SPEECH AT THE BANQUET IN CHRISTIANIA, MARCH 23d, 1898

On the occasion of Ibsen’s seventieth birthday, March 20th, 1898.

 

WHEN I just now asked for silence it became so quiet all around. At least so it seemed to me. But if you have expected that I should answer fully to all those warm, kind words which have been spoken to me, you are mistaken. I can express my most cordial thanks for them only in a general way; and likewise for all the honour and homage which is’ being shown me here to-day.

Or perhaps you have expected that I should begin to speak of my books? But that I would not be able to do. For in that case I should have to bring in my whole life. And that by itself would make a mighty thick book, that alone.

And, furthermore, I now really have in mind to write such a book. A book which will link my life and my writings together into an explanatory whole. Yes, for I think that I have now attained so ripe an age that I might be permitted to allow myself some little breathing time, — take one year’s vacation — for such a book would, indeed, be vacation work compared with the exciting and exhausting writing of dramas. And a vacation I have never really had since I left Norway thirty-four years ago. It seems to me I may need it now.

But, ladies and gentlemen, you must not on that account think that I intend, definitely, to lay aside my dramatic quill. No, I intend to resort and hold to that until the last. For I still have sundry whimsies in stock which I have not so far found opportunity to give expression to. Only when I have well rid myself of these will it be time to lay aside my dramatic quill. And how easy would it be to stop then as compared with the time when I was yet in the midst of the beginning! How silent and empty it was around one then! How the individual fellow-combatants stood scattered, each by himself, without coherence, without connecting links between them! Many a time it would seem to me then as if — once passed away — I had never been here. Nor my work, either!

But now! Now it has become populous round about. Young forces, confident of victory, have joined. They do not any longer have to write for a narrow circle. They have a public, an entire people to whom they may speak and to whom they may direct their thoughts and feelings. Whether they meet opposition or adherence — that is immaterial. It is only the inability, the unwillingness to hear which is of evil. That have I felt.

I sincerely regret that I have come in contact so little with many in this country who are to continue the work. Not because I would, if such was the case, attempt to exert any pressure, but that I myself might reach a deeper comprehension. And particularly would I have used that closer relation to remove a misconception which has in many ways been a hindrance to me, — the misconception namely, that there should be a feeling of absolute happiness-connected with that rare fairytale fate which I have had: to gain fame and name yonder in the many lands. And I have gained warm, understanding hearts out there, too. That first and foremost.

But this real inner happiness, — that is no find, no gift. It must be acquired at a price which may often be felt to be heavy enough. For that is the point: that he who has gained for himself a home out in the many lands, — in his inmost soul he feels nowhere quite at home, — hardly even in the. country of his birth.

But perhaps that may come yet. And I shall regard this evening as a starting point.

For here I behold something that resembles an agreement. Here all views, all diverging opinions have been able to gather about one and the same thing. I have here no longer the painful feeling of being regarded as the poet of a party, either of the one or of the other. His entire people a poet must have around him — either in adherence or in opposition. And then the idea of unity will go further towards larger aims and higher tasks. — That is my hope and my belief.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to accept my most cordial thanks for all your kindness and friendliness.