Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/253

 Lundestad.

Yes; you'll see, gentlemen! In ten or fifteen years, Stensgård will either be in Parliament or in the Ministry—perhaps in both at once.[1]

Fieldbo.

In ten or fifteen years? Perhaps; but then he can scarcely stand at the head of the League of Youth.

Heire.

Why not?

Fieldbo.

Why, because by that time his youth will be—questionable.

Heire.

Then he can stand at the head of the Questionable League, sir. That's what Lundestad means. He says like Napoleon—"It's the questionable people that make politicians"; hee-hee!

Fieldbo.

Well, after all is said and done, our League shall last through young days and questionable days as well; and it shall continue to be the League of Youth. When Stensgård founded his League, and was carried shoulder-high amid all the enthusiasm of Independence Day, he said—"Providence is on the side of the League of Youth." I think even Mr. Helle, theologian as he is, will let us apply that saying to ourselves.

1 When this play was written, Ministers did not sit in the Storthing, and were not responsible to it. This state of things was altered—as Ibsen here predicts—in the great constitutional struggle of 1872-84, which ended in the victory of the Liberal party, their leader, Johan Sverdrup, becoming Prime Minister.