Outside, under the wide-spreading roof, sat his wife and daughters, surrounded by guests who were staying in the house. The author was writing, but he received me. He was sitting at his writing table in a large low room--a regular peasant’s room. His feet were resting on a polar bearskin which had been presented to him by a society of advanced women, and a gigantic vase filled with cut roses was placed on a pedestal beside him. He informed me that the house had been an old farm which he had bought and fitted with all the requirements of modern life. We partook of the midday meal in the old room that had formerly been the servants’ hall, and where now, instead of servant and maid, were assembled a large gathering of Danish, Swedish and Finnish “women’s rights women.” Having dined, we drank coffee in the drawing-room, which had been the ball-room, but was now furnished according to Parisian taste with flowers, _chaises longues_, cream-coloured curtains with red gauze linings, _bibelots_ and oil paintings. Presently an old lady entered; she had an aquiline profile and yellow waving curls over her ears, she was thick-set and broad-shouldered with a fresh red complexion and small sparkling eyes, one could see at once that she was a feminine Björnson. “My mother,” said he, “she is ninety years old.” And this giant’s mother, herself a giant, spoke and greeted us in as lively and hearty a manner as a person of sixty. When we had finished our coffee, Björnson led me out on to the new balcony which encircled the house. He glanced over the rising land with its luxuriant pasture. “Our people are being corrupted,” he said. “Our press and our life are full of lies. I am writing an article against lies, the lies with which we are being poisoned.” He made a gesture with his arm across the distant country, and exclaimed, “Lying must be abolished!” I was obliged to go, as my little coachman was waiting. We retraced our steps through the old room with its low ceiling and exquisite Parisian furniture, and its glass cupboard filled with plate. I drove away meditating on the strange contrast between this farm house and its artificial fittings worthy of a town mansion, and I heard Björnson’s pathetic voice calling to his country, “Lying must be abolished!” III Björnson was the son of a peasant; it was only in later life that his father became a pastor, and from him Björnson has inherited a theological tendency. He is essentially a preacher and religious teacher, he is never happy unless he has something to proclaim. But as he is not one of those who enjoy self-denial, he prefers that those very contradictory truths, which he has preached during the course of years, should take the form of a manifestation of the joy of life. This is Björnson’s chief characteristic. During his whole life and in all his writings, he has sought to unite theology with materialism. All his writings, no matter how extreme, had their origin in a compromise between the two.