Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/630

 626 Sturtevant temporary evil which may be rectified by experience and training. The most potent factor in life to this end is the faculty of perceiving the real value of disappointments and of adjusting life to circumstances. Thus in En Dag the voice of conscience readjusts the mother's spirit to new conditions: "It said that her dreams bound together two summers, that which was and that which slowly had begun to awaken within her. " This new summer, the summer of future happiness based upon the experiences of the past, is the " Third Kingdom" for which Bj0rnson strove. This " Third Kingdom " is not founded upon a blending of abstract philosophical truths, as in Ibsen's Kejser og Galil&er, but upon the simple principle of constructive compromise between good and evil, i.e., of making evil serve the good. In Bj^rnson's tales it is most often woman who has the clearest conception of moral valuations and is the most sensitive to ethical ideals. In Brudeslatten (1872), for instance, it is Mildred's mother who first perceives the moral injustice which inherited clan prejudice has inflicted upon the Haugen family. Before the final reconciliation it had never occurred to either parent in the Tingvold family that "the Haugen family ought not to have suffered for their misfortunes, for they were entirely innocent." The attitude of Mildred's father towards his daughter's marriage to Hans Haugen is that of a wise submis- sion to the inevitable. Her mother, on the other hand, experiences a moral redemption which borders upon religious ecstasy. The new spirit of reconciliation is for her an angel of deliverance from that moral slavery of family prejudice which had held her soul in bondage. The destruction of this false deal results in her atonement not only for the wrong she had done the Haugen family but also for that which she had done her own daughter, since by yielding to this family prejudice she had deprived her innocent daughter of the sacred privilege of living out her own life. f) Conclusion Bj^rnson's tales reveal the great struggle for development which woman has undergone under those restrictions which the social order has laid upon her. In depicting family life, it was, therefore, natural that he should sympathize with the