Our political situation was equally unfortunate. We had been newly bought and sold, and what little liberty we had presumed to seize, and had succeeded in extending, gave us no security, but much concern.
We dared have no official celebrations, since it might offend in high places. But a young generation came, nourished on freedom, and without the fear and prudence of their elders, but with more of defiance, more of anger. They lived in the morning of freedom and honor, and in this dawn came Ole Bull’s tones like the first rays of the sun over the mountain tops.
At that time the folk–melodies invaded our music, the democratic invaded the aristocratic, the national the abstract, the individual the formulated ideal. To our honor be it said, we followed.
Older men have told you of the giant form which suddenly stood forth, not in the low, no, in the highest places, before kings and the most cultured, and played with a wild power, possessed by only one man before, but in Ole Bull more original, more humanly sympathetic,—a power for the first time Norse. When they read how he stood and sang Norwegian melodies from his violin to other nations, we felt that they were one with us while they were moved to laughter and tears as they caught glimpses back of him of our people and grand, beautiful nature; thus one may understand the confidence, the faith, the pride he awakened,—he the foremost of all in our Norse independence. Henrik Wergeland expresses this when he makes Norway thus sing to Ole Bull:—
“Oh, world–wide is my son’s fair fame!
Anew my eye is proud aflame.
“On, on, my son! when thou art blest,
’Tis blessing in thy Mother’s breast.
“A poet I, for ages long;
The Norsemen’s legends are my song.
“My epic have I written too,
A noble thought each hero true.”
On his first return from his triumphs abroad it was a festival but to look at him. When he played the folk–songs, which had been timidly hidden, though cherished in memory, now through him applauded by mighty rulers, that generation felt themselves borne to the same heights; Ole Bull became the first and greatest festival in this people’s life; he gave us self–respect, the greatest gift possible at that time.
This is Ole Bull’s undying honor, this the supreme accomplishment of his life.