When we found him at the sæter, my companions greeted him with a mixture of warm affection and deep respect. He reminded me, in the eyes and mouth, and in his general bearing, of Mr. Gladstone. Aschehoug was very polite to me, but I found him alarming, and was glad that he mainly talked politics with Birkeland. In the evening Birkeland, whose kindness to me was untiring, took me across to the eastern side of Christiania, to Oslo, the city which was destroyed to build the new capital. He showed me what he believed to be the sites of the mediæval palace and cathedral; and, so far as he could judge, the exact scene of the great battle between Haakon and Skule, which Ibsen paints in his _Kongsemnerne_. It was thrilling to go over the vestiges of the ancient city with so enthusiastic and so learned a guide as Birkeland. As it grew late, we supped together at a restaurant, and then Birkeland, in very high spirits, declared he would show me "the night-side" of Christiania. However, we saw nothing very exciting or amusing.
Of the subsequent days of my visit to Christiania, whence I returned to Hull towards the end of August, I find nothing particular to relate. My last evening was spent at the Lökkes', in company with Daae, Birkeland and a very lively Mr. Thoresen, who was a near relative of Ibsen and related amusing anecdotes of the poet's manners. Lökke went down to the quay with me next morning, and stood waving his hat as the "Scotia" slipped down the fjord.
It has often been said--it was said in a well-known passage by the elder Disraeli--that in order to appreciate the beauty of fairyland we must make ourselves as little children listening to the wondrous tales of a nurse. But there seems to be a fallacy contained in this explanation of the spell. It cannot be contrived. No sedate, crafty, timid old man of the world can make himself as a little child merely that he may enjoy certain ancient poetry in a melodious stanza. Nor, on the other hand, is it obvious that real children, especially children of the modern sort, possess that ductile _naïveté_, that breathless and delicious credulity, which fairyland demands. I believe, and I speak not without observation, that children, as a rule, like stories best which deal with such themes as dogs that run after ducks, and grown up people that tumble out of motors. They like their tales to be realistic, rather hard, entirely within their experience. Hans Christian Andersen, in his _eventyr_--so falsely translated "fairy-tales"--took advantage of this fact and made a world-wide success by inventing stories in which play-things and articles of furniture and animals come to life and act on the conventional principles of society. That is what children like. They have been so short a time among us that the banalities of experience are still fresh to them, and nothing so amusing as what is pure matter-of-fact.