org Brandes: Esaias Tegner, pp. 17-19.

In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegner's collected works I
am much struck with the force of this criticism. The brave man who
defies the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears into dangers,
without counting the odds against him, is the typical juvenile hero; and
it is strange, though by no means incomprehensible, that a man like
Tegner, who could betray such political insight as is shown in his
letters to Franzen and Leopold had not really gotten beyond this
primitive type of excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not
desirable that he should. For the tremendous popularity which greeted
"Frithjof's Saga" was due in no small measure to this half-juvenile
robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot help regretting in myself
the loss of my boyish appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and
mysterious treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from deploring Tegner's
delight in the insane prowess of Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous
gallantry of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness in it
which makes one, on the whole, like him the more.

It might well be said of Tegner, as he said of Luther, that his word was
half a battle. At all events he accomplished by his speeches a complete
overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without engaging in the
barren polemics to which they invited him. He waited until some
appropriate public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of the fulness
of his conviction. And his words spread like undulating waves of light
from one end of the land to the other, finding lodgement in thousands
of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at the "magister promotion"[36]
in Lund (1820) was a direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against
that mystic obscurity which, according to the Phosphorists, was
inseparable from the highest and deepest poetic utterance:

"In vain they call upon the lofty Truth
With sombre conjurations; for the dark
She ne'er endures; for her abode is light.
In Phoebus' world, in knowledge as in song,
All things are bright. Bright beams the radiant sun;
Clear runs and pure his bright Castalian fountain.
Whate'er thou canst not clearly say thou know'st not.
Twin-born with thought is word on lips of man;
That which is darkly said is darkly thought;
For wisdom true is like the diamond,
A drop that's petrified of heavenly light;
The purer that it i