Part 2 (2/2)
In vain does the physician seek to shelter his wife from the chill of her environracious, lovable, and even forgiving to the last Then the death angel co over their only child, and at last the barrier of forotry is swept away fro repressed, resume full sway, and they realize how deeply they, have sinned toward the dead woman The sister seeks a reconciliation with her brother, but he repulses her, and gives her his wife's private diary to read In this _journal intientle spirit that has been done to death, and she feels that the very salvation of her life and soul depend upon winning her brother's forgiveness The closing chapter, in which the final reconciliation occurs, is one of the most wonderful in all fiction; its pathos is of the deepest and the , and he must be callous of soul, indeed, who can read it with dry eyes
If ere to search the whole of Bjornson's writings for the single passage which should e to his fellowians alone, but all mankind,--the choice would have to rest upon the words spoken froy the certainty of his child's recovery
”To-day a man spoke from the pulpit of the church about what he had learned
”Naets it in his strenuous endeavor, a second in his zeal for conflict, a third in his backward vision, a fourth in the conceit of his oisdom, a fifth in his daily routine, and we have all learned it more or less ill For should I ask you who hear htlessly, and just because I ask you from this place, 'Faith is first'
”No, in very truth, it is not Watch over your child, as it struggles for breath on the outere of life, or see your wife follow the child to that outere, beside herself for anxiety and sleeplessness,--then love will teach you that _life comes first_ And never from this day on will I seek God or God's will in any form of words, in any sacrament, or in any book or any place, as if He were first and foremost to be found there; no, life is first and foremost--life as in it frorace of self-devotion, in our intercourse with living huhest worshi+p of Hi This lesson, self-evident as it is, was needed by me more than by rounds I have hitherto rejected,--and of late hest for me, nor symbols, but the eternal revelation of life Never more will I freeze fast in doctrine, but let the warmth of life ospel of love Never, for God's sake! And this because I believe in Hi revelation in life itself”
Here is a gospel, indeed, one that needs no church for its proation, and no cereospel, ic, but finds its premises in the healthy instincts of the naturalto have thus found the way, and to have helped others likewise to find the way, out of the h the valleys of doubt and despondency, athwart the thickets of prejudice and bigotry with all their furtive foehts of serenity
”Mary” is less explicit in its teaching than the two great novels just suains in art The radiant creature who gives her naures She is the very embodiment of youthful wo sunshi+ne wherever she goes Yet this te of any woth that iic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering In her the author ”gives us the coives it us siy We are in the sun Her most hideous blunder cannot undo a wo at all It is the soul behind the deed that he sees Not everything that cometh out of a man defileth a man At all events, so it is here: triumph and joy built upon an act that--as the Philistines would say--has defiled forever” As a triuure is hardly overallery of wo ested, his personality evades all such su In the present essay, he has been considered as a writer merely,--poet, dramatist, novelist,--but the man is vastly more than that His other activities have been hinted at, indeed, but nothing adequate has been said about them The director of three theatres, the editor of three newspapers and the contributor to anizations, the participant in ns, the lay preacher of private and public reat occasions,--these are some of the characters in which welike a complete conception of his many-sided individuality Take the matter of oratory alone, and it is perhaps true that he has influenced as e He has addressed hundreds of audiences in the three Scandinavian countries and in Finland, he has spoken to ed speech has gone straight horee that his oratory was of the er atte words:--
”It is eloquence of a very distinctive type; its most characteristic quality is its wealth of color; it finds expression for every orous to thelike the voice of doo, now they becole cadence, or a play of the facial esture, he can portray a person, a situation, or an object, so that it appears living in the sight of his hearers And what the word alone cannot do, is accomplished in the most brilliant manner by the virtuosity of his delivery He does not speak his words, he presents them; they take bodily form and seem alive”
In his more intimate relationshi+ps, on the other hand, in face to face conversation or in the home circle, the man takes on a quite different aspect; the prophet has becoenial story teller, and shares the gladsome or mirthful mood of the hour Such a personality as this may be analyzed; it defies any concise synthesis One resorts to figures of speech, and they were abundantly resorted to by those who paid him the tribute of their admiration and love upon the occasion of his seventieth anniversary Let us take an instance at random from one of these tributes
”The cataract that roars down to the free foa up into the i of the woodland above the blosso, the widely growing, and the joyously s At once the softwind that sweeps over the Northern lands”
This concourse of ht idea of the way in which Bjornson's personality affected those who came into contact with it
The description may be supplemented by a few bits of anecdote and re incident of the old days in Norway:--
”It was Christmas eve of 1868 at the Bjornsons in Christiania They lived then in the Rosenkrantzgade My wife and I were, as far as I can reuests The children were very boisterous in their glee In the middle of the floor an ihted All the servant-folk came in, and Bjornson spoke, beautifully and warmly, as he well kno to do
'Now you shall play a hyh I did not quite like the notion of doing organist's work, I naturally co's hynedI kept myself awake, but the endless repetitions had a soporific effect Little by little I becah with all the verses, Bjornson said: 'Isn't that fine Noill read it for you!' And so we got all thirty-two verses once more I was completely overawed”
When the poet purchased his country estate which was his ho was looked forward to with hborhood
Kristofer Janson thus tells the story of his arrival:
”His co was anticipated with a certain anxiety and apprehension, for was he not a 'horrid radical'? The dean in particular thought that he e As the dean one day was driving through the village in his carriole, just where the road turns sharply by the bridge below Aulestad, hethat way and in it a man ithout respect for the clerical vehicle, shouted with all the strength of his lungs: 'Half the road!' The dean turned aside, saying with a sigh: 'Has Bjornson come to the Gausdal at last?' ”It was indeed so, and he showed his colors at the start The same dean and Bjornson became the best of friends afterwards, and found enial jests whenever they met”
Frits Thaulow, the painter, thus wrote to Bjornson re of students:
”The er came in and announced with a loud voice that it was past twelve Then you sprang up
”'Bring chane! Noill speak of what comes after twelve o'clock! of all that lies beyond the respectable hour for retiring!
For the hour when fancy awakens and fills us with longings for the world of wonderland; then the painter sees only the diht, then the htful day feels sprouting the first shoots of the next After twelve freedoins The day's tumult is stilled, and the voice within becomes audible'
”Thus you spoke, and 'after twelve' became a ith us
”Many a spark has been kindled in your soul by the quiet evening time
But later in life, when you becoht also made its demands upon you Like the sun you shone upon us and row, but I shall always keep a deep artistic affection for what co story of the poet in Paris:
”It was one of Bjornson's peculiarities to go out as a rule without any money in his pocket He neither owned a purse nor knew the French coins His personal expenditures were restricted to the books he bought, and now and then a theatre ticket One day he carne excitedly into the sitting-room, and asked: