Essays on Scandinavian Literature Part 12

A physical disease which seems to have baffled the skill of physicians may have been the primary cause of the sufferings here described, and was no doubt aggravated by the psychical condition to which I have alluded. Now it was supposed to be the liver which was affected; then again Tegner was treated for gall-stones. In the summer of 1833 he made a journey through Germany and spent some months at Carlsbad; but he returned without sensible relief. His foreign sojourn was, however, of some benefit in widening his mental horizon. Tegner's intellectual affinities had always been French; and toward Germany he had a.s.sumed a more or less unsympathetic att.i.tude. A slight acquaintance with the philosopher Schleiermacher and the Germanized Norwegian author Henrik Steffens (who was then a professor at the University of Berlin) did not, indeed, reverse his predilections, but it opened his eyes to excellences in the German people to which he had formerly been blind, and removed prejudices which had obscured his vision. He had everywhere the most distinguished reception, and was honored with an invitation to Sans Souci, where he was the guest of the witty Crown Prince of Prussia, later Frederick William IV. But these agreeable incidents of his journey were a poor compensation for his failure to obtain that which he had gone in search of. Fame, honor, and distinguished friends, without health, are but a Tantalus feast, the sweets of which are seen but never tasted.

"I fear," said Tegner, in his hopelessness, "that my right side, like that of the Chamber of Deputies, is incurable."

"When this Saul's spirit comes over me I often feel an indescribable bitterness, which endures nothing, spares nothing, in heaven or on earth. It usually finds vent in misanthropic reflections, sarcasms, and ideas which I have no sooner written down than I repent of them."

The activity which he unfolded, even in the midst of intolerable sufferings, was phenomenal. He possessed an energy of will and vigor of temperament which enabled him to rise superior to his physical condition, and lure strong music (though sometimes jarred into discords) from the broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had fastened its hold upon him, that he p.r.o.nounced the beautiful epilogue in hexameters at the graduating festivities at the University of Lund, and crowned the Dane, Adam Oehlenschlager, as the king of poets:

"Now, before thou beginnest the distribution of laurels Grant me one for him in whom I shall honor them all.

Lo, the Adam of poets is here, the Northern king among singers; Heir to the throne in poesy's world; for the throne yet is Goethe's.

Oscar, the king, if he knew it, would give his grace to my action.

Now I speak not for him, still less for myself, but the laurel Place on thy brow in poesy's name, the bright, the eternal.

Past is disunion's age (in the infinite realm of the spirit Never it ought to have reigned), and kindred tones o'er the water Ring, which enrapture us all, and they are especially thine.

Therefore, Svea--I speak in her name--adorns thee with laurel: Take it from brotherly hand, of the day in festal remembrance."

Restless official activity, parliamentary labors, educational addresses, and metrical discourses on memorable occasions filled the years from 1829 to 1840. He felt the demon of insanity lurking behind him, now close at his heels, now farther away; and it was a desperate race, in which life and death, nay, worse than death, was at stake. His indefatigable exertions afforded him a respite from the thought of his terrible pursuer. We can only regard with respectful compa.s.sion the outbreaks of misanthropic spleen which often disfigure his correspondence from this period of deepening twilight, relieved by a brief interval of brightness. It is especially woman who is the object of his bitterest objurgation. The venerable _mutabile et varium_ of Virgil is the theme upon which he perpetually rings the changes. No occasion is too inappropriate for a joke at the fickle and faithless s.e.x; and even the school-boys in the WexiO gymnasium are treated to some ironical advice, _a propos_ of the beautiful jade, which must have sounded surprising in an episcopal oration. Life with its bright pageant was oppressive, like a nightmare to the afflicted poet. All charm, all rationality had departed from existence, which was but a meaningless dance of hideous marionettes. The world was battered and befouled; inexpressibly loathsome. And finally, in 1840, while Tegner was attending the Riksdag (of which in his official capacity he was a member), the long-dreaded catastrophe occurred. His insanity manifested itself in tremendous projects of reform, world-conquests, and outbreaks of wild sensuality. He was sent to a celebrated asylum in Sleswick; and on the way thither wrote a series of "Fantasies of Travel" which have all the rich harmony of his earlier verse, and are full of delightful imagery. He fancied that there was a huge wheel of fire revolving with furious haste in his head, and his sufferings were terrific. The following fragment from the notes of his attendant, who kept a record of his ravings, has a cosmic magnificence:

"The whole trouble comes from that accursed nonsense about the diadem which they wanted to put on me. You may believe, though, that it was a splendid piece. Pictures in miniature, not painted, but living, really existing miniatures of fourteen of the n.o.blest poets were made into a wreath. It was Homer and Pindar, Ta.s.so and Virgil, Schiller, Petrarch, Ariosto, Goethe, Sophocles, Leopold, Milton, and several more. Between each one of them burned a radiant star, not of tinsel, but of real cosmic material. In the middle of my forehead there was the figure of a lyre on the diadem, which had borrowed something of the sun's own living light; it poured with such bright refulgence upon the wreath of stars that I seemed to be gazing straight through the world. As long as the lyre stood still, everything was well with me--but all of a sudden it began to move in a circle. Faster and ever faster it moved, until every nerve in my body was shaken. At last it began to rotate in rings with such speed that it was transformed into a sun. Then my whole being was broken, and it moved and trembled; for you must know that the diadem was no longer put on the outside of my head, but inside, on my very brain. And now it began to whirl around with an inconceivable violence, until it suddenly broke and burst into pieces. Darkness--darkness--darkness and night spread over the whole world wherever I turned. I was bewildered and faint, and I who had always hated weakness in men--I wept; I shed hot, burning tears. All was over."[41]

[41] Brandes: Esaias Tegner, pp. 231-223.

Contrary to the expectation of his friends he recovered rapidly, and was able to return home in May, 1841. He promptly resumed his episcopal functions, and even wrote a beautiful rural idyl in hexameters called "The Crowned Bride" (_Kronbruden_), which he dedicated to Franzen. He was well aware, however, that his powers were on the wane, and in 1845 he was persuaded to apply for a year's relief from his official duties.

The last months of his life he spent mostly lying upon a sofa in his library, surrounded by great piles of books containing a most miscellaneous a.s.sortment of cla.s.sics, from Homer to Goethe, intersprinkled with controversial pamphlets and recent novels. He was gentle and affectionate in his demeanor; and his beautiful face lighted up with a smile whenever any of his children or grandchildren approached him. Once or twice a day he drove out in his carriage, and he was even able to visit his eldest son, who was a clergyman in Scania, and to receive the sacrament for the last time from his hand. Shortly after his return he was stricken with paralysis, and died November 2, 1846, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His mind was unclouded and his voice was clear. When the autumnal sun suddenly burst through the windows and shone upon the dying poet, he murmured: "I will lift up mine hands unto the house and the mountain of G.o.d."

These were his last words. He was carried to the grave at night by the light of lanterns, followed by a long procession of the clergy, citizens, and the school-boys of his diocese. Peasants, from whose ranks he had sprung and to whom he was always a good friend, bore his coffin.

The academic tendency which "idealizes" life and shuns earth-scented facts, had, through the decisive influence of Tegner, been victorious in Swedish literature. I am aware that some will regard this as a questionable statement; for the academicism of Tegner is not the stately, bloodless, Gallic cla.s.sicism of the Gustavian age, of which Leopold was the last representative. It is much closer to the cla.s.sicism of Goethe in "Iphigenia" and "Hermann and Dorothea," and of Schiller in "Wallenstein" and "Wilhelm Tell." Tegner's poetic creed was exactly that of Schiller, who saw no impropriety in making the peasant lad, Arnold Melchthal, when he hears that his father has been blinded, deliver an enraptured apostrophe to the light:

"O eine edle Himmelsgabe ist Das Licht des Auges," etc.

The rhetorical note is predominant in both. Their thoughts have to be arrayed in the flowing toga before they are held to be presentable. This is the academic tendency in Sweden as in France, even though the degree of euphemistic magniloquence may differ with the age and lat.i.tude. The Swedes have been called the Frenchmen of the North, and there is no doubt that delight in this toga-clad rhetoric is inherent in both. It was because Tegner, in appealing to this delight, was so deeply representative that he extinguished the old school and became the national poet of Sweden.