The love scenes in this narrative are idyllic; in fact, the whole book is an idyl. It seems radiant with sunshine. It is as pure as a mountain lake, and as refreshing. And besides the artistic unity of the work, that satisfies one's standards so fully, there is an exquisite something hard to define; a play of fancy, a veil of poetic beauty lingering over the story, that makes us feel when we have closed the book as if we were gazing at a clear winter sunset. Björnson has the creative imagination of the true poet. In the wonderful prologue to _Arne_ he gives the trees separate personalities, in a manner to arouse almost the envy of Thomas Hardy. Indeed, the author of _The Woodlanders_ has never felt the trees more intensely than the Norwegian novelist. The prose style unconsciously breaks into verse form at times, with the natural grace and ease of a singing bird. Not the least charming incidents in Björnson's romances are the frequent lyrics, that spring up like cowslips in a pasture. "Punctual as Springtide forth peep they." * * * * * The novels in Björnson's second period are so totally unlike those we have just been considering that if all his work had been published anonymously, no one would have ventured to say that the same man had written _A Happy Boy_ and _In God's Way_. There came a pause in his creative activity. He wrote little imaginative literature, and many thought the well of his inspiration had gone dry. Really he was passing through a belated _Sturm und Drang_; a tremendous intellectual struggle and fermentation had set in, from which he emerged mentally a changed man, with a new outfit of opinions and ideas. At nearly the same time his great contemporary Tolstoi was also in the Slough of Despond, but he climbed out on the other side and set his face towards the Celestial City. Björnson's floundering ultimately carried him in precisely the opposite direction. While Tolstoi was studying the New Testament, Björnson applied himself to Darwin, Mill, and Spencer, and became completely converted from the Christianity of his youth. Many minds would have been temporarily paralysed by such a result, and would finally have become either pessimistic or coldly critical. But Björnson simply could not endure to be a gloomy, cynical spectator of life, like his countryman, Ibsen, any more than he could leave his native land and calmly view its nakedness from the comfortable environment of Munich or Rome. Björnson has the sort of intellect that cannot remain in equilibrium. He was ever a fighter, and cannot live without something to fight for. The natural optimism of his temperament, so opposed in every way to the blank despair of Ibsen, made him see in his new views the way of salvation. He is just as sure he is right now as he was when he held opinions exactly the contrary. With joyful ardour he became the champion and propagandist of democracy in politics and of free thought in