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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
est sorrow how far from perfection both he and the rest of humankind still is standing; with sorrow; and with bitterness if he realizes that society at a given time is deaf to his expostulations. But never was Ibsen despairing; never did he in his war against privileged fractions and halves reach the point where he lost his faith in life and truth as the triumphing powers at last. He who sees the ideal in its beauty, but despairs of its ever being realized among mankind, will lay down his weapons and prefer death to a life without meaning.
From the time when Henrik Ibsen in “ Brand” showed colors, he never has ceased to declare the same over and over again: the necessity of each individual being an entire whole, if we ever want a society which represents an entire whole.
He is solemnly earnest in his way of working, and his force is so great that he is always above his subject. Whenever his muse happens to carry him into sunnier regions it moves us strangely; a smile on a very earnest face has a beauty of its own never to be resisted. The poem, “Thanks,” shows how far he can reach in peaceful, heart-felt lyric:
THANKS.
Her sorrow was each trouble Which met me on my way;
Her happiness the spirits Which came to me to stay.
Her home must be located On liberty’s main,
Where the verses of the poet Their force and freedom gain.
The character and features That silently step in
To take their seats around me,
Are her family and kin.
Her aim it is to lighten All darkness in a glow,
To be my strength in stillness
That the world should never know.
But just because she always Not even thanks awaits,
I sing her now and print her A song of thanks and praise.
As the storm purifying the air, and the sun afterward calling forth life, thus do the two Norwegian poets complete each other. To the present generation is revealed a wider understanding of the word love.
Punishment, condemnation, temptations, are words slowly dying out of the language of intelligent men and women. This universal love is the Alpha and Omega of Björnson’s teachings. In him was personified the hope and strength of a new human belief, from the moment when he in his first youth sang out:
Lift thy head, thou youthful lad;
Even if hopes are crushed, be glad;
Others greet thee in the sky,
Fraught with blessings from on high.
* * * * * *
Lift thy head and look around;
Don’t you hear the joyful sound—
How it with a million tongues In the air around thee sings?