kept pace with the realistic movement in literature, yet there
is no lack of evidence that the rose-colored tinge is vanishing even
from the painter's spectacles; and such uncompromising veracity as that
of Millet and Courbet, which the past generation despised, is now hailed
with acclaim in such masters as Bastien-Lepage, Dagnan-Bouveret, and
the Scandinavians, Kristian Krog and Anders Zorn.

Bjoernson is, however, temperamentally averse to that modern naturalism
which insists upon a minute fidelity to fact without reference to
artistic values. His large and spacious mind has a Southern exposure,
and has all "its windows thrown wide open to the sun." A sturdy
optimism, which is prone to believe good of all men, unless they happen
to be his political antagonists, inclines him to overlook what does not
fit into his own scheme of existence. And yet no one can say that, as
presentations of Norwegian peasant life, "Synnoeve," "Arne," "The Bridal
March," etc., are untrue, though, indeed, one could well imagine
pictures in very much sombrer colors which might lay a valider claim to
veracity. Kielland's "Laboring People," and Kristian Elster's "A Walk to
the Cross" and "Kjeld Horge," give the reverse of the medal of which
Bjoernson exhibits the obverse. These authors were never in any way
identified with "the people," and could not help being struck with many
of the rude and unbeautiful phases of rural existence; while Bjoernson,
who sprang directly from the peasantry, had the pride and intelligence
of kinship, and was not yet lifted far enough above the life he depicted
to have acquired the cultivated man's sense of condescension and
patronizing benevolence. He was but one generation removed from the
soil; and he looked with a strong natural sympathy and affectionate
predilection upon whatever reminded him of this origin. If he had been a
peasant, however, he could never have become the wonderful chronicler
that he is. 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. Dur