"Doubt is the beginning of certainty, and absurd assertions must arouse opposition in a healthy brain."
And so on.
Although there is no such thing as a judgment which holds good universally, since every judgment is individualistic, there are, on the other hand, judgments of a majority and of a party. By means of these John was suppressed and kept silence on the subject of Bellmann for many years. Only when later on the old historian Fryxell proved that Bellmann was not the apostle of sobriety which Eichhorn and Ljunggren had made him out to be, and also no god, but a mediocre ballad-singer, did John see a gleam of hope that his individual opinion might become some day the opinion of the majority. But he already saw the question from another point of view; Sweden would have been neither unhappier nor worse, if Bellmann had never lived. He would like to have said to the patriots and democrats, "Bellmann was a poet of Stockholm and of the Court, who jested very cruelly with poor people." He would like to have said to the Good Templars who sang Bellmann's songs, "You are singing drinking songs which were written during fits of intoxication and celebrate drink." For his own part, John held that Bellmann's songs were pleasant to sing because of the light French melodies which accompanied them, and as for their French morality it did not vex him at all—quite the contrary. But earlier, at the age of twenty-one, he was vexed by it, for he was an idealist and desired purity in poetry, just as the surviving idealists and admirers of Bellmann do at the present time.
These have used the word "humour" to save themselves and their morality. But what do they mean by "humour"? Is it jest or earnest? What is jest? The reluctance of the cowardly to speak out his mind? Humour reflects the double nature of man,—the indifference of the natural man to conventional morality, and the Christian's sigh over immorality which is after all so enticing and seductive. Humour speaks with two tongues,—one of the satyr, the other of the monk. The humorist lets the mænad loose, but for old unsound reasons thinks that he ought to flog her with rods. This is a transitional form of humour which is passing away, and already at the last gasp. The greatest modern writers have thrown away the rod, and play the hypocrite no longer, but speak their minds plainly out. The old tippler's sentimentality can no longer count for "a good heart," for it has been discovered to be merely bad nerves.
After arguing till they were weary, the members of the club landed in Stockholm harbour.
[1] Boström: Swedish Philosopher (1797-1866).
[2] Vide the end of Brand.
[3] Famous Swedish poet.