Part 10 (2/2)
”Yes; we have.”
”And now we have not spoken to each other for half a year.”
”No; we have not.”
”We parted so strangely, too, that time.”
”We did. I think I must come up to you!”
”Oh, no! do not come! But tell me: you are not angry with me?”
”Goodness! how could you think so?”
”Good-by, then, Oyvind, and my thanks for all the happy times we have had together!”
”Wait, Marit!”
”Indeed I must go; they will miss me.”
”Marit! Marit!”
”No, I dare not stay away any longer, Oyvind. Good-by.”
”Good-by!”
Afterwards he moved about as in a dream, and answered very absently when he was addressed. This was ascribed to his journey, as was quite natural; and indeed it occupied his whole mind at the moment when the school-master took leave of him in the evening and put something into his hand, which he afterwards found to be a five-dollar bill. But later, when he went to bed, he thought not of the journey, but of the words which had come down from the brow of the cliff, and those that had been sent up again. As a child Marit was not allowed to come on the cliff, because her grandfather feared she might fall down. Perhaps she will come down some day, any way.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEAR PARENTS,--We have to study much more now than at first, but as I am less behind the others than I was, it is not so hard. I shall change many things in father's place when I come home; for there is much that is wrong there, and it is wonderful that it has prospered as well as it has. But I shall make everything right, for I have learned a great deal. I want to go to some place where I can put into practice all I now know, and so I must look for a high position when I get through here.
No one here considers Jon Hatlen as clever as he is thought to be at home with us; but as he has a gard of his own, this does not concern any one but himself.
Many who go from here get very high salaries, but they are paid so well because ours is the best agricultural school in the country. Some say the one in the next district is better, but this is by no means true. There are two words here: one is called Theory, the other Practice. It is well to have them both, for one is nothing without the other; but still the latter is the better. Now the former means, to understand the cause and principle of a work; the latter, to be able to perform it: as, for instance, in regard to a quagmire; for there are many who know what should be done with a quagmire and yet do it wrong, because they are not able to put their knowledge into practice. Many, on the other hand, are skillful in doing, but do not know what ought to be done; and thus they too may make bad work of it, for there are many kinds of quagmires. But we at the agricultural school learn both words. The superintendent is so skillful that he has no equal. At the last agricultural meeting for the whole country, he led in two discussions, and the other superintendents had only one each, and upon careful consideration his statements were always sustained. At the meeting before the last, where he was not present, there was nothing but idle talk. The lieutenant who teaches surveying was chosen by the superintendent only on account of his ability, for the other schools have no lieutenant. He is so clever that he was the best scholar at the military academy.
The school-master asks if I go to church. Yes, of course I go to church, for now the priest has an a.s.sistant, and his sermons fill all the congregation with terror, and it is a pleasure to listen to him.
He belongs to the new religion they have in Christiania, and people think him too strict, but it is good for them that he is so.
Just now we are studying much history, which we have not done before, and it is curious to observe all that has happened in the world, but especially in our country, for we have always won, except when we have lost, and then we always had the smaller number. We now have liberty; and no other nation has so much of it as we, except America; but there they are not happy. Our freedom should be loved by us above everything.
Now I will close for this time, for I have written a very long letter. The school-master will read it, I suppose, and when he answers for you, get him to tell me some news about one thing or another, for he never does so of himself. But now accept hearty greetings from your affectionate son, O. Th.o.r.eSEN.
DEAR PARENTS,--Now I must tell you that we have had examinations, and that I stood 'excellent' in many things, and 'very good' in writing and surveying, but 'good' in Norwegian composition. This comes, the superintendent says, from my not having read enough, and he has made me a present of some of Ole Vig's books, which are matchless, for I understand everything in them. The superintendent is very kind to me, and he tells us many things. Everything here is very inferior compared with what they have abroad; we understand almost nothing, but learn everything from the Scotch and Swiss, although horticulture we learn from the Dutch. Many visit these countries. In Sweden, too, they are much more clever than we, and there the superintendent himself has been. I have been here now nearly a year, and I thought that I had learned a great deal; but when I heard what those who pa.s.sed the examination knew, and considered that they would not amount to anything either when they came into contact with foreigners, I became very despondent. And then the soil here in Norway is so poor compared with what it is abroad; it does not at all repay us for what we do with it.
Moreover, people will not learn from the experience of others; and even if they would, and if the soil was much better, they really have not the money to cultivate it. It is remarkable that things have prospered as well as they have.
I am now in the highest cla.s.s, and am to remain there a year before I get through. But most of my companions have left and I long for home. I feel alone, although I am not so by any means, but one has such a strange feeling when one has been long absent. I once thought I should become so much of a scholar here; but I am not making the progress I antic.i.p.ated.
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