend's grief for the loss of his beloved:
[12] Holcomb's translation.
When a book acquires this significance as an expression of the typical experience in the lives of thousands, the critical muse can but join in the general chorus, and find profound reasons for the universal praise. In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" this is not a difficult matter. From beginning to end the poem has a lyrical intensity which sets the mind vibrating with a responsive emotion. It is not a coldly impersonal epic, recounting remote heroic events; but there is a deeply personal note in it, which has that nameless moving quality--la note émue, as the French call it--which brings the tear to your eye, and sends a delicious breeze through your nerves. All that, to be sure, or nearly all of it, evaporates in translation; for no more than you can transfer the exquisite dewy intactness of the lily to canvas can you transfer the rapturous melody of noble verse into an alien tongue. The subtlest harmonies--those upon which the thrill depends--are invariably lost. If Longfellow, instead of giving us two cantos, had translated the whole poem, we should, at least, have possessed an English version which would have afforded us some conception of the charm of the renowned original. The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which have been urged by numerous critics may all be admitted as more or less valid; yet something remains which will account for its astounding popularity. Tegnér at the time when he was singing of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's love was himself suffering from a consuming but unrequited passion. The strong, warm pulse of life which throbs in Frithjof's wrath, defiance, and scorn, and in his deep and manly tenderness is the poet's own. It marks but the rhythm of his own tumultuous heart-beat. It is altogether an unhappy chapter, which his biographer has vainly striven to suppress. There was among his acquaintance in Lund a certain Mrs. Palm, toward whom he felt drawn with an irresistible half-demonic force. Beyond this fact we know nothing of the lady, except that she was handsome, cultivated, and well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegnér may have made toward her (and it is not known of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; and the poet, though fighting desperately against his growing infatuation, wore out his splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions which the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a prey to the most terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy of the deepest hue spread its sombre veil over the world which hitherto had given to him its brightest smile. The dread of insanity became an idée fixe with him; and the pathetic cry, "God preserve my reason," rings again and again through his private correspondence. One of his brothers was insane; and he fancied that there must be a taint in his blood which menaced him with the same tragic doom. Happily, he could as yet conjure the storm. It hung threateningly on the horizon of his mind, with mutterings of thunder and stray flashes of lightning. But his poetic bark still sped along with full sails, bravely breasting the waves.
Archæologically the poem was not correct, and was not meant to be. Tegnér distinctly disclaimed the intention of producing a historically accurate picture of the saga age; and all criticism censuring the modernness of Frithjofs and Ingeborg's sentiments is, therefore, according to his idea, wide of the mark. I do not quite agree with his point of view, but will state his argument. For the historical Frithjof, as he is represented in the ancient Norse saga bearing his name, Tegnér cared but little. What he wished to do was to give a poetic presentation of the old heroic life, and he chose Frithjof as his representative of this age because he united in himself so many of its characteristics: "In the saga much occurs which is very grand and heroic, and hence valid for all times, which both might and ought to be retained; but, on the other hand, a great deal occurs which is rough, savage, barbarous; and this had either to be entirely eliminated, or at least materially softened. Up to a certain degree it therefore became necessary to modernize; but the difficulty was to find the golden mean. On the one hand, the poem ought not to offend too much our more refined manners and gentler modes of thought; but, on the other hand, the natural quality, the freshness, the truth to nature ought not to be sacrificed." Tegnér fancies he has solved this problem by retaining in Frithjof the fundamental traits of all heroism, viz., nobility, magnanimity, courage; but at the same time nationalizing them by giving them a distinctly Scandinavian tinge. And this he has done by making his hero almost wantonly defiant, stubborn, pugnacious. As Ingeborg, lamenting his fierce pugnacity, and yet glorying in it, says:
"Another peculiarity of the Norseman's character is a certain "Who sits in the sky, and the thoughts he sends down,
Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to most readers, I may be pardoned for presenting a brief résumé. The general plot, in Tegnér's version, coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. Frithjof, the son of the free yeoman Thorstein Vikingson, is fostered in the house of the peasant Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King Belë of Sogn. The King and the yeoman have been life-long friends, and each has a most cordial regard for the other.
Ingeborg is shut up in Balder's Grove, where the sanctity of the temple would make it sacrilege for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night across the fjord to a stolen rendezvous with his beloved. The canto called "Frithjof's Happiness," which is brimming over with a swelling redundance of sentiment, is so cloyingly sweet that the reader must himself be in love in order to enjoy it. It is written in the key of the watch-songs of the German minnesingers and the aubades of Provençal troubadours. The Norse note is not only wanting, but would never fit into that key:
"'See day is breaking!' Nay, some tower "Vain hope! The day its gray discloses, * * * * * "Farewell, beloved: till some longer [13] Translation of L. A. Sherman, Ph.D. Boston, 1878.
King Ring, incensed at the rejection of his suit, declares war against Helge and Halfdan, who in their dire need ask Frithjof's aid, which is promptly refused. In order to be rid of him they then send him on an expedition to the Orkneys, to collect a tribute which is due to them from Earl Angantyr. He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good ship Ellida breasting the waves and weeps bitter tears at his loss:
"With the spring doves
Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself greatly in the Orkneys by his strength and prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and returns with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, a sight greets him which makes his heart quail. Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to the ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap under the smiling sky. The kings, though they had pledged their honor that they would not harm his property, had broken faith with him; and Ingeborg, in the hope of gaining whom he had undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow Frithjof starts out to call her perjured brothers to account. He finds them in the temple in Balder's Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he flings the bag containing the tribute into King Helge's face, knocking out his front teeth, and observing on his wife's arm the ring with which he had once pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her to recover it. The woman, who had been warming the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, in her fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof seizes her by the arm and snatches the ring from her. In the general confusion that follows the temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the flames are futile. In consequence of this sacrilege Frithjof is outlawed at the Thing as a vargr-i-véum, i.e., wolf in the sanctuary, and is forced to go into exile. His farewell to his native land strikes one as being altogether out of tune. The old Norse viking is made to anticipate sentiments which are of far later growth; but for all that the verses are quite stirring:
* * * * * My love false-hearted, [14] Sherman's translation.
"'Not a whit care I,' said Frithjof, 'I shall find a sword some day; "'Youth, no moment have I slumbered, but to prove thee feigned to rest,
The last canto, called "The Atonement," is perhaps the most flagrant violation of historical verisimilitude in the whole epic. A hoary priest of Balder actually performs the wedding ceremony in the restored temple, and pronounces a somewhat unctuous wedding oration, which differs from those which Tegnér himself had frequently delivered chiefly in the substitution of pagan for the Christian deities. As a matter of fact, marriage was a purely civil contract among the ancient Norsemen, and had no association with the temple or the priesthood, which, by the way, was no separate office but a patriarchal function belonging to the secular chieftainship. But Tegnér's public were in nowise shocked by anachronisms of this sort; they probably rejoiced the more heartily in the happiness of the reunited lovers, because their marriage was, according to modern notions, so "regular." It was soon after his publication of "Frithjof's Saga" that Tegnér became Bishop of Wexiö. He then removed from Lund and took up his residence upon the estate Oestrabo, near the principal town in his diocese. The great fame of his poem came to him as a surprise; and he even undertook to protest against it, declaring with perfect sincerity that he held it to be undeserved. In letters to his friends he never wearied of pointing out the faults of "Frithjof" and his own shortcomings as a poet. In a letter to the poet Leopold (August 17, 1825), who had praised the poem to the skies, he argues seriously to prove that his admiration is misplaced: "My great fault in 'Frithjof' was not that I chose my theme from the old cycle of sagas, but that I treated it in a tone and with a manner which was neither ancient nor modern, neither antiquarian nor poetical, but hovered, as it were, on the boundary of both. For what does it mean to treat a subject poetically if not this, to eliminate everything which belongs to an alien and past age and now no longer appeals to any heart? The hearts to which it once did appeal are now all dust. Other modes of thought and feeling are current. It is impossible to properly translate one age into another. But to poetry nothing is really past. Poetry is the beautifying life of the moment; she wears the colors of the day; she cannot conceive of anything as dead.... But I am convinced that all poetic treatment of a theme belonging to a past age demands its modernization; and that everything antiquarian is here a mistake. This holds good not only in regard to the northern tone but also in regard to the Greek. Look, for instance, at Goethe's 'Iphigenie.' Who does not admire the beautiful, simple, noble, Hellenic form? And yet who has ever felt his soul warmed by this image of stone?... No living spirit has been breathed into these nostrils; the staring eyes gaze upon me without life and animation; no heart beats under the Hellenically rounded marble bosom. The whole is a mistake, infinitely more beautiful than 'Frithjof,' but fashioned according to the game principles of art. The Greeks said that the Muse was the daughter of Memory; but this refers only to the material, the theme itself, which is everywhere of minor consequence. The question, then, is as to the proper treatment. Where it tends toward the antiquarian it misses the mark; it represents, like 'Frithjof,' only a restored ruin." This passage is by no means the only one in which Tegnér, with an utter absence of vanity or illusion, judged his work and found it wanting. There is no mock modesty in his manly deprecation of the honors that were showered upon him; but as a father knows best the faults of his child whom he loves, so he knew the defects of his work, as measured by his own high standard, and refused to accept any more praise than was his due. Not even the fact that Goethe expressed his admiration of "Frithjof's Saga" could persuade him that he was entitled to the extravagant homage which his enthusiastic countrymen accorded him. There were even times when he disclaimed the title of poet. Whether he was forgotten a little sooner or a little later, he said, was a matter of small moment. "Speaking seriously," he writes in 1824 (accordingly before the publication of "Frithjof"), "I have never regarded myself as a poet in the higher significance of the word.... I am at best a John the Baptist, who is preparing the way for him who is to come." He is always just and inclined to be generous in his judgment of every one except himself. It is necessary, however, after the year 1824, to make due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind which disposed him to give violent and hyperbolical expression to the mood of the moment. The unhappy passion which he could at times smother, but never subdue, went boring away into his heart like a subterranean fire, consuming his vitals, and occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. The following reference to it, in his letter to Franzén (November 13, 1825), is very pathetic: "It is to-day my forty-third birthday. I have thus long since passed the highest altitude of life where the waters divide. With every year one now becomes smaller and smaller; one star is extinguished after another. And yet the sun does not rise. One dies by degrees and by halves. Therefore only children and youth ought to celebrate their birthdays with joy; we who have passed into the valley of age, which with every step is growing darker and chillier, are right in celebrating them with--whims.... However, this is not my only or my greatest affliction, I have had and have others. But the night is silent and the grave is dumb, and their sister, Sorrow, should be as they. Therefore--let this suffice." There is to me a heartrending pathos in these confessions. It is easy to stand aloof, of course, like a schoolmaster with his chastising rod, and lash the frailties of poor human nature. It is easy to declare with virtuous indignation that the man who covets his neighbor's wife is a transgressor who has no claim upon our sympathy. And yet who can help pitying this great, noble poet, who fought so bravely against his "barbaric, Titanic self with its hairy arms"? His passionate intensity of soul was, indeed, part of his poetic equipment; and he would not have been the poet he was if he had been cool, callous, and self-restrained. The slag in him was so intimately moulded with the precious metal that their separation would have been the extinction of the individuality itself. The fiery furnace of affliction through which he passed warped and scorched and cracked this mighty compound, but without destroying it. A glimpse of this experience which transformed the powerful, joyous, bright-visaged singer into a bitter, darkly brooding pessimist, fleeing from the sinister shadow which threatened to overtake him, is afforded us in the poem "Hypochondria[15]":
"Then rose a dread black imp, and suddenly "What is to me reality--its dumb, "Still I will praise thee, oh, thou human race. "A mark quite legible, writ by God's finger; "Oh, watchman, tell me now the night's dark hour! "My heart! Nay in my bosom is no heart, [15] The poem is written in the ottava rime, but in order to
"I fear," said Tegnér, in his hopelessness, "that my right side, like that of the Chamber of Deputies, is incurable." "When this Saul's spirit comes over me I often feel an indescribable bitterness, which endures nothing, spares nothing, in heaven or on earth. It usually finds vent in misanthropic reflections, sarcasms, and ideas which I have no sooner written down than I repent of them." The activity which he unfolded, even in the midst of intolerable sufferings, was phenomenal. He possessed an energy of will and vigor of temperament which enabled him to rise superior to his physical condition, and lure strong music (though sometimes jarred into discords) from the broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had fastened its hold upon him, that he pronounced the beautiful epilogue in hexameters at the graduating festivities at the University of Lund, and crowned the Dane, Adam Oehlenschläger, as the king of poets:
* * * * * Past is disunion's age (in the infinite realm of the spirit
"The whole trouble comes from that accursed nonsense about the diadem which they wanted to put on me. You may believe, though, that it was a splendid piece. Pictures in miniature, not painted, but living, really existing miniatures of fourteen of the noblest poets were made into a wreath. It was Homer and Pindar, Tasso and Virgil, Schiller, Petrarch, Ariosto, Goethe, Sophocles, Leopold, Milton, and several more. Between each one of them burned a radiant star, not of tinsel, but of real cosmic material. In the middle of my forehead there was the figure of a lyre on the diadem, which had borrowed something of the sun's own living light; it poured with such bright refulgence upon the wreath of stars that I seemed to be gazing straight through the world. As long as the lyre stood still, everything was well with me--but all of a sudden it began to move in a circle. Faster and ever faster it moved, until every nerve in my body was shaken. At last it began to rotate in rings with such speed that it was transformed into a sun. Then my whole being was broken, and it moved and trembled; for you must know that the diadem was no longer put on the outside of my head, but inside, on my very brain. And now it began to whirl around with an inconceivable violence, until it suddenly broke and burst into pieces. Darkness--darkness--darkness and night spread over the whole world wherever I turned. I was bewildered and faint, and I who had always hated weakness in men--I wept; I shed hot, burning tears. All was over."[16] Contrary to the expectation of his friends he recovered rapidly, and was able to return home in May, 1841. He promptly resumed his episcopal functions, and even wrote a beautiful rural idyl in hexameters called "The Crowned Bride" (Kronbruden), which he dedicated to Franzén. He was well aware, however, that his powers were on the wane, and in 1845 he was persuaded to apply for a year's relief from his official duties. The last months of his life he spent mostly lying upon a sofa in his library, surrounded by great piles of books containing a most miscellaneous assortment of classics, from Homer to Goethe, intersprinkled with controversial pamphlets and recent novels. He was gentle and affectionate in his demeanor; and his beautiful face lighted up with a smile whenever any of his children or grandchildren approached him. Once or twice a day he drove out in his carriage, and he was even able to visit his eldest son, who was a clergyman in Scania, and to receive the sacrament for the last time from his hand. Shortly after his return he was stricken with paralysis, and died November 2, 1846, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His mind was unclouded and his voice was clear. When the autumnal sun suddenly burst through the windows and shone upon the dying poet, he murmured: "I will lift up mine hands unto the house and the mountain of God." These were his last words. He was carried to the grave at night by the light of lanterns, followed by a long procession of the clergy, citizens, and the school-boys of his diocese. Peasants, from whose ranks he had sprung and to whom he was always a good friend, bore his coffin. The academic tendency which "idealizes" life and shuns earth-scented facts, had, through the decisive influence of Tegnér, been victorious in Swedish literature. I am aware that some will regard this as a questionable statement; for the academicism of Tegnér is not the stately, bloodless, Gallic classicism of the Gustavian age, of which Leopold was the last representative. It is much closer to the classicism of Goethe in "Iphigenia" and "Hermann and Dorothea," and of Schiller in "Wallenstein" and "Wilhelm Tell." Tegnér's poetic creed was exactly that of Schiller, who saw no impropriety in making the peasant lad, Arnold Melchthal, when he hears that his father has been blinded, deliver an enraptured apostrophe to the light:
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