onarda" is a somewhat inconclusive work,
because the issue is not clearly defined, but in "A Glove" (at least in
the acting version of the play, which differs from the book in its
ending) there is no lack of definiteness. This play inexorably demands
the enforcement of the same standard of morality for both sexes, and
declares the unchaste man to be as unfit for honorable marriage as the
unchaste woman. Upon the theme thus presented a long and violent
discussion raged; but if there be such a thing as an immutable moral
law in this matter, it must be that upon which Bjoernson has so squarely
and uncompromisingly planted his feet. The other remaining work of
this five-year period is the play called "The New System." The new
system in question is a system of railway management, and it is a
wasteful one. But the young engineer who demonstrates this fact has a
hard time in opening the eyes of the public. He succeeds eventually,
but not until he has encountered every sort of contemptible opposition
and hypocritical evasion of the plain truth. The social satire of the
piece is subtle and sharp; what the author really aims at is to
illustrate, by a specific example, the repressive forces that dominate
the life of a small people, and make it almost impossible for any sort
of truth to triumph over prejudice.

Since the production of "A Glove," twenty years ago, eight more plays
have come from Bjoernson's prolific pen. Of these by far the most
important are the two that are linked by the common title, "Beyond the
Strength." The translation of this title is hopelessly inadequate,
because the original word means much more than strength; it means
talent, faculty, capability, the sum total of a man's endowment for
some particular purpose. The two pieces bearing this name are quite
different in theme, but certain characters appear in both, and both
express the same thought,--the thought that it is vain for men to
strive after the unattainable, for in so doing they lose sight of the
actual possibilities of human life; the thought that much of the best
human energy goes to waste because it is devoted to the pursuit of
ideals that are indeed beyond the strength of man to realize. In the
first of the two plays, this superhuman ideal is religious, it is that
of the enthusiast who accepts literally the teaching that to faith all
things are possible; in the second, the ideal is social, it is that of
the reformer who is deluded to bel