I suppose you allude to Shakespeare ?" "I do," said the old _bonde_ enthusiastically, "he is the only glory of your country I envy! I would give anything to prove him a Norwegian.

By Valhalla! had he but been one of the Bards of Odin, the world might have followed the grand old creed still! If anything could ever persuade me to be a Christian, it would be the fact that Shakespeare was one.

If England's name is rendered imperishable, it will be through the fame of Shakespeare alone,--just as we have a kind of tenderness for degraded modern Greece, because of Homer.

Ay, ay! countries and nations are worthless enough; it is only the great names of heroes that endure, to teach the lesson that is never learned sufficiently,--namely, that man and man alone is fitted to grasp the prize of immortality." "Ye believe in immortality ?" inquired Macfarlane seriously.
Gueldmar's keen eyes lighted on him with fiery impetuousness.
"Believe in it?
I possess it! How can it be taken from me?
As well make a bird without wings, a tree without sap, an ocean without depths, as expect to find a man without an immortal soul! What a question to ask?
Do _you_ not possess heaven's gift?
and why should not I ?" "No offense," said Macfarlane, secretly astonished at the old _bonde's_ fervor,--for had not he, though himself intending to become a devout minister of the Word,--had not he now and then felt a creeping doubt as to whether, after all, there was any truth in the doctrine of another life than this one.

"I only thocht ye might have perhaps questioned the probabeelity o't, in your own mind ?" "I never question Divine authority," replied Olaf Gueldmar, "I pity those that do!" "And this Divine authority ?" said Duprez suddenly with a delicate sarcastic smile, "how and where do you perceive it ?" "In the very Law that compels me to exist, young sir," said Gueldmar,--"in the mysteries of the universe about me,--the glory of the heavens,--the wonders of the sea! You have perhaps lived in cities all your life, and your mind is cramped a bit.