nature worship which in our days is regarded as so hostile to culture?
A relapse into barbarism, say some; a healthy reaction against
over-culture, say others. When a man has discovered society to be an
institution based on error and injustice, when he perceives that, in
exchange for petty advantages society suppresses too forcibly every
natural impulse and desire, when he has seen through the illusion that
he is a demi-god and a child of God, and regards himself more as a kind
of animal--then he flees from society, which is built on the assumption
of the divine origin of man, and takes refuge with nature. Here he
feels in his proper environment as an animal, sees himself as a detail
in the picture, and beholds his origin--the earth and the meadow.
He sees the interdependence of all creation as if in a summary--the
mountains becoming earth, the sea becoming rain, the plain which is a
mountain crumbled, the woods which are the children of the mountains
and the water. He sees the ocean of air which man and all creatures
breathe, he hears the birds which live on the insects, he sees the
insects which fertilise the plants, he sees the mammalia which supply
man with nourishment, and he feels at home. And in our time, when
all things are seen from the scientific point of view, a lonely hour
with nature, where we can see the whole evolution-history in living
pictures, can be the only substitute for divine worship.
But our optimistic evolutionists prefer a meeting in a large hall
where they can launch their denunciations against this same society
which they admire and despise. They praise it as the highest stage of
development, but wish to overthrow it, because it is irreconcilable
with the true happiness of the animal. They wish to reconstruct and
develop it, say some. But their reconstruction involves the destruction
of all existing arrangements. Do not these people recognise that
society as it exists is a case of miscarriage in evolution, and is
itself simultaneously hostile to culture and to nature?
Society, like everything else, is a natural product, they say, and
civilisation is nature. Yes, but it is degenerate nature, nature on
the down-grade, since it works against its own object--happiness. It
was, however, the engineer, John's leader, and a nature-worshipper like
himself, who revealed to him the defects of civilised society, and
prepared the way for his reception of the new views of man's origin.
Darwin's _Origin of Species_ had appeared as early as 1859, but its
influence had not yet penetrated far, much less had it been able to
fertilise other minds.[2] Moleschott's influence was then in the
ascendant, and materialism was the watchword of the day. Armed with
this and with his geology, the engineer pulled to pieces the Mosaic
story of the Creation. He still spoke of the Creator, for he was a
theist and saw God's wisdom and goodness reflected in His works.
While they were walking in the park, the church bells in the city began
to ring. John stood still and listened. There were the terrible bells
of the Clara Church, which rang through his melancholy childhood; the
bells of the Adolf-Fredrik, which had frightened him to the bleeding
breast of the Crucified, and the bells of St. John's, which, on
Saturdays, when he was in the Jacob School, had announced the end of
the week. A gentle south wind bore the sound of the bells thither from
the city, and it echoed like a warning under the high firs.
"Are you going to church?" asked his friend.
"No," answered John, "I am not going to church any more."
"Follow your conscience," said the engineer.
It was the first time that John had remained away from church. He
determined to defy his father's command and his own conscience. He got
excited, inveighed against religion and domestic tyranny, and talked of
the church of God in nature; he spoke with enthusiasm of the new gospel
which proclaimed salvation, happiness, and life to all. But suddenly he
became silent.
"You have a bad conscience," said his friend.
"Yes," answered John; "one should either not do what one repents of, or
not repent of what one does."
"The latter is the better course."
"But I repent all the same. I repent a good deed, for it would be wrong
to play the hypocrite in this old idol-temple. My new conscience tells
me that I am wrong. I can find no more peace."
And that was true. His new ego revolted against this old one, and they
lived in discord, like an unhappy married couple, during the whole of
his later life, without being able to get a separation.
The reaction in his mind against his old views, which he felt should
be eradicated, broke out violently. The fear of hell had disappeared,
renunciation seemed silly, and the youth's nature demanded its rights.
The result was a new code of morality, which he formulated for himself
in the following fashion: What does not hurt any of my fellow-men
is permitted to me. He felt that the domestic pressure at home did
him harm, and no one else any good, and revolted against it. He now
showed his real feelings to his parents, who had never shown him love,
but insisted on his being grateful, because they had given him his
legal rights as a matter of favour, and accompanied by humiliations.
They were antipathetic to him, and he was cold to them. To their
ceaseless attacks on free-thinking he gave frank and perhaps somewhat
impertinent answers. His half-annihilated will began to stir, and he
saw that he was entitled to make demands of life.
The engineer was regarded as John's seducer, and was anathematised.
But he was open to the influence of John's lady friend, who had formed
a friendship with his step-mother. The engineer was not of a radical
turn of mind; he had accepted Theodore Parker's compromise, and still
believed in Christian self-denial. One should, he said, be amiable and
patient, follow Christ's example, and so forth. Urged on by John's lady
friend, for whom he had a concealed tenderness, and alarmed by the
consequences of his own teaching, he wrote John the following letter.
It was inspired by fear of the fire which he had kindled, by regard for
the lady, and by sincere conviction:
"To MY FRIEND JOHN,--How joyfully we greet the spring when it appears,
to intoxicate us with its wealth of verdure and its divine freshness!
The birds begin their light and cheerful melodies, and the anemones
peep shyly forth under the whispering branches of the pines----"
"It is strange," thought John, "that this unsophisticated man, who
talks so simply and sincerely, should write in such a stilted style.
It rings false."
The letter continued: "What breast, whether old or young, does not
expand in order to inhale the fresh perfumes of the spring, which
spread heavenly peace in each heart, accompanied by a longing which
seems like a foretaste of God and of His love? At such a time can any
malice remain in our hearts? Can we not forgive? Ah yes, we must,
when we see how the caressing rays of the spring sun have kissed away
the icy cover from nature and our hearts. Just as we expect to see
the ground, freed from snow, grow green again, so we long to see the
warmth of a kindly heart manifest itself in loving deeds, and peace and
happiness spread through all nature----"
"Forgive?" thought John. "Yes, certainly he would, if they would only
alter their behaviour and let him be free. But _they_ did not forgive
him. With what right did they demand forbearance on his part? It must
be mutual."
"John," went on the letter, "you think you have attained to a higher
conception of God through the study of nature and through reason
than when you believed in the Deity of Christ and the Bible, but you
do not realise the tendency of your own thoughts. You think that a
true thought can of itself ennoble a man, but in your better moments
you see that it cannot. You have only grasped the shadow which the
light throws, but not the chief matter, not the light itself. When
you held your former views you could pass over a fault in one of your
fellow-men, you could take a charitable view of an action in spite of
appearances, but how is it with you now? You are violent and bitter
against a loving mother; you condemn and are discontented with the
actions of a tender, experienced, grey-headed father----"
(As a matter of fact, when he held his former views, John could not
pardon a fault in anyone, least of all in himself. Sometimes, indeed,
he did pardon others; but that was stupid, that was lax morality. A
loving mother, forsooth! Yes, very loving! How did his friend Axel
come to think so? And a tender father? But why should he not judge his
actions? In self-defence one must meet hardness with hardness, and no
more turn the left cheek when the right cheek is smitten.)
"Formerly you were an unassuming, amiable child, but now you are an
egotistical, conceited youth----"
("Unassuming!" Yes, and that was why he had been trampled down, but
now he was going to assert his just claims. "Conceited!" Ha! the
teacher felt himself outstripped by his ungrateful pupil.)
"The warm tears of your mother flow over her cheeks----"
("Mother!" he had no mother, and his stepmother only cried when she was
angry! Who the deuce had composed the letter?)
"--when she thinks in solitude about your hard heart----"
(What the dickens has she to do with my heart when she has the
housekeeping and seven children to look after?)
"--your unhappy spiritual condition----"
(That's humbug! My soul has never felt so fresh and lively as now.)
"--and your father's heart is nearly breaking with grief and
anxiety----"
(That's a lie. He is himself a theist and follows Wallin; besides,
he has no time to think about me. He knows that I am industrious and
honest, and not immoral. Indeed, he praised me only a day or two ago.)
"You do not notice your mother's sad looks----"
(There are other reasons for that, for her marriage is not a happy one.)
"--nor do you regard the loving warnings of your father. You are like
a crevasse above the snow-line, in which the kiss of the spring sun
cannot melt the snow, nor turn a single atom of ice into a drop of
water----"
(The writer must have been reading romances. As a matter of fact John
was generally yielding towards his school-fellows. But towards his
domestic enemies he had become cold. That was their fault.)
"What can your friends think of your new religion, when it produces
such evil fruit? They will curse it, and your views give them the right
to do so----"
(Not the right, but the occasion.)
"They will hate the mean scoundrel who has instilled the hellish poison
of his teaching into your innocent heart----"
(There we have it! The mean scoundrel!)
"Show now by your actions that you have grasped the truth better than
heretofore. Try to be forbearing----"
(That's the step-mother!)
"Pass over the defects and failings of your fellow-men with love and
gentleness----"
(No, he would not! They had tortured him into lying; they had snuffed
about in his soul, and uprooted good seeds as though they were weeds;
they wished to stifle his personality, which had just as good a right
to exist as their own; they had never been forbearing with his faults,
why should he be so with theirs? Because Christ had said.... That had
become a matter of complete indifference, and had no application to
him now. For the rest, he did not bother about those at home, but shut
himself up in himself. They were unsympathetic to him, and could not
obtain his sympathy. That was the whole thing in a nutshell. They had
faults and wanted him to pardon them. Very well, he did so, if they
would only leave him in peace!)
"Learn to be grateful to your parents, who spare no pains in promoting
your true welfare and happiness (hm!), and that this may be brought
about through love to God your Creator, who has caused you to be born
in this improving (hm! hm!) environment, for obtaining peace and
blessedness is the prayer of your anxious but hopeful
"AXEL."
"I have had enough of father confessors and inquisitors," thought John;
he had escaped and felt himself free. They stretched their claws after
him, but he was beyond their reach. His friend's letter was insincere
and artificial; "the hands were the hands of Esau." He returned no
answer to it, but broke off all intercourse with both his friends.
They called him ungrateful. A person who insists on gratitude is worse
than a creditor, for he first makes a present on which he plumes
himself, and then sends in the account--an account which can never be
paid, for a service done in return does not seem to extinguish the debt
of gratitude; it is a mortgage on a man's soul, a debt which cannot
be paid, and which stretches over the whole subsequent life. Accept
a service from your friend, and he will expect you to falsify your
opinion of him and to praise his own evil deeds, and those of his wife
and children.
But gratitude is a deep feeling which honours a man and at the same
time humiliates him. Would that a time may come when it will not be
necessary to fetter ourselves with gratitude for a benefit, which
perhaps is a mere duty.
John felt ashamed of the breach with his friends, but they hindered
and oppressed him. After all, what had they given him in social
intercourse which he had not given back?
Fritz, as his friend with the pince-nez was called, was a prudent man
of the world. These two epithets "prudent" and "man of the world" had
a bad significance at that time. To be prudent in a romantic period,
when all were a little cracked, and to be cracked was considered a mark
of the upper classes, was almost synonymous with being bad. To be a
man of the world when all attempted, as well as they could, to deceive
themselves in religion, was considered still worse. Fritz was prudent.
He wished to lead his own life in a pleasant way and to make a career
for himself. He therefore sought the acquaintance of those in good
social position. That was prudent, because they had power and money.
Why should he not seek them? How did he come to make friends with John?
Perhaps through a sort of animal sympathy, perhaps through long habit.
John could not do any special service for him except to whisper answers
to him in the class and to lend him books. For Fritz did not learn his
lessons, and spent in punch the money which was intended for books.
Now when he saw that John was inwardly purified, and that his outer
man was presentable, he introduced him to his own coterie. This was a
little circle of young fellows, some of them rich and some of them of
good rank belonging to the same class as John. The latter was a little
shy at first, but soon stood on a good footing with them. One day, at
drill time, Fritz told him that he had been invited to a ball.
"I to a ball? Are you mad? I would certainly be out of place there."
"You are a good-looking fellow, and will have luck with the girls."
Hm! That was a new point of view with regard to himself. Should he go?
What would they say at home, where he got nothing but blame?
He went to the ball. It was in a middle-class house. Some of the girls
were anæmic; others red as berries. John liked best the pale ones who
had black or blue rings round their eyes. They looked so suffering and
pining, and cast yearning glances towards him. There was one among them
deathly pale, whose dark eyes were deep-set and burning, and whose lips
were so dark that her mouth looked almost like a black streak. She made
an impression on him, but he did not venture to approach her, as she
already had an admirer. So he satisfied himself with a less dazzling,
softer, and gentler girl. He felt quite comfortable at the ball and in
intercourse with strangers, without seeing the critical eyes of any
relative. But he found it very difficult to talk with the girls.
"What shall I say to them?" he asked Fritz.
"Can't you talk nonsense with them? Say 'It is fine weather. Do you
like dancing? Do you skate?' One must learn to be versatile."
John went and soon exhausted his repertoire of conversation. His palate
became dry, and at the third dance he got tired of it. He felt in a
rage with himself and was silent.
"Isn't dancing amusing?" asked Fritz. "Cheer up, old coffin-polisher!"
"Yes, dancing is all right, if one only had not to talk. I don't know
what to say."
So it was, as a matter of fact. He liked the girls, and dancing with
them seemed manly, but as to talking with them!--he felt as though he
were dealing with another kind of the species _Homo_, in some cases a
higher one, in others a lower. He secretly admired his gentle little
partner, and would have liked her for a wife.
His fondness for reflection and his everlasting criticism of his
thoughts had robbed him of the power of being simple and direct. When
he talked with a girl, he heard his own voice and words and criticised
them. This made the whole ball seem tedious. And then the girls? What
was it really that they lacked? They had the same education as himself;
they learned history and modern languages, read Icelandic, studied
algebra, etc. They had accordingly the same culture, and yet he could
not talk with them.
"Well, talk nonsense with them," said Fritz.
But he could not. Besides, he had a higher opinion of them. He wanted
to give up the balls altogether, since he had no success, but he was
taken there in spite of himself. It flattered him to be invited, and
flattery has always something pleasant about it. One day he was paying
a visit to an aristocratic family. The son of the house was a cadet.
Here he met two actresses. With them he felt he could speak. They
danced with him but did not answer him. So he listened to Fritz's
conversation. The latter said strange things in elegant phrases, and
the girls were delighted with him. That, then, was the way to get on
with them!
The balls were followed by serenades and "punch evenings." John had a
great longing for strong drinks; they seemed to him like concentrated
liquid nourishment. The first time he was intoxicated was at a
students' supper at Djurgårdsbrunn. He felt happy, joyful, strong, and
mild, but far from mad. He talked nonsense, saw pictures on the plates
and made jokes. This behaviour made him for the moment like his elder
brother, who, though deeply melancholy in his youth, had a certain
reputation afterwards as a comic actor. They had both played at acting
in the attic; but John was embarrassed; he acted badly and was only
successful when he was given the part of some high personage to play.
As a comic actor he was impossible.
About this time there entered two new factors into his development--Art
and Literature.
John had found in his father's bookcase Lenstrom's _Æsthetics_,
Boije's _Dictionary of Painters,_ and Oulibischeff's _Life of Mozart_,
besides the authors previously mentioned. Through the scattering of
the family of a deceased relative, a large number of books came into
the house, which increased John's knowledge of belles-lettres. Among
them were several copies of Talis Qualis's poems, which he did not
enjoy; he found no pleasure in Strandberg's translation of Byron's
_Don Juan_, for he hated descriptive poetry; he always skipped verse
quotations when they occurred in books. Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_,
in Kullberg's translation, he found tedious; Karl von Zeipel's _Tales_,
impossible. Sir Walter Scott's novels were too long, especially the
descriptions. He therefore did not understand at first the greatness
of Zola, when many years later he read his elaborate descriptions; the
perusal of Lessing's _Laokoön_ had already convinced him that such
descriptions cannot convey an adequate impression of the whole. Dickens
infused life even into inanimate objects and harmonised the scenery
and situations with the characters. That he understood better. He
thought Eugène Sue's _Wandering Jew_ magnificent; he did not regard it
as a novel; for novels, he thought, were only to be found in lending
libraries. This, on the other hand, was a historical poem of universal
interest, whose Socialistic teaching he quickly imbibed. Alexandre
Dumas's works seemed to him like the boys' books about Indians. These
he did not care for now; he wanted books with some serious purpose.
He swallowed Shakespeare whole, in Hagberg's translation. But he had
always found it hard to read plays where the eye must jump from the
names of the _dramatis personæ_, to the text. He was disappointed in
_Hamlet_, of which he had expected much, and the comedies seemed to him
sheer nonsense.
John could not endure poetry. It seemed to him artificial and untrue.
Men did not speak like that, and they seldom thought so beautifully.
Once he was asked to write a verse in Fanny's album.
"You can screw yourself up to do that," said his friend.
John sat up at night, but only managed to hammer out two lines.
Besides, he did not know what to say. One could not expose one's
feelings to common observation. Fritz offered his help, and together
they produced six or eight rhyming lines, for which Snoilsky's _A
Christmas Eve in Rome_ supplied the motive.
"Genius" often formed the subject of their discussions. Their teacher
used to say "Geniuses" ranked above all else, like "Excellencies." John
thought much about this, and believed that it was possible without
high birth, without money, and without a career to get on the same
level as Excellencies. But what a genius was he did not know. Once
in a weak moment he said to his lady friend that he would rather be
a genius than a child of God, and received a sharp reproof from her.
Another time he told Fritz that he would like to be a professor, as
they can dress like scarecrows and behave as they like without losing
respect. But when someone else asked him what he wished to be, he said,
"A clergyman"; for all peasants' sons can be that, and it seemed a
suitable calling for him also. After he had become a free-thinker, he
wished to take a university degree. But he did not wish to be a teacher
on any account.
In the theatre _Hamlet_ made a deeper impression on him than
Offenbach's operas, which were then being acted. Who is this Hamlet
who first saw the footlights in the era of John III., and has still
remained fresh? He is a figure which has been much exploited and used
for many purposes. John forthwith determined to use him for his own.
The curtain rises to the sound of cheerful music, showing the king and
his court in glittering array. Then there enters the pale youth in
mourning garb and opposes his step-father. Ah! he has a step-father.
"That is as bad as having a stepmother," thought John. "That's the
man for me!" And then they try to oppress him and squeeze sympathy
out of him for the tyrant. The youth's ego revolts, but his will is
paralysed; he threatens, but he cannot strike.
Anyhow, he chastises his mother--a pity that it was not his
step-father. But now he goes about with pangs of conscience. Good!
Good! He is sick with too much thought, he gropes in his in-side,
inspects his actions till they dissolve into nothing. And he loves
another's betrothed; that resembles John's life completely. He begins
to doubt whether he is an exception after all. That, then, is a common
story in life! Very well! He did not need then to worry about himself,
but he had lost his consciousness of originality. The conclusion, which
had been mangled, was unimpressive, but was partly redeemed by the fine
speech of Horatio. John did not observe the unpardonable mistake of
the adapter in omitting the part of Fortinbras, but Horatio, who was
intended to form a contrast to Hamlet, was no contrast. He is as great
a coward as the latter, and says only "yes" and "no." Fortinbras was
the man of action, the conqueror, the claimant to the throne, but he
does not appear, and the play ends in gloom and desolation.
But it is fine to lament one's destiny, and to see it lamented.
At first Hamlet was only the step-son; later on he becomes the
introspective brooder, and lastly the son, the sacrifice to family
tyranny. Schwarz had represented him as the visionary and idealist who
could not reconcile himself to reality, and satisfied contemporary
taste accordingly. A future matter-of-fact generation, to whom the
romantic appears simply ridiculous, may very likely see the part of
Hamlet, like that of Don Quixote, taken by a comic actor. Youths
like Hamlet have been for a long time the subject of ridicule, for
a new generation has secretly sprung up, a generation which thinks
without seeing visions, and acts accordingly. The neutral territory
of belles-lettres and the theatre, where morality has nothing to say,
and the unrealities of the drama with its reconstruction of a better
world than the present, were taken by John as something more than mere
imagination. He confused poetry and reality, while he fancied that life
outside his parent's house was ideal and that the future was a garden
of Eden.