Arne/the Happy Boy/the Fisher-Maiden

a Sketch of Norwegian Country Life. By BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRN SON. Translated from the Norwegian by Augusta Plesner and S. Rugeley Powers. Cambridge and Boston : Sever, Francis, & Co.

a Tale of Norwegian Peasant Life. By BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRN - SON. Translated from the Norwegian, by H. R. G. Cambridge and Boston : Sever, Francis, & Co.

A Norwegian Tale. By BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSUN. From the Author’s German Edition, by M. E. Niles. New York : Leypoldt and Holt.

THE author of that unique essay, “ The Glut of the Fiction Market,” who had the good fortune to put more truth about novels into wittier phrase than any other essayist of this time, held that having exhausted all the types and situations and catastrophes of English fiction, we must give it up as a source of literary amusement ; and, indeed, there are very few critics who do not now, in their heart of hearts (if they have any), secretly look forward to a time when people shall read nothing but book-notices.

Whilst this millennial period is still somewhat distant, their weariness of our own novelists is attested by nothing so vividly as the extraordinary welcome which has of late been given to translations of the novels of all other races; for, generally speaking, these invaders of our realm ot fiction are not better than the novelists they have displaced, but only different. Miss Mühlbach, the author of a vast, and, we believe, increasing horde ot blond romances, is the most formidable foe that our sorrier sort of fictionists have had to contend with, and in her train have followed unnumbered others, though none so popular and so poor. Amongst these, indeed, have appeared several of striking merit, and conspicuously Björnstjerne Björnson, the Norwegian, whose beautiful romances we wish all our readers to like with us. Concerning the man himself, we know little more than that he is the son of a country clergyman, and that, after a rather unpromising career in school and college, he has risen to the first place in the literature of the North, and has almost invented a new pleasure in the fresh and wonderful tales he writes about Norwegian life. He has been the manager of a theatre, and he has written many plays, but we believe he is known in English only by the three books of which we have given the titles below, and which form an addition to literature of as great and certain value as any which has been otherwise made during the last two years.

There is in the way the tales are told a singular simplicity, or a reticence and self-control that pass for this virtue, and that take the æsthetic sense as winningly as their sentiment touches the heart. The author has entire confidence in his reader’s intelligence. He believes, it seems, that we can be fully satisfied with a few distinct touches in representing a situation or a character ; he is the reverse, in a word, of all that is Trollopian in literary art. He does not concern himself with detail, nor with general statement, but he makes some one expressive particular serve for all introduction and explanation of a fact. The life he portrays is that, for the most part, of humble but decent folk ; and this choice of subject is also novel and refreshing in contrast with the subjects of our own fictions, in which there seems to be no middle ground between magnificent drawing-rooms and the most unpleasant back-alleys, or between very refined and well-born company and the worst reprobates of either sex. How much of our sense of his naturalnesswould survive further acquaintance with Björnson we cannot venture to say ; the conventionalities of a literature are hut too perilously apt to be praised as naïveté by foreign criticism, and we have only the internal evidence that peasant-boys like Arne, and fisher-maidens like Petra, are not as common and tiresome in Norwegian fiction as we find certain figures in our own novels. We would willingly celebrate them, therefore, with a wise reserve, and season our delight with doubt, as a critic should; though we are not at all sure that we can do this.

Arne is the son of Margit Kampen and Nils the tailor, who is the finest dancer and the gallantest man in all the country-side ; and it is with subtlety and feeling that the author hints the error by which Arne came to be : —

“The next time there was a dance in the parish Margit was there. She sat listening to the music, and cared little for the dancing that night; and she was glad that somebody else, too, cared no more for it than she did. But when it grew later, the fidler, Nils the tailor, rose and wished to dance. He went straight over and took out Margit, and before she well knew what she was doing she danced with him. . . .

“ Soon the weather turned warmer, and there was no more dancing. That spring Margit took so much care of a little sick, lamb, that her mother thought her quite foolish. ‘ It’s only a lamb, after all,’ said the mother. ' Yes ; but it’s sick,’ answered Margit.

“ It was a long time since Margit had been to church; somebody must stay at home, she used to say, and she would rather let the mother go. One Sunday, however, later in the summer, the weather seemed so fine that the hay might very well be left over that day and night, the mother said, and she thought both of them might go. Margit had nothing to say against it, and she went to dress herself. But when they had gone far enough to hear the church-bells, she suddenly burst into tears. The mother grew deadly pale; yet they went on to church, heard the sermon and prayers, sang all the hymns, and let the last sound of the bells die away before they left. But when they were seated at home again, the mother took Margit’s face between her hands, and said, ' Keep back nothing from me, my child ! ’ ”

But Nils is in love with Birgit Böen, who loves him again, and is richer and handsomer than Margit. They torment each other, lover’s fashion, Birgit being proud, and Nils capricious and dissipated, until one night at a dance he runs wilfully against Birgit and another lover of hers (who afterwards marries her), and knocks them over. Then this lover strikes Nils, who falls against the sharp edge of the fireplace, upon his spine. So Margit comes to claim him, and takes him home, and they are married ; but as Nils grows better in health he grows a worse man, gives himself constantly to drink, and beats Margit cruelly. At last it comes to this awful scene, which is portrayed with peculiar force and boldness, and which is a good illustration of a manner so unaffected that manner hardly seems the word for it. Nils comes home after one of his drinkingbouts at a wedding-party, and finds Arne reading and Margit in bed.

“ Arne was startled by the sound of a heavy fall in the passage, and of something hard pushing against the door. It was the father, just coming home.

“ ‘ Is it you, my clever boy ? ’ he muttered ; ‘come and help your father to get up.’ Arne helped him up, and brought him to the bench ; then carried in the violin-case after him and shut the door. ‘ Well, look at me, you clever boy ; I don’t look very handsome, now ; Nils the tailor ’s no longer the man he used to be. One thing, I — tell — you — you shall never drink spirits; they’re — the devil, the world, and the flesh..... “ God resisted the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” .... O dear! O dear! How far gone I am ! ’

“He sat silent for a while, and then sang in a tearful voice, —

“ ‘ “ Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only He threw himself forward, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed violently. . . .

“ Then he was silent, and his weeping became subdued and calm.

“ The mother had been long awake, without looking up ; but now when she heard him weeping thus like one who is saved, she raised herself on her elbows, and gazed earnestly at him. “But scarcely did Nils perceive her before he called out, ' Are you looking up, you ugly vixen ! I suppose you would like to see what a state you have brought me to. Well, so I look, just so ! ’ . . . . He rose ; and she hid herself under the fur coverlet. ‘ Nay, don’t hide, I ’m sure to find you,’ he said, stretching out his right hand and fumbling with his forefinger on the bedclothes, ‘ Tickle, tickle,’ he said, turning aside the fur coverlet, and putting his forefinger on her throat. *

“ ' Father ! ’ cried Arne.

“‘ How shrivelled and thin you’ve become already, there’s no depth of flesh here !' Site writhed beneath his touch, and seized his hand with both hers, but could not free herself.

“ ‘ Father ! ’ repeated Arne.

“ ‘ Well, at last you ’re roused. How she wriggles, the ugly thing ! Can’t you scream (o make believe I am beating you ? Tickle, tickle ! I only want to take away your breath.’

“ ' Father ! ’ Arne said once more, running to the corner of the room, and snatching up an axe which stood there.

“ ' Is it only out of perverseness you don’t scream ? you had better beware ; for I’ve taken such a strange fancy into my head. Tickle, tickle! Now, I think I shall soon get rid of that screaming of yours.’

“ ‘ Father ! ’ Arne shouted, rushing towards him with the axe uplifted.

“ But before Arne could reach him, he started up with a piercing cry, laid his hand upon his heart, and fell heavily down. ‘ Jesus Christ!' he muttered, and then lay quite still.

“ Arne stood as if rooted in the ground, and gradually lowered the axe. He grew dizzy and bewildered, and scarcely knew where he was. Then the mother began to move to and fro in the bed, and to breathe heavily, as if oppressed by some great weight lying upon her. Arne saw that she needed help ; but yet he felt unable to render it. At last she raised herself a little, and saw the father lying stretched on the floor, and Arne standing beside him with the axe.

“ ‘ Merciful Lord, what have you done ? ’ she cried, springing out of the bed, putting on her skirt and coming nearer.

“ ‘ He fell down himself,’ said Arne, at last regaining power to speak.

“ ‘ Arne, Arne, I don’t believe you,’ said the mother, in a stern reproachful voice : ‘ now Jesus help you ! ’ And she threw herself upon the dead man with loud wailing.

“ But the boy awoke from his stupor, dropped the axe and fell down on his knees : ‘ As true as I hope for mercy from God, I’ve not done it. I almost thought of doing it; I was so bewildered ; but then he fell down himself; and here I’ve been standing ever since.’

“The mother looked at him, and believed him. ‘Then our Lord has been here Himself,’ she said, quietly, sitting down on the floor and gazing before her.”

The terror and shadow of what he might have done hung long about Arne, making lonelier and sadder the life that was already melancholy and secluded, He has many dreams of going abroad, and escaping from the gloomy associations of his home and his past life ; and, indulging these and other dreams, he begins to make songs and to sing them. All the processes of his thought are clearly suggested, and then almost as much is left to the reader’s fancy as in any poem that stands so professed in rhyme. People are shown without effort to account for their presence further than it is explained in their actions, so that all has the charm of fact, about which there ever hangs a certain fascinating mystery; and the pictures of scenery are made with a confidence that they will please because they are beautiful. In these, natural aspects are represented as affecting the beholder in certain ways, and nature does not, as in our falsc sentimentilizntion, take on the complexion of his thoughts and reflect his mood.

By and by Arne is drawn somewhat away from the lonely life he has been leading, and upon a certain occasion he is persuaded to go nutting with a party of young girls; and here the author sketches with all his winning lightness and confidence the young-girl character he wishes us to see : —

“ So Arne came to the party, and was nearly the only young man among the many girls. Such fun as was there Arne had never seen before in all his life ; and one thing which especially astonished him was, that the girls laughed for nothing at all : if three laughed, then five would laugh just because those three laughed. Altogether, they behaved as if they had lived with each other all their lives ; and yet there were several of them who had never met before that very day. When they caught the bough which they jumped after, they laughed, and when they did not catch it they laughed also ; when they did not find any nuts, they laughed because they found none ; and when they did find some, they also laughed. They fought for the nutting-hook : those who got it laughed, and those who did not get it laughed also. Godfather limped after them, trying to beat them with his stick, and making all the mischief he was good for ; those he hit laughed because he hit them, and those he missed laughed because he missed them. But the whole lot laughed at Arne because he was so grave ; and when at last he could not help laughing, they all laughed again because he laughed.”

This is the way in which all young girls appear to all boys, confounding them with emotions and caprices which they do not themselves understand ; it is the history of a whole epoch of life ; yet with how few words it is told ! Think how one of our own story-tellers, — even a very clever one, — with the heavy and awkward traditions of the craft would have gone about it, if he or she had had the grace to conceive of anything so pretty and natural, and how it would have been explained and circumstantiated, and analyzed, and made detestable with the intrusion of the author’s reflections and comments !,

There is not much plot in “ Arne.” The task which the author seems chiefly to have proposed himself is the working out, by incident and encounter, of a few characters. In the person of Arne as in Petra, the fisher-maiden, he attempts a most difficult work; though Arne as a genius is far inferior to Petra, Still, there is in both the waywardness and strangeness produced by peculiar gifts, and both characters have to be handled with great delicacy to preserve the truth which is so often unlike truth, and the naturalness which is so uncommon as to appear unnatural. One of the maidens in the nutting-party is Eli Böen, the daughter of Birgit and Baard, the man who struck Arne’s father that dreadful blow; and Arne, with as little consciousness as possible, and while still planning to go abroad, falls in love with her. It all ends, of course, with some delaying occurrence in their marriage, and in the heartfelt union of Eli’s parents, who during twenty years have been secretly held apart by Birgit’s old love for Nils, and by the memory of Baard’s share in his ruin. This last effect, which is an incident of the main story, is inseparable from it, but is not hinted till far toward the end, and is then produced with that trusting and unhasty art which, together with the brevity of every scene and incident, makes the romance so enjoyable. There is something also very wise and fine in the management of the character of Margil, Arne’s mother, who, in spite of the double tragedy of her life, is seen to be a passive and simple heart, to whom things merely happen, and who throughout merely loves, now her bad husband and now her affectionate yet unintelligible son, whom she singly desires to keep with her always. She is the type of maternity as nearly as it can exist unrelated to other phases and conditions ; and when she hears that Arne is in love with Eli, she has no other thought than to rejoice that this is a tie which will bind him to home. Meeting Eli one evening in the road, she lures her to walk toward Kumpen that she may praise Arne to her; then comes some dialogue which is contrived to show the artless artifices by which these two women strive to turn the talk to and from the object of their different love ; and after that there are most enchanting little scenes in the home at Kampen, when the women find Arne’s treasury of weddinggear, and at the end some of the prettiest love - making when Arne himself comes home.

With people in another rank, Charles Reade would have managed this as charmingly, though he would have thrown into it somewhat too much of the brilliancy of the footlights ; and Auerbach would have done it with equal naturalness ; but neither could have cast about it that poetic atmosphere which is so peculiarly the gift of Björnson and of the Northern mind, and which is felt in its creations, as if the glamour of the long summer days of the North had got into literature. It is very noticeable throughout “ Arne.” The facts are stated with perfect ruggedness and downrightness when necessary, but some dreamy haze seems still to cling about them, subduing their hard outlines and features like the tender light of the slanting Norwegian sun on the craggy Norwegian headlands. The romance is interspersed with little lyrics, pretty and graceful in their form, but of just the quality to show that Björnson is wise to have chosen prose for the expression of his finer and stronger thoughts.

In that region of novel characters, wholesome sympathies, and simple interests to which he transports us, we have not only a blissful sense of escape from the jejune inventions and stock repetitions of what really seems a failing art with us, but are aware of our contact with an excellent and enviable civilization. Of course the reader sees the Norwegians and their surroundings through Björnson’s poetic eyes, and is aware that he is reading romance ; yet he feels that there must be truth to the real as well as the ideal in these stories.

“ Arne ” is the most poetical of the three, and the action is principally in a world where the troubles are from within, and inherent in human nature, rather than from any artificial causes, though the idyllic sweetness is chiefly owing to the circumstances of the characters as peasant - folk in a “ North countree.” In “The Happy Boy” the world of conventions and distinctions is more involved by the fortunes of the lovers; for the happy boy Oeyvind is made wretched enough in the good old way by finding out that there is a difference between riches and poverty in the eyes of grandparents, at least, and he is tormented in his love of Marit by his jealousy of a wealthier rival. It is Marit’s worldly and ambitious grandfather who forbids their love, and will have only unpleasant things to say to Oeyvind, until the latter comes back from the Agricultural College, and establishes himself in his old home with the repute of the best farmer in the neighborhood. Meantime unremitted love-making goes on between Marit and Oeyvind, abetted by Oeyvind’s schoolmaster, through whom indeed all their correspondence was conducted while Oeyvind was away at school. At last the affair is happily concluded when Ole Nordistuen, the grandfather, finds that his farm is going to ruin, and nothing can save it but the skill of Oeyvind.

In this story the peasant life is painted in a more naturalistic spirit, and its customs are more fully described, though here as always in Björnson’s work the people are primarily studied as men and women, and secondarily as peasants and citizens ; and the descriptions are brief, incidental, and strictly subordinate to the story. We imagine in this an exercise of self-denial, for Björnson must be in love with all that belongs to his characters or surrounds them, to the degree of desiring to dwell longer than he ever does upon their portrayal. His fashion in dealing with scenery and character both is well shown in this account of Marit’s party, to which Oeyvind was invited, and at which he ceases with his experience of the world to be the entirely happy boy of the past: —

“It was a half clear, mild evening; no stars were to be seen ; the next day it could not help raining. A sleepy kind of wind blew over the snow, which was swept away here and there on the white Heide fields ; in other spots it had drifted. Along the side of the road, where there lay but little snow, there was ice which stretched along blue-black between the snow and the bare field, and peeped out in patches as far as one could see. Along the mountains there had been avalanches ; in their track it was dark and bare, but on both sides bright and covered with snow, except where the birch-trees were packed together in black masses. There was no water to be seen, but half-naked marshes and morasses lay under the deeply fissured, melancholy looking mountain. The farms lay in thick clusters in the middle of the plain ; in the darkness of the winter evening they looked like black lamps, from which light shot over the fields, now from one window, now from another ; to judge by the lights, it seemed as if they were busy inside.

“ Children, grown up and half grown up, were flocking together from all directions : the smaller number walked along the road ; but they, too, left it when they came near the farms ; and there stole along one under the shadow of the stable, a couple near the granary ; some ran for a long time behind the barn, screaming like foxes, others answered far away like cats, one stood behind the wash-house, and barked like a cross old crack-voiced dog, until there became a general hunt. The girls came along in great flocks, and had some boys, mostly little boys, with them, who gathered around them along the road to seem like young men. When such a swarm of girls arrived at the farm, and one or a couple of the grown-up boys saw them, the girls separated, flew into the passages between the buildings or down in the garden, and had to be dragged into the house one by one. Some were so bashful that Marit had to be sent for, and compel them to come in. Sometimes, too, there came one who had not originally been invited, and whose intention was not at all to go in, but only to look on, until it turned out that she would just take one little dance. Those whom Marit liked much she invited into a little room where the old people themselves were, the old man sitting smoking and grandmamma walking about. There they got something to drink, and were kindly spoken to. Oeyvind was not among them, and that struck him as rather strange.”

When the dancing began, he scarcely dared to ask Marit to dance with him, and at last, when he did so, a tall, dark-complexioned fellow with thick hair threw himself in front of him. “ Back, youngster ! ” he shouted, pushing Oeyvind so that the latter nearly fell backward over Marit.

“ Nothing like this had ever happened to him before ; never had any one been otherwise than kind to him, never had he been called ' Youngster,’ when he wished to join in ; he blushed scarlet, but said nothing, and drew back to where the new fiddler, who had just arrived, had sat down, and was busy tuning up his fiddle......

“He looked longer and longer at her; but, in whatever way he looked, it seemed to him as if Marit were quite grown up ; ‘it cannot be so, he thought, for she still coasts down hill with us.’ But grown up she was, nevertheless ; and the thick - haired man pulled her, after the dance was over, down on to his lap ; she glided off, still remaining, however, sitting by his side.

So Oeyvind discovered that this young man was handsome, and that he was himself very shabbily dressed. He could bear his novel and inexplicable anguish no longer, and went out and sat upon the porch alone with his gloomy thoughts, till Marit, who loved him, missed him and came to seek him.

“‘You went away so soon,’ she said to Oeyvind. He did not know what he should answer to this; thereupon, she also grew confused, and they were all three silent. But Hans stole away little by little. The two remained, not looking at each other, nor stirring. Then she said in a whisper : ' I have gone the whole evening with some Christmas goodies in my pocket for you, Oeyvind ; but I have not had any chance to give them to you before.’ She pulled out a few apples, a slice of a cake from town, and a little half-pint bottle, which she thrust over towards him, and said he could keep. Oeyvind took them. ‘ Thank YOU,’ said he, and stretched out his hand; hers was warm; he dropped it immediately, as if he had burnt himself. ‘ You have danced a good deal this evening ? ’ ‘Yes, I have,’ she answered; ‘but you have not danced much,’she added. ‘No, I have not.’ ‘ Why not ? ’ ‘ O — ’ ‘ Oeyvind.’ ' What ?' ‘ Why did you sit and look so at me ?' 'O, — Marit! ’ ‘ Yes ? ' ‘Why did n’t you like to have me look at you ? ’ ‘ There were so many people.' ‘ You danced a good deal with John Hatlen this evening.’ ‘ O, yes!’ ‘He dances well.’ ‘Do you think so?’ 'O, yes! I do not know how it is, hut this evening I cannot bear to have you dance with him, Marit.' He turned away ; it had cost him an effort to say it. ‘ I do not understand you, Oevvind.’ ' Nor do I understand it myself; it is so stupid of me. Farewell, Marit; I am going now.' He took a step without looking round. Then she called after him : ' It is a mistake what you thought you saw, Oeyvind.’ He stopped. ‘That you are already a grown-up girl is not a mistake.' He did not say what she had expected, and so she was silent.”

This Marit’s character is beautifully drawn, as it rises out of maiden coyness to meet the exigency of her lover’s sensitive passion, and is so frank at once and so capricious in the sort of advances she is obliged to make to him. The correspondence carried on between the two while Oeyvind is in the Agricultural College is delightful with its mixture of prodigious formality and jealous tenderness on the hero’s part, and mixture of jesting coquetry and fond consenting on Murk’s side. A lover cannot take a joke from his mistress, and of course Marit shows superior to Oeyvind at this and some other times, but she is always patient and firm in her love for him.

The religious feeling which is a passive quality in “ Arne ” is a positive and controlling influence in “The Happy Boy,” where it is chiefly exerted by the old schoolmaster. To him a long and bitter quarrel with an only brother, now dead, has taught lifelong meekness and dread of pride ; and he affectingly rebukes Oeyvind’s ambition to be first among the candidates for confirmation, in order that he may eclipse all others in Marit’s eyes. But Björnson’s religious feeling is not pietistic ; on the contrary, it teaches, as in “The Fisher-Maiden,” that a cheerful life of active goodness is the best interpretation of liberal and hopeful faith, and it becomes at no time a theological abstraction. It is always more or less blended with love of home, and a sense of the sweetness and beauty of natural affections. It is a strengthening property in the tenderness of a sentiment which seems almost distinctively his, or which at least is very clearly distinguished from German sentiment, and in which we AngloSaxon readers may indulge our hearts without that recoil of shame which otherwise attends the like surrender. Indeed, we feel a sort of inherent sympathy with most of Björnson’s people on this and other accounts, as if we were in spirit, at least, Scandinavians with them, and the Viking blood had not yet died out of us. Some of the traits that he sketches are those now of New England fishermen and farmers and of Western pioneers,— that is, the pioneers of the time before Pacific Railroads. A conscientiousness also exists in them which is like our own, — for we have really a popular conscientiousness, in spite of many shocking appearances to the contrary, — though there seems to be practically more forgiveness in their morality than in ours, especially towards such errors as those by which Arne and Petra came to be. But their incentives and expectations are all as different from ours as their customs are, and in these romances the reader is always sensible of beholding the life of a vigorous and healthful yet innumerous people, restricted by an unfriendly climate and variable seasons, and gaining a hard subsistence from the treacherous sea and grudging soil. Sometimes the sense of nature’s reluctant or cruel attitude toward man finds open expression, as in “The Fisher-Maiden,”where the pastor says to the “village saints”: “ Your homes are far up among the mountains, where your grain is cut down more frequently by the frost than by the scythe. Such barren fields and deserted spots should never have been built upon ; they might well be given over to pasturage and the spooks. Spiritual life thrives but poorly in your mountain home, and partakes of the gloom of the surrounding vegetation. Prejudice, like the cliffs themselves, overhangs your life and casts a shadow upon it,” Commonly, however, the pathos of this unfriendliness between the elements and man is not sharply uttered, but remains a subtile presence qualifying all impressions of Norwegian life. Perhaps it is this which gives their singular beauty to Björnson’s pictures of the scenery amidst which the action of his stories takes place,— pictures notably of Nature in her kindlier moods, as if she were not otherwise to be endured by the imagination.

In “The Fisher-Maiden,” which is less perfect as a romance than “ Arne,” Björnson has given us in Petra his most perfect and surprising creation. The story is not so dreamy, and it has not so much poetic intimacy with external things as “ Arne,”while it is less naturalistic than “The Happy Boy,” and interests us in characters more independently of circumstance. It is, however, very real, and Petra is a study as successful as daring. To work out the character of a man of genius is a task of sufficient delicacy, but the difficulty is indefinitely enhanced where it is a woman of genius whose character is to be painted in the various phases of childhood and girlhood, and this is the labor Björnson undertakes in Petra. She is a girl of the lowest origin, and has had, like Arne, no legal authority for coming into the world ; but like him she has a wonderful gift, though it is different from his. Looking back over her career from the close of the book, one sees plainly enough that she was born for the stage; but it is then only that the author’s admirable art is apparent, and that we are reconciled to what seemed extravagances and inconsistencies, and are even consoled for the disappointment of our foolish novel-reading desire for the heroine’s marriage. Petra does not marry any of the numerous lovers whom she has won in her unconscious effort to surround herself with the semblances that charm her imagination but never touch her heart ; she is wedded to dramatic art alone, and the author, with a wisdom and modesty almost rare enough to be called singular, will not let us see whether the union is happy or not, but closes his book as the curtain rises upon Petra’s first appearance. In fact, his business with her was there ended, as the romancer’s used to be with the nuptials of his young people ; what followed could only have been commonplace in contrast with what went before. The story is exquisitely pleasing; the incidents are quickly successive; the facts are in great part cheerful and amusing, and even where they are disastrous there is not a hopeless or unrelieved pathos in them; the situations are vivid and picturesque, and the people most refreshingly original and new, down to the most slightly seen and least important personage. There is also unusual range and variety in the characters; we have no longer to do with the peasants, but behold Norwegian nature as it is affected by life in towns, refined by education and thought, and sophisticated by wealth and unwise experience of the world. The figures are drawn with a strength and fineness that coexist more in this author than in any other we know, and that strike us peculiarly in the characters of Petra’s mother, Gunlaug, who lets her own compassionate heart deceive her with regard to that pitiful Pedro Ohlsen, and thereafter lives a life of stormy contempt towards her seducer, forgiving him at last in a tacit sort of way sufficiently to encourage the feeble-souled creature to leave Petra his money; of Gunnar, the young sailor, who being made love to by Petra because she wants the figure of a lover for her reveries, furiously beats Ingve Vold because he has stolen Petra’s airy affections from him ; of Ingve Vold, the Spanish-travelled, dandified, handsome young rich man, who, after capturing Petra’s fancy with stories of Spain, in turn lets his love get the better of his wickeder designs, and is ready to do anything in order to call Petra his wife ; of the pastor’s son, Oedegaard, who has educated Petra and has then fallen in love with her, and been accepted by her after that imaginative person has promised herself to Gunnar and Ingve ; of the country pastor in whose house Petra finds refuge (after her mother’s house has been mobbed because of her breaking so many hearts, and she has been driven out of her native village), and in despite of whom she dreams and thinks of nothing but the stage, till finally he blesses her aspiration.

Two scenes in the story appear to us the most interesting ; and of course the chief of these is Petra seeing a play for the first time at the theatre in Bergen, which stands quite alone as a sympathetic picture of the amaze and exaltation of genius in the art destined henceforth to express it and to explain it to itself. It is long after this before Petra comes fully to understand her past life from her present consuming desire, and perhaps she never does it so fully as another does, — as Oedegaard, or the reader ; but that experience at once gives shape and direction to her future, and it is so recorded as to be nearly as much a rapture to us as to her.

After this the most admirable episode is that scene in which the “ village saints ” come to expostulate with the pastor against countenancing music and dancing and other wicked cheerfulnesses, and in which the unanswerable arguments of the pastor in self-defence are made subtly to undermine the grounds of his own opposition to Petra’s longing for the theatre. In this scene the religious and earnest element of Björnson’s genius appears with great effect. The bigoted sincerity of the saints is treated with beautiful tenderness, while their errors are forcibly discovered to them. In a little space these people’s characters are shown in all their individual quaintness, their narrow life is hinted in its gloom and loneliness, and the reader is made to feel at once respect and compassion for them.

There is no room left here to quote from “ The Fisher-Maiden ” ; but the reader has already been given some idea of Björnson’s manner in the passages from “ Arne ” and “The Happy Boy.” This manner is always the same in its freedom from what makes the manner of most of our own stories tedious and abominable : it is always direct, unaffected, and dignified, expressing nothing of the author’s personality, while fully interpreting his genius, and supplying no intellectual hollowness and poverty with tricks and caprices of phrase.

We hope that his publishers will find it profitable to give us translations of all his works. From him we can learn that fulness exists in brevity rather more than in prolixity; that the finest poetry is not ashamed of the plainest fact; that the lives of men and women, if they be honestly studied, can, without surprising incident or advantageous circumstance, be made as interesting in literature as are the smallest private affairs of the men and women in one’s own neighborhood ; that telling a thing is enough, and explaining it too much ; and that the first condition of pleasing is a generous faith in the reader’s capacity to be pleased by natural and simple beauty.