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diff --git a/old/7bjrn10.txt b/old/7bjrn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cc1d07 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7bjrn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2021 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bjornstjerne Bjornson +by William Morton Payne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg file. + +Please do not remove this header information. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the eBook. 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We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + +Title: Bjornstjerne Bjornson + +Author: William Morton Payne + +Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4582] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 11, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO8859-1 + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bjornstjerne Bjornson +by William Morton Payne +******This file should be named 7bjrn10.txt or 7bjrn10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 7bjrn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7bjrn10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + +*** +This etext was produced by Nicole Apostola. + +Bjornstjerne Bjornson +1832-1910 +by William Morton Payne, LL.D. +Translator of Bjornson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen," Author of "Little Leaders," Etc. + +To Mary + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE + +When the date of Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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. + + + +BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON +1832-1910 + +Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain +peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular +reference to Bjornson'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 Bjornstjerne Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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, +Bjornson 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, Bjornson 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 Bjornson, 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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson 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 "Synnove 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 +traditon, 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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson and the true birth of +Norwegian literature with "Synnove 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, Bjornstjerne +Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 "Synnove +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 Bjornson'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, Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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. Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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 "Synnove 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 Bjornson, 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, Bjornson +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 Bjornson'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 +Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 _Versohnung_ 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 Bjornson, 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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. Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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, Bjornson 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, Muller, 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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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, Bjornson 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 +Bjornson 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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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, Bjornson 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 Bjornson, 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 +Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson 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. Bjornson 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 Bjornson, 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," Bjornson 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 Bjornson 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. Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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. Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson'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 Bjornsons 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 Bjornson 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, Bjornson 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 Bjornson come to the Gausdal at last?' +"It was indeed so, and he showed his colors at the start. +The same dean and Bjornson became the best of friends afterwards, +and found much sport in interchanging genial jests whenever they met." + +Frits Thaulow, the painter, thus wrote to Bjornson 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 Bjornson'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 Bjornson. For it seemed quite +unthinkable to her that the master should have any money to +take out with him. +"This complete indifference of Bjornson 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 +Bjornson 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 Bjornson 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, Bjornson 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. + +Bjornson 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. + +SYNNOVE 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 +REDAKTOREN. 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. Forste 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 + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bjornstjerne Bjornson +by William Morton Payne +******This file should be named 7bjrn10.txt or 7bjrn10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 7bjrn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7bjrn10a.txt + +This etext was produced by Nicole Apostola. + +*** + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + +Title: Björnstjerne Björnson + +Author: William Morton Payne + +Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4582] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 11, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO8859-1 + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Björnstjerne Björnson +by William Morton Payne +******This file should be named 8bjrn10.txt or 8bjrn10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 8bjrn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8bjrn10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + +*** +This etext was produced by Nicole Apostola. + +Björnstjerne Björnson +1832-1910 +by William Morton Payne, LL.D. +Translator of Björnson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen," Author of "Little Leaders," Etc. + +To Mary + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE + +When the date of Björnson'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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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. + + + +BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON +1832-1910 + +Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain +peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular +reference to Björnson'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 +preëminence 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 Björnstjerne Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson 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, +Björnson 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, Björnson 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 +Tourguénieff, described the deceased novelist as "the incarnation +of a whole people." Even more fittingly might the phrase be applied +to Björnson, 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 Björnson 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 Björnson 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 "Synnöve 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 +traditon, 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 Björnson 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 Björnson and the true birth of +Norwegian literature with "Synnöve 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, Björnstjerne +Björnson 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 Björnson'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 "Synnöve +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 Björnson'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, Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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. Björnson 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 _naïveté_ 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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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 Björnson 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 "Synnöve 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 Björnson, 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, Björnson +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 Björnson'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 +Björnson 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 Björnson'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 _Versöhnung_ 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 Björnson, 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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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. Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson 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 Björnson 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 Björnson'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, Björnson 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, Müller, 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 Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson 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, Björnson 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 +Björnson 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 Björnson 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 Björnson'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, Björnson 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 Björnson, 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 +Björnson'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 Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson 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. Björnson 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 Björnson, 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," Björnson 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 Björnson 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. Björnson'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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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. Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson'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 Björnsons 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 Björnson 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, Björnson 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 Björnson come to the Gausdal at last?' +"It was indeed so, and he showed his colors at the start. +The same dean and Björnson became the best of friends afterwards, +and found much sport in interchanging genial jests whenever they met." + +Frits Thaulow, the painter, thus wrote to Björnson 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 Björnson'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 Björnson. For it seemed quite +unthinkable to her that the master should have any money to +take out with him. +"This complete indifference of Björnson 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 Père 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 Père 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 +Björnson 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 Björnson 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, Björnson 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. + +Björnson 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. + +SYNNÖVE 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 +REDAKTÖREN. 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. Förste 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 + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Björnstjerne Björnson +by William Morton Payne +******This file should be named 8bjrn10.txt or 8bjrn10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 8bjrn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8bjrn10a.txt + +This etext was produced by Nicole Apostola. + +*** + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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