Very early it was discovered that the gifted boy possessed talents
which made it seem desirable to furnish him with higher opportunities
for education than those afforded in the office of Assessor Branting.
A conversation that took place one evening, during a long country
drive, when young Esse, as the boy was called, replied to the religious
reflections of his pious chief, concerning the signs of God's
omnipotence in the bright starry firmament, with an exposition of the
laws governing the heavenly bodies, that he had derived from a popular
work on philosophy, gave the first impetus to the step of entering
Esaias on a learned career. An instinct, to which the future bishop
ever remained true, led him to grasp with both hands the rational
explanation of the workings of the universe, and to cast aside the
theological in all cases where the latter seemed to him superfluous.
Under the guidance of his elder brother, he was now initiated into the
study of Latin, Greek, and French, and he taught himself sufficient
English to be able to read the poems of Ossian, at that time in the
height of their glory. Like a foal trotting at its mother's side,
he accompanied his brother to the various homes where the latter
officiated as tutor; and in the last family in which his brother
taught, Esaias, when but fourteen years of age, found in the youngest
daughter of the house his future wife. Like so many other precocious
youths, he avoided the boisterous sports of his comrades; his greatest
delight was to sit alone in his chamber, absorbed in Homer; and he
had to be dragged by main force to sleighing parties and skating
matches, although he was by no means an unskilful skater. In the
year 1799 he entered the university of Lund, devoted himself to the
ancient languages, philosophy, and æsthetics; and in 1802, according
to the pathetic custom of the land, was crowned with laurels as master
(magister) of philosophy. From 1802 to 1810 he lived in Lund as a young
instructor (docent) of good renown; from 1810 to 1825 he gave lectures
on Grecian literature that were very popular and well attended. In the
year 1812, in accordance with a very poor Swedish custom, he was at
the same time presented with a professor's chair, and appointed pastor
of several parishes in the vicinity of Lund; in 1826, finally, he left
the little university town in order to retire as a bishop to the rural
solitude of Vexiö.
Let us bestow a glance upon the young magister of Lund. He is pleasing
to behold,--blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, with yellow, curly hair,
vigorously built, and with a tendency to corpulency. As long as he
remained a bachelor he was a retired dreamer, who brooded over his own
fancies in solitude; but so soon as he had placed foot beneath his
own table, his intellectual powers unfolded, and he proved himself to
possess a light-hearted nature that was social in the highest degree,
and bubbling over with merriment. A child of the world, who knew how to
do honor to a good table and noble wine; an easily inflamed and by no
means seraphic Apollino; an adorer of all female beauty; a genius that
emitted brilliant flashes of well-considered and sparkling wit, rather
than the glowing flames of a deep-seated fire; an individual who was
tolerably unconcerned about his conventional dignity, but who was none
the less thoroughly well prepared to maintain the proud sovereignty of
his own personality; such is the phase of character Tegnér presented
to the outside world. Beneath this exterior are concealed his deeper
traits. These are partly of a poetic, partly of an oratorical, nature;
a lyric inspiration and a glowing style that are peculiarly his own.