Now that we have finished our Carolinian romance, shall we hear
something of the author? He is certainly a brilliant poet, for
his story which we have been reading is no deep-planned and long
worked-over effort, but was written in the few days after a severe
sickness when the author could not yet leave his couch. He wrote
it to occupy his mind, and beguile the time. How is he esteemed in
Sweden? Will it be thought incredible when I say no old hero, not even
Charles XII., is reverenced there more deeply, no name is cherished so
fondly,—that no man so nearly seems worthy to be called the father of
his country, as this same poet-bishop, Esaias Tegnér?
All this is hard to explain, so many-sided was the life he led. We need
to realize that he was more active as a bishop and party-leader than a
poet. Then to appreciate him in the last capacity we must go among the
Swedes themselves. We shall find in him the bond of unity of a whole
nation, in that he has sung best the ancient glory of the race, and
discovered to the world the heroic integrity of the Northern character.
We shall note that it is he whose words are most, next to the Bible, on
the lips of every Swede. If we go into a peasant’s cottage, far from
railways and culture, we shall be sure to find some one who has not
only heard of the great poet, but can even repeat for us whole cantos
from his “Frithiof’s Saga,”—perhaps all of “Axel” itself. And nobody
even sets about learning these poems by heart: they cling to the memory
in spite of the reader.
But we must begin our history. Who were Tegnér’s parents? What was
their rank in life? C. W. Böttiger, Tegnér’s son-in-law, who wrote a
short life of the poet, shall answer for us:—
“A few years ago north of the church in Tegnaby, there was seen a
gray cottage fallen into ruins, with moss-grown walls and two little
windows of which one, according to the ancient custom of the province,
was in the roof. The people regarded it with a kind of reverence; and
if one asked the reason, the hat was raised with the answer: ‘The
Bishop’s grandfather once lived there.’ His name was Lucas Esai´asson,
his wife’s Ingeborg Mänsdotter. According to testimony handed down
traditionally in the parish, this Lucas Esaiasson was a poor but
exceedingly industrious and pious man. A peasant during a greater part
of the time when Charles XII. was king, he continued yet twenty years
after the ‘shot,’ a Carolinian at the plow. This and his Bible were his
dearest treasures, and all he had to leave to fourteen children, for
whom he procured bread with the plow after he had given them names from
the Scriptures. There was one called Paul, another John, a third Enoch,
and so on. A whole temple-progeny was growing up under his lowly roof:
the Old and New Testaments were embracing each other in his cottage.
The youngest son, born on the day of King Charles’s death, was named
Esaias. The older brothers inherited their father’s plow, and became
peasants; Esaias inherited his father’s Bible and became a minister.”
We wish we could continue to quote Mr. Böttiger, but his story proceeds
too slowly. This Esaias was the father of our poet. Showing unusual
aptitude for books, he was taken from the farm where he had gone out
to service, and placed in the school of Wexiö. Coming from the _by_
or village of Tegn, and having but one name, he was entered in the
school register, kept after the manner of the time in Latin, as Esaias
Tegnérus. The latter, the Latin suffix _us_ being omitted, became
afterward the family name.
In due time this Esaias Tegnér passed to the university, and after
graduation was ordained as we have seen, a minister. He is remembered
as a talented preacher, and merry man of society. He married a pastor’s
daughter whose mother was celebrated for wit, force of character,
and poetic gifts. Like qualities reappear in a marked degree in our
poet, who was the fifth son of this marriage. He was born in Kykerud
[Chikerood], November 13, 1782, and took his father’s name.
Ten years later the minister’s family was broken up by the death of
the father. Two daughters and four sons were thus left in a measure
to the charity of the world. The young Esaias was soon taken into the
counting-room of one Jacob Branting, a crown-bailiff of the province
and friend of the deceased pastor. Here he learned to keep accounts
and developed rapidly into a valuable clerk. All the leisure he could
command was given steadily to books. He read everything he could find,
particularly the old Norse sagas, and amused himself by turning some
of the driest themes of history and biography into poetical form. The
crisis in his life came early. He had been in Branting’s office four
years, and so won the respect and love of his employer as to be thought
of already as the future son-in-law and successor to the office of
bailiff. But Branting had observed the lad’s genius for books, and was
beginning to think him fitted for something higher. One night, as they
were riding together, Esaias astonished him by rehearsing with some
minuteness the principles of astronomy, which he had gathered from his
reading. Branting’s decision was at once made. “You shall study,” said
he. “As for the means, God will supply the sacrifice, and _I_ will not
forget you.”
Young Esaias commenced at once to study Latin, Greek, and French.
So remarkable was his memory that he was able, after glancing a few
times over a list of fifty or sixty words, to repeat them with their
meanings. To his other tasks he added later, the study of English,
which he learned by the aid of a translation of Ossian. A change soon
follows. Lars Gustaf, his oldest brother, not yet graduated from the
university, had been asked to serve as tutor in the family of a rich
manufacturer and owner of mines in Rämen. Lars consented on condition
that he might bring with him Esaias; for during his temporary absence
from the university he had undertaken to guide his brother’s work. The
rich proprietor into whose house they were to enter was Christopher
Myhrman, a name prominent in the history of Swedish manufactures.
He had himself built up the foundries and mills of Rämen, turning
the wilderness into a large and flourishing town. Amid his multifold
business cares he always found time to read his favorite Latin authors,
and enjoy the society of his family, whose circle at that time
comprised eight vigorous sons and two blooming daughters.
“To this place, and to this circle it was,” says Mr. Böttiger, “that
Lars Gustaf and Esaias Tegnér betook themselves one beautiful summer
afternoon in July, 1797. They had traveled in a carriage over the road
on which the owner of the mills had been obliged, twenty years before,
to bring his wife home upon a pack-saddle; but they left the coach
behind them and now came on foot at their leisure through the forest.
Suddenly there burst upon their gaze the loveliest prospect. On a point
of land, extending out into the water thickly set with islands, and
encircled with birch and fir, lay like a beautiful promise the pleasant
garden sloping in terraces to the sea, girded with the setting sun and
covered with shady trees. ‘Who knows what dwells under their branches,’
perhaps the poet-stripling was already asking, with quickened pulses.
_We_ know what dwelt beneath them. It was his good fortune he was
coming here to meet; it was amidst this smiling and magnificent nature
that his talents were destined to develop, his powers to be confirmed,
his wit to grow; it was over the threshold of this patriarchic
tabernacle that his knowledge was to be brought to ripeness, and his
heart find a companion for life.
“What here in the first room attracted his attention was the big
book-cases. He found them richly supplied not only with Swedish,
English, and French works, but also Greek and Roman authors of every
sort. With greedy eyes he fixed himself especially by the side of a
folio, on whose leathern back he read: _Homerus_. It was Castalio’s
edition, printed in Basel in 1561. Here was an acquaintance to make. He
made it immediately, and in a manner of which his own account is worthy
of being told:—
“‘So without any grammatical foundation, I resolved to attempt
the task immediately. At the outset it naturally proceeded slowly
and tediously. The many dialectic forms of which I had no idea at
all, laid me under great difficulties, which would probably have
discouraged any less energetic will. The Greek grammar I had used was
adapted to prose writers: of the poetic dialects nothing was said.
I was therefore compelled just here to devise a system for myself,
and further, to make notes from that time, which now show that among
many mistakes I sometimes was right. To give way before any sort of
difficulty was not at all my disposition; and the farther I went, the
easier my understanding of the poet became. With the prose writers
Xenophon and Lucian, I also made at this time a flying acquaintance;
but they interested me little, and my principal work continued to be
with Homer, and also Horace in Latin, whom I had not known before.
French literature was richly represented in this library; Rousseau’s,
Voltaire’s, and Racine’s works were complete, and were not neglected
either. Of Shakspere there was only Hamlet, which strangely enough
interested me very little. In German literature there was not a single
poet. That language I was compelled to learn from the usual instruction
books, and thus conceived a repugnance to it which lasted for a long
time.’”
Thus in his first sojourn of seven months in Rämen, the future poet
read the Iliad through three times, the Odyssey twice, and from the
same book-shelves Horace, Virgil, and Ovid’s Metamórphoses. He was
almost insane in his application to study; yet his constitutional
vigor, strange to say, remained unimpaired. In 1799 he entered the
university of Lund, whither his father and two brothers had preceded
him. We will not linger for details of his industry there. It will not
surprise us to learn that on the “promotion” (graduation) of his class
in 1803, Esaias Tegnér was given the _primus_, or first place.
Immediately after the ceremony of graduation, Tegnér hastened to greet
his friends and especially Jacob Branting and Christopher Myhrman,
whose liberality had in part sustained him at the university. “At Rämen
he was met with open arms by the older members of the family, and with
secret trembling by a beating heart of sixteen years, where his image
stood concealed behind the memories of childhood. His summer became an
idyl,—the first happiness of love.... The traveler who approaches Rämen
finds in the pine woods beside the way a narrow stone, bearing the
letters _E. T._, and _A. M._ By this, one August evening, two hearts
swore to each other eternal fidelity.”
The university of Lund hastened to appropriate to itself its brilliant
alumnus, as private instructor in Æsthetics. Three years later occurred
his marriage with Anna Myhrman. For several years his lyre was silent.
He believed success for him lay in the line of scholarship, and only
for solace or merriment he tuned its chords. In 1808 appears the first
truly national and characteristic poem of this skald, “To the Defenders
of Sweden.” “This warlike dithyramb sounded like an alarm-bell through
every national breast. Tones at once so defiant and so beautiful
had not been heard before. These double services as instructor and
poet attracted the attention of the throne. It was manifested by a
commission investing Tegnér with the name, rank and honor of professor.”
It was during this period that Tegnér’s literary reputation neared
its radiant meridian. Poems of various sort came forth with strange
rapidity,—as yet, however, none of much extent. There were at this time
two schools of poetry in Sweden,—the mystical, or “phosphoristic,”
and the Gothic. The former inclined toward foreign, especially
German, models, the latter maintained the sufficiency of national
models and subjects. Tegnér, though an ardent disciple of the Gothic
school, disdained discussion, and maintained that the best argument
was example. Such example he was himself destined soon to furnish.
In 1820 appeared his “sacredly sweet Whitsun Idyl,” “The Children of
the Lord’s Supper,” which has been so well rendered into English by
Mr. Longfellow. Though clear and simple as the brooks and sunshine
this poem lacks the stir and vigor which it was so easy for Tegnér to
impart. In the next year this lack was supplied in the poem of “Axel,”
and almost at the same time by the publication of his “Frithiof’s
Saga,”—“the apples,” says Geijer [Yeiyer], “through which the gods yet
show their power to make immortal.” This is an old Norse legend which
Tegnér has rewritten and modernized, and at the same time charged full
with the fervor of his mighty soul. “It would be superfluous to recount
here the applause with which this master poem of Northern poetic genius
was vociferously greeted by all the educated world; how Goethe from
his throne of poetical eminence bowed his laurel-crowned gray locks
in homage to it; how all the languages of Europe, even the Russian,
Polish and modern Greek, hastened to appropriate to themselves greater
or less portions of the same; how in the poet’s own country it soon
became a living joy upon the lips of the people, a treasure in the
day-laborer’s cot as in the prince’s halls. Its author’s name has gone
abroad together with that of Linnæus, and wherever one goes one hears
it mentioned with respect and admiration.”
Of this “Frithiof’s Saga” our space forbids us to speak at greater
length. Mr. Longfellow has given an excellent analysis of the poem
(_North American Review_ for July, 1837), and it has been rendered into
English, entirely or in part, no less than nineteen times. We have
but to record that this example of the clear treatment of a Gothic
or Northern subject was the necessary and final argument against the
school of Phosphorists. From the day when the “Frithiof” appeared, we
hear of no other model or standard of poetic excellence in Sweden.
With the publication of these longer poems Tegnér’s career as a poet
virtually terminates. He never estimated his gifts at their real value,
and gave to the practice of his art only leisure moments. To the end
of his life the success of his “Frithiof” was a standing surprise to
him. His chief fondness was for Greek,—the department in which twelve
years before he had been made a university professor. But his life
henceforth was to be little with his beloved Greek authors, little with
his muse. Not long after graduation he had been ordained and placed
for a time in charge of two parishes in the neighborhood of Lund.
Now, in January, 1824, came the intelligence that he had been elected
to the vacant bishopric of Wexiö. The spirit which breathed from his
“Nattvardsbarnen” (Children of the Lord’s Supper) had won the hearts
of the clergy, and this was their tribute of love and confidence. He
accepted with reluctance, removing to the scene of his future labors
in May of the same year. He threw himself into his new duties with all
energy. The various interests of his diocese, particularly the schools,
received his unremitting care. In the fourteen years that follow he
became the acknowledged head of the Swedish Church. In the National
Diet he was also an active member. But now we approach the end of this
remarkable career. There was a trace of insanity in the family, and
Tegnér had long feared he might become a victim. In his poetic facility
he saw only a mental intensity emanating from that source; and he was
doubtless right. Overwork had also aggravated the danger. Ere long he
grew full of great and impossible schemes. He wrote to Mr. Longfellow
that he was about to issue a new edition of his writings in a _hundred
volumes_! Finally, in 1838, he was sent to the insane hospital at
Schleswig. After a short stay he seemed to mend, and returned to his
labors, as all thought, restored. But his vital energy was slowly
waning. In 1845 he was obliged to seek release from public duty, and in
the year following was stricken with paralysis. It was not the first
attack of this kind that had come upon him, but it was the last. “His
head now possessed its old-time soundness; his voice had recovered its
usual clearness. Only the evening before his death he was attacked by
a slight delirium, which was betrayed by his speaking often of Goethe
as his countryman. Resigned and peaceful he neared his end. Water and
light were still his refreshments. When the autumn sun one day shone
brightly into his sick chamber, he broke forth with the words, ‘I lift
up my hands to God’s house and mountain,’ which he often afterward
repeated. They were his last Sun-song. To his absent children he sent
his farewell greeting; to his oldest son a ring with Luther’s picture,
which he had worn on his hand for thirty years. Shortly before midnight
on the second of November, 1846,—the most beautiful aurora borealis
lighted up the sky—the spirit of the skald gently broke its fetters.
Scarcely a sigh betrayed the separation to his kneeling wife, who read
upon his face, lit up at once by the moon and death, ‘blessed peace and
heavenly rapture.’”
Tegnér’s successor in Swedish belles-lettres was Rúneberg, of whom we
shall now give a brief sketch. Tegnér belongs to the romantic era of
European literature, and, as we know, it would be hard to find a more
purely romantic poet. Runeberg was destined to found in Sweden the
modern or realistic school. He was the son of a “merchant-captain,”
and born in 1804 in Finland. He was sent to college, became professor
of Latin, and finally of Greek. He caught in some way the spirit of
the coming change, unlearned the old methods in which he had begun to
write, and in 1832 published his “Elk Hunters.” This was the beginning
of nature-writing in Sweden. It was followed by the delicate idyl of
“Hanna,” the brilliant “Christmas Eve,” and finally “Nadeschda” and
“King Fjalar.” These bear favorable comparison with anything in modern
literature. In his shorter pieces, and notably the “Ensign Stal’s
Stories,” Runeberg has earned perhaps greater fame. His death occurred
in 1877. The school he founded is continued by the living pens of
Wirsén, Carl Snoilsky, and Viktor Rydberg.
We will translate, to close our sketch, a random morsel of Runeberg,
not as an example of his genius and skill, but rather of his simplicity
and love of nature. The meter is already familiar to us in “Hiawatha,”
and was borrowed by both Runeberg and Longfellow from the national epic
of Finland, the “Kalevála.”
Poor I hear they call thy mother,
Poor, my gentle child, they call thee.
_Art_ thou poor, thou little maiden,
Art thou poor as people think thee?
Out before thy mother’s cottage
Blossom meadows, flourish forests;
Every mead has brooks of silver,
Every wood its broad lake-mirror,
Over all the sun is smiling,
Pouring forth its golden glory.
Art thou poor, thou little maiden,
Art thou poor as people think thee?
When thou hear’st thy mother singing,
Softly close thy tender eyelids,—
Lids which hide thy soul’s pearl-treasures;
Straight thereafter cometh slumber,
Slumber followed by dream’s angel,
Soft and still dream’s angel takes thee,
Lifts thee on his wings so gently,
Bears thee forth among the meadows,
There to bloom among the flowers,
Bears thee to the birds and forests,
There to fill thy breast with singing,—
Leaves thy soul in purest waters,
Bathes thee in the joyous sunshine.
_Art_ thou poor, thou little maiden,
Art thou poor as people think thee?
When again thy eyelids open,
Thou art on thy mother’s bosom,
Feelest in thy tender senses,
Thinkest in thy darksome thinking:
Sweet it was upon the meadows,
Blithe it was with birds and woodlands,
Good beside the lake’s clear waters,
Warm that bathing in the sunlight,—
Yet best is it on this bosom.
[To be continued.]