The dread of insanity became an _idee fixe_ with him; and the
pathetic cry, "God preserve my reason," rings again and again through
his private correspondence. One of his brothers was insane; and he
fancied that there must be a taint in his blood which menaced him with
the same tragic doom.
Happily, he could as yet conjure the storm. It hung threateningly on the
horizon of his mind, with mutterings of thunder and stray flashes of
lightning. But his poetic bark still sped along with full sails, bravely
breasting the waves.
"Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummt
Gab mir ein Gott zu sagen was ich leide,"
says Goethe. And this divine gift of saying, or, better still, of
singing, what he suffered made Tegner, during this period, master of his
sufferings. They did not overwhelm him and ruin his usefulness. On the
contrary, these were the most active and fruitful years of his life. But
it was the deep agitation which possessed him--it was the suppressed
tumult of his strong soul which vibrated through "Frithjof" and which
imparted to it that vital quality, that moving ring which arouses the
deeper feelings in the human heart.
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