Immediately after this, in the years 1871-72, there began in Denmark
a modern literary movement out of which arose during the succeeding
ten years a new poetic and critical school. The intellectual life
thus awakened in Denmark was quickly transplanted to Norway, and soon
the poetic creations of Björnson revealed the fact, as he has himself
expressed it, that after his fortieth year new and rich streams had
welled up in the innermost depths of his being. Suddenly it became
apparent that his productiveness had soared upward into a new state of
activity. The modern world lay open before his eyes. He had gained,
as he once wrote to me, "eyes that saw and ears that heard." The ideas
of the century had, unconsciously to himself, worked their way into
his receptive spirit and secretly fructified it. During these years
he had read, with ravenous eagerness, books in all languages and of
every variety, works on the natural sciences, critical, philosophical,
and historical works, romances, foreign periodicals, and newspapers
by the quantities. A profound impression was made upon him by the
calm grandeur and the sublime free thought of Stuart Mill; Darwin's
powerful hypotheses widened his intellectual horizon; the philological
critique of a Steinthal, or a Max Müller, taught him to view religions,
the literary critique of a Taine taught him to view literatures with
new eyes. The young Danish school contributed not a little, as he has
himself publicly declared, toward tearing him away from old things.
The significance of the eighteenth, the problems of the nineteenth
century unfolded before him. In a charming private letter once written
to me by him concerning the circumstances that had acted as determining
influences on his youth, and more especially regarding the great change
he had undergone, he expressed himself as follows:--
"With such antecedents I could not but become the prey of Grundtvig.
Yet nothing in the world can bribe me, although I can but too easily
be led astray. Therefore I was released from these circles the day my
eyes were first opened to see. My worst enemy may possess the truth; I
am stupid and strong; but the moment I see the truth, if only through
an accident, it attracts me irresistibly. Tell me, is not such a nature
very easy to understand? Should not you think it would be especially
natural for the Norsemen to understand it? I am a Norseman. I am human.
Of late I might subscribe myself: man. For it seems to me that this
word at present calls up new ideas with us."