These years seemed to be a dead
time, not only in Bjornson's life, but also in the general
intellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes
thus describes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during
that period of stagnation. "In the North one had the feeling
of being shut off from the intellectual life of the time.
We were sitting with closed doors, a few brains struggling
fruitlessly with the problem of how to get them opened... With
whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Dane had
almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence
of political animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany
was broken off, the main channel was closed through which
the intellectual developments of the day had been communicated
to Norway as well as Denmark. French influence was dreaded
as immoral, and there was but little understanding of either
the English language or spirit." But an intellectual renaissance
was at hand, an intellectual reawakening with a cosmopolitan
outlook, and, Bjornson was destined to become its leader, much
as he had been the leader of the national movement of an earlier
decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, comparatively
speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new thought of
the age had fecundated his mind.
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