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This place, known familiarly as "the Student Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, Ibsen, Björnson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and passed from it to the University. Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their ages.
Christiania, June 6, 1905. Chr. Michelsen. J. Lövland. Sofus Arctander. Gunnar Knudsen. W. Olssön. E. Hagerup Bull. Chr. Knudsen. Harald Bothner. A. Vinje. Kr. Lehmkuhl. The King's telegraphic protests against the abdication of the Norwegian Government. To the Prime Minister.
The singer stops, and meets the protest in broadest dialect: What? Not proper? Why, it's by Vinje himself! Heated discussion, pro and contra, arguing and shouting. Never were verses sung with more effect. The dance goes on. The girls from the valley are armoured five layers thick, but who cares for that! All are used to hard work. And the dance goes on ay, the thunder goes on.
Between the births of Vinje and Björnson there stretched a period of fourteen years, yet Björnson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen immediately formed Björnson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane called Harring on May 29, 1850.
In August, 1860, he had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a digter-gage, a payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern countries. Sums were voted to Björnson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a penny.
Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach the University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories.
Once Vinje began to ponder over the ring in a newly cut, raw potato; being from the country, you, at least, must know that there in springtime, often, is a purple figure in a potato. And Vinje was so interested in this purple outline that he sat down and wrote a mathematical thesis about it. He took this to Fearnley in the fond belief that he had made a great discovery.
Gregersen plays a trump card: "But tell me, you I don't remember your name: do you know the story of Vinje and the potato? I always think of that when I hear you speak. You are so immensely unsophisticated; you are from the country, and you think you can amaze us. You have not the slightest suspicion that your opinions are somewhat antiquated. Your opinions are those of the self-taught man.
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