Some time after his arrival
Tegner observed two young ladies, the daughters of the house, coming
across the yard carrying between them a big tub, full of water. When he
asked them, in a friendly way, why they subjected themselves to such
hard labor, one of them replied: "Should we not regard it as an honor to
be allowed to water the bishop's horses?"
In order to give a clear and coherent idea of Tegner in his prime, I
have been obliged to anticipate events. Many literary achievements which
I have left unrecorded belong to the period previous to his assumption
of the bishopric of Wexioe. Unhappily Professor Boettiger's edition is
very chary of dates, and as Dr. Brandes has truly observed, is arranged
with the obvious purpose of falsifying the sequence of Tegner's poems
and confusing the reader. The three periods--previous to 1812, 1812-40,
and 1840-46--are entirely arbitrary, and plainly devised with a view to
concealing, in so far as they are capable of concealment, the unhappy
events which undermined the strength of the Titan and wrecked his
splendid powers.
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