Those who demand that literature shall be untinged by any tendency or strong conviction will do well to eschew all the subsequent works of Bjoernson. They might perhaps put up with the brief novel "Magnhild," which is tolerably neutral in tone, though it is the least enjoyable of all Bjoernson's works. It gives the impression that the author is half afraid of his subject (which is an illicit love), and only dares to handle it so gingerly as to leave half the tale untold. The short, abrupt sentences which seemed natural enough when he was dealing with the peasants, with their laconic speech and blunt manners, have a forced and unnatural air when applied to people to whom this style of language is foreign. Moreover, these condensed sentences are often vague, full of innuendo, and mysterious as hieroglyphics. It is as if the author, in the consciousness of the delicacy of his theme, had lost the bold security of touch which in his earlier works made his meaning unmistakable. The drama "The King" (1877) is an attack upon the monarchical principle in its political as well as its personal aspect. It is shown how destructive the royal prerogative is and must be to the king as an individual; how the artificial regard which hedges him in, interposing countless barriers between the truth and him, makes his relations to his surroundings false and deprives him of the opportunity for self-knowledge which normal relations supply. Royalty is therefore a curse, because it robs its possessor of the wholesome discipline of life which is the right of every man that is born into the world.