"[33]
[33] Quoted from G. Brandes: Esaias Tegner: En
Litteraturpsychologisk Studie. Kjoebenhavn, 1878, pp. 87 and 88.
Living as he did in an age of general disillusion, Tegner performed an
important service in endeavoring to stem with the full force of his
personality the rising tide of reaction. How much he accomplished in
this direction is difficult to estimate, for we can never know what turn
Swedish affairs might have taken, if his clarion voice had not been
heard. But it could scarcely fail that such a speech as the one at the
Festival of the Reformation (1817), delivered in the presence of a large
assembly of scholars and public men, must have made a great impression,
and in a hundred direct and indirect ways affected public opinion.
Luther is to Tegner a hero of liberty, a breaker of human shackles, a
deliverer from spiritual bondage and gloom.
"Luther was one of those rare historical characters who always, in
whatever they undertake, by their very manner, surprise, and indelibly
impress themselves upon the memory.
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