BJ6RNSON 



756 



BLACKBERRY 



Carmen. Bizet studied at the Paris Con- 

 servatory, where he distinguished himself in 

 1857 by winning the Prize of Rome, the high- 

 est honor the institution could award. After 

 further study in Italy he began the composi- 

 tion of operatic music, but Carmen, produced 

 in 1875, shortly before his death, was the only 

 work that received permanent recognition. 

 This bright and melodious opera has enjoyed 

 uninterrupted popularity to the present time. 

 See CARMEN. 



BJoRNSON, byurnson, BJORNSTJERNE 

 (1832-1910), one of the most distinctively 

 national of all Norwegian writers, famous 

 especially for his tales of Norse peasant life. 

 For him his countrymen have a respect that 

 is little less than 

 worship, for he is 

 to them the 

 personification of 

 their nation. 

 Critics of other 

 lands recognize 

 in him the great- 

 est novelist of 

 Norway, one of 

 its greatest poets, 

 if not its very 



greatest, and its BJORNSON 



foremost drama- The g^atest of Norway's 

 tist except Ibsen, novelists. 

 He has none of the pessimism of Ibsen, but 

 shows in all his works a persistent, though not 

 a sentimental, optimism. A patriotic politician 

 as well as a literary artist, he took an active 

 part in every movement for the advancement 

 of his country, and was very influential in 

 bringing about the separation of Norway from 

 Sweden, in 1905. 



He was born at Kvikne, studied at the Uni- 

 versity of Christiania, and after leaving that 

 institution earned a reputation as a journal- 

 ist before the appearance of his first play, 

 Between the Battles, and his first peasant 

 novel, Synnove Solbakken. From 1857 to 1859 

 he was director of the Bergen theater; from 

 1860 to 1863 he traveled in Europe, and in 

 1880-1881 he visited the United States on a 

 lecture tour. He wrote, besides the works 

 mentioned above, the novels Arue, The Fish- 

 ermaiden, A Happy Boy, The Bridal March, 

 Dust, The Heritage of the Kurts and In God's 

 Way; the dramas Mary Stuart in Scotland, 

 The Newly Wedded Pair, The New System, 

 A Glove and Dagelannet; and many poems. 

 For his works, many of which have been 



translated into English, he was awarded the 

 Nobel prize for literature in 1903. 



Nearly every child finds in his school read- 

 ers The Tree, which begins 



The Tree's early leaf-buds were bursting their 



brown : 

 "Shall I take them away?" said the Frost, 



sweeping down. 

 "No, leave them alone 

 Till the blossoms have grown," 

 Prayed the Tree, while he trembled from root- 

 let to crown. 



BLACK, commonly referred to as the darkest 

 of all the colors. In the theory of color, white 

 is produced by all the colors mixed in the 

 proportion in which they are found in the 

 solar spectrum and the rainbow, and black 

 is produced by the absorption of all colors; 

 in other words, then, black is really the absence 

 of color. Of course, in practice this does not 

 hold; all objects absorb some color and reflect 

 some, but black objects reflect the smallest 

 proportion. Black is the emblem of sorrow 

 and mourning in Europe and America, but 

 not throughout the world, for in some Asiatic 

 countries, particularly in Chosen (Korea), 

 white is so used. See COLOR; SOLAR SPECTRUM. 



BLACK ART. See NECROMANCY. 



BLACKBERRY 

 Leaves, fruit and flower. 



BLACKBERRY, a vine-like shrub, one of the 

 most important and profitable of small fruits. 

 It is cultivated in most fruit-growing localities 



