From this time forth the chapter of woman's faithlessness as woman is the standing theme with Tegnér. His letters are variations on this theme. It is impossible for him, for instance, to mention a good or a bad translation without either remarking that beautiful translations, like beautiful women, are not always the most faithful, or that fidelity and beauty are rarely good friends. He cannot speak of a gift from a woman without calling her heart the worst, the most dangerous, present she could make. Woman in general he regards henceforth as a sort of "society machine or musical box that sounds very nicely indeed, when properly wound up." As for love, it becomes so inclined to suicide that the moment it is no longer compelled to sigh in vain, it dies by its own hand. Of Ingeborg, he writes, "In the nature of the heart of woman, there certainly exists reason sufficient for her faithlessness to her lover, yet this fact must receive some sort of gilding from a poet who desire to behave politely to the fair sex." Indeed, so confirmed did Tegnér gradually become in this habit of describing woman as unreliable and fickle that many years later, when in the capacity of bishop he made his school addresses, he was unable to refrain from edifying the schoolboys with his theory. In an address of the year 1839 he calls the boys happy because of the wealth of hope that belongs to their youth. Then he adds, "Hope, in all languages known to me, is of the feminine gender, nor does it deny its sex. True, it deceives; but believe gladly, believe long in the fair deceiver, and clasp her to your bosom." Tegnér must undeniably have been very full of bitterness to give vent to it at so inopportune a moment and to so very unsuitable a public. But not this single passionate disharmony alone can be dated from the crisis indicated in the life of the poet; from this period, a more vehement, more passionate tone altogether began to manifest itself in his letters and in his poetry. Indeed, a truly Shakespearean tragic passion may be found in them. The world is out of joint, and how can it ever be set right again by Hamlet's arm. He no longer places reliance on Ophelia; she must get her to a nunnery if she will remain pure. For, frailty, thy name is woman! What is life? "A brief reprieve under the gallows." And what is the history of the world? "A dog's dance." A loathsome comedy is everything that Hamlet sees about him: "painted decorations for the stage with paper roses and theatrical sunshine." He could easily go mad over it; very likely it will at last make him mad; but first the lie and pitiful wretchedness of life must be unmasked, without mercy, without forbearance.