Chapter II

Very early it was discovered that the gifted boy possessed talents which made it seem desirable to furnish him with higher opportunities for education than those afforded in the office of Assessor Branting. A conversation that took place one evening, during a long country drive, when young Esse, as the boy was called, replied to the religious reflections of his pious chief, concerning the signs of God's omnipotence in the bright starry firmament, with an exposition of the laws governing the heavenly bodies, that he had derived from a popular work on philosophy, gave the first impetus to the step of entering Esaias on a learned career. An instinct, to which the future bishop ever remained true, led him to grasp with both hands the rational explanation of the workings of the universe, and to cast aside the theological in all cases where the latter seemed to him superfluous.

Under the guidance of his elder brother, he was now initiated into the study of Latin, Greek, and French, and he taught himself sufficient English to be able to read the poems of Ossian, at that time in the height of their glory. Like a foal trotting at its mother's side, he accompanied his brother to the various homes where the latter officiated as tutor; and in the last family in which his brother taught, Esaias, when but fourteen years of age, found in the youngest daughter of the house his future wife. Like so many other precocious youths, he avoided the boisterous sports of his comrades; his greatest delight was to sit alone in his chamber, absorbed in Homer; and he had to be dragged by main force to sleighing parties and skating matches, although he was by no means an unskilful skater. In the year 1799 he entered the university of Lund, devoted himself to the ancient languages, philosophy, and æsthetics; and in 1802, according to the pathetic custom of the land, was crowned with laurels as master (magister) of philosophy. From 1802 to 1810 he lived in Lund as a young instructor (docent) of good renown; from 1810 to 1825 he gave lectures on Grecian literature that were very popular and well attended. In the year 1812, in accordance with a very poor Swedish custom, he was at the same time presented with a professor's chair, and appointed pastor of several parishes in the vicinity of Lund; in 1826, finally, he left the little university town in order to retire as a bishop to the rural solitude of Vexiö.

Let us bestow a glance upon the young magister of Lund. He is pleasing to behold,--blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, with yellow, curly hair, vigorously built, and with a tendency to corpulency. As long as he remained a bachelor he was a retired dreamer, who brooded over his own fancies in solitude; but so soon as he had placed foot beneath his own table, his intellectual powers unfolded, and he proved himself to possess a light-hearted nature that was social in the highest degree, and bubbling over with merriment. A child of the world, who knew how to do honor to a good table and noble wine; an easily inflamed and by no means seraphic Apollino; an adorer of all female beauty; a genius that emitted brilliant flashes of well-considered and sparkling wit, rather than the glowing flames of a deep-seated fire; an individual who was tolerably unconcerned about his conventional dignity, but who was none the less thoroughly well prepared to maintain the proud sovereignty of his own personality; such is the phase of character Tegnér presented to the outside world. Beneath this exterior are concealed his deeper traits. These are partly of a poetic, partly of an oratorical, nature; a lyric inspiration and a glowing style that are peculiarly his own.