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.
XII.
The year 1830, that brought the July Revolution to France, led to a change in the political temper of Sweden, and soon in the entire political situation; it was a year that gave to liberalism a new impulse, significantly modifying its aims and altering the language of its press. Before 1830, the ideal of the Swedish liberals had been freedom; now it became democracy. As a matter of course, the advance of liberalism drove the conservative groups to the opposite extreme. Upsala was the headquarters of the reactionary party; here Geijer held sway, and the loyal students followed him so faithfully that, in a serenade to Charles John they thus designated their party: "obéir, mourir, et se taire" (to obey, to die, and keep silence). In retaliation the Stockholm liberal press called Upsala a foul nest of Tories, and the university professors, dried-up moles. A new style of journalism developed itself, which, owing to the prevailing absolutism, could only obtain a hearing through a personal, unrestrained tone. The style of this press was frivolous and sharp; it wounded with pin pricks and persiflage. Neither the court nor the person of Charles John was spared. If this tone pleased in certain circles of the metropolis, it excited lively displeasure elsewhere, especially in the provincial towns, and no one was more thoroughly annoyed by it than Tegnér, whose shattered mind was too thoroughly out of tune to permit him to see the good that might possibly arise one day from all these sins against good taste and against respect for the name of the old king. He offered a passionate protest against it, and the liberal papers attacked him like a swarm of wasps. The consequence was that he soon turned wholly against the liberal press as well as against the doctrines promulgated by it. Intellectual aristocrat as he was, the demagogic tendency was repulsive to him; an ideal conception of the people he had never attained in his best days, and now, after all faith in human purity and spiritual beauty was destroyed in him, he was less able than ever to acquire it. Amid these circumstances he was obliged to come upon the scene as a professional politician, his position as bishop compelling him to take part in parliamentary affairs at Stockholm. It cannot be wondered at that this was done in a conservative direction; indeed, Tegnér came forward as a true enfant terrible of conservatism, for when the old martial spirit came over him he spared neither friend nor foe. Henceforth, through all his writings, as well as through his speeches in parliament, ring bitter sallies against the new form of journalism, which seems to him a symptom of Sweden's decay. Listen to his words:
"The Swedish colors were yellow and blue,
And strength and honor of yore in them were clad;
But now the mire is your national hue, falsehood
Your Epic Song, and slander is set free
Six days each week, nor scarcely rests the seventh.
Its eye doth pierce the life of every mortal,
At every key-hole it doth place its ear.
Ye men of Sweden, is this your boasted freedom?"