BIBLIOGRAPHY.
As Björnson's works have been translated not only into English, French, and German, but also largely into Russian, Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, and even remoter tongues, a bibliography, including all translations, would demand a volume by itself. I shall therefore only enumerate the more important English translations; but would warn my readers not to judge Björnson's style by that of his translators. Arne: Translated by Augusta Plesner and S. R. Powers (Boston, 1872). The Happy Boy: Translated by H. R. G. (Boston, 1872). The Railroad and the Churchyard, The Eagle's Nest, and The Father are contained in the volume to which Goldschmidt's The Flying Mail gives the title (Sever, Francis & Co., Boston and Cambridge, 1870). The following volumes are translated by Professor R. B. Anderson, and published in a uniform edition by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (Boston, 1881): Synnöve Solbakken, Arne, A Happy Boy, The Fisher Maiden, The Bridal March, Magnhild, Captain Mansana and other Stories. Sigurd Slembe: A Dramatic Trilogy: Translated by William Morton Payne (Boston and New York, 1888). Arne and The Fisher Lassie: Translated, with an Introduction, by W. H. Low (Bohn Library, London). Pastor Sang (Over Aevne): Translated by Wm. Wilson (London, 1893). In God's Way (Heinemann's International Library, London, 1891). The Heritage of the Kurts, 1892. A Gauntlet. A Play. London, 1894. A new translation of all Björnson's novels and tales has just been announced by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and the first volume, Synnöve Solbakken (New York and London, 1895), has appeared. The translation is rather slipshod.
ALEXANDER KIELLAND
In June, 1867, about a hundred enthusiastic youths were vociferously celebrating their attainment of the baccalaureate degree at the University of Norway. The orator on this occasion was a tall, handsome, distinguished-looking young man named Alexander Kielland, from the little coast town of Stavanger. There was none of the crudity of a provincial either in his manners or his appearance. He spoke with a quiet self-possession and a pithy incisiveness which were altogether phenomenal.
"That young man will be heard from one of these days," was the unanimous verdict of those who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, and noted the maturity of his opinions.
But ten years passed, and outside of Stavanger no one ever heard of Alexander Kielland. His friends were aware that he had studied law, spent some winters in France, married, and settled himself as a dignitary in his native town. It was understood that he had bought a large brick and tile factory, and that as a manufacturer of these useful articles he bid fair to become a provincial magnate, as his fathers had been before him. People had almost forgotten that great things had been expected of him, and some fancied perhaps that he had been spoiled by prosperity. Remembering him, as I did, as the most brilliant and notable personality among my university friends, I began to apply to him Mallock's epigrammatic damnation of the man of whom it was said at twenty that he would do great things, at thirty that he might do great things, and at forty that he might have done great things.
This was the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland (and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879 a modest volume of "Novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle, and occasional flashes of wit which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. It was obvious that this author was familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired through them that clear and crisp incisiveness of utterance which was supposed, hitherto, to be untransferable to any other tongue.
As regards the themes of these "Novelettes," it was remarked at the time of their first appearance that they hinted at a more serious purpose than their style seemed to imply. Who can read, for instance, "Pharaoh" (which in the original is entitled "A Ball Mood") without detecting the revolutionary note that trembles quite audibly through the calm and unimpassioned language? There is, by the way, a little touch of melodrama in this tale which is very unusual with Kielland. "Romance and Reality," too, is glaringly at variance with conventional romanticism in its satirical contrasting of the prematrimonial and the postmatrimonial view of love and marriage. The same persistent tendency to present the wrong side as well as the right side—and not, as literary good manners are supposed to prescribe, ignore the former—is obvious in the charming tale, "At the Fair," where a little spice of wholesome truth spoils the thoughtlessly festive mood; and the squalor, the want, the envy, hate, and greed which prudence and a regard for business compel the performers to disguise to the public, become the more cruelly visible to the visitors of the little alley-way at the rear of the tents. In "A Good Conscience" the satirical note has a still more serious ring; but the same admirable self-restraint which, next to the power of thought and expression, is the happiest gift an author's fairy godmother can bestow upon him, saves Kielland from saying too much—from enforcing his lesson by marginal comments, á la George Eliot. But he must be obtuse indeed to whom this reticence is not more eloquent and effective than a page of philosophical moralizing.