Together with the request for an abolition of the old army system, demands for redemption from other burdens placed upon the owners of the soil made themselves heard. The land-tax was the principal one of these burdens and caused as much difference of opinion as the army system. The Landtmanna party considered the land-tax to be of the same nature originally as other taxes, which ought to be more evenly distributed and shared by all classes in the same proportion. The Intelligence party was of the opinion that the land-tax in the course of time had come to be rents or mortgages which always were taken into consideration at the exchange of property, as reducing the stock value of the property in question. To free a present generation from the payment of land-tax, was in the eyes of the opposition, an injustice to the other classes whose taxes thereby were to be increased. The Landtmanna party had, in 1869, commenced an agitation for the reduction of the land-tax for shorter periods and on a small scale at first, but with increasing demands at every new Riksdag.
The government, whose members had been the champions of parliamentary reform, was soon disregarded by the triumphant party, while its old opponents never forgot it. The earlier advisers of the king retired one by one when they saw their influence in the Riksdag vanish. King Charles himself took the defeat of the army bills deep at heart. His health commenced to fail in 1871, and when his faithful consort died, in the same year, having exposed her own health in her attempts to improve the condition of the king, the latter grew worse. After a trip abroad for his health, King Charles XV. died at Malmœ, September 18, 1872, deeply mourned by the two nations. In the following year his youngest brother Nicolaus August, duke of Dalecarlia, died, leaving only two of the children of Oscar I., Oscar Frederic, duke of East Gothland, and Princess Eugenie. The history of Charles XV. carries the principal traits of his character. His sweeping reforms in social, political and economical matters, and his great plans for the future, even if sometimes immature, or high-strung, were always characterized by loftiness of purpose. A typical Swede both in his merits and his faults, this was the secret of the immense popularity of King Charles, which always followed him, although he never sought it.
The philosopher Christian Jacob Bostrœm is the most popular of Swedish thinkers and the first who founded a national system and school of philosophy, idealistic and rational, and in strict opposition to the system of Hegel. Bostrœm was born in Pitea, in 1797, was the teacher of the sons of Oscar I., and succeeded the able philosopher Samuel Grubbe, a talented follower of Hœijer, as professor of philosophy at the University of Upsala. Bostrœm was a highly fascinating and suggestive teacher, while he neglected his literary production, which is neither exhaustive nor quite representative of his philosophy. He exerted a considerable influence by his outline of a philosophical state, which pleased the conservatives, while a much more widespread and lasting impression was produced by his criticism of the doctrines of a hell and a devil. A whole literature sprang into life, discussing vehemently the existence or non-existence of the fiend. To this literature and the works and writings of Bostrœm is to be credited the spirit of religious tolerance which characterized life and literature during the reign of Charles XV. It fostered in the cultured few a leaning toward Unitarianism or Theosophy, while it gave rise to a shallow materialism and religious indifference in the less cultured classes and individuals.
The artistic, literary and musical life bore a decided resemblance to the intellectually interested but dilettantic king. Charles XV. was surrounded by a great number of painters who, although possessing a good deal of talent, succeeded only in the smaller field of genre painting. Remarkable exceptions are J. F. Hœckert, Marcus Larsson and C. H. L. D’Uncker, who possessed sterling genius and acquired great fame. Several promising painters, like George von Rosen, developed later the full scope of their power. The sculptor J. P. Molin was highly talented, a worthy follower of B. E. Fogelberg, who had enriched Swedish art with a number of highly important sculptures.
In the world of letters, the spirit of dilettantism was more strongly felt than in art, Swedish literature, after its several glorious epochs, experiencing one of its most stagnant periods. A veritable giant among pygmies was Victor Rydberg, whose remarkable novel, “The Last Athenian,” appeared in 1859, but whose principal productivity as a poet and scientist belongs to a later period. So do, to a great extent, the best works of the poets Eduard Beckstrœm, also an able dramatist, and Count Carl Snoilsky. Zacharias Topelius, the Walter Scott and Hans Christian Andersen of Finland, must be mentioned here. Writing in the Swedish language, and for his principal work using subjects of Swedish history, he was as highly beloved in Sweden as in Finland. His excellent series of historical novels, called “The Surgeon’s Stories,” have been translated into several languages. His juvenile stories are not characterized by the same degree of inventive power as are the tales by Andersen, but Topelius had the latter’s ability of placing himself in intimate contact with the pure minds of all ages.
In the most national of Swedish cultural elements, the song, the epoch of dilettantism found its most beautiful and lasting expressions. The quartet and chorus singing at the universities of Upsala and Lund was cultivated to the highest standards of excellence and had a splendid repertory in the songs of Otto Lindblad, Vennerberg, Prince Gustavus, Josephsson, Crusell, Cronhamn, etc. The Upsala students caused a great sensation by their singing at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and have repeated their successes at the Paris Exposition of 1878, and in Berlin in 1898. Swedish quartets of men’s and women’s voices have travelled all over the world and made a lasting fame for this minor but bewitching branch of musical art. As dramatic singers of the first rank, Louise Michaëli and Christine Nilsson have been the worthy successors of Jenny Lind. To this period, as well as to the next, belongs Elisa Hvasser, the greatest and most versatile actress Sweden has ever had. This artist was equally at home in the farce and melodrama, but excelled in the tragic parts of the Shakespeare, Schiller, and Ibsen repertory. Indispensable in their positions at the Royal Theatre of Stockholm, Michaëli, the songstress, and Hvasser, the tragedienne, did not travel, thereby losing the fame a world would have been only too glad to give them.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
Progress and Prosperity—Oscar II
Oscar II. ascended the throne at a moment when universal peace was restored after the great conflict between France and Germany, and when an age of commercial prosperity for Sweden seemed to have begun. King Oscar had received the same superior education as his older brothers, is as brilliantly gifted as they were and of a more scholarly mind. As a writer on scientific subjects, a poet and an orator, Oscar II. had distinguished himself before his succession to the throne. The new king offered the best of securities for a sound administration in his thorough and versatile knowledge, wide experience in public affairs, and rich and harmonious endowment. Oscar II. still did not find it easy to gain the love and admiration of the Swedish people, of which he is so eminently worthy. He was the successor of one of the most popular of rulers that the country ever saw, but King Oscar has lived to see his own popularity almost outrival that of his predecessor. King Oscar is, at seventy, a handsome, spirited gentleman, with that dignity which age, rare attainments, high intelligence and a noble soul grant their common possessor. This the most learned and popular monarch of Europe is of a tall, commanding figure, six feet three inches in height, of a handsome, expressive face, with cheeks of a ruddy color and mild blue eyes.