Bjornstjerne Bjornson | Page 9

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