Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century

VII

Immediately after this, in the years 1871-72, there began in Denmark a modern literary movement out of which arose during the succeeding ten years a new poetic and critical school. The intellectual life thus awakened in Denmark was quickly transplanted to Norway, and soon the poetic creations of Björnson revealed the fact, as he has himself expressed it, that after his fortieth year new and rich streams had welled up in the innermost depths of his being. Suddenly it became apparent that his productiveness had soared upward into a new state of activity. The modern world lay open before his eyes. He had gained, as he once wrote to me, "eyes that saw and ears that heard." The ideas of the century had, unconsciously to himself, worked their way into his receptive spirit and secretly fructified it. During these years he had read, with ravenous eagerness, books in all languages and of every variety, works on the natural sciences, critical, philosophical, and historical works, romances, foreign periodicals, and newspapers by the quantities. A profound impression was made upon him by the calm grandeur and the sublime free thought of Stuart Mill; Darwin's powerful hypotheses widened his intellectual horizon; the philological critique of a Steinthal, or a Max Müller, taught him to view religions, the literary critique of a Taine taught him to view literatures with new eyes. The young Danish school contributed not a little, as he has himself publicly declared, toward tearing him away from old things. The significance of the eighteenth, the problems of the nineteenth century unfolded before him. In a charming private letter once written to me by him concerning the circumstances that had acted as determining influences on his youth, and more especially regarding the great change he had undergone, he expressed himself as follows: —

"With such antecedents I could not but become the prey of Grundtvig. Yet nothing in the world can bribe me, although I can but too easily be led astray. Therefore I was released from these circles the day my eyes were first opened to see. My worst enemy may possess the truth; I am stupid and strong; but the moment I see the truth, if only through an accident, it attracts me irresistibly. Tell me, is not such a nature very easy to understand? Should not you think it would be especially natural for the Norsemen to understand it? I am a Norseman. I am human. Of late I might subscribe myself: man. For it seems to me that this word at present calls up new ideas with us."

VIII

The first extensive work with which Björnson made his appearance before the public, after a silence of several years, was the drama "En Fallit" (The Bankrupt), that met with such unwonted success in Germany as well as at home. It was a leap into modern life. The poetic hand which had wielded the battle-swords of the Sigurds did not esteem itself too good to count the cash of Tjælde or to sum up his debts. Björnson was the first Scandinavian poet who entered with serious earnestness into the tragi-comedy of money, and the victory that crowned his effort was a brilliant one. Simultaneously with "The Bankrupt" he issued the play called "Redaktoren" (The Editor), a scathing satire on the condition of the press in Norway. Then followed in rapid succession the great dramatic poem "Kongen" (The King), the novels "Magnhild" and "Captain Mansana," the dramas "Det ny System" (The New System), and "Leonarda," new poems, republican essays, etc., and a profound and delicately written story, entitled "Stöv" (Dust).

In conservative circles of Norway there has been a strenuous effort to undervalue Björnson's poetic works in this new phase, by calling them tendency poetry. This word "tendency" is the bugbear by means of which attempts have too long been made to banish from the Danish-Norwegian poetry all ideas of the modern world. By so doing the conviction is fostered naïvely enough, that Björnson's older poetic works, which are so highly extolled, are without any tendency, because they have the opposite tendency from the later ones; the fact is, people had become as thoroughly accustomed to that earlier tendency as to the atmosphere of a room they never left. The obligato pagan and especially Viking conversions, so common throughout the Northern literature of this century, have never been regarded in the light of tendency efforts; even the conversion in "Amljot Gelline" was not considered so because the tendency was one that pleased. So what was now frowned upon was not the idea of a tendency in itself, but the new tendency, that is to say, the spirit and the ideas of the nineteenth century. These ideas, however, are to poetry precisely what the circulation of the blood is to the human body. What must be demanded in the true interest of poetry is merely, that the veins which people like to see with a blue glimmer beneath the skin, should not stand out in bold relief, swollen and black, as in the case of a sick person, or one who is excited to anger. Very rarely, indeed, does Björnson's tendency take such a form as, for instance, in the hemorrhage, of which the young politician in "The Editor" dies, solely that the mark of Cain may be stamped upon the brow of the main personage of the drama; or in the vision in the drama, "The King," which terrifies and kills the daughter of the political martyr on the way to her marriage with the young king. No one, however, who looks farther than failures in details can be obtuse enough not to detect the fountain of new and individual poesy which streams through all of Björnson's works of the second period, or second youth, as it might be called. An ardent love of truth has imprinted its seal on these books; a manly firmness of character proclaims itself in them. What a wealth of new thoughts in all provinces of state and society, marriage and home! What an energetic demand for veracity toward one's self and toward others! Finally, what benignity, what sympathy with people of opposite lines of thought, who are dealt with sparingly, even idealized, as the bishop in "Leonarda," or the king in the drama of the same name, while all attacks are aimed at institutions as such. This is perhaps nowhere more sharply felt than in "The King," the leading thought of which is the simple, and in itself by no means new idea, that constitutional monarchy is a mere transitional form leading to the republic, but whose originality consists in viewing the problem from the inner ranks, by taking the person of the king as the starting point of attack on the institution. This the author does by showing how the nature of this institution must harm the king as an individual, how it must blight his soul, at the same time portraying the character with a sympathy, an intense warmth, that makes him the hero of the drama in the proper sense of the word.

The opponents of Björnson's new departure now maintain that, as long as he kept outside of the circle of burning questions and living ideas, he was great and good as a poet, but declare that he has retrograded since he embarked on the sea of modern problems and thought; that, at all events, he no longer produces artistically finished works. Similar judgments have been pronounced all over Europe whenever a poet who, in his youth, had won the public favor by neutral, inoffensive productions, showed his contemporaries that he studied and knew them. There are numberless readers who place Byron's youthful poem "Childe Harold" above the powerful, yet seldom pleasing realistic poetry of "Don Juan." In Russia and elsewhere, there may be found a refined public that prefers the first simple narratives of Turgenief, the "Memoirs of a Sportsman," to the great romances "Fathers and Sons" and "Virgin Soil"; there are in Germany many people who are overwhelmed with regret because Paul Heyse forsook for a time his peculiar form of love story to write his "Children of the World." It is true that Björnson, in his second period has not yet attained the lucidity and harmony of style that characterized his first efforts; but it is neither just nor wise to declare for this reason that he has retrograded. A new, rich, and seething group of ideas finds its form slowly, sometimes fermenting and bubbling over its limits; strong feelings and thoughts have a certain fire, a certain vibration, that renders them less capable of appearing in a pleasing form than the idyl with its poverty of thought.

In spite of all this, how much that is admirable from a technical point of view Björnson has accomplished of late years! The exposé in "The Bankrupt" is one of the best the literature of any land can produce, and the diction in "The Editor," especially in the first act, is the most excellent that Björnson has attained. These two dramas, with which he first entered the career opened by Henrik Ibsen with his drama "De Unges Forbund" (The Young Men's Union), follow close in the footsteps of the latter's vigorously built and witty play. "The Young Men's Union" actually contains the germ of both "The Bankrupt" and "The Editor." There the bankruptcy was that of the light-minded Erik Brattsberg; feeble outlines of "The Editor" may be found in Steensgaard's relation to Aslaksen's newspaper and the article against the chamberlain that was to have been printed first, and so did not get printed at all. The public has usually viewed "The Young Men's Union" and "The Editor" as contrasts, that is, as contradictory presentations of different political situations. This is simply because in the first play a dishonorable representative of the progressive party is derided, and in the second a still bolder, more deceitful representative of the conservative party. Viewed from a purely poetic standpoint, however, these two plays are very nearly akin. Björnson's editor is Steinhoff grown older (as years creep on he becomes highly conservative), a Steensgaard, in whom the softer, more pliant elements, through disappointments, defeats, and wild attacks of contempt of himself and others, have been ossified, and in whom, therefore, coarse recklessness alone remains.

In "The Bankrupt" the demands of truth in the humble walks of life are urged. The poet holds up, within the plain, commonplace life of the people, the ideal of truth as a simple matter of rectitude. His poetic eye, however, sees that rectitude is not so simple as it appears. Nothing is so reprehensible for the merchant as to risk the money of others, and yet, to a certain degree, it is impossible for him to avoid it. The moral problem revolves about the delicate boundary lines between where it is allowable and where not allowable to risk it. "The Editor" demands truth in the higher domains, where it is a bounden duty to keep it in sight, and yet dangerous to carry it into execution. While in the mercantile world there is danger of disappointing and ruining others through self deception, in the journalistic world the temptation is to keep silence concerning the truth, or to deny it. And this, too, cannot be altogether avoided; for it is out of the question for the politician to acknowledge everything he knows. It might be esteemed a defect in Björnson's "Editor" that the representative of journalism does not fully represent the dialectics of his class, the inevitable collisions to which those connected with the daily press are subjected. On the other hand, his opponent and victim, Halvdan, is too passive and long-suffering to prove of thorough interest to the reader. Björnson expressly attacks in this play the ideal of composure which the hard necessities of our day have led us to hold up as a model; he protests, in the name of the child within our souls, against the doctrine that we must harden our hearts, and there is some justice in his protest. But the fact is, we now-a-days only cherish a qualified sympathy with those public personages who can never succumb to persecutions of the press. The Christian ideal of the suffering martyr has, in this case, lost its power over the reading world and theatre-goers; there is a demand for a man from whom all the combined written and spoken attacks of his opponents will glance off, leaving him unharmed, – a man whom no idle words, not even a storm of idle words can shake. It is not for me to decide whether such a mode of contemplation is natural, but it certainly has much to recommend it.

"The Editor" may perhaps be most correctly comprehended as a great allegory. The elder brother, Halvdan, who succumbs in the political and literary strife, is Wergeland, who, after a life passed in enthusiastic struggles for freedom, galled by the agitations caused by his own attacks and the persecution of his opponents, lay so long stretched on a couch of sickness, – a far greater and more poetic form shortly before death than during the long feuds of his life. In the younger brother, Harald, to whom falls the inheritance of Halvdan, I cannot but think that Björnson wished to symbolize his own political endeavors, together with the misunderstandings to which they have been exposed, and the opponents they have found. Hakon, the eldest brother, who became a farmer, and his wife, who plays a rôle without appearing on the stage, represent the Norwegian people. The unusual vigor of the play, however, is dependent on the fact that, in addition to the great breadth of its horizon, it is individual and characteristic to a degree that has never been surpassed by Björnson.

"The King" deals with political questions, as "The Bankrupt" and "The Editor" with social ones. Here the problem is psychological. The poet himself fights with the king of the drama his inner fight, and lets his attempts to reconcile the requirements of his nature with those of his position strand. Is the problem satisfactorily solved? Is not the unhappy result in too high a degree caused by the king's wretched past and his weak character? The worth of the play does not depend on the answer, but on the depths to which it penetrates, on the fresh charm which hovers about its love scenes, and on the rich, sparkling wit of its dialogues. In "Magnhild" and "Leonarda," a new modern problem is dealt with that had germed in the poet's own soul, – the relation between morality as a virtue and as an institution, as a law of the heart, and as a law of society. The doctrine proclaimed in "Magnhild" is imparted in the modest form of a question: Are there not immoral marriages, which it is our highest duty to dissolve?

"Magnhild" is a work that, in its search for reality, denotes a turning-point in Björnson's novel-writing. In its characterizations it displays a delicacy and a power the author had not previously attained. The public had scarcely credited him with the ability to portray figures like the young musician Tande, the beautiful Mrs. Bang and her husband. And Magnhild's relation to this group is quite as exquisitely delineated and as correctly conceived. Nevertheless, it is very apparent that the author is moving in a sphere which is still somewhat an unfamiliar one to him, that of social high life. It is a curious fact, too, that Tande's cowardly denial of the woman he loves, at the moment when she is scorned by the mob, has the poet's sympathy on the ground of morality.

The novel suffers from a double defect. In the first place there is a decided lack of clearness in the characterization of one of the main personages, Skarlie. He is meant to impress the reader as a sort of monster, and yet the reader feels continually obliged to sympathize with him in his relations with his reserved, ideal wife. In the most guarded manner conceivable, it is indicated that Skarlie is a highly depraved person, and yet this monster of sensuality, in his dealings with his own wife, of whom he has gained possession by a not particularly sharp intrigue, displays a moonshine-like ideal of a Platonic relation between husband and wife, in the Ingemann style, and is content with the modest satisfaction of clothing and feeding her. The second deficiency strikes deeper into the philosophy of the novel. There is a good deal of old mysticism in the handling of the doctrine concerning the "destiny" of men and women, about which the story revolves, and (as is always the case with both Björnson and Ibsen) the mysticism is strangely interwoven with rationalism. Björnson seems to wish to have it firmly established as the sum of the story that there is another way to happiness and beneficent activity for woman than a relation to the man whom she loves, but the idea is not clearly expressed.

"Leonarda," although not conspicuous for its dramatic merits, belongs to the most thoroughly and richly poetic of the author's works. Outside of the Scandinavian North, a drama of this kind cannot be fully appreciated; perhaps the powerful, intellectual influence it has exercised can scarcely be comprehended. When placed upon the boards in Christiania it made its marked sensation, because it rang like a word of deliverance into Norwegian affairs. The message of "Leonarda" is that of moral and religious tolerance, from which the author himself, in his early days, was so far removed. In this drama, with wonderful display of intellectual superiority, Björnson brought forward a whole series of generations of Norwegian society, showing the faults and virtues of each generation, and allowing the great-grandmother, who, as the grandmother in George Sand's drama, "L'autre," represents the culture of the eighteenth century, so meanly estimated during the long period of Northern reaction, to utter the solemn amen of the play. Her concluding words read as follows: —

"The time of deep emotions has, indeed, come back again."

With "Leonarda," however, not only the time of deep emotions but that of hardy thoughts had returned, although the poet, as already indicated, fought his opponents with a benignity and forbearance, a benevolence above all partisanship, that forms, perhaps, his most marked characteristic.

Henrik Ibsen is a judge, stem as one of the judges of Israel of old; Björnson is a prophet, the delightful herald of a better age. In the depths of his nature, Ibsen is a great revolutionist. In his "Kjærlighedens Komedie" (Love's Comedy), and in "Et Dukkehjem" (A Model Home, known as "Nora" in Germany and England), he applies the scourge to the marriage relation of the day; in "Brand" to the state church; in "Samfundets Stötter" (The Pillars of Society), to the entire civil society of his native land. Whatever he attacks is crushed beneath the weight of his superior and penetrating criticism. Björnson's is a conciliatory mind; he wages warfare without bitterness. His poetry sparkles with the sunshine of April, while that of Ibsen, with its deep earnestness, seems to lurk in dark shadows. Ibsen loves the idea, – that logical, and psychological consistency which drives Brand out of the church, and Nora out of the marriage relation. Ibsen's love of ideas corresponds with Björnson's love of humanity.

IX

When still young, Björnson began to deal with politics, and throughout his whole life he has worked in one direction. He has fought unweariedly to secure the independence of Norway in the (almost purely dynastic) union with its larger neighbor, Sweden. For four hundred years Norway, as is well known, was a Danish and indeed a misgoverned Danish province, until, in the year 1814, it was united with Sweden, as a free kingdom, with a wellnigh republican constitution. Since that time the house of Bernadette has made repeated efforts to limit the independence and curtail the constitutional rights of the sparsely populated rocky land. Beyond all else it has striven to amalgamate the land with Sweden, and externally it has so far succeeded that Norway is viewed throughout Europe, even in Germany, as a province of Sweden, a sort of "seditious Ireland." As early as 1858, when editor of "Bergensposten," Björnson fought against the amalgamation plans, and it was largely due to his efforts that those representatives of Bergen, who had voted for a closer tariff union between Sweden and Norway, were not re-elected to the Storthing. In 1839, as editor of "Aften-bladet," in Christiania, he successfully contested the right of the king to place a Swedish royal governor at the head of Norwegian affairs. In 1866-67, as editor of the "Norsk Folkeblad," Björnson was one of the most valiant opponents of the so-called "union proposition," an attempt of the government to make a closer union between the two realms that were bound together in one dynasty. Since the dispute concerning the king's veto (previously only recognized as suspensive), between King Oscar and the Storthing, Björnson has become one of the most prominent political leaders of Norway. Especially since his visit to the United States, in the year 1880, he has burst forth from the chrysalis as the greatest popular orator of Scandinavia, teeming with marvellously captivating and, at the same time, thoroughly calm eloquence. As soon as his presence at a public assemblage is an established fact, thousands of peasants stream together to hear him. After the great president of the Storthing, Johan Sverdrup, no man in Norway has so powerful an influence as an orator.

The two countries, Norway and Denmark, for so many hundred years politically united and still united through a common language and a common ancient literature, – almost more intimately united, since they became outwardly separated, than before, – have common aspirations and aims in all political questions and in all problems of civilization. The same struggle for freedom and modern enlightenment which Björnson and his comrades in thought carry on in Norway, is fought in Denmark by the younger school of authors. Norwegians and Danes labor each in their own way to till the common soil of language and literature. I believe that the result will be similar to that which Björnson has described in the little legend that is the prelude to "Arne," and virtually to his tales of peasant life in general, where juniper, oak, fir, birch, and heather resolve to clothe the naked mountain lying before them. The effort long failed; it was all plain enough: the mountain did not wish to be clad. Whenever the trees had worked their way forward a little, there appeared a brook that grew and grew, and finally threw them all down.

"Then the day came when the heather could 'peep with one eye over the edge of the mountain. 'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!' said the heather, and away it went. 'Dear me! what is it the heather sees?' said the juniper, and moved on until it could peer up. 'Oh dear, oh dear!' it shrieked, and was gone. 'What is the matter with the juniper to-day' said the fir, and took long strides onward in the heat of the sun. Soon it could raise itself on its toes and peep up. 'Oh dear!' Branches and needles stood on end in wonderment. It worked its way forward, came up, and was gone. 'What is it all the others see, and not I?' said the birch, and lifting well its skirts, it tripped after. It stretched its whole head up at once. 'Oh! – oh! – is not here a great forest of fir and heather, of juniper and birch, standing upon the table-land waiting for us?' said the birch; and its leaves quivered in the sunshine so that the dew trembled. They meet the work done on the other side. The trees of the mountains find the forest of the table-land. 'Aye, this is what it is to reach the goal!' said the juniper."64

HENRIK IBSEN

1883

I

When Henrik Ibsen, at thirty-six years of age, left Norway to go into that exile from which he has not yet returned, it was with a heavy and embittered heart, after a youth passed on the sunless side of life. He was born March 20, 1828, in the small Norwegian town of Skien, amid circumstances of very precarious prosperity. His parents, on their paternal as well as maternal side, belonged to families of the highest standing in the town. His father was a merchant, engaged in varied and extensive activities, and enjoying the exercise of an almost unlimited hospitality. In 1836, however, the worthy gentleman was compelled to suspend payments, and from the wreck of his fortunes nothing was saved for his family but a country estate a short distance from the town. Thither they removed, and were thus carried beyond the range of the circles to which they had previously belonged. In "Peer Gynt" Ibsen has employed the recollections of his own childhood as a sort of model for his description of life in wealthy Jon Gynt's home. As a lad, Henrik Ibsen became apprentice in a drug-store. He worked his way through countless difficulties before he was able, at the age of twenty-two, to enter on a student's career; even then he had neither inclination nor means for professional study; for a long time he had not so much as the means to secure for himself regular meals. His youth was hard and stem, his daily life a straggle; the paternal roof seems to have offered him no place of refuge.