Part 22

I had now the honour of being admitted every day to the company of Daae and his friends, and it was clearly explained to me that they formed a compact and still influential body of resistance to the subversive policy of Bjoernson, Sverdrup and the terrible peasant Jaabaek, whom they regarded with peculiar apprehension. Hans Christian Andersen had given me a note of introduction to Bjoernson, and in spite of the objections of my new friends, I found that I could not resist the temptation to use it. Accordingly I went to the house in Munkedamsveien which Bjoernson shared with the philosopher G. V. Lyng (1827-1884) whom I had met in Denmark. They occupied a small house in a long suburban lane on the edge of the city. I had been told that the poet was very formidable, and as I waited in the hall, I heard him growling "Saa! saa? saa!" over the card and note I had sent in. I quaked, but I plunged; I was ushered into a pretty room with trellised windows, where a large and even burly man (Bjoernson was then under forty), who was sitting astride the end of a narrow sofa, rose vehemently to receive me. His long limbs, his athletic frame, and especially his remarkably forcible face, surrounded by a mane of wavy brown hair, and illuminated by full blue eyes behind flashing spectacles, gave an instant impression of physical vigour. He was truculently cordial, and lifted his ringing tones in civil conversation. Resuming his singular attitude astride the sofa, he entered affably into a loud torrent of talk, lolling back, shaking his great head, suddenly bringing himself up into a sitting posture to shout out, with a palm pressed upon either knee, some question or statement.

His full and finely modulated voice, with his clear enunciation, greatly aided his not a little terrified visitor in appreciating his remarks, but he spoke at great speed, and it strained the attention of a foreigner to follow his somewhat florid volubility. He expressed himself highly pleased with the reception his romances had received in England, but seemed surprised that his dramas were not known. He recommended to me a new viking-play, called _Sigurd Jorsalfar_, which he had just sent to press, and which had been refused "though with the loveliest music by Grieg ever heard out of a dream" by the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, a repulse which Bjoernson flatly attributed to the malignity of the manager, Molbech. He promised to send me to London a copy of _Sigurd Jorsalfar_ as soon as it was published, and he was so amiable as to keep his word.

This little adventure in the headquarters of the opposition was not at all well regarded in Stor Gade. Accordingly I was taken, as a counterbalancing influence, to be presented at his country parsonage of Vest Aker to the old poet and folk-lorist Joergen Moe (1813-1882). Lokke and Daae were my companions on this visit to the celebrated collector, in common with Asbjoernsen, of the so universally admired Norse legends and fairy-tales. The situation of Vest Aker is magnificent; as we drove past the little church to the court of the "praestegaard," the whole of the head-waters of the Christiania Fjord wound and sparkled below us, golden in the blue circle of the hills. Moe, dressed in clerical black, with the white ruff round his throat, greeted us delicately. He was a charming man, with his soft voice and beautiful stag-like eyes; a perfectly gracious and venerable figure, not incapable, however, of receiving a mild excitement from the fact that his poems were presently to be introduced to the English public. Almost immediately after my visit Joergen Moe was appointed Bishop of Christianssand. As we came back from Vest Aker, my guides showed me the grave of the biographer and bibliographer, Botten-Hansen (1824-1869), and the famous grotto of Wergeland, once in the country, but, already in 1872, touched by the outskirts of the city. As we were crossing the streets in the neighbourhood of the Uranienborg Church, a pale old face appeared for a moment at an upper window. Daae said this was the house where Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-1873) was being nursed, and he thought that it was Welhaven we had seen. Lokke did not think it was, so that I shall never know whether I did, or did not, catch a glimpse of the illustrious and the dying author of _Norges Daemring_. My companions were much amused, and I think gratified, by my eager interest in all these literary associations.

I now left the capital for a little tour by myself in Ringeriget and Gudbrandsdalen, where I had an invitation to meet Asbjoernsen, with whom I had corresponded from London. He had been staying at Ringebo, at the parsonage of the Dean (_Provst_) of Gudbrandsdalen, Dr. Neils Christian Hald (1808-1885). I did not, however, go thither directly, but at the advice of Daae, posted over the hills to Drammen, a magnificent drive by a very circuitous route. Daae had given me letters of introduction; he had passed his youth in that town, and was Professor of History there until he was brought to Christiania. His friends received me with generous hospitality, and among the merchant princes of Drammen I found a greater appearance of luxury than I happened to meet with in the capital. When I finally reached Ringebo, I was disappointed to find that Asbjoernsen had been obliged to leave for Romsdalen, on his duties as Torvmester or Forester-General. I was equally unlucky in an attempt to see the poet Kristoffer Jansen (1841-1899) at his schoolhouse at Fykse-in-Gausdal, for he was spending the holidays at Tromsoe, in Finmark. After a most enjoyable stay in the picturesque parsonage of the kind Halds, I returned to Christiania.

On the 7th of August I was back in Stor Gade, and was helping Lokke with the notes to a school-book in English literature which he was just publishing; afterwards we called on the Hellenist, Frederik Ludwig Vibe (1803-1881), who was Librarian of the Cathedral School, and a great ally of Lokke and Daae. I was shown his translation of AEschylus into Norse. My acquaintance with the group of Ibsen's friends was now further extended, for on the evening of the next day (August 8), Ludwig Daae asked me to supper, and, when I arrived, I found, beside the host, Michael Birkeland and Dr. Oluf Rygh.

I have already mentioned Birkeland's position at the Rolls Office, which he had entered in 1852, and now commanded. He was not, I think, ambitious of literary fame, and he had at that time published, of an original kind, little except pamphlets. His best-known work was his minutely executed _Reports of the earliest sessions of the Storthing_, but this was only a part of his multifarious research into the whole political history of the country. Birkeland was the life and soul of the _Norske historiske Forening_ (Norwegian Historical Society), which then and since did so much for the science of history. He was constantly publishing for the government inedited matter from the very copious archives under his charge. Underneath the mask of the archivist he barely concealed a burning political ambition to be a part of the new constitutional life of Norway. The Master of the Rolls was one of the most attractive men I met in Scandinavia. He was still, in early middle age, very handsome, well set-up, with a fine head excellently poised above broad shoulders, and with brilliant, dancing eyes. The fault of Norwegians in that day was their deadly seriousness, and their excessive sensitiveness to the slightest indication of criticism. But Birkeland was superior to this local weakness, and was genial, without the least pomposity. The fourth member of our party, Oluf Rygh (1833-1899), was united with Birkeland in his devotion to archaeology. He also had at that time published very little, but I was told that his investigations were of the highest value, as indeed they amply proved to be. He was the bosom-friend of Birkeland, with whom he formed a singular contrast, being as reserved as the other was effusive, and a small, squat figure, with a round bald head and a bare face, horny and spectacled, which reminded my pert fancy of the shell of a crab.

Daae's house, where we met, was in the country, to the west of Christiania, on the Drammensvej, and close to the sea, with a fine view across the fjord to the royal palace of Oskarshal. There was much conversation at supper about politics, and my companions were emphatic in their conviction that the only hope for a healthy development of the Norwegian nation was a return to conservative methods. Daae spoke with deep resentment of the "fanatical measures of the Radical party," and with horror of the present leader Soeren Jaabaek (born 1814), who had just become very prominent owing to his being refused Holy Communion by his parish priest, Pastor Lassen, as a protest against his republican views. My friends thought that the incumbent of Lyngdal had behaved with courage and propriety in "fencing the table" against him. When the meal was concluded, Birkeland proposed my health, and, standing up in the Norse fashion, made a little speech. He said "Englishmen often come to us that they may climb our mountains or fish in our lakes, but it is rare indeed for a young man of letters to visit us that he may investigate what is most dear to us, our native literature, the labour of our hearts and our heads." He also spoke at length with regard to the 1,000 years' festival, which appeared to occupy the thoughts of the whole group.

We all came away together, Daae accompanying us to the boundary of the city. At this western end, Christiania then (1872) consisted of very new and fantastic villas whose inhabitants, Daae told me, had never got over the affront which the poet Welhaven had paid them of calling their suburb Snobopolis: which name still stuck to it. It was midnight when we reached the heart of the city, and as the hour boomed forth from the Cathedral, Birkeland held me there in the great square while he discoursed on the history of the building, and on the vestiges of Catholic architecture in Norway.

On the 9th of August, I spent the morning with Lokke in his study, and then we paid a visit to L. K. Daa (1809-1877), the ethnographer and archaeologist. I have said that even Norwegians were easily confused between Daae and Daa, and they escaped from the dilemma by calling the younger "Bibliothekaren" and the elder "Graenskeren," the title of the newspaper he had edited. Daa, to whom I presented Tennyson's message, was extremely gracious, and he took me over to the Ethnological Museum, of which he was Director, and showed me some objects recently come to him from Lapland and Finland. Daa was a man of great eccentricity of appearance, tall and gaunt, with limbs flung wildly about, and his fine head recklessly bestrewn with disordered hair, grizzled and reddish. He was very restless and active, and talked English admirably; he admitted to me that he was a full-blown Anglomaniac. Daa was very much pleased to hear from me that Tennyson recollected their meeting when the poet visited Norway in 1858; Daa had served on that occasion as Tennyson's cicerone. He told me that there was great trouble caused by the English poet's extreme near-sightedness, which made him unable to drive himself in the little karjol which was then the only mode of conveyance in the interior of Norway.

Next day, I went with Lokke to visit the lexicographer and inventor of the "landsmaal," Ivar Aasen (1813-1896), who lived in one little room, containing a bed, two chairs and a few shelves of linguistic books. He has exercised an immense influence on the language and literature of his country. I found Aasen a prematurely shrivelled little man, with a parchment face, thin, shy and nervous. In conversation he was dull, until Lokke spoke about philology, when his eyes began to sparkle and his cheeks to flush. He talked, then, quite fast, but with a curious inward manner of speech; I confess I could not understand what he was saying.

In the afternoon Lokke and Birkeland took me for a long drive to Frognersaeteren, a cottage high up in the mountain above Christiania, whence there is a magnificent view over the whole valley, and even to the Swedish frontier. The fjord, though seven miles away, seems at our feet, and is visible as far down as Moss. Up at the saeter we were received by Professor Torkel Aschehoug (1822-1909), who had been so kind as to wish that I should be presented to him. Aschehoug was the leading jurist of Norway, perhaps of Scandinavia, at that time. His great book on the Laws of Norway, which was appearing in slow instalments, contained in a form never before approached the history and the essence of the national constitution. He had been for a quarter of a century professor of civil law at the University of Christiania; he had taken up, and pushed much farther, the investigations of J. R. Keyser, when that eminent jurist died in 1864. But the extraordinary respect with which Aschehoug was regarded in the group of friends was founded on other qualities than were included in his scientific reputation. He had been drawn more and more definitely into practical politics; for the last four years he had been the leading member of the Storthing for Christiania. I was told that he was "the coming man," the heaven-born leader of the constitutional party which was about to reorganize Norway, and drive back the onset of the horde of radicals and peasants. I was told to observe Aschehoug, for I should live to see him the greatest politician in the North of Europe.

When we found him at the saeter, my companions greeted him with a mixture of warm affection and deep respect. He reminded me, in the eyes and mouth, and in his general bearing, of Mr. Gladstone. Aschehoug was very polite to me, but I found him alarming, and was glad that he mainly talked politics with Birkeland. In the evening Birkeland, whose kindness to me was untiring, took me across to the eastern side of Christiania, to Oslo, the city which was destroyed to build the new capital. He showed me what he believed to be the sites of the mediaeval palace and cathedral; and, so far as he could judge, the exact scene of the great battle between Haakon and Skule, which Ibsen paints in his _Kongsemnerne_. It was thrilling to go over the vestiges of the ancient city with so enthusiastic and so learned a guide as Birkeland. As it grew late, we supped together at a restaurant, and then Birkeland, in very high spirits, declared he would show me "the night-side" of Christiania. However, we saw nothing very exciting or amusing.

Of the subsequent days of my visit to Christiania, whence I returned to Hull towards the end of August, I find nothing particular to relate. My last evening was spent at the Loekkes', in company with Daae, Birkeland and a very lively Mr. Thoresen, who was a near relative of Ibsen and related amusing anecdotes of the poet's manners. Lokke went down to the quay with me next morning, and stood waving his hat as the "Scotia" slipped down the fjord.

FAIRYLAND AND A BELGIAN ARIOSTO

It has often been said--it was said in a well-known passage by the elder Disraeli--that in order to appreciate the beauty of fairyland we must make ourselves as little children listening to the wondrous tales of a nurse. But there seems to be a fallacy contained in this explanation of the spell. It cannot be contrived. No sedate, crafty, timid old man of the world can make himself as a little child merely that he may enjoy certain ancient poetry in a melodious stanza. Nor, on the other hand, is it obvious that real children, especially children of the modern sort, possess that ductile _naivete_, that breathless and delicious credulity, which fairyland demands. I believe, and I speak not without observation, that children, as a rule, like stories best which deal with such themes as dogs that run after ducks, and grown up people that tumble out of motors. They like their tales to be realistic, rather hard, entirely within their experience. Hans Christian Andersen, in his _eventyr_--so falsely translated "fairy-tales"--took advantage of this fact and made a world-wide success by inventing stories in which play-things and articles of furniture and animals come to life and act on the conventional principles of society. That is what children like. They have been so short a time among us that the banalities of experience are still fresh to them, and nothing so amusing as what is pure matter-of-fact.

We may be quite sure that _The Faerie Queene_, which is the main classic of this sort of art in the world's literature, was not written for children. The ordinary infant would be unspeakably bewildered and bored by the visit of Duessa to the Lady of Night, and by the exploits of Arthegal and Talus. It might take a faint pleasure in Una being followed by the Lion, as Mary was by the little Lamb; and the fight between St. George and the Dragon (where Spenser appears almost at his worst) might arrest wondering attention. But what is incomparable in Spenser is exactly what would fail to amuse a child. We may be quite sure that it was no audience from the nursery which the poet sought to fascinate. Yet it is true that his poetry appeals only to the child at heart. What we have to do is to define for ourselves what we mean by a child at heart, and we shall soon perceive that the object of our thoughts is not, in the literal sense, a child at all.

Perhaps youth rather than childhood is the image we require. With the advance out of infancy into adolescence, the mystery of existence first becomes palpable and visible to the fingers and the eyes of those who are born to enjoy it. We fall into an error, however, if we imagine that it is given to every one who pleases to arrive at this blissful condition of wonder. The world is very old, and it is troubled about many things; it is full of tiresome exigencies and solemn frivolities. The denizens of it are, as a rule, incapable of seeing or conceiving wonders. If the Archangel Michael appeared at noonday to an ordinary member of the House of Commons, the legislator would mistake his celestial visitant for an omnibus conductor. He would rejoice at having sufficient common sense and knowledge of the world to make so intelligent an error. But those who are privileged to walk within the confines of fairyland are not of this class. They are members of a little clan who still share the adolescence of the world; for, as this world is, in the main, dusty, dry, old, and given to fussing about questions of finance, and yet has nooks where the air is full of dew and silence, so among men there are still always a few who bear no mark upon their foreheads, and move undistinguished in the crowd, in whom, nevertheless, the fairies still confide.

It will be a surprise to many, and it may be a painful surprise, to learn that there are fathers of families, persons "engaged in the City," and holding reputable appointments, who faithfully believe in magical princesses and in fays that dance by moonlight. These persons form the audience in whom Spenser--as, in other times and other climes, such poets as Ariosto and Camoens--seek and find their devotees. It is a fact that there are people of a later age who are still what we call "children in heart," whose hearts are bold, whose judgment is free, whose inner eye is limpid and bright. These men and women are sensitive still, although the searching, grinding wave of the world has gone over them. They live, in spite of all conventional experience, in a state of suspended credulity. They are ready for any amazement. They nourish, persistently, a desire to wander forth beyond the possibilities of experience, to enjoy the impossible, and to invade the inaccessible. Life for them, in spite of the geographers and the disenchanting encyclopaedias, and that general suffusion of knowledge (upon all of which we congratulate ourselves)--life, in spite of all these, is still the vast forest, mapped out, indeed, but by them and theirs untraced.

Persons of this fortunate temperament store up an endless stock of good faith wherewith to face the teller of wonderful tales. And of all those to whom they listen, still, after three hundred years, Spenser is the most irresistible enchanter. It has always been admitted that his poetry is the most "poetical" that can be met with; that is to say, that it is the least mingled with elements which are not of the very essence of poetry. More than all other writers, Spenser takes us out of our everyday atmosphere into a state of things which could not be foreseen by any cleverness of our own reflection. He is easily supreme in the cosmogony of his enchantments. He confessed that his verse was no "matter of just memory," and it is evident that he did not wish it to be. He simply resigned himself to the exquisite pleasure of being lost in the mazes of a mysterious and fabulous woodland.

The poets, in successive ages, have delighted in bearing witness to this witchery of _The Faerie Queene_. There is no instance of this more pleasingly expressed, nor more appropriate to our argument, than that of Cowley, who says, in his delicious essay _Of Myself_: "There was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there was wont to lie Spenser's Works. This I happened to fall upon (before I was twelve years old), and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights and giants and monsters and brave houses, which I found everywhere there--though my understanding had little to do with all this--and by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers." We may doubt whether the child Cowley had not more of a man's taste than the man Cowley had of the heart of a child; but, at all events, he entered with exactly the proper spirit into that miraculous country where "birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree." And it is in this spirit that hundreds of the elect have read the marvellous poem in successive ages, and will continue to read it until time itself has passed away.

_The Faerie Queene_ is not "about" any thing. There is nothing of serious import to be deduced from its line of argument. The subject wanders hither and thither, awakening fitful melodies in the brain of its creator, as the wind does on the strings of an AEolian harp. The music swells and declines, the harmonies gather to a loud ecstasy or dwindle to a melancholy murmur, under the caprices of a spirit that cannot be discerned and that seems to be under no intellectual control. In saying this, I am not ignorant of Spenser's protestation of a moral purpose, nor do I charge him with the smallest insincerity for having written that apologetic letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, in which he makes what he calls "a pleasing analysis" of the way in which the poem illustrates "the twelve private moral virtues, as Aristotle hath devised." It was necessary that he should have a skeleton of meaning underneath his elaborate dream, not merely for the sake of contemporary decency, lest in that strenuous age he should be cast forth as one that cumbered the ground, but for the sake of his art as well, which needed a steady basis of material as much as a picture needs its canvas or a statue its marble.