human energy goes to waste because it is devoted to the pursuit
of ideals that are indeed beyond the strength of man to realize.
In the first of the two plays, this superhuman ideal is religious,
it is that of the enthusiast who accepts literally the teaching
that to faith all things are possible; in the second, the ideal is
social, it is that of the reformer who is deluded to believe that
one resounding deed of terror and self-immolation for the cause of
the people will suffice to overthrow the selfish existing order,
and create for the toiling masses a new heaven upon earth. No
deeper tragedies have been conceived by Bjornson than these two,
the tragedy of the saintlike Pastor Sang, who believes that the
miracle of his wife's restoration to health has at last in very
truth been wrought by his fervent prayer, and finds only that
the ardor of his faith and hers has brought death instead of life
to them both,--the tragedy of his son Elias, who dies like Samson
with his foes for an equally impossible faith, and by the very
violence of his fanaticism removes the goal of socialist endeavor
farther than ever into the dim future. Bjornson has written
nothing more profoundly moving than these plays, with their
twofold treatment of essentially the same theme, nor has he
written anything which offers a clearer revelation of his own
rich personality, with its unfailing poetic vision, its deep
tenderness, and its boundless love for all humankind. The play,
"Geography and Love," which came between the two just described,
is an amusing piece, in the vein of light and graceful comedy,
which satirizes the man with a hobby, showing how he unconsciously
comes to neglect his wife and family through absorption in his
work. The author was, in a way, taking genial aim at himself
in this piece, a fact which his son Bjorn, who played the principal
part, did not hesitate to emphasize. "Paul Lange and Tora