To you
always came back from much wildness and many wanderings. And with
all my heart I give you the honor. To you I wrote the poem: 'As on
I drive, in my heart joy dwells'. It was not poetical and not
sentimental, but just plain and direct. I wrote it to glorify my
home and you. And I believe that no more beautiful and deep poem in
praise of home has been written. For there is life's wisdom in it.
It is yours, Karoline, and your honor."
Note 42.
TO MY FATHER. Written in 1869. Peder Bj?rnson was settled as a
pastor at Kvikne in ?sterdal at the time of the poet's birth.
Originally he was an independent farmer, like his father and
grandfather, on the large farm Skei on the Randsfjord, where he was
born in 1797. He completed his theological training in 1829, came
to Kvikne in 1831, to Nes in Romsdal in 1837, and to Sogne in 1852.
On retiring in 1869 he moved to Christiania, where he died, August
25, 1871. His large frame and great physical strength were
hereditary in his father's family. Our race. Allusion to the
tradition of the descent of the Bj?rnsons from ancient kings through
the poet's great-grandmother, Marie ?istad.
The Norwegian peasant, see Note 78.
Note 43.
TO ERIKA LIE (-NISSEN) (1847-1903). One of the great pianists in
Norway, she was born in Kongsvinger on the river Glommen, where her
parents resided also when this poem was written in 1869.
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