pright man to share in its
falsehood."

The conversation that follows is in a vein of bitterness on the one
side, and of obtuse smugness on the other; the tragic irony of the
action grows deeper and deeper, until in the end the king, completely
disheartened and despairing, goes into an adjoining room, and dies by
his own hand, to the consternation of the men from whom he has just
parted. They give utterance to a few polite phrases, charitably
accounting for the deed by the easy attribution of insanity to the
king, and the curtain falls.

It may well be imagined that "The King" made a stir in literary and
social circles, and quite noticeably fluttered the dovecotes of
conventionality and conservatism. Such plain speaking and such deadly
earnestness of conviction were indeed far removed from the idyllic
simplicity of the peasant tales and from the poetical reconstructions
of the legendary past. Eight years later, Bjoernson prefaced a new
edition of this work with a series of reflections upon "Intellectual
Freedom" that constitute one of the most vigorous and remarkable
examples of his serious prose. The central ideas of his political faith
are embodied in the following sentences from this preface:--

"Intellectual Freedom. Why is not attention called over and over again
to the fact that for the great peoples, who have so many compensating
interests, the free commerce of ideas is one condition of life among
many others; while for us, the small peoples, it is absolutely
indispensable. A people numerically large may attain to ways of
thought and enterprise that no political censure can reduce to a
minimum; but under narrower conditions it may easily come about that
the whole people will fall asleep. A powerful propaganda of
enlightenment under the conditions of free speech is for us of the
first and the last importance. When I wrote this piece it was my chief
aim to enlarge the bounds of free thought. I have later made the same
attempt in matters of religion and morals. When my opponents seek to
sum up my character in a few words, they are apt to say: 'He attacks
the throne and the altar.' It seems to me that I have served the
freedom of the spirit, and in the interests of that cause I now beg
leave to reply. (1) _Concerning the attack on Christianity._ It may be
worth while in a country with a state church to recall now and then the
meaning of Christianity. It is not an institution, still less a book,
and leas