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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19908-8.txt b/19908-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86ab981 --- /dev/null +++ b/19908-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays on Scandinavian Literature, by Hjalmar +Hjorth Boyesen + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays on Scandinavian Literature + + +Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen + + + +Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19908] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Clare Boothby and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE + +by + +HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN + + + + * * * * * + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + + Goethe and Schiller. Their Lives and Works; with a commentary on "Faust." + Essays on German Literature. + Essays on Scandinavian Literature. + A Commentary on the Writings of Henrik Ibsen. + Literary and Social Silhouettes. + The Story of Norway. + Gunnar. + Tales from Two Hemispheres. + A Norseman's Pilgrimage. + Falconberg. A Novel. + Queen Titania. + Ilka on the Hill-top, and Other Tales. + A Daughter of the Philistines. + The Light of Her Countenance. + Vagabond Tales. + The Mammon of Unrighteousness. + The Golden Calf. + Social Strugglers. + Idyls of Norway, and Other Poems. + + +THE NORSELAND SERIES (JUVENILE). + + The Modern Vikings: Stories of Life and Sport in the Northland. + Against Heavy Odds, and A Fearless Trio. + Boyhood in Norway. + Norseland Tales. + + + + * * * * * + + + +ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE + +by + +HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN + +Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures in +Columbia College + + + + + + + +London +David Nutt, 270, Strand +1895. + +Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons +for the United States of America +Printed by the Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company +New York, U. S. A. + + + + +PREFACE + + +Some twenty years ago the ambition seized me to write a History of +Scandinavian Literature. I scarcely realized then what an enormous +amount of reading would be required to equip me for this task. My +studies naturally led me much beyond the scope of my original intention. +There was a fascination in the work which lured me perpetually on, and +made me explore with a constantly increasing zest the great literary +personalities of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Thus my chapter on Henrik +Ibsen grew into a book of three hundred and seventeen pages, which was +published a year ago, and must be regarded as supplementary to the +present volume. The chapter on Björnstjerne Björnson was in danger of +expanding to similar proportions, and only the most heroic condensation +saved it from challenging criticism as an independent work. As regards +Norway and Denmark, I have endeavored to select all the weightiest and +most representative names. The Swedish authors Johan Ludvig Runeberg, +Mrs. Edgren, and August Strindberg, and the Dane Oehlenschlaeger, +necessity has compelled me to reserve for a future volume. + +COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK, + +February, 1895. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON, 3 + + ALEXANDER KIELLAND, 107 + + JONAS LIE, 121 + + HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, 155 + + CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE, 181 + + GEORG BRANDES, 199 + + ESAIAS TEGNÉR, 219 + + + + +BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON + + +I + +Björnstjerne Björnson is the first Norwegian poet who can in any sense +be called national. The national genius, with its limitations as well as +its virtues, has found its living embodiment in him. Whenever he opens +his mouth it is as if the nation itself were speaking. If he writes a +little song, hardly a year elapses before its phrases have passed into +the common speech of the people; composers compete for the honor of +interpreting it in simple, Norse-sounding melodies, which gradually work +their way from the drawing-room to the kitchen, the street, and thence +out over the wide fields and highlands of Norway. His tales, romances, +and dramas express collectively the supreme result of the nation's +experience, so that no one to-day can view Norwegian life or Norwegian +history except through their medium. The bitterest opponent of the poet +(for like every strong personality he has many enemies) is thus no less +his debtor than his warmest admirer. His speech has stamped itself upon +the very language and given it a new ring, a deeper resonance. His +thought fills the air, and has become the unconscious property of all +who have grown to manhood and womanhood since the day when his titanic +form first loomed up on the horizon of the North. It is not only as +their first and greatest poet that the Norsemen love and hate him, but +also as a civilizer in the widest sense. But like Kadmus, in Greek myth, +he has not only brought with him letters, but also the dragon-teeth of +strife, which it is to be hoped will not sprout forth in armed men. + +A man's ancestry and environment, no doubt, account in a superficial +manner for his appearance and mental characteristics. Having the man, we +are able to trace the germs of his being in the past of his race and his +country; but, with all our science we have not yet acquired the +ingenuity to predict the man--to deduce him _a priori_ from the tangle +of determining causes which enveloped his birth. It seems beautifully +appropriate in the Elder Edda that the god-descended hero Helge the +Völsung should be born amid gloom and terror in a storm which shakes the +house, while the Norns--the goddesses of fate--proclaim in the tempest +his tempestuous career. Equally satisfactory it appears to have the +modern champion of Norway--the typical modern Norseman--born on the +bleak and wild Dovre Mountain,[1] where there is winter eight months of +the year and cold weather during the remaining four. The parish of +Kvikne, in Oesterdalen, where his father, the Reverend Peder Björnson, +held a living, had a bad reputation on account of the unruly ferocity +and brutal violence of the inhabitants. One of the Reverend Peder +Björnson's recent predecessors never went into his pulpit, unarmed; and +another fled for his life. The peasants were not slow in intimating to +the new pastor that they meant to have him mind his own business and +conform to the manners and customs of the parish; but there they +reckoned without their host. The reverend gentleman made short work of +the opposition. He enforced the new law of compulsory education without +heeding its unpopularity; and when the champion fighter of the valley +came as the peasants' spokesman to take him to task in summary fashion, +he found himself, before he was aware of it, at the bottom of the +stairs, where he picked himself up wonderingly and promptly took to his +heels. + + [1] December 8, 1832. + +During the winter the snow reached up to the second-story windows of the +parsonage; and the servants had to tunnel their way to the storehouse +and the stables. The cold was so intense that the little Björnstjerne +thought twice before touching a door knob, as his fingers were liable to +stick to the metal. When he was six years old, however, his father was +transferred to Romsdal, which is, indeed, a wild and grandly picturesque +region; but far less desolate than Dovre. "It lies," says Björnson, +"broad--bosomed between two confluent fjords, with a green mountain +above, cataracts and homesteads on the opposite shore, waving meadows +and activity in the bottom of the valley; and all the way out toward the +ocean, mountains with headland upon headland running out into the fjord +and a large farm upon each." + +The feeling of terror, the crushing sense of guilt which Björnson has so +strikingly portrayed in the first chapters of "In God's Way," were +familiar to his own childhood. In every life, as in every race, the God +of fear precedes the God of love. And in Northern Norway, where nature +seems so tremendous and man so insignificant, no boy escapes these +phantoms of dread which clutch him with icy fingers. But as a +counterbalancing force in the young Björnson, we have his confidence in +the strength and good sense of his gigantic father, who could thrash the +strongest champion in the parish. He used to stand in the evening on the +beach "and gaze at the play of the sunshine upon fjord and mountain, +until he wept, as if he had done something wrong. Now he would suddenly +stop in this or that valley, while running on skees, and stand +spell-bound by its beauty and a longing which he could not comprehend, +but which was so great that in the midst of the highest joy he was +keenly conscious of a sense of confinement and sorrow."[2] "We catch a +glimpse in these childish memories," says Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen, "of the +remarkable character, we are about to depict: Being the son of a giant, +he is ever ready to strike out with a heavy hand, when he thinks that +anyone is encroaching upon what he deems the right. But this same +pugnacious man, whom it is so hard to overcome, can be overwhelmed by an +emotion and surrender himself to it with his whole being." + + [2] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, pp. 450, 451. + +At the age of twelve Björnson was sent to the Latin school at Molde, +where, however, his progress was not encouraging. He was one of those +thoroughly healthy and headstrong boys who are the despair of ambitious +mothers, and whom fathers (when the futility of educational chastisement +has been finally proved) are apt to regard with a resigned and +half-humorous regret. His dislike of books was instinctive, hearty, and +uncompromising. His strong, half-savage boy-nature could brook no +restraints, and looked longingly homeward to the wide mountain plains, +the foaming rivers where the trout leaped in the summer night, and the +calm fjord where you might drift blissfully along, as it were, suspended +in the midst of the vast, blue, ethereal space. And when the summer +vacation came, with its glorious freedom and irresponsibility, he would +roam at his own sweet will through forest and field, until hunger and +fatigue forced him to return to his father's parsonage. + +After several years of steadily unsuccessful study, Björnson at last +passed the so-called _examen artium_, which admitted him to the +University of Christiania. He was now a youth of large, almost athletic +frame, with a handsome, striking face, and a pair of blue eyes which no +one is apt to forget who has ever looked into them. There was a certain +grand simplicity and _naīveté_ in his manner, and an exuberance of +animal spirits which must have made him an object of curious interest +among his town-bred fellow-students. But his University career was of +brief duration. All the dimly fermenting powers of his rich nature were +now beginning to clarify, the consciousness of his calling began to +assert itself, and the demand for expression became imperative. His +literary _début_ was an historic drama entitled "Valborg," which was +accepted for representation by the directors of the Christiania Theatre, +and procured for its author a free ticket to all theatrical +performances; it was, however, never brought on the stage, as Björnson, +having had his eyes opened to its defects, withdrew it of his own +accord. + +At this time the Norwegian stage was almost entirely in the hands of the +Danes, and all the more prominent actors were of Danish birth. +Theatrical managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures of Danish +literature, and occasionally, to replenish the exchequer, reproduced a +French comedy or farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were more than +half-spoiled in the translation. The drama was as yet an exotic in +Norway; it had no root in the national soil, and could accordingly in no +respect represent the nation's own struggles and aspirations. The +critics themselves, no doubt, looked upon it merely as a form of +amusement, a thing to be wondered and stared at, and to be dismissed +from the mind as soon as the curtain dropped. Björnson, whose patriotic +soul could not endure the thought of this abject foreign dependence, +ascribed all the existing abuses to the predominance of the Danish +element, and in a series of vehement articles attacked the Danish +actors, managers, and all who were in any way responsible for the +unworthy condition of the national stage. In return he reaped, as might +have been expected, an abundant harvest of abuse, but the discussion he +had provoked furnished food for reflection, and the rapid development of +the Norwegian drama during the next decade is, no doubt, largely +traceable to his influence. + +The liberty for which he had yearned so long, Björnson found at the +International Students' Reunion of 1856. Then the students of the +Norwegian and Danish Universities met in Upsala, where they were +received with grand festivities by their Swedish brethren. Here the poet +caught the first glimpse of a greater and freer life than moved within +the narrow horizon of the Norwegian capital. This gay and careless +student-life, this cheerful abandonment of all the artificial shackles +which burden one's feet in their daily walk through a bureaucratic +society, the temporary freedom which allows one without offence to toast +a prince and hug a count to one's bosom--all this had its influence +upon Björnson's sensitive nature; it filled his soul with a happy +intoxication and with confidence in his own strength. And having once +tasted a life like this he could no more return to what he had left +behind him. + +The next winter we find him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity of +creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking appearance, +the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain _naīve_ self-assertion +and impatience of social restraints made him a notable figure in the +polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish capital. There was +a general expectation at that time that a great poet was to come, and +although Björnson had as yet published nothing to justify the +expectation, he found the public of Copenhagen ready to recognize in him +the man who was to rouse the North from its long intellectual torpor, +and usher in a new era in its literature. It is needless to say that he +did not discourage this belief, for he himself fervently believed that +he would before long justify it. The first proof of his strength he gave +in the tale "Synnöve Solbakken" (Synnöve Sunny-Hill), which he published +in an illustrated weekly, and afterward in book-form. It is a very +unpretending little story, idyllic in tone, but realistic in its +coloring, and redolent of the pine and spruce and birch of the Norwegian +highlands. + +It had been the fashion in Norway since the nation regained its +independence to interest one's self in a lofty, condescending way in +the life of the peasantry. A few well-meaning persons, like the poet +Wergeland, had labored zealously for their enlightenment and the +improvement of their economic condition; but, except in the case of such +single individuals, no real and vital sympathy and fellow-feeling had +ever existed between the upper and the lower strata of Norwegian +society. And as long as the fellow-feeling is wanting, this zeal for +enlightenment, however laudable its motive, is not apt to produce +lasting results. The peasants view with distrust and suspicion whatever +comes to them from their social superiors, and the so-called "useful +books," which were scattered broadcast over the land, were of a +tediously didactic character, and, moreover, hardly adapted to the +comprehension of those to whom they were ostensibly addressed. Wergeland +himself, with all his self-sacrificing ardor, had but a vague conception +of the real needs of the people, and, as far as results were concerned, +wasted much of his valuable life in his efforts to improve, edify and +instruct them. It hardly occurred to him that the culture of which he +and his colleagues were the representatives was itself a foreign +importation, and could not by any violent process be ingrafted upon the +national trunk, which drew its strength from centuries of national life, +history, and tradition. That this peasantry, whom the _bourgeoisie_ and +the aristocracy of culture had been wont to regard with half-pitying +condescension, were the real representatives of the Norse nation; that +they had preserved through long years of tyranny and foreign oppression +the historic characteristics of their Norse forefathers, while the upper +classes had gone in search of strange gods, and bowed their necks to the +foreign yoke; that in their veins the old strong saga-life was still +throbbing with vigorous pulse-beats--this was the lesson which Björnson +undertook to teach his countrymen, and a very fruitful lesson it has +proved to be. It has inspired the people with renewed courage, it has +turned the national life into fresh channels, and it has revolutionized +national politics. + +To be sure all this was not the result of the idyllic little tale which +marked the beginning of his career. But this little tale, although no +trace of what the Germans call "tendency" is to be found in it, is still +significant as being the poet's first indirect manifesto, and as such +distinctly foreshadowing the path which he has since followed. + +First, in its purely literary aspect, "Synnöve Solbakken" was strikingly +novel. The author did not, as his predecessors had done, view the people +from the exalted pedestal of superior culture; not as a subject for +benevolent preaching and charitable condescension, but as a concrete +phenomenon, whose _raison d'étre_ was as absolute and indisputable as +that of the _bourgeoisie_ or the bureaucracy itself. He depicted their +soul-struggles and the incidents of their daily life with a loving +minuteness and a vivid realism hitherto unequalled in the literature of +the North. He did not, like Auerbach, construct his peasant figures +through laborious reflection, nor did he attempt by anxious +psychological analysis to initiate the reader into their processes of +thought and emotion. He simply depicted them as he saw and knew them. +Their feelings and actions have their immediate, self-evident motives in +the characters themselves, and the absence of analysis on the author's +part gives an increased energy and movement to the story. + +Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen relates, _ā propos_ of the reception which was +accorded Björnson's first book, the following amusing anecdote: + +"'Synnöve Solbakken' was printed, and its author was anxious to have his +friends read it. But not one of them could be prevailed upon. At last a +comrade was found who was persuaded to attack it on the promise of a +bottle of punch. He entered Björnson's den, got a long pipe which he +filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely--for it was a hot +day--flung himself on the bed, and began to read. Björnson sat in the +sofa, breathless with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; not a +smile, not a single encouraging word! The young poet had good reason to +regard the battle as lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book +were finished. Then the merciless Stoic rose and began to dress, and the +following little exclamation escaped him: 'That is, the devil take me, +the best book I have read in all my life.'" + +Björnson's style was no less novel than his theme. It may or it may not +have been consciously modelled after the saga style, to which, however, +it bears an obvious resemblance. In his early childhood, while he lived +among the peasants, he became familiar with their mode of thought and +speech, and it entered into his being, and became his own natural mode +of expression. There is in his daily conversation a certain grim +directness, and a laconic weightiness, which give an air of importance +and authority even to his simplest utterances. This tendency to +compression frequently has the effect of obscurity, not because his +thought is obscure, but rather because energetic brevity of expression +has fallen into disuse, and even a Norse public, long accustomed to the +wordy diffuseness of latter-day bards, have in part lost the faculty to +comprehend the genius of their own language. As a Danish critic wittily +observed: "Björnson's language is but one step removed from pantomime." + +In 1858 Björnson assumed the directorship of the theatre in Bergen, and +there published his second tale, "Arne," in which the same admirable +self-restraint, the same implicit confidence in the intelligence +of his reader, the same firm-handed decision and vigor in the +character-drawing, in fact, all the qualities which delighted the public +in "Synnöve Solbakken," were found in an intensified degree. + +In the meanwhile, Björnson had also made his _début_ as a dramatist. In +the year 1858 he had published two dramas, "Mellem Slagene" (Between the +Battles) and "Halte-Hulda" (Limping Hulda) both of which deal with +national subjects, taken from the old sagas. As in his tales he had +endeavored to concentrate into a few strongly defined types the modern +folk-life of the North, so in his dramas the same innate love of his +nationality leads him to seek the typical features of his people, as +they are revealed in the historic chieftains of the past. + +"Between the Battles" is a dramatic episode rather than a drama. During +the civil war between King Sverre and King Magnus in the twelfth +century, the former visits in disguise a hut upon the mountains where a +young warrior, Halvard Gjaela and Inga, his beloved, are living +together. The long internecine strife has raised the hand of father +against son, and of brother against brother. Halvard sympathizes with +Sverre; Inga, who hates the king because he has burned her father's +farm, is a partisan of Magnus. In the absence of her lover she goes to +the latter's camp and brings back with her a dozen warriors for the +purpose of capturing Halvard, and thereby preventing him from joining +the enemy. Sverre discovers the warriors, whom she has hidden in the +cow-stable, and persuading them that he is a spy for King Magnus sends +two of them to his own army for reinforcements. In the meanwhile he +reconciles the estranged lovers, makes peace between them and Inga's +father, and finally, in the last scene, as his men arrive, is recognized +as the king. + +This is, of course, a venerable _coup de théâtre_. Whatever novelty +there is in the play must be sought, not in the situations, but in the +pithy and laconic dialogue, which has a distinct national coloring. This +was not the amiable diffuseness of Oehlenschlaeger, who had hitherto +dominated the Norwegian as well as the Danish stage; and yet it did not +by any means represent so complete a breach with the traditions of the +romantic drama as was claimed by Björnson's admirers. The fresh +naturalness and absence of declamation were a gain, no doubt; but there +are yet several notes remaining which have the well-known romantic +cadence. "Between the Battles," though too slight to be called an +achievement, was accepted as a pledge of achievement in future. + +Björnson's next drama "Limping Hulda" ("Halte-Hulda") (1858) was a +partial fulfilment of this pledge. If it is not high tragedy, in the +ancient sense, it is of the stuff that tragedy is made of. Hulda is an +impressive stage figure in her demoniac passion and tiger-like +tenderness. Though I doubt if Björnson has, in this type, caught the +soul of a Norse woman of the saga age, he has come much nearer to +catching it than any of his predecessors. If Gudrun Osvif's Daughter, of +the Laxdoela Saga, was his model, he has modernized her considerably, +and thereby made her more intelligible to modern readers. Like her, +Hulda causes the murder of the man she loves; and there is a fateful +spell about her beauty which brings death to whomsoever looks too long +upon it. Though ostensibly a saga-drama, the harshness and grim ferocity +of that sanguinary period are softened; and a romantic illumination +pervades the whole action. A certain lyrical effusiveness in the love +passages (which is alien to all Björnson's later works) hints at the +influence of the Danish Romanticists, and particularly Oehlenschlaeger. + +It would be unfair, perhaps, to take the author to task because this +youthful drama exhibits no remarkable subtlety in its conception of +character. It contains no really great living figure who stands squarely +upon his feet and lingers in the memory. A certain half-rhetorical +impulse carries you along; and the external effectiveness of the +situations keeps the interest on the alert. For all that "Limping +Hulda," like its predecessors and its successors, tended to stimulate +powerfully the national spirit, which was then asserting itself in every +department of intellectual activity. Thus a national theatre had, by the +perseverance and generosity of Ole Bull, been established in his native +city, Bergen; and it was almost a matter of course that an effort should +be made to identify Björnson with an enterprise which accorded so well +with his own aspirations. His connection with the Norwegian Theatre of +Bergen was, however, not of long duration, for though your enthusiasm +may be ever so great it is a thankless task to act as "artistic +director" of a stage in a town which is neither artistic enough nor +large enough to support a playhouse with a higher aim than that of +furnishing ephemeral amusement. From Bergen he was called to the +editorship of _Aftenbladet_ (The Evening Journal), the second political +daily of Christiania, and continued there with hot zeal and eloquence +his battle for "all that is truly Norse." + +But a brief experience sufficed to convince him that daily journalism +was not his _forte_. He was and is too indiscreet, precipitate, +credulous, and inconsiderately generous to be a successful editor. If a +paper could be conducted on purely altruistic principles, and without +reference to profits, there would be no man fitter to occupy an +editorial chair. For as an inspiring force, as a radiating focus of +influence, his equal is not to be encountered "in seven kingdoms round." +However, this inspiring force could reach a far larger public through +published books than through the columns of a newspaper. It was +therefore by no means in a regretful frame of mind that he descended +from the editorial tripod, and in the spring of 1860 started for Italy. +Previous to his departure he published, through the famous house of +Gyldendal, in Copenhagen, a volume which, it is no exaggeration to say, +has become a classic of Norwegian literature. It bears the modest title +"Smaa-stykker" (Small Pieces), but it contains, in spite of its +unpretentiousness, some of Björnson's noblest work. I need only mention +the masterly tale "The Father," with its sobriety and serene strength. I +know but one other instance[3] of so great tragedy, told in so few and +simple words. "Arne," "En Glad Gut" (A Happy Boy), and the amusing +dialect story, "Ei Faarleg Friing" (A Dangerous Wooing), also belong to +this delightful collection. These little masterpieces of concise +story-telling have been included in the popular two-volume edition of +"Fortällinger," which contains also "The Fisher-maiden" (1867-68), the +exquisite story, "The Bridal March" (1872), originally written as text +to three of Tidemand's paintings, and a vigorous bit of disguised +autobiography, "Blakken," of which not the author but a horse is the +ostensible hero. + + [3] Austin Dobson's poem, "The Cradle." + +The descriptive name for all these tales, except the last, is idyl. It +was, indeed, the period when all Europe (outside the British empire) was +viewing the hardy sons of the soil through poetic spectacles. In Germany +Auerbach had, in his "Black Forest Village Tales" (1843, 1853, 1854), +discarded the healthful but unflattering realism of Jeremias Gotthelf +(1797-1854), and chosen, with a half-didactic purpose, to contrast the +peasant's honest rudeness and straightforwardness with the refined +sophistication and hypocrisy of the higher classes. George Sand, with +her beautiful Utopian genius, poured forth a torrent of rural narrative +of a crystalline limpidity ("Mouny Robin," "La Mare au Diable," "La +Petite Fadette," etc., 1841-1849), which is as far removed from the +turbid stream of Balzac ("Les Paysans") and Zola ("La Terre"), as +Paradise is from the Inferno. There is an echo of Rousseau's gospel of +nature in all these tales, and the same optimistic delusion regarding +"the people" for which the eighteenth century paid so dearly. The +painters likewise caught the tendency, and with the same thorough-going +conscientiousness as their brethren of the quill, disguised coarseness +as strength, bluntness as honesty, churlishness as dignity. What an +idyllic sweetness there is, for instance, in Tidemand's scenes of +Norwegian peasant life! What a _spirituelle_ and movingly sentimental +note in the corresponding German scenes of Knaus and Hübner, and, _longo +intervallo_, Meyerheim and Meyer von Bremen. Not a breath of the broad +humor of Teniers and Van Ostade in these masters; scarcely a hint of the +robust animality and clownish jollity with which the clear-sighted +Dutchmen endowed their rural revellers. Though pictorial art has not, +outside of Russia (where the great and unrivalled Riepin paints the +peasant with the brush as remorselessly as Tolstoī and Dostoyefski with +the pen), kept pace with the realistic movement in literature, yet there +is no lack of evidence that the rose-colored tinge is vanishing even +from the painter's spectacles; and such uncompromising veracity as that +of Millet and Courbet, which the past generation despised, is now hailed +with acclaim in such masters as Bastien-Lepage, Dagnan-Bouveret, and +the Scandinavians, Kristian Krog and Anders Zorn. + +Björnson is, however, temperamentally averse to that modern naturalism +which insists upon a minute fidelity to fact without reference to +artistic values. His large and spacious mind has a Southern exposure, +and has all "its windows thrown wide open to the sun." A sturdy +optimism, which is prone to believe good of all men, unless they happen +to be his political antagonists, inclines him to overlook what does not +fit into his own scheme of existence. And yet no one can say that, as +presentations of Norwegian peasant life, "Synnöve," "Arne," "The Bridal +March," etc., are untrue, though, indeed, one could well imagine +pictures in very much sombrer colors which might lay a valider claim to +veracity. Kielland's "Laboring People," and Kristian Elster's "A Walk to +the Cross" and "Kjeld Horge," give the reverse of the medal of which +Björnson exhibits the obverse. These authors were never in any way +identified with "the people," and could not help being struck with many +of the rude and unbeautiful phases of rural existence; while Björnson, +who sprang directly from the peasantry, had the pride and intelligence +of kinship, and was not yet lifted far enough above the life he depicted +to have acquired the cultivated man's sense of condescension and +patronizing benevolence. He was but one generation removed from the +soil; and he looked with a strong natural sympathy and affectionate +predilection upon whatever reminded him of this origin. If he had been a +peasant, however, he could never have become the wonderful chronicler +that he is. It is the elevation, slight though it be, which enables him +to survey the fields in which his fathers toiled and suffered. Or, to +quote Mr. Rolfsen: "Björnson is the son of a clergyman; he has never +himself personally experienced the peasant's daily toil and narrow +parochial vision. He has felt the power of the mountains over his mind, +and been filled with longing, as a grand emotion, but the contractedness +of the spiritual horizon has not tormented him. He has not to take that +into account when he writes. During the tedious school-days, his +beautiful Romsdal valley lay waiting for him, beckoning him home at +every vacation--always alluring and radiant, with an idyllic shimmer." + +Hence, no doubt, his sunny poetic vision which unconsciously idealizes. +Just as in daily intercourse he displays a positive genius for drawing +out what is good in a man, and brushes away as of small account what +does not accord with his own conception of him, nay, in a measure, +forces him to be as he believes him to be, so every character in these +early tales seems to bask in the genial glow of his optimism. The farm +Solbakken (Sunny Hill) lies on a high elevation, where the sun shines +from its rise to its setting, and both Synnöve and her parents walk +about in this still and warm illumination. They are all good, estimable +people, and their gentle piety, without any tinge of fanaticism, invests +them with a quiet dignity. The sterner and hardier folk at Granliden +(Pine Glen) have a rugged honesty and straightforwardness which, in +connection with their pithy and laconic speech, makes them less genial, +but no less typically Norse. They have a distinct atmosphere and spinal +columns that keep them erect, organic, and significant. Even +reprehensible characters like Aslak and Nils Tailor (in "Arne") have a +certain claim upon our sympathy, the former as a helpless victim of +circumstance, the latter as a suppressed and perverted genius. + +In the spring of 1860 Björnson went abroad and devoted three years to +foreign travel, spending the greater part of his time in Italy. From +Rome he sent home the historical drama "King Sverre" (1861), which is +one of his weakest productions. It is written in blank verse, with +occasional rhymes in the more impressive passages. Of dramatic interest +in the ordinary sense, there is but little. It is a series of more or +less animated scenes, from the period of the great civil war +(1130-1240), connected by the personality of Sverre. Under the mask, +however, of mediæval history, the author preaches a political sermon to +his own contemporaries. Sverre, as the champion of the common people +against the tribal aristocracy, and the wily Bishop Nicholas as the +representative of the latter become, as it were, permanent forces, which +have continued their battle to the present day. There can be no doubt +that Björnson, whose sympathies are strongly democratic, permitted the +debate between the two to become needlessly didactic, and strained +historical verisimilitude by veiled allusions to contemporaneous +conditions. Greatly superior is his next drama, "Sigurd Slembe"[4] +(1862). + + [4] An English version of "Sigurd Slembe" has been published by + William Morton Payne (Boston, 1888). + +The story of the brave and able pretender, Sigurd Slembe, in his +struggle with the vain and mean-spirited king, Harold Gille, is the +theme of the dramatic trilogy. Björnson attempts to give the spiritual +development of Sigurd from the moment he becomes acquainted with his +royal birth until his final destruction. From a frank and generous +youth, who is confident that he is born for something great, he is +driven by the treachery, cruelty, and deceit of his brother, the king, +into the position of a desperate outlaw and guerilla. The very first +scene, in the church of St. Olaf, where the boy confides to the saint, +in a tone of _bonne camaraderie_, his joy at having conquered, in +wrestling, the greatest champion in the land, gives one the key-note to +his character: + + "Now only listen to me, saintly Olaf! + To-day I whipped young Beintein! Beintein was + The strongest man in Norway. Now am I! + Now I can walk from Lindesnäs and on, + Up to the northern boundary of the snow, + For no one step aside or lift my hat. + There where I am, no man hath leave to fight, + To make a tumult, threaten, or to swear-- + Peace everywhere! And he who wrong hath suffered + Shall justice find, until the laws shall sing. + And as before the great have whipped the small, + So will I help the small to whip the great. + Now I can offer counsel at the Thing, + Now to the king's board I can boldly walk + And sit beside him, saying 'Here am I!'" + +The exultation in victory which speaks in every line of this opening +monologue marks the man who, in spite of the obscurity of his origin, +feels his right to be first, and who, in this victory, celebrates the +attainment of his birthright. Equally luminous by way of +characterization is his exclamation to St. Olaf when he hears that he is +King Magnus Barefoot's son: + + "Then we are kinsmen, Olaf, you and I!" + +According to Norwegian law at that time, every son of a king was +entitled to his share of the kingdom, and Sigurd's first impulse is to +go straight to Harold Gille and demand his right. His friend Koll +Saebjörnson persuades him, however, to abandon this hopeless adventure, +and gives him a ship with which he sails to the Orient, takes part in +many wars, and gains experience and martial renown. + +The second part of the trilogy deals with Sigurd's sojourn at the +Orkneys, where he interferes in the quarrel between the Earls Harold +and Paul. The atmosphere of suspicion, insecurity, and gloom which hangs +like a portentous cloud over these scenes is the very same which blows +toward us from the pages of the sagas. Björnson has gazed deeply into +the heart of Northern paganism, and has here reproduced the heroic +anarchy which was a necessary result of the code permitting the +individual to avenge his own wrongs. The two awful women, Helga and +Frakark, the mother and the aunt of the earls, are types which are +constantly met with in the saga. It is a long-recognized fact that +women, under lawless conditions, develop the wildest extremes of +ambition, avarice, and blood-thirstiness, and taunt the men with their +weak scruples. These two furies of the Orkneys plot murder with an +infernal coolness, which makes Lady Macbeth a kind-hearted woman by +comparison. They recognize in Sigurd a man born for leadership; +determine to use him for the furtherance of their plans, and to get rid +of him, by fair means or foul, when he shall have accomplished his task. +But Sigurd is too experienced a chieftain to walk into this trap. While +appearing to acquiesce, he plays for stakes of his own, but in the end +abandons all in disgust at the death of Earl Harold, who intentionally +puts on the poisoned shirt, prepared for his brother. There is no great +and monumental scene in this part which engraves itself deeply upon the +memory. The love scenes with Audhild, the young cousin of the earls, +are incidental and episodical, and exert no considerable influence +either upon Sigurd's character or upon the development of the intrigue. +Historically they are well and realistically conceived; but dramatically +they are not strong. Another criticism, which has already been made by +the Danish critic, Georg Brandes, refers to an offence against this very +historical sense which is usually so vivid in Björnson. When Frakark, +the Lady Macbeth of the play, remarks, "I am far from feeling sure of +the individual mortality so much preached of; but there is an +immortality of which I am sure; it is that of the race," she makes an +intellectual somersault from the twelfth century into the nineteenth, +and never gets back firmly on her pagan feet again. As Brandes wittily +observes: "People who talk like that do not torture their enemy to +death; they backbite him." + +The third part opens with Sigurd's appearance at court, where he reveals +his origin and asks for his share of the kingdom. The king is not +disinclined to grant his request, but is overruled by his councillors, +who profit by his weakness and rule in his name. They fear this man of +many battles, with the mark of kingship on his brow; and they determine +to murder him. But Sigurd escapes from prison, and, holding the king +responsible for the treachery, kills him. From this time forth he is an +outlaw, hunted over field and fell, and roaming with untold sufferings +through the mountains and wildernesses. There he meets a Finnish maiden +who loves him, reveals his fate to him, and implores him to abandon his +ambition and dwell among her people. These scenes amid the eternal +wastes of snow are perhaps the most striking in the trilogy and most +abounding in exquisite poetic thought. Sigurd hastens hence to his doom +at the battle of Holmengra, where he is defeated, and, with fiendish +atrocity, slowly tortured to death. The rather lyrical monologue +preceding his death, in which he bids farewell to life and calmly +adjusts his gaze to eternity, is very beautiful, but, historically, a +trifle out of tune. Barring these occasional lapses from the key, the +trilogy of "Sigurd Slembe" is a noble work. + +A respectful, and in part enthusiastic, reception had been accorded to +Björnson's early plays. But his first dramatic triumph he celebrated at +the performance of "Mary Stuart in Scotland." Externally this is the +most effective of his plays. The dialogue is often brilliant, and +bristles with telling points. It is eminently "actable," presenting +striking tableaus and situations. Behind the author we catch a glimpse +of the practical stage-manager who knows how a scene will look on the +boards and how a speech will sound--who can surmise with tolerable +accuracy how they will affect a first-night audience. + +"Mary Stuart" is theatrically no less than dramatically conceived. +Theatrically it is far superior to Swinburne's "Chastelard" (not to +speak of his interminable musical verbiage in "Bothwell") but it is +paler, colder, and poetically inferior. The voluptuous warmth and wealth +of color, the exquisite levity, the _débonnaire_ grace of the +Swinburnian drama we seek in vain. Björnson is vigorous, but he is not +subtile. Mere feline amorousness, such as Swinburne so inimitably +portrays, he would disdain to deal with if even he could. Such a bit of +intricate self-characterization as the English poet puts into the +Queen's mouth in the first scene with Chastelard, in the third act, lies +utterly beyond the range of the sturdier Norseman. + + _Queen_: "Nay, dear, I have + No tears in me; I never shall weep much, + I think, in all my life: I have wept for wrath + Sometimes, and for mere pain, but for love's pity + I cannot weep at all. I would to God + You loved me less: I give you all I can + For all this love of yours, and yet I am sure + I shall live out the sorrow of your death + And be glad afterwards. You know I am sorry. + I should weep now; forgive me for your part. + God made me hard, I think. Alas! you see + I had fain been other than I am." + +Add to this the beautifully illuminating threat, "I shall be deadly to +you," uttered in the midst of amorous cooings and murmurings, and we +catch a glimpse of the demoniac depth of this woman's nature. Björnson's +"Mary Stuart" weeps more than once; nay, she says to Bothwell, when he +has forcibly abducted her to his castle: + + "This is my first prayer to you, + That I may weep." + +Quite in the same key is her exclamation (in the same scene) in response +to Bothwell's reference to her son: + +"My son, my lovely boy! Oh, God, now he lies sleeping in his little +white bed, and does not know how his mother is battling for his sake." + +Schiller, whose conception of womankind was as honestly single and +respectful as that of Björnson, had set a notable precedent in +representing Mary Stuart as a martyr of a lost cause. The psychological +antitheses of her character, her softness and loving surrender, and her +treachery and cruelty--he left out of account. + +Without troubling himself greatly about her guilt, which, though with +many palliating circumstances, he admitted, he undertook to exemplify in +her the beauty and exaltation of noble suffering. His Mary (which has +always been a favorite with tragic actresses) is in my opinion as devoid +of that insinuating, sense-compelling charm which alone can account for +this extraordinary woman's career as is the heroine of Björnson's play. +In fact Björnson's Mary lies half-way between the amorous young tigress +of Swinburne and the statuesque martyr of Schiller. She is less +intricately feminine than the former, and more so than the latter. But +she is yet a long way removed from her historical original, who must +have been a strong and full-blooded character, with just that touch of +mystery which nature always wears to whomsoever gazes deeply upon her. +That subtile intercoiling of antagonistic traits, which in a man could +never coexist, is to be found in many historic women of the +Renaissance--exquisite, dangerous creatures, half-doves, half-serpents, +half-Clytemnestra, half-Venus, whose full-throbbing passion now made +them soft and tender, over-brimming with loveliness, now fierce and +imperious, their outraged pride revelling in vengeance and blood. If +Björnson could have fathomed the depth and complexity of the historical +Mary Stuart to the extent that Swinburne has done, he would, no doubt, +also have devised a more effective conclusion to his play. There is no +dramatic climax, far less a tragic one, in the dethronement of Mary, and +the proclamation by John Knox, which is chiefly an assertion of popular +sovereignty, and the triumph of the Presbyterian Church. The declaration +of the final chorus, that + + "Evil shall be routed + And weakness must follow, + The might of truth shall pierce + To the last retreat of gloom," + +seems to me rather to muddle than to clarify the situation. There is a +wavering and uncertain sound in it which seems inappropriate to a +triumphant strain, when the organist naturally turns on the full force +of his organ. If (as is obvious) the Queen represents the evil, or at +least the weakness, which has been routed, it would appear that she +ought to have been painted in quite different colors. + +Björnson's next dramatic venture, which rejoices to this day in an +unabated popularity, was the two-act comedy, "The Newly Married" (_De +Nygifte_). Goethe once made the remark that he was not a good dramatist, +because his nature was too conciliatory. Without intending +disparagement, I am inclined to apply the same judgment to Björnson. His +sunny optimism shrinks from irreconcilable conflicts and insoluble +problems; and in his desire to reconcile and solve, he occasionally is +in danger of wrenching his characters out of drawing and muddling their +motives. Half a dozen critics have already called attention to the +ambiguity of Mathilde's position and intentions in "The Newly Married." +That she loves Axel, the husband, is clear; and the probability is that +she meant to avenge herself upon him for having before his marriage used +her as a decoy, when the real object of his attention was her friend +Laura. But if such was her object, she lacked the strength of mind and +hardness of heart to carry it out, and in the end she becomes a +benevolent providence, who labors for the reconciliation of the +estranged couple. She proves too noble for the ignoble _rôle_ she had +undertaken. Instead of wrecking the marriage, she sacrifices herself +upon the altar of friendship. To that there can, of course, be no +objection; but in that case the process of her mental change ought to +have been clearly shown. In Ibsen's "Rosmersholm," Rebecca West, +occupying a somewhat similar position, is subject to the same ennobling +of motive; but the whole drama hinges upon her moral evolution, and +nothing is left to inference. + +The situation in "The Newly Married" is an extremely delicate one, and +required delicate handling. Axel, a young and gifted lawyer, has married +Laura, the daughter of a high and wealthy official, who prides himself +on his family dignity and connections. Laura, being an only child, has +been petted and spoiled since her birth, and is but a grown-up little +girl, with no conception of her matrimonial obligations. She +subordinates her relation to her husband to that to her parents, and +exasperates the former by her bland and obstinate immaturity. At last, +being able to bear it no longer, he compels her to leave the home of her +parents, where they have hitherto been living, and establishes himself +in a distant town. Mathilde, Laura's friend, accompanies them, though it +is difficult to conjecture in what capacity; and publishes an anonymous +novel, in which she enlightens the young wife regarding the probable +results of her conduct. She thrusts a lamp into the dusk of her soul and +frightens her by the things she shows her. She also, by arousing her +jealousy, leads her out of childhood, with its veiled vision and happy +ignorance, into womanhood, with its unflinching recognition of the +realities that were hidden from the child. And thus she paves the way +for the reconciliation which takes place in the presence of the old +people, who pay their daughter a visit _en route_ for Italy. Mathilde, +having accomplished her mission, acknowledges the authorship of the +anonymous novel, and is now content to leave husband and wife in the +confidence that they will work out their own salvation. + +A mere skeleton of this simple plot (which barely hints at the real +problem) can, of course, give no conception of the charm, the color, and +the wonderful poetic afflatus of this exquisite little play. It may be +well enough to say that such a situation is far-fetched and not very +typical--that outside of "The Heavenly Twins," _et id omne genus_, wives +who insist upon remaining maidens are not very frequent; but, in spite +of this drawback, the vividness and emotional force of the dialogue and +the beautiful characterization (particularly of the old governor and his +wife) set certain sweet chords in vibration, and carry the play to a +triumphant issue. + +As a school-boy I witnessed the first performance of "The Newly +Married," at the Christiania Theatre (1865), (as, indeed, of all the +Björnsonian dramas up to 1869); and I yet remember my surprise when, +instead of mail-clad Norse warriors, carousing in a sooty, log-built +hall, the curtain rose upon a modern interior, in which a fashionably +attired young lady kissed a frock-coated old gentleman. It was a dire +disappointment to me and my comrade, who had come thirsting for gore. +But how completely the poet conquered us! Each phrase seemed to woo our +reluctant ears, and the pulse of life that beat in the characters and +carried along the action awakened in us a delighted recognition. Truth +to tell, we had but the very vaguest idea of what was the _prima causa +malorum_; but for all that, with the rest of the audience, we were +immensely gratified that the upshot of it all was so satisfactory. + +During the years 1865-67 Björnson occupied the position of artistic +director of the Christiania Theatre, and edited the illustrated weekly +paper, _Norsk Folkeblad_ ("The Norwegian People's Journal"). As the +champion of Norwegian nationality in literature, and on the stage, he +unfolded an amazing activity. In 1870 he published "Arnljot Gelline," a +lyrical epic, relating, in a series of poems of irregular metres, the +story of the pagan marauder of that name, and his conversion to +Christianity by King Olaf the Saint. Never has he found a more daring +and tremendous expression for the spirit of old Norse paganism than in +this powerful but somewhat chaotic poem. Never has anyone gazed more +deeply into the ferocious heart of the primitive, predatory man, whose +free, wild soul had not yet been tamed by social obligations and the +scourge of the law. In the same year (1870) was published the now +classical collection of "Poems and Songs" (_Digte og Sange_), which, it +is no exaggeration to say, marks a new era in the Norwegian lyric. Among +Björnson's predecessors there are but two lyrists of the first order, +viz., Wergeland and Welhaven. The former was magnificently profuse and +chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, but withal +high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his worst, bombastic. There is a +reminiscence in him of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain +dithyrambic ecstasy--a strained, high-keyed aria-style which sometimes +breaks into falsetto. His great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer, +more gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered strains, along +the middle octaves, never ranging high into the treble or deep into the +base. There is a certain Tennysonian sweetness, artistic self-restraint, +and plastic simplicity in his lyrics; just as there is in Wergeland's +reformatory ardor, his noble rage, and his piling up of worlds, æons, +and eternities a striking kinship to Shelley. But both these poets, +though their patriotism was strong, were intellectually Europeans, +rather than Norwegians. The roots of their culture were in the general +soil of the century, whose ideas they had absorbed. Their personalities +were not sufficiently tinged with the color of nationality to give a +distinctly Norse cadence to their voices. Wergeland seems to me like a +man who was desperately anxious to acquire a national accent; but +somehow never could catch the trick of it. As regards Welhaven, he was +less aware of his deficiency (if deficiency it was); but was content to +sing of Norse themes in a key of grave, universal beauty. Of the new +note that came into the Norwegian lyric with Björnson, I can discover no +hint in his predecessors. Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn," +with its inimitably droll refrain--how utterly inconceivable it would be +in the mouth of Wergeland or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as +unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that +inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel +(if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a +Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger +fiddle, and the color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the +legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian homestead +during the long winter nights. With Björnson it was in the blood. It was +his soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence of his +emotion. And so, also, is the touching minor undertone in the poem, the +tragic strain in the half burlesque, which is again so deeply Norwegian. +Who that has ever been present at a Norse peasant wedding has failed to +be struck with the strangely melancholy strain in the merriest dances? +And in Landstad's collection of "Norwegian Ballads" there is the same +blending of humor and pathos in such genuine folk-songs as _Truls med +bogin, Mindre Alf_, and scores of others. To this day I cannot read +"Nils Finn," humorous though it is, without an almost painful emotion. +All Norway, with a host of precious memories, rises out of the mist of +the past at the very first verse: + + "Og vetli Nils Finn skuldi ut at gå, + Han fek inki ski 'i tel at hanga på + --'Dat var ilt' sa'd 'uppundir.'" + +Neither Wergeland nor Welhaven nor any other poet has with all his +rapturous description of fjord, valley, and mountain, this power to +conjure up the very soul of the Norseland. The purely juvenile rhymes of +Björnson, such as _Killebukken, Lokkeleg_ and _Haren og Raeven_ ("The +Hare and the Fox"), are significant because of the masterly security +with which they strike the national key and keep it. Not a word is there +that rings false. And with what an exquisite tenderness the elegaic +ballad strain is rendered in _Venevil_ and "Hidden Love" (_Dulgt +Kaerlighed_), and the playful in the deliciously girlish roguery of +_Vidste du bare_ ("If you only knew"), and the bold dash and young +wantonness of "Marit's Song!" + +It seems to me that every Norseman's life, whether he is willing to +acknowledge it or not, has been made richer and more beautiful by this +precious volume. It contains a legacy to the Norwegian people which can +never grow old. If Björnson had written nothing else, he would still be +the first poet of Norway. How brazen, hollow, and bombastic sound the +patriotic lyrics of Bjerregaard Johan Storm Munch, S. O. Wolff, etc., +which are yet sung at festal gatherings, by the side of Björnson's "Yes, +we Love our Native Country," and "I will Guard Thee, my Land!" There is +the brassy blare of challenging trumpets in the former; they defy all +creation, and make a vast deal of impotent and unprofitable noise about +"The roaring northern main," "The ancient Norway's rocky fastness," +"Liberty's temple in Norroway's valleys," and "Norway's lion, whose axe +doth threaten him who dares break the Northland's peace." + +Not a suggestion of this juvenile braggadocio is there to be found in +Björnson. Calm, strong, and nobly aglow with love of country, he has no +need of going into paroxysms in order to prove his sincerity. To those +who regard the declamatory note as indispensable to a national hymn (as +we have it, for instance, in "Hail, Columbia," and "The Star-spangled +Banner") the low key in which Björnson's songs are pitched will no doubt +appear as a blemish. But it is their very homeliness in connection with +the deep, full-throbbing emotion which beats in each forceful phrase--it +is this, I fancy, which has made them the common property of the whole +people, and thus in the truest sense national. I could never tell why my +heart gives a leap at the sound of the simple verse: + + "Yes, we love this land of ours, + Rising from the foam, + Rugged, furrowed, weather-beaten, + With its thousand homes." + +Kjerulf's glorious music is, no doubt, in a measure accountable for it; +but even apart from that, there is a strangely moving power in the +words. The poem, as such, is by no means faultless. It is easy to pick +flaws in it. The transition from the fifth and sixth lines of the first +verse: "Love it, love it, and think of our father and mother," to the +seventh and eighth, "And the saga night which makes dreams to descend +upon our earth," is unwarrantably forced and abrupt. And yet who would +wish it changed? It may be admitted that there is no very subtle art in +the rude rhyme: + + "I will guard thee, my land, + I will build thee, my land, + I will cherish my land in my prayer, in my child! + I will foster its weal, + And its wants I will heal + From the boundary out to the ocean wild;" + +but, for all that, it touches a chord in every Norseman's breast, which +never fails to vibrate responsively. + +As regards Björnson's prosody, I am aware that it is sometimes +defective. Measured by the Tennysonian standard it is often needlessly +rugged and eccentric. But a poet whose bark carries so heavy a cargo of +thought may be forgiven if occasionally it scrapes the bottom. Moreover, +the Norwegian tongue has never, as a medium of poetry, been polished and +refined to any such elaborate perfection as the English language +exhibits in the hands of Swinburne and Tennyson. + +The saga-drama, "Sigurd the Crusader," which was also published in 1870, +is a work of minor consequence. Its purpose may be stated in the +author's own words: + + "'Sigurd the Crusader' is meant to be what is called a 'folk-play.' + It is my intention to make several dramatic experiments with grand + scenes from the sagas, lifting them into a strong but not too heavy + frame. By a 'folk-play' I mean a play which should appeal to every + eye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the + performance of which all, for the time being, would experience the + joy of fellow-feeling. The common history of a people is best + available for this purpose--nay, it ought dramatically never to be + treated otherwise. The treatment must necessarily be simple and the + emotions predominant; it should be accompanied with music, and the + development should progress in clear groups.... + + "The old as well as the new historic folk literature will, with its + corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great gain to the + stage, and will preserve its connection with the people where this + has not already been lost--so that it be no longer a mere + institution for amusement, and that only to a single class. Unless + we take this view of our stage, it will lose its right to be + regarded as a national affair, and the best part of its purpose, to + unite while it lifts and makes us free, will be gradually assumed + by some other agency. Nor shall we ever get actors fit for anything + but trifles, unless we abandon our foreign French tendency as a + _leading_ one and substitute the national needs of our own people + in its place." + +It would be interesting to note how the poet has attempted to solve a +problem so important and so difficult as this. In the first place, we +find in "Sigurd the Crusader" not a trace of a didactic purpose beyond +that of familiarizing the people with its own history, and this, as he +himself admits in the preface just quoted, is merely a secondary +consideration. He wishes to make all, irrespective of age, culture, and +social station, feel strongly the bond of their common nationality; and, +with this in view, he proceeds to unroll to them a panorama of simple +but striking situations, knit together by a plot or story which, without +the faintest tinge of sensationalism, appeals to those broadly human and +national sympathies which form the common mental basis of Norse +ignorance and Norse culture. He seizes the point in the saga where the +long-smouldering hostility between the royal brothers, Sigurd the +Crusader and Eystein, has broken into full blaze, and traces, in a +series of vigorously sketched scenes, the intrigue and counter-intrigue +which hurry the action onward toward its logically prepared climax--a +mutual reconciliation. The dialogue is pithy, simple, and sententious. +Nevertheless the play, as a whole, makes the impression of +incompleteness. It is a dramatic sketch rather than a drama. It marks no +advance on Björnson's previous work in the same line; but perhaps rather +a retrogression. + + +II + +A period is apt to come in the life of every man who is spiritually +alive, when his scholastic culture begins to appear insufficient and the +traditional premises of existence seem in need of readjustment and +revision. This period, with the spiritual crisis which it involves, is +likely to occur between the thirtieth and the fortieth meridian. Ibsen +was thirty-four years old (1862) when in "The Comedy of Love" he broke +with the romanticism of his youth, and began to wrestle with the +problems of contemporary life. Goethe was thirty-seven when, in 1786, he +turned his back upon the Storm and Stress, and in Italy sought and +gained a new and saner vision of the world. This renewal of the sources +which water the roots of his spiritual being becomes an imperative +necessity to a man when he has exhausted the sources which tradition +supplies. It is terrible to wake up one morning and see one's past life +in a new and strange illumination, and the dust of ages lying inch-thick +upon one's thoughts. It is distressing to have to pretend that you do +not hear the doubt which whispers early and late in your ear, _Vanitas, +vanitas, vanitas vanitatum_. Few are those of us who have the courage to +face it, to rise up and fight with it, and rout it or be routed by it. + +Björnson had up to this time (1870) built solely upon tradition. He had +been orthodox, and had exalted childlike peace and faith above doubt and +struggle. Phrases indicative of a certain spiritual immaturity are +scattered through his early poems. In "The Child in our Soul," he says, +for instance: "The greatest man on earth must cherish the child in his +soul and listen, amid the thunder, to what it whispers low;" and again: +"Everything great that thought has invented sprouted forth in childlike +joy; and everything strong, sprung from what is good, obeyed the child's +voice." Though in a certain sense that may be true enough, it belongs to +the kind of half-truths which by constant repetition grow pernicious +and false. The man who at forty assumes the child's attitude of mere +wondering acceptance toward the world and its problems, may, indeed, be +a very estimable character; but he will never amount to much. It is the +honest doubters, the importunate questioners, the indefatigable fighters +who have broken humanity's shackles, and made the world a more +comfortable abiding-place to the present generation than it was to the +past. There is unquestionably a strain of Danish romanticism in +Björnson's persistent harping upon childlike faith and simplicity and a +childlike vision of the world. Grundtvig, with whom this note is +pervasive, had in his early youth a great influence over him. The +glorification of primitive feeling was part of the romantic revolt +against the dry rationalism of the so-called period of enlightenment. + +To account for the fact that so mighty a spirit as Björnson could have +reached his thirty-eighth year before emerging from this state of +idyllic _naīveté_, I am inclined to quote the following passage from +Brandes, descriptive of the condition of the Scandinavian countries +during the decade preceding 1870: + +"While the intellectual life languished, as a plant droops in a close, +confined place, the people were self-satisfied--though not with a joyous +or noisy self-satisfaction; for there was much sadness in their minds +after the great disasters [the Sleswick-Holstein War].... They rested +on their laurels and fell into a doze. And while they dozed they had +dreams. The cultivated, and especially the half-cultivated, public in +Denmark and Norway dreamed that they were the salt of Europe. They +dreamed that by their idealism--the ideals of Grundtvig and +Kierkegaard--and their strong vigilance, they regenerated the foreign +nations. They dreamed that they were the power which could rule the +world, but which, for mysterious and incomprehensible reasons, had for a +long series of years preferred to eat crumbs from the foreigners' table. +They dreamed that they were the free, mighty North, which led the cause +of the peoples to victory--and they woke up unfree, impotent, +ignorant."[5] + + [5] Brandes: Det Moderne Gjennembrud's Maend, pp. 44, 45. + +Though there is a good deal of malice, there is no exaggeration in this +unflattering statement. Scandinavia had by its own choice cut itself off +from the cosmopolitan world life; and the great ideas which agitated +Europe found scarcely an echo in the three kingdoms. In my own boyhood, +which coincides with Björnson's early manhood, I heard on all hands +expressions of self-congratulation because the doubt and fermenting +restlessness which were undermining the great societies abroad had never +ruffled the placid surface of our good, old-fashioned, Scandinavian +orthodoxy. How heartily we laughed at the absurdities of Darwin, who, as +we had read in the newspapers, believed that he was descended from an +ape! How deeply, densely, and solidly ignorant we were; and yet how +superior we felt in the midst of our ignorance! + +All this must be taken into account, if we are to measure the +significance, as well as the courage, of Björnson's apostasy. For five +years (1870-74) he published nothing of an æsthetical character. But he +plunged with hot zeal into political life, not only because he needed an +outlet for his pent-up energy; but because the question at issue engaged +him, heart and soul. The equal and co-ordinate position of Norway and +Sweden under the union had been guaranteed by the Constitution of 1814; +but, as a matter of fact, the former kingdom is by all the world looked +upon as a dependency, if not a province, of the latter. The Bernadottes, +lacking comprehension of the Norwegian character, had shown themselves +purblind as bats in their dealings with Norway. They had mistaken a +perfectly legitimate desire for self-government for a demonstration of +hostility to Sweden and the royal house; and instead of identifying +themselves with the national movement (which they might well have done), +they fought it, first by cautious measures of repression, and later by +vetoes and open defiance. Charles XV., and, later, Oscar II., kept the +minority ministries, Stang and Selmer, in power, with a bland disregard +of popular condemnation, and snapped their fingers at the parliamentary +majorities which, for well-nigh a quarter of a century, fought +persistently, bravely, and not altogether vainly, for their country's +rights. + +There is no doubt that Norway is the most democratic country in Europe, +if not in the world. There is a far sturdier sense of personal worth, a +far more fearless assertion of equality, and a far more democratic +feeling permeating society than, for instance, in the United States. +Sweden, on the other hand, is essentially an aristocratic country, with +a landed nobility and many other remnants of feudalism in her political +and social institutions. Two countries so different in character can +never be good yoke-fellows. They can never develop at an even pace, and +the fact of kinship scarcely helps matters where the temperaments and +the conditions are so widely dissimilar. Brothers who fall out are apt +to fight each other the more fiercely on account of the relationship. +Björnson certainly does not cherish any hatred of Sweden, nor do I +believe that there is any general animosity to the Swedish people to be +found anywhere in Norway. It is most unfortunate that the mistaken +policy of the Bernadottes has placed the two nations in an attitude of +apparent hostility. In spite of the loud denunciation of Norway by the +so-called Grand Swedish party, and the equally vociferous response of +the Norwegian journals (of the Left) there is a strong sympathy between +the democracy of Norway and that of Sweden, and a mutual respect which +no misrepresentation can destroy. + +It was Björnson who, in 1873, began the agitation for the actual and +not merely nominal, equality of the two kingdoms;[6] he appealed to the +national sense of honor, and by his kindling eloquence aroused the +tremendous popular indignation that swept the old ministry of Stang from +power, and caused the impeachment and condemnation of the Selmer +ministry. It would seem when the king, in 1882, charged the liberal +leader, Mr. Johan Sverdrup, to form a ministry, that parliamentarism had +actually triumphed. But unhappily a new Stang ministry (the chief of +which is the son of the old premier) has, recently (1893) re-established +the odious minority rule, which sits like a nightmare upon the nation's +breast, checking its respiration, and hindering its natural development. + + [6] I had the pleasure of accompanying Björnson on his first + political tour in the summer of 1873, and I shall never forget the + tremendous impression of the man and his mighty eloquence at the + great folk-meeting at Böe in Guldbrandsdalen. + +During this period of national self-assertion Björnson has unfolded a +colossal activity. Though holding no office, and steadily refusing an +election to the Storthing, he has been the life and soul of the liberal +party. The task which he had undertaken grew upon his hands, and assumed +wider and wider dimensions. As his predecessor Wergeland had done, and +in a far deeper sense, he consecrated his life to the spiritual and +intellectual liberation of his people. It is told of the former that he +was in the habit of walking about the country with his pockets full of +seeds of grass and trees, of which he scattered a handful here and a +handful there; for, he said, you can never tell what will grow up after +it. There is to me something quite touching in the patriotism which +prompted this act. Björnson, too, is in the same sense "a sower who went +forth for to sow." And the golden grain of his thought falls, as in the +parable, in all sorts of places; but, unlike some of the seed in the +parable, it all leaves some trace behind. It stimulates reflection, it +awakens life, it arouses the torpid soul, it shakes the drowsy soul, it +shocks the pious soul, it frightens the timid soul, but it lifts them +all, as it were, by main force, out of themselves, and makes healthful +breezes blow, and refreshing showers fall upon what was formerly a +barren waste. This is Björnson's mission; this is, during the second +period of his career, his greatness and his highest significance. + +Of course there are many opinions as to the value of the work he has +accomplished in this capacity of political and religious liberator. The +Conservative party of Norway, which runs the errands of the king and +truckles to Sweden, hates him with a bitter and furious hatred; the +clergy denounce him, and the official bureaucracy can scarcely mention +his name without an anathema. But the common people, though he has +frightened many of them away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is +especially his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes not to believe +in) which has been a sore trial to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing +peasantry. Does not the Bible say that the devil goes about like a +roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? Nevertheless Björnson has the +hardihood to assert that there is no such person. And yet Björnson is a +man who can talk most beautifully, and who knows as much as any parson. +It is extremely puzzling. + +The fact was, Björnson's abolition of the devil, and his declaration of +a war against the orthodox miracle faith, were, as far as the Norwegian +people were concerned, somewhat premature. The peasant needs the old +scriptural devil, and is not yet ready to dispense with him. The devil +is a popular character in the folk-stories and legends, and I have known +some excellent people who declare that they have seen him. Creeds are +like certain ancient tumuli, which now are but graves, but were once the +habitations of living men. The dust, ashes, and bones of defunct life +which they often contain, nourish in the dark the green grass, the fair +flowers, the blooming trees, that shoot up into the light. You cannot +dig it all up and throw it out without tearing asunder the net-work of +roots which organically connects the living with the dead. + +Björnson, though he is an evolutionist, is far removed from the +philosophic temper in his dealings with the obsolete or obsolescent +remnants in political and religious creeds. He has the healthful +intolerance of strong conviction. He is too good a partisan to admit +that there may be another side to the question which might be worth +considering. With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges ahead, and with a +truly old Norse pugnacity he stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing +in battle. Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls all his +splendid faculties into play. + +Even apart from his political propaganda the years 1870-74 were a period +of labor and ferment to Björnson. The mightier the man, the mightier the +powers enlisted in his conversion, and the mightier the struggle. A +tremendous wrench was required to change his point of view from that of +a childlike, wondering believer to that of a critical sceptic and +thinker. In a certain sense Björnson never took this step; for when the +struggle was over, and he had readjusted his vision of life to the +theory of evolution, he became as ardent an adherent of it as he had +ever been of the _naīve_ Grundtvigian miracle-faith. And with the deep +need of his nature to pour itself forth--to share its treasures with all +the world--he started out to proclaim his discoveries. Besides Darwin +and Spencer, he had made a study of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense of +fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with hot zeal into the writings +of Steinthal and Max Müller, whose studies in comparative religion +changed to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's historical +criticism, with its disrespectful derivation of the hero from food, +climate, and race, lured him still farther away from his old Norse and +romantic landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever +returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he +looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and lasses, +and his taciturn saga heroes, with their predatory self-assertion, he +saw that he had done with them forever; that they could never more +enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the problems of modern +contemporary life, of which he had now gained quite a new comprehension, +tempted him. The romantic productions of his youth appeared as a more or +less arbitrary play of fancy emancipated from the stern logic of +reality. It was his purpose henceforth to consecrate his powers to the +study of the deeper soul-life of his own age and the exposition of the +forces which in their interdependence and interaction make modern +society. + +This is the significance of the four-act drama "Bankruptcy," with which, +in 1874, he astounded and disappointed the Scandinavian public. I have +called it a drama, in accordance with the author's designation on the +title-page; but it is, in the best sense, a comedy of manners, of the +kind that Augier produced in France; and in everything except the +mechanics of construction superior to the plays of Sardou and Dumas. The +dialogue has the most admirable accent of truth. It is not unnaturally +witty or brilliant; but exhibits exactly the traits which Norwegians of +the higher commercial plutocracy are likely to exhibit. All the poetic +touches which charmed us in Björnson's saga dramas were conspicuous by +their absence. Scarcely a trace was there left of that peculiar and +delightful language of his early novels, which can only be described by +the term "Björnsonian." + +"Dry, prosaic, trivial," said the reviewers; "Björnson has evidently +worked out his vein. He has ceased to be a poet. He has lost with his +childhood's faith his ideal view of life, and become a mere prosy +chronicler of uninteresting everyday events." + +This was, indeed, the general verdict of the public twenty years ago. +Scarcely anyone had a good word to say for the abused play that marked +the poet's fall from the idealism of his early song. But, for all that, +"Bankruptcy" made a strong impression upon the boards. It not only +conquered a permanent place in the _répertoires_ of the theatres of the +Scandinavian capitals, but it spread through Austria, Germany, and +Holland, and has finally scored a success at the _Théâtre Libre_ in +Paris. There is scarcely a theatre of any consequence in Germany which +has not made "Bankruptcy" part of its _répertoire_. At the Royal Theatre +in Munich it was accorded a most triumphant reception, and something +over sixty representations has not yet exhausted its popularity. + +The effort to come to close quarters with reality is visible in every +phrase. The denial of the value of all the old romantic stage machinery, +with its artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible in +the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely unsensational exposition +of the dramatic action. There is one scene (and by no means an unnatural +one) in which there is a touch of violence, viz., where Tjaelde, while +he hopes to avert his bankruptcy, threatens to shoot Lawyer Berent and +himself; but there is a very human quiver in the threat and in the +passionate outbreak which precedes it. Nowhere is there a breath of that +superheated hot-house atmosphere which usually pervades the modern +drama. + +"Bankruptcy" deals, as the title indicates, with the question of +financial honesty. Zola has in _Le Roman Sentimental_ made the +observation that "absolute honesty no more exists than perfect +healthfulness. There is a tinge of the human beast in us all, as there +is a tinge of illness." Tjaelde, the great merchant, exemplifies this +proposition. He is a fairly honest man, who by the modern commercial +methods, which, in self-defence, he has been forced to adopt, gets into +the position of a rogue. The commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," seems +at first glance an extremely simple injunction; but in the light of +Björnson's searching analysis it becomes a complex and intricate tangle, +capable of interesting shades and _nuances_ of meaning. Tjaelde, in the +author's opinion, certainly does steal, when, in order to save himself +(and thereby the thousands who are involved in his affairs), he +speculates with other people's money and presents a rose-colored account +of his business, when he knows that he is on the verge of bankruptcy. +But, on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to determine the point +where legitimate speculation ceases and the illegitimate begins. And if +Tjaelde neglected any legitimate means of saving his estate he would be +culpable. A stern code of morals (which the commercial world of to-day +would scarcely exact), the poet enforces in the fourth act, where +Tjaelde refuses to accept any concession from his creditors, but insists +upon devoting the remainder of his life to the liquidation of his debts. + +Admirably strong and vital is the exposition of the _rôle_ and functions +of money in the modern world, and the nearer and remoter psychological +effects of the tremendous tyranny of money. A certain external _éclat_ +is required to give the great commercial house the proper splendor in +the sight of the world. Thus Tjaelde speculates in hospitality as in +everything else, and when he virtually has nothing, makes the grandest +splurge in order to give a spurious impression of prosperity. Though by +nature an affectionate man, he neglects his family because business +demands all his time. He defrauds himself of the happiness which knocks +at his door, because business fills his head by night and by day, and +absorbs all his energy. A number of parasites (such as the +fortune-hunting lieutenant) attach themselves to him, as long as he is +reputed to be rich, and make haste to vanish when his riches take wings. +On the other hand, the true friends whom in his prosperity he hectored +and contemned are revealed by adversity. There would be nothing +remarkable in so common an experience, if the friends themselves, as +well as the parasites, were not so delightfully delineated. The +lieutenant, with his almost farcical interest in the bay trotter, is +amusingly but lightly drawn; but the awkward young clerk, Sannaes, who +refuses to abandon his master in the hour of trial, is a deeply typical +Norwegian figure. All the little coast towns have specimens to show of +these aspiring, faithful, sensitively organized souls, who, having had +no social advantages are painfully conscious of their deficiencies, but +whose patient industry and sterling worth in the end will triumph. No +less keenly observed and effectively sketched is the whole gallery of +dastardly little village figures--Holm, Falbe, Knutson with an s, +Knutzon, with a z, etc. Signe and Valborg, the two daughters of Tjaelde, +have, in spite of their diversity, a common tinge of Norwegian +nationality which gives a gentle distinctness and relief to the +world-old types. + +Björnson's next play,[7] "The Editor," grapples with an equally modern +and timely subject, viz., the license of the press. With terrible +vividness he shows the misery, ruin, and degradation which result from +the present journalistic practice of misrepresentation, sophistry, and +defamation. It is a very dark picture he draws, with scarcely a gleam of +light. The satire is savage; and the quiver of wrath is perceptible in +many a sledge-hammer phrase. You feel that Björnson himself has suffered +from the terrorism which he here describes, and you would surmise too, +even if you did not know it, that the editor whom he has here pilloried +is no mere general editorial type, but a well-known person who, until +recently, conducted one of the most influential journals in Norway. The +play is an act of retribution, and a deserved one. But its weaknesses, +which it is vain to disguise, are also explained by the author's +personal bias--the desire to wreak vengeance upon an enemy. + + [7] All the literary histories and other authorities which I have + consulted put the publication of "Bankruptcy," as well as that of + "The Editor," in 1875. But my own copy of the latter play bears on + its title-page the year 1874. + +The situation is as follows: Mr. Evje, a rich and generally respected +distiller, has a daughter, Gertrude, who is engaged to Harold Rein, a +political leader of peasant origin. Mr. Rein's brother, Halfdan, from +whom he has, in a measure, inherited the leadership, is dying from the +persecution to which he has been exposed by the Conservative press and +public. In his zeal for the Radical cause it is his consolation that he +leaves it in such strong hands as those of his brother. The election is +impending and a meeting of the electors has been called for the +following day. Harold is the candidate of the Left. It now becomes a +question with the party of the Right so to ridicule and defame him as to +ruin his chances. His position as prospective son-in-law of the rich +Mr. Evje lends an air of importance and respectability to his candidacy. +Mr. Evje must therefore be induced, or, if necessary, compelled, to +throw him overboard. With this end in view the editor of the +Conservative journal goes to Evje (whose schoolmate and friend he has +been) and tries to persuade him to break the alliance with Rein. Evje, +who prides himself on his "moderation" and tolerance, and his purpose to +keep aloof from partisanship, refuses to be bullied; whereupon the +editor threatens him with social ostracism and commercial ruin. The +distiller, who is at heart a coward, is completely unnerved by this +threat. Well knowing how a paper can undermine a man's reputation +without making itself liable for libel, he sends his friend the doctor +to the editor, suing for peace. Late in the evening he meets his foe +outside of his house, and after much shuffling and parleying agrees to +do his will. He surprises his daughter and Harold Rein in a loving +_tęte-ā-tęte_, and lacks the courage to carry out his bargain. He vainly +endeavors to persuade them to break the engagement and separate until +after the election. + +In the meanwhile, John, a discharged servant of Evje (of whose +drunkenness and political radicalism we have previously been informed), +has overheard the parley with the editor, and in order to get even with +his master countermands in the editor's name his order to the foreman of +the printing-office; and the obnoxious article which was intended to be +omitted appears in the paper. John also takes care to procure Evje an +early copy, which, first utterly crushes him, then arouses his wrath, +convinces him that "holding aloof" is mere cowardice, and makes him +resolve to bear his share in the great political battle. The meanness, +the malice of each ingenious thrust, while it stings and burns also +awakens a righteous indignation. He goes straight to the lodgings of +Harold Rein and determines to attend the Radical meeting. Not finding +him at home he goes to the house of his brother Halfdan, where he leaves +the copy of the paper. The sick man picks it up, reads an onslaught on +himself which in baseness surpasses the attack on Evje, starts up in +uncontrollable excitement, and dies of a hemorrhage. The maid, who sees +him lying on the floor, cries out into the street for help, and the +editor, who chances to pass by, enters. He finds the Radical leader +dead, with the paper clutched in his hand. + +The fourth act opens with a festal arrangement at Evje's in honor of the +great success of Rein's electoral meeting. There is no more "holding +aloof." Everybody has convictions and is ready to avow the party that +upholds them. All are ignorant of Halfdan Rein's death, until the editor +arrives, utterly broken in spirit and asks Evje's pardon. He wishes to +explain, but no one wishes to listen. When Evje wavers and is on the +point of accepting his proffered hand, his wife and daughter loudly +protest. + +The editor declares his purpose to renounce journalism. The festivities +are abandoned, and all betake themselves to the house of the dead +leader. Thus the play ends; there is no tableau, no climax, no dramatic +catastrophe. It is Zola's theory[8] and Maeterlink's practice +anticipated. + + [8] "Naturalism on the Stage." + +The journalistic conditions here described are, of course, those of the +Norwegian capital nearly a quarter of a century ago. Few editors, I +fancy, outside of country towns, now go about personally spreading +rumors, with malice aforethought, and collecting gossip. But the power +of the press for good and for ill, and the terrorism which, in evil +hands, it exercises, are surely not exaggerated. But its most striking +application has the drama in its exposure of the desperate and +ignominious expedients to which a party will resort in order to defeat, +defame, and utterly destroy a political opponent. The following passages +may be worth quoting: + +"Most of the successful politicians nowadays win not by their own +greatness but by the paltriness of the rest." + +"Here is a fine specimen of a fossil. It is a piece of a palm-leaf, ... +which was found in a stratum of Siberian rock.... Thus one must become +in order to endure the ice-storms. Then one is not harmed. But your +brother! In him lived yet the whole murmuring, singing palm-forest.... +As regards you, it remains to be seen whether you can get all humanity +in you completely killed.... But who would at that price be a +politician?... That one must be hardened is the watchword of all +nowadays. Not only army officers but physicians, merchants, officials +are to be hardened or dried up; ... hardened for the battle of life, as +they say. But what does that mean? We are to expel and evaporate the +warmth of the heart, the fancy's yearning, ... before we are fit for +life.... No, I say, it is those very things we are to preserve. That's +what we have got them for." + +Björnson's increasing Radicalism and his outspoken Socialistic +sympathies had by this time alienated a large portion of the +Scandinavian public. The cry was heard on all sides that he had ceased +to be a poet, and had become instead a mere political agitator. I cannot +deny myself the pleasure of quoting Björnson's reply when at his request +a friend repeated to him the opinion which was entertained of him in +certain quarters: + +"Oh, yes," he cried, with a wrathful laugh, "don't I know it? You must +be a poet! You must not mingle in the world's harsh and jarring tumult. +They have a notion that a poet is a longhaired man who sits on the top +of a tower and plays upon a harp while his hair streams in the wind. +Yes, a fine kind of poet is that! No, my boy, I am a poet, not primarily +because I can write verse (there are lots of people who can do that) but +by virtue of seeing more clearly, and feeling more deeply, and speaking +more truly than the majority of men. All that concerns humanity +concerns me. If by my song or my speech I can contribute ever so little +toward the amelioration of the lot of the millions of my poorer +fellow-creatures, I shall be prouder of that than of the combined +laurels of Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe." + +This is the conception of a poet which was prevalent in Norway in the +olden time. The scalds of the sagas were warriors as well as singers. +They fought with sword and battle-axe, and their song rang the more +boldly because they knew how to strike up another tune--the fierce song +of the sword. In modern times Wergeland and Welhaven have demonstrated +not only the pugnacity, but also the noble courage of their ancestry by +espousing the cause of opposing parties during the struggle for national +independence. + +Those who demand that literature shall be untinged by any tendency or +strong conviction will do well to eschew all the subsequent works of +Björnson. They might perhaps put up with the brief novel "Magnhild," +which is tolerably neutral in tone, though it is the least enjoyable of +all Björnson's works. It gives the impression that the author is half +afraid of his subject (which is an illicit love), and only dares to +handle it so gingerly as to leave half the tale untold. The short, +abrupt sentences which seemed natural enough when he was dealing with +the peasants, with their laconic speech and blunt manners, have a forced +and unnatural air when applied to people to whom this style of language +is foreign. Moreover, these condensed sentences are often vague, full of +innuendo, and mysterious as hieroglyphics. It is as if the author, in +the consciousness of the delicacy of his theme, had lost the bold +security of touch which in his earlier works made his meaning +unmistakable. + +The drama "The King" (1877) is an attack upon the monarchical principle +in its political as well as its personal aspect. It is shown how +destructive the royal prerogative is and must be to the king as an +individual; how the artificial regard which hedges him in, interposing +countless barriers between the truth and him, makes his relations to his +surroundings false and deprives him of the opportunity for +self-knowledge which normal relations supply. Royalty is therefore a +curse, because it robs its possessor of the wholesome discipline of life +which is the right of every man that is born into the world. + +Furthermore, there is an obvious intention to show that the monarchy, +being founded upon a lie, is incapable of any real adaptation to the +age, and reconciliation with modern progress. The king in the play is a +young, talented, liberal-minded man, who is fully conscious of the +anomaly of his position, and determined to save his throne by stripping +it of all mediæval and mythological garniture. He dreams of being a +"folk-king," the first citizen of a free people, a kind of hereditary +president, with no sham divinity to fall back upon, and no "grace of +God" to shield him from criticism and sanctify his blunders. He resents +the _rôle_ of being the lock of the merchant's strong-box and the head +of that mutual insurance company which is called the state. He goes +about _incognito_, first in search of love adventures, and later in +order to acquaint himself with public opinion; and he proves himself +remarkably unprejudiced and capable of profiting by experience. He falls +in love with Clara Ernst, the daughter of a Radical professor, who, on +account of a book he has written, has been sentenced for _crimen læsæ +majestatis_, and in an attempt to escape from prison has broken both his +legs. Clara, who is supporting her father in his exile by teaching, +repels the king's advances with indignation and contempt. He perseveres, +however, fascinated by the novelty of such treatment. He manages to +convince her of the purity of his motives; and finally succeeds in +winning her love. It is not a _liaison_ he contemplates, but a valid and +legitimate marriage for which he means to compel recognition. The court, +which he has no more use for, he desires to abolish as a costly and +degrading luxury; and in its place to establish a home--a model +_bourgeois_ home--where affection and virtue shall flourish. Clara, +seeing the vast significance of such a step, is aglow with enthusiasm +for its realization. It is not vanity, but a lofty faith in her mission +to regenerate royalty, by discarding its senseless pomp and bringing it +into accord with, and down to the level of, common citizenship--it is +this, I say, which upholds her in the midst of opprobrium, insults, and +hostile demonstrations. For the king's subjects, so far from being +charmed by his resolution to marry a woman out of their midst, are +scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate base slanders, and +threaten to mob the royal bride on her way to her first public function. +She is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the curse of her +father, who hates the king with the deep hatred of a fanatical +Republican. A royal princess, who had come to insult her, is conquered +by her candor and truth, and stays to sympathize with her and lend her +the support of her presence. But just as the king comes to lead her out +to face the populace, the wraith of her father rises upon the threshold +and she falls back dead. It is learned afterward that Professor Ernst +had died in that very hour. + +The king's bosom friend, the Minister of the Interior, Gran, who is +largely responsible for his liberalism, and whose whole policy it has +been to rejuvenate and revitalize the monarchy, is challenged and shot +by his old teacher, the Republican Flink; and the king himself, +convinced of the futility of all his efforts to realize his idea of a +democratic monarchy, commits suicide. + +As a piece of sanguinary satire on royalty as an institution "The King" +is most interesting--that is, royalty logically and speculatively +considered, without reference to its historical basis and development. +To me the postulate that it had its origin in a kind of conspiracy (for +mutual benefit) of the priest and the king seems shallow and +unphilosophical. Björnson's fanatical partisanship has evidently carried +him a little too far. For surely he would himself admit that every free +nation is governed about as well as it deserves to be--that its +political institutions are a reflection of its maturity and capacity for +self-government. A certain allowance must, indeed, be made for the _vis +inertiæ_ of whatever exists, which makes it exert a stubborn and not +unwholesome resistance to the reformer's zeal. This conservatism (which +may, however, have more laudable motives than mere self-interest) +Björnson has happily satirized in the scene before the Noblemen's Club +in the third act. But, I fancy, it looks to him only as a sinister +power, which for its own base purposes has smitten humanity with +blindness to its own welfare. Though not intending to enter into a +discussion, I am also tempted to put a respectful little interrogation +mark after the statement that the republic is so very much cheaper than +the monarchy. If the experience of the two largest republics in the +world counts for anything, I should say that in point of economy there +was not much to choose. + +Strange as it may seem, Björnson did not intend "The King" as an +argument in favor of the republic. In his preface to the third edition +he distinctly repudiates the idea. The recent development of the +Norwegian people, has, he says, made the republic a remoter possibility +than it was ten years before (1875). But he qualifies this statement +with the significant condition, "If we are not checked by fraud." And I +fancy that he would have a perfect right to justify his present position +by demonstrating the fraud, trickery, if not treason, by which Norway +has during the last decade been thwarted in her aspirations and checked +in her development. That preface, by the way, dated Paris, October, +1885, is one of the most forceful and luminous of his political +pronunciamientos. It rings from beginning to end with conviction and a +manly indignation. His chief purpose, he says, in writing this drama +was, "to extend the boundaries of free discussion." His polemics against +the clergy are not attacks upon Christianity, though he contends that +religion is subject to growth as well as other things. The ultimate form +of government he believes to be the republic, on the journey toward +which all European states are proceeding fast, or slow, and in various +stages of progress. There is something abrupt, gnarled, Carlylese, in +his urgent admonitions and appeals for fair-play. The personal note is +so distinct that I cannot read the play without unconsciously supplying +the very cadence of Björnson's voice. + +A further attempt to extend the boundaries of free discussion is made in +the two dramas, "Leonarda" (1879) and "A Glove" (1883), which both deal +with interesting phases of the woman question, and both wage war +against conventional notions of right and wrong. The former elucidates +the attitude of society toward the woman who has been compromised +(whether justly or not), and the latter its attitude toward the man. I +confess there is something a trifle hazy in his exposition of the +problem in "Leonarda;" and I am unable to determine whether Leonarda +really has anything to reproach herself with or not. In her conversation +with the bishop in the second act, she appears to admit that she has +much to regret. She begs him "help her atone for her past." She +practically throws herself upon his mercy, reminding him that his +Master, Christ, was the friend of sinners. But in the last act she +appears suddenly with the halo of martyrdom. General Rosen, who has been +the cause of her social ostracism, turns out to be her husband, whom she +has divorced on account of his dissipated habits, and now keeps, in the +hope of saving him, on a sort of probation. She believes that without +her he would go straight to perdition, and from a sense of duty she +tolerates him, not daring to shirk her responsibility for the old +reprobate's soul. Truth to tell, she treats him like a naughty boy, +punishing him, when he has been drunk, with a denial of favors; and when +he has been good, rewarding him with her company. I suppose there are +men who might be saved by such treatment, but I venture to doubt whether +they are worth saving. As for Leonarda, she has apparently no cause for +encouragement. But she perseveres, heedless of obloquy, as long as her +own affections are disengaged. She presently falls in love, however, +with a young man named Hagbart Tallhaug, who has insulted her and is now +engaged to her niece, Agot. Hagbart is the nephew of the bishop of the +diocese, who, after much persuasion is induced to receive Agot, on +condition that her aunt will remove from the district and demand no +recognition from the family. Having been informed of these conditions, +Leonarda calls upon the bishop, uninvited, and vainly remonstrates with +him. The young people are, however, unwilling to accept happiness on the +terms offered by his reverence. At this point a new complication arises. +Hagbart who had loved in Agot a kind of reflection of her aunt's +character and manner, being now thrown into the company of the latter, +discovers his mistake and transfers his affection to Leonarda. Exactly +wherein the newness of Leonarda's type consists we are not fully +informed, but we are led to infer that she represents a purer and truer +humanity than the women bred in the traditions of feudalism, with their +hypocritical arts and conventions. She is not meant to be seductive, but +radiant, ravishing. + +There is a candor in her speech, and an almost boyish +straightforwardness, for which she is not indebted to nature but to the +stanch idealism of her creator. She is, however, on that account no less +impressionable, no less ready to respond to the call of love. She +struggles manfully (or ought I not, in deference to the author's +contention, to say "womanfully") against her love for Hagbart, and at +last has no choice but to escape from the cruel dilemma by accepting the +bishop's demand. Though she cannot conquer her affection for the young +man, she believes that he will, in the course of time, return to Agot, +as soon as she is out of his way. The author evidently believes the +same. It is a hard lot to be a man in these later dramas of Björnson. + +With a slight violation of the chronological sequence I shall discuss "A +Glove" in this connection, because of its organic coherence with +"Leonarda." They are the obverse and reverse of the same subject--the +cruelty of society to the woman of a blemished reputation, and its +leniency to the man. + +To those who worship the conventional ideal of womanly innocence "A +Glove" will seem a very shocking book, for it fearlessly discusses, and, +what is more, makes a young girl discuss--the standards of sexual purity +as applied to men and women. The sentiments which she utters are, to be +sure, elevated and of an almost Utopian idealism; and the author +obviously means to raise, not to lower, her in the eyes of the reader by +her passionate frankness. + +The problem of the drama is briefly this: Society demands of women an +absolute chastity, and refuses to condone the least lapse, either before +or after marriage. But toward men it is indulgent. It readily overlooks +a plenteous seed of wild oats, and would regard it as the sheerest +Quixotism to judge the bridegroom by the same standard of purity as it +does the bride. It is easy enough, and perhaps also legitimate, to +exclaim with Björnson that this is all wrong, and that a man has no +right to ask any more than he gives. As a mere matter of equity a wife +owes her husband no more fidelity than he owes her, and may exact of +him, if she chooses, the same prematrimonial purity that he exacts of +her. But questions of this kind are never settled on the basis of +equity. The sentiments by which they are determined have long and +intricate roots in the prehistoric past; and we are yet very far from +the millennial condition of absolute equality between the sexes. +According to Herbert Spencer there is a hereditary transmission of +qualities which are confined exclusively to the male, and of others +which are confined to the female; and these are the results of the +primitive environments and conditions which were peculiar to each sex. +Even the best of us have a reminiscent sense of proprietorship in our +wives, dating from the time when she was obtained by purchase or capture +and could be disposed of like any other chattel. Wives, whose +prehistoric discipline has disposed them to humility and submission (I +am speaking of the European, not the American species, of course), have +not yet in the same degree acquired this sense of ownership in their +husbands, involving the same strict accountability for affectional +aberrations. And for this there is a very good reason, which is no less +valid now than it was in the hoariest antiquity. A husband's infidelity, +though morally as reprehensible as that of the wife, does not entail +quite such monstrous consequences. For if she deceives him, he may +ignorantly bring up another man's children, toil for them, bestow his +name and affection upon them, and leave them his property. One can +scarcely conceive of a more outrageous wrong than this; and it is in +order to guard against such a possibility that society from remote ages +has watched over the chastity of women far more jealously than over that +of men. It is as a result of this vigilance of centuries that women +have, among civilized nations, a finer sense of modesty than men, and a +higher standard of personal purity. Men are, as yet, as Mr. Howells +remarks, "imperfectly monogamous;" and Björnson is, no doubt, in the +main right in the tremendous indictment he frames against them in the +present drama. + +It may be expedient to give a brief outline of the action. Svava Riis, +the daughter of prosperous and refined parents, becomes engaged to Alf +Christensen, the son of a great commercial magnate. + +Her father and mother are overjoyed at the happy event; she is herself +no less delighted. Her _fiancé_ has an excellent reputation, shares her +interest in social questions, and supports her in her efforts to found +kindergartens and to ameliorate the lot of the poor. Each glories in +the exclusive possession of the other's love, and with the retrospective +jealousy of lovers, fancies that he has had no predecessors in the +affection of the beloved. Alf can scarcely endure to have any one touch +Svava, and is almost ill when any one dances with her. + +"When I see you among all the others," he exclaims, "and catch, for +instance, a glimpse of your arm, then I think: That arm has been wound +about my neck, and about no one else's in the whole world. She is mine! +She belongs to me, and to no one, no one else!" + +Svava finds this feeling perfectly natural, and reciprocates it. She +ardently believes that he brings her as fresh a heart as she brings him; +that his past is as free from contaminating experience as is her own. +When, therefore, she obtains proof to the contrary, in an indignant +revulsion of feeling, she hurls her glove in his face and breaks the +engagement. This act is, I fancy, intended to be half symbolic. The +young girl expresses not only her personal sense of outrage; but she +flings a challenge in the face of the whole community, which by its +indulgence made his transgression easy. She discovers that what in her +would have been a crime is in him a lapse, readily forgiven. Her whole +soul revolts against this inequality of conditions; and in terminating +their relation, which has lost all its beauty, she wishes to cut off all +chance of its future resumption. + +In order to determine whether this sentiment of passionate virginity +(which in effect makes the marriage vow of fidelity retroactive) is not, +in the present condition of the world, a trifle overstrained, I have +submitted the question to two refined women for whom I have a high +regard. To my surprise they both declared that Svava, whatever she may +have said to the contrary, did not love her _fiancé_; that her sorrow +and even her indignation were just and natural; but that her somewhat +over-conscious purity--her _virginité savante_, as Balzac phrases it in +"Modeste Mignon," and her inability to give due weight to ameliorating +circumstances were unwomanly. I confess I am not without sympathy with +this criticism. Svava, though she is right in her vehement protest +against masculine immorality, is not charming--that is, according to our +present notion of what constitutes womanly charm. It is not unlikely, +however, that like Leonarda she is meant to anticipate a new type of +womanhood, co-ordinate and coequal with man, whose charm shall be of a +wholly different order. The coquetry, the sweet hypocrisy, nay, all the +frivolous arts which exercise such a potent sway over the heart of man +have their roots in the prehistoric capture and thraldom; and from the +point of view of the woman suffragists, are so many reminiscences of +degradation. I fancy that Björnson, sharing this view, has with full +deliberation made Svava boldly and inexorably truthful, frank as a boy +and as uncompromisingly honest as a man. + +She has sufficient use for this masculine equipment (I am speaking in +accordance with the effete standards) in the battle which is before her. +Dr. Nordan, the family physician, her parents, and those of her +_fiancé_, take her to task and endeavor to demonstrate to her the +consequences of her unprecedented demand. She learns in the course of +this prolonged debate that she has been living in a fool's paradise. She +has been purposely (and with the most benevolent intention) deceived in +regard to this question from the very cradle. Her father, whom she has +believed to be a model husband, proves to have been unworthy of her +trust. The elder Christensen has also had a compromising intrigue of the +same kind; and it becomes obvious that each male creature is so +indulgent in this chapter toward every other male creature, because each +knows himself to be equally vulnerable. There is a sort of tacit +freemasonry among them, which takes its revenge upon him who tells tales +out of school. It is a consciousness of this which makes Christensen, +after having declared war to the knife against the Riises, withdraw his +challenge and become doubly cordial toward his enemy. Alf, who in the +second act has expressed the opinion that a man is responsible to his +wife for his future, but not for his past, retracts, and does penance. +Svava, in consideration of his penitence, gives him a vague hope of +future reconciliation.[9] + + [9] In the later acting version of the play, which ends with the + throwing of the glove, this hope of reconciliation is definitely cut + off. The author has evidently come to the conclusion that his + argument is weakened by Svava's conciliatory attitude, and he + enforces his moral by making the sin appear unpardonable. The acting + version, which is more dramatically concise, differs in several + other respects from the version here presented; but the other + changes seem to be dictated by a stricter regard for the exigencies + of theatrical representation. The play has been translated into + English under the title, "A Gauntlet," London, 1894. + +It will be observed by every reader of "A Glove" that it is not a drama, +according to our American notion. It has very little dramatic action. It +might be styled a series of brilliant and searching debates concerning a +theme of great moment. The same definition applies, though in a lesser +degree, to "The New System" (1879), a five-act play of great power and +beauty. By power I do not mean noise, but convincing impressiveness and +concentration of interest. One could scarcely imagine anything farther +removed from the ha! and ho! style of melodrama. + +"The New System" is primarily social satire. It is a psychological +analysis of the effect of the "small state" upon its citizens. It is an +expansion and exemplification of the proposition (Act I., 1) that "while +the great states cannot subsist without sacrificing their small people +by the thousands, small states cannot subsist without the sacrifice of +many of their great men, nay of the very greatest." The smooth, crafty +man, "who can smile ingratiatingly like a woman," rises to the higher +heights; while the bold, strong, capable man, who is unversed in the +arts of humility and intrigue, struggles hopelessly, and perhaps in the +end goes to the dogs, because he is denied the proper field for his +energy. Never has Björnson written anything more convincing, +penetrating, subtly satirical. He cuts deep; every incision draws blood. +A Norwegian who reads the play cannot well rid himself of a startled +sense of exposure that is at first wounding to his patriotism. It is +mortifying to have to admit that things are thus in Norway. And the +worst of it is that there appears to be no remedy. The condition is, +according to Björnson, inherent in all small states which cripple the +souls of men, stunt their growth, and contract their horizon. + +The first act opens with a conversation between the civil engineers +Kampe and Ravn, and the former's son Hans, who has just returned from a +prolonged sojourn abroad. The keynote is struck in the sarcastic remark +of Ravn, that in a small society only small truths can be tolerated--of +the kind that takes twenty to the inch; but great truths are apt to be +explosive and should therefore be avoided, for they might burst the +whole society. This is _ā propos_ of a book which Hans Kampe has +written, exposing the wastefulness and antiquated condition of the +so-called "new system" of railway management introduced, or supposed to +have been introduced, by Kampe's and Ravn's brother-in-law, the +supervisor-general Riis. The way for Hans to make a career, declares the +worldly wise Ravn, is not to oppose the source of promotion and power, +but to be silent and marry the supervisor-general's daughter. Ravn has +learned this lesson by bitter experience, and hopes that his nephew will +profit by it. All talk about duty to the state and society he pretends +to regard as pure moonshine, and he professes not to see the connection +between the elder Kampe's drunkenness and the artificial bottling up to +which he has been subjected, the curbing and jailing of Titanic powers +which once sought outlet in significant action. The same mighty force +which in its repression drives the men to the brandy-bottle makes the +women intoxicate themselves with fictitious narratives of high courage, +daring rescues, and all kinds of melodramatic heroism. Extremely amusing +is the scene in which Karen Riis (who loves Hans and is beloved by him) +goes rowing with her friends Nora and Lisa, taking with her a stock of +high-strung novels, and when a drowning man cries to them for help they +row away posthaste, because the man is naked. + +The second act shows us the type of the successful man of compromise, +who takes the world as he finds it, and cleverly utilizes the foibles of +his fellow-men. The supervisor-general is a sort of personification of +public opinion. He is always correct, professes to believe what others +believe, and conforms from prudent calculation to the religious customs +of the community. He demands of his son Frederic that he shall abandon a +young girl whom he loves and has seduced, and he requires of his +daughter Karen that she shall, out of regard for her family, renounce +her lover. He feigns all proper sentiments and emotions, while under +the smooth, agreeable mask lurk malice and cunning. When Hans Kampe's +book reaches him, it never occurs to him to examine it on its merits; +his only thought is to make it harmless by inventing a scandalous +motive. The elder Kampe has just resigned from the railway service; the +supervisor-general (with infamous shrewdness) demands an official +inquiry into the state of his accounts. Then all the world will say that +Hans Kampe has been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing that +an investigation is inevitable, wishes to throw dust in the eyes of the +public and save his own reputation by attacking that of his superior. It +is needless to say that he has not a shadow of suspicion regarding +Kampe's honesty, but merely chooses for his own defence the weapon which +he knows to be the most effective. + +In order to fortify his position and sound the sentiment of the +profession, Riis gives a grand dinner to the engineers of the city, to +which Kampe and his son are also invited. The chairman of the committee +on railways (of the national diet) is present, and when it appears that +Hans Kampe makes a favorable impression upon him, the friends of Riis +concoct a scheme to injure him. They inform his father that he is +suspected of embezzlement, and get him drunk, whereupon the old man +scandalizes the company by a burst of uncomplimentary candor. When Hans +arrives the mischief is done; though the pathetic scene between father +and son convinces the chairman that, whatever their failings, these men +are true and genuine. Simply delicious is the satire in the scene where +the ladies discuss the question at issue between Riis and Kampe. But +this satire is deprived of much of its force by the subsequent +development of the plot. The logical ending would seem to be the triumph +of the supervisor-general's defensive tactics and the discomfiture of +his critics. That would have given point to the criticism of the small +state and invested the victims of progress with an almost tragic +dignity. Björnson chooses, however, to let neither the one party nor the +other triumph. In a small state, he says, no one is victorious; +everything ends in compromise. If two parties championed two different +plans of railway construction, the one of which was demonstrated to be +superior in economy and safety to the other, such a demonstration would +not be likely to result in its adoption. No, the two parties would come +together, dicker and compromise, and in the end the diet would agree to +build one road according to the one plan, and one according to the +other. Agreeably to this principle Björnson leaves the honors between +the combatants about easy; but Riis, deserted by his children, undergoes +a partial change of heart and is seized with doubt as to the excellence +of his philosophy of life. + +That the satire of "The New System" struck home is obvious from the +fierceness and virulence of the criticism with which it was hailed. It +has never become fairly domesticated on the Scandinavian stages, and +probably never will be. In Germany, France, and Holland it has received +respectful attention, and (I am informed) has proved extremely effective +upon the boards. + +In the same year as "The New System" (1879) appeared the delightful +novelette "Captain Mansana," dealing with Italian life, and throwing +interesting side-lights upon the War of Liberation. There is an +irresistible charm in the freshness, the vividness, the extreme +modernness of this little tale. The mingled simplicity and +sophistication of the Italian character, the histrionic touch which yet +goes with perfect sincerity, the author has apprehended and presented +with happy realism. + +In "Beyond their Strength" (_Over Aevne_) (1883) Björnson has invaded +the twilight realm of psycho-pathological phenomena, and refers the +reader for further information to _Leįons sur le systčme nerveux, faites +par J. M. Charcot_, and _Études cliniques sur l'hystéro-épilepsie ou +grande hystérie, par le Dr. Richer_. As a man is always in danger of +talking nonsense in dealing with a subject concerning which his +knowledge is superficial, I shall not undertake to pronounce upon the +validity of the theory which is here advanced. The play is an inquiry +into the significance and authenticity of miracles. Incidentally the +theme is faith-healing, the hypnotic effect of prayer, and kindred +phenomena. + +Pastor Sang, a clergyman in a remote parish of Northern Norway, is famed +far and wide as the miracle-priest, and it is popularly believed that he +can work wonders, as the apostles did of old. He has given away his +large fortune to the poor; in a fervor of faith he plunges into every +danger, and comes out unscathed; he lives constantly in an overstrained +ecstasy, and by his mere presence, and the atmosphere which surrounds +him, forces his wife and children to live in the same state of high +nervous tension and unnatural abstraction from mundane reality and all +its concerns. His wife, Clara, who loves him ardently, is gradually worn +out by this perpetual strain, which involves a daily overdraft upon her +vitality; and finally the break comes, and she is paralyzed. For, like +everyone who comes in contact with Sang, she has had to live "beyond her +strength." She does not fully share her husband's faith, and though she +feels his influence and admires his lofty devotion, there is a +half-suppressed criticism in her mind. She feels the unwholesomeness of +thus "living by inspiration, and not by reason." When he comes to her, +"beaming always with a Sabbath joy," she would fain tune him down, if +she could, into a lower key, "the C-major of every-day life," as +Browning calls it. But in this effort she has had no success, for Sang's +ecstatic elevation above the concerns of earth is not only +temperamental; nature itself, in the extreme North, favors it. As Clara +expresses it: + +"Nature here exceeds the limits of the ordinary. We have night nearly +all winter; we have day nearly all summer--and then the sun is above the +horizon, both day and night. Have you seen it in the night? Do you know +that behind the ocean vapors it often looks three or four times as large +as usual? And then the color-effects upon sky, sea, and mountain! From +the deepest glow of red to the finest, tenderest, golden white. And the +colors of the aurora upon the wintry sky!" etc. + +It is the most ardent desire of Sang to heal his wife, as he has healed +many others. But the doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time +he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty +effort--to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as +Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his +petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in +sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but +divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this +new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of +others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their way to some +convention, stop to convince themselves of the authenticity of the +miracle, and to determine the attitude which they are to assume toward +it. Then follows a long discussion between the bishop and the clergy +regarding the value of miracles, some maintaining that the church has +outgrown the need of them, others that they are indispensable--that +Christianity cannot survive without them. For has not Christ promised +that "even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is not this a case of +the faith which verily can say to the mountain, "Rise up and cast +thyself into the sea?" + +The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than the deflection of the +avalanche, is that Clara, who has slept for the first time in a month, +now rises from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, and falls +upon his neck amid the ringing of the church-bells and the hallelujahs +of the assembled multitudes. But when he tries to raise her she is dead, +and he himself, overwhelmed by his emotion, falls dead at her side. + +This is so obviously a closet-drama that it is difficult to imagine how +it would look under the illumination of the foot-lights. For all that, I +see a recent announcement that the trial is soon to be made at the +_Théâtre Libre_ in Paris.[10] No Scandinavian theatre, as far as I know, +has as yet had the courage to risk the experiment. In his next play, +however, "Love and Geography" (1885), Björnson reconquered the stage and +repeated his early triumphs. From the scientific seriousness of "Beyond +their Strength" his pendulum swung to the opposite extreme of light +comedy, almost bordering on farce. Not that "Love and Geography" is +without a Björnsonian moral, but it is amusingly, jocosely enforced in +scenes of great vivacity and theatrical effect. This time it is himself +the author has chosen to satirize. The unconscious tyranny of a man who +has a mission, a life-work, is delightfully illustrated in the person of +the geographer, Professor Tygesen, to whom Björn Björnson, the actor, +when he played the part at the Christiania Theatre, had the boldness to +give his father's mask. Professor Tygesen is engaged upon a great +geographical opus, and gradually takes possession of the whole house +with his maps, globes, and books, driving his wife from the parlor floor +and his daughter to boarding-school. So absorbed is he in his work that +he can talk and think of nothing else. He neglects the social forms from +sheer abstraction and becomes almost a boor, because all the world +outside of his book pales into insignificance, and all persons and +events are merely interesting in so far as they can stimulate inquiry or +furnish information bearing upon the immortal opus. The inevitable +consequence follows. The professor alienates all who come in contact +with him. He is on the point of losing the affection of his wife, and +his daughter comes near going astray for want of paternal supervision. +Both these calamities are, however, averted, though in an arbitrary and +highly eccentric manner. The professor's eyes are opened to the error of +his ways, he does penance, and the curtain falls upon a reunited family. + + [10] July, 1894. + +The unpretentious little story "Dust" (_Stöv_, 1882) undertakes to +demonstrate the unwholesomeness of the religious ideas regarding the +life to come usually impressed upon children by parents and teachers. By +dust Björnson means all obsolete, lifeless matter in the world of +thought which settles upon, and often impairs, the vitality of the +living growth, or even chokes it outright. "When children are taught +that the life here is nothing compared to the life to come--that to be +visible is nothing compared to being invisible--that to be a man is +nothing compared to being an angel--that to be alive is nothing compared +to being dead--then that is not the way to give them the right view of +life; not the way to teach them to love life; not the way to inspire +them with courage, energy, and patriotism." + +In his novel "Flags in City and Harbor" (1884), the English translation +of which is entitled "The Heritage of the Kurts," Björnson has attacked +a tremendous problem. He has attempted to illustrate the force of +heredity, and the exact extent to which it may be modified by +environment--to what extent an unfavorable heredity may be counteracted +by a favorable environment. The family of Kurt, whose history is here +traced through five generations, inherits a temperament which would have +secured its survival and raised it to distinction in barbaric ages, but +which will as surely, unless powerfully modified, necessitate its +extinction in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable of +assimilating civilization. An excess of physical vigor in the first Kurt +who settled in Norway takes the form of lawlessness and an entire +absence of moral restraint. + +Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished because Kurt is +powerful and has friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and +Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is +modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is +not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody, +and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a +man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of +a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his +authority over the simple inhabitants of the little coast town. +Moreover, he is endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, and +is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and other pursuits. But he +is the terror of women, and his sensual excesses so undermine his +strength that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually +pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose death he had caused. Konrad +Kurt, the son of Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure to +see his mother maltreated by his father. He inherits a shattered +constitution and poor nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man, +but he has a strong physical need of drink, and every night he goes to +bed intoxicated. It is the author's purpose to show how the sins of his +fathers, by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad Kurt to drink. +His son, John Kurt, who is the result of a criminal relation, is the +complete incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh blood which +he has derived from his English mother has postponed the doom of the +race and enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses of his +ancestors. He first distinguishes himself as a virtuoso in swearing. The +magnificent redundance and originality of his oaths make him famous in +the army, which he chooses as the first field of his exploits. Later he +roams aimlessly about the world, merely to satisfy a wild need of +adventure. On his return to his native town he signalizes himself by his +vices as a genuine Kurt. The little town, however, cannot find it in its +heart to condemn a man of so distinguished a race, and society, though +it is fully cognizant of his mode of life, not only tolerates but even +pets him. He is entertaining, has been everywhere and seen everything. +He meets a young girl, named Thomasine Rendalen, the daughter of an +educated peasant, who occupies a position as a teacher. She is large, +ruddy, full of health and uncorrupted vigor. John Kurt takes a violent +fancy to her, and moves heaven and earth to induce her to marry him. He +goes even to the length of bribing all her female friends, and they by +degrees begin to sing his praises. At last she yields; a net of subtle +influences surrounds her, and unconsciously she comes to reflect the +view of society. Her moral prudery begins to appear ridiculous to her, +and the so-called common-sense view predominates. The author here, with +great earnestness, emphasizes the responsibility of society in weakening +the moral resistance of the individual rather than strengthening it. +Thomasine Rendalen would not have married John Kurt if society had not +condoned his offences; and society in condoning such offences undermines +its own foundations. + +After his marriage Kurt endeavors to hold his exuberant nature in check, +and for a while is moderately successful. But an uneasy suspicion haunts +him that his wife's friends, in a confidential moment, may expose his +delinquencies, and destroy her confidence in him. He watches her like a +lynx, surprises her at all hours and places, and thereby produces the +suspicion which he is endeavoring to avert. The relation develops with +inevitable logic toward an awful crisis. This is brought about by a mere +trifle. John Kurt, failing to humble his wife, strikes her. The baleful +forces that lurk in the depths of the Kurt temperament rise to the +surface; the whole terrible heritage of savagery overwhelms the feeble +civilization which the last scion has acquired. If Thomasine had been +weak, she would have been killed; but she defends herself with fierce +persistency, and though it seems as if she must succumb, her compact +frame, strengthened by generations of healthful toil, possesses an +endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John +Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture +in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly +viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, +while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he is stricken down by +apoplexy. + +The terror with which Thomasine contemplates her approaching maternity +is one of the finest points in the book. Has she the right to perpetuate +such a race, which will be a curse to itself and to future generations? +Would she not confer a boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she +sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by self-destruction she would +forever cut off the turbid current of the Kurt blood which had darkened +the vital stream of the race for centuries. The moral exaltation which +manifests itself in this struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings +to life desperately; she is young and strong, unsentimental, and averse +to ascetic enthusiasm. It finally occurs to her that her own race, too, +will assert itself in this child; that the pure and vigorous strain +which her own blood will infuse may redeem it from the dark destiny of +the Kurts. She finally resolves upon a compromise; if the child is dark, +like the Kurts, both it and its mother shall die. If it is blue-eyed and +light-haired, like the Rendalens, she will devote her life to +obliterating in it, or transforming into useful activities, the +destructive vigor of the paternal character. Thomas, when he is born, +chooses a golden mean between these two extremes, and perversely makes +his appearance as a red-haired, gray-eyed infant, in which both a Kurt +and a Rendalen might have made comforting observations. He is +accordingly permitted to live, and to become the hero of one of the most +remarkable novels which has ever been published in Scandinavia. + +He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, by a kind of heroic +conscientiousness and rationality, slowly conquers him and secures his +attachment. She has solemnly abjured her connection with her husband's +family, assumed her maiden name, and has consecrated her life to what +she regards as the highest utility--the work of education. She wishes to +atone to the race for her guilt in having perpetuated the race of the +Kurts. The scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral +portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the smell of all the burning Kurts +is blown far and wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of +another novelist, have been made the central scene in the book. But +Björnson is so tremendously in earnest that he cannot afford to stop and +note picturesque effect. Therefore he relates the burning of the Kurts +quite incidentally, and proceeds at once to talk of more serious things. + +By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion into a school, Mrs. +Rendalen believes that she can best settle the account of the Kurts with +humanity. All the latest, improved methods of education are introduced. +The Hall of Knights is turned into a chemical laboratory, and the +daylight is allowed to pour unobscured into all its murky recesses. +Through the dim and lofty passage-ways resounds the laughter of +children; on the scenes of so many hoary crimes the prattle of innocent +girls is heard; a multitude of scientific instruments labor to +demonstrate the laws of nature, and to simplify the problem of existence +which the crimes of the Kurts had tended to complicate. Thomas Rendalen, +profoundly impressed as he is with his responsibility as the last +descendant of such a race, takes up this educational mission with a +lofty humanitarian enthusiasm. He has spent many years abroad in +preparing himself for this work, and possesses, like his +great-grandfather, the gift of lucid exposition. But his perpetual and +conscious struggle with his heritage makes him nervous and ill-balanced. +He conceives the idea, fostered both by observation and by the study of +his own family history, that unchastity is the chief curse of humanity, +and the primal cause of the degeneracy of races. He believes that the +false modesty which leaves young people in ignorance of one of the most +important natural functions is largely responsible for the prevailing +immorality, and he advocates, as a remedy, fearless and searching +physiological study. His inaugural address as superintendent of the +school deals uncompromisingly with this subject, and excites such +universal indignation that it comes near wrecking the promising +enterprise. A great speech in a small town, Björnson hints, is always +more or less risky. But we are also given to understand that though +Rendalen obviously speaks out of the author's heart, this very speech +is in itself a subtle manifestation of the Kurt heritage. Rendalen is as +immoderate in virtue as his ancestors have been in vice. The violent +energy which formerly expended itself in lawless acts now expends itself +in an excessive, ascetic enthusiasm for self-conquest and lofty +humanitarian ideals. As a piece of psychology this is admirable. +Prudent, well adapted or adaptable to the civilization in which he +lives, the scion of the Kurts is not yet; but as a promise of the +redemption of the race he represents the first upward step. It is highly +characteristic of Björnson's respect for reality that he makes Rendalen +neither agreeable, handsome, nor lovable; nay, he dwells again and again +on the bad relations which temporarily exist between him and his mother, +between him and the teachers, between him and the town. For all that we +are filled with a profound respect for a man who can fight in himself so +great a fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy peasant +blood which he derived from his mother that enables him to wrestle thus +mightily with the Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we +are assured in the last pages of the book that he makes a marriage, +which is a further step toward health and virtue. We are not assured +that he conquers happiness either for himself or for his wife; and there +is not a syllable to betray that he cherishes for her any romantic +attachment. But the chances are that, in transforming and ennobling the +Kurt heritage, he insures vigor and usefulness to his descendants. He +bequeathes to them a more wholesome mixture of blood than he himself +possesses, and an energy, nay, perhaps a genius, derived from the Kurts, +which, with an upward instead of a downward tendency, may be a redeeming +force in society instead of a corrupting one. + +In order not to miss any phase of his problem, Björnson also takes up +briefly the illegitimate line of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with +any favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of +vice. The inevitable result is insanity and ultimate extinction. Mrs. +Rendalen's visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar +scream of her own son in a terrible little ragamuffin, is one of the +most remarkable incidents in this remarkable book. + +One thing that especially strikes the reader in this novel is the +author's fierce indignation against all shams, deceits, and social lies. +Therefore he calls a spade a spade, and leaves you to blush if you are +so inclined. The young girls whom he introduces are mostly misses in +their teens, and his portrayal of them is physiological rather than +pictorial. The points which he selects for comment are those which would +particularly be noted by their medical advisers; and the progress of +their histories, as he follows them, is characterized by this same +scientific minuteness of observation. Zola's ideal of scientific realism +(which Björnson has repudiated) has nevertheless found its most +brilliant exponent in him. Here the sordid and cruel facts of life are +not dwelt upon by preference; nor are they optimistically glossed over. +I doubt if a great and vital problem has ever been more vigorously, +unflinchingly, and convincingly treated in a work of fiction. + +"_Paa Guds Veje_" ("In the Ways of God"), (1889), in which Thomas +Rendalen again figures, though not as hero, is another indictment of +conventional morality. It is a very powerful but scarcely an agreeable +book. The abrupt, laconic style has no flux, no continuity, and gives +the reader the sensation of being pulled up sharply with a curb bit, +whenever he fancies that he has a free rein. Though every page is +crowded with trenchant and often admirable observations, they have not +the coherence of an organic structure, but rather that of a mosaic. The +design is obvious, striking, and impressive. It is neither distorted nor +overdrawn. It is unquestionably thus we treat moral non-conformists, +even though it be in pure self-preservation that they broke the bond +which we are agreed to enforce. The question resolves itself into this: +Has society, in its effort to uphold its moral standards, the right to +exact the sacrifice of life itself and every hope of happiness from the +victims of its own ignorance and injustice? When the young physician, +Edward Kallem, rescues the eighteen-year old Ragni Kule from the +degradation of her marriage to a husband afflicted with a most loathsome +disease, and afterward marries her--does he deserve censure or praise? +Björnson's answer is unmistakable. It is exactly the situation, depicted +five years later, by Madame Sarah Grand in the relation of Edith to the +young rake, Sir Moseley Menteith. Only, Björnson rescues the victim, +while the author of "The Heavenly Twins" makes her perish. In both +instances it is the pious ignorance of clerical parents which +precipitates the tragedy. Ragni's deliverance is, however, only an +apparent one. Society, which without indignation had witnessed her sale +to the corrupt old libertine, is frightfully shocked by her marriage to +Dr. Kallem, and manifests its disapproval with an emphasis which takes +no account of ameliorating circumstances. The sanguinary ingenuity in +the constant slights and stabs to which she is exposed makes her life a +martyrdom and finally kills her. "Contempt will pierce the armor of a +tortoise," says an oriental proverb; and poor Ragni had no chelonian +armor. When her most harmless remarks are misinterpreted and her most +generous acts become weapons wherewith to slay her, she loses all heart +for resistance, and merely lies down to die. Very subtile and beautiful +is the manner in which Björnson indicates the interaction of psychical +and physical conditions. The "soul-frost" which chills the very marrow +of her bones is so vividly conveyed that you shiver sympathetically. The +self-righteous and brutally censorious attitude of the community lowers +the temperature and makes the atmosphere deadly. And the fact that it +is Ragni's unsuspicious innocence, and even her love of her husband, +which expose her to this condemnation is made plain with much delicate +art. Her residence of five years in the United States after her divorce, +and before her second marriage, had, no doubt, accustomed her to a +greater freedom of intercourse between man and woman, and thereby +disposed her to trip rather lightly over the stumbling-blocks of +prudence. + +The history of Kallem's sister, Josephine, and her husband, the Reverend +Ole Tuft, which is closely interwoven with the above, furnishes us with +two more characters deeply felt and strongly realized. It is they who +are the chief instruments of Ragni's martyrdom. As the upholders of +social purity, and, as it were, professional guardians of morals, it +would seem that Tuft and his wife had scarcely any choice but to condemn +marriage with a _divorcée_. When, however, after Ragni's death, they +discover whom they have slain--how much purer, nobler, and of more +delicate nature she was than either of them--they are dissolved in shame +and remorse. A tremendous crisis in their spiritual lives is produced by +the mortal peril of their only child, whom Kallem saves by a skilful +operation. Out of the ancient religion of dogmas which judges and damns, +Tuft is by these experiences led into a new religion of love, which +values life above faith, and charity above all. The reconciliation of +brother and sister in the last chapter is profoundly moving. The moral +is emphasized in the phrase with which the story closes: "Wherever good +men walk, there are the ways of God." + +The charm of this novel is, to me, that it is strong, virile, instinct +with vital thought. There are blemishes in it, too, which no one will be +likely to overlook. Several chapters read like the reports of a clinic +in a medical journal, so extremely minute and circumstantial are the +accounts of Kallem's operations and hypnotic experiments. An excursion +into botany, _ā propos_ of Ragni's walk in the woods, is likewise +overloaded with details and teems with scientific terms. But the +greatest blemish is the outbreak in Kallem (who has the author's fullest +sympathy) of a certain barbaric violence which to civilized people is +well-nigh incomprehensible. Thus, when, after an absence of six years, +he calls upon his brother-in-law, the pastor, he proceeds to turn +handsprings about the latter's study. When, after his marriage, his +sister meets him in the street for the purpose of informing him of the +scandalous rumors concerning his wife, he gives her a box on the ear. + +In Björnson's last book, "New Tales" (_Nye Fortaellinger_) (1894), this +tendency to vehemence is even more marked. In the masterly story, +"Absalom's Hair" (than which the author has never written anything more +boldly original) old Harold Kaas literally spanks his young wife in the +presence of his servants. And the matter is in nowise minced, but +described with an unblushing zest which makes the impression of +_naīveté_. It is obvious that in his delight in the exhibition of a +healthy, primitive wrath, Björnson half forgets how such barbarism must +affect his readers. We hear, to be sure, that the servants were filled +with indignation and horror, and that Harold Kaas, having expected +laughter and applause, "went away a defeated and irremediably crushed +man." But for all that the incident is crude, harsh, and needlessly +revolting. In Russia it might have happened; but I am inclined to doubt +if a Norwegian gentleman, even though he were descended from the +untamable Kurts, would have been capable of so outrageous a breach of +decency. + +Apart from this incident, "Absalom's Hair" is so interpenetrated with a +sense of reality that we seem to live the story rather than read it. I +verily believe it to be a type of what the fiction of the future will +be, when scientific education shall have been largely substituted for +the classical; and even the novelists will be expected to know something +about the world in which they live and the sublime and inexorable laws +which govern it. At present the majority of them spin irresponsible +yarns, and play Providence _ad libitum_ to their characters. Man's vital +coherence with his environment is but loosely indicated. Chance reigns +supreme. They have observed carefully enough the external phenomena of +life--and chiefly for their picturesque or dramatic interest--but of the +causes which underlie them they rarely give us a glimpse. + +It is in this respect that Björnson's last tales offer so grateful a +contrast to conventional fiction. Here is a man who has resolutely +aroused himself from the old romantic doze, cleared his eyes of the film +of dreams, and with a sharp, wide-awake intensity focussed them to the +actual aspect of the actual world. He has sat down with his windows wide +open, and allowed the sounds and sights and smells of reality to pour in +upon him. And the magic spectacles are his which enable him to gauge the +significance of the phenomena and divine the causes which lurk behind +them. Therefore his characterizations are often extremely +unconventional, and amid all their picturesque vigor of phrase hint at +the kind of knowledge which could only be possessed by a family +physician. In "Absalom's Hair" we have no mere agglomeration of +half-digested scientific data, but a scientific view of life. The story +moves, from beginning to end, with a beautiful epic calm and a grand +inevitableness which remind one of Tolstoi, and reaches far toward the +high-water mark of modern realism. Take, for instance, the +characterization of Kirsten Ravn (pp. 11-15), and I wonder where in +contemporary fiction so large and deep a comprehension is shown both of +psychic and of physical forces. Emma, the heroine of Flaubert's "Madame +Bovary" is the only parallel I can recall, as regards the kind and +method of portraiture, though there is no resemblance between the +characters. In the development of the character of Rafael Kaas, there +is the same beautiful respect for human nature, the same unshrinking +statement of "shocking" facts, and the same undeviating adherence to the +logic of reality. The hair by which Rafael, as his prototype, the son of +David, is arrested and suspended in the midst of his triumphant race is +sensuality. His life is on the point of being wrecked, and his splendid +powers are dissipated by his inability to restrain his passions. The +tragic fate which hovers over him from the moment of his birth is +admirably hinted at, but not emphasized, in the sketch of his parents. +The carnal overbalance, supplied by the blood of the Kurts, wellnigh +neutralizes the mechanical genius which is hereditary in the blood of +the Ravns. + +It is reported that "Absalom's Hair" has aroused great indignation in +Christiania, because it is claimed that the characters are drawn, with +scarcely an attempt at disguise, from well-known persons in the +Norwegian capital. + +The remaining stories of the volume, "An Ugly Reminiscence of +Childhood," "Mother's Hands," and "One Day" betray the same contempt for +romantic standards, the same capacity for making acquaintance with life +at first hand. The first-named is an account of a murder and execution, +and extremely painful. The second is a bit of pathological psychology _ā +propos_ of intemperance. Tastes imprisoned, genius cramped and +perverted, joy of life (_joie de vivre_) denied, will avenge themselves. +They will break out in drunkenness. The hero of "One Day" is afflicted +with the same vice, and apparently for the same reason. The cruel +disillusion which in consequence overtakes the poor little soul-starved +heroine rises almost to the height of tragedy. It is an every-day tale, +full of "deep and blood-veined humanity," and deriving its interest and +significance from the very fact of its commonness. + +What distinguishes the Norsemen above other nations is, generally +speaking, an indestructible self-respect and force of individuality. The +old Norse sagas abound in illustrations of this untamable vigor and +ruthless self-assertion. It was the looseness of the social structure, +resulting from this sense of independence and consequent jealousy and +internecine warfare, which destroyed the Icelandic republic and made +Norway for four centuries a province of Denmark. In all the great men of +Norway we recognize something of the rampant individualism of their +Viking forefathers. Ibsen is the modern apostle _par excellence_ of +philosophic anarchism; and Björnson, too, has his full share of the +national aggressiveness and pugnacity. For all that there is a radical +difference between the two. The sense of social obligation which Ibsen +lacks, Björnson possesses in a high degree. He fights, not as a daring +guerilla, but as the spokesman and leader of thousands. He is the +chieftain who looms a head above all the people. He wields a heavy +sword, and he deals mighty blows. The wrath that possesses him is, +however, born of love. He fights man in the name of humanity. It is not +for himself, primarily, that he demands larger liberties, securer +rights, more humanizing conditions of life; but it is for his +fellow-men. The many, the small and down-trodden, the dumb millions, +whom Ibsen despises, Björnson loves. As Dr. Brandes[11] has so happily +said: + + [11] Det Moderne Gjennembruds Maend, p. 60. + +"Ibsen is a judge, stern as the old judges of Israel. Björnson is a +prophet, the hopeful herald of a better day. Ibsen is, in the depth of +his mind, a great revolutionist. In 'The Comedy of Love,' 'A Doll's +House,' and 'Ghosts,' he scourges marriage; in 'Brand,' the State +Church; in the 'Pillars of Society,' the dominant bourgeoisie. Whatever +he attacks is shivered into splinters by his profound and superior +criticism. Only the shattered ruins remain, and we are unable to espy +the new social institutions beyond them. Björnson is a conciliatory +spirit who wages war without bitterness. April sunshine glints and +gleams through all his works, while those of Ibsen, with their sombre +seriousness, lie in deep shadow. Ibsen loves the idea--the logical and +psychological consistency which drives Brand out of the church and Nora +out of the marital relation. To Ibsen's love of the idea corresponds +Björnson's love of man." + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + +As Björnson's works have been translated not only into English, French, +and German, but also largely into Russian, Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, +and even remoter tongues, a bibliography, including all translations, +would demand a volume by itself. I shall therefore only enumerate the +more important English translations; but would warn my readers not to +judge Björnson's style by that of his translators. _Arne_: Translated by +Augusta Plesner and S. R. Powers (Boston, 1872). _The Happy Boy_: +Translated by H. R. G. (Boston, 1872). _The Railroad and the +Churchyard_, _The Eagle's Nest_, and _The Father_ are contained in the +volume to which Goldschmidt's _The Flying Mail_ gives the title (Sever, +Francis & Co., Boston and Cambridge, 1870). The following volumes are +translated by Professor R. B. Anderson, and published in a uniform +edition by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (Boston, 1881): _Synnöve Solbakken_, +_Arne_, _A Happy Boy_, _The Fisher Maiden_, _The Bridal March_, +_Magnhild_, _Captain Mansana and other Stories_. _Sigurd Slembe_: A +Dramatic Trilogy: Translated by William Morton Payne (Boston and New +York, 1888). _Arne_ and _The Fisher Lassie_: Translated, with an +Introduction, by W. H. Low (Bohn Library, London). _Pastor Sang (Over +Aevne)_: Translated by Wm. Wilson (London, 1893). _In God's Way_ +(Heinemann's International Library, London, 1891). _The Heritage of the +Kurts_, 1892. _A Gauntlet_. A Play. London, 1894. A new translation of +all Björnson's novels and tales has just been announced by Messrs. +Macmillan & Co., and the first volume, _Synnöve Solbakken_ (New York and +London, 1895), has appeared. The translation is rather slipshod. + + + + +ALEXANDER KIELLAND + + +In June, 1867, about a hundred enthusiastic youths were vociferously +celebrating their attainment of the baccalaureate degree at the +University of Norway. The orator on this occasion was a tall, handsome, +distinguished-looking young man named Alexander Kielland, from the +little coast town of Stavanger. There was none of the crudity of a +provincial either in his manners or his appearance. He spoke with a +quiet self-possession and a pithy incisiveness which were altogether +phenomenal. + +"That young man will be heard from one of these days," was the unanimous +verdict of those who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, +and noted the maturity of his opinions. + +But ten years passed, and outside of Stavanger no one ever heard of +Alexander Kielland. His friends were aware that he had studied law, +spent some winters in France, married, and settled himself as a +dignitary in his native town. It was understood that he had bought a +large brick and tile factory, and that as a manufacturer of these useful +articles he bid fair to become a provincial magnate, as his fathers had +been before him. People had almost forgotten that great things had been +expected of him, and some fancied perhaps that he had been spoiled by +prosperity. Remembering him, as I did, as the most brilliant and notable +personality among my university friends, I began to apply to him +Mallock's epigrammatic damnation of the man of whom it was said at +twenty that he would do great things, at thirty that he might do great +things, and at forty that he might have done great things. + +This was the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland +(and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879 +a modest volume of "Novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to +all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style +which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the +Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, +a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle, and occasional flashes of wit +which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. It was obvious that this author +was familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired through them +that clear and crisp incisiveness of utterance which was supposed, +hitherto, to be untransferable to any other tongue. + +As regards the themes of these "Novelettes," it was remarked at the time +of their first appearance that they hinted at a more serious purpose +than their style seemed to imply. Who can read, for instance, "Pharaoh" +(which in the original is entitled "A Ball Mood") without detecting the +revolutionary note that trembles quite audibly through the calm and +unimpassioned language? There is, by the way, a little touch of +melodrama in this tale which is very unusual with Kielland. "Romance and +Reality," too, is glaringly at variance with conventional romanticism in +its satirical contrasting of the prematrimonial and the postmatrimonial +view of love and marriage. The same persistent tendency to present the +wrong side as well as the right side--and not, as literary good manners +are supposed to prescribe, ignore the former--is obvious in the charming +tale, "At the Fair," where a little spice of wholesome truth spoils the +thoughtlessly festive mood; and the squalor, the want, the envy, hate, +and greed which prudence and a regard for business compel the performers +to disguise to the public, become the more cruelly visible to the +visitors of the little alley-way at the rear of the tents. In "A Good +Conscience" the satirical note has a still more serious ring; but the +same admirable self-restraint which, next to the power of thought and +expression, is the happiest gift an author's fairy godmother can bestow +upon him, saves Kielland from saying too much--from enforcing his lesson +by marginal comments, _á la_ George Eliot. But he must be obtuse indeed +to whom this reticence is not more eloquent and effective than a page of +philosophical moralizing. + +"Hope's Clad in April Green" and "The Battle of Waterloo" (the first +and the last tale in the Norwegian edition) are more untinged with a +moral tendency than any of the foregoing. The former is a mere _jeu +d'esprit_, full of good-natured satire on the calf-love of very young +people, and the amusing over-estimate of our importance to which we are +all, at that age, peculiarly liable. + +As an organist with vaguely melodious hints foreshadows in his prelude +the musical _motifs_ which he means to vary and elaborate in his fugue, +so Kielland lightly touched in these "Novelettes" the themes which in +his later works he has struck with a fuller volume and power. What he +gave in this little book was a light sketch of his mental physiognomy, +from which, perhaps, his horoscope might be cast and his literary future +predicted. + +Though a patrician by birth and training, he revealed a strong sympathy +with the toiling masses. But it was a democracy of the brain, I should +fancy, rather than of the heart. As I read the book, sixteen years ago, +its tendency puzzled me considerably, remembering, as I did, with the +greatest vividness, the fastidious and _distingué_ personality of the +author. I found it difficult to believe that he was in earnest. The book +seemed to me to betray the whimsical _sans-culottism_ of a man of +pleasure who, when the ball is at an end, sits down with his gloves on, +and philosophizes on the artificiality of civilization and the +wholesomeness of honest toil. An indigestion makes him a temporary +communist; but a bottle of seltzer presently reconciles him to his lot, +and restores the equilibrium of the universe. He loves the people at a +distance, can talk prettily about the sturdy son of the soil, who is the +core and marrow of the nation, etc.; but he avoids contact with him, +and, if chance brings them into contact, he loves him with his +handkerchief to his nose. + +I may be pardoned for having identified Alexander Kielland with this +type, with which I am very familiar; and he convinced me presently that +I had done him injustice. In his next book, the admirable novel "Garman +and Worse," he showed that his democratic proclivities were something +more than a mood. He showed that he took himself seriously, and he +compelled the public to take him seriously. The tendency which had only +flashed forth here and there in the "Novelettes" now revealed its whole +countenance. The author's theme was the life of the prosperous +_bourgeoisie_ in the western coast towns; and he drew their types with a +hand that gave evidence of intimate knowledge. He had himself sprung +from one of these rich ship-owning, patrician families, had been given +every opportunity to study life both at home and abroad, and had +accumulated a fund of knowledge of the world, which he had allowed +quietly to grow before making literary draughts upon it. The same Gallic +perspicacity of style which had charmed in his first book was here in a +heightened degree; and there was, besides, the same underlying sympathy +with progress and what is called the ideas of the age. What mastery of +description, what rich and vigorous colors, Kielland had at his disposal +was demonstrated in such scenes as the funeral of Consul Garman and the +burning of the ship. There was, moreover, a delightful autobiographical +note in the book, particularly in the boyish experiences of Gabriel +Garman. Such things no man invents, however clever; such material no +imagination supplies, however fertile. Except Fritz Reuter's +Stavenhagen, I know no small town in fiction which is so vividly and +completely individualized, and populated with such living and credible +characters. Take, for instance, the two clergymen, Archdeacon Sparre and +the Rev. Mr. Martens, and it is not necessary to have lived in Norway in +order to recognize and enjoy the faithfulness and the artistic subtlety +of these portraits. If they have a dash of satire (which I will not +undertake to deny), it is such delicate and well-bred satire that no +one, except the originals, would think of taking offence. People are +willing, for the sake of the entertainment which it affords, to forgive +a little quiet malice at their neighbors' expense. The members of the +provincial bureaucracy are drawn with the same firm but delicate touch, +and everything has that beautiful air of reality which proves the world +akin. + +It was by no means a departure from his previous style and tendency +which Kielland signalized in his next novel, "Laboring People" (1881). +He only emphasizes, as it were, the heavy, serious bass chords in the +composite theme which expresses his complex personality, and allows the +lighter treble notes to be momentarily drowned. His theme is the +corrupting influence of the upper upon the lower class. He has in this +book made some appalling, soul-searching studies in the pathology as +well as the psychology of vice. + +Kielland's third novel, "Skipper Worse," marked a distinct step in his +development. It was less of a social satire and more of a social study. +It was not merely a series of brilliant, exquisitely finished scenes, +loosely strung together on a slender thread of narrative, but was a +concise and well-constructed story, full of beautiful scenes and +admirable portraits. The theme is akin to that of Daudet's +"L'Évangéliste;" but Kielland, as it appears to me, has in this instance +outdone his French _confrčre_, as regards insight into the peculiar +character and poetry of the pietistic movement. He has dealt with it as +a psychological and not primarily as a pathological phenomenon. A +comparison with Daudet suggests itself constantly in reading Kielland. +Their methods of workmanship and their attitude toward life have many +points in common. The charm of style, the delicacy of touch, and +felicity of phrase, are in both cases pre-eminent. Daudet has, however, +the advantage (or, as he himself asserts, the disadvantage) of working +in a flexible and highly finished language, which bears the impress of +the labors of a hundred masters; while Kielland has to produce his +effects of style in a poorer and less pliable language, which often +pants and groans in its efforts to render a subtle thought. To have +polished this tongue and sharpened its capacity for refined and incisive +utterance, is one--and not the least--of his merits. + +Though he has by nature no more sympathy with the pietistic movement +than Daudet, Kielland yet manages to get psychologically closer to his +problem. His pietists are more humanly interesting than those of Daudet, +and the little drama which they set in motion is more genuinely +pathetic. Two superb figures--the lay preacher Hans Nilsen and Skipper +Worse--surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of +conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, +profane old sea-dog Jacob Worse with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the +attempts of his mother-in-law to convert him, are described not with the +merely superficial drollery to which the subject invites, but with a +sweet and delicate humor which trembles on the verge of pathos. In the +Christmas tale, "Elsie," Kielland has produced a little classic of +almost flawless perfection. With what exquisite art he paints the life +of a small Norwegian coast-town in all its vivid details! While +Björnson, in "The Heritage of the Kurts," primarily emphasizes the +responsibility of the individual to society, Kielland chooses to +emphasize the responsibility of society to the individual. The former +selects a hero with vicious inherited tendencies, redeemed by wise +education and favorable environment; the latter portrays a heroine with +no corrupt predisposition, destroyed by a corrupting environment. Elsie +could not be good, because the world was once so constituted that girls +of her kind were not expected to be good. Temptations, perpetually +thronging in her way, broke down the moral bulwarks of her nature; +resistance seemed in vain. In the end, there is scarcely one who, having +read the book, will have the heart to condemn her. + +Incomparably clever is the satire on the benevolent societies which +exist to furnish a kind of officious sense of virtue to their +aristocratic members. "The Society for the Redemption of the Abandoned +Women of St. Peter's Parish" is presided over by a gentleman who is +responsible for the abandoned condition of a goodly number of them. +However, it turns out that those miserable creatures who need to be +redeemed belong to another parish, and accordingly cannot be reached by +St. Peter's. St. Peter's parish is aristocratic, exclusive, and keeps +its wickedness discreetly veiled. The horror of the secretary of the +society, when she hears that "the abandoned woman" who calls upon her +for aid, has a child without being married, is both comic and pathetic. +In fact, there is not a scene in the book which is not instinct with +life and admirably characteristic. + +Besides being the author of some minor comedies and a full-grown drama +("The Professor"), Kielland has published several novels, the more +recent being "Poison" (1883), "Fortuna" (1884), "Snow" (1886), and "St. +John's Eve" (1887). + +The note of promise and suspense with which "Snow" ends is meant to be +symbolic. From Kielland's point of view, Norway is yet wrapped in the +wintry winding-sheet of a tyrannical orthodoxy, and all he dares assert +is that the chains of frost and snow seem to be loosening. There is a +spring feeling in the air. + +This spring feeling is scarcely perceptible in his last book, "Jacob" +(1890), which is written in anything but a hopeful mood. It is rather a +protest against that optimism which in fiction we call poetic justice. +The harsh and unsentimental logic of reality is emphasized with a +ruthless disregard of rose-colored traditions. + +From the pedagogic point of view, I have no doubt that "Jacob" would be +classed as an immoral book. But the question of its morality is of less +consequence than the question of its truth. The most modern literature, +which is interpenetrated with the spirit of the age, has a way of asking +dangerous questions--questions before which the reader, when he +perceives their full scope, stands aghast. Our old idyllic faith in the +goodness and wisdom of all mundane arrangements has undoubtedly received +a shock. Our attitude toward the universe is changing with the change of +its attitude toward us. What the thinking part of humanity is now +largely engaged in doing is readjusting itself toward the world and the +world toward it. Success is but adaptation to environment, and success +is the supreme aim of the modern man. The authors who, by their fearless +thinking and speaking, help us toward this readjustment should, in my +opinion, whether we choose to accept their conclusions or not, be hailed +as benefactors. It is in the ranks of these that Alexander Kielland has +taken his place, and occupies a conspicuous position. + + + + +JONAS LIE + + +The last Norwegian novelist who is in the Parisian sense _arrivé_ is +Jonas Lie.[12] The _Figaro_ has occupied itself with him of late; and +before long, I venture to predict, London and New York will also have +discovered him. English versions of a few of his earlier novels +appeared, to be sure, twenty years ago--in very bad translations--and +accordingly attracted no great attention. "The Visionary," which has +recently been published in London, has had better luck, having been +accorded a flattering reception. Of its popular success it is yet too +early to speak. But even if Jonas Lie were not about to knock at our +gates, I venture to say that I shall earn the gratitude of many a reader +by making him acquainted with this rare, complex, and exceedingly modern +spirit. For Jonas Lie is not (like so many of his brethren of the quill) +a mere inoffensive gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is a +forceful personality of bright perceptions and keen sensations, which +has chosen to express itself through the medium of the novel. He dwells +in a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon the world and its +manifold concerns. In a score of novels of varying degrees of excellence +he has given us vividly realized bits of the views which his windows +command. But what lends their chief charm to these uncompromising +specimens of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament on the +author's part, which suffuses even the harshest narrative with a rosy +glow of hope. Though, generally speaking, there is no very close kinship +between him and the French realists, I am tempted to apply to him Zola's +beautiful characterization of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed him at +that exquisite point where reality ends and poetry begins." Before he +had yet written a single book, except a volume of flamboyant verse, +Björnson said of him in a public speech: "His friends know that he only +has to plunge his landing-net down into himself in order to bring it up +full." + + [12] Pronounced _Lee_. + +The man who, in anticipation of his achievements, impressed Björnson so +deeply with his genius, was, however, by others, who felt themselves to +be no less entitled to an opinion, regarded as an "original," not to say +a fool. That he was decidedly queer, his biography by Arne Garborg amply +testifies. + + "Two souls, alas, abide within my breast, + The one forever strives against the other," + +says Faust; and Jonas Lie's life and literary activity are apparently, +in a very real sense, the result of a similar warfare. There was, +indeed, a good ancestral reason for the duality of his nature. His +father, a judge of sterling ability and uprightness, was descended, but +a few generations back, from sturdy, blond, Norwegian peasants; while +his mother was of Finnish, or possibly Gypsy, descent. I remember well +this black-eyed, eccentric little lady, with her queer ways, +extraordinary costumes, and still more extraordinary conversation. It is +from her Jonas Lie has inherited the fantastic strain in his blood, the +strange, superstitious terrors, and the luxuriant wealth of color which +he lavished upon his poems and his first novel, "The Visionary." From +his paternal ancestors, who were for three generations judges and +judicial functionaries, he has derived his good sense, his intense +appreciation of detail, and his strong grip on reality. His career +represents at its two poles a progression from the adventurous +romanticism of his maternal heritage to the severe, wide-awake realism +of the paternal--the emancipation of the Norseman from the Finn. + +"Jonas Lie has a good memory," writes his biographer. "Thus he +remembers--even though it be as through a haze--that he was once in the +world as the son of a laborer, a carpenter, or something in that line, +and that he went with food in a tin-pail to his father, when he was at +work. During this incarnation he must have behaved rather shabbily; for +in the next he found himself degraded to a fox--a silver fox--and in +this capacity he was shot one moonlight night on the snow. After that +he emerged, according to his recollection, as Jonas Lauritz Idemil, son +of the lawyer Mons Lie, at Hougsund, in Eker. This took place November +6, 1833." + +When he was but a few years old his father removed, in various official +capacities, to Mandal, Söndhordland, and, finally, to the city of +Tromsoe, in Nordland. It was here, in the extreme north, that Jonas +spent the years of his boyhood, and it was this wild, enchanted region +which put the deepest impress upon his spirit. + +"In Nordland," he says in "The Visionary," the hero of which is +essentially the Finnish half of himself, "all natural phenomena are +intense, and appear in colossal contrasts. There is an endless, +stony-gray desert as in primeval times, before men dwelt there; but in +the midst of this are also endless natural riches. There is sun and +glory of summer, the day of which is not only twelve hours, but lasts +continuously, day and night, for three months--a warm, bright, +fragrance-laden summer, with an infinite wealth of color and changing +beauty. Distances of seventy to eighty miles across the mirror of the +sea approach, as it were, within earshot. The mountains clothe +themselves up to the very top with greenish-brown grass, and in the +glens and ravines the little birches join hands for play, like white, +sixteen-year-old girls; while the fragrance of the strawberry and +raspberry fills the air as nowhere else; and the day is so hot that you +feel a need to bathe yourself in the sun-steeped, plashing sea, so +wondrously clear to the very bottom.... Myriads of birds are surging +through the air, like white breakers about the cliffs, and like a +screaming snow-storm about their brooding-places...." + +But "as a contrast there is a night of darkness and terror which lasts +nine months." + +In this arctic gloom, during which the yellow candle-light struggled all +day long through the frost-covered window-panes, the Finn grew big in +Jonas Lie, and the Norseman shrank and was almost dwarfed. The air was +teeming with superstitions which he could not help imbibing. His fancy +fed eagerly on stories of Draugen, the terrible sea-bogie who yells +heartrendingly in the storm, and the sight of whom means death; on +blood-curdling tales of Finnish sorcery and all sorts of uncanny +mysteries; on folk-legends of trolds, nixies, and foul-weather sprites. +He had his full share of that craving for horrors which is common to +boyhood; and he had also the most exceptional facilities for satisfying +it. Truth to tell, if it had not been for the Norse Jekyll in his nature +the Finnish Hyde might have run away with him altogether. They were +mighty queer things which often invaded his brain, taking possession of +his thought, paralyzing his will, and refusing to budge, no matter how +earnestly he pleaded. There were times when he grew afraid of himself; +when his imagination got the upper hand, blowing him hither and thither +like a weather-cock. Then the Norse Jekyll came to his rescue and routed +his uncomfortable yoke-fellow. Hence that very curious phenomenon that +the same man who has given us sternly and soberly realistic novels like +"The Family at Gilje" and "The Commodore's Daughters," is also the +author of the collection of tales called "Trold," in which his fancy +runs riot in a phantasmagoria of the grotesquest imaginings. The same +Jonas Lie who comports himself so properly in the parlor is quite +capable, it appears, of joining nocturnally the witches' dance at the +Brocken and cutting up the wildest antics under the pale glimpses of the +moon. + +Throughout his boyhood he struggled rather ineffectually against his +Hyde, who made him kill roosters, buy cakes on credit, go on forbidden +expeditions by land and sea, and shamefully neglect his lessons. +Accordingly, he made an early acquaintance with the rod, and was +regarded as well-nigh incorrigible. He accepted with boyish stoicism the +castigations which fell pretty regularly to his lot, bore no one any +grudge for them, but rarely thought of mending his ways, in order to +avoid them. They were somehow part of the established order of things +which it was useless to criticise. In his reminiscences from his early +years, which he published some years ago, he is so delightfully boy, +that no one who has any recollection of that barbaric period in his own +life can withhold his sympathy. The following, for instance, seems to me +charming: + +"I can still feel how she (Kvaen Marja, the maid) pulled us, cowering +and reluctant, out of our warm beds, where we lay snug like birds in +their nests, between the reindeer skin and the sheepskin covering. I +remember how I stood asleep and tottering on the floor, until I got a +shower of cold water from the bathing-sponge over my back and became +wide awake. Then to jump into our clothes! And now for the lessons! It +was a problem how to get a peep at them during the scant quarter hour, +while the breakfast was being devoured down in the dining-room with +mother, who sat and poured out tea before the big astral lamp, while +darkness and snow-drift lay black upon the window-panes. Then up and +away!... + +"There (in the school) I sat and perspired in the sultry heat of the +stove, and with a studiously unconcerned face watched with strained +anxiety every expression and gesture of the teacher. Was he in +good-humor to-day? Would that I might escape reciting! He began at the +top.... That was a perfect millstone lifted from my breast, though, as +yet, nothing could be sure. Now for a surreptitious peep at the end of +the lesson." + +It was Jonas Lie's ambition at that time to become a gunsmith. He had a +profound respect for the ingenuity and skill required for such a curious +bit of mechanism. But his father, who could not afford to have a member +of his family descend into the rank of artisans, promptly strangled +that ambition. Then the sea, which has been "the Norseman's path to +praise and power," no less than the Dane's, lured the adventurous lad; +and his parent, who had no exalted expectations regarding him, gave his +consent to his entering the Naval Academy at Fredericksvaern. But here +he was rejected on account of near-sightedness. Nothing remained, then, +but to resume the odious books and prepare to enter the University. But +to a boy whose heroes were the two master-thieves, Ola Höiland and Gjest +Baardsen, that must have been a terribly arduous necessity. However, he +submitted with bad grace, and was enrolled as a pupil at the gymnasium +in Bergen. Here his Finnish Hyde promptly got him into trouble. Having +by sheer ill luck been cheated of his chances of a heroic career, he +began to imagine in detail the potentialities of greatness for the loss +of which Fate owed him reparation. And so absorbed did he become in this +game of fancy, and so enamored was he of his own imaginary deeds, that +he lost sight of the fact that they were of the stuff that dreams are +made of. With frank and innocent trustfulness he told them to his +friends, both young and old, and soon earned a reputation as a most +unblushing liar. But if any one dared call him that to his face, he had +to reckon with an awe-inspiring pair of fists which were wielded with +equal precision and force. The youth, being at variance with the world, +lived in a state of intermittent warfare, and he gave and received +valiant blows, upon which he yet looks back with satisfaction. + +In spite of his distaste for books Jonas Lie managed, when he was +eighteen years old, to pass the entrance examination to the University. +Among his schoolmates during his last year of preparation at Heltberg's +Gymnasium, in Christiania, were Björnstjerne Björnson and Henrik Ibsen. +The former took a great interest in the odd, _naīve_, near-sighted +Nordlander who walked his own ways, thought his own thoughts, and +accepted ridicule with crushing indifference. + +"I was going about there in Christiania," he says in a published letter +to Björnson, "as a young student, undeveloped, dim, and unclear--a kind +of poetic visionary, a Nordland twilight nature--which after a fashion +espied what was abroad in the age, but indistinctly in the dusk, as +through a water telescope--when I met a young, clear, full-born force, +pregnant with the nation's new day, the blue steel-flash of +determination in his eyes and the happily found national +form--pugnacious to the very point of his pen. I gazed and stared, +fascinated, and took this new thing aboard along the whole gunwale. +Here, I felt, were definite forms, no mere dusk and fantastic +haze--something to fashion into poetry.... From the first hour you knew +how to look straight into this strange twilight of mine, and you espied +flashes of the aurora there when no one else did, like the true and +faithful friend you are. You helped and guided and found grains of +gold, where others saw mostly nonsense, and perhaps half a screw loose. +While I was straying in search of the spiritual tinsel, with which the +_esprits forts_ of the age were glittering, you taught me, and impressed +upon me, again and again, that I had to seek in myself for whatever I +might possess of sentiment and simplicity--and that it was out of this I +would have to build my fiction." + +This bit of confession is extremely significant. The Finnish Hyde was +evidently yet uppermost. Björnson taught Lie to distrust the tinsel +glitter of mere rhetoric, and the fantastic exuberance of invention in +which the young Nordlander believed that he had his _forte_. But the +matter had even a more serious phase than this. It was about this time +that Lie disappeared for a period of three months from his friends, and +even his parents, and when again he emerged into the daylight, he could +give no account of himself. He had simply sauntered about, moping and +dreaming. He had been Hyde. The cold shudders which lurked in his blood +from the long, legend-haunted arctic night could break into open terror +on unforeseen occasions. Grown man though he was, he was afraid of being +alone in the dark--a peculiarity which once got him into a comical +predicament. + +It was his habit when travelling to place his big top-boots at night +within easy reach, so that he might use them as weapons against any +ghost or suspicious-looking object that might be stirring in the gloom. +One evening when he had gone to bed at a country inn, he was aroused +from his sleep and saw indistinctly a white phenomenon fluttering to and +fro along the opposite wall. Instantly he grabs a boot and hurls it with +ferocious force at the goblin. A roar was heard followed by a salvo of +blue profanity. It was a fellow-traveller--a lumber-dealer--who was to +occupy the other bed in the room. He had undressed and was disporting +himself in nocturnal attire before reposing, when Jonas Lie's well-aimed +missile hit him in the stomach and doubled him up with pain. + +A skeleton in the den of a medical friend caused Lie many a shiver, for +he could never quite rid himself of the idea that it moved. All that lay +beyond the range of the senses drew him with an irresistible, +half-shuddering attraction; and he resented all attempts to explain it +by ordinary mundane laws. As his first novel abundantly proves, he +possesses in a marked degree the "sixth sense" that gropes eagerly and +with a half-terrified fascination in the dusk that lies beyond the +daylight of the other five. + +The verses which Jonas Lie began about this time to produce are mostly +written for patriotic and other festive occasions, and therefore arouse +no creepy sensations. But they are so overladen with confusing imagery +that they have to be read twice to be understood. In the poem "Solveig" +(1855) he makes the heart "in its prison envy the free-born thoughts +which fly to the beloved one's breast." His versification is gnarled +and twisted, and a perpetual strain upon the ear. As Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen +has remarked, one need not be a princess in order to be troubled by the +peas in his verse.[13] Browning himself could scarcely have perpetrated +more unmelodious lines than Jonas Lie is capable of. Nevertheless there +is often in his patriotic songs a most inspiriting bugle-note, which is +found nowhere in Browning, unless it be in the "Cavalier Tunes." The +curiosities of his prosody are (according to his biographer) +attributable to the Nordland accent in his speech. They would sound all +right, he says, to a Nordland ear. + + [13] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, p. 527. + +At the risk of violating chronology I may as well speak here of his two +collections of "Poems" (1867 and 1889) (the latter being an expurgated +but enlarged edition of the earlier), to which the present criticisms +particularly apply. Both editions contain notable things amid occasional +bits of what scarcely rises above doggerel. The sailor songs, though +rough, are true in tone and have a catching nautical swing; but of far +deeper ring and more intensely felt are the poems which deal with the +nocturnal sides of nature. These have at times a strange, shivering +resonance, like an old violin whose notes ripple down your spine. I +refer especially to such untranslatable poems as "Draugen," "Finn-Shot," +"The Mermaid," and "Nightmare." The mood of these is heavy and uncanny, +like that of the "Ancient Mariner." But they are indubitably poetry. It +is by no means sure that the world has not lost a poet in Jonas Lie; but +probably a lesser one than the novelist that it gained. + +As Jonas had been voted by his kin the family dullard, it was decided to +make a clergyman of him. But to this the young man objected, chiefly, +according to his own story, because the clerical gown looks too much +like a petticoat. At all events, after having equipped himself with a +set of theological tomes, and peeped cursorily into them, he grew so +discouraged that he went to the bookseller and exchanged them for a set +of law-books. Not that the law had any peculiar attraction for him; he +rather accepted it as a _pis aller_; for, of course, he had to study +something. In due time he was graduated, but with such poor standing +that he concluded to put in another year and try again. And this time he +managed to acquit himself creditably. He then began (1859) the practice +of the law in the little town of Kongsvinger, the centre of the richest +lumber districts in Norway. But in the meanwhile he had had an +experience of another kind which is worth recounting. + +From his boyhood he had been a worshipper of the fair sex. Marriages (of +other people) had been among the most tragic events in his life; and he +rarely failed to shed tears at the thought that now this lovely charmer, +too, was removed from the number of his possible selections. If things +went on in this way he would have no choice but to be a bachelor. +However, one fine day a most attractive-looking craft, bearing the name +Thomasine Lie, appeared upon his horizon, sailed within speaking +distance, and presently a great deal nearer. In fact, though they were +cousins, it took a remarkably short time for the two young people to +discover that they loved each other; and when that discovery was made, +they acted upon it with laudable promptitude. They became engaged; and +were subsequently married. And from that day the Finnish Hyde in Jonas +was downed and reduced to permanent subjection. He never raised his head +again. The more sober-minded, industrious, and sensible Norse Jekyll +took command and steered with a steady hand, in fair weather and foul, +and often through dangerous waters, the barque Jonas Lie, which came to +carry more and more passengers the longer it proceeded on its voyage. + +Truth to tell, I know among contemporary men of letters no more +complete, happy, and altogether beautiful marriage than that of Jonas +and Thomasine Lie. The nearest parallel to it that I can think of is +that of John Stuart Mill and Mrs. Taylor, who later became Mrs. Mill. + +Lie's friends accuse him of carrying his admiration of his wife to the +verge of idolatry. He will leave himself but little merit, but with an +air of candid conviction he attributes even his authorship to his +Thomasine. "Her name ought to stand next to mine on the title-pages of +my books," he has repeatedly declared. And again, "If I have written +anything that is good, then my wife deserves as much credit for it as +myself ... Without her nothing would have come of it except nonsense." + +Even though that may be an exaggeration, pure delusion it is not. For +Mrs. Lie is, in a certain way, the complement to her husband. She +possesses what he has not; and he possesses what she, in her modest +self-extinction, would never dream of laying claim to. The spirit of +order, adjustment, and lucidity is strong in her; while he, in his +fanciful exuberance, is often overwhelmed by his material, and is unable +to get it into shape. Then she quietly steps in and separates the dry +land from the water in his seething and struggling chaos. She is one of +those rare women who, while apparently only listening, can give you back +your own thoughts clarified. Mr. Garborg relates most charmingly how she +straightens out the tangles in her husband's plots, and unobtrusively +draws him back, when, as frequently happens, he has switched himself off +on a side-line and is unable to recover his bearings. And this occurs as +often in his conversation as in his manuscripts, which he never +despatches to the publisher without her revision. She helps him +condense. She knows just what to omit. Yet she does not pretend to be in +the least literary. Her proper department, in which she is also a +shining success, is the care of her children and the superintendence of +her household. She understands to perfection the art of economy and has +a keen practical sense, which makes her admirably competent in all the +more difficult situations in life. And he, feeling her competence and +his own deficiency, frankly leans on her. Hence a certain motherliness +on her part (most beautiful to behold) has tinged their relation; and on +his an admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes in the other +what he himself lacks; and the husband's genius loses none of its +brightness to the wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and +adjusts the reflectors which send its light abroad. + +I have again anticipated, because the subsequent career of Jonas Lie +could not be properly understood without a full appreciation of the new +factor which from this time enters into it. He developed signal ability +as a lawyer during the years of his practice at Kongsvinger; became +prosperous and influential, bought a considerable estate (called +Sigridnaes) and began to dabble in politics. He still wrote occasional +poems, and was the soul of all conviviality in the town. He entertained +celebrities, wrote political leaders in the papers, earned a great deal +of money, lived high, and unfolded a restless and widely ramified +activity. Then came the great financial crisis of 1867-68, which swept +away so many great fortunes in Norway. Lie became involved (chiefly by +endorsement of commercial paper) to the extent of several hundred +thousand dollars. He gave up everything he had, and moved to +Christiania, resolved to pay the enormous debt, for which he had +incurred legal responsibility, to the last farthing. Quixotic as it may +seem, it was his intention to accomplish this by novel-writing. And to +his honor be it said that for a long series of years he kept sending +every penny he could spare, above the barest necessities, to his +creditors, refusing to avail himself of the bankruptcy law and accept a +compromise. But it was a bottomless pit into which he was throwing his +hard-earned pennies, and in the end he had to yield to the persuasions +of his family and abandon the hopeless enterprise. + +In Christiania he spent some hard and penurious years, trying to make a +livelihood as a journalist and man of letters. Some of his friends +suspected that the Lie family were subsisting on very short rations; but +they were proud, and there was no way to help them. The ex-lawyer +developed ultra-democratic sympathies, and time and again his Thomasine +led the dance at the balls of the Laborers' Union with Mr. Eilert +Sundt.[14] A position as teacher of Norwegian in Heltberg's Gymnasium he +lost because he only made orations to his pupils, but taught them no +rhetoric. His volume of "Poems" (1867) had attracted no particular +attention; but his political articles were much read and discussed. +However, it was not in politics that he was to win his laurels. + + [14] A well-known Norwegian philanthropist, whose work on the + Gypsies is highly regarded. + +A little before Christmas, 1870, there appeared from Gyldendal's +publishing-house in Copenhagen a novel, entitled "The Visionary" (_Den +Fremsynte_), by Jonas Lie. To analyze the impression which this strange +book makes at the first reading is difficult. I thought, as I sat +rejoicing in its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: "This +Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and 'The Visionary' is his one +blossom. It is the one good novel which almost every life is said to +contain. Only this is so strikingly good that it is a pity it will have +no successors." + +It was evidently himself, or rather the Finnish part of himself, the +author was exploring; it was in the mine of his own experience he was +delving; it was his own heart he was coining. That may, in a sense, be +true of every book of any consequence; but it was most emphatically true +of "The Visionary." It is not to the use of the first person that this +autobiographical note is primarily due; but to a certain beautiful +intimacy in the narrative, and a _naīve_ confidence which charms the +reader and takes him captive. With a lavish hand Lie has drawn upon the +memories of his boyhood in the arctic North; and it was the newness of +the nature which he revealed, no less than the picturesque force of his +language, which contributed in no small degree to the success of his +book. But, above all, it was the sweetness and pathos of the exquisite +love story. Susanna, though as to talents not much above the +commonplace, is ravishing. To have breathed the breath of such warm and +living life into a character of fiction is no small achievement. It is +the loveliness of love, the sweetness of womanhood, the glorious ferment +of the blood in the human springtide which are celebrated in "The +Visionary." The thing is beautifully done. I do not know where young +love has been more touchingly portrayed, unless it be in some of the +Russian tales of Tourguéneff.[15] The second-sight with which the hero, +David Holst, is afflicted, introduces an undertone of sadness--a pensive +minor key--and seems to necessitate the tragic _dénouement_. + + [15] Spring Floods, Liza, Faust. + +The immediate success of "The Visionary" changed Jonas Lie's situation +and prospects. He was first sent with a public stipend to Nordland for +the purpose of studying the character, manners, and economic condition +of the dwellers within the polar zone; and, like the conscientious man +he is, he made an exhaustive report to the proper department, detailing +with touching minuteness the results of his observations. The Norwegian +government has always taken a strong (and usually very intelligent) +interest in rising artists, musicians, and men of letters, and has +endeavored by stipends and salaries to compensate them for the smallness +of the public which the country affords. Jonas Lie was now a +sufficiently conspicuous man to come into consideration in the +distribution of the official _panem et circenses_. The state awarded +him a largess of $400 for one year (twice renewed), in order to enable +him to go to Italy and "educate himself for a poet;" and he was also +made a beneficiary of the well-known Schafer legacy for the training of +artists. In the autumn of 1871 he started with his wife and four +children for Rome. It was in a solemnly festal frame of mind that he now +resolved to devote the rest of his life to his real vocation, which at +last he had found. This was what they had all meant--his gropings, +trials, and failures. They had all fitted him for the life-work which +was now to be his. The world lay before him as in the shining calm after +storm. + +He took his artistic training, as everything else, with extreme +seriousness. With the utmost conscientiousness he started out with his +Thomasine, morning after morning, to study the Vatican and the +Capitoline collections. "Happy is the man," says Goethe, "who learns +early in life what art means." But Jonas Lie was thirty-eight years old; +and, as far as I can judge from his writings, I should venture to say +that the secret of classical art has never been unlocked to him. It lies +probably rather remote from the sphere of his sensations. His genius is +so profoundly Germanic that only an ill-wisher would covet for him that +expansion of vision which would enable him to perceive with any degree +of artistic realization and intimacy the glorious serenity of the Juno +Ludovisi and the divine distinction of the Apollo Belvedere. + +The two books which were the first-fruits of the Roman sojourn were a +disappointment to his friends, though in the case of the unpretentious +collection called "Tales and Sketches from Nordland" (1872) there is no +reason why it should have been. The public found that it was not on a +level with "The Visionary," and by "The Visionary" Jonas Lie was bound +to be judged, whether he liked it or not. That is the penalty of having +produced a masterpiece, that one is never permitted to follow the +example of _bonus Homerus_, who, as every one knows, sometimes nods. +Jonas Lie was far from nodding in "The Barque Future" (1872). There was +an abundance of interest in the material, and a delightful picturesque +vigor in the descriptions of nature. But of romantic interest of the +kind which the ordinary novel-reader craves, there was very little. _Ā +propos_ of "The Barque Future" let me quote a bit of general +characterization which applies to nearly all the subsequent works of +Jonas Lie. + +"It is in this particular that Jonas Lie most distinctly diverges from +all romanticism and romance-writing: His interest in practical affairs, +his ability to see poetry in that which is contemporary. The sawdust in +the rivers has never offended him, nor the Briton's black cloud of +coal-smoke. The busy toil of office and shop is not prose to him. He +penetrates to the bottom of its meaning--its significance to +civilization."[16] + + [16] Arne Garborg: Jonas Lie, p. 172. + +"The Barque Future" is, as regards its problem, Gustav Freytag's _Soll +und Haben_ ("Debit and Credit") transferred to Nordland. Instead of the +noble house of Rothsattel we have the ancient and highly esteemed +commercial firm of Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the +scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel was dragged to ruin by +the Jew Veitel Itzig. But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart +to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can Lie violate the +proprieties of fiction by permitting Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He +could not, like the German novelist, conjure up a noble gentleman of +democratic sympathies and practical ability (like von Finck) and make +him emerge in the nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry, +justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the state by the uses which +he fulfils. In Norway there is no nobility; and Lie, therefore, had to +make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten Jonsen (the equivalent of +Anton Wohlfahrt in _Soll und Haben_) the inheritor of the future. He +accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele Heggelund; but not +until he has put Jacob to shame by the amount and character of the work +by which he earns his Rachel. + +The reception of "The Barque Future" was far from satisfactory to its +author. He grew apprehensive about himself. He could not afford another +failure; nay, not even a _succčs d'estime_. Accordingly he waited two +years, and published in 1874 "The Pilot and his Wife," which made its +mark. It is an every-day story in the best sense of the word, the +history of a marriage among common folk. And yet so true is it, so +permeated with a warm and rich humanity, that it holds the reader's +attention from beginning to end. Then, to add to its interest, it has +some bearing upon the woman question. Lie maintains that no true +marriage can exist where the wife sacrifices her personality, and +submits without a protest to neglect and ill-treatment. Happily we are +not particularly in need of that admonition on our side of the ocean. +The wife of the pilot, Salve Christensen, had once broken her engagement +with him, having become enamored of the handsome naval lieutenant, Beck; +but she recovers her senses and marries Christensen, whom she really +loves. After her marriage she tries to do penance for the wrong she has +done him by being, as she fancies, a model wife. But by submission and +self-extinction, so alien to her character, she arouses his suspicion +that she has something on her conscience; and, in his feeling of +outrage, he begins to neglect and abuse her. When, at last, his +maltreatment reaches a climax, she arises in all the dignity of her +womanhood, and asserts her true self. Then comes reconciliation, +followed by a united life of true equality and loving comradeship. + +Such a mere skeleton of a plot can, of course, give no conception of the +wealth of vivid details with which the book abounds. There is, however, +a certain air of effort about it, of a strenuous seriousness, which is, +I fancy, the temperamental note of this author. + +"The Pilot and his Wife" besides reviving Lie's popularity also served +to define his position in Norwegian literature. He had at first been +assigned a definite corner as the "poet of Nordland," but his ambition +was not satisfied with so narrow a province. In all his tales, so far, +he has surpassed all predecessors in his descriptions of the sea; and +the critics, when favorably disposed, fell into the habit of referring +to him as "the novelist of the sea," "the poet of the ocean," etc. The +Norwegian sailor, whom he may be said to have revealed in "The Pilot," +came to be considered more and more as his property; and no one can read +such tales as "Press On" (_Gaa Paa_) and "Rutland" without agreeing that +the title is well merited. I know of no English novelist since Smollett, +who produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions of maritime +life. Mr. Clark Russell, who knows his ship from masthead to keel as +thoroughly as Jonas Lie, and writes fully as clever a story, seems to me +to have a lower aim, in so far as the novel of adventure, _cæteris +paribus_, belongs on a lower level than the novel of character. + +In the year 1874 the Norwegian Storthing conferred upon Jonas Lie an +annual "poet's salary" of about six hundred dollars. This is supposed to +supply a warranty deed to a lot on Parnassus. It removes any possible +flaw in the title to immortality. Lie was now lifted into the +illustrious triumvirate in which Björnson and Ibsen were his +predecessors. Great expectations were entertained of his literary +future. But, oddly enough, this official recognition did not have a +favorable effect upon Lie. He felt himself almost oppressed by a sense +of obligation to yield full returns for what he consumed of the public +revenues. In 1875 he published a versified tale, "Faustina Strozzi," +dealing with the struggle for Italian liberty. In spite of many +excellences it fell rather flat, and was roughly handled by the critics. +Even a worse fate befell its successor, "Thomas Ross" (1878), a novel of +contemporary life in the Norwegian capital. It is a pale, and rather +labored story, in which a young girl, of the Rosamond Vincy type, is +held up to scorn, and the atrocity of flirtation is demonstrated by the +most tragic consequences. There is likewise an air of triviality about +"Adam Schrader" (1879); and Lie became seriously alarmed about himself +when he had to register a third failure. Like its predecessor, this book +is full of keen observations, and the sketches of the social futilities +and the typical characters at a summer watering-place are surely good +enough to pass muster. But, somehow, the material fails to combine into +a sufficiently coherent and impressive picture; and the total effect +remains rather feeble. In a drama, "Grabow's Cat" (1880), he suffered +shipwreck once more, though he saved something from the waves. The play +was performed in Christiania and Stockholm, and aroused interest, but +not enough to keep it afloat. + +It has been said of Browning that he succeeded by a series of failures, +which meant, in his case, that his books failed to command instant +attention, but were gradually discovered by the thoughtful few who by +their appreciation spread the poet's fame among the thoughtless many. It +was not in this way that Jonas Lie's failures conduced to his final +success. "Thomas Ross," "Adam Schrader," and "Grabow's Cat" have not +grown perceptibly in the estimation either of the critics or of the +public since their first appearance. But they supplied their author a +hard but needed discipline. They warned him against over-confidence and +routine work. He had passed through a soul-trying experience, in its +effect not unlike the one which Keats describes _ā propos_ of +"Endymion:" + +"In 'Endymion' I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby have become +better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than +if I had stayed upon the green shore, took tea and comfortable advice. I +was never afraid of failure--would rather fail than not be among the +greatest." + +Jonas Lie reconquered at one stroke all that he had lost, by the +delightful sea-novel "Rutland" (1881), and reinstated himself still more +securely in the hearts of an admiring public by the breezy tale, "Press +On" (1882). But after so protracted a sea-voyage he began to long for +the shore, where, up to date he had suffered all his reverses. It could +not be that he who had lived all his life on _terra firma_, and was so +profoundly interested in the problems of modern society, should be +banished forever, like "The Man Without a Country," to the briny deep, +and be debarred from describing the things which he had most at heart. +One more attempt he was bound to make, even at the risk of another +failure. Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life Prisoner" +(_Livsslaven_), which deserved a better fate than befell it. The critics +found it depressing, compared it to Zola, and at the same time scolded +the author because he lacked indignation and neglected to denounce the +terrible conditions which he described. He replied to their arraignments +in an angry but very effective letter. But that did not save the book. +Truth to tell, "The Life Prisoner" is a dismal tale. It was, in fact, +the irruption of modern naturalism into Norwegian literature. It reminds +one in its tone more of Dostoyevski's "Crime and Punishment" than of +"L'Assommoir." For to my mind Dostoyevski is a greater exponent of +naturalism than Zola, whom Lemaitre not inaptly styles "an epic poet." +The pleasing and well-bred truths or lies, to the expounding of which +_belles lettres_ had hitherto been confined, were here discarded or +ignored. The author had taken a plunge into the great dumb deep of the +nethermost social strata, which he has explored with admirable +conscientiousness and artistic perception. Few men of letters would +object to being the father of so creditable a failure. Lie, being +convinced that his book was a good one, no matter what the wielders of +critical tomahawks might say to the contrary, resolved to persevere in +the line he had chosen and to pluck victory from the heels of defeat. +And the victory came even the same year (1883), when he published what, +to my mind, is the most charming of all his novels, "The Family at +Gilje." That is a book which is taken, warm and quivering, out of the +very heart of Norway. The humor which had been cropping out tentatively +in Lie's earlier tales comes here to its full right, and his shy, +beautiful pathos gleams like hidden tears behind his genial smile. It is +close wrought cloth of gold. No loosely woven spots--no shoddy woof of +cheaper material. Captain Jaeger and his wife, Inger-Johanna, Jörgen, +Grip, nay, the whole company of sober, everyday mortals that come +trooping through its chapters are so delightfully human that you feel +the blood pulse under their skin at the first touch. It is a triumph +indeed, to have written a book like "The Family at Gilje." + +From this time forth Jonas Lie's career presents an unbroken series of +successes. "A Maelstrom" (1884), "Eight Stories," "Married Life" (_Et +Samliv_), (1887), "Maisa Jons" (1888), "The Commodore's Daughters" and +"Evil Powers" (1890), which deal with interesting phases of contemporary +life, are all extremely modern in feeling and show the same effort to +discard all tinsel and sham and get at the very heart of reality. + +He had by this series of novels established his reputation as a +relentless realist, when, in 1892, he surprised his admirers by the +publication of two volumes of the most wildly fantastic tales, entitled +"Trold." It was as if a volcano, with writhing torrents of flame and +smoke, had burst forth from under a sidewalk in Broadway. It was the +suppressed Finn who, for once, was going to have his fling, even though +he were doomed henceforth to silence. It was the "queer thoughts" (which +had accumulated in the author and which he had scrupulously imprisoned) +returning to take vengeance upon him unless he released them. The most +grotesque, weird, and uncanny imaginings (such as Stevenson would +delight in) are crowded together in these tales, some of which are +derived from folk-lore and legends, while others are free fantasies. + +Before taking leave of Jonas Lie, a word about his style is in order. +Style, as such, counts for very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly +individual and vigorous manner of utterance, though a trifle rough, +perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. Mere decorative +adjectives and clever felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and +social phenomena--all that we include under the term modern +progress--command his most intense and absorbed attention. Having since +1882 been a resident of Paris (except during his annual summer +excursions to Norway or the mountains of Bavaria) he has had the +advantage of seeing the society which he describes at that distance +which, if it does not lend enchantment, at all events unifies the +scattered impressions, and furnishes a convenient critical outpost. He +does not permit himself, however, like so many foreigners in the French +capital, to lapse into that supercilious cosmopolitanism which deprives +a man of his own country without giving him any other in exchange. No; +Jonas Lie is and remains a Norseman--a fact which he demonstrated (to +the gratification of his countrymen) on a recent occasion. At the +funeral of the late Professor O. J. Broch--a famous Norwegian who died +in Paris--the chaplain of the Swedish legation made an oration in which +he praised the departed statesman and scientist, referring to him +constantly as "our countryman." When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without +anybody's invitation, stepped quietly up to the coffin and in the name +of Norway bade _his_ countryman a last farewell. "The spirit came over +Lie," says his biographer, "and he spoke with ravishing eloquence." + +But why did he do such an uncalled-for thing, you will ask? Because +there is a systematic effort on the part of Sweden to suppress the very +name of Norway, and to give the impression, throughout the world, that +there is no such nationality as the Norwegian. Therefore every Norseman +(unless he chooses to be a party to this suppression) is obliged to +assert his nationality in season and out of season. But Jonas Lie has, +indeed, in a far more effective way borne aloft the banner of his +country. His books have been translated into French, German, English, +Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Russian, and Bohemian; and throughout +Europe the literary journals and magazines are beginning to discuss him +as one of the foremost representatives of modern realism. + + + + +HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN[17] + + [17] A portion of this essay appeared originally in "The Dial" of + Chicago. + + +Hans Christian Andersen was a unique figure in Danish literature, and a +solitary phenomenon in the literature of the world. Superficial critics +have compared him with the Brothers Grimm; they might with equal +propriety have compared him with Voltaire or with the man in the moon. +Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scientific collectors of folk-lore, and +rendered as faithfully as possible the simple language of the peasants +from whose lips they gathered their stories. It was the ethnological and +philological value of the fairy-tale which stimulated their zeal; its +poetic value was of quite secondary significance. With Andersen the case +was exactly the reverse. He was as innocent of scientific intention as +the hen who finds a diamond on a dunghill is of mineralogy. It was the +poetic phase alone of the fairy-tale which attracted him; and what is +more, he saw poetic possibilities where no one before him had ever +discovered them. By the alchemy of genius (which seems so perfectly +simple until you try it yourself) he transformed the common neglected +nonsense of the nursery into rare poetic treasure. Boots, who kills the +ogre and marries the princess--the typical lover in fiction from the +remotest Aryan antiquity down to the present time--appears in Andersen +in a hundred disguises, not with the rudimentary features of the old +story, but modernized, individualized, and carrying on his shield an +unobtrusive little moral. In "Jack the Dullard" he comes nearest to his +primitive prototype, and no visible effort is made to refine him. In +"The Most Extraordinary Thing" he is the vehicle of a piece of social +satire, and narrowly escapes the lot which the Fates seem especially to +have prepared for inventors, viz., to make the fortune of some +unscrupulous clown while they themselves die in poverty. In "The +Porter's Son" he is an aspiring artist, full of the fire of genius, and +he wins his princess by conquering that many-headed ogre with which +every self-made man has to battle--the world's envy, and malice, and +contempt for a lowly origin. It is easy to multiply examples, but these +may suffice. + +In another species of fairy-tale, which Andersen may be said to have +invented, incident seems to be secondary to the moral purpose, which is +yet so artfully hidden that it requires a certain maturity of intellect +to detect it. In this field Andersen has done his noblest work and +earned his immortality. Who can read that marvellous little tale, "The +Ugly Duckling," without perceiving that it is a subtle, most exquisite +revenge the poet is taking upon the humdrum Philistine world, which +despised and humiliated him, before he lifted his wings and flew away +with the swans, who knew him as their brother? And yet, as a child, I +remember reading this tale with ever fresh delight, though I never for a +moment suspected its moral. The hens and the ducks and the geese were +all so vividly individualized, and the incidents were so familiar to my +own experience, that I demanded nothing more for my entertainment. +Likewise in "The Goloshes of Fortune" there is a wealth of amusing +adventures, all within the reach of a child's comprehension, which more +than suffices to fascinate the reader who fails to penetrate beneath the +surface. The delightful satire, which is especially applicable to Danish +society, is undoubtedly lost to nine out of ten of the author's foreign +readers, but so prodigal is he both of humorous and pathetic meaning, +that every one is charmed with what he finds, without suspecting how +much he has missed. "The Little Mermaid" belongs to the same order of +stories, though the pathos here predominates, and the resemblance to De +la Motte Fouqué's "Undine" is rather too striking. But the gem of the +whole collection, I am inclined to think, is "The Emperor's New +Clothes," which in subtlety of intention and universality of application +rises above age and nationality. Respect for the world's opinion and the +tyranny of fashion have never been satirized with more exquisite humor +than in the figure of the emperor who walks through the streets of his +capital in _robe de nuit_, followed by a procession of courtiers, who +all go into ecstasies over the splendor of his attire. + +It was not only in the choice of his theme that Andersen was original. +He also created his style, though he borrowed much of it from the +nursery. "It was perfectly wonderful," "You would scarcely have believed +it," "One would have supposed that there was something the matter in the +poultry-yard, but there was nothing at all the matter"--such beginnings +are not what we expect to meet in dignified literature. They lack the +conventional style and deportment. No one but Andersen has ever dared to +employ them. As Dr. Brandes has said in his charming essay on Andersen, +no one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer the vivid mimicry and +gesticulation which accompany a nursery tale to the printed page. If you +tell a child about a horse, you don't say that it neighed, but you +imitate the sound; and the child's laughter or fascinated attention +compensates you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully you +crow, roar, grunt, and mew, the more vividly you call up the image and +demeanor of the animal you wish to represent, and the more impressed is +your juvenile audience. Now, Andersen does all these things in print: a +truly wonderful feat. Every variation in the pitch of the voice--I am +almost tempted to say every change of expression in the story-teller's +features--is contained in the text. He does not write his story, he +tells it; and all the children of the whole wide world sit about him +and listen with, eager, wide-eyed wonder to his marvellous +improvisations.[18] + + [18] Brandes: Kritiker og Portraiter, p. 303. + +In reading Andersen's collected works one is particularly impressed with +the fact that what he did outside of his chosen field is of inferior +quality--inferior, I mean, judged by his own high standard, though in +itself often highly valuable and interesting. "The Improvisatore," upon +which, next to "The Wonder-Tales," his fame rests, is a kind of +disguised autobiography which exhibits the author's morbid sensibility +and what I should call the unmasculine character of his mind,[19] To +appeal to the reader's pity in your hero's behalf is a daring +experiment, and it cannot, except in brief scenes, be successful. A +prolonged strain of compassion soon becomes wearisome, and not the +worthiest object in the world can keep one's charity interested through +four hundred pages. Antonio, in "The Improvisatore," is a milksop whom +the author, with a lavish expenditure of sympathy, parades as a hero. He +is positively ludicrous in his pitiful softness, vanity, and humility. +That the book nevertheless remains unfailingly popular, and is even yet +found in the satchel of every Roman tourist, is chiefly due to the +poetic intensity with which the author absorbed and portrayed every +Roman sight and sound. Italy throbs and glows in the pages of "The +Improvisatore"--the old vagabond Italy of pre-Garibaldian days, when +priests and bandits and pretty women divided the power of Church and +State. Story's "Roba di Roma," Augustus Hare's "Walks in Rome," and all +the other descriptions of the Eternal City, are but disguised +guide-books, feeble and pale performances, when compared with Andersen's +beautiful romance. + + [19] R. L. Stevenson in speaking of the "Character of Dogs" makes + the following cruel observation: "Hans Christian Andersen, as we + behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top to toe with + an excruciating vanity and scouting even along the streets for the + shadows of offence--here was the talking dog."--Memories and + Portraits, p. 196. + +The same feminine sentimentality which, in spite of its picturesqueness, +makes "The Improvisatore" unpalatable to many readers, is still more +glaringly exhibited in "O. T." and "The Two Baronesses." In "The Story +of My Life" the same quality asserts itself on every page in the most +unpleasant manner. The author makes no effort to excite the reader's +admiration, but he makes constant appeals to his sympathy. Nevertheless +this autobiography rivals in historic and poetic worth Rousseau's +"Confessions" and Benvenuto Cellini's "Life." The absolute candor with +which Andersen lays bare his soul, the complete intentional or +unintentional self-revelation, gives a psychological value to the book +which no mere literary graces could bestow. I confess, until I had the +pleasure of making Andersen's acquaintance, "The Fairy Tale of My Life" +impressed me unpleasantly. After I had by personal intercourse possessed +myself of the clew to the man's character, I judged differently. +Andersen remained, until the day of his death, a child. His innocence +was more than virginal; his unworldliness simply inconceivable. He +carried his heart on his sleeve, and invited you to observe what a soft, +tender, and sensitive heart it was. He had the harmless vanity of a +child who has a new frock on. He was fidgety and unhappy if anybody but +himself was the centre of attraction; and guilelessly happy when he +could talk and be admired and sympathized with. His conversation was +nearly always about himself, or about the kings and princes and lofty +personages who had graciously deigned to take notice of him. He was a +tuft-hunter of a rare and curious sort; not because he valued the glory +reflected upon himself by royal acquaintances, but because the pomp and +splendor of a court satisfied his thirst for the marvellous. A king +seemed to him, as to the boy who reads his fairy-tales, something grand +and remote; and in invading this charmed sphere he seemed to have +invaded his own fairy-tales, and to live actually in the fabulous region +of wonders in which his fancy revelled. He conceived of his life as a +fairy-tale, and delighted in living up to his own ideal of living. The +very title of his autobiography in Danish (_Mit Livs Eventyr_) shows +this conclusively; and it ought to have been rendered in English "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." "The Story of My Life," as Mr. Scudder has +translated it, would have been in the original "Mit Livs Historie," a +very common title, by the way, for an autobiography, while _Mit Livs +Eventyr_ is entirely unique. + +The feeling of the marvellous pervades the book from beginning to end. +The prose facts of life had but a remote and indistinct existence to the +poet, and he blundered along miserably in his youth, supported and +upheld by a dim but unquenchable aspiration. He commiserated himself, +and yet felt that there was something great in store for him because of +his exceptional endowment. Every incident in his career he treated as if +it were a miracle, which required the suspension of the laws of the +universe for its performance. God was a benevolent old man with a long +beard (just as he was depicted in old Dr. Luther's Catechism) who sat up +in the skies and spent his time chiefly in managing the affairs of Hans +Christian Andersen as pleasantly as possible; and Hans Christian was +duly grateful, and cried on every third or fourth page at the thought of +the goodness of God and man. Sometimes, for a change, he cried at the +wickedness of the latter, and marvelled, with the _naīveté_ of a spoiled +child, that there should be such dreadful people in the world, who +should persist in misunderstanding and misrepresenting him. Those who +were good to him he exalted and lauded to the skies, no matter how they +conducted themselves toward the rest of humanity. Some of the most +mediocre princes, who had paid him compliments, he embalmed in prose and +verse. Frederick VII. of Denmark, whose immorality was notorious, was, +according to Andersen, "a good, amiable king," "sent by God to Danish +land and folk," than whom "no truer man the Danish language spoke." And +this case was by no means exceptional. The same uncritical partiality +toward the great and mighty is perceptible in every chapter of "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." It was not, however, toward the great and mighty +alone that he assumed this attitude; he was uncritical by nature, and +had too soft a heart to find fault with anybody--except those who did +not like his books. Heine's jocose description of heaven as a place +where he could eat cakes and sweets, and drink punch _ad libitum_, and +where the angels sat around raving about his poetry, was probably not so +very remote from Andersen's actual conception. His world was the child's +world, in which there is but one grand division into good and bad, and +the innumerable host that occupies the middle-ground between these poles +is ignored. Those who praised what he wrote were good people; those who +ridiculed him were a malignant and black-hearted lot whom he was very +sorry for and would include in his prayers, in the hope that God might +make them better. + +We may smile at this simple system; but we all remember the time when we +were addicted to a similar classification. That it is a sign of +immaturity of intellect is undeniable; and in Andersen's case it is one +of the many indications that intellectually he never outgrew his +childhood. He never possessed the power of judgment that we expect in a +grown-up man. His opinions on social and political questions were +_naīve_ and quite worthless. And yet, in spite of all these limitations, +he was a poet of rare power; nay, I may say in consequence of them. The +vitality which in other authors goes toward intellectual development, +produced in him strength and intensity of imagination. Everything which +his fancy touched it invested with life and beauty. It divined the +secret soul of bird and beast and inanimate things. His hens and ducks +and donkeys speak as hens and ducks and donkeys would speak if they +could speak. Their temperaments and characters are scrupulously +respected. Even shirt-collars, gingerbread men, darning-needles, +flowers, and sunbeams, he endowed with physiognomies and speech, fairly +consistent with their ruling characteristics. This personification, +especially of inanimate objects, may at first appear arbitrary; but it +is part of the beautiful consistency of Andersen's genius that it never +stoops to mere amusing and fantastic trickery. The character of the +darning-needle is the character which a child would naturally attribute +to a darning-needle, and the whole multitude of vivid personifications +which fills his tales is governed by the same consistent but dimly +apprehended instinct. Of course, I do not pretend that he was conscious +of any such consistency; creative processes rarely are conscious. But +he needed no reflection in order to discover the child's view of its own +world. He never ceased to regard the world from the child's point of +view, and his personification of an old clothes-press or a +darning-needle was therefore as natural as that of a child who beats the +chair against which it bumped its head. In the works of more ambitious +scope, where this code of conduct would be out of place, Andersen was +never wholly at his ease. As lovers, his heroes usually cut a sorry +figure; their milk-and-water passion is described, but it is never felt. +They make themselves a trifle ridiculous by their innocence, and are +amusing when they themselves least suspect it. Likewise, in his +autobiography, he is continually exposing himself to ridicule by his +_naīve_ candor, and his inability to adapt himself to the etiquette +which prevails among grown-up people. Take as an instance his visit to +the Brothers Grimm, when he asked the servant girl which of the brothers +was the more learned, and when she answered "Jacob," he said, "Then take +me to Jacob." The little love affair, too, which he confides seems to +have been of the kind which one is apt to experience during the pinafore +period; a little more serious, perhaps, but yet of the same kind. It is +in this vague and impersonal style that princes and princesses love each +other in the fairy-tales; everything winds up smoothly, and there are +never any marital disagreements to darken the honeymoon. It is in this +happy, passionless realm that Andersen dwells, and here he reigns +supreme. For many years to come the fair creatures of his fancy will +continue to brighten the childhood of new generations. No rival has ever +entered this realm; and even critics are excluded. Nevertheless, +Andersen need have no fear of the latter; for even if they had the wish, +they would not have the power, to rob him of his laurels. + +Hans Christian Andersen was born in the little town of Odense, on the +island Fünen, April 2, 1805. His father was a poor shoemaker, with some +erratic ambitions, or, if his son's word may be trusted, a man of a +richly gifted and truly poetic mind. His wife was a few years older and +a good deal more ignorant than himself; and when they set up +housekeeping together, in a little back room, they rejoiced in being +able to nail together a bridal bed out of the scaffolding which had +recently supported a dead nobleman's coffin. The black mourning drapery +which yet clung to the wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence. +Their first child, Hans Christian, grew up amid these mean surroundings, +constantly worried by the street boys, who made a butt of him, and +tortured him in the thousand ingenious ways known to their species. He +had no schooling to speak of; but, for all that, was haunted, like +Joseph, by dreams foreshadowing his future greatness. Guided by this +premonition he started, at the age of fourteen, for Copenhagen, a tall, +ugly, and ungainly lad, but resolved, somehow or other, to conquer fame +and honor. He tried himself as a dancer, singer, actor, and failed +lamentably in all his _débuts_. He could not himself estimate the extent +of his own ignorance, nor could he dream what a figure he was cutting. +Undismayed by all rebuffs, though suffering agony from his wounded +vanity, he wrote poems, comedies, and tragedies, in which he +plagiarized, more or less unconsciously, the elder Danish poets. Mr. +Jonas Collins, one of the directors of the Royal Theatre, became +interested in the youth, whose unusual ambition meant either madness or +genius. In order to determine which it might be, Mr. Collins induced +King Frederic VI. to pay for his education, and after half a dozen years +at school Hans Christian passed the entrance examination to the +University. Mr. Collins continued to assist him with counsel and deed; +and his hospitable house in Bredgade became a second home to Andersen. +There he met, for the first time, people of refinement and culture on +equal terms; and his morbid self-introspection was in a measure cured by +kindly association, tempered by wholesome fun and friendly criticism. He +now resolved to abandon his University studies and devote his life to +literature. + +I have no doubt it would have alarmed the gentle poet very much, if he +had been told that he belonged to the Romantic School. To be classified +in literature and be bracketed with a lot of men with whom you are not +even on speaking terms, and whom, more than likely, you don't admire, +would have seemed to him an unpleasant prospect. That he drew much of +his inspiration from the German Romanticists, notably Heine and +Hoffmann, he would perhaps have admitted; but he would have thought it +unkind of you to comment upon his indebtedness. In his first book, "A +Pedestrian Tour from Holmen Canal to the Eastern Extremity of Amager" +(1829), he assumed by turns the _blasé_ mask of the former and the +fantastically eccentric one of the latter; both of which ill became his +good-natured, plebeian, Danish countenance. For all that, the book was a +success in its day; and no less an authority than the æsthetic Grand +Mogul, J. L. Heiberg, hailed it as a work of no mean merit. It strikes +us to-day as an exhibition of that mocking smartness of youth which +often hides a childish heart. It was because he was so excessively +sentimental and feared to betray his real physiognomy that he cut these +excruciating capers. His other alternative would have been mawkishness. +His vaudeville, "Love on the Nicholas Tower," which satirizes the drama +of chivalry, is in the same vein and made a similar hit. A volume of +"Poems" was also well received. But in 1831 he met with his first +literary reverse. A second collection of verses, entitled "Phantasies +and Sketches," was pitilessly ridiculed by Henrik Hertz, in his "Letters +from the Dead." Andersen's lack of style and violations of syntax were +rather maliciously commented upon. If Gabriel's trump had sounded from +the top of the Round Tower, it would not have startled Andersen more. +He was in despair. Like the great child he was, he went about craving +sympathy, and weeping when he failed to find it. + +"I could say nothing," he writes in "the Fairy-Tale of My Life," "I +could only let the big, heavy waves roll over me; and it was the common +opinion that I was to be totally washed away. I felt deeply the wound of +the sharp knife; and was on the point of giving myself up, as I was +already given up by others." + +This is one of the numerous exhibitions of that over-sensitiveness to +criticism which caused him such long and continued suffering. His mind +was like a bared nerve, quivering with delight or contracting with +violent pain. Utterly devoid, as he was, of self-criticism, he regarded +his authorship as something miraculous, and held God (who apparently +supervised each chapter) responsible for the fate of his books. "If the +Lord," he writes in solemn earnest to a friend, "will take as good care +of the remainder as he has of the first chapters, you will like it."[20] +There was to him no difference between his best and his worst. It was +all part of himself, and he could scarcely conceive of any motive for +finding fault with it, except personal malice, envy, animosity.[21] This +did not, however, always prevent him from associating with the +malevolent critic, as for instance in the case of Hertz, with whom he +presently established pleasant relations. + + [20] P. Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historic, vol. ii., p. + 477. + + [21] I derive this impression not only from the Autobiography, but + from many conversations. An account of My Acquaintance with Hans + Christian Andersen will be found in The Century Magazine, March, + 1892. + +In 1831 Andersen made his first trip abroad. "By industry and +frugality," he says, "I had saved up a little sum of money, so I +resolved to spend a couple of weeks in North Germany." + +The result of this journey was the book "Shadow Pictures," which was +followed in 1833 by "Vignettes on Danish Poets," and a chaplet of verse +entitled "The Twelve Months of the Year." It is quite true, as he +affirms, that in his "Vignettes," he "only spoke of that which was good +in them" [the poets]; but in consequence there is a great lack of Attic +salt in the book. In 1833 he went abroad once more, visited Germany, +France, Switzerland, and Italy, and sent home the dramatic poem "Agnete +and the Merman," the comparative failure of which was a fresh grief to +him. After his return from Rome (1835) he published his "Improvisatore," +which slowly won its way. It was the reputation this novel gained abroad +which changed public opinion in Denmark in its favor. A second novel, +"Only a Fiddler" (1837), is a fresh variation of his autobiography, and +the lachrymose and a trifle chaotic story, "O. T." (being the brand of +the Odense penitentiary) scarcely deserved any better reception than was +accorded it. + +It is a curious thing that misconception and adversity never hardened +Andersen or toughened the fibre of his personality. The same lamentable +lack of robustness--not to say manliness--which marked his youth +remained his prevailing characteristic to the end of his life. And I +fancy, if he had ever reached intellectual maturity, both he himself and +the world would have been losers. For it is his unique distinction to +have expressed a simplicity of soul which is usually dumb--which has, at +all events, nowhere else recorded itself in literature. We all have a +dim recollection of how the world looked from the nursery window; but no +book has preserved so vivid and accurate a negative of that marvellous +panorama as Andersen's "Wonder Tales for Children," the first collection +of which appeared in 1835. All the jumbled, distorted proportions of +things (like the reflection of a landscape in a crystal ball) is +capitally reproduced. The fantastically personifying fancy of childhood, +where does it have more delightful play? The radiance of an enchanted +fairy realm that bursts like an iridescent soap-bubble at the touch of +the finger of reason, where does it linger in more alluring beauty than +in "Ole Luköie" ("The Sandman"), "The Little Mermaid," or "The +Ice-Maiden"? There is a bloom, an indefinable, dewy freshness about the +grass, the flowers, the very light, and the children's sweet faces. And +so vivid--so marvellously vivid--as it all is. Listen to this from "Five +in a Pea-Pod:" + + "There were five peas in one pod. They were green, and the pod was + green; and so they thought that the whole world was green. And that + was just as it should be. The pod grew and the peas grew; they + accommodated themselves to circumstances, sitting all in a row." + +Or take this from "Little Tuk:" + + "Yes, that was Little Tuk. His name wasn't really Tuk, but when he + couldn't speak plain, he used to call himself so. It was meant for + Charley; and it does very well, when one only knows it." + +Or this incomparable bit of drollery from Hjalmar's dream in "The +Sandman:" + + "There came a terrible wail from the table-drawer where Hjalmar's + school books lay. 'Whatever can that be?' said the Sandman. And he + went to the table and opened the drawer. It was the slate which was + in convulsions because a wrong number had got into the sum, so that + it was fairly falling to pieces. The slate-pencil tugged and jumped + at the end of its string, as if it had been a little dog that + wanted to help the sum. But he could not. There was a great + lamentation in Hjalmar's copy-book, too; it was quite terrible to + hear. On each page the large letters stood in a row, one underneath + the other, and each with a little one at its side. That was the + copy. And next to these were a few more letters, which thought they + looked just like the others. These were the ones Hjalmar had + written. But they lay down as if they had tumbled pell-mell over + the pencil lines upon which they were to stand. + + "'Look, this is the way you should hold yourselves,' said the copy, + 'sloping this way with a bold swing.' 'Oh, we should be very glad + to do that,' answered Hjalmar's letters, 'but we can't. We are so + weakly.' 'Then you must take medicine,' said the Sandman. 'Oh, no, + no,' cried they, and straightway they stood up so gracefully that + it was a pleasure to look at them." + +This strikes me as having the very movement and all the delicious +whimsicality of a school-boy's troubled dream. It has the delectable +absurdity of the dream's inverted logic. You feel with what beautiful +zest it was written; how childishly the author himself relished it. The +illusion is therefore perfect. The big child who played with his puppet +theatre until after he was grown up is quite visible in every line. He +is as much absorbed in the story as any of his hearers. He is all in the +game with the intense engrossment of a lad I knew, who, while playing +Robinson Crusoe, ate snails with relish for oysters. + +Throughout the first series of "Wonder Tales" there is a capital air of +make-believe, which imposes upon you most delightfully, and makes you +accept the most incredible doings, as you accept them in a dream, as the +most natural thing in the world. In the later series, where the didactic +tale becomes more frequent ("The Pine Tree," "The Wind's Tale," "The +Buckwheat"), there is an occasional forced note. The story-teller +becomes a benevolent, moralizing uncle, who takes the child upon his +knee, in order to instruct while entertaining it. But he is no more in +the game. A cloying sweetness of tone, such as sentimental people often +adopt toward children, spoils more than one of the fables; and when +occasionally he ventures upon a love-story ("The Rose-Elf," "The Old +Bachelor's Nightcap," "The Porter's Son"), he is apt to be as +unintentionally amusing as he is in telling his own love episode in "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." However, no man can unite the advantages of +adult age and childhood, and we all feel that there is something +incongruous in a child's talking of love. + +It is a curious fact that his world-wide fame as the poet of childhood +never quite satisfied Andersen.[22] He never accepted it without a +protest. It neither pleased nor sufficed him. He was especially eager to +win laurels as a dramatist; and in 1839 celebrated his first dramatic +success by a farcical vaudeville entitled "The Invisible at Sprogöe." +Then followed the romantic drama "The Mulatto" (1840), which charmed the +public and disgusted the critics; and "The Moorish Maiden," which +disgusted both. These plays are slipshod in construction, but +emotionally effective. The characters are loose-fibred and vague, and +have no more backbone than their author himself. J. L. Heiberg thought +it high time to chastise the half-cultured shoemaker's son for his +audacity, and in the third act of "A Soul after Death," held him up to +ridicule. Andersen, stabbed again to the heart, hastened away from home, +"suffering and disconcerted." But before leaving he published "A +Picture-Book without Pictures", (1840), which is attached to the +American edition of his "Stories and Tales," and deserves its place. The +moon's pathetic and humorous observations on the world she looks down +upon every evening of her thirty nights' circuit have already become +classic in half-a-dozen languages. The little girl who came to kiss the +hen and beg her pardon; the ragged street gamin who died upon the throne +of France; the Hindoo maiden who burned her lamp upon the banks of the +Ganges in order to see if her lover was alive; the little maid who was +penitent because she laughed at the lame duckling with a red rag around +its leg--who does not know the whole inimitable gallery from beginning +to end? The tenderest, the softest, the most virginal spirit breathes +through all these sketches. They are sentimental, no doubt, and a trifle +too sweet. But then they belong to a period of our lives when a little +excess in that direction does not trouble us. + + [22] For verification of this statement I may refer to his indignant + letter _ā propos_ of the statue that was to be raised to him in + Copenhagen, in which he was represented surrounded by listening + children: "None of the sculptors," he wrote, "have known me; none of + their sketches indicate that they have seen what is characteristic + in me. Never could I read aloud when anybody was sitting behind me + or close up to me; far less if I had children on my lap or on my + back, or young Copenhageners lying all over me. It is a _faįon de + parler_ to call me 'the children's poet.' My aim has been to be the + poet of all ages; children could not represent me." + +In 1842 Andersen gave to the world "A Poets' Bazaar," a chronicle of his +travels through nearly all the countries of Europe. In 1844 the drama +"The King is Dreaming," and in 1845 the fairy comedy "The Flower of +Fortune." But his highest dramatic triumph he celebrated in the +anonymous comedy "The New Lying-in Room," which in a measure proved his +contention that it was personal hostility and not critical scruples +which made so large a portion of the Copenhagen literati persecute him. +For the very men who would have been the first to hold his play up to +scorn were the heartiest in their applause, as long as they did not know +that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the success of the +lyrical drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat ambitious epic +"Ahasverus" comes very near being a failure. The next ventures of the +versatile and indefatigable poet were the novel "The Two Baronesses" +(1849), and the fairy comedies "More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), +adapted from a German original, "The Sandman"[23] (1850), and "The Elder +Tree Mother" (1851). The comedies "He was not Born" (1864), "On +Langebro" and "When the Spaniards were Here" (1869), complete the cycle +of his dramatic labors. But the most amusing thing he did, showing how +incapable he was of taking the measure of his faculties, was to write a +novel, "To Be or Not to Be" (1857), in which he proposed once and +forever to down the giant Unbelief, prove the immortality of the soul, +and produce "peace and reconciliation between Nature and the Bible." It +was nothing less than the evidences of Christianity in novelistic form +with which he designed to favor an expectant world. "If[24] I can solve +this problem," he naīvely wrote to a friend, "then the monster +materialism, devouring everything divine, will die." But rarely was a +bigger Gulliver tackled by a tinier Liliputian. The book not only fell +flat, but it was only the world-wide renown and the good intention of +its author which saved it from derision. + + [23] Danish, Ole Luköie. + + [24] Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historie, ii. p. 560. + +Though Andersen never attained in Copenhagen an uncontested recognition +of his talent, honors both from at home and abroad were showered upon +him. The fame which undeniably was his commanded respect, but scarcely +approval. Heiberg made merry at his obscurity in the country of his +birth and his celebrity beyond its boundaries, and represented him as +reading "The Mulatto" to the Sultan's wives and the "Moorish Maiden" to +those who were to be strangled, kneeling in rapture, while the Grand +Eunuch, crowned his head with laurels. But in spite of obloquy and +ridicule, Andersen continued his triumphant progress through all the +lands of the civilized world, and even beyond it. In 1875 his tale, "The +Story of a Mother," was published simultaneously in fifteen languages, +in honor of his seventieth birthday. A few months later (August 4th) he +died at the villa Rolighed, near Copenhagen. His life was indeed as +marvellous as any of his tales. A gleam of light from the wonderland in +which he dwelt seems to have fallen upon his cradle and to have +illuminated his whole career. It was certainly in this illumination +that he himself saw it, as the opening sentence of his autobiography +proves: "My life is a lovely fairy-tale, happy and full of incidents." + +The softness, the sweetness, the juvenile innocence of Danish +romanticism found their happiest expression in him; but also the +superficiality, the lack of steel in the will, the lyrical vagueness and +irresponsibility. If he did not invent a new literary form he at all +events enriched and dignified an old one, and revealed in it a world of +unsuspected beauty. He was great in little things, and little in great +things. He had a heart of gold, a silver tongue, and the spine of a +mollusk. Like a flaw in a diamond, a curious plebeian streak cut +straight across his nature. With all his virtues he lacked that higher +self-esteem which we call nobility. + + + + +CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE + + +The late Romantic authors of Denmark who lived on the traditions of +Oehlenschläger's time and the æsthetical doctrines of J. L. Heiberg, +have gradually been passing away; and a new generation has grown up, +which, though it knows Joseph, has repudiated his doctrine. A period of +stagnation followed the disappearance of the Romanticists. The +Sleswick-Holstein war of 1866, and the consequent hostility to Germany, +cut off the intellectual intercourse between the two countries which in +the first half of the century had been lively and intimate; and as, for +a while, no new ties were formed, a respectable dulness settled upon the +little island kingdom. People lived for the concerns of the day, earned +their bread and butter, amused themselves to the best of their ability, +but troubled themselves very little about the battles of thought which +were being fought upon the great arena of the world. The literary +activity which now and then flared up spasmodically, like flames over a +smouldering ash-heap, flickered and half-expired for want of fresh +sustenance. A direfully conventional romanticist, H. F. Ewald +(1821-1892), wrote voluminous modern and historical novels, the heroines +of which were usually models of all the copy-book virtues, and the +heroes as bloodless as their brave and loyal prototypes in "Ivanhoe" and +"Waverley." Instead of individualizing his _dramatis personæ_ this +feeble successor of Ingemann and Walter Scott gave them a certificate of +character, vouching for their goodness or badness, and trusting the +reader to take his word for it in either case. Like many another popular +novelist, he varnished them with the particular tint of excellence or +depravity that might suit his purpose, stuffed their heads with bran and +their bellies with sawdust, but troubled himself little about what lay +beneath the epidermis. There was something _naīve_ and juvenile in his +view of life which appealed to the large mass of half-educated people; +and the very absence of any subtle literary art tended further to +increase his public. Many of his books, notably "The Youth of Valdemar +Krone" (_Valdemar Krone's Ungdomshistorie_), "The Swedes at Kronborg" +(_Svenskerne paa Kronborg_), have achieved an extraordinary success. The +former deals with contemporary life, while the latter expurgates and +embellishes history after the manner of Walter Scott. Two subsequent +novels, "The Family Nordby" and "Johannes Falk," are, like all of +Ewald's writings, pervaded by a robust optimism and a warm Danish +sentiment, which in a large measure account for their popularity with +the public of the circulating libraries. + +A lesser share of the same kind of popularity has fallen to the lot of +an author of a much higher order--Wilhelm Bergsöe (born 1835). His +voluminous novel "Fra Piazza del Popolo" (1860) made a sensation in its +day, and "From the Old Factory" (1869), which constructively is a +maturer book, is likewise full of fascination. The description of the +doings of the artistic guild in Rome, which occupies a considerable +portion of the former work, is delightful, though intermingled with a +deal of superfluous mysticism and romantic entanglements which were then +held to be absolutely indispensable. "In the Sabine Mountains" (1871), +the scene of which is laid in Genazzano during the struggle for Italian +independence, is a trifle too prolix; and its effect is lessened by the +old-fashioned epistolary form. Signor Carnevale, the revolutionary +apothecary, is, however, a very amusing figure, and would be still +better if he were not caricatured. The tendency to screw the characters +up above the normal--to tune them up to concert pitch as it +were--interferes seriously with the pleasure which the book otherwise +might yield. + +The conception of art as something wholly distinct from and above nature +animates all Bergsöe's productions. The theory of fiction which R. L. +Stevenson has so eloquently propounded has found an able practitioner in +him. For all that, I am indebted to Bergsöe's two Italian romances for +a great deal of enjoyment, the afterglow of which still warms my memory. +But that was long ago. A young man is apt to enjoy in a book quite as +much what he himself supplies as that which the author has deposited +therein. Each word is a key which unlocks a store of imprisoned +emotions. The very word Italy has a magic which imparts to it a charm +even in the geography. And Bergsöe, though he works, without suspicion +of its decrepitude, the ancient machinery of Italian romance, is +unaffectedly eloquent and unsophistically entertaining. The historic +whisperings which he catches from the names, the ruins, the facial +types, and the very trees and grass of Genazzano invest his letters from +that picturesque neighborhood with a certain beautiful glow of color and +a dusky richness of decay. The autobiographical form imposes, to be +sure, an increasing strain on the reader's credulity, as the plot +thickens, and we find ourselves, half-unexpectedly, involved in a lurid +tale of monks, priests, disguised revolutionists, cruel, mercenary +fathers, etc., and the Danish author playing his favorite _rôle_ of +_deus ex machina_. Still more incredible is the part of benevolent +Providence which he assigns to himself in "The Bride of Rörvig," where +he saves the heroine's life by restoring to her a ring given to her +lover, and thus assuring her that he is alive when she believes him +dead. The autobiographical story (especially when the writer is a mere +convenient supernumerary, designed, like the uncle from America in the +old-fashioned melodrama, to straighten out the tangled skein), is apt to +involve other difficulties than the mere embarrassment of having to +distrust the author's assertion, or censure his indiscretions. The +illusion is utterly spoiled by that haunting _arričre pensée_ that this +or that writer, whom you know perhaps at first or second-hand, or whose +features, at all events, are familiar to you from pictures, never could +or would have played the more or less heroic _rôle_ with which he here +delights to impose upon you. + +Altogether the best book which Bergsöe has written is the +autobiographical romance "From the Old Factory," the scene of which is +laid in Denmark. This book evidently contains a great deal of genuine +reminiscence, and is therefore devoid of that air of laborious +contrivance and artificial intrigue which brings the foregoing novels +into such unpleasant relationship with Wilkie Collins and his _genre_. +The incidents of the hero's boyhood in the old porcelain factory, and +his uncle's agitating experiments for the rediscovery of a lost process +of glazing are saner and soberer and lie closer to the soil of common +experience than the exploits of monks and pirates and revolutionists. + +Among the notable men of the expiring Danish romanticism Meyer Aaron +Goldschmidt (1819-1886) holds a leading position. A comic paper, +_Corsaren_, which he edited (1840-1846) made a tremendous stir in its +day; and its scathing wit and satire were not without influence upon +current events. His two novels, _En Jöde_ (1845), _Hjemlös_ (1857), and +a large number of clever novelettes (_Ravnen_, _Arvingen Flyveposten_, +etc.), are full of psychological subtleties, and often charmingly told. +_Flyveposten_ ("The Flying Mail") was translated into English (Boston +and Cambridge, 1870) but attracted no particular attention. For all +that, Goldschmidt, in spite of occasional prolixity, stands the test of +time remarkably well. His Jewish stories, notably _Maser, Aron og +Esther_, and _En Jöde_, contain a higher order of work, though less +dramatically effective, than that of Sacher-Masoch, and Emil Franzos, +and the later Ghetto romancers. Goldschmidt's double nationality, as a +Danish-born Jew, indicates his position and the source from which he +drew his weakness and his strength. As a Jew he saw and judged the +Danish character, and as a Dane he saw and judged the Jewish character +with a liberality and insight of which no autochthon would have been +capable. For all that his tales aroused anything but friendly feelings +among his own people. They felt it to be a profanation thus to expose +the secluded domestic and religious life of the children of Israel. It +is to this sentiment that Dr. Brandes has given utterance in his protest +against "perpetually serving up one's grandmother with sauce piquante." + +An author who is born into an age of transition, when old faiths are +passing away and new ones are struggling for recognition, is placed in +a serious dilemma. Where he makes his choice by mere temperamental bias, +he is apt to miss that element of growth which is involved in every +spiritual struggle. But if, as is so frequently the case, he finds his +choice in a measure made for him, his education, kinships, and worldly +advantage identifying him with the established order, it takes a +tremendous amount of courage and character to break away from old +moorings and steer, without other compass than a sensitive conscience, +toward the rosy dawn of the unknown. There was a desperate need of such +men in Denmark in the seventies, when the little kingdom was sinking +deeply and more deeply into a bog of patriotic delusion and spiritual +stagnation. An infusion of new blood was needed--a re-establishment of +that circulation of thought which keeps the whole civilized world in +vital connection and makes it akin. No country can cut itself off from +this universal world-life without withering like a diseased limb. The +man who undertook to bring Denmark again into _rapport_ with Europe was +Dr. Georg Brandes, whom I have characterized at length in another essay. +It was his admirable book, "The Men of the Modern Transition" +(translated into German under the title _Moderne Geister_) which +impelled me, some years ago, to make the acquaintance of the three +authors who represent whatever there is of promise in contemporary +Danish literature, viz., Sophus Schandorph, Holger Drachmann, and J. P. +Jacobsen. The last named, who died (1884) in the flower of his young +manhood, is, perhaps, not in the strictest sense contemporary. But he is +indispensable to the characterization of the group. + +Widely different as these three men are in almost everything, they have +this in common, that they have deeply breathed the air of the nineteenth +century; and they all show more or less the influence of Brandes. That +this influence has been direct and personal seems probable from the +relation which they have sustained to the revolutionary critics. Of this +I am, however, by no means sure. Mr. Jacobsen, who was by profession a +botanist, and translated Darwin into Danish, no doubt came by his +"advanced views" at first hand. In the case of Schandorph it is more +difficult to judge. He is an excellent linguist, and may have had access +to the same sources from which Brandes drew his strength. Drachmann is +so vacillating in his tendencies that he refuses to be permanently +classified in any school of art or thought. Of the three, Schandorph +seems altogether the maturest mind and furnishes the most finished and +satisfactory work. In his novel "Without a Centre" (_Uden Midtpunkt_) +the reader feels himself at once face to face with an interesting and +considerable personality. He has that sense of surprise and delighted +expectation which only the masters of fiction are apt to evoke. It is a +story of a Danish national type--the conversational artist. In no +country in the world is there such a conversational fury as in Denmark. +A people has, of course, to do something with its surplus energy; and as +political opposition is sure to prove futile, there is nothing left to +do but to talk--not only politics, but art, poetry, religion, in fact, +everything under the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, the hero +of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble tongue, the country had a more +liberal Government, and criticism of the Ministry was not yet high +treason. But centuries of repression and the practical exclusion of the +bourgeoisie from public life were undoubtedly the fundamental causes of +this abnormal conversational activity. There is something soft and +emotional in the character of the Danes, which distinguishes them from +their Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen--an easily flowing lyrical vein, +which imparts a winning warmth and cordiality to their demeanor. +Socially they are the most charming people in the world. Also in this +respect Albrecht is typical, and the songs in which he gives vent to his +lyrical moods have such a rapturous melody that they keep humming in the +brain long after the reader has closed the book. It almost follows as a +psychological necessity that a man so richly endowed with the gift of +speech is feeble and halting in action. Like Tourguéneff's "Rudin," who +suffered from the same malady, he gains by the brilliancy and novelty of +his speech the love of a noble young girl, who, taking his phrases at +their face value, believes his heart to be as heroic as his tongue. +Like him, too, he fails in the critical moment; nay, restrained by petty +scruples, he even stays away from the rendezvous, and by his cowardice +loses what by his eloquence he had won. + +A second novel, "Common People," which deals with low life in its most +varied phases, shows the same admirable truthfulness and exactness in +the character drawing, the same refreshing humor and universal sympathy +and comprehension. "The Story of Thomas Friis" undertakes to show, in +the career of a Danish youth who is meant to be typical, the futility of +the vainglorious imaginings with which the little nation has inflated +itself to a size out of proportion to its actual historic _rôle_. In +"The Old Pharmacy" the necessity of facing the changed reality of the +modern world, instead of desperately hugging an expiring past, is +enforced in a series of vivid and vigorous pictures of provincial life. +"The Forester's Children," which is one of the latest of this author's +novels, suffers by comparison with its predecessors, but is yet full of +cleverness and smacks of the soil. + +Schandorph's naturalism is not pathological; not in the nature of an +autopsy or a diagnosis of disease. It is full-blooded and vigorous--not +particularly squeamish--but always fresh and wholesome. His shorter +tales and sketches ("From the Province," "Five Stories," "Novelettes") +are of more unequal merit, but are all more or less strongly +characterized by the qualities which fascinate in his novels. Of his +poems "_Samlede Digte_," (1882) I have not the space to speak, and can +only regret that they are written in a language in which they will +remain as hidden from the world as if they had been imprinted in +cuneiform inscriptions upon Assyrian bricks. They are largely occasional +and polemical; and more remarkable for vigor of thought than sweetness +of melody. + +J. P. Jacobsen, the second in the group to which I have referred, was a +colorist of a very eminent type, both in prose and verse; but his talent +lacked that free-flowing, spontaneous abundance--that charming air of +improvisation--with which Schandorph captivates his reader, takes him +into his confidence, and overwhelms him with entertainment. Jacobsen +painted faces better than he did souls; or, rather, he did not seem to +think the latter worth painting, unless they exhibited some abnormal +mood or trait. There is something forced and morbid in his people--a +lack of free movement and natural impulse. His principal work, "Mistress +Marie Grubbe," is a series of anxiously finished pictures, carefully +executed in the minutest details, but failing somehow to make a complete +impression. Each scene is so bewilderingly surcharged with color that, +as in the case of a Gobelin tapestry, one has to be at a distance before +one discovers the design. There is something almost wearisome in the +far-fetched words with which he piles up picturesque effects, returning +every now and then to put in an extra touch--to tip a feather with +light, to brighten the sheen of his satins, to polish the steely lustre +of swords and armors. Yet, if one takes the time to linger over these +unusual words and combinations of words, one is likely to find that they +are strong and appropriate. All conventional shop-work he disdained; the +traditional phrases for eyes, lips, brow, and hair were discarded, not +necessarily because they were bad, but because by much use they have +lost their freshness. They have come to be mere sounds, and no longer +call up vivid conceptions. An author who has the skill and the courage +to undertake this repolishing and resharpening of the tools of language +is, indeed, a public benefactor; but it requires the finest linguistic +taste and discrimination to do it with success. Most authors are +satisfied if they succeed in giving currency to one happy phrase +involving a novel use of the language, or to an extremely limited +number; I know of no one who has undertaken the renovation of his +mother-tongue on so extensive a scale as Jacobsen. To say that he has in +most cases done it well is, therefore, high praise. "Mistress Marie +Grubbe" is not, however, easy reading; and the author's novelettes, +entitled "Mogens and Other Stories," seem to be written, primarily, for +literary connoisseurs, as their interest as mere stories is scarcely +worth considering. They are, rather, essays in the art of saying things +unusually and yet well. They do not seem to me, even in this respect, a +success. There are single phrases that seem almost an inspiration; there +are bits of description, particularly of flowers and moods of nature, +which are masterly; but the studious avoidance of the commonplace +imparts to the reader something of the strain under which the author has +labored. He begins to feel the sympathetic weariness which often +overcomes one while watching acrobatic feats. + +In Jacobsen's third book, "Niels Lyhne," we have again the story of a +Danish Rudin--a nature with a multitude of scattered aspirations, +squandering itself in brilliant talk and fantastic yearnings. It is the +same coquetting with the "advanced" ideas of the age, the same lack of +mental stamina, the same wretched surrender and failure. It is the +complexion of a period which the author is here attempting to give, and +he takes pains to emphasize its typical character. One is almost tempted +to believe that Shakespeare, by a gift of happy divination, made his +Prince of Denmark conform to this national type, though in his day it +could not have been half as pronounced as it is now. Whether the Dane of +the sixteenth century was yet the eloquent mollusk which we are +perpetually encountering in modern Danish fiction is a question which, +at this distance, it is hard to decide. The type, of course, is +universal, and is to be found in all countries. Only in the English +race, on both sides of the Atlantic, it is comparatively rare. That a +vigorous race like the Danish, confined, as it is in modern times, +within a narrow arena of action (and forbidden to do anything on that), +should have developed it to a rare perfection seems, as I have already +remarked, almost a psychological necessity. + +Holger Drachmann, in his capacity of lyrist, has also a strain of the +Hamlet nature; although, in the case of a poet, whose verses are in +themselves deeds, the assertion contains no reproach. I am not even sure +that the Protean quality of Drachmann's verse--its frequent voicing of +naturally conflicting tendencies--need be a matter of reproach. A poet +has the right to sing in any key in which he can sing well; and +Drachmann sings, as a rule, exceedingly well. But, like most people with +a fine voice, he is tempted to sing too much; and it thus happens that +verses of slipshod and hasty workmanship are to be found in his volumes. +In his first book of "Poems" he was a free oppositional lance, who +carried on a melodious warfare against antiquated institutions and +opinions, and gave a thrust here and a thrust there in behalf of +socialists, communists, and all sorts of irregular characters. Since +that time his radical, revolutionary sympathies have had time to cool, +and in each succeeding volume he has appeared more sedate, conservative, +_bourgeois_.[25] In a later volume of poems this transformation is half +symbolically indicated in the title, "Tempered Melodies." Nor is it to +be denied that his melodies have gained in beauty by this process of +tempering. There is a wider range of feeling, greater charm of +expression, and a deeper resonance. Half a dozen volumes of verse which +he has published since ("Songs of the Ocean," "Venezia," "Vines and +Roses," "Youth in Verse and Song," "Peder Tordenskjold," "Deep Chords") +are of very unequal worth, but establish beyond question their author's +right to be named among the few genuine poets of the latter half of the +nineteenth century; nay, more than that, he belongs in the foremost rank +of those who are yet surviving. His prose, on the other hand, seems +aimless and chaotic, and is not stamped with any eminent +characteristics. A volume of short stories, entitled "Wild and Tame," +partakes very much more of the latter adjective than of the former. The +first of the tales, "Inclined Planes," is a discursive family chronicle, +showing the decadence of a fishing village under the influence of city +boarders. The second, "Love and Despatches," inculcates a double moral, +the usefulness of economy and the uselessness of mothers-in-law; and the +third, "The Cutter Wild Duck," is a shudderingly insipid composition +about a village lion who got drunk on his birthday, fell overboard, and +committed no end of follies. A later volume of "Little Tales" is, +indeed, so little as scarcely to have any excuse for being. The stories +have all more or less of a marine flavor; but the only one of them that +has a sufficient _motif_, rationally developed, is one entitled "How the +Pilot Got his Music-box." The novel, "A Supernumerary," is also a rather +weak performance, badly constructed, and overloaded with chaotic +incidents. + + [25] Since this was written Drachmann has undergone a fresh + transformation, and is said to have returned to the radical camp. + +_Völund Smed_ (1895) is a cycle of spirited poems dealing with the +tragic fate of Weland the Smith, who took such a savage vengeance upon +the King for having maimed and crippled him. The legend is invested with +an obvious symbolic significance, and seems to have been intended as a +poetic declaration of independence--a revolutionary manifesto +signalizing the Drachmann's re-espousal of the radical opinions of his +youth, in his allegiance to which he had, perhaps, out of regard for +worldly advantages been inclined to waver. + + + + +GEORG BRANDES + + +It is a greater achievement in a critic to gain an international fame +than in a poet or a writer of fiction. The world is always more ready to +be amused than to be instructed, and the literary purveyor of amusement +has opportunities for fame ten times greater than those which fall to +the lot of the literary instructor. The epic delight--the delight in +fable and story--to which the former appeals, is a fundamental trait in +human nature; it appears full grown in the child, and has small need of +cultivation. But the faculty of generalization to which the critic +appeals is indicative of a stage of intellectual development to which +only a small minority even of our so-called cultivated public attains. +It is therefore a minority of a minority which he addresses, the +intellectual _élite_ which does the world's thinking. To impress these +is far more difficult than to impress the multitude; for they are +already surfeited with good writing, and are apt to reject with a +shoulder-shrug whatever does not coincide with their own tenor of +thought. + +What I mean by a critic in this connection is not a witty and agreeable +_causeur_, like the late Jules Janin, who, taking a book for his text, +discoursed entertainingly about everything under the sun; but an +interpreter of a civilization and a representative of a school of +thought who sheds new light upon old phenomena--men like Lessing, +Matthew Arnold, and Taine. The latest candidate for admission to this +company, whose title, I think, no one who has read him will dispute, is +the Dane, Georg Brandes. + +Dr. Brandes was born in Copenhagen in 1842, and is accordingly +fifty-three years of age (1895). At the age of seventeen he entered the +University of his native city, devoting himself first to jurisprudence, +and occupying himself later with philosophical and æsthetical studies. +In 1862 he gained the gold medal of the University by an essay on +"Fatalism among the Ancients," which showed a surprising brilliancy of +expression and maturity of thought; and soon after he passed his +examination for the doctorate of philosophy with the highest +distinction. It is told that the old poet Hauch, who was then Professor +of Æsthetics at the University, was so much impressed by the young +doctor's ability that he hoped to make him his successor. And toward +this end Dr. Brandes began to bend his energies. During the next five or +six years he travelled on the Continent, spending the winter of 1865 in +Stockholm, that of 1866-67 in Paris, and sojourning, moreover, for +longer or shorter periods in the principal cities of Germany. He became +a most accomplished linguist, speaking French and German almost as +fluently as his mother-tongue; and, being an acute observer as well as +an earnest student, he acquired an equipment for the position to which +he aspired which distanced all competitors. But in Denmark, as +elsewhere, cosmopolitan culture does not constitute the strongest claim +to a professorship. In his book, "The Dualism in Our Most Recent +Philosophy" (1866), Brandes took up the dangerous question of the +relation of science to religion, and treated it in a spirit which +aroused antagonism on the part of the conservative and orthodox party. + +This able treatise, though it may not be positivism pure and simple, +shows a preponderating influence of Comte and his school, and its +attitude toward religion is approximately that of Herbert Spencer and +Stuart Mill. The constellation under which Brandes was born into the +world of thought was made up of the stars Darwin, Comte, Taine, and +Mill. These men put their stamp upon his spirit; and to the tendency +which they represent he was for many years faithful. Mill's book on "The +Subjection of Women" he has translated into Danish (1869), and he has +written besides a charmingly sympathetic essay, containing personal +reminiscences, of that grave and conscientious thinker, whose +"Autobiography" is perhaps the saddest book in the English language. + +The three next books of Brandes, which all deal with æsthetical subjects +("Æsthetic Studies," 1868, "Criticisms and Portraits," 1870, and "French +Æsthetics at the Present Day"), are full of pith and winged felicities +of phrase. It is a delight to read them. The passage of Scripture often +occurs to me when I take up these earlier works of Brandes: "He +rejoiceth like a strong man to run a race." He handles language with the +zest and vigor of conscious mastery. There is no shade of meaning which +is so subtle as to elude his grip. Things which I should have said, _a +priori_, were impossible to express in Danish he expresses with scarcely +a sign of effort; and however new and surprising his phrase is, it is +never awkward, never cumbrous, never apparently conscious of its +brilliancy. + +I do not mean to say that these linguistic excellences are +characteristic only of Dr. Brandes's earlier works; but, either because +he has accustomed us to expect much of him in this respect, or because +he has come to regard such brilliancy as of minor consequence, it is a +fact that two of his latest hooks ("Impressions of Poland" and +"Impressions of Russia") contain fewer memorable phrases, fewer winged +words, fewer _mots_ with a flavor of Gallic wit. Intellectually these +"Impressions" are no less weighty; nay, they are more weighty than +anything from the same pen that has preceded them. They show a faculty +to enter sympathetically into an alien civilization, to seize upon its +characteristic phases, to steal into its confidence, as it were, and +coax from it its intimate secrets; and they exhibit, moreover, an +acuteness of observation and an appreciation of significant trifles (or +what to a superficial observer might appear trifles) which no previous +work on the Slavonic nations had displayed. It is obvious that Dr. +Brandes here shuns the linguistic pyrotechnics in which, for instance, +De Amicis indulges in his pictures of Holland and the Orient. It is the +matter, rather than the manner, which he has at heart; and he apparently +takes a curb bit between his teeth in the presence of the Kremlin of +Moscow and the palaces of St. Petersburg, in order to restrain mere +pictorial expression. + +Having violated chronology in speaking of these two works out of their +order, I shall have to leap back over a score of years and contemplate +once more the young doctor of philosophy who returned to Copenhagen in +1872 and began a course of trial lectures at the University on modern +literature. The lecturer here flies his agnostic colors from beginning +to end. He treats "The Romantic School in Germany" as Voltaire treated +Rousseau--with sovereign wit, superior intelligence, but scant sympathy. +At the same time he penetrates to the fountains of life which infused +strength into the movement. He accounts for romanticism as the chairman +of a committee _de lunatico inquirendo_ might account for a case of +religious mania. + +The second and third courses of lectures (printed, like the first, and +translated into German by Strodtmann) dealt with "The Literature of the +French Emigrés" and "The Reaction in France." Here the critic is less +unsympathetic, not because he regards the mental attitude of the +fugitives from the Revolution with approbation, but because he has an +intellectual bias in favor of everything French. Besides having a +certain constitutional sympathy with the clearness and vigor of style +and thought which distinguish the French, Dr. Brandes is so largely +indebted to French science, philosophy, and art that it would be strange +if he did not betray an occasional _soupįon_ of partisanship. His +treatment of Chateaubriand, Benjamin Constant, Madame de Staël, Oberman, +Madame de Krüdener, and all the queer saints and scribbling sinners of +that period is as entertaining as it is instructive. It gives one the +spiritual complexion of the period in clear lines and vivid colors, +which can never be forgotten. Nearly all that makes France France is to +be found in these volumes--its wit, its frivolity, its bright daylight +sense, contrasting so strikingly with the moonshiny mysticism of German +romanticism. And yet France has its romanticism too, which finds vent in +a supercredulous religiosity, in a pictorial sentimentalized +Christianity, such as we encounter in Chateaubriand's "Génie du +Christianisme" and "Les Martyrs." It is with literary phenomena of this +order that "The Reaction in France" particularly deals. + +The fourth course of lectures, entitled "Byron and his Group," though no +less entertaining than the rest, appears to me less satisfactory. It is +a clever presentation of Byron's case against the British public; but +the case of the British against Byron is inadequately presented. It is +the pleading of an able advocate, not the charge of an impartial judge. +Dr. Brandes has so profound an admiration for the man who dares to rebel +that he fails to do justice to the motives of society in protecting +itself against him. It is not to be denied that the iconoclast may be in +the right and society in the wrong; but it is by no means a foregone +conclusion that such is the case. If society did not, with the fierce +instinct of self-preservation, guard its traditional morality against +such assailants as Byron and Shelley, civilization would suffer. The +conservative bias of the Philistine (though not so outwardly attractive) +is no less valuable as a factor in civilization than the iconoclastic +zeal of the reformer. If the centrifugal force had full sway in human +society, without being counteracted by a centripetal tendency, anarchy +would soon prevail. I cannot (as Dr. Brandes appears to do) discover any +startling merit in outraging the moral sense of the community in which +one lives; and though I may admit that a man who was capable of doing +this was a great poet, I cannot concede that the fact of his being a +great poet justified the outrage. Nor am I sure that Dr. Brandes means +to imply so much; but in all of his writings there is manifested a deep +sympathy with the law-breaker whose Titanic soul refuses to be bound by +the obligations of morality which limit the freedom of ordinary mortals. +Only petty and pusillanimous souls, according to him, submit to these +restraints; the heroic soul breaks them, as did Byron and Shelley, +because he has outgrown them, or because he is too great to recognize +the right of any power to limit his freedom of action or restrain him in +the free assertion of his individuality. This is the undertone in +everything Dr. Brandes has written; but nowhere does it ring out more +boldly than in his treatment of Byron and Shelley, unless it be in the +fifth course of his "Main Currents" dealing with "Young Germany." + +These four courses of lectures have been published under the collective +title "The Main Literary Currents in the Nineteenth Century" +(_Hovedströmningerne i det Nittende Aarhundredes Litteratur_). The +German translation is entitled _Hauptströmungen in der Litteratur des +Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts_. Barring the strictures which I have made, I +know no work of contemporary criticism which is more luminous in its +statements, more striking in its judgments, and more replete with +interesting information. It reminds one in its style of Taine's +"Lectures on Art" and the "History of English Literature." The +intellectual bias is kindred, if not the same; as is also the pictorial +vigor of the language, the subtle deductions of psychical from physical +facts, and a certain lusty realism, which lays hold of external nature +with a firm grip. + +In Dr. Brandes's "Impressions of Poland" I found an observation which +illustrates his extraordinary power of characterization. The +temperament of the Polish people, he says, is not rational but +fantastically heroic. When I recall the personalities of the various +Poles I have known (and I have known a great many), I cannot conceive of +a phrase more exquisitely descriptive. It makes all your haphazard +knowledge about Poland significant and valuable by supplying you with a +key to its interpretation. It is this faculty Dr. Brandes has displayed +in an eminent degree in his many biographical and critical essays which +have appeared in German and Danish periodicals; as also in his more +elaborate biographies of Benjamin Disraeli (1878), Esaias Tegnér (1878), +Sören Kierkegaard (1877), Ferdinand Lassalle (1882), and Ludwig Holberg. +The first of these was translated into English, and was also published +in the United States. A second volume, entitled "Eminent Writers of the +Nineteenth Century," was translated some years ago by Professor R. B. +Anderson. The greater number of these highly finished essays were +selected from the Danish volumes "The Men of the New Transition" (1884) +and "Men and Works in Recent European Literature" (1883), and one or two +from "Danish Poets" (1877). They give in every instance the keynote to +the personality with which they deal; they are not so much studies of +books as studies of the men who are revealed in the books. Take, for +instance, the essay on Björnstjerne Björnson, which I regard as one of +the finest and most vital pieces of critical writing in recent times. +What can be more subtly descriptive of the very innermost soul of this +poet than the picture of him as the clansman, the Norse chieftain, who +feels with the many and speaks for the many; and what more beautifully +indicative of his external position than this phrase: "To mention his +name is like running up the flag of Norway"? + +It seems peculiarly appropriate to follow up this essay with one on +Ibsen, who is as complete an antithesis to his great and popular rival +as could well be conceived. There is no bugle-call in the name Henrik +Ibsen. It is thin in sound, and can be spoken almost with closed lips. +You have no broad vowels and large consonants to fill your mouth as when +you say Björnstjerne Björnson. This difference in sound seems symbolic. +Ibsen is the solitary man, a scathing critic of society, a delver in the +depths of human nature, sceptical of all that men believe in and admire. +He has not, like Björnson, any faith in majorities; nay, he believes +that the indorsement of the majority is an argument against the wisdom +of a course of action or the truth of a proposition. The summary of this +poet's work and personality in Dr. Brandes's book is a masterpiece of +analytical criticism. It enriches and expands the territory of one's +thought. It is no less witty, no less epigrammatic, than Sainte-Beuve at +his best; and it has flashes of deeper insight than I have ever found in +Sainte-Beuve. + +The last book of Dr. Brandes's that has been presented to the American +public is his "Impressions of Russia." The motto of this work (which in +the Danish edition is printed on the back of the title-page) is "Black +Earth," the significance of which is thus explained in the concluding +paragraph: + +"Black earth, fertile soil, new soil, wheat soil ... the wide, rich, +warm nature ... the infinite expanses, which fill the soul with +melancholy and with hope ... the impenetrable, duskily mysterious ... +the mother-womb of new realities and new mysticism ... Russia, the +future." + +The prophetic vagueness of this paragraph, big with dim possibilities, +conveys the very impression to which all observations and experiences in +Russia finally reduce themselves. It is the enduring residue which +remains when all evanescent impressions have lapsed into the background. +It expresses, too, the typical mental attitude of every Russian, be he +ever so Frenchified and denationalized. The word "Virgin Soil" was a +favorite phrase with Tourguéneff when speaking of his country, and he +used it as the title of his last novel. It seemed to him to explain +everything in Russian conditions that to the rest of the world appeared +enigmatical. The whole of Dr. Brandes's book is interpenetrated with +this consciousness of the vast possibilities hidden in the virgin bosom +of the new earth, even though they may be too deeply hidden to sprout up +into the daylight for centuries to come. The Russian literature, which +is at present enchaining the attention of the civilized world, is a +brilliant variation of this theme, an imaginative commentary on this +text. The second half of Dr. Brandes's "Impressions" is devoted to the +consideration of Puschkin, Gogol, Lermontoff, Dostojevski, Tourguéneff, +and Tolstoī; of each of whom he gives, as it appears to me, a better +account than M. de Vogüé in his book "Le Roman Russe," which gave him a +seat among the Forty Immortals. + +The significance of Dr. Brandes's literary activity, which has now +extended over a quarter of a century, can hardly be estimated from our +side of the Atlantic. The Danish horizon was, twenty years ago, hedged +in on all sides by a patriotic prejudice which allowed few foreign ideas +to enter. As previously stated, the people had, before the two +Sleswick-Holstein wars, been in lively communication with Germany, and +the intellectual currents of the Fatherland had found their way up to +the Belts, and had pulsated there, though with some loss of vigor. But +the disastrous defeat in the last war aroused such hostility to Germany +that the intellectual intercourse almost ceased. German ideas became +scarcely less obnoxious than German bayonets. Spiritual stagnation was +the result. For no nation can with impunity cut itself off from the +great life of the world. New connections might, perhaps, have been +formed with France or England; but the obstacles in the way of such +connections appeared too great to be readily overcome. Racial +differences and consequent alienism in habits of thought made a +_rapprochement_ seem hopeless. It seemed, for awhile, as if the war had +cut down the intellectual territory of the Danes even more than it had +curtailed their material area. They cultivated their little domestic +virtues, talked enthusiastic nonsense on festive occasions, indulged in +vain hopes of recovering their lost provinces, but rarely allowed their +political reverses to interfere with their amusements. They let the +world roar on past their gates, without troubling themselves much as to +what interested or agitated it. A feeble, moonshiny late-romanticism was +predominant in their literature; and in art, philosophy, and politics +that sluggish conservatism which betokens a low vitality, incident upon +intellectual isolation. + +What was needed at such a time was a man who could re-attach the broken +connection--a mediator and interpreter of foreign thought in such a form +as to appeal to the Danish temperament and be capable of assimilation by +the Danish intellect. Such a man was Georg Brandes. He undertook to put +his people _en rapport_ with the nineteenth century, to open new avenues +for the influx of modern thought, to take the place of those which had +been closed. We have seen that he interpreted to his countrymen the +significance of the literary and social movements both in England and in +France. But a self-satisfied and virtuous little nation which regards +its remoteness from the great world as a matter of congratulation is not +apt to receive with favor such a champion of alien ideas. The more the +Danes became absorbed in their national hallucinations, the more +provincial, nay parochial, they became in their interests, the less did +they feel the need of any intellectual stimulus from abroad; and when +Dr. Brandes introduced them to modern realism, agnosticism, and +positivism they thanked God that none of these dreadful isms were +indigenous with them; and were disposed to take Dr. Brandes to task for +disturbing their idyllic, orthodox peace by the promulgation of such +dangerous heresies. When the time came to fill the professorship for +which he was a candidate, he was passed by, and a safer but inferior man +was appointed. A formal crusade was opened against him, and he was made +the object of savage and bitter attacks. I am not positive, but am +disposed to believe, that it was this crusade, not against his opinions +only, but against the man himself, which drove Dr. Brandes from +Copenhagen, and induced him, in October, 1877, to settle in Berlin. Here +he continued his literary activity with unabated zeal, became a valued +contributor to the most authoritative German periodicals, and gained a +conspicuous position among German men of letters. But while he was +sojourning abroad, the seed of ideas which he had left at home began to +sprout, and in 1882 his friends in Copenhagen felt themselves strong +enough to brave the antagonism which his æsthetical and religious +heresies had aroused. At their invitation he returned to Denmark, having +been guaranteed an income of four thousand crowns ($1,000) for ten +years, with the single stipulation that he should deliver an annual +course of public lectures in Copenhagen. Since then his reputation has +spread rapidly throughout the civilized world; his books have been +translated into many languages, and he would have won his way to a +recognition, as the foremost of contemporary critics, if he had not in +his later publications discredited himself by his open sympathy with +anarchism. + +In order to substantiate this it is only necessary to call attention to +the fifth volume of his lectures entitled "Young Germany" (_Det unge +Tydskland_, 1890), which betrays extraordinary intellectual acumen but +also a singular confusion of moral values. All revolt is lauded, all +conformity derided. The former is noble, daring, Titanic; the latter is +pusillanimous and weak. Conjugal irregularities are treated not with +tolerance but with obvious approval. Those authors who dared be a law +unto themselves are, by implication at least, praised for flinging down +their gauntlets to the dull, moral Philistines who have shackled +themselves with their own stupid traditions. That is the tone of +Brandes's comment upon such relations as that of Immermann to Eliza von +Lützow. + +But nowhere has he unmasked so Mephistophelian a countenance as in his +essays on Luther and on an obscure German iconoclast named Friedrich +Nietschke (_Essays: Fremmede Personligheder_, pp. 151-244). It is +difficult to understand how a man of well-balanced brain and a logical +equipment second to none, can take _au sérieux_ a mere philosophical +savage who dances a war-dance amid what he conceives to be the ruins of +civilization, swings a reckless tomahawk and knocks down everybody and +everything that comes in his way. There must lie a long history of +disappointment and bitterness behind that endorsement of anarchy pure +and simple. And it is the sadder to contemplate because it casts a +sinister light upon Dr. Brandes's earlier activity and compels many an +admirer of his literary art to revise his previous opinion of him. Can a +man ever have been a sound thinker who at fifty practically hoists the +standard of anarchy? A ship is scarcely to be trusted that flies such +compromising colors. + +That all development, in order to be rational, must have its roots in +the past--must be in the nature of a slow organic growth--is certainly a +fundamental proposition of the Spencerian sociology. It is the more to +be wondered at that an evolutionist like Dr. Brandes, in his impatience +at the tardiness of social progress, should lose his philosophic temper +and make common cause with a crack-brained visionary. The kind of +explosive radicalism which Nietschke betrays in his cynical questions +and explanations is no evidence of profundity or sagacity, but is the +equivalent of the dynamiter's activity, transferred to the world of +thought. His pretended re-investigation of the foundations of the moral +sentiments reminds one of the mud geysers of the Yellowstone, which +break out periodically and envelop everything within reach in an +indeterminate shower of mud. To me there is more of vanity than of +philosophic acumen in his onslaught on well-nigh all human institutions. +He would, like Ibsen, no doubt, + + "Place 'neath the ark the torpedo most cheerfully;" + +but torpedoes of his making would scarcely do the ark much harm. They +have not the explosive power of Ibsen's. There are in every age men who, +unable to achieve the fame of Dinocrates, who built the temple of the +Ephesian Diana, aspire to that of Herostratos, who destroyed it. To +admire these men is as compromising as to be admired by them. + +In the essay on "Martin Luther on Celibacy and Marriage" Dr. Brandes +derides with a satyr-like leer all traditional ideas of chastity, +conjugal fidelity, and marital honor. + +Though he pretends to fight behind Luther's shield the deftest thrusts +are not the reformer's, but the essayist's own. Fundamentally, I fancy, +this is an outbreak of that artistic paganism which is so prevalent +among the so-called "advanced" Hebrews. The idea that obedience to law +is degrading; that conformity to traditional morals is soul-crippling +and unworthy of a free spirit; that only by giving sway to passion will +the individual attain that joy which is his right, and that +self-development which should be his highest aim, has found one of its +ablest and most dangerous advocates in Georg Brandes. + + + + +ESAIAS TEGNÉR + + +The genius of the Scandinavian north has never found a more complete and +brilliant incarnation than the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér. Strong, +cheerful, thoroughly wholesome, with a boyish delight in prowess, +adventure, and daring deeds, he presents a most agreeable contrast to +the moonshine singers and graveyard bards of the phosphoristic school, +who were his contemporaries. To Tegnér, in his prime, life was a brisk +and exhilarating sail, with a fresh breeze, over sunny waters; and he +had no patience with those who described it as a painful and troublous +groping through the valley of the shadow of death. There was, in other +words, a certain charming juvenility in his attitude toward existence, +which presented to him no riddles that a man with a strong arm and an +honest heart might not solve with comparative ease. All problems were to +him soluble with the sword; and Alexander, when he cut the Gordian knot, +must have appeared to him wiser, as he was surely more admirable, than +either Plato or Socrates. This scorn of all metaphysical subtleties, and +reliance upon strength and Swedish manhood, are, perhaps (from an +advanced European point of view), indicative of a little intellectual +immaturity; but they are thoroughly characteristic of the Scandinavian +nationalities. The love of brave words and brave deeds, the exaltation +of the man of action above the man of thought, the pleasure in reckless +gallantry and foolhardy adventure, are, however, not confined to Swedes +and Norwegians, but are characteristic of the boyhood of every nation. +In the Scotchman, Robert Louis Stevenson, this jaunty juvenility, this +rich enjoyment of bloody buccaneers and profane sea-dogs, is carried to +far greater lengths, and the great juvenile public of England and +America, both young and old, rises up and calls him blessed. + +There is, however, a vast difference between Tegnér's youthfulness and +that of Stevenson. The latter (in spite of the charm of his style, which +is irresistible) strikes me as a sort of mediæval survival--a boyish +feudal sixteenth-century spirit astray in the nineteenth. I am by no +means insensible to the fascination of his capricious confidences, his +beautiful insight, and his exquisite humor; but for all that, he always +leaves me with a vague regret at his whimsicality and a certain lack of +robustness in his intellectual equipment. In Tegnér, on the other hand, +it is primarily the man who is impressive; and the author is interesting +as the revelation of the man. He has no literary airs and graces, but +speaks with a splendid authority, _e plena pectore_, from the fulness of +his manly conviction. He seems a very personification of the national +genius--fair, vigorous, and beautiful--with the glow of health in his +cheeks and the light of courage in his eye. His vision of the world is +bright and vivid, and he swims with a joyous ease in the high-tide of +the moment, like a beautiful fish in the luminous summer sea. + +As a specimen of magnificent manhood Tegnér had few equals in his day. +Tall, robust, and finely proportioned as he was, with a profile of +almost classic purity, he was equally irresistible to men and women. +There was a breezy, out-of-door air about him, and a genial +straightforwardness and affability in his manner which took all hearts +captive. His was not only the beauty of perfect health, but a certain +splendid virility in his demeanor and appearance heightened the charm of +his personality. + +It is a matter of wonder that a man in whom the race-type had reached +such perfection was but two generations removed from the soil. Tegnér's +grandfathers on both sides were peasants; and his father, Esaias +Lucasson, was a peasant lad who by industry and ambition had obtained an +education and become a clergyman. He owed his aristocratic name to the +custom, prevalent in those days, to Latinize all vulgar appellations. +Esaias Lucasson, of Tegnaby (the little Småland village where he was +born), became, in the Latin school, Esaias Tegnerus. He married in the +course of time a clergyman's daughter, Sara Maria Seidelius, who bore +him a large family of sons and daughters. The fifth son, named Esaias +after his father, first saw the light of day in the parsonage of +Kyrkerud, in Wermland, November 13, 1782. When he was nine years old his +father died, leaving behind him poverty and sorrow. Happily a friend of +the family, the Assessor Branting, took a fancy to the handsome and +clever boy and offered him a home in his house. Esaias wrote a very +clear, good hand, and soon got a desk and a high three-legged stool in +the assessor's office. So far from rebelling against this tedious +discipline, he applied himself with zeal to his task, and became, in a +short time, an excellent clerk. And a clerk he might have remained if +his patron had not had the wit to discover that very unusual talents +slumbered in the lad. Being fond of his society, Mr. Branting got into +the habit of taking him along on his official journeys; and from the +back seat of his chaise Esaias made the acquaintance of the beautiful +rivers, heights, and valleys of Wermland. The unconscious impressions +which a boy absorbs at this period of his life are apt to play a +decisive part in fashioning his future. Nature, however picturesque, +never yet made a poet of a dullard; but many a time has she aroused to +poetic consciousness a soul which without this stimulating influence +might never have discovered its calling, might never have felt that +strange, tremulous exaltation which demands utterance in song. + +Esaias Tegnér stored his mind during these journeys with that wealth of +imagery, drawn from the scenery of his native land, which constitutes +the most national element in his verse. He also contracted, during his +residence in Branting's house, an inordinate love of books. Once during +the harvest-time he was placed on guard at an open gate, so as to +prevent the cattle from breaking into the adjoining field. To the great +chagrin of his patron, however, the cows made their way unhindered and +unnoticed into the forbidden territory, while their watchman was lying +on his belly in the grass, deeply absorbed in a book. Wherever he +happened to be, his idea of happiness was to hide himself away with a +cherished volume. Sometimes he was found sitting on the top rung of a +ladder, sometimes on the roof of a turf-thatched cottage, oblivious of +the world about him, plunged up to his ears in some historic or +mythological tale. He was voracious, nay, omnivorous, in his reading. A +book was a book to him; no matter what was its subject, whether it were +poetry, history, heraldry, or horticulture, he was always likely to find +something in it to interest him. But his favorite reading was the old +Norse sagas, with their tremendous recitals of war and song and fabulous +prowess. + +It was not, however, his delight in books which made the change in his +destiny. Professor C. W. Böttiger, Tegnér's son-in-law, quotes, in his +life of the poet, the following incident in the latter's own words: + +"One evening, as I was travelling homeward with Assessor Branting, from +Carlstad to Högvalta, the stars were bright and my religious +foster-father seized this opportunity to talk with me about God's +omnipotence, and its visible traces throughout nature. I had just been +reading Bastholm's 'Philosophy for Laymen,' and I began to give an +account of what I had there learned concerning the movements of the +heavenly bodies. This made an impression upon the old man, who, a few +days later, informed me that he had determined to give me a scholarly +education. This had long been my secret desire, though I had never dared +to express it. 'You can learn nothing more with me,' he said, 'and I +believe you were born for something better. If that is the case,' he +added, 'do not forget to thank the Giver of all good things.'" + +The boy, who was now fourteen years old, was sent to the house of a +neighbor, where his elder brother, Lars Gustaf, was tutor, and was +initiated by him into the classical languages. He also taught himself +English by reading McPherson's "Ossian," which kept ringing in his +memory for many years to come. It was during his first enthusiasm for +"Ossian" that, in order to rid himself of the line "the spear of Connell +is keen," he cut it into his chamber-door, where probably it is yet to +be seen. At the end of fifteen months the elder brother accepted a more +profitable position as tutor in the family of the great +iron-manufacturer Myhrman, at Rämen, and stipulated that Esaias should +be permitted to accompany him. + +Very charming is the description of this hospitable, patriarchal +household, in Böttiger's biography; and doubly interesting it becomes +when we recognize on every page scenes and incidents which were later +woven into "Frithjof's Saga." There was a large library on the estate, +consisting of French, Latin, and Greek classics. With great zest Esaias +attacked this storehouse of delight; and scarcely would he grant himself +the needed sleep, because every hour seemed to him lost which had been +robbed from his beloved authors. The instruction in Latin and Greek +which his brother imparted to the young Myhrmans was to him far too +slow. In his eagerness to plunge into Homer's enchanted world, he +rapidly finished his grammar, and began to read ahead, book after book, +so as to get the connection, even though understanding but half the +words. Without knowing it, he had adopted a modern and really most +excellent method of acquiring the language. For Homer became literature +to him instead of a mere text for excruciating grammatical gymnastics. + +It was Tegnér's good fortune that his playfellows, the seven young +Myhrmans, were not so fond of Greek as he was. Often, when he was +revelling in a glorious Homeric passage, these lusty barbarians would +come storming into his room and carry him off bodily, compelling him to +share in their sports; for Esaias was a capital hand at inventing new +games, and they willingly accepted his leadership and acted upon his +suggestions. Particularly his Homeric games were greatly enjoyed. They +divided their troop into Greeks and Trojans and captured Troy. Esaias +was always Hector, and the other boys became the raging Ajax, the +swift-footed Achilles, the wily Ulysses, etc. The youngest daughter of +the house, Anna Myhrman, must, I should fancy, have played somewhat more +of a part in Tegnér's boyhood than his biographer allows, for the +descriptions of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's childhood in Hilding's house +are obviously personal reminiscences: + + "No bird's nest found so high a spot + That he for her could find it not; + The eagle's nest from clouds he sundered, + And eggs and young he deftly plundered. + + "However swift, there ran no brook, + But o'er it Ingeborg he took; + How sweet, when roaring torrents frighten, + To feel her soft arms round him tighten. + + "The first spring flowers by sunshine fed, + The earliest strawberries turning red, + The first of autumn's golden treasure + He proffered her with eager pleasure."[26] + + [26] Translation of Thomas A. E. and Martha A. L. Holcomb, Chicago, + 1877. I have taken the liberty to substitute "strawberries," which + is the correct translation of "Smultron," for berries. + +At the age of seventeen Tegnér entered the University of Lund, +accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously +promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic +education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his +room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became +bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, +afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often +threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint +from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up +and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess. + +At the University Tegnér soon made his mark, and two years later took +his degree of _Magister Artium_ with great distinction, being, according +to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the +cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp +and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine +stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegnér +was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a +terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of +a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their +careers. Tegnér was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to +her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him +in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits +of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in +front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. +His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the +professors saved him from the _consilium abeundi cum infamia_, with +which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed _docent_ in +æsthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant +University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Rämen with the +Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had +undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its +delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away +one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short +skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly +dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him +with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more +than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth +upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found +up in the woods above Rämen which yet shows under its coating of moss +the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to +fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in +"Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply +an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge: + + "He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand, + And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland, + Whilst his love-dreaming gaze + Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays. + + "They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay, + When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way; + For on memory's page + Youth traces its roses; its briers old age. + + "She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood, + From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood; + From the dome-crownčd cave + Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."[27] + + [27] Strong's translation. + +But here, happily, Tegnér's life ceased to supply material for that of +his hero. For Anna Myhrman, instead of pledging her troth to a +high-born, elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the young +University instructor, Esaias Tegnér; and when her bridal wreath of +myrtle failed to arrive from the city, she twined a wreath of wild +heather instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day with the +modest heather blossoms peeping forth from under her dark locks. + +His insecure position in life, as one dependent upon the bounty of +friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegnér, and at times made him moody and +despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy +the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a +perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He +looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed +him with a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, have succumbed +to the strain of this perpetual over-exertion. But after his marriage a +happy change came over him. The joyous substratum of his nature (what he +himself called his pagan self) broke through its sombre integuments and +asserted itself. No sooner had he taken his place among the teachers of +the University than his clear and weighty personality commanded +admiration and respect. In social intercourse his ready wit and cheerful +conviviality made him a general favorite. His talk, without being in the +least forced, was full of surprises; and there was a charm, in the +redundant vigor and virility that seemed to radiate from him. But it may +as well be admitted that he began at this time to show what may +euphemistically be styled his paganism, in the relish which he evinced +for jests of doubtful propriety. He was indeed as far as possible from +being a prude; many years later, when he was a bishop and a great +ecclesiastical dignitary, he wrote to his friend the poet Franzén: + + "I thank God that I can yet, at times, be merry and give vent to my + mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to make a good joke even + though its subject be the bridal bed. All prudery--and frequently + the clerical dignity is, in social intercourse, nothing else--I + detest and despise." + +His inability to restrain his wit in this particular direction has done +some injury to his memory. Not that his fancy had any taint of +uncleanness. It was open and cheerful as the sunlight; and as the +sunlight played brightly over all things without fastidious +discrimination. There was a rich, and healthy humanity about him which +manifested itself in an impartial, all-embracing delight in the glow and +color of mere sensuous existence. There has scarcely ever been a great +poet (Dante perhaps excepted) who has not had his share of this pagan +joy in nudity. Goethe's "Roman Elegies" are undisguisedly Anacreontic, +and the most spiritual of modern poets, Robert Browning, is as deep and +varied and bountiful in the expression he gives to life in its sensuous +phases as in its highest ascetic transports. + +Do not imagine, then, that I am apologizing for Tegnér, I am merely +trying to account for him. From his Homer, whom he loved above all other +poets, he had in a measure derived that artistic paganism which +perceptibly colored his personality. There was nothing of the scholarly +prig or pedant about him. In his lectures he gave himself, his own view +of life, and his own interpretation of his authors. And it was because +of the greatness of the man, the unhackneyed vigor of his speech, and +the power of his intellect that the students flocked to his lecture-hall +and listened with enthusiasm to his teaching. + +I am not by any means sure, however, that much of his popularity was +also due to what, at this stage of his career, may without disrespect +be called his immaturity. That wholesome robustness in his acceptance +of life which finds utterance in his early songs must have established a +quick bond of sympathy between him and his youthful hearers. The +instincts of the predatory man were yet strong in him. The tribal +feeling which we call patriotism, the juvenile defiance which carries a +chip on its shoulder as a challenge to the world, the boastful +self-assertion which is always ridiculous in every nation but our +own--impart a splendid martial resonance to his first notable poem, +"War-Song for the Scanian Reserves" (1808). There was a charming, frank +ferocity in this patriotic bugle-blast which found an echo in every +Swedish heart. The rapid dactylic metres, with the captivating rhymes, +alternating with the more contemplative trochees, were admirably adapted +for conveying the ebullient indignation and wrath which hurls its +gauntlet into the face of fate itself,[28] checked, as it were, and +cooled by soberer reflection and retrospective regret. It is the sorrow +for the yet recent loss of Finland which inspires the elegiac tones in +Tegnér's war-song; and it is his own ardent, youthful spirit, his own +deep and sincere love of country, which awakes the martial melody with +the throbbing of the drum and the rousing alarum of trumpets. What can +be more delightfully--shall I say juvenile--than this reference to the +numerical superiority of the Muscovites: + + "Many, are they? Well, then, of the many + Sweden shall drink the red blood and be free! + Many? We count not the warriors' numbers + Only the fallen shall numbered be." + + [28] + + "Vi Kaste var handske + Mot ödet sjelf." + + + +It is with no desire to disparage Tegnér that I say that this strain, +which is that of all his early war-songs, is extremely becoming to him. +It is not a question of the legitimacy of the sentiment, but of the +fulness and felicity of its expression. As long as we have wars we must +have martial bards, and with the exception of the German, Theodor +Körner, I know none who can bear comparison with Tegnér. English +literature can certainly boast no war-poem which would not be drowned in +the mighty music of Tegnér's "Svea," "The Scanian Reserves," and that +magnificent, dithyrambic declamation, "King Charles, the Young Hero." +Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" is technically a finer poem +than anything Tegnér has written, but it lacks the deep virile bass, the +tremendous volume of breath and voice, and the captivating martial lilt +which makes the heart beat willy nilly to the rhythm of the verse. + +The popularity which Tegnér gained by "The Scanian Reserves" was the +immediate cause of his appointment to a professorship at the University +of Lund, and his next notable poem, "Svea," which won him the great +prize of the Swedish Academy, raised him to a height of fame which +naturally led to further promotion. According to the curious custom of +Sweden, a professor may, even though he has never studied theology, take +orders and accept the charge of a parish. He is regarded as being, by +dint of his learning, in the regular line of clerical promotion; and the +elevation from a professorship (though it be not a theological one) into +a bishopric is no infrequent occurrence. There was therefore nothing +anomalous in Tegnér's appointment (February, 1812) as pastor of Stäfvie +and Lackalänge, and his subsequent promotion (February, 1824) to the +bishopric of Wexiö. His pastorate he was permitted to combine with his +professorship of Greek, to which he was simultaneously transferred from +that of æsthetics, and the office was chiefly valuable to him on account +of the addition which it procured him to his income. The nearness of his +parish to Lund enabled him to preach in the country on Sundays as +regularly as he lectured in the city on week-days. His other pastoral +duties he could not very well discharge _in absentia_, and they probably +remained in a measure undischarged. He had not sought the parish; it was +the parish which had sought him; and he exerted himself to the utmost to +fill the less congenial office as conscientiously as he did his academic +chair. The peasants of Stäfvie and Lackalänge were always welcome at his +hospitable board; he gave them freely his advice, and in order to recall +and emphasize his own kinship with them, he invited a peasant woman to +become the godmother of his youngest son, and selected all the sponsors +from the same class. + +This was not the only occasion on which Tegnér demonstrated his +superiority to all snobbish pretensions. He was not only not ashamed of +his peasant descent, but he was proud of it. Once (1811) during a visit +to Rämen, he took it into his head that he desired to know, from actual +experience, the kind of lives which his ancestors must have lived; and +to that end he dressed himself in wadmal, loaded a dray with pig-iron, +greased its axles, harnessed his team, and drove it to the nearest city, +a distance of ten to twelve miles. He induced three of his +brothers-in-law, two of whom were army officers and one a government +clerk, to follow his example. Up hill and down hill they trudged, and +arrived late in the afternoon, footsore and with blistered hands, in the +town, where they reported at the office of a commission merchant, sold +their iron and obtained their receipts. That of Tegnér was made out to +Esaias Esaiasson, which would have been his name, if his father had +never risen from the soil. The four sham peasants now bought seed-corn +with the money they had obtained for their iron, loaded again their +wagons, and started for home. But they had forgotten to take into +account the robustness of the rustic appetite, and before they had +proceeded far their bag of provisions was empty. To add to their +discomfort the rain began to pour down, but they would not seek +shelter. After midnight they arrived at Rämen, hungry and drenched, not +having slept for two nights, but happy and proud of their feat of +endurance. + +It was in 1811 that Tegnér's poem "Svea" received the prize of the +Swedish Academy; and the fact that it recalled (in single passages at +least) Oehlenschläger's "The Golden Horns," does not seem to have +weighed in the verdict. It is not in any sense an imitation; but there +is an audible reminiscence which is unmistakable in the metre and +cadence of the short-lined verses, descriptive of the vision. Never, I +fancy, had the Swedish language been made to soar with so strong a +wing-beat, never before had it been made to sing so bold a melody. To +me, I admit, "Svea" is too rhetorical to make any deep impression. It +has a certain stately academic form, which, as it were, impedes its +respiration and freedom of movement. When, for all that, I speak of +wing-beat and melody, it must be borne in mind that Sweden had produced +no really great poet[29] before Tegnér; and that thus, relatively +considered, the statement is true. But Tegnér seems himself to have +been conscious of the strait-jacket in which the old academic rules +confined him, for in the middle of the poem he suddenly discards the +stilted Alexandrines with which he had commenced and breaks into a +rapturous old-Norse chant, the abrupt metres of which recall the +_fornyrdhalag_ of the Elder Edda. Soon after "Svea" followed, in 1812, +"The Priestly Consecration," the occasion of which was the poet's own +ordination. Here the oratorical note and a certain clerical rotundity of +utterance come very near spoiling the melody. "At the Jubilee in Lund" +(1817) is very much in the same strain, and begins with the statement so +characteristic of Tegnér: + + "Thou who didst the brave twin stars enkindle, + Reason and Religion, guard the twain! + Each shines by other; else they fade and dwindle.[30] + Fill with clearness every human brain: + Faith and hope in every bosom reign!" + + [29] Carl Michael Bellman, the Swedish Béranger (1740-1795), whose + wanton music resounded through the latter half of the eighteenth + century, would, no doubt, by many be called a great poet. But his + Bacchanalian strain, though at times exquisite and captivating, + lacks the universality of sentiment and that depth of resonance of + which greatness can alone be predicated. Both his wild mirth and his + sombre melancholy exhale the aroma of ardent spirits. + + [30] This line reads literally: "Guard them both; they are willingly + reconciled." + +He was, in fact, never very orthodox; and if he had belonged to the +American branch of his denomination would surely have been tried for +heresy. Rarely has a deadlier foe of priestly obscurantism and mediæval +mysteries worn the episcopal robes. With doctrinal subtleties and +ingenious hair-splitting he had no patience; conduct was with him the +main, if not the only, thing to be considered. The Christian Church, as +he conceived it, was primarily a civilizer, and the expression of the +highest ethical sentiment of the age. + +"The Church," he writes, "can surely not be re-established in its former +religious significance, for the system upon which it rests has slept +away three centuries of history; and it is of no use that this man or +that man yet pretends to believe in the somnambulist. But the church has +also a civic significance as an integral part of the social order of +humanity. If you abandon that to the spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I +can see no reason why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus +should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and their costs covered +into the treasury." + +These are not highly episcopal sentiments; but they are in keeping with +Tegnér's whole personality and his conception of his duty. His first +concern was to purge his diocese of drunken clergymen, a task in which +he encountered many unforeseen difficulties. + +"It is nowadays less difficult," he says, "to get rid of a king than a +drunken clergyman." + +He was, indeed, very moderate in his demands, stipulating only that no +shepherd of souls should show himself drunk in public. But the bibulous +parsons frequently had influential relatives, who exerted themselves +with the government to thwart the bishop's reformatory schemes. If +Tegnér had not been the masterful, tireless, energetic prelate that he +was, his ardor would have cooled; and he would have contented himself +with drawing the revenues of his office, and left with the lukewarm +government the responsibility for frustrating his purposes. But this was +contrary to his nature. He could not calmly contemplate abuses which it +was his duty to remedy; and no discouragement ever sufficed to dampen +his noble zeal. The marked and fanatical pietism which then was much +diffused among the Småland peasantry he fought with his cheerful gospel +of reason and sanity. Just as poetry to him meant the highest bloom of +life, and his radiant lyre resounded with noble music like the statue of +Memnon, when touched by the rays of the dawn; so religion was, in its +essence, perfect sanity of soul, a beautiful equilibrium of mind, and +complete self-mastery. His Christ was not primarily the bleeding, the +scourged, the crucified, but rather a benigner and lovelier Phoebus +Apollo, the bringer of clearness and light, the dispeller of the +unwholesome mists and barbaric gloom that yet brood over the human soul. +Like Goethe, he cherished a veritable abhorrence of the mystic symbolism +of the mediæval church; and was rather inclined to minimize the +significance of Christ's death and passion. He had undeniably imparted +into his Christianity a great deal of sunny Hellenic paganism--a fact +which in his familiar correspondence with Franzén he scarcely cares to +disguise. + +Having this conception of the episcopal office, he could not escape +emphasizing his function as the supervisor of the schools of his +diocese. If he was to be a civilizer on any great scale, the chance +which was here afforded him to impress his ideals upon the rising +generation was not one to be neglected. And, as a matter of fact, Tegnér +was indefatigable in his labors as an educator. His many speeches at +school celebrations preached, as ever, a gospel derived from Greece +rather than Judæa; and half-improvised though some of them appear to be, +they contain passages of lofty eloquence. + +It was inevitable that a bishop of such commanding personality, who +wielded his authority at times somewhat ruthlessly, should make enemies. +But, on the other hand, the beautiful beneficence and sincere humanity +of the man often obliterated the ill-feeling which his official severity +had aroused. To the widows of deceased clergymen in his diocese he was a +veritable guardian, to their children a father, to his peasantry a +friend, adviser, and monitor. He was an expert at detecting errors in +ecclesiastical balance-sheets; and woe to the cleric who dared present +to him inaccurate accounts of income and expenditures. By sheer dint of +his personal superiority and that quality of soul which George Eliot +calls dynamic, he impressed himself strongly upon all with whom he came +in contact; and though he was feared, he was also beloved as few. A very +delightful instance of the reverence with which he was regarded is +recorded by Böttiger. + +One summer evening he arrived at a remote parsonage which had never, in +the memory of man, been visited by a bishop. Some time after his arrival +Tegnér observed two young ladies, the daughters of the house, coming +across the yard carrying between them a big tub, full of water. When he +asked them, in a friendly way, why they subjected themselves to such +hard labor, one of them replied: "Should we not regard it as an honor to +be allowed to water the bishop's horses?" + +In order to give a clear and coherent idea of Tegnér in his prime, I +have been obliged to anticipate events. Many literary achievements which +I have left unrecorded belong to the period previous to his assumption +of the bishopric of Wexiö. Unhappily Professor Böttiger's edition is +very chary of dates, and as Dr. Brandes has truly observed, is arranged +with the obvious purpose of falsifying the sequence of Tegnér's poems +and confusing the reader. The three periods--previous to 1812, 1812-40, +and 1840-46--are entirely arbitrary, and plainly devised with a view to +concealing, in so far as they are capable of concealment, the unhappy +events which undermined the strength of the Titan and wrecked his +splendid powers. But such a purpose is utterly futile, as long as the +poems themselves had once escaped into publicity. + +It was during the period while his sky was yet unclouded that Tegnér +enriched Swedish literature with a series of lyrics which in point of +lucidity of thought and brilliancy of diction have rarely been +surpassed. It may be admitted, without materially detracting from his +merit, that in some of them the foreign models from which they were in a +measure fashioned shimmer through. Just as the Germans, Gottsched and +Bodmer, held foreign models to be indispensable, and only disagreed as +to which were the best, so the Swedish Academy, which in its +predilections was French, had no scruple in recommending this or that +literary form for imitation. That degree of literary independence which +Germany reached with Goethe and Schiller, who discarded all models, the +Scandinavian countries did not reach until a much later period; and +Tegnér was one of those who stimulated that national self-respect +without which independence is impossible. + +A strong spiritual kinship drew him to Schiller, whose splendor of +imagery and impassioned rhetoric were the very gifts which he himself in +a superlative degree possessed. The breath of political and religious +liberalism which pervades the writings of the German poet was also +highly congenial to Tegnér, and last, but not least, they were both +light-loving, beauty-worshipping Hellenists, and, though externally +conformists, hid joyous pagan souls under imperfect Christian draperies. +Small blame it is therefore to Tegnér that Schiller's poems furnished +him with frequent suggestions and sometimes also with metres. Schiller +had, in "The Gods of Greece," sung a glorious elegy on the Olympian age +which stimulated his Swedish rival to write "The Asa Age," in which he +regretted, though in a rather half-hearted way, the disappearance of +Odin, Thor, and Freya. The poem, it must be admitted, falls much below +Tegnér at his best. Schiller's "Three Words of Faith," in which liberty, +virtue, and God are declared to be the only essentials of religion, +finds a parallel (which even retains the metre) in Tegnér's "The +Eternal," in which truth, justice, and beauty are substituted. A kindred +poetic creed is far more consciously proclaimed in the famous poem +_Sangen_ (Poetry), which was primarily a protest against the gloomy and +morbid view of poetry entertained by the Swedish Romanticists (the +so-called Phosphorists). Tegnér here declares that the poet "with +heavenly joy embraces life," that "he knows no weak lament" (at its +misery), "no dissonance which is not dissolved" (in harmony). His temple +stands in light and flame; and at its base a fountain gurgles, a draught +from which is an elixir of strength and a panacea for all ills. + +"Well, then," he continues, "from this fountain will I drink, if I am +worthy of such a draught. With healthy eyes will I look about me in the +sick world. My golden lyre shall not resound with sorrows which I myself +have invented. For the poet's sorrows are none; and the sky of song is +forever bright." + +Peter Amadeus Atterbom, the leader of the Phosphorists, replied with +much moderation and good sense to the obvious reflections upon his +school which this poem contained. He intimates plainly enough that +Tegnér's philosophy of life, in so far as it ignores sin and sorrow, +which are too real to be banished by song, is a hopelessly shallow one. + +"The undissolved dissonances," he says, "in the sense in which Mr. +Tegnér uses the expression, certainly betray a disease of the soul, but +this disease is not peculiar to a temperament which is fostered by a +personal emotional affinity for lugubrious topics and ideas given by +birth and developed by circumstances; but it is inherent in the weakness +(which at times doubtless surprises even the strongest ...) of desiring +to set up its sorrowful view of the world as a theory, and treat it as +absolutely true and fundamentally valid for all. Sorrow, as such, is no +more a diseased state than is joy; both are alike primordial, necessary, +indispensable elements and halves of human life. Who would venture to +assert that the day might dispense with the night? And does not the +latter's glorious starry sky rival in majesty (though different in kind) +the former's bright and dazzling blitheness?" + +The fact was that Tegnér's cheery sun-worship was as much temperamental +as was Atterbom's sentimental reveries and nocturnal melancholy. The +Phosphorist is unquestionably right, however, in asserting that as a +theory of life the one is as limited and imperfect as the other. It was +because of the abhorrence of all the darker phases of existence that +Tegnér's bright Hellenic muse never struck those notes which thrill +with deepest resonance through the human heart. Tegnér's acquaintance +with suffering during the early part of his career was chiefly a +literary one, and like Goethe he went far out of his way to avoid the +sight of it. As there can be no victory without combat--no laurel +without dust--the Mount of Transfiguration is not reached except through +the valley of the Shadow of Death. + +There are, however, many fair flowers to be plucked in Tempe and the +blooming vales of Arcady. Goethe had in 1798 published "Hermann and +Dorothea," the form of which was Greek, though the theme was Teutonic; +and Tegnér's "Children of the Lord's Supper" (1820), which Longfellow +has translated so admirably into English, derived its inspiration +primarily from the German idyl: + + "Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, the church of the village + Stood, gleaming white in the morning sheen. On the spire of the belfry, + Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the spring sun + Glanced like the tongues of fire beheld by Apostles aforetime." + +Thus run the beautiful, stately hexameters, which, whatever cavilling +critics may say, are delightfully adapted for epic narrative in any +fairly polysyllabic language. And Swedish, which is the most sonorous of +all Germanic tongues, and full of Gothic strength, produces the most +delectable effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls +and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegnér, which shuns all that is +harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs +it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the +fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The +description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal +clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth +which we miss in the more declamatory passages. If, however, declamation +is anywhere in place it is in the three orations of the rural parson, +which occupy the larger portion of the poem. It is all very lovely and +edifying; full of sacred eloquence and a grand amplitude of phrase which +is distinctly clerical. + +The romantic tale of "Axel" (1822), modelled after Byron's narrative +poems, rejoiced in a greater popularity, in spite of the carping +criticism with which it was received by the _Svensk Litteratur-Tidning,_ +the organ of the Phosphorists. Though, to be sure, the merits of the +poem are largely ignored in this review, it is undeniable that the +faults which are emphasized do exist. First, the frequent violations of +probability (which, by the way, ought not to have been so offensive to a +romanticist) draw tremendous draughts upon the reader's credulity; and +secondly, the lavish magnificence of imagery rarely adds to the +vividness of the situations, but rather obscures and confuses them. It +reminds one of a certain style of barocque architecture in which the +rage for ornamentation twists every line into a scroll or spiral or +arabesque, until whatever design there originally was is lost in a riot +of decoration. The metaphors exist for their own sake, and are in nowise +subordinate to the themes which they profess to illustrate. Take, for +instance, the oft-quoted passage: + + "The night drew near, and in the west + Upon its couch lay Evening dreaming, + And silent, like the priests of Egypt, + The stars pursued their radiant paths, + And earth stood in the starry eve, + As blissful as a bride who stands, + The garland in her dusky hair, + Beneath the baldaquin and blushes. + Tired of the games of day, and warm, + The Naīad rested, still and smiling, + The glow of evening shone resplendent, + A gorgeous rose upon her breast; + And merry Cupid, who had slept + When sun was high, awoke and rode + Upon the moonbeams up and down, + With bow and arrow, through the forest." + +This is all very magnificent; but the images tread so close upon each +other's heels, that they come near treading each other down, and +tumbling together in a confused jumble. I claim no originality in +calling attention to the fact that it must have been a colossal Naīad +who could wear the evening glow like "a gorgeous rose upon her breast." +Likewise former critics have questioned whether the stars gain in the +least in vividness by being compared to the priests of Egypt,[31] who +were certainly far less familiar to the reader's vision. + + [31] L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges Litteratur. + Kjöbenhavn, 1862. See also Svensk Litteratur-Tidning as quoted in B. + E. Malmström: Grunddragen af Svenska Vitterhetens Historia, vol. v., + p. 423. Oerebro. + +The story of the Swedish officer Axel and his beloved, the Cossack +Amazon, Maria, has from beginning to end a flavor of Byron, and recalls +alternately "the Corsair" and "Lara." The extravagant sentimentality of +the tale appealed, however, powerfully to the contemporary taste, and +the dissenting voice of criticism was drowned like the shrill note of a +single fife in the noisy orchestra of praise. The Swedish matrons and +maidens wept over Axel's and Maria's heroic, but tragic love, as those +of England, nay, of all Europe, wept over that of Conrad and Medora. +Maria, when she hears that Axel has a betrothed at home, enlists as a +man in the Russian army (a very odd proceeding by the way, and scarcely +conducive to her purpose) and resolves to kill her rival. She is, +however, mortally wounded, and Axel finds her dying upon the +battlefield. + + "Yea, it was she; with smothered pain + She whispers with a voice full faint: + 'Good-evening, Axel, nay, good-night, + For death is nestling at my heart. + Oh! ask not what hath brought me hither; + 'Twas love alone led me astray. + Alas! the last long night is dusking; + I stand before the grave's dread door. + How different life, with all its small distresses, + Seems now from what it seemed of yore! + And only love--love fair as ours, + Can I take with me to the skies.'"[32] + + [32] The original is in the rhymed Byronic metre, mostly in + couplets. In order not to sacrifice anything of the meaning I have + chosen to put it into blank verse. + +This is exactly the Byronic note, which would be still more audible, if +I had preserved the rhymed couplets. Even Medora's male attire is +borrowed by Maria, and much more of this Byronic melodramatic heroism is +there, only a little more conventionally draped and with larger +concessions to the Philistine sense of propriety. But even if Tegnér in +"Axel" had coquetted with the Romantic muse, it would be rash to +conclude that he contemplated any durable relation. The note which he +had struck in his renowned oration at the festival commemorating the +Reformation (1817), came from the depth of his heart, and continued to +resound through his speech and song for many years to come. I do not +moan to imply, of course, that the Byronic Romanticism was very closely +akin to that of Tieck, the Schlegels, and Novalis; or that Tegnér in the +least compromised his frank and manly liberalism by composing a +variation, as it were, on a Byronic theme. How deeply he hated the +mediæval obscurantism which then, under the auspices of Metternich and +his unholy "Holy Alliance" was spreading over Europe, he showed in +numerous private and public utterances concerning the political +condition of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. His greeting to the "New +Year, 1816" (which his son-in-law has foolishly excluded from his +edition of the collected works), is overbrimming with bitterness at the +triumph of the enemies of the light. + + "Hurrah! Religion is a Jesuit, + The rights of man are Jacobins; + The world is free; the raven is white; + Long live the Pope--and that other; + I am going to Germany, and there I'll learn + Sonnets to sing and incense to burn. + + "Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom, + Stupidity, lies, and fraud! + I hope thou'lt make an end of our earth, + A bullet at least she's worth; + She's restless, poor thing, like many another, + A shot through the head--she'll cause no more bother!" + +It was the fashion in those days to revile the Revolution, because it +had produced the man on horseback who had turned the old order of things +topsy-turvy in a very unceremonious fashion. Coleridge, Southey, and +Wordsworth in England, and Klopstock, Schiller, and a horde of lesser +lights in Germany, had hailed the French uprising as the bloody dawn of +a new and more glorious day; but the excesses of the Reign of Terror +frightened them back into the old fastnesses of Conservatism. Tegnér +(and to his honor be it said) was one of the few who did not despair of +liberty because a people born and bred in despotism failed to exercise +the wisdom and self-restraint which only liberty can foster. For the +only road to the attainment of liberty is its practice and its abuse, +and the slow education which can be acquired by no theoretical teaching, +but only in the hard and expensive school of experience. For the +terrible birth-pangs of liberty no despotically governed people can +escape, unless it chooses to remain in thraldom. + +This is the spirit that breathes through Tegnér's speeches and poems, +during his most vigorous manhood; and even, when the rift in his lute +made its music harsh and uncertain, the strain was yet essentially the +same, though transposed into an alien key. It is very tempting to quote +the many noble sayings of this master of the commanding phrase, but one +or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published +correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, +which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no +affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness +which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. +What clarity of political vision there is in such passages as these: + +(1813.) "He who fancies that Europe will be delivered by Russia and her +confederates, or that the progress of the Cossacks is for the advantage +of Sweden, may perhaps be in the right; but his views are very different +from mine. In the hatred of the Barbarians I am born and bred, and I +hope to die in it, unbewildered by modern sophisms." + +(1814.) "Who can believe in the re-establishment of the European balance +of power or rejoice in the victory of wretched mediocrity over power and +genius. The upheavals of the age will soon affect us all--at least us +Swedes." + +(1817) "That we are living on an earth yet quaking from the French +Revolution is undeniable; and extremely foolish seems to me the speech +of those who insist that the Revolution is finished, or even approaching +its end." + +"Napoleon fell, not on account of his wretched opponents, but because +despotism is the livery of all strong souls, because his spirit was +opposed to the spirit of the age, with which he wrestled, and which was +stronger than he."[33] + + [33] Quoted from G. Brandes: Esaias Tegnér: En + Litteraturpsychologisk Studie. Kjöbenhavn, 1878, pp. 87 and 88. + +Living as he did in an age of general disillusion, Tegnér 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 Tegnér 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. There was something chivalrous, I +could almost say adventurous, in his whole personality, in his whole way +of beginning and prosecuting an enterprise. He put upon whatever he did +the stamp of an almost inconceivable greatness--of an almost +overwhelming force. His mere word was half a battle, his deed was a +whole one. He was one of those mighty souls which, like certain trees, +can only bloom in a storm. His whole great, rich, marvellous life has +always seemed to me like an epic with its battles and its final victory. +Such a spirit must of necessity make room for itself, and decisively +assert itself in history, in whatever direction its activity may be +turned, under whatever circumstances and at whatever time it enters upon +its career. The time when Luther came was one of those great historical +epochs when the world-serpent sheds its skin and reappears in +rejuvenated shape.... A great man, even the very greatest, is always the +son of his age--only he is the eldest son; he is the deputy and executor +of the age. The age is his, and he administers its substance according +to his judgment. He finds the scattered elements to his hand, but +usually tangled up and struggling in chaotic disorder. To gather and +arrange them into a creation, to direct them toward a definite goal, ... +this is his greatness; this is his creative powers.... In this ... sense +Luther created his age."[34] + + [34] Esaias Tegnér's Samlade Skrifter, vol. v., pp. 6, 7, 9, and 10. + +Dr. Brandes has anticipated me in calling attention to the fact that the +orator's characterization of Luther, though highly interesting, is +one-sided. But as his admirable monograph on Tegnér is not accessible to +English readers, I feel justified in repeating his argument in +abbreviated form. There is a great uniformity, he says, in substance, in +all Tegnér's heroes. They are all men of action--bold, strong, +adventurous heroes, such as boys delight in. They have a striking family +resemblance. With the change of a few attributes Tegnér applies his +characterization of Luther to such a widely differing personality as +King Gustavus III. of Sweden, a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, +infidel monarch. And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are forced into +the same livery, in spite of their diversity of structure, because +Tegnér admired them all, and had practically but one type which appeared +to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy wholly worthy of +admiration.[35] + + [35] Georg Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 17-19. + +In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegnér's collected works I +am much struck with the force of this criticism. The brave man who +defies the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears into dangers, +without counting the odds against him, is the typical juvenile hero; and +it is strange, though by no means incomprehensible, that a man like +Tegnér, who could betray such political insight as is shown in his +letters to Franzén and Leopold had not really gotten beyond this +primitive type of excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not +desirable that he should. For the tremendous popularity which greeted +"Frithjof's Saga" was due in no small measure to this half-juvenile +robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot help regretting in myself +the loss of my boyish appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and +mysterious treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from deploring Tegnér's +delight in the insane prowess of Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous +gallantry of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness in it +which makes one, on the whole, like him the more. + +It might well be said of Tegnér, as he said of Luther, that his word was +half a battle. At all events he accomplished by his speeches a complete +overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without engaging in the +barren polemics to which they invited him. He waited until some +appropriate public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of the fulness +of his conviction. And his words spread like undulating waves of light +from one end of the land to the other, finding lodgement in thousands +of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at the "magister promotion"[36] +in Lund (1820) was a direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against +that mystic obscurity which, according to the Phosphorists, was +inseparable from the highest and deepest poetic utterance: + + "In vain they call upon the lofty Truth + With sombre conjurations; for the dark + She ne'er endures; for her abode is light. + In Phoebus' world, in knowledge as in song, + All things are bright. Bright beams the radiant sun; + Clear runs and pure his bright Castalian fountain. + Whate'er thou canst not clearly say thou know'st not. + Twin-born with thought is word on lips of man; + That which is darkly said is darkly thought; + For wisdom true is like the diamond, + A drop that's petrified of heavenly light; + The purer that it is, the more its value, + The more the daylight shines and glitters through it. + The ancients builded unto Truth a temple, + A fair rotunda, light as heaven's vault. + And freely poured the sunshine from all sides + Into its open round; the winds of heaven + Amid its ranks of pillars gayly gambolled. + But now instead we build a Tower of Babel, + A heavy, barbarous structure. Darkness peeps + From out its deep and narrow grated casements. + Unto the sky the tower was meant to reach, + But hitherto we've only had confusion. + As in the realm of thought, in that of song + It is; and poesy is e'er transparent ..." + + [36] A magister promotion corresponds approximately to our + university commencements. It is the ceremony of bestowing the degree + of master of arts. + +This was certainly an attractive doctrine, and it did not fail to +command public approval. But it suffers from exactly the same limitation +as Tegnér's gospel of joy. It is only relatively (I might almost say +temperamentally) true; and the opposite might be maintained with equal +force, and in fact was so maintained by Atterbom, who declared (in the +"Poetical Calendar for 1821") that there can be no such a conception as +light without darkness. Darkness, he says, is the condition of all color +and form. You distinguish the light and all things in it only by the +contrasting effect of shadow--all of which, I fancy, Tegnér would not +have denied. More to the point would have been the query whether in +poetry darkness and indistinctness are synonymous terms. It is only the +most commonplace truths which can be made intelligible to all. Much of +the best and highest thinking of humanity lies above the plane of the +ordinary untrained intellect. What is light to me may be twilight or +darkness to you. What to you is clear as the daylight, may to me be as +densely impenetrable as the Cimmerian night. Christ himself recognized +this fact when he said to his disciples: "I have yet many things to say +unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." + +For all that, Tegnér's doctrine was in its effect wholesome. It +discouraged the writers of the Romantic School, who under the guise of +profundity gave publicity to much immature and confused thinking. He was +no doubt right in saying that "a poetry which commences with +whooping-cough is likely to end in consumption." His frequently repeated +maxim, that poetry is nothing but the health of life, "occasioned by an +abounding intellectual vigor, a joyous leap over the barriers of +everyday life," applied, however, to his own poetry only so long as his +vigor was unimpaired. His terrible poem "Hypochondria" (_Mjeltsjukan_) +is to me no less poetical because it is not "a petrified drop of +heavenly light," and mocks all the cheerful theories of its author's +prime. + +Tegnér had yet a few years in which to rejoice in this "health of life" +in which he found the inspiration for his song; and these last years +were the most fruitful in his entire career. He was about forty years of +age when, in 1820, he began to compose the first cantos of "Frithjof's +Saga." He was living in modest comfort, happy in his marital relation, +and surrounded by a family of children to whom he was a most +affectionate father. He could romp and play with his curly-headed boys +and girls without any loss of dignity; and they loved nothing better +than to invade his study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed +pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied him to his lectures and +remained sitting at his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his +explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his master, in his zeal +for his own poetry, forgot the lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully +pull him by the tails of his coat. No man at the University of Lund was +more generally beloved than Tegnér, and all honors which the University +could bestow had been offered to him. The office of Rector Magnificus he +had, however, persisted in declining. + +There was at that time a general revival of interest in the so-called +saga-age. The Danish poet, Oehlenschläger, had published his old-Norse +cycle of poems, "Helge," which aroused a sympathetic reverberation in +Tegnér's mind. The idea took possession of him that here was a theme +which lay well within the range of his own voice, and full of alluring +possibilities. Accordingly he chose the ancient "Saga of Frithjof the +Bold," and resolved to embody in it all the characteristic features of +the old heroic life. And what Oehlenschläger had attempted to do, and +partly succeeded in doing, he accomplished with a completeness of +success which was a surprise to himself. No sooner had "Iduna," the +organ of the Gothic League, published the first nine cantos (1821), than +all Sweden resounded with enthusiastic applause; and even from beyond +the boundaries of the fatherland came voices of praise. When the +completed poem appeared in book-form, it was translated into all +civilized languages, and everywhere, in spite of the translators' +shortcomings, it was hailed with delight. Not only England, France, and +Germany hastened to appropriate it, but even in Spain, Greece, and +Russia tears were shed over "Ingeborg's Lament," and tender bosoms +palpitated with sympathy for Frithjof's sorrows. I know a dozen English +translations of "Frithjof's Saga" (a friend of mine, who is a +bibliophile, assures me that the exact number is at present twenty-one), +and of German versions the number is not very much less. A Norwegian (or +rather Danish) rendering was presented to me on my twelfth birthday; and +the sentiment which then most forcibly appealed to me was, as I vividly +remember, embodied in the following verse, in which Björn chides his +friend's grief for the loss of his beloved: + + "Frithjof, 'tis time for your folly's abating; + Sigh and lament for a woman's loss: + Earth is, alas, too full of such dross; + One may be lost, still a thousand are waiting. + Say but the word, of such goods I will bring + Quickly a cargo--the Southland can spare them, + Bed as the rose, mild as lambs in the spring; + Then we'll cast lots, or as brothers we'll share them."[37] + + [37] Holcomb's translation. + +It was not the unconscious humor of this proposition which struck me the +most in those days; but it was the bluff frankness of the gruff old +viking which then seemed truly admirable. In fact, I am not sure but +that Björn appeared to me a more sympathetic figure than Frithjof. But a +little later it dawned upon me that his utter lack of chivalry was +rather revolting; and I began to marvel at my former admiration. At +fourteen the following verse (which at twelve was charmingly heroic) +caused me to revise my opinion of Björn: + + "Good! to King Ring it shall be my glad duty + Something to teach of a wronged viking's power; + Fire we his palace at midnight's still hour, + Scorch the old graybeard and bear off the beauty." + +For all that, Björn with his rough speech and hearty delight in fighting +and drinking, is far truer to the spirit of the old heroic age than is +Frithjof with his sentimentality and lovesick reveries. This verse, for +instance, is replete with the briny breath of the northern main. The +north wind blows through it: + + "Good is the sea, your complaining you squander, + Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best. + He never knoweth effeminate rest + Who on the billows delighteth to wander. + When I am old, to the green-growing land + I, too, will cling, with the grass for my pillow. + Now I will drink and will fight with free hand, + Now I'll enjoy my own sorrow-free billow." + +I might continue in the autobiographical vein; but must forbear. For +there is a period in the life of every young Norseman when, untroubled +by its anachronism, he glories in Frithjof's melancholy mooning, his +praise of Ingeborg, his misanthropy, and all the manifold moods of love +so enchantingly expressed in Tegnér's melodious verse. + +When a book acquires this significance as an expression of the typical +experience in the lives of thousands, the critical muse can but join in +the general chorus, and find profound reasons for the universal praise. +In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" this is not a difficult matter. From +beginning to end the poem has a lyrical intensity which sets the mind +vibrating with a responsive emotion. It is not a coldly impersonal epic, +recounting remote heroic events; but there is a deeply personal note in +it, which has that nameless moving quality--_la note émue_, as the +French call it--which brings the tear to your eye, and sends a delicious +breeze through your nerves. All that, to be sure, or nearly all of it, +evaporates in translation; for no more than you can transfer the +exquisite dewy intactness of the lily to canvas can you transfer the +rapturous melody of noble verse into an alien tongue. The subtlest +harmonies--those upon which the thrill depends--are invariably lost. If +Longfellow, instead of giving us two cantos, had translated the whole +poem, we should, at least, have possessed an English version which would +have afforded us some conception of the charm of the renowned original. + +The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which have been urged by numerous +critics may all be admitted as more or less valid; yet something remains +which will account for its astounding popularity. Tegnér at the time +when he was singing of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's love was himself +suffering from a consuming but unrequited passion. The strong, warm +pulse of life which throbs in Frithjof's wrath, defiance, and scorn, and +in his deep and manly tenderness is the poet's own. It marks but the +rhythm of his own tumultuous heart-beat. It is altogether an unhappy +chapter, which his biographer has vainly striven to suppress. There was +among his acquaintance in Lund a certain Mrs. Palm, toward whom he felt +drawn with an irresistible half-demonic force. Beyond this fact we know +nothing of the lady, except that she was handsome, cultivated, and +well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegnér may have made toward her (and +it is not known of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; +and the poet, though fighting desperately against his growing +infatuation, wore out his splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions +which the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a prey to the most +terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy of the deepest hue spread its +sombre veil over the world which hitherto had given to him its brightest +smile. The dread of insanity became an _idée 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 Tegnér, 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. + +Archæologically the poem was not correct, and was not meant to be. +Tegnér distinctly disclaimed the intention of producing a historically +accurate picture of the saga age; and all criticism censuring the +modernness of Frithjofs and Ingeborg's sentiments is, therefore, +according to his idea, wide of the mark. I do not quite agree with his +point of view, but will state his argument. For the historical Frithjof, +as he is represented in the ancient Norse saga bearing his name, Tegnér +cared but little. What he wished to do was to give a poetic presentation +of the old heroic life, and he chose Frithjof as his representative of +this age because he united in himself so many of its characteristics: + + "In the saga much occurs which is very grand and heroic, and hence + valid for all times, which both might and ought to be retained; + but, on the other hand, a great deal occurs which is rough, savage, + barbarous; and this had either to be entirely eliminated, or at + least materially softened. Up to a certain degree it therefore + became necessary to modernize; but the difficulty was to find the + golden mean. On the one hand, the poem ought not to offend too much + our more refined manners and gentler modes of thought; but, on the + other hand, the natural quality, the freshness, the truth to nature + ought not to be sacrificed." + +Tegnér fancies he has solved this problem by retaining in Frithjof the +fundamental traits of all heroism, viz., nobility, magnanimity, courage; +but at the same time nationalizing them by giving them a distinctly +Scandinavian tinge. And this he has done by making his hero almost +wantonly defiant, stubborn, pugnacious. As Ingeborg, lamenting his +fierce pugnacity, and yet glorying in it, says: + + "How glad, how stubborn, and how full of hope! + The point he setteth of his trusty sword + Against the breast of Fate and crieth, Thou must yield." + + "Another peculiarity of the Norseman's character is a certain + tendency to sadness and melancholy which is habitual with all + deeper natures. An elegiac tone pervades all our old national + melodies, and, generally speaking, all that is of significance in + our history; for it rises from the very bottom of the nation's + heart. There is a certain joyousness (commonly attributed to the + French) which in the last instance is only levity. But the + joyousness of the North is fundamentally serious; for which reason + I have in Frithjof endeavored to give a hint of this brooding + melancholy in his repentance of the unintentional burning of the + temple, his brooding fear of Balder, + + "Who sits in the sky, and the thoughts he sends down, + Which forever are clouding my mind." + +It will be seen from this that Tegnér was fully conscious of what he was +doing. He civilized Frithjof, because he was addressing a civilized +audience which would have taken little interest in the rude viking of +the eighth century, if he had been presented to them in all his savage +unrestraint. He did exactly what Tennyson did, when he made King Arthur +the model of a modern English gentleman and (by implication) a +Protestant a thousand years before Protestantism existed. Ingeborg, too, +had to be a trifle modified and disembarrassed of a few somewhat too +naturalistic traits with which the saga endows her, before she became +the lovely type that she is of the faithful, loving, long-suffering, +womanhood of the North, with trustful blue eyes, golden hair, and a +heart full of sweet and beautiful sentiment. It was because +Oehlenschläger had neglected to make sufficient concessions to modern +demands that his "Helge" (though in some respects a greater poem than +"Frithjof's Saga") never crossed the boundary of Scandinavia, and even +there made no deep impression upon the general public. + +Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to most readers, I may be +pardoned for presenting a brief _résumé_. The general plot, in Tegnér's +version, coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. Frithjof, +the son of the free yeoman Thorstein Vikingson, is fostered in the house +of the peasant Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King Belë of +Sogn. The King and the yeoman have been life-long friends, and each has +a most cordial regard for the other. + + "By sword upheld, King Belë in King's-hall stood, + Beside him Thorstein Vikingson, that yeoman good, + His battle-friend with almost a century hoary, + And deep-marked like a rune-stone with scars of glory." + +The yeoman's son and the king's daughter, thrown into daily +companionship in their foster-father's hall, love each other; and +Frithjof, after the death of their fathers, goes to Ingeborg's brothers, +Helge and Halfdan, and asks her hand in marriage. His suit is scornfully +rejected, and he departs in wrath vowing vengeance. The ancient King +Ring, of Ringerike, having heard of Ingeborg's beauty, sends also +ambassadors to woo her. Her brothers make sacrifices in order to +ascertain the will of the gods. The omens are inauspicious, and they +accordingly feel compelled to decline the King's offer. + +Ingeborg is shut up in Balder's Grove, where the sanctity of the temple +would make it sacrilege for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, +braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night across the fjord to a +stolen rendezvous with his beloved. The canto called "Frithjof's +Happiness," which is brimming over with a swelling redundance of +sentiment, is so cloyingly sweet that the reader must himself be in love +in order to enjoy it. It is written in the key of the watch-songs of the +German minnesingers and the aubades of Provenįal troubadours. The Norse +note is not only wanting, but would never fit into that key: + + "'Hush! 'tis the lark.' Nay, those soft numbers + Of doves' faith tell that knows no rest. + The lark yet on the hillside slumbers + Beside his mate in grassy nest. + To them no king seals his dominions + When morning breaks in eastern air; + Their life is free as are their pinions + Which bear aloft the gladsome pair. + + "'See day is breaking!' Nay, some tower + Far eastward sendeth forth that light; + We yet may spend another hour, + Not yet shall end the precious night. + May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber, + And waking may'st thou linger still, + For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumber + Till Ragnarök, be such thy will. + + "Vain hope! The day its gray discloses, + Already morning breezes blow, + Already bend the eastern roses, + As fresh as Ingeborg's can glow; + The winged songsters mount and twitter + (The thoughtless throng!) along the sky, + And life starts forth, and billows glitter, + And far the shades and lover fly. + + * * * * * + + "Farewell, beloved: till some longer + And fairer eve we meet again. + By one kiss on thy brow the stronger + Let me depart--thy lips, once, then! + Sleep now and dream of me, and waken + When mid-day comes, and faithful tell + The hours as I yearn forsaken, + And sigh as I! Farewell, farewell!"[38] + + [38] Translation of L. A. Sherman, Ph.D. Boston, 1878. + +The two following cantos, entitled "The Parting" and "Ingeborg's +Lament," though liable to the same criticism as their predecessor, are, +with all their sentimental effusiveness, beautiful. No lover, I fancy, +ever found them redundant, overstrained, spoiled by the lavish splendor +of their imagery. Tegnér has accomplished the remarkable feat of +interveining, as it were, his academic rhetoric with a blood-red +humanity, and making the warm pulse of experience throb through the +stately phrases. + +King Ring, incensed at the rejection of his suit, declares war against +Helge and Halfdan, who in their dire need ask Frithjof's aid, which is +promptly refused. In order to be rid of him they then send him on an +expedition to the Orkneys, to collect a tribute which is due to them +from Earl Angantyr. He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she +refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good ship Ellida breasting the +waves and weeps bitter tears at his loss: + + "Swell not so high, + Billows of blue with your deafening cry! + Stars, lend assistance, a shining + Pathway defining! + + "With the spring doves + Frithjof will come, but the maiden he loves + Cannot in hall or dell meet him, + Lovingly greet him. + Buried she sleeps + Dead for love's sake, or bleeding she weeps + Heart-broken, given by her brother + Unto another." + +It is perfectly in keeping with the character of Norse womanhood in the +saga age that Ingeborg should refuse to defy her brother's authority by +fleeing with Frithjof and yet deeply mourn his departure without her. +The family feeling, the bond of blood, was exceptionally strong; and +submission to the social code which made the male head of the house the +arbiter of his sister's fate was bred in the bone. It is, therefore, +perfectly natural that, when King Ring has beaten her brothers in +battle, and exacted Ingeborg as the prize of victory, she yields +unmurmuringly to their decree. + +Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself greatly in the Orkneys +by his strength and prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and +returns with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, a sight greets him +which makes his heart quail. Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to +the ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap under the smiling +sky. The kings, though they had pledged their honor that they would not +harm his property, had broken faith with him; and Ingeborg, in the hope +of gaining whom he had undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to +King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow Frithjof starts out to +call her perjured brothers to account. He finds them in the temple in +Balder's Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he flings the bag +containing the tribute into King Helge's face, knocking out his front +teeth, and observing on his wife's arm the ring with which he had once +pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her to recover it. The woman, who had +been warming the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, in her +fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof seizes her by the arm and +snatches the ring from her. In the general confusion that follows the +temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the flames are futile. In +consequence of this sacrilege Frithjof is outlawed at the _Thing_ as a +_vargr-i-véum_, _i.e._, wolf in the sanctuary, and is forced to go into +exile. His farewell to his native land strikes one as being altogether +out of tune. The old Norse viking is made to anticipate sentiments which +are of far later growth; but for all that the verses are quite stirring: + + "Brow of creation, + Thou North sublime! + I have no station + Within thy clime. + Proud, hence descended + My race I tell; + Of heroes splendid, + Fond nurse, farewell! + + * * * * * + + My love false-hearted, + My manor burned, + My name departed, + An outlaw, spurned, + I now appealing + From earth, will dwell + With waves, for healing. + Farewell, farewell!"[39] + + [39] Sherman's translation. + +Frithjof now roams for many years over the sea as a viking, and gains +much booty and honor. His viking code, with its swift anapestic rhythm, +has a breezy melody which sings in the ear. It is an attempt to embody +the ethics of Norse warfare at its best, and to present in the most +poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient +Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Björn's advice, Frithjof, +weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see +Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he +enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the +high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had +dulled revives with an exquisite agony. He punishes with fierce +promptitude one of the King's men who insults him; and his answer to the +King's rebuke betrays him as a man of rank and station. He then throws +away his disguise, without, however, revealing his name, but Ingeborg +instantly recognizes him. + + "Then even to her temples the queen's deep blushes sped, + As when the northlight tinges the snow-clad fields with red, + And like two full-blown lilies on racking waves which rest, + With ill-concealed emotion so heaved her throbbing breast." + +The king now invites the stranger, who calls himself Thjof, to remain +his guest during the winter, and Frithjof accepts. He makes, however, no +approach to Ingeborg, with whom he scarcely exchanges a single word. +During a sleigh-ride on the ice he saves, by a tremendous feat of +strength, the life of the king and queen. With the coming of the spring +preparations are made for a grand chase, in which Frithjof participates. + + "Spring is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles + the sun; + And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run; + Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds 'gin to ope, + And in human hearts awaken love of life and joy and hope." + +The canto called "The Temptation" contains the most dramatic and +altogether the most beautiful situation in the poem. The old king, +feigning weariness, begs Frithjof to tarry with him alone, while he +takes a rest. Frithjof tries to dissuade him, but in vain. + + "Then threw Frithjof down his mantle, and upon the green sward + spread; + And the ancient king, so trustful, laid on Frithjof's knee his head; + Slept as calmly as the hero sleepeth after war's alarms + On his shield, calm as an infant slumbers in its mother's arms." + +Then the temptation comes to Frithjof to slay the old man who had stolen +his bride; but after a brief struggle he hurls his sword far away into +the forest. + + "Straight the ancient king awakens. 'Sweet has been my sleep,' he + said. + 'Pleasant 'tis to sleep in shadow, guarded by a brave man's blade. + But where is thy sword, O stranger, lightning's brother, where is + he? + Who has parted one from other that should never parted be?'" + + "'Not a whit care I,' said Frithjof, 'I shall find a sword some day; + Sharp, O King, are tongues of falchions, words of peace they seldom + say; + In the steel dwell swarthy demons, demons strayed from Nifelhem, + No man's sleep to them is sacred, silver locks embitter them.' + + "'Youth, no moment have I slumbered, but to prove thee feigned to + rest, + Unproved men and weapons never trusts King Ring without a test. + Thou art Frithjof. I have known thee since thou first cam'st to my + hall; + Much that thou hast hidden from me; from the first I guessed it + all.'" + +Soon after this interview the aged king feels death approaching; and in +order not to go to the dark abode of Hela, he cuts death-runes upon his +breast and ascends to Odin's bright hall. But before dying he gives +Ingeborg to Frithjof, and makes him the guardian of his son. The people, +in _Thing_ assembled, glorying in Frithjof's great renown, desire, +however, to make him King's successor; but he lifts the small boy above +his head upon his shield and proclaims him king. He returns home and +rebuilds Balder's temple, whereupon the sentence of outlawry is removed, +and he is reconciled to Ingeborg's brothers and marries the beloved of +his youth. + +The last canto, called "The Atonement," is perhaps the most flagrant +violation of historical verisimilitude in the whole epic. A hoary priest +of Balder actually performs the wedding ceremony in the restored temple, +and pronounces a somewhat unctuous wedding oration, which differs from +those which Tegnér himself had frequently delivered chiefly in the +substitution of pagan for the Christian deities. As a matter of fact, +marriage was a purely civil contract among the ancient Norsemen, and had +no association with the temple or the priesthood, which, by the way, was +no separate office but a patriarchal function belonging to the secular +chieftainship. But Tegnér's public were in nowise shocked by +anachronisms of this sort; they probably rejoiced the more heartily in +the happiness of the reunited lovers, because their marriage was, +according to modern notions, so "regular." + +It was soon after his publication of "Frithjof's Saga" that Tegnér +became Bishop of Wexiö. He then removed from Lund and took up his +residence upon the estate Oestrabo, near the principal town in his +diocese. The great fame of his poem came to him as a surprise; and he +even undertook to protest against it, declaring with perfect sincerity +that he held it to be undeserved. In letters to his friends he never +wearied of pointing out the faults of "Frithjof" and his own +shortcomings as a poet. In a letter to the poet Leopold (August 17, +1825), who had praised the poem to the skies, he argues seriously to +prove that his admiration is misplaced: + + "My great fault in 'Frithjof' was not that I chose my theme from + the old cycle of sagas, but that I treated it in a tone and with a + manner which was neither ancient nor modern, neither antiquarian + nor poetical, but hovered, as it were, on the boundary of both. For + what does it mean to treat a subject poetically if not this, to + eliminate everything which belongs to an alien and past age and now + no longer appeals to any heart? The hearts to which it once did + appeal are now all dust. Other modes of thought and feeling are + current. It is impossible to properly translate one age into + another. But to poetry nothing is really past. Poetry is the + beautifying life of the moment; she wears the colors of the day; + she cannot conceive of anything as dead.... But I am convinced that + all poetic treatment of a theme belonging to a past age demands its + modernization; and that everything antiquarian is here a mistake. + This holds good not only in regard to the northern tone but also in + regard to the Greek. Look, for instance, at Goethe's 'Iphigenie.' + Who does not admire the beautiful, simple, noble, Hellenic form? + And yet who has ever felt his soul warmed by this image of + stone?... No living spirit has been breathed into these nostrils; + the staring eyes gaze upon me without life and animation; no heart + beats under the Hellenically rounded marble bosom. The whole is a + mistake, infinitely more beautiful than 'Frithjof,' but fashioned + according to the game principles of art. The Greeks said that the + Muse was the daughter of Memory; but this refers only to the + material, the theme itself, which is everywhere of minor + consequence. The question, then, is as to the proper treatment. + Where it tends toward the antiquarian it misses the mark; it + represents, like 'Frithjof,' only a restored ruin." + +This passage is by no means the only one in which Tegnér, with an utter +absence of vanity or illusion, judged his work and found it wanting. +There is no mock modesty in his manly deprecation of the honors that +were showered upon him; but as a father knows best the faults of his +child whom he loves, so he knew the defects of his work, as measured by +his own high standard, and refused to accept any more praise than was +his due. Not even the fact that Goethe expressed his admiration of +"Frithjof's Saga" could persuade him that he was entitled to the +extravagant homage which his enthusiastic countrymen accorded him. There +were even times when he disclaimed the title of poet. Whether he was +forgotten a little sooner or a little later, he said, was a matter of +small moment. + +"Speaking seriously," he writes in 1824 (accordingly before the +publication of "Frithjof"), "I have never regarded myself as a poet in +the higher significance of the word.... I am at best a John the Baptist, +who is preparing the way for him who is to come." + +He is always just and inclined to be generous in his judgment of every +one except himself. It is necessary, however, after the year 1824, to +make due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind which disposed +him to give violent and hyperbolical expression to the mood of the +moment. The unhappy passion which he could at times smother, but never +subdue, went boring away into his heart like a subterranean fire, +consuming his vitals, and occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. +The following reference to it, in his letter to Franzén (November 13, +1825), is very pathetic: + + "It is to-day my forty-third birthday. I have thus long since + passed the highest altitude of life where the waters divide. With + every year one now becomes smaller and smaller; one star is + extinguished after another. And yet the sun does not rise. One dies + by degrees and by halves. Therefore only children and youth ought + to celebrate their birthdays with joy; we who have passed into the + valley of age, which with every step is growing darker and + chillier, are right in celebrating them with--whims.... However, + this is not my only or my greatest affliction, I have had and have + others. But the night is silent and the grave is dumb, and their + sister, Sorrow, should be as they. Therefore--let this suffice." + + December 29th. "Alas, this old year! What I have suffered in it no + one knows, if not, perhaps, the Recorder beyond the clouds. But I + am indebted to this year. It has been darker, but also more serious + than all the others put together. I have learned at my own expense + what a human heart can endure without breaking, and what power God + has deposited in a man under his left nipple. As I say, I am under + obligation to this year, for it has enriched me with what is the + real sinking fund of human wisdom and human independence--a mighty, + deeply rooted contempt for man.... My inner nature emerges from the + crisis like the hibernating bear from his den, emaciated and + exhausted, but happily with my ursine sinews well preserved; and by + and by some flesh will be growing on them again. It seems to me + that my old barbaric, Titanic self, with its hairy arms, is + constantly more and more rubbing the sleep out of its eyes. I hope + that some vine may still grow upon the scorched and petrified + volcano of my heart." + + January, 1826. "But when one is compelled to despise the + _character_ of a human being, especially of one who has been or is + dear to one, then that is the bitterest experience which life can + afford; then it is not strange if a frank and ardent soul turns + with loathing from this false, hypocritical generation and shuts + himself up, as well as may be, in the hermitage of his own heart. + + "My mind is unchristian, for it has no day of rest. Generally I + think that my disease has its seat in the abdomen or in the waist. + Mineral waters I can no more drink this summer. But is there not a + mineral water which is called Lethe? + + "Whether my little personality returns thither whence it came, with + or without consciousness, a few months later or earlier, in order + to be drowned in its great fountain-head, or to float for some time + yet like a bubble, reflecting the clouds and an alien light--this + appears to me constantly a matter of less and less consequence." + +There is to me a heartrending pathos in these confessions. It is easy to +stand aloof, of course, like a schoolmaster with his chastising rod, and +lash the frailties of poor human nature. It is easy to declare with +virtuous indignation that the man who covets his neighbor's wife is a +transgressor who has no claim upon our sympathy. And yet who can help +pitying this great, noble poet, who fought so bravely against his +"barbaric, Titanic self with its hairy arms"? His passionate intensity +of soul was, indeed, part of his poetic equipment; and he would not have +been the poet he was if he had been cool, callous, and self-restrained. +The slag in him was so intimately moulded with the precious metal that +their separation would have been the extinction of the individuality +itself. The fiery furnace of affliction through which he passed warped +and scorched and cracked this mighty compound, but without destroying +it. A glimpse of this experience which transformed the powerful, joyous, +bright-visaged singer into a bitter, darkly brooding pessimist, fleeing +from the sinister shadow which threatened to overtake him, is afforded +us in the poem "Hypochondria[40]": + + "I stood upon the altitude of life, + Where mingled waters part and downward go + With rush and foam in opposite directions. + Lo, it was bright up there, and fair to stand. + I saw the sun, I saw his satellite, + Which, since he quenched his light, shone in the blue; + I saw that earth was fair and green and glorious, + I saw that God was good, that man was honest. + + "Then rose a dread black imp, and suddenly + The black one bit himself into my heart; + And lo, at once the earth lay void and barren, + And sun and stars were straightway drenched in gloom. + The landscape, glad erewhile, lay dark, autumnal; + Each grove was sere, each flower stem was broken; + Within the frozen sense my strength lay dead, + All joy, all courage withered within me. + + "What is to me reality--its dumb, + Dead bulk, inert, oppressive, grim, and crude? + How hope has paled, alas, with roseate hue! + And memory, the heavenly blue, grown hoary! + And even poesy! Its acrobatic + Exertions, leaps--they pall upon my sense; + Its bright mirage can satisfy no soul-- + Light skimmings from the surface fair of things. + + "Still I will praise thee, oh, thou human race. + God's likeness art thou, oh, how true, how striking! + Two lies thou hast natheless, in sooth, to show; + The name of one is man, the other's woman! + Of faith and honor there's an ancient ditty, + 'Tis sung the best, when men each other cheat. + Thou child of heaven, the one thing true thou hast + Is Cain's foul mark upon thy forehead branded. + + "A mark quite legible, writ by God's finger; + Why did I fail ere now to heed that sign? + A smell of death pervades all human life, + And poisons spring's sweet breath and summer's splendor. + Out of the grave that odor is exhaling. + The grave is sealed and marble guards its freight, + But still corruption is the breath of life, + Eludes its guard and scatters everywhere. + + "Oh, watchman, tell me now the night's dark hour! + Will it then never wane unto its end? + The half-devoured moon is gliding, gliding, + The tearful stars forever onward go, + My pulse beats fast as in the time of youth, + But ne'er beats out the hours of torment sore. + How long, how endless is each pulse-beat's pain! + Oh, my consuméd, oh, my bleeding heart. + + "My heart! Nay in my bosom is no heart, + There's but an urn that holds life's burnt-out ashes; + Have pity on me, thou green mother Earth, + And hide that urn full soon in thy cool breast. + In air it crumbles, moulders; earth's deep woe + Has in the earth, I ween, at last an end; + And Time's poor foundling, here in school constrained, + Finds then, perchance, beyond the sun--a father." + + [40] The poem is written in the _ottava rime_, but in order to + preserve the sense intact I have rendered it in blank verse. + +A physical disease which seems to have baffled the skill of physicians +may have been the primary cause of the sufferings here described, and +was no doubt aggravated by the psychical condition to which I have +alluded. Now it was supposed to be the liver which was affected; then +again Tegnér was treated for gall-stones. In the summer of 1833 he made +a journey through Germany and spent some months at Carlsbad; but he +returned without sensible relief. His foreign sojourn was, however, of +some benefit in widening his mental horizon. Tegnér's intellectual +affinities had always been French; and toward Germany he had assumed a +more or less unsympathetic attitude. A slight acquaintance with the +philosopher Schleiermacher and the Germanized Norwegian author Henrik +Steffens (who was then a professor at the University of Berlin) did not, +indeed, reverse his predilections, but it opened his eyes to +excellences in the German people to which he had formerly been blind, +and removed prejudices which had obscured his vision. He had everywhere +the most distinguished reception, and was honored with an invitation to +Sans Souci, where he was the guest of the witty Crown Prince of Prussia, +later Frederick William IV. But these agreeable incidents of his journey +were a poor compensation for his failure to obtain that which he had +gone in search of. Fame, honor, and distinguished friends, without +health, are but a Tantalus feast, the sweets of which are seen but never +tasted. + +"I fear," said Tegnér, in his hopelessness, "that my right side, like +that of the Chamber of Deputies, is incurable." + +"When this Saul's spirit comes over me I often feel an indescribable +bitterness, which endures nothing, spares nothing, in heaven or on +earth. It usually finds vent in misanthropic reflections, sarcasms, and +ideas which I have no sooner written down than I repent of them." + +The activity which he unfolded, even in the midst of intolerable +sufferings, was phenomenal. He possessed an energy of will and vigor of +temperament which enabled him to rise superior to his physical +condition, and lure strong music (though sometimes jarred into discords) +from the broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had fastened its +hold upon him, that he pronounced the beautiful epilogue in hexameters +at the graduating festivities at the University of Lund, and crowned +the Dane, Adam Oehlenschläger, as the king of poets: + + "Now, before thou beginnest the distribution of laurels + Grant me one for him in whom I shall honor them all. + Lo, the Adam of poets is here, the Northern king among singers; + Heir to the throne in poesy's world; for the throne yet is Goethe's. + Oscar, the king, if he knew it, would give his grace to my action. + Now I speak not for him, still less for myself, but the laurel + Place on thy brow in poesy's name, the bright, the eternal. + + * * * * * + + Past is disunion's age (in the infinite realm of the spirit + Never it ought to have reigned), and kindred tones o'er the water + Ring, which enrapture us all, and they are especially thine. + Therefore, Svea--I speak in her name--adorns thee with laurel: + Take it from brotherly hand, of the day in festal remembrance." + +Restless official activity, parliamentary labors, educational addresses, +and metrical discourses on memorable occasions filled the years from +1829 to 1840. He felt the demon of insanity lurking behind him, now +close at his heels, now farther away; and it was a desperate race, in +which life and death, nay, worse than death, was at stake. His +indefatigable exertions afforded him a respite from the thought of his +terrible pursuer. We can only regard with respectful compassion the +outbreaks of misanthropic spleen which often disfigure his +correspondence from this period of deepening twilight, relieved by a +brief interval of brightness. It is especially woman who is the object +of his bitterest objurgation. The venerable _mutabile et varium_ of +Virgil is the theme upon which he perpetually rings the changes. No +occasion is too inappropriate for a joke at the fickle and faithless +sex; and even the school-boys in the Wexiö gymnasium are treated to some +ironical advice, _ā propos_ of the beautiful jade, which must have +sounded surprising in an episcopal oration. Life with its bright pageant +was oppressive, like a nightmare to the afflicted poet. All charm, all +rationality had departed from existence, which was but a meaningless +dance of hideous marionettes. The world was battered and befouled; +inexpressibly loathsome. And finally, in 1840, while Tegnér was +attending the Riksdag (of which in his official capacity he was a +member), the long-dreaded catastrophe occurred. His insanity manifested +itself in tremendous projects of reform, world-conquests, and outbreaks +of wild sensuality. He was sent to a celebrated asylum in Sleswick; and +on the way thither wrote a series of "Fantasies of Travel" which have +all the rich harmony of his earlier verse, and are full of delightful +imagery. He fancied that there was a huge wheel of fire revolving with +furious haste in his head, and his sufferings were terrific. The +following fragment from the notes of his attendant, who kept a record of +his ravings, has a cosmic magnificence: + + "The whole trouble comes from that accursed nonsense about the + diadem which they wanted to put on me. You may believe, though, + that it was a splendid piece. Pictures in miniature, not painted, + but living, really existing miniatures of fourteen of the noblest + poets were made into a wreath. It was Homer and Pindar, Tasso and + Virgil, Schiller, Petrarch, Ariosto, Goethe, Sophocles, Leopold, + Milton, and several more. Between each one of them burned a radiant + star, not of tinsel, but of real cosmic material. In the middle of + my forehead there was the figure of a lyre on the diadem, which had + borrowed something of the sun's own living light; it poured with + such bright refulgence upon the wreath of stars that I seemed to be + gazing straight through the world. As long as the lyre stood still, + everything was well with me--but all of a sudden it began to move + in a circle. Faster and ever faster it moved, until every nerve in + my body was shaken. At last it began to rotate in rings with such + speed that it was transformed into a sun. Then my whole being was + broken, and it moved and trembled; for you must know that the + diadem was no longer put on the outside of my head, but inside, on + my very brain. And now it began to whirl around with an + inconceivable violence, until it suddenly broke and burst into + pieces. Darkness--darkness--darkness and night spread over the + whole world wherever I turned. I was bewildered and faint, and I + who had always hated weakness in men--I wept; I shed hot, burning + tears. All was over."[41] + + [41] Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 231-223. + +Contrary to the expectation of his friends he recovered rapidly, and was +able to return home in May, 1841. He promptly resumed his episcopal +functions, and even wrote a beautiful rural idyl in hexameters called +"The Crowned Bride" (_Kronbruden_), which he dedicated to Franzén. He +was well aware, however, that his powers were on the wane, and in 1845 +he was persuaded to apply for a year's relief from his official duties. +The last months of his life he spent mostly lying upon a sofa in his +library, surrounded by great piles of books containing a most +miscellaneous assortment of classics, from Homer to Goethe, +intersprinkled with controversial pamphlets and recent novels. He was +gentle and affectionate in his demeanor; and his beautiful face lighted +up with a smile whenever any of his children or grandchildren approached +him. Once or twice a day he drove out in his carriage, and he was even +able to visit his eldest son, who was a clergyman in Scania, and to +receive the sacrament for the last time from his hand. Shortly after his +return he was stricken with paralysis, and died November 2, 1846, in the +sixty-fourth year of his age. His mind was unclouded and his voice was +clear. When the autumnal sun suddenly burst through the windows and +shone upon the dying poet, he murmured: "I will lift up mine hands unto +the house and the mountain of God." + +These were his last words. He was carried to the grave at night by the +light of lanterns, followed by a long procession of the clergy, +citizens, and the school-boys of his diocese. Peasants, from whose ranks +he had sprung and to whom he was always a good friend, bore his coffin. + +The academic tendency which "idealizes" life and shuns earth-scented +facts, had, through the decisive influence of Tegnér, been victorious in +Swedish literature. I am aware that some will regard this as a +questionable statement; for the academicism of Tegnér is not the +stately, bloodless, Gallic classicism of the Gustavian age, of which +Leopold was the last representative. It is much closer to the classicism +of Goethe in "Iphigenia" and "Hermann and Dorothea," and of Schiller in +"Wallenstein" and "Wilhelm Tell." Tegnér's poetic creed was exactly that +of Schiller, who saw no impropriety in making the peasant lad, Arnold +Melchthal, when he hears that his father has been blinded, deliver an +enraptured apostrophe to the light: + + "O eine edle Himmelsgabe ist + Das Licht des Auges," etc. + +The rhetorical note is predominant in both. Their thoughts have to be +arrayed in the flowing toga before they are held to be presentable. This +is the academic tendency in Sweden as in France, even though the degree +of euphemistic magniloquence may differ with the age and latitude. The +Swedes have been called the Frenchmen of the North, and there is no +doubt that delight in this toga-clad rhetoric is inherent in both. It +was because Tegnér, in appealing to this delight, was so deeply +representative that he extinguished the old school and became the +national poet of Sweden. + + + + * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's notes: + + Dostoyevski is also spelled Dostojevski and Dostoyefski + + Tolstoi is also spelled Tostoī. + + It appears that Fortällinger is also spelled Fortaellinger. + + Page 11: valuble changed to valuable. Typo. + + Page 45: Gjeunembrud's is a typo for Gjennembrud's. Changed + in text. + + Page 191: Open parenthesis added to 1882. + + Page 262: ["The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which] was + changed to [The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which]. + The first double quote appears to be unnecessary. + + Page 270: The stanzas are spaced as they appear in the original + text, although they appear to be in error. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 19908-8.txt or 19908-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19908 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Essays on Scandinavian Literature</p> +<p>Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen</p> +<p>Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19908]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Clare Boothby<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<h2>ESSAYS ON<br /> + +SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE</h2> + +<h3>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h3> + +<ul> +<li>Goethe and Schiller. Their Lives and Works; with a commentary on "Faust."</li> +<li>Essays on German Literature.</li> +<li>Essays on Scandinavian Literature.</li> +<li>A Commentary on the Writings of Henrik Ibsen.</li> +<li>Literary and Social Silhouettes.</li> +<li>The Story of Norway.</li> +<li>Gunnar.</li> +<li>Tales from Two Hemispheres.</li> +<li>A Norseman's Pilgrimage.</li> +<li>Falconberg. A Novel.</li> +<li>Queen Titania.</li> +<li>Ilka on the Hill-top, and Other Tales.</li> +<li>A Daughter of the Philistines.</li> +<li>The Light of Her Countenance.</li> +<li>Vagabond Tales.</li> +<li>The Mammon of Unrighteousness.</li> +<li>The Golden Calf.</li> +<li>Social Strugglers.</li> +<li>Idyls of Norway, and Other Poems.</li> +</ul> + + + +<h2>THE NORSELAND SERIES (JUVENILE).</h2> + + +<ul> +<li>The Modern Vikings: Stories of Life and Sport in the Northland.</li> +<li>Against Heavy Odds, and A Fearless Trio.</li> +<li>Boyhood in Norway.</li> +<li>Norseland Tales.</li> +</ul> + + + +<hr /> + + + + +<h1>ESSAYS ON<br /> +SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE</h1> + + +<h4>BY<br /> +HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN</h4> + +<h5>PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES IN<br /> +COLUMBIA COLLEGE</h5> + + + + +<h4>LONDON<br /> +DAVID NUTT, 270, STRAND<br /> +1895.<br /> +</h4> + +<hr /> + + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons<br /> +for the United States of America</p> + +<p class="center">Printed by the Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company<br /> +New York, U. S. A.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>Some twenty years ago the ambition seized me +to write a History of Scandinavian Literature. I +scarcely realized then what an enormous amount +of reading would be required to equip me for this +task. My studies naturally led me much beyond +the scope of my original intention. There was a +fascination in the work which lured me perpetually +on, and made me explore with a constantly increasing +zest the great literary personalities of Norway, +Sweden, and Denmark. Thus my chapter on Henrik +Ibsen grew into a book of three hundred and +seventeen pages, which was published a year ago, +and must be regarded as supplementary to the +present volume. The chapter on Björnstjerne +Björnson was in danger of expanding to similar +proportions, and only the most heroic condensation +saved it from challenging criticism as an independent +work. As regards Norway and Denmark, +I have endeavored to select all the weightiest and +most representative names. The Swedish authors +Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Mrs. Edgren, and August +Strindberg, and the Dane Oehlenschlaeger, +necessity has compelled me to reserve for a future +volume.</p> + +<p>COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK,</p> + +<p>February, 1895.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" summary="contents"> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>ALEXANDER KIELLAND,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>JONAS LIE,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>GEORG BRANDES,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>ESAIAS TEGNÉR,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Björnstjerne Björnson is the first +Norwegian poet who can in any sense be +called national. The national genius, with its limitations +as well as its virtues, has found its living +embodiment in him. Whenever he opens his mouth +it is as if the nation itself were speaking. If he +writes a little song, hardly a year elapses before its +phrases have passed into the common speech of the +people; composers compete for the honor of interpreting +it in simple, Norse-sounding melodies, +which gradually work their way from the drawing-room +to the kitchen, the street, and thence +out over the wide fields and highlands of Norway. +His tales, romances, and dramas express collectively +the supreme result of the nation's experience, +so that no one to-day can view Norwegian life +or Norwegian history except through their medium. +The bitterest opponent of the poet (for like every +strong personality he has many enemies) is thus +no less his debtor than his warmest admirer. His +speech has stamped itself upon the very language +and given it a new ring, a deeper resonance. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +thought fills the air, and has become the unconscious +property of all who have grown to manhood +and womanhood since the day when his titanic +form first loomed up on the horizon of the North. +It is not only as their first and greatest poet that +the Norsemen love and hate him, but also as a +civilizer in the widest sense. But like Kadmus, +in Greek myth, he has not only brought with him +letters, but also the dragon-teeth of strife, which +it is to be hoped will not sprout forth in armed +men.</p> + +<p>A man's ancestry and environment, no doubt, +account in a superficial manner for his appearance +and mental characteristics. Having the man, we +are able to trace the germs of his being in the past +of his race and his country; but, with all our +science we have not yet acquired the ingenuity to +predict the man—to deduce him <i>a priori</i> from the +tangle of determining causes which enveloped his +birth. It seems beautifully appropriate in the +Elder Edda that the god-descended hero Helge +the Völsung should be born amid gloom and terror +in a storm which shakes the house, while the +Norns—the goddesses of fate—proclaim in the +tempest his tempestuous career. Equally satisfactory +it appears to have the modern champion of +Norway—the typical modern Norseman—born on +the bleak and wild Dovre Mountain,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> where there +is winter eight months of the year and cold +weather during the remaining four. The parish of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +Kvikne, in Oesterdalen, where his father, the Reverend +Peder Björnson, held a living, had a bad +reputation on account of the unruly ferocity and +brutal violence of the inhabitants. One of the Reverend +Peder Björnson's recent predecessors never +went into his pulpit, unarmed; and another fled +for his life. The peasants were not slow in intimating +to the new pastor that they meant to have +him mind his own business and conform to the +manners and customs of the parish; but there they +reckoned without their host. The reverend gentleman +made short work of the opposition. He enforced +the new law of compulsory education without +heeding its unpopularity; and when the champion +fighter of the valley came as the peasants' +spokesman to take him to task in summary fashion, +he found himself, before he was aware of it, +at the bottom of the stairs, where he picked himself +up wonderingly and promptly took to his +heels.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> December 8, 1832.</p></div> + +<p>During the winter the snow reached up to the +second-story windows of the parsonage; and the +servants had to tunnel their way to the storehouse +and the stables. The cold was so intense that the +little Björnstjerne thought twice before touching a +door knob, as his fingers were liable to stick to the +metal. When he was six years old, however, his father +was transferred to Romsdal, which is, indeed, +a wild and grandly picturesque region; but far +less desolate than Dovre. "It lies," says Björnson, +"broad—bosomed between two confluent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +fjords, with a green mountain above, cataracts and +homesteads on the opposite shore, waving meadows +and activity in the bottom of the valley; and all +the way out toward the ocean, mountains with +headland upon headland running out into the +fjord and a large farm upon each."</p> + +<p>The feeling of terror, the crushing sense of guilt +which Björnson has so strikingly portrayed in the +first chapters of "In God's Way," were familiar +to his own childhood. In every life, as in every +race, the God of fear precedes the God of love. +And in Northern Norway, where nature seems so +tremendous and man so insignificant, no boy escapes +these phantoms of dread which clutch him +with icy fingers. But as a counterbalancing force +in the young Björnson, we have his confidence in +the strength and good sense of his gigantic father, +who could thrash the strongest champion in the +parish. He used to stand in the evening on the +beach "and gaze at the play of the sunshine upon +fjord and mountain, until he wept, as if he had +done something wrong. Now he would suddenly +stop in this or that valley, while running on +skees, and stand spell-bound by its beauty and a +longing which he could not comprehend, but +which was so great that in the midst of the highest +joy he was keenly conscious of a sense of confinement +and sorrow."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> "We catch a glimpse in +these childish memories," says Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen, +"of the remarkable character, we are about to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +depict: Being the son of a giant, he is ever ready +to strike out with a heavy hand, when he thinks +that anyone is encroaching upon what he deems +the right. But this same pugnacious man, whom +it is so hard to overcome, can be overwhelmed by +an emotion and surrender himself to it with his +whole being."</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, pp. 450, 451.</p></div> + +<p>At the age of twelve Björnson was sent to the +Latin school at Molde, where, however, his progress +was not encouraging. He was one of those +thoroughly healthy and headstrong boys who are +the despair of ambitious mothers, and whom +fathers (when the futility of educational chastisement +has been finally proved) are apt to regard +with a resigned and half-humorous regret. +His dislike of books was instinctive, hearty, and +uncompromising. His strong, half-savage boy-nature +could brook no restraints, and looked longingly +homeward to the wide mountain plains, the +foaming rivers where the trout leaped in the summer +night, and the calm fjord where you might +drift blissfully along, as it were, suspended in the +midst of the vast, blue, ethereal space. And when +the summer vacation came, with its glorious freedom +and irresponsibility, he would roam at his +own sweet will through forest and field, until +hunger and fatigue forced him to return to his +father's parsonage.</p> + +<p>After several years of steadily unsuccessful study, +Björnson at last passed the so-called <i>examen artium</i>, +which admitted him to the University of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +Christiania. He was now a youth of large, almost +athletic frame, with a handsome, striking face, and +a pair of blue eyes which no one is apt to forget +who has ever looked into them. There was a certain +grand simplicity and <i>naïveté</i> in his manner, +and an exuberance of animal spirits which must +have made him an object of curious interest among +his town-bred fellow-students. But his University +career was of brief duration. All the dimly fermenting +powers of his rich nature were now beginning +to clarify, the consciousness of his calling began +to assert itself, and the demand for expression +became imperative. His literary <i>début</i> was an historic +drama entitled "Valborg," which was accepted +for representation by the directors of the +Christiania Theatre, and procured for its author a +free ticket to all theatrical performances; it was, +however, never brought on the stage, as Björnson, +having had his eyes opened to its defects, withdrew +it of his own accord.</p> + +<p>At this time the Norwegian stage was almost entirely +in the hands of the Danes, and all the more +prominent actors were of Danish birth. Theatrical +managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures +of Danish literature, and occasionally, to replenish +the exchequer, reproduced a French comedy or +farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were +more than half-spoiled in the translation. The +drama was as yet an exotic in Norway; it had no +root in the national soil, and could accordingly in +no respect represent the nation's own struggles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +and aspirations. The critics themselves, no doubt, +looked upon it merely as a form of amusement, a +thing to be wondered and stared at, and to be dismissed +from the mind as soon as the curtain +dropped. Björnson, whose patriotic soul could +not endure the thought of this abject foreign dependence, +ascribed all the existing abuses to the +predominance of the Danish element, and in a +series of vehement articles attacked the Danish +actors, managers, and all who were in any way responsible +for the unworthy condition of the national +stage. In return he reaped, as might have +been expected, an abundant harvest of abuse, but +the discussion he had provoked furnished food for +reflection, and the rapid development of the Norwegian +drama during the next decade is, no doubt, +largely traceable to his influence.</p> + +<p>The liberty for which he had yearned so long, +Björnson found at the International Students' Reunion +of 1856. Then the students of the Norwegian +and Danish Universities met in Upsala, +where they were received with grand festivities by +their Swedish brethren. Here the poet caught +the first glimpse of a greater and freer life than +moved within the narrow horizon of the Norwegian +capital. This gay and careless student-life, this +cheerful abandonment of all the artificial shackles +which burden one's feet in their daily walk through +a bureaucratic society, the temporary freedom +which allows one without offence to toast a prince +and hug a count to one's bosom—all this had its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +influence upon Björnson's sensitive nature; it +filled his soul with a happy intoxication and with +confidence in his own strength. And having once +tasted a life like this he could no more return to +what he had left behind him.</p> + +<p>The next winter we find him in Copenhagen, +laboring with an intensity of creative ardor which +he had never known before. His striking appearance, +the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain +<i>naïve</i> self-assertion and impatience of social +restraints made him a notable figure in the polite +and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish +capital. There was a general expectation at that +time that a great poet was to come, and although +Björnson had as yet published nothing to justify +the expectation, he found the public of Copenhagen +ready to recognize in him the man who was to +rouse the North from its long intellectual torpor, +and usher in a new era in its literature. It is +needless to say that he did not discourage this belief, +for he himself fervently believed that he +would before long justify it. The first proof of his +strength he gave in the tale "Synnöve Solbakken" +(Synnöve Sunny-Hill), which he published in +an illustrated weekly, and afterward in book-form. +It is a very unpretending little story, idyllic in +tone, but realistic in its coloring, and redolent of +the pine and spruce and birch of the Norwegian +highlands.</p> + +<p>It had been the fashion in Norway since the +nation regained its independence to interest one's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +self in a lofty, condescending way in the life of the +peasantry. A few well-meaning persons, like the +poet Wergeland, had labored zealously for their +enlightenment and the improvement of their economic +condition; but, except in the case of such +single individuals, no real and vital sympathy and +fellow-feeling had ever existed between the upper +and the lower strata of Norwegian society. And +as long as the fellow-feeling is wanting, this zeal +for enlightenment, however laudable its motive, is +not apt to produce lasting results. The peasants +view with distrust and suspicion whatever comes +to them from their social superiors, and the so-called +"useful books," which were scattered +broadcast over the land, were of a tediously didactic +character, and, moreover, hardly adapted to +the comprehension of those to whom they were +ostensibly addressed. Wergeland himself, with all +his self-sacrificing ardor, had but a vague conception +of the real needs of the people, and, as far as +results were concerned, wasted much of his valuable +life in his efforts to improve, edify and instruct +them. It hardly occurred to him that the +culture of which he and his colleagues were the +representatives was itself a foreign importation, +and could not by any violent process be ingrafted +upon the national trunk, which drew its strength +from centuries of national life, history, and tradition. +That this peasantry, whom the <i>bourgeoisie</i> +and the aristocracy of culture had been wont to +regard with half-pitying condescension, were the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +real representatives of the Norse nation; that they +had preserved through long years of tyranny and +foreign oppression the historic characteristics of +their Norse forefathers, while the upper classes +had gone in search of strange gods, and bowed +their necks to the foreign yoke; that in their +veins the old strong saga-life was still throbbing +with vigorous pulse-beats—this was the lesson +which Björnson undertook to teach his countrymen, +and a very fruitful lesson it has proved to +be. It has inspired the people with renewed +courage, it has turned the national life into fresh +channels, and it has revolutionized national politics.</p> + +<p>To be sure all this was not the result of the +idyllic little tale which marked the beginning of +his career. But this little tale, although no trace +of what the Germans call "tendency" is to be +found in it, is still significant as being the poet's +first indirect manifesto, and as such distinctly +foreshadowing the path which he has since followed.</p> + +<p>First, in its purely literary aspect, "Synnöve +Solbakken" was strikingly novel. The author did +not, as his predecessors had done, view the people +from the exalted pedestal of superior culture; not +as a subject for benevolent preaching and charitable +condescension, but as a concrete phenomenon, +whose <i>raison d'étre</i> was as absolute and indisputable +as that of the <i>bourgeoisie</i> or the bureaucracy +itself. He depicted their soul-struggles and +the incidents of their daily life with a loving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +minuteness and a vivid realism hitherto unequalled +in the literature of the North. He did not, like +Auerbach, construct his peasant figures through +laborious reflection, nor did he attempt by anxious +psychological analysis to initiate the reader into +their processes of thought and emotion. He simply +depicted them as he saw and knew them. Their +feelings and actions have their immediate, self-evident +motives in the characters themselves, and +the absence of analysis on the author's part gives +an increased energy and movement to the story.</p> + +<p>Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen relates, <i>à propos</i> of the reception +which was accorded Björnson's first book, +the following amusing anecdote:</p> + +<p>"'Synnöve Solbakken' was printed, and its +author was anxious to have his friends read it. +But not one of them could be prevailed upon. At +last a comrade was found who was persuaded to +attack it on the promise of a bottle of punch. He +entered Björnson's den, got a long pipe which he +filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely—for +it was a hot day—flung himself on the bed, and +began to read. Björnson sat in the sofa, breathless +with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; +not a smile, not a single encouraging word! The +young poet had good reason to regard the battle as +lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book +were finished. Then the merciless Stoic rose and +began to dress, and the following little exclamation +escaped him: 'That is, the devil take me, the +best book I have read in all my life.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>Björnson's style was no less novel than his +theme. It may or it may not have been consciously +modelled after the saga style, to which, however, +it bears an obvious resemblance. In his early +childhood, while he lived among the peasants, he +became familiar with their mode of thought and +speech, and it entered into his being, and became +his own natural mode of expression. There is in +his daily conversation a certain grim directness, +and a laconic weightiness, which give an air of importance +and authority even to his simplest utterances. +This tendency to compression frequently +has the effect of obscurity, not because his thought +is obscure, but rather because energetic brevity of +expression has fallen into disuse, and even a Norse +public, long accustomed to the wordy diffuseness +of latter-day bards, have in part lost the faculty +to comprehend the genius of their own language. +As a Danish critic wittily observed: "Björnson's +language is but one step removed from pantomime."</p> + +<p>In 1858 Björnson assumed the directorship of +the theatre in Bergen, and there published his second +tale, "Arne," in which the same admirable +self-restraint, the same implicit confidence in the +intelligence of his reader, the same firm-handed +decision and vigor in the character-drawing, in +fact, all the qualities which delighted the public +in "Synnöve Solbakken," were found in an intensified +degree.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, Björnson had also made his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +<i>début</i> as a dramatist. In the year 1858 he had +published two dramas, "Mellem Slagene" (Between +the Battles) and "Halte-Hulda" (Limping +Hulda) both of which deal with national subjects, +taken from the old sagas. As in his tales he had +endeavored to concentrate into a few strongly defined +types the modern folk-life of the North, so +in his dramas the same innate love of his nationality +leads him to seek the typical features of his +people, as they are revealed in the historic chieftains +of the past.</p> + +<p>"Between the Battles" is a dramatic episode +rather than a drama. During the civil war between +King Sverre and King Magnus in the twelfth century, +the former visits in disguise a hut upon the +mountains where a young warrior, Halvard Gjaela +and Inga, his beloved, are living together. The +long internecine strife has raised the hand of father +against son, and of brother against brother. Halvard +sympathizes with Sverre; Inga, who hates +the king because he has burned her father's farm, +is a partisan of Magnus. In the absence of her +lover she goes to the latter's camp and brings back +with her a dozen warriors for the purpose of capturing +Halvard, and thereby preventing him from +joining the enemy. Sverre discovers the warriors, +whom she has hidden in the cow-stable, and persuading +them that he is a spy for King Magnus +sends two of them to his own army for reinforcements. +In the meanwhile he reconciles the estranged +lovers, makes peace between them and Inga's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +father, and finally, in the last scene, as his men +arrive, is recognized as the king.</p> + +<p>This is, of course, a venerable <i>coup de théâtre</i>. +Whatever novelty there is in the play must be +sought, not in the situations, but in the pithy and +laconic dialogue, which has a distinct national coloring. +This was not the amiable diffuseness of +Oehlenschlaeger, who had hitherto dominated the +Norwegian as well as the Danish stage; and yet it +did not by any means represent so complete a +breach with the traditions of the romantic drama +as was claimed by Björnson's admirers. The fresh +naturalness and absence of declamation were a +gain, no doubt; but there are yet several notes +remaining which have the well-known romantic +cadence. "Between the Battles," though too +slight to be called an achievement, was accepted +as a pledge of achievement in future.</p> + +<p>Björnson's next drama "Limping Hulda" +("Halte-Hulda") (1858) was a partial fulfilment +of this pledge. If it is not high tragedy, in the +ancient sense, it is of the stuff that tragedy is +made of. Hulda is an impressive stage figure in +her demoniac passion and tiger-like tenderness. +Though I doubt if Björnson has, in this type, +caught the soul of a Norse woman of the saga age, +he has come much nearer to catching it than any +of his predecessors. If Gudrun Osvif's Daughter, +of the Laxdoela Saga, was his model, he has modernized +her considerably, and thereby made her +more intelligible to modern readers. Like her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +Hulda causes the murder of the man she loves; +and there is a fateful spell about her beauty which +brings death to whomsoever looks too long upon +it. Though ostensibly a saga-drama, the harshness +and grim ferocity of that sanguinary period +are softened; and a romantic illumination pervades +the whole action. A certain lyrical effusiveness +in the love passages (which is alien to all +Björnson's later works) hints at the influence of +the Danish Romanticists, and particularly Oehlenschlaeger.</p> + +<p>It would be unfair, perhaps, to take the author +to task because this youthful drama exhibits no remarkable +subtlety in its conception of character. +It contains no really great living figure who stands +squarely upon his feet and lingers in the memory. +A certain half-rhetorical impulse carries you along; +and the external effectiveness of the situations +keeps the interest on the alert. For all that +"Limping Hulda," like its predecessors and its +successors, tended to stimulate powerfully the national +spirit, which was then asserting itself in +every department of intellectual activity. Thus a +national theatre had, by the perseverance and generosity +of Ole Bull, been established in his native +city, Bergen; and it was almost a matter of course +that an effort should be made to identify Björnson +with an enterprise which accorded so well with his +own aspirations. His connection with the Norwegian +Theatre of Bergen was, however, not of long +duration, for though your enthusiasm may be ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +so great it is a thankless task to act as "artistic +director" of a stage in a town which is neither artistic +enough nor large enough to support a playhouse +with a higher aim than that of furnishing +ephemeral amusement. From Bergen he was +called to the editorship of <i>Aftenbladet</i> (The Evening +Journal), the second political daily of Christiania, +and continued there with hot zeal and eloquence +his battle for "all that is truly Norse."</p> + +<p>But a brief experience sufficed to convince him +that daily journalism was not his <i>forte</i>. He was +and is too indiscreet, precipitate, credulous, and +inconsiderately generous to be a successful editor. +If a paper could be conducted on purely altruistic +principles, and without reference to profits, there +would be no man fitter to occupy an editorial +chair. For as an inspiring force, as a radiating +focus of influence, his equal is not to be encountered +"in seven kingdoms round." However, this +inspiring force could reach a far larger public +through published books than through the columns +of a newspaper. It was therefore by no +means in a regretful frame of mind that he descended +from the editorial tripod, and in the spring +of 1860 started for Italy. Previous to his departure +he published, through the famous house of +Gyldendal, in Copenhagen, a volume which, it is no +exaggeration to say, has become a classic of Norwegian +literature. It bears the modest title "Smaa-stykker" +(Small Pieces), but it contains, in spite of +its unpretentiousness, some of Björnson's noblest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +work. I need only mention the masterly tale "The +Father," with its sobriety and serene strength. I +know but one other instance<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> of so great tragedy, +told in so few and simple words. "Arne," "En +Glad Gut" (A Happy Boy), and the amusing dialect +story, "Ei Faarleg Friing" (A Dangerous +Wooing), also belong to this delightful collection. +These little masterpieces of concise story-telling +have been included in the popular two-volume edition +of "Fortällinger," which contains also "The +Fisher-maiden" (1867-68), the exquisite story, +"The Bridal March" (1872), originally written as +text to three of Tidemand's paintings, and a vigorous +bit of disguised autobiography, "Blakken," +of which not the author but a horse is the ostensible +hero.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Austin Dobson's poem, "The Cradle."</p></div> + +<p>The descriptive name for all these tales, except +the last, is idyl. It was, indeed, the period when +all Europe (outside the British empire) was viewing +the hardy sons of the soil through poetic spectacles. +In Germany Auerbach had, in his "Black +Forest Village Tales" (1843, 1853, 1854), discarded +the healthful but unflattering realism of +Jeremias Gotthelf (1797-1854), and chosen, with +a half-didactic purpose, to contrast the peasant's +honest rudeness and straightforwardness with the +refined sophistication and hypocrisy of the higher +classes. George Sand, with her beautiful Utopian +genius, poured forth a torrent of rural narrative +of a crystalline limpidity ("Mouny Robin," "La<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +Mare au Diable," "La Petite Fadette," etc., 1841-1849), +which is as far removed from the turbid +stream of Balzac ("Les Paysans") and Zola ("La +Terre"), as Paradise is from the Inferno. There +is an echo of Rousseau's gospel of nature in all +these tales, and the same optimistic delusion regarding +"the people" for which the eighteenth +century paid so dearly. The painters likewise +caught the tendency, and with the same thorough-going +conscientiousness as their brethren of the +quill, disguised coarseness as strength, bluntness +as honesty, churlishness as dignity. What an +idyllic sweetness there is, for instance, in Tidemand's +scenes of Norwegian peasant life! What a +<i>spirituelle</i> and movingly sentimental note in the +corresponding German scenes of Knaus and Hübner, +and, <i>longo intervallo</i>, Meyerheim and Meyer +von Bremen. Not a breath of the broad humor +of Teniers and Van Ostade in these masters; +scarcely a hint of the robust animality and clownish +jollity with which the clear-sighted Dutchmen +endowed their rural revellers. Though pictorial +art has not, outside of Russia (where the great and +unrivalled Riepin paints the peasant with the +brush as remorselessly as Tolstoï and Dostoyefski +with the pen), kept pace with the realistic movement +in literature, yet there is no lack of evidence +that the rose-colored tinge is vanishing even from +the painter's spectacles; and such uncompromising +veracity as that of Millet and Courbet, which +the past generation despised, is now hailed with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +acclaim in such masters as Bastien-Lepage, Dagnan-Bouveret, +and the Scandinavians, Kristian +Krog and Anders Zorn.</p> + +<p>Björnson is, however, temperamentally averse to +that modern naturalism which insists upon a minute +fidelity to fact without reference to artistic +values. His large and spacious mind has a Southern +exposure, and has all "its windows thrown +wide open to the sun." A sturdy optimism, which +is prone to believe good of all men, unless they +happen to be his political antagonists, inclines him +to overlook what does not fit into his own scheme +of existence. And yet no one can say that, as presentations +of Norwegian peasant life, "Synnöve," +"Arne," "The Bridal March," etc., are untrue, +though, indeed, one could well imagine pictures +in very much sombrer colors which might lay a +valider claim to veracity. Kielland's "Laboring +People," and Kristian Elster's "A Walk to the +Cross" and "Kjeld Horge," give the reverse of +the medal of which Björnson exhibits the obverse. +These authors were never in any way +identified with "the people," and could not help +being struck with many of the rude and unbeautiful +phases of rural existence; while Björnson, who +sprang directly from the peasantry, had the pride +and intelligence of kinship, and was not yet lifted +far enough above the life he depicted to have acquired +the cultivated man's sense of condescension +and patronizing benevolence. He was but one +generation removed from the soil; and he looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +with a strong natural sympathy and affectionate +predilection upon whatever reminded him of this +origin. If he had been a peasant, however, he +could never have become the wonderful chronicler +that he is. It is the elevation, slight though it +be, which enables him to survey the fields in which +his fathers toiled and suffered. Or, to quote Mr. +Rolfsen: "Björnson is the son of a clergyman; +he has never himself personally experienced the +peasant's daily toil and narrow parochial vision. +He has felt the power of the mountains over his +mind, and been filled with longing, as a grand +emotion, but the contractedness of the spiritual +horizon has not tormented him. He has not to +take that into account when he writes. During +the tedious school-days, his beautiful Romsdal +valley lay waiting for him, beckoning him home +at every vacation—always alluring and radiant, +with an idyllic shimmer."</p> + +<p>Hence, no doubt, his sunny poetic vision which +unconsciously idealizes. Just as in daily intercourse +he displays a positive genius for drawing +out what is good in a man, and brushes away as of +small account what does not accord with his own +conception of him, nay, in a measure, forces him to +be as he believes him to be, so every character in +these early tales seems to bask in the genial glow of +his optimism. The farm Solbakken (Sunny Hill) +lies on a high elevation, where the sun shines from +its rise to its setting, and both Synnöve and her +parents walk about in this still and warm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +illumination. They are all good, estimable people, and +their gentle piety, without any tinge of fanaticism, +invests them with a quiet dignity. The +sterner and hardier folk at Granliden (Pine Glen) +have a rugged honesty and straightforwardness +which, in connection with their pithy and laconic +speech, makes them less genial, but no less typically +Norse. They have a distinct atmosphere +and spinal columns that keep them erect, organic, +and significant. Even reprehensible characters +like Aslak and Nils Tailor (in "Arne") +have a certain claim upon our sympathy, the former +as a helpless victim of circumstance, the latter +as a suppressed and perverted genius.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1860 Björnson went abroad and +devoted three years to foreign travel, spending the +greater part of his time in Italy. From Rome he +sent home the historical drama "King Sverre" +(1861), which is one of his weakest productions. +It is written in blank verse, with occasional rhymes +in the more impressive passages. Of dramatic interest +in the ordinary sense, there is but little. It +is a series of more or less animated scenes, from +the period of the great civil war (1130-1240), connected +by the personality of Sverre. Under the +mask, however, of mediæval history, the author +preaches a political sermon to his own contemporaries. +Sverre, as the champion of the common +people against the tribal aristocracy, and the wily +Bishop Nicholas as the representative of the latter +become, as it were, permanent forces, which have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +continued their battle to the present day. There +can be no doubt that Björnson, whose sympathies +are strongly democratic, permitted the debate between +the two to become needlessly didactic, and +strained historical verisimilitude by veiled allusions +to contemporaneous conditions. Greatly +superior is his next drama, "Sigurd Slembe"<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +(1862).</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> An English version of "Sigurd Slembe" has been published +by William Morton Payne (Boston, 1888).</p></div> + +<p>The story of the brave and able pretender, Sigurd +Slembe, in his struggle with the vain and +mean-spirited king, Harold Gille, is the theme of +the dramatic trilogy. Björnson attempts to give +the spiritual development of Sigurd from the moment +he becomes acquainted with his royal birth +until his final destruction. From a frank and +generous youth, who is confident that he is born +for something great, he is driven by the treachery, +cruelty, and deceit of his brother, the king, into +the position of a desperate outlaw and guerilla. +The very first scene, in the church of St. Olaf, +where the boy confides to the saint, in a tone of +<i>bonne camaraderie</i>, his joy at having conquered, in +wrestling, the greatest champion in the land, gives +one the key-note to his character:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now only listen to me, saintly Olaf!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day I whipped young Beintein! Beintein was<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strongest man in Norway. Now am I!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I can walk from Lindesnäs and on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up to the northern boundary of the snow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">For no one step aside or lift my hat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There where I am, no man hath leave to fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make a tumult, threaten, or to swear—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace everywhere! And he who wrong hath suffered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall justice find, until the laws shall sing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as before the great have whipped the small,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So will I help the small to whip the great.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I can offer counsel at the Thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now to the king's board I can boldly walk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sit beside him, saying 'Here am I!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The exultation in victory which speaks in every +line of this opening monologue marks the man +who, in spite of the obscurity of his origin, feels +his right to be first, and who, in this victory, celebrates +the attainment of his birthright. Equally +luminous by way of characterization is his exclamation +to St. Olaf when he hears that he is King +Magnus Barefoot's son:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then we are kinsmen, Olaf, you and I!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>According to Norwegian law at that time, every +son of a king was entitled to his share of the kingdom, +and Sigurd's first impulse is to go straight to +Harold Gille and demand his right. His friend +Koll Saebjörnson persuades him, however, to +abandon this hopeless adventure, and gives him a +ship with which he sails to the Orient, takes part +in many wars, and gains experience and martial renown.</p> + +<p>The second part of the trilogy deals with Sigurd's +sojourn at the Orkneys, where he interferes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +in the quarrel between the Earls Harold and +Paul. The atmosphere of suspicion, insecurity, and +gloom which hangs like a portentous cloud over +these scenes is the very same which blows toward +us from the pages of the sagas. Björnson has +gazed deeply into the heart of Northern paganism, +and has here reproduced the heroic anarchy +which was a necessary result of the code permitting +the individual to avenge his own wrongs. +The two awful women, Helga and Frakark, the +mother and the aunt of the earls, are types which +are constantly met with in the saga. It is a long-recognized +fact that women, under lawless conditions, +develop the wildest extremes of ambition, +avarice, and blood-thirstiness, and taunt the men +with their weak scruples. These two furies of the +Orkneys plot murder with an infernal coolness, +which makes Lady Macbeth a kind-hearted woman +by comparison. They recognize in Sigurd a man +born for leadership; determine to use him for the +furtherance of their plans, and to get rid of him, +by fair means or foul, when he shall have accomplished +his task. But Sigurd is too experienced +a chieftain to walk into this trap. While appearing +to acquiesce, he plays for stakes of his own, but +in the end abandons all in disgust at the death of +Earl Harold, who intentionally puts on the poisoned +shirt, prepared for his brother. There is no +great and monumental scene in this part which engraves +itself deeply upon the memory. The love +scenes with Audhild, the young cousin of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +earls, are incidental and episodical, and exert no +considerable influence either upon Sigurd's character +or upon the development of the intrigue. +Historically they are well and realistically conceived; +but dramatically they are not strong. +Another criticism, which has already been made +by the Danish critic, Georg Brandes, refers to an +offence against this very historical sense which is +usually so vivid in Björnson. When Frakark, the +Lady Macbeth of the play, remarks, "I am far +from feeling sure of the individual mortality so +much preached of; but there is an immortality of +which I am sure; it is that of the race," she makes +an intellectual somersault from the twelfth century +into the nineteenth, and never gets back +firmly on her pagan feet again. As Brandes wittily +observes: "People who talk like that do not +torture their enemy to death; they backbite him."</p> + +<p>The third part opens with Sigurd's appearance +at court, where he reveals his origin and asks for +his share of the kingdom. The king is not disinclined +to grant his request, but is overruled by his +councillors, who profit by his weakness and rule in +his name. They fear this man of many battles, +with the mark of kingship on his brow; and they +determine to murder him. But Sigurd escapes +from prison, and, holding the king responsible for +the treachery, kills him. From this time forth he +is an outlaw, hunted over field and fell, and roaming +with untold sufferings through the mountains +and wildernesses. There he meets a Finnish maiden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +who loves him, reveals his fate to him, and implores +him to abandon his ambition and dwell +among her people. These scenes amid the eternal +wastes of snow are perhaps the most striking in +the trilogy and most abounding in exquisite +poetic thought. Sigurd hastens hence to his doom +at the battle of Holmengra, where he is defeated, +and, with fiendish atrocity, slowly tortured to +death. The rather lyrical monologue preceding +his death, in which he bids farewell to life and +calmly adjusts his gaze to eternity, is very beautiful, +but, historically, a trifle out of tune. Barring +these occasional lapses from the key, the trilogy +of "Sigurd Slembe" is a noble work.</p> + +<p>A respectful, and in part enthusiastic, reception +had been accorded to Björnson's early plays. But +his first dramatic triumph he celebrated at the +performance of "Mary Stuart in Scotland." Externally +this is the most effective of his plays. +The dialogue is often brilliant, and bristles with +telling points. It is eminently "actable," presenting +striking tableaus and situations. Behind the +author we catch a glimpse of the practical stage-manager +who knows how a scene will look on the +boards and how a speech will sound—who can surmise +with tolerable accuracy how they will affect a +first-night audience.</p> + +<p>"Mary Stuart" is theatrically no less than +dramatically conceived. Theatrically it is far +superior to Swinburne's "Chastelard" (not to +speak of his interminable musical verbiage in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +"Bothwell") but it is paler, colder, and poetically +inferior. The voluptuous warmth and wealth +of color, the exquisite levity, the <i>débonnaire</i> grace +of the Swinburnian drama we seek in vain. Björnson +is vigorous, but he is not subtile. Mere feline +amorousness, such as Swinburne so inimitably portrays, +he would disdain to deal with if even he could. +Such a bit of intricate self-characterization as the +English poet puts into the Queen's mouth in the +first scene with Chastelard, in the third act, lies utterly +beyond the range of the sturdier Norseman.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Queen</i>: "Nay, dear, I have<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No tears in me; I never shall weep much,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I think, in all my life: I have wept for wrath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sometimes, and for mere pain, but for love's pity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot weep at all. I would to God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You loved me less: I give you all I can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all this love of yours, and yet I am sure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall live out the sorrow of your death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And be glad afterwards. You know I am sorry.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I should weep now; forgive me for your part.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God made me hard, I think. Alas! you see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had fain been other than I am."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Add to this the beautifully illuminating threat, +"I shall be deadly to you," uttered in the midst +of amorous cooings and murmurings, and we catch +a glimpse of the demoniac depth of this woman's +nature. Björnson's "Mary Stuart" weeps more +than once; nay, she says to Bothwell, when he has +forcibly abducted her to his castle:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This is my first prayer to you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I may weep."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Quite in the same key is her exclamation (in the +same scene) in response to Bothwell's reference to +her son:</p> + +<p>"My son, my lovely boy! Oh, God, now he lies +sleeping in his little white bed, and does not know +how his mother is battling for his sake."</p> + +<p>Schiller, whose conception of womankind was as +honestly single and respectful as that of Björnson, +had set a notable precedent in representing Mary +Stuart as a martyr of a lost cause. The psychological +antitheses of her character, her softness +and loving surrender, and her treachery and cruelty—he +left out of account.</p> + +<p>Without troubling himself greatly about her +guilt, which, though with many palliating circumstances, +he admitted, he undertook to exemplify in +her the beauty and exaltation of noble suffering. +His Mary (which has always been a favorite with +tragic actresses) is in my opinion as devoid of that +insinuating, sense-compelling charm which alone +can account for this extraordinary woman's career +as is the heroine of Björnson's play. In fact +Björnson's Mary lies half-way between the amorous +young tigress of Swinburne and the statuesque +martyr of Schiller. She is less intricately feminine +than the former, and more so than the latter. +But she is yet a long way removed from her historical +original, who must have been a strong and +full-blooded character, with just that touch of mystery +which nature always wears to whomsoever +gazes deeply upon her. That subtile intercoiling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +of antagonistic traits, which in a man could never +coexist, is to be found in many historic women of +the Renaissance—exquisite, dangerous creatures, +half-doves, half-serpents, half-Clytemnestra, half-Venus, +whose full-throbbing passion now made +them soft and tender, over-brimming with loveliness, +now fierce and imperious, their outraged +pride revelling in vengeance and blood. If Björnson +could have fathomed the depth and complexity +of the historical Mary Stuart to the extent that +Swinburne has done, he would, no doubt, also +have devised a more effective conclusion to his +play. There is no dramatic climax, far less a +tragic one, in the dethronement of Mary, and the +proclamation by John Knox, which is chiefly an +assertion of popular sovereignty, and the triumph +of the Presbyterian Church. The declaration of +the final chorus, that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Evil shall be routed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And weakness must follow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The might of truth shall pierce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the last retreat of gloom,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>seems to me rather to muddle than to clarify the +situation. There is a wavering and uncertain sound +in it which seems inappropriate to a triumphant +strain, when the organist naturally turns on the +full force of his organ. If (as is obvious) the +Queen represents the evil, or at least the weakness, +which has been routed, it would appear that she +ought to have been painted in quite different colors.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>Björnson's next dramatic venture, which rejoices +to this day in an unabated popularity, was +the two-act comedy, "The Newly Married" (<i>De +Nygifte</i>). Goethe once made the remark that he +was not a good dramatist, because his nature was +too conciliatory. Without intending disparagement, +I am inclined to apply the same judgment +to Björnson. His sunny optimism shrinks from +irreconcilable conflicts and insoluble problems; +and in his desire to reconcile and solve, he occasionally +is in danger of wrenching his characters +out of drawing and muddling their motives. Half +a dozen critics have already called attention to the +ambiguity of Mathilde's position and intentions in +"The Newly Married." That she loves Axel, the +husband, is clear; and the probability is that she +meant to avenge herself upon him for having before +his marriage used her as a decoy, when the +real object of his attention was her friend Laura. +But if such was her object, she lacked the strength +of mind and hardness of heart to carry it out, and +in the end she becomes a benevolent providence, +who labors for the reconciliation of the estranged +couple. She proves too noble for the ignoble <i>rôle</i> +she had undertaken. Instead of wrecking the +marriage, she sacrifices herself upon the altar of +friendship. To that there can, of course, be no +objection; but in that case the process of her +mental change ought to have been clearly shown. +In Ibsen's "Rosmersholm," Rebecca West, occupying +a somewhat similar position, is subject to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +the same ennobling of motive; but the whole +drama hinges upon her moral evolution, and nothing +is left to inference.</p> + +<p>The situation in "The Newly Married" is an +extremely delicate one, and required delicate handling. +Axel, a young and gifted lawyer, has married +Laura, the daughter of a high and wealthy +official, who prides himself on his family dignity +and connections. Laura, being an only child, has +been petted and spoiled since her birth, and is but +a grown-up little girl, with no conception of her +matrimonial obligations. She subordinates her +relation to her husband to that to her parents, +and exasperates the former by her bland and obstinate +immaturity. At last, being able to bear it +no longer, he compels her to leave the home of her +parents, where they have hitherto been living, and +establishes himself in a distant town. Mathilde, +Laura's friend, accompanies them, though it is +difficult to conjecture in what capacity; and publishes +an anonymous novel, in which she enlightens +the young wife regarding the probable results of +her conduct. She thrusts a lamp into the dusk of +her soul and frightens her by the things she shows +her. She also, by arousing her jealousy, leads her +out of childhood, with its veiled vision and happy +ignorance, into womanhood, with its unflinching +recognition of the realities that were hidden from +the child. And thus she paves the way for the +reconciliation which takes place in the presence of +the old people, who pay their daughter a visit <i>en route</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +for Italy. Mathilde, having accomplished +her mission, acknowledges the authorship of the +anonymous novel, and is now content to leave +husband and wife in the confidence that they will +work out their own salvation.</p> + +<p>A mere skeleton of this simple plot (which +barely hints at the real problem) can, of course, +give no conception of the charm, the color, and +the wonderful poetic afflatus of this exquisite little +play. It may be well enough to say that such a +situation is far-fetched and not very typical—that +outside of "The Heavenly Twins," <i>et id omne +genus</i>, wives who insist upon remaining maidens +are not very frequent; but, in spite of this drawback, +the vividness and emotional force of the dialogue +and the beautiful characterization (particularly +of the old governor and his wife) set certain +sweet chords in vibration, and carry the play to +a triumphant issue.</p> + +<p>As a school-boy I witnessed the first performance +of "The Newly Married," at the Christiania +Theatre (1865), (as, indeed, of all the Björnsonian +dramas up to 1869); and I yet remember my surprise +when, instead of mail-clad Norse warriors, +carousing in a sooty, log-built hall, the curtain +rose upon a modern interior, in which a fashionably +attired young lady kissed a frock-coated old +gentleman. It was a dire disappointment to me +and my comrade, who had come thirsting for gore. +But how completely the poet conquered us! Each +phrase seemed to woo our reluctant ears, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +pulse of life that beat in the characters and carried +along the action awakened in us a delighted recognition. +Truth to tell, we had but the very vaguest +idea of what was the <i>prima causa malorum</i>; but +for all that, with the rest of the audience, we were +immensely gratified that the upshot of it all was so +satisfactory.</p> + +<p>During the years 1865-67 Björnson occupied the +position of artistic director of the Christiania Theatre, +and edited the illustrated weekly paper, <i>Norsk +Folkeblad</i> ("The Norwegian People's Journal"). +As the champion of Norwegian nationality in literature, +and on the stage, he unfolded an amazing +activity. In 1870 he published "Arnljot Gelline," +a lyrical epic, relating, in a series of poems of irregular +metres, the story of the pagan marauder of that +name, and his conversion to Christianity by King +Olaf the Saint. Never has he found a more daring +and tremendous expression for the spirit of old +Norse paganism than in this powerful but somewhat +chaotic poem. Never has anyone gazed more +deeply into the ferocious heart of the primitive, +predatory man, whose free, wild soul had not yet +been tamed by social obligations and the scourge +of the law. In the same year (1870) was published +the now classical collection of "Poems and Songs" +(<i>Digte og Sange</i>), which, it is no exaggeration to +say, marks a new era in the Norwegian lyric. +Among Björnson's predecessors there are but two +lyrists of the first order, viz., Wergeland and Welhaven. +The former was magnificently profuse and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, +but withal high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his +worst, bombastic. There is a reminiscence in him +of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain +dithyrambic ecstasy—a strained, high-keyed aria-style +which sometimes breaks into falsetto. His +great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer, more +gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered +strains, along the middle octaves, never ranging +high into the treble or deep into the base. There +is a certain Tennysonian sweetness, artistic self-restraint, +and plastic simplicity in his lyrics; just +as there is in Wergeland's reformatory ardor, his +noble rage, and his piling up of worlds, æons, and +eternities a striking kinship to Shelley. But both +these poets, though their patriotism was strong, +were intellectually Europeans, rather than Norwegians. +The roots of their culture were in the general +soil of the century, whose ideas they had absorbed. +Their personalities were not sufficiently +tinged with the color of nationality to give a distinctly +Norse cadence to their voices. Wergeland +seems to me like a man who was desperately anxious +to acquire a national accent; but somehow +never could catch the trick of it. As regards +Welhaven, he was less aware of his deficiency (if +deficiency it was); but was content to sing of +Norse themes in a key of grave, universal beauty. +Of the new note that came into the Norwegian lyric +with Björnson, I can discover no hint in his predecessors. +Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +with its inimitably droll refrain—how utterly inconceivable +it would be in the mouth of Wergeland +or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as unexplainable +as the poem itself is untranslatable. It +has that inexpressible cadence and inflection of +the Norse dialect which you feel (if you have +the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word +a Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful +twang of the Hardanger fiddle, and the +color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the +legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian +homestead during the long winter nights. +With Björnson it was in the blood. It was his +soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence +of his emotion. And so, also, is the touching +minor undertone in the poem, the tragic strain in +the half burlesque, which is again so deeply Norwegian. +Who that has ever been present at a +Norse peasant wedding has failed to be struck with +the strangely melancholy strain in the merriest +dances? And in Landstad's collection of "Norwegian +Ballads" there is the same blending of humor +and pathos in such genuine folk-songs as +<i>Truls med bogin, Mindre Alf</i>, and scores of others. +To this day I cannot read "Nils Finn," humorous +though it is, without an almost painful emotion. +All Norway, with a host of precious memories, rises +out of the mist of the past at the very first verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Og vetli Nils Finn skuldi ut at gå,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Han fek inki ski 'i tel at hanga på<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—'Dat var ilt' sa'd 'uppundir.'"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Neither Wergeland nor Welhaven nor any other +poet has with all his rapturous description of fjord, +valley, and mountain, this power to conjure up the +very soul of the Norseland. The purely juvenile +rhymes of Björnson, such as <i>Killebukken, Lokkeleg</i> +and <i>Haren og Raeven</i> ("The Hare and the +Fox"), are significant because of the masterly security +with which they strike the national key +and keep it. Not a word is there that rings false. +And with what an exquisite tenderness the elegaic +ballad strain is rendered in <i>Venevil</i> and "Hidden +Love" (<i>Dulgt Kaerlighed</i>), and the playful in the +deliciously girlish roguery of <i>Vidste du bare</i> ("If +you only knew"), and the bold dash and young +wantonness of "Marit's Song!"</p> + +<p>It seems to me that every Norseman's life, +whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not, has +been made richer and more beautiful by this precious +volume. It contains a legacy to the Norwegian +people which can never grow old. If Björnson +had written nothing else, he would still be the +first poet of Norway. How brazen, hollow, and +bombastic sound the patriotic lyrics of Bjerregaard +Johan Storm Munch, S. O. Wolff, etc., which are +yet sung at festal gatherings, by the side of Björnson's +"Yes, we Love our Native Country," and +"I will Guard Thee, my Land!" There is the +brassy blare of challenging trumpets in the former; +they defy all creation, and make a vast deal +of impotent and unprofitable noise about "The +roaring northern main," "The ancient Norway's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +rocky fastness," "Liberty's temple in Norroway's +valleys," and "Norway's lion, whose axe doth +threaten him who dares break the Northland's +peace."</p> + +<p>Not a suggestion of this juvenile braggadocio is +there to be found in Björnson. Calm, strong, and +nobly aglow with love of country, he has no need +of going into paroxysms in order to prove his sincerity. +To those who regard the declamatory note +as indispensable to a national hymn (as we have it, +for instance, in "Hail, Columbia," and "The Star-spangled +Banner") the low key in which Björnson's +songs are pitched will no doubt appear as a +blemish. But it is their very homeliness in connection +with the deep, full-throbbing emotion +which beats in each forceful phrase—it is this, I +fancy, which has made them the common property +of the whole people, and thus in the truest sense +national. I could never tell why my heart gives a +leap at the sound of the simple verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Yes, we love this land of ours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rising from the foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rugged, furrowed, weather-beaten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its thousand homes."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Kjerulf's glorious music is, no doubt, in a measure +accountable for it; but even apart from that, +there is a strangely moving power in the words. +The poem, as such, is by no means faultless. It +is easy to pick flaws in it. The transition from +the fifth and sixth lines of the first verse: "Love +it, love it, and think of our father and mother," to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +the seventh and eighth, "And the saga night which +makes dreams to descend upon our earth," is unwarrantably +forced and abrupt. And yet who +would wish it changed? It may be admitted that +there is no very subtle art in the rude rhyme:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"I will guard thee, my land,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I will build thee, my land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will cherish my land in my prayer, in my child!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I will foster its weal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And its wants I will heal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the boundary out to the ocean wild;"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but, for all that, it touches a chord in every Norseman's +breast, which never fails to vibrate responsively.</p> + +<p>As regards Björnson's prosody, I am aware that +it is sometimes defective. Measured by the Tennysonian +standard it is often needlessly rugged +and eccentric. But a poet whose bark carries so +heavy a cargo of thought may be forgiven if occasionally +it scrapes the bottom. Moreover, the +Norwegian tongue has never, as a medium of poetry, +been polished and refined to any such elaborate +perfection as the English language exhibits in +the hands of Swinburne and Tennyson.</p> + +<p>The saga-drama, "Sigurd the Crusader," which +was also published in 1870, is a work of minor consequence. +Its purpose may be stated in the author's +own words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'Sigurd the Crusader' is meant to be what is called a +'folk-play.' It is my intention to make several dramatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +experiments with grand scenes from the sagas, lifting them +into a strong but not too heavy frame. By a 'folk-play' I +mean a play which should appeal to every eye and every +stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the performance +of which all, for the time being, would experience the +joy of fellow-feeling. The common history of a people is +best available for this purpose—nay, it ought dramatically +never to be treated otherwise. The treatment must necessarily +be simple and the emotions predominant; it should be +accompanied with music, and the development should progress +in clear groups....</p> + +<p>"The old as well as the new historic folk literature will, +with its corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great +gain to the stage, and will preserve its connection with the +people where this has not already been lost—so that it be no +longer a mere institution for amusement, and that only to a +single class. Unless we take this view of our stage, it will +lose its right to be regarded as a national affair, and the best +part of its purpose, to unite while it lifts and makes us free, +will be gradually assumed by some other agency. Nor shall +we ever get actors fit for anything but trifles, unless we abandon +our foreign French tendency as a <i>leading</i> one and substitute +the national needs of our own people in its place."</p></div> + +<p>It would be interesting to note how the poet has +attempted to solve a problem so important and so +difficult as this. In the first place, we find in +"Sigurd the Crusader" not a trace of a didactic +purpose beyond that of familiarizing the people +with its own history, and this, as he himself admits +in the preface just quoted, is merely a secondary +consideration. He wishes to make all, irrespective +of age, culture, and social station, feel +strongly the bond of their common nationality; +and, with this in view, he proceeds to unroll to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +them a panorama of simple but striking situations, +knit together by a plot or story which, without the +faintest tinge of sensationalism, appeals to those +broadly human and national sympathies which +form the common mental basis of Norse ignorance +and Norse culture. He seizes the point in the +saga where the long-smouldering hostility between +the royal brothers, Sigurd the Crusader and Eystein, +has broken into full blaze, and traces, in a +series of vigorously sketched scenes, the intrigue +and counter-intrigue which hurry the action +onward toward its logically prepared climax—a +mutual reconciliation. The dialogue is pithy, +simple, and sententious. Nevertheless the play, as +a whole, makes the impression of incompleteness. +It is a dramatic sketch rather than a drama. It +marks no advance on Björnson's previous work in +the same line; but perhaps rather a retrogression.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>A period is apt to come in the life of every man +who is spiritually alive, when his scholastic culture +begins to appear insufficient and the traditional +premises of existence seem in need of readjustment +and revision. This period, with the spiritual +crisis which it involves, is likely to occur +between the thirtieth and the fortieth meridian. +Ibsen was thirty-four years old (1862) when in +"The Comedy of Love" he broke with the romanticism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +of his youth, and began to wrestle with the +problems of contemporary life. Goethe was thirty-seven +when, in 1786, he turned his back upon the +Storm and Stress, and in Italy sought and gained +a new and saner vision of the world. This renewal +of the sources which water the roots of his +spiritual being becomes an imperative necessity to +a man when he has exhausted the sources which +tradition supplies. It is terrible to wake up one +morning and see one's past life in a new and +strange illumination, and the dust of ages lying +inch-thick upon one's thoughts. It is distressing +to have to pretend that you do not hear the doubt +which whispers early and late in your ear, <i>Vanitas, +vanitas, vanitas vanitatum</i>. Few are those +of us who have the courage to face it, to rise up +and fight with it, and rout it or be routed by it.</p> + +<p>Björnson had up to this time (1870) built solely +upon tradition. He had been orthodox, and had +exalted childlike peace and faith above doubt and +struggle. Phrases indicative of a certain spiritual +immaturity are scattered through his early poems. +In "The Child in our Soul," he says, for instance: +"The greatest man on earth must cherish the child +in his soul and listen, amid the thunder, to what +it whispers low;" and again: "Everything great +that thought has invented sprouted forth in childlike +joy; and everything strong, sprung from what +is good, obeyed the child's voice." Though in a +certain sense that may be true enough, it belongs +to the kind of half-truths which by constant repetition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +grow pernicious and false. The man who at +forty assumes the child's attitude of mere wondering +acceptance toward the world and its problems, +may, indeed, be a very estimable character; but +he will never amount to much. It is the honest +doubters, the importunate questioners, the indefatigable +fighters who have broken humanity's +shackles, and made the world a more comfortable +abiding-place to the present generation than it was +to the past. There is unquestionably a strain of +Danish romanticism in Björnson's persistent harping +upon childlike faith and simplicity and a +childlike vision of the world. Grundtvig, with +whom this note is pervasive, had in his early youth +a great influence over him. The glorification of +primitive feeling was part of the romantic revolt +against the dry rationalism of the so-called period +of enlightenment.</p> + +<p>To account for the fact that so mighty a spirit +as Björnson could have reached his thirty-eighth +year before emerging from this state of idyllic +<i>naïveté</i>, I am inclined to quote the following passage +from Brandes, descriptive of the condition of +the Scandinavian countries during the decade preceding +1870:</p> + +<p>"While the intellectual life languished, as a +plant droops in a close, confined place, the people +were self-satisfied—though not with a joyous or +noisy self-satisfaction; for there was much sadness +in their minds after the great disasters [the Sleswick-Holstein +War].... They rested on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +their laurels and fell into a doze. And while they +dozed they had dreams. The cultivated, and especially +the half-cultivated, public in Denmark +and Norway dreamed that they were the salt of +Europe. They dreamed that by their idealism—the +ideals of Grundtvig and Kierkegaard—and +their strong vigilance, they regenerated the foreign +nations. They dreamed that they were the power +which could rule the world, but which, for mysterious +and incomprehensible reasons, had for a +long series of years preferred to eat crumbs from +the foreigners' table. They dreamed that they +were the free, mighty North, which led the cause +of the peoples to victory—and they woke up unfree, +impotent, ignorant."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Brandes: Det Moderne Gjennembrud's Maend, pp. 44, 45.</p></div> + +<p>Though there is a good deal of malice, there is +no exaggeration in this unflattering statement. +Scandinavia had by its own choice cut itself off +from the cosmopolitan world life; and the great +ideas which agitated Europe found scarcely an +echo in the three kingdoms. In my own boyhood, +which coincides with Björnson's early manhood, I +heard on all hands expressions of self-congratulation +because the doubt and fermenting restlessness +which were undermining the great societies abroad +had never ruffled the placid surface of our good, +old-fashioned, Scandinavian orthodoxy. How +heartily we laughed at the absurdities of Darwin, +who, as we had read in the newspapers, believed +that he was descended from an ape! How deeply,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +densely, and solidly ignorant we were; and yet +how superior we felt in the midst of our ignorance!</p> + +<p>All this must be taken into account, if we are to +measure the significance, as well as the courage, of +Björnson's apostasy. For five years (1870-74) +he published nothing of an æsthetical character. +But he plunged with hot zeal into political life, +not only because he needed an outlet for his pent-up +energy; but because the question at issue engaged +him, heart and soul. The equal and co-ordinate +position of Norway and Sweden under the +union had been guaranteed by the Constitution of +1814; but, as a matter of fact, the former kingdom +is by all the world looked upon as a dependency, +if not a province, of the latter. The Bernadottes, +lacking comprehension of the Norwegian +character, had shown themselves purblind as bats +in their dealings with Norway. They had mistaken +a perfectly legitimate desire for self-government +for a demonstration of hostility to Sweden +and the royal house; and instead of identifying +themselves with the national movement (which +they might well have done), they fought it, first +by cautious measures of repression, and later by +vetoes and open defiance. Charles XV., and, +later, Oscar II., kept the minority ministries, +Stang and Selmer, in power, with a bland disregard +of popular condemnation, and snapped their +fingers at the parliamentary majorities which, for +well-nigh a quarter of a century, fought persistently,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +bravely, and not altogether vainly, for their +country's rights.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that Norway is the most democratic +country in Europe, if not in the world. +There is a far sturdier sense of personal worth, a +far more fearless assertion of equality, and a far +more democratic feeling permeating society than, +for instance, in the United States. Sweden, on the +other hand, is essentially an aristocratic country, +with a landed nobility and many other remnants +of feudalism in her political and social institutions. +Two countries so different in character can never +be good yoke-fellows. They can never develop at +an even pace, and the fact of kinship scarcely +helps matters where the temperaments and the +conditions are so widely dissimilar. Brothers who +fall out are apt to fight each other the more fiercely +on account of the relationship. Björnson certainly +does not cherish any hatred of Sweden, nor do I +believe that there is any general animosity to the +Swedish people to be found anywhere in Norway. +It is most unfortunate that the mistaken policy of +the Bernadottes has placed the two nations in an +attitude of apparent hostility. In spite of the +loud denunciation of Norway by the so-called +Grand Swedish party, and the equally vociferous +response of the Norwegian journals (of the Left) +there is a strong sympathy between the democracy +of Norway and that of Sweden, and a mutual respect +which no misrepresentation can destroy.</p> + +<p>It was Björnson who, in 1873, began the agitation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +for the actual and not merely nominal, equality of +the two kingdoms;<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> he appealed to the national +sense of honor, and by his kindling eloquence +aroused the tremendous popular indignation that +swept the old ministry of Stang from power, and +caused the impeachment and condemnation of the +Selmer ministry. It would seem when the king, +in 1882, charged the liberal leader, Mr. Johan +Sverdrup, to form a ministry, that parliamentarism +had actually triumphed. But unhappily a new +Stang ministry (the chief of which is the son of +the old premier) has, recently (1893) re-established +the odious minority rule, which sits like a nightmare +upon the nation's breast, checking its respiration, +and hindering its natural development.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> I had the pleasure of accompanying Björnson on his first political +tour in the summer of 1873, and I shall never forget the tremendous +impression of the man and his mighty eloquence at the +great folk-meeting at Böe in Guldbrandsdalen.</p></div> + +<p>During this period of national self-assertion +Björnson has unfolded a colossal activity. Though +holding no office, and steadily refusing an election +to the Storthing, he has been the life and soul of +the liberal party. The task which he had undertaken +grew upon his hands, and assumed wider and +wider dimensions. As his predecessor Wergeland +had done, and in a far deeper sense, he consecrated +his life to the spiritual and intellectual liberation +of his people. It is told of the former that he was +in the habit of walking about the country with his +pockets full of seeds of grass and trees, of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +he scattered a handful here and a handful there; +for, he said, you can never tell what will grow up +after it. There is to me something quite touching +in the patriotism which prompted this act. Björnson, +too, is in the same sense "a sower who went +forth for to sow." And the golden grain of his +thought falls, as in the parable, in all sorts of +places; but, unlike some of the seed in the parable, +it all leaves some trace behind. It stimulates reflection, +it awakens life, it arouses the torpid soul, it +shakes the drowsy soul, it shocks the pious soul, it +frightens the timid soul, but it lifts them all, as it +were, by main force, out of themselves, and makes +healthful breezes blow, and refreshing showers fall +upon what was formerly a barren waste. This is +Björnson's mission; this is, during the second period +of his career, his greatness and his highest significance.</p> + +<p>Of course there are many opinions as to the value +of the work he has accomplished in this capacity +of political and religious liberator. The Conservative +party of Norway, which runs the errands of +the king and truckles to Sweden, hates him with a +bitter and furious hatred; the clergy denounce him, +and the official bureaucracy can scarcely mention +his name without an anathema. But the common +people, though he has frightened many of them +away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is especially +his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes +not to believe in) which has been a sore trial +to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing peasantry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +Does not the Bible say that the devil goes about +like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? +Nevertheless Björnson has the hardihood to assert +that there is no such person. And yet Björnson +is a man who can talk most beautifully, and who +knows as much as any parson. It is extremely +puzzling.</p> + +<p>The fact was, Björnson's abolition of the devil, +and his declaration of a war against the orthodox +miracle faith, were, as far as the Norwegian people +were concerned, somewhat premature. The +peasant needs the old scriptural devil, and is not +yet ready to dispense with him. The devil is a +popular character in the folk-stories and legends, +and I have known some excellent people who declare +that they have seen him. Creeds are like +certain ancient tumuli, which now are but graves, +but were once the habitations of living men. +The dust, ashes, and bones of defunct life which +they often contain, nourish in the dark the green +grass, the fair flowers, the blooming trees, that +shoot up into the light. You cannot dig it all +up and throw it out without tearing asunder the +net-work of roots which organically connects the +living with the dead.</p> + +<p>Björnson, though he is an evolutionist, is far +removed from the philosophic temper in his dealings +with the obsolete or obsolescent remnants in +political and religious creeds. He has the healthful +intolerance of strong conviction. He is too +good a partisan to admit that there may be another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +side to the question which might be worth considering. +With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges +ahead, and with a truly old Norse pugnacity he +stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing in battle. +Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls +all his splendid faculties into play.</p> + +<p>Even apart from his political propaganda the +years 1870-74 were a period of labor and ferment +to Björnson. The mightier the man, the mightier +the powers enlisted in his conversion, and the +mightier the struggle. A tremendous wrench was +required to change his point of view from that of +a childlike, wondering believer to that of a critical +sceptic and thinker. In a certain sense Björnson +never took this step; for when the struggle was +over, and he had readjusted his vision of life to the +theory of evolution, he became as ardent an adherent +of it as he had ever been of the <i>naïve</i> Grundtvigian +miracle-faith. And with the deep need of +his nature to pour itself forth—to share its treasures +with all the world—he started out to proclaim +his discoveries. Besides Darwin and Spencer, he +had made a study of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense +of fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with +hot zeal into the writings of Steinthal and Max Müller, +whose studies in comparative religion changed +to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's +historical criticism, with its disrespectful derivation +of the hero from food, climate, and race, lured him +still farther away from his old Norse and romantic +landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +his ever returning to them. But when from this +promontory of advanced thought he looked back +upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and +lasses, and his taciturn saga heroes, with their +predatory self-assertion, he saw that he had done +with them forever; that they could never more +enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the +problems of modern contemporary life, of which +he had now gained quite a new comprehension, +tempted him. The romantic productions of his +youth appeared as a more or less arbitrary play +of fancy emancipated from the stern logic of +reality. It was his purpose henceforth to consecrate +his powers to the study of the deeper soul-life +of his own age and the exposition of the forces +which in their interdependence and interaction +make modern society.</p> + +<p>This is the significance of the four-act drama +"Bankruptcy," with which, in 1874, he astounded +and disappointed the Scandinavian public. I have +called it a drama, in accordance with the author's +designation on the title-page; but it is, in the best +sense, a comedy of manners, of the kind that Augier +produced in France; and in everything except +the mechanics of construction superior to the +plays of Sardou and Dumas. The dialogue has the +most admirable accent of truth. It is not unnaturally +witty or brilliant; but exhibits exactly the +traits which Norwegians of the higher commercial +plutocracy are likely to exhibit. All the poetic +touches which charmed us in Björnson's saga<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +dramas were conspicuous by their absence. Scarcely +a trace was there left of that peculiar and delightful +language of his early novels, which can +only be described by the term "Björnsonian."</p> + +<p>"Dry, prosaic, trivial," said the reviewers; +"Björnson has evidently worked out his vein. +He has ceased to be a poet. He has lost with his +childhood's faith his ideal view of life, and become +a mere prosy chronicler of uninteresting everyday +events."</p> + +<p>This was, indeed, the general verdict of the public +twenty years ago. Scarcely anyone had a good +word to say for the abused play that marked the +poet's fall from the idealism of his early song. But, +for all that, "Bankruptcy" made a strong impression +upon the boards. It not only conquered a +permanent place in the <i>répertoires</i> of the theatres +of the Scandinavian capitals, but it spread through +Austria, Germany, and Holland, and has finally +scored a success at the <i>Théâtre Libre</i> in Paris. +There is scarcely a theatre of any consequence in +Germany which has not made "Bankruptcy" part +of its <i>répertoire</i>. At the Royal Theatre in Munich +it was accorded a most triumphant reception, and +something over sixty representations has not yet +exhausted its popularity.</p> + +<p>The effort to come to close quarters with reality +is visible in every phrase. The denial of the value +of all the old romantic stage machinery, with its +artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible +in the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +unsensational exposition of the dramatic action. +There is one scene (and by no means an +unnatural one) in which there is a touch of violence, +viz., where Tjaelde, while he hopes to avert +his bankruptcy, threatens to shoot Lawyer Berent +and himself; but there is a very human quiver in +the threat and in the passionate outbreak which +precedes it. Nowhere is there a breath of that +superheated hot-house atmosphere which usually +pervades the modern drama.</p> + +<p>"Bankruptcy" deals, as the title indicates, with +the question of financial honesty. Zola has in <i>Le +Roman Sentimental</i> made the observation that +"absolute honesty no more exists than perfect +healthfulness. There is a tinge of the human +beast in us all, as there is a tinge of illness." +Tjaelde, the great merchant, exemplifies this proposition. +He is a fairly honest man, who by the +modern commercial methods, which, in self-defence, +he has been forced to adopt, gets into the +position of a rogue. The commandment, "Thou +shalt not steal," seems at first glance an extremely +simple injunction; but in the light of Björnson's +searching analysis it becomes a complex and intricate +tangle, capable of interesting shades and <i>nuances</i> +of meaning. Tjaelde, in the author's opinion, +certainly does steal, when, in order to save himself +(and thereby the thousands who are involved +in his affairs), he speculates with other people's +money and presents a rose-colored account of his +business, when he knows that he is on the verge of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +bankruptcy. But, on the other hand, it is extremely +difficult to determine the point where legitimate +speculation ceases and the illegitimate begins. +And if Tjaelde neglected any legitimate means of +saving his estate he would be culpable. A stern +code of morals (which the commercial world of to-day +would scarcely exact), the poet enforces in the +fourth act, where Tjaelde refuses to accept any concession +from his creditors, but insists upon devoting +the remainder of his life to the liquidation of +his debts.</p> + +<p>Admirably strong and vital is the exposition of +the <i>rôle</i> and functions of money in the modern +world, and the nearer and remoter psychological +effects of the tremendous tyranny of money. A +certain external <i>éclat</i> is required to give the great +commercial house the proper splendor in the sight +of the world. Thus Tjaelde speculates in hospitality +as in everything else, and when he virtually +has nothing, makes the grandest splurge in +order to give a spurious impression of prosperity. +Though by nature an affectionate man, he neglects +his family because business demands all his time. +He defrauds himself of the happiness which +knocks at his door, because business fills his head +by night and by day, and absorbs all his energy. +A number of parasites (such as the fortune-hunting +lieutenant) attach themselves to him, as long +as he is reputed to be rich, and make haste to vanish +when his riches take wings. On the other +hand, the true friends whom in his prosperity he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +hectored and contemned are revealed by adversity. +There would be nothing remarkable in so common +an experience, if the friends themselves, as well as +the parasites, were not so delightfully delineated. +The lieutenant, with his almost farcical interest in +the bay trotter, is amusingly but lightly drawn; +but the awkward young clerk, Sannaes, who refuses +to abandon his master in the hour of trial, is a +deeply typical Norwegian figure. All the little +coast towns have specimens to show of these aspiring, +faithful, sensitively organized souls, who, having +had no social advantages are painfully conscious +of their deficiencies, but whose patient +industry and sterling worth in the end will triumph. +No less keenly observed and effectively +sketched is the whole gallery of dastardly little +village figures—Holm, Falbe, Knutson with an s, +Knutzon, with a z, etc. Signe and Valborg, the +two daughters of Tjaelde, have, in spite of their +diversity, a common tinge of Norwegian nationality +which gives a gentle distinctness and relief to +the world-old types.</p> + +<p>Björnson's next play,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> "The Editor," grapples +with an equally modern and timely subject, viz., +the license of the press. With terrible vividness he +shows the misery, ruin, and degradation which result +from the present journalistic practice of misrepresentation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +sophistry, and defamation. It is a +very dark picture he draws, with scarcely a gleam +of light. The satire is savage; and the quiver of +wrath is perceptible in many a sledge-hammer +phrase. You feel that Björnson himself has suffered +from the terrorism which he here describes, and you +would surmise too, even if you did not know it, +that the editor whom he has here pilloried is no +mere general editorial type, but a well-known person +who, until recently, conducted one of the most +influential journals in Norway. The play is an +act of retribution, and a deserved one. But its +weaknesses, which it is vain to disguise, are also explained +by the author's personal bias—the desire +to wreak vengeance upon an enemy.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> All the literary histories and other authorities which I have +consulted put the publication of "Bankruptcy," as well as that of +"The Editor," in 1875. But my own copy of the latter play bears +on its title-page the year 1874.</p></div> + +<p>The situation is as follows: Mr. Evje, a rich +and generally respected distiller, has a daughter, +Gertrude, who is engaged to Harold Rein, a political +leader of peasant origin. Mr. Rein's brother, +Halfdan, from whom he has, in a measure, inherited +the leadership, is dying from the persecution +to which he has been exposed by the Conservative +press and public. In his zeal for the +Radical cause it is his consolation that he leaves +it in such strong hands as those of his brother. +The election is impending and a meeting of the +electors has been called for the following day. +Harold is the candidate of the Left. It now becomes +a question with the party of the Right so +to ridicule and defame him as to ruin his chances. +His position as prospective son-in-law of the rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +Mr. Evje lends an air of importance and respectability +to his candidacy. Mr. Evje must therefore +be induced, or, if necessary, compelled, to throw +him overboard. With this end in view the editor +of the Conservative journal goes to Evje (whose +schoolmate and friend he has been) and tries to +persuade him to break the alliance with Rein. +Evje, who prides himself on his "moderation" +and tolerance, and his purpose to keep aloof from +partisanship, refuses to be bullied; whereupon +the editor threatens him with social ostracism and +commercial ruin. The distiller, who is at heart +a coward, is completely unnerved by this threat. +Well knowing how a paper can undermine a man's +reputation without making itself liable for libel, +he sends his friend the doctor to the editor, suing +for peace. Late in the evening he meets his foe +outside of his house, and after much shuffling and +parleying agrees to do his will. He surprises his +daughter and Harold Rein in a loving <i>tête-à-tête</i>, +and lacks the courage to carry out his bargain. +He vainly endeavors to persuade them to break the +engagement and separate until after the election.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, John, a discharged servant +of Evje (of whose drunkenness and political radicalism +we have previously been informed), has overheard +the parley with the editor, and in order to +get even with his master countermands in the editor's +name his order to the foreman of the printing-office; +and the obnoxious article which was intended +to be omitted appears in the paper. John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +also takes care to procure Evje an early copy, +which, first utterly crushes him, then arouses his +wrath, convinces him that "holding aloof" is +mere cowardice, and makes him resolve to bear his +share in the great political battle. The meanness, +the malice of each ingenious thrust, while it stings +and burns also awakens a righteous indignation. +He goes straight to the lodgings of Harold Rein +and determines to attend the Radical meeting. Not +finding him at home he goes to the house of his +brother Halfdan, where he leaves the copy of the +paper. The sick man picks it up, reads an onslaught +on himself which in baseness surpasses the +attack on Evje, starts up in uncontrollable excitement, +and dies of a hemorrhage. The maid, who +sees him lying on the floor, cries out into the street +for help, and the editor, who chances to pass by, +enters. He finds the Radical leader dead, with the +paper clutched in his hand.</p> + +<p>The fourth act opens with a festal arrangement +at Evje's in honor of the great success of Rein's +electoral meeting. There is no more "holding +aloof." Everybody has convictions and is ready to +avow the party that upholds them. All are ignorant +of Halfdan Rein's death, until the editor arrives, +utterly broken in spirit and asks Evje's +pardon. He wishes to explain, but no one wishes +to listen. When Evje wavers and is on the point +of accepting his proffered hand, his wife and +daughter loudly protest.</p> + +<p>The editor declares his purpose to renounce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +journalism. The festivities are abandoned, and +all betake themselves to the house of the dead +leader. Thus the play ends; there is no tableau, +no climax, no dramatic catastrophe. It is Zola's +theory<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and Maeterlink's practice anticipated.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> "Naturalism on the Stage."</p></div> + +<p>The journalistic conditions here described are, +of course, those of the Norwegian capital nearly a +quarter of a century ago. Few editors, I fancy, outside +of country towns, now go about personally +spreading rumors, with malice aforethought, and +collecting gossip. But the power of the press for +good and for ill, and the terrorism which, in evil +hands, it exercises, are surely not exaggerated. +But its most striking application has the drama in +its exposure of the desperate and ignominious expedients +to which a party will resort in order to +defeat, defame, and utterly destroy a political opponent. +The following passages may be worth +quoting:</p> + +<p>"Most of the successful politicians nowadays +win not by their own greatness but by the paltriness +of the rest."</p> + +<p>"Here is a fine specimen of a fossil. It is a +piece of a palm-leaf, ... which was found in a +stratum of Siberian rock.... Thus one must +become in order to endure the ice-storms. Then +one is not harmed. But your brother! In him +lived yet the whole murmuring, singing palm-forest.... +As regards you, it remains to be +seen whether you can get all humanity in you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +completely killed.... But who would at that +price be a politician?... That one must +be hardened is the watchword of all nowadays. +Not only army officers but physicians, merchants, +officials are to be hardened or dried up; ... +hardened for the battle of life, as they say. But +what does that mean? We are to expel and +evaporate the warmth of the heart, the fancy's +yearning, ... before we are fit for life.... +No, I say, it is those very things we are +to preserve. That's what we have got them for."</p> + +<p>Björnson's increasing Radicalism and his outspoken +Socialistic sympathies had by this time +alienated a large portion of the Scandinavian public. +The cry was heard on all sides that he had +ceased to be a poet, and had become instead a mere +political agitator. I cannot deny myself the pleasure +of quoting Björnson's reply when at his request +a friend repeated to him the opinion which was +entertained of him in certain quarters:</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," he cried, with a wrathful laugh, +"don't I know it? You must be a poet! You +must not mingle in the world's harsh and jarring +tumult. They have a notion that a poet is a longhaired +man who sits on the top of a tower and +plays upon a harp while his hair streams in the +wind. Yes, a fine kind of poet is that! No, my +boy, I am a poet, not primarily because I can write +verse (there are lots of people who can do that) +but by virtue of seeing more clearly, and feeling +more deeply, and speaking more truly than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +majority of men. All that concerns humanity +concerns me. If by my song or my speech I can +contribute ever so little toward the amelioration of +the lot of the millions of my poorer fellow-creatures, +I shall be prouder of that than of the combined +laurels of Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe."</p> + +<p>This is the conception of a poet which was prevalent +in Norway in the olden time. The scalds of +the sagas were warriors as well as singers. They +fought with sword and battle-axe, and their song +rang the more boldly because they knew how to +strike up another tune—the fierce song of the +sword. In modern times Wergeland and Welhaven +have demonstrated not only the pugnacity, but also +the noble courage of their ancestry by espousing +the cause of opposing parties during the struggle +for national independence.</p> + +<p>Those who demand that literature shall be untinged +by any tendency or strong conviction will +do well to eschew all the subsequent works of +Björnson. They might perhaps put up with the +brief novel "Magnhild," which is tolerably neutral +in tone, though it is the least enjoyable of all +Björnson's works. It gives the impression that +the author is half afraid of his subject (which is +an illicit love), and only dares to handle it so gingerly +as to leave half the tale untold. The short, +abrupt sentences which seemed natural enough +when he was dealing with the peasants, with their +laconic speech and blunt manners, have a forced +and unnatural air when applied to people to whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +this style of language is foreign. Moreover, these +condensed sentences are often vague, full of innuendo, +and mysterious as hieroglyphics. It is as if +the author, in the consciousness of the delicacy of +his theme, had lost the bold security of touch +which in his earlier works made his meaning unmistakable.</p> + +<p>The drama "The King" (1877) is an attack +upon the monarchical principle in its political as +well as its personal aspect. It is shown how destructive +the royal prerogative is and must be to +the king as an individual; how the artificial regard +which hedges him in, interposing countless barriers +between the truth and him, makes his relations +to his surroundings false and deprives him of +the opportunity for self-knowledge which normal +relations supply. Royalty is therefore a curse, because +it robs its possessor of the wholesome discipline +of life which is the right of every man that is +born into the world.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, there is an obvious intention to +show that the monarchy, being founded upon a lie, +is incapable of any real adaptation to the age, and +reconciliation with modern progress. The king in +the play is a young, talented, liberal-minded man, +who is fully conscious of the anomaly of his position, +and determined to save his throne by stripping +it of all mediæval and mythological garniture. He +dreams of being a "folk-king," the first citizen of +a free people, a kind of hereditary president, with +no sham divinity to fall back upon, and no "grace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +of God" to shield him from criticism and sanctify +his blunders. He resents the <i>rôle</i> of being the lock +of the merchant's strong-box and the head of that +mutual insurance company which is called the +state. He goes about <i>incognito</i>, first in search of +love adventures, and later in order to acquaint +himself with public opinion; and he proves himself +remarkably unprejudiced and capable of profiting +by experience. He falls in love with Clara Ernst, +the daughter of a Radical professor, who, on account +of a book he has written, has been sentenced for +<i>crimen læsæ majestatis</i>, and in an attempt to escape +from prison has broken both his legs. Clara, +who is supporting her father in his exile by teaching, +repels the king's advances with indignation +and contempt. He perseveres, however, fascinated +by the novelty of such treatment. He manages +to convince her of the purity of his motives; +and finally succeeds in winning her love. It is not +a <i>liaison</i> he contemplates, but a valid and legitimate +marriage for which he means to compel recognition. +The court, which he has no more use for, he desires +to abolish as a costly and degrading luxury; and in +its place to establish a home—a model <i>bourgeois</i> +home—where affection and virtue shall flourish. +Clara, seeing the vast significance of such a step, is +aglow with enthusiasm for its realization. It is +not vanity, but a lofty faith in her mission to regenerate +royalty, by discarding its senseless pomp +and bringing it into accord with, and down to the +level of, common citizenship—it is this, I say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +which upholds her in the midst of opprobrium, insults, +and hostile demonstrations. For the king's +subjects, so far from being charmed by his resolution +to marry a woman out of their midst, are +scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate +base slanders, and threaten to mob the royal +bride on her way to her first public function. She +is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the +curse of her father, who hates the king with the +deep hatred of a fanatical Republican. A royal +princess, who had come to insult her, is conquered +by her candor and truth, and stays to sympathize +with her and lend her the support of her presence. +But just as the king comes to lead her out to face +the populace, the wraith of her father rises upon +the threshold and she falls back dead. It is learned +afterward that Professor Ernst had died in that +very hour.</p> + +<p>The king's bosom friend, the Minister of the Interior, +Gran, who is largely responsible for his +liberalism, and whose whole policy it has been to +rejuvenate and revitalize the monarchy, is challenged +and shot by his old teacher, the Republican +Flink; and the king himself, convinced of the futility +of all his efforts to realize his idea of a democratic +monarchy, commits suicide.</p> + +<p>As a piece of sanguinary satire on royalty as an +institution "The King" is most interesting—that +is, royalty logically and speculatively considered, +without reference to its historical basis and development. +To me the postulate that it had its origin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +in a kind of conspiracy (for mutual benefit) of the +priest and the king seems shallow and unphilosophical. +Björnson's fanatical partisanship has +evidently carried him a little too far. For surely +he would himself admit that every free nation +is governed about as well as it deserves to be—that +its political institutions are a reflection of its +maturity and capacity for self-government. A +certain allowance must, indeed, be made for the +<i>vis inertiæ</i> of whatever exists, which makes it +exert a stubborn and not unwholesome resistance +to the reformer's zeal. This conservatism (which +may, however, have more laudable motives than +mere self-interest) Björnson has happily satirized +in the scene before the Noblemen's Club in the +third act. But, I fancy, it looks to him only as a +sinister power, which for its own base purposes has +smitten humanity with blindness to its own welfare. +Though not intending to enter into a discussion, +I am also tempted to put a respectful little +interrogation mark after the statement that the +republic is so very much cheaper than the monarchy. +If the experience of the two largest republics +in the world counts for anything, I should say +that in point of economy there was not much to +choose.</p> + +<p>Strange as it may seem, Björnson did not intend +"The King" as an argument in favor of the +republic. In his preface to the third edition he +distinctly repudiates the idea. The recent development +of the Norwegian people, has, he says,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +made the republic a remoter possibility than it was +ten years before (1875). But he qualifies this +statement with the significant condition, "If we +are not checked by fraud." And I fancy that he +would have a perfect right to justify his present +position by demonstrating the fraud, trickery, if +not treason, by which Norway has during the last +decade been thwarted in her aspirations and +checked in her development. That preface, by +the way, dated Paris, October, 1885, is one of the +most forceful and luminous of his political pronunciamientos. +It rings from beginning to end with +conviction and a manly indignation. His chief +purpose, he says, in writing this drama was, "to +extend the boundaries of free discussion." His +polemics against the clergy are not attacks upon +Christianity, though he contends that religion is +subject to growth as well as other things. The +ultimate form of government he believes to be the +republic, on the journey toward which all European +states are proceeding fast, or slow, and in +various stages of progress. There is something +abrupt, gnarled, Carlylese, in his urgent admonitions +and appeals for fair-play. The personal note +is so distinct that I cannot read the play without +unconsciously supplying the very cadence of Björnson's +voice.</p> + +<p>A further attempt to extend the boundaries of +free discussion is made in the two dramas, "Leonarda" +(1879) and "A Glove" (1883), which both +deal with interesting phases of the woman question,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +and both wage war against conventional notions of +right and wrong. The former elucidates the attitude +of society toward the woman who has been +compromised (whether justly or not), and the latter +its attitude toward the man. I confess there is +something a trifle hazy in his exposition of the +problem in "Leonarda;" and I am unable to determine +whether Leonarda really has anything to +reproach herself with or not. In her conversation +with the bishop in the second act, she appears to +admit that she has much to regret. She begs him +"help her atone for her past." She practically +throws herself upon his mercy, reminding him that +his Master, Christ, was the friend of sinners. But +in the last act she appears suddenly with the halo +of martyrdom. General Rosen, who has been the +cause of her social ostracism, turns out to be her +husband, whom she has divorced on account of his +dissipated habits, and now keeps, in the hope of +saving him, on a sort of probation. She believes +that without her he would go straight to perdition, +and from a sense of duty she tolerates him, not daring +to shirk her responsibility for the old reprobate's +soul. Truth to tell, she treats him like a +naughty boy, punishing him, when he has been +drunk, with a denial of favors; and when he has +been good, rewarding him with her company. I +suppose there are men who might be saved by such +treatment, but I venture to doubt whether they +are worth saving. As for Leonarda, she has apparently +no cause for encouragement. But she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +perseveres, heedless of obloquy, as long as her own +affections are disengaged. She presently falls in +love, however, with a young man named Hagbart +Tallhaug, who has insulted her and is now engaged +to her niece, Agot. Hagbart is the nephew of the +bishop of the diocese, who, after much persuasion +is induced to receive Agot, on condition that her +aunt will remove from the district and demand no +recognition from the family. Having been informed +of these conditions, Leonarda calls upon +the bishop, uninvited, and vainly remonstrates with +him. The young people are, however, unwilling +to accept happiness on the terms offered by his +reverence. At this point a new complication +arises. Hagbart who had loved in Agot a kind of +reflection of her aunt's character and manner, being +now thrown into the company of the latter, discovers +his mistake and transfers his affection to +Leonarda. Exactly wherein the newness of Leonarda's +type consists we are not fully informed, but +we are led to infer that she represents a purer and +truer humanity than the women bred in the traditions +of feudalism, with their hypocritical arts +and conventions. She is not meant to be seductive, +but radiant, ravishing.</p> + +<p>There is a candor in her speech, and an almost +boyish straightforwardness, for which she is not +indebted to nature but to the stanch idealism of +her creator. She is, however, on that account no +less impressionable, no less ready to respond to the +call of love. She struggles manfully (or ought I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +not, in deference to the author's contention, to say +"womanfully") against her love for Hagbart, and +at last has no choice but to escape from the +cruel dilemma by accepting the bishop's demand. +Though she cannot conquer her affection for the +young man, she believes that he will, in the course +of time, return to Agot, as soon as she is out of his +way. The author evidently believes the same. It +is a hard lot to be a man in these later dramas of +Björnson.</p> + +<p>With a slight violation of the chronological sequence +I shall discuss "A Glove" in this connection, +because of its organic coherence with "Leonarda." +They are the obverse and reverse of the +same subject—the cruelty of society to the woman +of a blemished reputation, and its leniency to the +man.</p> + +<p>To those who worship the conventional ideal of +womanly innocence "A Glove" will seem a very +shocking book, for it fearlessly discusses, and, what +is more, makes a young girl discuss—the standards +of sexual purity as applied to men and women. +The sentiments which she utters are, to be sure, +elevated and of an almost Utopian idealism; and +the author obviously means to raise, not to lower, +her in the eyes of the reader by her passionate +frankness.</p> + +<p>The problem of the drama is briefly this: Society +demands of women an absolute chastity, and +refuses to condone the least lapse, either before or +after marriage. But toward men it is indulgent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +It readily overlooks a plenteous seed of wild oats, +and would regard it as the sheerest Quixotism +to judge the bridegroom by the same standard of +purity as it does the bride. It is easy enough, and +perhaps also legitimate, to exclaim with Björnson +that this is all wrong, and that a man has no +right to ask any more than he gives. As a mere +matter of equity a wife owes her husband no more +fidelity than he owes her, and may exact of him, if +she chooses, the same prematrimonial purity that +he exacts of her. But questions of this kind are +never settled on the basis of equity. The sentiments +by which they are determined have long +and intricate roots in the prehistoric past; and +we are yet very far from the millennial condition of +absolute equality between the sexes. According to +Herbert Spencer there is a hereditary transmission +of qualities which are confined exclusively to the +male, and of others which are confined to the female; +and these are the results of the primitive environments +and conditions which were peculiar to +each sex. Even the best of us have a reminiscent +sense of proprietorship in our wives, dating from +the time when she was obtained by purchase or +capture and could be disposed of like any other +chattel. Wives, whose prehistoric discipline has +disposed them to humility and submission (I am +speaking of the European, not the American species, +of course), have not yet in the same degree acquired +this sense of ownership in their husbands, involving +the same strict accountability for affectional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +aberrations. And for this there is a very good reason, +which is no less valid now than it was in the +hoariest antiquity. A husband's infidelity, though +morally as reprehensible as that of the wife, does +not entail quite such monstrous consequences. For +if she deceives him, he may ignorantly bring up +another man's children, toil for them, bestow his +name and affection upon them, and leave them his +property. One can scarcely conceive of a more +outrageous wrong than this; and it is in order to +guard against such a possibility that society from +remote ages has watched over the chastity of women +far more jealously than over that of men. It +is as a result of this vigilance of centuries that +women have, among civilized nations, a finer sense +of modesty than men, and a higher standard of +personal purity. Men are, as yet, as Mr. Howells +remarks, "imperfectly monogamous;" and Björnson +is, no doubt, in the main right in the tremendous +indictment he frames against them in the +present drama.</p> + +<p>It may be expedient to give a brief outline of +the action. Svava Riis, the daughter of prosperous +and refined parents, becomes engaged to Alf +Christensen, the son of a great commercial magnate.</p> + +<p>Her father and mother are overjoyed at the +happy event; she is herself no less delighted. Her +<i>fiancé</i> has an excellent reputation, shares her interest +in social questions, and supports her in her +efforts to found kindergartens and to ameliorate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +the lot of the poor. Each glories in the exclusive +possession of the other's love, and with the retrospective +jealousy of lovers, fancies that he has had +no predecessors in the affection of the beloved. +Alf can scarcely endure to have any one touch +Svava, and is almost ill when any one dances +with her.</p> + +<p>"When I see you among all the others," he exclaims, +"and catch, for instance, a glimpse of your +arm, then I think: That arm has been wound +about my neck, and about no one else's in the +whole world. She is mine! She belongs to me, +and to no one, no one else!"</p> + +<p>Svava finds this feeling perfectly natural, and +reciprocates it. She ardently believes that he +brings her as fresh a heart as she brings him; that +his past is as free from contaminating experience +as is her own. When, therefore, she obtains proof +to the contrary, in an indignant revulsion of feeling, +she hurls her glove in his face and breaks +the engagement. This act is, I fancy, intended +to be half symbolic. The young girl expresses +not only her personal sense of outrage; but she +flings a challenge in the face of the whole community, +which by its indulgence made his transgression +easy. She discovers that what in her would +have been a crime is in him a lapse, readily forgiven. +Her whole soul revolts against this inequality +of conditions; and in terminating their +relation, which has lost all its beauty, she wishes to +cut off all chance of its future resumption.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>In order to determine whether this sentiment of +passionate virginity (which in effect makes the +marriage vow of fidelity retroactive) is not, in the +present condition of the world, a trifle overstrained, +I have submitted the question to two refined women +for whom I have a high regard. To my surprise +they both declared that Svava, whatever she +may have said to the contrary, did not love her +<i>fiancé</i>; that her sorrow and even her indignation +were just and natural; but that her somewhat +over-conscious purity—her <i>virginité savante</i>, as +Balzac phrases it in "Modeste Mignon," and her +inability to give due weight to ameliorating circumstances +were unwomanly. I confess I am not +without sympathy with this criticism. Svava, +though she is right in her vehement protest +against masculine immorality, is not charming—that +is, according to our present notion of what +constitutes womanly charm. It is not unlikely, +however, that like Leonarda she is meant to anticipate +a new type of womanhood, co-ordinate and coequal +with man, whose charm shall be of a wholly +different order. The coquetry, the sweet hypocrisy, +nay, all the frivolous arts which exercise such a potent +sway over the heart of man have their roots in +the prehistoric capture and thraldom; and from the +point of view of the woman suffragists, are so many +reminiscences of degradation. I fancy that Björnson, +sharing this view, has with full deliberation +made Svava boldly and inexorably truthful, frank +as a boy and as uncompromisingly honest as a man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>She has sufficient use for this masculine equipment +(I am speaking in accordance with the effete +standards) in the battle which is before her. Dr. +Nordan, the family physician, her parents, and +those of her <i>fiancé</i>, take her to task and endeavor to +demonstrate to her the consequences of her unprecedented +demand. She learns in the course of this +prolonged debate that she has been living in a +fool's paradise. She has been purposely (and with +the most benevolent intention) deceived in regard +to this question from the very cradle. Her father, +whom she has believed to be a model husband, +proves to have been unworthy of her trust. The +elder Christensen has also had a compromising intrigue +of the same kind; and it becomes obvious +that each male creature is so indulgent in this +chapter toward every other male creature, because +each knows himself to be equally vulnerable. +There is a sort of tacit freemasonry among them, +which takes its revenge upon him who tells tales +out of school. It is a consciousness of this which +makes Christensen, after having declared war to +the knife against the Riises, withdraw his challenge +and become doubly cordial toward his enemy. +Alf, who in the second act has expressed +the opinion that a man is responsible to his wife for +his future, but not for his past, retracts, and does +penance. Svava, in consideration of his penitence, +gives him a vague hope of future reconciliation.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In the later acting version of the play, which ends with the +throwing of the glove, this hope of reconciliation is definitely cut +off. The author has evidently come to the conclusion that his argument +is weakened by Svava's conciliatory attitude, and he enforces +his moral by making the sin appear unpardonable. The +acting version, which is more dramatically concise, differs in several +other respects from the version here presented; but the other +changes seem to be dictated by a stricter regard for the exigencies +of theatrical representation. The play has been translated into +English under the title, "A Gauntlet," London, 1894.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p></div> + +<p>It will be observed by every reader of "A Glove" +that it is not a drama, according to our American +notion. It has very little dramatic action. It +might be styled a series of brilliant and searching +debates concerning a theme of great moment. The +same definition applies, though in a lesser degree, +to "The New System" (1879), a five-act play of +great power and beauty. By power I do not mean +noise, but convincing impressiveness and concentration +of interest. One could scarcely imagine +anything farther removed from the ha! and ho! +style of melodrama.</p> + +<p>"The New System" is primarily social satire. +It is a psychological analysis of the effect of the +"small state" upon its citizens. It is an expansion +and exemplification of the proposition (Act I., 1) +that "while the great states cannot subsist without +sacrificing their small people by the thousands, +small states cannot subsist without the sacrifice of +many of their great men, nay of the very greatest." +The smooth, crafty man, "who can smile ingratiatingly +like a woman," rises to the higher heights; +while the bold, strong, capable man, who is unversed +in the arts of humility and intrigue, struggles hopelessly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +and perhaps in the end goes to the dogs, because +he is denied the proper field for his energy. +Never has Björnson written anything more convincing, +penetrating, subtly satirical. He cuts deep; +every incision draws blood. A Norwegian who +reads the play cannot well rid himself of a startled +sense of exposure that is at first wounding to his +patriotism. It is mortifying to have to admit that +things are thus in Norway. And the worst of it is +that there appears to be no remedy. The condition +is, according to Björnson, inherent in all small +states which cripple the souls of men, stunt their +growth, and contract their horizon.</p> + +<p>The first act opens with a conversation between +the civil engineers Kampe and Ravn, and the former's +son Hans, who has just returned from a prolonged +sojourn abroad. The keynote is struck in +the sarcastic remark of Ravn, that in a small society +only small truths can be tolerated—of the +kind that takes twenty to the inch; but great truths +are apt to be explosive and should therefore be +avoided, for they might burst the whole society. +This is <i>à propos</i> of a book which Hans Kampe has +written, exposing the wastefulness and antiquated +condition of the so-called "new system" of railway +management introduced, or supposed to have been +introduced, by Kampe's and Ravn's brother-in-law, +the supervisor-general Riis. The way for Hans to +make a career, declares the worldly wise Ravn, is not +to oppose the source of promotion and power, but to +be silent and marry the supervisor-general's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +daughter. Ravn has learned this lesson by bitter experience, +and hopes that his nephew will profit by it. +All talk about duty to the state and society he pretends +to regard as pure moonshine, and he professes +not to see the connection between the elder Kampe's +drunkenness and the artificial bottling up to which +he has been subjected, the curbing and jailing of +Titanic powers which once sought outlet in significant +action. The same mighty force which in its +repression drives the men to the brandy-bottle +makes the women intoxicate themselves with fictitious +narratives of high courage, daring rescues, +and all kinds of melodramatic heroism. Extremely +amusing is the scene in which Karen Riis (who +loves Hans and is beloved by him) goes rowing +with her friends Nora and Lisa, taking with her a +stock of high-strung novels, and when a drowning +man cries to them for help they row away posthaste, +because the man is naked.</p> + +<p>The second act shows us the type of the successful +man of compromise, who takes the world as he +finds it, and cleverly utilizes the foibles of his fellow-men. +The supervisor-general is a sort of personification +of public opinion. He is always correct, +professes to believe what others believe, and +conforms from prudent calculation to the religious +customs of the community. He demands of +his son Frederic that he shall abandon a young +girl whom he loves and has seduced, and he requires +of his daughter Karen that she shall, out of regard +for her family, renounce her lover. He feigns all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +proper sentiments and emotions, while under the +smooth, agreeable mask lurk malice and cunning. +When Hans Kampe's book reaches him, it never +occurs to him to examine it on its merits; his only +thought is to make it harmless by inventing a +scandalous motive. The elder Kampe has just resigned +from the railway service; the supervisor-general +(with infamous shrewdness) demands an +official inquiry into the state of his accounts. +Then all the world will say that Hans Kampe has +been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing +that an investigation is inevitable, wishes to +throw dust in the eyes of the public and save his +own reputation by attacking that of his superior. +It is needless to say that he has not a shadow of +suspicion regarding Kampe's honesty, but merely +chooses for his own defence the weapon which he +knows to be the most effective.</p> + +<p>In order to fortify his position and sound the +sentiment of the profession, Riis gives a grand +dinner to the engineers of the city, to which +Kampe and his son are also invited. The chairman +of the committee on railways (of the national +diet) is present, and when it appears that Hans +Kampe makes a favorable impression upon him, the +friends of Riis concoct a scheme to injure him. +They inform his father that he is suspected of embezzlement, +and get him drunk, whereupon the +old man scandalizes the company by a burst of uncomplimentary +candor. When Hans arrives the +mischief is done; though the pathetic scene between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +father and son convinces the chairman that, +whatever their failings, these men are true and +genuine. Simply delicious is the satire in the scene +where the ladies discuss the question at issue between +Riis and Kampe. But this satire is deprived +of much of its force by the subsequent development +of the plot. The logical ending would seem to be +the triumph of the supervisor-general's defensive +tactics and the discomfiture of his critics. That +would have given point to the criticism of the +small state and invested the victims of progress +with an almost tragic dignity. Björnson chooses, +however, to let neither the one party nor the +other triumph. In a small state, he says, no +one is victorious; everything ends in compromise. +If two parties championed two different plans of +railway construction, the one of which was demonstrated +to be superior in economy and safety to +the other, such a demonstration would not be +likely to result in its adoption. No, the two +parties would come together, dicker and compromise, +and in the end the diet would agree to +build one road according to the one plan, and one +according to the other. Agreeably to this principle +Björnson leaves the honors between the combatants +about easy; but Riis, deserted by his children, +undergoes a partial change of heart and is +seized with doubt as to the excellence of his philosophy +of life.</p> + +<p>That the satire of "The New System" struck +home is obvious from the fierceness and virulence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +of the criticism with which it was hailed. It has +never become fairly domesticated on the Scandinavian +stages, and probably never will be. In Germany, +France, and Holland it has received respectful +attention, and (I am informed) has proved extremely +effective upon the boards.</p> + +<p>In the same year as "The New System" (1879) +appeared the delightful novelette "Captain Mansana," +dealing with Italian life, and throwing interesting +side-lights upon the War of Liberation. +There is an irresistible charm in the freshness, the +vividness, the extreme modernness of this little +tale. The mingled simplicity and sophistication +of the Italian character, the histrionic touch which +yet goes with perfect sincerity, the author has apprehended +and presented with happy realism.</p> + +<p>In "Beyond their Strength" (<i>Over Aevne</i>) +(1883) Björnson has invaded the twilight realm +of psycho-pathological phenomena, and refers the +reader for further information to <i>Leçons sur le système +nerveux, faites par J. M. Charcot</i>, and <i>Études +cliniques sur l'hystéro-épilepsie ou grande hystérie, +par le Dr. Richer</i>. As a man is always in danger +of talking nonsense in dealing with a subject concerning +which his knowledge is superficial, I shall +not undertake to pronounce upon the validity of +the theory which is here advanced. The play is +an inquiry into the significance and authenticity +of miracles. Incidentally the theme is faith-healing, +the hypnotic effect of prayer, and kindred +phenomena.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>Pastor Sang, a clergyman in a remote parish of +Northern Norway, is famed far and wide as the +miracle-priest, and it is popularly believed that he +can work wonders, as the apostles did of old. He +has given away his large fortune to the poor; in a +fervor of faith he plunges into every danger, and +comes out unscathed; he lives constantly in an +overstrained ecstasy, and by his mere presence, and +the atmosphere which surrounds him, forces his +wife and children to live in the same state of high +nervous tension and unnatural abstraction from +mundane reality and all its concerns. His wife, +Clara, who loves him ardently, is gradually worn +out by this perpetual strain, which involves a daily +overdraft upon her vitality; and finally the break +comes, and she is paralyzed. For, like everyone +who comes in contact with Sang, she has had to +live "beyond her strength." She does not fully +share her husband's faith, and though she feels his +influence and admires his lofty devotion, there is a +half-suppressed criticism in her mind. She feels +the unwholesomeness of thus "living by inspiration, +and not by reason." When he comes to her, +"beaming always with a Sabbath joy," she would +fain tune him down, if she could, into a lower key, +"the C-major of every-day life," as Browning calls +it. But in this effort she has had no success, for +Sang's ecstatic elevation above the concerns of +earth is not only temperamental; nature itself, in +the extreme North, favors it. As Clara expresses +it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nature here exceeds the limits of the ordinary. +We have night nearly all winter; we have day +nearly all summer—and then the sun is above the +horizon, both day and night. Have you seen it in +the night? Do you know that behind the ocean +vapors it often looks three or four times as large as +usual? And then the color-effects upon sky, sea, +and mountain! From the deepest glow of red to +the finest, tenderest, golden white. And the colors +of the aurora upon the wintry sky!" etc.</p> + +<p>It is the most ardent desire of Sang to heal his +wife, as he has healed many others. But the +doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time +he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves +to make a mighty effort—to besiege the Lord with +his prayer, to wrestle with him, as Jacob did of +old, and not to release him, until he has granted +his petition. While he lies thus before the altar +calling upon the Lord in sacred rapture, a tremendous +avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, +but divides, leaving the church and parsonage +unharmed. The rumor of this new wonder spreads +like fire in withered grass, and among thousands +of others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, +on their way to some convention, stop to convince +themselves of the authenticity of the miracle, and +to determine the attitude which they are to assume +toward it. Then follows a long discussion between +the bishop and the clergy regarding the value of +miracles, some maintaining that the church has +outgrown the need of them, others that they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +indispensable—that Christianity cannot survive +without them. For has not Christ promised that +"even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is +not this a case of the faith which verily can say to +the mountain, "Rise up and cast thyself into the +sea?"</p> + +<p>The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than +the deflection of the avalanche, is that Clara, who +has slept for the first time in a month, now rises +from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, +and falls upon his neck amid the ringing of the +church-bells and the hallelujahs of the assembled +multitudes. But when he tries to raise her she is +dead, and he himself, overwhelmed by his emotion, +falls dead at her side.</p> + +<p>This is so obviously a closet-drama that it is difficult +to imagine how it would look under the illumination +of the foot-lights. For all that, I see a +recent announcement that the trial is soon to be +made at the <i>Théâtre Libre</i> in Paris.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> No Scandinavian +theatre, as far as I know, has as yet had the +courage to risk the experiment. In his next play, +however, "Love and Geography" (1885), Björnson +reconquered the stage and repeated his early triumphs. +From the scientific seriousness of "Beyond +their Strength" his pendulum swung to the opposite +extreme of light comedy, almost bordering on +farce. Not that "Love and Geography" is without +a Björnsonian moral, but it is amusingly, +jocosely enforced in scenes of great vivacity and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +theatrical effect. This time it is himself the +author has chosen to satirize. The unconscious +tyranny of a man who has a mission, a life-work, +is delightfully illustrated in the person of the +geographer, Professor Tygesen, to whom Björn +Björnson, the actor, when he played the part at the +Christiania Theatre, had the boldness to give his +father's mask. Professor Tygesen is engaged upon +a great geographical opus, and gradually takes possession +of the whole house with his maps, globes, +and books, driving his wife from the parlor floor +and his daughter to boarding-school. So absorbed +is he in his work that he can talk and think of +nothing else. He neglects the social forms from +sheer abstraction and becomes almost a boor, because +all the world outside of his book pales into +insignificance, and all persons and events are merely +interesting in so far as they can stimulate inquiry +or furnish information bearing upon the immortal +opus. The inevitable consequence follows. The +professor alienates all who come in contact with +him. He is on the point of losing the affection of +his wife, and his daughter comes near going astray +for want of paternal supervision. Both these calamities +are, however, averted, though in an arbitrary +and highly eccentric manner. The professor's +eyes are opened to the error of his ways, +he does penance, and the curtain falls upon a reunited +family.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> July, 1894.</p></div> + +<p>The unpretentious little story "Dust" (<i>Stöv</i>, +1882) undertakes to demonstrate the unwholesomeness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +of the religious ideas regarding the life to +come usually impressed upon children by parents +and teachers. By dust Björnson means all obsolete, +lifeless matter in the world of thought which +settles upon, and often impairs, the vitality of the +living growth, or even chokes it outright. "When +children are taught that the life here is nothing +compared to the life to come—that to be visible is +nothing compared to being invisible—that to be a +man is nothing compared to being an angel—that to +be alive is nothing compared to being dead—then +that is not the way to give them the right view +of life; not the way to teach them to love life; +not the way to inspire them with courage, energy, +and patriotism."</p> + +<p>In his novel "Flags in City and Harbor" (1884), +the English translation of which is entitled "The +Heritage of the Kurts," Björnson has attacked a +tremendous problem. He has attempted to illustrate +the force of heredity, and the exact extent +to which it may be modified by environment—to +what extent an unfavorable heredity may be counteracted +by a favorable environment. The family +of Kurt, whose history is here traced through five +generations, inherits a temperament which would +have secured its survival and raised it to distinction +in barbaric ages, but which will as surely, unless +powerfully modified, necessitate its extinction +in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable +of assimilating civilization. An excess of physical +vigor in the first Kurt who settled in Norway takes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +the form of lawlessness and an entire absence of +moral restraint.</p> + +<p>Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished +because Kurt is powerful and has friends at +court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and Max +(he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family +temperament is modified, though in Max, who perpetuates +the race, the modification is not radical. +Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and +moody, and addicted to the pleasures of the table. +Max, on the other hand, is a man of inexhaustible +vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of a +gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve +to establish his authority over the simple inhabitants +of the little coast town. Moreover, he is +endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, +and is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and +other pursuits. But he is the terror of women, +and his sensual excesses so undermine his strength +that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually +pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose +death he had caused. Konrad Kurt, the son of +Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure +to see his mother maltreated by his father. +He inherits a shattered constitution and poor +nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man, +but he has a strong physical need of drink, and +every night he goes to bed intoxicated. It is the +author's purpose to show how the sins of his fathers, +by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad +Kurt to drink. His son, John Kurt, who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +the result of a criminal relation, is the complete +incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh +blood which he has derived from his English +mother has postponed the doom of the race and +enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses +of his ancestors. He first distinguishes himself +as a virtuoso in swearing. The magnificent +redundance and originality of his oaths make him +famous in the army, which he chooses as the first +field of his exploits. Later he roams aimlessly +about the world, merely to satisfy a wild need of +adventure. On his return to his native town he +signalizes himself by his vices as a genuine Kurt. +The little town, however, cannot find it in its heart +to condemn a man of so distinguished a race, and +society, though it is fully cognizant of his mode of +life, not only tolerates but even pets him. He is +entertaining, has been everywhere and seen everything. +He meets a young girl, named Thomasine +Rendalen, the daughter of an educated peasant, +who occupies a position as a teacher. She is large, +ruddy, full of health and uncorrupted vigor. John +Kurt takes a violent fancy to her, and moves +heaven and earth to induce her to marry him. He +goes even to the length of bribing all her female +friends, and they by degrees begin to sing his +praises. At last she yields; a net of subtle influences +surrounds her, and unconsciously she comes +to reflect the view of society. Her moral prudery +begins to appear ridiculous to her, and the so-called +common-sense view predominates. The author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +here, with great earnestness, emphasizes the +responsibility of society in weakening the moral +resistance of the individual rather than strengthening +it. Thomasine Rendalen would not have married +John Kurt if society had not condoned his +offences; and society in condoning such offences +undermines its own foundations.</p> + +<p>After his marriage Kurt endeavors to hold his +exuberant nature in check, and for a while is moderately +successful. But an uneasy suspicion haunts +him that his wife's friends, in a confidential moment, +may expose his delinquencies, and destroy +her confidence in him. He watches her like a +lynx, surprises her at all hours and places, and +thereby produces the suspicion which he is endeavoring +to avert. The relation develops with inevitable +logic toward an awful crisis. This is brought +about by a mere trifle. John Kurt, failing to +humble his wife, strikes her. The baleful forces +that lurk in the depths of the Kurt temperament +rise to the surface; the whole terrible heritage of +savagery overwhelms the feeble civilization which +the last scion has acquired. If Thomasine had +been weak, she would have been killed; but she +defends herself with fierce persistency, and though +it seems as if she must succumb, her compact +frame, strengthened by generations of healthful +toil, possesses an endurance which in the end must +prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John Kurt. +When the combatants part there is not a whole +piece of furniture in the room. John Kurt retires<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +a conquered man. But with cowardly viciousness +he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, +while he himself goes to a dinner-party. +There he is stricken down by apoplexy.</p> + +<p>The terror with which Thomasine contemplates +her approaching maternity is one of the finest +points in the book. Has she the right to perpetuate +such a race, which will be a curse to itself and +to future generations? Would she not confer a +boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she +sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by +self-destruction she would forever cut off the turbid +current of the Kurt blood which had darkened +the vital stream of the race for centuries. The +moral exaltation which manifests itself in this +struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings to +life desperately; she is young and strong, unsentimental, +and averse to ascetic enthusiasm. It finally +occurs to her that her own race, too, will assert +itself in this child; that the pure and vigorous +strain which her own blood will infuse may redeem +it from the dark destiny of the Kurts. She finally +resolves upon a compromise; if the child is dark, +like the Kurts, both it and its mother shall die. +If it is blue-eyed and light-haired, like the Rendalens, +she will devote her life to obliterating in it, or +transforming into useful activities, the destructive +vigor of the paternal character. Thomas, when he +is born, chooses a golden mean between these two +extremes, and perversely makes his appearance as +a red-haired, gray-eyed infant, in which both a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +Kurt and a Rendalen might have made comforting +observations. He is accordingly permitted to live, +and to become the hero of one of the most remarkable +novels which has ever been published in Scandinavia.</p> + +<p>He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, +by a kind of heroic conscientiousness and rationality, +slowly conquers him and secures his attachment. +She has solemnly abjured her connection +with her husband's family, assumed her maiden +name, and has consecrated her life to what she regards +as the highest utility—the work of education. +She wishes to atone to the race for her guilt in +having perpetuated the race of the Kurts. The +scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral +portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the +smell of all the burning Kurts is blown far and +wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of +another novelist, have been made the central scene +in the book. But Björnson is so tremendously in +earnest that he cannot afford to stop and note picturesque +effect. Therefore he relates the burning +of the Kurts quite incidentally, and proceeds at +once to talk of more serious things.</p> + +<p>By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion +into a school, Mrs. Rendalen believes that she can +best settle the account of the Kurts with humanity. +All the latest, improved methods of education +are introduced. The Hall of Knights is +turned into a chemical laboratory, and the daylight +is allowed to pour unobscured into all its murky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +recesses. Through the dim and lofty passage-ways +resounds the laughter of children; on the scenes +of so many hoary crimes the prattle of innocent +girls is heard; a multitude of scientific instruments +labor to demonstrate the laws of nature, and +to simplify the problem of existence which the +crimes of the Kurts had tended to complicate. +Thomas Rendalen, profoundly impressed as he is +with his responsibility as the last descendant of +such a race, takes up this educational mission with +a lofty humanitarian enthusiasm. He has spent +many years abroad in preparing himself for this +work, and possesses, like his great-grandfather, the +gift of lucid exposition. But his perpetual and +conscious struggle with his heritage makes him +nervous and ill-balanced. He conceives the idea, +fostered both by observation and by the study of +his own family history, that unchastity is the chief +curse of humanity, and the primal cause of the degeneracy +of races. He believes that the false modesty +which leaves young people in ignorance of one +of the most important natural functions is largely +responsible for the prevailing immorality, and he +advocates, as a remedy, fearless and searching physiological +study. His inaugural address as superintendent +of the school deals uncompromisingly with +this subject, and excites such universal indignation +that it comes near wrecking the promising enterprise. +A great speech in a small town, Björnson +hints, is always more or less risky. But we are +also given to understand that though Rendalen obviously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +speaks out of the author's heart, this very +speech is in itself a subtle manifestation of the +Kurt heritage. Rendalen is as immoderate in virtue +as his ancestors have been in vice. The violent +energy which formerly expended itself in lawless +acts now expends itself in an excessive, ascetic +enthusiasm for self-conquest and lofty humanitarian +ideals. As a piece of psychology this is admirable. +Prudent, well adapted or adaptable to +the civilization in which he lives, the scion of the +Kurts is not yet; but as a promise of the redemption +of the race he represents the first upward +step. It is highly characteristic of Björnson's respect +for reality that he makes Rendalen neither +agreeable, handsome, nor lovable; nay, he dwells +again and again on the bad relations which temporarily +exist between him and his mother, between +him and the teachers, between him and the town. +For all that we are filled with a profound respect +for a man who can fight in himself so great a +fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy +peasant blood which he derived from his mother +that enables him to wrestle thus mightily with the +Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we +are assured in the last pages of the book that he +makes a marriage, which is a further step toward +health and virtue. We are not assured that he +conquers happiness either for himself or for his +wife; and there is not a syllable to betray that he +cherishes for her any romantic attachment. But +the chances are that, in transforming and ennobling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +the Kurt heritage, he insures vigor and usefulness +to his descendants. He bequeathes to them a more +wholesome mixture of blood than he himself possesses, +and an energy, nay, perhaps a genius, derived +from the Kurts, which, with an upward instead +of a downward tendency, may be a redeeming +force in society instead of a corrupting one.</p> + +<p>In order not to miss any phase of his problem, +Björnson also takes up briefly the illegitimate line +of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with any +favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper +into the mire of vice. The inevitable result is insanity +and ultimate extinction. Mrs. Rendalen's +visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar +scream of her own son in a terrible little +ragamuffin, is one of the most remarkable incidents +in this remarkable book.</p> + +<p>One thing that especially strikes the reader in +this novel is the author's fierce indignation against +all shams, deceits, and social lies. Therefore he +calls a spade a spade, and leaves you to blush if +you are so inclined. The young girls whom he +introduces are mostly misses in their teens, and +his portrayal of them is physiological rather than +pictorial. The points which he selects for comment +are those which would particularly be noted +by their medical advisers; and the progress of +their histories, as he follows them, is characterized +by this same scientific minuteness of observation. +Zola's ideal of scientific realism (which +Björnson has repudiated) has nevertheless found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +its most brilliant exponent in him. Here the sordid +and cruel facts of life are not dwelt upon by +preference; nor are they optimistically glossed +over. I doubt if a great and vital problem has +ever been more vigorously, unflinchingly, and +convincingly treated in a work of fiction.</p> + +<p>"<i>Paa Guds Veje</i>" ("In the Ways of God"), +(1889), in which Thomas Rendalen again figures, +though not as hero, is another indictment of conventional +morality. It is a very powerful but +scarcely an agreeable book. The abrupt, laconic +style has no flux, no continuity, and gives the +reader the sensation of being pulled up sharply +with a curb bit, whenever he fancies that he has +a free rein. Though every page is crowded with +trenchant and often admirable observations, they +have not the coherence of an organic structure, +but rather that of a mosaic. The design is obvious, +striking, and impressive. It is neither distorted +nor overdrawn. It is unquestionably thus we +treat moral non-conformists, even though it be in +pure self-preservation that they broke the bond +which we are agreed to enforce. The question +resolves itself into this: Has society, in its effort +to uphold its moral standards, the right to exact +the sacrifice of life itself and every hope of happiness +from the victims of its own ignorance and +injustice? When the young physician, Edward +Kallem, rescues the eighteen-year old Ragni Kule +from the degradation of her marriage to a husband +afflicted with a most loathsome disease, and afterward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +marries her—does he deserve censure or praise? +Björnson's answer is unmistakable. It is exactly +the situation, depicted five years later, by Madame +Sarah Grand in the relation of Edith to the young +rake, Sir Moseley Menteith. Only, Björnson rescues +the victim, while the author of "The Heavenly +Twins" makes her perish. In both instances +it is the pious ignorance of clerical parents which +precipitates the tragedy. Ragni's deliverance is, +however, only an apparent one. Society, which +without indignation had witnessed her sale to the +corrupt old libertine, is frightfully shocked by her +marriage to Dr. Kallem, and manifests its disapproval +with an emphasis which takes no account +of ameliorating circumstances. The sanguinary +ingenuity in the constant slights and stabs to which +she is exposed makes her life a martyrdom and +finally kills her. "Contempt will pierce the armor +of a tortoise," says an oriental proverb; and +poor Ragni had no chelonian armor. When her +most harmless remarks are misinterpreted and +her most generous acts become weapons wherewith +to slay her, she loses all heart for resistance, +and merely lies down to die. Very subtile and +beautiful is the manner in which Björnson indicates +the interaction of psychical and physical +conditions. The "soul-frost" which chills the +very marrow of her bones is so vividly conveyed +that you shiver sympathetically. The self-righteous +and brutally censorious attitude of the community +lowers the temperature and makes the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +atmosphere deadly. And the fact that it is Ragni's +unsuspicious innocence, and even her love +of her husband, which expose her to this condemnation +is made plain with much delicate art. +Her residence of five years in the United States +after her divorce, and before her second marriage, +had, no doubt, accustomed her to a greater freedom +of intercourse between man and woman, and thereby +disposed her to trip rather lightly over the +stumbling-blocks of prudence.</p> + +<p>The history of Kallem's sister, Josephine, and her +husband, the Reverend Ole Tuft, which is closely +interwoven with the above, furnishes us with two +more characters deeply felt and strongly realized. +It is they who are the chief instruments of Ragni's +martyrdom. As the upholders of social purity, +and, as it were, professional guardians of morals, it +would seem that Tuft and his wife had scarcely any +choice but to condemn marriage with a <i>divorcée</i>. +When, however, after Ragni's death, they discover +whom they have slain—how much purer, nobler, +and of more delicate nature she was than either of +them—they are dissolved in shame and remorse. A +tremendous crisis in their spiritual lives is produced +by the mortal peril of their only child, whom +Kallem saves by a skilful operation. Out of the +ancient religion of dogmas which judges and damns, +Tuft is by these experiences led into a new religion +of love, which values life above faith, and charity +above all. The reconciliation of brother and sister +in the last chapter is profoundly moving. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +moral is emphasized in the phrase with which the +story closes: "Wherever good men walk, there are +the ways of God."</p> + +<p>The charm of this novel is, to me, that it is +strong, virile, instinct with vital thought. There +are blemishes in it, too, which no one will be likely +to overlook. Several chapters read like the reports +of a clinic in a medical journal, so extremely minute +and circumstantial are the accounts of Kallem's +operations and hypnotic experiments. An excursion +into botany, <i>à propos</i> of Ragni's walk in the +woods, is likewise overloaded with details and teems +with scientific terms. But the greatest blemish is +the outbreak in Kallem (who has the author's fullest +sympathy) of a certain barbaric violence which +to civilized people is well-nigh incomprehensible. +Thus, when, after an absence of six years, he calls +upon his brother-in-law, the pastor, he proceeds to +turn handsprings about the latter's study. When, +after his marriage, his sister meets him in the +street for the purpose of informing him of the +scandalous rumors concerning his wife, he gives +her a box on the ear.</p> + +<p>In Björnson's last book, "New Tales" (<i>Nye +Fortaellinger</i>) (1894), this tendency to vehemence +is even more marked. In the masterly story, "Absalom's +Hair" (than which the author has never +written anything more boldly original) old Harold +Kaas literally spanks his young wife in the presence +of his servants. And the matter is in nowise +minced, but described with an unblushing zest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +which makes the impression of <i>naïveté</i>. It is obvious +that in his delight in the exhibition of a +healthy, primitive wrath, Björnson half forgets +how such barbarism must affect his readers. We +hear, to be sure, that the servants were filled with +indignation and horror, and that Harold Kaas, +having expected laughter and applause, "went +away a defeated and irremediably crushed man." +But for all that the incident is crude, harsh, and +needlessly revolting. In Russia it might have +happened; but I am inclined to doubt if a Norwegian +gentleman, even though he were descended +from the untamable Kurts, would have been capable +of so outrageous a breach of decency.</p> + +<p>Apart from this incident, "Absalom's Hair" is +so interpenetrated with a sense of reality that we +seem to live the story rather than read it. I verily +believe it to be a type of what the fiction of the +future will be, when scientific education shall have +been largely substituted for the classical; and even +the novelists will be expected to know something +about the world in which they live and the sublime +and inexorable laws which govern it. At present +the majority of them spin irresponsible yarns, and +play Providence <i>ad libitum</i> to their characters. +Man's vital coherence with his environment is but +loosely indicated. Chance reigns supreme. They +have observed carefully enough the external phenomena +of life—and chiefly for their picturesque +or dramatic interest—but of the causes which underlie +them they rarely give us a glimpse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is in this respect that Björnson's last tales offer +so grateful a contrast to conventional fiction. +Here is a man who has resolutely aroused himself +from the old romantic doze, cleared his eyes of the +film of dreams, and with a sharp, wide-awake intensity +focussed them to the actual aspect of the +actual world. He has sat down with his windows +wide open, and allowed the sounds and sights and +smells of reality to pour in upon him. And the +magic spectacles are his which enable him to gauge +the significance of the phenomena and divine the +causes which lurk behind them. Therefore his +characterizations are often extremely unconventional, +and amid all their picturesque vigor of +phrase hint at the kind of knowledge which could +only be possessed by a family physician. In "Absalom's +Hair" we have no mere agglomeration of +half-digested scientific data, but a scientific view of +life. The story moves, from beginning to end, with +a beautiful epic calm and a grand inevitableness +which remind one of Tolstoi, and reaches far toward +the high-water mark of modern realism. +Take, for instance, the characterization of Kirsten +Ravn (pp. 11-15), and I wonder where in contemporary +fiction so large and deep a comprehension +is shown both of psychic and of physical forces. +Emma, the heroine of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" +is the only parallel I can recall, as regards +the kind and method of portraiture, though there is +no resemblance between the characters. In the development +of the character of Rafael Kaas, there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +the same beautiful respect for human nature, the +same unshrinking statement of "shocking" facts, +and the same undeviating adherence to the logic of +reality. The hair by which Rafael, as his prototype, +the son of David, is arrested and suspended +in the midst of his triumphant race is sensuality. +His life is on the point of being wrecked, and his +splendid powers are dissipated by his inability to +restrain his passions. The tragic fate which hovers +over him from the moment of his birth is admirably +hinted at, but not emphasized, in the sketch +of his parents. The carnal overbalance, supplied +by the blood of the Kurts, wellnigh neutralizes +the mechanical genius which is hereditary in the +blood of the Ravns.</p> + +<p>It is reported that "Absalom's Hair" has aroused +great indignation in Christiania, because it is +claimed that the characters are drawn, with scarcely +an attempt at disguise, from well-known persons +in the Norwegian capital.</p> + +<p>The remaining stories of the volume, "An Ugly +Reminiscence of Childhood," "Mother's Hands," +and "One Day" betray the same contempt for romantic +standards, the same capacity for making +acquaintance with life at first hand. The first-named +is an account of a murder and execution, +and extremely painful. The second is a bit of +pathological psychology <i>à propos</i> of intemperance. +Tastes imprisoned, genius cramped and perverted, +joy of life (<i>joie de vivre</i>) denied, will avenge themselves. +They will break out in drunkenness. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +hero of "One Day" is afflicted with the same vice, +and apparently for the same reason. The cruel +disillusion which in consequence overtakes the poor +little soul-starved heroine rises almost to the height +of tragedy. It is an every-day tale, full of "deep +and blood-veined humanity," and deriving its interest +and significance from the very fact of its +commonness.</p> + +<p>What distinguishes the Norsemen above other +nations is, generally speaking, an indestructible +self-respect and force of individuality. The old +Norse sagas abound in illustrations of this untamable +vigor and ruthless self-assertion. It was the +looseness of the social structure, resulting from +this sense of independence and consequent jealousy +and internecine warfare, which destroyed the Icelandic +republic and made Norway for four centuries +a province of Denmark. In all the great +men of Norway we recognize something of the +rampant individualism of their Viking forefathers. +Ibsen is the modern apostle <i>par excellence</i> of philosophic +anarchism; and Björnson, too, has his full +share of the national aggressiveness and pugnacity. +For all that there is a radical difference between +the two. The sense of social obligation which +Ibsen lacks, Björnson possesses in a high degree. +He fights, not as a daring guerilla, but as the +spokesman and leader of thousands. He is the +chieftain who looms a head above all the people. +He wields a heavy sword, and he deals mighty +blows. The wrath that possesses him is, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +born of love. He fights man in the name of humanity. +It is not for himself, primarily, that he +demands larger liberties, securer rights, more humanizing +conditions of life; but it is for his fellow-men. +The many, the small and down-trodden, the +dumb millions, whom Ibsen despises, Björnson +loves. As Dr. Brandes<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> has so happily said:</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Det Moderne Gjennembruds Maend, p. 60.</p></div> + +<p>"Ibsen is a judge, stern as the old judges of +Israel. Björnson is a prophet, the hopeful herald +of a better day. Ibsen is, in the depth of his mind, +a great revolutionist. In 'The Comedy of Love,' +'A Doll's House,' and 'Ghosts,' he scourges marriage; +in 'Brand,' the State Church; in the +'Pillars of Society,' the dominant bourgeoisie. +Whatever he attacks is shivered into splinters by +his profound and superior criticism. Only the +shattered ruins remain, and we are unable to espy +the new social institutions beyond them. Björnson +is a conciliatory spirit who wages war without +bitterness. April sunshine glints and gleams +through all his works, while those of Ibsen, with +their sombre seriousness, lie in deep shadow. +Ibsen loves the idea—the logical and psychological +consistency which drives Brand out of the +church and Nora out of the marital relation. To +Ibsen's love of the idea corresponds Björnson's love +of man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>BIBLIOGRAPHY.</h3> + +<p>As Björnson's works have been translated not only into +English, French, and German, but also largely into Russian, +Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, and even remoter tongues, +a bibliography, including all translations, would demand a +volume by itself. I shall therefore only enumerate the more +important English translations; but would warn my readers +not to judge Björnson's style by that of his translators. +<i>Arne</i>: Translated by Augusta Plesner and S. R. Powers +(Boston, 1872). <i>The Happy Boy</i>: Translated by H. R. G. +(Boston, 1872). <i>The Railroad and the Churchyard</i>, <i>The +Eagle's Nest</i>, and <i>The Father</i> are contained in the volume to +which Goldschmidt's <i>The Flying Mail</i> gives the title +(Sever, Francis & Co., Boston and Cambridge, 1870). The +following volumes are translated by Professor R. B. Anderson, +and published in a uniform edition by Houghton, +Mifflin & Co. (Boston, 1881): <i>Synnöve Solbakken</i>, <i>Arne</i>, <i>A +Happy Boy</i>, <i>The Fisher Maiden</i>, <i>The Bridal March</i>, +<i>Magnhild</i>, <i>Captain Mansana and other Stories</i>. <i>Sigurd +Slembe</i>: A Dramatic Trilogy: Translated by William Morton +Payne (Boston and New York, 1888). <i>Arne</i> and <i>The Fisher +Lassie</i>: Translated, with an Introduction, by W. H. Low +(Bohn Library, London). <i>Pastor Sang (Over Aevne)</i>: Translated +by Wm. Wilson (London, 1893). <i>In God's Way</i> +(Heinemann's International Library, London, 1891). <i>The +Heritage of the Kurts</i>, 1892. <i>A Gauntlet</i>. A Play. London, +1894. A new translation of all Björnson's novels and +tales has just been announced by Messrs. Macmillan & +Co., and the first volume, <i>Synnöve Solbakken</i> (New York +and London, 1895), has appeared. The translation is rather +slipshod.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2>ALEXANDER KIELLAND</h2> + + +<p>In June, 1867, about a hundred enthusiastic +youths were vociferously celebrating their attainment +of the baccalaureate degree at the University +of Norway. The orator on this occasion +was a tall, handsome, distinguished-looking young +man named Alexander Kielland, from the little +coast town of Stavanger. There was none of the +crudity of a provincial either in his manners or +his appearance. He spoke with a quiet self-possession +and a pithy incisiveness which were altogether +phenomenal.</p> + +<p>"That young man will be heard from one of +these days," was the unanimous verdict of those +who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, +and noted the maturity of his opinions.</p> + +<p>But ten years passed, and outside of Stavanger +no one ever heard of Alexander Kielland. His +friends were aware that he had studied law, spent +some winters in France, married, and settled himself +as a dignitary in his native town. It was understood +that he had bought a large brick and tile +factory, and that as a manufacturer of these useful +articles he bid fair to become a provincial magnate, +as his fathers had been before him. People<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +had almost forgotten that great things had been +expected of him, and some fancied perhaps that +he had been spoiled by prosperity. Remembering +him, as I did, as the most brilliant and notable +personality among my university friends, I began +to apply to him Mallock's epigrammatic damnation +of the man of whom it was said at twenty that he +would do great things, at thirty that he might do +great things, and at forty that he might have done +great things.</p> + +<p>This was the frame of mind of those who remembered +Alexander Kielland (and he was an +extremely difficult man to forget), when in the +year 1879 a modest volume of "Novelettes" appeared, +bearing his name. It was, to all appearances, +a light performance, but it revealed a sense +of style which made it, nevertheless, notable. No +man had ever written the Norwegian language as +this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, +a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle, and occasional +flashes of wit which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. +It was obvious that this author was +familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired +through them that clear and crisp incisiveness +of utterance which was supposed, hitherto, to +be untransferable to any other tongue.</p> + +<p>As regards the themes of these "Novelettes," +it was remarked at the time of their first appearance +that they hinted at a more serious purpose +than their style seemed to imply. Who can +read, for instance, "Pharaoh" (which in the original<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +is entitled "A Ball Mood") without detecting +the revolutionary note that trembles quite +audibly through the calm and unimpassioned language? +There is, by the way, a little touch of +melodrama in this tale which is very unusual with +Kielland. "Romance and Reality," too, is glaringly +at variance with conventional romanticism +in its satirical contrasting of the prematrimonial +and the postmatrimonial view of love and marriage. +The same persistent tendency to present +the wrong side as well as the right side—and not, +as literary good manners are supposed to prescribe, +ignore the former—is obvious in the charming +tale, "At the Fair," where a little spice of +wholesome truth spoils the thoughtlessly festive +mood; and the squalor, the want, the envy, hate, +and greed which prudence and a regard for business +compel the performers to disguise to the public, +become the more cruelly visible to the visitors +of the little alley-way at the rear of the tents. In +"A Good Conscience" the satirical note has a +still more serious ring; but the same admirable +self-restraint which, next to the power of thought +and expression, is the happiest gift an author's +fairy godmother can bestow upon him, saves Kielland +from saying too much—from enforcing his +lesson by marginal comments, <i>á la</i> George Eliot. +But he must be obtuse indeed to whom this reticence +is not more eloquent and effective than a +page of philosophical moralizing.</p> + +<p>"Hope's Clad in April Green" and "The Battle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +of Waterloo" (the first and the last tale in the +Norwegian edition) are more untinged with a +moral tendency than any of the foregoing. The +former is a mere <i>jeu d'esprit</i>, full of good-natured +satire on the calf-love of very young people, and +the amusing over-estimate of our importance to +which we are all, at that age, peculiarly liable.</p> + +<p>As an organist with vaguely melodious hints +foreshadows in his prelude the musical <i>motifs</i> +which he means to vary and elaborate in his +fugue, so Kielland lightly touched in these "Novelettes" +the themes which in his later works he +has struck with a fuller volume and power. What +he gave in this little book was a light sketch of +his mental physiognomy, from which, perhaps, +his horoscope might be cast and his literary future +predicted.</p> + +<p>Though a patrician by birth and training, he +revealed a strong sympathy with the toiling masses. +But it was a democracy of the brain, I should fancy, +rather than of the heart. As I read the book, +sixteen years ago, its tendency puzzled me considerably, +remembering, as I did, with the greatest +vividness, the fastidious and <i>distingué</i> personality +of the author. I found it difficult to believe that he +was in earnest. The book seemed to me to betray +the whimsical <i>sans-culottism</i> of a man of pleasure +who, when the ball is at an end, sits down with his +gloves on, and philosophizes on the artificiality of +civilization and the wholesomeness of honest toil. +An indigestion makes him a temporary communist;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +but a bottle of seltzer presently reconciles him +to his lot, and restores the equilibrium of the universe. +He loves the people at a distance, can talk +prettily about the sturdy son of the soil, who is +the core and marrow of the nation, etc.; but he +avoids contact with him, and, if chance brings +them into contact, he loves him with his handkerchief +to his nose.</p> + +<p>I may be pardoned for having identified Alexander +Kielland with this type, with which I am very +familiar; and he convinced me presently that I +had done him injustice. In his next book, the +admirable novel "Garman and Worse," he showed +that his democratic proclivities were something +more than a mood. He showed that he took himself +seriously, and he compelled the public to take +him seriously. The tendency which had only +flashed forth here and there in the "Novelettes" +now revealed its whole countenance. The author's +theme was the life of the prosperous <i>bourgeoisie</i> in +the western coast towns; and he drew their types +with a hand that gave evidence of intimate knowledge. +He had himself sprung from one of these +rich ship-owning, patrician families, had been given +every opportunity to study life both at home and +abroad, and had accumulated a fund of knowledge +of the world, which he had allowed quietly to +grow before making literary draughts upon it. +The same Gallic perspicacity of style which had +charmed in his first book was here in a heightened +degree; and there was, besides, the same underlying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +sympathy with progress and what is called the +ideas of the age. What mastery of description, +what rich and vigorous colors, Kielland had at his +disposal was demonstrated in such scenes as the +funeral of Consul Garman and the burning of the +ship. There was, moreover, a delightful autobiographical +note in the book, particularly in the boyish +experiences of Gabriel Garman. Such things +no man invents, however clever; such material no +imagination supplies, however fertile. Except +Fritz Reuter's Stavenhagen, I know no small town +in fiction which is so vividly and completely individualized, +and populated with such living and +credible characters. Take, for instance, the two +clergymen, Archdeacon Sparre and the Rev. Mr. +Martens, and it is not necessary to have lived in +Norway in order to recognize and enjoy the faithfulness +and the artistic subtlety of these portraits. +If they have a dash of satire (which I will not undertake +to deny), it is such delicate and well-bred +satire that no one, except the originals, would +think of taking offence. People are willing, for +the sake of the entertainment which it affords, to +forgive a little quiet malice at their neighbors' expense. +The members of the provincial bureaucracy +are drawn with the same firm but delicate +touch, and everything has that beautiful air of +reality which proves the world akin.</p> + +<p>It was by no means a departure from his previous +style and tendency which Kielland signalized +in his next novel, "Laboring People" (1881).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +He only emphasizes, as it were, the heavy, serious +bass chords in the composite theme which expresses +his complex personality, and allows the +lighter treble notes to be momentarily drowned. +His theme is the corrupting influence of the upper +upon the lower class. He has in this book made +some appalling, soul-searching studies in the pathology +as well as the psychology of vice.</p> + +<p>Kielland's third novel, "Skipper Worse," marked +a distinct step in his development. It was less of +a social satire and more of a social study. It was +not merely a series of brilliant, exquisitely finished +scenes, loosely strung together on a slender thread +of narrative, but was a concise and well-constructed +story, full of beautiful scenes and admirable portraits. +The theme is akin to that of Daudet's +"L'Évangéliste;" but Kielland, as it appears to +me, has in this instance outdone his French <i>confrère</i>, +as regards insight into the peculiar character +and poetry of the pietistic movement. He has +dealt with it as a psychological and not primarily +as a pathological phenomenon. A comparison +with Daudet suggests itself constantly in reading +Kielland. Their methods of workmanship and +their attitude toward life have many points in +common. The charm of style, the delicacy of +touch, and felicity of phrase, are in both cases +pre-eminent. Daudet has, however, the advantage +(or, as he himself asserts, the disadvantage) of +working in a flexible and highly finished language, +which bears the impress of the labors of a hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +masters; while Kielland has to produce his effects +of style in a poorer and less pliable language, +which often pants and groans in its efforts to render +a subtle thought. To have polished this +tongue and sharpened its capacity for refined and +incisive utterance, is one—and not the least—of +his merits.</p> + +<p>Though he has by nature no more sympathy +with the pietistic movement than Daudet, Kielland +yet manages to get psychologically closer to +his problem. His pietists are more humanly interesting +than those of Daudet, and the little +drama which they set in motion is more genuinely +pathetic. Two superb figures—the lay preacher +Hans Nilsen and Skipper Worse—surpass all that +the author had hitherto produced in depth of conception +and brilliancy of execution. The marriage +of that delightful, profane old sea-dog Jacob +Worse with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the attempts +of his mother-in-law to convert him, are +described not with the merely superficial drollery +to which the subject invites, but with a sweet and +delicate humor which trembles on the verge of pathos. +In the Christmas tale, "Elsie," Kielland +has produced a little classic of almost flawless perfection. +With what exquisite art he paints the life +of a small Norwegian coast-town in all its vivid details! +While Björnson, in "The Heritage of the +Kurts," primarily emphasizes the responsibility of +the individual to society, Kielland chooses to emphasize +the responsibility of society to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +individual. The former selects a hero with vicious inherited +tendencies, redeemed by wise education and +favorable environment; the latter portrays a heroine +with no corrupt predisposition, destroyed by a +corrupting environment. Elsie could not be good, +because the world was once so constituted that +girls of her kind were not expected to be good. +Temptations, perpetually thronging in her way, +broke down the moral bulwarks of her nature; +resistance seemed in vain. In the end, there is +scarcely one who, having read the book, will have +the heart to condemn her.</p> + +<p>Incomparably clever is the satire on the benevolent +societies which exist to furnish a kind of officious +sense of virtue to their aristocratic members. +"The Society for the Redemption of the +Abandoned Women of St. Peter's Parish" is presided +over by a gentleman who is responsible for +the abandoned condition of a goodly number of +them. However, it turns out that those miserable +creatures who need to be redeemed belong to another +parish, and accordingly cannot be reached by +St. Peter's. St. Peter's parish is aristocratic, exclusive, +and keeps its wickedness discreetly veiled. +The horror of the secretary of the society, when +she hears that "the abandoned woman" who calls +upon her for aid, has a child without being married, +is both comic and pathetic. In fact, there is +not a scene in the book which is not instinct with +life and admirably characteristic.</p> + +<p>Besides being the author of some minor comedies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +and a full-grown drama ("The Professor"), +Kielland has published several novels, the more +recent being "Poison" (1883), "Fortuna" (1884), +"Snow" (1886), and "St. John's Eve" (1887).</p> + +<p>The note of promise and suspense with which +"Snow" ends is meant to be symbolic. From +Kielland's point of view, Norway is yet wrapped in +the wintry winding-sheet of a tyrannical orthodoxy, +and all he dares assert is that the chains of +frost and snow seem to be loosening. There is a +spring feeling in the air.</p> + +<p>This spring feeling is scarcely perceptible in his +last book, "Jacob" (1890), which is written in +anything but a hopeful mood. It is rather a protest +against that optimism which in fiction we call +poetic justice. The harsh and unsentimental logic +of reality is emphasized with a ruthless disregard +of rose-colored traditions.</p> + +<p>From the pedagogic point of view, I have no +doubt that "Jacob" would be classed as an immoral +book. But the question of its morality is +of less consequence than the question of its truth. +The most modern literature, which is interpenetrated +with the spirit of the age, has a way of asking +dangerous questions—questions before which +the reader, when he perceives their full scope, +stands aghast. Our old idyllic faith in the goodness +and wisdom of all mundane arrangements has +undoubtedly received a shock. Our attitude toward +the universe is changing with the change of +its attitude toward us. What the thinking part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +humanity is now largely engaged in doing is readjusting +itself toward the world and the world toward +it. Success is but adaptation to environment, +and success is the supreme aim of the modern man. +The authors who, by their fearless thinking and +speaking, help us toward this readjustment should, +in my opinion, whether we choose to accept their +conclusions or not, be hailed as benefactors. It is +in the ranks of these that Alexander Kielland has +taken his place, and occupies a conspicuous position.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> +<h2>JONAS LIE</h2> + + +<p>The last Norwegian novelist who is in the +Parisian sense <i>arrivé</i> is Jonas Lie.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The <i>Figaro</i> +has occupied itself with him of late; and +before long, I venture to predict, London and +New York will also have discovered him. English +versions of a few of his earlier novels appeared, +to be sure, twenty years ago—in very bad +translations—and accordingly attracted no great +attention. "The Visionary," which has recently +been published in London, has had better luck, +having been accorded a flattering reception. Of +its popular success it is yet too early to speak. +But even if Jonas Lie were not about to knock at +our gates, I venture to say that I shall earn the +gratitude of many a reader by making him acquainted +with this rare, complex, and exceedingly +modern spirit. For Jonas Lie is not (like so many +of his brethren of the quill) a mere inoffensive +gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is +a forceful personality of bright perceptions and +keen sensations, which has chosen to express itself +through the medium of the novel. He dwells in +a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +the world and its manifold concerns. In a score +of novels of varying degrees of excellence he has +given us vividly realized bits of the views which +his windows command. But what lends their +chief charm to these uncompromising specimens +of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament +on the author's part, which suffuses even +the harshest narrative with a rosy glow of hope. +Though, generally speaking, there is no very close +kinship between him and the French realists, I am +tempted to apply to him Zola's beautiful characterization +of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed +him at that exquisite point where reality ends and +poetry begins." Before he had yet written a single +book, except a volume of flamboyant verse, +Björnson said of him in a public speech: "His +friends know that he only has to plunge his landing-net +down into himself in order to bring it up +full."</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Pronounced <i>Lee</i>.</p></div> + +<p>The man who, in anticipation of his achievements, +impressed Björnson so deeply with his +genius, was, however, by others, who felt themselves +to be no less entitled to an opinion, regarded +as an "original," not to say a fool. That +he was decidedly queer, his biography by Arne +Garborg amply testifies.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Two souls, alas, abide within my breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The one forever strives against the other,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Faust; and Jonas Lie's life and literary activity +are apparently, in a very real sense, the result<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +of a similar warfare. There was, indeed, a good +ancestral reason for the duality of his nature. His +father, a judge of sterling ability and uprightness, +was descended, but a few generations back, from +sturdy, blond, Norwegian peasants; while his +mother was of Finnish, or possibly Gypsy, descent. +I remember well this black-eyed, eccentric +little lady, with her queer ways, extraordinary +costumes, and still more extraordinary conversation. +It is from her Jonas Lie has inherited the +fantastic strain in his blood, the strange, superstitious +terrors, and the luxuriant wealth of color +which he lavished upon his poems and his first +novel, "The Visionary." From his paternal ancestors, +who were for three generations judges and +judicial functionaries, he has derived his good +sense, his intense appreciation of detail, and his +strong grip on reality. His career represents at +its two poles a progression from the adventurous +romanticism of his maternal heritage to the severe, +wide-awake realism of the paternal—the emancipation +of the Norseman from the Finn.</p> + +<p>"Jonas Lie has a good memory," writes his +biographer. "Thus he remembers—even though +it be as through a haze—that he was once in the +world as the son of a laborer, a carpenter, or something +in that line, and that he went with food in +a tin-pail to his father, when he was at work. +During this incarnation he must have behaved +rather shabbily; for in the next he found himself +degraded to a fox—a silver fox—and in this capacity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +he was shot one moonlight night on the snow. +After that he emerged, according to his recollection, +as Jonas Lauritz Idemil, son of the lawyer +Mons Lie, at Hougsund, in Eker. This took place +November 6, 1833."</p> + +<p>When he was but a few years old his father removed, +in various official capacities, to Mandal, +Söndhordland, and, finally, to the city of Tromsoe, +in Nordland. It was here, in the extreme +north, that Jonas spent the years of his boyhood, +and it was this wild, enchanted region which put +the deepest impress upon his spirit.</p> + +<p>"In Nordland," he says in "The Visionary," +the hero of which is essentially the Finnish half +of himself, "all natural phenomena are intense, +and appear in colossal contrasts. There is an endless, +stony-gray desert as in primeval times, before +men dwelt there; but in the midst of this are also +endless natural riches. There is sun and glory of +summer, the day of which is not only twelve hours, +but lasts continuously, day and night, for three +months—a warm, bright, fragrance-laden summer, +with an infinite wealth of color and changing +beauty. Distances of seventy to eighty miles +across the mirror of the sea approach, as it were, +within earshot. The mountains clothe themselves +up to the very top with greenish-brown grass, and +in the glens and ravines the little birches join +hands for play, like white, sixteen-year-old girls; +while the fragrance of the strawberry and raspberry +fills the air as nowhere else; and the day is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +so hot that you feel a need to bathe yourself in +the sun-steeped, plashing sea, so wondrously clear +to the very bottom.... Myriads of birds are +surging through the air, like white breakers about +the cliffs, and like a screaming snow-storm about +their brooding-places...."</p> + +<p>But "as a contrast there is a night of darkness +and terror which lasts nine months."</p> + +<p>In this arctic gloom, during which the yellow +candle-light struggled all day long through the +frost-covered window-panes, the Finn grew big in +Jonas Lie, and the Norseman shrank and was almost +dwarfed. The air was teeming with superstitions +which he could not help imbibing. His fancy +fed eagerly on stories of Draugen, the terrible sea-bogie +who yells heartrendingly in the storm, and +the sight of whom means death; on blood-curdling +tales of Finnish sorcery and all sorts of uncanny +mysteries; on folk-legends of trolds, nixies, and +foul-weather sprites. He had his full share of that +craving for horrors which is common to boyhood; +and he had also the most exceptional facilities for +satisfying it. Truth to tell, if it had not been for +the Norse Jekyll in his nature the Finnish Hyde +might have run away with him altogether. They +were mighty queer things which often invaded his +brain, taking possession of his thought, paralyzing +his will, and refusing to budge, no matter how +earnestly he pleaded. There were times when he +grew afraid of himself; when his imagination got +the upper hand, blowing him hither and thither<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +like a weather-cock. Then the Norse Jekyll came +to his rescue and routed his uncomfortable yoke-fellow. +Hence that very curious phenomenon that +the same man who has given us sternly and soberly +realistic novels like "The Family at Gilje" and +"The Commodore's Daughters," is also the author +of the collection of tales called "Trold," in which +his fancy runs riot in a phantasmagoria of the +grotesquest imaginings. The same Jonas Lie who +comports himself so properly in the parlor is quite +capable, it appears, of joining nocturnally the +witches' dance at the Brocken and cutting up the +wildest antics under the pale glimpses of the moon.</p> + +<p>Throughout his boyhood he struggled rather ineffectually +against his Hyde, who made him kill +roosters, buy cakes on credit, go on forbidden expeditions +by land and sea, and shamefully neglect +his lessons. Accordingly, he made an early acquaintance +with the rod, and was regarded as well-nigh +incorrigible. He accepted with boyish stoicism +the castigations which fell pretty regularly to +his lot, bore no one any grudge for them, but rarely +thought of mending his ways, in order to avoid +them. They were somehow part of the established +order of things which it was useless to criticise. +In his reminiscences from his early years, which he +published some years ago, he is so delightfully boy, +that no one who has any recollection of that barbaric +period in his own life can withhold his sympathy. +The following, for instance, seems to me +charming:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can still feel how she (Kvaen Marja, the +maid) pulled us, cowering and reluctant, out of +our warm beds, where we lay snug like birds in +their nests, between the reindeer skin and the +sheepskin covering. I remember how I stood +asleep and tottering on the floor, until I got a +shower of cold water from the bathing-sponge over +my back and became wide awake. Then to jump +into our clothes! And now for the lessons! It +was a problem how to get a peep at them during +the scant quarter hour, while the breakfast was +being devoured down in the dining-room with +mother, who sat and poured out tea before the big +astral lamp, while darkness and snow-drift lay +black upon the window-panes. Then up and +away!...</p> + +<p>"There (in the school) I sat and perspired in +the sultry heat of the stove, and with a studiously +unconcerned face watched with strained anxiety +every expression and gesture of the teacher. Was +he in good-humor to-day? Would that I might +escape reciting! He began at the top.... +That was a perfect millstone lifted from my +breast, though, as yet, nothing could be sure. +Now for a surreptitious peep at the end of the +lesson."</p> + +<p>It was Jonas Lie's ambition at that time to become +a gunsmith. He had a profound respect for +the ingenuity and skill required for such a curious +bit of mechanism. But his father, who could not +afford to have a member of his family descend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +into the rank of artisans, promptly strangled that +ambition. Then the sea, which has been "the +Norseman's path to praise and power," no less than +the Dane's, lured the adventurous lad; and his +parent, who had no exalted expectations regarding +him, gave his consent to his entering the Naval +Academy at Fredericksvaern. But here he was +rejected on account of near-sightedness. Nothing +remained, then, but to resume the odious books +and prepare to enter the University. But to a boy +whose heroes were the two master-thieves, Ola +Höiland and Gjest Baardsen, that must have been a +terribly arduous necessity. However, he submitted +with bad grace, and was enrolled as a pupil at the +gymnasium in Bergen. Here his Finnish Hyde +promptly got him into trouble. Having by sheer +ill luck been cheated of his chances of a heroic +career, he began to imagine in detail the potentialities +of greatness for the loss of which Fate owed +him reparation. And so absorbed did he become +in this game of fancy, and so enamored was he of +his own imaginary deeds, that he lost sight of the +fact that they were of the stuff that dreams are +made of. With frank and innocent trustfulness he +told them to his friends, both young and old, and +soon earned a reputation as a most unblushing +liar. But if any one dared call him that to his +face, he had to reckon with an awe-inspiring pair +of fists which were wielded with equal precision +and force. The youth, being at variance with the +world, lived in a state of intermittent warfare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +and he gave and received valiant blows, upon +which he yet looks back with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>In spite of his distaste for books Jonas Lie +managed, when he was eighteen years old, to pass +the entrance examination to the University. +Among his schoolmates during his last year of +preparation at Heltberg's Gymnasium, in Christiania, +were Björnstjerne Björnson and Henrik +Ibsen. The former took a great interest in the +odd, <i>naïve</i>, near-sighted Nordlander who walked +his own ways, thought his own thoughts, and accepted +ridicule with crushing indifference.</p> + +<p>"I was going about there in Christiania," he +says in a published letter to Björnson, "as a young +student, undeveloped, dim, and unclear—a kind +of poetic visionary, a Nordland twilight nature—which +after a fashion espied what was abroad in +the age, but indistinctly in the dusk, as through a +water telescope—when I met a young, clear, full-born +force, pregnant with the nation's new day, +the blue steel-flash of determination in his eyes +and the happily found national form—pugnacious +to the very point of his pen. I gazed and stared, +fascinated, and took this new thing aboard along +the whole gunwale. Here, I felt, were definite +forms, no mere dusk and fantastic haze—something +to fashion into poetry.... From the +first hour you knew how to look straight into this +strange twilight of mine, and you espied flashes of +the aurora there when no one else did, like the +true and faithful friend you are. You helped and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +guided and found grains of gold, where others saw +mostly nonsense, and perhaps half a screw loose. +While I was straying in search of the spiritual tinsel, +with which the <i>esprits forts</i> of the age were +glittering, you taught me, and impressed upon me, +again and again, that I had to seek in myself for +whatever I might possess of sentiment and simplicity—and +that it was out of this I would have +to build my fiction."</p> + +<p>This bit of confession is extremely significant. +The Finnish Hyde was evidently yet uppermost. +Björnson taught Lie to distrust the tinsel glitter +of mere rhetoric, and the fantastic exuberance of +invention in which the young Nordlander believed +that he had his <i>forte</i>. But the matter had even a +more serious phase than this. It was about this +time that Lie disappeared for a period of three +months from his friends, and even his parents, and +when again he emerged into the daylight, he could +give no account of himself. He had simply sauntered +about, moping and dreaming. He had been +Hyde. The cold shudders which lurked in his +blood from the long, legend-haunted arctic night +could break into open terror on unforeseen occasions. +Grown man though he was, he was afraid +of being alone in the dark—a peculiarity which +once got him into a comical predicament.</p> + +<p>It was his habit when travelling to place his big +top-boots at night within easy reach, so that he +might use them as weapons against any ghost or +suspicious-looking object that might be stirring in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +the gloom. One evening when he had gone to bed +at a country inn, he was aroused from his sleep +and saw indistinctly a white phenomenon fluttering +to and fro along the opposite wall. Instantly +he grabs a boot and hurls it with ferocious force at +the goblin. A roar was heard followed by a salvo +of blue profanity. It was a fellow-traveller—a +lumber-dealer—who was to occupy the other bed +in the room. He had undressed and was disporting +himself in nocturnal attire before reposing, +when Jonas Lie's well-aimed missile hit him in the +stomach and doubled him up with pain.</p> + +<p>A skeleton in the den of a medical friend caused +Lie many a shiver, for he could never quite rid +himself of the idea that it moved. All that lay +beyond the range of the senses drew him with an +irresistible, half-shuddering attraction; and he +resented all attempts to explain it by ordinary +mundane laws. As his first novel abundantly +proves, he possesses in a marked degree the "sixth +sense" that gropes eagerly and with a half-terrified +fascination in the dusk that lies beyond the daylight +of the other five.</p> + +<p>The verses which Jonas Lie began about this +time to produce are mostly written for patriotic +and other festive occasions, and therefore arouse +no creepy sensations. But they are so overladen +with confusing imagery that they have to be read +twice to be understood. In the poem "Solveig" +(1855) he makes the heart "in its prison envy the +free-born thoughts which fly to the beloved one's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +breast." His versification is gnarled and twisted, +and a perpetual strain upon the ear. As Mr. Nordahl +Rolfsen has remarked, one need not be a +princess in order to be troubled by the peas in his +verse.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Browning himself could scarcely have +perpetrated more unmelodious lines than Jonas +Lie is capable of. Nevertheless there is often in +his patriotic songs a most inspiriting bugle-note, +which is found nowhere in Browning, unless it be +in the "Cavalier Tunes." The curiosities of his +prosody are (according to his biographer) attributable +to the Nordland accent in his speech. They +would sound all right, he says, to a Nordland ear.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, p. 527.</p></div> + +<p>At the risk of violating chronology I may as +well speak here of his two collections of "Poems" +(1867 and 1889) (the latter being an expurgated but +enlarged edition of the earlier), to which the present +criticisms particularly apply. Both editions +contain notable things amid occasional bits of what +scarcely rises above doggerel. The sailor songs, +though rough, are true in tone and have a catching +nautical swing; but of far deeper ring and +more intensely felt are the poems which deal with +the nocturnal sides of nature. These have at +times a strange, shivering resonance, like an old +violin whose notes ripple down your spine. I refer +especially to such untranslatable poems as +"Draugen," "Finn-Shot," "The Mermaid," and +"Nightmare." The mood of these is heavy and +uncanny, like that of the "Ancient Mariner."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +But they are indubitably poetry. It is by no +means sure that the world has not lost a poet in +Jonas Lie; but probably a lesser one than the +novelist that it gained.</p> + +<p>As Jonas had been voted by his kin the family +dullard, it was decided to make a clergyman of +him. But to this the young man objected, chiefly, +according to his own story, because the clerical +gown looks too much like a petticoat. At all +events, after having equipped himself with a set +of theological tomes, and peeped cursorily into +them, he grew so discouraged that he went to the +bookseller and exchanged them for a set of law-books. +Not that the law had any peculiar attraction +for him; he rather accepted it as a <i>pis aller</i>; +for, of course, he had to study something. In due +time he was graduated, but with such poor standing +that he concluded to put in another year and +try again. And this time he managed to acquit +himself creditably. He then began (1859) the +practice of the law in the little town of Kongsvinger, +the centre of the richest lumber districts in +Norway. But in the meanwhile he had had an +experience of another kind which is worth recounting.</p> + +<p>From his boyhood he had been a worshipper of +the fair sex. Marriages (of other people) had been +among the most tragic events in his life; and he +rarely failed to shed tears at the thought that now +this lovely charmer, too, was removed from the +number of his possible selections. If things went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +on in this way he would have no choice but to be +a bachelor. However, one fine day a most attractive-looking +craft, bearing the name Thomasine +Lie, appeared upon his horizon, sailed within +speaking distance, and presently a great deal nearer. +In fact, though they were cousins, it took a +remarkably short time for the two young people to +discover that they loved each other; and when +that discovery was made, they acted upon it with +laudable promptitude. They became engaged; and +were subsequently married. And from that day +the Finnish Hyde in Jonas was downed and reduced +to permanent subjection. He never raised +his head again. The more sober-minded, industrious, +and sensible Norse Jekyll took command and +steered with a steady hand, in fair weather and +foul, and often through dangerous waters, the +barque Jonas Lie, which came to carry more and +more passengers the longer it proceeded on its +voyage.</p> + +<p>Truth to tell, I know among contemporary men +of letters no more complete, happy, and altogether +beautiful marriage than that of Jonas and Thomasine +Lie. The nearest parallel to it that I can +think of is that of John Stuart Mill and Mrs. Taylor, +who later became Mrs. Mill.</p> + +<p>Lie's friends accuse him of carrying his admiration +of his wife to the verge of idolatry. He will +leave himself but little merit, but with an air of +candid conviction he attributes even his authorship +to his Thomasine. "Her name ought to stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +next to mine on the title-pages of my books," he +has repeatedly declared. And again, "If I have +written anything that is good, then my wife deserves +as much credit for it as myself ... +Without her nothing would have come of it except +nonsense."</p> + +<p>Even though that may be an exaggeration, pure +delusion it is not. For Mrs. Lie is, in a certain +way, the complement to her husband. She possesses +what he has not; and he possesses what she, +in her modest self-extinction, would never dream +of laying claim to. The spirit of order, adjustment, +and lucidity is strong in her; while he, in his +fanciful exuberance, is often overwhelmed by his +material, and is unable to get it into shape. Then +she quietly steps in and separates the dry land from +the water in his seething and struggling chaos. +She is one of those rare women who, while apparently +only listening, can give you back your own +thoughts clarified. Mr. Garborg relates most +charmingly how she straightens out the tangles in +her husband's plots, and unobtrusively draws him +back, when, as frequently happens, he has switched +himself off on a side-line and is unable to recover +his bearings. And this occurs as often in his conversation +as in his manuscripts, which he never +despatches to the publisher without her revision. +She helps him condense. She knows just what to +omit. Yet she does not pretend to be in the least +literary. Her proper department, in which she is +also a shining success, is the care of her children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +and the superintendence of her household. She +understands to perfection the art of economy and +has a keen practical sense, which makes her admirably +competent in all the more difficult situations +in life. And he, feeling her competence and +his own deficiency, frankly leans on her. Hence a +certain motherliness on her part (most beautiful to +behold) has tinged their relation; and on his an +admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes +in the other what he himself lacks; and the husband's +genius loses none of its brightness to the +wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and +adjusts the reflectors which send its light abroad.</p> + +<p>I have again anticipated, because the subsequent +career of Jonas Lie could not be properly understood +without a full appreciation of the new factor +which from this time enters into it. He developed +signal ability as a lawyer during the years of his +practice at Kongsvinger; became prosperous and +influential, bought a considerable estate (called +Sigridnaes) and began to dabble in politics. He +still wrote occasional poems, and was the soul of +all conviviality in the town. He entertained celebrities, +wrote political leaders in the papers, earned +a great deal of money, lived high, and unfolded a +restless and widely ramified activity. Then came +the great financial crisis of 1867-68, which swept +away so many great fortunes in Norway. Lie became +involved (chiefly by endorsement of commercial +paper) to the extent of several hundred thousand +dollars. He gave up everything he had, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +moved to Christiania, resolved to pay the enormous +debt, for which he had incurred legal responsibility, +to the last farthing. Quixotic as it may +seem, it was his intention to accomplish this by +novel-writing. And to his honor be it said that +for a long series of years he kept sending every +penny he could spare, above the barest necessities, +to his creditors, refusing to avail himself of the +bankruptcy law and accept a compromise. But it +was a bottomless pit into which he was throwing +his hard-earned pennies, and in the end he had to +yield to the persuasions of his family and abandon +the hopeless enterprise.</p> + +<p>In Christiania he spent some hard and penurious +years, trying to make a livelihood as a journalist +and man of letters. Some of his friends +suspected that the Lie family were subsisting on +very short rations; but they were proud, and +there was no way to help them. The ex-lawyer +developed ultra-democratic sympathies, and time +and again his Thomasine led the dance at the balls +of the Laborers' Union with Mr. Eilert Sundt.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +A position as teacher of Norwegian in Heltberg's +Gymnasium he lost because he only made orations +to his pupils, but taught them no rhetoric. His +volume of "Poems" (1867) had attracted no particular +attention; but his political articles were +much read and discussed. However, it was not in +politics that he was to win his laurels.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> A well-known Norwegian philanthropist, whose work on the +Gypsies is highly regarded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p></div> + +<p>A little before Christmas, 1870, there appeared +from Gyldendal's publishing-house in Copenhagen +a novel, entitled "The Visionary" (<i>Den Fremsynte</i>), +by Jonas Lie. To analyze the impression +which this strange book makes at the first reading +is difficult. I thought, as I sat rejoicing in +its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: +"This Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and +'The Visionary' is his one blossom. It is the one +good novel which almost every life is said to contain. +Only this is so strikingly good that it is a +pity it will have no successors."</p> + +<p>It was evidently himself, or rather the Finnish +part of himself, the author was exploring; it +was in the mine of his own experience he was +delving; it was his own heart he was coining. +That may, in a sense, be true of every book of +any consequence; but it was most emphatically +true of "The Visionary." It is not to the use of +the first person that this autobiographical note is +primarily due; but to a certain beautiful intimacy +in the narrative, and a <i>naïve</i> confidence which +charms the reader and takes him captive. With a +lavish hand Lie has drawn upon the memories of +his boyhood in the arctic North; and it was the +newness of the nature which he revealed, no less +than the picturesque force of his language, which +contributed in no small degree to the success of +his book. But, above all, it was the sweetness +and pathos of the exquisite love story. Susanna, +though as to talents not much above the commonplace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +is ravishing. To have breathed the breath +of such warm and living life into a character of +fiction is no small achievement. It is the loveliness +of love, the sweetness of womanhood, the glorious +ferment of the blood in the human springtide +which are celebrated in "The Visionary." +The thing is beautifully done. I do not know +where young love has been more touchingly portrayed, +unless it be in some of the Russian tales of +Tourguéneff.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The second-sight with which the +hero, David Holst, is afflicted, introduces an undertone +of sadness—a pensive minor key—and +seems to necessitate the tragic <i>dénouement</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Spring Floods, Liza, Faust.</p></div> + +<p>The immediate success of "The Visionary" +changed Jonas Lie's situation and prospects. He +was first sent with a public stipend to Nordland +for the purpose of studying the character, manners, +and economic condition of the dwellers within +the polar zone; and, like the conscientious man he +is, he made an exhaustive report to the proper +department, detailing with touching minuteness +the results of his observations. The Norwegian +government has always taken a strong (and usually +very intelligent) interest in rising artists, musicians, +and men of letters, and has endeavored by +stipends and salaries to compensate them for the +smallness of the public which the country affords. +Jonas Lie was now a sufficiently conspicuous man +to come into consideration in the distribution of +the official <i>panem et circenses</i>. The state awarded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +him a largess of $400 for one year (twice renewed), +in order to enable him to go to Italy and "educate +himself for a poet;" and he was also made a +beneficiary of the well-known Schafer legacy for +the training of artists. In the autumn of 1871 he +started with his wife and four children for Rome. +It was in a solemnly festal frame of mind that he +now resolved to devote the rest of his life to his +real vocation, which at last he had found. This +was what they had all meant—his gropings, trials, +and failures. They had all fitted him for the life-work +which was now to be his. The world lay +before him as in the shining calm after storm.</p> + +<p>He took his artistic training, as everything else, +with extreme seriousness. With the utmost conscientiousness +he started out with his Thomasine, +morning after morning, to study the Vatican and +the Capitoline collections. "Happy is the man," +says Goethe, "who learns early in life what art +means." But Jonas Lie was thirty-eight years +old; and, as far as I can judge from his writings, +I should venture to say that the secret of classical +art has never been unlocked to him. It lies probably +rather remote from the sphere of his sensations. +His genius is so profoundly Germanic that +only an ill-wisher would covet for him that expansion +of vision which would enable him to perceive +with any degree of artistic realization and intimacy +the glorious serenity of the Juno Ludovisi and the +divine distinction of the Apollo Belvedere.</p> + +<p>The two books which were the first-fruits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +the Roman sojourn were a disappointment to his +friends, though in the case of the unpretentious +collection called "Tales and Sketches from Nordland" +(1872) there is no reason why it should +have been. The public found that it was not on +a level with "The Visionary," and by "The Visionary" +Jonas Lie was bound to be judged, +whether he liked it or not. That is the penalty +of having produced a masterpiece, that one is +never permitted to follow the example of <i>bonus +Homerus</i>, who, as every one knows, sometimes +nods. Jonas Lie was far from nodding in "The +Barque Future" (1872). There was an abundance +of interest in the material, and a delightful +picturesque vigor in the descriptions of nature. +But of romantic interest of the kind which the +ordinary novel-reader craves, there was very little. +<i>À propos</i> of "The Barque Future" let me quote a +bit of general characterization which applies to +nearly all the subsequent works of Jonas Lie.</p> + +<p>"It is in this particular that Jonas Lie most +distinctly diverges from all romanticism and romance-writing: +His interest in practical affairs, +his ability to see poetry in that which is contemporary. +The sawdust in the rivers has never +offended him, nor the Briton's black cloud of coal-smoke. +The busy toil of office and shop is not +prose to him. He penetrates to the bottom of its +meaning—its significance to civilization."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Arne Garborg: Jonas Lie, p. 172.</p></div> + +<p>"The Barque Future" is, as regards its problem,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +Gustav Freytag's <i>Soll und Haben</i> ("Debit +and Credit") transferred to Nordland. Instead +of the noble house of Rothsattel we have the +ancient and highly esteemed commercial firm of +Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the +scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel +was dragged to ruin by the Jew Veitel Itzig. +But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart +to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can +Lie violate the proprieties of fiction by permitting +Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He could not, like +the German novelist, conjure up a noble gentleman +of democratic sympathies and practical ability +(like von Finck) and make him emerge in the +nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry, +justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the +state by the uses which he fulfils. In Norway +there is no nobility; and Lie, therefore, had to +make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten +Jonsen (the equivalent of Anton Wohlfahrt in +<i>Soll und Haben</i>) the inheritor of the future. He +accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele +Heggelund; but not until he has put Jacob to +shame by the amount and character of the work by +which he earns his Rachel.</p> + +<p>The reception of "The Barque Future" was +far from satisfactory to its author. He grew apprehensive +about himself. He could not afford +another failure; nay, not even a <i>succès d'estime</i>. +Accordingly he waited two years, and published in +1874 "The Pilot and his Wife," which made its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +mark. It is an every-day story in the best sense +of the word, the history of a marriage among common +folk. And yet so true is it, so permeated +with a warm and rich humanity, that it holds the +reader's attention from beginning to end. Then, +to add to its interest, it has some bearing upon the +woman question. Lie maintains that no true marriage +can exist where the wife sacrifices her personality, +and submits without a protest to neglect +and ill-treatment. Happily we are not particularly +in need of that admonition on our side of the +ocean. The wife of the pilot, Salve Christensen, +had once broken her engagement with him, having +become enamored of the handsome naval lieutenant, +Beck; but she recovers her senses and marries +Christensen, whom she really loves. After her +marriage she tries to do penance for the wrong she +has done him by being, as she fancies, a model +wife. But by submission and self-extinction, so +alien to her character, she arouses his suspicion +that she has something on her conscience; and, in +his feeling of outrage, he begins to neglect and +abuse her. When, at last, his maltreatment +reaches a climax, she arises in all the dignity of +her womanhood, and asserts her true self. Then +comes reconciliation, followed by a united life of +true equality and loving comradeship.</p> + +<p>Such a mere skeleton of a plot can, of course, +give no conception of the wealth of vivid details +with which the book abounds. There is, however, +a certain air of effort about it, of a strenuous seriousness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +which is, I fancy, the temperamental +note of this author.</p> + +<p>"The Pilot and his Wife" besides reviving Lie's +popularity also served to define his position in +Norwegian literature. He had at first been assigned +a definite corner as the "poet of Nordland," +but his ambition was not satisfied with so narrow a +province. In all his tales, so far, he has surpassed +all predecessors in his descriptions of the sea; and +the critics, when favorably disposed, fell into the +habit of referring to him as "the novelist of the +sea," "the poet of the ocean," etc. The Norwegian +sailor, whom he may be said to have revealed +in "The Pilot," came to be considered more and +more as his property; and no one can read such +tales as "Press On" (<i>Gaa Paa</i>) and "Rutland" +without agreeing that the title is well merited. I +know of no English novelist since Smollett, who +produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions +of maritime life. Mr. Clark Russell, who +knows his ship from masthead to keel as thoroughly +as Jonas Lie, and writes fully as clever a +story, seems to me to have a lower aim, in so +far as the novel of adventure, <i>cæteris paribus</i>, +belongs on a lower level than the novel of character.</p> + +<p>In the year 1874 the Norwegian Storthing conferred +upon Jonas Lie an annual "poet's salary" +of about six hundred dollars. This is supposed to +supply a warranty deed to a lot on Parnassus. It +removes any possible flaw in the title to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +immortality. Lie was now lifted into the illustrious triumvirate +in which Björnson and Ibsen were his predecessors. +Great expectations were entertained of +his literary future. But, oddly enough, this official +recognition did not have a favorable effect upon +Lie. He felt himself almost oppressed by a sense +of obligation to yield full returns for what he consumed +of the public revenues. In 1875 he published +a versified tale, "Faustina Strozzi," dealing +with the struggle for Italian liberty. In spite of +many excellences it fell rather flat, and was +roughly handled by the critics. Even a worse +fate befell its successor, "Thomas Ross" (1878), +a novel of contemporary life in the Norwegian +capital. It is a pale, and rather labored story, in +which a young girl, of the Rosamond Vincy type, +is held up to scorn, and the atrocity of flirtation +is demonstrated by the most tragic consequences. +There is likewise an air of triviality about "Adam +Schrader" (1879); and Lie became seriously alarmed +about himself when he had to register a third failure. +Like its predecessor, this book is full of +keen observations, and the sketches of the social +futilities and the typical characters at a summer +watering-place are surely good enough to pass +muster. But, somehow, the material fails to combine +into a sufficiently coherent and impressive +picture; and the total effect remains rather feeble. +In a drama, "Grabow's Cat" (1880), he suffered +shipwreck once more, though he saved something +from the waves. The play was performed in Christiania<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +and Stockholm, and aroused interest, but +not enough to keep it afloat.</p> + +<p>It has been said of Browning that he succeeded +by a series of failures, which meant, in his case, +that his books failed to command instant attention, +but were gradually discovered by the thoughtful +few who by their appreciation spread the poet's +fame among the thoughtless many. It was not in +this way that Jonas Lie's failures conduced to his +final success. "Thomas Ross," "Adam Schrader," +and "Grabow's Cat" have not grown perceptibly +in the estimation either of the critics or of the +public since their first appearance. But they supplied +their author a hard but needed discipline. +They warned him against over-confidence and +routine work. He had passed through a soul-trying +experience, in its effect not unlike the one +which Keats describes <i>à propos</i> of "Endymion:"</p> + +<p>"In 'Endymion' I leaped headlong into the sea +and thereby have become better acquainted with +the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than +if I had stayed upon the green shore, took tea and +comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure—would +rather fail than not be among the greatest."</p> + +<p>Jonas Lie reconquered at one stroke all that he +had lost, by the delightful sea-novel "Rutland" +(1881), and reinstated himself still more securely +in the hearts of an admiring public by the breezy +tale, "Press On" (1882). But after so protracted +a sea-voyage he began to long for the shore, where, +up to date he had suffered all his reverses. It could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +not be that he who had lived all his life on <i>terra +firma</i>, and was so profoundly interested in the problems +of modern society, should be banished forever, +like "The Man Without a Country," to the briny +deep, and be debarred from describing the things +which he had most at heart. One more attempt he +was bound to make, even at the risk of another failure. +Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life +Prisoner" (<i>Livsslaven</i>), which deserved a better fate +than befell it. The critics found it depressing, compared +it to Zola, and at the same time scolded the +author because he lacked indignation and neglected +to denounce the terrible conditions which +he described. He replied to their arraignments in +an angry but very effective letter. But that did +not save the book. Truth to tell, "The Life +Prisoner" is a dismal tale. It was, in fact, the +irruption of modern naturalism into Norwegian +literature. It reminds one in its tone more of +Dostoyevski's "Crime and Punishment" than of +"L'Assommoir." For to my mind Dostoyevski is +a greater exponent of naturalism than Zola, whom +Lemaitre not inaptly styles "an epic poet." The +pleasing and well-bred truths or lies, to the expounding +of which <i>belles lettres</i> had hitherto been +confined, were here discarded or ignored. The +author had taken a plunge into the great dumb +deep of the nethermost social strata, which he has +explored with admirable conscientiousness and artistic +perception. Few men of letters would object +to being the father of so creditable a failure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +Lie, being convinced that his book was a good one, +no matter what the wielders of critical tomahawks +might say to the contrary, resolved to persevere in +the line he had chosen and to pluck victory from +the heels of defeat. And the victory came even the +same year (1883), when he published what, to my +mind, is the most charming of all his novels, "The +Family at Gilje." That is a book which is taken, +warm and quivering, out of the very heart of Norway. +The humor which had been cropping out +tentatively in Lie's earlier tales comes here to its +full right, and his shy, beautiful pathos gleams +like hidden tears behind his genial smile. It is +close wrought cloth of gold. No loosely woven +spots—no shoddy woof of cheaper material. Captain +Jaeger and his wife, Inger-Johanna, Jörgen, +Grip, nay, the whole company of sober, everyday +mortals that come trooping through its chapters +are so delightfully human that you feel the blood +pulse under their skin at the first touch. It is a +triumph indeed, to have written a book like "The +Family at Gilje."</p> + +<p>From this time forth Jonas Lie's career presents +an unbroken series of successes. "A Maelstrom" +(1884), "Eight Stories," "Married Life" (<i>Et +Samliv</i>), (1887), "Maisa Jons" (1888), "The +Commodore's Daughters" and "Evil Powers" +(1890), which deal with interesting phases of contemporary +life, are all extremely modern in feeling +and show the same effort to discard all tinsel and +sham and get at the very heart of reality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>He had by this series of novels established his +reputation as a relentless realist, when, in 1892, he +surprised his admirers by the publication of two +volumes of the most wildly fantastic tales, entitled +"Trold." It was as if a volcano, with writhing +torrents of flame and smoke, had burst forth from +under a sidewalk in Broadway. It was the suppressed +Finn who, for once, was going to have his +fling, even though he were doomed henceforth to +silence. It was the "queer thoughts" (which +had accumulated in the author and which he had +scrupulously imprisoned) returning to take vengeance +upon him unless he released them. The +most grotesque, weird, and uncanny imaginings +(such as Stevenson would delight in) are crowded +together in these tales, some of which are derived +from folk-lore and legends, while others are free +fantasies.</p> + +<p>Before taking leave of Jonas Lie, a word about +his style is in order. Style, as such, counts for +very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly individual +and vigorous manner of utterance, though +a trifle rough, perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. +Mere decorative adjectives and clever +felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and +social phenomena—all that we include under the +term modern progress—command his most intense +and absorbed attention. Having since 1882 been +a resident of Paris (except during his annual summer +excursions to Norway or the mountains of +Bavaria) he has had the advantage of seeing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +society which he describes at that distance which, +if it does not lend enchantment, at all events unifies +the scattered impressions, and furnishes a convenient +critical outpost. He does not permit himself, +however, like so many foreigners in the +French capital, to lapse into that supercilious cosmopolitanism +which deprives a man of his own +country without giving him any other in exchange. +No; Jonas Lie is and remains a Norseman—a +fact which he demonstrated (to the gratification +of his countrymen) on a recent occasion. +At the funeral of the late Professor O. J. Broch—a +famous Norwegian who died in Paris—the chaplain +of the Swedish legation made an oration in +which he praised the departed statesman and scientist, +referring to him constantly as "our countryman." +When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without +anybody's invitation, stepped quietly up to the +coffin and in the name of Norway bade <i>his</i> countryman +a last farewell. "The spirit came over +Lie," says his biographer, "and he spoke with ravishing +eloquence."</p> + +<p>But why did he do such an uncalled-for thing, +you will ask? Because there is a systematic effort +on the part of Sweden to suppress the very name +of Norway, and to give the impression, throughout +the world, that there is no such nationality as the +Norwegian. Therefore every Norseman (unless +he chooses to be a party to this suppression) is obliged +to assert his nationality in season and out of +season. But Jonas Lie has, indeed, in a far more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +effective way borne aloft the banner of his country. +His books have been translated into French, +German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, +Russian, and Bohemian; and throughout +Europe the literary journals and magazines are +beginning to discuss him as one of the foremost +representatives of modern realism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> +<h2>HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A portion of this essay appeared originally in "The Dial" +of Chicago.</p></div> + + +<p>Hans Christian Andersen was a +unique figure in Danish literature, and a +solitary phenomenon in the literature of the world. +Superficial critics have compared him with the +Brothers Grimm; they might with equal propriety +have compared him with Voltaire or with the man +in the moon. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were +scientific collectors of folk-lore, and rendered as +faithfully as possible the simple language of the +peasants from whose lips they gathered their +stories. It was the ethnological and philological +value of the fairy-tale which stimulated their zeal; +its poetic value was of quite secondary significance. +With Andersen the case was exactly the reverse. +He was as innocent of scientific intention as the +hen who finds a diamond on a dunghill is of mineralogy. +It was the poetic phase alone of the fairy-tale +which attracted him; and what is more, he +saw poetic possibilities where no one before him +had ever discovered them. By the alchemy of +genius (which seems so perfectly simple until you +try it yourself) he transformed the common neglected +nonsense of the nursery into rare poetic +treasure. Boots, who kills the ogre and marries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +the princess—the typical lover in fiction from the +remotest Aryan antiquity down to the present +time—appears in Andersen in a hundred disguises, +not with the rudimentary features of the old story, +but modernized, individualized, and carrying on +his shield an unobtrusive little moral. In "Jack +the Dullard" he comes nearest to his primitive +prototype, and no visible effort is made to refine +him. In "The Most Extraordinary Thing" he is +the vehicle of a piece of social satire, and narrowly +escapes the lot which the Fates seem especially to +have prepared for inventors, viz., to make the +fortune of some unscrupulous clown while they +themselves die in poverty. In "The Porter's +Son" he is an aspiring artist, full of the fire of +genius, and he wins his princess by conquering +that many-headed ogre with which every self-made +man has to battle—the world's envy, and malice, +and contempt for a lowly origin. It is easy to multiply +examples, but these may suffice.</p> + +<p>In another species of fairy-tale, which Andersen +may be said to have invented, incident seems to be +secondary to the moral purpose, which is yet so artfully +hidden that it requires a certain maturity of +intellect to detect it. In this field Andersen has +done his noblest work and earned his immortality. +Who can read that marvellous little tale, "The +Ugly Duckling," without perceiving that it is a +subtle, most exquisite revenge the poet is taking +upon the humdrum Philistine world, which despised +and humiliated him, before he lifted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +wings and flew away with the swans, who knew +him as their brother? And yet, as a child, I remember +reading this tale with ever fresh delight, +though I never for a moment suspected its moral. +The hens and the ducks and the geese were all so +vividly individualized, and the incidents were so +familiar to my own experience, that I demanded +nothing more for my entertainment. Likewise in +"The Goloshes of Fortune" there is a wealth of +amusing adventures, all within the reach of a +child's comprehension, which more than suffices +to fascinate the reader who fails to penetrate beneath +the surface. The delightful satire, which is +especially applicable to Danish society, is undoubtedly +lost to nine out of ten of the author's foreign +readers, but so prodigal is he both of humorous +and pathetic meaning, that every one is charmed +with what he finds, without suspecting how much +he has missed. "The Little Mermaid" belongs +to the same order of stories, though the pathos +here predominates, and the resemblance to De la +Motte Fouqué's "Undine" is rather too striking. +But the gem of the whole collection, I am inclined +to think, is "The Emperor's New Clothes," which +in subtlety of intention and universality of application +rises above age and nationality. Respect for +the world's opinion and the tyranny of fashion +have never been satirized with more exquisite +humor than in the figure of the emperor who +walks through the streets of his capital in <i>robe de +nuit</i>, followed by a procession of courtiers, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +all go into ecstasies over the splendor of his attire.</p> + +<p>It was not only in the choice of his theme that +Andersen was original. He also created his style, +though he borrowed much of it from the nursery. +"It was perfectly wonderful," "You would scarcely +have believed it," "One would have supposed that +there was something the matter in the poultry-yard, +but there was nothing at all the matter"—such +beginnings are not what we expect to meet +in dignified literature. They lack the conventional +style and deportment. No one but Andersen +has ever dared to employ them. As Dr. Brandes +has said in his charming essay on Andersen, no +one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer +the vivid mimicry and gesticulation which accompany +a nursery tale to the printed page. If you +tell a child about a horse, you don't say that it +neighed, but you imitate the sound; and the +child's laughter or fascinated attention compensates +you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully +you crow, roar, grunt, and mew, the more +vividly you call up the image and demeanor of the +animal you wish to represent, and the more impressed +is your juvenile audience. Now, Andersen +does all these things in print: a truly wonderful +feat. Every variation in the pitch of the +voice—I am almost tempted to say every change of +expression in the story-teller's features—is contained +in the text. He does not write his story, +he tells it; and all the children of the whole wide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +world sit about him and listen with, eager, wide-eyed +wonder to his marvellous improvisations.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Brandes: Kritiker og Portraiter, p. 303.</p></div> + +<p>In reading Andersen's collected works one is +particularly impressed with the fact that what he +did outside of his chosen field is of inferior quality—inferior, +I mean, judged by his own high standard, +though in itself often highly valuable and +interesting. "The Improvisatore," upon which, +next to "The Wonder-Tales," his fame rests, is a +kind of disguised autobiography which exhibits +the author's morbid sensibility and what I should +call the unmasculine character of his mind,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> To +appeal to the reader's pity in your hero's behalf is +a daring experiment, and it cannot, except in brief +scenes, be successful. A prolonged strain of compassion +soon becomes wearisome, and not the +worthiest object in the world can keep one's charity +interested through four hundred pages. Antonio, +in "The Improvisatore," is a milksop whom +the author, with a lavish expenditure of sympathy, +parades as a hero. He is positively ludicrous +in his pitiful softness, vanity, and humility. +That the book nevertheless remains unfailingly +popular, and is even yet found in the satchel of +every Roman tourist, is chiefly due to the poetic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +intensity with which the author absorbed and portrayed +every Roman sight and sound. Italy throbs +and glows in the pages of "The Improvisatore"—the +old vagabond Italy of pre-Garibaldian days, +when priests and bandits and pretty women divided +the power of Church and State. Story's +"Roba di Roma," Augustus Hare's "Walks in +Rome," and all the other descriptions of the Eternal +City, are but disguised guide-books, feeble and +pale performances, when compared with Andersen's +beautiful romance.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> R. L. Stevenson in speaking of the "Character of Dogs" +makes the following cruel observation: "Hans Christian Andersen, +as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top +to toe with an excruciating vanity and scouting even along the +streets for the shadows of offence—here was the talking dog."—Memories +and Portraits, p. 196.</p></div> + +<p>The same feminine sentimentality which, in spite +of its picturesqueness, makes "The Improvisatore" +unpalatable to many readers, is still more glaringly +exhibited in "O. T." and "The Two Baronesses." +In "The Story of My Life" the same quality asserts +itself on every page in the most unpleasant +manner. The author makes no effort to excite the +reader's admiration, but he makes constant appeals +to his sympathy. Nevertheless this autobiography +rivals in historic and poetic worth Rousseau's +"Confessions" and Benvenuto Cellini's "Life." +The absolute candor with which Andersen lays +bare his soul, the complete intentional or unintentional +self-revelation, gives a psychological value to +the book which no mere literary graces could bestow. +I confess, until I had the pleasure of making +Andersen's acquaintance, "The Fairy Tale of +My Life" impressed me unpleasantly. After I +had by personal intercourse possessed myself of +the clew to the man's character, I judged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +differently. Andersen remained, until the day of his +death, a child. His innocence was more than virginal; +his unworldliness simply inconceivable. He +carried his heart on his sleeve, and invited you to +observe what a soft, tender, and sensitive heart it +was. He had the harmless vanity of a child who +has a new frock on. He was fidgety and unhappy +if anybody but himself was the centre of attraction; +and guilelessly happy when he could talk +and be admired and sympathized with. His conversation +was nearly always about himself, or about +the kings and princes and lofty personages who +had graciously deigned to take notice of him. He +was a tuft-hunter of a rare and curious sort; not +because he valued the glory reflected upon himself +by royal acquaintances, but because the pomp and +splendor of a court satisfied his thirst for the marvellous. +A king seemed to him, as to the boy who +reads his fairy-tales, something grand and remote; +and in invading this charmed sphere he seemed to +have invaded his own fairy-tales, and to live actually +in the fabulous region of wonders in which his +fancy revelled. He conceived of his life as a fairy-tale, +and delighted in living up to his own ideal of +living. The very title of his autobiography in +Danish (<i>Mit Livs Eventyr</i>) shows this conclusively; +and it ought to have been rendered in English +"The Fairy-Tale of My Life." "The Story of +My Life," as Mr. Scudder has translated it, would +have been in the original "Mit Livs Historie," +a very common title, by the way, for an autobiography,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +while <i>Mit Livs Eventyr</i> is entirely +unique.</p> + +<p>The feeling of the marvellous pervades the +book from beginning to end. The prose facts of +life had but a remote and indistinct existence to +the poet, and he blundered along miserably in his +youth, supported and upheld by a dim but unquenchable +aspiration. He commiserated himself, +and yet felt that there was something great in +store for him because of his exceptional endowment. +Every incident in his career he treated as +if it were a miracle, which required the suspension +of the laws of the universe for its performance. +God was a benevolent old man with a long beard +(just as he was depicted in old Dr. Luther's Catechism) +who sat up in the skies and spent his time +chiefly in managing the affairs of Hans Christian +Andersen as pleasantly as possible; and Hans +Christian was duly grateful, and cried on every +third or fourth page at the thought of the +goodness of God and man. Sometimes, for a +change, he cried at the wickedness of the latter, +and marvelled, with the <i>naïveté</i> of a spoiled child, +that there should be such dreadful people in the +world, who should persist in misunderstanding +and misrepresenting him. Those who were good +to him he exalted and lauded to the skies, no matter +how they conducted themselves toward the rest +of humanity. Some of the most mediocre princes, +who had paid him compliments, he embalmed in +prose and verse. Frederick VII. of Denmark,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +whose immorality was notorious, was, according +to Andersen, "a good, amiable king," "sent by +God to Danish land and folk," than whom "no +truer man the Danish language spoke." And this +case was by no means exceptional. The same uncritical +partiality toward the great and mighty is +perceptible in every chapter of "The Fairy-Tale +of My Life." It was not, however, toward the +great and mighty alone that he assumed this attitude; +he was uncritical by nature, and had too +soft a heart to find fault with anybody—except +those who did not like his books. Heine's jocose +description of heaven as a place where he could +eat cakes and sweets, and drink punch <i>ad libitum</i>, +and where the angels sat around raving about his +poetry, was probably not so very remote from +Andersen's actual conception. His world was the +child's world, in which there is but one grand division +into good and bad, and the innumerable +host that occupies the middle-ground between +these poles is ignored. Those who praised what +he wrote were good people; those who ridiculed +him were a malignant and black-hearted lot whom +he was very sorry for and would include in his +prayers, in the hope that God might make them +better.</p> + +<p>We may smile at this simple system; but we all +remember the time when we were addicted to a +similar classification. That it is a sign of immaturity +of intellect is undeniable; and in Andersen's +case it is one of the many indications that intellectually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +he never outgrew his childhood. He +never possessed the power of judgment that we +expect in a grown-up man. His opinions on +social and political questions were <i>naïve</i> and quite +worthless. And yet, in spite of all these limitations, +he was a poet of rare power; nay, I may say +in consequence of them. The vitality which in +other authors goes toward intellectual development, +produced in him strength and intensity of +imagination. Everything which his fancy touched +it invested with life and beauty. It divined the +secret soul of bird and beast and inanimate things. +His hens and ducks and donkeys speak as hens +and ducks and donkeys would speak if they could +speak. Their temperaments and characters are +scrupulously respected. Even shirt-collars, gingerbread +men, darning-needles, flowers, and sunbeams, +he endowed with physiognomies and +speech, fairly consistent with their ruling characteristics. +This personification, especially of inanimate +objects, may at first appear arbitrary; +but it is part of the beautiful consistency of Andersen's +genius that it never stoops to mere amusing +and fantastic trickery. The character of the +darning-needle is the character which a child +would naturally attribute to a darning-needle, +and the whole multitude of vivid personifications +which fills his tales is governed by the same +consistent but dimly apprehended instinct. Of +course, I do not pretend that he was conscious of +any such consistency; creative processes rarely are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +conscious. But he needed no reflection in order +to discover the child's view of its own world. He +never ceased to regard the world from the child's +point of view, and his personification of an old +clothes-press or a darning-needle was therefore +as natural as that of a child who beats the chair +against which it bumped its head. In the works +of more ambitious scope, where this code of conduct +would be out of place, Andersen was never +wholly at his ease. As lovers, his heroes usually +cut a sorry figure; their milk-and-water passion is +described, but it is never felt. They make themselves +a trifle ridiculous by their innocence, and +are amusing when they themselves least suspect it. +Likewise, in his autobiography, he is continually +exposing himself to ridicule by his <i>naïve</i> candor, +and his inability to adapt himself to the etiquette +which prevails among grown-up people. Take +as an instance his visit to the Brothers Grimm, +when he asked the servant girl which of the +brothers was the more learned, and when she answered +"Jacob," he said, "Then take me to Jacob." +The little love affair, too, which he confides seems +to have been of the kind which one is apt to +experience during the pinafore period; a little +more serious, perhaps, but yet of the same kind. +It is in this vague and impersonal style that princes +and princesses love each other in the fairy-tales; +everything winds up smoothly, and there are never +any marital disagreements to darken the honeymoon. +It is in this happy, passionless realm that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +Andersen dwells, and here he reigns supreme. +For many years to come the fair creatures of his +fancy will continue to brighten the childhood of +new generations. No rival has ever entered this +realm; and even critics are excluded. Nevertheless, +Andersen need have no fear of the latter; for +even if they had the wish, they would not have +the power, to rob him of his laurels.</p> + +<p>Hans Christian Andersen was born in the little +town of Odense, on the island Fünen, April 2, +1805. His father was a poor shoemaker, with +some erratic ambitions, or, if his son's word may +be trusted, a man of a richly gifted and truly +poetic mind. His wife was a few years older and +a good deal more ignorant than himself; and when +they set up housekeeping together, in a little back +room, they rejoiced in being able to nail together +a bridal bed out of the scaffolding which had recently +supported a dead nobleman's coffin. The +black mourning drapery which yet clung to the +wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence. +Their first child, Hans Christian, grew up amid +these mean surroundings, constantly worried by +the street boys, who made a butt of him, and tortured +him in the thousand ingenious ways known +to their species. He had no schooling to speak +of; but, for all that, was haunted, like Joseph, +by dreams foreshadowing his future greatness. +Guided by this premonition he started, at the age +of fourteen, for Copenhagen, a tall, ugly, and ungainly +lad, but resolved, somehow or other, to conquer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +fame and honor. He tried himself as a +dancer, singer, actor, and failed lamentably in all +his <i>débuts</i>. He could not himself estimate the +extent of his own ignorance, nor could he dream +what a figure he was cutting. Undismayed by all +rebuffs, though suffering agony from his wounded +vanity, he wrote poems, comedies, and tragedies, in +which he plagiarized, more or less unconsciously, +the elder Danish poets. Mr. Jonas Collins, one of +the directors of the Royal Theatre, became interested +in the youth, whose unusual ambition meant +either madness or genius. In order to determine +which it might be, Mr. Collins induced King +Frederic VI. to pay for his education, and after +half a dozen years at school Hans Christian passed +the entrance examination to the University. Mr. +Collins continued to assist him with counsel and +deed; and his hospitable house in Bredgade became +a second home to Andersen. There he met, +for the first time, people of refinement and culture +on equal terms; and his morbid self-introspection +was in a measure cured by kindly association, tempered +by wholesome fun and friendly criticism. +He now resolved to abandon his University studies +and devote his life to literature.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt it would have alarmed the +gentle poet very much, if he had been told that he +belonged to the Romantic School. To be classified +in literature and be bracketed with a lot of men +with whom you are not even on speaking terms, +and whom, more than likely, you don't admire,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +would have seemed to him an unpleasant prospect. +That he drew much of his inspiration from the +German Romanticists, notably Heine and Hoffmann, +he would perhaps have admitted; but he +would have thought it unkind of you to comment +upon his indebtedness. In his first book, "A Pedestrian +Tour from Holmen Canal to the Eastern +Extremity of Amager" (1829), he assumed by turns +the <i>blasé</i> mask of the former and the fantastically +eccentric one of the latter; both of which ill became +his good-natured, plebeian, Danish countenance. +For all that, the book was a success in its +day; and no less an authority than the æsthetic +Grand Mogul, J. L. Heiberg, hailed it as a work of +no mean merit. It strikes us to-day as an exhibition +of that mocking smartness of youth which +often hides a childish heart. It was because he +was so excessively sentimental and feared to betray +his real physiognomy that he cut these excruciating +capers. His other alternative would have +been mawkishness. His vaudeville, "Love on the +Nicholas Tower," which satirizes the drama of +chivalry, is in the same vein and made a similar +hit. A volume of "Poems" was also well received. +But in 1831 he met with his first literary +reverse. A second collection of verses, entitled +"Phantasies and Sketches," was pitilessly ridiculed +by Henrik Hertz, in his "Letters from the Dead." +Andersen's lack of style and violations of syntax +were rather maliciously commented upon. If +Gabriel's trump had sounded from the top of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +Round Tower, it would not have startled Andersen +more. He was in despair. Like the great +child he was, he went about craving sympathy, +and weeping when he failed to find it.</p> + +<p>"I could say nothing," he writes in "the Fairy-Tale +of My Life," "I could only let the big, heavy +waves roll over me; and it was the common opinion +that I was to be totally washed away. I felt +deeply the wound of the sharp knife; and was on +the point of giving myself up, as I was already +given up by others."</p> + +<p>This is one of the numerous exhibitions of that +over-sensitiveness to criticism which caused him +such long and continued suffering. His mind was +like a bared nerve, quivering with delight or contracting +with violent pain. Utterly devoid, as he +was, of self-criticism, he regarded his authorship +as something miraculous, and held God (who apparently +supervised each chapter) responsible for +the fate of his books. "If the Lord," he writes in +solemn earnest to a friend, "will take as good care +of the remainder as he has of the first chapters, +you will like it."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> There was to him no difference +between his best and his worst. It was all +part of himself, and he could scarcely conceive of +any motive for finding fault with it, except personal +malice, envy, animosity.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> This did not,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +however, always prevent him from associating with +the malevolent critic, as for instance in the case of +Hertz, with whom he presently established pleasant +relations.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> P. Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historic, vol. ii., p. +477.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> I derive this impression not only from the Autobiography, +but from many conversations. An account of My Acquaintance +with Hans Christian Andersen will be found in The Century +Magazine, March, 1892.</p></div> + +<p>In 1831 Andersen made his first trip abroad. +"By industry and frugality," he says, "I had +saved up a little sum of money, so I resolved to +spend a couple of weeks in North Germany."</p> + +<p>The result of this journey was the book "Shadow +Pictures," which was followed in 1833 by "Vignettes +on Danish Poets," and a chaplet of verse entitled +"The Twelve Months of the Year." It is +quite true, as he affirms, that in his "Vignettes," +he "only spoke of that which was good in them" +[the poets]; but in consequence there is a great +lack of Attic salt in the book. In 1833 he went +abroad once more, visited Germany, France, +Switzerland, and Italy, and sent home the dramatic +poem "Agnete and the Merman," the comparative +failure of which was a fresh grief to him. +After his return from Rome (1835) he published +his "Improvisatore," which slowly won its way. +It was the reputation this novel gained abroad +which changed public opinion in Denmark in its +favor. A second novel, "Only a Fiddler" (1837), +is a fresh variation of his autobiography, and the +lachrymose and a trifle chaotic story, "O. T." (being +the brand of the Odense penitentiary) scarcely +deserved any better reception than was accorded +it.</p> + +<p>It is a curious thing that misconception and adversity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +never hardened Andersen or toughened the +fibre of his personality. The same lamentable +lack of robustness—not to say manliness—which +marked his youth remained his prevailing characteristic +to the end of his life. And I fancy, if he +had ever reached intellectual maturity, both he +himself and the world would have been losers. +For it is his unique distinction to have expressed a +simplicity of soul which is usually dumb—which +has, at all events, nowhere else recorded itself in +literature. We all have a dim recollection of how +the world looked from the nursery window; but no +book has preserved so vivid and accurate a negative +of that marvellous panorama as Andersen's +"Wonder Tales for Children," the first collection +of which appeared in 1835. All the jumbled, +distorted proportions of things (like the reflection +of a landscape in a crystal ball) is capitally reproduced. +The fantastically personifying fancy of +childhood, where does it have more delightful +play? The radiance of an enchanted fairy realm +that bursts like an iridescent soap-bubble at the +touch of the finger of reason, where does it linger +in more alluring beauty than in "Ole Luköie" +("The Sandman"), "The Little Mermaid," or +"The Ice-Maiden"? There is a bloom, an indefinable, +dewy freshness about the grass, the +flowers, the very light, and the children's sweet +faces. And so vivid—so marvellously vivid—as it +all is. Listen to this from "Five in a Pea-Pod:"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"There were five peas in one pod. They were green, and +the pod was green; and so they thought that the whole +world was green. And that was just as it should be. The +pod grew and the peas grew; they accommodated themselves +to circumstances, sitting all in a row."</p></div> + +<p>Or take this from "Little Tuk:"</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Yes, that was Little Tuk. His name wasn't really Tuk, +but when he couldn't speak plain, he used to call himself +so. It was meant for Charley; and it does very well, when +one only knows it."</p></div> + +<p>Or this incomparable bit of drollery from Hjalmar's +dream in "The Sandman:"</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"There came a terrible wail from the table-drawer where +Hjalmar's school books lay. 'Whatever can that be?' said +the Sandman. And he went to the table and opened the +drawer. It was the slate which was in convulsions because +a wrong number had got into the sum, so that it was fairly +falling to pieces. The slate-pencil tugged and jumped at the +end of its string, as if it had been a little dog that wanted to +help the sum. But he could not. There was a great lamentation +in Hjalmar's copy-book, too; it was quite terrible +to hear. On each page the large letters stood in a row, one +underneath the other, and each with a little one at its side. +That was the copy. And next to these were a few more +letters, which thought they looked just like the others. +These were the ones Hjalmar had written. But they lay +down as if they had tumbled pell-mell over the pencil lines +upon which they were to stand.</p> + +<p>"'Look, this is the way you should hold yourselves,' said +the copy, 'sloping this way with a bold swing.' 'Oh, we +should be very glad to do that,' answered Hjalmar's letters, +'but we can't. We are so weakly.' 'Then you must take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +medicine,' said the Sandman. 'Oh, no, no,' cried they, +and straightway they stood up so gracefully that it was a +pleasure to look at them."</p></div> + +<p>This strikes me as having the very movement +and all the delicious whimsicality of a school-boy's +troubled dream. It has the delectable absurdity +of the dream's inverted logic. You feel with what +beautiful zest it was written; how childishly the +author himself relished it. The illusion is therefore +perfect. The big child who played with his +puppet theatre until after he was grown up is +quite visible in every line. He is as much absorbed +in the story as any of his hearers. He is +all in the game with the intense engrossment of a +lad I knew, who, while playing Robinson Crusoe, +ate snails with relish for oysters.</p> + +<p>Throughout the first series of "Wonder Tales" +there is a capital air of make-believe, which imposes +upon you most delightfully, and makes you +accept the most incredible doings, as you accept +them in a dream, as the most natural thing in the +world. In the later series, where the didactic +tale becomes more frequent ("The Pine Tree," +"The Wind's Tale," "The Buckwheat"), there +is an occasional forced note. The story-teller becomes +a benevolent, moralizing uncle, who takes +the child upon his knee, in order to instruct while +entertaining it. But he is no more in the game. +A cloying sweetness of tone, such as sentimental +people often adopt toward children, spoils more +than one of the fables; and when occasionally he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +ventures upon a love-story ("The Rose-Elf," +"The Old Bachelor's Nightcap," "The Porter's +Son"), he is apt to be as unintentionally amusing +as he is in telling his own love episode in "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." However, no man can +unite the advantages of adult age and childhood, +and we all feel that there is something incongruous +in a child's talking of love.</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact that his world-wide fame as +the poet of childhood never quite satisfied Andersen.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +He never accepted it without a protest. It +neither pleased nor sufficed him. He was especially +eager to win laurels as a dramatist; and in +1839 celebrated his first dramatic success by a +farcical vaudeville entitled "The Invisible at +Sprogöe." Then followed the romantic drama +"The Mulatto" (1840), which charmed the public +and disgusted the critics; and "The Moorish +Maiden," which disgusted both. These plays are +slipshod in construction, but emotionally effective. +The characters are loose-fibred and vague, and +have no more backbone than their author himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +J. L. Heiberg thought it high time to chastise +the half-cultured shoemaker's son for his audacity, +and in the third act of "A Soul after Death," +held him up to ridicule. Andersen, stabbed again +to the heart, hastened away from home, "suffering +and disconcerted." But before leaving he +published "A Picture-Book without Pictures", +(1840), which is attached to the American edition +of his "Stories and Tales," and deserves its place. +The moon's pathetic and humorous observations +on the world she looks down upon every evening +of her thirty nights' circuit have already become +classic in half-a-dozen languages. The little girl +who came to kiss the hen and beg her pardon; the +ragged street gamin who died upon the throne of +France; the Hindoo maiden who burned her lamp +upon the banks of the Ganges in order to see if +her lover was alive; the little maid who was penitent +because she laughed at the lame duckling +with a red rag around its leg—who does not know +the whole inimitable gallery from beginning to +end? The tenderest, the softest, the most virginal +spirit breathes through all these sketches. +They are sentimental, no doubt, and a trifle too +sweet. But then they belong to a period of our +lives when a little excess in that direction does not +trouble us.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> For verification of this statement I may refer to his indignant +letter <i>à propos</i> of the statue that was to be raised to him in Copenhagen, +in which he was represented surrounded by listening children: +"None of the sculptors," he wrote, "have known me; +none of their sketches indicate that they have seen what is characteristic +in me. Never could I read aloud when anybody was +sitting behind me or close up to me; far less if I had children on +my lap or on my back, or young Copenhageners lying all over me. +It is a <i>façon de parler</i> to call me 'the children's poet.' My aim +has been to be the poet of all ages; children could not represent +me."</p></div> + +<p>In 1842 Andersen gave to the world "A Poets' +Bazaar," a chronicle of his travels through nearly +all the countries of Europe. In 1844 the drama +"The King is Dreaming," and in 1845 the fairy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +comedy "The Flower of Fortune." But his +highest dramatic triumph he celebrated in the +anonymous comedy "The New Lying-in Room," +which in a measure proved his contention that it +was personal hostility and not critical scruples +which made so large a portion of the Copenhagen +literati persecute him. For the very men who +would have been the first to hold his play up to +scorn were the heartiest in their applause, as long +as they did not know that Andersen was its author. +Less pronounced was the success of the lyrical +drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat +ambitious epic "Ahasverus" comes very +near being a failure. The next ventures of the versatile +and indefatigable poet were the novel "The +Two Baronesses" (1849), and the fairy comedies +"More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), adapted +from a German original, "The Sandman"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> (1850), +and "The Elder Tree Mother" (1851). The comedies +"He was not Born" (1864), "On Langebro" +and "When the Spaniards were Here" (1869), +complete the cycle of his dramatic labors. But the +most amusing thing he did, showing how incapable +he was of taking the measure of his faculties, +was to write a novel, "To Be or Not to Be" (1857), +in which he proposed once and forever to down +the giant Unbelief, prove the immortality of the +soul, and produce "peace and reconciliation between +Nature and the Bible." It was nothing less +than the evidences of Christianity in novelistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +form with which he designed to favor an expectant +world. "If<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> I can solve this problem," he +naïvely wrote to a friend, "then the monster materialism, +devouring everything divine, will die." +But rarely was a bigger Gulliver tackled by a tinier +Liliputian. The book not only fell flat, but +it was only the world-wide renown and the good intention +of its author which saved it from derision.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Danish, Ole Luköie.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historie, ii. p. 560.</p></div> + +<p>Though Andersen never attained in Copenhagen +an uncontested recognition of his talent, honors +both from at home and abroad were showered upon +him. The fame which undeniably was his commanded +respect, but scarcely approval. Heiberg +made merry at his obscurity in the country of his +birth and his celebrity beyond its boundaries, and +represented him as reading "The Mulatto" to the +Sultan's wives and the "Moorish Maiden" to those +who were to be strangled, kneeling in rapture, +while the Grand Eunuch, crowned his head with +laurels. But in spite of obloquy and ridicule, Andersen +continued his triumphant progress through +all the lands of the civilized world, and even beyond +it. In 1875 his tale, "The Story of a Mother," +was published simultaneously in fifteen languages, +in honor of his seventieth birthday. A +few months later (August 4th) he died at the villa +Rolighed, near Copenhagen. His life was indeed +as marvellous as any of his tales. A gleam of +light from the wonderland in which he dwelt seems +to have fallen upon his cradle and to have illuminated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +his whole career. It was certainly in this illumination +that he himself saw it, as the opening +sentence of his autobiography proves: "My life is +a lovely fairy-tale, happy and full of incidents."</p> + +<p>The softness, the sweetness, the juvenile innocence +of Danish romanticism found their happiest +expression in him; but also the superficiality, the +lack of steel in the will, the lyrical vagueness and +irresponsibility. If he did not invent a new literary +form he at all events enriched and dignified +an old one, and revealed in it a world of unsuspected +beauty. He was great in little things, and +little in great things. He had a heart of gold, a +silver tongue, and the spine of a mollusk. Like a +flaw in a diamond, a curious plebeian streak cut +straight across his nature. With all his virtues he +lacked that higher self-esteem which we call nobility.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE</h2> + + +<p>The late Romantic authors of Denmark who +lived on the traditions of Oehlenschläger's +time and the æsthetical doctrines of J. L. Heiberg, +have gradually been passing away; and a new +generation has grown up, which, though it knows +Joseph, has repudiated his doctrine. A period of +stagnation followed the disappearance of the Romanticists. +The Sleswick-Holstein war of 1866, +and the consequent hostility to Germany, cut off +the intellectual intercourse between the two countries +which in the first half of the century had +been lively and intimate; and as, for a while, no +new ties were formed, a respectable dulness settled +upon the little island kingdom. People lived +for the concerns of the day, earned their bread +and butter, amused themselves to the best of their +ability, but troubled themselves very little about +the battles of thought which were being fought +upon the great arena of the world. The literary +activity which now and then flared up spasmodically, +like flames over a smouldering ash-heap, +flickered and half-expired for want of fresh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +sustenance. A direfully conventional romanticist, H. F. +Ewald (1821-1892), wrote voluminous modern +and historical novels, the heroines of which were +usually models of all the copy-book virtues, and the +heroes as bloodless as their brave and loyal prototypes +in "Ivanhoe" and "Waverley." Instead of +individualizing his <i>dramatis personæ</i> this feeble +successor of Ingemann and Walter Scott gave +them a certificate of character, vouching for their +goodness or badness, and trusting the reader to +take his word for it in either case. Like many +another popular novelist, he varnished them with +the particular tint of excellence or depravity that +might suit his purpose, stuffed their heads with +bran and their bellies with sawdust, but troubled +himself little about what lay beneath the epidermis. +There was something <i>naïve</i> and juvenile in +his view of life which appealed to the large mass +of half-educated people; and the very absence of +any subtle literary art tended further to increase +his public. Many of his books, notably "The +Youth of Valdemar Krone" (<i>Valdemar Krone's +Ungdomshistorie</i>), "The Swedes at Kronborg" +(<i>Svenskerne paa Kronborg</i>), have achieved an extraordinary +success. The former deals with contemporary +life, while the latter expurgates and +embellishes history after the manner of Walter +Scott. Two subsequent novels, "The Family +Nordby" and "Johannes Falk," are, like all of +Ewald's writings, pervaded by a robust optimism +and a warm Danish sentiment, which in a large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +measure account for their popularity with the +public of the circulating libraries.</p> + +<p>A lesser share of the same kind of popularity +has fallen to the lot of an author of a much higher +order—Wilhelm Bergsöe (born 1835). His voluminous +novel "Fra Piazza del Popolo" (1860) made a +sensation in its day, and "From the Old Factory" +(1869), which constructively is a maturer book, is +likewise full of fascination. The description of +the doings of the artistic guild in Rome, which +occupies a considerable portion of the former work, +is delightful, though intermingled with a deal of +superfluous mysticism and romantic entanglements +which were then held to be absolutely indispensable. +"In the Sabine Mountains" (1871), the +scene of which is laid in Genazzano during the +struggle for Italian independence, is a trifle too +prolix; and its effect is lessened by the old-fashioned +epistolary form. Signor Carnevale, the +revolutionary apothecary, is, however, a very +amusing figure, and would be still better if he were +not caricatured. The tendency to screw the characters +up above the normal—to tune them up to +concert pitch as it were—interferes seriously with +the pleasure which the book otherwise might +yield.</p> + +<p>The conception of art as something wholly distinct +from and above nature animates all Bergsöe's +productions. The theory of fiction which R. L. Stevenson +has so eloquently propounded has +found an able practitioner in him. For all that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +I am indebted to Bergsöe's two Italian romances for +a great deal of enjoyment, the afterglow of which +still warms my memory. But that was long ago. +A young man is apt to enjoy in a book quite as +much what he himself supplies as that which the +author has deposited therein. Each word is a +key which unlocks a store of imprisoned emotions. +The very word Italy has a magic which imparts +to it a charm even in the geography. And +Bergsöe, though he works, without suspicion of +its decrepitude, the ancient machinery of Italian +romance, is unaffectedly eloquent and unsophistically +entertaining. The historic whisperings +which he catches from the names, the ruins, the +facial types, and the very trees and grass of Genazzano +invest his letters from that picturesque neighborhood +with a certain beautiful glow of color and +a dusky richness of decay. The autobiographical +form imposes, to be sure, an increasing strain on +the reader's credulity, as the plot thickens, and +we find ourselves, half-unexpectedly, involved in a +lurid tale of monks, priests, disguised revolutionists, +cruel, mercenary fathers, etc., and the Danish +author playing his favorite <i>rôle</i> of <i>deus ex machina</i>. +Still more incredible is the part of benevolent +Providence which he assigns to himself in "The +Bride of Rörvig," where he saves the heroine's life +by restoring to her a ring given to her lover, and +thus assuring her that he is alive when she believes +him dead. The autobiographical story (especially +when the writer is a mere convenient supernumerary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +designed, like the uncle from America +in the old-fashioned melodrama, to straighten out +the tangled skein), is apt to involve other difficulties +than the mere embarrassment of having to distrust +the author's assertion, or censure his indiscretions. +The illusion is utterly spoiled by that haunting +<i>arrière pensée</i> that this or that writer, whom you +know perhaps at first or second-hand, or whose +features, at all events, are familiar to you from +pictures, never could or would have played the +more or less heroic <i>rôle</i> with which he here delights +to impose upon you.</p> + +<p>Altogether the best book which Bergsöe has +written is the autobiographical romance "From +the Old Factory," the scene of which is laid in +Denmark. This book evidently contains a great +deal of genuine reminiscence, and is therefore devoid +of that air of laborious contrivance and artificial +intrigue which brings the foregoing novels +into such unpleasant relationship with Wilkie +Collins and his <i>genre</i>. The incidents of the hero's +boyhood in the old porcelain factory, and his +uncle's agitating experiments for the rediscovery +of a lost process of glazing are saner and soberer +and lie closer to the soil of common experience +than the exploits of monks and pirates and revolutionists.</p> + +<p>Among the notable men of the expiring Danish +romanticism Meyer Aaron Goldschmidt (1819-1886) +holds a leading position. A comic paper, +<i>Corsaren</i>, which he edited (1840-1846) made a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +tremendous stir in its day; and its scathing wit +and satire were not without influence upon current +events. His two novels, <i>En Jöde</i> (1845), +<i>Hjemlös</i> (1857), and a large number of clever +novelettes (<i>Ravnen</i>, <i>Arvingen Flyveposten</i>, etc.), +are full of psychological subtleties, and often charmingly +told. <i>Flyveposten</i> ("The Flying Mail") was +translated into English (Boston and Cambridge, +1870) but attracted no particular attention. For all +that, Goldschmidt, in spite of occasional prolixity, +stands the test of time remarkably well. His +Jewish stories, notably <i>Maser, Aron og Esther</i>, and +<i>En Jöde</i>, contain a higher order of work, though +less dramatically effective, than that of Sacher-Masoch, +and Emil Franzos, and the later Ghetto +romancers. Goldschmidt's double nationality, as a +Danish-born Jew, indicates his position and the +source from which he drew his weakness and his +strength. As a Jew he saw and judged the Danish +character, and as a Dane he saw and judged the +Jewish character with a liberality and insight of +which no autochthon would have been capable. +For all that his tales aroused anything but friendly +feelings among his own people. They felt it to +be a profanation thus to expose the secluded domestic +and religious life of the children of Israel. +It is to this sentiment that Dr. Brandes has given +utterance in his protest against "perpetually serving +up one's grandmother with sauce piquante."</p> + +<p>An author who is born into an age of transition, +when old faiths are passing away and new ones<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +are struggling for recognition, is placed in a serious +dilemma. Where he makes his choice by +mere temperamental bias, he is apt to miss that +element of growth which is involved in every +spiritual struggle. But if, as is so frequently the +case, he finds his choice in a measure made for +him, his education, kinships, and worldly advantage +identifying him with the established order, +it takes a tremendous amount of courage and character +to break away from old moorings and steer, +without other compass than a sensitive conscience, +toward the rosy dawn of the unknown. There +was a desperate need of such men in Denmark in +the seventies, when the little kingdom was sinking +deeply and more deeply into a bog of patriotic delusion +and spiritual stagnation. An infusion of +new blood was needed—a re-establishment of that +circulation of thought which keeps the whole +civilized world in vital connection and makes it +akin. No country can cut itself off from this +universal world-life without withering like a diseased +limb. The man who undertook to bring +Denmark again into <i>rapport</i> with Europe was Dr. +Georg Brandes, whom I have characterized at +length in another essay. It was his admirable +book, "The Men of the Modern Transition" (translated +into German under the title <i>Moderne Geister</i>) +which impelled me, some years ago, to make the +acquaintance of the three authors who represent +whatever there is of promise in contemporary +Danish literature, viz., Sophus Schandorph, Holger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +Drachmann, and J. P. Jacobsen. The last +named, who died (1884) in the flower of his young +manhood, is, perhaps, not in the strictest sense +contemporary. But he is indispensable to the +characterization of the group.</p> + +<p>Widely different as these three men are in almost +everything, they have this in common, that +they have deeply breathed the air of the nineteenth +century; and they all show more or less the +influence of Brandes. That this influence has been +direct and personal seems probable from the relation +which they have sustained to the revolutionary +critics. Of this I am, however, by no means sure. +Mr. Jacobsen, who was by profession a botanist, +and translated Darwin into Danish, no doubt +came by his "advanced views" at first hand. In +the case of Schandorph it is more difficult to +judge. He is an excellent linguist, and may have +had access to the same sources from which Brandes +drew his strength. Drachmann is so vacillating +in his tendencies that he refuses to be permanently +classified in any school of art or thought. Of the +three, Schandorph seems altogether the maturest +mind and furnishes the most finished and satisfactory +work. In his novel "Without a Centre" +(<i>Uden Midtpunkt</i>) the reader feels himself at once +face to face with an interesting and considerable +personality. He has that sense of surprise and delighted +expectation which only the masters of +fiction are apt to evoke. It is a story of a Danish +national type—the conversational artist. In no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +country in the world is there such a conversational +fury as in Denmark. A people has, of course, to +do something with its surplus energy; and as political +opposition is sure to prove futile, there is +nothing left to do but to talk—not only politics, +but art, poetry, religion, in fact, everything under +the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, +the hero of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble +tongue, the country had a more liberal Government, +and criticism of the Ministry was not yet +high treason. But centuries of repression and the +practical exclusion of the bourgeoisie from public +life were undoubtedly the fundamental causes +of this abnormal conversational activity. There +is something soft and emotional in the character +of the Danes, which distinguishes them from +their Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen—an easily +flowing lyrical vein, which imparts a winning +warmth and cordiality to their demeanor. Socially +they are the most charming people in the +world. Also in this respect Albrecht is typical, +and the songs in which he gives vent to his lyrical +moods have such a rapturous melody that they +keep humming in the brain long after the reader +has closed the book. It almost follows as a psychological +necessity that a man so richly endowed +with the gift of speech is feeble and halting in +action. Like Tourguéneff's "Rudin," who suffered +from the same malady, he gains by the brilliancy +and novelty of his speech the love of a noble +young girl, who, taking his phrases at their face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +value, believes his heart to be as heroic as his +tongue. Like him, too, he fails in the critical moment; +nay, restrained by petty scruples, he even +stays away from the rendezvous, and by his +cowardice loses what by his eloquence he had +won.</p> + +<p>A second novel, "Common People," which deals +with low life in its most varied phases, shows the +same admirable truthfulness and exactness in the +character drawing, the same refreshing humor and +universal sympathy and comprehension. "The +Story of Thomas Friis" undertakes to show, in the +career of a Danish youth who is meant to be typical, +the futility of the vainglorious imaginings +with which the little nation has inflated itself to a +size out of proportion to its actual historic <i>rôle</i>. +In "The Old Pharmacy" the necessity of facing +the changed reality of the modern world, instead +of desperately hugging an expiring past, is enforced +in a series of vivid and vigorous pictures of +provincial life. "The Forester's Children," which +is one of the latest of this author's novels, suffers +by comparison with its predecessors, but is yet full +of cleverness and smacks of the soil.</p> + +<p>Schandorph's naturalism is not pathological; +not in the nature of an autopsy or a diagnosis of +disease. It is full-blooded and vigorous—not particularly +squeamish—but always fresh and wholesome. +His shorter tales and sketches ("From the +Province," "Five Stories," "Novelettes") are of +more unequal merit, but are all more or less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +strongly characterized by the qualities which fascinate +in his novels. Of his poems "<i>Samlede +Digte</i>," (1882) I have not the space to speak, and +can only regret that they are written in a language +in which they will remain as hidden from the +world as if they had been imprinted in cuneiform +inscriptions upon Assyrian bricks. They are +largely occasional and polemical; and more remarkable +for vigor of thought than sweetness of +melody.</p> + +<p>J. P. Jacobsen, the second in the group to +which I have referred, was a colorist of a very +eminent type, both in prose and verse; but his +talent lacked that free-flowing, spontaneous abundance—that +charming air of improvisation—with +which Schandorph captivates his reader, takes him +into his confidence, and overwhelms him with entertainment. +Jacobsen painted faces better than +he did souls; or, rather, he did not seem to think +the latter worth painting, unless they exhibited +some abnormal mood or trait. There is something +forced and morbid in his people—a lack of free +movement and natural impulse. His principal +work, "Mistress Marie Grubbe," is a series of anxiously +finished pictures, carefully executed in the +minutest details, but failing somehow to make a +complete impression. Each scene is so bewilderingly +surcharged with color that, as in the case of +a Gobelin tapestry, one has to be at a distance before +one discovers the design. There is something +almost wearisome in the far-fetched words with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +which he piles up picturesque effects, returning +every now and then to put in an extra touch—to +tip a feather with light, to brighten the sheen of +his satins, to polish the steely lustre of swords and +armors. Yet, if one takes the time to linger over +these unusual words and combinations of words, +one is likely to find that they are strong and appropriate. +All conventional shop-work he disdained; +the traditional phrases for eyes, lips, brow, +and hair were discarded, not necessarily because +they were bad, but because by much use they have +lost their freshness. They have come to be mere +sounds, and no longer call up vivid conceptions. +An author who has the skill and the courage to +undertake this repolishing and resharpening of the +tools of language is, indeed, a public benefactor; +but it requires the finest linguistic taste and discrimination +to do it with success. Most authors +are satisfied if they succeed in giving currency to +one happy phrase involving a novel use of the language, +or to an extremely limited number; I know +of no one who has undertaken the renovation of +his mother-tongue on so extensive a scale as Jacobsen. +To say that he has in most cases done it +well is, therefore, high praise. "Mistress Marie +Grubbe" is not, however, easy reading; and the +author's novelettes, entitled "Mogens and Other +Stories," seem to be written, primarily, for literary +connoisseurs, as their interest as mere stories is +scarcely worth considering. They are, rather, +essays in the art of saying things unusually and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +yet well. They do not seem to me, even in this +respect, a success. There are single phrases that +seem almost an inspiration; there are bits of description, +particularly of flowers and moods of nature, +which are masterly; but the studious avoidance +of the commonplace imparts to the reader +something of the strain under which the author +has labored. He begins to feel the sympathetic +weariness which often overcomes one while watching +acrobatic feats.</p> + +<p>In Jacobsen's third book, "Niels Lyhne," we +have again the story of a Danish Rudin—a nature +with a multitude of scattered aspirations, squandering +itself in brilliant talk and fantastic yearnings. +It is the same coquetting with the "advanced" +ideas of the age, the same lack of mental +stamina, the same wretched surrender and failure. +It is the complexion of a period which the author +is here attempting to give, and he takes pains to +emphasize its typical character. One is almost +tempted to believe that Shakespeare, by a gift of +happy divination, made his Prince of Denmark +conform to this national type, though in his day it +could not have been half as pronounced as it is +now. Whether the Dane of the sixteenth century +was yet the eloquent mollusk which we are perpetually +encountering in modern Danish fiction is +a question which, at this distance, it is hard to +decide. The type, of course, is universal, and is +to be found in all countries. Only in the English +race, on both sides of the Atlantic, it is comparatively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +rare. That a vigorous race like the +Danish, confined, as it is in modern times, within +a narrow arena of action (and forbidden to do anything +on that), should have developed it to a rare +perfection seems, as I have already remarked, almost +a psychological necessity.</p> + +<p>Holger Drachmann, in his capacity of lyrist, has +also a strain of the Hamlet nature; although, in +the case of a poet, whose verses are in themselves +deeds, the assertion contains no reproach. I am +not even sure that the Protean quality of Drachmann's +verse—its frequent voicing of naturally +conflicting tendencies—need be a matter of reproach. +A poet has the right to sing in any key +in which he can sing well; and Drachmann sings, +as a rule, exceedingly well. But, like most people +with a fine voice, he is tempted to sing too +much; and it thus happens that verses of slipshod +and hasty workmanship are to be found in his volumes. +In his first book of "Poems" he was a +free oppositional lance, who carried on a melodious +warfare against antiquated institutions and +opinions, and gave a thrust here and a thrust there +in behalf of socialists, communists, and all sorts of +irregular characters. Since that time his radical, +revolutionary sympathies have had time to cool, +and in each succeeding volume he has appeared +more sedate, conservative, <i>bourgeois</i>.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> In a later +volume of poems this transformation is half symbolically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +indicated in the title, "Tempered Melodies." +Nor is it to be denied that his melodies +have gained in beauty by this process of tempering. +There is a wider range of feeling, greater +charm of expression, and a deeper resonance. +Half a dozen volumes of verse which he has published +since ("Songs of the Ocean," "Venezia," +"Vines and Roses," "Youth in Verse and Song," +"Peder Tordenskjold," "Deep Chords") are of +very unequal worth, but establish beyond question +their author's right to be named among the few +genuine poets of the latter half of the nineteenth +century; nay, more than that, he belongs in the +foremost rank of those who are yet surviving. His +prose, on the other hand, seems aimless and chaotic, +and is not stamped with any eminent characteristics. +A volume of short stories, entitled +"Wild and Tame," partakes very much more of +the latter adjective than of the former. The first +of the tales, "Inclined Planes," is a discursive +family chronicle, showing the decadence of a fishing +village under the influence of city boarders. +The second, "Love and Despatches," inculcates a +double moral, the usefulness of economy and the +uselessness of mothers-in-law; and the third, +"The Cutter Wild Duck," is a shudderingly insipid +composition about a village lion who got +drunk on his birthday, fell overboard, and committed +no end of follies. A later volume of "Little +Tales" is, indeed, so little as scarcely to have +any excuse for being. The stories have all more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +or less of a marine flavor; but the only one of +them that has a sufficient <i>motif</i>, rationally developed, +is one entitled "How the Pilot Got his +Music-box." The novel, "A Supernumerary," +is also a rather weak performance, badly constructed, +and overloaded with chaotic incidents.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Since this was written Drachmann has undergone a fresh +transformation, and is said to have returned to the radical camp.</p></div> + +<p><i>Völund Smed</i> (1895) is a cycle of spirited poems +dealing with the tragic fate of Weland the Smith, +who took such a savage vengeance upon the King +for having maimed and crippled him. The legend +is invested with an obvious symbolic significance, +and seems to have been intended as a poetic declaration +of independence—a revolutionary manifesto +signalizing the Drachmann's re-espousal of the radical +opinions of his youth, in his allegiance to which +he had, perhaps, out of regard for worldly advantages +been inclined to waver.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> +<h2>GEORG BRANDES</h2> + + + +<p>It is a greater achievement in a critic to gain an +international fame than in a poet or a writer +of fiction. The world is always more ready to be +amused than to be instructed, and the literary purveyor +of amusement has opportunities for fame ten +times greater than those which fall to the lot of +the literary instructor. The epic delight—the delight +in fable and story—to which the former appeals, +is a fundamental trait in human nature; it +appears full grown in the child, and has small need +of cultivation. But the faculty of generalization +to which the critic appeals is indicative of a stage +of intellectual development to which only a small +minority even of our so-called cultivated public attains. +It is therefore a minority of a minority +which he addresses, the intellectual <i>élite</i> which +does the world's thinking. To impress these is far +more difficult than to impress the multitude; for +they are already surfeited with good writing, and +are apt to reject with a shoulder-shrug whatever +does not coincide with their own tenor of thought.</p> + +<p>What I mean by a critic in this connection is not +a witty and agreeable <i>causeur</i>, like the late Jules +Janin, who, taking a book for his text, discoursed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +entertainingly about everything under the sun; +but an interpreter of a civilization and a representative +of a school of thought who sheds new light +upon old phenomena—men like Lessing, Matthew +Arnold, and Taine. The latest candidate for admission +to this company, whose title, I think, no +one who has read him will dispute, is the Dane, +Georg Brandes.</p> + +<p>Dr. Brandes was born in Copenhagen in 1842, +and is accordingly fifty-three years of age (1895). +At the age of seventeen he entered the University +of his native city, devoting himself first to jurisprudence, +and occupying himself later with philosophical +and æsthetical studies. In 1862 he gained +the gold medal of the University by an essay on +"Fatalism among the Ancients," which showed a +surprising brilliancy of expression and maturity of +thought; and soon after he passed his examination +for the doctorate of philosophy with the highest +distinction. It is told that the old poet Hauch, +who was then Professor of Æsthetics at the University, +was so much impressed by the young doctor's +ability that he hoped to make him his successor. +And toward this end Dr. Brandes began to +bend his energies. During the next five or six +years he travelled on the Continent, spending the +winter of 1865 in Stockholm, that of 1866-67 in +Paris, and sojourning, moreover, for longer or +shorter periods in the principal cities of Germany. +He became a most accomplished linguist, speaking +French and German almost as fluently as his mother-tongue;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +and, being an acute observer as well as an +earnest student, he acquired an equipment for the +position to which he aspired which distanced all +competitors. But in Denmark, as elsewhere, cosmopolitan +culture does not constitute the strongest +claim to a professorship. In his book, "The Dualism +in Our Most Recent Philosophy" (1866), +Brandes took up the dangerous question of the relation +of science to religion, and treated it in a spirit +which aroused antagonism on the part of the conservative +and orthodox party.</p> + +<p>This able treatise, though it may not be positivism +pure and simple, shows a preponderating influence +of Comte and his school, and its attitude +toward religion is approximately that of Herbert +Spencer and Stuart Mill. The constellation under +which Brandes was born into the world of thought +was made up of the stars Darwin, Comte, Taine, +and Mill. These men put their stamp upon his +spirit; and to the tendency which they represent +he was for many years faithful. Mill's book on +"The Subjection of Women" he has translated +into Danish (1869), and he has written besides a +charmingly sympathetic essay, containing personal +reminiscences, of that grave and conscientious +thinker, whose "Autobiography" is perhaps the +saddest book in the English language.</p> + +<p>The three next books of Brandes, which all +deal with æsthetical subjects ("Æsthetic Studies," +1868, "Criticisms and Portraits," 1870, and +"French Æsthetics at the Present Day"), are full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +of pith and winged felicities of phrase. It is a +delight to read them. The passage of Scripture +often occurs to me when I take up these earlier +works of Brandes: "He rejoiceth like a strong +man to run a race." He handles language with +the zest and vigor of conscious mastery. There is +no shade of meaning which is so subtle as to elude +his grip. Things which I should have said, <i>a +priori</i>, were impossible to express in Danish he +expresses with scarcely a sign of effort; and however +new and surprising his phrase is, it is never +awkward, never cumbrous, never apparently conscious +of its brilliancy.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to say that these linguistic excellences +are characteristic only of Dr. Brandes's +earlier works; but, either because he has accustomed +us to expect much of him in this respect, or +because he has come to regard such brilliancy as of +minor consequence, it is a fact that two of his latest +hooks ("Impressions of Poland" and "Impressions +of Russia") contain fewer memorable phrases, +fewer winged words, fewer <i>mots</i> with a flavor of +Gallic wit. Intellectually these "Impressions" +are no less weighty; nay, they are more weighty +than anything from the same pen that has preceded +them. They show a faculty to enter sympathetically +into an alien civilization, to seize upon +its characteristic phases, to steal into its confidence, +as it were, and coax from it its intimate secrets; +and they exhibit, moreover, an acuteness of observation +and an appreciation of significant trifles (or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +what to a superficial observer might appear trifles) +which no previous work on the Slavonic nations +had displayed. It is obvious that Dr. Brandes +here shuns the linguistic pyrotechnics in which, +for instance, De Amicis indulges in his pictures of +Holland and the Orient. It is the matter, rather +than the manner, which he has at heart; and he +apparently takes a curb bit between his teeth in +the presence of the Kremlin of Moscow and the +palaces of St. Petersburg, in order to restrain mere +pictorial expression.</p> + +<p>Having violated chronology in speaking of these +two works out of their order, I shall have to leap +back over a score of years and contemplate once +more the young doctor of philosophy who returned +to Copenhagen in 1872 and began a course of trial +lectures at the University on modern literature. +The lecturer here flies his agnostic colors from beginning +to end. He treats "The Romantic School +in Germany" as Voltaire treated Rousseau—with +sovereign wit, superior intelligence, but scant sympathy. +At the same time he penetrates to the +fountains of life which infused strength into the +movement. He accounts for romanticism as the +chairman of a committee <i>de lunatico inquirendo</i> +might account for a case of religious mania.</p> + +<p>The second and third courses of lectures (printed, +like the first, and translated into German by +Strodtmann) dealt with "The Literature of the +French Emigrés" and "The Reaction in France." +Here the critic is less unsympathetic, not because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +he regards the mental attitude of the fugitives from +the Revolution with approbation, but because he +has an intellectual bias in favor of everything +French. Besides having a certain constitutional +sympathy with the clearness and vigor of style +and thought which distinguish the French, Dr. +Brandes is so largely indebted to French science, +philosophy, and art that it would be strange if he +did not betray an occasional <i>soupçon</i> of partisanship. +His treatment of Chateaubriand, Benjamin +Constant, Madame de Staël, Oberman, Madame de +Krüdener, and all the queer saints and scribbling +sinners of that period is as entertaining as it is instructive. +It gives one the spiritual complexion +of the period in clear lines and vivid colors, which +can never be forgotten. Nearly all that makes +France France is to be found in these volumes—its +wit, its frivolity, its bright daylight sense, contrasting +so strikingly with the moonshiny mysticism of +German romanticism. And yet France has its +romanticism too, which finds vent in a supercredulous +religiosity, in a pictorial sentimentalized Christianity, +such as we encounter in Chateaubriand's +"Génie du Christianisme" and "Les Martyrs." +It is with literary phenomena of this order that +"The Reaction in France" particularly deals.</p> + +<p>The fourth course of lectures, entitled "Byron +and his Group," though no less entertaining than +the rest, appears to me less satisfactory. It is a +clever presentation of Byron's case against the +British public; but the case of the British against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +Byron is inadequately presented. It is the pleading +of an able advocate, not the charge of an impartial +judge. Dr. Brandes has so profound an +admiration for the man who dares to rebel that he +fails to do justice to the motives of society in protecting +itself against him. It is not to be denied +that the iconoclast may be in the right and society +in the wrong; but it is by no means a foregone +conclusion that such is the case. If society did not, +with the fierce instinct of self-preservation, guard +its traditional morality against such assailants as +Byron and Shelley, civilization would suffer. The +conservative bias of the Philistine (though not so +outwardly attractive) is no less valuable as a factor +in civilization than the iconoclastic zeal of the reformer. +If the centrifugal force had full sway in +human society, without being counteracted by a +centripetal tendency, anarchy would soon prevail. +I cannot (as Dr. Brandes appears to do) discover +any startling merit in outraging the moral sense of +the community in which one lives; and though I +may admit that a man who was capable of doing +this was a great poet, I cannot concede that the +fact of his being a great poet justified the outrage. +Nor am I sure that Dr. Brandes means to imply so +much; but in all of his writings there is manifested +a deep sympathy with the law-breaker whose Titanic +soul refuses to be bound by the obligations of +morality which limit the freedom of ordinary mortals. +Only petty and pusillanimous souls, according +to him, submit to these restraints; the heroic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +soul breaks them, as did Byron and Shelley, because +he has outgrown them, or because he is too great +to recognize the right of any power to limit his +freedom of action or restrain him in the free assertion +of his individuality. This is the undertone +in everything Dr. Brandes has written; but nowhere +does it ring out more boldly than in his treatment +of Byron and Shelley, unless it be in the fifth course +of his "Main Currents" dealing with "Young +Germany."</p> + +<p>These four courses of lectures have been published +under the collective title "The Main Literary +Currents in the Nineteenth Century" +(<i>Hovedströmningerne i det Nittende Aarhundredes +Litteratur</i>). The German translation is entitled +<i>Hauptströmungen in der Litteratur des Neunzehnten +Jahrhunderts</i>. Barring the strictures which +I have made, I know no work of contemporary criticism +which is more luminous in its statements, +more striking in its judgments, and more replete +with interesting information. It reminds one in +its style of Taine's "Lectures on Art" and the +"History of English Literature." The intellectual +bias is kindred, if not the same; as is also the pictorial +vigor of the language, the subtle deductions +of psychical from physical facts, and a certain +lusty realism, which lays hold of external nature +with a firm grip.</p> + +<p>In Dr. Brandes's "Impressions of Poland" I +found an observation which illustrates his extraordinary +power of characterization. The temperament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +of the Polish people, he says, is not rational +but fantastically heroic. When I recall the personalities +of the various Poles I have known (and I +have known a great many), I cannot conceive of a +phrase more exquisitely descriptive. It makes all +your haphazard knowledge about Poland significant +and valuable by supplying you with a key +to its interpretation. It is this faculty Dr. +Brandes has displayed in an eminent degree in his +many biographical and critical essays which have +appeared in German and Danish periodicals; as +also in his more elaborate biographies of Benjamin +Disraeli (1878), Esaias Tegnér (1878), Sören Kierkegaard +(1877), Ferdinand Lassalle (1882), and +Ludwig Holberg. The first of these was translated +into English, and was also published in the +United States. A second volume, entitled "Eminent +Writers of the Nineteenth Century," was +translated some years ago by Professor R. B. Anderson. +The greater number of these highly +finished essays were selected from the Danish volumes +"The Men of the New Transition" (1884) +and "Men and Works in Recent European Literature" +(1883), and one or two from "Danish Poets" +(1877). They give in every instance the keynote +to the personality with which they deal; they are +not so much studies of books as studies of the men +who are revealed in the books. Take, for instance, +the essay on Björnstjerne Björnson, which I regard +as one of the finest and most vital pieces of +critical writing in recent times. What can be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +more subtly descriptive of the very innermost soul +of this poet than the picture of him as the clansman, +the Norse chieftain, who feels with the many +and speaks for the many; and what more beautifully +indicative of his external position than this +phrase: "To mention his name is like running up +the flag of Norway"?</p> + +<p>It seems peculiarly appropriate to follow up this +essay with one on Ibsen, who is as complete an +antithesis to his great and popular rival as could +well be conceived. There is no bugle-call in the +name Henrik Ibsen. It is thin in sound, and can +be spoken almost with closed lips. You have no +broad vowels and large consonants to fill your +mouth as when you say Björnstjerne Björnson. +This difference in sound seems symbolic. Ibsen is +the solitary man, a scathing critic of society, a delver +in the depths of human nature, sceptical of all +that men believe in and admire. He has not, like +Björnson, any faith in majorities; nay, he believes +that the indorsement of the majority is an argument +against the wisdom of a course of action or +the truth of a proposition. The summary of this +poet's work and personality in Dr. Brandes's book +is a masterpiece of analytical criticism. It enriches +and expands the territory of one's thought. +It is no less witty, no less epigrammatic, than +Sainte-Beuve at his best; and it has flashes of +deeper insight than I have ever found in Sainte-Beuve.</p> + +<p>The last book of Dr. Brandes's that has been presented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +to the American public is his "Impressions +of Russia." The motto of this work (which +in the Danish edition is printed on the back of the +title-page) is "Black Earth," the significance of +which is thus explained in the concluding paragraph:</p> + +<p>"Black earth, fertile soil, new soil, wheat soil ... the +wide, rich, warm nature ... the +infinite expanses, which fill the soul with melancholy +and with hope ... the impenetrable, +duskily mysterious ... the mother-womb of +new realities and new mysticism ... Russia, +the future."</p> + +<p>The prophetic vagueness of this paragraph, big +with dim possibilities, conveys the very impression +to which all observations and experiences in Russia +finally reduce themselves. It is the enduring +residue which remains when all evanescent impressions +have lapsed into the background. It expresses, +too, the typical mental attitude of every +Russian, be he ever so Frenchified and denationalized. +The word "Virgin Soil" was a favorite +phrase with Tourguéneff when speaking of his +country, and he used it as the title of his last +novel. It seemed to him to explain everything in +Russian conditions that to the rest of the world appeared +enigmatical. The whole of Dr. Brandes's +book is interpenetrated with this consciousness of +the vast possibilities hidden in the virgin bosom of +the new earth, even though they may be too deeply +hidden to sprout up into the daylight for centuries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +to come. The Russian literature, which is +at present enchaining the attention of the civilized +world, is a brilliant variation of this theme, an +imaginative commentary on this text. The second +half of Dr. Brandes's "Impressions" is devoted to +the consideration of Puschkin, Gogol, Lermontoff, +Dostojevski, Tourguéneff, and Tolstoï; of each of +whom he gives, as it appears to me, a better account +than M. de Vogüé in his book "Le Roman +Russe," which gave him a seat among the Forty +Immortals.</p> + +<p>The significance of Dr. Brandes's literary activity, +which has now extended over a quarter of a +century, can hardly be estimated from our side of +the Atlantic. The Danish horizon was, twenty +years ago, hedged in on all sides by a patriotic prejudice +which allowed few foreign ideas to enter. +As previously stated, the people had, before the +two Sleswick-Holstein wars, been in lively communication +with Germany, and the intellectual +currents of the Fatherland had found their way up +to the Belts, and had pulsated there, though with +some loss of vigor. But the disastrous defeat in +the last war aroused such hostility to Germany +that the intellectual intercourse almost ceased. +German ideas became scarcely less obnoxious than +German bayonets. Spiritual stagnation was the +result. For no nation can with impunity cut itself +off from the great life of the world. New connections +might, perhaps, have been formed with +France or England; but the obstacles in the way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +of such connections appeared too great to be readily +overcome. Racial differences and consequent +alienism in habits of thought made a <i>rapprochement</i> +seem hopeless. It seemed, for awhile, as if +the war had cut down the intellectual territory of +the Danes even more than it had curtailed their +material area. They cultivated their little domestic +virtues, talked enthusiastic nonsense on festive +occasions, indulged in vain hopes of recovering +their lost provinces, but rarely allowed their political +reverses to interfere with their amusements. +They let the world roar on past their gates, without +troubling themselves much as to what interested +or agitated it. A feeble, moonshiny late-romanticism +was predominant in their literature; +and in art, philosophy, and politics that sluggish +conservatism which betokens a low vitality, incident +upon intellectual isolation.</p> + +<p>What was needed at such a time was a man who +could re-attach the broken connection—a mediator +and interpreter of foreign thought in such a form +as to appeal to the Danish temperament and be +capable of assimilation by the Danish intellect. +Such a man was Georg Brandes. He undertook +to put his people <i>en rapport</i> with the nineteenth +century, to open new avenues for the influx of +modern thought, to take the place of those which +had been closed. We have seen that he interpreted +to his countrymen the significance of the +literary and social movements both in England and +in France. But a self-satisfied and virtuous little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +nation which regards its remoteness from the great +world as a matter of congratulation is not apt to +receive with favor such a champion of alien ideas. +The more the Danes became absorbed in their +national hallucinations, the more provincial, nay +parochial, they became in their interests, the less +did they feel the need of any intellectual stimulus +from abroad; and when Dr. Brandes introduced +them to modern realism, agnosticism, and positivism +they thanked God that none of these dreadful +isms were indigenous with them; and were +disposed to take Dr. Brandes to task for disturbing +their idyllic, orthodox peace by the promulgation +of such dangerous heresies. When the time +came to fill the professorship for which he was a +candidate, he was passed by, and a safer but inferior +man was appointed. A formal crusade was +opened against him, and he was made the object of +savage and bitter attacks. I am not positive, but +am disposed to believe, that it was this crusade, not +against his opinions only, but against the man +himself, which drove Dr. Brandes from Copenhagen, +and induced him, in October, 1877, to settle +in Berlin. Here he continued his literary activity +with unabated zeal, became a valued contributor +to the most authoritative German periodicals, and +gained a conspicuous position among German men +of letters. But while he was sojourning abroad, +the seed of ideas which he had left at home began +to sprout, and in 1882 his friends in Copenhagen +felt themselves strong enough to brave the antagonism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +which his æsthetical and religious heresies +had aroused. At their invitation he returned to +Denmark, having been guaranteed an income of +four thousand crowns ($1,000) for ten years, with +the single stipulation that he should deliver an +annual course of public lectures in Copenhagen. +Since then his reputation has spread rapidly +throughout the civilized world; his books have +been translated into many languages, and he would +have won his way to a recognition, as the foremost +of contemporary critics, if he had not in his later +publications discredited himself by his open sympathy +with anarchism.</p> + +<p>In order to substantiate this it is only necessary +to call attention to the fifth volume of his lectures +entitled "Young Germany" (<i>Det unge Tydskland</i>, +1890), which betrays extraordinary intellectual acumen +but also a singular confusion of moral values. +All revolt is lauded, all conformity derided. The +former is noble, daring, Titanic; the latter is +pusillanimous and weak. Conjugal irregularities +are treated not with tolerance but with obvious +approval. Those authors who dared be a law unto +themselves are, by implication at least, praised for +flinging down their gauntlets to the dull, moral +Philistines who have shackled themselves with +their own stupid traditions. That is the tone of +Brandes's comment upon such relations as that of +Immermann to Eliza von Lützow.</p> + +<p>But nowhere has he unmasked so Mephistophelian +a countenance as in his essays on Luther and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +on an obscure German iconoclast named Friedrich +Nietschke (<i>Essays: Fremmede Personligheder</i>, +pp. 151-244). It is difficult to understand how a +man of well-balanced brain and a logical equipment +second to none, can take <i>au sérieux</i> a mere +philosophical savage who dances a war-dance amid +what he conceives to be the ruins of civilization, +swings a reckless tomahawk and knocks down +everybody and everything that comes in his way. +There must lie a long history of disappointment +and bitterness behind that endorsement of anarchy +pure and simple. And it is the sadder to contemplate +because it casts a sinister light upon Dr. +Brandes's earlier activity and compels many an +admirer of his literary art to revise his previous +opinion of him. Can a man ever have been a +sound thinker who at fifty practically hoists the +standard of anarchy? A ship is scarcely to be +trusted that flies such compromising colors.</p> + +<p>That all development, in order to be rational, +must have its roots in the past—must be in the nature +of a slow organic growth—is certainly a fundamental +proposition of the Spencerian sociology. It +is the more to be wondered at that an evolutionist +like Dr. Brandes, in his impatience at the tardiness +of social progress, should lose his philosophic +temper and make common cause with a crack-brained +visionary. The kind of explosive radicalism +which Nietschke betrays in his cynical questions +and explanations is no evidence of profundity +or sagacity, but is the equivalent of the dynamiter's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +activity, transferred to the world of thought. +His pretended re-investigation of the foundations +of the moral sentiments reminds one of the mud +geysers of the Yellowstone, which break out periodically +and envelop everything within reach in +an indeterminate shower of mud. To me there is +more of vanity than of philosophic acumen in his +onslaught on well-nigh all human institutions. He +would, like Ibsen, no doubt,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Place 'neath the ark the torpedo most cheerfully;"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but torpedoes of his making would scarcely do the +ark much harm. They have not the explosive +power of Ibsen's. There are in every age men who, +unable to achieve the fame of Dinocrates, who +built the temple of the Ephesian Diana, aspire to +that of Herostratos, who destroyed it. To admire +these men is as compromising as to be admired by +them.</p> + +<p>In the essay on "Martin Luther on Celibacy +and Marriage" Dr. Brandes derides with a satyr-like +leer all traditional ideas of chastity, conjugal +fidelity, and marital honor.</p> + +<p>Though he pretends to fight behind Luther's +shield the deftest thrusts are not the reformer's, +but the essayist's own. Fundamentally, I fancy, +this is an outbreak of that artistic paganism which +is so prevalent among the so-called "advanced" +Hebrews. The idea that obedience to law is degrading; +that conformity to traditional morals is +soul-crippling and unworthy of a free spirit; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +only by giving sway to passion will the individual +attain that joy which is his right, and that self-development +which should be his highest aim, has +found one of its ablest and most dangerous advocates +in Georg Brandes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<h2>ESAIAS TEGNÉR</h2> + + + +<p>The genius of the Scandinavian north has +never found a more complete and brilliant +incarnation than the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér. +Strong, cheerful, thoroughly wholesome, with a +boyish delight in prowess, adventure, and daring +deeds, he presents a most agreeable contrast +to the moonshine singers and graveyard bards +of the phosphoristic school, who were his contemporaries. +To Tegnér, in his prime, life was a +brisk and exhilarating sail, with a fresh breeze, +over sunny waters; and he had no patience with +those who described it as a painful and troublous +groping through the valley of the shadow of +death. There was, in other words, a certain +charming juvenility in his attitude toward existence, +which presented to him no riddles that a +man with a strong arm and an honest heart might +not solve with comparative ease. All problems +were to him soluble with the sword; and Alexander, +when he cut the Gordian knot, must have +appeared to him wiser, as he was surely more admirable, +than either Plato or Socrates. This scorn +of all metaphysical subtleties, and reliance upon +strength and Swedish manhood, are, perhaps (from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +an advanced European point of view), indicative +of a little intellectual immaturity; but they are +thoroughly characteristic of the Scandinavian nationalities. +The love of brave words and brave +deeds, the exaltation of the man of action above +the man of thought, the pleasure in reckless gallantry +and foolhardy adventure, are, however, not +confined to Swedes and Norwegians, but are characteristic +of the boyhood of every nation. In the +Scotchman, Robert Louis Stevenson, this jaunty +juvenility, this rich enjoyment of bloody buccaneers +and profane sea-dogs, is carried to far greater +lengths, and the great juvenile public of England +and America, both young and old, rises up and +calls him blessed.</p> + +<p>There is, however, a vast difference between +Tegnér's youthfulness and that of Stevenson. The +latter (in spite of the charm of his style, which is +irresistible) strikes me as a sort of mediæval survival—a +boyish feudal sixteenth-century spirit +astray in the nineteenth. I am by no means insensible +to the fascination of his capricious confidences, +his beautiful insight, and his exquisite humor; +but for all that, he always leaves me with a +vague regret at his whimsicality and a certain lack +of robustness in his intellectual equipment. In +Tegnér, on the other hand, it is primarily the man +who is impressive; and the author is interesting as +the revelation of the man. He has no literary +airs and graces, but speaks with a splendid authority, +<i>e plena pectore</i>, from the fulness of his manly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +conviction. He seems a very personification of the +national genius—fair, vigorous, and beautiful—with +the glow of health in his cheeks and the light +of courage in his eye. His vision of the world is +bright and vivid, and he swims with a joyous ease +in the high-tide of the moment, like a beautiful +fish in the luminous summer sea.</p> + +<p>As a specimen of magnificent manhood Tegnér +had few equals in his day. Tall, robust, and finely +proportioned as he was, with a profile of almost +classic purity, he was equally irresistible to men +and women. There was a breezy, out-of-door air +about him, and a genial straightforwardness and +affability in his manner which took all hearts +captive. His was not only the beauty of perfect +health, but a certain splendid virility in his demeanor +and appearance heightened the charm of +his personality.</p> + +<p>It is a matter of wonder that a man in whom the +race-type had reached such perfection was but two +generations removed from the soil. Tegnér's grandfathers +on both sides were peasants; and his father, +Esaias Lucasson, was a peasant lad who by industry +and ambition had obtained an education and +become a clergyman. He owed his aristocratic +name to the custom, prevalent in those days, to +Latinize all vulgar appellations. Esaias Lucasson, +of Tegnaby (the little Småland village where +he was born), became, in the Latin school, Esaias +Tegnerus. He married in the course of time a +clergyman's daughter, Sara Maria Seidelius, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +bore him a large family of sons and daughters. +The fifth son, named Esaias after his father, first +saw the light of day in the parsonage of Kyrkerud, +in Wermland, November 13, 1782. When he was +nine years old his father died, leaving behind him +poverty and sorrow. Happily a friend of the family, +the Assessor Branting, took a fancy to the +handsome and clever boy and offered him a home +in his house. Esaias wrote a very clear, good +hand, and soon got a desk and a high three-legged +stool in the assessor's office. So far from +rebelling against this tedious discipline, he applied +himself with zeal to his task, and became, in a short +time, an excellent clerk. And a clerk he might +have remained if his patron had not had the wit to +discover that very unusual talents slumbered in the +lad. Being fond of his society, Mr. Branting got +into the habit of taking him along on his official +journeys; and from the back seat of his chaise +Esaias made the acquaintance of the beautiful +rivers, heights, and valleys of Wermland. The +unconscious impressions which a boy absorbs at +this period of his life are apt to play a decisive +part in fashioning his future. Nature, however +picturesque, never yet made a poet of a dullard; +but many a time has she aroused to poetic consciousness +a soul which without this stimulating +influence might never have discovered its calling, +might never have felt that strange, tremulous exaltation +which demands utterance in song.</p> + +<p>Esaias Tegnér stored his mind during these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +journeys with that wealth of imagery, drawn from +the scenery of his native land, which constitutes +the most national element in his verse. He also +contracted, during his residence in Branting's +house, an inordinate love of books. Once during +the harvest-time he was placed on guard at an +open gate, so as to prevent the cattle from breaking +into the adjoining field. To the great chagrin +of his patron, however, the cows made their +way unhindered and unnoticed into the forbidden +territory, while their watchman was lying on his +belly in the grass, deeply absorbed in a book. +Wherever he happened to be, his idea of happiness +was to hide himself away with a cherished volume. +Sometimes he was found sitting on the top +rung of a ladder, sometimes on the roof of a turf-thatched +cottage, oblivious of the world about +him, plunged up to his ears in some historic or +mythological tale. He was voracious, nay, omnivorous, +in his reading. A book was a book to him; +no matter what was its subject, whether it were +poetry, history, heraldry, or horticulture, he was +always likely to find something in it to interest +him. But his favorite reading was the old Norse +sagas, with their tremendous recitals of war and +song and fabulous prowess.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, his delight in books which +made the change in his destiny. Professor C. W. +Böttiger, Tegnér's son-in-law, quotes, in his life of +the poet, the following incident in the latter's own +words:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"One evening, as I was travelling homeward +with Assessor Branting, from Carlstad to Högvalta, +the stars were bright and my religious foster-father +seized this opportunity to talk with me about +God's omnipotence, and its visible traces throughout +nature. I had just been reading Bastholm's +'Philosophy for Laymen,' and I began to give an +account of what I had there learned concerning +the movements of the heavenly bodies. This +made an impression upon the old man, who, a +few days later, informed me that he had determined +to give me a scholarly education. This had +long been my secret desire, though I had never +dared to express it. 'You can learn nothing +more with me,' he said, 'and I believe you were +born for something better. If that is the case,' he +added, 'do not forget to thank the Giver of all good +things.'"</p> + +<p>The boy, who was now fourteen years old, was +sent to the house of a neighbor, where his elder +brother, Lars Gustaf, was tutor, and was initiated +by him into the classical languages. He also taught +himself English by reading McPherson's "Ossian," +which kept ringing in his memory for many years +to come. It was during his first enthusiasm for +"Ossian" that, in order to rid himself of the line +"the spear of Connell is keen," he cut it into his +chamber-door, where probably it is yet to be seen. +At the end of fifteen months the elder brother accepted +a more profitable position as tutor in the +family of the great iron-manufacturer Myhrman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +at Rämen, and stipulated that Esaias should be +permitted to accompany him.</p> + +<p>Very charming is the description of this hospitable, +patriarchal household, in Böttiger's biography; +and doubly interesting it becomes when +we recognize on every page scenes and incidents +which were later woven into "Frithjof's Saga." +There was a large library on the estate, consisting +of French, Latin, and Greek classics. With great +zest Esaias attacked this storehouse of delight; +and scarcely would he grant himself the needed +sleep, because every hour seemed to him lost +which had been robbed from his beloved authors. +The instruction in Latin and Greek which his +brother imparted to the young Myhrmans was to +him far too slow. In his eagerness to plunge into +Homer's enchanted world, he rapidly finished his +grammar, and began to read ahead, book after +book, so as to get the connection, even though understanding +but half the words. Without knowing +it, he had adopted a modern and really most +excellent method of acquiring the language. For +Homer became literature to him instead of a mere +text for excruciating grammatical gymnastics.</p> + +<p>It was Tegnér's good fortune that his playfellows, +the seven young Myhrmans, were not so fond of +Greek as he was. Often, when he was revelling in +a glorious Homeric passage, these lusty barbarians +would come storming into his room and carry him +off bodily, compelling him to share in their sports; +for Esaias was a capital hand at inventing new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +games, and they willingly accepted his leadership +and acted upon his suggestions. Particularly his +Homeric games were greatly enjoyed. They divided +their troop into Greeks and Trojans and +captured Troy. Esaias was always Hector, and +the other boys became the raging Ajax, the swift-footed +Achilles, the wily Ulysses, etc. The youngest +daughter of the house, Anna Myhrman, must, +I should fancy, have played somewhat more of a +part in Tegnér's boyhood than his biographer allows, +for the descriptions of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's +childhood in Hilding's house are obviously +personal reminiscences:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"No bird's nest found so high a spot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he for her could find it not;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eagle's nest from clouds he sundered,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eggs and young he deftly plundered.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"However swift, there ran no brook,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But o'er it Ingeborg he took;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How sweet, when roaring torrents frighten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feel her soft arms round him tighten.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The first spring flowers by sunshine fed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earliest strawberries turning red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first of autumn's golden treasure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He proffered her with eager pleasure."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Translation of Thomas A. E. and Martha A. L. Holcomb, +Chicago, 1877. I have taken the liberty to substitute "strawberries," +which is the correct translation of "Smultron," for berries.</p></div> + +<p>At the age of seventeen Tegnér entered the +University of Lund, accompanied by three young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +Myhrmans, whose father had generously promised +to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of +his academic education. His playmate, familiarly +called Achilles, had to share his room, and thus +it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became +bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, +being intended for but one, afforded the scantiest +possible accommodations for two, and often threatened +to collapse under their united weight. Aching +in every joint from the discomfort of their +cramped position, they would then get up and +spend the remainder of the night in playing +chess.</p> + +<p>At the University Tegnér soon made his mark, +and two years later took his degree of <i>Magister +Artium</i> with great distinction, being, according +to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned +in the cathedral as the first of twenty-four +candidates. The Swede loves pomp and ceremonious +display, and rarely misses an opportunity for +a fine stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of +course, that Esaias Tegnér was unworthy of the +honor which was conferred upon him; but it +seems a terrible cheapening of the laurel to place +it annually upon the brows of a herd of deedless +striplings, standing upon the threshold of their +careers. Tegnér was but nineteen years of age +when the Muse, contrary to her habit, gave him +the crown without the dust, generously rewarding +him in advance of performance. But he came +very near forfeiting the fruits of all his fair fame<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +by participating in a hostile demonstration in front +of the house of the University's rector, who was +justly unpopular. His manly bearing, however, +and the friendship of several of the professors saved +him from the <i>consilium abeundi cum infamia</i>, +with which he was threatened. Instead of that +he was appointed <i>docent</i> in æsthetics, Secretary to +the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant University +Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at +Rämen with the Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss +Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had undergone +that miraculous transformation, which never +loses its delightful mystery, from childhood into +young womanhood. He went away one day and +bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in +short skirts, and returned in a few months to greet +a lovely, blushingly dignified young lady, who +probably avowed no more her fondness for him +with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But +she would have been more than woman if she +could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful +youth upon whom nature had showered so many +rare gifts. A stone has been found up in the +woods above Rämen which yet shows under its +coating of moss the initials of E. T. and A. M. It +requires but little imagination to fill out the story +of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos +in "Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and +"Frithjof's Happiness") supply an abundance of +hints which have a charmingly autobiographical +tinge:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whilst his love-dreaming gaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For on memory's page<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Youth traces its roses; its briers old age.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dome-crownèd cave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Strong's translation.</p></div> + +<p>But here, happily, Tegnér's life ceased to supply +material for that of his hero. For Anna Myhrman, +instead of pledging her troth to a high-born, +elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the +young University instructor, Esaias Tegnér; and +when her bridal wreath of myrtle failed to arrive +from the city, she twined a wreath of wild heather +instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day +with the modest heather blossoms peeping +forth from under her dark locks.</p> + +<p>His insecure position in life, as one dependent +upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed +Tegnér, and at times made him moody and despondent. +He had felt impelled, in justice to himself +and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, +to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance +and industry which came near undermining +his health. He looked during his student days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +overworked, and if nature had endowed him with +a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, +have succumbed to the strain of this perpetual +over-exertion. But after his marriage a happy +change came over him. The joyous substratum of +his nature (what he himself called his pagan self) +broke through its sombre integuments and asserted +itself. No sooner had he taken his place among +the teachers of the University than his clear and +weighty personality commanded admiration and +respect. In social intercourse his ready wit and +cheerful conviviality made him a general favorite. +His talk, without being in the least forced, was +full of surprises; and there was a charm, in the +redundant vigor and virility that seemed to radiate +from him. But it may as well be admitted that +he began at this time to show what may euphemistically +be styled his paganism, in the relish +which he evinced for jests of doubtful propriety. +He was indeed as far as possible from being a +prude; many years later, when he was a bishop +and a great ecclesiastical dignitary, he wrote to his +friend the poet Franzén:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I thank God that I can yet, at times, be merry and give +vent to my mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to +make a good joke even though its subject be the bridal bed. +All prudery—and frequently the clerical dignity is, in social +intercourse, nothing else—I detest and despise."</p></div> + +<p>His inability to restrain his wit in this particular +direction has done some injury to his memory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +Not that his fancy had any taint of uncleanness. +It was open and cheerful as the sunlight; and as +the sunlight played brightly over all things without +fastidious discrimination. There was a rich, +and healthy humanity about him which manifested +itself in an impartial, all-embracing delight in the +glow and color of mere sensuous existence. There +has scarcely ever been a great poet (Dante perhaps +excepted) who has not had his share of this pagan +joy in nudity. Goethe's "Roman Elegies" are undisguisedly +Anacreontic, and the most spiritual of +modern poets, Robert Browning, is as deep and +varied and bountiful in the expression he gives to +life in its sensuous phases as in its highest ascetic +transports.</p> + +<p>Do not imagine, then, that I am apologizing for +Tegnér, I am merely trying to account for him. +From his Homer, whom he loved above all other +poets, he had in a measure derived that artistic paganism +which perceptibly colored his personality. +There was nothing of the scholarly prig or pedant +about him. In his lectures he gave himself, his +own view of life, and his own interpretation of his +authors. And it was because of the greatness of +the man, the unhackneyed vigor of his speech, and +the power of his intellect that the students flocked +to his lecture-hall and listened with enthusiasm to +his teaching.</p> + +<p>I am not by any means sure, however, that +much of his popularity was also due to what, at +this stage of his career, may without disrespect be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +called his immaturity. That wholesome robustness +in his acceptance of life which finds utterance +in his early songs must have established a quick +bond of sympathy between him and his youthful +hearers. The instincts of the predatory man were +yet strong in him. The tribal feeling which we call +patriotism, the juvenile defiance which carries a +chip on its shoulder as a challenge to the world, +the boastful self-assertion which is always ridiculous +in every nation but our own—impart a splendid +martial resonance to his first notable poem, +"War-Song for the Scanian Reserves" (1808). +There was a charming, frank ferocity in this patriotic +bugle-blast which found an echo in every +Swedish heart. The rapid dactylic metres, with +the captivating rhymes, alternating with the more +contemplative trochees, were admirably adapted +for conveying the ebullient indignation and wrath +which hurls its gauntlet into the face of fate itself,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +checked, as it were, and cooled by soberer reflection +and retrospective regret. It is the sorrow for +the yet recent loss of Finland which inspires the +elegiac tones in Tegnér's war-song; and it is his +own ardent, youthful spirit, his own deep and sincere +love of country, which awakes the martial +melody with the throbbing of the drum and the +rousing alarum of trumpets. What can be more +delightfully—shall I say juvenile—than this reference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +to the numerical superiority of the Muscovites:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Many, are they? Well, then, of the many<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sweden shall drink the red blood and be free!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many? We count not the warriors' numbers<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Only the fallen shall numbered be."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vi Kaste var handske<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Mot ödet sjelf."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It is with no desire to disparage Tegnér that I +say that this strain, which is that of all his early +war-songs, is extremely becoming to him. It is +not a question of the legitimacy of the sentiment, +but of the fulness and felicity of its expression. +As long as we have wars we must have martial +bards, and with the exception of the German, Theodor +Körner, I know none who can bear comparison +with Tegnér. English literature can certainly +boast no war-poem which would not be drowned +in the mighty music of Tegnér's "Svea," "The +Scanian Reserves," and that magnificent, dithyrambic +declamation, "King Charles, the Young +Hero." Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" +is technically a finer poem than anything +Tegnér has written, but it lacks the deep virile bass, +the tremendous volume of breath and voice, and +the captivating martial lilt which makes the heart +beat willy nilly to the rhythm of the verse.</p> + +<p>The popularity which Tegnér gained by "The +Scanian Reserves" was the immediate cause of his +appointment to a professorship at the University +of Lund, and his next notable poem, "Svea," +which won him the great prize of the Swedish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +Academy, raised him to a height of fame which +naturally led to further promotion. According to +the curious custom of Sweden, a professor may, +even though he has never studied theology, take +orders and accept the charge of a parish. He is +regarded as being, by dint of his learning, in the +regular line of clerical promotion; and the elevation +from a professorship (though it be not a theological +one) into a bishopric is no infrequent occurrence. +There was therefore nothing anomalous +in Tegnér's appointment (February, 1812) as pastor +of Stäfvie and Lackalänge, and his subsequent +promotion (February, 1824) to the bishopric of +Wexiö. His pastorate he was permitted to combine +with his professorship of Greek, to which +he was simultaneously transferred from that of +æsthetics, and the office was chiefly valuable to +him on account of the addition which it procured +him to his income. The nearness of his parish to +Lund enabled him to preach in the country on +Sundays as regularly as he lectured in the city on +week-days. His other pastoral duties he could +not very well discharge <i>in absentia</i>, and they probably +remained in a measure undischarged. He +had not sought the parish; it was the parish which +had sought him; and he exerted himself to the +utmost to fill the less congenial office as conscientiously +as he did his academic chair. The peasants +of Stäfvie and Lackalänge were always welcome at +his hospitable board; he gave them freely his advice, +and in order to recall and emphasize his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +kinship with them, he invited a peasant woman to +become the godmother of his youngest son, and +selected all the sponsors from the same class.</p> + +<p>This was not the only occasion on which Tegnér +demonstrated his superiority to all snobbish pretensions. +He was not only not ashamed of his +peasant descent, but he was proud of it. Once +(1811) during a visit to Rämen, he took it into his +head that he desired to know, from actual experience, +the kind of lives which his ancestors must +have lived; and to that end he dressed himself in +wadmal, loaded a dray with pig-iron, greased its +axles, harnessed his team, and drove it to the nearest +city, a distance of ten to twelve miles. He +induced three of his brothers-in-law, two of whom +were army officers and one a government clerk, to +follow his example. Up hill and down hill they +trudged, and arrived late in the afternoon, footsore +and with blistered hands, in the town, where +they reported at the office of a commission merchant, +sold their iron and obtained their receipts. +That of Tegnér was made out to Esaias Esaiasson, +which would have been his name, if his father had +never risen from the soil. The four sham peasants +now bought seed-corn with the money they +had obtained for their iron, loaded again their +wagons, and started for home. But they had forgotten +to take into account the robustness of the +rustic appetite, and before they had proceeded far +their bag of provisions was empty. To add to +their discomfort the rain began to pour down, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +they would not seek shelter. After midnight they +arrived at Rämen, hungry and drenched, not having +slept for two nights, but happy and proud of +their feat of endurance.</p> + +<p>It was in 1811 that Tegnér's poem "Svea" received +the prize of the Swedish Academy; and +the fact that it recalled (in single passages at least) +Oehlenschläger's "The Golden Horns," does not +seem to have weighed in the verdict. It is not in +any sense an imitation; but there is an audible +reminiscence which is unmistakable in the metre +and cadence of the short-lined verses, descriptive +of the vision. Never, I fancy, had the Swedish +language been made to soar with so strong a wing-beat, +never before had it been made to sing so bold +a melody. To me, I admit, "Svea" is too rhetorical +to make any deep impression. It has a certain +stately academic form, which, as it were, impedes +its respiration and freedom of movement. +When, for all that, I speak of wing-beat and melody, +it must be borne in mind that Sweden had +produced no really great poet<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> before Tegnér; +and that thus, relatively considered, the statement +is true. But Tegnér seems himself to have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +conscious of the strait-jacket in which the old +academic rules confined him, for in the middle of +the poem he suddenly discards the stilted Alexandrines +with which he had commenced and breaks +into a rapturous old-Norse chant, the abrupt metres +of which recall the <i>fornyrdhalag</i> of the Elder Edda. +Soon after "Svea" followed, in 1812, "The +Priestly Consecration," the occasion of which was +the poet's own ordination. Here the oratorical +note and a certain clerical rotundity of utterance +come very near spoiling the melody. "At the +Jubilee in Lund" (1817) is very much in the same +strain, and begins with the statement so characteristic +of Tegnér:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thou who didst the brave twin stars enkindle,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Reason and Religion, guard the twain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each shines by other; else they fade and dwindle.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fill with clearness every human brain:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Faith and hope in every bosom reign!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Carl Michael Bellman, the Swedish Béranger (1740-1795), +whose wanton music resounded through the latter half of the +eighteenth century, would, no doubt, by many be called a great +poet. But his Bacchanalian strain, though at times exquisite and +captivating, lacks the universality of sentiment and that depth of +resonance of which greatness can alone be predicated. Both his +wild mirth and his sombre melancholy exhale the aroma of ardent +spirits.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> This line reads literally: "Guard them both; they are willingly +reconciled."</p></div> + +<p>He was, in fact, never very orthodox; and if he +had belonged to the American branch of his denomination +would surely have been tried for heresy. +Rarely has a deadlier foe of priestly obscurantism +and mediæval mysteries worn the episcopal +robes. With doctrinal subtleties and ingenious +hair-splitting he had no patience; conduct was +with him the main, if not the only, thing to be +considered. The Christian Church, as he conceived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +it, was primarily a civilizer, and the expression +of the highest ethical sentiment of the age.</p> + +<p>"The Church," he writes, "can surely not be +re-established in its former religious significance, +for the system upon which it rests has slept away +three centuries of history; and it is of no use that +this man or that man yet pretends to believe in +the somnambulist. But the church has also a +civic significance as an integral part of the social +order of humanity. If you abandon that to the +spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I can see no reason +why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus +should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and +their costs covered into the treasury."</p> + +<p>These are not highly episcopal sentiments; but +they are in keeping with Tegnér's whole personality +and his conception of his duty. His first +concern was to purge his diocese of drunken clergymen, +a task in which he encountered many unforeseen +difficulties.</p> + +<p>"It is nowadays less difficult," he says, "to get +rid of a king than a drunken clergyman."</p> + +<p>He was, indeed, very moderate in his demands, +stipulating only that no shepherd of souls should +show himself drunk in public. But the bibulous +parsons frequently had influential relatives, who +exerted themselves with the government to thwart +the bishop's reformatory schemes. If Tegnér had +not been the masterful, tireless, energetic prelate +that he was, his ardor would have cooled; and +he would have contented himself with drawing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +the revenues of his office, and left with the lukewarm +government the responsibility for frustrating +his purposes. But this was contrary to his +nature. He could not calmly contemplate abuses +which it was his duty to remedy; and no discouragement +ever sufficed to dampen his noble zeal. +The marked and fanatical pietism which then was +much diffused among the Småland peasantry he +fought with his cheerful gospel of reason and sanity. +Just as poetry to him meant the highest +bloom of life, and his radiant lyre resounded with +noble music like the statue of Memnon, when +touched by the rays of the dawn; so religion was, +in its essence, perfect sanity of soul, a beautiful +equilibrium of mind, and complete self-mastery. +His Christ was not primarily the bleeding, the +scourged, the crucified, but rather a benigner and +lovelier Phœbus Apollo, the bringer of clearness +and light, the dispeller of the unwholesome mists +and barbaric gloom that yet brood over the human +soul. Like Goethe, he cherished a veritable abhorrence +of the mystic symbolism of the mediæval +church; and was rather inclined to minimize the +significance of Christ's death and passion. He had +undeniably imparted into his Christianity a great +deal of sunny Hellenic paganism—a fact which +in his familiar correspondence with Franzén he +scarcely cares to disguise.</p> + +<p>Having this conception of the episcopal office, +he could not escape emphasizing his function as +the supervisor of the schools of his diocese. If he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +was to be a civilizer on any great scale, the chance +which was here afforded him to impress his ideals +upon the rising generation was not one to be neglected. +And, as a matter of fact, Tegnér was indefatigable +in his labors as an educator. His +many speeches at school celebrations preached, as +ever, a gospel derived from Greece rather than +Judæa; and half-improvised though some of them +appear to be, they contain passages of lofty eloquence.</p> + +<p>It was inevitable that a bishop of such commanding +personality, who wielded his authority at +times somewhat ruthlessly, should make enemies. +But, on the other hand, the beautiful beneficence +and sincere humanity of the man often obliterated +the ill-feeling which his official severity +had aroused. To the widows of deceased clergymen +in his diocese he was a veritable guardian, to +their children a father, to his peasantry a friend, +adviser, and monitor. He was an expert at detecting +errors in ecclesiastical balance-sheets; and +woe to the cleric who dared present to him inaccurate +accounts of income and expenditures. By +sheer dint of his personal superiority and that +quality of soul which George Eliot calls dynamic, +he impressed himself strongly upon all with whom +he came in contact; and though he was feared, he +was also beloved as few. A very delightful instance +of the reverence with which he was regarded +is recorded by Böttiger.</p> + +<p>One summer evening he arrived at a remote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +parsonage which had never, in the memory of +man, been visited by a bishop. Some time after +his arrival Tegnér observed two young ladies, the +daughters of the house, coming across the yard +carrying between them a big tub, full of water. +When he asked them, in a friendly way, why they +subjected themselves to such hard labor, one of +them replied: "Should we not regard it as an +honor to be allowed to water the bishop's horses?"</p> + +<p>In order to give a clear and coherent idea of +Tegnér in his prime, I have been obliged to +anticipate events. Many literary achievements +which I have left unrecorded belong to the period +previous to his assumption of the bishopric of +Wexiö. Unhappily Professor Böttiger's edition is +very chary of dates, and as Dr. Brandes has truly +observed, is arranged with the obvious purpose of +falsifying the sequence of Tegnér's poems and confusing +the reader. The three periods—previous to +1812, 1812-40, and 1840-46—are entirely arbitrary, +and plainly devised with a view to concealing, in so +far as they are capable of concealment, the unhappy +events which undermined the strength of +the Titan and wrecked his splendid powers. But +such a purpose is utterly futile, as long as the +poems themselves had once escaped into publicity.</p> + +<p>It was during the period while his sky was yet +unclouded that Tegnér enriched Swedish literature +with a series of lyrics which in point of lucidity of +thought and brilliancy of diction have rarely been +surpassed. It may be admitted, without materially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +detracting from his merit, that in some of them +the foreign models from which they were in a +measure fashioned shimmer through. Just as the +Germans, Gottsched and Bodmer, held foreign +models to be indispensable, and only disagreed as +to which were the best, so the Swedish Academy, +which in its predilections was French, had no +scruple in recommending this or that literary form +for imitation. That degree of literary independence +which Germany reached with Goethe and +Schiller, who discarded all models, the Scandinavian +countries did not reach until a much later +period; and Tegnér was one of those who stimulated +that national self-respect without which +independence is impossible.</p> + +<p>A strong spiritual kinship drew him to Schiller, +whose splendor of imagery and impassioned rhetoric +were the very gifts which he himself in a superlative +degree possessed. The breath of political +and religious liberalism which pervades the +writings of the German poet was also highly congenial +to Tegnér, and last, but not least, they were +both light-loving, beauty-worshipping Hellenists, +and, though externally conformists, hid joyous pagan +souls under imperfect Christian draperies. +Small blame it is therefore to Tegnér that Schiller's +poems furnished him with frequent suggestions +and sometimes also with metres. Schiller +had, in "The Gods of Greece," sung a glorious +elegy on the Olympian age which stimulated his +Swedish rival to write "The Asa Age," in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +he regretted, though in a rather half-hearted way, +the disappearance of Odin, Thor, and Freya. +The poem, it must be admitted, falls much below +Tegnér at his best. Schiller's "Three Words of +Faith," in which liberty, virtue, and God are declared +to be the only essentials of religion, finds a +parallel (which even retains the metre) in Tegnér's +"The Eternal," in which truth, justice, and beauty +are substituted. A kindred poetic creed is far +more consciously proclaimed in the famous poem +<i>Sangen</i> (Poetry), which was primarily a protest +against the gloomy and morbid view of poetry +entertained by the Swedish Romanticists (the so-called +Phosphorists). Tegnér here declares that +the poet "with heavenly joy embraces life," that +"he knows no weak lament" (at its misery), "no +dissonance which is not dissolved" (in harmony). +His temple stands in light and flame; and at its +base a fountain gurgles, a draught from which is +an elixir of strength and a panacea for all ills.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," he continues, "from this fountain +will I drink, if I am worthy of such a draught. +With healthy eyes will I look about me in the sick +world. My golden lyre shall not resound with +sorrows which I myself have invented. For the +poet's sorrows are none; and the sky of song is +forever bright."</p> + +<p>Peter Amadeus Atterbom, the leader of the +Phosphorists, replied with much moderation and +good sense to the obvious reflections upon his +school which this poem contained. He intimates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +plainly enough that Tegnér's philosophy of life, in +so far as it ignores sin and sorrow, which are too +real to be banished by song, is a hopelessly shallow +one.</p> + +<p>"The undissolved dissonances," he says, "in +the sense in which Mr. Tegnér uses the expression, +certainly betray a disease of the soul, but +this disease is not peculiar to a temperament which +is fostered by a personal emotional affinity for lugubrious +topics and ideas given by birth and developed +by circumstances; but it is inherent in +the weakness (which at times doubtless surprises +even the strongest ...) of desiring to set +up its sorrowful view of the world as a theory, and +treat it as absolutely true and fundamentally valid +for all. Sorrow, as such, is no more a diseased +state than is joy; both are alike primordial, necessary, +indispensable elements and halves of human +life. Who would venture to assert that the day +might dispense with the night? And does not +the latter's glorious starry sky rival in majesty +(though different in kind) the former's bright and +dazzling blitheness?"</p> + +<p>The fact was that Tegnér's cheery sun-worship +was as much temperamental as was Atterbom's +sentimental reveries and nocturnal melancholy. +The Phosphorist is unquestionably right, +however, in asserting that as a theory of life the +one is as limited and imperfect as the other. It +was because of the abhorrence of all the darker +phases of existence that Tegnér's bright Hellenic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +muse never struck those notes which thrill +with deepest resonance through the human heart. +Tegnér's acquaintance with suffering during the +early part of his career was chiefly a literary one, +and like Goethe he went far out of his way to +avoid the sight of it. As there can be no victory +without combat—no laurel without dust—the +Mount of Transfiguration is not reached except +through the valley of the Shadow of Death.</p> + +<p>There are, however, many fair flowers to be +plucked in Tempe and the blooming vales of Arcady. +Goethe had in 1798 published "Hermann +and Dorothea," the form of which was Greek, +though the theme was Teutonic; and Tegnér's +"Children of the Lord's Supper" (1820), which +Longfellow has translated so admirably into English, +derived its inspiration primarily from the +German idyl:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, the church of the village<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood, gleaming white in the morning sheen. On the spire of the belfry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the spring sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glanced like the tongues of fire beheld by Apostles aforetime."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Thus run the beautiful, stately hexameters, which, +whatever cavilling critics may say, are delightfully +adapted for epic narrative in any fairly polysyllabic +language. And Swedish, which is the most +sonorous of all Germanic tongues, and full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +Gothic strength, produces the most delectable effects +in the long, rolling line of slow-marching +dactyls and spondees. The tempered realism of +Tegnér, which shuns all that is harsh and trite, accords +well with the noble classical verse. He employs +it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as +Raphael draped the fishermen of Galilee in the +flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The description +of the church, the rustic youth, and the +patriarchal clergyman has, however, the note of +experience and the touch of earth which we miss +in the more declamatory passages. If, however, +declamation is anywhere in place it is in the three +orations of the rural parson, which occupy the +larger portion of the poem. It is all very lovely +and edifying; full of sacred eloquence and a grand +amplitude of phrase which is distinctly clerical.</p> + +<p>The romantic tale of "Axel" (1822), modelled +after Byron's narrative poems, rejoiced in a greater +popularity, in spite of the carping criticism with +which it was received by the <i>Svensk Litteratur-Tidning,</i> +the organ of the Phosphorists. Though, +to be sure, the merits of the poem are largely ignored +in this review, it is undeniable that the +faults which are emphasized do exist. First, the +frequent violations of probability (which, by the +way, ought not to have been so offensive to a romanticist) +draw tremendous draughts upon the +reader's credulity; and secondly, the lavish magnificence +of imagery rarely adds to the vividness of +the situations, but rather obscures and confuses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +them. It reminds one of a certain style of barocque +architecture in which the rage for ornamentation +twists every line into a scroll or spiral or arabesque, +until whatever design there originally was is lost +in a riot of decoration. The metaphors exist for +their own sake, and are in nowise subordinate to +the themes which they profess to illustrate. Take, +for instance, the oft-quoted passage:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The night drew near, and in the west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon its couch lay Evening dreaming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And silent, like the priests of Egypt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stars pursued their radiant paths,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And earth stood in the starry eve,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As blissful as a bride who stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The garland in her dusky hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the baldaquin and blushes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tired of the games of day, and warm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Naïad rested, still and smiling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The glow of evening shone resplendent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gorgeous rose upon her breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And merry Cupid, who had slept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When sun was high, awoke and rode<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the moonbeams up and down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bow and arrow, through the forest."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This is all very magnificent; but the images +tread so close upon each other's heels, that they +come near treading each other down, and tumbling +together in a confused jumble. I claim no originality +in calling attention to the fact that it must +have been a colossal Naïad who could wear the +evening glow like "a gorgeous rose upon her +breast." Likewise former critics have questioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +whether the stars gain in the least in vividness +by being compared to the priests of Egypt,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> who +were certainly far less familiar to the reader's +vision.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges Litteratur. +Kjöbenhavn, 1862. See also Svensk Litteratur-Tidning as quoted +in B. E. Malmström: Grunddragen af Svenska Vitterhetens +Historia, vol. v., p. 423. Oerebro.</p></div> + +<p>The story of the Swedish officer Axel and his +beloved, the Cossack Amazon, Maria, has from beginning +to end a flavor of Byron, and recalls alternately +"the Corsair" and "Lara." The extravagant +sentimentality of the tale appealed, however, +powerfully to the contemporary taste, and the dissenting +voice of criticism was drowned like the +shrill note of a single fife in the noisy orchestra +of praise. The Swedish matrons and maidens +wept over Axel's and Maria's heroic, but tragic +love, as those of England, nay, of all Europe, wept +over that of Conrad and Medora. Maria, when +she hears that Axel has a betrothed at home, enlists +as a man in the Russian army (a very odd proceeding +by the way, and scarcely conducive to her +purpose) and resolves to kill her rival. She is, +however, mortally wounded, and Axel finds her dying +upon the battlefield.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Yea, it was she; with smothered pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She whispers with a voice full faint:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Good-evening, Axel, nay, good-night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For death is nestling at my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh! ask not what hath brought me hither;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas love alone led me astray.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas! the last long night is dusking;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I stand before the grave's dread door.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How different life, with all its small distresses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seems now from what it seemed of yore!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And only love—love fair as ours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can I take with me to the skies.'"<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The original is in the rhymed Byronic metre, mostly in couplets. +In order not to sacrifice anything of the meaning I have +chosen to put it into blank verse.</p></div> + +<p>This is exactly the Byronic note, which would +be still more audible, if I had preserved the +rhymed couplets. Even Medora's male attire is +borrowed by Maria, and much more of this Byronic +melodramatic heroism is there, only a little +more conventionally draped and with larger +concessions to the Philistine sense of propriety. +But even if Tegnér in "Axel" had coquetted with +the Romantic muse, it would be rash to conclude +that he contemplated any durable relation. The +note which he had struck in his renowned oration +at the festival commemorating the Reformation +(1817), came from the depth of his heart, and continued +to resound through his speech and song for +many years to come. I do not moan to imply, of +course, that the Byronic Romanticism was very +closely akin to that of Tieck, the Schlegels, and +Novalis; or that Tegnér in the least compromised +his frank and manly liberalism by composing a +variation, as it were, on a Byronic theme. How +deeply he hated the mediæval obscurantism which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +then, under the auspices of Metternich and his +unholy "Holy Alliance" was spreading over Europe, +he showed in numerous private and public +utterances concerning the political condition of +Europe after the fall of Napoleon. His greeting +to the "New Year, 1816" (which his son-in-law +has foolishly excluded from his edition of the collected +works), is overbrimming with bitterness at +the triumph of the enemies of the light.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hurrah! Religion is a Jesuit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rights of man are Jacobins;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world is free; the raven is white;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long live the Pope—and that other;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am going to Germany, and there I'll learn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sonnets to sing and incense to burn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stupidity, lies, and fraud!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hope thou'lt make an end of our earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bullet at least she's worth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She's restless, poor thing, like many another,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A shot through the head—she'll cause no more bother!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was the fashion in those days to revile the +Revolution, because it had produced the man on +horseback who had turned the old order of things +topsy-turvy in a very unceremonious fashion. +Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth in England, +and Klopstock, Schiller, and a horde of lesser lights +in Germany, had hailed the French uprising as the +bloody dawn of a new and more glorious day; but +the excesses of the Reign of Terror frightened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +them back into the old fastnesses of Conservatism. +Tegnér (and to his honor be it said) was one of +the few who did not despair of liberty because a +people born and bred in despotism failed to exercise +the wisdom and self-restraint which only liberty +can foster. For the only road to the attainment +of liberty is its practice and its abuse, and the +slow education which can be acquired by no theoretical +teaching, but only in the hard and expensive +school of experience. For the terrible birth-pangs +of liberty no despotically governed people can escape, +unless it chooses to remain in thraldom.</p> + +<p>This is the spirit that breathes through Tegnér's +speeches and poems, during his most vigorous manhood; +and even, when the rift in his lute made +its music harsh and uncertain, the strain was yet essentially +the same, though transposed into an alien +key. It is very tempting to quote the many noble +sayings of this master of the commanding phrase, +but one or two must suffice. It is a delight to +read his published correspondence, because of this +power of strong and luminous utterance, which he +wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there +is no affectation or cant, but an engaging candor +and straightforwardness which bespeak a true man, +considering the time when they were written. +What clarity of political vision there is in such +passages as these:</p> + +<p>(1813.) "He who fancies that Europe will be +delivered by Russia and her confederates, or that +the progress of the Cossacks is for the advantage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +of Sweden, may perhaps be in the right; but his +views are very different from mine. In the hatred +of the Barbarians I am born and bred, and I hope +to die in it, unbewildered by modern sophisms."</p> + +<p>(1814.) "Who can believe in the re-establishment +of the European balance of power or rejoice +in the victory of wretched mediocrity over power +and genius. The upheavals of the age will soon +affect us all—at least us Swedes."</p> + +<p>(1817) "That we are living on an earth yet +quaking from the French Revolution is undeniable; +and extremely foolish seems to me the speech +of those who insist that the Revolution is finished, +or even approaching its end."</p> + +<p>"Napoleon fell, not on account of his wretched +opponents, but because despotism is the livery of +all strong souls, because his spirit was opposed to +the spirit of the age, with which he wrestled, and +which was stronger than he."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Quoted from G. Brandes: Esaias Tegnér: En Litteraturpsychologisk +Studie. Kjöbenhavn, 1878, pp. 87 and 88.</p></div> + +<p>Living as he did in an age of general disillusion, +Tegnér 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +scholars and public men, must have made a great +impression, and in a hundred direct and indirect +ways affected public opinion. Luther is to Tegnér +a hero of liberty, a breaker of human shackles, a +deliverer from spiritual bondage and gloom.</p> + +<p>"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. There was +something chivalrous, I could almost say adventurous, +in his whole personality, in his whole way +of beginning and prosecuting an enterprise. He +put upon whatever he did the stamp of an almost +inconceivable greatness—of an almost overwhelming +force. His mere word was half a battle, his +deed was a whole one. He was one of those mighty +souls which, like certain trees, can only bloom in +a storm. His whole great, rich, marvellous life +has always seemed to me like an epic with its battles +and its final victory. Such a spirit must of +necessity make room for itself, and decisively assert +itself in history, in whatever direction its activity +may be turned, under whatever circumstances and +at whatever time it enters upon its career. The +time when Luther came was one of those great historical +epochs when the world-serpent sheds its +skin and reappears in rejuvenated shape.... +A great man, even the very greatest, is always the +son of his age—only he is the eldest son; he is the +deputy and executor of the age. The age is his, +and he administers its substance according to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +judgment. He finds the scattered elements to his +hand, but usually tangled up and struggling in +chaotic disorder. To gather and arrange them into +a creation, to direct them toward a definite goal, ... +this is his greatness; this is his creative +powers.... In this ... sense Luther +created his age."<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Esaias Tegnér's Samlade Skrifter, vol. v., pp. 6, 7, 9, and 10.</p></div> + +<p>Dr. Brandes has anticipated me in calling attention +to the fact that the orator's characterization +of Luther, though highly interesting, is one-sided. +But as his admirable monograph on Tegnér is not +accessible to English readers, I feel justified in repeating +his argument in abbreviated form. There +is a great uniformity, he says, in substance, in all +Tegnér's heroes. They are all men of action—bold, +strong, adventurous heroes, such as boys delight in. +They have a striking family resemblance. With +the change of a few attributes Tegnér applies his +characterization of Luther to such a widely differing +personality as King Gustavus III. of Sweden, +a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, infidel monarch. +And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are +forced into the same livery, in spite of their diversity +of structure, because Tegnér admired them all, +and had practically but one type which appeared +to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy +wholly worthy of admiration.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Georg Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 17-19.</p></div> + +<p>In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegnér's +collected works I am much struck with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +force of this criticism. The brave man who defies +the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears +into dangers, without counting the odds against +him, is the typical juvenile hero; and it is strange, +though by no means incomprehensible, that a man +like Tegnér, who could betray such political insight +as is shown in his letters to Franzén and Leopold +had not really gotten beyond this primitive type of +excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not +desirable that he should. For the tremendous +popularity which greeted "Frithjof's Saga" was +due in no small measure to this half-juvenile +robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot +help regretting in myself the loss of my boyish +appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and mysterious +treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from +deploring Tegnér's delight in the insane prowess of +Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous gallantry +of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness +in it which makes one, on the whole, like +him the more.</p> + +<p>It might well be said of Tegnér, as he said of +Luther, that his word was half a battle. At all +events he accomplished by his speeches a complete +overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without +engaging in the barren polemics to which they +invited him. He waited until some appropriate +public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of +the fulness of his conviction. And his words +spread like undulating waves of light from one +end of the land to the other, finding lodgement in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +thousands of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at +the "magister promotion"<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> in Lund (1820) was a +direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against +that mystic obscurity which, according to the +Phosphorists, was inseparable from the highest +and deepest poetic utterance:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In vain they call upon the lofty Truth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sombre conjurations; for the dark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She ne'er endures; for her abode is light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Phoebus' world, in knowledge as in song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All things are bright. Bright beams the radiant sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear runs and pure his bright Castalian fountain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whate'er thou canst not clearly say thou know'st not.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twin-born with thought is word on lips of man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That which is darkly said is darkly thought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For wisdom true is like the diamond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A drop that's petrified of heavenly light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The purer that it is, the more its value,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The more the daylight shines and glitters through it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ancients builded unto Truth a temple,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fair rotunda, light as heaven's vault.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And freely poured the sunshine from all sides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into its open round; the winds of heaven<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid its ranks of pillars gayly gambolled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But now instead we build a Tower of Babel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A heavy, barbarous structure. Darkness peeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From out its deep and narrow grated casements.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unto the sky the tower was meant to reach,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But hitherto we've only had confusion.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in the realm of thought, in that of song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is; and poesy is e'er transparent ..."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> A magister promotion corresponds approximately to our university +commencements. It is the ceremony of bestowing the +degree of master of arts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p></div> + +<p>This was certainly an attractive doctrine, and it +did not fail to command public approval. But it +suffers from exactly the same limitation as Tegnér's +gospel of joy. It is only relatively (I might +almost say temperamentally) true; and the opposite +might be maintained with equal force, and +in fact was so maintained by Atterbom, who declared +(in the "Poetical Calendar for 1821") that +there can be no such a conception as light without +darkness. Darkness, he says, is the condition of all +color and form. You distinguish the light and all +things in it only by the contrasting effect of shadow—all +of which, I fancy, Tegnér would not have +denied. More to the point would have been the +query whether in poetry darkness and indistinctness +are synonymous terms. It is only the most +commonplace truths which can be made intelligible +to all. Much of the best and highest thinking +of humanity lies above the plane of the ordinary +untrained intellect. What is light to me may be +twilight or darkness to you. What to you is clear +as the daylight, may to me be as densely impenetrable +as the Cimmerian night. Christ himself +recognized this fact when he said to his disciples: +"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye +cannot bear them now."</p> + +<p>For all that, Tegnér's doctrine was in its effect +wholesome. It discouraged the writers of the +Romantic School, who under the guise of profundity +gave publicity to much immature and confused +thinking. He was no doubt right in saying that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +"a poetry which commences with whooping-cough +is likely to end in consumption." His frequently +repeated maxim, that poetry is nothing but the +health of life, "occasioned by an abounding intellectual +vigor, a joyous leap over the barriers of +everyday life," applied, however, to his own poetry +only so long as his vigor was unimpaired. His +terrible poem "Hypochondria" (<i>Mjeltsjukan</i>) is +to me no less poetical because it is not "a petrified +drop of heavenly light," and mocks all the cheerful +theories of its author's prime.</p> + +<p>Tegnér had yet a few years in which to rejoice +in this "health of life" in which he found the inspiration +for his song; and these last years were +the most fruitful in his entire career. He was +about forty years of age when, in 1820, he began +to compose the first cantos of "Frithjof's Saga." +He was living in modest comfort, happy in his +marital relation, and surrounded by a family of +children to whom he was a most affectionate +father. He could romp and play with his curly-headed +boys and girls without any loss of dignity; +and they loved nothing better than to invade his +study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed +pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied +him to his lectures and remained sitting at +his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his +explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his +master, in his zeal for his own poetry, forgot the +lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully pull him by +the tails of his coat. No man at the University of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +Lund was more generally beloved than Tegnér, +and all honors which the University could bestow +had been offered to him. The office of Rector +Magnificus he had, however, persisted in declining.</p> + +<p>There was at that time a general revival of interest +in the so-called saga-age. The Danish poet, +Oehlenschläger, had published his old-Norse cycle +of poems, "Helge," which aroused a sympathetic +reverberation in Tegnér's mind. The idea took +possession of him that here was a theme which +lay well within the range of his own voice, and full +of alluring possibilities. Accordingly he chose +the ancient "Saga of Frithjof the Bold," and resolved +to embody in it all the characteristic features +of the old heroic life. And what Oehlenschläger +had attempted to do, and partly succeeded +in doing, he accomplished with a completeness of +success which was a surprise to himself. No sooner +had "Iduna," the organ of the Gothic League, +published the first nine cantos (1821), than all +Sweden resounded with enthusiastic applause; and +even from beyond the boundaries of the fatherland +came voices of praise. When the completed poem +appeared in book-form, it was translated into all +civilized languages, and everywhere, in spite of the +translators' shortcomings, it was hailed with delight. +Not only England, France, and Germany +hastened to appropriate it, but even in Spain, +Greece, and Russia tears were shed over "Ingeborg's +Lament," and tender bosoms palpitated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +with sympathy for Frithjof's sorrows. I know a +dozen English translations of "Frithjof's Saga" +(a friend of mine, who is a bibliophile, assures me +that the exact number is at present twenty-one), +and of German versions the number is not very +much less. A Norwegian (or rather Danish) rendering +was presented to me on my twelfth birthday; +and the sentiment which then most forcibly +appealed to me was, as I vividly remember, embodied +in the following verse, in which Björn +chides his friend's grief for the loss of his beloved:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Frithjof, 'tis time for your folly's abating;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sigh and lament for a woman's loss:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth is, alas, too full of such dross;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One may be lost, still a thousand are waiting.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say but the word, of such goods I will bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quickly a cargo—the Southland can spare them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bed as the rose, mild as lambs in the spring;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then we'll cast lots, or as brothers we'll share them."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Holcomb's translation.</p></div> + +<p>It was not the unconscious humor of this proposition +which struck me the most in those days; +but it was the bluff frankness of the gruff old viking +which then seemed truly admirable. In fact, +I am not sure but that Björn appeared to me a +more sympathetic figure than Frithjof. But a little +later it dawned upon me that his utter lack +of chivalry was rather revolting; and I began to +marvel at my former admiration. At fourteen the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +following verse (which at twelve was charmingly +heroic) caused me to revise my opinion of Björn:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Good! to King Ring it shall be my glad duty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something to teach of a wronged viking's power;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire we his palace at midnight's still hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scorch the old graybeard and bear off the beauty."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For all that, Björn with his rough speech and +hearty delight in fighting and drinking, is far truer +to the spirit of the old heroic age than is Frithjof +with his sentimentality and lovesick reveries. +This verse, for instance, is replete with the briny +breath of the northern main. The north wind +blows through it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Good is the sea, your complaining you squander,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He never knoweth effeminate rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who on the billows delighteth to wander.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I am old, to the green-growing land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, too, will cling, with the grass for my pillow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I will drink and will fight with free hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I'll enjoy my own sorrow-free billow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I might continue in the autobiographical vein; +but must forbear. For there is a period in the +life of every young Norseman when, untroubled by +its anachronism, he glories in Frithjof's melancholy +mooning, his praise of Ingeborg, his misanthropy, +and all the manifold moods of love so +enchantingly expressed in Tegnér's melodious +verse.</p> + +<p>When a book acquires this significance as an expression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +of the typical experience in the lives of +thousands, the critical muse can but join in the +general chorus, and find profound reasons for the +universal praise. In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" +this is not a difficult matter. From beginning to +end the poem has a lyrical intensity which sets the +mind vibrating with a responsive emotion. It is +not a coldly impersonal epic, recounting remote +heroic events; but there is a deeply personal note +in it, which has that nameless moving quality—<i>la +note émue</i>, as the French call it—which brings +the tear to your eye, and sends a delicious breeze +through your nerves. All that, to be sure, or +nearly all of it, evaporates in translation; for no +more than you can transfer the exquisite dewy intactness +of the lily to canvas can you transfer the +rapturous melody of noble verse into an alien +tongue. The subtlest harmonies—those upon +which the thrill depends—are invariably lost. If +Longfellow, instead of giving us two cantos, had +translated the whole poem, we should, at least, +have possessed an English version which would +have afforded us some conception of the charm of +the renowned original.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which +have been urged by numerous critics may all be +admitted as more or less valid; yet something remains +which will account for its astounding popularity. +Tegnér at the time when he was singing +of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's love was himself suffering +from a consuming but unrequited passion. +The strong, warm pulse of life which throbs in +Frithjof's wrath, defiance, and scorn, and in his +deep and manly tenderness is the poet's own. It +marks but the rhythm of his own tumultuous +heart-beat. It is altogether an unhappy chapter, +which his biographer has vainly striven to suppress. +There was among his acquaintance in +Lund a certain Mrs. Palm, toward whom he felt +drawn with an irresistible half-demonic force. +Beyond this fact we know nothing of the lady, +except that she was handsome, cultivated, and +well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegnér +may have made toward her (and it is not known +of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; +and the poet, though fighting desperately +against his growing infatuation, wore out his +splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions which +the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a +prey to the most terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy +of the deepest hue spread its sombre veil +over the world which hitherto had given to him +its brightest smile. The dread of insanity became +an <i>idée fixe</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +lightning. But his poetic bark still sped along +with full sails, bravely breasting the waves.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gab mir ein Gott zu sagen was ich leide,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Goethe. And this divine gift of saying, or, +better still, of singing, what he suffered made Tegnér, +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.</p> + +<p>Archæologically the poem was not correct, and +was not meant to be. Tegnér distinctly disclaimed +the intention of producing a historically +accurate picture of the saga age; and all criticism +censuring the modernness of Frithjofs and Ingeborg's +sentiments is, therefore, according to his +idea, wide of the mark. I do not quite agree with +his point of view, but will state his argument. +For the historical Frithjof, as he is represented in +the ancient Norse saga bearing his name, Tegnér +cared but little. What he wished to do was to +give a poetic presentation of the old heroic life, +and he chose Frithjof as his representative of this +age because he united in himself so many of its +characteristics:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the saga much occurs which is very grand and heroic, +and hence valid for all times, which both might and +ought to be retained; but, on the other hand, a great deal +occurs which is rough, savage, barbarous; and this had +either to be entirely eliminated, or at least materially softened. +Up to a certain degree it therefore became necessary +to modernize; but the difficulty was to find the golden +mean. On the one hand, the poem ought not to offend too +much our more refined manners and gentler modes of +thought; but, on the other hand, the natural quality, the +freshness, the truth to nature ought not to be sacrificed."</p></div> + +<p>Tegnér fancies he has solved this problem by +retaining in Frithjof the fundamental traits of +all heroism, viz., nobility, magnanimity, courage; +but at the same time nationalizing them by giving +them a distinctly Scandinavian tinge. And this +he has done by making his hero almost wantonly +defiant, stubborn, pugnacious. As Ingeborg, lamenting +his fierce pugnacity, and yet glorying in +it, says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How glad, how stubborn, and how full of hope!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The point he setteth of his trusty sword<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against the breast of Fate and crieth, Thou must yield."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Another peculiarity of the Norseman's character is a +certain tendency to sadness and melancholy which is habitual +with all deeper natures. An elegiac tone pervades all +our old national melodies, and, generally speaking, all that +is of significance in our history; for it rises from the very +bottom of the nation's heart. There is a certain joyousness +(commonly attributed to the French) which in the last instance +is only levity. But the joyousness of the North is +fundamentally serious; for which reason I have in Frithjof<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +endeavored to give a hint of this brooding melancholy in +his repentance of the unintentional burning of the temple, +his brooding fear of Balder,</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Who sits in the sky, and the thoughts he sends down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which forever are clouding my mind."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It will be seen from this that Tegnér was fully +conscious of what he was doing. He civilized +Frithjof, because he was addressing a civilized +audience which would have taken little interest in +the rude viking of the eighth century, if he had +been presented to them in all his savage unrestraint. +He did exactly what Tennyson did, when +he made King Arthur the model of a modern English +gentleman and (by implication) a Protestant +a thousand years before Protestantism existed. +Ingeborg, too, had to be a trifle modified and disembarrassed +of a few somewhat too naturalistic +traits with which the saga endows her, before she +became the lovely type that she is of the faithful, +loving, long-suffering, womanhood of the North, +with trustful blue eyes, golden hair, and a heart +full of sweet and beautiful sentiment. It was +because Oehlenschläger had neglected to make +sufficient concessions to modern demands that his +"Helge" (though in some respects a greater poem +than "Frithjof's Saga") never crossed the boundary +of Scandinavia, and even there made no deep +impression upon the general public.</p> + +<p>Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to +most readers, I may be pardoned for presenting a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +brief <i>résumé</i>. The general plot, in Tegnér's version, +coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. +Frithjof, the son of the free yeoman Thorstein +Vikingson, is fostered in the house of the peasant +Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King +Belë of Sogn. The King and the yeoman have +been life-long friends, and each has a most cordial +regard for the other.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"By sword upheld, King Belë in King's-hall stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside him Thorstein Vikingson, that yeoman good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His battle-friend with almost a century hoary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And deep-marked like a rune-stone with scars of glory."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The yeoman's son and the king's daughter, +thrown into daily companionship in their foster-father's +hall, love each other; and Frithjof, after +the death of their fathers, goes to Ingeborg's +brothers, Helge and Halfdan, and asks her hand in +marriage. His suit is scornfully rejected, and he +departs in wrath vowing vengeance. The ancient +King Ring, of Ringerike, having heard of Ingeborg's +beauty, sends also ambassadors to woo her. +Her brothers make sacrifices in order to ascertain +the will of the gods. The omens are inauspicious, +and they accordingly feel compelled to decline the +King's offer.</p> + +<p>Ingeborg is shut up in Balder's Grove, where +the sanctity of the temple would make it sacrilege +for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, +braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night +across the fjord to a stolen rendezvous with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +beloved. The canto called "Frithjof's Happiness," +which is brimming over with a swelling redundance +of sentiment, is so cloyingly sweet that the +reader must himself be in love in order to enjoy +it. It is written in the key of the watch-songs of +the German minnesingers and the aubades of +Provençal troubadours. The Norse note is not +only wanting, but would never fit into that key:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Hush! 'tis the lark.' Nay, those soft numbers<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of doves' faith tell that knows no rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lark yet on the hillside slumbers<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beside his mate in grassy nest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To them no king seals his dominions<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When morning breaks in eastern air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their life is free as are their pinions<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which bear aloft the gladsome pair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'See day is breaking!' Nay, some tower<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Far eastward sendeth forth that light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We yet may spend another hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Not yet shall end the precious night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And waking may'st thou linger still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumber<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till Ragnarök, be such thy will.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vain hope! The day its gray discloses,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Already morning breezes blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already bend the eastern roses,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As fresh as Ingeborg's can glow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The winged songsters mount and twitter<br /></span> +<span class="i1">(The thoughtless throng!) along the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And life starts forth, and billows glitter,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And far the shades and lover fly.<br /></span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Farewell, beloved: till some longer<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And fairer eve we meet again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By one kiss on thy brow the stronger<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Let me depart—thy lips, once, then!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sleep now and dream of me, and waken<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When mid-day comes, and faithful tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hours as I yearn forsaken,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And sigh as I! Farewell, farewell!"<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Translation of L. A. Sherman, Ph.D. Boston, 1878.</p></div> + +<p>The two following cantos, entitled "The Parting" +and "Ingeborg's Lament," though liable to +the same criticism as their predecessor, are, with all +their sentimental effusiveness, beautiful. No lover, +I fancy, ever found them redundant, overstrained, +spoiled by the lavish splendor of their imagery. +Tegnér has accomplished the remarkable feat of +interveining, as it were, his academic rhetoric with +a blood-red humanity, and making the warm pulse +of experience throb through the stately phrases.</p> + +<p>King Ring, incensed at the rejection of his suit, +declares war against Helge and Halfdan, who in +their dire need ask Frithjof's aid, which is promptly +refused. In order to be rid of him they then send +him on an expedition to the Orkneys, to collect a +tribute which is due to them from Earl Angantyr. +He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she +refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good +ship Ellida breasting the waves and weeps bitter +tears at his loss:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Swell not so high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Billows of blue with your deafening cry!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stars, lend assistance, a shining<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pathway defining!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"With the spring doves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frithjof will come, but the maiden he loves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cannot in hall or dell meet him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lovingly greet him.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Buried she sleeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead for love's sake, or bleeding she weeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heart-broken, given by her brother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unto another."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is perfectly in keeping with the character of +Norse womanhood in the saga age that Ingeborg +should refuse to defy her brother's authority by +fleeing with Frithjof and yet deeply mourn his departure +without her. The family feeling, the bond +of blood, was exceptionally strong; and submission +to the social code which made the male head +of the house the arbiter of his sister's fate was +bred in the bone. It is, therefore, perfectly natural +that, when King Ring has beaten her brothers +in battle, and exacted Ingeborg as the prize of victory, +she yields unmurmuringly to their decree.</p> + +<p>Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself +greatly in the Orkneys by his strength and +prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and returns +with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, +a sight greets him which makes his heart quail. +Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to the +ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap +under the smiling sky. The kings, though they +had pledged their honor that they would not harm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +his property, had broken faith with him; and +Ingeborg, in the hope of gaining whom he had +undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to +King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow +Frithjof starts out to call her perjured brothers +to account. He finds them in the temple in Balder's +Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he +flings the bag containing the tribute into King +Helge's face, knocking out his front teeth, and +observing on his wife's arm the ring with which +he had once pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her +to recover it. The woman, who had been warming +the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, +in her fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof +seizes her by the arm and snatches the ring from +her. In the general confusion that follows the +temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the +flames are futile. In consequence of this sacrilege +Frithjof is outlawed at the <i>Thing</i> as a <i>vargr-i-véum</i>, +<i>i.e.</i>, wolf in the sanctuary, and is forced to go +into exile. His farewell to his native land strikes +one as being altogether out of tune. The old +Norse viking is made to anticipate sentiments +which are of far later growth; but for all that +the verses are quite stirring:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Brow of creation,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thou North sublime!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have no station<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Within thy clime.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proud, hence descended<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My race I tell;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of heroes splendid,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fond nurse, farewell!<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My love false-hearted,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My manor burned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My name departed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An outlaw, spurned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I now appealing<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From earth, will dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With waves, for healing.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Farewell, farewell!"<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Sherman's translation.</p></div> + +<p>Frithjof now roams for many years over the sea +as a viking, and gains much booty and honor. His +viking code, with its swift anapestic rhythm, has a +breezy melody which sings in the ear. It is an +attempt to embody the ethics of Norse warfare at +its best, and to present in the most poetic light the +rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient +Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend +Björn's advice, Frithjof, weary of this bootless chase +for glory and pelf, resolves to see Ingeborg once +more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, +he enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved +sitting in the high-seat beside her aged lord; +and the sorrow which the years had dulled revives +with an exquisite agony. He punishes with fierce +promptitude one of the King's men who insults +him; and his answer to the King's rebuke betrays +him as a man of rank and station. He then throws +away his disguise, without, however, revealing his +name, but Ingeborg instantly recognizes him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then even to her temples the queen's deep blushes sped,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As when the northlight tinges the snow-clad fields with red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like two full-blown lilies on racking waves which rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ill-concealed emotion so heaved her throbbing breast."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The king now invites the stranger, who calls +himself Thjof, to remain his guest during the +winter, and Frithjof accepts. He makes, however, +no approach to Ingeborg, with whom he scarcely +exchanges a single word. During a sleigh-ride on +the ice he saves, by a tremendous feat of strength, +the life of the king and queen. With the coming +of the spring preparations are made for a grand +chase, in which Frithjof participates.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Spring is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds 'gin to ope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in human hearts awaken love of life and joy and hope."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The canto called "The Temptation" contains +the most dramatic and altogether the most beautiful +situation in the poem. The old king, feigning +weariness, begs Frithjof to tarry with him alone, +while he takes a rest. Frithjof tries to dissuade +him, but in vain.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then threw Frithjof down his mantle, and upon the green sward spread;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the ancient king, so trustful, laid on Frithjof's knee his head;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slept as calmly as the hero sleepeth after war's alarms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his shield, calm as an infant slumbers in its mother's arms."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then the temptation comes to Frithjof to slay +the old man who had stolen his bride; but after a +brief struggle he hurls his sword far away into the +forest.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Straight the ancient king awakens. 'Sweet has been my sleep,' he said.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Pleasant 'tis to sleep in shadow, guarded by a brave man's blade.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where is thy sword, O stranger, lightning's brother, where is he?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who has parted one from other that should never parted be?'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Not a whit care I,' said Frithjof, 'I shall find a sword some day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sharp, O King, are tongues of falchions, words of peace they seldom say;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the steel dwell swarthy demons, demons strayed from Nifelhem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No man's sleep to them is sacred, silver locks embitter them.'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Youth, no moment have I slumbered, but to prove thee feigned to rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unproved men and weapons never trusts King Ring without a test.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art Frithjof. I have known thee since thou first cam'st to my hall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much that thou hast hidden from me; from the first I guessed it all.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Soon after this interview the aged king feels +death approaching; and in order not to go to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +dark abode of Hela, he cuts death-runes upon his +breast and ascends to Odin's bright hall. But before +dying he gives Ingeborg to Frithjof, and makes +him the guardian of his son. The people, in <i>Thing</i> +assembled, glorying in Frithjof's great renown, desire, +however, to make him King's successor; but +he lifts the small boy above his head upon his shield +and proclaims him king. He returns home and +rebuilds Balder's temple, whereupon the sentence +of outlawry is removed, and he is reconciled to +Ingeborg's brothers and marries the beloved of his +youth.</p> + +<p>The last canto, called "The Atonement," is +perhaps the most flagrant violation of historical +verisimilitude in the whole epic. A hoary priest +of Balder actually performs the wedding ceremony +in the restored temple, and pronounces a somewhat +unctuous wedding oration, which differs from those +which Tegnér himself had frequently delivered +chiefly in the substitution of pagan for the Christian +deities. As a matter of fact, marriage was a +purely civil contract among the ancient Norsemen, +and had no association with the temple or the +priesthood, which, by the way, was no separate +office but a patriarchal function belonging to the +secular chieftainship. But Tegnér's public were in +nowise shocked by anachronisms of this sort; +they probably rejoiced the more heartily in the +happiness of the reunited lovers, because their +marriage was, according to modern notions, so +"regular."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was soon after his publication of "Frithjof's +Saga" that Tegnér became Bishop of Wexiö. He +then removed from Lund and took up his residence +upon the estate Oestrabo, near the principal town +in his diocese. The great fame of his poem came +to him as a surprise; and he even undertook to +protest against it, declaring with perfect sincerity +that he held it to be undeserved. In letters to his +friends he never wearied of pointing out the +faults of "Frithjof" and his own shortcomings +as a poet. In a letter to the poet Leopold (August +17, 1825), who had praised the poem to the +skies, he argues seriously to prove that his admiration +is misplaced:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My great fault in 'Frithjof' was not that I chose my +theme from the old cycle of sagas, but that I treated it in +a tone and with a manner which was neither ancient nor +modern, neither antiquarian nor poetical, but hovered, as it +were, on the boundary of both. For what does it mean to +treat a subject poetically if not this, to eliminate everything +which belongs to an alien and past age and now no longer +appeals to any heart? The hearts to which it once did appeal +are now all dust. Other modes of thought and feeling +are current. It is impossible to properly translate one age +into another. But to poetry nothing is really past. Poetry +is the beautifying life of the moment; she wears the colors +of the day; she cannot conceive of anything as dead.... +But I am convinced that all poetic treatment of a +theme belonging to a past age demands its modernization; +and that everything antiquarian is here a mistake. This +holds good not only in regard to the northern tone but also +in regard to the Greek. Look, for instance, at Goethe's +'Iphigenie.' Who does not admire the beautiful, simple,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +noble, Hellenic form? And yet who has ever felt his soul +warmed by this image of stone?... No living spirit +has been breathed into these nostrils; the staring eyes gaze +upon me without life and animation; no heart beats under +the Hellenically rounded marble bosom. The whole is a +mistake, infinitely more beautiful than 'Frithjof,' but fashioned +according to the game principles of art. The Greeks +said that the Muse was the daughter of Memory; but this +refers only to the material, the theme itself, which is everywhere +of minor consequence. The question, then, is as to the +proper treatment. Where it tends toward the antiquarian it +misses the mark; it represents, like 'Frithjof,' only a restored +ruin."</p></div> + +<p>This passage is by no means the only one in +which Tegnér, with an utter absence of vanity or +illusion, judged his work and found it wanting. +There is no mock modesty in his manly deprecation +of the honors that were showered upon him; but +as a father knows best the faults of his child whom +he loves, so he knew the defects of his work, as +measured by his own high standard, and refused +to accept any more praise than was his due. Not +even the fact that Goethe expressed his admiration +of "Frithjof's Saga" could persuade him that he +was entitled to the extravagant homage which his +enthusiastic countrymen accorded him. There +were even times when he disclaimed the title of +poet. Whether he was forgotten a little sooner or +a little later, he said, was a matter of small moment.</p> + +<p>"Speaking seriously," he writes in 1824 (accordingly +before the publication of "Frithjof"), "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +have never regarded myself as a poet in the higher +significance of the word.... I am at best a +John the Baptist, who is preparing the way for +him who is to come."</p> + +<p>He is always just and inclined to be generous in +his judgment of every one except himself. It is +necessary, however, after the year 1824, to make +due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind +which disposed him to give violent and hyperbolical +expression to the mood of the moment. The +unhappy passion which he could at times smother, +but never subdue, went boring away into his heart +like a subterranean fire, consuming his vitals, and +occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. The +following reference to it, in his letter to Franzén +(November 13, 1825), is very pathetic:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is to-day my forty-third birthday. I have thus long +since passed the highest altitude of life where the waters divide. +With every year one now becomes smaller and smaller; +one star is extinguished after another. And yet the sun +does not rise. One dies by degrees and by halves. Therefore +only children and youth ought to celebrate their birthdays +with joy; we who have passed into the valley of age, +which with every step is growing darker and chillier, are +right in celebrating them with—whims.... However, +this is not my only or my greatest affliction, I have had and +have others. But the night is silent and the grave is dumb, +and their sister, Sorrow, should be as they. Therefore—let +this suffice."</p> + +<p>December 29th. "Alas, this old year! What I have suffered +in it no one knows, if not, perhaps, the Recorder beyond +the clouds. But I am indebted to this year. It has +been darker, but also more serious than all the others put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +together. I have learned at my own expense what a human +heart can endure without breaking, and what power God has +deposited in a man under his left nipple. As I say, I am +under obligation to this year, for it has enriched me with +what is the real sinking fund of human wisdom and human +independence—a mighty, deeply rooted contempt for man.... +My inner nature emerges from the crisis like the +hibernating bear from his den, emaciated and exhausted, +but happily with my ursine sinews well preserved; and by +and by some flesh will be growing on them again. It seems +to me that my old barbaric, Titanic self, with its hairy arms, +is constantly more and more rubbing the sleep out of its +eyes. I hope that some vine may still grow upon the +scorched and petrified volcano of my heart."</p> + +<p>January, 1826. "But when one is compelled to despise the +<i>character</i> of a human being, especially of one who has been +or is dear to one, then that is the bitterest experience which +life can afford; then it is not strange if a frank and ardent +soul turns with loathing from this false, hypocritical generation +and shuts himself up, as well as may be, in the hermitage +of his own heart.</p> + +<p>"My mind is unchristian, for it has no day of rest. Generally +I think that my disease has its seat in the abdomen +or in the waist. Mineral waters I can no more drink this +summer. But is there not a mineral water which is called +Lethe?</p> + +<p>"Whether my little personality returns thither whence it +came, with or without consciousness, a few months later or +earlier, in order to be drowned in its great fountain-head, or +to float for some time yet like a bubble, reflecting the clouds +and an alien light—this appears to me constantly a matter of +less and less consequence."</p></div> + +<p>There is to me a heartrending pathos in these +confessions. It is easy to stand aloof, of course, +like a schoolmaster with his chastising rod, and lash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +the frailties of poor human nature. It is easy to +declare with virtuous indignation that the man +who covets his neighbor's wife is a transgressor who +has no claim upon our sympathy. And yet who can +help pitying this great, noble poet, who fought so +bravely against his "barbaric, Titanic self with +its hairy arms"? His passionate intensity of soul +was, indeed, part of his poetic equipment; and he +would not have been the poet he was if he had +been cool, callous, and self-restrained. The slag in +him was so intimately moulded with the precious +metal that their separation would have been the +extinction of the individuality itself. The fiery +furnace of affliction through which he passed +warped and scorched and cracked this mighty compound, +but without destroying it. A glimpse of +this experience which transformed the powerful, +joyous, bright-visaged singer into a bitter, darkly +brooding pessimist, fleeing from the sinister shadow +which threatened to overtake him, is afforded us +in the poem "Hypochondria<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>":</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I stood upon the altitude of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where mingled waters part and downward go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rush and foam in opposite directions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, it was bright up there, and fair to stand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the sun, I saw his satellite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, since he quenched his light, shone in the blue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw that earth was fair and green and glorious,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw that God was good, that man was honest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then rose a dread black imp, and suddenly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The black one bit himself into my heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo, at once the earth lay void and barren,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sun and stars were straightway drenched in gloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The landscape, glad erewhile, lay dark, autumnal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each grove was sere, each flower stem was broken;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within the frozen sense my strength lay dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All joy, all courage withered within me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What is to me reality—its dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead bulk, inert, oppressive, grim, and crude?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How hope has paled, alas, with roseate hue!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And memory, the heavenly blue, grown hoary!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even poesy! Its acrobatic<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exertions, leaps—they pall upon my sense;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its bright mirage can satisfy no soul—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light skimmings from the surface fair of things.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Still I will praise thee, oh, thou human race.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's likeness art thou, oh, how true, how striking!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two lies thou hast natheless, in sooth, to show;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The name of one is man, the other's woman!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of faith and honor there's an ancient ditty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis sung the best, when men each other cheat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou child of heaven, the one thing true thou hast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is Cain's foul mark upon thy forehead branded.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A mark quite legible, writ by God's finger;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why did I fail ere now to heed that sign?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A smell of death pervades all human life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And poisons spring's sweet breath and summer's splendor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the grave that odor is exhaling.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grave is sealed and marble guards its freight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still corruption is the breath of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eludes its guard and scatters everywhere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, watchman, tell me now the night's dark hour!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will it then never wane unto its end?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">The half-devoured moon is gliding, gliding,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tearful stars forever onward go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My pulse beats fast as in the time of youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ne'er beats out the hours of torment sore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How long, how endless is each pulse-beat's pain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, my consuméd, oh, my bleeding heart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My heart! Nay in my bosom is no heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's but an urn that holds life's burnt-out ashes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have pity on me, thou green mother Earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hide that urn full soon in thy cool breast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In air it crumbles, moulders; earth's deep woe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has in the earth, I ween, at last an end;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Time's poor foundling, here in school constrained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finds then, perchance, beyond the sun—a father."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The poem is written in the <i>ottava rime</i>, but in order to preserve +the sense intact I have rendered it in blank verse.</p></div> + +<p>A physical disease which seems to have baffled +the skill of physicians may have been the primary +cause of the sufferings here described, and was no +doubt aggravated by the psychical condition to +which I have alluded. Now it was supposed to be +the liver which was affected; then again Tegnér was +treated for gall-stones. In the summer of 1833 he +made a journey through Germany and spent some +months at Carlsbad; but he returned without sensible +relief. His foreign sojourn was, however, +of some benefit in widening his mental horizon. +Tegnér's intellectual affinities had always been +French; and toward Germany he had assumed a +more or less unsympathetic attitude. A slight acquaintance +with the philosopher Schleiermacher +and the Germanized Norwegian author Henrik +Steffens (who was then a professor at the University +of Berlin) did not, indeed, reverse his predilections,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +but it opened his eyes to excellences in +the German people to which he had formerly been +blind, and removed prejudices which had obscured +his vision. He had everywhere the most +distinguished reception, and was honored with an +invitation to Sans Souci, where he was the guest of +the witty Crown Prince of Prussia, later Frederick +William IV. But these agreeable incidents of his +journey were a poor compensation for his failure +to obtain that which he had gone in search of. +Fame, honor, and distinguished friends, without +health, are but a Tantalus feast, the sweets of +which are seen but never tasted.</p> + +<p>"I fear," said Tegnér, in his hopelessness, +"that my right side, like that of the Chamber of +Deputies, is incurable."</p> + +<p>"When this Saul's spirit comes over me I often +feel an indescribable bitterness, which endures +nothing, spares nothing, in heaven or on earth. It +usually finds vent in misanthropic reflections, sarcasms, +and ideas which I have no sooner written +down than I repent of them."</p> + +<p>The activity which he unfolded, even in the +midst of intolerable sufferings, was phenomenal. +He possessed an energy of will and vigor of temperament +which enabled him to rise superior to +his physical condition, and lure strong music +(though sometimes jarred into discords) from the +broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had +fastened its hold upon him, that he pronounced +the beautiful epilogue in hexameters at the graduating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> +festivities at the University of Lund, and +crowned the Dane, Adam Oehlenschläger, as the +king of poets:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now, before thou beginnest the distribution of laurels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grant me one for him in whom I shall honor them all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, the Adam of poets is here, the Northern king among singers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heir to the throne in poesy's world; for the throne yet is Goethe's.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oscar, the king, if he knew it, would give his grace to my action.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I speak not for him, still less for myself, but the laurel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Place on thy brow in poesy's name, the bright, the eternal.<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Past is disunion's age (in the infinite realm of the spirit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never it ought to have reigned), and kindred tones o'er the water<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ring, which enrapture us all, and they are especially thine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore, Svea—I speak in her name—adorns thee with laurel:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take it from brotherly hand, of the day in festal remembrance."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Restless official activity, parliamentary labors, +educational addresses, and metrical discourses on +memorable occasions filled the years from 1829 to +1840. He felt the demon of insanity lurking behind +him, now close at his heels, now farther +away; and it was a desperate race, in which life +and death, nay, worse than death, was at stake. +His indefatigable exertions afforded him a respite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +from the thought of his terrible pursuer. We +can only regard with respectful compassion the +outbreaks of misanthropic spleen which often disfigure +his correspondence from this period of +deepening twilight, relieved by a brief interval of +brightness. It is especially woman who is the object +of his bitterest objurgation. The venerable +<i>mutabile et varium</i> of Virgil is the theme upon +which he perpetually rings the changes. No occasion +is too inappropriate for a joke at the fickle +and faithless sex; and even the school-boys in the +Wexiö gymnasium are treated to some ironical advice, +<i>à propos</i> of the beautiful jade, which must +have sounded surprising in an episcopal oration. +Life with its bright pageant was oppressive, like a +nightmare to the afflicted poet. All charm, all +rationality had departed from existence, which was +but a meaningless dance of hideous marionettes. +The world was battered and befouled; inexpressibly +loathsome. And finally, in 1840, while Tegnér +was attending the Riksdag (of which in his official +capacity he was a member), the long-dreaded catastrophe +occurred. His insanity manifested itself in +tremendous projects of reform, world-conquests, +and outbreaks of wild sensuality. He was sent to +a celebrated asylum in Sleswick; and on the way +thither wrote a series of "Fantasies of Travel" +which have all the rich harmony of his earlier +verse, and are full of delightful imagery. He +fancied that there was a huge wheel of fire revolving +with furious haste in his head, and his sufferings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +were terrific. The following fragment from +the notes of his attendant, who kept a record of +his ravings, has a cosmic magnificence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The whole trouble comes from that accursed nonsense +about the diadem which they wanted to put on me. You +may believe, though, that it was a splendid piece. Pictures +in miniature, not painted, but living, really existing miniatures +of fourteen of the noblest poets were made into a +wreath. It was Homer and Pindar, Tasso and Virgil, Schiller, +Petrarch, Ariosto, Goethe, Sophocles, Leopold, Milton, +and several more. Between each one of them burned a radiant +star, not of tinsel, but of real cosmic material. In the +middle of my forehead there was the figure of a lyre on the +diadem, which had borrowed something of the sun's own +living light; it poured with such bright refulgence upon the +wreath of stars that I seemed to be gazing straight through +the world. As long as the lyre stood still, everything was +well with me—but all of a sudden it began to move in a circle. +Faster and ever faster it moved, until every nerve in +my body was shaken. At last it began to rotate in rings with +such speed that it was transformed into a sun. Then my +whole being was broken, and it moved and trembled; for +you must know that the diadem was no longer put on the +outside of my head, but inside, on my very brain. And now +it began to whirl around with an inconceivable violence, until +it suddenly broke and burst into pieces. Darkness—darkness—darkness +and night spread over the whole world wherever +I turned. I was bewildered and faint, and I who had +always hated weakness in men—I wept; I shed hot, burning +tears. All was over."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 231-223.</p></div> + +<p>Contrary to the expectation of his friends he recovered +rapidly, and was able to return home in +May, 1841. He promptly resumed his episcopal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +functions, and even wrote a beautiful rural idyl +in hexameters called "The Crowned Bride" +(<i>Kronbruden</i>), which he dedicated to Franzén. +He was well aware, however, that his powers were +on the wane, and in 1845 he was persuaded to apply +for a year's relief from his official duties. The +last months of his life he spent mostly lying upon +a sofa in his library, surrounded by great piles of +books containing a most miscellaneous assortment +of classics, from Homer to Goethe, intersprinkled +with controversial pamphlets and recent novels. +He was gentle and affectionate in his demeanor; and +his beautiful face lighted up with a smile whenever +any of his children or grandchildren approached +him. Once or twice a day he drove out in his carriage, +and he was even able to visit his eldest son, +who was a clergyman in Scania, and to receive the +sacrament for the last time from his hand. Shortly +after his return he was stricken with paralysis, +and died November 2, 1846, in the sixty-fourth +year of his age. His mind was unclouded and his +voice was clear. When the autumnal sun suddenly +burst through the windows and shone upon the +dying poet, he murmured: "I will lift up mine +hands unto the house and the mountain of God."</p> + +<p>These were his last words. He was carried to +the grave at night by the light of lanterns, followed +by a long procession of the clergy, citizens, +and the school-boys of his diocese. Peasants, from +whose ranks he had sprung and to whom he was +always a good friend, bore his coffin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<p>The academic tendency which "idealizes" life +and shuns earth-scented facts, had, through the +decisive influence of Tegnér, been victorious in +Swedish literature. I am aware that some will +regard this as a questionable statement; for the +academicism of Tegnér is not the stately, bloodless, +Gallic classicism of the Gustavian age, of +which Leopold was the last representative. It is +much closer to the classicism of Goethe in "Iphigenia" +and "Hermann and Dorothea," and of +Schiller in "Wallenstein" and "Wilhelm Tell." +Tegnér's poetic creed was exactly that of Schiller, +who saw no impropriety in making the peasant +lad, Arnold Melchthal, when he hears that his +father has been blinded, deliver an enraptured +apostrophe to the light:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O eine edle Himmelsgabe ist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Das Licht des Auges," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The rhetorical note is predominant in both. +Their thoughts have to be arrayed in the flowing +toga before they are held to be presentable. This +is the academic tendency in Sweden as in France, +even though the degree of euphemistic magniloquence +may differ with the age and latitude. The +Swedes have been called the Frenchmen of the +North, and there is no doubt that delight in this +toga-clad rhetoric is inherent in both. It was because +Tegnér, in appealing to this delight, was so +deeply representative that he extinguished the old +school and became the national poet of Sweden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p> + + +<h4>Transcriber's Notes:</h4> + +<p>Dostoyevski is also spelled Dostojevski and Dostoyefski</p> + +<p>Tolstoi is also spelled Tostoī.</p> + +<p>It appears that Fortällinger is also spelled Fortaellinger.</p> + +<p>Page 11: valuble changed to valuable. Typo.</p> + +<p>Page 45: Gjeunembrud's is a typo for Gjennembrud's. Changed in text.</p> + +<p>Page 191: Open parenthesis added to 1882.</p> + +<p>Page 262: ["The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which] was changed to +[The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which]. The first double +quote appears to be unnecessary.</p> + +<p>Page 270: The stanzas are spaced as they appear in the original text, +although they appear to be in error.</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 19908-h.txt or 19908-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19908">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/0/19908</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/19908.txt b/19908.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba46b12 --- /dev/null +++ b/19908.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays on Scandinavian Literature, by Hjalmar +Hjorth Boyesen + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays on Scandinavian Literature + + +Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen + + + +Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19908] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN +LITERATURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Clare Boothby and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE + +by + +HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN + + + + * * * * * + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + + Goethe and Schiller. Their Lives and Works; with a commentary on "Faust." + Essays on German Literature. + Essays on Scandinavian Literature. + A Commentary on the Writings of Henrik Ibsen. + Literary and Social Silhouettes. + The Story of Norway. + Gunnar. + Tales from Two Hemispheres. + A Norseman's Pilgrimage. + Falconberg. A Novel. + Queen Titania. + Ilka on the Hill-top, and Other Tales. + A Daughter of the Philistines. + The Light of Her Countenance. + Vagabond Tales. + The Mammon of Unrighteousness. + The Golden Calf. + Social Strugglers. + Idyls of Norway, and Other Poems. + + +THE NORSELAND SERIES (JUVENILE). + + The Modern Vikings: Stories of Life and Sport in the Northland. + Against Heavy Odds, and A Fearless Trio. + Boyhood in Norway. + Norseland Tales. + + + + * * * * * + + + +ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE + +by + +HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN + +Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures in +Columbia College + + + + + + + +London +David Nutt, 270, Strand +1895. + +Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons +for the United States of America +Printed by the Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company +New York, U. S. A. + + + + +PREFACE + + +Some twenty years ago the ambition seized me to write a History of +Scandinavian Literature. I scarcely realized then what an enormous +amount of reading would be required to equip me for this task. My +studies naturally led me much beyond the scope of my original intention. +There was a fascination in the work which lured me perpetually on, and +made me explore with a constantly increasing zest the great literary +personalities of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Thus my chapter on Henrik +Ibsen grew into a book of three hundred and seventeen pages, which was +published a year ago, and must be regarded as supplementary to the +present volume. The chapter on Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson was in danger of +expanding to similar proportions, and only the most heroic condensation +saved it from challenging criticism as an independent work. As regards +Norway and Denmark, I have endeavored to select all the weightiest and +most representative names. The Swedish authors Johan Ludvig Runeberg, +Mrs. Edgren, and August Strindberg, and the Dane Oehlenschlaeger, +necessity has compelled me to reserve for a future volume. + +COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK, + +February, 1895. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON, 3 + + ALEXANDER KIELLAND, 107 + + JONAS LIE, 121 + + HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, 155 + + CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE, 181 + + GEORG BRANDES, 199 + + ESAIAS TEGNER, 219 + + + + +BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON + + +I + +Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson is the first Norwegian poet who can in any sense +be called national. The national genius, with its limitations as well as +its virtues, has found its living embodiment in him. Whenever he opens +his mouth it is as if the nation itself were speaking. If he writes a +little song, hardly a year elapses before its phrases have passed into +the common speech of the people; composers compete for the honor of +interpreting it in simple, Norse-sounding melodies, which gradually work +their way from the drawing-room to the kitchen, the street, and thence +out over the wide fields and highlands of Norway. His tales, romances, +and dramas express collectively the supreme result of the nation's +experience, so that no one to-day can view Norwegian life or Norwegian +history except through their medium. The bitterest opponent of the poet +(for like every strong personality he has many enemies) is thus no less +his debtor than his warmest admirer. His speech has stamped itself upon +the very language and given it a new ring, a deeper resonance. His +thought fills the air, and has become the unconscious property of all +who have grown to manhood and womanhood since the day when his titanic +form first loomed up on the horizon of the North. It is not only as +their first and greatest poet that the Norsemen love and hate him, but +also as a civilizer in the widest sense. But like Kadmus, in Greek myth, +he has not only brought with him letters, but also the dragon-teeth of +strife, which it is to be hoped will not sprout forth in armed men. + +A man's ancestry and environment, no doubt, account in a superficial +manner for his appearance and mental characteristics. Having the man, we +are able to trace the germs of his being in the past of his race and his +country; but, with all our science we have not yet acquired the +ingenuity to predict the man--to deduce him _a priori_ from the tangle +of determining causes which enveloped his birth. It seems beautifully +appropriate in the Elder Edda that the god-descended hero Helge the +Voelsung should be born amid gloom and terror in a storm which shakes the +house, while the Norns--the goddesses of fate--proclaim in the tempest +his tempestuous career. Equally satisfactory it appears to have the +modern champion of Norway--the typical modern Norseman--born on the +bleak and wild Dovre Mountain,[1] where there is winter eight months of +the year and cold weather during the remaining four. The parish of +Kvikne, in Oesterdalen, where his father, the Reverend Peder Bjoernson, +held a living, had a bad reputation on account of the unruly ferocity +and brutal violence of the inhabitants. One of the Reverend Peder +Bjoernson's recent predecessors never went into his pulpit, unarmed; and +another fled for his life. The peasants were not slow in intimating to +the new pastor that they meant to have him mind his own business and +conform to the manners and customs of the parish; but there they +reckoned without their host. The reverend gentleman made short work of +the opposition. He enforced the new law of compulsory education without +heeding its unpopularity; and when the champion fighter of the valley +came as the peasants' spokesman to take him to task in summary fashion, +he found himself, before he was aware of it, at the bottom of the +stairs, where he picked himself up wonderingly and promptly took to his +heels. + + [1] December 8, 1832. + +During the winter the snow reached up to the second-story windows of the +parsonage; and the servants had to tunnel their way to the storehouse +and the stables. The cold was so intense that the little Bjoernstjerne +thought twice before touching a door knob, as his fingers were liable to +stick to the metal. When he was six years old, however, his father was +transferred to Romsdal, which is, indeed, a wild and grandly picturesque +region; but far less desolate than Dovre. "It lies," says Bjoernson, +"broad--bosomed between two confluent fjords, with a green mountain +above, cataracts and homesteads on the opposite shore, waving meadows +and activity in the bottom of the valley; and all the way out toward the +ocean, mountains with headland upon headland running out into the fjord +and a large farm upon each." + +The feeling of terror, the crushing sense of guilt which Bjoernson has so +strikingly portrayed in the first chapters of "In God's Way," were +familiar to his own childhood. In every life, as in every race, the God +of fear precedes the God of love. And in Northern Norway, where nature +seems so tremendous and man so insignificant, no boy escapes these +phantoms of dread which clutch him with icy fingers. But as a +counterbalancing force in the young Bjoernson, we have his confidence in +the strength and good sense of his gigantic father, who could thrash the +strongest champion in the parish. He used to stand in the evening on the +beach "and gaze at the play of the sunshine upon fjord and mountain, +until he wept, as if he had done something wrong. Now he would suddenly +stop in this or that valley, while running on skees, and stand +spell-bound by its beauty and a longing which he could not comprehend, +but which was so great that in the midst of the highest joy he was +keenly conscious of a sense of confinement and sorrow."[2] "We catch a +glimpse in these childish memories," says Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen, "of the +remarkable character, we are about to depict: Being the son of a giant, +he is ever ready to strike out with a heavy hand, when he thinks that +anyone is encroaching upon what he deems the right. But this same +pugnacious man, whom it is so hard to overcome, can be overwhelmed by an +emotion and surrender himself to it with his whole being." + + [2] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, pp. 450, 451. + +At the age of twelve Bjoernson was sent to the Latin school at Molde, +where, however, his progress was not encouraging. He was one of those +thoroughly healthy and headstrong boys who are the despair of ambitious +mothers, and whom fathers (when the futility of educational chastisement +has been finally proved) are apt to regard with a resigned and +half-humorous regret. His dislike of books was instinctive, hearty, and +uncompromising. His strong, half-savage boy-nature could brook no +restraints, and looked longingly homeward to the wide mountain plains, +the foaming rivers where the trout leaped in the summer night, and the +calm fjord where you might drift blissfully along, as it were, suspended +in the midst of the vast, blue, ethereal space. And when the summer +vacation came, with its glorious freedom and irresponsibility, he would +roam at his own sweet will through forest and field, until hunger and +fatigue forced him to return to his father's parsonage. + +After several years of steadily unsuccessful study, Bjoernson at last +passed the so-called _examen artium_, which admitted him to the +University of Christiania. He was now a youth of large, almost athletic +frame, with a handsome, striking face, and a pair of blue eyes which no +one is apt to forget who has ever looked into them. There was a certain +grand simplicity and _naivete_ in his manner, and an exuberance of +animal spirits which must have made him an object of curious interest +among his town-bred fellow-students. But his University career was of +brief duration. All the dimly fermenting powers of his rich nature were +now beginning to clarify, the consciousness of his calling began to +assert itself, and the demand for expression became imperative. His +literary _debut_ was an historic drama entitled "Valborg," which was +accepted for representation by the directors of the Christiania Theatre, +and procured for its author a free ticket to all theatrical +performances; it was, however, never brought on the stage, as Bjoernson, +having had his eyes opened to its defects, withdrew it of his own +accord. + +At this time the Norwegian stage was almost entirely in the hands of the +Danes, and all the more prominent actors were of Danish birth. +Theatrical managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures of Danish +literature, and occasionally, to replenish the exchequer, reproduced a +French comedy or farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were more than +half-spoiled in the translation. The drama was as yet an exotic in +Norway; it had no root in the national soil, and could accordingly in no +respect represent the nation's own struggles and aspirations. The +critics themselves, no doubt, looked upon it merely as a form of +amusement, a thing to be wondered and stared at, and to be dismissed +from the mind as soon as the curtain dropped. Bjoernson, whose patriotic +soul could not endure the thought of this abject foreign dependence, +ascribed all the existing abuses to the predominance of the Danish +element, and in a series of vehement articles attacked the Danish +actors, managers, and all who were in any way responsible for the +unworthy condition of the national stage. In return he reaped, as might +have been expected, an abundant harvest of abuse, but the discussion he +had provoked furnished food for reflection, and the rapid development of +the Norwegian drama during the next decade is, no doubt, largely +traceable to his influence. + +The liberty for which he had yearned so long, Bjoernson found at the +International Students' Reunion of 1856. Then the students of the +Norwegian and Danish Universities met in Upsala, where they were +received with grand festivities by their Swedish brethren. Here the poet +caught the first glimpse of a greater and freer life than moved within +the narrow horizon of the Norwegian capital. This gay and careless +student-life, this cheerful abandonment of all the artificial shackles +which burden one's feet in their daily walk through a bureaucratic +society, the temporary freedom which allows one without offence to toast +a prince and hug a count to one's bosom--all this had its influence +upon Bjoernson's sensitive nature; it filled his soul with a happy +intoxication and with confidence in his own strength. And having once +tasted a life like this he could no more return to what he had left +behind him. + +The next winter we find him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity of +creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking appearance, +the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain _naive_ self-assertion +and impatience of social restraints made him a notable figure in the +polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish capital. There was +a general expectation at that time that a great poet was to come, and +although Bjoernson had as yet published nothing to justify the +expectation, he found the public of Copenhagen ready to recognize in him +the man who was to rouse the North from its long intellectual torpor, +and usher in a new era in its literature. It is needless to say that he +did not discourage this belief, for he himself fervently believed that +he would before long justify it. The first proof of his strength he gave +in the tale "Synnoeve Solbakken" (Synnoeve Sunny-Hill), which he published +in an illustrated weekly, and afterward in book-form. It is a very +unpretending little story, idyllic in tone, but realistic in its +coloring, and redolent of the pine and spruce and birch of the Norwegian +highlands. + +It had been the fashion in Norway since the nation regained its +independence to interest one's self in a lofty, condescending way in +the life of the peasantry. A few well-meaning persons, like the poet +Wergeland, had labored zealously for their enlightenment and the +improvement of their economic condition; but, except in the case of such +single individuals, no real and vital sympathy and fellow-feeling had +ever existed between the upper and the lower strata of Norwegian +society. And as long as the fellow-feeling is wanting, this zeal for +enlightenment, however laudable its motive, is not apt to produce +lasting results. The peasants view with distrust and suspicion whatever +comes to them from their social superiors, and the so-called "useful +books," which were scattered broadcast over the land, were of a +tediously didactic character, and, moreover, hardly adapted to the +comprehension of those to whom they were ostensibly addressed. Wergeland +himself, with all his self-sacrificing ardor, had but a vague conception +of the real needs of the people, and, as far as results were concerned, +wasted much of his valuable life in his efforts to improve, edify and +instruct them. It hardly occurred to him that the culture of which he +and his colleagues were the representatives was itself a foreign +importation, and could not by any violent process be ingrafted upon the +national trunk, which drew its strength from centuries of national life, +history, and tradition. That this peasantry, whom the _bourgeoisie_ and +the aristocracy of culture had been wont to regard with half-pitying +condescension, were the real representatives of the Norse nation; that +they had preserved through long years of tyranny and foreign oppression +the historic characteristics of their Norse forefathers, while the upper +classes had gone in search of strange gods, and bowed their necks to the +foreign yoke; that in their veins the old strong saga-life was still +throbbing with vigorous pulse-beats--this was the lesson which Bjoernson +undertook to teach his countrymen, and a very fruitful lesson it has +proved to be. It has inspired the people with renewed courage, it has +turned the national life into fresh channels, and it has revolutionized +national politics. + +To be sure all this was not the result of the idyllic little tale which +marked the beginning of his career. But this little tale, although no +trace of what the Germans call "tendency" is to be found in it, is still +significant as being the poet's first indirect manifesto, and as such +distinctly foreshadowing the path which he has since followed. + +First, in its purely literary aspect, "Synnoeve Solbakken" was strikingly +novel. The author did not, as his predecessors had done, view the people +from the exalted pedestal of superior culture; not as a subject for +benevolent preaching and charitable condescension, but as a concrete +phenomenon, whose _raison d'etre_ was as absolute and indisputable as +that of the _bourgeoisie_ or the bureaucracy itself. He depicted their +soul-struggles and the incidents of their daily life with a loving +minuteness and a vivid realism hitherto unequalled in the literature of +the North. He did not, like Auerbach, construct his peasant figures +through laborious reflection, nor did he attempt by anxious +psychological analysis to initiate the reader into their processes of +thought and emotion. He simply depicted them as he saw and knew them. +Their feelings and actions have their immediate, self-evident motives in +the characters themselves, and the absence of analysis on the author's +part gives an increased energy and movement to the story. + +Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen relates, _a propos_ of the reception which was +accorded Bjoernson's first book, the following amusing anecdote: + +"'Synnoeve Solbakken' was printed, and its author was anxious to have his +friends read it. But not one of them could be prevailed upon. At last a +comrade was found who was persuaded to attack it on the promise of a +bottle of punch. He entered Bjoernson's den, got a long pipe which he +filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely--for it was a hot +day--flung himself on the bed, and began to read. Bjoernson sat in the +sofa, breathless with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; not a +smile, not a single encouraging word! The young poet had good reason to +regard the battle as lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book +were finished. Then the merciless Stoic rose and began to dress, and the +following little exclamation escaped him: 'That is, the devil take me, +the best book I have read in all my life.'" + +Bjoernson's style was no less novel than his theme. It may or it may not +have been consciously modelled after the saga style, to which, however, +it bears an obvious resemblance. In his early childhood, while he lived +among the peasants, he became familiar with their mode of thought and +speech, and it entered into his being, and became his own natural mode +of expression. There is in his daily conversation a certain grim +directness, and a laconic weightiness, which give an air of importance +and authority even to his simplest utterances. This tendency to +compression frequently has the effect of obscurity, not because his +thought is obscure, but rather because energetic brevity of expression +has fallen into disuse, and even a Norse public, long accustomed to the +wordy diffuseness of latter-day bards, have in part lost the faculty to +comprehend the genius of their own language. As a Danish critic wittily +observed: "Bjoernson's language is but one step removed from pantomime." + +In 1858 Bjoernson assumed the directorship of the theatre in Bergen, and +there published his second tale, "Arne," in which the same admirable +self-restraint, the same implicit confidence in the intelligence +of his reader, the same firm-handed decision and vigor in the +character-drawing, in fact, all the qualities which delighted the public +in "Synnoeve Solbakken," were found in an intensified degree. + +In the meanwhile, Bjoernson had also made his _debut_ as a dramatist. In +the year 1858 he had published two dramas, "Mellem Slagene" (Between the +Battles) and "Halte-Hulda" (Limping Hulda) both of which deal with +national subjects, taken from the old sagas. As in his tales he had +endeavored to concentrate into a few strongly defined types the modern +folk-life of the North, so in his dramas the same innate love of his +nationality leads him to seek the typical features of his people, as +they are revealed in the historic chieftains of the past. + +"Between the Battles" is a dramatic episode rather than a drama. During +the civil war between King Sverre and King Magnus in the twelfth +century, the former visits in disguise a hut upon the mountains where a +young warrior, Halvard Gjaela and Inga, his beloved, are living +together. The long internecine strife has raised the hand of father +against son, and of brother against brother. Halvard sympathizes with +Sverre; Inga, who hates the king because he has burned her father's +farm, is a partisan of Magnus. In the absence of her lover she goes to +the latter's camp and brings back with her a dozen warriors for the +purpose of capturing Halvard, and thereby preventing him from joining +the enemy. Sverre discovers the warriors, whom she has hidden in the +cow-stable, and persuading them that he is a spy for King Magnus sends +two of them to his own army for reinforcements. In the meanwhile he +reconciles the estranged lovers, makes peace between them and Inga's +father, and finally, in the last scene, as his men arrive, is recognized +as the king. + +This is, of course, a venerable _coup de theatre_. Whatever novelty +there is in the play must be sought, not in the situations, but in the +pithy and laconic dialogue, which has a distinct national coloring. This +was not the amiable diffuseness of Oehlenschlaeger, who had hitherto +dominated the Norwegian as well as the Danish stage; and yet it did not +by any means represent so complete a breach with the traditions of the +romantic drama as was claimed by Bjoernson's admirers. The fresh +naturalness and absence of declamation were a gain, no doubt; but there +are yet several notes remaining which have the well-known romantic +cadence. "Between the Battles," though too slight to be called an +achievement, was accepted as a pledge of achievement in future. + +Bjoernson's next drama "Limping Hulda" ("Halte-Hulda") (1858) was a +partial fulfilment of this pledge. If it is not high tragedy, in the +ancient sense, it is of the stuff that tragedy is made of. Hulda is an +impressive stage figure in her demoniac passion and tiger-like +tenderness. Though I doubt if Bjoernson has, in this type, caught the +soul of a Norse woman of the saga age, he has come much nearer to +catching it than any of his predecessors. If Gudrun Osvif's Daughter, of +the Laxdoela Saga, was his model, he has modernized her considerably, +and thereby made her more intelligible to modern readers. Like her, +Hulda causes the murder of the man she loves; and there is a fateful +spell about her beauty which brings death to whomsoever looks too long +upon it. Though ostensibly a saga-drama, the harshness and grim ferocity +of that sanguinary period are softened; and a romantic illumination +pervades the whole action. A certain lyrical effusiveness in the love +passages (which is alien to all Bjoernson's later works) hints at the +influence of the Danish Romanticists, and particularly Oehlenschlaeger. + +It would be unfair, perhaps, to take the author to task because this +youthful drama exhibits no remarkable subtlety in its conception of +character. It contains no really great living figure who stands squarely +upon his feet and lingers in the memory. A certain half-rhetorical +impulse carries you along; and the external effectiveness of the +situations keeps the interest on the alert. For all that "Limping +Hulda," like its predecessors and its successors, tended to stimulate +powerfully the national spirit, which was then asserting itself in every +department of intellectual activity. Thus a national theatre had, by the +perseverance and generosity of Ole Bull, been established in his native +city, Bergen; and it was almost a matter of course that an effort should +be made to identify Bjoernson with an enterprise which accorded so well +with his own aspirations. His connection with the Norwegian Theatre of +Bergen was, however, not of long duration, for though your enthusiasm +may be ever so great it is a thankless task to act as "artistic +director" of a stage in a town which is neither artistic enough nor +large enough to support a playhouse with a higher aim than that of +furnishing ephemeral amusement. From Bergen he was called to the +editorship of _Aftenbladet_ (The Evening Journal), the second political +daily of Christiania, and continued there with hot zeal and eloquence +his battle for "all that is truly Norse." + +But a brief experience sufficed to convince him that daily journalism +was not his _forte_. He was and is too indiscreet, precipitate, +credulous, and inconsiderately generous to be a successful editor. If a +paper could be conducted on purely altruistic principles, and without +reference to profits, there would be no man fitter to occupy an +editorial chair. For as an inspiring force, as a radiating focus of +influence, his equal is not to be encountered "in seven kingdoms round." +However, this inspiring force could reach a far larger public through +published books than through the columns of a newspaper. It was +therefore by no means in a regretful frame of mind that he descended +from the editorial tripod, and in the spring of 1860 started for Italy. +Previous to his departure he published, through the famous house of +Gyldendal, in Copenhagen, a volume which, it is no exaggeration to say, +has become a classic of Norwegian literature. It bears the modest title +"Smaa-stykker" (Small Pieces), but it contains, in spite of its +unpretentiousness, some of Bjoernson's noblest work. I need only mention +the masterly tale "The Father," with its sobriety and serene strength. I +know but one other instance[3] of so great tragedy, told in so few and +simple words. "Arne," "En Glad Gut" (A Happy Boy), and the amusing +dialect story, "Ei Faarleg Friing" (A Dangerous Wooing), also belong to +this delightful collection. These little masterpieces of concise +story-telling have been included in the popular two-volume edition of +"Fortaellinger," which contains also "The Fisher-maiden" (1867-68), the +exquisite story, "The Bridal March" (1872), originally written as text +to three of Tidemand's paintings, and a vigorous bit of disguised +autobiography, "Blakken," of which not the author but a horse is the +ostensible hero. + + [3] Austin Dobson's poem, "The Cradle." + +The descriptive name for all these tales, except the last, is idyl. It +was, indeed, the period when all Europe (outside the British empire) was +viewing the hardy sons of the soil through poetic spectacles. In Germany +Auerbach had, in his "Black Forest Village Tales" (1843, 1853, 1854), +discarded the healthful but unflattering realism of Jeremias Gotthelf +(1797-1854), and chosen, with a half-didactic purpose, to contrast the +peasant's honest rudeness and straightforwardness with the refined +sophistication and hypocrisy of the higher classes. George Sand, with +her beautiful Utopian genius, poured forth a torrent of rural narrative +of a crystalline limpidity ("Mouny Robin," "La Mare au Diable," "La +Petite Fadette," etc., 1841-1849), which is as far removed from the +turbid stream of Balzac ("Les Paysans") and Zola ("La Terre"), as +Paradise is from the Inferno. There is an echo of Rousseau's gospel of +nature in all these tales, and the same optimistic delusion regarding +"the people" for which the eighteenth century paid so dearly. The +painters likewise caught the tendency, and with the same thorough-going +conscientiousness as their brethren of the quill, disguised coarseness +as strength, bluntness as honesty, churlishness as dignity. What an +idyllic sweetness there is, for instance, in Tidemand's scenes of +Norwegian peasant life! What a _spirituelle_ and movingly sentimental +note in the corresponding German scenes of Knaus and Huebner, and, _longo +intervallo_, Meyerheim and Meyer von Bremen. Not a breath of the broad +humor of Teniers and Van Ostade in these masters; scarcely a hint of the +robust animality and clownish jollity with which the clear-sighted +Dutchmen endowed their rural revellers. Though pictorial art has not, +outside of Russia (where the great and unrivalled Riepin paints the +peasant with the brush as remorselessly as Tolstoi and Dostoyefski with +the pen), kept pace with the realistic movement in literature, yet there +is no lack of evidence that the rose-colored tinge is vanishing even +from the painter's spectacles; and such uncompromising veracity as that +of Millet and Courbet, which the past generation despised, is now hailed +with acclaim in such masters as Bastien-Lepage, Dagnan-Bouveret, and +the Scandinavians, Kristian Krog and Anders Zorn. + +Bjoernson is, however, temperamentally averse to that modern naturalism +which insists upon a minute fidelity to fact without reference to +artistic values. His large and spacious mind has a Southern exposure, +and has all "its windows thrown wide open to the sun." A sturdy +optimism, which is prone to believe good of all men, unless they happen +to be his political antagonists, inclines him to overlook what does not +fit into his own scheme of existence. And yet no one can say that, as +presentations of Norwegian peasant life, "Synnoeve," "Arne," "The Bridal +March," etc., are untrue, though, indeed, one could well imagine +pictures in very much sombrer colors which might lay a valider claim to +veracity. Kielland's "Laboring People," and Kristian Elster's "A Walk to +the Cross" and "Kjeld Horge," give the reverse of the medal of which +Bjoernson exhibits the obverse. These authors were never in any way +identified with "the people," and could not help being struck with many +of the rude and unbeautiful phases of rural existence; while Bjoernson, +who sprang directly from the peasantry, had the pride and intelligence +of kinship, and was not yet lifted far enough above the life he depicted +to have acquired the cultivated man's sense of condescension and +patronizing benevolence. He was but one generation removed from the +soil; and he looked with a strong natural sympathy and affectionate +predilection upon whatever reminded him of this origin. If he had been a +peasant, however, he could never have become the wonderful chronicler +that he is. It is the elevation, slight though it be, which enables him +to survey the fields in which his fathers toiled and suffered. Or, to +quote Mr. Rolfsen: "Bjoernson is the son of a clergyman; he has never +himself personally experienced the peasant's daily toil and narrow +parochial vision. He has felt the power of the mountains over his mind, +and been filled with longing, as a grand emotion, but the contractedness +of the spiritual horizon has not tormented him. He has not to take that +into account when he writes. During the tedious school-days, his +beautiful Romsdal valley lay waiting for him, beckoning him home at +every vacation--always alluring and radiant, with an idyllic shimmer." + +Hence, no doubt, his sunny poetic vision which unconsciously idealizes. +Just as in daily intercourse he displays a positive genius for drawing +out what is good in a man, and brushes away as of small account what +does not accord with his own conception of him, nay, in a measure, +forces him to be as he believes him to be, so every character in these +early tales seems to bask in the genial glow of his optimism. The farm +Solbakken (Sunny Hill) lies on a high elevation, where the sun shines +from its rise to its setting, and both Synnoeve and her parents walk +about in this still and warm illumination. They are all good, estimable +people, and their gentle piety, without any tinge of fanaticism, invests +them with a quiet dignity. The sterner and hardier folk at Granliden +(Pine Glen) have a rugged honesty and straightforwardness which, in +connection with their pithy and laconic speech, makes them less genial, +but no less typically Norse. They have a distinct atmosphere and spinal +columns that keep them erect, organic, and significant. Even +reprehensible characters like Aslak and Nils Tailor (in "Arne") have a +certain claim upon our sympathy, the former as a helpless victim of +circumstance, the latter as a suppressed and perverted genius. + +In the spring of 1860 Bjoernson went abroad and devoted three years to +foreign travel, spending the greater part of his time in Italy. From +Rome he sent home the historical drama "King Sverre" (1861), which is +one of his weakest productions. It is written in blank verse, with +occasional rhymes in the more impressive passages. Of dramatic interest +in the ordinary sense, there is but little. It is a series of more or +less animated scenes, from the period of the great civil war +(1130-1240), connected by the personality of Sverre. Under the mask, +however, of mediaeval history, the author preaches a political sermon to +his own contemporaries. Sverre, as the champion of the common people +against the tribal aristocracy, and the wily Bishop Nicholas as the +representative of the latter become, as it were, permanent forces, which +have continued their battle to the present day. There can be no doubt +that Bjoernson, whose sympathies are strongly democratic, permitted the +debate between the two to become needlessly didactic, and strained +historical verisimilitude by veiled allusions to contemporaneous +conditions. Greatly superior is his next drama, "Sigurd Slembe"[4] +(1862). + + [4] An English version of "Sigurd Slembe" has been published by + William Morton Payne (Boston, 1888). + +The story of the brave and able pretender, Sigurd Slembe, in his +struggle with the vain and mean-spirited king, Harold Gille, is the +theme of the dramatic trilogy. Bjoernson attempts to give the spiritual +development of Sigurd from the moment he becomes acquainted with his +royal birth until his final destruction. From a frank and generous +youth, who is confident that he is born for something great, he is +driven by the treachery, cruelty, and deceit of his brother, the king, +into the position of a desperate outlaw and guerilla. The very first +scene, in the church of St. Olaf, where the boy confides to the saint, +in a tone of _bonne camaraderie_, his joy at having conquered, in +wrestling, the greatest champion in the land, gives one the key-note to +his character: + + "Now only listen to me, saintly Olaf! + To-day I whipped young Beintein! Beintein was + The strongest man in Norway. Now am I! + Now I can walk from Lindesnaes and on, + Up to the northern boundary of the snow, + For no one step aside or lift my hat. + There where I am, no man hath leave to fight, + To make a tumult, threaten, or to swear-- + Peace everywhere! And he who wrong hath suffered + Shall justice find, until the laws shall sing. + And as before the great have whipped the small, + So will I help the small to whip the great. + Now I can offer counsel at the Thing, + Now to the king's board I can boldly walk + And sit beside him, saying 'Here am I!'" + +The exultation in victory which speaks in every line of this opening +monologue marks the man who, in spite of the obscurity of his origin, +feels his right to be first, and who, in this victory, celebrates the +attainment of his birthright. Equally luminous by way of +characterization is his exclamation to St. Olaf when he hears that he is +King Magnus Barefoot's son: + + "Then we are kinsmen, Olaf, you and I!" + +According to Norwegian law at that time, every son of a king was +entitled to his share of the kingdom, and Sigurd's first impulse is to +go straight to Harold Gille and demand his right. His friend Koll +Saebjoernson persuades him, however, to abandon this hopeless adventure, +and gives him a ship with which he sails to the Orient, takes part in +many wars, and gains experience and martial renown. + +The second part of the trilogy deals with Sigurd's sojourn at the +Orkneys, where he interferes in the quarrel between the Earls Harold +and Paul. The atmosphere of suspicion, insecurity, and gloom which hangs +like a portentous cloud over these scenes is the very same which blows +toward us from the pages of the sagas. Bjoernson has gazed deeply into +the heart of Northern paganism, and has here reproduced the heroic +anarchy which was a necessary result of the code permitting the +individual to avenge his own wrongs. The two awful women, Helga and +Frakark, the mother and the aunt of the earls, are types which are +constantly met with in the saga. It is a long-recognized fact that +women, under lawless conditions, develop the wildest extremes of +ambition, avarice, and blood-thirstiness, and taunt the men with their +weak scruples. These two furies of the Orkneys plot murder with an +infernal coolness, which makes Lady Macbeth a kind-hearted woman by +comparison. They recognize in Sigurd a man born for leadership; +determine to use him for the furtherance of their plans, and to get rid +of him, by fair means or foul, when he shall have accomplished his task. +But Sigurd is too experienced a chieftain to walk into this trap. While +appearing to acquiesce, he plays for stakes of his own, but in the end +abandons all in disgust at the death of Earl Harold, who intentionally +puts on the poisoned shirt, prepared for his brother. There is no great +and monumental scene in this part which engraves itself deeply upon the +memory. The love scenes with Audhild, the young cousin of the earls, +are incidental and episodical, and exert no considerable influence +either upon Sigurd's character or upon the development of the intrigue. +Historically they are well and realistically conceived; but dramatically +they are not strong. Another criticism, which has already been made by +the Danish critic, Georg Brandes, refers to an offence against this very +historical sense which is usually so vivid in Bjoernson. When Frakark, +the Lady Macbeth of the play, remarks, "I am far from feeling sure of +the individual mortality so much preached of; but there is an +immortality of which I am sure; it is that of the race," she makes an +intellectual somersault from the twelfth century into the nineteenth, +and never gets back firmly on her pagan feet again. As Brandes wittily +observes: "People who talk like that do not torture their enemy to +death; they backbite him." + +The third part opens with Sigurd's appearance at court, where he reveals +his origin and asks for his share of the kingdom. The king is not +disinclined to grant his request, but is overruled by his councillors, +who profit by his weakness and rule in his name. They fear this man of +many battles, with the mark of kingship on his brow; and they determine +to murder him. But Sigurd escapes from prison, and, holding the king +responsible for the treachery, kills him. From this time forth he is an +outlaw, hunted over field and fell, and roaming with untold sufferings +through the mountains and wildernesses. There he meets a Finnish maiden +who loves him, reveals his fate to him, and implores him to abandon his +ambition and dwell among her people. These scenes amid the eternal +wastes of snow are perhaps the most striking in the trilogy and most +abounding in exquisite poetic thought. Sigurd hastens hence to his doom +at the battle of Holmengra, where he is defeated, and, with fiendish +atrocity, slowly tortured to death. The rather lyrical monologue +preceding his death, in which he bids farewell to life and calmly +adjusts his gaze to eternity, is very beautiful, but, historically, a +trifle out of tune. Barring these occasional lapses from the key, the +trilogy of "Sigurd Slembe" is a noble work. + +A respectful, and in part enthusiastic, reception had been accorded to +Bjoernson's early plays. But his first dramatic triumph he celebrated at +the performance of "Mary Stuart in Scotland." Externally this is the +most effective of his plays. The dialogue is often brilliant, and +bristles with telling points. It is eminently "actable," presenting +striking tableaus and situations. Behind the author we catch a glimpse +of the practical stage-manager who knows how a scene will look on the +boards and how a speech will sound--who can surmise with tolerable +accuracy how they will affect a first-night audience. + +"Mary Stuart" is theatrically no less than dramatically conceived. +Theatrically it is far superior to Swinburne's "Chastelard" (not to +speak of his interminable musical verbiage in "Bothwell") but it is +paler, colder, and poetically inferior. The voluptuous warmth and wealth +of color, the exquisite levity, the _debonnaire_ grace of the +Swinburnian drama we seek in vain. Bjoernson is vigorous, but he is not +subtile. Mere feline amorousness, such as Swinburne so inimitably +portrays, he would disdain to deal with if even he could. Such a bit of +intricate self-characterization as the English poet puts into the +Queen's mouth in the first scene with Chastelard, in the third act, lies +utterly beyond the range of the sturdier Norseman. + + _Queen_: "Nay, dear, I have + No tears in me; I never shall weep much, + I think, in all my life: I have wept for wrath + Sometimes, and for mere pain, but for love's pity + I cannot weep at all. I would to God + You loved me less: I give you all I can + For all this love of yours, and yet I am sure + I shall live out the sorrow of your death + And be glad afterwards. You know I am sorry. + I should weep now; forgive me for your part. + God made me hard, I think. Alas! you see + I had fain been other than I am." + +Add to this the beautifully illuminating threat, "I shall be deadly to +you," uttered in the midst of amorous cooings and murmurings, and we +catch a glimpse of the demoniac depth of this woman's nature. Bjoernson's +"Mary Stuart" weeps more than once; nay, she says to Bothwell, when he +has forcibly abducted her to his castle: + + "This is my first prayer to you, + That I may weep." + +Quite in the same key is her exclamation (in the same scene) in response +to Bothwell's reference to her son: + +"My son, my lovely boy! Oh, God, now he lies sleeping in his little +white bed, and does not know how his mother is battling for his sake." + +Schiller, whose conception of womankind was as honestly single and +respectful as that of Bjoernson, had set a notable precedent in +representing Mary Stuart as a martyr of a lost cause. The psychological +antitheses of her character, her softness and loving surrender, and her +treachery and cruelty--he left out of account. + +Without troubling himself greatly about her guilt, which, though with +many palliating circumstances, he admitted, he undertook to exemplify in +her the beauty and exaltation of noble suffering. His Mary (which has +always been a favorite with tragic actresses) is in my opinion as devoid +of that insinuating, sense-compelling charm which alone can account for +this extraordinary woman's career as is the heroine of Bjoernson's play. +In fact Bjoernson's Mary lies half-way between the amorous young tigress +of Swinburne and the statuesque martyr of Schiller. She is less +intricately feminine than the former, and more so than the latter. But +she is yet a long way removed from her historical original, who must +have been a strong and full-blooded character, with just that touch of +mystery which nature always wears to whomsoever gazes deeply upon her. +That subtile intercoiling of antagonistic traits, which in a man could +never coexist, is to be found in many historic women of the +Renaissance--exquisite, dangerous creatures, half-doves, half-serpents, +half-Clytemnestra, half-Venus, whose full-throbbing passion now made +them soft and tender, over-brimming with loveliness, now fierce and +imperious, their outraged pride revelling in vengeance and blood. If +Bjoernson could have fathomed the depth and complexity of the historical +Mary Stuart to the extent that Swinburne has done, he would, no doubt, +also have devised a more effective conclusion to his play. There is no +dramatic climax, far less a tragic one, in the dethronement of Mary, and +the proclamation by John Knox, which is chiefly an assertion of popular +sovereignty, and the triumph of the Presbyterian Church. The declaration +of the final chorus, that + + "Evil shall be routed + And weakness must follow, + The might of truth shall pierce + To the last retreat of gloom," + +seems to me rather to muddle than to clarify the situation. There is a +wavering and uncertain sound in it which seems inappropriate to a +triumphant strain, when the organist naturally turns on the full force +of his organ. If (as is obvious) the Queen represents the evil, or at +least the weakness, which has been routed, it would appear that she +ought to have been painted in quite different colors. + +Bjoernson's next dramatic venture, which rejoices to this day in an +unabated popularity, was the two-act comedy, "The Newly Married" (_De +Nygifte_). Goethe once made the remark that he was not a good dramatist, +because his nature was too conciliatory. Without intending +disparagement, I am inclined to apply the same judgment to Bjoernson. His +sunny optimism shrinks from irreconcilable conflicts and insoluble +problems; and in his desire to reconcile and solve, he occasionally is +in danger of wrenching his characters out of drawing and muddling their +motives. Half a dozen critics have already called attention to the +ambiguity of Mathilde's position and intentions in "The Newly Married." +That she loves Axel, the husband, is clear; and the probability is that +she meant to avenge herself upon him for having before his marriage used +her as a decoy, when the real object of his attention was her friend +Laura. But if such was her object, she lacked the strength of mind and +hardness of heart to carry it out, and in the end she becomes a +benevolent providence, who labors for the reconciliation of the +estranged couple. She proves too noble for the ignoble _role_ she had +undertaken. Instead of wrecking the marriage, she sacrifices herself +upon the altar of friendship. To that there can, of course, be no +objection; but in that case the process of her mental change ought to +have been clearly shown. In Ibsen's "Rosmersholm," Rebecca West, +occupying a somewhat similar position, is subject to the same ennobling +of motive; but the whole drama hinges upon her moral evolution, and +nothing is left to inference. + +The situation in "The Newly Married" is an extremely delicate one, and +required delicate handling. Axel, a young and gifted lawyer, has married +Laura, the daughter of a high and wealthy official, who prides himself +on his family dignity and connections. Laura, being an only child, has +been petted and spoiled since her birth, and is but a grown-up little +girl, with no conception of her matrimonial obligations. She +subordinates her relation to her husband to that to her parents, and +exasperates the former by her bland and obstinate immaturity. At last, +being able to bear it no longer, he compels her to leave the home of her +parents, where they have hitherto been living, and establishes himself +in a distant town. Mathilde, Laura's friend, accompanies them, though it +is difficult to conjecture in what capacity; and publishes an anonymous +novel, in which she enlightens the young wife regarding the probable +results of her conduct. She thrusts a lamp into the dusk of her soul and +frightens her by the things she shows her. She also, by arousing her +jealousy, leads her out of childhood, with its veiled vision and happy +ignorance, into womanhood, with its unflinching recognition of the +realities that were hidden from the child. And thus she paves the way +for the reconciliation which takes place in the presence of the old +people, who pay their daughter a visit _en route_ for Italy. Mathilde, +having accomplished her mission, acknowledges the authorship of the +anonymous novel, and is now content to leave husband and wife in the +confidence that they will work out their own salvation. + +A mere skeleton of this simple plot (which barely hints at the real +problem) can, of course, give no conception of the charm, the color, and +the wonderful poetic afflatus of this exquisite little play. It may be +well enough to say that such a situation is far-fetched and not very +typical--that outside of "The Heavenly Twins," _et id omne genus_, wives +who insist upon remaining maidens are not very frequent; but, in spite +of this drawback, the vividness and emotional force of the dialogue and +the beautiful characterization (particularly of the old governor and his +wife) set certain sweet chords in vibration, and carry the play to a +triumphant issue. + +As a school-boy I witnessed the first performance of "The Newly +Married," at the Christiania Theatre (1865), (as, indeed, of all the +Bjoernsonian dramas up to 1869); and I yet remember my surprise when, +instead of mail-clad Norse warriors, carousing in a sooty, log-built +hall, the curtain rose upon a modern interior, in which a fashionably +attired young lady kissed a frock-coated old gentleman. It was a dire +disappointment to me and my comrade, who had come thirsting for gore. +But how completely the poet conquered us! Each phrase seemed to woo our +reluctant ears, and the pulse of life that beat in the characters and +carried along the action awakened in us a delighted recognition. Truth +to tell, we had but the very vaguest idea of what was the _prima causa +malorum_; but for all that, with the rest of the audience, we were +immensely gratified that the upshot of it all was so satisfactory. + +During the years 1865-67 Bjoernson occupied the position of artistic +director of the Christiania Theatre, and edited the illustrated weekly +paper, _Norsk Folkeblad_ ("The Norwegian People's Journal"). As the +champion of Norwegian nationality in literature, and on the stage, he +unfolded an amazing activity. In 1870 he published "Arnljot Gelline," a +lyrical epic, relating, in a series of poems of irregular metres, the +story of the pagan marauder of that name, and his conversion to +Christianity by King Olaf the Saint. Never has he found a more daring +and tremendous expression for the spirit of old Norse paganism than in +this powerful but somewhat chaotic poem. Never has anyone gazed more +deeply into the ferocious heart of the primitive, predatory man, whose +free, wild soul had not yet been tamed by social obligations and the +scourge of the law. In the same year (1870) was published the now +classical collection of "Poems and Songs" (_Digte og Sange_), which, it +is no exaggeration to say, marks a new era in the Norwegian lyric. Among +Bjoernson's predecessors there are but two lyrists of the first order, +viz., Wergeland and Welhaven. The former was magnificently profuse and +chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, but withal +high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his worst, bombastic. There is a +reminiscence in him of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain +dithyrambic ecstasy--a strained, high-keyed aria-style which sometimes +breaks into falsetto. His great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer, +more gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered strains, along +the middle octaves, never ranging high into the treble or deep into the +base. There is a certain Tennysonian sweetness, artistic self-restraint, +and plastic simplicity in his lyrics; just as there is in Wergeland's +reformatory ardor, his noble rage, and his piling up of worlds, aeons, +and eternities a striking kinship to Shelley. But both these poets, +though their patriotism was strong, were intellectually Europeans, +rather than Norwegians. The roots of their culture were in the general +soil of the century, whose ideas they had absorbed. Their personalities +were not sufficiently tinged with the color of nationality to give a +distinctly Norse cadence to their voices. Wergeland seems to me like a +man who was desperately anxious to acquire a national accent; but +somehow never could catch the trick of it. As regards Welhaven, he was +less aware of his deficiency (if deficiency it was); but was content to +sing of Norse themes in a key of grave, universal beauty. Of the new +note that came into the Norwegian lyric with Bjoernson, I can discover no +hint in his predecessors. Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn," +with its inimitably droll refrain--how utterly inconceivable it would be +in the mouth of Wergeland or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as +unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that +inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel +(if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a +Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger +fiddle, and the color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the +legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian homestead +during the long winter nights. With Bjoernson it was in the blood. It was +his soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence of his +emotion. And so, also, is the touching minor undertone in the poem, the +tragic strain in the half burlesque, which is again so deeply Norwegian. +Who that has ever been present at a Norse peasant wedding has failed to +be struck with the strangely melancholy strain in the merriest dances? +And in Landstad's collection of "Norwegian Ballads" there is the same +blending of humor and pathos in such genuine folk-songs as _Truls med +bogin, Mindre Alf_, and scores of others. To this day I cannot read +"Nils Finn," humorous though it is, without an almost painful emotion. +All Norway, with a host of precious memories, rises out of the mist of +the past at the very first verse: + + "Og vetli Nils Finn skuldi ut at ga, + Han fek inki ski 'i tel at hanga pa + --'Dat var ilt' sa'd 'uppundir.'" + +Neither Wergeland nor Welhaven nor any other poet has with all his +rapturous description of fjord, valley, and mountain, this power to +conjure up the very soul of the Norseland. The purely juvenile rhymes of +Bjoernson, such as _Killebukken, Lokkeleg_ and _Haren og Raeven_ ("The +Hare and the Fox"), are significant because of the masterly security +with which they strike the national key and keep it. Not a word is there +that rings false. And with what an exquisite tenderness the elegaic +ballad strain is rendered in _Venevil_ and "Hidden Love" (_Dulgt +Kaerlighed_), and the playful in the deliciously girlish roguery of +_Vidste du bare_ ("If you only knew"), and the bold dash and young +wantonness of "Marit's Song!" + +It seems to me that every Norseman's life, whether he is willing to +acknowledge it or not, has been made richer and more beautiful by this +precious volume. It contains a legacy to the Norwegian people which can +never grow old. If Bjoernson had written nothing else, he would still be +the first poet of Norway. How brazen, hollow, and bombastic sound the +patriotic lyrics of Bjerregaard Johan Storm Munch, S. O. Wolff, etc., +which are yet sung at festal gatherings, by the side of Bjoernson's "Yes, +we Love our Native Country," and "I will Guard Thee, my Land!" There is +the brassy blare of challenging trumpets in the former; they defy all +creation, and make a vast deal of impotent and unprofitable noise about +"The roaring northern main," "The ancient Norway's rocky fastness," +"Liberty's temple in Norroway's valleys," and "Norway's lion, whose axe +doth threaten him who dares break the Northland's peace." + +Not a suggestion of this juvenile braggadocio is there to be found in +Bjoernson. Calm, strong, and nobly aglow with love of country, he has no +need of going into paroxysms in order to prove his sincerity. To those +who regard the declamatory note as indispensable to a national hymn (as +we have it, for instance, in "Hail, Columbia," and "The Star-spangled +Banner") the low key in which Bjoernson's songs are pitched will no doubt +appear as a blemish. But it is their very homeliness in connection with +the deep, full-throbbing emotion which beats in each forceful phrase--it +is this, I fancy, which has made them the common property of the whole +people, and thus in the truest sense national. I could never tell why my +heart gives a leap at the sound of the simple verse: + + "Yes, we love this land of ours, + Rising from the foam, + Rugged, furrowed, weather-beaten, + With its thousand homes." + +Kjerulf's glorious music is, no doubt, in a measure accountable for it; +but even apart from that, there is a strangely moving power in the +words. The poem, as such, is by no means faultless. It is easy to pick +flaws in it. The transition from the fifth and sixth lines of the first +verse: "Love it, love it, and think of our father and mother," to the +seventh and eighth, "And the saga night which makes dreams to descend +upon our earth," is unwarrantably forced and abrupt. And yet who would +wish it changed? It may be admitted that there is no very subtle art in +the rude rhyme: + + "I will guard thee, my land, + I will build thee, my land, + I will cherish my land in my prayer, in my child! + I will foster its weal, + And its wants I will heal + From the boundary out to the ocean wild;" + +but, for all that, it touches a chord in every Norseman's breast, which +never fails to vibrate responsively. + +As regards Bjoernson's prosody, I am aware that it is sometimes +defective. Measured by the Tennysonian standard it is often needlessly +rugged and eccentric. But a poet whose bark carries so heavy a cargo of +thought may be forgiven if occasionally it scrapes the bottom. Moreover, +the Norwegian tongue has never, as a medium of poetry, been polished and +refined to any such elaborate perfection as the English language +exhibits in the hands of Swinburne and Tennyson. + +The saga-drama, "Sigurd the Crusader," which was also published in 1870, +is a work of minor consequence. Its purpose may be stated in the +author's own words: + + "'Sigurd the Crusader' is meant to be what is called a 'folk-play.' + It is my intention to make several dramatic experiments with grand + scenes from the sagas, lifting them into a strong but not too heavy + frame. By a 'folk-play' I mean a play which should appeal to every + eye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the + performance of which all, for the time being, would experience the + joy of fellow-feeling. The common history of a people is best + available for this purpose--nay, it ought dramatically never to be + treated otherwise. The treatment must necessarily be simple and the + emotions predominant; it should be accompanied with music, and the + development should progress in clear groups.... + + "The old as well as the new historic folk literature will, with its + corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great gain to the + stage, and will preserve its connection with the people where this + has not already been lost--so that it be no longer a mere + institution for amusement, and that only to a single class. Unless + we take this view of our stage, it will lose its right to be + regarded as a national affair, and the best part of its purpose, to + unite while it lifts and makes us free, will be gradually assumed + by some other agency. Nor shall we ever get actors fit for anything + but trifles, unless we abandon our foreign French tendency as a + _leading_ one and substitute the national needs of our own people + in its place." + +It would be interesting to note how the poet has attempted to solve a +problem so important and so difficult as this. In the first place, we +find in "Sigurd the Crusader" not a trace of a didactic purpose beyond +that of familiarizing the people with its own history, and this, as he +himself admits in the preface just quoted, is merely a secondary +consideration. He wishes to make all, irrespective of age, culture, and +social station, feel strongly the bond of their common nationality; and, +with this in view, he proceeds to unroll to them a panorama of simple +but striking situations, knit together by a plot or story which, without +the faintest tinge of sensationalism, appeals to those broadly human and +national sympathies which form the common mental basis of Norse +ignorance and Norse culture. He seizes the point in the saga where the +long-smouldering hostility between the royal brothers, Sigurd the +Crusader and Eystein, has broken into full blaze, and traces, in a +series of vigorously sketched scenes, the intrigue and counter-intrigue +which hurry the action onward toward its logically prepared climax--a +mutual reconciliation. The dialogue is pithy, simple, and sententious. +Nevertheless the play, as a whole, makes the impression of +incompleteness. It is a dramatic sketch rather than a drama. It marks no +advance on Bjoernson's previous work in the same line; but perhaps rather +a retrogression. + + +II + +A period is apt to come in the life of every man who is spiritually +alive, when his scholastic culture begins to appear insufficient and the +traditional premises of existence seem in need of readjustment and +revision. This period, with the spiritual crisis which it involves, is +likely to occur between the thirtieth and the fortieth meridian. Ibsen +was thirty-four years old (1862) when in "The Comedy of Love" he broke +with the romanticism of his youth, and began to wrestle with the +problems of contemporary life. Goethe was thirty-seven when, in 1786, he +turned his back upon the Storm and Stress, and in Italy sought and +gained a new and saner vision of the world. This renewal of the sources +which water the roots of his spiritual being becomes an imperative +necessity to a man when he has exhausted the sources which tradition +supplies. It is terrible to wake up one morning and see one's past life +in a new and strange illumination, and the dust of ages lying inch-thick +upon one's thoughts. It is distressing to have to pretend that you do +not hear the doubt which whispers early and late in your ear, _Vanitas, +vanitas, vanitas vanitatum_. Few are those of us who have the courage to +face it, to rise up and fight with it, and rout it or be routed by it. + +Bjoernson had up to this time (1870) built solely upon tradition. He had +been orthodox, and had exalted childlike peace and faith above doubt and +struggle. Phrases indicative of a certain spiritual immaturity are +scattered through his early poems. In "The Child in our Soul," he says, +for instance: "The greatest man on earth must cherish the child in his +soul and listen, amid the thunder, to what it whispers low;" and again: +"Everything great that thought has invented sprouted forth in childlike +joy; and everything strong, sprung from what is good, obeyed the child's +voice." Though in a certain sense that may be true enough, it belongs to +the kind of half-truths which by constant repetition grow pernicious +and false. The man who at forty assumes the child's attitude of mere +wondering acceptance toward the world and its problems, may, indeed, be +a very estimable character; but he will never amount to much. It is the +honest doubters, the importunate questioners, the indefatigable fighters +who have broken humanity's shackles, and made the world a more +comfortable abiding-place to the present generation than it was to the +past. There is unquestionably a strain of Danish romanticism in +Bjoernson's persistent harping upon childlike faith and simplicity and a +childlike vision of the world. Grundtvig, with whom this note is +pervasive, had in his early youth a great influence over him. The +glorification of primitive feeling was part of the romantic revolt +against the dry rationalism of the so-called period of enlightenment. + +To account for the fact that so mighty a spirit as Bjoernson could have +reached his thirty-eighth year before emerging from this state of +idyllic _naivete_, I am inclined to quote the following passage from +Brandes, descriptive of the condition of the Scandinavian countries +during the decade preceding 1870: + +"While the intellectual life languished, as a plant droops in a close, +confined place, the people were self-satisfied--though not with a joyous +or noisy self-satisfaction; for there was much sadness in their minds +after the great disasters [the Sleswick-Holstein War].... They rested +on their laurels and fell into a doze. And while they dozed they had +dreams. The cultivated, and especially the half-cultivated, public in +Denmark and Norway dreamed that they were the salt of Europe. They +dreamed that by their idealism--the ideals of Grundtvig and +Kierkegaard--and their strong vigilance, they regenerated the foreign +nations. They dreamed that they were the power which could rule the +world, but which, for mysterious and incomprehensible reasons, had for a +long series of years preferred to eat crumbs from the foreigners' table. +They dreamed that they were the free, mighty North, which led the cause +of the peoples to victory--and they woke up unfree, impotent, +ignorant."[5] + + [5] Brandes: Det Moderne Gjennembrud's Maend, pp. 44, 45. + +Though there is a good deal of malice, there is no exaggeration in this +unflattering statement. Scandinavia had by its own choice cut itself off +from the cosmopolitan world life; and the great ideas which agitated +Europe found scarcely an echo in the three kingdoms. In my own boyhood, +which coincides with Bjoernson's early manhood, I heard on all hands +expressions of self-congratulation because the doubt and fermenting +restlessness which were undermining the great societies abroad had never +ruffled the placid surface of our good, old-fashioned, Scandinavian +orthodoxy. How heartily we laughed at the absurdities of Darwin, who, as +we had read in the newspapers, believed that he was descended from an +ape! How deeply, densely, and solidly ignorant we were; and yet how +superior we felt in the midst of our ignorance! + +All this must be taken into account, if we are to measure the +significance, as well as the courage, of Bjoernson's apostasy. For five +years (1870-74) he published nothing of an aesthetical character. But he +plunged with hot zeal into political life, not only because he needed an +outlet for his pent-up energy; but because the question at issue engaged +him, heart and soul. The equal and co-ordinate position of Norway and +Sweden under the union had been guaranteed by the Constitution of 1814; +but, as a matter of fact, the former kingdom is by all the world looked +upon as a dependency, if not a province, of the latter. The Bernadottes, +lacking comprehension of the Norwegian character, had shown themselves +purblind as bats in their dealings with Norway. They had mistaken a +perfectly legitimate desire for self-government for a demonstration of +hostility to Sweden and the royal house; and instead of identifying +themselves with the national movement (which they might well have done), +they fought it, first by cautious measures of repression, and later by +vetoes and open defiance. Charles XV., and, later, Oscar II., kept the +minority ministries, Stang and Selmer, in power, with a bland disregard +of popular condemnation, and snapped their fingers at the parliamentary +majorities which, for well-nigh a quarter of a century, fought +persistently, bravely, and not altogether vainly, for their country's +rights. + +There is no doubt that Norway is the most democratic country in Europe, +if not in the world. There is a far sturdier sense of personal worth, a +far more fearless assertion of equality, and a far more democratic +feeling permeating society than, for instance, in the United States. +Sweden, on the other hand, is essentially an aristocratic country, with +a landed nobility and many other remnants of feudalism in her political +and social institutions. Two countries so different in character can +never be good yoke-fellows. They can never develop at an even pace, and +the fact of kinship scarcely helps matters where the temperaments and +the conditions are so widely dissimilar. Brothers who fall out are apt +to fight each other the more fiercely on account of the relationship. +Bjoernson certainly does not cherish any hatred of Sweden, nor do I +believe that there is any general animosity to the Swedish people to be +found anywhere in Norway. It is most unfortunate that the mistaken +policy of the Bernadottes has placed the two nations in an attitude of +apparent hostility. In spite of the loud denunciation of Norway by the +so-called Grand Swedish party, and the equally vociferous response of +the Norwegian journals (of the Left) there is a strong sympathy between +the democracy of Norway and that of Sweden, and a mutual respect which +no misrepresentation can destroy. + +It was Bjoernson who, in 1873, began the agitation for the actual and +not merely nominal, equality of the two kingdoms;[6] he appealed to the +national sense of honor, and by his kindling eloquence aroused the +tremendous popular indignation that swept the old ministry of Stang from +power, and caused the impeachment and condemnation of the Selmer +ministry. It would seem when the king, in 1882, charged the liberal +leader, Mr. Johan Sverdrup, to form a ministry, that parliamentarism had +actually triumphed. But unhappily a new Stang ministry (the chief of +which is the son of the old premier) has, recently (1893) re-established +the odious minority rule, which sits like a nightmare upon the nation's +breast, checking its respiration, and hindering its natural development. + + [6] I had the pleasure of accompanying Bjoernson on his first + political tour in the summer of 1873, and I shall never forget the + tremendous impression of the man and his mighty eloquence at the + great folk-meeting at Boee in Guldbrandsdalen. + +During this period of national self-assertion Bjoernson has unfolded a +colossal activity. Though holding no office, and steadily refusing an +election to the Storthing, he has been the life and soul of the liberal +party. The task which he had undertaken grew upon his hands, and assumed +wider and wider dimensions. As his predecessor Wergeland had done, and +in a far deeper sense, he consecrated his life to the spiritual and +intellectual liberation of his people. It is told of the former that he +was in the habit of walking about the country with his pockets full of +seeds of grass and trees, of which he scattered a handful here and a +handful there; for, he said, you can never tell what will grow up after +it. There is to me something quite touching in the patriotism which +prompted this act. Bjoernson, too, is in the same sense "a sower who went +forth for to sow." And the golden grain of his thought falls, as in the +parable, in all sorts of places; but, unlike some of the seed in the +parable, it all leaves some trace behind. It stimulates reflection, it +awakens life, it arouses the torpid soul, it shakes the drowsy soul, it +shocks the pious soul, it frightens the timid soul, but it lifts them +all, as it were, by main force, out of themselves, and makes healthful +breezes blow, and refreshing showers fall upon what was formerly a +barren waste. This is Bjoernson's mission; this is, during the second +period of his career, his greatness and his highest significance. + +Of course there are many opinions as to the value of the work he has +accomplished in this capacity of political and religious liberator. The +Conservative party of Norway, which runs the errands of the king and +truckles to Sweden, hates him with a bitter and furious hatred; the +clergy denounce him, and the official bureaucracy can scarcely mention +his name without an anathema. But the common people, though he has +frightened many of them away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is +especially his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes not to believe +in) which has been a sore trial to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing +peasantry. Does not the Bible say that the devil goes about like a +roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? Nevertheless Bjoernson has the +hardihood to assert that there is no such person. And yet Bjoernson is a +man who can talk most beautifully, and who knows as much as any parson. +It is extremely puzzling. + +The fact was, Bjoernson's abolition of the devil, and his declaration of +a war against the orthodox miracle faith, were, as far as the Norwegian +people were concerned, somewhat premature. The peasant needs the old +scriptural devil, and is not yet ready to dispense with him. The devil +is a popular character in the folk-stories and legends, and I have known +some excellent people who declare that they have seen him. Creeds are +like certain ancient tumuli, which now are but graves, but were once the +habitations of living men. The dust, ashes, and bones of defunct life +which they often contain, nourish in the dark the green grass, the fair +flowers, the blooming trees, that shoot up into the light. You cannot +dig it all up and throw it out without tearing asunder the net-work of +roots which organically connects the living with the dead. + +Bjoernson, though he is an evolutionist, is far removed from the +philosophic temper in his dealings with the obsolete or obsolescent +remnants in political and religious creeds. He has the healthful +intolerance of strong conviction. He is too good a partisan to admit +that there may be another side to the question which might be worth +considering. With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges ahead, and with a +truly old Norse pugnacity he stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing +in battle. Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls all his +splendid faculties into play. + +Even apart from his political propaganda the years 1870-74 were a period +of labor and ferment to Bjoernson. The mightier the man, the mightier the +powers enlisted in his conversion, and the mightier the struggle. A +tremendous wrench was required to change his point of view from that of +a childlike, wondering believer to that of a critical sceptic and +thinker. In a certain sense Bjoernson never took this step; for when the +struggle was over, and he had readjusted his vision of life to the +theory of evolution, he became as ardent an adherent of it as he had +ever been of the _naive_ Grundtvigian miracle-faith. And with the deep +need of his nature to pour itself forth--to share its treasures with all +the world--he started out to proclaim his discoveries. Besides Darwin +and Spencer, he had made a study of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense of +fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with hot zeal into the writings +of Steinthal and Max Mueller, whose studies in comparative religion +changed to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's historical +criticism, with its disrespectful derivation of the hero from food, +climate, and race, lured him still farther away from his old Norse and +romantic landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever +returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he +looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and lasses, +and his taciturn saga heroes, with their predatory self-assertion, he +saw that he had done with them forever; that they could never more +enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the problems of modern +contemporary life, of which he had now gained quite a new comprehension, +tempted him. The romantic productions of his youth appeared as a more or +less arbitrary play of fancy emancipated from the stern logic of +reality. It was his purpose henceforth to consecrate his powers to the +study of the deeper soul-life of his own age and the exposition of the +forces which in their interdependence and interaction make modern +society. + +This is the significance of the four-act drama "Bankruptcy," with which, +in 1874, he astounded and disappointed the Scandinavian public. I have +called it a drama, in accordance with the author's designation on the +title-page; but it is, in the best sense, a comedy of manners, of the +kind that Augier produced in France; and in everything except the +mechanics of construction superior to the plays of Sardou and Dumas. The +dialogue has the most admirable accent of truth. It is not unnaturally +witty or brilliant; but exhibits exactly the traits which Norwegians of +the higher commercial plutocracy are likely to exhibit. All the poetic +touches which charmed us in Bjoernson's saga dramas were conspicuous by +their absence. Scarcely a trace was there left of that peculiar and +delightful language of his early novels, which can only be described by +the term "Bjoernsonian." + +"Dry, prosaic, trivial," said the reviewers; "Bjoernson has evidently +worked out his vein. He has ceased to be a poet. He has lost with his +childhood's faith his ideal view of life, and become a mere prosy +chronicler of uninteresting everyday events." + +This was, indeed, the general verdict of the public twenty years ago. +Scarcely anyone had a good word to say for the abused play that marked +the poet's fall from the idealism of his early song. But, for all that, +"Bankruptcy" made a strong impression upon the boards. It not only +conquered a permanent place in the _repertoires_ of the theatres of the +Scandinavian capitals, but it spread through Austria, Germany, and +Holland, and has finally scored a success at the _Theatre Libre_ in +Paris. There is scarcely a theatre of any consequence in Germany which +has not made "Bankruptcy" part of its _repertoire_. At the Royal Theatre +in Munich it was accorded a most triumphant reception, and something +over sixty representations has not yet exhausted its popularity. + +The effort to come to close quarters with reality is visible in every +phrase. The denial of the value of all the old romantic stage machinery, +with its artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible in +the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely unsensational exposition +of the dramatic action. There is one scene (and by no means an unnatural +one) in which there is a touch of violence, viz., where Tjaelde, while +he hopes to avert his bankruptcy, threatens to shoot Lawyer Berent and +himself; but there is a very human quiver in the threat and in the +passionate outbreak which precedes it. Nowhere is there a breath of that +superheated hot-house atmosphere which usually pervades the modern +drama. + +"Bankruptcy" deals, as the title indicates, with the question of +financial honesty. Zola has in _Le Roman Sentimental_ made the +observation that "absolute honesty no more exists than perfect +healthfulness. There is a tinge of the human beast in us all, as there +is a tinge of illness." Tjaelde, the great merchant, exemplifies this +proposition. He is a fairly honest man, who by the modern commercial +methods, which, in self-defence, he has been forced to adopt, gets into +the position of a rogue. The commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," seems +at first glance an extremely simple injunction; but in the light of +Bjoernson's searching analysis it becomes a complex and intricate tangle, +capable of interesting shades and _nuances_ of meaning. Tjaelde, in the +author's opinion, certainly does steal, when, in order to save himself +(and thereby the thousands who are involved in his affairs), he +speculates with other people's money and presents a rose-colored account +of his business, when he knows that he is on the verge of bankruptcy. +But, on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to determine the point +where legitimate speculation ceases and the illegitimate begins. And if +Tjaelde neglected any legitimate means of saving his estate he would be +culpable. A stern code of morals (which the commercial world of to-day +would scarcely exact), the poet enforces in the fourth act, where +Tjaelde refuses to accept any concession from his creditors, but insists +upon devoting the remainder of his life to the liquidation of his debts. + +Admirably strong and vital is the exposition of the _role_ and functions +of money in the modern world, and the nearer and remoter psychological +effects of the tremendous tyranny of money. A certain external _eclat_ +is required to give the great commercial house the proper splendor in +the sight of the world. Thus Tjaelde speculates in hospitality as in +everything else, and when he virtually has nothing, makes the grandest +splurge in order to give a spurious impression of prosperity. Though by +nature an affectionate man, he neglects his family because business +demands all his time. He defrauds himself of the happiness which knocks +at his door, because business fills his head by night and by day, and +absorbs all his energy. A number of parasites (such as the +fortune-hunting lieutenant) attach themselves to him, as long as he is +reputed to be rich, and make haste to vanish when his riches take wings. +On the other hand, the true friends whom in his prosperity he hectored +and contemned are revealed by adversity. There would be nothing +remarkable in so common an experience, if the friends themselves, as +well as the parasites, were not so delightfully delineated. The +lieutenant, with his almost farcical interest in the bay trotter, is +amusingly but lightly drawn; but the awkward young clerk, Sannaes, who +refuses to abandon his master in the hour of trial, is a deeply typical +Norwegian figure. All the little coast towns have specimens to show of +these aspiring, faithful, sensitively organized souls, who, having had +no social advantages are painfully conscious of their deficiencies, but +whose patient industry and sterling worth in the end will triumph. No +less keenly observed and effectively sketched is the whole gallery of +dastardly little village figures--Holm, Falbe, Knutson with an s, +Knutzon, with a z, etc. Signe and Valborg, the two daughters of Tjaelde, +have, in spite of their diversity, a common tinge of Norwegian +nationality which gives a gentle distinctness and relief to the +world-old types. + +Bjoernson's next play,[7] "The Editor," grapples with an equally modern +and timely subject, viz., the license of the press. With terrible +vividness he shows the misery, ruin, and degradation which result from +the present journalistic practice of misrepresentation, sophistry, and +defamation. It is a very dark picture he draws, with scarcely a gleam of +light. The satire is savage; and the quiver of wrath is perceptible in +many a sledge-hammer phrase. You feel that Bjoernson himself has suffered +from the terrorism which he here describes, and you would surmise too, +even if you did not know it, that the editor whom he has here pilloried +is no mere general editorial type, but a well-known person who, until +recently, conducted one of the most influential journals in Norway. The +play is an act of retribution, and a deserved one. But its weaknesses, +which it is vain to disguise, are also explained by the author's +personal bias--the desire to wreak vengeance upon an enemy. + + [7] All the literary histories and other authorities which I have + consulted put the publication of "Bankruptcy," as well as that of + "The Editor," in 1875. But my own copy of the latter play bears on + its title-page the year 1874. + +The situation is as follows: Mr. Evje, a rich and generally respected +distiller, has a daughter, Gertrude, who is engaged to Harold Rein, a +political leader of peasant origin. Mr. Rein's brother, Halfdan, from +whom he has, in a measure, inherited the leadership, is dying from the +persecution to which he has been exposed by the Conservative press and +public. In his zeal for the Radical cause it is his consolation that he +leaves it in such strong hands as those of his brother. The election is +impending and a meeting of the electors has been called for the +following day. Harold is the candidate of the Left. It now becomes a +question with the party of the Right so to ridicule and defame him as to +ruin his chances. His position as prospective son-in-law of the rich +Mr. Evje lends an air of importance and respectability to his candidacy. +Mr. Evje must therefore be induced, or, if necessary, compelled, to +throw him overboard. With this end in view the editor of the +Conservative journal goes to Evje (whose schoolmate and friend he has +been) and tries to persuade him to break the alliance with Rein. Evje, +who prides himself on his "moderation" and tolerance, and his purpose to +keep aloof from partisanship, refuses to be bullied; whereupon the +editor threatens him with social ostracism and commercial ruin. The +distiller, who is at heart a coward, is completely unnerved by this +threat. Well knowing how a paper can undermine a man's reputation +without making itself liable for libel, he sends his friend the doctor +to the editor, suing for peace. Late in the evening he meets his foe +outside of his house, and after much shuffling and parleying agrees to +do his will. He surprises his daughter and Harold Rein in a loving +_tete-a-tete_, and lacks the courage to carry out his bargain. He vainly +endeavors to persuade them to break the engagement and separate until +after the election. + +In the meanwhile, John, a discharged servant of Evje (of whose +drunkenness and political radicalism we have previously been informed), +has overheard the parley with the editor, and in order to get even with +his master countermands in the editor's name his order to the foreman of +the printing-office; and the obnoxious article which was intended to be +omitted appears in the paper. John also takes care to procure Evje an +early copy, which, first utterly crushes him, then arouses his wrath, +convinces him that "holding aloof" is mere cowardice, and makes him +resolve to bear his share in the great political battle. The meanness, +the malice of each ingenious thrust, while it stings and burns also +awakens a righteous indignation. He goes straight to the lodgings of +Harold Rein and determines to attend the Radical meeting. Not finding +him at home he goes to the house of his brother Halfdan, where he leaves +the copy of the paper. The sick man picks it up, reads an onslaught on +himself which in baseness surpasses the attack on Evje, starts up in +uncontrollable excitement, and dies of a hemorrhage. The maid, who sees +him lying on the floor, cries out into the street for help, and the +editor, who chances to pass by, enters. He finds the Radical leader +dead, with the paper clutched in his hand. + +The fourth act opens with a festal arrangement at Evje's in honor of the +great success of Rein's electoral meeting. There is no more "holding +aloof." Everybody has convictions and is ready to avow the party that +upholds them. All are ignorant of Halfdan Rein's death, until the editor +arrives, utterly broken in spirit and asks Evje's pardon. He wishes to +explain, but no one wishes to listen. When Evje wavers and is on the +point of accepting his proffered hand, his wife and daughter loudly +protest. + +The editor declares his purpose to renounce journalism. The festivities +are abandoned, and all betake themselves to the house of the dead +leader. Thus the play ends; there is no tableau, no climax, no dramatic +catastrophe. It is Zola's theory[8] and Maeterlink's practice +anticipated. + + [8] "Naturalism on the Stage." + +The journalistic conditions here described are, of course, those of the +Norwegian capital nearly a quarter of a century ago. Few editors, I +fancy, outside of country towns, now go about personally spreading +rumors, with malice aforethought, and collecting gossip. But the power +of the press for good and for ill, and the terrorism which, in evil +hands, it exercises, are surely not exaggerated. But its most striking +application has the drama in its exposure of the desperate and +ignominious expedients to which a party will resort in order to defeat, +defame, and utterly destroy a political opponent. The following passages +may be worth quoting: + +"Most of the successful politicians nowadays win not by their own +greatness but by the paltriness of the rest." + +"Here is a fine specimen of a fossil. It is a piece of a palm-leaf, ... +which was found in a stratum of Siberian rock.... Thus one must become +in order to endure the ice-storms. Then one is not harmed. But your +brother! In him lived yet the whole murmuring, singing palm-forest.... +As regards you, it remains to be seen whether you can get all humanity +in you completely killed.... But who would at that price be a +politician?... That one must be hardened is the watchword of all +nowadays. Not only army officers but physicians, merchants, officials +are to be hardened or dried up; ... hardened for the battle of life, as +they say. But what does that mean? We are to expel and evaporate the +warmth of the heart, the fancy's yearning, ... before we are fit for +life.... No, I say, it is those very things we are to preserve. That's +what we have got them for." + +Bjoernson's increasing Radicalism and his outspoken Socialistic +sympathies had by this time alienated a large portion of the +Scandinavian public. The cry was heard on all sides that he had ceased +to be a poet, and had become instead a mere political agitator. I cannot +deny myself the pleasure of quoting Bjoernson's reply when at his request +a friend repeated to him the opinion which was entertained of him in +certain quarters: + +"Oh, yes," he cried, with a wrathful laugh, "don't I know it? You must +be a poet! You must not mingle in the world's harsh and jarring tumult. +They have a notion that a poet is a longhaired man who sits on the top +of a tower and plays upon a harp while his hair streams in the wind. +Yes, a fine kind of poet is that! No, my boy, I am a poet, not primarily +because I can write verse (there are lots of people who can do that) but +by virtue of seeing more clearly, and feeling more deeply, and speaking +more truly than the majority of men. All that concerns humanity +concerns me. If by my song or my speech I can contribute ever so little +toward the amelioration of the lot of the millions of my poorer +fellow-creatures, I shall be prouder of that than of the combined +laurels of Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe." + +This is the conception of a poet which was prevalent in Norway in the +olden time. The scalds of the sagas were warriors as well as singers. +They fought with sword and battle-axe, and their song rang the more +boldly because they knew how to strike up another tune--the fierce song +of the sword. In modern times Wergeland and Welhaven have demonstrated +not only the pugnacity, but also the noble courage of their ancestry by +espousing the cause of opposing parties during the struggle for national +independence. + +Those who demand that literature shall be untinged by any tendency or +strong conviction will do well to eschew all the subsequent works of +Bjoernson. They might perhaps put up with the brief novel "Magnhild," +which is tolerably neutral in tone, though it is the least enjoyable of +all Bjoernson's works. It gives the impression that the author is half +afraid of his subject (which is an illicit love), and only dares to +handle it so gingerly as to leave half the tale untold. The short, +abrupt sentences which seemed natural enough when he was dealing with +the peasants, with their laconic speech and blunt manners, have a forced +and unnatural air when applied to people to whom this style of language +is foreign. Moreover, these condensed sentences are often vague, full of +innuendo, and mysterious as hieroglyphics. It is as if the author, in +the consciousness of the delicacy of his theme, had lost the bold +security of touch which in his earlier works made his meaning +unmistakable. + +The drama "The King" (1877) is an attack upon the monarchical principle +in its political as well as its personal aspect. It is shown how +destructive the royal prerogative is and must be to the king as an +individual; how the artificial regard which hedges him in, interposing +countless barriers between the truth and him, makes his relations to his +surroundings false and deprives him of the opportunity for +self-knowledge which normal relations supply. Royalty is therefore a +curse, because it robs its possessor of the wholesome discipline of life +which is the right of every man that is born into the world. + +Furthermore, there is an obvious intention to show that the monarchy, +being founded upon a lie, is incapable of any real adaptation to the +age, and reconciliation with modern progress. The king in the play is a +young, talented, liberal-minded man, who is fully conscious of the +anomaly of his position, and determined to save his throne by stripping +it of all mediaeval and mythological garniture. He dreams of being a +"folk-king," the first citizen of a free people, a kind of hereditary +president, with no sham divinity to fall back upon, and no "grace of +God" to shield him from criticism and sanctify his blunders. He resents +the _role_ of being the lock of the merchant's strong-box and the head +of that mutual insurance company which is called the state. He goes +about _incognito_, first in search of love adventures, and later in +order to acquaint himself with public opinion; and he proves himself +remarkably unprejudiced and capable of profiting by experience. He falls +in love with Clara Ernst, the daughter of a Radical professor, who, on +account of a book he has written, has been sentenced for _crimen laesae +majestatis_, and in an attempt to escape from prison has broken both his +legs. Clara, who is supporting her father in his exile by teaching, +repels the king's advances with indignation and contempt. He perseveres, +however, fascinated by the novelty of such treatment. He manages to +convince her of the purity of his motives; and finally succeeds in +winning her love. It is not a _liaison_ he contemplates, but a valid and +legitimate marriage for which he means to compel recognition. The court, +which he has no more use for, he desires to abolish as a costly and +degrading luxury; and in its place to establish a home--a model +_bourgeois_ home--where affection and virtue shall flourish. Clara, +seeing the vast significance of such a step, is aglow with enthusiasm +for its realization. It is not vanity, but a lofty faith in her mission +to regenerate royalty, by discarding its senseless pomp and bringing it +into accord with, and down to the level of, common citizenship--it is +this, I say, which upholds her in the midst of opprobrium, insults, and +hostile demonstrations. For the king's subjects, so far from being +charmed by his resolution to marry a woman out of their midst, are +scandalized. They riot, sing mocking songs, circulate base slanders, and +threaten to mob the royal bride on her way to her first public function. +She is herself terribly wrought up, particularly by the curse of her +father, who hates the king with the deep hatred of a fanatical +Republican. A royal princess, who had come to insult her, is conquered +by her candor and truth, and stays to sympathize with her and lend her +the support of her presence. But just as the king comes to lead her out +to face the populace, the wraith of her father rises upon the threshold +and she falls back dead. It is learned afterward that Professor Ernst +had died in that very hour. + +The king's bosom friend, the Minister of the Interior, Gran, who is +largely responsible for his liberalism, and whose whole policy it has +been to rejuvenate and revitalize the monarchy, is challenged and shot +by his old teacher, the Republican Flink; and the king himself, +convinced of the futility of all his efforts to realize his idea of a +democratic monarchy, commits suicide. + +As a piece of sanguinary satire on royalty as an institution "The King" +is most interesting--that is, royalty logically and speculatively +considered, without reference to its historical basis and development. +To me the postulate that it had its origin in a kind of conspiracy (for +mutual benefit) of the priest and the king seems shallow and +unphilosophical. Bjoernson's fanatical partisanship has evidently carried +him a little too far. For surely he would himself admit that every free +nation is governed about as well as it deserves to be--that its +political institutions are a reflection of its maturity and capacity for +self-government. A certain allowance must, indeed, be made for the _vis +inertiae_ of whatever exists, which makes it exert a stubborn and not +unwholesome resistance to the reformer's zeal. This conservatism (which +may, however, have more laudable motives than mere self-interest) +Bjoernson has happily satirized in the scene before the Noblemen's Club +in the third act. But, I fancy, it looks to him only as a sinister +power, which for its own base purposes has smitten humanity with +blindness to its own welfare. Though not intending to enter into a +discussion, I am also tempted to put a respectful little interrogation +mark after the statement that the republic is so very much cheaper than +the monarchy. If the experience of the two largest republics in the +world counts for anything, I should say that in point of economy there +was not much to choose. + +Strange as it may seem, Bjoernson did not intend "The King" as an +argument in favor of the republic. In his preface to the third edition +he distinctly repudiates the idea. The recent development of the +Norwegian people, has, he says, made the republic a remoter possibility +than it was ten years before (1875). But he qualifies this statement +with the significant condition, "If we are not checked by fraud." And I +fancy that he would have a perfect right to justify his present position +by demonstrating the fraud, trickery, if not treason, by which Norway +has during the last decade been thwarted in her aspirations and checked +in her development. That preface, by the way, dated Paris, October, +1885, is one of the most forceful and luminous of his political +pronunciamientos. It rings from beginning to end with conviction and a +manly indignation. His chief purpose, he says, in writing this drama +was, "to extend the boundaries of free discussion." His polemics against +the clergy are not attacks upon Christianity, though he contends that +religion is subject to growth as well as other things. The ultimate form +of government he believes to be the republic, on the journey toward +which all European states are proceeding fast, or slow, and in various +stages of progress. There is something abrupt, gnarled, Carlylese, in +his urgent admonitions and appeals for fair-play. The personal note is +so distinct that I cannot read the play without unconsciously supplying +the very cadence of Bjoernson's voice. + +A further attempt to extend the boundaries of free discussion is made in +the two dramas, "Leonarda" (1879) and "A Glove" (1883), which both deal +with interesting phases of the woman question, and both wage war +against conventional notions of right and wrong. The former elucidates +the attitude of society toward the woman who has been compromised +(whether justly or not), and the latter its attitude toward the man. I +confess there is something a trifle hazy in his exposition of the +problem in "Leonarda;" and I am unable to determine whether Leonarda +really has anything to reproach herself with or not. In her conversation +with the bishop in the second act, she appears to admit that she has +much to regret. She begs him "help her atone for her past." She +practically throws herself upon his mercy, reminding him that his +Master, Christ, was the friend of sinners. But in the last act she +appears suddenly with the halo of martyrdom. General Rosen, who has been +the cause of her social ostracism, turns out to be her husband, whom she +has divorced on account of his dissipated habits, and now keeps, in the +hope of saving him, on a sort of probation. She believes that without +her he would go straight to perdition, and from a sense of duty she +tolerates him, not daring to shirk her responsibility for the old +reprobate's soul. Truth to tell, she treats him like a naughty boy, +punishing him, when he has been drunk, with a denial of favors; and when +he has been good, rewarding him with her company. I suppose there are +men who might be saved by such treatment, but I venture to doubt whether +they are worth saving. As for Leonarda, she has apparently no cause for +encouragement. But she perseveres, heedless of obloquy, as long as her +own affections are disengaged. She presently falls in love, however, +with a young man named Hagbart Tallhaug, who has insulted her and is now +engaged to her niece, Agot. Hagbart is the nephew of the bishop of the +diocese, who, after much persuasion is induced to receive Agot, on +condition that her aunt will remove from the district and demand no +recognition from the family. Having been informed of these conditions, +Leonarda calls upon the bishop, uninvited, and vainly remonstrates with +him. The young people are, however, unwilling to accept happiness on the +terms offered by his reverence. At this point a new complication arises. +Hagbart who had loved in Agot a kind of reflection of her aunt's +character and manner, being now thrown into the company of the latter, +discovers his mistake and transfers his affection to Leonarda. Exactly +wherein the newness of Leonarda's type consists we are not fully +informed, but we are led to infer that she represents a purer and truer +humanity than the women bred in the traditions of feudalism, with their +hypocritical arts and conventions. She is not meant to be seductive, but +radiant, ravishing. + +There is a candor in her speech, and an almost boyish +straightforwardness, for which she is not indebted to nature but to the +stanch idealism of her creator. She is, however, on that account no less +impressionable, no less ready to respond to the call of love. She +struggles manfully (or ought I not, in deference to the author's +contention, to say "womanfully") against her love for Hagbart, and at +last has no choice but to escape from the cruel dilemma by accepting the +bishop's demand. Though she cannot conquer her affection for the young +man, she believes that he will, in the course of time, return to Agot, +as soon as she is out of his way. The author evidently believes the +same. It is a hard lot to be a man in these later dramas of Bjoernson. + +With a slight violation of the chronological sequence I shall discuss "A +Glove" in this connection, because of its organic coherence with +"Leonarda." They are the obverse and reverse of the same subject--the +cruelty of society to the woman of a blemished reputation, and its +leniency to the man. + +To those who worship the conventional ideal of womanly innocence "A +Glove" will seem a very shocking book, for it fearlessly discusses, and, +what is more, makes a young girl discuss--the standards of sexual purity +as applied to men and women. The sentiments which she utters are, to be +sure, elevated and of an almost Utopian idealism; and the author +obviously means to raise, not to lower, her in the eyes of the reader by +her passionate frankness. + +The problem of the drama is briefly this: Society demands of women an +absolute chastity, and refuses to condone the least lapse, either before +or after marriage. But toward men it is indulgent. It readily overlooks +a plenteous seed of wild oats, and would regard it as the sheerest +Quixotism to judge the bridegroom by the same standard of purity as it +does the bride. It is easy enough, and perhaps also legitimate, to +exclaim with Bjoernson that this is all wrong, and that a man has no +right to ask any more than he gives. As a mere matter of equity a wife +owes her husband no more fidelity than he owes her, and may exact of +him, if she chooses, the same prematrimonial purity that he exacts of +her. But questions of this kind are never settled on the basis of +equity. The sentiments by which they are determined have long and +intricate roots in the prehistoric past; and we are yet very far from +the millennial condition of absolute equality between the sexes. +According to Herbert Spencer there is a hereditary transmission of +qualities which are confined exclusively to the male, and of others +which are confined to the female; and these are the results of the +primitive environments and conditions which were peculiar to each sex. +Even the best of us have a reminiscent sense of proprietorship in our +wives, dating from the time when she was obtained by purchase or capture +and could be disposed of like any other chattel. Wives, whose +prehistoric discipline has disposed them to humility and submission (I +am speaking of the European, not the American species, of course), have +not yet in the same degree acquired this sense of ownership in their +husbands, involving the same strict accountability for affectional +aberrations. And for this there is a very good reason, which is no less +valid now than it was in the hoariest antiquity. A husband's infidelity, +though morally as reprehensible as that of the wife, does not entail +quite such monstrous consequences. For if she deceives him, he may +ignorantly bring up another man's children, toil for them, bestow his +name and affection upon them, and leave them his property. One can +scarcely conceive of a more outrageous wrong than this; and it is in +order to guard against such a possibility that society from remote ages +has watched over the chastity of women far more jealously than over that +of men. It is as a result of this vigilance of centuries that women +have, among civilized nations, a finer sense of modesty than men, and a +higher standard of personal purity. Men are, as yet, as Mr. Howells +remarks, "imperfectly monogamous;" and Bjoernson is, no doubt, in the +main right in the tremendous indictment he frames against them in the +present drama. + +It may be expedient to give a brief outline of the action. Svava Riis, +the daughter of prosperous and refined parents, becomes engaged to Alf +Christensen, the son of a great commercial magnate. + +Her father and mother are overjoyed at the happy event; she is herself +no less delighted. Her _fiance_ has an excellent reputation, shares her +interest in social questions, and supports her in her efforts to found +kindergartens and to ameliorate the lot of the poor. Each glories in +the exclusive possession of the other's love, and with the retrospective +jealousy of lovers, fancies that he has had no predecessors in the +affection of the beloved. Alf can scarcely endure to have any one touch +Svava, and is almost ill when any one dances with her. + +"When I see you among all the others," he exclaims, "and catch, for +instance, a glimpse of your arm, then I think: That arm has been wound +about my neck, and about no one else's in the whole world. She is mine! +She belongs to me, and to no one, no one else!" + +Svava finds this feeling perfectly natural, and reciprocates it. She +ardently believes that he brings her as fresh a heart as she brings him; +that his past is as free from contaminating experience as is her own. +When, therefore, she obtains proof to the contrary, in an indignant +revulsion of feeling, she hurls her glove in his face and breaks the +engagement. This act is, I fancy, intended to be half symbolic. The +young girl expresses not only her personal sense of outrage; but she +flings a challenge in the face of the whole community, which by its +indulgence made his transgression easy. She discovers that what in her +would have been a crime is in him a lapse, readily forgiven. Her whole +soul revolts against this inequality of conditions; and in terminating +their relation, which has lost all its beauty, she wishes to cut off all +chance of its future resumption. + +In order to determine whether this sentiment of passionate virginity +(which in effect makes the marriage vow of fidelity retroactive) is not, +in the present condition of the world, a trifle overstrained, I have +submitted the question to two refined women for whom I have a high +regard. To my surprise they both declared that Svava, whatever she may +have said to the contrary, did not love her _fiance_; that her sorrow +and even her indignation were just and natural; but that her somewhat +over-conscious purity--her _virginite savante_, as Balzac phrases it in +"Modeste Mignon," and her inability to give due weight to ameliorating +circumstances were unwomanly. I confess I am not without sympathy with +this criticism. Svava, though she is right in her vehement protest +against masculine immorality, is not charming--that is, according to our +present notion of what constitutes womanly charm. It is not unlikely, +however, that like Leonarda she is meant to anticipate a new type of +womanhood, co-ordinate and coequal with man, whose charm shall be of a +wholly different order. The coquetry, the sweet hypocrisy, nay, all the +frivolous arts which exercise such a potent sway over the heart of man +have their roots in the prehistoric capture and thraldom; and from the +point of view of the woman suffragists, are so many reminiscences of +degradation. I fancy that Bjoernson, sharing this view, has with full +deliberation made Svava boldly and inexorably truthful, frank as a boy +and as uncompromisingly honest as a man. + +She has sufficient use for this masculine equipment (I am speaking in +accordance with the effete standards) in the battle which is before her. +Dr. Nordan, the family physician, her parents, and those of her +_fiance_, take her to task and endeavor to demonstrate to her the +consequences of her unprecedented demand. She learns in the course of +this prolonged debate that she has been living in a fool's paradise. She +has been purposely (and with the most benevolent intention) deceived in +regard to this question from the very cradle. Her father, whom she has +believed to be a model husband, proves to have been unworthy of her +trust. The elder Christensen has also had a compromising intrigue of the +same kind; and it becomes obvious that each male creature is so +indulgent in this chapter toward every other male creature, because each +knows himself to be equally vulnerable. There is a sort of tacit +freemasonry among them, which takes its revenge upon him who tells tales +out of school. It is a consciousness of this which makes Christensen, +after having declared war to the knife against the Riises, withdraw his +challenge and become doubly cordial toward his enemy. Alf, who in the +second act has expressed the opinion that a man is responsible to his +wife for his future, but not for his past, retracts, and does penance. +Svava, in consideration of his penitence, gives him a vague hope of +future reconciliation.[9] + + [9] In the later acting version of the play, which ends with the + throwing of the glove, this hope of reconciliation is definitely cut + off. The author has evidently come to the conclusion that his + argument is weakened by Svava's conciliatory attitude, and he + enforces his moral by making the sin appear unpardonable. The acting + version, which is more dramatically concise, differs in several + other respects from the version here presented; but the other + changes seem to be dictated by a stricter regard for the exigencies + of theatrical representation. The play has been translated into + English under the title, "A Gauntlet," London, 1894. + +It will be observed by every reader of "A Glove" that it is not a drama, +according to our American notion. It has very little dramatic action. It +might be styled a series of brilliant and searching debates concerning a +theme of great moment. The same definition applies, though in a lesser +degree, to "The New System" (1879), a five-act play of great power and +beauty. By power I do not mean noise, but convincing impressiveness and +concentration of interest. One could scarcely imagine anything farther +removed from the ha! and ho! style of melodrama. + +"The New System" is primarily social satire. It is a psychological +analysis of the effect of the "small state" upon its citizens. It is an +expansion and exemplification of the proposition (Act I., 1) that "while +the great states cannot subsist without sacrificing their small people +by the thousands, small states cannot subsist without the sacrifice of +many of their great men, nay of the very greatest." The smooth, crafty +man, "who can smile ingratiatingly like a woman," rises to the higher +heights; while the bold, strong, capable man, who is unversed in the +arts of humility and intrigue, struggles hopelessly, and perhaps in the +end goes to the dogs, because he is denied the proper field for his +energy. Never has Bjoernson written anything more convincing, +penetrating, subtly satirical. He cuts deep; every incision draws blood. +A Norwegian who reads the play cannot well rid himself of a startled +sense of exposure that is at first wounding to his patriotism. It is +mortifying to have to admit that things are thus in Norway. And the +worst of it is that there appears to be no remedy. The condition is, +according to Bjoernson, inherent in all small states which cripple the +souls of men, stunt their growth, and contract their horizon. + +The first act opens with a conversation between the civil engineers +Kampe and Ravn, and the former's son Hans, who has just returned from a +prolonged sojourn abroad. The keynote is struck in the sarcastic remark +of Ravn, that in a small society only small truths can be tolerated--of +the kind that takes twenty to the inch; but great truths are apt to be +explosive and should therefore be avoided, for they might burst the +whole society. This is _a propos_ of a book which Hans Kampe has +written, exposing the wastefulness and antiquated condition of the +so-called "new system" of railway management introduced, or supposed to +have been introduced, by Kampe's and Ravn's brother-in-law, the +supervisor-general Riis. The way for Hans to make a career, declares the +worldly wise Ravn, is not to oppose the source of promotion and power, +but to be silent and marry the supervisor-general's daughter. Ravn has +learned this lesson by bitter experience, and hopes that his nephew will +profit by it. All talk about duty to the state and society he pretends +to regard as pure moonshine, and he professes not to see the connection +between the elder Kampe's drunkenness and the artificial bottling up to +which he has been subjected, the curbing and jailing of Titanic powers +which once sought outlet in significant action. The same mighty force +which in its repression drives the men to the brandy-bottle makes the +women intoxicate themselves with fictitious narratives of high courage, +daring rescues, and all kinds of melodramatic heroism. Extremely amusing +is the scene in which Karen Riis (who loves Hans and is beloved by him) +goes rowing with her friends Nora and Lisa, taking with her a stock of +high-strung novels, and when a drowning man cries to them for help they +row away posthaste, because the man is naked. + +The second act shows us the type of the successful man of compromise, +who takes the world as he finds it, and cleverly utilizes the foibles of +his fellow-men. The supervisor-general is a sort of personification of +public opinion. He is always correct, professes to believe what others +believe, and conforms from prudent calculation to the religious customs +of the community. He demands of his son Frederic that he shall abandon a +young girl whom he loves and has seduced, and he requires of his +daughter Karen that she shall, out of regard for her family, renounce +her lover. He feigns all proper sentiments and emotions, while under +the smooth, agreeable mask lurk malice and cunning. When Hans Kampe's +book reaches him, it never occurs to him to examine it on its merits; +his only thought is to make it harmless by inventing a scandalous +motive. The elder Kampe has just resigned from the railway service; the +supervisor-general (with infamous shrewdness) demands an official +inquiry into the state of his accounts. Then all the world will say that +Hans Kampe has been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing that +an investigation is inevitable, wishes to throw dust in the eyes of the +public and save his own reputation by attacking that of his superior. It +is needless to say that he has not a shadow of suspicion regarding +Kampe's honesty, but merely chooses for his own defence the weapon which +he knows to be the most effective. + +In order to fortify his position and sound the sentiment of the +profession, Riis gives a grand dinner to the engineers of the city, to +which Kampe and his son are also invited. The chairman of the committee +on railways (of the national diet) is present, and when it appears that +Hans Kampe makes a favorable impression upon him, the friends of Riis +concoct a scheme to injure him. They inform his father that he is +suspected of embezzlement, and get him drunk, whereupon the old man +scandalizes the company by a burst of uncomplimentary candor. When Hans +arrives the mischief is done; though the pathetic scene between father +and son convinces the chairman that, whatever their failings, these men +are true and genuine. Simply delicious is the satire in the scene where +the ladies discuss the question at issue between Riis and Kampe. But +this satire is deprived of much of its force by the subsequent +development of the plot. The logical ending would seem to be the triumph +of the supervisor-general's defensive tactics and the discomfiture of +his critics. That would have given point to the criticism of the small +state and invested the victims of progress with an almost tragic +dignity. Bjoernson chooses, however, to let neither the one party nor the +other triumph. In a small state, he says, no one is victorious; +everything ends in compromise. If two parties championed two different +plans of railway construction, the one of which was demonstrated to be +superior in economy and safety to the other, such a demonstration would +not be likely to result in its adoption. No, the two parties would come +together, dicker and compromise, and in the end the diet would agree to +build one road according to the one plan, and one according to the +other. Agreeably to this principle Bjoernson leaves the honors between +the combatants about easy; but Riis, deserted by his children, undergoes +a partial change of heart and is seized with doubt as to the excellence +of his philosophy of life. + +That the satire of "The New System" struck home is obvious from the +fierceness and virulence of the criticism with which it was hailed. It +has never become fairly domesticated on the Scandinavian stages, and +probably never will be. In Germany, France, and Holland it has received +respectful attention, and (I am informed) has proved extremely effective +upon the boards. + +In the same year as "The New System" (1879) appeared the delightful +novelette "Captain Mansana," dealing with Italian life, and throwing +interesting side-lights upon the War of Liberation. There is an +irresistible charm in the freshness, the vividness, the extreme +modernness of this little tale. The mingled simplicity and +sophistication of the Italian character, the histrionic touch which yet +goes with perfect sincerity, the author has apprehended and presented +with happy realism. + +In "Beyond their Strength" (_Over Aevne_) (1883) Bjoernson has invaded +the twilight realm of psycho-pathological phenomena, and refers the +reader for further information to _Lecons sur le systeme nerveux, faites +par J. M. Charcot_, and _Etudes cliniques sur l'hystero-epilepsie ou +grande hysterie, par le Dr. Richer_. As a man is always in danger of +talking nonsense in dealing with a subject concerning which his +knowledge is superficial, I shall not undertake to pronounce upon the +validity of the theory which is here advanced. The play is an inquiry +into the significance and authenticity of miracles. Incidentally the +theme is faith-healing, the hypnotic effect of prayer, and kindred +phenomena. + +Pastor Sang, a clergyman in a remote parish of Northern Norway, is famed +far and wide as the miracle-priest, and it is popularly believed that he +can work wonders, as the apostles did of old. He has given away his +large fortune to the poor; in a fervor of faith he plunges into every +danger, and comes out unscathed; he lives constantly in an overstrained +ecstasy, and by his mere presence, and the atmosphere which surrounds +him, forces his wife and children to live in the same state of high +nervous tension and unnatural abstraction from mundane reality and all +its concerns. His wife, Clara, who loves him ardently, is gradually worn +out by this perpetual strain, which involves a daily overdraft upon her +vitality; and finally the break comes, and she is paralyzed. For, like +everyone who comes in contact with Sang, she has had to live "beyond her +strength." She does not fully share her husband's faith, and though she +feels his influence and admires his lofty devotion, there is a +half-suppressed criticism in her mind. She feels the unwholesomeness of +thus "living by inspiration, and not by reason." When he comes to her, +"beaming always with a Sabbath joy," she would fain tune him down, if +she could, into a lower key, "the C-major of every-day life," as +Browning calls it. But in this effort she has had no success, for Sang's +ecstatic elevation above the concerns of earth is not only +temperamental; nature itself, in the extreme North, favors it. As Clara +expresses it: + +"Nature here exceeds the limits of the ordinary. We have night nearly +all winter; we have day nearly all summer--and then the sun is above the +horizon, both day and night. Have you seen it in the night? Do you know +that behind the ocean vapors it often looks three or four times as large +as usual? And then the color-effects upon sky, sea, and mountain! From +the deepest glow of red to the finest, tenderest, golden white. And the +colors of the aurora upon the wintry sky!" etc. + +It is the most ardent desire of Sang to heal his wife, as he has healed +many others. But the doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time +he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty +effort--to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as +Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his +petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in +sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but +divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this +new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of +others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their way to some +convention, stop to convince themselves of the authenticity of the +miracle, and to determine the attitude which they are to assume toward +it. Then follows a long discussion between the bishop and the clergy +regarding the value of miracles, some maintaining that the church has +outgrown the need of them, others that they are indispensable--that +Christianity cannot survive without them. For has not Christ promised +that "even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is not this a case of +the faith which verily can say to the mountain, "Rise up and cast +thyself into the sea?" + +The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than the deflection of the +avalanche, is that Clara, who has slept for the first time in a month, +now rises from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, and falls +upon his neck amid the ringing of the church-bells and the hallelujahs +of the assembled multitudes. But when he tries to raise her she is dead, +and he himself, overwhelmed by his emotion, falls dead at her side. + +This is so obviously a closet-drama that it is difficult to imagine how +it would look under the illumination of the foot-lights. For all that, I +see a recent announcement that the trial is soon to be made at the +_Theatre Libre_ in Paris.[10] No Scandinavian theatre, as far as I know, +has as yet had the courage to risk the experiment. In his next play, +however, "Love and Geography" (1885), Bjoernson reconquered the stage and +repeated his early triumphs. From the scientific seriousness of "Beyond +their Strength" his pendulum swung to the opposite extreme of light +comedy, almost bordering on farce. Not that "Love and Geography" is +without a Bjoernsonian moral, but it is amusingly, jocosely enforced in +scenes of great vivacity and theatrical effect. This time it is himself +the author has chosen to satirize. The unconscious tyranny of a man who +has a mission, a life-work, is delightfully illustrated in the person of +the geographer, Professor Tygesen, to whom Bjoern Bjoernson, the actor, +when he played the part at the Christiania Theatre, had the boldness to +give his father's mask. Professor Tygesen is engaged upon a great +geographical opus, and gradually takes possession of the whole house +with his maps, globes, and books, driving his wife from the parlor floor +and his daughter to boarding-school. So absorbed is he in his work that +he can talk and think of nothing else. He neglects the social forms from +sheer abstraction and becomes almost a boor, because all the world +outside of his book pales into insignificance, and all persons and +events are merely interesting in so far as they can stimulate inquiry or +furnish information bearing upon the immortal opus. The inevitable +consequence follows. The professor alienates all who come in contact +with him. He is on the point of losing the affection of his wife, and +his daughter comes near going astray for want of paternal supervision. +Both these calamities are, however, averted, though in an arbitrary and +highly eccentric manner. The professor's eyes are opened to the error of +his ways, he does penance, and the curtain falls upon a reunited family. + + [10] July, 1894. + +The unpretentious little story "Dust" (_Stoev_, 1882) undertakes to +demonstrate the unwholesomeness of the religious ideas regarding the +life to come usually impressed upon children by parents and teachers. By +dust Bjoernson means all obsolete, lifeless matter in the world of +thought which settles upon, and often impairs, the vitality of the +living growth, or even chokes it outright. "When children are taught +that the life here is nothing compared to the life to come--that to be +visible is nothing compared to being invisible--that to be a man is +nothing compared to being an angel--that to be alive is nothing compared +to being dead--then that is not the way to give them the right view of +life; not the way to teach them to love life; not the way to inspire +them with courage, energy, and patriotism." + +In his novel "Flags in City and Harbor" (1884), the English translation +of which is entitled "The Heritage of the Kurts," Bjoernson has attacked +a tremendous problem. He has attempted to illustrate the force of +heredity, and the exact extent to which it may be modified by +environment--to what extent an unfavorable heredity may be counteracted +by a favorable environment. The family of Kurt, whose history is here +traced through five generations, inherits a temperament which would have +secured its survival and raised it to distinction in barbaric ages, but +which will as surely, unless powerfully modified, necessitate its +extinction in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable of +assimilating civilization. An excess of physical vigor in the first Kurt +who settled in Norway takes the form of lawlessness and an entire +absence of moral restraint. + +Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished because Kurt is +powerful and has friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and +Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is +modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is +not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody, +and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a +man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of +a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his +authority over the simple inhabitants of the little coast town. +Moreover, he is endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, and +is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and other pursuits. But he +is the terror of women, and his sensual excesses so undermine his +strength that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually +pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose death he had caused. Konrad +Kurt, the son of Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure to +see his mother maltreated by his father. He inherits a shattered +constitution and poor nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man, +but he has a strong physical need of drink, and every night he goes to +bed intoxicated. It is the author's purpose to show how the sins of his +fathers, by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad Kurt to drink. +His son, John Kurt, who is the result of a criminal relation, is the +complete incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh blood which +he has derived from his English mother has postponed the doom of the +race and enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses of his +ancestors. He first distinguishes himself as a virtuoso in swearing. The +magnificent redundance and originality of his oaths make him famous in +the army, which he chooses as the first field of his exploits. Later he +roams aimlessly about the world, merely to satisfy a wild need of +adventure. On his return to his native town he signalizes himself by his +vices as a genuine Kurt. The little town, however, cannot find it in its +heart to condemn a man of so distinguished a race, and society, though +it is fully cognizant of his mode of life, not only tolerates but even +pets him. He is entertaining, has been everywhere and seen everything. +He meets a young girl, named Thomasine Rendalen, the daughter of an +educated peasant, who occupies a position as a teacher. She is large, +ruddy, full of health and uncorrupted vigor. John Kurt takes a violent +fancy to her, and moves heaven and earth to induce her to marry him. He +goes even to the length of bribing all her female friends, and they by +degrees begin to sing his praises. At last she yields; a net of subtle +influences surrounds her, and unconsciously she comes to reflect the +view of society. Her moral prudery begins to appear ridiculous to her, +and the so-called common-sense view predominates. The author here, with +great earnestness, emphasizes the responsibility of society in weakening +the moral resistance of the individual rather than strengthening it. +Thomasine Rendalen would not have married John Kurt if society had not +condoned his offences; and society in condoning such offences undermines +its own foundations. + +After his marriage Kurt endeavors to hold his exuberant nature in check, +and for a while is moderately successful. But an uneasy suspicion haunts +him that his wife's friends, in a confidential moment, may expose his +delinquencies, and destroy her confidence in him. He watches her like a +lynx, surprises her at all hours and places, and thereby produces the +suspicion which he is endeavoring to avert. The relation develops with +inevitable logic toward an awful crisis. This is brought about by a mere +trifle. John Kurt, failing to humble his wife, strikes her. The baleful +forces that lurk in the depths of the Kurt temperament rise to the +surface; the whole terrible heritage of savagery overwhelms the feeble +civilization which the last scion has acquired. If Thomasine had been +weak, she would have been killed; but she defends herself with fierce +persistency, and though it seems as if she must succumb, her compact +frame, strengthened by generations of healthful toil, possesses an +endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John +Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture +in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly +viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, +while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he is stricken down by +apoplexy. + +The terror with which Thomasine contemplates her approaching maternity +is one of the finest points in the book. Has she the right to perpetuate +such a race, which will be a curse to itself and to future generations? +Would she not confer a boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she +sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by self-destruction she would +forever cut off the turbid current of the Kurt blood which had darkened +the vital stream of the race for centuries. The moral exaltation which +manifests itself in this struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings +to life desperately; she is young and strong, unsentimental, and averse +to ascetic enthusiasm. It finally occurs to her that her own race, too, +will assert itself in this child; that the pure and vigorous strain +which her own blood will infuse may redeem it from the dark destiny of +the Kurts. She finally resolves upon a compromise; if the child is dark, +like the Kurts, both it and its mother shall die. If it is blue-eyed and +light-haired, like the Rendalens, she will devote her life to +obliterating in it, or transforming into useful activities, the +destructive vigor of the paternal character. Thomas, when he is born, +chooses a golden mean between these two extremes, and perversely makes +his appearance as a red-haired, gray-eyed infant, in which both a Kurt +and a Rendalen might have made comforting observations. He is +accordingly permitted to live, and to become the hero of one of the most +remarkable novels which has ever been published in Scandinavia. + +He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, by a kind of heroic +conscientiousness and rationality, slowly conquers him and secures his +attachment. She has solemnly abjured her connection with her husband's +family, assumed her maiden name, and has consecrated her life to what +she regards as the highest utility--the work of education. She wishes to +atone to the race for her guilt in having perpetuated the race of the +Kurts. The scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral +portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the smell of all the burning Kurts +is blown far and wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of +another novelist, have been made the central scene in the book. But +Bjoernson is so tremendously in earnest that he cannot afford to stop and +note picturesque effect. Therefore he relates the burning of the Kurts +quite incidentally, and proceeds at once to talk of more serious things. + +By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion into a school, Mrs. +Rendalen believes that she can best settle the account of the Kurts with +humanity. All the latest, improved methods of education are introduced. +The Hall of Knights is turned into a chemical laboratory, and the +daylight is allowed to pour unobscured into all its murky recesses. +Through the dim and lofty passage-ways resounds the laughter of +children; on the scenes of so many hoary crimes the prattle of innocent +girls is heard; a multitude of scientific instruments labor to +demonstrate the laws of nature, and to simplify the problem of existence +which the crimes of the Kurts had tended to complicate. Thomas Rendalen, +profoundly impressed as he is with his responsibility as the last +descendant of such a race, takes up this educational mission with a +lofty humanitarian enthusiasm. He has spent many years abroad in +preparing himself for this work, and possesses, like his +great-grandfather, the gift of lucid exposition. But his perpetual and +conscious struggle with his heritage makes him nervous and ill-balanced. +He conceives the idea, fostered both by observation and by the study of +his own family history, that unchastity is the chief curse of humanity, +and the primal cause of the degeneracy of races. He believes that the +false modesty which leaves young people in ignorance of one of the most +important natural functions is largely responsible for the prevailing +immorality, and he advocates, as a remedy, fearless and searching +physiological study. His inaugural address as superintendent of the +school deals uncompromisingly with this subject, and excites such +universal indignation that it comes near wrecking the promising +enterprise. A great speech in a small town, Bjoernson hints, is always +more or less risky. But we are also given to understand that though +Rendalen obviously speaks out of the author's heart, this very speech +is in itself a subtle manifestation of the Kurt heritage. Rendalen is as +immoderate in virtue as his ancestors have been in vice. The violent +energy which formerly expended itself in lawless acts now expends itself +in an excessive, ascetic enthusiasm for self-conquest and lofty +humanitarian ideals. As a piece of psychology this is admirable. +Prudent, well adapted or adaptable to the civilization in which he +lives, the scion of the Kurts is not yet; but as a promise of the +redemption of the race he represents the first upward step. It is highly +characteristic of Bjoernson's respect for reality that he makes Rendalen +neither agreeable, handsome, nor lovable; nay, he dwells again and again +on the bad relations which temporarily exist between him and his mother, +between him and the teachers, between him and the town. For all that we +are filled with a profound respect for a man who can fight in himself so +great a fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy peasant +blood which he derived from his mother that enables him to wrestle thus +mightily with the Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we +are assured in the last pages of the book that he makes a marriage, +which is a further step toward health and virtue. We are not assured +that he conquers happiness either for himself or for his wife; and there +is not a syllable to betray that he cherishes for her any romantic +attachment. But the chances are that, in transforming and ennobling the +Kurt heritage, he insures vigor and usefulness to his descendants. He +bequeathes to them a more wholesome mixture of blood than he himself +possesses, and an energy, nay, perhaps a genius, derived from the Kurts, +which, with an upward instead of a downward tendency, may be a redeeming +force in society instead of a corrupting one. + +In order not to miss any phase of his problem, Bjoernson also takes up +briefly the illegitimate line of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with +any favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of +vice. The inevitable result is insanity and ultimate extinction. Mrs. +Rendalen's visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar +scream of her own son in a terrible little ragamuffin, is one of the +most remarkable incidents in this remarkable book. + +One thing that especially strikes the reader in this novel is the +author's fierce indignation against all shams, deceits, and social lies. +Therefore he calls a spade a spade, and leaves you to blush if you are +so inclined. The young girls whom he introduces are mostly misses in +their teens, and his portrayal of them is physiological rather than +pictorial. The points which he selects for comment are those which would +particularly be noted by their medical advisers; and the progress of +their histories, as he follows them, is characterized by this same +scientific minuteness of observation. Zola's ideal of scientific realism +(which Bjoernson has repudiated) has nevertheless found its most +brilliant exponent in him. Here the sordid and cruel facts of life are +not dwelt upon by preference; nor are they optimistically glossed over. +I doubt if a great and vital problem has ever been more vigorously, +unflinchingly, and convincingly treated in a work of fiction. + +"_Paa Guds Veje_" ("In the Ways of God"), (1889), in which Thomas +Rendalen again figures, though not as hero, is another indictment of +conventional morality. It is a very powerful but scarcely an agreeable +book. The abrupt, laconic style has no flux, no continuity, and gives +the reader the sensation of being pulled up sharply with a curb bit, +whenever he fancies that he has a free rein. Though every page is +crowded with trenchant and often admirable observations, they have not +the coherence of an organic structure, but rather that of a mosaic. The +design is obvious, striking, and impressive. It is neither distorted nor +overdrawn. It is unquestionably thus we treat moral non-conformists, +even though it be in pure self-preservation that they broke the bond +which we are agreed to enforce. The question resolves itself into this: +Has society, in its effort to uphold its moral standards, the right to +exact the sacrifice of life itself and every hope of happiness from the +victims of its own ignorance and injustice? When the young physician, +Edward Kallem, rescues the eighteen-year old Ragni Kule from the +degradation of her marriage to a husband afflicted with a most loathsome +disease, and afterward marries her--does he deserve censure or praise? +Bjoernson's answer is unmistakable. It is exactly the situation, depicted +five years later, by Madame Sarah Grand in the relation of Edith to the +young rake, Sir Moseley Menteith. Only, Bjoernson rescues the victim, +while the author of "The Heavenly Twins" makes her perish. In both +instances it is the pious ignorance of clerical parents which +precipitates the tragedy. Ragni's deliverance is, however, only an +apparent one. Society, which without indignation had witnessed her sale +to the corrupt old libertine, is frightfully shocked by her marriage to +Dr. Kallem, and manifests its disapproval with an emphasis which takes +no account of ameliorating circumstances. The sanguinary ingenuity in +the constant slights and stabs to which she is exposed makes her life a +martyrdom and finally kills her. "Contempt will pierce the armor of a +tortoise," says an oriental proverb; and poor Ragni had no chelonian +armor. When her most harmless remarks are misinterpreted and her most +generous acts become weapons wherewith to slay her, she loses all heart +for resistance, and merely lies down to die. Very subtile and beautiful +is the manner in which Bjoernson indicates the interaction of psychical +and physical conditions. The "soul-frost" which chills the very marrow +of her bones is so vividly conveyed that you shiver sympathetically. The +self-righteous and brutally censorious attitude of the community lowers +the temperature and makes the atmosphere deadly. And the fact that it +is Ragni's unsuspicious innocence, and even her love of her husband, +which expose her to this condemnation is made plain with much delicate +art. Her residence of five years in the United States after her divorce, +and before her second marriage, had, no doubt, accustomed her to a +greater freedom of intercourse between man and woman, and thereby +disposed her to trip rather lightly over the stumbling-blocks of +prudence. + +The history of Kallem's sister, Josephine, and her husband, the Reverend +Ole Tuft, which is closely interwoven with the above, furnishes us with +two more characters deeply felt and strongly realized. It is they who +are the chief instruments of Ragni's martyrdom. As the upholders of +social purity, and, as it were, professional guardians of morals, it +would seem that Tuft and his wife had scarcely any choice but to condemn +marriage with a _divorcee_. When, however, after Ragni's death, they +discover whom they have slain--how much purer, nobler, and of more +delicate nature she was than either of them--they are dissolved in shame +and remorse. A tremendous crisis in their spiritual lives is produced by +the mortal peril of their only child, whom Kallem saves by a skilful +operation. Out of the ancient religion of dogmas which judges and damns, +Tuft is by these experiences led into a new religion of love, which +values life above faith, and charity above all. The reconciliation of +brother and sister in the last chapter is profoundly moving. The moral +is emphasized in the phrase with which the story closes: "Wherever good +men walk, there are the ways of God." + +The charm of this novel is, to me, that it is strong, virile, instinct +with vital thought. There are blemishes in it, too, which no one will be +likely to overlook. Several chapters read like the reports of a clinic +in a medical journal, so extremely minute and circumstantial are the +accounts of Kallem's operations and hypnotic experiments. An excursion +into botany, _a propos_ of Ragni's walk in the woods, is likewise +overloaded with details and teems with scientific terms. But the +greatest blemish is the outbreak in Kallem (who has the author's fullest +sympathy) of a certain barbaric violence which to civilized people is +well-nigh incomprehensible. Thus, when, after an absence of six years, +he calls upon his brother-in-law, the pastor, he proceeds to turn +handsprings about the latter's study. When, after his marriage, his +sister meets him in the street for the purpose of informing him of the +scandalous rumors concerning his wife, he gives her a box on the ear. + +In Bjoernson's last book, "New Tales" (_Nye Fortaellinger_) (1894), this +tendency to vehemence is even more marked. In the masterly story, +"Absalom's Hair" (than which the author has never written anything more +boldly original) old Harold Kaas literally spanks his young wife in the +presence of his servants. And the matter is in nowise minced, but +described with an unblushing zest which makes the impression of +_naivete_. It is obvious that in his delight in the exhibition of a +healthy, primitive wrath, Bjoernson half forgets how such barbarism must +affect his readers. We hear, to be sure, that the servants were filled +with indignation and horror, and that Harold Kaas, having expected +laughter and applause, "went away a defeated and irremediably crushed +man." But for all that the incident is crude, harsh, and needlessly +revolting. In Russia it might have happened; but I am inclined to doubt +if a Norwegian gentleman, even though he were descended from the +untamable Kurts, would have been capable of so outrageous a breach of +decency. + +Apart from this incident, "Absalom's Hair" is so interpenetrated with a +sense of reality that we seem to live the story rather than read it. I +verily believe it to be a type of what the fiction of the future will +be, when scientific education shall have been largely substituted for +the classical; and even the novelists will be expected to know something +about the world in which they live and the sublime and inexorable laws +which govern it. At present the majority of them spin irresponsible +yarns, and play Providence _ad libitum_ to their characters. Man's vital +coherence with his environment is but loosely indicated. Chance reigns +supreme. They have observed carefully enough the external phenomena of +life--and chiefly for their picturesque or dramatic interest--but of the +causes which underlie them they rarely give us a glimpse. + +It is in this respect that Bjoernson's last tales offer so grateful a +contrast to conventional fiction. Here is a man who has resolutely +aroused himself from the old romantic doze, cleared his eyes of the film +of dreams, and with a sharp, wide-awake intensity focussed them to the +actual aspect of the actual world. He has sat down with his windows wide +open, and allowed the sounds and sights and smells of reality to pour in +upon him. And the magic spectacles are his which enable him to gauge the +significance of the phenomena and divine the causes which lurk behind +them. Therefore his characterizations are often extremely +unconventional, and amid all their picturesque vigor of phrase hint at +the kind of knowledge which could only be possessed by a family +physician. In "Absalom's Hair" we have no mere agglomeration of +half-digested scientific data, but a scientific view of life. The story +moves, from beginning to end, with a beautiful epic calm and a grand +inevitableness which remind one of Tolstoi, and reaches far toward the +high-water mark of modern realism. Take, for instance, the +characterization of Kirsten Ravn (pp. 11-15), and I wonder where in +contemporary fiction so large and deep a comprehension is shown both of +psychic and of physical forces. Emma, the heroine of Flaubert's "Madame +Bovary" is the only parallel I can recall, as regards the kind and +method of portraiture, though there is no resemblance between the +characters. In the development of the character of Rafael Kaas, there +is the same beautiful respect for human nature, the same unshrinking +statement of "shocking" facts, and the same undeviating adherence to the +logic of reality. The hair by which Rafael, as his prototype, the son of +David, is arrested and suspended in the midst of his triumphant race is +sensuality. His life is on the point of being wrecked, and his splendid +powers are dissipated by his inability to restrain his passions. The +tragic fate which hovers over him from the moment of his birth is +admirably hinted at, but not emphasized, in the sketch of his parents. +The carnal overbalance, supplied by the blood of the Kurts, wellnigh +neutralizes the mechanical genius which is hereditary in the blood of +the Ravns. + +It is reported that "Absalom's Hair" has aroused great indignation in +Christiania, because it is claimed that the characters are drawn, with +scarcely an attempt at disguise, from well-known persons in the +Norwegian capital. + +The remaining stories of the volume, "An Ugly Reminiscence of +Childhood," "Mother's Hands," and "One Day" betray the same contempt for +romantic standards, the same capacity for making acquaintance with life +at first hand. The first-named is an account of a murder and execution, +and extremely painful. The second is a bit of pathological psychology _a +propos_ of intemperance. Tastes imprisoned, genius cramped and +perverted, joy of life (_joie de vivre_) denied, will avenge themselves. +They will break out in drunkenness. The hero of "One Day" is afflicted +with the same vice, and apparently for the same reason. The cruel +disillusion which in consequence overtakes the poor little soul-starved +heroine rises almost to the height of tragedy. It is an every-day tale, +full of "deep and blood-veined humanity," and deriving its interest and +significance from the very fact of its commonness. + +What distinguishes the Norsemen above other nations is, generally +speaking, an indestructible self-respect and force of individuality. The +old Norse sagas abound in illustrations of this untamable vigor and +ruthless self-assertion. It was the looseness of the social structure, +resulting from this sense of independence and consequent jealousy and +internecine warfare, which destroyed the Icelandic republic and made +Norway for four centuries a province of Denmark. In all the great men of +Norway we recognize something of the rampant individualism of their +Viking forefathers. Ibsen is the modern apostle _par excellence_ of +philosophic anarchism; and Bjoernson, too, has his full share of the +national aggressiveness and pugnacity. For all that there is a radical +difference between the two. The sense of social obligation which Ibsen +lacks, Bjoernson possesses in a high degree. He fights, not as a daring +guerilla, but as the spokesman and leader of thousands. He is the +chieftain who looms a head above all the people. He wields a heavy +sword, and he deals mighty blows. The wrath that possesses him is, +however, born of love. He fights man in the name of humanity. It is not +for himself, primarily, that he demands larger liberties, securer +rights, more humanizing conditions of life; but it is for his +fellow-men. The many, the small and down-trodden, the dumb millions, +whom Ibsen despises, Bjoernson loves. As Dr. Brandes[11] has so happily +said: + + [11] Det Moderne Gjennembruds Maend, p. 60. + +"Ibsen is a judge, stern as the old judges of Israel. Bjoernson is a +prophet, the hopeful herald of a better day. Ibsen is, in the depth of +his mind, a great revolutionist. In 'The Comedy of Love,' 'A Doll's +House,' and 'Ghosts,' he scourges marriage; in 'Brand,' the State +Church; in the 'Pillars of Society,' the dominant bourgeoisie. Whatever +he attacks is shivered into splinters by his profound and superior +criticism. Only the shattered ruins remain, and we are unable to espy +the new social institutions beyond them. Bjoernson is a conciliatory +spirit who wages war without bitterness. April sunshine glints and +gleams through all his works, while those of Ibsen, with their sombre +seriousness, lie in deep shadow. Ibsen loves the idea--the logical and +psychological consistency which drives Brand out of the church and Nora +out of the marital relation. To Ibsen's love of the idea corresponds +Bjoernson's love of man." + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + +As Bjoernson's works have been translated not only into English, French, +and German, but also largely into Russian, Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, +and even remoter tongues, a bibliography, including all translations, +would demand a volume by itself. I shall therefore only enumerate the +more important English translations; but would warn my readers not to +judge Bjoernson's style by that of his translators. _Arne_: Translated by +Augusta Plesner and S. R. Powers (Boston, 1872). _The Happy Boy_: +Translated by H. R. G. (Boston, 1872). _The Railroad and the +Churchyard_, _The Eagle's Nest_, and _The Father_ are contained in the +volume to which Goldschmidt's _The Flying Mail_ gives the title (Sever, +Francis & Co., Boston and Cambridge, 1870). The following volumes are +translated by Professor R. B. Anderson, and published in a uniform +edition by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (Boston, 1881): _Synnoeve Solbakken_, +_Arne_, _A Happy Boy_, _The Fisher Maiden_, _The Bridal March_, +_Magnhild_, _Captain Mansana and other Stories_. _Sigurd Slembe_: A +Dramatic Trilogy: Translated by William Morton Payne (Boston and New +York, 1888). _Arne_ and _The Fisher Lassie_: Translated, with an +Introduction, by W. H. Low (Bohn Library, London). _Pastor Sang (Over +Aevne)_: Translated by Wm. Wilson (London, 1893). _In God's Way_ +(Heinemann's International Library, London, 1891). _The Heritage of the +Kurts_, 1892. _A Gauntlet_. A Play. London, 1894. A new translation of +all Bjoernson's novels and tales has just been announced by Messrs. +Macmillan & Co., and the first volume, _Synnoeve Solbakken_ (New York and +London, 1895), has appeared. The translation is rather slipshod. + + + + +ALEXANDER KIELLAND + + +In June, 1867, about a hundred enthusiastic youths were vociferously +celebrating their attainment of the baccalaureate degree at the +University of Norway. The orator on this occasion was a tall, handsome, +distinguished-looking young man named Alexander Kielland, from the +little coast town of Stavanger. There was none of the crudity of a +provincial either in his manners or his appearance. He spoke with a +quiet self-possession and a pithy incisiveness which were altogether +phenomenal. + +"That young man will be heard from one of these days," was the unanimous +verdict of those who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, +and noted the maturity of his opinions. + +But ten years passed, and outside of Stavanger no one ever heard of +Alexander Kielland. His friends were aware that he had studied law, +spent some winters in France, married, and settled himself as a +dignitary in his native town. It was understood that he had bought a +large brick and tile factory, and that as a manufacturer of these useful +articles he bid fair to become a provincial magnate, as his fathers had +been before him. People had almost forgotten that great things had been +expected of him, and some fancied perhaps that he had been spoiled by +prosperity. Remembering him, as I did, as the most brilliant and notable +personality among my university friends, I began to apply to him +Mallock's epigrammatic damnation of the man of whom it was said at +twenty that he would do great things, at thirty that he might do great +things, and at forty that he might have done great things. + +This was the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland +(and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879 +a modest volume of "Novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to +all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style +which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the +Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, +a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle, and occasional flashes of wit +which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. It was obvious that this author +was familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired through them +that clear and crisp incisiveness of utterance which was supposed, +hitherto, to be untransferable to any other tongue. + +As regards the themes of these "Novelettes," it was remarked at the time +of their first appearance that they hinted at a more serious purpose +than their style seemed to imply. Who can read, for instance, "Pharaoh" +(which in the original is entitled "A Ball Mood") without detecting the +revolutionary note that trembles quite audibly through the calm and +unimpassioned language? There is, by the way, a little touch of +melodrama in this tale which is very unusual with Kielland. "Romance and +Reality," too, is glaringly at variance with conventional romanticism in +its satirical contrasting of the prematrimonial and the postmatrimonial +view of love and marriage. The same persistent tendency to present the +wrong side as well as the right side--and not, as literary good manners +are supposed to prescribe, ignore the former--is obvious in the charming +tale, "At the Fair," where a little spice of wholesome truth spoils the +thoughtlessly festive mood; and the squalor, the want, the envy, hate, +and greed which prudence and a regard for business compel the performers +to disguise to the public, become the more cruelly visible to the +visitors of the little alley-way at the rear of the tents. In "A Good +Conscience" the satirical note has a still more serious ring; but the +same admirable self-restraint which, next to the power of thought and +expression, is the happiest gift an author's fairy godmother can bestow +upon him, saves Kielland from saying too much--from enforcing his lesson +by marginal comments, _a la_ George Eliot. But he must be obtuse indeed +to whom this reticence is not more eloquent and effective than a page of +philosophical moralizing. + +"Hope's Clad in April Green" and "The Battle of Waterloo" (the first +and the last tale in the Norwegian edition) are more untinged with a +moral tendency than any of the foregoing. The former is a mere _jeu +d'esprit_, full of good-natured satire on the calf-love of very young +people, and the amusing over-estimate of our importance to which we are +all, at that age, peculiarly liable. + +As an organist with vaguely melodious hints foreshadows in his prelude +the musical _motifs_ which he means to vary and elaborate in his fugue, +so Kielland lightly touched in these "Novelettes" the themes which in +his later works he has struck with a fuller volume and power. What he +gave in this little book was a light sketch of his mental physiognomy, +from which, perhaps, his horoscope might be cast and his literary future +predicted. + +Though a patrician by birth and training, he revealed a strong sympathy +with the toiling masses. But it was a democracy of the brain, I should +fancy, rather than of the heart. As I read the book, sixteen years ago, +its tendency puzzled me considerably, remembering, as I did, with the +greatest vividness, the fastidious and _distingue_ personality of the +author. I found it difficult to believe that he was in earnest. The book +seemed to me to betray the whimsical _sans-culottism_ of a man of +pleasure who, when the ball is at an end, sits down with his gloves on, +and philosophizes on the artificiality of civilization and the +wholesomeness of honest toil. An indigestion makes him a temporary +communist; but a bottle of seltzer presently reconciles him to his lot, +and restores the equilibrium of the universe. He loves the people at a +distance, can talk prettily about the sturdy son of the soil, who is the +core and marrow of the nation, etc.; but he avoids contact with him, +and, if chance brings them into contact, he loves him with his +handkerchief to his nose. + +I may be pardoned for having identified Alexander Kielland with this +type, with which I am very familiar; and he convinced me presently that +I had done him injustice. In his next book, the admirable novel "Garman +and Worse," he showed that his democratic proclivities were something +more than a mood. He showed that he took himself seriously, and he +compelled the public to take him seriously. The tendency which had only +flashed forth here and there in the "Novelettes" now revealed its whole +countenance. The author's theme was the life of the prosperous +_bourgeoisie_ in the western coast towns; and he drew their types with a +hand that gave evidence of intimate knowledge. He had himself sprung +from one of these rich ship-owning, patrician families, had been given +every opportunity to study life both at home and abroad, and had +accumulated a fund of knowledge of the world, which he had allowed +quietly to grow before making literary draughts upon it. The same Gallic +perspicacity of style which had charmed in his first book was here in a +heightened degree; and there was, besides, the same underlying sympathy +with progress and what is called the ideas of the age. What mastery of +description, what rich and vigorous colors, Kielland had at his disposal +was demonstrated in such scenes as the funeral of Consul Garman and the +burning of the ship. There was, moreover, a delightful autobiographical +note in the book, particularly in the boyish experiences of Gabriel +Garman. Such things no man invents, however clever; such material no +imagination supplies, however fertile. Except Fritz Reuter's +Stavenhagen, I know no small town in fiction which is so vividly and +completely individualized, and populated with such living and credible +characters. Take, for instance, the two clergymen, Archdeacon Sparre and +the Rev. Mr. Martens, and it is not necessary to have lived in Norway in +order to recognize and enjoy the faithfulness and the artistic subtlety +of these portraits. If they have a dash of satire (which I will not +undertake to deny), it is such delicate and well-bred satire that no +one, except the originals, would think of taking offence. People are +willing, for the sake of the entertainment which it affords, to forgive +a little quiet malice at their neighbors' expense. The members of the +provincial bureaucracy are drawn with the same firm but delicate touch, +and everything has that beautiful air of reality which proves the world +akin. + +It was by no means a departure from his previous style and tendency +which Kielland signalized in his next novel, "Laboring People" (1881). +He only emphasizes, as it were, the heavy, serious bass chords in the +composite theme which expresses his complex personality, and allows the +lighter treble notes to be momentarily drowned. His theme is the +corrupting influence of the upper upon the lower class. He has in this +book made some appalling, soul-searching studies in the pathology as +well as the psychology of vice. + +Kielland's third novel, "Skipper Worse," marked a distinct step in his +development. It was less of a social satire and more of a social study. +It was not merely a series of brilliant, exquisitely finished scenes, +loosely strung together on a slender thread of narrative, but was a +concise and well-constructed story, full of beautiful scenes and +admirable portraits. The theme is akin to that of Daudet's +"L'Evangeliste;" but Kielland, as it appears to me, has in this instance +outdone his French _confrere_, as regards insight into the peculiar +character and poetry of the pietistic movement. He has dealt with it as +a psychological and not primarily as a pathological phenomenon. A +comparison with Daudet suggests itself constantly in reading Kielland. +Their methods of workmanship and their attitude toward life have many +points in common. The charm of style, the delicacy of touch, and +felicity of phrase, are in both cases pre-eminent. Daudet has, however, +the advantage (or, as he himself asserts, the disadvantage) of working +in a flexible and highly finished language, which bears the impress of +the labors of a hundred masters; while Kielland has to produce his +effects of style in a poorer and less pliable language, which often +pants and groans in its efforts to render a subtle thought. To have +polished this tongue and sharpened its capacity for refined and incisive +utterance, is one--and not the least--of his merits. + +Though he has by nature no more sympathy with the pietistic movement +than Daudet, Kielland yet manages to get psychologically closer to his +problem. His pietists are more humanly interesting than those of Daudet, +and the little drama which they set in motion is more genuinely +pathetic. Two superb figures--the lay preacher Hans Nilsen and Skipper +Worse--surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of +conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, +profane old sea-dog Jacob Worse with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the +attempts of his mother-in-law to convert him, are described not with the +merely superficial drollery to which the subject invites, but with a +sweet and delicate humor which trembles on the verge of pathos. In the +Christmas tale, "Elsie," Kielland has produced a little classic of +almost flawless perfection. With what exquisite art he paints the life +of a small Norwegian coast-town in all its vivid details! While +Bjoernson, in "The Heritage of the Kurts," primarily emphasizes the +responsibility of the individual to society, Kielland chooses to +emphasize the responsibility of society to the individual. The former +selects a hero with vicious inherited tendencies, redeemed by wise +education and favorable environment; the latter portrays a heroine with +no corrupt predisposition, destroyed by a corrupting environment. Elsie +could not be good, because the world was once so constituted that girls +of her kind were not expected to be good. Temptations, perpetually +thronging in her way, broke down the moral bulwarks of her nature; +resistance seemed in vain. In the end, there is scarcely one who, having +read the book, will have the heart to condemn her. + +Incomparably clever is the satire on the benevolent societies which +exist to furnish a kind of officious sense of virtue to their +aristocratic members. "The Society for the Redemption of the Abandoned +Women of St. Peter's Parish" is presided over by a gentleman who is +responsible for the abandoned condition of a goodly number of them. +However, it turns out that those miserable creatures who need to be +redeemed belong to another parish, and accordingly cannot be reached by +St. Peter's. St. Peter's parish is aristocratic, exclusive, and keeps +its wickedness discreetly veiled. The horror of the secretary of the +society, when she hears that "the abandoned woman" who calls upon her +for aid, has a child without being married, is both comic and pathetic. +In fact, there is not a scene in the book which is not instinct with +life and admirably characteristic. + +Besides being the author of some minor comedies and a full-grown drama +("The Professor"), Kielland has published several novels, the more +recent being "Poison" (1883), "Fortuna" (1884), "Snow" (1886), and "St. +John's Eve" (1887). + +The note of promise and suspense with which "Snow" ends is meant to be +symbolic. From Kielland's point of view, Norway is yet wrapped in the +wintry winding-sheet of a tyrannical orthodoxy, and all he dares assert +is that the chains of frost and snow seem to be loosening. There is a +spring feeling in the air. + +This spring feeling is scarcely perceptible in his last book, "Jacob" +(1890), which is written in anything but a hopeful mood. It is rather a +protest against that optimism which in fiction we call poetic justice. +The harsh and unsentimental logic of reality is emphasized with a +ruthless disregard of rose-colored traditions. + +From the pedagogic point of view, I have no doubt that "Jacob" would be +classed as an immoral book. But the question of its morality is of less +consequence than the question of its truth. The most modern literature, +which is interpenetrated with the spirit of the age, has a way of asking +dangerous questions--questions before which the reader, when he +perceives their full scope, stands aghast. Our old idyllic faith in the +goodness and wisdom of all mundane arrangements has undoubtedly received +a shock. Our attitude toward the universe is changing with the change of +its attitude toward us. What the thinking part of humanity is now +largely engaged in doing is readjusting itself toward the world and the +world toward it. Success is but adaptation to environment, and success +is the supreme aim of the modern man. The authors who, by their fearless +thinking and speaking, help us toward this readjustment should, in my +opinion, whether we choose to accept their conclusions or not, be hailed +as benefactors. It is in the ranks of these that Alexander Kielland has +taken his place, and occupies a conspicuous position. + + + + +JONAS LIE + + +The last Norwegian novelist who is in the Parisian sense _arrive_ is +Jonas Lie.[12] The _Figaro_ has occupied itself with him of late; and +before long, I venture to predict, London and New York will also have +discovered him. English versions of a few of his earlier novels +appeared, to be sure, twenty years ago--in very bad translations--and +accordingly attracted no great attention. "The Visionary," which has +recently been published in London, has had better luck, having been +accorded a flattering reception. Of its popular success it is yet too +early to speak. But even if Jonas Lie were not about to knock at our +gates, I venture to say that I shall earn the gratitude of many a reader +by making him acquainted with this rare, complex, and exceedingly modern +spirit. For Jonas Lie is not (like so many of his brethren of the quill) +a mere inoffensive gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is a +forceful personality of bright perceptions and keen sensations, which +has chosen to express itself through the medium of the novel. He dwells +in a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon the world and its +manifold concerns. In a score of novels of varying degrees of excellence +he has given us vividly realized bits of the views which his windows +command. But what lends their chief charm to these uncompromising +specimens of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament on the +author's part, which suffuses even the harshest narrative with a rosy +glow of hope. Though, generally speaking, there is no very close kinship +between him and the French realists, I am tempted to apply to him Zola's +beautiful characterization of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed him at +that exquisite point where reality ends and poetry begins." Before he +had yet written a single book, except a volume of flamboyant verse, +Bjoernson said of him in a public speech: "His friends know that he only +has to plunge his landing-net down into himself in order to bring it up +full." + + [12] Pronounced _Lee_. + +The man who, in anticipation of his achievements, impressed Bjoernson so +deeply with his genius, was, however, by others, who felt themselves to +be no less entitled to an opinion, regarded as an "original," not to say +a fool. That he was decidedly queer, his biography by Arne Garborg amply +testifies. + + "Two souls, alas, abide within my breast, + The one forever strives against the other," + +says Faust; and Jonas Lie's life and literary activity are apparently, +in a very real sense, the result of a similar warfare. There was, +indeed, a good ancestral reason for the duality of his nature. His +father, a judge of sterling ability and uprightness, was descended, but +a few generations back, from sturdy, blond, Norwegian peasants; while +his mother was of Finnish, or possibly Gypsy, descent. I remember well +this black-eyed, eccentric little lady, with her queer ways, +extraordinary costumes, and still more extraordinary conversation. It is +from her Jonas Lie has inherited the fantastic strain in his blood, the +strange, superstitious terrors, and the luxuriant wealth of color which +he lavished upon his poems and his first novel, "The Visionary." From +his paternal ancestors, who were for three generations judges and +judicial functionaries, he has derived his good sense, his intense +appreciation of detail, and his strong grip on reality. His career +represents at its two poles a progression from the adventurous +romanticism of his maternal heritage to the severe, wide-awake realism +of the paternal--the emancipation of the Norseman from the Finn. + +"Jonas Lie has a good memory," writes his biographer. "Thus he +remembers--even though it be as through a haze--that he was once in the +world as the son of a laborer, a carpenter, or something in that line, +and that he went with food in a tin-pail to his father, when he was at +work. During this incarnation he must have behaved rather shabbily; for +in the next he found himself degraded to a fox--a silver fox--and in +this capacity he was shot one moonlight night on the snow. After that +he emerged, according to his recollection, as Jonas Lauritz Idemil, son +of the lawyer Mons Lie, at Hougsund, in Eker. This took place November +6, 1833." + +When he was but a few years old his father removed, in various official +capacities, to Mandal, Soendhordland, and, finally, to the city of +Tromsoe, in Nordland. It was here, in the extreme north, that Jonas +spent the years of his boyhood, and it was this wild, enchanted region +which put the deepest impress upon his spirit. + +"In Nordland," he says in "The Visionary," the hero of which is +essentially the Finnish half of himself, "all natural phenomena are +intense, and appear in colossal contrasts. There is an endless, +stony-gray desert as in primeval times, before men dwelt there; but in +the midst of this are also endless natural riches. There is sun and +glory of summer, the day of which is not only twelve hours, but lasts +continuously, day and night, for three months--a warm, bright, +fragrance-laden summer, with an infinite wealth of color and changing +beauty. Distances of seventy to eighty miles across the mirror of the +sea approach, as it were, within earshot. The mountains clothe +themselves up to the very top with greenish-brown grass, and in the +glens and ravines the little birches join hands for play, like white, +sixteen-year-old girls; while the fragrance of the strawberry and +raspberry fills the air as nowhere else; and the day is so hot that you +feel a need to bathe yourself in the sun-steeped, plashing sea, so +wondrously clear to the very bottom.... Myriads of birds are surging +through the air, like white breakers about the cliffs, and like a +screaming snow-storm about their brooding-places...." + +But "as a contrast there is a night of darkness and terror which lasts +nine months." + +In this arctic gloom, during which the yellow candle-light struggled all +day long through the frost-covered window-panes, the Finn grew big in +Jonas Lie, and the Norseman shrank and was almost dwarfed. The air was +teeming with superstitions which he could not help imbibing. His fancy +fed eagerly on stories of Draugen, the terrible sea-bogie who yells +heartrendingly in the storm, and the sight of whom means death; on +blood-curdling tales of Finnish sorcery and all sorts of uncanny +mysteries; on folk-legends of trolds, nixies, and foul-weather sprites. +He had his full share of that craving for horrors which is common to +boyhood; and he had also the most exceptional facilities for satisfying +it. Truth to tell, if it had not been for the Norse Jekyll in his nature +the Finnish Hyde might have run away with him altogether. They were +mighty queer things which often invaded his brain, taking possession of +his thought, paralyzing his will, and refusing to budge, no matter how +earnestly he pleaded. There were times when he grew afraid of himself; +when his imagination got the upper hand, blowing him hither and thither +like a weather-cock. Then the Norse Jekyll came to his rescue and routed +his uncomfortable yoke-fellow. Hence that very curious phenomenon that +the same man who has given us sternly and soberly realistic novels like +"The Family at Gilje" and "The Commodore's Daughters," is also the +author of the collection of tales called "Trold," in which his fancy +runs riot in a phantasmagoria of the grotesquest imaginings. The same +Jonas Lie who comports himself so properly in the parlor is quite +capable, it appears, of joining nocturnally the witches' dance at the +Brocken and cutting up the wildest antics under the pale glimpses of the +moon. + +Throughout his boyhood he struggled rather ineffectually against his +Hyde, who made him kill roosters, buy cakes on credit, go on forbidden +expeditions by land and sea, and shamefully neglect his lessons. +Accordingly, he made an early acquaintance with the rod, and was +regarded as well-nigh incorrigible. He accepted with boyish stoicism the +castigations which fell pretty regularly to his lot, bore no one any +grudge for them, but rarely thought of mending his ways, in order to +avoid them. They were somehow part of the established order of things +which it was useless to criticise. In his reminiscences from his early +years, which he published some years ago, he is so delightfully boy, +that no one who has any recollection of that barbaric period in his own +life can withhold his sympathy. The following, for instance, seems to me +charming: + +"I can still feel how she (Kvaen Marja, the maid) pulled us, cowering +and reluctant, out of our warm beds, where we lay snug like birds in +their nests, between the reindeer skin and the sheepskin covering. I +remember how I stood asleep and tottering on the floor, until I got a +shower of cold water from the bathing-sponge over my back and became +wide awake. Then to jump into our clothes! And now for the lessons! It +was a problem how to get a peep at them during the scant quarter hour, +while the breakfast was being devoured down in the dining-room with +mother, who sat and poured out tea before the big astral lamp, while +darkness and snow-drift lay black upon the window-panes. Then up and +away!... + +"There (in the school) I sat and perspired in the sultry heat of the +stove, and with a studiously unconcerned face watched with strained +anxiety every expression and gesture of the teacher. Was he in +good-humor to-day? Would that I might escape reciting! He began at the +top.... That was a perfect millstone lifted from my breast, though, as +yet, nothing could be sure. Now for a surreptitious peep at the end of +the lesson." + +It was Jonas Lie's ambition at that time to become a gunsmith. He had a +profound respect for the ingenuity and skill required for such a curious +bit of mechanism. But his father, who could not afford to have a member +of his family descend into the rank of artisans, promptly strangled +that ambition. Then the sea, which has been "the Norseman's path to +praise and power," no less than the Dane's, lured the adventurous lad; +and his parent, who had no exalted expectations regarding him, gave his +consent to his entering the Naval Academy at Fredericksvaern. But here +he was rejected on account of near-sightedness. Nothing remained, then, +but to resume the odious books and prepare to enter the University. But +to a boy whose heroes were the two master-thieves, Ola Hoeiland and Gjest +Baardsen, that must have been a terribly arduous necessity. However, he +submitted with bad grace, and was enrolled as a pupil at the gymnasium +in Bergen. Here his Finnish Hyde promptly got him into trouble. Having +by sheer ill luck been cheated of his chances of a heroic career, he +began to imagine in detail the potentialities of greatness for the loss +of which Fate owed him reparation. And so absorbed did he become in this +game of fancy, and so enamored was he of his own imaginary deeds, that +he lost sight of the fact that they were of the stuff that dreams are +made of. With frank and innocent trustfulness he told them to his +friends, both young and old, and soon earned a reputation as a most +unblushing liar. But if any one dared call him that to his face, he had +to reckon with an awe-inspiring pair of fists which were wielded with +equal precision and force. The youth, being at variance with the world, +lived in a state of intermittent warfare, and he gave and received +valiant blows, upon which he yet looks back with satisfaction. + +In spite of his distaste for books Jonas Lie managed, when he was +eighteen years old, to pass the entrance examination to the University. +Among his schoolmates during his last year of preparation at Heltberg's +Gymnasium, in Christiania, were Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson and Henrik Ibsen. +The former took a great interest in the odd, _naive_, near-sighted +Nordlander who walked his own ways, thought his own thoughts, and +accepted ridicule with crushing indifference. + +"I was going about there in Christiania," he says in a published letter +to Bjoernson, "as a young student, undeveloped, dim, and unclear--a kind +of poetic visionary, a Nordland twilight nature--which after a fashion +espied what was abroad in the age, but indistinctly in the dusk, as +through a water telescope--when I met a young, clear, full-born force, +pregnant with the nation's new day, the blue steel-flash of +determination in his eyes and the happily found national +form--pugnacious to the very point of his pen. I gazed and stared, +fascinated, and took this new thing aboard along the whole gunwale. +Here, I felt, were definite forms, no mere dusk and fantastic +haze--something to fashion into poetry.... From the first hour you knew +how to look straight into this strange twilight of mine, and you espied +flashes of the aurora there when no one else did, like the true and +faithful friend you are. You helped and guided and found grains of +gold, where others saw mostly nonsense, and perhaps half a screw loose. +While I was straying in search of the spiritual tinsel, with which the +_esprits forts_ of the age were glittering, you taught me, and impressed +upon me, again and again, that I had to seek in myself for whatever I +might possess of sentiment and simplicity--and that it was out of this I +would have to build my fiction." + +This bit of confession is extremely significant. The Finnish Hyde was +evidently yet uppermost. Bjoernson taught Lie to distrust the tinsel +glitter of mere rhetoric, and the fantastic exuberance of invention in +which the young Nordlander believed that he had his _forte_. But the +matter had even a more serious phase than this. It was about this time +that Lie disappeared for a period of three months from his friends, and +even his parents, and when again he emerged into the daylight, he could +give no account of himself. He had simply sauntered about, moping and +dreaming. He had been Hyde. The cold shudders which lurked in his blood +from the long, legend-haunted arctic night could break into open terror +on unforeseen occasions. Grown man though he was, he was afraid of being +alone in the dark--a peculiarity which once got him into a comical +predicament. + +It was his habit when travelling to place his big top-boots at night +within easy reach, so that he might use them as weapons against any +ghost or suspicious-looking object that might be stirring in the gloom. +One evening when he had gone to bed at a country inn, he was aroused +from his sleep and saw indistinctly a white phenomenon fluttering to and +fro along the opposite wall. Instantly he grabs a boot and hurls it with +ferocious force at the goblin. A roar was heard followed by a salvo of +blue profanity. It was a fellow-traveller--a lumber-dealer--who was to +occupy the other bed in the room. He had undressed and was disporting +himself in nocturnal attire before reposing, when Jonas Lie's well-aimed +missile hit him in the stomach and doubled him up with pain. + +A skeleton in the den of a medical friend caused Lie many a shiver, for +he could never quite rid himself of the idea that it moved. All that lay +beyond the range of the senses drew him with an irresistible, +half-shuddering attraction; and he resented all attempts to explain it +by ordinary mundane laws. As his first novel abundantly proves, he +possesses in a marked degree the "sixth sense" that gropes eagerly and +with a half-terrified fascination in the dusk that lies beyond the +daylight of the other five. + +The verses which Jonas Lie began about this time to produce are mostly +written for patriotic and other festive occasions, and therefore arouse +no creepy sensations. But they are so overladen with confusing imagery +that they have to be read twice to be understood. In the poem "Solveig" +(1855) he makes the heart "in its prison envy the free-born thoughts +which fly to the beloved one's breast." His versification is gnarled +and twisted, and a perpetual strain upon the ear. As Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen +has remarked, one need not be a princess in order to be troubled by the +peas in his verse.[13] Browning himself could scarcely have perpetrated +more unmelodious lines than Jonas Lie is capable of. Nevertheless there +is often in his patriotic songs a most inspiriting bugle-note, which is +found nowhere in Browning, unless it be in the "Cavalier Tunes." The +curiosities of his prosody are (according to his biographer) +attributable to the Nordland accent in his speech. They would sound all +right, he says, to a Nordland ear. + + [13] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, p. 527. + +At the risk of violating chronology I may as well speak here of his two +collections of "Poems" (1867 and 1889) (the latter being an expurgated +but enlarged edition of the earlier), to which the present criticisms +particularly apply. Both editions contain notable things amid occasional +bits of what scarcely rises above doggerel. The sailor songs, though +rough, are true in tone and have a catching nautical swing; but of far +deeper ring and more intensely felt are the poems which deal with the +nocturnal sides of nature. These have at times a strange, shivering +resonance, like an old violin whose notes ripple down your spine. I +refer especially to such untranslatable poems as "Draugen," "Finn-Shot," +"The Mermaid," and "Nightmare." The mood of these is heavy and uncanny, +like that of the "Ancient Mariner." But they are indubitably poetry. It +is by no means sure that the world has not lost a poet in Jonas Lie; but +probably a lesser one than the novelist that it gained. + +As Jonas had been voted by his kin the family dullard, it was decided to +make a clergyman of him. But to this the young man objected, chiefly, +according to his own story, because the clerical gown looks too much +like a petticoat. At all events, after having equipped himself with a +set of theological tomes, and peeped cursorily into them, he grew so +discouraged that he went to the bookseller and exchanged them for a set +of law-books. Not that the law had any peculiar attraction for him; he +rather accepted it as a _pis aller_; for, of course, he had to study +something. In due time he was graduated, but with such poor standing +that he concluded to put in another year and try again. And this time he +managed to acquit himself creditably. He then began (1859) the practice +of the law in the little town of Kongsvinger, the centre of the richest +lumber districts in Norway. But in the meanwhile he had had an +experience of another kind which is worth recounting. + +From his boyhood he had been a worshipper of the fair sex. Marriages (of +other people) had been among the most tragic events in his life; and he +rarely failed to shed tears at the thought that now this lovely charmer, +too, was removed from the number of his possible selections. If things +went on in this way he would have no choice but to be a bachelor. +However, one fine day a most attractive-looking craft, bearing the name +Thomasine Lie, appeared upon his horizon, sailed within speaking +distance, and presently a great deal nearer. In fact, though they were +cousins, it took a remarkably short time for the two young people to +discover that they loved each other; and when that discovery was made, +they acted upon it with laudable promptitude. They became engaged; and +were subsequently married. And from that day the Finnish Hyde in Jonas +was downed and reduced to permanent subjection. He never raised his head +again. The more sober-minded, industrious, and sensible Norse Jekyll +took command and steered with a steady hand, in fair weather and foul, +and often through dangerous waters, the barque Jonas Lie, which came to +carry more and more passengers the longer it proceeded on its voyage. + +Truth to tell, I know among contemporary men of letters no more +complete, happy, and altogether beautiful marriage than that of Jonas +and Thomasine Lie. The nearest parallel to it that I can think of is +that of John Stuart Mill and Mrs. Taylor, who later became Mrs. Mill. + +Lie's friends accuse him of carrying his admiration of his wife to the +verge of idolatry. He will leave himself but little merit, but with an +air of candid conviction he attributes even his authorship to his +Thomasine. "Her name ought to stand next to mine on the title-pages of +my books," he has repeatedly declared. And again, "If I have written +anything that is good, then my wife deserves as much credit for it as +myself ... Without her nothing would have come of it except nonsense." + +Even though that may be an exaggeration, pure delusion it is not. For +Mrs. Lie is, in a certain way, the complement to her husband. She +possesses what he has not; and he possesses what she, in her modest +self-extinction, would never dream of laying claim to. The spirit of +order, adjustment, and lucidity is strong in her; while he, in his +fanciful exuberance, is often overwhelmed by his material, and is unable +to get it into shape. Then she quietly steps in and separates the dry +land from the water in his seething and struggling chaos. She is one of +those rare women who, while apparently only listening, can give you back +your own thoughts clarified. Mr. Garborg relates most charmingly how she +straightens out the tangles in her husband's plots, and unobtrusively +draws him back, when, as frequently happens, he has switched himself off +on a side-line and is unable to recover his bearings. And this occurs as +often in his conversation as in his manuscripts, which he never +despatches to the publisher without her revision. She helps him +condense. She knows just what to omit. Yet she does not pretend to be in +the least literary. Her proper department, in which she is also a +shining success, is the care of her children and the superintendence of +her household. She understands to perfection the art of economy and has +a keen practical sense, which makes her admirably competent in all the +more difficult situations in life. And he, feeling her competence and +his own deficiency, frankly leans on her. Hence a certain motherliness +on her part (most beautiful to behold) has tinged their relation; and on +his an admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes in the other +what he himself lacks; and the husband's genius loses none of its +brightness to the wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and +adjusts the reflectors which send its light abroad. + +I have again anticipated, because the subsequent career of Jonas Lie +could not be properly understood without a full appreciation of the new +factor which from this time enters into it. He developed signal ability +as a lawyer during the years of his practice at Kongsvinger; became +prosperous and influential, bought a considerable estate (called +Sigridnaes) and began to dabble in politics. He still wrote occasional +poems, and was the soul of all conviviality in the town. He entertained +celebrities, wrote political leaders in the papers, earned a great deal +of money, lived high, and unfolded a restless and widely ramified +activity. Then came the great financial crisis of 1867-68, which swept +away so many great fortunes in Norway. Lie became involved (chiefly by +endorsement of commercial paper) to the extent of several hundred +thousand dollars. He gave up everything he had, and moved to +Christiania, resolved to pay the enormous debt, for which he had +incurred legal responsibility, to the last farthing. Quixotic as it may +seem, it was his intention to accomplish this by novel-writing. And to +his honor be it said that for a long series of years he kept sending +every penny he could spare, above the barest necessities, to his +creditors, refusing to avail himself of the bankruptcy law and accept a +compromise. But it was a bottomless pit into which he was throwing his +hard-earned pennies, and in the end he had to yield to the persuasions +of his family and abandon the hopeless enterprise. + +In Christiania he spent some hard and penurious years, trying to make a +livelihood as a journalist and man of letters. Some of his friends +suspected that the Lie family were subsisting on very short rations; but +they were proud, and there was no way to help them. The ex-lawyer +developed ultra-democratic sympathies, and time and again his Thomasine +led the dance at the balls of the Laborers' Union with Mr. Eilert +Sundt.[14] A position as teacher of Norwegian in Heltberg's Gymnasium he +lost because he only made orations to his pupils, but taught them no +rhetoric. His volume of "Poems" (1867) had attracted no particular +attention; but his political articles were much read and discussed. +However, it was not in politics that he was to win his laurels. + + [14] A well-known Norwegian philanthropist, whose work on the + Gypsies is highly regarded. + +A little before Christmas, 1870, there appeared from Gyldendal's +publishing-house in Copenhagen a novel, entitled "The Visionary" (_Den +Fremsynte_), by Jonas Lie. To analyze the impression which this strange +book makes at the first reading is difficult. I thought, as I sat +rejoicing in its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: "This +Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and 'The Visionary' is his one +blossom. It is the one good novel which almost every life is said to +contain. Only this is so strikingly good that it is a pity it will have +no successors." + +It was evidently himself, or rather the Finnish part of himself, the +author was exploring; it was in the mine of his own experience he was +delving; it was his own heart he was coining. That may, in a sense, be +true of every book of any consequence; but it was most emphatically true +of "The Visionary." It is not to the use of the first person that this +autobiographical note is primarily due; but to a certain beautiful +intimacy in the narrative, and a _naive_ confidence which charms the +reader and takes him captive. With a lavish hand Lie has drawn upon the +memories of his boyhood in the arctic North; and it was the newness of +the nature which he revealed, no less than the picturesque force of his +language, which contributed in no small degree to the success of his +book. But, above all, it was the sweetness and pathos of the exquisite +love story. Susanna, though as to talents not much above the +commonplace, is ravishing. To have breathed the breath of such warm and +living life into a character of fiction is no small achievement. It is +the loveliness of love, the sweetness of womanhood, the glorious ferment +of the blood in the human springtide which are celebrated in "The +Visionary." The thing is beautifully done. I do not know where young +love has been more touchingly portrayed, unless it be in some of the +Russian tales of Tourgueneff.[15] The second-sight with which the hero, +David Holst, is afflicted, introduces an undertone of sadness--a pensive +minor key--and seems to necessitate the tragic _denouement_. + + [15] Spring Floods, Liza, Faust. + +The immediate success of "The Visionary" changed Jonas Lie's situation +and prospects. He was first sent with a public stipend to Nordland for +the purpose of studying the character, manners, and economic condition +of the dwellers within the polar zone; and, like the conscientious man +he is, he made an exhaustive report to the proper department, detailing +with touching minuteness the results of his observations. The Norwegian +government has always taken a strong (and usually very intelligent) +interest in rising artists, musicians, and men of letters, and has +endeavored by stipends and salaries to compensate them for the smallness +of the public which the country affords. Jonas Lie was now a +sufficiently conspicuous man to come into consideration in the +distribution of the official _panem et circenses_. The state awarded +him a largess of $400 for one year (twice renewed), in order to enable +him to go to Italy and "educate himself for a poet;" and he was also +made a beneficiary of the well-known Schafer legacy for the training of +artists. In the autumn of 1871 he started with his wife and four +children for Rome. It was in a solemnly festal frame of mind that he now +resolved to devote the rest of his life to his real vocation, which at +last he had found. This was what they had all meant--his gropings, +trials, and failures. They had all fitted him for the life-work which +was now to be his. The world lay before him as in the shining calm after +storm. + +He took his artistic training, as everything else, with extreme +seriousness. With the utmost conscientiousness he started out with his +Thomasine, morning after morning, to study the Vatican and the +Capitoline collections. "Happy is the man," says Goethe, "who learns +early in life what art means." But Jonas Lie was thirty-eight years old; +and, as far as I can judge from his writings, I should venture to say +that the secret of classical art has never been unlocked to him. It lies +probably rather remote from the sphere of his sensations. His genius is +so profoundly Germanic that only an ill-wisher would covet for him that +expansion of vision which would enable him to perceive with any degree +of artistic realization and intimacy the glorious serenity of the Juno +Ludovisi and the divine distinction of the Apollo Belvedere. + +The two books which were the first-fruits of the Roman sojourn were a +disappointment to his friends, though in the case of the unpretentious +collection called "Tales and Sketches from Nordland" (1872) there is no +reason why it should have been. The public found that it was not on a +level with "The Visionary," and by "The Visionary" Jonas Lie was bound +to be judged, whether he liked it or not. That is the penalty of having +produced a masterpiece, that one is never permitted to follow the +example of _bonus Homerus_, who, as every one knows, sometimes nods. +Jonas Lie was far from nodding in "The Barque Future" (1872). There was +an abundance of interest in the material, and a delightful picturesque +vigor in the descriptions of nature. But of romantic interest of the +kind which the ordinary novel-reader craves, there was very little. _A +propos_ of "The Barque Future" let me quote a bit of general +characterization which applies to nearly all the subsequent works of +Jonas Lie. + +"It is in this particular that Jonas Lie most distinctly diverges from +all romanticism and romance-writing: His interest in practical affairs, +his ability to see poetry in that which is contemporary. The sawdust in +the rivers has never offended him, nor the Briton's black cloud of +coal-smoke. The busy toil of office and shop is not prose to him. He +penetrates to the bottom of its meaning--its significance to +civilization."[16] + + [16] Arne Garborg: Jonas Lie, p. 172. + +"The Barque Future" is, as regards its problem, Gustav Freytag's _Soll +und Haben_ ("Debit and Credit") transferred to Nordland. Instead of the +noble house of Rothsattel we have the ancient and highly esteemed +commercial firm of Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the +scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel was dragged to ruin by +the Jew Veitel Itzig. But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart +to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can Lie violate the +proprieties of fiction by permitting Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He +could not, like the German novelist, conjure up a noble gentleman of +democratic sympathies and practical ability (like von Finck) and make +him emerge in the nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry, +justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the state by the uses which +he fulfils. In Norway there is no nobility; and Lie, therefore, had to +make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten Jonsen (the equivalent of +Anton Wohlfahrt in _Soll und Haben_) the inheritor of the future. He +accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele Heggelund; but not +until he has put Jacob to shame by the amount and character of the work +by which he earns his Rachel. + +The reception of "The Barque Future" was far from satisfactory to its +author. He grew apprehensive about himself. He could not afford another +failure; nay, not even a _succes d'estime_. Accordingly he waited two +years, and published in 1874 "The Pilot and his Wife," which made its +mark. It is an every-day story in the best sense of the word, the +history of a marriage among common folk. And yet so true is it, so +permeated with a warm and rich humanity, that it holds the reader's +attention from beginning to end. Then, to add to its interest, it has +some bearing upon the woman question. Lie maintains that no true +marriage can exist where the wife sacrifices her personality, and +submits without a protest to neglect and ill-treatment. Happily we are +not particularly in need of that admonition on our side of the ocean. +The wife of the pilot, Salve Christensen, had once broken her engagement +with him, having become enamored of the handsome naval lieutenant, Beck; +but she recovers her senses and marries Christensen, whom she really +loves. After her marriage she tries to do penance for the wrong she has +done him by being, as she fancies, a model wife. But by submission and +self-extinction, so alien to her character, she arouses his suspicion +that she has something on her conscience; and, in his feeling of +outrage, he begins to neglect and abuse her. When, at last, his +maltreatment reaches a climax, she arises in all the dignity of her +womanhood, and asserts her true self. Then comes reconciliation, +followed by a united life of true equality and loving comradeship. + +Such a mere skeleton of a plot can, of course, give no conception of the +wealth of vivid details with which the book abounds. There is, however, +a certain air of effort about it, of a strenuous seriousness, which is, +I fancy, the temperamental note of this author. + +"The Pilot and his Wife" besides reviving Lie's popularity also served +to define his position in Norwegian literature. He had at first been +assigned a definite corner as the "poet of Nordland," but his ambition +was not satisfied with so narrow a province. In all his tales, so far, +he has surpassed all predecessors in his descriptions of the sea; and +the critics, when favorably disposed, fell into the habit of referring +to him as "the novelist of the sea," "the poet of the ocean," etc. The +Norwegian sailor, whom he may be said to have revealed in "The Pilot," +came to be considered more and more as his property; and no one can read +such tales as "Press On" (_Gaa Paa_) and "Rutland" without agreeing that +the title is well merited. I know of no English novelist since Smollett, +who produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions of maritime +life. Mr. Clark Russell, who knows his ship from masthead to keel as +thoroughly as Jonas Lie, and writes fully as clever a story, seems to me +to have a lower aim, in so far as the novel of adventure, _caeteris +paribus_, belongs on a lower level than the novel of character. + +In the year 1874 the Norwegian Storthing conferred upon Jonas Lie an +annual "poet's salary" of about six hundred dollars. This is supposed to +supply a warranty deed to a lot on Parnassus. It removes any possible +flaw in the title to immortality. Lie was now lifted into the +illustrious triumvirate in which Bjoernson and Ibsen were his +predecessors. Great expectations were entertained of his literary +future. But, oddly enough, this official recognition did not have a +favorable effect upon Lie. He felt himself almost oppressed by a sense +of obligation to yield full returns for what he consumed of the public +revenues. In 1875 he published a versified tale, "Faustina Strozzi," +dealing with the struggle for Italian liberty. In spite of many +excellences it fell rather flat, and was roughly handled by the critics. +Even a worse fate befell its successor, "Thomas Ross" (1878), a novel of +contemporary life in the Norwegian capital. It is a pale, and rather +labored story, in which a young girl, of the Rosamond Vincy type, is +held up to scorn, and the atrocity of flirtation is demonstrated by the +most tragic consequences. There is likewise an air of triviality about +"Adam Schrader" (1879); and Lie became seriously alarmed about himself +when he had to register a third failure. Like its predecessor, this book +is full of keen observations, and the sketches of the social futilities +and the typical characters at a summer watering-place are surely good +enough to pass muster. But, somehow, the material fails to combine into +a sufficiently coherent and impressive picture; and the total effect +remains rather feeble. In a drama, "Grabow's Cat" (1880), he suffered +shipwreck once more, though he saved something from the waves. The play +was performed in Christiania and Stockholm, and aroused interest, but +not enough to keep it afloat. + +It has been said of Browning that he succeeded by a series of failures, +which meant, in his case, that his books failed to command instant +attention, but were gradually discovered by the thoughtful few who by +their appreciation spread the poet's fame among the thoughtless many. It +was not in this way that Jonas Lie's failures conduced to his final +success. "Thomas Ross," "Adam Schrader," and "Grabow's Cat" have not +grown perceptibly in the estimation either of the critics or of the +public since their first appearance. But they supplied their author a +hard but needed discipline. They warned him against over-confidence and +routine work. He had passed through a soul-trying experience, in its +effect not unlike the one which Keats describes _a propos_ of +"Endymion:" + +"In 'Endymion' I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby have become +better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than +if I had stayed upon the green shore, took tea and comfortable advice. I +was never afraid of failure--would rather fail than not be among the +greatest." + +Jonas Lie reconquered at one stroke all that he had lost, by the +delightful sea-novel "Rutland" (1881), and reinstated himself still more +securely in the hearts of an admiring public by the breezy tale, "Press +On" (1882). But after so protracted a sea-voyage he began to long for +the shore, where, up to date he had suffered all his reverses. It could +not be that he who had lived all his life on _terra firma_, and was so +profoundly interested in the problems of modern society, should be +banished forever, like "The Man Without a Country," to the briny deep, +and be debarred from describing the things which he had most at heart. +One more attempt he was bound to make, even at the risk of another +failure. Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life Prisoner" +(_Livsslaven_), which deserved a better fate than befell it. The critics +found it depressing, compared it to Zola, and at the same time scolded +the author because he lacked indignation and neglected to denounce the +terrible conditions which he described. He replied to their arraignments +in an angry but very effective letter. But that did not save the book. +Truth to tell, "The Life Prisoner" is a dismal tale. It was, in fact, +the irruption of modern naturalism into Norwegian literature. It reminds +one in its tone more of Dostoyevski's "Crime and Punishment" than of +"L'Assommoir." For to my mind Dostoyevski is a greater exponent of +naturalism than Zola, whom Lemaitre not inaptly styles "an epic poet." +The pleasing and well-bred truths or lies, to the expounding of which +_belles lettres_ had hitherto been confined, were here discarded or +ignored. The author had taken a plunge into the great dumb deep of the +nethermost social strata, which he has explored with admirable +conscientiousness and artistic perception. Few men of letters would +object to being the father of so creditable a failure. Lie, being +convinced that his book was a good one, no matter what the wielders of +critical tomahawks might say to the contrary, resolved to persevere in +the line he had chosen and to pluck victory from the heels of defeat. +And the victory came even the same year (1883), when he published what, +to my mind, is the most charming of all his novels, "The Family at +Gilje." That is a book which is taken, warm and quivering, out of the +very heart of Norway. The humor which had been cropping out tentatively +in Lie's earlier tales comes here to its full right, and his shy, +beautiful pathos gleams like hidden tears behind his genial smile. It is +close wrought cloth of gold. No loosely woven spots--no shoddy woof of +cheaper material. Captain Jaeger and his wife, Inger-Johanna, Joergen, +Grip, nay, the whole company of sober, everyday mortals that come +trooping through its chapters are so delightfully human that you feel +the blood pulse under their skin at the first touch. It is a triumph +indeed, to have written a book like "The Family at Gilje." + +From this time forth Jonas Lie's career presents an unbroken series of +successes. "A Maelstrom" (1884), "Eight Stories," "Married Life" (_Et +Samliv_), (1887), "Maisa Jons" (1888), "The Commodore's Daughters" and +"Evil Powers" (1890), which deal with interesting phases of contemporary +life, are all extremely modern in feeling and show the same effort to +discard all tinsel and sham and get at the very heart of reality. + +He had by this series of novels established his reputation as a +relentless realist, when, in 1892, he surprised his admirers by the +publication of two volumes of the most wildly fantastic tales, entitled +"Trold." It was as if a volcano, with writhing torrents of flame and +smoke, had burst forth from under a sidewalk in Broadway. It was the +suppressed Finn who, for once, was going to have his fling, even though +he were doomed henceforth to silence. It was the "queer thoughts" (which +had accumulated in the author and which he had scrupulously imprisoned) +returning to take vengeance upon him unless he released them. The most +grotesque, weird, and uncanny imaginings (such as Stevenson would +delight in) are crowded together in these tales, some of which are +derived from folk-lore and legends, while others are free fantasies. + +Before taking leave of Jonas Lie, a word about his style is in order. +Style, as such, counts for very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly +individual and vigorous manner of utterance, though a trifle rough, +perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. Mere decorative +adjectives and clever felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and +social phenomena--all that we include under the term modern +progress--command his most intense and absorbed attention. Having since +1882 been a resident of Paris (except during his annual summer +excursions to Norway or the mountains of Bavaria) he has had the +advantage of seeing the society which he describes at that distance +which, if it does not lend enchantment, at all events unifies the +scattered impressions, and furnishes a convenient critical outpost. He +does not permit himself, however, like so many foreigners in the French +capital, to lapse into that supercilious cosmopolitanism which deprives +a man of his own country without giving him any other in exchange. No; +Jonas Lie is and remains a Norseman--a fact which he demonstrated (to +the gratification of his countrymen) on a recent occasion. At the +funeral of the late Professor O. J. Broch--a famous Norwegian who died +in Paris--the chaplain of the Swedish legation made an oration in which +he praised the departed statesman and scientist, referring to him +constantly as "our countryman." When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without +anybody's invitation, stepped quietly up to the coffin and in the name +of Norway bade _his_ countryman a last farewell. "The spirit came over +Lie," says his biographer, "and he spoke with ravishing eloquence." + +But why did he do such an uncalled-for thing, you will ask? Because +there is a systematic effort on the part of Sweden to suppress the very +name of Norway, and to give the impression, throughout the world, that +there is no such nationality as the Norwegian. Therefore every Norseman +(unless he chooses to be a party to this suppression) is obliged to +assert his nationality in season and out of season. But Jonas Lie has, +indeed, in a far more effective way borne aloft the banner of his +country. His books have been translated into French, German, English, +Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Russian, and Bohemian; and throughout +Europe the literary journals and magazines are beginning to discuss him +as one of the foremost representatives of modern realism. + + + + +HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN[17] + + [17] A portion of this essay appeared originally in "The Dial" of + Chicago. + + +Hans Christian Andersen was a unique figure in Danish literature, and a +solitary phenomenon in the literature of the world. Superficial critics +have compared him with the Brothers Grimm; they might with equal +propriety have compared him with Voltaire or with the man in the moon. +Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scientific collectors of folk-lore, and +rendered as faithfully as possible the simple language of the peasants +from whose lips they gathered their stories. It was the ethnological and +philological value of the fairy-tale which stimulated their zeal; its +poetic value was of quite secondary significance. With Andersen the case +was exactly the reverse. He was as innocent of scientific intention as +the hen who finds a diamond on a dunghill is of mineralogy. It was the +poetic phase alone of the fairy-tale which attracted him; and what is +more, he saw poetic possibilities where no one before him had ever +discovered them. By the alchemy of genius (which seems so perfectly +simple until you try it yourself) he transformed the common neglected +nonsense of the nursery into rare poetic treasure. Boots, who kills the +ogre and marries the princess--the typical lover in fiction from the +remotest Aryan antiquity down to the present time--appears in Andersen +in a hundred disguises, not with the rudimentary features of the old +story, but modernized, individualized, and carrying on his shield an +unobtrusive little moral. In "Jack the Dullard" he comes nearest to his +primitive prototype, and no visible effort is made to refine him. In +"The Most Extraordinary Thing" he is the vehicle of a piece of social +satire, and narrowly escapes the lot which the Fates seem especially to +have prepared for inventors, viz., to make the fortune of some +unscrupulous clown while they themselves die in poverty. In "The +Porter's Son" he is an aspiring artist, full of the fire of genius, and +he wins his princess by conquering that many-headed ogre with which +every self-made man has to battle--the world's envy, and malice, and +contempt for a lowly origin. It is easy to multiply examples, but these +may suffice. + +In another species of fairy-tale, which Andersen may be said to have +invented, incident seems to be secondary to the moral purpose, which is +yet so artfully hidden that it requires a certain maturity of intellect +to detect it. In this field Andersen has done his noblest work and +earned his immortality. Who can read that marvellous little tale, "The +Ugly Duckling," without perceiving that it is a subtle, most exquisite +revenge the poet is taking upon the humdrum Philistine world, which +despised and humiliated him, before he lifted his wings and flew away +with the swans, who knew him as their brother? And yet, as a child, I +remember reading this tale with ever fresh delight, though I never for a +moment suspected its moral. The hens and the ducks and the geese were +all so vividly individualized, and the incidents were so familiar to my +own experience, that I demanded nothing more for my entertainment. +Likewise in "The Goloshes of Fortune" there is a wealth of amusing +adventures, all within the reach of a child's comprehension, which more +than suffices to fascinate the reader who fails to penetrate beneath the +surface. The delightful satire, which is especially applicable to Danish +society, is undoubtedly lost to nine out of ten of the author's foreign +readers, but so prodigal is he both of humorous and pathetic meaning, +that every one is charmed with what he finds, without suspecting how +much he has missed. "The Little Mermaid" belongs to the same order of +stories, though the pathos here predominates, and the resemblance to De +la Motte Fouque's "Undine" is rather too striking. But the gem of the +whole collection, I am inclined to think, is "The Emperor's New +Clothes," which in subtlety of intention and universality of application +rises above age and nationality. Respect for the world's opinion and the +tyranny of fashion have never been satirized with more exquisite humor +than in the figure of the emperor who walks through the streets of his +capital in _robe de nuit_, followed by a procession of courtiers, who +all go into ecstasies over the splendor of his attire. + +It was not only in the choice of his theme that Andersen was original. +He also created his style, though he borrowed much of it from the +nursery. "It was perfectly wonderful," "You would scarcely have believed +it," "One would have supposed that there was something the matter in the +poultry-yard, but there was nothing at all the matter"--such beginnings +are not what we expect to meet in dignified literature. They lack the +conventional style and deportment. No one but Andersen has ever dared to +employ them. As Dr. Brandes has said in his charming essay on Andersen, +no one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer the vivid mimicry and +gesticulation which accompany a nursery tale to the printed page. If you +tell a child about a horse, you don't say that it neighed, but you +imitate the sound; and the child's laughter or fascinated attention +compensates you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully you +crow, roar, grunt, and mew, the more vividly you call up the image and +demeanor of the animal you wish to represent, and the more impressed is +your juvenile audience. Now, Andersen does all these things in print: a +truly wonderful feat. Every variation in the pitch of the voice--I am +almost tempted to say every change of expression in the story-teller's +features--is contained in the text. He does not write his story, he +tells it; and all the children of the whole wide world sit about him +and listen with, eager, wide-eyed wonder to his marvellous +improvisations.[18] + + [18] Brandes: Kritiker og Portraiter, p. 303. + +In reading Andersen's collected works one is particularly impressed with +the fact that what he did outside of his chosen field is of inferior +quality--inferior, I mean, judged by his own high standard, though in +itself often highly valuable and interesting. "The Improvisatore," upon +which, next to "The Wonder-Tales," his fame rests, is a kind of +disguised autobiography which exhibits the author's morbid sensibility +and what I should call the unmasculine character of his mind,[19] To +appeal to the reader's pity in your hero's behalf is a daring +experiment, and it cannot, except in brief scenes, be successful. A +prolonged strain of compassion soon becomes wearisome, and not the +worthiest object in the world can keep one's charity interested through +four hundred pages. Antonio, in "The Improvisatore," is a milksop whom +the author, with a lavish expenditure of sympathy, parades as a hero. He +is positively ludicrous in his pitiful softness, vanity, and humility. +That the book nevertheless remains unfailingly popular, and is even yet +found in the satchel of every Roman tourist, is chiefly due to the +poetic intensity with which the author absorbed and portrayed every +Roman sight and sound. Italy throbs and glows in the pages of "The +Improvisatore"--the old vagabond Italy of pre-Garibaldian days, when +priests and bandits and pretty women divided the power of Church and +State. Story's "Roba di Roma," Augustus Hare's "Walks in Rome," and all +the other descriptions of the Eternal City, are but disguised +guide-books, feeble and pale performances, when compared with Andersen's +beautiful romance. + + [19] R. L. Stevenson in speaking of the "Character of Dogs" makes + the following cruel observation: "Hans Christian Andersen, as we + behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top to toe with + an excruciating vanity and scouting even along the streets for the + shadows of offence--here was the talking dog."--Memories and + Portraits, p. 196. + +The same feminine sentimentality which, in spite of its picturesqueness, +makes "The Improvisatore" unpalatable to many readers, is still more +glaringly exhibited in "O. T." and "The Two Baronesses." In "The Story +of My Life" the same quality asserts itself on every page in the most +unpleasant manner. The author makes no effort to excite the reader's +admiration, but he makes constant appeals to his sympathy. Nevertheless +this autobiography rivals in historic and poetic worth Rousseau's +"Confessions" and Benvenuto Cellini's "Life." The absolute candor with +which Andersen lays bare his soul, the complete intentional or +unintentional self-revelation, gives a psychological value to the book +which no mere literary graces could bestow. I confess, until I had the +pleasure of making Andersen's acquaintance, "The Fairy Tale of My Life" +impressed me unpleasantly. After I had by personal intercourse possessed +myself of the clew to the man's character, I judged differently. +Andersen remained, until the day of his death, a child. His innocence +was more than virginal; his unworldliness simply inconceivable. He +carried his heart on his sleeve, and invited you to observe what a soft, +tender, and sensitive heart it was. He had the harmless vanity of a +child who has a new frock on. He was fidgety and unhappy if anybody but +himself was the centre of attraction; and guilelessly happy when he +could talk and be admired and sympathized with. His conversation was +nearly always about himself, or about the kings and princes and lofty +personages who had graciously deigned to take notice of him. He was a +tuft-hunter of a rare and curious sort; not because he valued the glory +reflected upon himself by royal acquaintances, but because the pomp and +splendor of a court satisfied his thirst for the marvellous. A king +seemed to him, as to the boy who reads his fairy-tales, something grand +and remote; and in invading this charmed sphere he seemed to have +invaded his own fairy-tales, and to live actually in the fabulous region +of wonders in which his fancy revelled. He conceived of his life as a +fairy-tale, and delighted in living up to his own ideal of living. The +very title of his autobiography in Danish (_Mit Livs Eventyr_) shows +this conclusively; and it ought to have been rendered in English "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." "The Story of My Life," as Mr. Scudder has +translated it, would have been in the original "Mit Livs Historie," a +very common title, by the way, for an autobiography, while _Mit Livs +Eventyr_ is entirely unique. + +The feeling of the marvellous pervades the book from beginning to end. +The prose facts of life had but a remote and indistinct existence to the +poet, and he blundered along miserably in his youth, supported and +upheld by a dim but unquenchable aspiration. He commiserated himself, +and yet felt that there was something great in store for him because of +his exceptional endowment. Every incident in his career he treated as if +it were a miracle, which required the suspension of the laws of the +universe for its performance. God was a benevolent old man with a long +beard (just as he was depicted in old Dr. Luther's Catechism) who sat up +in the skies and spent his time chiefly in managing the affairs of Hans +Christian Andersen as pleasantly as possible; and Hans Christian was +duly grateful, and cried on every third or fourth page at the thought of +the goodness of God and man. Sometimes, for a change, he cried at the +wickedness of the latter, and marvelled, with the _naivete_ of a spoiled +child, that there should be such dreadful people in the world, who +should persist in misunderstanding and misrepresenting him. Those who +were good to him he exalted and lauded to the skies, no matter how they +conducted themselves toward the rest of humanity. Some of the most +mediocre princes, who had paid him compliments, he embalmed in prose and +verse. Frederick VII. of Denmark, whose immorality was notorious, was, +according to Andersen, "a good, amiable king," "sent by God to Danish +land and folk," than whom "no truer man the Danish language spoke." And +this case was by no means exceptional. The same uncritical partiality +toward the great and mighty is perceptible in every chapter of "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." It was not, however, toward the great and mighty +alone that he assumed this attitude; he was uncritical by nature, and +had too soft a heart to find fault with anybody--except those who did +not like his books. Heine's jocose description of heaven as a place +where he could eat cakes and sweets, and drink punch _ad libitum_, and +where the angels sat around raving about his poetry, was probably not so +very remote from Andersen's actual conception. His world was the child's +world, in which there is but one grand division into good and bad, and +the innumerable host that occupies the middle-ground between these poles +is ignored. Those who praised what he wrote were good people; those who +ridiculed him were a malignant and black-hearted lot whom he was very +sorry for and would include in his prayers, in the hope that God might +make them better. + +We may smile at this simple system; but we all remember the time when we +were addicted to a similar classification. That it is a sign of +immaturity of intellect is undeniable; and in Andersen's case it is one +of the many indications that intellectually he never outgrew his +childhood. He never possessed the power of judgment that we expect in a +grown-up man. His opinions on social and political questions were +_naive_ and quite worthless. And yet, in spite of all these limitations, +he was a poet of rare power; nay, I may say in consequence of them. The +vitality which in other authors goes toward intellectual development, +produced in him strength and intensity of imagination. Everything which +his fancy touched it invested with life and beauty. It divined the +secret soul of bird and beast and inanimate things. His hens and ducks +and donkeys speak as hens and ducks and donkeys would speak if they +could speak. Their temperaments and characters are scrupulously +respected. Even shirt-collars, gingerbread men, darning-needles, +flowers, and sunbeams, he endowed with physiognomies and speech, fairly +consistent with their ruling characteristics. This personification, +especially of inanimate objects, may at first appear arbitrary; but it +is part of the beautiful consistency of Andersen's genius that it never +stoops to mere amusing and fantastic trickery. The character of the +darning-needle is the character which a child would naturally attribute +to a darning-needle, and the whole multitude of vivid personifications +which fills his tales is governed by the same consistent but dimly +apprehended instinct. Of course, I do not pretend that he was conscious +of any such consistency; creative processes rarely are conscious. But +he needed no reflection in order to discover the child's view of its own +world. He never ceased to regard the world from the child's point of +view, and his personification of an old clothes-press or a +darning-needle was therefore as natural as that of a child who beats the +chair against which it bumped its head. In the works of more ambitious +scope, where this code of conduct would be out of place, Andersen was +never wholly at his ease. As lovers, his heroes usually cut a sorry +figure; their milk-and-water passion is described, but it is never felt. +They make themselves a trifle ridiculous by their innocence, and are +amusing when they themselves least suspect it. Likewise, in his +autobiography, he is continually exposing himself to ridicule by his +_naive_ candor, and his inability to adapt himself to the etiquette +which prevails among grown-up people. Take as an instance his visit to +the Brothers Grimm, when he asked the servant girl which of the brothers +was the more learned, and when she answered "Jacob," he said, "Then take +me to Jacob." The little love affair, too, which he confides seems to +have been of the kind which one is apt to experience during the pinafore +period; a little more serious, perhaps, but yet of the same kind. It is +in this vague and impersonal style that princes and princesses love each +other in the fairy-tales; everything winds up smoothly, and there are +never any marital disagreements to darken the honeymoon. It is in this +happy, passionless realm that Andersen dwells, and here he reigns +supreme. For many years to come the fair creatures of his fancy will +continue to brighten the childhood of new generations. No rival has ever +entered this realm; and even critics are excluded. Nevertheless, +Andersen need have no fear of the latter; for even if they had the wish, +they would not have the power, to rob him of his laurels. + +Hans Christian Andersen was born in the little town of Odense, on the +island Fuenen, April 2, 1805. His father was a poor shoemaker, with some +erratic ambitions, or, if his son's word may be trusted, a man of a +richly gifted and truly poetic mind. His wife was a few years older and +a good deal more ignorant than himself; and when they set up +housekeeping together, in a little back room, they rejoiced in being +able to nail together a bridal bed out of the scaffolding which had +recently supported a dead nobleman's coffin. The black mourning drapery +which yet clung to the wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence. +Their first child, Hans Christian, grew up amid these mean surroundings, +constantly worried by the street boys, who made a butt of him, and +tortured him in the thousand ingenious ways known to their species. He +had no schooling to speak of; but, for all that, was haunted, like +Joseph, by dreams foreshadowing his future greatness. Guided by this +premonition he started, at the age of fourteen, for Copenhagen, a tall, +ugly, and ungainly lad, but resolved, somehow or other, to conquer fame +and honor. He tried himself as a dancer, singer, actor, and failed +lamentably in all his _debuts_. He could not himself estimate the extent +of his own ignorance, nor could he dream what a figure he was cutting. +Undismayed by all rebuffs, though suffering agony from his wounded +vanity, he wrote poems, comedies, and tragedies, in which he +plagiarized, more or less unconsciously, the elder Danish poets. Mr. +Jonas Collins, one of the directors of the Royal Theatre, became +interested in the youth, whose unusual ambition meant either madness or +genius. In order to determine which it might be, Mr. Collins induced +King Frederic VI. to pay for his education, and after half a dozen years +at school Hans Christian passed the entrance examination to the +University. Mr. Collins continued to assist him with counsel and deed; +and his hospitable house in Bredgade became a second home to Andersen. +There he met, for the first time, people of refinement and culture on +equal terms; and his morbid self-introspection was in a measure cured by +kindly association, tempered by wholesome fun and friendly criticism. He +now resolved to abandon his University studies and devote his life to +literature. + +I have no doubt it would have alarmed the gentle poet very much, if he +had been told that he belonged to the Romantic School. To be classified +in literature and be bracketed with a lot of men with whom you are not +even on speaking terms, and whom, more than likely, you don't admire, +would have seemed to him an unpleasant prospect. That he drew much of +his inspiration from the German Romanticists, notably Heine and +Hoffmann, he would perhaps have admitted; but he would have thought it +unkind of you to comment upon his indebtedness. In his first book, "A +Pedestrian Tour from Holmen Canal to the Eastern Extremity of Amager" +(1829), he assumed by turns the _blase_ mask of the former and the +fantastically eccentric one of the latter; both of which ill became his +good-natured, plebeian, Danish countenance. For all that, the book was a +success in its day; and no less an authority than the aesthetic Grand +Mogul, J. L. Heiberg, hailed it as a work of no mean merit. It strikes +us to-day as an exhibition of that mocking smartness of youth which +often hides a childish heart. It was because he was so excessively +sentimental and feared to betray his real physiognomy that he cut these +excruciating capers. His other alternative would have been mawkishness. +His vaudeville, "Love on the Nicholas Tower," which satirizes the drama +of chivalry, is in the same vein and made a similar hit. A volume of +"Poems" was also well received. But in 1831 he met with his first +literary reverse. A second collection of verses, entitled "Phantasies +and Sketches," was pitilessly ridiculed by Henrik Hertz, in his "Letters +from the Dead." Andersen's lack of style and violations of syntax were +rather maliciously commented upon. If Gabriel's trump had sounded from +the top of the Round Tower, it would not have startled Andersen more. +He was in despair. Like the great child he was, he went about craving +sympathy, and weeping when he failed to find it. + +"I could say nothing," he writes in "the Fairy-Tale of My Life," "I +could only let the big, heavy waves roll over me; and it was the common +opinion that I was to be totally washed away. I felt deeply the wound of +the sharp knife; and was on the point of giving myself up, as I was +already given up by others." + +This is one of the numerous exhibitions of that over-sensitiveness to +criticism which caused him such long and continued suffering. His mind +was like a bared nerve, quivering with delight or contracting with +violent pain. Utterly devoid, as he was, of self-criticism, he regarded +his authorship as something miraculous, and held God (who apparently +supervised each chapter) responsible for the fate of his books. "If the +Lord," he writes in solemn earnest to a friend, "will take as good care +of the remainder as he has of the first chapters, you will like it."[20] +There was to him no difference between his best and his worst. It was +all part of himself, and he could scarcely conceive of any motive for +finding fault with it, except personal malice, envy, animosity.[21] This +did not, however, always prevent him from associating with the +malevolent critic, as for instance in the case of Hertz, with whom he +presently established pleasant relations. + + [20] P. Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historic, vol. ii., p. + 477. + + [21] I derive this impression not only from the Autobiography, but + from many conversations. An account of My Acquaintance with Hans + Christian Andersen will be found in The Century Magazine, March, + 1892. + +In 1831 Andersen made his first trip abroad. "By industry and +frugality," he says, "I had saved up a little sum of money, so I +resolved to spend a couple of weeks in North Germany." + +The result of this journey was the book "Shadow Pictures," which was +followed in 1833 by "Vignettes on Danish Poets," and a chaplet of verse +entitled "The Twelve Months of the Year." It is quite true, as he +affirms, that in his "Vignettes," he "only spoke of that which was good +in them" [the poets]; but in consequence there is a great lack of Attic +salt in the book. In 1833 he went abroad once more, visited Germany, +France, Switzerland, and Italy, and sent home the dramatic poem "Agnete +and the Merman," the comparative failure of which was a fresh grief to +him. After his return from Rome (1835) he published his "Improvisatore," +which slowly won its way. It was the reputation this novel gained abroad +which changed public opinion in Denmark in its favor. A second novel, +"Only a Fiddler" (1837), is a fresh variation of his autobiography, and +the lachrymose and a trifle chaotic story, "O. T." (being the brand of +the Odense penitentiary) scarcely deserved any better reception than was +accorded it. + +It is a curious thing that misconception and adversity never hardened +Andersen or toughened the fibre of his personality. The same lamentable +lack of robustness--not to say manliness--which marked his youth +remained his prevailing characteristic to the end of his life. And I +fancy, if he had ever reached intellectual maturity, both he himself and +the world would have been losers. For it is his unique distinction to +have expressed a simplicity of soul which is usually dumb--which has, at +all events, nowhere else recorded itself in literature. We all have a +dim recollection of how the world looked from the nursery window; but no +book has preserved so vivid and accurate a negative of that marvellous +panorama as Andersen's "Wonder Tales for Children," the first collection +of which appeared in 1835. All the jumbled, distorted proportions of +things (like the reflection of a landscape in a crystal ball) is +capitally reproduced. The fantastically personifying fancy of childhood, +where does it have more delightful play? The radiance of an enchanted +fairy realm that bursts like an iridescent soap-bubble at the touch of +the finger of reason, where does it linger in more alluring beauty than +in "Ole Lukoeie" ("The Sandman"), "The Little Mermaid," or "The +Ice-Maiden"? There is a bloom, an indefinable, dewy freshness about the +grass, the flowers, the very light, and the children's sweet faces. And +so vivid--so marvellously vivid--as it all is. Listen to this from "Five +in a Pea-Pod:" + + "There were five peas in one pod. They were green, and the pod was + green; and so they thought that the whole world was green. And that + was just as it should be. The pod grew and the peas grew; they + accommodated themselves to circumstances, sitting all in a row." + +Or take this from "Little Tuk:" + + "Yes, that was Little Tuk. His name wasn't really Tuk, but when he + couldn't speak plain, he used to call himself so. It was meant for + Charley; and it does very well, when one only knows it." + +Or this incomparable bit of drollery from Hjalmar's dream in "The +Sandman:" + + "There came a terrible wail from the table-drawer where Hjalmar's + school books lay. 'Whatever can that be?' said the Sandman. And he + went to the table and opened the drawer. It was the slate which was + in convulsions because a wrong number had got into the sum, so that + it was fairly falling to pieces. The slate-pencil tugged and jumped + at the end of its string, as if it had been a little dog that + wanted to help the sum. But he could not. There was a great + lamentation in Hjalmar's copy-book, too; it was quite terrible to + hear. On each page the large letters stood in a row, one underneath + the other, and each with a little one at its side. That was the + copy. And next to these were a few more letters, which thought they + looked just like the others. These were the ones Hjalmar had + written. But they lay down as if they had tumbled pell-mell over + the pencil lines upon which they were to stand. + + "'Look, this is the way you should hold yourselves,' said the copy, + 'sloping this way with a bold swing.' 'Oh, we should be very glad + to do that,' answered Hjalmar's letters, 'but we can't. We are so + weakly.' 'Then you must take medicine,' said the Sandman. 'Oh, no, + no,' cried they, and straightway they stood up so gracefully that + it was a pleasure to look at them." + +This strikes me as having the very movement and all the delicious +whimsicality of a school-boy's troubled dream. It has the delectable +absurdity of the dream's inverted logic. You feel with what beautiful +zest it was written; how childishly the author himself relished it. The +illusion is therefore perfect. The big child who played with his puppet +theatre until after he was grown up is quite visible in every line. He +is as much absorbed in the story as any of his hearers. He is all in the +game with the intense engrossment of a lad I knew, who, while playing +Robinson Crusoe, ate snails with relish for oysters. + +Throughout the first series of "Wonder Tales" there is a capital air of +make-believe, which imposes upon you most delightfully, and makes you +accept the most incredible doings, as you accept them in a dream, as the +most natural thing in the world. In the later series, where the didactic +tale becomes more frequent ("The Pine Tree," "The Wind's Tale," "The +Buckwheat"), there is an occasional forced note. The story-teller +becomes a benevolent, moralizing uncle, who takes the child upon his +knee, in order to instruct while entertaining it. But he is no more in +the game. A cloying sweetness of tone, such as sentimental people often +adopt toward children, spoils more than one of the fables; and when +occasionally he ventures upon a love-story ("The Rose-Elf," "The Old +Bachelor's Nightcap," "The Porter's Son"), he is apt to be as +unintentionally amusing as he is in telling his own love episode in "The +Fairy-Tale of My Life." However, no man can unite the advantages of +adult age and childhood, and we all feel that there is something +incongruous in a child's talking of love. + +It is a curious fact that his world-wide fame as the poet of childhood +never quite satisfied Andersen.[22] He never accepted it without a +protest. It neither pleased nor sufficed him. He was especially eager to +win laurels as a dramatist; and in 1839 celebrated his first dramatic +success by a farcical vaudeville entitled "The Invisible at Sprogoee." +Then followed the romantic drama "The Mulatto" (1840), which charmed the +public and disgusted the critics; and "The Moorish Maiden," which +disgusted both. These plays are slipshod in construction, but +emotionally effective. The characters are loose-fibred and vague, and +have no more backbone than their author himself. J. L. Heiberg thought +it high time to chastise the half-cultured shoemaker's son for his +audacity, and in the third act of "A Soul after Death," held him up to +ridicule. Andersen, stabbed again to the heart, hastened away from home, +"suffering and disconcerted." But before leaving he published "A +Picture-Book without Pictures", (1840), which is attached to the +American edition of his "Stories and Tales," and deserves its place. The +moon's pathetic and humorous observations on the world she looks down +upon every evening of her thirty nights' circuit have already become +classic in half-a-dozen languages. The little girl who came to kiss the +hen and beg her pardon; the ragged street gamin who died upon the throne +of France; the Hindoo maiden who burned her lamp upon the banks of the +Ganges in order to see if her lover was alive; the little maid who was +penitent because she laughed at the lame duckling with a red rag around +its leg--who does not know the whole inimitable gallery from beginning +to end? The tenderest, the softest, the most virginal spirit breathes +through all these sketches. They are sentimental, no doubt, and a trifle +too sweet. But then they belong to a period of our lives when a little +excess in that direction does not trouble us. + + [22] For verification of this statement I may refer to his indignant + letter _a propos_ of the statue that was to be raised to him in + Copenhagen, in which he was represented surrounded by listening + children: "None of the sculptors," he wrote, "have known me; none of + their sketches indicate that they have seen what is characteristic + in me. Never could I read aloud when anybody was sitting behind me + or close up to me; far less if I had children on my lap or on my + back, or young Copenhageners lying all over me. It is a _facon de + parler_ to call me 'the children's poet.' My aim has been to be the + poet of all ages; children could not represent me." + +In 1842 Andersen gave to the world "A Poets' Bazaar," a chronicle of his +travels through nearly all the countries of Europe. In 1844 the drama +"The King is Dreaming," and in 1845 the fairy comedy "The Flower of +Fortune." But his highest dramatic triumph he celebrated in the +anonymous comedy "The New Lying-in Room," which in a measure proved his +contention that it was personal hostility and not critical scruples +which made so large a portion of the Copenhagen literati persecute him. +For the very men who would have been the first to hold his play up to +scorn were the heartiest in their applause, as long as they did not know +that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the success of the +lyrical drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat ambitious epic +"Ahasverus" comes very near being a failure. The next ventures of the +versatile and indefatigable poet were the novel "The Two Baronesses" +(1849), and the fairy comedies "More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), +adapted from a German original, "The Sandman"[23] (1850), and "The Elder +Tree Mother" (1851). The comedies "He was not Born" (1864), "On +Langebro" and "When the Spaniards were Here" (1869), complete the cycle +of his dramatic labors. But the most amusing thing he did, showing how +incapable he was of taking the measure of his faculties, was to write a +novel, "To Be or Not to Be" (1857), in which he proposed once and +forever to down the giant Unbelief, prove the immortality of the soul, +and produce "peace and reconciliation between Nature and the Bible." It +was nothing less than the evidences of Christianity in novelistic form +with which he designed to favor an expectant world. "If[24] I can solve +this problem," he naively wrote to a friend, "then the monster +materialism, devouring everything divine, will die." But rarely was a +bigger Gulliver tackled by a tinier Liliputian. The book not only fell +flat, but it was only the world-wide renown and the good intention of +its author which saved it from derision. + + [23] Danish, Ole Lukoeie. + + [24] Hansen: Illustreret Dansk Litteratur Historie, ii. p. 560. + +Though Andersen never attained in Copenhagen an uncontested recognition +of his talent, honors both from at home and abroad were showered upon +him. The fame which undeniably was his commanded respect, but scarcely +approval. Heiberg made merry at his obscurity in the country of his +birth and his celebrity beyond its boundaries, and represented him as +reading "The Mulatto" to the Sultan's wives and the "Moorish Maiden" to +those who were to be strangled, kneeling in rapture, while the Grand +Eunuch, crowned his head with laurels. But in spite of obloquy and +ridicule, Andersen continued his triumphant progress through all the +lands of the civilized world, and even beyond it. In 1875 his tale, "The +Story of a Mother," was published simultaneously in fifteen languages, +in honor of his seventieth birthday. A few months later (August 4th) he +died at the villa Rolighed, near Copenhagen. His life was indeed as +marvellous as any of his tales. A gleam of light from the wonderland in +which he dwelt seems to have fallen upon his cradle and to have +illuminated his whole career. It was certainly in this illumination +that he himself saw it, as the opening sentence of his autobiography +proves: "My life is a lovely fairy-tale, happy and full of incidents." + +The softness, the sweetness, the juvenile innocence of Danish +romanticism found their happiest expression in him; but also the +superficiality, the lack of steel in the will, the lyrical vagueness and +irresponsibility. If he did not invent a new literary form he at all +events enriched and dignified an old one, and revealed in it a world of +unsuspected beauty. He was great in little things, and little in great +things. He had a heart of gold, a silver tongue, and the spine of a +mollusk. Like a flaw in a diamond, a curious plebeian streak cut +straight across his nature. With all his virtues he lacked that higher +self-esteem which we call nobility. + + + + +CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE + + +The late Romantic authors of Denmark who lived on the traditions of +Oehlenschlaeger's time and the aesthetical doctrines of J. L. Heiberg, +have gradually been passing away; and a new generation has grown up, +which, though it knows Joseph, has repudiated his doctrine. A period of +stagnation followed the disappearance of the Romanticists. The +Sleswick-Holstein war of 1866, and the consequent hostility to Germany, +cut off the intellectual intercourse between the two countries which in +the first half of the century had been lively and intimate; and as, for +a while, no new ties were formed, a respectable dulness settled upon the +little island kingdom. People lived for the concerns of the day, earned +their bread and butter, amused themselves to the best of their ability, +but troubled themselves very little about the battles of thought which +were being fought upon the great arena of the world. The literary +activity which now and then flared up spasmodically, like flames over a +smouldering ash-heap, flickered and half-expired for want of fresh +sustenance. A direfully conventional romanticist, H. F. Ewald +(1821-1892), wrote voluminous modern and historical novels, the heroines +of which were usually models of all the copy-book virtues, and the +heroes as bloodless as their brave and loyal prototypes in "Ivanhoe" and +"Waverley." Instead of individualizing his _dramatis personae_ this +feeble successor of Ingemann and Walter Scott gave them a certificate of +character, vouching for their goodness or badness, and trusting the +reader to take his word for it in either case. Like many another popular +novelist, he varnished them with the particular tint of excellence or +depravity that might suit his purpose, stuffed their heads with bran and +their bellies with sawdust, but troubled himself little about what lay +beneath the epidermis. There was something _naive_ and juvenile in his +view of life which appealed to the large mass of half-educated people; +and the very absence of any subtle literary art tended further to +increase his public. Many of his books, notably "The Youth of Valdemar +Krone" (_Valdemar Krone's Ungdomshistorie_), "The Swedes at Kronborg" +(_Svenskerne paa Kronborg_), have achieved an extraordinary success. The +former deals with contemporary life, while the latter expurgates and +embellishes history after the manner of Walter Scott. Two subsequent +novels, "The Family Nordby" and "Johannes Falk," are, like all of +Ewald's writings, pervaded by a robust optimism and a warm Danish +sentiment, which in a large measure account for their popularity with +the public of the circulating libraries. + +A lesser share of the same kind of popularity has fallen to the lot of +an author of a much higher order--Wilhelm Bergsoee (born 1835). His +voluminous novel "Fra Piazza del Popolo" (1860) made a sensation in its +day, and "From the Old Factory" (1869), which constructively is a +maturer book, is likewise full of fascination. The description of the +doings of the artistic guild in Rome, which occupies a considerable +portion of the former work, is delightful, though intermingled with a +deal of superfluous mysticism and romantic entanglements which were then +held to be absolutely indispensable. "In the Sabine Mountains" (1871), +the scene of which is laid in Genazzano during the struggle for Italian +independence, is a trifle too prolix; and its effect is lessened by the +old-fashioned epistolary form. Signor Carnevale, the revolutionary +apothecary, is, however, a very amusing figure, and would be still +better if he were not caricatured. The tendency to screw the characters +up above the normal--to tune them up to concert pitch as it +were--interferes seriously with the pleasure which the book otherwise +might yield. + +The conception of art as something wholly distinct from and above nature +animates all Bergsoee's productions. The theory of fiction which R. L. +Stevenson has so eloquently propounded has found an able practitioner in +him. For all that, I am indebted to Bergsoee's two Italian romances for +a great deal of enjoyment, the afterglow of which still warms my memory. +But that was long ago. A young man is apt to enjoy in a book quite as +much what he himself supplies as that which the author has deposited +therein. Each word is a key which unlocks a store of imprisoned +emotions. The very word Italy has a magic which imparts to it a charm +even in the geography. And Bergsoee, though he works, without suspicion +of its decrepitude, the ancient machinery of Italian romance, is +unaffectedly eloquent and unsophistically entertaining. The historic +whisperings which he catches from the names, the ruins, the facial +types, and the very trees and grass of Genazzano invest his letters from +that picturesque neighborhood with a certain beautiful glow of color and +a dusky richness of decay. The autobiographical form imposes, to be +sure, an increasing strain on the reader's credulity, as the plot +thickens, and we find ourselves, half-unexpectedly, involved in a lurid +tale of monks, priests, disguised revolutionists, cruel, mercenary +fathers, etc., and the Danish author playing his favorite _role_ of +_deus ex machina_. Still more incredible is the part of benevolent +Providence which he assigns to himself in "The Bride of Roervig," where +he saves the heroine's life by restoring to her a ring given to her +lover, and thus assuring her that he is alive when she believes him +dead. The autobiographical story (especially when the writer is a mere +convenient supernumerary, designed, like the uncle from America in the +old-fashioned melodrama, to straighten out the tangled skein), is apt to +involve other difficulties than the mere embarrassment of having to +distrust the author's assertion, or censure his indiscretions. The +illusion is utterly spoiled by that haunting _arriere pensee_ that this +or that writer, whom you know perhaps at first or second-hand, or whose +features, at all events, are familiar to you from pictures, never could +or would have played the more or less heroic _role_ with which he here +delights to impose upon you. + +Altogether the best book which Bergsoee has written is the +autobiographical romance "From the Old Factory," the scene of which is +laid in Denmark. This book evidently contains a great deal of genuine +reminiscence, and is therefore devoid of that air of laborious +contrivance and artificial intrigue which brings the foregoing novels +into such unpleasant relationship with Wilkie Collins and his _genre_. +The incidents of the hero's boyhood in the old porcelain factory, and +his uncle's agitating experiments for the rediscovery of a lost process +of glazing are saner and soberer and lie closer to the soil of common +experience than the exploits of monks and pirates and revolutionists. + +Among the notable men of the expiring Danish romanticism Meyer Aaron +Goldschmidt (1819-1886) holds a leading position. A comic paper, +_Corsaren_, which he edited (1840-1846) made a tremendous stir in its +day; and its scathing wit and satire were not without influence upon +current events. His two novels, _En Joede_ (1845), _Hjemloes_ (1857), and +a large number of clever novelettes (_Ravnen_, _Arvingen Flyveposten_, +etc.), are full of psychological subtleties, and often charmingly told. +_Flyveposten_ ("The Flying Mail") was translated into English (Boston +and Cambridge, 1870) but attracted no particular attention. For all +that, Goldschmidt, in spite of occasional prolixity, stands the test of +time remarkably well. His Jewish stories, notably _Maser, Aron og +Esther_, and _En Joede_, contain a higher order of work, though less +dramatically effective, than that of Sacher-Masoch, and Emil Franzos, +and the later Ghetto romancers. Goldschmidt's double nationality, as a +Danish-born Jew, indicates his position and the source from which he +drew his weakness and his strength. As a Jew he saw and judged the +Danish character, and as a Dane he saw and judged the Jewish character +with a liberality and insight of which no autochthon would have been +capable. For all that his tales aroused anything but friendly feelings +among his own people. They felt it to be a profanation thus to expose +the secluded domestic and religious life of the children of Israel. It +is to this sentiment that Dr. Brandes has given utterance in his protest +against "perpetually serving up one's grandmother with sauce piquante." + +An author who is born into an age of transition, when old faiths are +passing away and new ones are struggling for recognition, is placed in +a serious dilemma. Where he makes his choice by mere temperamental bias, +he is apt to miss that element of growth which is involved in every +spiritual struggle. But if, as is so frequently the case, he finds his +choice in a measure made for him, his education, kinships, and worldly +advantage identifying him with the established order, it takes a +tremendous amount of courage and character to break away from old +moorings and steer, without other compass than a sensitive conscience, +toward the rosy dawn of the unknown. There was a desperate need of such +men in Denmark in the seventies, when the little kingdom was sinking +deeply and more deeply into a bog of patriotic delusion and spiritual +stagnation. An infusion of new blood was needed--a re-establishment of +that circulation of thought which keeps the whole civilized world in +vital connection and makes it akin. No country can cut itself off from +this universal world-life without withering like a diseased limb. The +man who undertook to bring Denmark again into _rapport_ with Europe was +Dr. Georg Brandes, whom I have characterized at length in another essay. +It was his admirable book, "The Men of the Modern Transition" +(translated into German under the title _Moderne Geister_) which +impelled me, some years ago, to make the acquaintance of the three +authors who represent whatever there is of promise in contemporary +Danish literature, viz., Sophus Schandorph, Holger Drachmann, and J. P. +Jacobsen. The last named, who died (1884) in the flower of his young +manhood, is, perhaps, not in the strictest sense contemporary. But he is +indispensable to the characterization of the group. + +Widely different as these three men are in almost everything, they have +this in common, that they have deeply breathed the air of the nineteenth +century; and they all show more or less the influence of Brandes. That +this influence has been direct and personal seems probable from the +relation which they have sustained to the revolutionary critics. Of this +I am, however, by no means sure. Mr. Jacobsen, who was by profession a +botanist, and translated Darwin into Danish, no doubt came by his +"advanced views" at first hand. In the case of Schandorph it is more +difficult to judge. He is an excellent linguist, and may have had access +to the same sources from which Brandes drew his strength. Drachmann is +so vacillating in his tendencies that he refuses to be permanently +classified in any school of art or thought. Of the three, Schandorph +seems altogether the maturest mind and furnishes the most finished and +satisfactory work. In his novel "Without a Centre" (_Uden Midtpunkt_) +the reader feels himself at once face to face with an interesting and +considerable personality. He has that sense of surprise and delighted +expectation which only the masters of fiction are apt to evoke. It is a +story of a Danish national type--the conversational artist. In no +country in the world is there such a conversational fury as in Denmark. +A people has, of course, to do something with its surplus energy; and as +political opposition is sure to prove futile, there is nothing left to +do but to talk--not only politics, but art, poetry, religion, in fact, +everything under the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, the hero +of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble tongue, the country had a more +liberal Government, and criticism of the Ministry was not yet high +treason. But centuries of repression and the practical exclusion of the +bourgeoisie from public life were undoubtedly the fundamental causes of +this abnormal conversational activity. There is something soft and +emotional in the character of the Danes, which distinguishes them from +their Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen--an easily flowing lyrical vein, +which imparts a winning warmth and cordiality to their demeanor. +Socially they are the most charming people in the world. Also in this +respect Albrecht is typical, and the songs in which he gives vent to his +lyrical moods have such a rapturous melody that they keep humming in the +brain long after the reader has closed the book. It almost follows as a +psychological necessity that a man so richly endowed with the gift of +speech is feeble and halting in action. Like Tourgueneff's "Rudin," who +suffered from the same malady, he gains by the brilliancy and novelty of +his speech the love of a noble young girl, who, taking his phrases at +their face value, believes his heart to be as heroic as his tongue. +Like him, too, he fails in the critical moment; nay, restrained by petty +scruples, he even stays away from the rendezvous, and by his cowardice +loses what by his eloquence he had won. + +A second novel, "Common People," which deals with low life in its most +varied phases, shows the same admirable truthfulness and exactness in +the character drawing, the same refreshing humor and universal sympathy +and comprehension. "The Story of Thomas Friis" undertakes to show, in +the career of a Danish youth who is meant to be typical, the futility of +the vainglorious imaginings with which the little nation has inflated +itself to a size out of proportion to its actual historic _role_. In +"The Old Pharmacy" the necessity of facing the changed reality of the +modern world, instead of desperately hugging an expiring past, is +enforced in a series of vivid and vigorous pictures of provincial life. +"The Forester's Children," which is one of the latest of this author's +novels, suffers by comparison with its predecessors, but is yet full of +cleverness and smacks of the soil. + +Schandorph's naturalism is not pathological; not in the nature of an +autopsy or a diagnosis of disease. It is full-blooded and vigorous--not +particularly squeamish--but always fresh and wholesome. His shorter +tales and sketches ("From the Province," "Five Stories," "Novelettes") +are of more unequal merit, but are all more or less strongly +characterized by the qualities which fascinate in his novels. Of his +poems "_Samlede Digte_," (1882) I have not the space to speak, and can +only regret that they are written in a language in which they will +remain as hidden from the world as if they had been imprinted in +cuneiform inscriptions upon Assyrian bricks. They are largely occasional +and polemical; and more remarkable for vigor of thought than sweetness +of melody. + +J. P. Jacobsen, the second in the group to which I have referred, was a +colorist of a very eminent type, both in prose and verse; but his talent +lacked that free-flowing, spontaneous abundance--that charming air of +improvisation--with which Schandorph captivates his reader, takes him +into his confidence, and overwhelms him with entertainment. Jacobsen +painted faces better than he did souls; or, rather, he did not seem to +think the latter worth painting, unless they exhibited some abnormal +mood or trait. There is something forced and morbid in his people--a +lack of free movement and natural impulse. His principal work, "Mistress +Marie Grubbe," is a series of anxiously finished pictures, carefully +executed in the minutest details, but failing somehow to make a complete +impression. Each scene is so bewilderingly surcharged with color that, +as in the case of a Gobelin tapestry, one has to be at a distance before +one discovers the design. There is something almost wearisome in the +far-fetched words with which he piles up picturesque effects, returning +every now and then to put in an extra touch--to tip a feather with +light, to brighten the sheen of his satins, to polish the steely lustre +of swords and armors. Yet, if one takes the time to linger over these +unusual words and combinations of words, one is likely to find that they +are strong and appropriate. All conventional shop-work he disdained; the +traditional phrases for eyes, lips, brow, and hair were discarded, not +necessarily because they were bad, but because by much use they have +lost their freshness. They have come to be mere sounds, and no longer +call up vivid conceptions. An author who has the skill and the courage +to undertake this repolishing and resharpening of the tools of language +is, indeed, a public benefactor; but it requires the finest linguistic +taste and discrimination to do it with success. Most authors are +satisfied if they succeed in giving currency to one happy phrase +involving a novel use of the language, or to an extremely limited +number; I know of no one who has undertaken the renovation of his +mother-tongue on so extensive a scale as Jacobsen. To say that he has in +most cases done it well is, therefore, high praise. "Mistress Marie +Grubbe" is not, however, easy reading; and the author's novelettes, +entitled "Mogens and Other Stories," seem to be written, primarily, for +literary connoisseurs, as their interest as mere stories is scarcely +worth considering. They are, rather, essays in the art of saying things +unusually and yet well. They do not seem to me, even in this respect, a +success. There are single phrases that seem almost an inspiration; there +are bits of description, particularly of flowers and moods of nature, +which are masterly; but the studious avoidance of the commonplace +imparts to the reader something of the strain under which the author has +labored. He begins to feel the sympathetic weariness which often +overcomes one while watching acrobatic feats. + +In Jacobsen's third book, "Niels Lyhne," we have again the story of a +Danish Rudin--a nature with a multitude of scattered aspirations, +squandering itself in brilliant talk and fantastic yearnings. It is the +same coquetting with the "advanced" ideas of the age, the same lack of +mental stamina, the same wretched surrender and failure. It is the +complexion of a period which the author is here attempting to give, and +he takes pains to emphasize its typical character. One is almost tempted +to believe that Shakespeare, by a gift of happy divination, made his +Prince of Denmark conform to this national type, though in his day it +could not have been half as pronounced as it is now. Whether the Dane of +the sixteenth century was yet the eloquent mollusk which we are +perpetually encountering in modern Danish fiction is a question which, +at this distance, it is hard to decide. The type, of course, is +universal, and is to be found in all countries. Only in the English +race, on both sides of the Atlantic, it is comparatively rare. That a +vigorous race like the Danish, confined, as it is in modern times, +within a narrow arena of action (and forbidden to do anything on that), +should have developed it to a rare perfection seems, as I have already +remarked, almost a psychological necessity. + +Holger Drachmann, in his capacity of lyrist, has also a strain of the +Hamlet nature; although, in the case of a poet, whose verses are in +themselves deeds, the assertion contains no reproach. I am not even sure +that the Protean quality of Drachmann's verse--its frequent voicing of +naturally conflicting tendencies--need be a matter of reproach. A poet +has the right to sing in any key in which he can sing well; and +Drachmann sings, as a rule, exceedingly well. But, like most people with +a fine voice, he is tempted to sing too much; and it thus happens that +verses of slipshod and hasty workmanship are to be found in his volumes. +In his first book of "Poems" he was a free oppositional lance, who +carried on a melodious warfare against antiquated institutions and +opinions, and gave a thrust here and a thrust there in behalf of +socialists, communists, and all sorts of irregular characters. Since +that time his radical, revolutionary sympathies have had time to cool, +and in each succeeding volume he has appeared more sedate, conservative, +_bourgeois_.[25] In a later volume of poems this transformation is half +symbolically indicated in the title, "Tempered Melodies." Nor is it to +be denied that his melodies have gained in beauty by this process of +tempering. There is a wider range of feeling, greater charm of +expression, and a deeper resonance. Half a dozen volumes of verse which +he has published since ("Songs of the Ocean," "Venezia," "Vines and +Roses," "Youth in Verse and Song," "Peder Tordenskjold," "Deep Chords") +are of very unequal worth, but establish beyond question their author's +right to be named among the few genuine poets of the latter half of the +nineteenth century; nay, more than that, he belongs in the foremost rank +of those who are yet surviving. His prose, on the other hand, seems +aimless and chaotic, and is not stamped with any eminent +characteristics. A volume of short stories, entitled "Wild and Tame," +partakes very much more of the latter adjective than of the former. The +first of the tales, "Inclined Planes," is a discursive family chronicle, +showing the decadence of a fishing village under the influence of city +boarders. The second, "Love and Despatches," inculcates a double moral, +the usefulness of economy and the uselessness of mothers-in-law; and the +third, "The Cutter Wild Duck," is a shudderingly insipid composition +about a village lion who got drunk on his birthday, fell overboard, and +committed no end of follies. A later volume of "Little Tales" is, +indeed, so little as scarcely to have any excuse for being. The stories +have all more or less of a marine flavor; but the only one of them that +has a sufficient _motif_, rationally developed, is one entitled "How the +Pilot Got his Music-box." The novel, "A Supernumerary," is also a rather +weak performance, badly constructed, and overloaded with chaotic +incidents. + + [25] Since this was written Drachmann has undergone a fresh + transformation, and is said to have returned to the radical camp. + +_Voelund Smed_ (1895) is a cycle of spirited poems dealing with the +tragic fate of Weland the Smith, who took such a savage vengeance upon +the King for having maimed and crippled him. The legend is invested with +an obvious symbolic significance, and seems to have been intended as a +poetic declaration of independence--a revolutionary manifesto +signalizing the Drachmann's re-espousal of the radical opinions of his +youth, in his allegiance to which he had, perhaps, out of regard for +worldly advantages been inclined to waver. + + + + +GEORG BRANDES + + +It is a greater achievement in a critic to gain an international fame +than in a poet or a writer of fiction. The world is always more ready to +be amused than to be instructed, and the literary purveyor of amusement +has opportunities for fame ten times greater than those which fall to +the lot of the literary instructor. The epic delight--the delight in +fable and story--to which the former appeals, is a fundamental trait in +human nature; it appears full grown in the child, and has small need of +cultivation. But the faculty of generalization to which the critic +appeals is indicative of a stage of intellectual development to which +only a small minority even of our so-called cultivated public attains. +It is therefore a minority of a minority which he addresses, the +intellectual _elite_ which does the world's thinking. To impress these +is far more difficult than to impress the multitude; for they are +already surfeited with good writing, and are apt to reject with a +shoulder-shrug whatever does not coincide with their own tenor of +thought. + +What I mean by a critic in this connection is not a witty and agreeable +_causeur_, like the late Jules Janin, who, taking a book for his text, +discoursed entertainingly about everything under the sun; but an +interpreter of a civilization and a representative of a school of +thought who sheds new light upon old phenomena--men like Lessing, +Matthew Arnold, and Taine. The latest candidate for admission to this +company, whose title, I think, no one who has read him will dispute, is +the Dane, Georg Brandes. + +Dr. Brandes was born in Copenhagen in 1842, and is accordingly +fifty-three years of age (1895). At the age of seventeen he entered the +University of his native city, devoting himself first to jurisprudence, +and occupying himself later with philosophical and aesthetical studies. +In 1862 he gained the gold medal of the University by an essay on +"Fatalism among the Ancients," which showed a surprising brilliancy of +expression and maturity of thought; and soon after he passed his +examination for the doctorate of philosophy with the highest +distinction. It is told that the old poet Hauch, who was then Professor +of AEsthetics at the University, was so much impressed by the young +doctor's ability that he hoped to make him his successor. And toward +this end Dr. Brandes began to bend his energies. During the next five or +six years he travelled on the Continent, spending the winter of 1865 in +Stockholm, that of 1866-67 in Paris, and sojourning, moreover, for +longer or shorter periods in the principal cities of Germany. He became +a most accomplished linguist, speaking French and German almost as +fluently as his mother-tongue; and, being an acute observer as well as +an earnest student, he acquired an equipment for the position to which +he aspired which distanced all competitors. But in Denmark, as +elsewhere, cosmopolitan culture does not constitute the strongest claim +to a professorship. In his book, "The Dualism in Our Most Recent +Philosophy" (1866), Brandes took up the dangerous question of the +relation of science to religion, and treated it in a spirit which +aroused antagonism on the part of the conservative and orthodox party. + +This able treatise, though it may not be positivism pure and simple, +shows a preponderating influence of Comte and his school, and its +attitude toward religion is approximately that of Herbert Spencer and +Stuart Mill. The constellation under which Brandes was born into the +world of thought was made up of the stars Darwin, Comte, Taine, and +Mill. These men put their stamp upon his spirit; and to the tendency +which they represent he was for many years faithful. Mill's book on "The +Subjection of Women" he has translated into Danish (1869), and he has +written besides a charmingly sympathetic essay, containing personal +reminiscences, of that grave and conscientious thinker, whose +"Autobiography" is perhaps the saddest book in the English language. + +The three next books of Brandes, which all deal with aesthetical subjects +("AEsthetic Studies," 1868, "Criticisms and Portraits," 1870, and "French +AEsthetics at the Present Day"), are full of pith and winged felicities +of phrase. It is a delight to read them. The passage of Scripture often +occurs to me when I take up these earlier works of Brandes: "He +rejoiceth like a strong man to run a race." He handles language with the +zest and vigor of conscious mastery. There is no shade of meaning which +is so subtle as to elude his grip. Things which I should have said, _a +priori_, were impossible to express in Danish he expresses with scarcely +a sign of effort; and however new and surprising his phrase is, it is +never awkward, never cumbrous, never apparently conscious of its +brilliancy. + +I do not mean to say that these linguistic excellences are +characteristic only of Dr. Brandes's earlier works; but, either because +he has accustomed us to expect much of him in this respect, or because +he has come to regard such brilliancy as of minor consequence, it is a +fact that two of his latest hooks ("Impressions of Poland" and +"Impressions of Russia") contain fewer memorable phrases, fewer winged +words, fewer _mots_ with a flavor of Gallic wit. Intellectually these +"Impressions" are no less weighty; nay, they are more weighty than +anything from the same pen that has preceded them. They show a faculty +to enter sympathetically into an alien civilization, to seize upon its +characteristic phases, to steal into its confidence, as it were, and +coax from it its intimate secrets; and they exhibit, moreover, an +acuteness of observation and an appreciation of significant trifles (or +what to a superficial observer might appear trifles) which no previous +work on the Slavonic nations had displayed. It is obvious that Dr. +Brandes here shuns the linguistic pyrotechnics in which, for instance, +De Amicis indulges in his pictures of Holland and the Orient. It is the +matter, rather than the manner, which he has at heart; and he apparently +takes a curb bit between his teeth in the presence of the Kremlin of +Moscow and the palaces of St. Petersburg, in order to restrain mere +pictorial expression. + +Having violated chronology in speaking of these two works out of their +order, I shall have to leap back over a score of years and contemplate +once more the young doctor of philosophy who returned to Copenhagen in +1872 and began a course of trial lectures at the University on modern +literature. The lecturer here flies his agnostic colors from beginning +to end. He treats "The Romantic School in Germany" as Voltaire treated +Rousseau--with sovereign wit, superior intelligence, but scant sympathy. +At the same time he penetrates to the fountains of life which infused +strength into the movement. He accounts for romanticism as the chairman +of a committee _de lunatico inquirendo_ might account for a case of +religious mania. + +The second and third courses of lectures (printed, like the first, and +translated into German by Strodtmann) dealt with "The Literature of the +French Emigres" and "The Reaction in France." Here the critic is less +unsympathetic, not because he regards the mental attitude of the +fugitives from the Revolution with approbation, but because he has an +intellectual bias in favor of everything French. Besides having a +certain constitutional sympathy with the clearness and vigor of style +and thought which distinguish the French, Dr. Brandes is so largely +indebted to French science, philosophy, and art that it would be strange +if he did not betray an occasional _soupcon_ of partisanship. His +treatment of Chateaubriand, Benjamin Constant, Madame de Stael, Oberman, +Madame de Kruedener, and all the queer saints and scribbling sinners of +that period is as entertaining as it is instructive. It gives one the +spiritual complexion of the period in clear lines and vivid colors, +which can never be forgotten. Nearly all that makes France France is to +be found in these volumes--its wit, its frivolity, its bright daylight +sense, contrasting so strikingly with the moonshiny mysticism of German +romanticism. And yet France has its romanticism too, which finds vent in +a supercredulous religiosity, in a pictorial sentimentalized +Christianity, such as we encounter in Chateaubriand's "Genie du +Christianisme" and "Les Martyrs." It is with literary phenomena of this +order that "The Reaction in France" particularly deals. + +The fourth course of lectures, entitled "Byron and his Group," though no +less entertaining than the rest, appears to me less satisfactory. It is +a clever presentation of Byron's case against the British public; but +the case of the British against Byron is inadequately presented. It is +the pleading of an able advocate, not the charge of an impartial judge. +Dr. Brandes has so profound an admiration for the man who dares to rebel +that he fails to do justice to the motives of society in protecting +itself against him. It is not to be denied that the iconoclast may be in +the right and society in the wrong; but it is by no means a foregone +conclusion that such is the case. If society did not, with the fierce +instinct of self-preservation, guard its traditional morality against +such assailants as Byron and Shelley, civilization would suffer. The +conservative bias of the Philistine (though not so outwardly attractive) +is no less valuable as a factor in civilization than the iconoclastic +zeal of the reformer. If the centrifugal force had full sway in human +society, without being counteracted by a centripetal tendency, anarchy +would soon prevail. I cannot (as Dr. Brandes appears to do) discover any +startling merit in outraging the moral sense of the community in which +one lives; and though I may admit that a man who was capable of doing +this was a great poet, I cannot concede that the fact of his being a +great poet justified the outrage. Nor am I sure that Dr. Brandes means +to imply so much; but in all of his writings there is manifested a deep +sympathy with the law-breaker whose Titanic soul refuses to be bound by +the obligations of morality which limit the freedom of ordinary mortals. +Only petty and pusillanimous souls, according to him, submit to these +restraints; the heroic soul breaks them, as did Byron and Shelley, +because he has outgrown them, or because he is too great to recognize +the right of any power to limit his freedom of action or restrain him in +the free assertion of his individuality. This is the undertone in +everything Dr. Brandes has written; but nowhere does it ring out more +boldly than in his treatment of Byron and Shelley, unless it be in the +fifth course of his "Main Currents" dealing with "Young Germany." + +These four courses of lectures have been published under the collective +title "The Main Literary Currents in the Nineteenth Century" +(_Hovedstroemningerne i det Nittende Aarhundredes Litteratur_). The +German translation is entitled _Hauptstroemungen in der Litteratur des +Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts_. Barring the strictures which I have made, I +know no work of contemporary criticism which is more luminous in its +statements, more striking in its judgments, and more replete with +interesting information. It reminds one in its style of Taine's +"Lectures on Art" and the "History of English Literature." The +intellectual bias is kindred, if not the same; as is also the pictorial +vigor of the language, the subtle deductions of psychical from physical +facts, and a certain lusty realism, which lays hold of external nature +with a firm grip. + +In Dr. Brandes's "Impressions of Poland" I found an observation which +illustrates his extraordinary power of characterization. The +temperament of the Polish people, he says, is not rational but +fantastically heroic. When I recall the personalities of the various +Poles I have known (and I have known a great many), I cannot conceive of +a phrase more exquisitely descriptive. It makes all your haphazard +knowledge about Poland significant and valuable by supplying you with a +key to its interpretation. It is this faculty Dr. Brandes has displayed +in an eminent degree in his many biographical and critical essays which +have appeared in German and Danish periodicals; as also in his more +elaborate biographies of Benjamin Disraeli (1878), Esaias Tegner (1878), +Soeren Kierkegaard (1877), Ferdinand Lassalle (1882), and Ludwig Holberg. +The first of these was translated into English, and was also published +in the United States. A second volume, entitled "Eminent Writers of the +Nineteenth Century," was translated some years ago by Professor R. B. +Anderson. The greater number of these highly finished essays were +selected from the Danish volumes "The Men of the New Transition" (1884) +and "Men and Works in Recent European Literature" (1883), and one or two +from "Danish Poets" (1877). They give in every instance the keynote to +the personality with which they deal; they are not so much studies of +books as studies of the men who are revealed in the books. Take, for +instance, the essay on Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, which I regard as one of +the finest and most vital pieces of critical writing in recent times. +What can be more subtly descriptive of the very innermost soul of this +poet than the picture of him as the clansman, the Norse chieftain, who +feels with the many and speaks for the many; and what more beautifully +indicative of his external position than this phrase: "To mention his +name is like running up the flag of Norway"? + +It seems peculiarly appropriate to follow up this essay with one on +Ibsen, who is as complete an antithesis to his great and popular rival +as could well be conceived. There is no bugle-call in the name Henrik +Ibsen. It is thin in sound, and can be spoken almost with closed lips. +You have no broad vowels and large consonants to fill your mouth as when +you say Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson. This difference in sound seems symbolic. +Ibsen is the solitary man, a scathing critic of society, a delver in the +depths of human nature, sceptical of all that men believe in and admire. +He has not, like Bjoernson, any faith in majorities; nay, he believes +that the indorsement of the majority is an argument against the wisdom +of a course of action or the truth of a proposition. The summary of this +poet's work and personality in Dr. Brandes's book is a masterpiece of +analytical criticism. It enriches and expands the territory of one's +thought. It is no less witty, no less epigrammatic, than Sainte-Beuve at +his best; and it has flashes of deeper insight than I have ever found in +Sainte-Beuve. + +The last book of Dr. Brandes's that has been presented to the American +public is his "Impressions of Russia." The motto of this work (which in +the Danish edition is printed on the back of the title-page) is "Black +Earth," the significance of which is thus explained in the concluding +paragraph: + +"Black earth, fertile soil, new soil, wheat soil ... the wide, rich, +warm nature ... the infinite expanses, which fill the soul with +melancholy and with hope ... the impenetrable, duskily mysterious ... +the mother-womb of new realities and new mysticism ... Russia, the +future." + +The prophetic vagueness of this paragraph, big with dim possibilities, +conveys the very impression to which all observations and experiences in +Russia finally reduce themselves. It is the enduring residue which +remains when all evanescent impressions have lapsed into the background. +It expresses, too, the typical mental attitude of every Russian, be he +ever so Frenchified and denationalized. The word "Virgin Soil" was a +favorite phrase with Tourgueneff when speaking of his country, and he +used it as the title of his last novel. It seemed to him to explain +everything in Russian conditions that to the rest of the world appeared +enigmatical. The whole of Dr. Brandes's book is interpenetrated with +this consciousness of the vast possibilities hidden in the virgin bosom +of the new earth, even though they may be too deeply hidden to sprout up +into the daylight for centuries to come. The Russian literature, which +is at present enchaining the attention of the civilized world, is a +brilliant variation of this theme, an imaginative commentary on this +text. The second half of Dr. Brandes's "Impressions" is devoted to the +consideration of Puschkin, Gogol, Lermontoff, Dostojevski, Tourgueneff, +and Tolstoi; of each of whom he gives, as it appears to me, a better +account than M. de Voguee in his book "Le Roman Russe," which gave him a +seat among the Forty Immortals. + +The significance of Dr. Brandes's literary activity, which has now +extended over a quarter of a century, can hardly be estimated from our +side of the Atlantic. The Danish horizon was, twenty years ago, hedged +in on all sides by a patriotic prejudice which allowed few foreign ideas +to enter. As previously stated, the people had, before the two +Sleswick-Holstein wars, been in lively communication with Germany, and +the intellectual currents of the Fatherland had found their way up to +the Belts, and had pulsated there, though with some loss of vigor. But +the disastrous defeat in the last war aroused such hostility to Germany +that the intellectual intercourse almost ceased. German ideas became +scarcely less obnoxious than German bayonets. Spiritual stagnation was +the result. For no nation can with impunity cut itself off from the +great life of the world. New connections might, perhaps, have been +formed with France or England; but the obstacles in the way of such +connections appeared too great to be readily overcome. Racial +differences and consequent alienism in habits of thought made a +_rapprochement_ seem hopeless. It seemed, for awhile, as if the war had +cut down the intellectual territory of the Danes even more than it had +curtailed their material area. They cultivated their little domestic +virtues, talked enthusiastic nonsense on festive occasions, indulged in +vain hopes of recovering their lost provinces, but rarely allowed their +political reverses to interfere with their amusements. They let the +world roar on past their gates, without troubling themselves much as to +what interested or agitated it. A feeble, moonshiny late-romanticism was +predominant in their literature; and in art, philosophy, and politics +that sluggish conservatism which betokens a low vitality, incident upon +intellectual isolation. + +What was needed at such a time was a man who could re-attach the broken +connection--a mediator and interpreter of foreign thought in such a form +as to appeal to the Danish temperament and be capable of assimilation by +the Danish intellect. Such a man was Georg Brandes. He undertook to put +his people _en rapport_ with the nineteenth century, to open new avenues +for the influx of modern thought, to take the place of those which had +been closed. We have seen that he interpreted to his countrymen the +significance of the literary and social movements both in England and in +France. But a self-satisfied and virtuous little nation which regards +its remoteness from the great world as a matter of congratulation is not +apt to receive with favor such a champion of alien ideas. The more the +Danes became absorbed in their national hallucinations, the more +provincial, nay parochial, they became in their interests, the less did +they feel the need of any intellectual stimulus from abroad; and when +Dr. Brandes introduced them to modern realism, agnosticism, and +positivism they thanked God that none of these dreadful isms were +indigenous with them; and were disposed to take Dr. Brandes to task for +disturbing their idyllic, orthodox peace by the promulgation of such +dangerous heresies. When the time came to fill the professorship for +which he was a candidate, he was passed by, and a safer but inferior man +was appointed. A formal crusade was opened against him, and he was made +the object of savage and bitter attacks. I am not positive, but am +disposed to believe, that it was this crusade, not against his opinions +only, but against the man himself, which drove Dr. Brandes from +Copenhagen, and induced him, in October, 1877, to settle in Berlin. Here +he continued his literary activity with unabated zeal, became a valued +contributor to the most authoritative German periodicals, and gained a +conspicuous position among German men of letters. But while he was +sojourning abroad, the seed of ideas which he had left at home began to +sprout, and in 1882 his friends in Copenhagen felt themselves strong +enough to brave the antagonism which his aesthetical and religious +heresies had aroused. At their invitation he returned to Denmark, having +been guaranteed an income of four thousand crowns ($1,000) for ten +years, with the single stipulation that he should deliver an annual +course of public lectures in Copenhagen. Since then his reputation has +spread rapidly throughout the civilized world; his books have been +translated into many languages, and he would have won his way to a +recognition, as the foremost of contemporary critics, if he had not in +his later publications discredited himself by his open sympathy with +anarchism. + +In order to substantiate this it is only necessary to call attention to +the fifth volume of his lectures entitled "Young Germany" (_Det unge +Tydskland_, 1890), which betrays extraordinary intellectual acumen but +also a singular confusion of moral values. All revolt is lauded, all +conformity derided. The former is noble, daring, Titanic; the latter is +pusillanimous and weak. Conjugal irregularities are treated not with +tolerance but with obvious approval. Those authors who dared be a law +unto themselves are, by implication at least, praised for flinging down +their gauntlets to the dull, moral Philistines who have shackled +themselves with their own stupid traditions. That is the tone of +Brandes's comment upon such relations as that of Immermann to Eliza von +Luetzow. + +But nowhere has he unmasked so Mephistophelian a countenance as in his +essays on Luther and on an obscure German iconoclast named Friedrich +Nietschke (_Essays: Fremmede Personligheder_, pp. 151-244). It is +difficult to understand how a man of well-balanced brain and a logical +equipment second to none, can take _au serieux_ a mere philosophical +savage who dances a war-dance amid what he conceives to be the ruins of +civilization, swings a reckless tomahawk and knocks down everybody and +everything that comes in his way. There must lie a long history of +disappointment and bitterness behind that endorsement of anarchy pure +and simple. And it is the sadder to contemplate because it casts a +sinister light upon Dr. Brandes's earlier activity and compels many an +admirer of his literary art to revise his previous opinion of him. Can a +man ever have been a sound thinker who at fifty practically hoists the +standard of anarchy? A ship is scarcely to be trusted that flies such +compromising colors. + +That all development, in order to be rational, must have its roots in +the past--must be in the nature of a slow organic growth--is certainly a +fundamental proposition of the Spencerian sociology. It is the more to +be wondered at that an evolutionist like Dr. Brandes, in his impatience +at the tardiness of social progress, should lose his philosophic temper +and make common cause with a crack-brained visionary. The kind of +explosive radicalism which Nietschke betrays in his cynical questions +and explanations is no evidence of profundity or sagacity, but is the +equivalent of the dynamiter's activity, transferred to the world of +thought. His pretended re-investigation of the foundations of the moral +sentiments reminds one of the mud geysers of the Yellowstone, which +break out periodically and envelop everything within reach in an +indeterminate shower of mud. To me there is more of vanity than of +philosophic acumen in his onslaught on well-nigh all human institutions. +He would, like Ibsen, no doubt, + + "Place 'neath the ark the torpedo most cheerfully;" + +but torpedoes of his making would scarcely do the ark much harm. They +have not the explosive power of Ibsen's. There are in every age men who, +unable to achieve the fame of Dinocrates, who built the temple of the +Ephesian Diana, aspire to that of Herostratos, who destroyed it. To +admire these men is as compromising as to be admired by them. + +In the essay on "Martin Luther on Celibacy and Marriage" Dr. Brandes +derides with a satyr-like leer all traditional ideas of chastity, +conjugal fidelity, and marital honor. + +Though he pretends to fight behind Luther's shield the deftest thrusts +are not the reformer's, but the essayist's own. Fundamentally, I fancy, +this is an outbreak of that artistic paganism which is so prevalent +among the so-called "advanced" Hebrews. The idea that obedience to law +is degrading; that conformity to traditional morals is soul-crippling +and unworthy of a free spirit; that only by giving sway to passion will +the individual attain that joy which is his right, and that +self-development which should be his highest aim, has found one of its +ablest and most dangerous advocates in Georg Brandes. + + + + +ESAIAS TEGNER + + +The genius of the Scandinavian north has never found a more complete and +brilliant incarnation than the Swedish poet Esaias Tegner. Strong, +cheerful, thoroughly wholesome, with a boyish delight in prowess, +adventure, and daring deeds, he presents a most agreeable contrast to +the moonshine singers and graveyard bards of the phosphoristic school, +who were his contemporaries. To Tegner, in his prime, life was a brisk +and exhilarating sail, with a fresh breeze, over sunny waters; and he +had no patience with those who described it as a painful and troublous +groping through the valley of the shadow of death. There was, in other +words, a certain charming juvenility in his attitude toward existence, +which presented to him no riddles that a man with a strong arm and an +honest heart might not solve with comparative ease. All problems were to +him soluble with the sword; and Alexander, when he cut the Gordian knot, +must have appeared to him wiser, as he was surely more admirable, than +either Plato or Socrates. This scorn of all metaphysical subtleties, and +reliance upon strength and Swedish manhood, are, perhaps (from an +advanced European point of view), indicative of a little intellectual +immaturity; but they are thoroughly characteristic of the Scandinavian +nationalities. The love of brave words and brave deeds, the exaltation +of the man of action above the man of thought, the pleasure in reckless +gallantry and foolhardy adventure, are, however, not confined to Swedes +and Norwegians, but are characteristic of the boyhood of every nation. +In the Scotchman, Robert Louis Stevenson, this jaunty juvenility, this +rich enjoyment of bloody buccaneers and profane sea-dogs, is carried to +far greater lengths, and the great juvenile public of England and +America, both young and old, rises up and calls him blessed. + +There is, however, a vast difference between Tegner's youthfulness and +that of Stevenson. The latter (in spite of the charm of his style, which +is irresistible) strikes me as a sort of mediaeval survival--a boyish +feudal sixteenth-century spirit astray in the nineteenth. I am by no +means insensible to the fascination of his capricious confidences, his +beautiful insight, and his exquisite humor; but for all that, he always +leaves me with a vague regret at his whimsicality and a certain lack of +robustness in his intellectual equipment. In Tegner, on the other hand, +it is primarily the man who is impressive; and the author is interesting +as the revelation of the man. He has no literary airs and graces, but +speaks with a splendid authority, _e plena pectore_, from the fulness of +his manly conviction. He seems a very personification of the national +genius--fair, vigorous, and beautiful--with the glow of health in his +cheeks and the light of courage in his eye. His vision of the world is +bright and vivid, and he swims with a joyous ease in the high-tide of +the moment, like a beautiful fish in the luminous summer sea. + +As a specimen of magnificent manhood Tegner had few equals in his day. +Tall, robust, and finely proportioned as he was, with a profile of +almost classic purity, he was equally irresistible to men and women. +There was a breezy, out-of-door air about him, and a genial +straightforwardness and affability in his manner which took all hearts +captive. His was not only the beauty of perfect health, but a certain +splendid virility in his demeanor and appearance heightened the charm of +his personality. + +It is a matter of wonder that a man in whom the race-type had reached +such perfection was but two generations removed from the soil. Tegner's +grandfathers on both sides were peasants; and his father, Esaias +Lucasson, was a peasant lad who by industry and ambition had obtained an +education and become a clergyman. He owed his aristocratic name to the +custom, prevalent in those days, to Latinize all vulgar appellations. +Esaias Lucasson, of Tegnaby (the little Smaland village where he was +born), became, in the Latin school, Esaias Tegnerus. He married in the +course of time a clergyman's daughter, Sara Maria Seidelius, who bore +him a large family of sons and daughters. The fifth son, named Esaias +after his father, first saw the light of day in the parsonage of +Kyrkerud, in Wermland, November 13, 1782. When he was nine years old his +father died, leaving behind him poverty and sorrow. Happily a friend of +the family, the Assessor Branting, took a fancy to the handsome and +clever boy and offered him a home in his house. Esaias wrote a very +clear, good hand, and soon got a desk and a high three-legged stool in +the assessor's office. So far from rebelling against this tedious +discipline, he applied himself with zeal to his task, and became, in a +short time, an excellent clerk. And a clerk he might have remained if +his patron had not had the wit to discover that very unusual talents +slumbered in the lad. Being fond of his society, Mr. Branting got into +the habit of taking him along on his official journeys; and from the +back seat of his chaise Esaias made the acquaintance of the beautiful +rivers, heights, and valleys of Wermland. The unconscious impressions +which a boy absorbs at this period of his life are apt to play a +decisive part in fashioning his future. Nature, however picturesque, +never yet made a poet of a dullard; but many a time has she aroused to +poetic consciousness a soul which without this stimulating influence +might never have discovered its calling, might never have felt that +strange, tremulous exaltation which demands utterance in song. + +Esaias Tegner stored his mind during these journeys with that wealth of +imagery, drawn from the scenery of his native land, which constitutes +the most national element in his verse. He also contracted, during his +residence in Branting's house, an inordinate love of books. Once during +the harvest-time he was placed on guard at an open gate, so as to +prevent the cattle from breaking into the adjoining field. To the great +chagrin of his patron, however, the cows made their way unhindered and +unnoticed into the forbidden territory, while their watchman was lying +on his belly in the grass, deeply absorbed in a book. Wherever he +happened to be, his idea of happiness was to hide himself away with a +cherished volume. Sometimes he was found sitting on the top rung of a +ladder, sometimes on the roof of a turf-thatched cottage, oblivious of +the world about him, plunged up to his ears in some historic or +mythological tale. He was voracious, nay, omnivorous, in his reading. A +book was a book to him; no matter what was its subject, whether it were +poetry, history, heraldry, or horticulture, he was always likely to find +something in it to interest him. But his favorite reading was the old +Norse sagas, with their tremendous recitals of war and song and fabulous +prowess. + +It was not, however, his delight in books which made the change in his +destiny. Professor C. W. Boettiger, Tegner's son-in-law, quotes, in his +life of the poet, the following incident in the latter's own words: + +"One evening, as I was travelling homeward with Assessor Branting, from +Carlstad to Hoegvalta, the stars were bright and my religious +foster-father seized this opportunity to talk with me about God's +omnipotence, and its visible traces throughout nature. I had just been +reading Bastholm's 'Philosophy for Laymen,' and I began to give an +account of what I had there learned concerning the movements of the +heavenly bodies. This made an impression upon the old man, who, a few +days later, informed me that he had determined to give me a scholarly +education. This had long been my secret desire, though I had never dared +to express it. 'You can learn nothing more with me,' he said, 'and I +believe you were born for something better. If that is the case,' he +added, 'do not forget to thank the Giver of all good things.'" + +The boy, who was now fourteen years old, was sent to the house of a +neighbor, where his elder brother, Lars Gustaf, was tutor, and was +initiated by him into the classical languages. He also taught himself +English by reading McPherson's "Ossian," which kept ringing in his +memory for many years to come. It was during his first enthusiasm for +"Ossian" that, in order to rid himself of the line "the spear of Connell +is keen," he cut it into his chamber-door, where probably it is yet to +be seen. At the end of fifteen months the elder brother accepted a more +profitable position as tutor in the family of the great +iron-manufacturer Myhrman, at Raemen, and stipulated that Esaias should +be permitted to accompany him. + +Very charming is the description of this hospitable, patriarchal +household, in Boettiger's biography; and doubly interesting it becomes +when we recognize on every page scenes and incidents which were later +woven into "Frithjof's Saga." There was a large library on the estate, +consisting of French, Latin, and Greek classics. With great zest Esaias +attacked this storehouse of delight; and scarcely would he grant himself +the needed sleep, because every hour seemed to him lost which had been +robbed from his beloved authors. The instruction in Latin and Greek +which his brother imparted to the young Myhrmans was to him far too +slow. In his eagerness to plunge into Homer's enchanted world, he +rapidly finished his grammar, and began to read ahead, book after book, +so as to get the connection, even though understanding but half the +words. Without knowing it, he had adopted a modern and really most +excellent method of acquiring the language. For Homer became literature +to him instead of a mere text for excruciating grammatical gymnastics. + +It was Tegner's good fortune that his playfellows, the seven young +Myhrmans, were not so fond of Greek as he was. Often, when he was +revelling in a glorious Homeric passage, these lusty barbarians would +come storming into his room and carry him off bodily, compelling him to +share in their sports; for Esaias was a capital hand at inventing new +games, and they willingly accepted his leadership and acted upon his +suggestions. Particularly his Homeric games were greatly enjoyed. They +divided their troop into Greeks and Trojans and captured Troy. Esaias +was always Hector, and the other boys became the raging Ajax, the +swift-footed Achilles, the wily Ulysses, etc. The youngest daughter of +the house, Anna Myhrman, must, I should fancy, have played somewhat more +of a part in Tegner's boyhood than his biographer allows, for the +descriptions of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's childhood in Hilding's house +are obviously personal reminiscences: + + "No bird's nest found so high a spot + That he for her could find it not; + The eagle's nest from clouds he sundered, + And eggs and young he deftly plundered. + + "However swift, there ran no brook, + But o'er it Ingeborg he took; + How sweet, when roaring torrents frighten, + To feel her soft arms round him tighten. + + "The first spring flowers by sunshine fed, + The earliest strawberries turning red, + The first of autumn's golden treasure + He proffered her with eager pleasure."[26] + + [26] Translation of Thomas A. E. and Martha A. L. Holcomb, Chicago, + 1877. I have taken the liberty to substitute "strawberries," which + is the correct translation of "Smultron," for berries. + +At the age of seventeen Tegner entered the University of Lund, +accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously +promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic +education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his +room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became +bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, +afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often +threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint +from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up +and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess. + +At the University Tegner soon made his mark, and two years later took +his degree of _Magister Artium_ with great distinction, being, according +to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the +cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp +and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine +stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegner +was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a +terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of +a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their +careers. Tegner was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to +her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him +in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits +of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in +front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. +His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the +professors saved him from the _consilium abeundi cum infamia_, with +which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed _docent_ in +aesthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant +University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Raemen with the +Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had +undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its +delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away +one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short +skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly +dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him +with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more +than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth +upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found +up in the woods above Raemen which yet shows under its coating of moss +the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to +fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in +"Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply +an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge: + + "He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand, + And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland, + Whilst his love-dreaming gaze + Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays. + + "They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay, + When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way; + For on memory's page + Youth traces its roses; its briers old age. + + "She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood, + From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood; + From the dome-crowned cave + Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."[27] + + [27] Strong's translation. + +But here, happily, Tegner's life ceased to supply material for that of +his hero. For Anna Myhrman, instead of pledging her troth to a +high-born, elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the young +University instructor, Esaias Tegner; and when her bridal wreath of +myrtle failed to arrive from the city, she twined a wreath of wild +heather instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day with the +modest heather blossoms peeping forth from under her dark locks. + +His insecure position in life, as one dependent upon the bounty of +friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegner, and at times made him moody and +despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy +the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a +perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He +looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed +him with a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, have succumbed +to the strain of this perpetual over-exertion. But after his marriage a +happy change came over him. The joyous substratum of his nature (what he +himself called his pagan self) broke through its sombre integuments and +asserted itself. No sooner had he taken his place among the teachers of +the University than his clear and weighty personality commanded +admiration and respect. In social intercourse his ready wit and cheerful +conviviality made him a general favorite. His talk, without being in the +least forced, was full of surprises; and there was a charm, in the +redundant vigor and virility that seemed to radiate from him. But it may +as well be admitted that he began at this time to show what may +euphemistically be styled his paganism, in the relish which he evinced +for jests of doubtful propriety. He was indeed as far as possible from +being a prude; many years later, when he was a bishop and a great +ecclesiastical dignitary, he wrote to his friend the poet Franzen: + + "I thank God that I can yet, at times, be merry and give vent to my + mirth in prose and verse. I don't scruple to make a good joke even + though its subject be the bridal bed. All prudery--and frequently + the clerical dignity is, in social intercourse, nothing else--I + detest and despise." + +His inability to restrain his wit in this particular direction has done +some injury to his memory. Not that his fancy had any taint of +uncleanness. It was open and cheerful as the sunlight; and as the +sunlight played brightly over all things without fastidious +discrimination. There was a rich, and healthy humanity about him which +manifested itself in an impartial, all-embracing delight in the glow and +color of mere sensuous existence. There has scarcely ever been a great +poet (Dante perhaps excepted) who has not had his share of this pagan +joy in nudity. Goethe's "Roman Elegies" are undisguisedly Anacreontic, +and the most spiritual of modern poets, Robert Browning, is as deep and +varied and bountiful in the expression he gives to life in its sensuous +phases as in its highest ascetic transports. + +Do not imagine, then, that I am apologizing for Tegner, I am merely +trying to account for him. From his Homer, whom he loved above all other +poets, he had in a measure derived that artistic paganism which +perceptibly colored his personality. There was nothing of the scholarly +prig or pedant about him. In his lectures he gave himself, his own view +of life, and his own interpretation of his authors. And it was because +of the greatness of the man, the unhackneyed vigor of his speech, and +the power of his intellect that the students flocked to his lecture-hall +and listened with enthusiasm to his teaching. + +I am not by any means sure, however, that much of his popularity was +also due to what, at this stage of his career, may without disrespect +be called his immaturity. That wholesome robustness in his acceptance +of life which finds utterance in his early songs must have established a +quick bond of sympathy between him and his youthful hearers. The +instincts of the predatory man were yet strong in him. The tribal +feeling which we call patriotism, the juvenile defiance which carries a +chip on its shoulder as a challenge to the world, the boastful +self-assertion which is always ridiculous in every nation but our +own--impart a splendid martial resonance to his first notable poem, +"War-Song for the Scanian Reserves" (1808). There was a charming, frank +ferocity in this patriotic bugle-blast which found an echo in every +Swedish heart. The rapid dactylic metres, with the captivating rhymes, +alternating with the more contemplative trochees, were admirably adapted +for conveying the ebullient indignation and wrath which hurls its +gauntlet into the face of fate itself,[28] checked, as it were, and +cooled by soberer reflection and retrospective regret. It is the sorrow +for the yet recent loss of Finland which inspires the elegiac tones in +Tegner's war-song; and it is his own ardent, youthful spirit, his own +deep and sincere love of country, which awakes the martial melody with +the throbbing of the drum and the rousing alarum of trumpets. What can +be more delightfully--shall I say juvenile--than this reference to the +numerical superiority of the Muscovites: + + "Many, are they? Well, then, of the many + Sweden shall drink the red blood and be free! + Many? We count not the warriors' numbers + Only the fallen shall numbered be." + + [28] + + "Vi Kaste var handske + Mot oedet sjelf." + + + +It is with no desire to disparage Tegner that I say that this strain, +which is that of all his early war-songs, is extremely becoming to him. +It is not a question of the legitimacy of the sentiment, but of the +fulness and felicity of its expression. As long as we have wars we must +have martial bards, and with the exception of the German, Theodor +Koerner, I know none who can bear comparison with Tegner. English +literature can certainly boast no war-poem which would not be drowned in +the mighty music of Tegner's "Svea," "The Scanian Reserves," and that +magnificent, dithyrambic declamation, "King Charles, the Young Hero." +Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" is technically a finer poem +than anything Tegner has written, but it lacks the deep virile bass, the +tremendous volume of breath and voice, and the captivating martial lilt +which makes the heart beat willy nilly to the rhythm of the verse. + +The popularity which Tegner gained by "The Scanian Reserves" was the +immediate cause of his appointment to a professorship at the University +of Lund, and his next notable poem, "Svea," which won him the great +prize of the Swedish Academy, raised him to a height of fame which +naturally led to further promotion. According to the curious custom of +Sweden, a professor may, even though he has never studied theology, take +orders and accept the charge of a parish. He is regarded as being, by +dint of his learning, in the regular line of clerical promotion; and the +elevation from a professorship (though it be not a theological one) into +a bishopric is no infrequent occurrence. There was therefore nothing +anomalous in Tegner's appointment (February, 1812) as pastor of Staefvie +and Lackalaenge, and his subsequent promotion (February, 1824) to the +bishopric of Wexioe. His pastorate he was permitted to combine with his +professorship of Greek, to which he was simultaneously transferred from +that of aesthetics, and the office was chiefly valuable to him on account +of the addition which it procured him to his income. The nearness of his +parish to Lund enabled him to preach in the country on Sundays as +regularly as he lectured in the city on week-days. His other pastoral +duties he could not very well discharge _in absentia_, and they probably +remained in a measure undischarged. He had not sought the parish; it was +the parish which had sought him; and he exerted himself to the utmost to +fill the less congenial office as conscientiously as he did his academic +chair. The peasants of Staefvie and Lackalaenge were always welcome at his +hospitable board; he gave them freely his advice, and in order to recall +and emphasize his own kinship with them, he invited a peasant woman to +become the godmother of his youngest son, and selected all the sponsors +from the same class. + +This was not the only occasion on which Tegner demonstrated his +superiority to all snobbish pretensions. He was not only not ashamed of +his peasant descent, but he was proud of it. Once (1811) during a visit +to Raemen, he took it into his head that he desired to know, from actual +experience, the kind of lives which his ancestors must have lived; and +to that end he dressed himself in wadmal, loaded a dray with pig-iron, +greased its axles, harnessed his team, and drove it to the nearest city, +a distance of ten to twelve miles. He induced three of his +brothers-in-law, two of whom were army officers and one a government +clerk, to follow his example. Up hill and down hill they trudged, and +arrived late in the afternoon, footsore and with blistered hands, in the +town, where they reported at the office of a commission merchant, sold +their iron and obtained their receipts. That of Tegner was made out to +Esaias Esaiasson, which would have been his name, if his father had +never risen from the soil. The four sham peasants now bought seed-corn +with the money they had obtained for their iron, loaded again their +wagons, and started for home. But they had forgotten to take into +account the robustness of the rustic appetite, and before they had +proceeded far their bag of provisions was empty. To add to their +discomfort the rain began to pour down, but they would not seek +shelter. After midnight they arrived at Raemen, hungry and drenched, not +having slept for two nights, but happy and proud of their feat of +endurance. + +It was in 1811 that Tegner's poem "Svea" received the prize of the +Swedish Academy; and the fact that it recalled (in single passages at +least) Oehlenschlaeger's "The Golden Horns," does not seem to have +weighed in the verdict. It is not in any sense an imitation; but there +is an audible reminiscence which is unmistakable in the metre and +cadence of the short-lined verses, descriptive of the vision. Never, I +fancy, had the Swedish language been made to soar with so strong a +wing-beat, never before had it been made to sing so bold a melody. To +me, I admit, "Svea" is too rhetorical to make any deep impression. It +has a certain stately academic form, which, as it were, impedes its +respiration and freedom of movement. When, for all that, I speak of +wing-beat and melody, it must be borne in mind that Sweden had produced +no really great poet[29] before Tegner; and that thus, relatively +considered, the statement is true. But Tegner seems himself to have +been conscious of the strait-jacket in which the old academic rules +confined him, for in the middle of the poem he suddenly discards the +stilted Alexandrines with which he had commenced and breaks into a +rapturous old-Norse chant, the abrupt metres of which recall the +_fornyrdhalag_ of the Elder Edda. Soon after "Svea" followed, in 1812, +"The Priestly Consecration," the occasion of which was the poet's own +ordination. Here the oratorical note and a certain clerical rotundity of +utterance come very near spoiling the melody. "At the Jubilee in Lund" +(1817) is very much in the same strain, and begins with the statement so +characteristic of Tegner: + + "Thou who didst the brave twin stars enkindle, + Reason and Religion, guard the twain! + Each shines by other; else they fade and dwindle.[30] + Fill with clearness every human brain: + Faith and hope in every bosom reign!" + + [29] Carl Michael Bellman, the Swedish Beranger (1740-1795), whose + wanton music resounded through the latter half of the eighteenth + century, would, no doubt, by many be called a great poet. But his + Bacchanalian strain, though at times exquisite and captivating, + lacks the universality of sentiment and that depth of resonance of + which greatness can alone be predicated. Both his wild mirth and his + sombre melancholy exhale the aroma of ardent spirits. + + [30] This line reads literally: "Guard them both; they are willingly + reconciled." + +He was, in fact, never very orthodox; and if he had belonged to the +American branch of his denomination would surely have been tried for +heresy. Rarely has a deadlier foe of priestly obscurantism and mediaeval +mysteries worn the episcopal robes. With doctrinal subtleties and +ingenious hair-splitting he had no patience; conduct was with him the +main, if not the only, thing to be considered. The Christian Church, as +he conceived it, was primarily a civilizer, and the expression of the +highest ethical sentiment of the age. + +"The Church," he writes, "can surely not be re-established in its former +religious significance, for the system upon which it rests has slept +away three centuries of history; and it is of no use that this man or +that man yet pretends to believe in the somnambulist. But the church has +also a civic significance as an integral part of the social order of +humanity. If you abandon that to the spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I +can see no reason why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus +should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and their costs covered +into the treasury." + +These are not highly episcopal sentiments; but they are in keeping with +Tegner's whole personality and his conception of his duty. His first +concern was to purge his diocese of drunken clergymen, a task in which +he encountered many unforeseen difficulties. + +"It is nowadays less difficult," he says, "to get rid of a king than a +drunken clergyman." + +He was, indeed, very moderate in his demands, stipulating only that no +shepherd of souls should show himself drunk in public. But the bibulous +parsons frequently had influential relatives, who exerted themselves +with the government to thwart the bishop's reformatory schemes. If +Tegner had not been the masterful, tireless, energetic prelate that he +was, his ardor would have cooled; and he would have contented himself +with drawing the revenues of his office, and left with the lukewarm +government the responsibility for frustrating his purposes. But this was +contrary to his nature. He could not calmly contemplate abuses which it +was his duty to remedy; and no discouragement ever sufficed to dampen +his noble zeal. The marked and fanatical pietism which then was much +diffused among the Smaland peasantry he fought with his cheerful gospel +of reason and sanity. Just as poetry to him meant the highest bloom of +life, and his radiant lyre resounded with noble music like the statue of +Memnon, when touched by the rays of the dawn; so religion was, in its +essence, perfect sanity of soul, a beautiful equilibrium of mind, and +complete self-mastery. His Christ was not primarily the bleeding, the +scourged, the crucified, but rather a benigner and lovelier Phoebus +Apollo, the bringer of clearness and light, the dispeller of the +unwholesome mists and barbaric gloom that yet brood over the human soul. +Like Goethe, he cherished a veritable abhorrence of the mystic symbolism +of the mediaeval church; and was rather inclined to minimize the +significance of Christ's death and passion. He had undeniably imparted +into his Christianity a great deal of sunny Hellenic paganism--a fact +which in his familiar correspondence with Franzen he scarcely cares to +disguise. + +Having this conception of the episcopal office, he could not escape +emphasizing his function as the supervisor of the schools of his +diocese. If he was to be a civilizer on any great scale, the chance +which was here afforded him to impress his ideals upon the rising +generation was not one to be neglected. And, as a matter of fact, Tegner +was indefatigable in his labors as an educator. His many speeches at +school celebrations preached, as ever, a gospel derived from Greece +rather than Judaea; and half-improvised though some of them appear to be, +they contain passages of lofty eloquence. + +It was inevitable that a bishop of such commanding personality, who +wielded his authority at times somewhat ruthlessly, should make enemies. +But, on the other hand, the beautiful beneficence and sincere humanity +of the man often obliterated the ill-feeling which his official severity +had aroused. To the widows of deceased clergymen in his diocese he was a +veritable guardian, to their children a father, to his peasantry a +friend, adviser, and monitor. He was an expert at detecting errors in +ecclesiastical balance-sheets; and woe to the cleric who dared present +to him inaccurate accounts of income and expenditures. By sheer dint of +his personal superiority and that quality of soul which George Eliot +calls dynamic, he impressed himself strongly upon all with whom he came +in contact; and though he was feared, he was also beloved as few. A very +delightful instance of the reverence with which he was regarded is +recorded by Boettiger. + +One summer evening he arrived at a remote parsonage which had never, in +the memory of man, been visited by a bishop. Some time after his arrival +Tegner observed two young ladies, the daughters of the house, coming +across the yard carrying between them a big tub, full of water. When he +asked them, in a friendly way, why they subjected themselves to such +hard labor, one of them replied: "Should we not regard it as an honor to +be allowed to water the bishop's horses?" + +In order to give a clear and coherent idea of Tegner in his prime, I +have been obliged to anticipate events. Many literary achievements which +I have left unrecorded belong to the period previous to his assumption +of the bishopric of Wexioe. Unhappily Professor Boettiger's edition is +very chary of dates, and as Dr. Brandes has truly observed, is arranged +with the obvious purpose of falsifying the sequence of Tegner's poems +and confusing the reader. The three periods--previous to 1812, 1812-40, +and 1840-46--are entirely arbitrary, and plainly devised with a view to +concealing, in so far as they are capable of concealment, the unhappy +events which undermined the strength of the Titan and wrecked his +splendid powers. But such a purpose is utterly futile, as long as the +poems themselves had once escaped into publicity. + +It was during the period while his sky was yet unclouded that Tegner +enriched Swedish literature with a series of lyrics which in point of +lucidity of thought and brilliancy of diction have rarely been +surpassed. It may be admitted, without materially detracting from his +merit, that in some of them the foreign models from which they were in a +measure fashioned shimmer through. Just as the Germans, Gottsched and +Bodmer, held foreign models to be indispensable, and only disagreed as +to which were the best, so the Swedish Academy, which in its +predilections was French, had no scruple in recommending this or that +literary form for imitation. That degree of literary independence which +Germany reached with Goethe and Schiller, who discarded all models, the +Scandinavian countries did not reach until a much later period; and +Tegner was one of those who stimulated that national self-respect +without which independence is impossible. + +A strong spiritual kinship drew him to Schiller, whose splendor of +imagery and impassioned rhetoric were the very gifts which he himself in +a superlative degree possessed. The breath of political and religious +liberalism which pervades the writings of the German poet was also +highly congenial to Tegner, and last, but not least, they were both +light-loving, beauty-worshipping Hellenists, and, though externally +conformists, hid joyous pagan souls under imperfect Christian draperies. +Small blame it is therefore to Tegner that Schiller's poems furnished +him with frequent suggestions and sometimes also with metres. Schiller +had, in "The Gods of Greece," sung a glorious elegy on the Olympian age +which stimulated his Swedish rival to write "The Asa Age," in which he +regretted, though in a rather half-hearted way, the disappearance of +Odin, Thor, and Freya. The poem, it must be admitted, falls much below +Tegner at his best. Schiller's "Three Words of Faith," in which liberty, +virtue, and God are declared to be the only essentials of religion, +finds a parallel (which even retains the metre) in Tegner's "The +Eternal," in which truth, justice, and beauty are substituted. A kindred +poetic creed is far more consciously proclaimed in the famous poem +_Sangen_ (Poetry), which was primarily a protest against the gloomy and +morbid view of poetry entertained by the Swedish Romanticists (the +so-called Phosphorists). Tegner here declares that the poet "with +heavenly joy embraces life," that "he knows no weak lament" (at its +misery), "no dissonance which is not dissolved" (in harmony). His temple +stands in light and flame; and at its base a fountain gurgles, a draught +from which is an elixir of strength and a panacea for all ills. + +"Well, then," he continues, "from this fountain will I drink, if I am +worthy of such a draught. With healthy eyes will I look about me in the +sick world. My golden lyre shall not resound with sorrows which I myself +have invented. For the poet's sorrows are none; and the sky of song is +forever bright." + +Peter Amadeus Atterbom, the leader of the Phosphorists, replied with +much moderation and good sense to the obvious reflections upon his +school which this poem contained. He intimates plainly enough that +Tegner's philosophy of life, in so far as it ignores sin and sorrow, +which are too real to be banished by song, is a hopelessly shallow one. + +"The undissolved dissonances," he says, "in the sense in which Mr. +Tegner uses the expression, certainly betray a disease of the soul, but +this disease is not peculiar to a temperament which is fostered by a +personal emotional affinity for lugubrious topics and ideas given by +birth and developed by circumstances; but it is inherent in the weakness +(which at times doubtless surprises even the strongest ...) of desiring +to set up its sorrowful view of the world as a theory, and treat it as +absolutely true and fundamentally valid for all. Sorrow, as such, is no +more a diseased state than is joy; both are alike primordial, necessary, +indispensable elements and halves of human life. Who would venture to +assert that the day might dispense with the night? And does not the +latter's glorious starry sky rival in majesty (though different in kind) +the former's bright and dazzling blitheness?" + +The fact was that Tegner's cheery sun-worship was as much temperamental +as was Atterbom's sentimental reveries and nocturnal melancholy. The +Phosphorist is unquestionably right, however, in asserting that as a +theory of life the one is as limited and imperfect as the other. It was +because of the abhorrence of all the darker phases of existence that +Tegner's bright Hellenic muse never struck those notes which thrill +with deepest resonance through the human heart. Tegner's acquaintance +with suffering during the early part of his career was chiefly a +literary one, and like Goethe he went far out of his way to avoid the +sight of it. As there can be no victory without combat--no laurel +without dust--the Mount of Transfiguration is not reached except through +the valley of the Shadow of Death. + +There are, however, many fair flowers to be plucked in Tempe and the +blooming vales of Arcady. Goethe had in 1798 published "Hermann and +Dorothea," the form of which was Greek, though the theme was Teutonic; +and Tegner's "Children of the Lord's Supper" (1820), which Longfellow +has translated so admirably into English, derived its inspiration +primarily from the German idyl: + + "Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, the church of the village + Stood, gleaming white in the morning sheen. On the spire of the belfry, + Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the spring sun + Glanced like the tongues of fire beheld by Apostles aforetime." + +Thus run the beautiful, stately hexameters, which, whatever cavilling +critics may say, are delightfully adapted for epic narrative in any +fairly polysyllabic language. And Swedish, which is the most sonorous of +all Germanic tongues, and full of Gothic strength, produces the most +delectable effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls +and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegner, which shuns all that is +harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs +it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the +fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The +description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal +clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth +which we miss in the more declamatory passages. If, however, declamation +is anywhere in place it is in the three orations of the rural parson, +which occupy the larger portion of the poem. It is all very lovely and +edifying; full of sacred eloquence and a grand amplitude of phrase which +is distinctly clerical. + +The romantic tale of "Axel" (1822), modelled after Byron's narrative +poems, rejoiced in a greater popularity, in spite of the carping +criticism with which it was received by the _Svensk Litteratur-Tidning,_ +the organ of the Phosphorists. Though, to be sure, the merits of the +poem are largely ignored in this review, it is undeniable that the +faults which are emphasized do exist. First, the frequent violations of +probability (which, by the way, ought not to have been so offensive to a +romanticist) draw tremendous draughts upon the reader's credulity; and +secondly, the lavish magnificence of imagery rarely adds to the +vividness of the situations, but rather obscures and confuses them. It +reminds one of a certain style of barocque architecture in which the +rage for ornamentation twists every line into a scroll or spiral or +arabesque, until whatever design there originally was is lost in a riot +of decoration. The metaphors exist for their own sake, and are in nowise +subordinate to the themes which they profess to illustrate. Take, for +instance, the oft-quoted passage: + + "The night drew near, and in the west + Upon its couch lay Evening dreaming, + And silent, like the priests of Egypt, + The stars pursued their radiant paths, + And earth stood in the starry eve, + As blissful as a bride who stands, + The garland in her dusky hair, + Beneath the baldaquin and blushes. + Tired of the games of day, and warm, + The Naiad rested, still and smiling, + The glow of evening shone resplendent, + A gorgeous rose upon her breast; + And merry Cupid, who had slept + When sun was high, awoke and rode + Upon the moonbeams up and down, + With bow and arrow, through the forest." + +This is all very magnificent; but the images tread so close upon each +other's heels, that they come near treading each other down, and +tumbling together in a confused jumble. I claim no originality in +calling attention to the fact that it must have been a colossal Naiad +who could wear the evening glow like "a gorgeous rose upon her breast." +Likewise former critics have questioned whether the stars gain in the +least in vividness by being compared to the priests of Egypt,[31] who +were certainly far less familiar to the reader's vision. + + [31] L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges Litteratur. + Kjoebenhavn, 1862. See also Svensk Litteratur-Tidning as quoted in B. + E. Malmstroem: Grunddragen af Svenska Vitterhetens Historia, vol. v., + p. 423. Oerebro. + +The story of the Swedish officer Axel and his beloved, the Cossack +Amazon, Maria, has from beginning to end a flavor of Byron, and recalls +alternately "the Corsair" and "Lara." The extravagant sentimentality of +the tale appealed, however, powerfully to the contemporary taste, and +the dissenting voice of criticism was drowned like the shrill note of a +single fife in the noisy orchestra of praise. The Swedish matrons and +maidens wept over Axel's and Maria's heroic, but tragic love, as those +of England, nay, of all Europe, wept over that of Conrad and Medora. +Maria, when she hears that Axel has a betrothed at home, enlists as a +man in the Russian army (a very odd proceeding by the way, and scarcely +conducive to her purpose) and resolves to kill her rival. She is, +however, mortally wounded, and Axel finds her dying upon the +battlefield. + + "Yea, it was she; with smothered pain + She whispers with a voice full faint: + 'Good-evening, Axel, nay, good-night, + For death is nestling at my heart. + Oh! ask not what hath brought me hither; + 'Twas love alone led me astray. + Alas! the last long night is dusking; + I stand before the grave's dread door. + How different life, with all its small distresses, + Seems now from what it seemed of yore! + And only love--love fair as ours, + Can I take with me to the skies.'"[32] + + [32] The original is in the rhymed Byronic metre, mostly in + couplets. In order not to sacrifice anything of the meaning I have + chosen to put it into blank verse. + +This is exactly the Byronic note, which would be still more audible, if +I had preserved the rhymed couplets. Even Medora's male attire is +borrowed by Maria, and much more of this Byronic melodramatic heroism is +there, only a little more conventionally draped and with larger +concessions to the Philistine sense of propriety. But even if Tegner in +"Axel" had coquetted with the Romantic muse, it would be rash to +conclude that he contemplated any durable relation. The note which he +had struck in his renowned oration at the festival commemorating the +Reformation (1817), came from the depth of his heart, and continued to +resound through his speech and song for many years to come. I do not +moan to imply, of course, that the Byronic Romanticism was very closely +akin to that of Tieck, the Schlegels, and Novalis; or that Tegner in the +least compromised his frank and manly liberalism by composing a +variation, as it were, on a Byronic theme. How deeply he hated the +mediaeval obscurantism which then, under the auspices of Metternich and +his unholy "Holy Alliance" was spreading over Europe, he showed in +numerous private and public utterances concerning the political +condition of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. His greeting to the "New +Year, 1816" (which his son-in-law has foolishly excluded from his +edition of the collected works), is overbrimming with bitterness at the +triumph of the enemies of the light. + + "Hurrah! Religion is a Jesuit, + The rights of man are Jacobins; + The world is free; the raven is white; + Long live the Pope--and that other; + I am going to Germany, and there I'll learn + Sonnets to sing and incense to burn. + + "Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom, + Stupidity, lies, and fraud! + I hope thou'lt make an end of our earth, + A bullet at least she's worth; + She's restless, poor thing, like many another, + A shot through the head--she'll cause no more bother!" + +It was the fashion in those days to revile the Revolution, because it +had produced the man on horseback who had turned the old order of things +topsy-turvy in a very unceremonious fashion. Coleridge, Southey, and +Wordsworth in England, and Klopstock, Schiller, and a horde of lesser +lights in Germany, had hailed the French uprising as the bloody dawn of +a new and more glorious day; but the excesses of the Reign of Terror +frightened them back into the old fastnesses of Conservatism. Tegner +(and to his honor be it said) was one of the few who did not despair of +liberty because a people born and bred in despotism failed to exercise +the wisdom and self-restraint which only liberty can foster. For the +only road to the attainment of liberty is its practice and its abuse, +and the slow education which can be acquired by no theoretical teaching, +but only in the hard and expensive school of experience. For the +terrible birth-pangs of liberty no despotically governed people can +escape, unless it chooses to remain in thraldom. + +This is the spirit that breathes through Tegner's speeches and poems, +during his most vigorous manhood; and even, when the rift in his lute +made its music harsh and uncertain, the strain was yet essentially the +same, though transposed into an alien key. It is very tempting to quote +the many noble sayings of this master of the commanding phrase, but one +or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published +correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, +which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no +affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness +which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. +What clarity of political vision there is in such passages as these: + +(1813.) "He who fancies that Europe will be delivered by Russia and her +confederates, or that the progress of the Cossacks is for the advantage +of Sweden, may perhaps be in the right; but his views are very different +from mine. In the hatred of the Barbarians I am born and bred, and I +hope to die in it, unbewildered by modern sophisms." + +(1814.) "Who can believe in the re-establishment of the European balance +of power or rejoice in the victory of wretched mediocrity over power and +genius. The upheavals of the age will soon affect us all--at least us +Swedes." + +(1817) "That we are living on an earth yet quaking from the French +Revolution is undeniable; and extremely foolish seems to me the speech +of those who insist that the Revolution is finished, or even approaching +its end." + +"Napoleon fell, not on account of his wretched opponents, but because +despotism is the livery of all strong souls, because his spirit was +opposed to the spirit of the age, with which he wrestled, and which was +stronger than he."[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. There was something chivalrous, I +could almost say adventurous, in his whole personality, in his whole way +of beginning and prosecuting an enterprise. He put upon whatever he did +the stamp of an almost inconceivable greatness--of an almost +overwhelming force. His mere word was half a battle, his deed was a +whole one. He was one of those mighty souls which, like certain trees, +can only bloom in a storm. His whole great, rich, marvellous life has +always seemed to me like an epic with its battles and its final victory. +Such a spirit must of necessity make room for itself, and decisively +assert itself in history, in whatever direction its activity may be +turned, under whatever circumstances and at whatever time it enters upon +its career. The time when Luther came was one of those great historical +epochs when the world-serpent sheds its skin and reappears in +rejuvenated shape.... A great man, even the very greatest, is always the +son of his age--only he is the eldest son; he is the deputy and executor +of the age. The age is his, and he administers its substance according +to his judgment. He finds the scattered elements to his hand, but +usually tangled up and struggling in chaotic disorder. To gather and +arrange them into a creation, to direct them toward a definite goal, ... +this is his greatness; this is his creative powers.... In this ... sense +Luther created his age."[34] + + [34] Esaias Tegner's Samlade Skrifter, vol. v., pp. 6, 7, 9, and 10. + +Dr. Brandes has anticipated me in calling attention to the fact that the +orator's characterization of Luther, though highly interesting, is +one-sided. But as his admirable monograph on Tegner is not accessible to +English readers, I feel justified in repeating his argument in +abbreviated form. There is a great uniformity, he says, in substance, in +all Tegner's heroes. They are all men of action--bold, strong, +adventurous heroes, such as boys delight in. They have a striking family +resemblance. With the change of a few attributes Tegner applies his +characterization of Luther to such a widely differing personality as +King Gustavus III. of Sweden, a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, +infidel monarch. And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are forced into +the same livery, in spite of their diversity of structure, because +Tegner admired them all, and had practically but one type which appeared +to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy wholly worthy of +admiration.[35] + + [35] Georg Brandes: Esaias Tegner, pp. 17-19. + +In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegner's collected works I +am much struck with the force of this criticism. The brave man who +defies the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears into dangers, +without counting the odds against him, is the typical juvenile hero; and +it is strange, though by no means incomprehensible, that a man like +Tegner, who could betray such political insight as is shown in his +letters to Franzen and Leopold had not really gotten beyond this +primitive type of excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not +desirable that he should. For the tremendous popularity which greeted +"Frithjof's Saga" was due in no small measure to this half-juvenile +robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot help regretting in myself +the loss of my boyish appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and +mysterious treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from deploring Tegner's +delight in the insane prowess of Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous +gallantry of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness in it +which makes one, on the whole, like him the more. + +It might well be said of Tegner, as he said of Luther, that his word was +half a battle. At all events he accomplished by his speeches a complete +overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without engaging in the +barren polemics to which they invited him. He waited until some +appropriate public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of the fulness +of his conviction. And his words spread like undulating waves of light +from one end of the land to the other, finding lodgement in thousands +of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at the "magister promotion"[36] +in Lund (1820) was a direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against +that mystic obscurity which, according to the Phosphorists, was +inseparable from the highest and deepest poetic utterance: + + "In vain they call upon the lofty Truth + With sombre conjurations; for the dark + She ne'er endures; for her abode is light. + In Phoebus' world, in knowledge as in song, + All things are bright. Bright beams the radiant sun; + Clear runs and pure his bright Castalian fountain. + Whate'er thou canst not clearly say thou know'st not. + Twin-born with thought is word on lips of man; + That which is darkly said is darkly thought; + For wisdom true is like the diamond, + A drop that's petrified of heavenly light; + The purer that it is, the more its value, + The more the daylight shines and glitters through it. + The ancients builded unto Truth a temple, + A fair rotunda, light as heaven's vault. + And freely poured the sunshine from all sides + Into its open round; the winds of heaven + Amid its ranks of pillars gayly gambolled. + But now instead we build a Tower of Babel, + A heavy, barbarous structure. Darkness peeps + From out its deep and narrow grated casements. + Unto the sky the tower was meant to reach, + But hitherto we've only had confusion. + As in the realm of thought, in that of song + It is; and poesy is e'er transparent ..." + + [36] A magister promotion corresponds approximately to our + university commencements. It is the ceremony of bestowing the degree + of master of arts. + +This was certainly an attractive doctrine, and it did not fail to +command public approval. But it suffers from exactly the same limitation +as Tegner's gospel of joy. It is only relatively (I might almost say +temperamentally) true; and the opposite might be maintained with equal +force, and in fact was so maintained by Atterbom, who declared (in the +"Poetical Calendar for 1821") that there can be no such a conception as +light without darkness. Darkness, he says, is the condition of all color +and form. You distinguish the light and all things in it only by the +contrasting effect of shadow--all of which, I fancy, Tegner would not +have denied. More to the point would have been the query whether in +poetry darkness and indistinctness are synonymous terms. It is only the +most commonplace truths which can be made intelligible to all. Much of +the best and highest thinking of humanity lies above the plane of the +ordinary untrained intellect. What is light to me may be twilight or +darkness to you. What to you is clear as the daylight, may to me be as +densely impenetrable as the Cimmerian night. Christ himself recognized +this fact when he said to his disciples: "I have yet many things to say +unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." + +For all that, Tegner's doctrine was in its effect wholesome. It +discouraged the writers of the Romantic School, who under the guise of +profundity gave publicity to much immature and confused thinking. He was +no doubt right in saying that "a poetry which commences with +whooping-cough is likely to end in consumption." His frequently repeated +maxim, that poetry is nothing but the health of life, "occasioned by an +abounding intellectual vigor, a joyous leap over the barriers of +everyday life," applied, however, to his own poetry only so long as his +vigor was unimpaired. His terrible poem "Hypochondria" (_Mjeltsjukan_) +is to me no less poetical because it is not "a petrified drop of +heavenly light," and mocks all the cheerful theories of its author's +prime. + +Tegner had yet a few years in which to rejoice in this "health of life" +in which he found the inspiration for his song; and these last years +were the most fruitful in his entire career. He was about forty years of +age when, in 1820, he began to compose the first cantos of "Frithjof's +Saga." He was living in modest comfort, happy in his marital relation, +and surrounded by a family of children to whom he was a most +affectionate father. He could romp and play with his curly-headed boys +and girls without any loss of dignity; and they loved nothing better +than to invade his study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed +pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied him to his lectures and +remained sitting at his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his +explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his master, in his zeal +for his own poetry, forgot the lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully +pull him by the tails of his coat. No man at the University of Lund was +more generally beloved than Tegner, and all honors which the University +could bestow had been offered to him. The office of Rector Magnificus he +had, however, persisted in declining. + +There was at that time a general revival of interest in the so-called +saga-age. The Danish poet, Oehlenschlaeger, had published his old-Norse +cycle of poems, "Helge," which aroused a sympathetic reverberation in +Tegner's mind. The idea took possession of him that here was a theme +which lay well within the range of his own voice, and full of alluring +possibilities. Accordingly he chose the ancient "Saga of Frithjof the +Bold," and resolved to embody in it all the characteristic features of +the old heroic life. And what Oehlenschlaeger had attempted to do, and +partly succeeded in doing, he accomplished with a completeness of +success which was a surprise to himself. No sooner had "Iduna," the +organ of the Gothic League, published the first nine cantos (1821), than +all Sweden resounded with enthusiastic applause; and even from beyond +the boundaries of the fatherland came voices of praise. When the +completed poem appeared in book-form, it was translated into all +civilized languages, and everywhere, in spite of the translators' +shortcomings, it was hailed with delight. Not only England, France, and +Germany hastened to appropriate it, but even in Spain, Greece, and +Russia tears were shed over "Ingeborg's Lament," and tender bosoms +palpitated with sympathy for Frithjof's sorrows. I know a dozen English +translations of "Frithjof's Saga" (a friend of mine, who is a +bibliophile, assures me that the exact number is at present twenty-one), +and of German versions the number is not very much less. A Norwegian (or +rather Danish) rendering was presented to me on my twelfth birthday; and +the sentiment which then most forcibly appealed to me was, as I vividly +remember, embodied in the following verse, in which Bjoern chides his +friend's grief for the loss of his beloved: + + "Frithjof, 'tis time for your folly's abating; + Sigh and lament for a woman's loss: + Earth is, alas, too full of such dross; + One may be lost, still a thousand are waiting. + Say but the word, of such goods I will bring + Quickly a cargo--the Southland can spare them, + Bed as the rose, mild as lambs in the spring; + Then we'll cast lots, or as brothers we'll share them."[37] + + [37] Holcomb's translation. + +It was not the unconscious humor of this proposition which struck me the +most in those days; but it was the bluff frankness of the gruff old +viking which then seemed truly admirable. In fact, I am not sure but +that Bjoern appeared to me a more sympathetic figure than Frithjof. But a +little later it dawned upon me that his utter lack of chivalry was +rather revolting; and I began to marvel at my former admiration. At +fourteen the following verse (which at twelve was charmingly heroic) +caused me to revise my opinion of Bjoern: + + "Good! to King Ring it shall be my glad duty + Something to teach of a wronged viking's power; + Fire we his palace at midnight's still hour, + Scorch the old graybeard and bear off the beauty." + +For all that, Bjoern with his rough speech and hearty delight in fighting +and drinking, is far truer to the spirit of the old heroic age than is +Frithjof with his sentimentality and lovesick reveries. This verse, for +instance, is replete with the briny breath of the northern main. The +north wind blows through it: + + "Good is the sea, your complaining you squander, + Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best. + He never knoweth effeminate rest + Who on the billows delighteth to wander. + When I am old, to the green-growing land + I, too, will cling, with the grass for my pillow. + Now I will drink and will fight with free hand, + Now I'll enjoy my own sorrow-free billow." + +I might continue in the autobiographical vein; but must forbear. For +there is a period in the life of every young Norseman when, untroubled +by its anachronism, he glories in Frithjof's melancholy mooning, his +praise of Ingeborg, his misanthropy, and all the manifold moods of love +so enchantingly expressed in Tegner's melodious verse. + +When a book acquires this significance as an expression of the typical +experience in the lives of thousands, the critical muse can but join in +the general chorus, and find profound reasons for the universal praise. +In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" this is not a difficult matter. From +beginning to end the poem has a lyrical intensity which sets the mind +vibrating with a responsive emotion. It is not a coldly impersonal epic, +recounting remote heroic events; but there is a deeply personal note in +it, which has that nameless moving quality--_la note emue_, as the +French call it--which brings the tear to your eye, and sends a delicious +breeze through your nerves. All that, to be sure, or nearly all of it, +evaporates in translation; for no more than you can transfer the +exquisite dewy intactness of the lily to canvas can you transfer the +rapturous melody of noble verse into an alien tongue. The subtlest +harmonies--those upon which the thrill depends--are invariably lost. If +Longfellow, instead of giving us two cantos, had translated the whole +poem, we should, at least, have possessed an English version which would +have afforded us some conception of the charm of the renowned original. + +The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which have been urged by numerous +critics may all be admitted as more or less valid; yet something remains +which will account for its astounding popularity. Tegner at the time +when he was singing of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's love was himself +suffering from a consuming but unrequited passion. The strong, warm +pulse of life which throbs in Frithjof's wrath, defiance, and scorn, and +in his deep and manly tenderness is the poet's own. It marks but the +rhythm of his own tumultuous heart-beat. It is altogether an unhappy +chapter, which his biographer has vainly striven to suppress. There was +among his acquaintance in Lund a certain Mrs. Palm, toward whom he felt +drawn with an irresistible half-demonic force. Beyond this fact we know +nothing of the lady, except that she was handsome, cultivated, and +well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegner may have made toward her (and +it is not known of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; +and the poet, though fighting desperately against his growing +infatuation, wore out his splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions +which the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a prey to the most +terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy of the deepest hue spread its +sombre veil over the world which hitherto had given to him its brightest +smile. 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. + +Archaeologically the poem was not correct, and was not meant to be. +Tegner distinctly disclaimed the intention of producing a historically +accurate picture of the saga age; and all criticism censuring the +modernness of Frithjofs and Ingeborg's sentiments is, therefore, +according to his idea, wide of the mark. I do not quite agree with his +point of view, but will state his argument. For the historical Frithjof, +as he is represented in the ancient Norse saga bearing his name, Tegner +cared but little. What he wished to do was to give a poetic presentation +of the old heroic life, and he chose Frithjof as his representative of +this age because he united in himself so many of its characteristics: + + "In the saga much occurs which is very grand and heroic, and hence + valid for all times, which both might and ought to be retained; + but, on the other hand, a great deal occurs which is rough, savage, + barbarous; and this had either to be entirely eliminated, or at + least materially softened. Up to a certain degree it therefore + became necessary to modernize; but the difficulty was to find the + golden mean. On the one hand, the poem ought not to offend too much + our more refined manners and gentler modes of thought; but, on the + other hand, the natural quality, the freshness, the truth to nature + ought not to be sacrificed." + +Tegner fancies he has solved this problem by retaining in Frithjof the +fundamental traits of all heroism, viz., nobility, magnanimity, courage; +but at the same time nationalizing them by giving them a distinctly +Scandinavian tinge. And this he has done by making his hero almost +wantonly defiant, stubborn, pugnacious. As Ingeborg, lamenting his +fierce pugnacity, and yet glorying in it, says: + + "How glad, how stubborn, and how full of hope! + The point he setteth of his trusty sword + Against the breast of Fate and crieth, Thou must yield." + + "Another peculiarity of the Norseman's character is a certain + tendency to sadness and melancholy which is habitual with all + deeper natures. An elegiac tone pervades all our old national + melodies, and, generally speaking, all that is of significance in + our history; for it rises from the very bottom of the nation's + heart. There is a certain joyousness (commonly attributed to the + French) which in the last instance is only levity. But the + joyousness of the North is fundamentally serious; for which reason + I have in Frithjof endeavored to give a hint of this brooding + melancholy in his repentance of the unintentional burning of the + temple, his brooding fear of Balder, + + "Who sits in the sky, and the thoughts he sends down, + Which forever are clouding my mind." + +It will be seen from this that Tegner was fully conscious of what he was +doing. He civilized Frithjof, because he was addressing a civilized +audience which would have taken little interest in the rude viking of +the eighth century, if he had been presented to them in all his savage +unrestraint. He did exactly what Tennyson did, when he made King Arthur +the model of a modern English gentleman and (by implication) a +Protestant a thousand years before Protestantism existed. Ingeborg, too, +had to be a trifle modified and disembarrassed of a few somewhat too +naturalistic traits with which the saga endows her, before she became +the lovely type that she is of the faithful, loving, long-suffering, +womanhood of the North, with trustful blue eyes, golden hair, and a +heart full of sweet and beautiful sentiment. It was because +Oehlenschlaeger had neglected to make sufficient concessions to modern +demands that his "Helge" (though in some respects a greater poem than +"Frithjof's Saga") never crossed the boundary of Scandinavia, and even +there made no deep impression upon the general public. + +Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to most readers, I may be +pardoned for presenting a brief _resume_. The general plot, in Tegner's +version, coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. Frithjof, +the son of the free yeoman Thorstein Vikingson, is fostered in the house +of the peasant Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King Bele of +Sogn. The King and the yeoman have been life-long friends, and each has +a most cordial regard for the other. + + "By sword upheld, King Bele in King's-hall stood, + Beside him Thorstein Vikingson, that yeoman good, + His battle-friend with almost a century hoary, + And deep-marked like a rune-stone with scars of glory." + +The yeoman's son and the king's daughter, thrown into daily +companionship in their foster-father's hall, love each other; and +Frithjof, after the death of their fathers, goes to Ingeborg's brothers, +Helge and Halfdan, and asks her hand in marriage. His suit is scornfully +rejected, and he departs in wrath vowing vengeance. The ancient King +Ring, of Ringerike, having heard of Ingeborg's beauty, sends also +ambassadors to woo her. Her brothers make sacrifices in order to +ascertain the will of the gods. The omens are inauspicious, and they +accordingly feel compelled to decline the King's offer. + +Ingeborg is shut up in Balder's Grove, where the sanctity of the temple +would make it sacrilege for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, +braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night across the fjord to a +stolen rendezvous with his beloved. The canto called "Frithjof's +Happiness," which is brimming over with a swelling redundance of +sentiment, is so cloyingly sweet that the reader must himself be in love +in order to enjoy it. It is written in the key of the watch-songs of the +German minnesingers and the aubades of Provencal troubadours. The Norse +note is not only wanting, but would never fit into that key: + + "'Hush! 'tis the lark.' Nay, those soft numbers + Of doves' faith tell that knows no rest. + The lark yet on the hillside slumbers + Beside his mate in grassy nest. + To them no king seals his dominions + When morning breaks in eastern air; + Their life is free as are their pinions + Which bear aloft the gladsome pair. + + "'See day is breaking!' Nay, some tower + Far eastward sendeth forth that light; + We yet may spend another hour, + Not yet shall end the precious night. + May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber, + And waking may'st thou linger still, + For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumber + Till Ragnaroek, be such thy will. + + "Vain hope! The day its gray discloses, + Already morning breezes blow, + Already bend the eastern roses, + As fresh as Ingeborg's can glow; + The winged songsters mount and twitter + (The thoughtless throng!) along the sky, + And life starts forth, and billows glitter, + And far the shades and lover fly. + + * * * * * + + "Farewell, beloved: till some longer + And fairer eve we meet again. + By one kiss on thy brow the stronger + Let me depart--thy lips, once, then! + Sleep now and dream of me, and waken + When mid-day comes, and faithful tell + The hours as I yearn forsaken, + And sigh as I! Farewell, farewell!"[38] + + [38] Translation of L. A. Sherman, Ph.D. Boston, 1878. + +The two following cantos, entitled "The Parting" and "Ingeborg's +Lament," though liable to the same criticism as their predecessor, are, +with all their sentimental effusiveness, beautiful. No lover, I fancy, +ever found them redundant, overstrained, spoiled by the lavish splendor +of their imagery. Tegner has accomplished the remarkable feat of +interveining, as it were, his academic rhetoric with a blood-red +humanity, and making the warm pulse of experience throb through the +stately phrases. + +King Ring, incensed at the rejection of his suit, declares war against +Helge and Halfdan, who in their dire need ask Frithjof's aid, which is +promptly refused. In order to be rid of him they then send him on an +expedition to the Orkneys, to collect a tribute which is due to them +from Earl Angantyr. He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she +refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good ship Ellida breasting the +waves and weeps bitter tears at his loss: + + "Swell not so high, + Billows of blue with your deafening cry! + Stars, lend assistance, a shining + Pathway defining! + + "With the spring doves + Frithjof will come, but the maiden he loves + Cannot in hall or dell meet him, + Lovingly greet him. + Buried she sleeps + Dead for love's sake, or bleeding she weeps + Heart-broken, given by her brother + Unto another." + +It is perfectly in keeping with the character of Norse womanhood in the +saga age that Ingeborg should refuse to defy her brother's authority by +fleeing with Frithjof and yet deeply mourn his departure without her. +The family feeling, the bond of blood, was exceptionally strong; and +submission to the social code which made the male head of the house the +arbiter of his sister's fate was bred in the bone. It is, therefore, +perfectly natural that, when King Ring has beaten her brothers in +battle, and exacted Ingeborg as the prize of victory, she yields +unmurmuringly to their decree. + +Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself greatly in the Orkneys +by his strength and prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and +returns with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, a sight greets him +which makes his heart quail. Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to +the ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap under the smiling +sky. The kings, though they had pledged their honor that they would not +harm his property, had broken faith with him; and Ingeborg, in the hope +of gaining whom he had undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to +King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow Frithjof starts out to +call her perjured brothers to account. He finds them in the temple in +Balder's Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he flings the bag +containing the tribute into King Helge's face, knocking out his front +teeth, and observing on his wife's arm the ring with which he had once +pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her to recover it. The woman, who had +been warming the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, in her +fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof seizes her by the arm and +snatches the ring from her. In the general confusion that follows the +temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the flames are futile. In +consequence of this sacrilege Frithjof is outlawed at the _Thing_ as a +_vargr-i-veum_, _i.e._, wolf in the sanctuary, and is forced to go into +exile. His farewell to his native land strikes one as being altogether +out of tune. The old Norse viking is made to anticipate sentiments which +are of far later growth; but for all that the verses are quite stirring: + + "Brow of creation, + Thou North sublime! + I have no station + Within thy clime. + Proud, hence descended + My race I tell; + Of heroes splendid, + Fond nurse, farewell! + + * * * * * + + My love false-hearted, + My manor burned, + My name departed, + An outlaw, spurned, + I now appealing + From earth, will dwell + With waves, for healing. + Farewell, farewell!"[39] + + [39] Sherman's translation. + +Frithjof now roams for many years over the sea as a viking, and gains +much booty and honor. His viking code, with its swift anapestic rhythm, +has a breezy melody which sings in the ear. It is an attempt to embody +the ethics of Norse warfare at its best, and to present in the most +poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient +Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Bjoern's advice, Frithjof, +weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see +Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he +enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the +high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had +dulled revives with an exquisite agony. He punishes with fierce +promptitude one of the King's men who insults him; and his answer to the +King's rebuke betrays him as a man of rank and station. He then throws +away his disguise, without, however, revealing his name, but Ingeborg +instantly recognizes him. + + "Then even to her temples the queen's deep blushes sped, + As when the northlight tinges the snow-clad fields with red, + And like two full-blown lilies on racking waves which rest, + With ill-concealed emotion so heaved her throbbing breast." + +The king now invites the stranger, who calls himself Thjof, to remain +his guest during the winter, and Frithjof accepts. He makes, however, no +approach to Ingeborg, with whom he scarcely exchanges a single word. +During a sleigh-ride on the ice he saves, by a tremendous feat of +strength, the life of the king and queen. With the coming of the spring +preparations are made for a grand chase, in which Frithjof participates. + + "Spring is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles + the sun; + And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run; + Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds 'gin to ope, + And in human hearts awaken love of life and joy and hope." + +The canto called "The Temptation" contains the most dramatic and +altogether the most beautiful situation in the poem. The old king, +feigning weariness, begs Frithjof to tarry with him alone, while he +takes a rest. Frithjof tries to dissuade him, but in vain. + + "Then threw Frithjof down his mantle, and upon the green sward + spread; + And the ancient king, so trustful, laid on Frithjof's knee his head; + Slept as calmly as the hero sleepeth after war's alarms + On his shield, calm as an infant slumbers in its mother's arms." + +Then the temptation comes to Frithjof to slay the old man who had stolen +his bride; but after a brief struggle he hurls his sword far away into +the forest. + + "Straight the ancient king awakens. 'Sweet has been my sleep,' he + said. + 'Pleasant 'tis to sleep in shadow, guarded by a brave man's blade. + But where is thy sword, O stranger, lightning's brother, where is + he? + Who has parted one from other that should never parted be?'" + + "'Not a whit care I,' said Frithjof, 'I shall find a sword some day; + Sharp, O King, are tongues of falchions, words of peace they seldom + say; + In the steel dwell swarthy demons, demons strayed from Nifelhem, + No man's sleep to them is sacred, silver locks embitter them.' + + "'Youth, no moment have I slumbered, but to prove thee feigned to + rest, + Unproved men and weapons never trusts King Ring without a test. + Thou art Frithjof. I have known thee since thou first cam'st to my + hall; + Much that thou hast hidden from me; from the first I guessed it + all.'" + +Soon after this interview the aged king feels death approaching; and in +order not to go to the dark abode of Hela, he cuts death-runes upon his +breast and ascends to Odin's bright hall. But before dying he gives +Ingeborg to Frithjof, and makes him the guardian of his son. The people, +in _Thing_ assembled, glorying in Frithjof's great renown, desire, +however, to make him King's successor; but he lifts the small boy above +his head upon his shield and proclaims him king. He returns home and +rebuilds Balder's temple, whereupon the sentence of outlawry is removed, +and he is reconciled to Ingeborg's brothers and marries the beloved of +his youth. + +The last canto, called "The Atonement," is perhaps the most flagrant +violation of historical verisimilitude in the whole epic. A hoary priest +of Balder actually performs the wedding ceremony in the restored temple, +and pronounces a somewhat unctuous wedding oration, which differs from +those which Tegner himself had frequently delivered chiefly in the +substitution of pagan for the Christian deities. As a matter of fact, +marriage was a purely civil contract among the ancient Norsemen, and had +no association with the temple or the priesthood, which, by the way, was +no separate office but a patriarchal function belonging to the secular +chieftainship. But Tegner's public were in nowise shocked by +anachronisms of this sort; they probably rejoiced the more heartily in +the happiness of the reunited lovers, because their marriage was, +according to modern notions, so "regular." + +It was soon after his publication of "Frithjof's Saga" that Tegner +became Bishop of Wexioe. He then removed from Lund and took up his +residence upon the estate Oestrabo, near the principal town in his +diocese. The great fame of his poem came to him as a surprise; and he +even undertook to protest against it, declaring with perfect sincerity +that he held it to be undeserved. In letters to his friends he never +wearied of pointing out the faults of "Frithjof" and his own +shortcomings as a poet. In a letter to the poet Leopold (August 17, +1825), who had praised the poem to the skies, he argues seriously to +prove that his admiration is misplaced: + + "My great fault in 'Frithjof' was not that I chose my theme from + the old cycle of sagas, but that I treated it in a tone and with a + manner which was neither ancient nor modern, neither antiquarian + nor poetical, but hovered, as it were, on the boundary of both. For + what does it mean to treat a subject poetically if not this, to + eliminate everything which belongs to an alien and past age and now + no longer appeals to any heart? The hearts to which it once did + appeal are now all dust. Other modes of thought and feeling are + current. It is impossible to properly translate one age into + another. But to poetry nothing is really past. Poetry is the + beautifying life of the moment; she wears the colors of the day; + she cannot conceive of anything as dead.... But I am convinced that + all poetic treatment of a theme belonging to a past age demands its + modernization; and that everything antiquarian is here a mistake. + This holds good not only in regard to the northern tone but also in + regard to the Greek. Look, for instance, at Goethe's 'Iphigenie.' + Who does not admire the beautiful, simple, noble, Hellenic form? + And yet who has ever felt his soul warmed by this image of + stone?... No living spirit has been breathed into these nostrils; + the staring eyes gaze upon me without life and animation; no heart + beats under the Hellenically rounded marble bosom. The whole is a + mistake, infinitely more beautiful than 'Frithjof,' but fashioned + according to the game principles of art. The Greeks said that the + Muse was the daughter of Memory; but this refers only to the + material, the theme itself, which is everywhere of minor + consequence. The question, then, is as to the proper treatment. + Where it tends toward the antiquarian it misses the mark; it + represents, like 'Frithjof,' only a restored ruin." + +This passage is by no means the only one in which Tegner, with an utter +absence of vanity or illusion, judged his work and found it wanting. +There is no mock modesty in his manly deprecation of the honors that +were showered upon him; but as a father knows best the faults of his +child whom he loves, so he knew the defects of his work, as measured by +his own high standard, and refused to accept any more praise than was +his due. Not even the fact that Goethe expressed his admiration of +"Frithjof's Saga" could persuade him that he was entitled to the +extravagant homage which his enthusiastic countrymen accorded him. There +were even times when he disclaimed the title of poet. Whether he was +forgotten a little sooner or a little later, he said, was a matter of +small moment. + +"Speaking seriously," he writes in 1824 (accordingly before the +publication of "Frithjof"), "I have never regarded myself as a poet in +the higher significance of the word.... I am at best a John the Baptist, +who is preparing the way for him who is to come." + +He is always just and inclined to be generous in his judgment of every +one except himself. It is necessary, however, after the year 1824, to +make due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind which disposed +him to give violent and hyperbolical expression to the mood of the +moment. The unhappy passion which he could at times smother, but never +subdue, went boring away into his heart like a subterranean fire, +consuming his vitals, and occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. +The following reference to it, in his letter to Franzen (November 13, +1825), is very pathetic: + + "It is to-day my forty-third birthday. I have thus long since + passed the highest altitude of life where the waters divide. With + every year one now becomes smaller and smaller; one star is + extinguished after another. And yet the sun does not rise. One dies + by degrees and by halves. Therefore only children and youth ought + to celebrate their birthdays with joy; we who have passed into the + valley of age, which with every step is growing darker and + chillier, are right in celebrating them with--whims.... However, + this is not my only or my greatest affliction, I have had and have + others. But the night is silent and the grave is dumb, and their + sister, Sorrow, should be as they. Therefore--let this suffice." + + December 29th. "Alas, this old year! What I have suffered in it no + one knows, if not, perhaps, the Recorder beyond the clouds. But I + am indebted to this year. It has been darker, but also more serious + than all the others put together. I have learned at my own expense + what a human heart can endure without breaking, and what power God + has deposited in a man under his left nipple. As I say, I am under + obligation to this year, for it has enriched me with what is the + real sinking fund of human wisdom and human independence--a mighty, + deeply rooted contempt for man.... My inner nature emerges from the + crisis like the hibernating bear from his den, emaciated and + exhausted, but happily with my ursine sinews well preserved; and by + and by some flesh will be growing on them again. It seems to me + that my old barbaric, Titanic self, with its hairy arms, is + constantly more and more rubbing the sleep out of its eyes. I hope + that some vine may still grow upon the scorched and petrified + volcano of my heart." + + January, 1826. "But when one is compelled to despise the + _character_ of a human being, especially of one who has been or is + dear to one, then that is the bitterest experience which life can + afford; then it is not strange if a frank and ardent soul turns + with loathing from this false, hypocritical generation and shuts + himself up, as well as may be, in the hermitage of his own heart. + + "My mind is unchristian, for it has no day of rest. Generally I + think that my disease has its seat in the abdomen or in the waist. + Mineral waters I can no more drink this summer. But is there not a + mineral water which is called Lethe? + + "Whether my little personality returns thither whence it came, with + or without consciousness, a few months later or earlier, in order + to be drowned in its great fountain-head, or to float for some time + yet like a bubble, reflecting the clouds and an alien light--this + appears to me constantly a matter of less and less consequence." + +There is to me a heartrending pathos in these confessions. It is easy to +stand aloof, of course, like a schoolmaster with his chastising rod, and +lash the frailties of poor human nature. It is easy to declare with +virtuous indignation that the man who covets his neighbor's wife is a +transgressor who has no claim upon our sympathy. And yet who can help +pitying this great, noble poet, who fought so bravely against his +"barbaric, Titanic self with its hairy arms"? His passionate intensity +of soul was, indeed, part of his poetic equipment; and he would not have +been the poet he was if he had been cool, callous, and self-restrained. +The slag in him was so intimately moulded with the precious metal that +their separation would have been the extinction of the individuality +itself. The fiery furnace of affliction through which he passed warped +and scorched and cracked this mighty compound, but without destroying +it. A glimpse of this experience which transformed the powerful, joyous, +bright-visaged singer into a bitter, darkly brooding pessimist, fleeing +from the sinister shadow which threatened to overtake him, is afforded +us in the poem "Hypochondria[40]": + + "I stood upon the altitude of life, + Where mingled waters part and downward go + With rush and foam in opposite directions. + Lo, it was bright up there, and fair to stand. + I saw the sun, I saw his satellite, + Which, since he quenched his light, shone in the blue; + I saw that earth was fair and green and glorious, + I saw that God was good, that man was honest. + + "Then rose a dread black imp, and suddenly + The black one bit himself into my heart; + And lo, at once the earth lay void and barren, + And sun and stars were straightway drenched in gloom. + The landscape, glad erewhile, lay dark, autumnal; + Each grove was sere, each flower stem was broken; + Within the frozen sense my strength lay dead, + All joy, all courage withered within me. + + "What is to me reality--its dumb, + Dead bulk, inert, oppressive, grim, and crude? + How hope has paled, alas, with roseate hue! + And memory, the heavenly blue, grown hoary! + And even poesy! Its acrobatic + Exertions, leaps--they pall upon my sense; + Its bright mirage can satisfy no soul-- + Light skimmings from the surface fair of things. + + "Still I will praise thee, oh, thou human race. + God's likeness art thou, oh, how true, how striking! + Two lies thou hast natheless, in sooth, to show; + The name of one is man, the other's woman! + Of faith and honor there's an ancient ditty, + 'Tis sung the best, when men each other cheat. + Thou child of heaven, the one thing true thou hast + Is Cain's foul mark upon thy forehead branded. + + "A mark quite legible, writ by God's finger; + Why did I fail ere now to heed that sign? + A smell of death pervades all human life, + And poisons spring's sweet breath and summer's splendor. + Out of the grave that odor is exhaling. + The grave is sealed and marble guards its freight, + But still corruption is the breath of life, + Eludes its guard and scatters everywhere. + + "Oh, watchman, tell me now the night's dark hour! + Will it then never wane unto its end? + The half-devoured moon is gliding, gliding, + The tearful stars forever onward go, + My pulse beats fast as in the time of youth, + But ne'er beats out the hours of torment sore. + How long, how endless is each pulse-beat's pain! + Oh, my consumed, oh, my bleeding heart. + + "My heart! Nay in my bosom is no heart, + There's but an urn that holds life's burnt-out ashes; + Have pity on me, thou green mother Earth, + And hide that urn full soon in thy cool breast. + In air it crumbles, moulders; earth's deep woe + Has in the earth, I ween, at last an end; + And Time's poor foundling, here in school constrained, + Finds then, perchance, beyond the sun--a father." + + [40] The poem is written in the _ottava rime_, but in order to + preserve the sense intact I have rendered it in blank verse. + +A physical disease which seems to have baffled the skill of physicians +may have been the primary cause of the sufferings here described, and +was no doubt aggravated by the psychical condition to which I have +alluded. Now it was supposed to be the liver which was affected; then +again Tegner was treated for gall-stones. In the summer of 1833 he made +a journey through Germany and spent some months at Carlsbad; but he +returned without sensible relief. His foreign sojourn was, however, of +some benefit in widening his mental horizon. Tegner's intellectual +affinities had always been French; and toward Germany he had assumed a +more or less unsympathetic attitude. A slight acquaintance with the +philosopher Schleiermacher and the Germanized Norwegian author Henrik +Steffens (who was then a professor at the University of Berlin) did not, +indeed, reverse his predilections, but it opened his eyes to +excellences in the German people to which he had formerly been blind, +and removed prejudices which had obscured his vision. He had everywhere +the most distinguished reception, and was honored with an invitation to +Sans Souci, where he was the guest of the witty Crown Prince of Prussia, +later Frederick William IV. But these agreeable incidents of his journey +were a poor compensation for his failure to obtain that which he had +gone in search of. Fame, honor, and distinguished friends, without +health, are but a Tantalus feast, the sweets of which are seen but never +tasted. + +"I fear," said Tegner, in his hopelessness, "that my right side, like +that of the Chamber of Deputies, is incurable." + +"When this Saul's spirit comes over me I often feel an indescribable +bitterness, which endures nothing, spares nothing, in heaven or on +earth. It usually finds vent in misanthropic reflections, sarcasms, and +ideas which I have no sooner written down than I repent of them." + +The activity which he unfolded, even in the midst of intolerable +sufferings, was phenomenal. He possessed an energy of will and vigor of +temperament which enabled him to rise superior to his physical +condition, and lure strong music (though sometimes jarred into discords) +from the broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had fastened its +hold upon him, that he pronounced the beautiful epilogue in hexameters +at the graduating festivities at the University of Lund, and crowned +the Dane, Adam Oehlenschlaeger, as the king of poets: + + "Now, before thou beginnest the distribution of laurels + Grant me one for him in whom I shall honor them all. + Lo, the Adam of poets is here, the Northern king among singers; + Heir to the throne in poesy's world; for the throne yet is Goethe's. + Oscar, the king, if he knew it, would give his grace to my action. + Now I speak not for him, still less for myself, but the laurel + Place on thy brow in poesy's name, the bright, the eternal. + + * * * * * + + Past is disunion's age (in the infinite realm of the spirit + Never it ought to have reigned), and kindred tones o'er the water + Ring, which enrapture us all, and they are especially thine. + Therefore, Svea--I speak in her name--adorns thee with laurel: + Take it from brotherly hand, of the day in festal remembrance." + +Restless official activity, parliamentary labors, educational addresses, +and metrical discourses on memorable occasions filled the years from +1829 to 1840. He felt the demon of insanity lurking behind him, now +close at his heels, now farther away; and it was a desperate race, in +which life and death, nay, worse than death, was at stake. His +indefatigable exertions afforded him a respite from the thought of his +terrible pursuer. We can only regard with respectful compassion the +outbreaks of misanthropic spleen which often disfigure his +correspondence from this period of deepening twilight, relieved by a +brief interval of brightness. It is especially woman who is the object +of his bitterest objurgation. The venerable _mutabile et varium_ of +Virgil is the theme upon which he perpetually rings the changes. No +occasion is too inappropriate for a joke at the fickle and faithless +sex; and even the school-boys in the Wexioe gymnasium are treated to some +ironical advice, _a propos_ of the beautiful jade, which must have +sounded surprising in an episcopal oration. Life with its bright pageant +was oppressive, like a nightmare to the afflicted poet. All charm, all +rationality had departed from existence, which was but a meaningless +dance of hideous marionettes. The world was battered and befouled; +inexpressibly loathsome. And finally, in 1840, while Tegner was +attending the Riksdag (of which in his official capacity he was a +member), the long-dreaded catastrophe occurred. His insanity manifested +itself in tremendous projects of reform, world-conquests, and outbreaks +of wild sensuality. He was sent to a celebrated asylum in Sleswick; and +on the way thither wrote a series of "Fantasies of Travel" which have +all the rich harmony of his earlier verse, and are full of delightful +imagery. He fancied that there was a huge wheel of fire revolving with +furious haste in his head, and his sufferings were terrific. The +following fragment from the notes of his attendant, who kept a record of +his ravings, has a cosmic magnificence: + + "The whole trouble comes from that accursed nonsense about the + diadem which they wanted to put on me. You may believe, though, + that it was a splendid piece. Pictures in miniature, not painted, + but living, really existing miniatures of fourteen of the noblest + poets were made into a wreath. It was Homer and Pindar, Tasso and + Virgil, Schiller, Petrarch, Ariosto, Goethe, Sophocles, Leopold, + Milton, and several more. Between each one of them burned a radiant + star, not of tinsel, but of real cosmic material. In the middle of + my forehead there was the figure of a lyre on the diadem, which had + borrowed something of the sun's own living light; it poured with + such bright refulgence upon the wreath of stars that I seemed to be + gazing straight through the world. As long as the lyre stood still, + everything was well with me--but all of a sudden it began to move + in a circle. Faster and ever faster it moved, until every nerve in + my body was shaken. At last it began to rotate in rings with such + speed that it was transformed into a sun. Then my whole being was + broken, and it moved and trembled; for you must know that the + diadem was no longer put on the outside of my head, but inside, on + my very brain. And now it began to whirl around with an + inconceivable violence, until it suddenly broke and burst into + pieces. Darkness--darkness--darkness and night spread over the + whole world wherever I turned. I was bewildered and faint, and I + who had always hated weakness in men--I wept; I shed hot, burning + tears. All was over."[41] + + [41] Brandes: Esaias Tegner, pp. 231-223. + +Contrary to the expectation of his friends he recovered rapidly, and was +able to return home in May, 1841. He promptly resumed his episcopal +functions, and even wrote a beautiful rural idyl in hexameters called +"The Crowned Bride" (_Kronbruden_), which he dedicated to Franzen. He +was well aware, however, that his powers were on the wane, and in 1845 +he was persuaded to apply for a year's relief from his official duties. +The last months of his life he spent mostly lying upon a sofa in his +library, surrounded by great piles of books containing a most +miscellaneous assortment of classics, from Homer to Goethe, +intersprinkled with controversial pamphlets and recent novels. He was +gentle and affectionate in his demeanor; and his beautiful face lighted +up with a smile whenever any of his children or grandchildren approached +him. Once or twice a day he drove out in his carriage, and he was even +able to visit his eldest son, who was a clergyman in Scania, and to +receive the sacrament for the last time from his hand. Shortly after his +return he was stricken with paralysis, and died November 2, 1846, in the +sixty-fourth year of his age. His mind was unclouded and his voice was +clear. When the autumnal sun suddenly burst through the windows and +shone upon the dying poet, he murmured: "I will lift up mine hands unto +the house and the mountain of God." + +These were his last words. He was carried to the grave at night by the +light of lanterns, followed by a long procession of the clergy, +citizens, and the school-boys of his diocese. Peasants, from whose ranks +he had sprung and to whom he was always a good friend, bore his coffin. + +The academic tendency which "idealizes" life and shuns earth-scented +facts, had, through the decisive influence of Tegner, been victorious in +Swedish literature. I am aware that some will regard this as a +questionable statement; for the academicism of Tegner is not the +stately, bloodless, Gallic classicism of the Gustavian age, of which +Leopold was the last representative. It is much closer to the classicism +of Goethe in "Iphigenia" and "Hermann and Dorothea," and of Schiller in +"Wallenstein" and "Wilhelm Tell." Tegner's poetic creed was exactly that +of Schiller, who saw no impropriety in making the peasant lad, Arnold +Melchthal, when he hears that his father has been blinded, deliver an +enraptured apostrophe to the light: + + "O eine edle Himmelsgabe ist + Das Licht des Auges," etc. + +The rhetorical note is predominant in both. Their thoughts have to be +arrayed in the flowing toga before they are held to be presentable. This +is the academic tendency in Sweden as in France, even though the degree +of euphemistic magniloquence may differ with the age and latitude. The +Swedes have been called the Frenchmen of the North, and there is no +doubt that delight in this toga-clad rhetoric is inherent in both. It +was because Tegner, in appealing to this delight, was so deeply +representative that he extinguished the old school and became the +national poet of Sweden. + + + + * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's notes: + + Dostoyevski is also spelled Dostojevski and Dostoyefski + + Tolstoi is also spelled Tostoi. + + It appears that Fortaellinger is also spelled Fortaellinger. + + Page 11: valuble changed to valuable. Typo. + + Page 45: Gjeunembrud's is a typo for Gjennembrud's. Changed + in text. + + Page 191: Open parenthesis added to 1882. + + Page 262: ["The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which] was + changed to [The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which]. + The first double quote appears to be unnecessary. + + Page 270: The stanzas are spaced as they appear in the original + text, although they appear to be in error. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 19908.txt or 19908.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19908 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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