Björnstjerne Björnson

1832-1910

by

William Morton Payne, LL. D. 

Translator of Björnson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Ibsen, " Authorof "Little Leaders, " Etc. 

To Mary

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

When the date of Björnson's seventieth birthday drew near at the closeof 1902, the present writer, who had been from boyhood a devotedadmirer of the great Norwegian, wished to make an American contributionto the world-wide tribute of gratitude and affection which the thenapproaching anniversary was sure to evoke. The outcome of that wishwas an essay, summarizing Björnson's life and work, published in "TheInternational Quarterly, " March, 1903. The essay then written formsthe substance of the present publication, although several additionshave been made in the way of translation, anecdote, and theconsideration of Björnson's later productions. So small a book as thisis, of course, hopelessly inadequate to make more than the mostsuperficial sort of survey of the life work of that masterfulpersonality 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 ofcontemporary literature, and writing with particular reference toBjörnson's seventieth birthday, it seemed proper to make the followingremarks about the most famous European authors then numbered amongliving men. If one were asked for the name of the greatest man ofletters still living in the world, the possible claimants to thedistinction would hardly be more than five in number. If it were aquestion of poetry alone, Swinburne would have to be named first, withCarducci for a fairly close second. But if we take literature in itslarger sense, as including all the manifestations of creative activityin language, and if we insist, furthermore, that the man singled outfor this preëminence shall stand in some vital relation to theintellectual life of his time, and exert a forceful influence upon thethought of the present day, the choice must rather be made among thethree giants of the north of Europe, falling, as it may be, upon thegreat-hearted Russian emotionalist who has given us such deeply movingportrayals of the life of the modern world; or upon the passionateNorwegian idealist whose finger has so unerringly pointed out thediseased spots in the social organism, earning by his moral surgery thename of pessimist, despite his declared faith in the redemption ofmankind through truth and freedom and love; or, perchance, upon thatother great Norwegian, equally fervent in his devotion to the sameideals, and far more sympathetic in his manner of inculcating them uponhis readers, who has just rounded out his scriptural tale of threescore years and ten, and, in commemoration of the anniversary, is nowmade the recipient of such a tribute of grateful and whole-souledadmiration as few men have ever won, and none have better deserved. Itwould be certainly invidious, and probably futile, to attempt a nice, comparative estimate of the services of these three men to the commoncause of humanity; let us be content with the admission thatBjörnstjerne Björnson is _primus inter pares_, and make no attempt toexalt him at the expense of his great contemporaries. Writing noweight years later, at the time when Björnson's death has plunged hiscountry and the world in mourning, it is impressive to note that of thefive men constituting the group above designated, Tolstoy alonesurvives to carry on the great literary tradition of the nineteenthcentury. 

It will be well, however, to make certain distinctions between the lifework of Björnson and that of the two men whom a common age and commonaims bring into inevitable association with him. These distinctions arechiefly two, --one of them is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen grew to belargely cosmopolitan in their outlook, Björnson has much more closelymaintained throughout his career the national, or, at any rate, theracial standpoint. The other is that while Tolstoy and Ibsen presentlybecame, the one indifferent to artistic expression, and the otherbaldly prosaic where he was once deeply poetical, Björnson preservedthe poetic impulse of his youth, and continued to give it play even inhis envisagement of the most practical modern problems. Let us enlargea little upon these two themes. Ernest Renan, speaking at the funeralof Tourguénieff, described the deceased novelist as "the incarnation ofa whole people. " Even more fittingly might the phrase be applied toBjörnson, for it would be difficult to find anywhere else in modernliterature a figure so completely and profoundly representative of hisrace. In the frequently quoted words of Dr. Brandes, to speak the nameof Björnson in any assembly of his countrymen is like "hoisting theNorwegian flag. " It has been maliciously added that mention of hisname is also like flaunting a red flag in the sight of a considerableproportion of the assembly, for Björnson has always been a fighter aswell as an artist, and it has been his self-imposed mission to arousehis fellow countrymen from their mental sluggishness no less than togive creative embodiment to their types of character and their idealaspirations. But whatever the opposition aroused by his political andsocial radicalism, even his opponents have been constrained to feelthat he was the mouthpiece of their race as no other Norwegian beforehim had been, and that he has voiced whatever is deepest and mostenduring in the Norwegian temper. Powerful as has been his appeal tothe intellect and conscience of the modern world at large, it hasalways 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 saythat, although the form of verse was almost wholly abandoned by himduring the latter half of his life, the breath of poetry never ceasedto exhale from his work, and the lyric exuberance of his later prosestill recalls to us the singer of the sixties. 

Few productions of modern literature have proved as epoch-making as themodest little volume called "Synnöve Solbakken, " which appeared in thebook shops of Christiania and Copenhagen in 1857. It was a simple taleof peasant life, an idyl of the love of a boy and a girl, but it wasabsolutely new in its style, and in its intimate revelation of theNorwegian character. It must be remembered that until the year 1814, Norway had for centuries been politically united with Denmark, and thatCopenhagen had been the common literary centre of the two countries. To that city Norwegian writers had gravitated as naturally as Frenchwriters gravitate to Paris. There had resulted from this condition ofthings a literature which, although it owed much to men of Norwegianbirth, was essentially a Danish literature, and must properly be sostyled. That literature could boast, at the beginning of thenineteenth century, an interesting history comparable in its antiquitywith the greater literatures of Europe, and a brilliant history for atleast a hundred years past. But old literatures are sure to becomemore or less sophisticated and trammelled by tradition, and to thisrule Danish literature was no exception. When the constitution ofEidsvold, in 1814, separated Norway from Denmark, and made it into anindependent kingdom (save for the forced Swedish partnership), thecountry had practically no literary tradition save that which centredabout the Danish capital. She might claim to have been the nativecountry of many Danish writers, even of Ludvig Holberg, the greatestwriter that the Scandinavian peoples have yet produced, but she couldpoint to nothing that might fairly be called a Norwegian literature. The young men of the rising generation were naturally much concernedabout this, and a sharp divergence of opinion arose as to the meanswhereby the interests of Norwegian literature might be furthered, andthe aims which it should have in view. One party urged that theliterature should break loose from its traditional past, and aim at thecultivation of an exclusively national spirit. The other partydeclared such a course to be folly, contending that literature must bea product of gradual development rather than of set volition, and that, despite the shifting of the political kaleidoscope, the nationalliterature was so firmly rooted in its Danish past that its naturalevolution must be an outgrowth from all that had gone before. 

Each of these parties found a vigorous leader, the cause ofultra-Norwegianism being championed by Wergeland, an erratic person inwhom 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 intemper, whose graceful verse and acute criticism upheld by both preceptand practice the traditional standards of culture. Each of these menhad his followers, who proved in many cases more zealous than theirleaders. The period of the thirties and forties was dominated by thisWergeland-Welhaven controversy, which engendered much bitterness offeeling, and which constitutes the capital fact in Norwegian literaryhistory before the appearance of Ibsen and Björnson upon the scene. Asort of parallel might be drawn for American readers by taking two suchmen as Whitman and Longfellow, opposing them to one another in the mostoutspoken fashion, assuming for both a sharply polemic manner, andranging among their respective followers all the other writers of theirtime. Then imagine the issue between them to be drawn not only in thefield of letters, but also in the pulpit, the theatre, and thepolitical arena, and some slight notion may be obtained of thecondition of affairs which preceded the advent of Björnson and the truebirth of Norwegian literature with "Synnöve Solbakken. "

The work which was thus destined to mark the opening of a new era inNorwegian letters was written in the twenty-fifth year of its author'slife. The son of a country pastor, Björnstjerne Björnson was born atKvikne, December 8, 1832. At the age of six, his father wastransferred to a new parish in the Romsdal, one of the most picturesqueregions in Norway. The impression made upon his sensitive nature bythese surroundings was deep and enduring. Looking back upon hisboyhood he speaks with strong emotion of the evenings when "I stood andwatched the sunlight play upon mountain and fiord, until I wept, as ifI had done something wrong, and when, borne down upon my ski into onevalley or another I could stand as if spellbound by a beauty, by alonging that I could not explain, but that was so great that along withthe highest joy I had, also, the deepest sense of imprisonment andsorrow. " This is the mood which was to be given utterance in thatwonderful lyric, "Over the Lofty Mountains, " in which all the ardor andthe longings of passionate and impatient youth find the most appealingexpression. 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 werecontinued at Christiania in a famous preparatory school, where he hadIbsen for a comrade. He entered the university in his twentieth year, but his career was not brilliant from a scholastic point of view, andhe was too much occupied with his own intellectual concerns to be amodel student. From his matriculation in 1852, to the appearance of hisfirst book in 1857, he was occupied with many sorts of literaryexperiments, and became actively engaged in journalism. The theatre, in particular, attracted him, for the theatre was one of the chief fociof the intellectual life of his country (as it should be in everycountry), and he plunged into dramatic criticism as the avowed partisanof Norwegian ideals, holding himself, in some sort, the successor ofWergeland, Who had died about ten years earlier. Before becoming adramatic critic, he had essayed dramatic authorship, and the acceptanceby the theatre of his juvenile play, "Valborg, " had led to a somewhatunusual result. He was given a free ticket of admission, and a fewweeks of theatre-going opened his eyes to the defects of his ownaccepted work, which he withdrew before it had been inflicted upon thepublic. The full consciousness of his poetical calling came to himupon his return from a student gathering at the university town ofUpsala, whither he had gone as a special correspondent. "When I camehome from the journey, " 'he says, "I slept three whole days with a fewbrief intervals for eating and conversation. Then I wrote down myimpressions of the journey, but just because I had first lived and thenwritten, the account got style and color; it attracted attention, andmade me all the more certain that the hour had come. I packed up, wenthome, thought it all over, wrote and rewrote `Between the Battles' in afortnight, and travelled to Copenhagen with the completed piece in mytrunk; 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, inthe 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 peasantidyls and perhaps the most remarkable of them all, and had alsopublished two brief dramas, "Halte-Hulda" and the one already mentionedas the achievement of fourteen feverish days. The remaining product ofthe fifteen years includes two more prose idyls, "A Happy Boy" and "TheFisher Maiden" (with a considerable number of small pieces similar incharacter); three more plays drawn from the treasury of old Norsehistory, "King Sverre, " "Sigurd Slembe, " and "Sigurd Jorsalfar"; adramatic setting of the story of "Mary Stuart in Scotland"; a littlesocial comedy, "The Newly Married Couple, " which offers a foretaste ofhis later exclusive preoccupation with modern life; "Arnljot Gelline, "his only long poem, a wild narrative of the clash between heathendomand the Christian faith in the days of Olaf the Holy; and, last but byno means least, the collection of his "Poems and Songs. " Thus at theage of forty, Björnson found himself with a dozen books to his creditbooks which had stirred his fellow countrymen as no other books hadever stirred them, arousing them to the full consciousness of their ownnature and of its roots in their own heroic past. He had become thevoice of his people as no one had been before him, the singer of allthat was noble in Norwegian aspiration, the sympathetic delineator ofall that was essential in Norwegian Character. He had, in short, created a national literature where none had before existed, and he wasstill in his early prime. 

The collected edition of Björnson's "Tales, " published in 1872, together with "The Bridal March, " separately published in the followingyear, gives us a complete representation of that phase of his geniuswhich is best known to the world at large. Here are five stories ofconsiderable length, and a number of slighter sketches, in which theNorwegian peasant is portrayed with intimate and loving knowledge. Thepeasant tale was no new thing in European literature, for the names ofAuerbach and George Sand, to say nothing of many others, at once cometo the mind. In Scandinavian literature, its chief representative hadbeen the Danish novelist, Blicher, who had written with insight andcharm of the peasantry of Jutland. But in the treatment of peasantlife 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 asthese; he was himself of peasant stock, and all his boyhood life hadbeen spent in close association with men who wrested a scanty livingfrom an ungrateful soil. Although a poet by instinct, he was notafraid of realism, and did not shrink from giving the brutal aspects ofpeasant life a place upon his canvas. In emphasizing thecharacteristics of reticence and _naïveté_ he really discovered theNorwegian peasant for literary purposes. Beneath the words spoken byhis characters we are constantly made to realize that there are depthsof feeling that remain unexpressed; whether from native pride or from asense of the inadequacy of mere words to set forth a critical moment oflife, his men and women are distinguished by the most laconicutterance, yet their speech always has dramatic fitness and bears thestamp of sincerity. Jaeger speaks of the manifold possibilities ofthis laconic method in the following words:--

"It is as if the author purposely set in motion the reader's fancy andfeeling that they might do their own work. The greatest poet is he whounderstands how to awaken fancy and feeling to their highest degree ofself-activity. And this is Björnson's greatness in his peasant novels, that he has poured from his horn of plenty a wealth of situations andmotives that hold the reader's mind and burn themselves into it, thatbecome his personal possession just because the author has known how tosuggest so much in so few words. "

In some respects, the little sketch called "The Father" is the supremeexample of Björnson's artistry in this kind. There are only a fewpages in all, but they embody the tragedy of a lifetime. The littlework is a literary gem of the purest water, and it reveals the wholesecret of the author's genius, as displayed in his early tales. It isby these tales of peasant life that Björnson is best known outside ofhis own country; one may almost say that it is by them alone that he isreally familiar to English readers. A free translation of "SynnöveSolbakken" was made as early as 1858, by Mary Howitt, and publishedunder the title of "Trust and Trial. " Translations of the other taleswere made soon after their original appearance, and in some instanceshave been multiplied. It is thus a noteworthy fact that Björnson, although four years the junior of Ibsen, enjoyed a vogue among Englishreaders for a score of years during which the name of Ibsen wasabsolutely unknown to them. The whirligig of time has brought in itsrevenges of late years, and the long neglected older author has hadmore than the proportional share of our attention than is fairly hisdue. 

In his delineation of the Norwegian peasant character, Björnson wasgreatly aided by the study of the sagas, which he had read withenthusiasm from his earliest boyhood. Upon them his style was largelyformed, and their vivid dramatic representation of the life of theearly Norsemen impressed him profoundly, shaping both his ideals andthe form of their expression. The modern Scandinavian may well beenvied for his literary inheritance from the heroic past. No otherEuropean has anything to compare with it for clean-cut vigor and wealthof romantic material. The literature which blossomed in Iceland andflourished for two or three centuries wherever Norsemen made homes forthemselves offers a unique intellectual phenomenon, for nothing liketheir 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 earlyperiod of his career, which is now under review, it made its influencefelt alike in his tales, his dramas, and his songs. "To see thepeasant in the light of the sagas and the sagas in the light of thepeasant" he declared to be the fundamental principle of his literarymethod. 

It has been seen that during the fifteen years which made Björnson inso peculiar a sense the spokesman of his race, he wrote no less thanfive saga dramas. The first two of these works, "Between the Battles"and "Halte-Hulda, " are rather slight performances, and the third, "KingSverre, " although a more extended work, is not particularly noteworthy. The grimness of the Viking life is softened by romantic coloring, andthe poet has not freed himself from the influence of Oehlenschlaeger. But in "Sigurd Slembe" he found a subject entirely worthy of hisgenius, and produced one of the noblest masterpieces of all modernliterature. This largely planned and magnificently executed dramatictrilogy was written in Munich, and published in 1862. The material isfound in the "Heimskringla, " but the author has used the prerogative ofthe artist to simplify the historical outline thus offered into asuperb imaginative creation, rich in human interest, and powerful indramatic presentation. The story is concerned with the efforts ofSigurd, nicknamed "Slembe, " to obtain the succession to the throne ofNorway during the first half of the twelfth century. He was a son ofKing Magnus Barfod, and, although of illegitimate birth, might legallymake this claim. The secret of his birth has been kept from him untilhe has come to manhood, and the revelation of this secret by his motheris made in the first section of the trilogy, which is a single act, written in blank verse. Recognizing the futility of urging hisbirthright at this time, he starts off to win fame as a crusader, thesort of fame that haloed Sigurd Jorsalfar, then king of Norway. Theremainder of the work is in prose, and was, in fact, written beforethis poetical prologue. The second section, in three acts, deals withan episode in the Orkneys, five years later. Sigurd has not even thenjourneyed 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 theislands. Both parties seek to use him for their purposes, but in theend, 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 andHamlet-like figure of Earl Harald, in whose interest Frakark, a NorseLady Macbeth, plots the murder of Earl Paul, only to bring upon Haraldhimself the terrible death that she has planned for his brother. Here, also, we have the gracious maiden figure of Audhild, perhaps theloveliest of all Björnson's delineations of womanhood, a figure worthyto be ranked with the heroines of Shakespeare and Goethe, who remainssweet and fragrant in our memory forever after. With the mutual love ofSigurd 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 leaveonly a hallowed memory in token of its brief existence. 

Ten more years as a crusader and a wanderer over the face of the earthpass by before we meet with Sigurd again in the third section of thetrilogy. But his resolution is taken. He has returned to his nativeland, and will claim his own. The land is now ruled by Harald Gille, who is, like Sigurd Slembe, an illegitimate son of Magnus Barfod, andwho, during the last senile years of Sigurd Jorsalfar's life, had wonthe recognition that Sigurd Slembe might have won had he not missed thechance, and been acknowledged as the king's brother. When the kingdied, he left a son named Magnus, who should have been his successor, but whom Harald Gille seized, blinded, and imprisoned that he mighthimself occupy the throne. The five acts of this third section of thetrilogy cover the last two years of Sigurd Slembe's life, years duringwhich he seeks to gain his end, first by conciliation, and afterwards, maddened by the base treachery of the king and his followers, byassassination and violence. He has become a hard man, but, howeverwild his schemes of revenge, and however desperate his measures, heretains our sympathy to the end because we feel that circumstances havemade him the ravager of his country, and that his underlying motive allalong has not been a merely personal ambition, but an immense longingto serve his people, and to rule them with justice and wisdom. Thefinal scene of all has a strange and solemn beauty. It is on the eveof the battle in which Sigurd is to be captured and put to death by hisenemies. The actual manner of his death was too horrible even for thepurposes of tragedy; and the poet has chosen the better part in endingthe play with a foreshadowing of the outcome. Sigurd has made his laststand, his Danish allies have deserted him, and he well knows what willbe the next day's issue. And here we have one of the noblestillustrations in all literature of that _Versöhnung_ which is the lastword of tragic art. For in this supreme hour the peace of mind whichhe has sought for so many years comes to him when least expected, andall the tempests of life are stilled. That reconciliation which thehour of approaching death brings to men whose lives have been set attragic pitch, has come to him also; he now sees that this was theinevitable end, and the recognition of the fitness with which eventshave shaped themselves brings with it an exaltation of soul in whichlife is seen revealed in its true aspect. No longer veiled in themists which have hitherto hidden it from his passionate gaze, he takesnote of what it really is, and casts it from him. In this hour ofpassionless contemplation such a renunciation is not a thing torn fromthe reluctant soul, but the clear solution, so long sought, of theproblem so long blindly attempted. That which his passion enslavedself 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 wasgranted! Peace, perfect peace! Then I will go to-morrow to my lastbattle 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 waveand shore and sea flow all together, as in the thought of God allothers; never yet has it seemed so fair to me. But it is not mine torule over this lovely land. How greatly I have done it ill! But howhas it all so come to pass? for in my wanderings I saw thy mountains inevery sky, I yearned for home as a child longs for Christmas, yet Icame 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 atparting this fairest autumn night of thine; I will ascend yonder rockand take a long farewell. "

The action of "Sigurd Slembe, " is interspersed with several lyrics, themost striking of which is herd translated in exact reproduction of theoriginal 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 singlesuccessor, "Sigurd Jorsalfar, " was not published until ten years later, and may not be compared with it for either strength or poeticinspiration. The author called it a "folkplay, " and announced theintention, which was never fulfilled, of making several similarexperiments with scenes from the sagas, "which should appeal to everyeye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at theperformance of which all, for the time being, would experience the joyof fellow feeling. " The experiment proves interesting, and is carriedout without didacticism or straining after sensational effects; theplay is vigorous and well planned, but for the reader it has little ofthe dramatic impressiveness of its predecessor, although as an actingdrama it is better fitted for the requirements of the stage. 

The two volumes which contain the greater part of Björnson's poetry notdramatic in form were both published in 1870. One of them was thecollection of his "Poems and Songs, " the other was the epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline, " the only long poem that he has written. The volumeof lyrics includes many pieces of imperfect quality and slightvalue, --personal tributes and occasional productions, --but it includesalso those national songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that aresung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foesalike, and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. Notranslation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their feeling;they illustrate the one aspect of Björnson's many-sided genius thatmust be taken on trust by those who cannot read his language. A friendonce asked him upon what occasion he had felt most fully the joy ofbeing a poet. His reply was as follows:--

"It was when a party from the Right in Christiania came to my house andsmashed all my windows. For when they had finished their assault, andwere starting home again, they felt that they had to sing something, and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we love this land of ours'--theycouldn't help it. They had to sing the song of the man they had attacked. "

Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through thepeasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completelyrepresentative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhatextended edition of this volume was published about ten years later. Björnson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music bythree composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg--as intensely national inspirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians iscelebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Landof Ours, " or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason. " The bestfolk-singer is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says thepoet, and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us thatlife was ever more to him than song, and that existence, where it wasworth while, in the thick of the human fray, always had for him adeeper meaning than anything he had written. The longest poem inBjörnson's collection is called "Bergliot, " and is a dramatic monologuein which the foul slaying of her husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and theirson Ejndride is mourned by the bereaved wife and mother. The story isfrom the saga of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepesttragic 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 subjectof his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline. " Here we read in various rhythmsof Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how heoffers 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 setsfire to Trand's house and bears Ingigerd away captive; how her tearsprevail upon him to release her, and how she seeks refuge in a southerncloister; how Arnljot wanders restless over sea and land until he comesto King Olaf, on the eve of the great battle, receives the Christianfaith, fights fiercely in the vanguard against the hosts of theheathen, and, smiling, falls with his king on the field of Stiklestad. One song from this cycle, "The Cloister in the South" is herereproduced in an exact copy of the original metre, in the hope thateven this imperfect representation of the poem may be better than noneat 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 hisgenius during the late sixties and early seventies, the poetic impulsethat had made Björnson the most famous of Norwegian authors seemed, toward the close of the fifteen-year period just now under review, tobe well nigh exhausted. Even among those who had followed his careermost closely there were few who could anticipate the splendid newoutburst of activity for which he was preparing. These years seemed tobe a dead time, not only in Björnson's life, but also in the generalintellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes thusdescribes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during that period ofstagnation. "In the North one had the feeling of being shut off fromthe intellectual life of the time. We were sitting with closed doors, afew brains struggling fruitlessly with the problem of how to get themopened. .. With whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Danehad almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence ofpolitical animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany was brokenoff, the main channel was closed through which the intellectualdevelopments of the day had been communicated to Norway as well asDenmark. French influence was dreaded as immoral, and there was butlittle understanding of either the English language or spirit. " But anintellectual renaissance was at hand, an intellectual reawakening witha cosmopolitan outlook, and, Björnson was destined to become itsleader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of anearlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the newthought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religiouscriticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession of histhought, and the philosophy of evolution had transformed the wholetenor of his ideas, shaping them to, deeper issues and more practicalpurposes than had hitherto engaged them. He had read widely andvariously in Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Müller, and Taine; he had, inshort, scaled the "lofty mountains" that had so hemmed in his earlyview, and made his way into the intellectual kingdoms of the modernworld that lay beyond. The _Weltgeist_ had appealed to him with itsirresistible behest, just as it appealed at about the same time toIbsen and Tolstoy and Ruskin, and had made him a man of new interestsand ideals. 

One might have found foreshadowings of this transformation in certainof his earlier works, --in "The Newly Married Couple, " for example, withits delicate analysis, of a common domestic relation, or in "The FisherMaiden, " with its touch of modernity, --but from these suggestions onecould hardly have prophesied the enthusiasm and the genial force withwhich Björnson was to project his personality into the controversialarena of modern life. The series of works which have come from his penduring the past thirty-five years have dealt with most of the graverproblems which concern society as a whole, --politics, religion, education, the status of women, the license of the press, the demand ofthe socialist for a reconstruction of the old order. They have alsodealt with many of the delicate questions of individual ethics, --therelations of husband and wife, of parent and child, the responsibilityof the merchant to his creditors and of the employer to his dependants, the double standard of morality for men and women, and the dutydevolving upon both to transmit a vigorous strain to their offspring. These are some of the themes that have engaged the novelist anddramatist; they have also engaged the public speaker and lay preacherof enlightenment, as well as themes of a more strictly politicalcharacter, such as the separation of Norway from the Dual Monarchy, therenewal of the ancient bond between Norway and Iceland, the freedevelopment of parliamentary government, the cause of Pangermanism, andthe 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 hascarried out by the force of his immense energy and superabundantvitality. The burden of all this tendencious matter has caused his artto suffer at times, no doubt, but his inspiration has retained throughoutmuch of the marvellous freshness of the earlier years, and the genius ofthe poet still flashes upon us from a prosaic environment, sometimes in alovely lyric, more frequently, however, in the turn of a phrase or thepsychological envisagement of some supreme moment in the action of thestory or the drama. 

The great transformation in Björnson's literary manner and choice ofsubjects was marked by his sending home from abroad, in the season of1874-75, two plays, "The Editor" and "A Bankruptcy. " It was two yearslater that Ibsen sent home from abroad "The Pillars of Society, " whichmarked a similar turning point in his artistic career. It is a curiouscoincidence that the plays of modern life produced during this secondperiod by these two men are the same in number, an even dozen in eachcase. 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 "AtStorhove" (1902). Since the cessation of Ibsen's activity, Björnsonhas outrun him in the race, adding "Daglannet" (1904), and "When theNew Wine Blooms" (1909) to the list above given. Besides thesefourteen plays, however, he has published seven important volumes ofprose fiction during the last thirty-five years. The titles and datesare 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" isthe longest and most important), and "Mary" (1906). The achievementrepresented by this list is all the more extraordinary when we considerthe fact that for the greater part of the thirty-five years which theseplays and novels cover, their author has been, both as a public speakerand as a writer for the periodical press, an active participant in thepolitical and social life of his country. 

Most of these books must be dismissed with a few words in order thatour remaining space may be given to the four or five that are of thegreatest power and significance. "The Editor, " the first of the modernplays, 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, inits leading characteristics, from the figure of a well knownconservative journalist in Christiania, although Björnson vigorouslymaintained that the protraiture was typical rather than personal. 

"In various other countries than my own, I have observed the type ofjournalist who is here depicted. It is characterized by acting upon abasis of sheer egotism, passionate and boundless, and by terrorism insuch fashion that it frightens honest people away from every liberalmovement, and visits upon the individual an unscrupulous persecution. "

This play was not particularly successful upon the stage, but the bookwas widely read, and occasioned much excited personal controversy. "ABankruptcy, " on the other hand, proved a brilliant stage success. Itsmatter was less contentious, and its technical execution was effectiveand brilliant. It was not in vain that Björnson had at different timesbeen the director of three theatres. This play has for its theme theethics of business life, and more especially the question of the extentto which a man whose finances are embarrassed is justified in continuedspeculation for the ultimate protection of himself and his creditors. Despite its treatment of this serious problem, the play is lighter andmore genial in vein than the author's plays are wont to be, and theelement of humor is unusually conspicuous. Jaeger remarks that "ABankruptcy" did two new things for Norwegian dramatic literature. Itmade money affairs a legitimate subject for literary treatment, and itraised the curtain upon the Norwegian home. "It was with 'A Bankruptcy'that the home made its first appearance upon the stage, the home withits joys and sorrows, with its conflicts and its tenderness. "

Two years later appeared "The King, which is in many respectsBjörnson's greatest modern masterpiece in dramatic form. He had bythis time become a convinced republican, but he was also anevolutionist, and he knew that republics are not created by fiat. Hebelieved the tendency toward republicanism to be irresistible, but hebelieved also that there must be intermediate stages in the transitionfrom monarchy. Absolutism is succeeded by constitutionalism, and thatby parliamentarism, and that in the end must be succeeded by arepublicanism that will free itself from all the traditional forms ofsymbol and ceremonial. He had also a special belief that the smallerpeoples were better fitted for development in this direction than thelarger and more complex societies, although, on the other hand, hethought that the process of growth into full self-government was likelyto be slower among the Germanic than among the Latin races. In thedeeply moving play now to be considered, we have, in the character ofthe titular king, an extraordinary piece of psychological analysis. The king, is young, physically delicate, and of highly sensitiveorganization. When he comes to the throne he realizes the hollownessand the hypocrisy of the existence that prescription has marked out forhim; he realizes also that the very ideal of monarchy, under theconditions of modern European civilization, is a gigantic falsehood. For a time after his accession, he leads a life of pleasure seeking andrevelry, hoping that he may dull his sense of the sharp contrast thatexists between his station and his ideals. But his conscience willgive him no peace, and he turns to deliberate contemplation of thethought, not indeed of abdicating his, false position, but oftransforming it into something more consonant with truth and thedemands of the age. He will become a citizen king, and take for wife adaughter of the people; he will do away with the pomp and circumstanceof his court, and attempt to lead a simple and natural life, in whichthe interests of the people shall be paramount in his attention. Butin this attempt he is thwarted at every step. All the forces ofselfishness and prejudice and ignorance combine against him; even thepeople whom he seeks to benefit are so wedded to their idols that theirattitude is one of suspicion rather than of sympathy. He loves a youngwoman of strong and noble character, and wins her love in return, butshe dies on the very eve of their union. His oldest and mostconfidential friend, the wealthiest man in the kingdom, but arepublican, is murdered by a radical associate of the _intransigeant_type, and the king is left utterly bereaved by his twofold loss. Thisbrings us to the closing scene of the drama, in which the king, hisnerves strained to the breaking point, confronts the group of officialsand others who bring to him the empty phrases of a conventionalcondolence:--

The King. Hush! Have a little respect for the truth that shouldfollow death! Understand me rightly: I do not mean that any of youwould lie. But the very air about a king is infected. It was ofthat-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 calledChristianity here in this land-greet it from me! I have thought muchabout Christian folk of late. 

The Priest. That rejoices me. 

The King. How your tone cuts me! Greet it from me, what is calledChristianity here in this land. Nay, do not crane your necks and bendyour backs as if the wisdom of the ages were now forthcoming. (_aside_)Can there be any use in saying something seriously? (_aloud_) You areChristians?

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 theking. 

The King. And love your fellowmen. You are a State individual, sheriff. And such are Christians nowadays. (_to the Merchant_) Andyou?

The Merchant. I have not been able to go to church very much of latebecause 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 tosay. Therefore, you are a Christian community, and it is no fault ofmine if such a community will not deal seriously with what concernsChristianity. Greet it from me, and say that it must have an eye to theinstitution of monarchy. 

The Priest. Christianity has nothing to do with such matters. Itsearches _the inner man_. 

The King. That tone! I know it--it does not search the air in whichthe patient lives, but the lungs. There you have it! Nevertheless, Christianity must have an eye to the monarchy--must pluck the lie fromit--must not follow it to its coronation in the church, as an apefollows a peacock. I know what I felt in that situation. I had gonethrough with a rehearsal the day before--ho, ho! Ask the Christianityin 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 thepart of the seductive wanton who turns the thoughts of all citizens towar--which is much against the message of Christianity--and to classdistinctions, to luxury, to show and vanity. The monarchy is now sogreat a lie that it compels the most upright man to share in itsfalsehood. "

The conversation that follows is in a vein of bitterness on the oneside, and of obtuse smugness on the other; the tragic irony of theaction grows deeper and deeper, until in the end the king, completelydisheartened and despairing, goes into an adjoining room, and dies byhis own hand, to the consternation of the men from whom he has justparted. They give utterance to a few polite phrases, charitablyaccounting for the deed by the easy attribution of insanity to theking, and the curtain falls. 

It may well be imagined that "The King" made a stir in literary andsocial circles, and quite noticeably fluttered the dovecotes ofconventionality and conservatism. Such plain speaking and such deadlyearnestness of conviction were indeed far removed from the idyllicsimplicity of the peasant tales and from the poetical reconstructionsof the legendary past. Eight years later, Björnson prefaced a newedition of this work with a series of reflections upon "IntellectualFreedom" that constitute one of the most vigorous and remarkableexamples of his serious prose. The central ideas of his political faithare embodied in the following sentences from this preface:--

"Intellectual Freedom. Why is not attention called over and over againto the fact that for the great peoples, who have so many compensatinginterests, the free commerce of ideas is one condition of life amongmany others; while for us, the small peoples, it is absolutelyindispensable. A people numerically large may attain to ways ofthought and enterprise that no political censure can reduce to aminimum; but under narrower conditions it may easily come about thatthe whole people will fall asleep. A powerful propaganda ofenlightenment under the conditions of free speech is for us of thefirst and the last importance. When I wrote this piece it was my chiefaim to enlarge the bounds of free thought. I have later made the sameattempt in matters of religion and morals. When my opponents seek tosum up my character in a few words, they are apt to say: 'He attacksthe throne and the altar. ' It seems to me that I have served thefreedom of the spirit, and in the interests of that cause I now begleave to reply. (1) _Concerning the attack on Christianity. _ It may beworth while in a country with a state church to recall now and then themeaning 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 lifeaccording to the precepts and example of Jesus. There may be men whothink they are attacking Christianity when they investigate thehistorical origin or the morality of some dogma; I do not think so. Honest investigation can result only in growth. Christianity, with orwithout its whole apparatus of dogma, will endure in its essence forthousands of years after us; there will always be spiritually-mindedpeople who will be ennobled by it, and some made great. I honor allthe noble. I have friends among the Christians, whom I love, and neverfor a moment have I thought of attacking their Christianity. I have nohigher wish than to see them by its help transform certain aspects ofour society into seriousness. (2) _Concerning the attack onmonarchy. _ Monarchy is, on the other hand, an institution, here thecircumstances are naturally different. I have attacked monarchy, and Iwill 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 wasalso a seer. Certainly there have been in France both kingdom andempire since that day. If there should be no more hereafter, theystill exist in other lands, and will endure for generations after us. But 'done with' are they none the less; notice was given them by theFrench Revolution. It does not concern them all simultaneously; itfixes terms, different for the different kingdoms, and far removed forthe kingdoms based upon conquest. But the face of civilization is nowturned 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 ofNorse conditions and stands before the ethical judgment seat--let ithave 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 inthe society that gave it birth, it will evoke an opposing force ofgreater strength. Thereby all will gain. But to ignore it, or seek tocrush it--that in a large society may not greatly matter, so rich arethe possibilities of other work taking its place; but in a smallsociety it may be equivalent to destroying the sight of its only eye. "

In the clean-cut phrases and moral earnestness of this _apologia provita sua_, which deserves to be reproduced at greater length, we havethe modern Björnson, no longer poet alone, but poet and prophet atonce, the champion of sincere thinking and worthy living, the SigurdSlembe of our own day, happier than his prototype in the consciousnessthat the ambition to serve his people has not been; altogetherthwarted, and that his beneficent activity is not made sterile even bythe bitterest opposition. 

Only a rapid glance may be taken at the books of the five yearsfollowing upon the publication of "The King. " The story of "Magnhild, "planned several years earlier, represents Björnson's return to fictionafter a long dramatic interlude. There are still peasants in thisstory, but they are different from the figures of the early tales, andthe atmosphere of the work is modern. It turns upon the question ofthe mutual duties of husband and wife, when love no longer unites them. The solution seems to lie in separation when union has thus becomeessentially immoral. "Captain Mansana" is a story of Italian life, based, so the author assures us, on actual characters and happeningsthat had come within the range of his observation during his stayabroad. Its interest does not lie in any particular problem, butrather in the delineation of the titular figure, a strong and impetuousperson whose character suggests that of Ferdinand Lassalle, as theauthor himself points out to us in a prefatory note. "Dust" is apathetic little story having for its central idea what seems like apale reflection of the idea of Ibsen's "Ghosts, " which had appeared afew months before. It is the dust of the past that settles upon oursouls, and clogs their free action. The special application of thisthought is to the religious training of children:--

"When you teach children that the life here below is nothing to thelife above, that to be visible is nothing in comparison with beinginvisible, that to be a human being is nothing in comparison with beingdead, that is not the way to teach them to view life properly, or tolove life, to gain courage, strength for work, and love of country. "

In the play, "Leonarda, " and again in the play, "A Glove, " the authorrecurs to the woman question; in the one case, his theme is theattitude of society toward the woman of blemished reputation; in theother, its attitude toward the man who in his relation with women hasviolated the moral law. "Leonarda" is a somewhat inconclusive work, because the issue is not clearly defined, but in "A Glove" (at least inthe acting version of the play, which differs from the book in itsending) there is no lack of definiteness. This play inexorably demandsthe enforcement of the same standard of morality for both sexes, anddeclares the unchaste man to be as unfit for honorable marriage as theunchaste woman. Upon the theme thus presented a long and violentdiscussion raged; but if there be such a thing as an immutable morallaw in this matter, it must be that upon which Björnson has so squarelyand uncompromisingly planted his feet. The other remaining work ofthis five-year period is the play called "The New System. " The newsystem in question is a system of railway management, and it is awasteful one. But the young engineer who demonstrates this fact has ahard time in opening the eyes of the public. He succeeds eventually, but not until he has encountered every sort of contemptible oppositionand hypocritical evasion of the plain truth. The social satire of thepiece is subtle and sharp; what the author really aims at is toillustrate, by a specific example, the repressive forces that dominatethe life of a small people, and make it almost impossible for any sortof truth to triumph over prejudice. 

Since the production of "A Glove, " twenty years ago, eight more playshave come from Björnson's prolific pen. Of these by far the mostimportant are the two that are linked by the common title, "Beyond theStrength. " The translation of this title is hopelessly inadequate, because the original word means much more than strength; it meanstalent, faculty, capability, the sum total of a man's endowment forsome particular purpose. The two pieces bearing this name are quitedifferent in theme, but certain characters appear in both, and bothexpress the same thought, --the thought that it is vain for men tostrive after the unattainable, for in so doing they lose sight of theactual possibilities of human life; the thought that much of the besthuman energy goes to waste because it is devoted to the pursuit ofideals that are indeed beyond the strength of man to realize. In thefirst of the two plays, this superhuman ideal is religious, it is thatof the enthusiast who accepts literally the teaching that to faith allthings are possible; in the second, the ideal is social, it is that ofthe reformer who is deluded to believe that one resounding deed ofterror and self-immolation for the cause of the people will suffice tooverthrow the selfish existing order, and create for the toiling massesa new heaven upon earth. No deeper tragedies have been conceived byBjörnson than these two, the tragedy of the saintlike Pastor Sang, whobelieves that the miracle of his wife's restoration to health has atlast in very truth been wrought by his fervent prayer, and finds onlythat the ardor of his faith and hers has brought death instead of lifeto them both, --the tragedy of his son Elias, who dies like Samson withhis foes for an equally impossible faith, and by the very violence ofhis fanaticism removes the goal of socialist endeavor farther than everinto the dim future. Björnson has written nothing more profoundlymoving than these plays, with their twofold treatment of essentiallythe same theme, nor has he written anything which offers a clearerrevelation of his own rich personality, with its unfailing poeticvision, its deep tenderness, and its boundless love for all humankind. The play, "Geography and Love, " which came between the two justdescribed, is an amusing piece, in the vein of light and gracefulcomedy, which satirizes the man with a hobby, showing how heunconsciously comes to neglect his wife and family through absorptionin his work. The author was, in a way, taking genial aim at himself inthis piece, a fact which his son Bjorn, who played the principal part, did not hesitate to emphasize. "Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg, " the nextplay, deals with the passions engendered by political controversy, andmade much unpleasant stir in Norwegian society because certain of thecharacters and situations were unmistakeably taken from real life. After these plays came "Laboremus" and "At Storhove, " both concernedwith substantially the same theme, which is that of the maligninfluence exerted by an evil-minded and reckless woman upon the livesof others. From a different point of view, we may say that the subjectof these plays is the consecration of the home. This has always been afavorite theme with Björnson, and he has no clearer title to ourgratitude than that which he has earned by his unfailing insistenceupon the sanctity of family life, its mutual confidences, and itscommon joys. Completing the list, we have "Daglannet, " anotherdomestic drama of simple structure, and "When the New Wine Blooms, " astudy of modernity as exemplified in the young woman of to-day, of theestrangement that too often creeps into married life, and of thestirrings that prompt men of middle age to seek to renew the joys ofyouth. 

During the years that have passed since the publication of "Dust, "Björnson has produced four volumes of fiction, --his two great novels, athird novel of less didactic mission, and a second collection of shortstories. The first of the novels, "Flags Are Flying in City andHarbor, " saw the light during the year following the publication of "AGlove, " and the teaching of that play is again enforced withuncompromising logic in the development of the story. The work has twoother main themes, and these are heredity and education. So muchdidactic matter as this is a heavy burden for any novel to carry, and alesser man than Björnson would have found the task a hopeless one. That he should have succeeded even in making a fairly readable book outof this material would have been remarkable, and it is a pronouncedartistic triumph that the book should prove of such absorbing interest. For absorbingly interesting it is, to any reader who is willing that anovel should provide something more than entertainment; and who is notafraid of a work of fiction that compels him to think as he reads. Theprincipal character is a man descended from a line of ancestors whoselives have been wild and lawless, and who have wallowed in almost everyform of brutality and vice. The four preceding generations of the raceare depicted for us in a series of brief but masterlycharacterizations, in which every stroke tells, and we witness thegradual weakening of the family stock. But with the generation justpreceding the main action of the novel, there has been introduced avigorous strain of peasant blood, and the process of regeneration hasbegun. It is this process that goes on before our eyes. It does notbecome a completed process, but the prospect is bright for the future, and the flags that fly over town and harbor in the closing chapter havea symbolical significance, for they announce a victory of spirit oversense, not only in the cases of certain among the individualparticipants in the action, but also in the case of the whole communityto which they belong. So much for the book as a study in heredity. Asan educational tract, it has the conspicuous virtue of remaining inclose touch with life while embodying the spirit of modern scientificpedagogy. The hero of the book, --the last descendant of a racestruggling for moral and physical rehabilitation, --throws himself intothe work of education with an energy equal to that which his forbearshad turned into various perverse channels. He organizes a school, morethan half of the book, in fact, is about this school and its work, --andseeks to introduce a system of training which shall shape the wholecharacter of the child, a school in which truth and clean living shallbe inculcated with thoroughness and absolute sincerity, a school whichshall be the microcosm of the world outside, or rather of what thatworld ought to be. Björnson's interest in education has beenlife-long; for many years it had gone astray in a sort of Grundtvigianfog, but at the time when this book came to be written, it had workedits way out into the clear light of reason. If the future should ceaseto care for this work as a piece of literature, it will still look backto it as to a sort of nineteenth century "Emile, " and take renewedheart from its inspiring message. 

"In God's Ways, " the second of the two great novels, is a work of whichit is difficult to speak in terms of measured praise. With itsdelicate and vital delineations of character, its rich sympathy anddepth of tragic pathos, its plea for the sacredness of human life, andits protest against the religious and social prejudice by which life isso often misshapen, this book is an epitome of all the ideas andfeelings that have gone to the making of the author's personality, andhave received such manifold expression in his works. It is a simplestory, concerned mainly with four people, in no way outwardlyconspicuous, yet here united by the poet's art into a relationship fromwhich issue some of the deepest of social questions, and which enforcesin the most appealing terms the fundamental teaching of all the work ofhis mature years. First of all, we have the boyhood of the two friendswho are afterwards to grow apart in their sympathies; the one alert ofmind, imaginative, open to every intellectual influence, also impetuousand hot-blooded; the other shy and intellectually stolid, but good tothe very core, and moved by the strongest of altruistic impulses. Inaccordance with their respective characters, the first of these youthsbecomes a physician, and the other a clergyman. Then we have thesister of the physician, who becomes the wife of the clergyman, anoble, proud, self-centred nature, finely strung to the inmost fibre ofher being. Then we have a woman of the other sort, clinging, abnormally sensitive, a child when the years of childhood are over, andmade the victim of a shocking child-marriage to a crippled old man. Sheit is whom the physician loves, and persuades to a legal dissolution ofher immoral union. After some years, he makes her his wife, and theirhappiness would be complete were it not for the social and religiousprejudice aroused. The clergyman, whom years of service in the statechurch have hardened into bigotry, is officially, as it were, compelledto condemn the friend of his boyhood, and even the sister, for a timegrown untrue to her own generous nature, shares in the estrangement. In vain does the physician seek to shelter his wife from the chill ofher environment. She droops, pines away, and finally dies, gracious, lovable, and even forgiving to the last. Then the death angel comesclose to the clergyman and his wife, hovering over their only child, and at last the barrier of formalism and prejudice and religiousbigotry is swept away from their minds. Their natural sympathies, longrepressed, resume full sway, and they realize how deeply they, havesinned toward the dead woman. The sister seeks a reconciliation withher brother, but he repulses her, and gives her his wife's privatediary to read. In this _journal intime_ she finds the full revelationof the gentle spirit that has been done to death, and she feels thatthe very salvation of her life and soul depend upon winning herbrother's forgiveness. The closing chapter, in which the finalreconciliation occurs, is one of the most wonderful in all fiction; itspathos is of the deepest and the most moving, and he must be callous ofsoul, indeed, who can read it with dry eyes. 

If we were to search the whole of Björnson's writings for the singlepassage which should most completely typify his message to hisfellowmen, --not Norwegians alone, but all mankind, --the choice wouldhave to rest upon the words spoken from the pulpit by the clergyman ofthis novel, on the Sunday following the certainty of his child'srecovery. 

"To-day a man spoke from the pulpit of the church about what he hadlearned. 

"Namely, about what first concerns us all. 

"One forgets it in his strenuous endeavor, a second in his zeal forconflict, a third in his backward vision, a fourth in the conceit ofhis own wisdom, a fifth in his daily routine, and we have all learnedit more or less ill. For should I ask you who hear me now, you wouldall 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 strugglesfor breath on the outermost verge of life, or see your wife follow thechild to that outermost verge, beside herself for anxiety andsleeplessness, --then love will teach you that _life comes first_. Andnever from this day on will I seek God or God's will in any form ofwords, in any sacrament, or in any book or any place, as if He werefirst and foremost to be found there; no, life is first andforemost--life as we win it from the depths of despair, in the victoryof the light, in the grace of self-devotion, in our intercourse withliving human kind. God's supreme word to us is life, our highestworship of Him is love for the living. This lesson, self-evident as itis, was needed by me more than by most others. This it is that invarious ways and upon many grounds I have hitherto rejected, --and oflate most of all. But never more shall words be the highest for me, nor symbols, but the eternal revelation of life. Never more will Ifreeze 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 theyfit with our own time's gospel of love. Never, for God's sake! Andthis because I believe in Him, the God of Life, and His never endingrevelation in life itself. "

Here is a gospel, indeed, one that needs no church for itspromulgation, and no ceremonial for the enhancement of itsimpressiveness. It is a gospel, moreover, that is based upon nofoundation of precarious logic, but finds its premises in the healthyinstincts of the natural man. It is no small thing to have thus foundthe way, and to have helped others likewise to find the way, out of themists of superstition, through the valleys of doubt and despondency, athwart the thickets of prejudice and bigotry with all their furtivefoemen, up to these sunlit heights of serenity. 

"Mary" is less explicit in its teaching than the two great novels justsummarized, but what it misses in didacticism it more than gains inart. The radiant creature who gives her name to the book is one ofBjörnson's most exquisite figures. She is the very embodiment ofyouthful womanhood, filled with the joy of life, and bringing sunshinewherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or whatwould be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But thestrength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to havingtragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastenedby suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life, "says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There isnothing here of Ibsen's pathology. We are in the sun. Her most hideousblunder cannot undo a woman's soul. Björnson knows that the deed isnothing at all. It is the soul behind the deed that he sees. Noteverything that cometh out of a man defileth a man. At all events, soit is here: triumph and joy built upon an act that--as the Philistineswould say--has defiled forever. " As a triumph of sheer creation, thisfigure is hardly overmatched anywhere in the author's portrait galleryof women. 

If Björnson's essential teaching may be found in a single page, as hasabove been suggested, his personality evades all such summarizing. Inthe present essay, he has been considered as a writer merely, --poet, dramatist, novelist, --but the man is vastly more than that. His otheractivities have been hinted at, indeed, but nothing adequate has beensaid about them. The director of three theatres, the editor of threenewspapers and the contributor to many others, the promoter of schoolsand patriotic organizations, the participant in many politicalcampaigns, the lay preacher of private and public morals, the chosenorator of his nation for all great occasions, --these are some of thecharacters in which we must view him to form anything like a completeconception of his many-sided individuality. Take the matter of oratoryalone, and it is perhaps true that he has influenced as many people bythe living word as he has by the printed page. He has addressedhundreds of audiences in the three Scandinavian countries and inFinland, he has spoken to more than twenty thousand at a time, and hiswinged speech has gone straight home to his hearers. All who everheard him will agree that his oratory was of the most persuasive andvital impressiveness. Jaeger attempts to describe it in the followingwords:--

"It is eloquence of a very distinctive type; its most characteristicquality is its wealth of color; it finds expression for every mood, from the lightest to the most serious, from the most vigorous to themost delicate and tender. Now his words ring like the voice of doom, filled with thunder and lightning, now they become soft and persuasivewith smiling mien. With a single cadence, or a play of the facialmuscles, or a slight gesture, he can portray a person, a situation, oran object, so that it appears living in the sight of his hearers. Andwhat the word alone cannot do, is accomplished in the most brilliantmanner 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 faceconversation or in the home circle, the man takes on a quite differentaspect; the prophet has become the friend, the impassioned preacher hasbecome the genial story teller, and shares the gladsome or mirthfulmood of the hour. Such a personality as this may be analyzed; itdefies any concise synthesis. One resorts to figures of speech, andthey were abundantly resorted to by those who paid him the tribute oftheir admiration and love upon the occasion of his seventiethanniversary. Let us take an instance at random from one of thesetributes. 

"The cataract that roars down to the free foaming sea. The mountainwith its snowclad peaks towering up into the immensity of the starryheavens. The rustling of the woodland above the blossom-spangled andsmiling meadows, the steep uptowering, the widely growing, and thejoyously smiling. At once the soft melody that stirs the heart and thestrong wind that sweeps over the Northern lands. "

This concourse of metaphors gives some slight idea of the way in whichBjörnson's personality affected those who came into contact with it. The description may be supplemented by a few bits of anecdote andreminiscence. The composer Grieg contributes the following incident ofthe old days in Norway:--

"It was Christmas eve of 1868 at the Björnsons in Christiania. Theylived then in the Rosenkrantzgade. My wife and I were, as far as I canremember, the only guests. The children were very boisterous in theirglee. In the middle of the floor an immense Christmas tree wasenthroned and brightly lighted. All the servant-folk came in, andBjörnson spoke, beautifully and warmly, as he well knows how to do. 'Now you shall play a hymn, Grieg, ' he said, and although I did notquite like the notion of doing organist's work, I naturally compliedwithout a murmur. It was one of Grundtvig's hymns in 32--thirty-twoverses. I resigned myself to my fate with stoicism. At the beginningI kept myself awake, but the endless repetitions had a soporificeffect. Little by little I became as stupid as a medium. When we hadat last got through with all the verses, Björnson said: 'Isn't thatfine. Now I will read it for you!' And so we got all thirty-twoverses once more. I was completely overawed. "

When the poet purchased his country estate which was his home from thelate seventies to the end of his life, his coming was looked forward towith 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 thathe might be a menace to the safe spiritual slumber of the village. Asthe dean one day was driving through the village in his carriole, justwhere the road turns sharply by the bridge below Aulestad, he metanother carriole which was rapidly driving that way and in it a manwho, without respect for the clerical vehicle, shouted with all thestrength of his lungs: 'Half the road!' The dean turned aside, sayingwith a sigh: 'Has Björnson come to the Gausdal at last?' "It was indeedso, and he showed his colors at the start. The same dean and Björnsonbecame the best of friends afterwards, and found much sport ininterchanging genial jests whenever they met. "

Frits Thaulow, the painter, thus wrote to Björnson reminding him of afestive gathering of students:

"The manager came in and announced with a loud voice that it was pasttwelve. Then you sprang up. 

"'Bring champagne! Now I will speak of what comes after twelveo'clock! of all that lies beyond the respectable hour for retiring!For the hour when fancy awakens and fills us with longings for theworld of wonderland; then the painter sees only the dim outline in themoonlight, then the musician hears the silence, then the poet after histhoughtful day feels sprouting the first shoots of the next. Aftertwelve freedom begins. The day's tumult is stilled, and the voicewithin 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, broaddaylight also made its demands upon you. Like the sun you shone uponus and made the best that was in us to grow, but I shall always keep adeep 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 anymoney in his pocket. He neither owned a purse nor knew the Frenchcoins. His personal expenditures were restricted to the books hebought, and now and then a theatre ticket. One day he carne excitedlyinto the sitting-room, and asked:

"'Who took my five franc piece?' It was a five franc piece that he hadgot somewhere or other and had stuck in his pocket to buy a theatreticket with. It turned out that the maid had found it and given it toFru Björnson. For it seemed quite unthinkable to her that the mastershould have any money to take out with him. 

"This complete indifference of Björnson to small matters sometimesproved annoying. In this connection I may tell of a little trip heonce took with Jonas Lie. 

"The two poets, who did not live far apart, had long counted withpleasure upon a trip to Père Lachaise, where they wished to visitAlfred de Musset's grave. At last the day came, and with big soft hatson their heads, and engaged earnestly in conversation, they drove awaythrough Paris. 

"When they came to Père Lachaise, and wanted to enter the cemetery, thedriver stopped them and asked for his pay. Then it appeared thatneither had any money, which they smilingly explained, and asked him inbad French to wait and drive them home again. But the two gentlemenwith the big soft hats had not inspired the driver with any markeddegree of confidence. He made a scene, and attracted a great crowd ofthe boys, loafers, and well-dressed Frenchmen who always collect oncritical occasions. The end of the affair was that the poets had toget into their cab again and drive all the long way back without havinghad a glimpse of the grave. When they reached Lie's lodgings, Lie wentin to get some money, while Björnson sat in the cab as a hostage. Nevertheless, both poets maintained that they had had a pleasantexpedition. A Norwegian question, which had accidentally come upbetween 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 justas I was going to give them to him, I began to wonder whether Karolinehad not some use for them, since she usually gave such things tobeggars. So I took the boots in my hand, and went downstairs to askher, but on the way I got a little worked up because I did not quitedare to give them to the beggar myself. And the further I went downthe steps, the more wrathful I got, until I stood over her. And then Iwas so angry that I had to bluster at her as if she had done me agrievous wrong. But she could not understand a word of what I said, and looked at me with such amazement, that I could not keep frombursting into laughter. "

From his early years, Björnson kept in touch with the modernintellectual movement by mingling with the people of other lands thanhis own. Besides his visits to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, he mademany lengthy sojourns in the chief continental centres of civilization, in Munich, Rome, and Paris. The longest of his foreign journeys wasthat 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 ofAulestad in the Gausdal, a region of Southern Norway. Here he has beena model farmer, and here, surrounded by his family, --wife, children, and grandchildren, --his patriarchal presence has given dignity to thehousehold, and united its members in a common bond of love. Hitherhave come streams of guests, friends old and new, to enjoy his generoushospitality. There has been provision for all, both bed and board, andthe heartiest of welcomes from the host. And the stranger from abroadhas been greeted, as like as not, by the sight of his own country'sflag streaming from a staff before the house, and foreshadowing thepersonal greeting that awaited him upon the threshold. 

Björnson died in Paris (where he had been spending the winter, as washis custom for many years past), April 26, 1910. He had been ill forseveral months, and only an extraordinarily robust constitution enabledhim to make a partial recovery from the crisis of the precedingFebruary, when his death had been hourly expected. The news of hisdeath occasioned demonstrations of grief not only in his own country, but also throughout the civilized world. Every honor that a nation canbestow upon its illustrious dead was decreed him by King and Storthing;a warship was despatched to bear his remains to Christiania, and thepomp and circumstance of a state funeral acclaimed the sense of thenation'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