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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

what the Bible and Homer was to the southerners, were through climatic and geo­graphical conditions so excluded from the rest of the world that it seemed as if all they could do was to preserve the treasures from the childhood of the nation. Den­mark, being the country closest connected with the continent, had its great minds of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, none of whom, however, being wide enough to become universal, except Hans Christian Andersen.

Norway, during its “ four hundred years of sleep,” seemed to have lost its power of production; but those who looked with eyes undimmed by the cover of time would have seen a work going on deep in the life of the nation. The folk-lore bursting with tales about brownies, hobgoblins, spirits of icebergs, waters and mountains, the sagas of their warriors and kings, were there, though unknown to the world. When­ever the eternal spirit was revealed to man through man, it has been in the garb of the nation in which it appeared. In the childhood of the race the outward forms attracted the eyes more than the contents. Thus the early literature became object­ive more than subjective. It was descriptive and picturesque, as in Homer. With the growth of the nations the subjective element appeared, until it, as in the Gefman school of philosophers and poets, threatened to run into abstraction.

The present time brings the dawning idea of universal unity, of the oneness of soul and body, of man and woman, of nation and nation; therefore, the great minds of our age must represent the objective and subjective element as inseparably one.

The ancient times, with their intense love of life and beauty in outward forms, must be united with the search for eternal principles revealed in those forms. And when it comes to that, where could we expect to find the intense desire for individu­ality—that is, the one as a world, the world in one—more than in the nation which, during centuries, had the echoes from the Edda’s sounding in its ears.

When at last the spirit burst forth, astonishing the world, locating itself in old Norway, there were such uncontrolled forces to gather, such walls to be broken, such floods of light to be dealt out in all directions, that one individual would be insufficient as medium. And the nation saw Henrik Ibsen and Björnstjerne Björnson arise side by side. Through their work is sounding the words from the Edda:

See, it is rising,

The sunken land;

Green as a springtime,

It grows from the ocean.

# * * *

Harvest shall come From fields unsown.

Weak and strong together inhabit Abode eternal.

Do you understand this?

* * * *

As children we only saw half of a table; only a corner of a room at a time was brought to the consciousness of our mind. Growing up, we slowly commenced unit­ing fragments, and with surprise we saw a whole grow out of them. Thus with the evolution of the human race. At a time only body was acknowledged; at a time only soul; humankind has been divided into races, into nations, into men and women and children. The leaders of the spiritual life of this generation would, according to the laws of evolution, have to represent the unity of one and the unity of all. Therefore, it is said about the newest literature, that its peculiar feature is its striving to solve individual and social problems, while the greatest minds of the German school mainly were dealing with philosophical problems. Ibsen’s mission might be defined as the seeking to find “ God in one; ” Björnson’s as the seeking to find “ God in all.” Thus the two are completing each other. Ibsen’s book, “ Brand,” was the first work to carry his name all over the brother countries.