Growth of a Soul — Below and Above Part 2

One evening when John was sitting and chatting with the girl, she said quite suddenly to him, "Friday is my birthday; you must write some verses for me."

"Yes," answered John, "I will."

Later on when he met his friend, he told him of his hasty promise.

"I will write them for you," he said.

The next day he brought a poem, copied out in a fine hand-writing and composed in John's name.

It was piquant and amusing.

John dispatched it on the morning of the birthday.

In the evening of the same day both the friends came to eat their supper and to congratulate the girl.

She did not appear for an hour for she had to serve guests.

The teachers' meal was brought and they began to eat.

Then the girl appeared in the doorway and beckoned John.

She looked almost severe.

John went to her and they ascended a flight of stairs.

"Have you written the verses?"

she asked.

"No," said John.

"Ah, I thought so.

The lady behind the buffet said she had read them two years ago when the teacher sent them to Majke who was an ugly girl.

For shame, John!"

He took his cap and wanted to rush out, but the girl caught hold of him and tried to keep him back for she saw that he looked deathly pale and beside himself.

But he wrenched himself free and hastened into the Bellevue Park.

He ran into the wood leaving the beaten tracks.

The branches of the bushes flew into his face, stones rolled over his feet, and frightened birds rose up.

He was quite wild with shame, and instinctively sought the wood in order to hide himself.

It is a curious phenomenon that at the utmost pitch of despair a man runs into the wood before he plunges into the water.

The wood is the penultimate and the water the ultimate resource.

It is related of a famous author, who had enjoyed a twenty years' popularity quietly and proudly, that he was suddenly cast down from his position.

He was as though struck by a thunderbolt, went half-mad and sought the shelter of the woods where he recovered himself.

The wood is the original home of the savage and the enemy of the plough and therefore of culture.

When a civilised man suddenly strips off the garb of civilisation, the artistically woven fabric of his repute, he becomes in a moment a savage or a wild beast.

When a man becomes mad, he begins to throw off his clothes.

What is madness?

A relapse?

Yes, many think animals mad.

It was evening when John entered the wood.

In the midst of some bushes he laid down on a great block of stone.

He was ashamed of himself,--that was the chief impression on his mind.

An emotional man is more severe with himself than others think.

He scourged himself unmercifully.

He had wished to shine in borrowed plumage, and so lied;

and in the second place he had insulted an innocent girl.

The first part of the accusation affected him in a very sensitive point,--his want of poetic capacity.

He wished to do more than he could.

He was discontent with the position which nature and society had assigned him.

Yes, but (and now his self-defence began after the evening air had cooled his blood), in the school one had been always exhorted to strive upwards; those who did so were praised, and discontent with the position one might happen to be in, was justified.

Yes but (here the scourge descended!

) he had tried to deceive.

To deceive!

That was unpardonable.

He was ashamed, stripped and unmasked without any means of retreat.

Deception, falsity, cheating!

So it was!

As a quondam Christian, John was most afraid of having a fault, and as a member of society he feared lest it should be visible.

Everybody knew that one had faults, but to acknowledge them was regarded as a piece of cynicism, for society always wishes to appear better than it is.

Sometimes, however, society demanded that one should confess one's fault if one wished for forgiveness, but that was a trick.

Society wished for confession in order to enjoy the punishment, and was very deceitful.

John had confessed his fault, been punished, and still his conscience was uneasy.

The second point regarding the girl was also difficult.

She had loved him purely and he had insulted her.

How coarse and vulgar!

Why should he think that a waitress could not love innocently?

His own mother had been in the same position as that girl.

He had insulted her.

Shame upon him!

Now he heard shouts in the park, and his name being called.

The girl's voice and his friend's echoed among the trees, but he did not answer them.

For a moment the scourge fell out of his hands; he became sobered and thought, "I will go back, we will have supper, call Riken and drink a glass with her, and it will be all over."

But no!

He was too high up and one cannot descend all at once.

The voices became silent.

He lay back in a state of semi-stupefaction and ground his double crime between the mill-stones of rumination.

He had lied and hurt her feelings.

It began to grow dark.

There was a rustling in the bushes; he started and a sweat broke out upon him.

Then he went out and sat upon a seat till the dew fell.

He shivered and felt poorly.

Then he got up and went home.

Now his head was clear and he could think.

What a stupid business it all was!

He did not really mean that she should take him for a poet, and had been quite ready to explain the whole trick.

It was all a joke.

His friend had made a fool of him, but it did not matter.

When he got home he found his friend sleeping in his bed.

He wanted to rise but John would not let him.

He wished to scourge himself once more.

He lay on the floor, put a cigar-box under his head and drew a volunteer's cloak over him.

In the morning when he awoke, John asked in trembling tones, "How did she take it?"

"Ah, she laughed; then we drank a glass, and it was over.

She liked the verses."

"She laughed!

Was she not angry?"

"Not at all."

"Then she only humbugged me."

John wished to hear no more.

This trifle had kept him on the rack for a whole dreadful night.

He felt ashamed of having asked whether she was disquieted about him.

But since she had laughed and drunk punch she could not have been.

Not even anxious about his life!

He dressed himself and went down to the school.

The habit of self-criticism derived from his religious training had accustomed him to occupy himself with his ego, to fondle and cherish it, as though it were a separate and beloved personality.

So cherished the ego expanded and kept continually looking within instead of without upon the world.

It was an interesting personal acquaintance, a friend who must be flattered, but who must also hear the truth and be corrected.

It was the mental malady of the time reduced to a system by Fichte, who taught that everything took place in the ego and through the ego, without which there was no reality.

It was the formula for romanticism and for subjective idealism.

"I stood on the shore under the king's castle," "I dwell in the cave of the mountain," "I, small boy, watch the door," "I think of the beautiful times,"--all these phrases struck the same note.

Was this "I" really so proud.

Was not the poet's "I" more modest than the editor's royal "we"?

This absorption in self, or the new malady of culture, of which much is written nowadays, has been common with all men who have not worked with their bodies.

The brain is only an organ for imparting movement to the muscles.

Now when in a civilised man the brain cannot act upon the muscles, nor bring its power into play, there results a disturbance of equilibrium.

The brain begins to dream; too full of juices which cannot be absorbed by muscular activity, it converts them involuntarily into systems, into thought-combinations, into the hallucinations which haunt painters, sculptors and poets.

If no outlet can be found, there follows stagnation, violent outbreaks, depression, and at last madness.

Schools which are often vestibules for asylums, have recourse to gymnastics, but with what result?

There is no connection between the pupil's cerebral activity and the muscular activity called into play by gymnastics; the latter is only directed by another's will through the word of command.

All studious youths are aware of this tendency to congestion of the brain.

It is a good thing that they often go out to improve or to beautify society, but it would be better if the equilibrium were restored, and a sound mind dwelt in a sound body.

It has been sought to introduce physical work into schools as a remedy.

It would be better to let elementary knowledge be acquired at home, to make the school a day-school, and to let every one look after himself.

For the rest the emancipation of the lower classes will compel the higher classes to undertake some of the physical labour now carried on by domestics and so the equilibrium will be restored.

That such labour does not blunt the intelligence can be easily seen by observing that some of the strongest minds of the time have had such daily contact with reality, _e.

g. _ Mill the civil service official, Spencer, the civil engineer, Edison the telegraphist.

The student period of life, the most unwholesome because not under discipline, is also the most dangerous.

The brain continually takes in, without producing anything, not even anything intellectual, while the whole muscular system is unoccupied.

John at this time was suffering from an over-production of thought and imagination.

The mechanical school-work continually revolving in the same circle with the same questions and answers afforded no relief.

It increased on the other hand his stock of observations of children and teachers.

There lay and fermented in his mind a quantity of experiences, perceptions, criticisms and thoughts without any order.

He therefore sought for society in order to speak his mind out.

But it was not sufficient, and as he did not find any one who was willing to act as a sounding-board, he took to declaiming poetry.

In the early sixties declamation was much the fashion.

In families they used to read aloud "The Kings of Salamis."

In the numerous volunteer concerts the same pieces were declaimed over and over again.

These declamations were what the quartette singing had been, an outlet for all the hope and enthusiasm called forth by the awakening of 1865. Since Swedes are neither born nor trained orators, they became singers and reciters, perhaps because their want of originality sought a ready-made means of expression.

They could execute but not create.

The same want of originality showed itself in the bachelor's gatherings where reciters of anecdotes were much in request.

This feeble and tedious form of amusement was superseded when the new questions of the day provided food for conversation and discussion.

One day John came to his friend the elementary school-teacher whom he found together with another young colleague.

When the conversation began to slacken, his friend produced a volume of Schiller, whose poems had just then appeared in a cheap edition and were bought mostly for that reason.

They opened "The Robbers" and read round in turn, John taking the part of Karl Moor.

The first scene of the first act took place between old Moor and Franz.

Then came the second scene: John read, "I am sick of this quill-driving age when I read of great men in Plutarch."

He did not know the play and had never seen bandits.

At first he read absent-mindedly, but his interest was soon aroused.

The play struck a new note.

He found his obscure dreams expressed in words; his rebellious criticisms printed.

Here then was another, a great and famous author who felt the same disgust at the whole course of education in school and university as he did, who would rather be Robinson Crusoe or a bandit than be enrolled in this army which is called society.

He read on; his voice shook, his cheeks glowed, his breast heaved: "They bar out healthy nature with tasteless conventionalities."

There it stood all in black and white.

"And that is Schiller!"

he exclaimed, "the same Schiller who wrote the tedious history of the Thirty Years' War, and the tame drama "Wallenstein" which is read in schools!"

Yes, it was the same man.

Here (in "The Robbers") he preached revolt, revolt against law, society, morals and religion.

That was in the revolt of 1781 eight years before the great revolution.

That was the anarchists' programme a hundred years before its time, and Karl Moor was a nihilist.

The drama came out with a lion on the title-page and with the inscription "In Tyrannos."

The author then (1781) aged two-and-twenty had to fly.

There was no doubt therefore about the intention of the piece.

There was also another motto from Hippocrates which showed this intention as plainly; "What is not cured by medicine must be cured by iron; what is not cured by iron must be cured by fire."

That was clear enough!

But in the preface the author apologised and recanted.

He disclaimed all sympathy with Franz Moor's sophisms and said that he wished to exhibit the punishment of wickedness in Karl Moor.

Regarding religion he said, "Just now it is the fashion to make religion a subject for one's wit to play upon as Voltaire and Frederick the Great did, and a man is scarcely reckoned a genius unless he can make the holiest truths the object of his godless satire...."

I hope I have exacted no ordinary revenge for religion and sound morality in handing over these obstinate despisers of Scripture in the person of this scoundrelly bandit, to public contumely.

Was then Schiller true when he wrote the drama, and false when he wrote the preface?

True in both cases, for man is a complex creature, and sometimes appears in his natural sometimes in his artificial character.

At his writing-table in loneliness, when the silent letters were being written down on paper, Schiller seems like other young authors to have worked under the influence of a blind natural impulse without regard to mens' opinion, without thinking of the public, or laws, or constitutions.

The veil was lifted for a moment and the falsity of society seen through in its whole extent.

The silence of the night when literary work--especially in youth,--is carried on, causes one to forget the noisy artificial life outside, and darkness hides the heaps of stones over which animals which are ill-adapted to their environment stumble.

Then comes the morning, the light of day, the street noises, men, friends, police, clocks striking, and the seer is afraid of his own thoughts.

Public opinion raises its cry, newspapers sound the alarm, friends drop off, it becomes lonely round one, and an irresistible terror seizes the attacker of society.

"If you will not be with us," society says, "then go into the woods.

If you are an animal ill-adapted to its environment, or a savage, we will deport you to a lower state of society which you will suit."

And from its own point of view society is right and always will be right.

But the society of the future will celebrate the revolter, the individual, who has brought about social improvement, and the revolter is justified long after his death.

In every intelligent youth's life there comes a moment when he is in the transition stage between family life and that of society, when he feels disgusted at artificial civilisation and breaks out.

If he remains in society, he is soon suppressed by the united wet-blankets of sentiment and anxiety about living; he becomes tired, dazzled, drops off and leaves other young men to continue the fight.

This unsophisticated glance into things, this outbreak of a healthy nature which must of necessity take place in an unspoilt youth, has been stigmatised by a name which is intended to depreciate the idealistic impulses of youth.

It is called "spring fever" by which is meant that it is only a temporary illness of childhood, a rising of the vernal sap, which produces stoppage of the circulation and giddiness.

But who knows whether the youth did not see right before society put out his eyes?

And why do they despise him afterwards?

Schiller had to creep into a public post for the sake of a living and even eat the bread of charity from a duke's hand.

Therefore his writing degenerated, though perhaps not from an æsthetic or subordinate point of view.

But his hatred of tyrants is everywhere manifest.

It declares itself against Philip II of Spain, Dorea of Genoa, Gessler of Austria, but therefore ceases to be effective.

Schiller's rebellion which was in the first instance directed against society, was afterwards directed against the monarchy alone.

He closes his career with the following advice to a world reformer (not, however, till he had seen the reaction which followed the French Revolution).

"For rain and dew and for the welfare of mankind, let heaven care to-day, my friend, as it has always done."

Heaven, the unfortunate old heaven will care for it, just as well as it has done before.

Just as a man once does his militia duty at the age of twenty-one, so Schiller did his.

How many have shirked it!

John did not take the preface to "The Robbers" very seriously or rather ignored it; but he took Karl Moor literally for he was congenial.

He did not imitate him, for he was so like him that he had no need to do so.

He was just as mutinous, just as wavering, and just as ready at an alarm to go and deliver himself into the hands of justice.

His disgust at everything continually increased and he began to make plans for flight from organised society.

Once it occurred to him to journey to Algiers and enlist in the Foreign Legion.

That would be fine he thought to live in the desert in a tent, to shoot at half-wild men or perhaps be shot by them.

But circumstances occurred at the right moment, to reconcile him again with his environment.

Through the recommendation of a friend he was offered the post of tutor to two girls in a rich and cultured family.

The children were to be educated in a new and liberal-minded method and neither to go to a girls' school nor have a governess.

That was an important task to which he was called and John did not feel himself adequate to it; besides which he objected that he was only an elementary school-teacher.

He was answered that his future employers knew that, but were liberal-minded.

How liberal-minded people were at that time!

Now there commenced a new double life for him.

From the penal institution of the elementary school with its compulsory catechism and Bible, its poverty, wretchedness, and cruelty, he went to dinner at one o'clock, which he swallowed in a quarter of an hour, and then by two o'clock was at his post as private tutor.

The house was one of the finest at that time in Stockholm with a porter, Pompeian stair-cases and painted windows in the hall.

In a handsome, large, well-lighted corner room with flowers, bird-cages and an aquarium he was to give lessons to two well-dressed, washed and combed little girls, who looked cheerful and satisfied after their dinner.

Here he could give expression to his own thoughts.

The catechism was banished, and only select Bible stories were to be read together with broad-minded explanations of the life and teachings of the Ideal Man, for the children were not to be confirmed, but brought up after a new model.

They read Schiller and were enthusiastic for William Tell and the fortunate little land of freedom.

John taught them all that he knew and spent more time in talking than in asking questions; he roused in them the hopes of a better future which he shared himself.

Here he obtained an insight into a social circle hitherto unknown to him, that of the rich and cultured.

Here he found liberal-mindedness, courage and the desire for truth.

Down below in the elementary school they were cowardly, conservative and untruthful.

Would the parents of the children be willing to have religious teaching done away with, even if the school authorities recommended it?

Probably not.

Must then illumination come from the upper classes?

Certainly, though not from the highest class of all, but from the republic of truth-seeking scientists.

John saw that one must get an upper place in order to be heard; therefore he must strive upwards or pull culture down and cast the sparks of it among all.

One needed to be economically independent in order to be liberally minded; a position was necessary in order to give one's words weight; thus aristocracy ruled in this sphere also.

There was at that time a group of young doctors, men of science and letters, and members of parliament who formed a liberal league without constituting themselves a formal society.

They gave popular lectures, engaged not to receive any honorary decorations, cherished liberal views on the subject of the State Church and wrote in the papers.

Among them were Axel Key, Nordenskiöld, Christian Loven, Harald Wieselgren, Hedlund, Victor Rydberg, Meijerberg, Jolin, and many less-known names.

These, with one or two exceptions, worked quietly without creating excitement.

After the reaction of 1872 they fell off and became tired;

they could not join any political party which was rather an advantage than otherwise for the country party had already begun to be corrupted by yearly visiting Stockholm and attendance at the court.

They now all belong to the moderate or respectable liberal party, except those of them who have joined the indifferents, a fact not to be wondered at, after they had for so many years fought uselessly for nothing.

Through the family of his pupils John came into external touch with this group, obtained a closer view of them, and heard their speeches at dinners and suppers.

To John they sometimes seemed the very men whom the time needed, who would first spread enlightenment and then work for reform.

Here he met the superintendent of the elementary school and was surprised at finding him among the liberals.

But he had the school authorities over him and was as good as powerless.

At a cheerful dinner, when John had plucked up heart, he wished to have an intimate talk with him and to come to an understanding.

"Here," he thought, "we can play the part of augurs and laugh with each other over our champagne."

But the superintendent did not want to laugh and asked him to postpone the conversation till they met in the school.

No, John did not want to do that, for in the school both would have other views, and speak of something else.

John's debts increased and so did his work.

He was in the school from eight till one; then he ate his dinner and went to give his private lessons within half-an-hour, arriving out of breath, with food half digested, and sleepy; then he taught till four o'clock going out afterwards to give more lessons in the Nordtullsgata; he returned to his girl pupils in the evening, and then read far into the night for his examination after ten hours' teaching.

That was over-work.

The pupil thinks his work hard, but he is only the carriage while the teacher is the horse.

Teaching is decidedly harder than standing by a screw or the crane of a machine, and equally monotonous.

His brain, dulled by work and disturbed digestion, needed to be roused, and his strength needed replenishing.

He chose the shortest and best method by going into a café, drinking a glass of wine, and sitting for a while.

It was good that there were such places of recreation, where young men could meet and fathers of families recruit themselves over a newspaper and talk of something else than business.

The following summer he went out to a summer settlement outside the city.

There he read daily for a couple of hours with his girl pupils and a whole number of children besides them.

The summer settlement afforded rich and varied opportunities of social intercourse.

It was divided into three camps,--the learned, the æsthetic and the civic.

John belonged to all three.

It has been asserted that loneliness injures the development of character (into an automaton), and if has been also asserted that much social intercourse is bad for the development of character.

Everything can be said and can be true; it all depends upon the point of view.

But no doubt for the development of the soul into a rich and free life much social intercourse is necessary.

The more men one sees and talks with, the more points of view and experiences one gains.

Every one conceals a grain of originality in himself, every individual has his own history.

John got on equally well with all; he spoke on learned matters with the learned, discussed art and literature with the æsthetes, sang quartettes and danced with the young people, taught the children and botanised, sailed, rode and swam with them.

But after he had spent some time in the rush, he withdrew into solitude for a day or two to digest his impressions.

Those who were really happy were the townsmen.

They came from their work in the town, shook off their cares and played in the evening.

Old wholesale merchants played in the ring and sang and danced like children.

The learned and the æsthetic on the other hand sat on chairs, spoke of their work, were worried by their thoughts as by nightmares and never seemed to be really happy.

They could not free themselves from the tyranny of thought.

The tradesmen, however, had preserved a little green spot in their hearts which neither the thirst for gain nor speculation nor competition had been able to parch up.

There was something emotional and hearty about them which John was inclined to call "nature."

They could laugh like lunatics, scream like savages, and be swayed by the emotions of the moment.

They wept over a friend's misfortune or death, embraced each other when delighted and could be carried out of themselves by a beautiful sunset.

The professors sat in chairs and could not see the landscape because of their eye-glasses, their looks were directed inwards, and they never showed their feelings.

They talked in syllogisms and formulas; their laughter was bitter, and all their learning seemed like a puppet play.

Is that then the highest point of view?

It is not a defect to have let a whole region of the soul's life lie fallow?

It was the third camp with which John was on the most intimate terms.

This was a little clique consisting of a doctor's family and their friends.

There sang the renowned tenor W. while Professor M. accompanied him; there played and sang the composer J. ; there the old Professor P. talked about his journeys to Rome in the company of painters of high birth.

Here the emotions had full play, but were under the control of good taste.

They enjoyed the sunsets, but analysed the lights and shades and talked of lines and "values."

The more noisy enjoyments of the tradesmen were regarded as disturbing and unæsthetic.

They were enthusiasts for art.

John spent some hours pleasantly with these amiable people, but when he heard the sound of quartette singing and dance-music from the villa close by, he longed to be there.

That was certainly more lively.

In hours of solitude he read, and now for the first time, became really acquainted with Byron.

"Don Juan," which he already knew, he had found merely frivolous.

It really dealt with nothing and the descriptions of scenery were intolerably long.

The work seemed merely a string of adventures and anecdotes.

In "Manfred" he renewed acquaintance with Karl Moor in another dress.

Manfred was no hater of men; he hated himself more, and went to the Alps in order to fly himself, but always found his guilty self beside him, for John guessed at once that he had been guilty of incest.

Nowadays it is generally believed that Byron hinted at this crime, which was purely imaginary, in order to make himself appear interesting.

To become interesting as a romanticist at whatever price would at the present time be called "differentiating oneself, going beyond and above the others."

Crime was regarded as a sign of strength, therefore it was considered desirable to have a crime to boast about, but not such a one as could be punished.

They did not want to have anything to do with the police and penal servitude.

There was certainly a spirit of opposition to law and morality in this boasting of crime.

Manfred's discontent with heaven and the government of Providence pleased John.

Manfred's denunciations of men were really levelled at society, though society as we now understand it, had not then been discovered.

Rousseau, Byron and the rest were by no means discontented misogynists.

It was only primitive Christianity which demanded that men should love men.

To say that one was interested in them would be more modest and truthful.

One who has been overreached and thrust aside in the battle of life may well fear men, but one cannot hate them when one realises one's solidarity with humanity and that human intercourse is the greatest pleasure in life.

Byron was a spirit who awoke before the others and might have been expected to hate his contemporaries, but none the less strove and suffered for the good of all.

When John saw that the poem was written in blank verse he tried to translate it, but had not got far, before he discovered that he could not write verse.

He was not "called."

Sometimes melancholy, sometimes frisky, John felt at times an uncontrollable desire to quench the burning fire of thought in intoxication and bring the working of his brain to a standstill.

Though he was shy, he felt occasionally impelled to step forward, to make himself impressive, to collect hearers and appear on a stage.

When he had drunk a good deal, he wanted to declaim poetry in the grand style.

But in the middle of the piece, when his ecstasy was at its highest, he heard his own voice, became nervous and embarrassed, found himself ridiculous, suddenly dropped into a prosaic and comic tone and ended with a grimace; he could be pathetic, but only for a while; then came self-criticism and he laughed at his own overwrought feelings.