Bjornstjerne Bjornson | Page 9

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 Bj?rnson 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 Bj?rnson'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, Bj?rnson 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 Bj?rnson 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