Chapter II (2)

The average standard of the Lowland Scotch and the English North Country men is decidedly a fraction of a grade superior to that of the ordinary English, because the number of the former who attain to eminence is far greater than the proportionate number of their race would have led us to expect. The same superiority is distinctly shown by a comparison of the well-being of the masses of the population; for the Scotch laborer is much less of a drudge than the Englishman of the Midland counties--he does his work better, and "lives his life" besides. The peasant women of Northumberland work all day in the fields, and are not broken down by the work; on the contrary, they take a pride in their effective labor as girls, and when married they attend well to the comfort of their homes. It is perfectly distressing to me to witness the draggled, drudged, mean look of the mass of individuals, especially of the women, that one meets in the streets of London and other purely English towns. The conditions of their life seem too hard for their constitutions, and to be crushing them into degeneracy.

The ablest race of whom history bears record is unquestionably the ancient Greek, partly because their masterpieces in the principal departments of intellectual activity are still unsurpassed and in many respects unequaled, and partly because the population that gave birth to the creators of those masterpieces was very small. Of the various Greek sub-races, that of Attica was the ablest, and she was no doubt largely indebted to the following cause for her superiority: Athens opened her arms to immigrants, but not indiscriminately, for her social life was such that none but very able men could take any pleasure in it; on the other hand, she offered attractions such as men of the highest ability and culture could find in no other city. Thus by a system of partly unconscious selection she built up a magnificent breed of human animals, which in the space of one century--viz., between 530 and 430 B. C.--produced the following illustrious persons, fourteen in number:--

_Statesmen and Commanders._--Themistocles (mother an alien), Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon (son of Miltiades), Pericles (son of Xanthippus, the victor at Mycale).

_Literary and Scientific Men._--Thucydides, Socrates, Xenophon, Plato.

_Poets._--AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes.

_Sculptor._--Phidias.

We are able to make a closely approximate estimate of the population that produced these men, because the number of the inhabitants of Attica has been a matter of frequent inquiry, and critics appear at length to be quite agreed in the general results.... The average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own--that is, about as much as our race is above that of the African negro. This estimate, which may seem prodigious to some, is confirmed by the quick intelligence and high culture of the Athenian commonalty, before whom literary works were recited, and works of art exhibited, of a far more severe character than could possibly be appreciated by the average of our race, the calibre of whose intellect is easily gauged by a glance at the contents of a railway book-stall.

We know, and may guess something more, of the reason why this marvelously gifted race declined. Social morality grew exceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable, and was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans and consequently infertile, and the mothers of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class. In a small sea-bordered country, where emigration and immigration are constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as were those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of a race would necessarily fail. It can be therefore no surprise to us, though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared; for if it had maintained its excellence, and had multiplied and spread over large countries, displacing inferior populations (which it well might have done, for it was exceedingly prolific), it would assuredly have accomplished results advantageous to human civilization, to a degree that transcends our powers of imagination.

If we could raise the average standard of our race only one grade, what vast changes would be produced! The number of men of natural gifts equal to those of the eminent men of the present day would be necessarily increased more than tenfold;... but far more important to the progress of civilization would be the increase in the yet higher orders of intellect. We know how intimately the course of events is dependent on the thoughts of a few illustrious men. If the first-rate men in the different groups had never been born, even if those among them who have a place in my appendices on account of their hereditary gifts had never existed, the world would be very different to what it is....

It seems to me most essential to the well-being of future generations, that the average standard of ability of the present time should be raised. Civilization is a new condition imposed upon man by the course of events, just as in the history of geological changes new conditions have continually been imposed on different races of animals. They have had the effect either of modifying the nature of the races through the process of natural selection, whenever the changes were sufficiently slow and the race sufficiently pliant, or of destroying them altogether, when the changes were too abrupt or the race unyielding. The number of the races of mankind that have been entirely destroyed under the pressure of the requirements of an incoming civilization, reads us a terrible lesson. Probably in no former period of the world has the destruction of the races of any animal whatever been effected over such wide areas, and with such startling rapidity, as in the case of savage man. In the North-American continent, in the West-Indian islands, in the Cape of Good Hope, in Australia, New Zealand, and Van Diemen's Land, the human denizens of vast regions have been entirely swept away in the short space of three centuries, less by the pressure of a stronger race than through the influence of a civilization they were incapable of supporting. And we too, the foremost laborers in creating this civilization, are beginning to show ourselves incapable of keeping pace with our own work. The needs of centralization, communication, and culture, call for more brains and mental stamina than the average of our race possess. We are in crying want for a greater fund of ability in all stations of life; for neither the classes of statesmen, philosophers, artisans, nor laborers are up to the modern complexity of their several professions. An extended civilization like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our present race are capable of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans and laborers are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be drudged into degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers....

When the severity of the struggle for existence is not too great for the powers of the race, its action is healthy and conservative; otherwise it is deadly, just as we may see exemplified in the scanty, wretched vegetation that leads a precarious existence near the summer snow line of the Alps, and disappears altogether a little higher up. We want as much backbone as we can get, to bear the racket to which we are henceforth to be exposed, and as good brains as possible to contrive machinery, for modern life to work more smoothly than at present. We can in some degree raise the nature of man to a level with the new conditions imposed upon his existence; and we can also in some degree modify the conditions to suit his nature. It is clearly right that both these powers should be exerted, with the view of bringing his nature and the conditions of his existence into as close harmony as possible.

In proportion as the world becomes filled with mankind, the relations of society necessarily increase in complexity, and the nomadic disposition found in most barbarians becomes unsuitable to the novel conditions. There is a most unusual unanimity in respect to the causes of incapacity of savages for civilization, among writers on those hunting and migratory nations who are brought into contact with advancing colonization, and perish, as they invariably do, by the contact. They tell us that the labor of such men is neither constant nor steady; that the love of a wandering, independent life prevents their settling anywhere to work, except for a short time, when urged by want and encouraged by kind treatment. Meadows says that the Chinese call the barbarous races on their borders by a phrase which means "hither and thither," "not fixed." And any amount of evidence might be adduced, to show how deeply Bohemian habits of one kind or another were ingrained in the nature of the men who inhabited most parts of the earth, now overspread by the Anglo-Saxon and other civilized races. Luckily there is still room for adventure, and a man who feels the cravings of a roving, adventurous spirit to be too strong for resistance, may yet find a legitimate outlet for it in the colonies, in the army, or on board ship. But such a spirit is, on the whole, an heirloom that brings more impatient restlessness and beating of the wings against cage bars, than persons of more civilized characters can readily comprehend, and it is directly at war with the more modern portion of our moral natures. If a man be purely a nomad, he has only to be nomadic and his instinct is satisfied; but no Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purely nomadic. The most so among them have also inherited many civilized cravings that are necessarily starved when they become wanderers, in the same way as the wandering instincts are starved when they are settled at home. Consequently their nature has opposite wants, which can never be satisfied except by chance, through some very exceptional turn of circumstances. This is a serious calamity; and as the Bohemianism in the nature of our race is destined to perish, the sooner it goes the happier for mankind. The social requirements of English life are steadily destroying it. No man who only works by fits and starts is able to obtain his living nowadays, for he has not a chance of thriving in competition with steady workmen. If his nature revolts against the monotony of daily labor, he is tempted to the public-house, to intemperance, and it may be to poaching, and to much more serious crime; otherwise he banishes himself from our shores. In the first case, he is unlikely to leave as many children as men of more domestic and marrying habits; and in the second case, his breed is wholly lost to England. By this steady riddance of the Bohemian spirit of our race, the artisan part of our population is slowly becoming bred to its duties, and the primary qualities of the typical modern British workman are already the very opposite of those of the nomad. What they are now was well described by Mr. Chadwick as consisting of "great bodily strength, applied under the command of a steady, persevering will; mental self-contentedness; impassibility to external irrelevant impressions, which carries them through the continued repetition of toilsome labor, 'steady as time.'"

It is curious to remark how unimportant to modern civilization has become the once famous and thoroughbred-looking Norman. The type of his features, which is probably in some degree correlated with his peculiar form of adventurous disposition, is no longer characteristic of our rulers, and is rarely found among celebrities of the present day; it is more often met with among the undistinguished members of highly born families, and especially among the less conspicuous officers of the army. Modern leading men in all paths of eminence, as may easily be seen in a collection of photographs, are of a coarser and more robust breed: less excitable and dashing, but endowed with far more ruggedness and real vigor. Such also is the case as regards the German portion of the Austrian nation....

Much more alien to the genius of an enlightened civilization than the nomadic habit is the impulsive and uncontrolled nature of the savage. A civilized man must bear and forbear; he must keep before his mind the claims of the morrow as clearly as those of the passing minute; of the absent as well as of the present. This is the most trying of the new conditions imposed on man by civilization, and the one that makes it hopeless for any but exceptional natures among savages to live under them. The instinct of a savage is admirably consonant with the needs of savage life; every day he is in danger through transient causes; he lives from hand to mouth, in the hour and for the hour, without care for the past or forethought for the future: but such an instinct is utterly at fault in civilized life. The half-reclaimed savage, being unable to deal with more subjects of consideration than are directly before him, is continually doing acts through mere maladroitness and incapacity, at which he is afterwards deeply grieved and annoyed. The nearer inducements always seem to him, through his uncorrected sense of moral perspective, to be incomparably larger than others of the same actual size but more remote; consequently, when the temptation of the moment has been yielded to and passed away, and its bitter result comes in its turn before the man, he is amazed and remorseful at his past weakness. It seems incredible that he should have done that yesterday which to-day seems so silly, so unjust, and so unkindly. The newly reclaimed barbarian, with the impulsive, unstable nature of the savage, when he also chances to be gifted with a peculiarly generous and affectionate disposition, is of all others the man most oppressed with the sense of sin.

Now, it is a just assertion, and a common theme of moralists of many creeds, that man, such as we find him, is born with an imperfect nature. He has lofty aspirations, but there is a weakness in his disposition which incapacitates him from carrying his nobler purposes into effect. He sees that some particular course of action is his duty, and should be his delight; but his inclinations are fickle and base, and do not conform to his better judgment. The whole moral nature of man is tainted with sin, which prevents him from doing the things he knows to be right.

The explanation I offer to this apparent anomaly seems perfectly satisfactory from a scientific point of view. It is neither more nor less than that the development of our nature, whether under Darwin's law of natural selection or through the effects of changed ancestral habits, has not yet overtaken the development of our moral civilization. Man was barbarous but yesterday, and therefore it is not to be expected that the natural aptitudes of his race should already have become molded into accordance with his very recent advance. We, men of the present centuries, are like animals suddenly transplanted among new conditions of climate and of food: our instincts fail us under the altered circumstances.

My theory is confirmed by the fact that the members of old civilizations are far less sensible than recent converts from barbarism, of their nature being inadequate to their moral needs. The conscience of a negro is aghast at his own wild, impulsive nature, and is easily stirred by a preacher; but it is scarcely possible to ruffle the self-complacency of a steady-going Chinaman.

The sense of original sin would show, according to my theory, not that man was fallen from high estate, but that he was rising in moral culture with more rapidity than the nature of his race could follow. My view is corroborated by the conclusion reached at the end of each of the many independent lines of ethnological research--that the human race were utter savages in the beginning; and that after myriads of years of barbarism, man has but very recently found his way into the paths of morality and civilization.

ARNE GARBORG

(1851-)

Arne Garborg is one of the most potent forces in the new school of Norwegian literature. The contemporary of Alexander Kielland, who is more widely known abroad, he is however the representative of a vastly different phase. Kielland's works, except for their setting, are the result of general European culture; whereas Garborg has laid the foundations of a literature essentially Norse.

The new literature of young Norway is a true exponent of its social conditions. The ferment of its strivings and its discontent permeates the whole people. Much of Garborg's work is the chronicle of this social unrest, particularly among the peasant classes, where he himself by birth belongs. In the reaction against the sentimental idealism of the older school, he is the pioneer who has blazed the paths. Where Bjoernson gives rose-colored pictures of what peasant life might be, Garborg with heavy strokes of terrible meaning draws the outline of what it is. His daring and directness of speech aroused a storm of opposition, and he has also been made to suffer in a material way for the courage of his opinions, in that the position which he had held in the government service since 1879 was taken from him as a consequence of his books.

Arne Garborg was born at Jaederen, in the southwestern part of Norway, January 1851. The circumstances of his life were humble, and all of his surroundings were meagre in the extreme. His father, a village schoolmaster, was a man of nervous, fanatical temperament, with whom religion was a mania. In the obscure little village where he lived, Garborg's boyhood was outwardly uneventful but inwardly filled with conflict. Brought up in an atmosphere of pietism, the natural reaction led him into a kind of romantic atheistic unbelief. In the turmoil of his mind, the battles were fought again and again, until at length he reached the middle ground of modern thought. His education was extremely desultory; but from the age of nine, when from the only models within his reach he wrote hymns and sermons, he showed a strong tendency for literature. He passed the required examinations for a school-teacher in 1870, and alternately taught and studied, until in 1875 he entered the University of Christiania. His life as a student was by no means smooth, but he persisted, in spite of poverty and indeed sometimes actual want.

He had previously, in Risoer, published a Teacher's Journal (1871), a small paper dealing principally though not exclusively with school affairs; and a year later, in Tvedestrand, he established the Tvedestrand Post. This experience as county editor and printer had qualified him for newspaper work, and in 1877 he became connected with the Aftenbladet of Christiania. The same year he founded the Fedraheimen, "a weekly paper for the Norse people." This was really the beginning of his literary career, although besides his early enterprises in journalism he had as a student contributed occasional articles to the newspapers, and had already published his first book, a critical essay on Ibsen's 'Emperor and Galilean.'

The attempt made by Ivar Aasen to establish in Norway a national language through a normalization of the peasant dialects, found in Garborg one of its warmest supporters. Discarding Danish as a literary medium, he advocated the use of the strong Norse, and the Fedraheimen appeared as the organ of the new movement. Garborg wrote a book upon the subject in the year after the establishment of his journal, and ever since, by precept and practice, he has been the chief propagandist of the new speech.

His first novel, 'En Fritenkjar' (A Freethinker), appeared anonymously in the Fedraheimen in 1878. The subject of the story was one of the vital questions of the day, the conflict between iron-bound dogmatism and rational thought; a theme now threadbare with much handling, but then startlingly new. The author's early training and his own environment of intolerant theology supplied material for the story. The hero of the tale, the man who dared to think for himself, was looked upon as a criminal, to be ranked with house-breakers and thieves. The ostracism which he brought upon himself was but the just punishment for his crimes. The Freethinker, treated as a moral leper, is driven from his home and goes abroad to expiate his sin of unorthodoxy. In later years he returns to his native land, to find most of his acquaintances dead. Of his family only one still lives, and that is his son, who has become a clergyman!

Garborg's second romance, 'Bondestudentar' (Peasant Students) (1883), deals with a problem no less real. In Norway, although there is no rank of nobility, class distinctions are nevertheless strongly marked; and in this novel his pen is directed against the evils which result from the inordinate striving of the lower orders for a position to which they are unfitted both by nature and circumstances. This book, again, is to a degree autobiographical; for Garborg, as has been said, is himself peasant, and he has fought the fight and suffered the anguish of the new culture attained with incalculable sacrifice. 'Peasant Students' is undoubtedly his greatest work. Nowhere else has he indicated more clearly his seriousness of purpose, or worked out his theme with more effectiveness. The hero, Daniel Braut, is the representative of the ideal student, a son of the people who shall strive for "poetry and the soul" and introduce the elements of culture among his class. Manual labor is his aversion; and at last, forced by the weakness of his nature and the necessity of his poverty, he goes over to the ranks of philistinism, marries a woman of property, and studies theology. Both books are stories of high ideals and humiliating compromises. The author's pessimism is in the ascendant, and in the end the lower nature conquers.

In 'Mannfolk' (1886) he takes up a different theme, the relation of the sexes, a question which he treats with startling frankness. Garborg is a realist in so far that he prefers to depict life as it is, well knowing that fiction cannot approach truth in point of interest. He bears true testimony of what he sees and knows, but his realism is very far removed from the naturalism of the French school.

Following 'Peasant Students' appeared in 1884 'Forteljinger og Sogar' (Narratives and Tales), a volume of stories dealing sometimes with subjects generally proscribed. Of his other works the most important are the narrative 'Hjaa ho Mor' (With Mama), 'Kolbotnbrev og andre Skildringar' (Kolbotn Letters and Other Sketches: 1890), the novels 'Traette Maend' (Weary Souls: 1891), 'Fred' (Peace: 1893), and the drama 'Uforsonlige' (The Irreconcilables: 1888).

After being deprived of his government position upon the publication of 'Mannfolk,' Arne Garborg retired with his wife and child into the solitude of the mountains, where for two years he lived and wrote in his saeter hut; but at last, overcome by the loneliness of this isolated life, he left Norway and settled in Germany.

THE CONFLICT OF THE CREEDS

From 'A Freethinker'

The noise of carriage wheels increased. The carriage drove up before the door, and all the people of the parsonage sprang up in joy. Ragna however reddened somewhat. A minute after, both Hans Vangen and Eystein Hauk stood in the room. Hans embraced his parents and his sister, and on the surface was happy; Hauk greeted them kindly and warmly like an acquaintance of the family, and bowed deep before Ragna.

"A good evening to you, and a merry Christmas-time!" called out Hans. "Here is the great foreign traveler and wise man Eystein Hauk, and here"--he pointed to the chaplain--"is the strict man of God, Balle; chaplain now, pastor later on, finally bishop; a well-founded theologian and a true support to the Church in these distracted times. It will be well with you if you do not fall into a quarrel about belief."

There was talking and laughing; the pastor's wife poured out wine; the new-comers sat down; the table was quickly set, and then they went into the dining-room, where Christmas grits and Christmas fish stood smoking in a great dish and "awaited the help of the people." The pastor read a blessing, which was not listened to with any further devoutness. Ragna and Balle sat for the most part and looked at Hauk, but Hauk looked at Ragna, and the pastor's wife said of Hans how he had grown during the past year, and how his good looks and his affability had improved.

The one who talked most at the table was Hans. Hauk was rather silent. The pastor asked him in a few words about his travels abroad; he answered promptly but shortly, and often in such a cleverly turned way of speaking that it was difficult to find out his real meaning.

The chaplain, too, would have liked to hear about foreign lands. What was the state of the Christian religion in France?--Well, it was various. It was there as here: there were people of all sorts.--But was not the great majority unchristian?--Well, of enlightened and learned people it was, to be sure, the smallest part who strictly could be called Christians.--But with morals? Was there not a great deal of social viciousness and impropriety?--Well, if it were only considered under certain conditions, in certain cities, it was probably there as in other places.--Indeed!--Balle, rebuffed, looked away from Hauk, and did not talk with him afterward.

When they left the table there was set out dessert, with wine, and pipes were also brought. The conversation went on as before, but it was none the less Hans who talked most. He was a fresh, happy fellow. His mother sat and found pleasure in looking at him. The pastor and Balle sat and smoked; glanced now and then at Hauk, who was a little way off at a smaller table, talking small-talk with Ragna. The pastor had become more silent, and Balle looked as if he little liked the state of things, although he tried to control himself. Hans understood this, and laughed.

"Do not bother yourself about Hauk," said he. "He has been in Paris and has learned French manners, and consequently he likes women's society best; but even if he is a little grand, he will quickly become Norse again, keep to his pipe and his glass, and let the women take care of themselves."

Balle bit his lips; the pastor smiled a little. "Young people are more bashful here in Norway," said he. "That is true," he continued. "You have read the new novel 'Virginia,' that the people have waited so long for?"

"'Virginia'?--pfh! that is a vile book," answered Hans, and smiled.

"Vile?" said the chaplain questioningly.

"It is a scandalous book! says Christiania. It has set the whole town on end. It works destruction upon marriage, they say; upon morals, upon society. I have never seen Christiania so moral as in these days."

"H'm!" said Balle; "Christiania is on the whole a moral town."

"It is at this time! The young poets are happy for all the days of their life. The men forbid the women to read the book, and the women forbid their daughters--"

"And so they all read it together?" said the pastor.

"Certainly! The women read it and say, 'Paugh! the poets do not know life.' The daughters, the poor dear angels, they read it and say, 'Dear me, is that anything? Have we not read worse books than that?'"

"But tell us, then, what the book is about?" said the pastor.

"It is about--that married people shall love each other," said Hans stoutly.

"Oho! free love!" called out the chaplain.

"Certainly! Free love! 'All true love is free,' says the fool-hardy fellow of a poet."

"Do you hear that, pastor?" said Balle.

"If our own poets also take it up, let us have a care! Then he recognizes 'free thought'; and what then?" asked the chaplain.

"That is true," replied Hans. "'All thoughts are free,' he says, 'and not merely duty free.'"

"Of course he does not believe in God?"

"I doubt it; but even that is not the worst."

"Not the--"

"No, for there are many people in Christiania who do not believe in God. But these poets do not even believe in the Devil!" Hans laughed like a child at the face that the chaplain made; the pastor looked severely at Hans, who cast down his eyes and was silent.

"Worthless fruit," sighed the chaplain. "Our poets have hitherto kept themselves free from these godless thoughts, even if they have not always had the right opinion of Christianity, and particularly have taken up with the confusions of Grundtvigianism; but now, now it has taken another path. Do you see the spirit of revolt, pastor? Do you hear how they rise and tear asunder all its bonds; how opposition arises against all that is high and holy, and they storm even against the foundations of society?"

"May God help us!" sighed the pastor. "It does not look right. Is there anything new in the newspapers?" he asked, as if to get away from a conversation that plainly oppressed him.

Hans ran out, and came quickly in again with the newspapers. Such of these as were French he took for himself, the rest he gave to Balle.

"Do you see, father?" said Hans with the mien of a schoolmaster. "If you will have politics, you must turn to France. All other politics are merely an echo of theirs. France is Europe. France is the world!"

"Do you hear, pastor?" said Balle. "Do you hear how the French spirit spreads and increases in power? the French spirit, which has always been one and the same with rationalism and revolution?"

"Here is an article that will do Balle good!" called out Hans. "It does not assume the good tone or prattle tediously like our Norse newspaper articles. There is fire and burning in it; you recognize something like a clenched fist back of the words, prepared for everything upon which it may hit. That is what I call politics!"

"Oh, you are a foolish fellow," said the pastor. "Come, out with it!"

Hans read an article against the priestly party or clericals, and the piece was severely radical. It was particularly to the effect that the clergy and Christianity must be ousted from the public schools, if thinkers were to be really for a genuine and sound popular education. Christianity had already done what it could do; hereafter it lay merely in the way. "Freedom and self-government" was the war-cry now, for this generation. They might be fair enough, many of the dreams which the new time compelled us to abandon; but light and life and truth were ten times fairer than all dreams.

The chaplain sat and sulked, and looked into one of the Norse papers. "Here stands the same," said he. "No, but--? Yes, the same, and yet not the same. The Norse paper has cut out or changed all that treats directly of Christianity; the rest is the same."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Hans.

"Yes, they are as wise as serpents," sighed the chaplain. "Here may plainly be seen how the matter stands. It is hidden away in politics, but the spirit they cannot conceal; it is precisely the same French spirit of hell, the spirit of revolt, the spirit of the Devil, which lifts itself against even the living God. Do you see that, pastor? Do you see how wholly these 'freedom politics,' as they are called, are held up and impregnated with this godless spirit of revolt? In truth, it becomes more and more clear that it is the part of us, the watchmen of Zion,--more now than ever before,--to watch and pray."

The pastor sat and meditated. He looked oppressed and sorrowful. It was too quiet for Hans: he moved away to Hauk and Ragna. The chaplain appeared to like this, and became more calm.

"Dear pastor," said he after a while, "just as surely as there is truth in our work,--yes, this question presses itself more and more in upon me,--as surely as there is truth in our work: that we shall watch over God's house and people,--we _cannot_ remain silent and be calm when we see a spirit like this coming bearing in upon us--a spirit which is directly founded upon heathenism, and so plainly shows its Satanic origin. Shall it be? Can we answer for that before our Lord and God?"

The pastor was silent. He was in great doubt and uncertainty of mind. "I do not believe that it is right to bring politics into the house of God," said he at last.

"Politics, no! But this is not politics; this is a spirit of the times, a view of life which takes the outward garb of politics, but at the bottom is merely a new outbreak of the same old heathenism that the Church at all times has had to contend with. I, for my part, do not believe that I can keep silent with a quiet conscience."

The pastor held his peace and thought. "This is a hard question," he said finally. "May our Lord give us wisdom!"

"Amen," said the chaplain....

That night the old pastor did not sleep well. He walked up and down his chamber and thought. "When it comes to the point," said he to himself, "Balle is right; there _is_ something bad and evil in the spirit of the time; there _is_ something devilish. Merely look, now, at this Eystein Hauk, this clever fine fellow: he is not to be got at. He is frozen to ice and hardened to steel, slippery and smooth as a serpent. There came such an uncanny spirit from him that he made me downright sick: no respect, no veneration even for his own father; God knows how he can hold fast to his Christian faith. They call it freedom, humanity; but it is not that. It is hate, venom, bad blood. They will tear from them all bonds, as Balle says, raise a revolt--revolt against all that is beautiful and good, against God, against belief. H'm! Build the State, this whole earthly life, upon a heathen foundation! Sever connection with Christianity, cast the Church away from them like old trash. That is terrible! And free love, free thought--the Christian religion out of the schools--no! that is Satan himself who rages. Free thoughts in my time were not so: they were warm and beautiful; there was heart in them; they made us good and happy." He shook himself, as if to throw off a chill. Should one be silent at such things? Should one look quietly on while this evil spirit eats itself in among the people? or should one, like a disciple of God, lift up the sword of the Word and the Spirit against this poisonous basilisk?

He read in the Bible and in Luther. Then he got up again and walked. The clock struck hour after hour, but the old man did not hear it. He thought only of the heavy responsibility. Was it not to profane the house of God and the holy office, to drag the struggle and strife of the day into it? Was he not set to watch over word and teaching, but not to be a judge in the world's disputes? But of his flock, the people of the Church, the Bride of Christ, whom he should watch, but who stood in the midst of a wicked world, and whose souls were harmed when such evil gusts blew? Would not every soul at the Judgment Day be demanded at his hands? And was he a good shepherd, who indeed kept watch against the wolf when the wolf came having on his right garb, but looked on and was silent when he came clothed in sheep's garments and pretended to belong among the good? He read anew in Luther. At last he knelt down and prayed for a long time, and ended with a fervent and heartfelt "Our Father."

Then he arose as if freed from doubt, looked meekly up to heaven, and said, "As thou wilt, O Lord!" He seated himself in his arm-chair, weary but happy, and fell asleep for a while. Presently, however, the day grew gray in the east and he awoke. He read the morning prayers to himself, chose his text, and thought about the sermon. When the bell began to ring he went to church. He was pale, but calm and kindly. The farmers looked at him and greeted him more warmly than usual. The pastor's wife and Ragna came shortly after; Hans and Eystein did not arrive at the church until the pastor stood in the pulpit.

The Christmas sermon was fervid and good. He spoke about the angels' song, "Peace on earth." They had seldom heard the old man preach so well. But at the end came a turn in the thought that caused some astonishment. It was about politics.

"Dear Christians," he said, "how is it in our days with 'peace on earth'? Ah, my brothers, we know that all too well. Peace has gone from us. It has vanished like a beautiful evening cloud. Evil powers rise up in these hours. The Devil is abroad, and tempts anew mankind to eat of the tree of knowledge and to tear themselves loose from God. Take heed, take heed, dear brothers! Take heed of the false prophets, who proclaim a new gospel and promise you 'freedom' and 'enlightenment,' and all that is good,--yes, promise you righteousness and power, if you will eat of the forbidden tree. They give themselves out for sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. They promise you freedom, but they give you thraldom, the thraldom of sin, which is the worst of all. They promise you blessings and joy, but they steal you away from Him who alone has blessings and freedom for our poor race. They promise you security and defense against all tyranny and oppression, but they give you gladly into his power who is the father of all tyranny and of all evil; he who is the destroyer of man from the beginning. Dear Christians, let us watch and pray! Let us prove the spirit, whether it is from God! Let us harden our ears and our hearts against false voices and magic songs that deceive, which come to us out of the dark chasms and abysses in this wicked world! Let us be fearful of this wild and sinful thought of freedom, that from Adam down has been the deep and true source of all our woe! Let us pray for 'peace on earth,' for only then can our Lord God have consideration for mankind." With this he ended his sermon.

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
by William H. Carpenter

HAMLIN GARLAND

(1860-)

Hamlin Garland is a favorable example of a class of young writers which is coming to the fore in the Middle West of the United States,--fresh, original, full of faith and energy, with a robust and somewhat aggressive Americanism. In native endowment he is a strong man, and his personal character is manly, clean, and high. At times, carelessness of technique and lack of taste can be detected in his writings, but his strength and spirit make amends for these defects.

Mr. Garland was born September 16th, 1860, in the La Crosse Valley, Wisconsin. His family is of Scotch descent,--sturdy farmer folk, remarkable for their physical powers. His maternal grandfather was an Adventist, with the touch of mysticism that word implies. Garland was reared in the picturesque coule country (French _coulee_, a dry gulch); living in various Western towns, one of them being the Quaker community of Hesper, Iowa. His early education was received from the local schools; the unconscious assimilation of the Western ways came while he rode horses, herded cattle, and led the wholesome, simple open-air life of the middle-class people. Some years were spent in a small seminary at Osage, Wisconsin, whence he was graduated at twenty-one years of age. His kin moved to Dakota, but Hamlin faced Eastward, eager to see the world. Two years of travel and teaching in Illinois found him in 1883 "holding down" a Dakota claim--the only result of the land boom being a rich field of literary ore. Then in 1884 he went to Boston, made his headquarters at the Public Library, read diligently, taught literature and elocution in the School of Oratory, and became one of the literary workers there, remaining until 1891. Since then he has lectured much throughout the country, and has settled in Chicago, his summer home being at West Salem, Wisconsin, in the beautiful coule region of his boyhood.

Mr. Garland's main work is in fiction, but he has also tried his hand at verse and the essay. His volume 'Crumbling Idols,' published in 1894, a series of audacious papers in which the doctrine of realism is cried up and the appeal to past literary canons made a mock of, called out critical abuse and ridicule, and no doubt shows a lack of perspective. Yet the book is racy and stimulating in the extreme. The volume of poetry, 'Prairie Songs' (1893), has the merit of dealing picturesquely and at first hand with Western scenery and life, and contains many a stroke of imaginative beauty. Of the half-dozen books of tales and longer stories, 'Main-Traveled Roads,' Mr. Garland's first collection of short stories, including work as striking as anything he has done, gives vivid pastoral pictures of the Mississippi Valley life. 'A Little Norsk' (1893), along with its realism in sketching frontier scenes, possesses a fine romantic flavor. And 'Rose of Dutcher's Coolly' (1895), decidedly his strongest full-length fiction, is a delineation of Wisconsin rustic and urban life, including a study of Chicago, daringly unconventional, but strong, earnest, evidently drawn from the author's deepest experiences and convictions. Other books of fiction are 'Jason Edwards,' 'A Member of the Third House,' 'A Spoil of Office,' and 'Prairie Folks.'

Mr. Garland's work in its increasing command of art, its understanding of and sincere sympathy with the life of the great toiling population of the Middle West, and its unmistakable qualities of independence, vigor, and ideality, is worthy of warm praise. A rich, large nature is felt beneath his fiction. His literary creed is "truth for truth's sake," and his conception of his art is broad enough to include love of country and belief in his fellow-man.

A SUMMER MOOD

From 'Prairie Songs.' Copyright 1893 by Hamlin Garland, and published by Stone & Kimball

Oh, to be lost in the wind and the sun,
To be one with the wind and the stream!
With never a care while the waters run,
With never a thought in my dream.
To be part of the robin's lilting call
And part of the bobolink's rhyme.
Lying close to the shy thrush singing alone,
And lapped in the cricket's chime!

Oh, to live with these beautiful ones!
With the lust and the glory of man
Lost in the circuit of springtime suns--
Submissive as earth and part of her plan;
To lie as the snake lies, content in the grass!
To drift as the clouds drift, effortless, free,
Glad of the power that drives them on,
With never a question of wind or sea.

A STORM ON LAKE MICHIGAN

From 'Rose of Dutcher's Coolly.' Copyright 1895 by Hamlin Garland, and published by Stone & Kimball

As the winter deepened, Rose narrowed the circle of conquest. She no longer thought of conquering the world; it came to be the question of winning the approbation of one human soul. That is, she wished to win the approbation of the world in order that Warren Mason might smile and say "Well done!"

She did not reach this state of mind smoothly and easily. On the contrary, she had moments when she rebelled at the thought of any man's opinion being the greatest good in the world to her. She rebelled at the implied inferiority of her position in relation to him, and also at the physical bondage implied. In the morning, when she was strong, in the midst of some social success, when people swarmed about her and men bent deferentially, then she held herself like a soldier on a tower, defying capture.

But at night, when the lights were all out, when she felt her essential loneliness and weakness and need, when the world seemed cold and cruel and selfish,--then it seemed as if the sweetest thing in the universe would be to have him open his arms and say "Come!"

There would be rest there, and repose. His judgment, his keen wit, his penetrating, powerful influence, made him seem a giant to her; a giant who disdained effort and gave out an appearance of indifference and lassitude. She had known physical giants in her neighborhood, who spoke in soft drawl and slouched lazily in action, but who were invincible when aroused.

She imagined she perceived in Mason a mental giant, who assumed irresolution and weakness for reasons of his own. He was always off duty when she saw him, and bent more upon rest than a display of power. Once or twice she saw him roused, and it thrilled her; that measured lazy roll of voice changed to a quick, stern snarl, the brows lowered, and the big plump face took on battle lines. It was like a seemingly shallow pool, suddenly disclosed to be of soundless depths by a wind of passion.

The lake had been the refuge of the distracted and restless girl. She went to it often in the autumn days, for it rested her from the noise of grinding wheels, and screams, and yells. Its smooth rise and fall, its sparkle of white-caps, its sailing gulls, filled her with delicious pleasure. It soothed her and it roused her also. It gave her time to think.

The street disturbed her, left her purposeless and powerless; but out there where the ships floated like shadows, and shadows shifted like flame, and the wind was keen and sweet,--there she could get her mental breath again. She watched it change to wintry desolation, till it grew empty of vessels and was lonely as the Arctic Sea; and always it was grand and thought-inspiring.

She went out one day in March, when the home longing was upon her and when it seemed that the city would be her death. She was tired of her food, tired of Mary, tired of her room. Her forehead was knotted tensely with pain of life and love--

She cried out with sudden joy, for she had never seen the lake more beautiful. Near the shore a great mass of churned and heaving ice and snow lay like a robe of shaggy fur. Beyond this the deep water spread, a vivid pea-green broken by wide irregular strips of dark purple. In the open water by the wall a spatter of steel blue lay like the petals of some strange flower, scattered upon the green.

Great splendid clouds developed, marvelously like the clouds of June, making the girl's heart swell with memories of summer. They were white as wool, these mountainous clouds, and bottomed in violet, and as they passed the snow-fields they sent down pink-purple misty shadows, which trailed away in splendor toward the green which flamed in bewildering beauty beyond. The girl sat like one in a dream, while the wind blew the green and purple of the outer sea into fantastic, flitting forms which dazzled her eyes like the stream of mingled banners.

Each form seemed more beautiful than the preceding one; each combination had such unearthly radiance, her heart ached with exquisite sorrow to see it vanish. The girl felt that spring was coming on the wing of the southern wind, and the desire to utter her passion grew almost into pain.

It had other moods, this mighty spread of water. It could be angry, dangerous. Sometimes it rolled sullenly, and convoluted in oily surges beneath its coverlid of snow, like a bed of monstrous serpents. Sometimes the leaden sky shut down over it, and from the desolate northeast a snow-storm rushed, hissing and howling. Sometimes it slumbered for days, quiet as a sleeping boa, then awoke and was a presence and a voice in the night, fit to make the hardiest tremble.

Rose saw it when it was roused, but she had yet to see it in a frenzy. The knowledge of its worst came to her early in May, just before her return to the Coule.

The day broke with the wind in the northeast. Rose, lying in her bed, could hear the roar of the lake; never before had its voice penetrated so far. She sprang up and dressed, eager to see it in such a mood. Mary responded sleepily to her call, saying the lake would be there after breakfast.

Rose did not regret her eagerness, though it was piercingly cold and raw. The sea was already terrific. Its spread of tawny yellow showed how it had reached down and laid hold on the sand of its bed. There were oily splotches of plum color scattered over it where the wind blew it smooth, and it reached to the wild east sky, cold, desolate, destructive.

It had a fierce, breathing snarl like a monster at meat. It leaped against the sea-wall like a rabid tiger, its sleek and spotted hide rolling. Every surge sent a triangular sheet of foam twenty-five feet above the wall, yellow and white and shadowed with dull blue; and the wind caught it as it rose, and its crest burst into great clouds of spray, which sailed across the streets and dashed along the walk like rain, making the roadway like a river; while the main body of each upleaping wave, falling back astride the wall, crashed like the fall of glass, and the next wave met it with a growl of thunderous rage, striking it with concave palm with a sound like a cannon's exploding roar.

Out of the appalling obscurity to the north, frightened ships scudded at intervals, with bare masts bending like fire-trimmed pines. They hastened like the homing pigeons, which do not look behind. The helmsmen stood grimly at their wheels, with eyes on the harbor ahead.

The girl felt it all as no one native to the sea can possibly do. It seemed as if the bounds of the flood had been overcome, and that it was about to hurl itself upon the land. The slender trees, standing deep in the swash of water, bowed like women in pain; the wall was half hidden, and the flood and the land seemed mingled in battle.

Rose walked along the shore, too much excited to go back to her breakfast. At noon she ate lunch hurriedly and returned to the shore. There were hundreds of people coming and going along the drive; young girls shrieking with glee, as the sailing clouds of spray fell upon them. Rose felt angry to think they could be so silly in face of such dreadful power.

She came upon Mason, dressed in a thick mackintosh coat, taking notes rapidly in a little book. He did not look up, and she passed him, wishing to speak, yet afraid to speak. Near him a young man was sketching.

Mason stood like a rock in his long, close-fitting rain coat, while she was blown nearly off her feet by the blast. She came back against the wind, feeling her soul's internal storm rising. It seemed quite like a proposal of marriage to go up and speak to him--yet she could not forego the pleasure.

He did not see her until she came into his lee; then he smiled, extending his hand. She spoke first:--

"May I take shelter here?"

His eyes lightened with a sudden tender humor.

"Free anchorage," he said, and drew her by the hand closer to his shoulder. It was a beautiful moment to her, and a dangerous one to him. He took refuge in outside matters.

"How does that strike your inland eyes?" He pointed to the north.

"It's awful. It's like the anger of God." She spoke into his bowed ear.

"Please don't think I'm reporting it," he explained. "I'm only making a few notes about it for an editorial on the need of harbors."

Each moment the fury increased, the waves deepened. The commotion sank down amid the sands of the deeper inshore water, and it boiled like milk. Splendid colors grew into it near at hand; the winds tore at the tops of the waves, and wove them into tawny banners, which blurred the air like blown sand. On the horizon the waves leaped in savage ranks, clutching at the sky like insane sea monsters,--frantic, futile.

"I've seen the Atlantic twice during a gale," shouted the artist to a companion, "but I never saw anything more awful than this. These waves are quicker and higher. I don't see how a vessel could live in it if caught broadside."

"It's the worst I ever saw here."

"I'm going down to the south side: would you like to go?" Mason asked of Rose.

"I would indeed," she replied.