It is the elevation, slight though it be, which enables him
to survey the fields in which his fathers toiled and suffered. Or, to
quote Mr. Rolfsen: "Bjoernson is the son of a clergyman; he has never
himself personally experienced the peasant's daily toil and narrow
parochial vision. He has felt the power of the mountains over his mind,
and been filled with longing, as a grand emotion, but the contractedness
of the spiritual horizon has not tormented him. He has not to take that
into account when he writes. During the tedious school-days, his
beautiful Romsdal valley lay waiting for him, beckoning him home at
every vacation--always alluring and radiant, with an idyllic shimmer."
Hence, no doubt, his sunny poetic vision which unconsciously idealizes.
Just as in daily intercourse he displays a positive genius for drawing
out what is good in a man, and brushes away as of small account what
does not accord with his own conception of him, nay, in a measure,
forces him to be as he believes him to be, so every character in these
early tales seems to bask in the genial glow of his optimism.
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