BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON
1832-1910

Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain
peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular
reference to Bjornson's seventieth birthday, it seemed
proper to make the following remarks about the most famous
European authors then numbered among living men. If one
were asked for the name of the greatest man of letters still
living in the world, the possible claimants to the distinction
would hardly be more than five in number. If it were a
question of poetry alone, Swinburne would have to be named
first, with Carducci for a fairly close second. But if we
take literature in its larger sense, as including all the
manifestations of creative activity in language, and if we
insist, furthermore, that the man singled out for this
preeminence shall stand in some vital relation to the
intellectual life of his time, and exert a forceful influence
upon the thought of the present day, the choice must rather
be made among the three giants of the north of Europe, falling,
as it may be, upon the great-hearted Russian emotionalist
who has given us such deeply moving portrayals of the life
of the modern world; or upon the passionate Norwegian idealist
whose finger has so unerringly pointed out the diseased spots
in the social organism, earning by his moral surgery the name
of pessimist, despite his declared faith in the redemption of
mankind through truth and freedom and love; or, perchance,
upon that other great Norwegian, equally fervent in his devotion
to the same ideals, and far more sympathetic in his manner of