THE "RUNA" CLUB
(1870)
The Upsala of the sixties showed signs of the end and dissolution of a
period which might be called the Boströmic.[1] In what relation does
the philosophic system which prevails in a given period stand to the
period itself? The system seems like a collection of the thoughts of
the period at a particular point of time. The philosopher does not
make the period, but the period makes the philosopher. He collects all
the thoughts of his period and thereby exercises an influence on it,
and with the close of the period his influence ends. The Boströmic
philosophy had three defects; it wished to be definitely Swedish;
it came too late; and it wished to outlive its period. To attempt
to construct a purely Swedish philosophy was absurd, for that meant
trying to break loose from the connection with the great mother-stem
which grows on the Continent and only sends out seeds towards the
Northern peninsula. The attempt came too late, for time is necessary to
construct a system, and before the system was constructed, the period
had passed. Boström, as a philosopher, was not, as it were, shot out
of a cannon. All knowledge is collecting-work, and is coloured by
the personality of the collector. Boström was a branch grown out of
Kant and Hegel, watered by Biberg and Grubbe, and finally producing
some offshoots of his own. That was all. He seems to have derived
his fundamental principle from Krause's Pantheism, which itself was
an attempt to unite the philosophy of Kant and Fichte with that of
Schelling and Hegel. This eclecticism had been already attempted by
Grubbe. Boström first studied theology, and this seemed to have a
hampering effect on his mind when he wrote about speculative theology.
His moral philosophy he derived from Kant. To call him an original
philosopher is provincial patriotism. His influence did not reach
beyond the frontiers of Sweden, nor did it outlast the sixties. His
political system was already antiquated in 1865, when the students out
of reverence for the philosopher, had still to declare, conformably to
his textbook, that the representation of the four estates was the only
reasonable one--a doctrine which was subsequently contradicted in the
college lectures.
How did Boström come by such an idea? Can one draw an inference from
the accidental circumstance that he, a poor man's son from Norrland,
came into too close touch with King John and his court, in his capacity
of tutor to the princes? Could the philosopher escape the common lot
of generalising in _certain_ respects, from his own predilections and
current time-sanctioned ideas? Probably not. Boström as an idealist
was subjective--so subjective that he denied reality an independent
existence, declaring that, "to be is to be perceived (by men)." The
world of phenomena therefore, according to him, exists only in and
through our perceptions. The error of the deduction was overlooked, and
it was a double one. The system rested on an unproved assumption, and
had to be corrected; it is true that the phenomenal world only exists
for its through our perception, but that does not prevent its existing
for itself without our perception. In fact science has demonstrated
that the earth already existed with a very high degree of organic life,
before any one was there to perceive it.
Boström broke with ecclesiastical Christianity, but, like Kant and
the later evolutionist philosophers, retained Christian morality.
Kant had been arrested in the bold progress of his thought by a want
of psychological knowledge, and had simply laid down as axioms the
categorical imperative and the practical postulate. The moral law,
which depends on the epoch and changes with it, received in his system
quite a Christian colouring as God's command. Boström was still
"under the law"; he judged the moral worth or baseness of an action
simply by its motives; according to him the only satisfactory motive
is that regard for the spiritual nature of duty which is revealed in
conscience. But there are as many consciences as there are religions
and races; therefore his moral system was quite sterile.
Boström's importance for theological development only consisted in
his coming forward against Bishop Beckman in the discussion regarding
the doctrine of hell (1864), although that doctrine had recently been
rejected by the cultivated with the assistance of the rationalists.
On the other hand Boström was obstructive in his pamphlets _The
Irresponsibility and Divine Right of the King_ and _Are the Estates of
the Realm Justified in Resolving on and Carrying Out the Change in the
So-called (!) Representation of the People_? (1865).
In his capacity as an idealist, Boström is, for the present generation,
not only without significance, but positively reactionary. He is
nothing but a necessary link in the worthless reactionary philosophy
which followed with such fatal obscurantism the "illuminative"
philosophy of the eighteenth century. He has lived and is dead. Peace
to his ashes!
Literature ought to be another barometer for testing the atmosphere of
any given period. And in order to be that, it must be free to deal with
the questions of that period; but this, the then prevailing æsthetic
theories forbade.
Poetry ought to be and was (according to Boström) a recreation like the
other fine arts. Under such a theory and influenced by the prevalent
idolatry of the "ego," poetry became merely lyrical, expressing
the poet's small personal feelings and inclination, and reflecting
therefore only some of the features of the period, and those perhaps,
not the most important. Only two names in the poetry of the sixties
were of importance--Snoilsky and Björck. Snoilsky was "awake," to use
a pietistic expression, Björck was dead. Both were born poets, as the
saying is; that is to say, their talents showed themselves earlier
than usual. Both attained distinction while still at school, early won
honour and renown, and by birth and position were enabled to view life
from its sunny heights. Snoilsky, without knowing it, was under the
power of the spirit of the new age. Freed from the fear of hell and
monkish morality, experiencing the retrenchment of his privileges as a
nobleman, he gave free play both to mind and body. In his first poems
he was a revolutionary and praised the cap of liberty; he preached the
emancipation of the flesh and had a certain dislike to over-culture as
a conventional restraint. But as a poet, he did not escape the poet's
tragic destiny--not to be taken seriously. Poetry in the eyes of the
public, was simply poetry, and Snoilsky was a poet. Björck had a mind
which was not capable of receiving strong impressions. At peace with
himself, languid, complete from the beginning, he lived his life sunk
in his own reflections or noticed only the trifling events of the
outer world and described them neatly and correctly. In the opinion of
the great majority who live the peaceful life of automata his poetry
shows a remarkable degree of philanthropy. But why does not this
philanthropy extend itself further to large circles of men, and to
humanity at large? In the writer's opinion Björck's philanthropy does
not extend beyond the limits of the personal quiet which the individual
attains when he ignores the duties of social life. He is satisfied
with the world because the world has been kind to him; he avoids
strife because it disturbs his own serenity. Björck is an example of
the fortunate man whose life is not in conflict with his upbringing,
but who rather builds up stone by stone, on the foundation already
laid; everything proceeds in a workmanlike way by level and rule; the
house is finished, as it was designed, without the plan undergoing any
alteration. Stunted by domestic tyranny, tasting early the sweets
of homage and reverence, he ceased to grow. He accepted Boström's
compromise with Christianity without examining it, and in doing so, he
had finished his life-work. His poetry is especially praised for its
purity and spiritual character. What is this "purity" which in our
days is so sharply contrasted with the sensual? The secret is, that he
did not get her; just as Dante's heavenly love for Beatrice was due to
the same involuntary cause. Björck therefore sang of the unattainable
with the quiet melancholy of unsatisfied love. But that, however, is no
virtue, and purity should be a virtue.
In short, Björck and Snoilsky sang of water and drank wine, and in this
were just the opposite to the poets of our time, who are said to sing
of wine and drink water. A poet's life always seems to be at variance
with his teachings. Why? Is it that, in composing, he wishes to escape
from his own personality, and find another? Is it a wish to disguise
himself? Or is it modesty, the fear of giving himself away, and of
self-exposure? This is a weighty problem for future psychologists to
unravel.
Björck composed poems both for the reformation of the constitution
in 1865, and for the restoration to power of the King. He saw harmony
everywhere, and when he celebrated the restored union between Sweden
and Norway in 1864, he was extremely melodious. He also praised
Abraham Lincoln; negro-emancipation and white slavery--that is the
ideal of freedom of the Holy Alliance! Revolution certainly, but legal
revolution by the will of God! Well, he knew no better, and few did at
that time. Therefore we do not judge the man but only his work, the
motives inspiring which are a matter of indifference to posterity.
Young men read these poets, many of them with great edification.
They proclaimed no new era, but prophesied after the event that
now the millennium was come, the ideal realised, and lines of
demarcation obliterated once for all. They looked with satisfaction
on their creations, rubbed their hands, and found them all good. An
atmosphere of peace had spread itself over the whole of Upsala and
its neighbourhood; now one might sleep till Doomsday was the belief
of old and young. But then discordant sounds began to be heard, and
in the days of universal peace fire-beacons began to be seen on the
neighbouring mountain-tops. From Norway open water was signalled
and the revolving lights were kindled. Rome captured Greece, but
Greece re-captured Rome. Sweden had captured Norway, but now Norway
re-captured Sweden. Lorenz Dietrichson was appointed as professor
at the university of Upsala in 1861, and he was the forerunner of
Norwegian influence. He made Sweden acquainted with Danish and
Norwegian literature, then almost unknown, and founded the literary
society which produced poets like Snoilsky and Björck.
After Norway had broken loose from the Danish monarchy and had ceased
to be a branch of the head office in Copenhagen, it was not grafted
into Sweden but retreated into itself. At the same time it opened
direct communication with the continent. Its awakening to independence
was coincident with a strong stream of foreign influence. It was
Björnson who first roused Norway to self-consciousness; but when this
degenerated into a narrow patriotism, Ibsen came with the pruning
shears.
As the strife became fiercer and Christiania would not lend itself
to be a field of battle, the conflict was transferred to hospitable
Sweden. The Norwegian wine was well adapted for exportation; pamphlets
grew in size as they travelled and in Sweden became literature.
Thoughts came to the top and personalities settled at the bottom of
the vessel. Ibsen and Björnson broke into Sweden; Tidemand and Gude
took prizes in the art exhibition of 1866; Kierulf and Nordraak were
authorities in singing and music. Then came Ibsen's _Brand_. This had
appeared in 1866, but John did not see it till 1869. It made a deep
impression on the primitive Christian side of him, but it was gloomy
and severe. The final utterance in it regarding "Deus caritatis" was
not satisfying, and the poet seemed to have had too much sympathy with
his hero to have described his overthrow with cold irony.
_Brand_ gave John a good deal of trouble. He (Brand) had dropped
Christianity but kept its stern ascetic morality; he demanded obedience
for his old doctrines though they were no more practicable; he despised
the tendency of the time towards humanity and compromise, but ended by
recommending the God of compromise. Brand was a fanatic, a pietist,
who dared to believe himself right against the whole world, and John
felt himself related to this terrible egoist who was wrong besides. No
half-measures! go straight on; break down everything that stands in the
way, for you only are right! John's tender conscience, which suffered
at every step he took lest it should vex his father or friends, was
stupefied by Brand. All ties of consideration and of love should be
torn asunder for the sake of "the cause." That John was no longer a
pietist was a piece of good fortune, otherwise he too would have been
overwhelmed by the avalanche.[2] But Brand gave him a belief in a
conscience which was purer than that which education had given him, and
a law which was higher than conventional law. And he needed this iron
backbone in his weak back, for he had long periods during which by
fits and starts and out of mildness he thought himself wrong, and the
first who came, right; therefore, he was also very easily misled. Brand
was the last Christian who followed an old ideal, therefore he could be
110 pattern for one who felt a vague inclination to revolt against all
old ideals.
_Brand_ after all was a fine plant, but without any roots in its own
period; and, therefore, it belonged to the herbarium. Then came
_Peer Gynt_. This was rather obscure than deep and had its value as
an antidote against the national self-love. The fact that Ibsen was
neither banished nor persecuted after having said such bitter things
against the proud Norwegians, shows that in Norway they were more
honourable fighters than the Swedes afterwards showed themselves to be.
Ibsen was at that time regarded as a misanthrope and as an enemy and
envier of Björnson. People were divided into two camps, and the dispute
as to which of the two was the greater was endless, for it concerned an
artistic problem--"contents or form."
The influence of Norwegian on Swedish poetry has been great and partly
beneficent, but there was a peculiarly Norwegian element in it, which
was not adaptable to Sweden, a land with quite another development.
In the sequestered valleys of Norway there lived a people who, under
the pressure of need and poverty, found ready to their hand in the
Christian doctrine of renunciation an ascetic philosophy which promised
heaven as a compensation for earth's hardships. Nature in her most
gloomy and parsimonious aspect, a damp climate, long winters, great
distances between the villages,--all co-operated to preserve an
austere mediæval type of Christianity. There is something which may
be said to resemble insanity in the Norwegian character, of the same
kind as the English "spleen;" and possibly the intimate relations of
Norway with the hypochondriacal islanders may have impressed traces
on its civilisation. In Jonas Lie's _Clair-voyant_ this melancholy
is depleted, and in it one finds the same weird atmosphere as in the
Icelandic sagas, and the theme also is similar,--the struggle of the
spirit against physical darkness and cold. There we have depicted
the tragic lot of the Norseman banished from sunny lands to gloomy
wildernesses, and seeking relief by emigration, the ethnographical
significance of which has been overlooked in view of its economical
aspect. The Norwegian character is the result of many hundred years of
tyranny, of injustice, of hard struggling for a livelihood, of want of
gladness.
Swedish literature should have avoided absorbing these national
peculiarities, but they have made it half-Norwegian. Brand still haunts
Swedish literature with his ideal demands, with which the romanticised
and cheerful Swede cannot sincerely sympathise. Therefore this foreign
garb suits him so badly; therefore modern Swedish music sounds so
unharmonious, like an echo of the violins of Hardanger, tuned over
again by Grieg; therefore the talk of greater moral purity sounds
discordant in the mouth of the vivacious Swede. He has not suffered
from long oppression and does not need to seek himself in the past;
melancholy has not so beset him in his open flat land of lakes and
rivers, and therefore a sour mien becomes him ill.
When the Swedes received great and novel ideas by way of Norway or
direct from the Continent through Ibsen and Björnson, they should have
kept the kernel and thrown away the Norwegian husk. Even the _Doll's
House_ is Norwegian. Nora is related to the Icelandic women who wished
to set up a matriarchate; she belongs to the weird imperious women in
_Härmännen_ who again are pure Norse. In them the emotions have become
frozen or distorted by centuries of cognate marriages.
The whole Swedish literature of feminism is ultra-Norwegian; it
contains the same immodest demands on the man and petting of the spoilt
woman. Several young authors have introduced the Norwegian style into
Swedish; one authoress has placed the scene of her book in Norway, and
made her hero talk Norwegian! Further one could not go!
Let us welcome foreign influence which is cosmopolitan; but not
Norwegian, for that is provincial, and we have plenty of the same kind
ourselves.
* * * * *
So John found himself again in Upsala,--the same Upsala from which he
had fled nine months before, and to which he most unwillingly returned.
To be compelled to a course which he did not wish always made him feel
as though he were encountering a personal foe, who cajoled him out of
his wishes and antipathies, and forced him to bend. Since he still
believed himself under God's personal providence, he accepted that as
though it were for his best. Later on he had a feeling that there was
a malignant power; this developed into the belief that there were two
ruling powers, one good, one evil, which divided the empery, or ruled
alternately.
He asked himself again, "What have you to do here?" To take his degree,
but especially to cover his retreat from the theatre. Privately he
wished to write a play, and, under the screen of its success, wriggle
out of the examination.
At first he was not at all comfortable in his lonely attic. He had
become accustomed to luxury, a large room, a good table, attendance
and society. After having been habituated to be treated as a man and
to have intercourse with older and cultivated people, he found himself
again in a state of pupilage as a student. But he cast himself into
the crowd and soon found himself on social terms with three distinct
circles. The first consisted of friends whom he met by day, who were
students of medicine and natural history and atheists. From them he
heard for the first time the name of Darwin; but it passed by him like
a doctrine for which he was not yet ripe. His evening society consisted
of a priest and a lawyer with whom he played cards till deep in the
night. He considered himself now in Upsala merely to grow and get
older, and that it was a matter of indifference what he did, as long as
he killed the time. He drew up the scheme of a new tragedy, Eric XIV,
but found it poor, and burnt it, for his faculty of self-criticism had
awakened and was severer in its demands.
Later on in the term he entered a third society, which formed his
special circle during the whole of his time at Upsala and for a long
while afterwards. One evening he chanced to meet a young companion
with whom he had been a pupil at the private school. They discussed
literature, and over a glass of toddy made the plan of forming some
young poets into a club for literary work. The plan was carried out.
Besides John and the other founder of the club, four young students
were elected to it. They were fine young fellows of an idealist turn of
mind, as the saying is, with high purposes and enthusiastic for vague
ideals. They had not yet come into contact with the hard realities of
life; they had all well-to-do parents, no cares, and knew nothing at
all of the struggle for a subsistence. John, on the other hand, had
just left the most unpleasant surroundings; he had seen people who
were always ready to quarrel, conceited, empty-headed pupils of the
Theatrical Academy. Here he found himself transplanted into an entirely
new world. There were these happy youths going to their well-supplied
tables, smoking fine cigars, taking walks, and poetising beautifully
over the beauty of life which they knew nothing of.
Rules were drawn up for the club, which received the name "Runa,"
_i.e_. "song." The choice of this title was probably due to the
Northern renaissance which came in with the Scandinavian movement.
Its chief ornaments were Karl XV in poetry, Winge and Malmström in
painting, and Molin in sculpture. Recently it had been quickened by
Björnson's and Ibsen's dramas on subjects from the old Norse life.
The study of Icelandic, which had been newly introduced into the
university, also lent strength to this movement.
The number of members of the club was not to exceed nine; each of
them was known by a Runic sign. John was called "Frö" and the other
founder of the club, "Ur." Every variety of opinion was represented.
Ur was a great patriot and venerated Sweden with its memories. In his
opinion it had the most brilliant history in Europe, and had always
been free. For the rest he was a practically minded man with a special
faculty for statistics, politics, and biography; he was a severe and
clever critic, and also managed the affairs of the club. He was a
reliable friend, good company, helpful and hearty. Secondly, there
was a full-blooded romanticist who read Heine and drank absinthe--a
sensitive youth enthusiastic for all old ideals, but especially for
Heine. There was also a seraph who sang of the indescribably little,
especially the happiness of childhood; fourthly, a silent worshipper of
nature, and, lastly, an eclectic philosopher and improvisator, who had
an extraordinary faculty for improvising in any style whatever, when
requested. Two minutes after he had been asked, he would stand up and
speak or sing on the spur of the moment in the character of Anacreon,
Horace, the Edda, or any one else, and even in foreign languages.
The first meeting of the club was at Thurs', who was lodged the most
comfortably in two rooms and had the best pipes. As one of the founders
of the club John first of all read his prologue, which, according
to the rules of the society, had to be in verse. It began by asking
after the ancient bard Brage and his harp which was now silent. Brage
represented the new Norse element, the resuscitation of which was
believed necessary. The whole programme of the idealists was called
"a trivial striving." All the great efforts of their contemporaries
after reality and for the improvement of the conditions of life was
"trivial." The spirit was taken prisoner in matter, and therefore
all that was material was to be regarded as the enemy. Such was the
teaching of the romanticists, and of John's prologue. Then the poet
went out into nature, listened to the bells of the cathedral, the
wind, the pines, and the singing of the birds in order to ask the very
natural question: "Nature sings; why should I then be silent?" He
resolved to be no longer silent but to sing,--about the joyous youthful
spring-time of life, its autumn, and about love to one's native soil.
Then (he said) came the wise man with the frozen heart, took his song,
dissected it and found that it was all nonsense. Thus the song was
killed by "overwiseness."
It is not easy to say exactly now what John meant by "overwiseness"
in 1870. He probably had simply forebodings of future critics, and
the "wise man" was no other than the reviewer. Then he inveighed
against the wretched mercenary souls who worship the golden calf but
do not love songs. This had no connection with contemporary matters,
for the sixties were remarkable for bad harvests and consequently
for want of gold. The swindles by company-promoters began with the
seventies. But it was the custom of the contemporary poets to attack
money and the golden calf, and therefore John did so in his prologue.
Now began a life of poetic idleness. Every evening they met either in
a restaurant, or in each other's rooms. But the time was not wasted
in view of his future authorship. John could borrow books from the
well-stocked libraries of his friends, and the interchange of opinions
accustomed him to look at literature from different points of view. But
for them real life, public interests, contemporary politics did not
exist; they lived in dreams. Sometimes his lower-class consciousness
awoke, and he asked himself what he had to do among these rich youths.
But he soon stilled these scruples by drink and talk, and encouraged
himself to go forward and demand something of life, for he had in his
companions' opinion a good chance.
His room was a wretched one; the rain came through the roof, and he had
no proper bed, but only a plank-bed, which in the day-time served as a
sofa. When time hung heavily on his hands and he grew weary of poetical
discussions he looked up his old school-fellow, the natural history
student. There he looked through the microscope, and heard of Darwin
and the new scientific views. His friend gave him well-meant practical
advice and recommended him to get out of his difficulties by writing a
one-act play in verse for the Theatre Royal.
John objected that his dramatic talent had not scope enough in one act,
and said that he would rather write a tragedy in five.
"Yes, but it is harder to get that accepted," replied his friend.
Finally he let himself be persuaded and determined to carry out a
small idea he had of a short play based on Thorwaldson's first visit
to Rome. His friend lent him books on Italy and John set to work. In
fourteen days the piece was ready.
"That will be acted," said his friend. "It has dramatic points, you
see."
Since it was still a long time to the next meeting of the club, John
hastened in the evening to Thurs and Rejd and read the piece to them.
They were both of the same opinion as the natural history student,
that the piece would be performed. They had a champagne supper, and
kept drinking till the morning, and then went to sleep on the floor of
Rejd's room with the punch-glasses by them. In a couple of hours they
awoke, finished their half-empty glasses at sunrise and went out to
continue the celebration of the occasion.
The sympathy of John's friends was hearty, unselfish and warm, without
a trace of envy. He always remembered with pleasure this first success
as one of the brightest recollections of his youth. The enthusiastic,
devoted Rejd increased Hohn's debt of gratitude by copying out the
piece in his graceful hand-writing. Then it was sent to the board of
management of the Theatre Royal. Spring arrived and they spent the
month of May in a continual carouse. The club had a small room in the
restaurant Lilia Förderfvet for their evening suppers. There they
talked, made speeches, and drank enormously. At last the term ended and
they had to part, but they arranged to meet once more at Stockholm,
and celebrate the festival day of the club by an excursion into the
country.
At six o'clock one June morning the four members of the club met at
Skeppsholm, where they had hired a rowing-boat. The chest of the club,
a card-board box containing documents, was stowed away with baskets of
provisions and bottles of wine. After Os and Rejd had taken the oars,
they steered the boat to the canal leading through the Zoological
Gardens, in order to reach the place they had appointed, a promontory
of Liding Island. Thurs played airs on the flute to Bellmann's songs,
and Frö (John) accompanied him on a guitar which he had learnt to play
at Upsala.
As soon as they landed, breakfast was laid in a meadow by the shore.
The club-chest adorned with leaves and flowers was set in the middle
of the table-cloth, and on it were set the brandy-bottles and glasses.
John, who had studied antiquities for his play, _Sinking Hellas_,
arranged the meal in the Greek style, so that they wore garlands, and
ate reclining. A fire was lit between some stones and coffee was made.
At nine o'clock in the morning they drank brandy and punch.
John read his drama, _The Free-thinker_, which was duly criticised.
Then they gave full course to their eloquence. Thurs was the best
speaker; he could express emotions and thoughts rhythmically. Poems
were read and received with applause. John sang folk-songs to the
accompaniment of his guitar, some on sentimental subjects, and some on
improper ones. At noon they were still in high spirits but inclined to
be sleepy.
In the afternoon when the sun was over Lilia Värtan they had a short
sleep, and then the carouse passed into a new phase. Thurs, the
Israelite, had recited a poem on the greatness of the North, and called
on the old gods of Scandinavia. Ur, the patriot, denied him the right
to appropriate other people's gods. The Jewish question came up; they
took fire and nearly quarrelled, but ended by embracing.
Then began the sentimental stage. They had to weep, for alcohol has
this effect on the membranes of the stomach and the lachrymal duets.
Ur first felt this and unconsciously sought for a melancholy subject.
He burst into tears. When asked why, he did not know, but said at last
that he had been treated as a buffoon, which he always was. He declared
that he had a very serious nature and that he also had great troubles
which no one knew about, but now he unburdened his heart and told us a
domestic story. After he had done so, he became cheerful again.
But the evening was long and they began to wish to go home. Their
brains were empty; they were tired of each other, and weary of play
and drinking. They began to reflect and examine the philosophy of
intoxication. From whence do men derive this desire to make themselves
senseless? What lies behind it? Is it the southern exile's longing
for a lost sunny existence in northern lands? There must be some felt
necessity underlying intoxication, for a vice like this would not
have laid hold of all mankind without reason. Is it that the member
of society in a state of intoxication throws away all the lies of
society? For the laws of social intercourse involuntarily forbid one to
speak out all one's thoughts. Otherwise whence comes the saying, _In
vino veritas_? Why did the Greeks honour Bacchus as one who improved
men and manners? Why did Dionysus love peace, and why was he said
to increase riches? Has wine, which is chiefly drunk by men, some
influence on the development of man's intelligence and activity, so
that he becomes superior to woman? And why do the Muhammadans who drink
no wine stand on what is regarded as a lower level of civilisation?
As salt is used as a daily nutrient to replace the salts which their
hunting forefathers found in the blood of beasts of the chase, does not
wine compensate for some lost nutritive matter belonging to earlier
stages, and, if so, which? Some idea or necessity must underlie so
singular a custom.
Perhaps the need of losing consciousness justifies the axiom of the
pessimists that consciousness is the beginning of suffering. Wine makes
one naive and unconscious as a child; or even as an animal. Is it
the lost paradise which one wishes to recover? But the remorse which
follows it? Remorse and acidity of the stomach have the same symptoms.
Is there then a confusion, and are sensations called "remorse" which
are only heart-burn? Or does the drinker returned to consciousness
regret that he has exposed himself by daylight and betrayed his
secrets? There is something to feel remorse for in that! He is ashamed
that he has been taken by surprise, he feels afraid because he has
exposed himself and given away his weapons. Remorse and fear are close
neighbours.
Yet once more the members of the club drowned their consciousness in
drink and then got into the boat to proceed home. John and Thurs began
a dispute about Bellmann[3] which lasted till they reached Skeppsholm,
and closed with sharp remarks on both sides.
John had an old grudge against this poet. Once as a child, he had been
ill for a whole summer, and had by chance taken Bellmann's _Fredman's
Epistles_ out of his father's book-case. The book seemed to him silly,
but he was too young to form a well-grounded opinion on it. Later on,
it sometimes happened that his father sat at the piano, and hummed
Bellmann's songs. The boy found it incomprehensible that his father and
uncle admired them so much. Subsequently one Christmas he saw a violent
controversy break out between his mother and his uncle on the subject
of Bellmann. The latter set the poet above everything--Bible, sermons
and all. There were depths, he said, in Bellmann. Depths indeed!
Probably Atterbom's romanticist one-sided criticism had filtered
through the daily papers to the middle classes. As a school-boy and
student, John had sung "Up, Amaryllis" and other idylls of Bellmann's,
naturally without understanding them or thinking of the meaning of the
words. He sang in a quartette, or choir, for it sounded well. Finally,
in 1867, he read Ljunggren's lectures and a light broke upon him, but
not one of Ljunggren's kindling. He thought the latter mad. Bellmann
was a ballad-singer, that was true, but a great poet, the greatest poet
of the North?--impossible!
Bellmann had sung his songs composed on the French model for the
Court and his own friends, but not for the common people, who would
not have understood "Amaryllis," "Eol," "The Tritons," "Fröja" and
all the rococo stock-in-trade. He died and was forgotten. Why had
he been disinterred by Atterbom? Because the pugnacious romantic
school required an embodiment of irregularity to set up against the
classicists, as they had nothing of their own to boast of. Thus the
romantic school gained the day; and when one considers how cowardly
most people are in the face of public opinion, and the tendency of the
middle-class to ape its superiors and reverence authority, one ceases
to be surprised at the elevation of Bellmann. Ljunggren and Eichhorn
outstripped Atterbom in finding beauty and genius in his writings they
were reinforced by the clerical element, and thus the idol was set up
for worship. Bystrom, the sculptor, had already magnified the little
lottery-secretary and court-poet into a Dionysus and lent him the
features of an antique bust of Bacchus.
Bellmann's idylls are careless, extemporised compositions with forced
rhymes, and as disconnected as the thoughts in the brain of a drunkard.
One does not know whether it is day or night, the thunder rolls in the
sunshine, and the weaves beat while the boat is floating calmly on the
waters. They simply provide a text for music, and for that purpose
one might use a book of addresses. The meaning of the words does not
matter, as long as they sound well.
According to his custom Thurs took the matter personally. It was an
attack on his good taste and on his honour, for John said that his
admiration of Bellmann was mere humbug; that he had read himself into
it, and that it was not genuine. Thurs on the other hand declared John
to be presumptuous, because he wished to criticise the greatest Swedish
poet.
"Prove that he is the greatest," said John.
"Tegner and Atterbom say so."
"That is no proof."
"Simply because you have a spirit of contradiction."
"Doubt is the beginning of certainty, and absurd assertions must arouse
opposition in a healthy brain."
And so on.
Although there is no such thing as a judgment which holds good
universally, since every judgment is individualistic, there are, on the
other hand, judgments of a majority and of a party. By means of these
John was suppressed and kept silence on the subject of Bellmann for
many years. Only when later on the old historian Fryxell proved that
Bellmann was not the apostle of sobriety which Eichhorn and Ljunggren
had made him out to be, and also no god, but a mediocre ballad-singer,
did John see a gleam of hope that his individual opinion might become
some day the opinion of the majority. But he already saw the question
from another point of view; Sweden would have been neither unhappier
nor worse, if Bellmann had never lived. He would like to have said to
the patriots and democrats, "Bellmann was a poet of Stockholm and of
the Court, who jested very cruelly with poor people." He would like
to have said to the Good Templars who sang Bellmann's songs, "You are
singing drinking songs which were written during fits of intoxication
and celebrate drink." For his own part, John held that Bellmann's
songs were pleasant to sing because of the light French melodies which
accompanied them, and as for their French morality it did not vex him
at all--quite the contrary. But earlier, at the age of twenty-one, he
was vexed by it, for he was an idealist and desired purity in poetry,
just as the surviving idealists and admirers of Bellmann do at the
present time.
These have used the word "humour" to save themselves and their
morality. But what do they mean by "humour"? Is it jest or earnest?
What is jest? The reluctance of the cowardly to speak out his mind?
Humour reflects the double nature of man,--the indifference of the
natural man to conventional morality, and the Christian's sigh over
immorality which is after all so enticing and seductive. Humour speaks
with two tongues,--one of the satyr, the other of the monk. The
humorist lets the mænad loose, but for old unsound reasons thinks that
he ought to flog her with rods. This is a transitional form of humour
which is passing away, and already at the last gasp. The greatest
modern writers have thrown away the rod, and play the hypocrite
no longer, but speak their minds plainly out. The old tippler's
sentimentality can no longer count for "a good heart," for it has been
discovered to be merely bad nerves.
After arguing till they were weary, the members of the club landed in
Stockholm harbour.
[1] Boström: Swedish Philosopher (1797-1866).
[2] _Vide_ the end of _Brand_.
[3] Famous Swedish poet.