from his native country, where his plays were ill received and his
character subjected to a great deal of stupid insult. But there was a
small circle of his early friends who remained true to the devotion
which his genius had inspired in them. When I was in Copenhagen, it was
impressed upon me that these men formed the real Norway, the fine flower
of Norse culture and intelligence, and it was to them that I took
introductions. They were mainly jurists, archaeologists and historians,
whose studies into the annals of their country had given them a
determination to support existing institutions. They were called
"Conservatives," and by the radical press were treated as though their
ideas were desperately retrograde. But in any other country but Norway,
fifty years ago, they would have been called advanced Liberals. They
desired to introduce broad and sweeping reforms, and they were
particularly desirous to follow the example of England. If I understand
their position aright, they were rather Constitutionalists than
Conservatives, for their first idea always was to bring their views into
line with the Constitution.
A short time before my visit, the barrier which surrounded and isolated
the group of men of whom I speak had been emphasized by the development
of the Venstre, the national radical party, which was urged on and
supported by the Peasants' party. The debates in the Storthing in 1871
and 1872 had been very bitter, and public opinion was sharply, but
unequally, divided over the burning question of the admission of
ministers to the national assembly. Without going further into the
obscurity of foreign politics, it is enough to say here that the group
into which I was for a short time admitted as an indulged and attentive
guest, had the hope that, with all its talents and knowledge, it would
be called upon to take over the government of the country. It was
thought that Aschehoug would oust the radical Sverdrup as the next Prime
Minister. The reign of constitutionalism would begin; the peasant
leaders would be sent back to their farms; and Norway would open a
splendid period of conservative re-action. In this, the friends were
supported by the most powerful newspaper of the country, _Morgenbladet_,
which like themselves had long been frankly democratic, but had recently
taken a very strong line in opposition to the Left. _Morgenbladet_ was
boisterously attacked by _Dagbladet_, the rival newspaper, edited by
Samuel Baetzmann, a bearded and very tall young man, who was pointed out
to me in the street, with execration and contempt, by Jakob Lokke.
The hope of my friends was not realized. The whole tendency of Norwegian
life was in the opposite direction, and a few days after I left
Christiania, the death of King Carl had the effect of still further
encouraging the Liberals. The group I had known were swept out of public
life by the tide of radicalism, and suffered the obscuration which
awaits the unsuccessful politician. Now, as it appears, when all passion
has died down, there is a great curiosity about men whose talents and
accomplishments, as well as their high patriotism, were an asset in the
civilization of Norway at a critical moment. Hence, when it is almost
too late, and when I am left the only survivor, I am appealed to for my
recollections, pale and slight as they must be.
Late, then, in the summer of 1872 I arrived in Christiania, armed with
cards and letters of introduction from friends in Copenhagen, and with a
recommendation from Tennyson to Professor Ludwig Kristensen Daa, who had
been very civil to the poet when he visited Norway. I arrived in the
midst of the excitement caused by the recent celebration of the 1,000
years' festival, and in particular we crossed Prince Oskar who was
returning to Stockholm from being present at Haugesund on that occasion,
when he had unveiled a colossal symbolic statue of Harald Fairhair.
Before my first evening closed in, I hastened to explore the length of
the city right up Carl Johans Gade to the New Park; and in the
Eidsvoldplads, a square opposite the Storthing House, I received a
little shock, for gazing up at the new bronze statue of Harald Fairhair,
I saw the drapery rise and flutter in the wind. This was not a replica
of the national statue at Haugesund, but an independent design, put up
in lath and plaster to see whether public opinion approved of it. It
occurred to me afterwards that it was the symbol of the stalwart
conservatism of the group of friends of whom I am about to speak, who
trusted to their heroic attitude to impress public opinion--and failed.
Early next morning I called on Jakob Lokke (1829-1881), who was
head-master of the Christiania Cathedral School, and the leading
educational authority in Norway. I had been able to be of some
assistance to Lokke in London during the year 1871, and his hospitable
and genial acquaintance was now very valuable to me. Close to the great
church of Our Saviour, in the centre of the city, in the first house on
the left-hand side of the Stor Gade, Mr. and Mrs. Lokke had an apartment
on the third storey in which they received a small, but extremely
distinguished, circle of guests. Lokke was pompous in manner and a
touchy man, but full of warmth and generosity under a somewhat difficult
surface. His hospitality to me, on this occasion, was untiring, and it
was wholly owing to him that I was admitted to the remarkable group of
Norse Tories who were making so resolute and so vain a struggle to stem
the rising flood of radicalism. Lokke's "tredie etage" in Stor Gade was
a typical home of lost causes, and the group of friends were all ardent
supporters of Ibsen, whose satirical temper was then looked upon askance
by the various popular parties.
The first person to whom Lokke presented me was Emil Stang (born 1834),
the son of the then prime minister of Norway, Frederik Stang, and a
leading advocate. He became very cordial when he learned that I was bent
on introducing Ibsen to the English public, and had begun to do so; and
he told me that he held a brief for the poet at that moment. It will be
remembered that Ibsen then resided in Dresden. Taking advantage of this
exile, a Danish publisher of the baser sort had produced a pirated
edition of the _Warriors of Helgeland_, with an announcement that a
similar reprint of _Madam Inger at Osterraad_ would follow. Stang
laughed as he told me of Ibsen's gigantic anger at this offence; he had
immediately put the matter into Stang's hands, and had desired him to
get a full indemnity from the Danish publisher. But it was the usual
case of trying to bleed a stone. The man would not even withdraw his
edition, though no more was said of the projected piracy of _Madam
Inger_. Mr. Stang told me that the case was still dragging through the
courts; I never learned the result.
Lokke took me to the University Library to see the Librarian, Ludwig
Daae (not to be confounded with Daa), who was born in 1834 and died in
1910. The visit was untimely, for Daae had not arrived, and only one
single clerk was on duty. This man was ready to be friendly, but he was
being bullied by the Principal Librarian of the University of Stralsund,
a typical loud-voiced Prussian, to whom I took a violent dislike. The
librarian was acquainted with Lokke and attached himself to us; he spoke
with great contempt of the Library of the British Museum, which he said
he knew very well. We proceeded to the Record Office, in order to see
Mr. Michael Birkeland (1830-1897), the Master of the Rolls, of whom I
shall have much to relate. The Record Office (Riksarkivet) was then in
the same clump of buildings as the Storthing House. We did not find
Birkeland in, but we found an even more illustrious person, J. E. W.
Sars (1835-1915), who was already deep in the preparation of those works
which have made him famous as the most philosophical of Norwegian
historians. He was shortly after my visit appointed Professor of History
in the University of Christiania.
My introduction to Ludwig Daae was only postponed. The next time I
called at Lokke's house, a little shabby man with a beard, with woefully
dishevelled hair and snuff-coloured old coat, was dancing a sort of
lonely pirouette in the middle of the floor, while he talked. He stopped
at my entrance, and Jakob Lokke, coming forward, presented me to him as
to "the Librarian of the University, Ludwig Daae." "The author of that
delightful _Gamle Kristiania_?" I asked. "Ah, do you know my book?" he
said, and seemed pleased. I felt very much drawn to Ludwig Daae from the
first, and he spoke Norwegian so plainly and elegantly that it was
particularly easy for me to follow him. All through the rest of my
visit to Christiania I had the benefit of his kindliness and wit, his
ingenuousness and his fund of knowledge. His book, _Gamle Kristiania_, a
picturesque series of essays on the history of the city up to 1800, was
familiar to me, and I had written a long review of it in the _Spectator_
for Richard Holt Hutton, in which I had ventured to say that it would be
impossible for any one in future to attempt a history of modern
Norwegian affairs without the help of Mr. Daae's admirable book.
The name of this gentleman offered much difficulty, because, by a very
odd coincidence, there were at that moment three unrelated persons whose
names were in sound identical. There was Ludwig K. Daa, and there were
two Ludwig Daaes, my friend, and a politician whom I did not meet.
Norwegians themselves found the identity of the three very confusing. My
Ludwig Daae had begun his literary career with an ecclesiastic history
of the diocese of Throndhjem, published in 1863, and had gradually
extended his range from church to general history, but his gift really
lay in the picturesquely biographical. He had just been made lector in
aesthetics in the Cathedral School when I saw him, but he held this but a
very short time, being soon after my visit appointed Professor of
History at the University.
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