Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/19

 exhibited in this country. Added to these qualities, the Swede is usually a traveled, cultivated man, well grounded in the classics and apt in picking up modern languages. His success in engineering and other forms of modern industry shows him to be alert and thoroughly up to the times. He has also been quick to face modern social problems: feminism, class privilege, and internationalism. In short, the Swede is worth knowing and worth hearing. He is proficient in all the arts; in music, painting, sculpture, and literature; but native and foreign observers unite in maintaining that he probably shows himself best in poetry.

As to the fact that we have remained so long ignorant of Swedish verse, it can only be said, "the more's the pity." Many people have known of this hidden treasure. A century ago Goethe, and a generation afterwards Longfellow, admired the genius of Tegnér, and the latter translated one of his best poems. Runeberg, ranked as one of the world's greatest patriotic poets, has been frequently, though seldom adequately, done into English. The Encyclopedia Britannica also gives separate biographies to Bellman, Snoilsky, Viktor Rydberg, and Levertin. Theodore Roosevelt in his Autobiography tells us that he found time to read and enjoy the works of Topelius. Scholars have always known about Swedish poetry, but this knowledge has never happened to become popular. Verse rendition from Swedish to English is not especially difficult, as the