Strife and Peace

Strife and Peace, by Fredrika
Bremer,

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Translated by Mary Howitt
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Title: Strife and Peace
Author: Fredrika Bremer

Release Date: December 21, 2006 [eBook #20156]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Fredrika Bremer's Works.
STRIFE AND PEACE.
Translated by Mary Howitt.

London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1853.

CONTENTS
OLD NORWAY HEIMDAL. THE POULTRY. THE WATER OF
STRIFE. FIRST STRIFE. MRS. ASTRID. THE BREWHOUSE. THE
GARRET. THE DAIRY. EVENING HOURS. CHRISTMAS. QUIET
WEEKS. A MAY DAY. SPRING FEELINGS. MAN AND WIFE. A
FRESH STRIFE. ALETTE. AN EVENING IN THE SITTING-ROOM.
RETREATING AND ADVANCING. A GLANCE INTO
NORDLAND. THE RETURN. THE HALLING. AASGAARDSREIJA.
THE MOUNTAIN JOURNEY. THE AWAKENING. THE LAST
STRIFE. AN AFTER-WORD.

STRIFE AND PEACE.

OLD NORWAY.
Still the old tempests rage around the mountains, And ocean's billows
as of old appear; The roaring wood and the resounding fountains Time
has not silenced in his long career, For Nature is the same as ever.
MUNCH.

The shadow of God wanders through Nature.

LINNÆUS.
Before yet a song of joy or of mourning had gone forth from the valleys
of Norway--before yet a smoke-wreath had ascended from its
huts--before an axe had felled a tree of its woods--before yet king Nor
burst forth from Jotunhem to seek his lost sister, and passing through
the land gave to it his name; nay, before yet there was a Norwegian,
stood the high Dovre mountains with snowy summits before the face of
the Creator.
Westward stretches itself out the gigantic mountain chain as far as
Romsdahlshorn, whose foot is bathed by the Atlantic ocean. Southward
it forms under various names (Langfjeld, Sognefjeld, Filefjeld,
Hardangerfjeld, and so forth), that stupendous mountainous district
which in a stretch of a hundred and fifty geographical miles
comprehends all that nature possesses of magnificent, fruitful, lovely,
and charming. Here stands yet, as in the first days of the world, in
Upper Tellemark, the Fjellstuga, or rock-house, built by an invisible
hand, and whose icy walls and towers that hand alone can overthrow:
here still, as in the morning of time, meet together at Midsummer, upon
the snowy foreheads of the ancient mountains, the rose-tint of morning
and the rose-tint of evening for a brotherly kiss; still roar as then the
mountain torrents which hurl themselves into the abyss; still reflect the
ice-mirrors of the glaciers the same objects--now delighting, now
awakening horror; and still to-day, even as then, are there Alpine tracts
which the foot of man never ascended: valleys of wood, "lonesome
cells of nature," upon which only the eagle and the Midsummer-sun
have looked down. Here is the old, ever young, Norway; here the eye
of the beholder is astonished, but his heart expands itself; he forgets his
own suffering, his own joy, forgets all that is trivial, whilst with a holy
awe he has a feeling that "the shadow of God wanders through nature."
In the heart of Norway lies this country. Is the soul wearied with the
tumults of the world or fatigued with the trifles of poor every-day
life--is it depressed by the confined atmosphere of the room,--with the
dust of books, the dust of company, or any other kind of dust (there are
in the world so many kinds, and they all cover the soul with a great dust

mantle); or is she torn by deep consuming passions,--then fly, fly
towards the still heart of Norway, listen there to the fresh mighty
throbbing of the heart of nature; alone with the quiet, calm, and yet so
eloquent, objects of nature, and there wilt thou gain strength and life!
There falls no dust. Fresh and clear stand the thoughts of life there, as
in the days of their creation. "Wilt thou behold the great and the
majestic? Behold the Gausta, which raises its colossal knees six
thousand feet above the surface of the earth; behold the wild giant
forms of Hurrungen, Fannarauken, Mugnafjeld; behold the Rjukan (the
rushing), the Vöring, and Vedal rivers foaming and thundering over the
mountains and plunging down in the abysses! And wilt though delight
thyself in the charming, the beautiful? They exist among these fruitful
scenes in peaceful solitude. The Säter-hut stands in the narrow valley;
herds of cattle graze on the beautiful grassy meadows; the Säter-maiden,
with fresh-colour, blue eyes, and