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diff --git a/4582.txt b/4582.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..577c4e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/4582.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, by William Morton Payne + +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: Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson + +Author: William Morton Payne + +Posting Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook #4582] +Release Date: October, 2003 +First Posted: February 11, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON *** + + + + +Produced by Nicole Apostola. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson + +1832-1910 + + +by + +William Morton Payne, LL.D. + + +Translator of Bjoernson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen," Author +of "Little Leaders," Etc. + + + + +To Mary + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE + +When the date of Bjoernson's seventieth birthday drew near at the close +of 1902, the present writer, who had been from boyhood a devoted +admirer of the great Norwegian, wished to make an American contribution +to the world-wide tribute of gratitude and affection which the then +approaching anniversary was sure to evoke. The outcome of that wish +was an essay, summarizing Bjoernson's life and work, published in "The +International Quarterly," March, 1903. The essay then written forms +the substance of the present publication, although several additions +have been made in the way of translation, anecdote, and the +consideration of Bjoernson's later productions. So small a book as this +is, of course, hopelessly inadequate to make more than the most +superficial sort of survey of the life work of that masterful +personality whose recent death is so heavy a loss to all mankind. + +W. M. P. + Chicago, May, 1910. + + + + +BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON + +1832-1910 + +Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain peaks of +contemporary literature, and writing with particular reference to +Bjoernson's seventieth birthday, it seemed proper to make the following +remarks about the most famous European authors then numbered among +living men. If one were asked for the name of the greatest man of +letters still living in the world, the possible claimants to the +distinction would hardly be more than five in number. If it were a +question of poetry alone, Swinburne would have to be named first, with +Carducci for a fairly close second. But if we take literature in its +larger sense, as including all the manifestations of creative activity +in language, and if we insist, furthermore, that the man singled out +for this preeminence shall stand in some vital relation to the +intellectual life of his time, and exert a forceful influence upon the +thought of the present day, the choice must rather be made among the +three giants of the north of Europe, falling, as it may be, upon the +great-hearted Russian emotionalist who has given us such deeply moving +portrayals of the life of the modern world; or upon the passionate +Norwegian idealist whose finger has so unerringly pointed out the +diseased spots in the social organism, earning by his moral surgery the +name of pessimist, despite his declared faith in the redemption of +mankind through truth and freedom and love; or, perchance, upon that +other great Norwegian, equally fervent in his devotion to the same +ideals, and far more sympathetic in his manner of inculcating them upon +his readers, who has just rounded out his scriptural tale of three +score years and ten, and, in commemoration of the anniversary, is now +made the recipient of such a tribute of grateful and whole-souled +admiration as few men have ever won, and none have better deserved. It +would be certainly invidious, and probably futile, to attempt a nice, +comparative estimate of the services of these three men to the common +cause of humanity; let us be content with the admission that +Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson is _primus inter pares_, and make no attempt to +exalt him at the expense of his great contemporaries. Writing now +eight years later, at the time when Bjoernson's death has plunged his +country and the world in mourning, it is impressive to note that of the +five men constituting the group above designated, Tolstoy alone +survives to carry on the great literary tradition of the nineteenth +century. + +It will be well, however, to make certain distinctions between the life +work of Bjoernson and that of the two men whom a common age and common +aims bring into inevitable association with him. These distinctions are +chiefly two,--one of them is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen grew to be +largely cosmopolitan in their outlook, Bjoernson has much more closely +maintained throughout his career the national, or, at any rate, the +racial standpoint. The other is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen presently +became, the one indifferent to artistic expression, and the other +baldly prosaic where he was once deeply poetical, Bjoernson preserved +the poetic impulse of his youth, and continued to give it play even in +his envisagement of the most practical modern problems. Let us enlarge +a little upon these two themes. Ernest Renan, speaking at the funeral +of Tourguenieff, described the deceased novelist as "the incarnation of +a whole people." Even more fittingly might the phrase be applied to +Bjoernson, for it would be difficult to find anywhere else in modern +literature a figure so completely and profoundly representative of his +race. In the frequently quoted words of Dr. Brandes, to speak the name +of Bjoernson in any assembly of his countrymen is like "hoisting the +Norwegian flag." It has been maliciously added that mention of his +name is also like flaunting a red flag in the sight of a considerable +proportion of the assembly, for Bjoernson has always been a fighter as +well as an artist, and it has been his self-imposed mission to arouse +his fellow countrymen from their mental sluggishness no less than to +give creative embodiment to their types of character and their ideal +aspirations. But whatever the opposition aroused by his political and +social radicalism, even his opponents have been constrained to feel +that he was the mouthpiece of their race as no other Norwegian before +him had been, and that he has voiced whatever is deepest and most +enduring in the Norwegian temper. Powerful as has been his appeal to +the intellect and conscience of the modern world at large, it has +always had a special note of admonition or of cheer for his own people. +With reference to the second of our two themes, it is sufficient to say +that, although the form of verse was almost wholly abandoned by him +during the latter half of his life, the breath of poetry never ceased +to exhale from his work, and the lyric exuberance of his later prose +still recalls to us the singer of the sixties. + +Few productions of modern literature have proved as epoch-making as the +modest little volume called "Synnoeve Solbakken," which appeared in the +book shops of Christiania and Copenhagen in 1857. It was a simple tale +of peasant life, an idyl of the love of a boy and a girl, but it was +absolutely new in its style, and in its intimate revelation of the +Norwegian character. It must be remembered that until the year 1814, +Norway had for centuries been politically united with Denmark, and that +Copenhagen had been the common literary centre of the two countries. +To that city Norwegian writers had gravitated as naturally as French +writers gravitate to Paris. There had resulted from this condition of +things a literature which, although it owed much to men of Norwegian +birth, was essentially a Danish literature, and must properly be so +styled. That literature could boast, at the beginning of the +nineteenth century, an interesting history comparable in its antiquity +with the greater literatures of Europe, and a brilliant history for at +least a hundred years past. But old literatures are sure to become +more or less sophisticated and trammelled by tradition, and to this +rule Danish literature was no exception. When the constitution of +Eidsvold, in 1814, separated Norway from Denmark, and made it into an +independent kingdom (save for the forced Swedish partnership), the +country had practically no literary tradition save that which centred +about the Danish capital. She might claim to have been the native +country of many Danish writers, even of Ludvig Holberg, the greatest +writer that the Scandinavian peoples have yet produced, but she could +point to nothing that might fairly be called a Norwegian literature. +The young men of the rising generation were naturally much concerned +about this, and a sharp divergence of opinion arose as to the means +whereby the interests of Norwegian literature might be furthered, and +the aims which it should have in view. One party urged that the +literature should break loose from its traditional past, and aim at the +cultivation of an exclusively national spirit. The other party +declared such a course to be folly, contending that literature must be +a product of gradual development rather than of set volition, and that, +despite the shifting of the political kaleidoscope, the national +literature was so firmly rooted in its Danish past that its natural +evolution must be an outgrowth from all that had gone before. + +Each of these parties found a vigorous leader, the cause of +ultra-Norwegianism being championed by Wergeland, an erratic person in +whom the spark of genius burned, but who never found himself, +artistically speaking. The champion of the conservatives was Welhaven, +a polished writer of singular charm and much force, philosophical in +temper, whose graceful verse and acute criticism upheld by both precept +and practice the traditional standards of culture. Each of these men +had his followers, who proved in many cases more zealous than their +leaders. The period of the thirties and forties was dominated by this +Wergeland-Welhaven controversy, which engendered much bitterness of +feeling, and which constitutes the capital fact in Norwegian literary +history before the appearance of Ibsen and Bjoernson upon the scene. A +sort of parallel might be drawn for American readers by taking two such +men as Whitman and Longfellow, opposing them to one another in the most +outspoken fashion, assuming for both a sharply polemic manner, and +ranging among their respective followers all the other writers of their +time. Then imagine the issue between them to be drawn not only in the +field of letters, but also in the pulpit, the theatre, and the +political arena, and some slight notion may be obtained of the +condition of affairs which preceded the advent of Bjoernson and the true +birth of Norwegian literature with "Synnoeve Solbakken." + +The work which was thus destined to mark the opening of a new era in +Norwegian letters was written in the twenty-fifth year of its author's +life. The son of a country pastor, Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson was born at +Kvikne, December 8, 1832. At the age of six, his father was +transferred to a new parish in the Romsdal, one of the most picturesque +regions in Norway. The impression made upon his sensitive nature by +these surroundings was deep and enduring. Looking back upon his +boyhood he speaks with strong emotion of the evenings when "I stood and +watched the sunlight play upon mountain and fiord, until I wept, as if +I had done something wrong, and when, borne down upon my ski into one +valley or another I could stand as if spellbound by a beauty, by a +longing that I could not explain, but that was so great that along with +the highest joy I had, also, the deepest sense of imprisonment and +sorrow." This is the mood which was to be given utterance in that +wonderful lyric, "Over the Lofty Mountains," in which all the ardor and +the longings of passionate and impatient youth find the most appealing +expression. The song is found in "Arne," and may be thus reproduced, +after a fashion, in the English language. + + "Often I wonder what there may be + Over the lofty mountains. + Here the snow is all I see, + Spread at the foot of the dark green tree; + Sadly I often ponder, + Would I were over yonder. + + "Strong of wing soars the eagle high + Over the lofty mountains, + Glad of the new day soars to the sky, + Wild in pursuit of his prey doth fly; + Pauses, and, fearless of danger, + Scans the far coasts of the stranger. + + "The apple-tree, whose thoughts ne'er fly + Over the lofty mountains, + Leaves, when the summer days draw nigh, + Patiently waits for the time when high + The birds in its boughs shall be swinging, + Yet will know not what they are singing. + + "He who has yearned so long to go + Over the lofty mountains-- + He whose visions and fond hopes grow + Dim, with the years that so restless flow-- + Knows what the birds are singing, + Glad in the tree-tops swinging. + + "Why, oh bird, dost thou hither fare + Over the lofty mountains? + Surely it must be better there, + Broader the view and freer the air; + Com'st thou these longings to bring me; + These only, and nothing to wing me? + + "Oh, shall I never, never go + Over the lofty mountains! + Must all my thoughts and wishes so + Held in these walls of ice and snow + Here be imprisoned forever? + Till death shall I flee them never? + + "Hence! I will hence! Oh, so far from here, + Over the lofty mountains! + Here 't is so dull, so unspeakably drear; + Young is my heart and free from fear-- + Better the walls to be scaling + Than here in my prison lie wailing. + + "One day, I know, shall my soul free roam + Over the lofty mountains. + Oh, my God, fair is thy home, + Ajar is the door for all who come; + Guard it for me yet longer, + Till my soul through striving grows stronger." + +At the age of eleven Bjoernson's school days began at Molde, and were +continued at Christiania in a famous preparatory school, where he had +Ibsen for a comrade. He entered the university in his twentieth year, +but his career was not brilliant from a scholastic point of view, and +he was too much occupied with his own intellectual concerns to be a +model student. From his matriculation in 1852, to the appearance of his +first book in 1857, he was occupied with many sorts of literary +experiments, and became actively engaged in journalism. The theatre, +in particular, attracted him, for the theatre was one of the chief foci +of the intellectual life of his country (as it should be in every +country), and he plunged into dramatic criticism as the avowed partisan +of Norwegian ideals, holding himself, in some sort, the successor of +Wergeland, Who had died about ten years earlier. Before becoming a +dramatic critic, he had essayed dramatic authorship, and the acceptance +by the theatre of his juvenile play, "Valborg," had led to a somewhat +unusual result. He was given a free ticket of admission, and a few +weeks of theatre-going opened his eyes to the defects of his own +accepted work, which he withdrew before it had been inflicted upon the +public. The full consciousness of his poetical calling came to him +upon his return from a student gathering at the university town of +Upsala, whither he had gone as a special correspondent. "When I came +home from the journey," 'he says, "I slept three whole days with a few +brief intervals for eating and conversation. Then I wrote down my +impressions of the journey, but just because I had first lived and then +written, the account got style and color; it attracted attention, and +made me all the more certain that the hour had come. I packed up, went +home, thought it all over, wrote and rewrote `Between the Battles' in a +fortnight, and travelled to Copenhagen with the completed piece in my +trunk; I would be a poet." He then set to writing "Synnoeve Solbakken," +published it in part as a newspaper serial, and then in book form, in +the autumn of 1857. He had "commenced author" in good earnest. + +The next fifteen years of Bjoernson's life were richly productive. +Within a single year he had published "Arne," the second of his peasant +idyls and perhaps the most remarkable of them all, and had also +published two brief dramas, "Halte-Hulda" and the one already mentioned +as the achievement of fourteen feverish days. The remaining product of +the fifteen years includes two more prose idyls, "A Happy Boy" and "The +Fisher Maiden" (with a considerable number of small pieces similar in +character); three more plays drawn from the treasury of old Norse +history, "King Sverre," "Sigurd Slembe," and "Sigurd Jorsalfar"; a +dramatic setting of the story of "Mary Stuart in Scotland"; a little +social comedy, "The Newly Married Couple," which offers a foretaste of +his later exclusive preoccupation with modern life; "Arnljot Gelline," +his only long poem, a wild narrative of the clash between heathendom +and the Christian faith in the days of Olaf the Holy; and, last but by +no means least, the collection of his "Poems and Songs." Thus at the +age of forty, Bjoernson found himself with a dozen books to his credit +books which had stirred his fellow countrymen as no other books had +ever stirred them, arousing them to the full consciousness of their own +nature and of its roots in their own heroic past. He had become the +voice of his people as no one had been before him, the singer of all +that was noble in Norwegian aspiration, the sympathetic delineator of +all that was essential in Norwegian Character. He had, in short, +created a national literature where none had before existed, and he was +still in his early prime. + +The collected edition of Bjoernson's "Tales," published in 1872, +together with "The Bridal March," separately published in the following +year, gives us a complete representation of that phase of his genius +which is best known to the world at large. Here are five stories of +considerable length, and a number of slighter sketches, in which the +Norwegian peasant is portrayed with intimate and loving knowledge. The +peasant tale was no new thing in European literature, for the names of +Auerbach and George Sand, to say nothing of many others, at once come +to the mind. In Scandinavian literature, its chief representative had +been the Danish novelist, Blicher, who had written with insight and +charm of the peasantry of Jutland. But in the treatment of peasant +life by most of Bjoernson's predecessors there had been too much of the +_de haut en bas_ attitude; the peasant had been drawn from the outside, +viewed philosophically, and invested with artificial sentiment. +Bjoernson was too near to his own country folk to commit such faults as +these; he was himself of peasant stock, and all his boyhood life had +been spent in close association with men who wrested a scanty living +from an ungrateful soil. Although a poet by instinct, he was not +afraid of realism, and did not shrink from giving the brutal aspects of +peasant life a place upon his canvas. In emphasizing the +characteristics of reticence and _naivete_ he really discovered the +Norwegian peasant for literary purposes. Beneath the words spoken by +his characters we are constantly made to realize that there are depths +of feeling that remain unexpressed; whether from native pride or from a +sense of the inadequacy of mere words to set forth a critical moment of +life, his men and women are distinguished by the most laconic +utterance, yet their speech always has dramatic fitness and bears the +stamp of sincerity. Jaeger speaks of the manifold possibilities of +this laconic method in the following words:-- + +"It is as if the author purposely set in motion the reader's fancy and +feeling that they might do their own work. The greatest poet is he who +understands how to awaken fancy and feeling to their highest degree of +self-activity. And this is Bjoernson's greatness in his peasant novels, +that he has poured from his horn of plenty a wealth of situations and +motives that hold the reader's mind and burn themselves into it, that +become his personal possession just because the author has known how to +suggest so much in so few words." + +In some respects, the little sketch called "The Father" is the supreme +example of Bjoernson's artistry in this kind. There are only a few +pages in all, but they embody the tragedy of a lifetime. The little +work is a literary gem of the purest water, and it reveals the whole +secret of the author's genius, as displayed in his early tales. It is +by these tales of peasant life that Bjoernson is best known outside of +his own country; one may almost say that it is by them alone that he is +really familiar to English readers. A free translation of "Synnoeve +Solbakken" was made as early as 1858, by Mary Howitt, and published +under the title of "Trust and Trial." Translations of the other tales +were made soon after their original appearance, and in some instances +have been multiplied. It is thus a noteworthy fact that Bjoernson, +although four years the junior of Ibsen, enjoyed a vogue among English +readers for a score of years during which the name of Ibsen was +absolutely unknown to them. The whirligig of time has brought in its +revenges of late years, and the long neglected older author has had +more than the proportional share of our attention than is fairly his +due. + +In his delineation of the Norwegian peasant character, Bjoernson was +greatly aided by the study of the sagas, which he had read with +enthusiasm from his earliest boyhood. Upon them his style was largely +formed, and their vivid dramatic representation of the life of the +early Norsemen impressed him profoundly, shaping both his ideals and +the form of their expression. The modern Scandinavian may well be +envied for his literary inheritance from the heroic past. No other +European has anything to compare with it for clean-cut vigor and wealth +of romantic material. The literature which blossomed in Iceland and +flourished for two or three centuries wherever Norsemen made homes for +themselves offers a unique intellectual phenomenon, for nothing like +their record remains to us from any other primitive people. This + + "Tale of the Northland of old + And the undying glory of dreams," + +proved a lasting stimulus to Bjoernson's genius, and, during the early +period of his career, which is now under review, it made its influence +felt alike in his tales, his dramas, and his songs. "To see the +peasant in the light of the sagas and the sagas in the light of the +peasant" he declared to be the fundamental principle of his literary +method. + +It has been seen that during the fifteen years which made Bjoernson in +so peculiar a sense the spokesman of his race, he wrote no less than +five saga dramas. The first two of these works, "Between the Battles" +and "Halte-Hulda," are rather slight performances, and the third, "King +Sverre," although a more extended work, is not particularly noteworthy. +The grimness of the Viking life is softened by romantic coloring, and +the poet has not freed himself from the influence of Oehlenschlaeger. +But in "Sigurd Slembe" he found a subject entirely worthy of his +genius, and produced one of the noblest masterpieces of all modern +literature. This largely planned and magnificently executed dramatic +trilogy was written in Munich, and published in 1862. The material is +found in the "Heimskringla," but the author has used the prerogative of +the artist to simplify the historical outline thus offered into a +superb imaginative creation, rich in human interest, and powerful in +dramatic presentation. The story is concerned with the efforts of +Sigurd, nicknamed "Slembe," to obtain the succession to the throne of +Norway during the first half of the twelfth century. He was a son of +King Magnus Barfod, and, although of illegitimate birth, might legally +make this claim. The secret of his birth has been kept from him until +he has come to manhood, and the revelation of this secret by his mother +is made in the first section of the trilogy, which is a single act, +written in blank verse. Recognizing the futility of urging his +birthright at this time, he starts off to win fame as a crusader, the +sort of fame that haloed Sigurd Jorsalfar, then king of Norway. The +remainder of the work is in prose, and was, in fact, written before +this poetical prologue. The second section, in three acts, deals with +an episode in the Orkneys, five years later. Sigurd has not even then +journeyed to the Holy Land, but he has wandered elsewhere afar, +thwarted ambition and the sense of injustice ever gnawing at his heart. +He becomes entangled in a feudal quarrel concerning the rule of the +islands. Both parties seek to use him for their purposes, but in the +end, although leadership is in his grasp, he tears himself away, +appalled by the revelation of crime and treachery in his surroundings. +In this section of the work we have the subtly conceived and +Hamlet-like figure of Earl Harald, in whose interest Frakark, a Norse +Lady Macbeth, plots the murder of Earl Paul, only to bring upon Harald +himself the terrible death that she has planned for his brother. Here, +also, we have the gracious maiden figure of Audhild, perhaps the +loveliest of all Bjoernson's delineations of womanhood, a figure worthy +to be ranked with the heroines of Shakespeare and Goethe, who remains +sweet and fragrant in our memory forever after. With the mutual love of +Sigurd and Audhild comes the one hour of sunshine in both their lives, +but the love is destined to end in a noble renunciation and to leave +only a hallowed memory in token of its brief existence. + +Ten more years as a crusader and a wanderer over the face of the earth +pass by before we meet with Sigurd again in the third section of the +trilogy. But his resolution is taken. He has returned to his native +land, and will claim his own. The land is now ruled by Harald Gille, +who is, like Sigurd Slembe, an illegitimate son of Magnus Barfod, and +who, during the last senile years of Sigurd Jorsalfar's life, had won +the recognition that Sigurd Slembe might have won had he not missed the +chance, and been acknowledged as the king's brother. When the king +died, he left a son named Magnus, who should have been his successor, +but whom Harald Gille seized, blinded, and imprisoned that he might +himself occupy the throne. The five acts of this third section of the +trilogy cover the last two years of Sigurd Slembe's life, years during +which he seeks to gain his end, first by conciliation, and afterwards, +maddened by the base treachery of the king and his followers, by +assassination and violence. He has become a hard man, but, however +wild his schemes of revenge, and however desperate his measures, he +retains our sympathy to the end because we feel that circumstances have +made him the ravager of his country, and that his underlying motive all +along has not been a merely personal ambition, but an immense longing +to serve his people, and to rule them with justice and wisdom. The +final scene of all has a strange and solemn beauty. It is on the eve +of the battle in which Sigurd is to be captured and put to death by his +enemies. The actual manner of his death was too horrible even for the +purposes of tragedy; and the poet has chosen the better part in ending +the play with a foreshadowing of the outcome. Sigurd has made his last +stand, his Danish allies have deserted him, and he well knows what will +be the next day's issue. And here we have one of the noblest +illustrations in all literature of that _Versoehnung_ which is the last +word of tragic art. For in this supreme hour the peace of mind which +he has sought for so many years comes to him when least expected, and +all the tempests of life are stilled. That reconciliation which the +hour of approaching death brings to men whose lives have been set at +tragic pitch, has come to him also; he now sees that this was the +inevitable end, and the recognition of the fitness with which events +have shaped themselves brings with it an exaltation of soul in which +life is seen revealed in its true aspect. No longer veiled in the +mists which have hitherto hidden it from his passionate gaze, he takes +note of what it really is, and casts it from him. In this hour of +passionless contemplation such a renunciation is not a thing torn from +the reluctant soul, but the clear solution, so long sought, of the +problem so long blindly attempted. That which his passion enslaved +self has so struggled to avert, his higher self, at last set free, +calmly and gladly accepts. + +"What miracle is this? for in the hour I prayed, the prayer was +granted! Peace, perfect peace! Then I will go to-morrow to my last +battle as to the altar; peace shall at last be mine for all my longings. + +"How this autumn evening brings reconciliation to my soul! Sun and wave +and shore and sea flow all together, as in the thought of God all +others; never yet has it seemed so fair to me. But it is not mine to +rule over this lovely land. How greatly I have done it ill! But how +has it all so come to pass? for in my wanderings I saw thy mountains in +every sky, I yearned for home as a child longs for Christmas, yet I +came no sooner, and when at last I came, I gave thee wound upon wound. + +"But now, in contemplative mood, thou gazest upon me, and givest me at +parting this fairest autumn night of thine; I will ascend yonder rock +and take a long farewell." + +The action of "Sigurd Slembe," is interspersed with several lyrics, the +most striking of which is herd translated in exact reproduction of the +original form: + + "Sin and Death, at break of day, + Day, day, + Spoke together with bated breath; + 'Marry thee, sister, that I may stay, + Stay, stay, + In thy house,' quoth Death. + "Death laughed aloud when Sin was wed, + Wed, wed, + And danced on the bridal day: + But bore that night from the bridal bed, + Bed, bed, + The groom in a shroud away. + "Death came to her sister at break of day, + Day, day, + And Sin drew a weary breath; + 'He whom thou lovest is mine for aye, + Aye, aye, + Mine he is,' quoth Death." + +One more saga drama was to be written by Bjoernson, but "Sigurd Slembe" +remains his greatest achievement in this field of activity. Its single +successor, "Sigurd Jorsalfar," was not published until ten years later, +and may not be compared with it for either strength or poetic +inspiration. The author called it a "folkplay," and announced the +intention, which was never fulfilled, of making several similar +experiments with scenes from the sagas, "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 experiment proves interesting, and is carried +out without didacticism or straining after sensational effects; the +play is vigorous and well planned, but for the reader it has little of +the dramatic impressiveness of its predecessor, although as an acting +drama it is better fitted for the requirements of the stage. + +The two volumes which contain the greater part of Bjoernson's poetry not +dramatic in form were both published in 1870. One of them was the +collection of his "Poems and Songs," the other was the epic cycle, +"Arnljot Gelline," the only long poem that he has written. The volume +of lyrics includes many pieces of imperfect quality and slight +value,--personal tributes and occasional productions,--but it includes +also those national songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that are +sung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foes +alike, and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. No +translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their feeling; +they illustrate the one aspect of Bjoernson's many-sided genius that +must be taken on trust by those who cannot read his language. A friend +once asked him upon what occasion he had felt most fully the joy of +being a poet. His reply was as follows:-- + +"It was when a party from the Right in Christiania came to my house and +smashed all my windows. For when they had finished their assault, and +were starting home again, they felt that they had to sing something, +and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we love this land of ours'--they +couldn't help it. They had to sing + the song of the man they had attacked." + +Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through the +peasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completely +representative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhat +extended edition of this volume was published about ten years later. +Bjoernson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music by +three composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg--as intensely national in +spirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians is +celebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Land +of Ours," or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason." The best +folk-singer is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says the +poet, and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us that +life was ever more to him than song, and that existence, where it was +worth while, in the thick of the human fray, always had for him a +deeper meaning than anything he had written. The longest poem in +Bjoernson's collection is called "Bergliot," and is a dramatic monologue +in which the foul slaying of her husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and their +son Ejndride is mourned by the bereaved wife and mother. The story is +from the saga of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepest +tragic impressiveness. + + "Odin in Valhal I dare not seek + For him I forsook in my childhood. + And the new God in Gimle? + He took all that I had! + Revenge:--Who says revenge?-- + Can revenge awaken my dead + Or shelter me from the cold? + Has it comfort for a widow's home + Or for a childless mother? + Away with your revenge: Let be! + Lay him on the litter, him and the son. + Come, we will follow them home. + The new God in Gimle, the terrible, who took all, + Let him also take revenge, for he understands it! + Drive slowly: Thus drove Ejnar ever; + --Soon enough shall we reach home." + +It was also to the "Heimskringla" that Bjoernson turned for the subject +of his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline." Here we read in various rhythms +of Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how he +offers to stay his wrath and end the blood feud if the fair Ingigerd, +Trand's daughter, may be bestowed upon him; how, being refused, he sets +fire to Trand's house and bears Ingigerd away captive; how her tears +prevail upon him to release her, and how she seeks refuge in a southern +cloister; how Arnljot wanders restless over sea and land until he comes +to King Olaf, on the eve of the great battle, receives the Christian +faith, fights fiercely in the vanguard against the hosts of the +heathen, and, smiling, falls with his king on the field of Stiklestad. +One song from this cycle, "The Cloister in the South" is here +reproduced in an exact copy of the original metre, in the hope that +even this imperfect representation of the poem may be better than none +at all. + + "Who would enter so late the cloister in?" + "A maid forlorn from the land of snow." + "What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?" + "The deepest sorrow the heart can know. + I have nothing done + Yet must still endeavor, + Though my strength be none, + To wander ever. + Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease, + I can find no peace." + + "From what far-off land hast thou taken flight?" + "From the land of the North, a weary way." + "What stayed thy feet at our gate this night?" + "The chant of the nuns, for I heard them pray, + And the song gave peace + To my soul, and blessed me; + It offered release + From the grief that oppressed me. + Let me in, so if peace to give be thine, + I may make it mine." + + "Name me the grief that thy life hath crossed." + "Rest may I never, never know." + "Thy father, thy lover, thou hast then lost?" + "I lost them both at a single blow, + And all I held dear + In my deepest affection; + Aye, all that was near + To my heart's recollection. + Let me in, I am failing, I beg, I implore, + I can bear no more." + + "How was it that thou thy father lost?" + "He was slain, and I saw the deed." + "How was it that thou thy lover lost?" + "My father he slew, and I saw the deed. + I wept so bitterly + When he roughly would woo me, + He at last set me free, + And forbore to pursue me. + Let me in, for the horror my soul doth fill. + That I love him still." + + _Chorus of nuns within the Church._ + + "Come child, come bride, + To God's own side, + From grief find rest + On Jesus' breast. + Rest thy burden of sorrow. + On Horeb's height; + Like the lark, with to-morrow + Shall thy soul take flight. + + Here stilled is all yearning, + No passion returning; + No terror come near thee + When the Saviour can hear thee. + For He, if in need be + Thy storm-beaten soul, + Though it bruised as a reed be, + Shall raise it up whole." + +Despite the power and beauty of an occasional manifestation of his +genius during the late sixties and early seventies, the poetic impulse +that had made Bjoernson the most famous of Norwegian authors seemed, +toward the close of the fifteen-year period just now under review, to +be well nigh exhausted. Even among those who had followed his career +most closely there were few who could anticipate the splendid new +outburst of activity for which he was preparing. These years seemed to +be a dead time, not only in Bjoernson's life, but also in the general +intellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes thus +describes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during that period of +stagnation. "In the North one had the feeling of being shut off from +the intellectual life of the time. We were sitting with closed doors, a +few brains struggling fruitlessly with the problem of how to get them +opened... With whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Dane +had almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence of +political animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany was broken +off, the main channel was closed through which the intellectual +developments of the day had been communicated to Norway as well as +Denmark. French influence was dreaded as immoral, and there was but +little understanding of either the English language or spirit." But an +intellectual renaissance was at hand, an intellectual reawakening with +a cosmopolitan outlook, and, Bjoernson was destined to become its +leader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of an +earlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, +comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new +thought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religious +criticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession of his +thought, and the philosophy of evolution had transformed the whole +tenor of his ideas, shaping them to, deeper issues and more practical +purposes than had hitherto engaged them. He had read widely and +variously in Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Mueller, and Taine; he had, in +short, scaled the "lofty mountains" that had so hemmed in his early +view, and made his way into the intellectual kingdoms of the modern +world that lay beyond. The _Weltgeist_ had appealed to him with its +irresistible behest, just as it appealed at about the same time to +Ibsen and Tolstoy and Ruskin, and had made him a man of new interests +and ideals. + +One might have found foreshadowings of this transformation in certain +of his earlier works,--in "The Newly Married Couple," for example, with +its delicate analysis, of a common domestic relation, or in "The Fisher +Maiden," with its touch of modernity,--but from these suggestions one +could hardly have prophesied the enthusiasm and the genial force with +which Bjoernson was to project his personality into the controversial +arena of modern life. The series of works which have come from his pen +during the past thirty-five years have dealt with most of the graver +problems which concern society as a whole,--politics, religion, +education, the status of women, the license of the press, the demand of +the socialist for a reconstruction of the old order. They have also +dealt with many of the delicate questions of individual ethics,--the +relations of husband and wife, of parent and child, the responsibility +of the merchant to his creditors and of the employer to his dependants, +the double standard of morality for men and women, and the duty +devolving upon both to transmit a vigorous strain to their offspring. +These are some of the themes that have engaged the novelist and +dramatist; they have also engaged the public speaker and lay preacher +of enlightenment, as well as themes of a more strictly political +character, such as the separation of Norway from the Dual Monarchy, the +renewal of the ancient bond between Norway and Iceland, the free +development of parliamentary government, the cause of Pangermanism, and +the furtherance of peace between the nations. An extensive programme, +surely, even in this summary enumeration of its more salient features, +but one to which his capacity has not proved unequal, and which he has +carried out by the force of his immense energy and superabundant +vitality. The burden of all this tendencious matter has caused his art +to suffer at times, no doubt, but his inspiration has retained throughout +much of the marvellous freshness of the earlier years, and the genius of +the poet still flashes upon us from a prosaic environment, sometimes in a +lovely lyric, more frequently, however, in the turn of a phrase or the +psychological envisagement of some supreme moment in the action of the +story or the drama. + +The great transformation in Bjoernson's literary manner and choice of +subjects was marked by his sending home from abroad, in the season of +1874-75, two plays, "The Editor" and "A Bankruptcy." It was two years +later that Ibsen sent home from abroad "The Pillars of Society," which +marked a similar turning point in his artistic career. It is a curious +coincidence that the plays of modern life produced during this second +period by these two men are the same in number, an even dozen in each +case. Besides the two above named, these modern plays of Bjoernson are, +with their dates, the following: "The King" (1877), "Leonarda" (1879), +"The New System" (1879), "A Glove" (1883), "Beyond the Strength I." +(1883), "Geography and Love" (1885), "Beyond the Strength II." (1895), +"Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg" (1898), "Laboremus" (1901), and "At +Storhove" (1902). Since the cessation of Ibsen's activity, Bjoernson +has outrun him in the race, adding "Daglannet" (1904), and "When the +New Wine Blooms" (1909) to the list above given. Besides these +fourteen plays, however, he has published seven important volumes of +prose fiction during the last thirty-five years. The titles and dates +are as follows: "Magnhild" (1877), "Captain Mansana" (1879), "Dust" +(1882), "Flags Are Flying in City and Harbor" (1884), "In God's Ways," +(1889), "New Tales" (1894), (of which collection "Absalom's Hair" is +the longest and most important), and "Mary" (1906). The achievement +represented by this list is all the more extraordinary when we consider +the fact that for the greater part of the thirty-five years which these +plays and novels cover, their author has been, both as a public speaker +and as a writer for the periodical press, an active participant in the +political and social life of his country. + +Most of these books must be dismissed with a few words in order that +our remaining space may be given to the four or five that are of the +greatest power and significance. "The Editor," the first of the modern +plays, offers a fierce satire upon modern journalism, its dishonesty, +its corrupt and malicious power, its personal and partisan prejudice. +The character of the editor in this play was unmistakeably drawn, in +its leading characteristics, from the figure of a well known +conservative journalist in Christiania, although Bjoernson vigorously +maintained that the protraiture was typical rather than personal. + +"In various other countries than my own, I have observed the type of +journalist who is here depicted. It is characterized by acting upon a +basis of sheer egotism, passionate and boundless, and by terrorism in +such fashion that it frightens honest people away from every liberal +movement, and visits upon the individual an unscrupulous persecution." + +This play was not particularly successful upon the stage, but the book +was widely read, and occasioned much excited personal controversy. "A +Bankruptcy," on the other hand, proved a brilliant stage success. Its +matter was less contentious, and its technical execution was effective +and brilliant. It was not in vain that Bjoernson had at different times +been the director of three theatres. This play has for its theme the +ethics of business life, and more especially the question of the extent +to which a man whose finances are embarrassed is justified in continued +speculation for the ultimate protection of himself and his creditors. +Despite its treatment of this serious problem, the play is lighter and +more genial in vein than the author's plays are wont to be, and the +element of humor is unusually conspicuous. Jaeger remarks that "A +Bankruptcy" did two new things for Norwegian dramatic literature. It +made money affairs a legitimate subject for literary treatment, and it +raised the curtain upon the Norwegian home. "It was with 'A Bankruptcy' +that the home made its first appearance upon the stage, the home with +its joys and sorrows, with its conflicts and its tenderness." + +Two years later appeared "The King, which is in many respects +Bjoernson's greatest modern masterpiece in dramatic form. He had by +this time become a convinced republican, but he was also an +evolutionist, and he knew that republics are not created by fiat. He +believed the tendency toward republicanism to be irresistible, but he +believed also that there must be intermediate stages in the transition +from monarchy. Absolutism is succeeded by constitutionalism, and that +by parliamentarism, and that in the end must be succeeded by a +republicanism that will free itself from all the traditional forms of +symbol and ceremonial. He had also a special belief that the smaller +peoples were better fitted for development in this direction than the +larger and more complex societies, although, on the other hand, he +thought that the process of growth into full self-government was likely +to be slower among the Germanic than among the Latin races. In the +deeply moving play now to be considered, we have, in the character of +the titular king, an extraordinary piece of psychological analysis. +The king, is young, physically delicate, and of highly sensitive +organization. When he comes to the throne he realizes the hollowness +and the hypocrisy of the existence that prescription has marked out for +him; he realizes also that the very ideal of monarchy, under the +conditions of modern European civilization, is a gigantic falsehood. +For a time after his accession, he leads a life of pleasure seeking and +revelry, hoping that he may dull his sense of the sharp contrast that +exists between his station and his ideals. But his conscience will +give him no peace, and he turns to deliberate contemplation of the +thought, not indeed of abdicating his, false position, but of +transforming it into something more consonant with truth and the +demands of the age. He will become a citizen king, and take for wife a +daughter of the people; he will do away with the pomp and circumstance +of his court, and attempt to lead a simple and natural life, in which +the interests of the people shall be paramount in his attention. But +in this attempt he is thwarted at every step. All the forces of +selfishness and prejudice and ignorance combine against him; even the +people whom he seeks to benefit are so wedded to their idols that their +attitude is one of suspicion rather than of sympathy. He loves a young +woman of strong and noble character, and wins her love in return, but +she dies on the very eve of their union. His oldest and most +confidential friend, the wealthiest man in the kingdom, but a +republican, is murdered by a radical associate of the _intransigeant_ +type, and the king is left utterly bereaved by his twofold loss. This +brings us to the closing scene of the drama, in which the king, his +nerves strained to the breaking point, confronts the group of officials +and others who bring to him the empty phrases of a conventional +condolence:-- + +The King. Hush! Have a little respect for the truth that should +follow death! Understand me rightly: I do not mean that any of you +would lie. But the very air about a king is infected. It was of +that-a word or two. My time is short. But a testament. ... + +The Priest. Testament. + +The King. Neither the Old nor the New! Greet what is called +Christianity here in this land-greet it from me! I have thought much +about Christian folk of late. + +The Priest. That rejoices me. + +The King. How your tone cuts me! Greet it from me, what is called +Christianity here in this land. Nay, do not crane your necks and bend +your backs as if the wisdom of the ages were now forthcoming. (_aside_) +Can there be any use in saying something seriously? (_aloud_) You are +Christians? + +The General. God forbid the doubt! Faith is exceedingly useful. ... + +The King. For discipline. (_to the Sheriff_) And you? + +The Sheriff. From my blessed ancestors I received the faith. + +The King. So _they_ are blessed also. Why not?' + +The Sheriff. They brought me strictly up to fear God, to honor the +king. + +The King. And love your fellowmen. You are a State individual, +sheriff. And such are Christians nowadays. (_to the Merchant_) And +you? + +The Merchant. I have not been able to go to church very much of late +because of my cough. And in the foul air. ... + +The King. You go to sleep. But are you a Christian? + +The. Merchant. That goes without saying. + +The King. (_to the Priest._) And you are naturally one? + +The Priest. By the grace of Jesus I hope that I am. + +The King. That is the formula, boys, that is the accepted thing to +say. Therefore, you are a Christian community, and it is no fault of +mine if such a community will not deal seriously with what concerns +Christianity. Greet it from me, and say that it must have an eye to the +institution of monarchy. + +The Priest. Christianity has nothing to do with such matters. It +searches _the inner man_. + +The King. That tone! I know it--it does not search the air in which +the patient lives, but the lungs. There you have it! Nevertheless, +Christianity must have an eye to the monarchy--must pluck the lie from +it--must not follow it to its coronation in the church, as an ape +follows a peacock. I know what I felt in that situation. I had gone +through with a rehearsal the day before--ho, ho! Ask the Christianity +in this land, if it be not time to concern itself with the monarchy. +It should hardly any longer, it seems to me, let the monarchy play the +part of the seductive wanton who turns the thoughts of all citizens to +war--which is much against the message of Christianity--and to class +distinctions, to luxury, to show and vanity. The monarchy is now so +great a lie that it compels the most upright man to share in its +falsehood." + +The conversation that follows is in a vein of bitterness on the one +side, and of obtuse smugness on the other; the tragic irony of the +action grows deeper and deeper, until in the end the king, completely +disheartened and despairing, goes into an adjoining room, and dies by +his own hand, to the consternation of the men from whom he has just +parted. They give utterance to a few polite phrases, charitably +accounting for the deed by the easy attribution of insanity to the +king, and the curtain falls. + +It may well be imagined that "The King" made a stir in literary and +social circles, and quite noticeably fluttered the dovecotes of +conventionality and conservatism. Such plain speaking and such deadly +earnestness of conviction were indeed far removed from the idyllic +simplicity of the peasant tales and from the poetical reconstructions +of the legendary past. Eight years later, Bjoernson prefaced a new +edition of this work with a series of reflections upon "Intellectual +Freedom" that constitute one of the most vigorous and remarkable +examples of his serious prose. The central ideas of his political faith +are embodied in the following sentences from this preface:-- + +"Intellectual Freedom. Why is not attention called over and over again +to the fact that for the great peoples, who have so many compensating +interests, the free commerce of ideas is one condition of life among +many others; while for us, the small peoples, it is absolutely +indispensable. A people numerically large may attain to ways of +thought and enterprise that no political censure can reduce to a +minimum; but under narrower conditions it may easily come about that +the whole people will fall asleep. A powerful propaganda of +enlightenment under the conditions of free speech is for us of the +first and the last importance. When I wrote this piece it was my chief +aim to enlarge the bounds of free thought. I have later made the same +attempt in matters of religion and morals. When my opponents seek to +sum up my character in a few words, they are apt to say: 'He attacks +the throne and the altar.' It seems to me that I have served the +freedom of the spirit, and in the interests of that cause I now beg +leave to reply. (1) _Concerning the attack on Christianity._ It may be +worth while in a country with a state church to recall now and then the +meaning of Christianity. It is not an institution, still less a book, +and least of all it is a house or a seminary. It is the godly life +according to the precepts and example of Jesus. There may be men who +think they are attacking Christianity when they investigate the +historical origin or the morality of some dogma; I do not think so. +Honest investigation can result only in growth. Christianity, with or +without its whole apparatus of dogma, will endure in its essence for +thousands of years after us; there will always be spiritually-minded +people who will be ennobled by it, and some made great. I honor all +the noble. I have friends among the Christians, whom I love, and never +for a moment have I thought of attacking their Christianity. I have no +higher wish than to see them by its help transform certain aspects of +our society into seriousness. (2) _Concerning the attack on +monarchy._ Monarchy is, on the other hand, an institution, here the +circumstances are naturally different. I have attacked monarchy, and I +will attack it. But--and to this 'but' I call the closest attention. +Shortly before the July Revolution, when its first signs were declared, +Chateaubriand was talking with the King, who asked what it all meant. +'It is monarchy that is done with,' replied the royalist, for he was +also a seer. Certainly there have been in France both kingdom and +empire since that day. If there should be no more hereafter, they +still exist in other lands, and will endure for generations after us. +But 'done with' are they none the less; notice was given them by the +French Revolution. It does not concern them all simultaneously; it +fixes terms, different for the different kingdoms, and far removed for +the kingdoms based upon conquest. But the face of civilization is now +turned toward the republic, and every people has reached the first, +second, or third stage of the way. "If a work of the mind is born of +Norse conditions and stands before the ethical judgment seat--let it +have its full action; otherwise it will not produce its full reaction. +If the faith that gave shape to the piece is not the strongest force in +the society that gave it birth, it will evoke an opposing force of +greater strength. Thereby all will gain. But to ignore it, or seek to +crush it--that in a large society may not greatly matter, so rich are +the possibilities of other work taking its place; but in a small +society it may be equivalent to destroying the sight of its only eye." + +In the clean-cut phrases and moral earnestness of this _apologia pro +vita sua_, which deserves to be reproduced at greater length, we have +the modern Bjoernson, no longer poet alone, but poet and prophet at +once, the champion of sincere thinking and worthy living, the Sigurd +Slembe of our own day, happier than his prototype in the consciousness +that the ambition to serve his people has not been; altogether +thwarted, and that his beneficent activity is not made sterile even by +the bitterest opposition. + +Only a rapid glance may be taken at the books of the five years +following upon the publication of "The King." The story of "Magnhild," +planned several years earlier, represents Bjoernson's return to fiction +after a long dramatic interlude. There are still peasants in this +story, but they are different from the figures of the early tales, and +the atmosphere of the work is modern. It turns upon the question of +the mutual duties of husband and wife, when love no longer unites them. +The solution seems to lie in separation when union has thus become +essentially immoral. "Captain Mansana" is a story of Italian life, +based, so the author assures us, on actual characters and happenings +that had come within the range of his observation during his stay +abroad. Its interest does not lie in any particular problem, but +rather in the delineation of the titular figure, a strong and impetuous +person whose character suggests that of Ferdinand Lassalle, as the +author himself points out to us in a prefatory note. "Dust" is a +pathetic little story having for its central idea what seems like a +pale reflection of the idea of Ibsen's "Ghosts," which had appeared a +few months before. It is the dust of the past that settles upon our +souls, and clogs their free action. The special application of this +thought is to the religious training of children:-- + +"When you teach children that the life here below is nothing to the +life above, that to be visible is nothing in comparison with being +invisible, that to be a human being is nothing in comparison with being +dead, that is not the way to teach them to view life properly, or to +love life, to gain courage, strength for work, and love of country." + +In the play, "Leonarda," and again in the play, "A Glove," the author +recurs to the woman question; in the one case, his theme is the +attitude of society toward the woman of blemished reputation; in the +other, its attitude toward the man who in his relation with women has +violated the moral law. "Leonarda" is a somewhat inconclusive work, +because the issue is not clearly defined, but in "A Glove" (at least in +the acting version of the play, which differs from the book in its +ending) there is no lack of definiteness. This play inexorably demands +the enforcement of the same standard of morality for both sexes, and +declares the unchaste man to be as unfit for honorable marriage as the +unchaste woman. Upon the theme thus presented a long and violent +discussion raged; but if there be such a thing as an immutable moral +law in this matter, it must be that upon which Bjoernson has so squarely +and uncompromisingly planted his feet. The other remaining work of +this five-year period is the play called "The New System." The new +system in question is a system of railway management, and it is a +wasteful one. But the young engineer who demonstrates this fact has a +hard time in opening the eyes of the public. He succeeds eventually, +but not until he has encountered every sort of contemptible opposition +and hypocritical evasion of the plain truth. The social satire of the +piece is subtle and sharp; what the author really aims at is to +illustrate, by a specific example, the repressive forces that dominate +the life of a small people, and make it almost impossible for any sort +of truth to triumph over prejudice. + +Since the production of "A Glove," twenty years ago, eight more plays +have come from Bjoernson's prolific pen. Of these by far the most +important are the two that are linked by the common title, "Beyond the +Strength." The translation of this title is hopelessly inadequate, +because the original word means much more than strength; it means +talent, faculty, capability, the sum total of a man's endowment for +some particular purpose. The two pieces bearing this name are quite +different in theme, but certain characters appear in both, and both +express the same thought,--the thought that it is vain for men to +strive after the unattainable, for in so doing they lose sight of the +actual possibilities of human life; the thought that much of the best +human energy goes to waste because it is devoted to the pursuit of +ideals that are indeed beyond the strength of man to realize. In the +first of the two plays, this superhuman ideal is religious, it is that +of the enthusiast who accepts literally the teaching that to faith all +things are possible; in the second, the ideal is social, it is that of +the reformer who is deluded to believe that one resounding deed of +terror and self-immolation for the cause of the people will suffice to +overthrow the selfish existing order, and create for the toiling masses +a new heaven upon earth. No deeper tragedies have been conceived by +Bjoernson than these two, the tragedy of the saintlike Pastor Sang, who +believes that the miracle of his wife's restoration to health has at +last in very truth been wrought by his fervent prayer, and finds only +that the ardor of his faith and hers has brought death instead of life +to them both,--the tragedy of his son Elias, who dies like Samson with +his foes for an equally impossible faith, and by the very violence of +his fanaticism removes the goal of socialist endeavor farther than ever +into the dim future. Bjoernson has written nothing more profoundly +moving than these plays, with their twofold treatment of essentially +the same theme, nor has he written anything which offers a clearer +revelation of his own rich personality, with its unfailing poetic +vision, its deep tenderness, and its boundless love for all humankind. +The play, "Geography and Love," which came between the two just +described, is an amusing piece, in the vein of light and graceful +comedy, which satirizes the man with a hobby, showing how he +unconsciously comes to neglect his wife and family through absorption +in his work. The author was, in a way, taking genial aim at himself in +this piece, a fact which his son Bjorn, who played the principal part, +did not hesitate to emphasize. "Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg," the next +play, deals with the passions engendered by political controversy, and +made much unpleasant stir in Norwegian society because certain of the +characters and situations were unmistakeably taken from real life. +After these plays came "Laboremus" and "At Storhove," both concerned +with substantially the same theme, which is that of the malign +influence exerted by an evil-minded and reckless woman upon the lives +of others. From a different point of view, we may say that the subject +of these plays is the consecration of the home. This has always been a +favorite theme with Bjoernson, and he has no clearer title to our +gratitude than that which he has earned by his unfailing insistence +upon the sanctity of family life, its mutual confidences, and its +common joys. Completing the list, we have "Daglannet," another +domestic drama of simple structure, and "When the New Wine Blooms," a +study of modernity as exemplified in the young woman of to-day, of the +estrangement that too often creeps into married life, and of the +stirrings that prompt men of middle age to seek to renew the joys of +youth. + +During the years that have passed since the publication of "Dust," +Bjoernson has produced four volumes of fiction,--his two great novels, a +third novel of less didactic mission, and a second collection of short +stories. The first of the novels, "Flags Are Flying in City and +Harbor," saw the light during the year following the publication of "A +Glove," and the teaching of that play is again enforced with +uncompromising logic in the development of the story. The work has two +other main themes, and these are heredity and education. So much +didactic matter as this is a heavy burden for any novel to carry, and a +lesser man than Bjoernson would have found the task a hopeless one. +That he should have succeeded even in making a fairly readable book out +of this material would have been remarkable, and it is a pronounced +artistic triumph that the book should prove of such absorbing interest. +For absorbingly interesting it is, to any reader who is willing that a +novel should provide something more than entertainment; and who is not +afraid of a work of fiction that compels him to think as he reads. The +principal character is a man descended from a line of ancestors whose +lives have been wild and lawless, and who have wallowed in almost every +form of brutality and vice. The four preceding generations of the race +are depicted for us in a series of brief but masterly +characterizations, in which every stroke tells, and we witness the +gradual weakening of the family stock. But with the generation just +preceding the main action of the novel, there has been introduced a +vigorous strain of peasant blood, and the process of regeneration has +begun. It is this process that goes on before our eyes. It does not +become a completed process, but the prospect is bright for the future, +and the flags that fly over town and harbor in the closing chapter have +a symbolical significance, for they announce a victory of spirit over +sense, not only in the cases of certain among the individual +participants in the action, but also in the case of the whole community +to which they belong. So much for the book as a study in heredity. As +an educational tract, it has the conspicuous virtue of remaining in +close touch with life while embodying the spirit of modern scientific +pedagogy. The hero of the book,--the last descendant of a race +struggling for moral and physical rehabilitation,--throws himself into +the work of education with an energy equal to that which his forbears +had turned into various perverse channels. He organizes a school, more +than half of the book, in fact, is about this school and its work,--and +seeks to introduce a system of training which shall shape the whole +character of the child, a school in which truth and clean living shall +be inculcated with thoroughness and absolute sincerity, a school which +shall be the microcosm of the world outside, or rather of what that +world ought to be. Bjoernson's interest in education has been +life-long; for many years it had gone astray in a sort of Grundtvigian +fog, but at the time when this book came to be written, it had worked +its way out into the clear light of reason. If the future should cease +to care for this work as a piece of literature, it will still look back +to it as to a sort of nineteenth century "Emile," and take renewed +heart from its inspiring message. + +"In God's Ways," the second of the two great novels, is a work of which +it is difficult to speak in terms of measured praise. With its +delicate and vital delineations of character, its rich sympathy and +depth of tragic pathos, its plea for the sacredness of human life, and +its protest against the religious and social prejudice by which life is +so often misshapen, this book is an epitome of all the ideas and +feelings that have gone to the making of the author's personality, and +have received such manifold expression in his works. It is a simple +story, concerned mainly with four people, in no way outwardly +conspicuous, yet here united by the poet's art into a relationship from +which issue some of the deepest of social questions, and which enforces +in the most appealing terms the fundamental teaching of all the work of +his mature years. First of all, we have the boyhood of the two friends +who are afterwards to grow apart in their sympathies; the one alert of +mind, imaginative, open to every intellectual influence, also impetuous +and hot-blooded; the other shy and intellectually stolid, but good to +the very core, and moved by the strongest of altruistic impulses. In +accordance with their respective characters, the first of these youths +becomes a physician, and the other a clergyman. Then we have the +sister of the physician, who becomes the wife of the clergyman, a +noble, proud, self-centred nature, finely strung to the inmost fibre of +her being. Then we have a woman of the other sort, clinging, +abnormally sensitive, a child when the years of childhood are over, and +made the victim of a shocking child-marriage to a crippled old man. She +it is whom the physician loves, and persuades to a legal dissolution of +her immoral union. After some years, he makes her his wife, and their +happiness would be complete were it not for the social and religious +prejudice aroused. The clergyman, whom years of service in the state +church have hardened into bigotry, is officially, as it were, compelled +to condemn the friend of his boyhood, and even the sister, for a time +grown untrue to her own generous nature, shares in the estrangement. +In vain does the physician seek to shelter his wife from the chill of +her environment. She droops, pines away, and finally dies, gracious, +lovable, and even forgiving to the last. Then the death angel comes +close to the clergyman and his wife, hovering over their only child, +and at last the barrier of formalism and prejudice and religious +bigotry is swept away from their minds. Their natural sympathies, long +repressed, resume full sway, and they realize how deeply they, have +sinned toward the dead woman. The sister seeks a reconciliation with +her brother, but he repulses her, and gives her his wife's private +diary to read. In this _journal intime_ she finds the full revelation +of the gentle spirit that has been done to death, and she feels that +the very salvation of her life and soul depend upon winning her +brother's forgiveness. The closing chapter, in which the final +reconciliation occurs, is one of the most wonderful in all fiction; its +pathos is of the deepest and the most moving, and he must be callous of +soul, indeed, who can read it with dry eyes. + +If we were to search the whole of Bjoernson's writings for the single +passage which should most completely typify his message to his +fellowmen,--not Norwegians alone, but all mankind,--the choice would +have to rest upon the words spoken from the pulpit by the clergyman of +this novel, on the Sunday following the certainty of his child's +recovery. + +"To-day a man spoke from the pulpit of the church about what he had +learned. + +"Namely, about what first concerns us all. + +"One forgets it in his strenuous endeavor, a second in his zeal for +conflict, a third in his backward vision, a fourth in the conceit of +his own wisdom, a fifth in his daily routine, and we have all learned +it more or less ill. For should I ask you who hear me now, you would +all reply thoughtlessly, and just because I ask you from this place, +'Faith is first.' + +"No, in very truth, it is not. Watch over your child, as it struggles +for breath on the outermost verge of life, or see your wife follow the +child to that outermost verge, beside herself for anxiety and +sleeplessness,--then love will teach you that _life comes first_. And +never from this day on will I seek God or God's will in any form of +words, in any sacrament, or in any book or any place, as if He were +first and foremost to be found there; no, life is first and +foremost--life as we win it from the depths of despair, in the victory +of the light, in the grace of self-devotion, in our intercourse with +living human kind. God's supreme word to us is life, our highest +worship of Him is love for the living. This lesson, self-evident as it +is, was needed by me more than by most others. This it is that in +various ways and upon many grounds I have hitherto rejected,--and of +late most of all. But never more shall words be the highest for me, +nor symbols, but the eternal revelation of life. Never more will I +freeze fast in doctrine, but let the warmth of life melt my will. +Never will I condemn men by the dogmas of old time justice, unless they +fit with our own time's gospel of love. Never, for God's sake! And +this because I believe in Him, the God of Life, and His never ending +revelation in life itself." + +Here is a gospel, indeed, one that needs no church for its +promulgation, and no ceremonial for the enhancement of its +impressiveness. It is a gospel, moreover, that is based upon no +foundation of precarious logic, but finds its premises in the healthy +instincts of the natural man. It is no small thing to have thus found +the way, and to have helped others likewise to find the way, out of the +mists of superstition, through the valleys of doubt and despondency, +athwart the thickets of prejudice and bigotry with all their furtive +foemen, up to these sunlit heights of serenity. + +"Mary" is less explicit in its teaching than the two great novels just +summarized, but what it misses in didacticism it more than gains in +art. The radiant creature who gives her name to the book is one of +Bjoernson's most exquisite figures. She is the very embodiment of +youthful womanhood, filled with the joy of life, and bringing sunshine +wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what +would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the +strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having +tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened +by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life," +says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There is +nothing here of Ibsen's pathology. We are in the sun. Her most hideous +blunder cannot undo a woman's soul. Bjoernson knows that the deed is +nothing at all. It is the soul behind the deed that he sees. Not +everything that cometh out of a man defileth a man. At all events, so +it is here: triumph and joy built upon an act that--as the Philistines +would say--has defiled forever." As a triumph of sheer creation, this +figure is hardly overmatched anywhere in the author's portrait gallery +of women. + +If Bjoernson's essential teaching may be found in a single page, as has +above been suggested, his personality evades all such summarizing. In +the present essay, he has been considered as a writer merely,--poet, +dramatist, novelist,--but the man is vastly more than that. His other +activities have been hinted at, indeed, but nothing adequate has been +said about them. The director of three theatres, the editor of three +newspapers and the contributor to many others, the promoter of schools +and patriotic organizations, the participant in many political +campaigns, the lay preacher of private and public morals, the chosen +orator of his nation for all great occasions,--these are some of the +characters in which we must view him to form anything like a complete +conception of his many-sided individuality. Take the matter of oratory +alone, and it is perhaps true that he has influenced as many people by +the living word as he has by the printed page. He has addressed +hundreds of audiences in the three Scandinavian countries and in +Finland, he has spoken to more than twenty thousand at a time, and his +winged speech has gone straight home to his hearers. All who ever +heard him will agree that his oratory was of the most persuasive and +vital impressiveness. Jaeger attempts to describe it in the following +words:-- + +"It is eloquence of a very distinctive type; its most characteristic +quality is its wealth of color; it finds expression for every mood, +from the lightest to the most serious, from the most vigorous to the +most delicate and tender. Now his words ring like the voice of doom, +filled with thunder and lightning, now they become soft and persuasive +with smiling mien. With a single cadence, or a play of the facial +muscles, or a slight gesture, he can portray a person, a situation, or +an object, so that it appears living in the sight of his hearers. And +what the word alone cannot do, is accomplished in the most brilliant +manner by the virtuosity of his delivery. He does not speak his words, +he presents them; they take bodily form and seem alive." + +In his more intimate relationships, on the other hand, in face to face +conversation or in the home circle, the man takes on a quite different +aspect; the prophet has become the friend, the impassioned preacher has +become the genial story teller, and shares the gladsome or mirthful +mood of the hour. Such a personality as this may be analyzed; it +defies any concise synthesis. One resorts to figures of speech, and +they were abundantly resorted to by those who paid him the tribute of +their admiration and love upon the occasion of his seventieth +anniversary. Let us take an instance at random from one of these +tributes. + +"The cataract that roars down to the free foaming sea. The mountain +with its snowclad peaks towering up into the immensity of the starry +heavens. The rustling of the woodland above the blossom-spangled and +smiling meadows, the steep uptowering, the widely growing, and the +joyously smiling. At once the soft melody that stirs the heart and the +strong wind that sweeps over the Northern lands." + +This concourse of metaphors gives some slight idea of the way in which +Bjoernson's personality affected those who came into contact with it. +The description may be supplemented by a few bits of anecdote and +reminiscence. The composer Grieg contributes the following incident of +the old days in Norway:-- + +"It was Christmas eve of 1868 at the Bjoernsons in Christiania. They +lived then in the Rosenkrantzgade. My wife and I were, as far as I can +remember, the only guests. The children were very boisterous in their +glee. In the middle of the floor an immense Christmas tree was +enthroned and brightly lighted. All the servant-folk came in, and +Bjoernson spoke, beautifully and warmly, as he well knows how to do. +'Now you shall play a hymn, Grieg,' he said, and although I did not +quite like the notion of doing organist's work, I naturally complied +without a murmur. It was one of Grundtvig's hymns in 32--thirty-two +verses. I resigned myself to my fate with stoicism. At the beginning +I kept myself awake, but the endless repetitions had a soporific +effect. Little by little I became as stupid as a medium. When we had +at last got through with all the verses, Bjoernson said: 'Isn't that +fine. Now I will read it for you!' And so we got all thirty-two +verses once more. I was completely overawed." + +When the poet purchased his country estate which was his home from the +late seventies to the end of his life, his coming was looked forward to +with mingled feelings by the good country folk of the neighborhood. +Kristofer Janson thus tells the story of his arrival: + +"His coming was anticipated with a certain anxiety and apprehension, +for was he not a 'horrid radical'? The dean in particular thought that +he might be a menace to the safe spiritual slumber of the village. As +the dean one day was driving through the village in his carriole, just +where the road turns sharply by the bridge below Aulestad, he met +another carriole which was rapidly driving that way and in it a man +who, without respect for the clerical vehicle, shouted with all the +strength of his lungs: 'Half the road!' The dean turned aside, saying +with a sigh: 'Has Bjoernson come to the Gausdal at last?' "It was indeed +so, and he showed his colors at the start. The same dean and Bjoernson +became the best of friends afterwards, and found much sport in +interchanging genial jests whenever they met." + +Frits Thaulow, the painter, thus wrote to Bjoernson reminding him of a +festive gathering of students: + +"The manager came in and announced with a loud voice that it was past +twelve. Then you sprang up. + +"'Bring champagne! Now I will speak of what comes after twelve +o'clock! of all that lies beyond the respectable hour for retiring! +For the hour when fancy awakens and fills us with longings for the +world of wonderland; then the painter sees only the dim outline in the +moonlight, then the musician hears the silence, then the poet after his +thoughtful day feels sprouting the first shoots of the next. After +twelve freedom begins. The day's tumult is stilled, and the voice +within becomes audible.' + +"Thus you spoke, and 'after twelve' became a watchword with us. + +"Many a spark has been kindled in your soul by the quiet evening time. +But later in life, when you become a chieftain in the battle, broad +daylight also made its demands upon you. Like the sun you shone upon +us and made the best that was in us to grow, but I shall always keep a +deep artistic affection for what comes 'after twelve.'" + +Henrik Cavling tells the following story of the poet in Paris: + +"It was one of Bjoernson's peculiarities to go out as a rule without any +money in his pocket. He neither owned a purse nor knew the French +coins. His personal expenditures were restricted to the books he +bought, and now and then a theatre ticket. One day he carne excitedly +into the sitting-room, and asked: + +"'Who took my five franc piece?' It was a five franc piece that he had +got somewhere or other and had stuck in his pocket to buy a theatre +ticket with. It turned out that the maid had found it and given it to +Fru Bjoernson. For it seemed quite unthinkable to her that the master +should have any money to take out with him. + +"This complete indifference of Bjoernson to small matters sometimes +proved annoying. In this connection I may tell of a little trip he +once took with Jonas Lie. + +"The two poets, who did not live far apart, had long counted with +pleasure upon a trip to Pere Lachaise, where they wished to visit +Alfred de Musset's grave. At last the day came, and with big soft hats +on their heads, and engaged earnestly in conversation, they drove away +through Paris. + +"When they came to Pere Lachaise, and wanted to enter the cemetery, the +driver stopped them and asked for his pay. Then it appeared that +neither had any money, which they smilingly explained, and asked him in +bad French to wait and drive them home again. But the two gentlemen +with the big soft hats had not inspired the driver with any marked +degree of confidence. He made a scene, and attracted a great crowd of +the boys, loafers, and well-dressed Frenchmen who always collect on +critical occasions. The end of the affair was that the poets had to +get into their cab again and drive all the long way back without having +had a glimpse of the grave. When they reached Lie's lodgings, Lie went +in to get some money, while Bjoernson sat in the cab as a hostage. +Nevertheless, both poets maintained that they had had a pleasant +expedition. A Norwegian question, which had accidentally come up +between them, had made them forget all about Alfred de Musset." + +Finally, a story may be given that is told by Bjoernson himself. + +"I had a pair of old boots that I wanted to give to a beggar. But just +as I was going to give them to him, I began to wonder whether Karoline +had not some use for them, since she usually gave such things to +beggars. So I took the boots in my hand, and went downstairs to ask +her, but on the way I got a little worked up because I did not quite +dare to give them to the beggar myself. And the further I went down +the steps, the more wrathful I got, until I stood over her. And then I +was so angry that I had to bluster at her as if she had done me a +grievous wrong. But she could not understand a word of what I said, +and looked at me with such amazement, that I could not keep from +bursting into laughter." + +From his early years, Bjoernson kept in touch with the modern +intellectual movement by mingling with the people of other lands than +his own. Besides his visits to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, he made +many lengthy sojourns in the chief continental centres of civilization, +in Munich, Rome, and Paris. The longest of his foreign journeys was +that which brought him to the United States in the winter of 1880-81, +for the purpose of addressing his fellow countrymen in the Northwest. +His home for the last thirty years and more has been his estate of +Aulestad in the Gausdal, a region of Southern Norway. Here he has been +a model farmer, and here, surrounded by his family,--wife, children, +and grandchildren,--his patriarchal presence has given dignity to the +household, and united its members in a common bond of love. Hither +have come streams of guests, friends old and new, to enjoy his generous +hospitality. There has been provision for all, both bed and board, and +the heartiest of welcomes from the host. And the stranger from abroad +has been greeted, as like as not, by the sight of his own country's +flag streaming from a staff before the house, and foreshadowing the +personal greeting that awaited him upon the threshold. + +Bjoernson died in Paris (where he had been spending the winter, as was +his custom for many years past), April 26, 1910. He had been ill for +several months, and only an extraordinarily robust constitution enabled +him to make a partial recovery from the crisis of the preceding +February, when his death had been hourly expected. The news of his +death occasioned demonstrations of grief not only in his own country, +but also throughout the civilized world. Every honor that a nation can +bestow upon its illustrious dead was decreed him by King and Storthing; +a warship was despatched to bear his remains to Christiania, and the +pomp and circumstance of a state funeral acclaimed the sense of the +nation's loss. + + + + +LIST OF WORKS. + + SYNNOeVE SOLBAKKEN. Fortaelling, 1857 + MELLEM SLAGENE. Drama, 1858 + ARNE. Fortaelling, 1858 + HALTE-HULDA. Drama, 1858 + EN GLAD GUT. Fortaelling, 1860 + KONG SVERRE. 1861 + SIGURD SLEMBE. 1862 + MARIA STUART I SKOTLAND. Skuespil, 1864 + DE NYGIFTE. Komedie, 1865 + FISKERJENTEN. Fortaelling, 1868 + DIGTE OG SANGE. 1870 + ARNLJOT GELLINE. 1870 + SIGURD JORSALFAR. Skuespil, 1872 + FORTAELLINGER I-II, 1872 + BRUDE-SLAATTEN. Fortaelling, 1873 + REDAKTOeREN. Skuespil, 1874 + EN FALLIT. Skuespil, 1874 + KONGEN. 1877 + MAGNHILD. Fortaelling, 1877 + KAPTEJN MANSANA. Fortaelling fra Italien, 1879 + LEONARDA. Skuespil, 1879 + DET NY SYSTEM. Skuespil, 1879 + EN HANDSKE. Skuespil, 1883 + OVER AEVNE. Foerste Stykke, 1883 + DET FLAGER I BYEN OG PAA HAVNEN, 1884 + GEOGRAFI OG KJAERLIGHED. 1885 + PAA GUDS VEJE. 1889 + NYE FORTAELLINGER. 1894 + LYSET. En Universitetskantate, 1895 + OVER AEVNE. Andet Stykke, 1895 + PAUL LANGE OG TORA PARSBERG. 1898 + LABOREMUS. 1901 + TO FORTAELLINGER. 1901 + PAA STORHOVE. Drama, 1904 + DAGLANNET. 1904 + TO TALER. 1906. + MARY. Fortaelling, 1906 + VORT SPROG. 1907 + NAAR DEN NY VIN BLOMSTRER. 1909 + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, by William Morton Payne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON *** + +***** This file should be named 4582.txt or 4582.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/8/4582/ + +Produced by Nicole Apostola. HTML version by Al Haines. + +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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