His dislike of books was instinctive, hearty, and
uncompromising. His strong, half-savage boy-nature could brook no
restraints, and looked longingly homeward to the wide mountain plains,
the foaming rivers where the trout leaped in the summer night, and the
calm fjord where you might drift blissfully along, as it were, suspended
in the midst of the vast, blue, ethereal space. And when the summer
vacation came, with its glorious freedom and irresponsibility, he would
roam at his own sweet will through forest and field, until hunger and
fatigue forced him to return to his father's parsonage.
After several years of steadily unsuccessful study, Bjoernson at last
passed the so-called _examen artium_, which admitted him to the
University of Christiania. He was now a youth of large, almost athletic
frame, with a handsome, striking face, and a pair of blue eyes which no
one is apt to forget who has ever looked into them. There was a certain
grand simplicity and _naivete_ in his manner, and an exuberance of
animal spirits which must have made him an object of curious interest
among his town-bred fellow-students.
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