VI.
Tegnér is instructor (docent) at the University of Lund; he is twenty-two years old, and is passing his summer vacation on the Rämen estate in the Myhrmann family, with whose youngest daughter, Anna, he is betrothed.
Here one day in September there appears, on a visit, the afterward so celebrated historian and poet, Erik Gustav Geijer, a young man of Tegnér's own age, who is freighted with the latest wisdom of the day, and bubbling over with a youthful impulse to impart and discuss his ideas. He makes attempt after attempt to approach Tegnér, but fails to find common ground on which they can meet. The slender son-in-law elect of the house is variable and full of moods, an enamored dreamer, a laughing mocker. There is a glitter of merriment in his eyes, his words are flashes of lightning. It is no more possible to follow the channel of his thoughts than the course of the sunbeam through the foliage. The two young people are taking a walk together and have entered into a discussion on the way. Let us listen to what they are saying. The leader of the conversation is Geijer, who asks,—
"What Tegnér really thinks of the civilization of this locality? If he does not believe that all the so-called popular enlightenment is an evil? He, Geijer, looks on the sound reason of the masses as the most unfortunate delusion that it could ever occur to any one to venerate. Only the chosen ones of humanity had the higher sense which enabled them to grasp science in its full truth. Was not that the opinion also of the Herr Docent?"
"No, not by any means; he would call that mysticism."
"Mysticism! What did Tegnér understand by mysticism?"
"Well, to lie flat on one's back, to take a little nap and allow one's self to be shadowed by the power of the Most High."
"Seriously speaking, did Tegnér admit of no intellectual intuition?"
"No, he cared nothing for the Teutonic mania—but he cared all the more for blueberries;" and just here there were growing some most excellent ones in the enjoyment of which he became profoundly absorbed: "Moreover, he did not doubt that Geijer understood the matter better than he did; he (Tegnér) had always heard Geijer called a genius, and such people only could meddle with philosophy. He, for his part, who knew of himself that no more reason than was absolutely necessary to carry him through the world had fallen to his lot, was not very fond of playing blindman's-buff, except with pretty young girls, and enjoyed least of all to do it with such learned gentlemen as Kant and Schelling."