speaking and such deadly earnestness of conviction were indeed
far removed from the idyllic simplicity of the peasant tales
and from the poetical reconstructions of the legendary past.
Eight years later, Bjornson prefaced a new edition of this
work with a series of reflections upon "Intellectual Freedom"
that constitute one of the most vigorous and remarkable examples
of his serious prose. The central ideas of his political faith
are embodied in the following sentences from this preface:--

"Intellectual Freedom. Why is not attention called over and
over again to the fact that for the great peoples, who have so
many compensating interests, the free commerce of ideas is one
condition of life among many others; while for us, the small
peoples, it is absolutely indispensable. A people numerically
large may attain to ways of thought and enterprise that no
political censure can reduce to a minimum; but under narrower
conditions it may easily come about that the whole people will
fall asleep. A powerful propaganda of enlightenment under the
conditions of free speech is for us of the first and the last
importance. When I wrote this piece it was my chief aim to
enlarge the bounds of free thought. I have later made the
same attempt in matters of religion and morals. When my
opponents seek to sum up my character in a few words, they
are apt to say: 'He attacks the throne and the altar.' It
seems to me that I have served the freedom of the spirit,
and in the interests of that cause I now beg leave to reply.
(1) _Concerning the attack on Christianity._ It may be worth
while in a country with a state church to recall now and
then the meaning of Christianity. It is not an institution,
still less a book, and least of all it is a house or a seminary.