But if we
take literature in its larger sense, as including all the
manifestations of creative activity in language, and if we
insist, furthermore, that the man singled out for this
preeminence shall stand in some vital relation to the
intellectual life of his time, and exert a forceful influence
upon the thought of the present day, the choice must rather
be made among the three giants of the north of Europe, falling,
as it may be, upon the great-hearted Russian emotionalist
who has given us such deeply moving portrayals of the life
of the modern world; or upon the passionate Norwegian idealist
whose finger has so unerringly pointed out the diseased spots
in the social organism, earning by his moral surgery the name
of pessimist, despite his declared faith in the redemption of
mankind through truth and freedom and love; or, perchance,
upon that other great Norwegian, equally fervent in his devotion
to the same ideals, and far more sympathetic in his manner of
inculcating them upon his readers, who has just rounded out
his scriptural tale of three score years and ten, and, in
commemoration of the anniversary, is now made the recipient
of such a tribute of grateful and whole-souled admiration
as few men have ever won, and none have better deserved.
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