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NOTES 245
1839; New Poems, 1845; Half a Hundred Poems, 1848; Pictures of
Travel and Poems, 1851; A Collection of Poems, 1860. A polemical
writer, gifted with wit and fine taste, and a social-political author,
Welhaven represented in his earlier period the “party of intelligence ”
over against the chauvinism of the radical Peasant party of Werge-
land (see page 262). He was an adherent of Danish culture and of the
esthetic view of art and life, who hated all national exclusiveness and
showed a love of his country no less true and intense than Wergeland’s
by chastising the Norwegians of his time for their big, empty words
and their crass materialism. For this he was rewarded with abuse, and
called “traitor to his country” and “matricide.” In reality Welhaven
was a dreamer, a worshiper of nature, a man of tender feeling. His sub-
jective lyric poetry is not surpassed in richness of content and beauty of
form by that of any other Norwegian.
Outside of his ordinary University duties Welhaven was also active;
he was a favorite speaker at student festivities and musical festivals,
notably at the Student Meetings in Upsala, 1856, and in Copenhagen,
1862. But early in 1864 his health failed, and he was unable thereafter
to lecture regularly. In August, 1868, he requested to be retired; on
September 24, the University authorities granted his request and a pen-
sion at the highest rate; but the Storting, on November 12, reduced
this to two-thirds of the amount proposed. The same day the students
brought to Professor Welhaven their farewell greeting, marching with
flags to his residence, where this poem of homage was sung.
Page 119.
ForwarbD. The composer Grieg and his wife spent Christmas Eve,
1868, with Bjornson’s family in Christiania. Grieg, who then gave
to Bjornson a copy of the first part of his Lyriske Smaastykker, has
written the following account of the origin of this poem: “Among
these was one with the title ‘Fatherland’s Song.’ I played this for
Bjornson, who liked it so well that he said he wanted to write words
for it. That made me glad, although afterwards I said to myself: It
probably will remain a want, he has other things to think of. But the
very next day I met him in full creative joy: ‘It’s going excellently.
It shall be a song for all the youth of Norway. But there is something
at the beginning that I have n’t yet got hold of —a certain wording. I
feel that the melody demands it, and I shall not give it up. It must
come.’ Then we parted. The next forenoon, as I was giving a piano
lesson to a young lady, I heard a ring at the entry-door, as if the whole
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