THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

245

Brand is a preacher who, in his search for truth above all things, leaves the orthodox church, refuses a sure income, sees his child die and his wife suffer through all the hardships to which they are exposed in his self-chosen working place. “Noth­ing or all ” is his motto.

If you wish the name of soul,

You must be an entire whole.

’ * * * *

Not in fractions, not in halves;

Be a whole, or thou art doomed.

* * * *

It is not martyrdom to perish In suffering on a cross of wood;

But are you willing thus to die?

Willing in suffering of flesh, i Willing in agony of mind,

Willing to conquer in the strife?

Your will shall be your crown of life.

He came seeking individuality in a society where public opinion was the opinion of each single individual, where everybody acted as the rest acted; hence there at times was almost bitterness in his view of society. In the poem, “The Miner,’’ he says:

Down below, down below,

That is where I want to go;

There is peace from chaos sleeping.

Break my way, thou heavy hammer,

To the treasures safe in keeping.

Hammer blow on hammer blow,

Till the hours of life are waning;

Here no morning star is shining;

Here the sun of hope is hidden.

* * * *

And in the song, “ On the Heights:”

Now I am stalwart;

I follow the call

Which tells me the heights to explore.

Here on the mountains is freedom and God;

Down below 7 they are groping in darkness.

^ ^ ^ ^

Sorrow and joy are really expressions of the same kind of feeling; they are both born of the longing for life in its fullness. They are lying close together, the element of sorrow being an intense desire to embrace joy and become one with it. Goethe has felt this when he said:

“Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend sasz,

Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen asz,

Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte!”

(He who never through the live-long nights)

(Sat weeping on his bedside,)

(He who never ate his bread with tears,)

(He does not know ye, ye heavenly powers!)

Thus he who has the clearest conception of the ideal set before us; he who with a burning will wants to see this ideal established among us—he will feel with the deep-