realist in the best sense of that much-misused word. He sought his
ideals _in_ life, instead of outside of it and above it in imaginary
creations. He saw nature such as it is, with all its faults and
sublimities, and, loving it with a true poet's devotion, he painted it
simply and faithfully, without aiming at ennobling it, but seeking and
finding what there is of native dignity in its humblest expressions.
In his lyrical poem, _The Sayings of Sergeant Stal_, he portrayed
incidents of the wars of Finland fighting by the side of Sweden in
1809, when the country was conquered by Russia. It was a series of war
pictures, a collection of hero types, painted in living colors, and
breathing the most ardent patriotism.--Simple tales told by a sergeant
of his recollections of the war, they deal with real personages, most
of them drawn from the humblest stations in life, described just as
they really lived and spoke and acted. Yet throughout the story of
their simple acts and thoughts there swept a breeze which kindled
the blood, roused the emotions; and fired the patriotic feeling of
Runeberg's contemporaries. In poetic depth and beauty of language,
as in style and conception, and in their departure from all the
prevailing ideas and methods of romanticism, these lyric tales were
a revelation. They classed their author at once as in the line of
true-born poets. The works of Runeberg, although properly belonging
to the literature of a country politically no longer one with Sweden,
have from the nature of their subjects and the identity of languages,
always been looked upon in Sweden as common property, and they have
certainly exercised a powerful influence on Swedish thought and
letters. Some of his songs, set to music, are to this day sung as
national anthems.

The last champion of dying romanticism was a sort of universal genius,
eccentric, _bizarre_, unequal, a spirit out of harmony with itself,