of the Scandinavian race was Tegner.
His love of brave deeds and reckless adventure and his exaltation of
the man of action above the man of thought are typical. His heroes,
fair-haired and blue-eyed, stalwart and vigorous, relying on strength
and longing for adventure, tender-hearted and contemplative when not
aroused to violent action and bent on deeds of valor, personify the
national ideal. His whole vision of life is Scandinavian, bright and
vivid, with a tinge of melancholy. Tegner was, with Geijer and Ling,
the first to adopt national subjects, to use the Scandinavian myths
and folk-lore in their poetry, in opposition to the classical themes
and the Hellenic mythology, until then exclusively in vogue in the
poetical field.

Geijer was a romantic by nature, in politics as well as in literature,
but he was above all an ardent Scandinavian, opposed to exotics,
and passionately devoted to the great traditions of the past, a
hero-worshiper, an enthusiast, and a _Goth_. The Goths were members of
a society formed to revive the old national manners and customs, the
freedom of the age of the Vikings, and the ardor of the heroes
of Walhalla. Their organ was the _Idun_, an exclusively literary
publication. In a letter written by Geijer from Stockholm to his
_fiancee_, then living in the country, dated March 7, 1811, he says:
"We have formed a society which meets nearly daily. We talk, smoke,
and read together about Gothic Viking deeds. We call each other by
Gothic names, and live in the past." And Anna-Lisa, his future wife,
writing to a friend, says: "My _fiancee_ has become a Goth; instead of
loving me, he is in love with Valkyries and shield-bearing maidens,
drinks out of Viking horns, and carries out Viking expeditions--to the
nearest tavern. He writes poems which must not be read in the dark,
they are so full of murders and deeds of slaughter." Ling, who also
belonged to this society, was a fervent admirer of the Eddas and
Sagas, of the Scandinavian myths and folk-lore. Tegner, despite his
classical education and Hellenic turn of mind, was an ardent Norseman
in feeling and instinct. "Go to Greece for beauty of form," he would
say, "but to the North for depth of feeling and thought." He scorned
alike the metaphysical subtleties of French philosophy and the
moonshine heroics of German romanticism. But he was at one with Geijer
and Ling in the desire to make Scandinavian heroes and myths the
subjects of poetry.

The res