f fog. Know what's
the right thing to do, but don't do it. But he's the lightning--and
he's entered the service of industry for the time being. 'Twas he sold
for me last time. I'm something and he's not, he's only the lightning;
quick to act, modern type. But the lightning by itself's a barren
thing. Look at you folk at Sellanraa, now; looking up at blue peaks
every day of your lives; no new-fangled inventions about that, but
fjeld and rocky peaks, rooted deep in the past--but you've them for
companionship. There you are, living in touch with heaven and earth,
one with them, one with all these wide, deep-rooted things. No need of
a sword in your hands, you go through life bareheaded, barehanded, in
the midst of a great kindliness. Look, Nature's there, for you and
yours to have and enjoy. Man and Nature don't bombard each other,
but agree; they don't compete, race one against the other, but go
together. There's you Sellanraa folk, in all this, living there. Fjeld
and forest, moors and meadow, and sky and stars--oh, 'tis not poor and
sparingly counted out, but without measure. Listen to me, Sivert: you
be content! You've everything to live on, everything to live for,
everything to believe in; being born and bringing forth, you are the
needful on earth. 'Tis not all that are so, but you are so; needful on
earth. 'Tis you that maintain life. Generation to generation, breeding
ever anew; and when you die, the new stock goes on. That's the meaning
of eternal life. What do you get out of it? An existence innocently
and properly set towards all. What you get out of it? Nothing can put
you under orders and lord it over you Sellanraa folk, you've peace and
authority and this great kindliness all round. That's what you get for
it. You lie at a mother's breast and suck, and play with a mother's
warm hand. There's your father now, he's one of the two-and-thirty
thousand. What's to be said of many another? I'm something, I'm the
fog, as it were, here and there, floating around, sometimes coming
like rain on dry ground. But the others? There's my son, the lightning
that's nothing in itself, a flash of barrenness; he can act.

"My son, ay, he's the modern type, a man of our time; he believes
honestly enough all the age has taught him, all the Jew and the Yankee
have taught him; I shake my head at it all. But there's nothing
mythical about me; 'tis only in the family, so to speak, that I'm like
a fog. Sit there shaking my head. Tell th