I saw Björnson for the first time in Paris in the spring of 1886, where he formed the centre of the entire Scandinavian population. He was living with his wife and daughters in a quiet side street not far from the Bois de Boulogne, in which he always took his morning walk. When I went to see him, his wife was the first to receive me; she was a dark-eyed native of Bergen, still pretty, with short-cut grey hair, and at first it seemed as though she meant to spend the customary quarter of an hour in conversation with me, as Björnson was at his work and might not be disturbed. Before long, however, the door into the adjoining room was opened, and a powerful, grey, bushy head was thrust through the aperture--a high forehead and little sharp eyes that sparkled behind a pair of spectacles, a large prominent hooked nose, and a pair of thin lips that quivered with anger and energy--but the next instant this menacing totality softened into a winning smile, and the whole man came in view, it was a bear-like figure, not above medium height, but with shoulders, arms and legs that gave one the impression of immense muscular strength. A man with this body and this temperament would require to lay about him in order to make life endurable, that was the first impression that one received, and the second was that this great muscular man was not created to understand the most subtle and hidden problems of human life. At the same time one understood his popularity. This genius of a bear had something about him that was irresistibly healthy, straightforward and convincing; he represented the primeval type of manhood, the leader whom the mass of the people follow like a flock of sheep, and at whose glance women turn hot and cold. Björnson’s is not a reserved nature--with such muscles there is no need of reserve--and owing to his communicativeness one gets to know him as well in a single day as any one else in a year. He invited me to join him in his morning walk in the Bois, and having first divested himself of a colossal Wagner cap, which seemed intended rather for adornment than for warmth, he stepped along with an elegance that would have done credit to a dandy, but which among German authors and thinkers is wholly unknown. The Scandinavians as a rule set a far greater value on dress than the Germans, and Björnson did not conceal his personal feelings in this respect, as displaying the silk lining of his overcoat, he said: “You see I am fond of fine clothes; when I get a new suit from the tailor, I spend half the day in front of the looking-glass, but for all that I never for a single instant forget the great work of civilisation to which we must devote our whole energy.”