No feature better illustrates Sweden's stage of civilization in the
lifetime of Tegnér than the manner in which science and religion were
connected. The relations between State and Church were so intimate, I
had almost said so naïve, that a professor, simply as such, was at the
same time a priest, and the natural, the looked-for advancement for
a capable professor in Greek, botany, or history, was that he should
be--made a bishop. It was a kind of government household arrangement
that was a vivid reminder of the private housekeeping in Molière's
"Harpagon." The university teacher, whose desk in Lund was exchanged on
Sunday for the pulpit in the country, was a sort of Maître Jacque with
his vestment above his professor's coat, and was in a position to ask
the State, in the event of any perplexity, a question similar to that
of the celebrated servant of the miser, who said: "If you please, is it
your coachman or your cook whom you are addressing? I am both."
The original cause of Tegnér's desire for advancement was of a purely
economic nature; he had debts, and the increase of income served him
in very good stead. Like all the cultivated people of his day, he was
accustomed to draw a line of distinction between the esoteric and
the exoteric side of religion; and although in point of character
he deemed himself a pagan, his frame of mind was often a most pious
one. He was too thoroughly a poet not to yield to frequent and
changeful impressions, and thus it was that he failed at first to
consider his convictions any hindrance to his acceptance of the office
of bishop. Yet scarcely did he bear the title of bishop before he
began to despise, from the bottom of his soul, all the ambiguity and
incompleteness in which he found himself involved, and to which his
duty toward his family held him bound. And so his misanthrophy and his
distaste for life, which had arisen during the years of the crisis
indicated, increased more and more. Energetic and loyal to duty as he
was, he threw himself with all his might into the exterior affairs of
his office; he became the civilizer and organizer of his bishopric, an
ardent and enterprising school director, a superior and daring educator
of his clergy. The purely civil standpoint he took in his conception of
the Church is very similar to that assumed at the same time in England
by Coleridge, who was upon the whole far less of a freethinker. "The
former religious significance of the Church can, of course, never be
re-established," says Tegnér, "for the system on which it depends
has now slumbered during three centuries of history, and it would be
of no avail whatever for one or another to act as though he believed
in the somnambulist. But the Church has also a civil significance,
and this can and must be supported as an integral part of the human
social order. If this significance, too, be allowed to fall victim to
torpidity and lethargy, I see no reason why the clergy, together with
the entire religious apparatus, be not suppressed for the benefit of
the state treasury." In order to comprehend how strong he must have
felt the demands upon him to be the low degree of culture and morals
of the clergy in Sweden of that time must be fully realized. On him
it devolved to impart to die priests under him the elements of human
culture, and to remove from office the worst drunkards among them.
There had been given to him an Augean stable to clean.
His dull, spiritless occupations wore on his already shattered health
and spirits. "The examinations are now at hand, and I shall have to
pass a whole week," he cries, "in the gymnasium. Then come the clerical
examinations and the ordinations. After this there are no less than
eight new churches to be consecrated during the summer. And through all
this, addresses must be made,--continual addresses about nothing and
for nothing. 'Words, words, words,' says Hamlet. Pity me; I am wearied
to death with speeches and discontent, and yet must continue to torment
myself without cessation. No one pays heed to what I say, nor do I
myself take any interest in it, for that matter. That is what I call
talking to the winds, and dissipating one's life in ceremonies." There
came moments when everything of a priestly nature seemed an abomination
to him. In such a moment he wrote jestingly to a friend, whom he was
asking to purchase him a pair of horses: "Not black ones; I cannot
endure the parson's color." It was a sorrowful mistake that so modern
a spirit should be thus enveloped in a costume of the middle ages; the
vestment had no power to transform him as it has transformed so many
others; but it tormented him, slowly devouring his vitals, like some
poisoned garment.
And yet the days of his brilliancy were not past. Before his sun
set, a glorious rose-tinted sky was yet in store for him. The many
scattered clouds that had gathered above his head and in his horizon,
only served, as is so apt to be the case, to make his sunset richer
and more glowing. The period of lyric enthusiasm was forever past
for Tegnér; faith in the future and in progress, which is the source
of life's courage, had long been exhausted. But one faculty he had
yet in reserve, one talent which had hitherto been subordinated
to the creative fancy and to lyric inspiration, and that was the
poetic-rhetorical gift. This attained its highest bloom during the time
that he officiated as bishop.
As Tegnér's talent for the production of what are by himself styled
"lyric" characters, is closely allied to the lyric propensity of the
whole Swedish nation, so, too, this second faculty of his harmonizes
marvellously with fundamental qualities of his people. The Swedish
nation has a peculiar gift for representation. The Swedes love what
looks well, and understand better than the Danes and the Norwegians
how to make advantageous arrangements; in customs, social life and
speech, they have more form and, at the same time, a more formal manner
than other Scandinavians. Their language itself is ceremonious; the
word "you" is wholly lacking as a mode of polite address, so that the
name or title of the person addressed must be incessantly repeated.
No northern people understand as well as the Swedes how to conduct
a procession, a festival, a public ceremony, a grand entrance, or
a coronation, with the _tout ensemble_ requisite to secure a good
effect. To this national love of representation, whose nursery
gardens, from readily intelligible reasons, were always the Church and
the universities, corresponds a peculiar kind of national, festive
eloquence. Swedish eloquence is at the same time more pathetic and more
pompous than that of the other Scandinavian people. It has something of
an ecclesiastical vibration, which the Church contributes, something of
the professor-like stamp which the universities preserve, and finally,
after the Swedish Academy was founded, it assumed an academic element
of its own, which may be designated a proclivity for euphemism, an
inclination to paraphrase thought and to call things by beautiful
names. Of the deficiencies of this school Tegnér had but few, but he
possessed all that vigor and richness of language, all the clearness
and figurative splendor of diction, all the faculty to express
different phases of sentiment and to bring an entire assembly into
accord with them that had been developed by it. All this attained its
finest bloom in Tegnér's festal addresses and poems. His most renowned
festal poem was produced in the year 1829.
The students at Lund had invited Oehlenschläger to be present at their
Commencement, and when Tegnér learned this he resolved to avail himself
of the opportunity to crown Adam Oehlenschläger with one of the laurel
wreaths destined for the _magisters_ of the day. A Swedish idea, and a
poetic one, too! Moreover, the idea of a noble, not vain poet! So far
removed was Tegnér from every exaggerated effort to obtain recognition
that it seemed to him quite natural to crown another as his master.
He had finished his address and called upon the rector to confer the
degrees of master of arts, when turning to Oehlenschläger, who stood
by the high altar in the cathedral, he once more took up the word, and
thus accosted the rector,--
"Ere you begin to distribute your laurels, hand one to me;
Not for myself, but for one through whom I to all would pay
honor.
The Adam of skalds is here, the king of Northern poets.
Heir to the throne in poesy's realm, for the throne is Goethe's.
Oscar, if he but knew it, would surely sanction my action;
Now not in his name, far less in my own, but in that of song
immortal,
That illustrious name, resounding in Hakon and Helge,
Would I proffer this wreath; it grew where Saxo lived.
Past is the age of division,--in realms of the free-born spirit
It should never have been,--and familiar tones now ringing
Across the Sound enchant us all, and yours more than others.
Therefore, Svea offers this wreath, I speak in the name of Svea;
Take from a brother's hand this gift, and wear it this day to
remember."
And amid the din of kettle-drums, trumpets, and cannon, he placed the
wreath on Oehlenschläger's head. May the ceremony belong to the moment
alone, and the kettle-drums, trumpets, cannon, the entire janizary
music vanish on the instant! It was, nevertheless, a grand and a
beautiful moment, and the remembrance of it has tended to fraternize
the northern peoples as little else could have done.