During this period of national self-assertion Bjoernson has unfolded a
colossal activity. Though holding no office, and steadily refusing an
election to the Storthing, he has been the life and soul of the liberal
party. The task which he had undertaken grew upon his hands, and assumed
wider and wider dimensions. As his predecessor Wergeland had done, and
in a far deeper sense, he consecrated his life to the spiritual and
intellectual liberation of his people. It is told of the former that he
was in the habit of walking about the country with his pockets full of
seeds of grass and trees, of which he scattered a handful here and a
handful there; for, he said, you can never tell what will grow up after
it. There is to me something quite touching in the patriotism which
prompted this act. Bjoernson, too, is in the same sense "a sower who went
forth for to sow." And the golden grain of his thought falls, as in the
parable, in all sorts of places; but, unlike some of the seed in the
parable, it all leaves some trace behind.
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