Viking Tales of the North
But it was naturally to be expected that the other professors also should have their attention fixed on a student of such distinguished qualities. He himself acknowledges the encouragement he received from Munthe and from Lidbäck. The former, who was professor or moral philosophy and a zealous Kantian, is represented by Tegnér in a most charming sketch as one of the noblest men who have ever adorned any academic chair. With the latter, who had just been created professor of aesthetics, and had attempted poetry without any great success, he came into a relation which cannot be better expressed than by the following verses composed by Tegnér:
. . . He, who latest has left us,
Gave me his fatherly care, and taught me the scale of the muses,
While, yet young, I required his counsel. Nor would he grow angry
If ofttimes I obey’d him but badly; trying, as rash youth
Will, my pinions in regions not his. Yes! nobly he acted!
In the mathematical sciences he had read little or nothing before he came to the university; but being now engaged in preparing for his degree, his clear understanding enabled him to make rapid progress in this department also, and almost without any assistance. The only lectures he attended were those on physics and on the differential calculus, and his notes on these occasions were afterward a standing loan among his acquaintances, and were highly spoken of for lucidity and precision. Thus at the university, also, he continued to be a self-taught man, although through the medium of books. He commonly worked from eighteen to twenty hours a day, sleeping as little as possible. He seldom partook in the pastimes which belonged to his age, or in the life of a student generally; this gained him the character of a bashful, awkward and singular young man.
Who could believe this of so lively a genius, so cheerful, playfully-witty, and so amiable a society man as at a later time he has been found to be? But this was the only way by which, within so short a time, he could acquire such various and such solid erudition.
Through the assistance of Myhrman and of Branting he had been enabled to pass near a year at the university without being compelled to break of his own studies by instructing others. But his scrupulousness would not permit him any longer to take advantage of their generosity, without some effort to obtain his own subsistence. He therefore applied for an obtained a university private-tutorship in the family of Baron Leyonhufvud, at Yxkullsund in Smaland. His pupil, the Baron Abraham Leyonhufvud, who has since risen to be president of the high judiciary court, is, of all the individuals he has instructed, the one he has most esteemed and loved. And this feeling has remained unchanged during a course of thirty years. His habits of life at Yxkullsund were the same as at the university–laborious, lonely, and averse to company. But after he had written some French verses, on the occasion of a family fête-day, the awkward and gloomy student began to be remarked with wonder and esteem.
After having passed the summer on 1800 at his seat, he returned to Lund accompanied by his pupil. Here Professor Lidbäck appointed him extraordinary amanuensis to the university library, of which the professor was the manager. To this it is true no salary was attached, but it was an uncommon distinction for a youth of eighteen who had not yet taken his degree.
That he might accomplish this he now prepared himself with increasing zeal, mostly studying philosophy, partly in the dialogues of Plato and partly in the writings of Kant and few by Fichte. He has himself declared that with his concrete mind he was not disposed for these abstract speculations, and that he grew tired of pursuing a long systematic deduction which allowed no foothold for the fancy. His academic treatises, however, show that he easily penetrated and clearly understood philosophical questions. What more especially drew him to the critical school of Kant was its originally skeptical nature and its great result, which stops short at a something–unknown and never-to-be-fathomed.
At the examination for degrees, which he passed in two divisions, the autumn of 1801 and the spring of 1802, he obtained “ laudatur” the highest certificate, from all the professors except Norberg. This was altogether unexpected, especially as Tegnér was acknowledged in Greek, which then belonged to the same professorship as the oriental languages, to be the most accomplished of all the promovendi. But Norberg fixed a higher value on the latter literature, in which also he had gained continental celebrity.
With such high testimonials, Tegnér was of course the unopposed primus at the promotion, and was to answer the magister-question. But in the meantime an event occurred which threatened to banish him forever from the university, to destroy all his prospects there, and to give his destiny quite another object.
Lundagârd is the name of an academic promenade, shaded by aged trees, beneath whose murmur the students are accustomed to pass the most innocent of their evening hours, if not exactly in Socratic dialogues, at least with somewhat Platonic feelings of the beautiful. One evening, however, a transaction took place there which was not altogether innocent. Without being aware of anything at all extraordinary, Tegnér, alone as usual, was hastening thither to refresh himself after the day’s hard toil. He then found assembled there a very large body of students, all armed with branches cut from the old and venerable trees. They, however, had hewed down not a single bough; it had been done by order of the consistory, to promote the growth of the trees and make their tops more leafy. This intention the young men misunderstood, supposing that all this maiming foreboded the destruction of their favorite Lundagård, and the more so as they found that whole trees had been felled. These, however, were old and naked trunks, which it was thought ought to make room for younger stems. The rising discontent was principally directed against the university’s then officiating Rector Magnificus, (4) Who was by no means loved, and who was believed to have been alone concerned in planning all this ruin. Tegnér, whom the eager crowd surrounded immediately on his arrival with shouts of “Primus must go with us,” made representations, but in vain, against the tumult. Clamored down, and armed like the rest with a branch, he was obliged to accompany them. The procession took the route to the rector’s house, which was first saluted with the cry of “Pereat rector!” vivat Lundagård!” then all the boughs were thrown in a heap before the entrance, completely blocking up the door. After this, they went tumultuously up the street, giving hurrahs to several of the professors. For the theology professor, Hylander, “vivat: was not shouted, but chanted in chorus. On their return, when the rector was once more saluted with a “pereat,” it was very near happening that they proceeded to break his windows also. This, however, was prevented by Tegnér and the magister Wallenberg, afterward bishop of Linkoping, but only by argument that ladies were residing in the rooms that faced the street.
The next morning Tegnér was summoned before him by the rector, to undergo a private hearing, and he there gave a faithful statement of the whole event, without at all denying what was culpable in his own conduct. But His Magnificence paid no respect to this openness, or to Tegnér’s efforts to prevent the uproar. You are already, said he, an officer of this university; you have been nominated primus at the ensuing promotion, and might expect great success in your profession here. All this now is passed. The academic constitutions clearly direct that you must relegari cum infamia. (5) Sorry indeed I am that your good fortune should thus be thrown away. Still it might be possible, he added after a pause, that all might be helped and arranged if you would only tell me the names of the ringleaders in the riot. Tegnér, incensed at this question, replied with some warmth that, however it went with himself, he would not play the informer against his own comrades. We were, he concluded, two or three hundred altogether, and there were few among them whom I knew, but these few I never will betray.
In the meantime the whole affair gradually died away, for all the other professors valued too highly the uncommon qualities of the youth, who was also so irreproachable in his manners, not to rescue him from the misfortune with which he was threatened by a man whom even his companions could not esteem.
At this period Tegnér received the sorrowful intelligence that his eldest brother, who was only thirty years of age, had just expired. He was universally lamented as an excellent preacher, and in all respects a pattern for his class. Esaias felt himself as his death again an orphan. Not only was it from him he had obtained the first elements of that learning for which he was now about to receive the laurel-wreath, (6) foremost among forty; but at his very entrance on the dangerous years of youth it was his brother who had confirmed him in those principles of religion and of morals in which while yet a child he had been instructed, but which he had not enjoyed any opportunity of reducing to practice. Deeply affected by this loss, he made it the subject of an elegy, which was rewarded with a prize by the Literary Society of Gottenburg, This “Lament,” together with the before-mentioned poem, “Til min Hembygd” (To my Home-district), which he had composed at the same period, first began to attract the general attention of the people to this rising bard.
After the promotion he traveled in Wermland, on a visit to his mother and to his benefactors, Branting and Myhrman. A virtuous young man can undoubtedly enjoy no greater pleasure from the success of his exertions than that of delighting his parents, and those who have cared for him with a father’s or a mother’s tenderness. But scarcely less, nay, perhaps, even greater, is their satisfaction when their efforts have been crowned with such results as was now the case.
This visit to Myhrman changed the childish friendship which had already subsisted between his daughter and Tegnér to a serious obligation to which her parents gave their consent. Four years, however, elapsed before circumstances allowed them to enter into the married state.
It was on this journey that, for the first time, he beheld, residing with this father at Ransäter, in Wermland, and individual afterward so famous as a poet, an historian and a thinker–the illustrious Geijer. He was at that time only a student at Upsala, but had even then gained the great prize of the Swedish academy for his panegyrie over Sten Sture. Tegnér himself has made the following observations concerning this acquaintance: “Even at this, our very first meeting, betrayed itself that great divergence in our views of life and literature which time has since only more developed. Our whole intercourse was a continued university act, though without any bitterness or unfriendliness. Even at this early period I learned to value him as one of the most talented and noble natures in our land.” (7)
On his return to Lund, Tegnér was appointed by Lidbäck reader (docens) in aesthetics. He was permitted, however, to leave the university for a time to reside in Stockholm, whither he repaired in the beginning of 1803, being received as tutor into the house of the chief director, Strübing. This family lived in first-rate style; but the manners of Tegnér were, as in Lund, retired and for himself. It was there he became acquainted with the poet Choræus, whom he found a cheerful, witty and amiable, but somewhat singular, man. They communicated to each other their poetical efforts; and although Choræus was far inferior to Tegnér in genius, he yet, according to the latter’s own statements, could, as older and more experienced in the exercise of “the divine art,” assist him with valuable counsel. They corresponded for some time after Tegnér had repaired to Lund, to which place he was accompanied by his pupils.
But having long since been betrothed, he wished to obtain soon some fixed establishment, and therefore applied for the place of gymnasii-adjunct at Carlstad. The consistory did not appoint him, but he obtained the place by appealing to the king, who then resided in Baden. Being shortly afterward, however, appointed adjunct at the University of Lund, he never entered upon his duties at Carlstad. As assistant lecturer (adjunct, vice-professor,) in aesthetics, he was for a whole year at the head of the professorship in this science, during the rectorate of Professor Lidbäck, as well as on many other occasions.
ENDNOTES:
4. The rector of a Swedish university is called “Rector Magnificus,” or “His Magnificence.” Back
5. Be expelled with disgrace. Back
6. The masters of arts, at the Swedish universities, are atoned with wreath of laurel on the day of their promotion. Back
7. Quoted from latter from Tegnér to George Stephens. Back
<< Previous Page Next Page >>
© 2004-2007 Northvegr.
Most of the material on this site is in the public domain. However, many people have worked very hard to bring these texts to you so if you do use the work, we would appreciate it if you could give credit to both the Northvegr site and to the individuals who worked to bring you these texts. A small number of texts are copyrighted and cannot be used without the author's permission. Any text that is copyrighted will have a clear notation of such on the main index page for that text. Inquiries can be sent to info@northvegr.org. Northvegr™ and the Northvegr symbol are trademarks and service marks of the Northvegr Foundation.
|