the same standard of morality for both sexes, and declares the
unchaste man to be as unfit for honorable marriage as the unchaste
woman. Upon the theme thus presented a long and violent discussion
raged; but if there be such a thing as an immutable moral law in
this matter, it must be that upon which Bjornson has so squarely
and uncompromisingly planted his feet. The other remaining work
of this five-year period is the play called "The New System." The
new system in question is a system of railway management, and it is
a wasteful one. But the young engineer who demonstrates this fact
has a hard time in opening the eyes of the public. He succeeds
eventually, but not until he has encountered every sort of
contemptible opposition and hypocritical evasion of the plain truth.
The social satire of the piece is subtle and sharp; what the author
really aims at is to illustrate, by a specific example, the
repressive forces that dominate the life of a small people, and
make it almost impossible for any sort of truth to triumph
over prejudice.

Since the production of "A Glove," twenty years ago, eight more
plays have come from Bjornson's prolific pen. Of these by far
the most important are the two that are linked by the common
title, "Beyond the Strength." The translation of this title is
hopelessly inadequate, because the original word means much more
than strength; it means talent, faculty, capability, the sum total
of a man's endowment for some particular purpose. The two pieces
bearing this name are quite different in theme, but certain
characters appear in both, and both express the same thought,
--the thought that it is vain for men to strive after the
unattainable, for in so doing they lose sight of the actual
possibilities of human life; the thought that much of the best