Harry Edward Maule - Selma Lagerlöf; The Woman, her Work, her Message, 1917 by gnosisclassics

"^W^J^^ THE UfJIV-R^ITY LIBRARY UNIVERSIiY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

SELMtXffiMF

THE WOMAN HER WORK HER MESSAGE in'

HARRY

DOUBLEDAY, GARDEN

CV\'\

MAULE

PA(^,K

& COMPAN^' NEW ^ORK

LIBRARY

Selma Lagerlof THE WOMAN, HER WORK, HER MESSAGE Including liberal quotation from Dr. Lagerlof 's own autobiographical

writings and

some of her

BY HARRY

from

critics

MATTE

DOnn.EDAY. T'AGE & CO^rPAXV (lAHDKN

(

ITV

1!M7

NKW VOUK

DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COMPANY

NOTE This

study of the

little

Lagerliif

not so

life

much an

tique perhaps as

9 and work

Selma

appreciation or a

cri-

an attempt to catch, and

present to the American reader, some of the back-

ground from which the author draws her idealism

and her

illusive literary qualities.

In so doing the

author and editor has gone direct to the fountain-

head of Dr. Lagerloi's own autobiographical writ-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but even these are illusive

ings so far as possible

and unsatisfactory without some of the plain facts which we

America would

Therefore, the narrative

like to

know

of her.

carried along through

Miss Lagerlof's own words wherever possible, but for the

most part

her- life

and work and some

hin<l

it.

There

in a simple direct

statement of

of the influences be-

probably no need to explain

that the reasoji for publishing this sketch the ever growing interest

one of the world's great figures

The brochure

not for

sale.

INIiss

lies

in literature.

as the

printing lasts copies will be supplied gratis to

who request them, preference being given and

libraries.

Lagerlof as

As long

all

to schools

Address the publishers:

DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COMPANY Garden City, New York

y >>^

SELMA LAGERLOF

SELMA LAGERLOF THE WOMAN

HONORED by her

own

her

own country no

generation and in less

than throughworld,

Selma

happy portent

of her

literally translated,

mejuis

out the whole civihzed Lagerlof has

name.

fulfilled

For Lagerlof,

laurel leaf,

the

and the absorbing

quiet, calm-eyed little

Swedish

life

story of this

woman

carries the

reader from one crowning with laurel to the next.

The only woman

to win the

Nobel Prize

ture, she, shortly after that event

for Litera-

was made a mem-

ber of the exclusive Swedish Academy, and therefore

also the only

woman

ever to

sit

as one of

those eighteen Immortals.

Born in the

at a time

when

llie

cold. star of realism

was

ascendant in Scandinavian literature, her

soul filled with idealism, and steeped in the of ancient

romance

Northland sagas she stands forth a

SELMA LAGERLOF brilliant exception to the materialism of her

Comparing her books with the

poraries.

facts of her Hfe is

contem-

salient

would be impossible to say what

so frequently said of others, that her

any material sense an autobiographical

Yet leaving the obvious

work

reflection.

facts aside, the idealism

the nobility of conception, the richness of imagination are a true outpouring

authentic

toward of

expression

from the soul and an

the

author's

To quote from

life.

Mr. Henry Goddard Leach,

the

reactions

introduction

to the present

Amer-

ican edition of Jerusalem; "Although Miss Lagerlof

has not been without her share of

plexities .

and

life's

of contact with her fellowmen, it

intuition that she works, rather than

perience."

per-

How

ex-

true that intuition has been

attested not alone

by the

critics,

but also by the

universal appeal of her characters and the world-

wide popularity of her books. In

all

her work

Miss Lagerlof's heart has

turned with greatest understanding to that in ^

which she was born, the

life

of rural

life

Sweden

teeming with tradition, responsive always to the onslaughts and the miracles of Nature.

Here she has found material, which, though

THE WOMAN local in its

outward aspects she has been able to

with

clothe

human

universal

that

which may be found

significance

nearly everything she

writes.

So here at Marbacka Manor, Sunne,

the

province of Varmland, Sweden, into a large family of brothers

and

sisters

on November 20th, 1858,

was born the little Selma Ottiliana Louisa Lagerlof Springing from Swedish gentlefolk of the land-

army

officer,

and her mother was descended from a long

line of

owner

class (her father

distinguished earliest

was a

clergymen)

retired

Miss

Lagerlof

from

childhood seemed destined for the part of

an onlooker and an

was strong enough

inter[)reter of

life.

to run wild over the

She never farm with

the other children of the family, and so, sitting at

home

folks

in a

deep chimney corner with the old

and her books, she

tion carry her off

let

her childish imagina-

on excursions which were denied

the physically more active youngsters.

When

there were no visitors at the

manor house

to enchant her childish fancy with the brave

legends of the countryside the course to books. also

Here, as

was fortunate,

little girl

had

re-

shall see later she

for not only

was she allowed

SELMA LAGERLOF to browse in the ample library of her father but

was helped by both her parents

Through

their

in her reading.

broad culture and interest in

litera-

ture she was led to the best and her natural taste for romantic stories was fostered and directed

But

books was not encouraged,

late hours with her

for in

one place we are told that during her child-

hood she "was allowed to read Tegner and Runeberg and Andersen" through only twice each winter.

"In that way,"

"I came by

more the

first

little girl

adds Miss

big debt."

Lagerlof,

All of these

and

read and loved, varying her

wide reading with her own childish attempts at writing.

Then, at the age of nine the

little girl

went to

Stockholm, to spend the winter with her Uncle

and

his family.

In an essay entitled

"Two

Predictions" which

appears in her latest volume

"Men and

Trolls"

Miss Lagerlof describes the wonderful journey

and her impressions

of the great city.

"Men and

Trolls" has not yet appeared in English and the essay

referred

Here she

tells

been

has

never

her

difficulty

life,

to the confinement, to

accustomed to city

translated.

becoming

THE WOMAN the hard cobblestone-paved streets, and to the city ways.

feel

stupid and

awkward with

these bright

city children" she says (using the present tense

which

found so frequently

talk the

homely Viirmland

Swedish) "for I

But

dialect.

there are

things indescribably wonderful in the old house

where

I stay.

bookcase there

For one thing

full of Sir

Uncle has a

Then

Walter Scott's novels.

She goes on to

the theatre."

tell

that

sometimes her imcle would give the housekeeper

and the old woman would take

a theatre ticket I

and

lie little girl

let

her stand in front of her during

"But what matter, time

the performance. so at the theatre.

Sometimes

sometimes an opera

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a rosy world.

flies

a play and

It is fortunate

that I had sat at mother's knee and read Nosselt's History, else a

new world

how

could I find

after

all

but rather

way.

not

well loved

world of romance presented in living picture^.

Sometimes now and

feel

in foreign lands I enter

a theatre

the old thrill of expectation.

"For myself," she continues, "I

like the folk

stories, but the old lady doesn't care for the peasant

plays.

She

really hurts

me by

saying that the

fair

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; SELMA LAGERLOF

Helen

different

sympathy with

from other

my own

In the spring the

folks, for I

people."

little girl

home

returned to her

and on school holidays played theatre with her brothers and

Their favourite piece

sisters.

suspects Miss Lagerlof's

"My Rose of the Forest,"

was

"because it is

have to rehearse them

all.

we can

have

my memory to guide us.

who, with the help of quilts and blankets, make

the stage scenery and actors.

"not," she remarks,

the most interesting, but because

no prompt book, only I

favourite piece

the simplest, and in fact the only one

present.

own

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;one

all

who make up

these things."

to describe the performance,

how she an old man

the family were the audience, and

played the dual role of heroine and of with long white hair. little

the

the only one with any knowledge

Then she goes on

how

Swedish

girl's

For the

own

latter part, the

yellow hair was rear-

ranged to imitate the locks of the aged man.

"I wonder," she continues, "what the author would have said?

Perhaps he would have been

pleased.

"From

that day I long to write great plays and

THE WOMAX not to

sit

on a school-bench and waste

time in

composition and arithmetic.

"At

fifteen I

have read

and have written

Lagerlof remarks that gift of

the poets in the house

all

Here Miss

verse."

first

when she

first

realized her

rhyming she resolved to become as great

as the poets she

had read.

She had always

in-

now

tended to write novels and plays but fifteen she felt that

nothing was so desirable as to

write great poetry. gift of

she goes on to say, of this period there is

she

felt

her

rhyming and the whole night long she

awake composing verse

lay

One evening

all

after

verse.

But,

the verses she wrote at

only one that she remembers

"And

pleased with.

that," she says, "I

sometimes whisper to myself as I stand

in the

shade of the trees and watch the evening sun's light

flame

over

the

plain

and

valley.

httle couplet reads: "Z)t'<

dr sa morkt under Undarna iingslight stilla

vindarna'

Roughly translated: It

so dark beneath the Hndens

The winds

are so ominous! v

still

This

SELMA LAGERLOF

At twenty she

back again

Stockholm to

take a competitive examination for entrance to the Teachers' College.

She describes her anxiety

because the number of students was limited to

twenty -five and there were forty taking the examinations.

Finally,

when she hears that she

of the fortunate twenty-five

one

who have passed in the

examinations she says that she steals off to the other

end of the house to be alone. less

and dependent on others but has a career be-

fore her

Thus

and

going to manage her

in 1882, after a

for Girls,

the

in Stockholm,

Teachers'

College

beloved Varmland

own

Lyceum

Miss Lagerlof entered

where she remained all

for

her vacations to her

home where,

shall later

she was ever living in the soul, taking deeper

and deeper within

herself

the legends of that

beautiful, mystical land, for the great

was

life.

year at Sjoberg's

three years, returning for

see,

She is no longer help-

to turn the course of her

Her

book which

life.

studies completed, she received an appoint-

Grammar

School for Girls at

Landskrona, Province of Skane.

There she hoped

ment

to teach in the

to find time for literary work,

and much that she did

then was later turned to good purpose.

Accord-

THIO

ing to Miss Lagerlof s

WOMAN

own

account, however, noth-

ing worth while was accomplished

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only some son-

nets in the Swedish magazines,

and endless

folk

tales told after school to her pupils.

This phase of Miss Lagerlof 's self in

an appealing

how

she

came

little

life is

told

her-

autobiographical account

to write her first

book "The

Story of Gosta Berling" which, of course as long as her works are

Swedish romance.

known

will

stand

as a classic of

n THE STORY OF A STORY {A

digest of

Miss Lagerlof's own account

of her early liter-

ary struggles, publislied under the above title in her lection of short stories " The Girl From the Marsh Croft."

col-

charming and

has

irresistible

autobiographical

nevertheless all the qualities that

account,

mark Miss Lagerlof's fiction. and typical of her modesty

It i^ characteristic of her b'est work,

and

self detachment.)

NCE there was a story that wanted told

and sent out

was

already

good

This was

in the world.

very natural, inasmuch as

knew that

finished.

to be

Many,

through remarkable deeds and strange events,

had helped create to

it;

others,

by again and again

What

had added

relating these things.

lacked was merely a matter of being

could travel comfortably

joined together, so that

through the country.

As yet

fused jumble of stories

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a

adventures

swarm

their straws

rushing

of stray bees

hither

was only a con-

big, formless cloud of

and thither

on a summer's day, not know12

THE STORY OF A STOKV

who can gather

ing where they will find some one

them

into a hive.

The up

story that wanted to be told had sprung

Varmland, and you

circled over

parsonages

be sure that

many mills and manors, over many and many homes of military officers,

the beautiful jjrovince, peering through the

windows and begging

to be cared for.

forced to

make many

where

was turned away.

Finally the story

Marbacka.

time

had

little

buildings overshadowed

things

trees. it

was

At one as

this

upon the place which

They seemed

lose.

many

homestead, with low

had been a parsonage, and

could not

was

else

an old place called

by giant

set a certain stamj)

was

to think of.

came

was a

Anything

People had

nmch more importance

But

attempts, for every-

futile

hardly to be expected. of

may

have a greater

love for books and reading there than elsewhere,

and an vaded

air of restfulness it.

and peace always

i)er-

Here there was never any rush

duties or bickerings with servants, nor were hatred

and dissension given house room,

who happened

to be a guest in this

expected to take

life

either.

One

home was not

too seriously, but was

made

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; SELMA LAGERLOF

was to be light-hearted

to feel that his first duty

and to know that

one and

all

who

Lord managed everything

estate our

for

I think of the matter now,

lived

this

for the best.

seems to

must have

that the story of which

lingered thereabout a great

many

longing to be told, that

must have enwrapped

speak

years, in a vain

the place, as a miÂ§t shrouds a mountain summit

now and then letting one rain down upon it.

of its

many

adventures

Sometimes the dear adventurers came to the homestead

more tangible form.

poverty-stricken

army

officers

and stay

evening,

and in rickety

weeks at a time.

for

would drive

to the house behind rickety old horses carryalls,

Aged and

In the

when the toddy had put courage

into

them, they would talk of the time when they

had danced feet

in stockingless shoes, so that

would look small,

and dyed

their

hair

them

told of

pretty young of being

their

how they had mustaches.

how he had once girl

tried to

their

curled

One

take a

back to her sweetheart, and

hunted by wolves on the way; another

THE STORY OF A STORY

had been at the Christmas gered guest had flung wall because

all

feast

where an an-

the hazel-grouse at the

some one had made

believe

liim

they were crows; a third had seen the old gentle-

man who

used to

at a plain deal table

sit

and

play Beethoven.

must have been because

many

legends and

traditions hovered about the farm that one of

the children growing a narrator. for they

up there longed

was not one

were away at school almost the whole

upon them.

But

delicate

was one

much

of a hold

of the girls

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one

and could not romp and play

other children, and

enjoyment all

become

of the boys, however,

year and the story did not get

who was

in reading

who found

and hearing

her keenest

stories

about

the great and wonderful things which had

happened

in the world.

However, at the

start

was not the

girl's in-

tention to write about the stories and legends

surrounding her.

She had not the remotest idea

that a book could be

made

of these adventures,

which she had so often heard related that to her

SELMA LAGERLOF

they seemed the most commonplace things in the world. terial

the

When

she tried to write, she chose

from her books, stringing together

Sultans

ma-

stories of

"Thousand and One Nights."

Walter Scott's heroes, and Snorre Sturleson's

"Kings It

Romance."

need hardly be said that what she wrote was

the least original and the crudest that has ever

been put upon paper.

But

she herself did not see.

She went about at home

on the quiet farm,

every scrap of paper she

filling

very naturally

this

could lay her hands on with verse and prose,

with plays and romances. writing,

success

When

she was not

she sat and waited for success.

was to

who was very

And

Some

stranger

learned and influential,

by some

consist in this:

rare freak of fortune,

was to come and discover

what she had written and

find it

worth printing.

After that, the rest would come of

itself.

Mean-

while nothing of the sort happened.

And

so,

one autumn, when she was two-and-

twenty, she went to Stockholm to prepare herself for the vocation of teacher.

THE STORY OF A STORY

The

soon became absorbed

girl

She wrote no more, bnt went

would

Ikt work.

in for studies

It actually looked as

lectures.

though the story

lose her altogether.

Then something extraordinary happened. same autumn, when she had been of

and

months amid gray

streets

This

living a couple

and house

walls,

she was walking one day up Malmskillnad Street

with a bundle of books under her arm. just come from a lecture

The

lecture

on the history

She had

of literature.

must have been about Bellman and

Runeberg, because she was thinlving of them and of the characters that live in their verses.

She

said to herself that Runeberg's jolly warriors

and

Bellman's

happy-go-lucky

roisterers

were

the

very best material a writer could have to work

And suddenly

with. her:

Varmland, the world

living, is

not

less

or Fanrik Stal.

handle

it,

you

thought flashed upon

this

which you have been

remarkable than that of Fredman If

will

you can only learn how to find

that

your material

quite as good as theirs.

Thus she caught her

And

first

the instant she saw

seemed to rock.

it,

glimpse of the story. the ground under her

The whole long Malmskilhiiid

SELMA LAGERLOF

Street,

from

Hamn

Street Hill to the fire-house,

and sank again

rose toward the skies

sank.

had

She stood

still

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;rose

and

a long while, until the street

She gazed with astonishment

settled itself.

who walked calmly

on, appar-

ently unconscious of the miracle that

had taken

at the passers-by,

place.

Then and

there the girl determined that she

would write the story

and never

for

thought of

it;

Varmland's Cavaliers,

an instant did she relinquish the but

many

long years elapsed before

the determination was carried out.

During these years things were happening which helped mould

it.

constantly

One morning,

on a school holiday, as she sat at the breakfast table with her father, the two of them talked of

He was telling her of an acquaintance of his youth, whom he described as the most This man brought joy and fascinating of men. cheer with him wherever he went. He could

old times.

sing; If

he composed music; he improvised verse.

he struck up a dance tune not only the young

folk danced, but old

men and

old

women, high and

STOKY or A STORVT

xilE

low.

Itf

he made a speech, one had to laugli or

he drank himself

cry,

whichever he wished.

full,

he playetl and talked better than when he

was sober, and when he it

was impossible

foolish things,

fell in

love with a

for her to resist him.

one forgave him;

woman,

he did

felt

sad,

one wanted to do anything and everything to see

him glad

But anv great

again.

success in

life

he had never had, despite his wealth of talents.

He had

lived mostly at the foundries in Viirmland Finally, he

as private tutor. minister.

This

was ordained as a

was the highest that he had

attained.

After this conversation she saw the hero of her story better than heretofore, and little

life

and action came

day a name was given

into

it.

Whence he got

never knew.

was as

the

holidays.

fine

name

she

he had named himself.

Another time she had come home

mas

One

to the hero, he was called

Gosta Berling. It

with that a

One evening

the

for the Christ-

whole family

went off to a Christmas party a good distance from

home

in a terrible blizzard.

It turned out to be a

longer drive than one would have thought.

horse ploughed his

way througU

The

the drifts at a

SELMA L.\GERLOF

creeping pace.

For several hours she sat

sleigh

the

the story.

When

destination, she It

blinding

in the

snowstorm thinking of

they at length reached their

had thought out her

first

chapter.

was the one about the Christmas night at the

smithy.

and

for

And what a chapter! many years her only one.

in verse, for the original plan

be a romance cycle,

But by degrees

this

was that

should

Stal's Sagas."

for a time

should be written as

to go in as the first act.

But

not successful, either; at

last she

the story as a novel. into prose.

attempt was

this

decided to write

Then the chapter was done

grew enormously long, covering

forty written pages.

In the

final revision it

took

nine.

few years later came a second chapter.

was the story

of the Ball at

Borg and

that hunted Gosta Berling and

The Christmas night was worked over

drama.

first

was written

was changed, and

she was impressed that

up only

"Fanrik

was her

a matter of fact,

'eighties,

when

all this

of the wolves

Anna

Stjernhok.

occurred during the

stern Realism

was

at its height.

THE STORY OF A STORY

She admired the great masters

of that time, never

thinking that one could use any other style in

For her own

writing than the one they employed.

part, she liked the romanticists better, hut

ro-

manticism was dead, and she was hardly the one to

think of reviving

Although her brain was stories of ghosts

beautiful

filled

and mad

women and

to overflowing with

love, of

wondrously

adventure-loving cavaliers,

she tried to write about prose.

form and expression!

its

She was not very

all

in calm, realistic

Another

clear- visioned.

would have seen that the impossible was impossible.

The

longing

came over her

manner:

this

The homestead where she had grown up was

sold.

She journeyed to the home of her childhood to see it

once again before strangers should occupy

As she was

leaving, perhaps never

it.

to see the

all

meekness and

humility to write the book in her

own way and

dear old place, she decided in

according to her

own poor

abihties.

was not

going to be any great masterwork, as she had

hoped.

might be a book at which people

—

SELMA LAGERLOF

would laugh, but anyway she would write

what she

for herself, to save for herself

write

could

still

home

save of the

—the dear old

stories,

the sweet peace of the care-free days, and the beautiful landscape with the long lakes

many-hued blue

But

for her,

seemed as

hills.

who had hoped

learn to write a

and the

that she might yet

book people would care to read,

she had relinquished the very thing

she had been most eager to win.

life

was

the hardest sacrifice she had ever made.

few weeks

Landskrona

later,

seated

she was again at her

her

desk.

home

She

began

—she did not exactly know what was to be—but she was not going to be afraid of writing

this

strong words, of exclamations, of interrogations,

nor would she be afraid to give herself with her childishness and

had come to almost of

her dreams!

all

this decision, the

itself.

This

or,

made her

quite delirious.

paper.

away

All, this

Unfamiliar thoughts and things,

rather, things she

stored

After she

pen began to move

She was carried away with enthusiasm.

was writing!

all

had never surmised were

in her brain,

The pages were

crowded down upon the

filled

so quickly

aston-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; THE STORY OF A STORY

What had

ished her. no, years in

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to

months

hitherto required

work out, was now acconipHshed

a couple of hours.

story of the

That evening she wrote the

young countess's

tranij)

over the ice

on Lake Loven, and the flood at Ekeby.

The

following afternoon she wrote the scene in

which the gouty ensign, Rutger von Orneclou, tries to raise

himself in bed to dance the Cachuca,

and the evening

of the next

story of the old Mamsell

day appeared the

who went

off to visit

the

parsimonious Broby clergyman.

Now

she

knew

for a certainty that in this

way

she could write the book; but she was just as certain that no one it

would have the patience to read

through.

In the spring of 1890 Idun invited prize competitors to send in short novelettes of

about one

Here was an opening

for a story

liundred i)ages.

that wanted to be told and sent into the world. It

nmst have been the story

itself

her sister to suggest that she oi)portunity.

Here, at

last,

that prompted

make

use of this

was a way

of finding

out whether her story was hopelessly bad!

SELMA LAtJEKLOF it

much would be

took the prize,

didn't,

gained;

she would simply stand where she had

stood before.

There were only twenty-four hours of the precious time

and

left,

still

this the last

twenty pages to be written.

day they were

invited to a

all

house party, and were to be away over night. Naturally, she too had to go.

When

was over and the guests had

retired

the party to their

rooms, she sat up in the strange house the whole night, writing.

At times she

felt

very queer.

The

place where

she was visiting happened to be the estate on

which the wicked Sintram had once in a singular

lived.

Fate,

way, had brought her there on the

very night that she must write about him sat in the rocker

Now and and

and rocked.

then she would look up from her work

listen in the direction of the

for the possible tion;

who

sound of a pair

but nothing was heard.

at the stroke of

six,

drawing-room,

of rockers in

mo-

In the morning,

her five chapters were finished.

TUK STORY OF A STORY

This happened on one of the last days in July.

Toward the end

August

Idiin contained a notice

manu-

to the effect that something over twenty scripts

had been received by the

editors,

but that

one or two among them were so confusedly written they could not be counted

in.

Then she gave up waiting

for

She

results.

knew, of course, which novelette was so "confusedly written" that

could not be counted

in.

One afternoon

November

she

received

It simply contained the

curious telegram.

words

"Hearty Congratulations," and was signed by three of her college classmates.

her

seemed a

terribly long wait until

when

of the following day,

When

were distributed.

hands

she had

anything. little

Finally,

the Stockliolm papers

the paper was in her

noon

on the

long last

before

finding

page she found a

notice in small type which told that the prize

had been awarded to

To another

her.

might have not meant so much,

perhaps, but for her

meant that she could

devote herself to the calling which

had longed to pursue.

all

her

life

she

SELMA LAGERLOF

There

but

add to

little

The

this:

story

that wanted to be told and sent out in the world

had begun

move toward

to be written, at least, though

years to complete

Now

its goal. it

was

might take a few

it.

She who was writing the story had gone to

Stockholm about Christmas time,

after she

had

received the prize.

The book If

editor of

as soon as

Idun volunteered to publish the

was

finished.

she could ever find time to write

The evening before she was

to return to Lands-

krona she spent with her loyal Adlersparre, to

whom

friend,

Baroness

she read a few chapters

aloud.

"Esselde" listened, as only she could hsten! After the reading she sat quietly thinking. long will

be before

all

of it

"How

ready .f^" she asked

finally.

"Three or four years."

Then they

parted.

The next morning, two hours

before she was to

leave Stockholm, she received a message from Esselde, asking her to

town.

come

to her before leaving

— VUE STORY OF A STORY

The

old baroness was in hvv most |)ositive and

determined mood.

"Now

of absence for a year said,

you must. take a leave

and

book," she

finish the

shall procure the necessary funds."

Fifteen minutes later the girl was on her

way

to the Principal of the Teachers' College to ask

her assistance in securing a substitute.

At one railway

o'clock she

carriage.

was happily seated

But now she was going no

farther than Sormland, where she

who

lived in a

And

charming

so they

in the

—Otto

had good

friends

villa.

Gumaelius and

his wife

—freedom

gave her the freedom of their home

work, and peace, and the best of care for nearly a year, until the

Now, night.

at It

book

last,

w'as finished.

she could write from morning

was the happiest time

But when the story was the summer,

of her

till

life.

finished at the close of

looked strange.

was wild and

disjointed —^the connecting threads were so loosely

drawn that

all

the parts seemed bent upon follow-

ing their old inclination to wander its

off,

each on

own way. It

never became what

Its misfortune

was that

should have become.

had been compelled

SELMA LAGERLOF

wait so long to be told. disciplined

and

restrained,

the author was so

If it it

was not properly

was mostly because

overjoyed

by the thought

that at last she had been privileged to WTite it.

in HER WORK "She

idealist

pure and simple in a world given over

realism, yet such is the perfection of her style

and

the witchery

of her fancy that a generation of realists worship her.''

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The

London Times.

THE

INMiss how first

foregoing pages

Lagerlof in

we have her

started

Hterary

work was crowned with distinguished

promise of her name. creation of

how

career;

spite of severe handicaps her very

foreshadowing that fate which so truly

seen

"The Story

We of

possible for her to give

success,

fulfills

the

have seen how the

Gosta Berling" made

up teaching and devote

her whole time and thought to her writing.

Then what

What

of the other

books that followed?

account has she made of her opportunity

and by what work did she achieve her present exlialted position?

i)lace

her in a word

of course impossible,

yet perhaps the above quoted passage from 29

The

SELMA LAGERLOF

London Times

position as necessary. said that, gazing

redroofed

little

summary

gives as true a

One

down a

of her admirers has

forest valley dotted with

Swedish farmhouses and black

roofed churches she knows exactly what piring

Moreover,

within.

said that she

of her

knows

just

trans-

might further be

what

going on in the

hearts of the inhabitants.

Viewing her work as a whole

reveals a biblical

simplicity of style, the trusting heart of a child

and at the same time the mystic

insight of a seer.

Speaking of Dr. Lagerlof in his volume of interpretation "Voices of

man est of

says:

To-Morrow" Edwin Bjork-

"Selma Lagerlof

an increasing group

one of the great-

of writers

who

represent

a synthesis of two pKst literary epochs, and who, for this reason,

must be held

especially represen-

tative of the literary epoch that

now coming.

She has revived not only the courage but the ity to feel

abil-

and dream and aspire that belonged to

the scorned romanticists of the early nineteenth century.

But

this recovery of

something long held

to be lost and outlived forever she has achieved for

us without surrender of that intimate connection

between poetry and

real life

which was established

MKU

by the naturalists Sodeep

tury."

in Life that,

^\()UK

in the latter half of the

her message as

the child get beyond

its

B. Kcrfoot said

"the wise cannot

find

depth."

but her

Eliot,

sprung from the rich folklore

and the wide reading

of S\N?feden

bottom nor

English critics

have compared her with George literary traditions,

same cen-

of a cultivated

Scandinavian home, defy the ordinary catch-ascatch-can comparisons of literary criticism.

She

" is as national " says Walter Prichard Eaton, " as a

song by Grieg or a play by Tchekhov. all

deeply national art,

Of these

therefore universal.''

modesty

herself

her Nobel Prize address, which this

however. Miss Lagerlof with

things,

characteristic

it is

And

has is

spoken.

quoted

later in

paper she dwelt feelingly upon her literary

inlieritance.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;just

Still,

feel

that Selma Lagerlof

Selma Lagerlof because of her complete

independence of accepted forms and because of her very abundance which bursts through the conventional bounds of technique to find

meaning

in life's

its

own

drama.

In her choice of material Dr. Lagerlof usually selects the

common

clay of mankind, but in the

infinite fineness of her tooling,

see the object

SELMA LAGERLOF

in all its universality, so that every heart is touched,

every mind

led to understand the inscrutable

And in the light of her

ways of life with her people.

inner vision even inanimate objects are touched

with the quickening influence so that we come to feel

the dark woods, the sleeping waters, the gray

northern stones and the tender green things of spring to be an eternal part of the woof of her

dream.

her there

no definite

cation between the conscious

line of

demar-

and the unconscious,

Through her con-

the animate and the inanimate.

stant mastery over the bounds of the merely physical

we come to

realize that

far-off, fantastic

mate object

worlds of her

our

into

own making, her ulti-

to help us see the inner meanings

of the too often ualities of

when she tempts us

over-emphasized superficial act-

own

existence.

"Reading Selma Lagerlof," says the Swedish composer,

dusk

Hugo

Alfven, "is like sitting in the

of a Spanish cathedral.

Afterward,

one does not know whether what he has seen was

dream

or reality, but certainly he has been on

holy ground."

In the same strain, to quote one

of our

own American

Leach

of the

critics,

Mr. Henry Goddard

American Scandinavian Foundation,

^ ~o

1" :£«

Cti

r»i

.2 :0

n1 Ji

IJii

I—

— 1)

•

C a 53

WORK

,"Âť.?

warmly appreciative introduction

said in his

"Jerusalem": "The average mind, whether Swedor

ish

Anglo-Saxon,

soon

preciseness in Hterature as

wearies

heartless

and welcomes an idealism

wholesome as that of Miss

Further-

Lagerlcif.

more, the Swedish authoress attracts her readers

by a

diction unique unto herself as singular as

the English

may

style

sentences

Charles Lamb.

Her

be described as prose rhapsody held in

restraint, at times passionately breaking its bonds. .

intuition that she

than by experience. acters with w^oman's

and

She

warm and

works rather

sees her char-

delicate

sympathy

w^ith the clear vision of childhood.

Selma

Lagerlcif takes her delight in developing,

not the psychology of the unusual but in analyzing the motives and emotions of the normal mind."

Thus out one

there

of the multitude of her characters not

who does not stand out

tation of the Great

human is

traits

Enigma, and

which guide our

Ingmar Ingmarsson who

as an interpre-

of the universal

destinies.

There

scarified his love that

he might retain the Ingmarsson farm; and big

Ingmar who communed with

his long

dead father

to determine his roiirsr in choosing public

shame

SELMA LAGERLOP^

34 right the

way

the

wrong that he had done "because

we Ingmarssons."

it is

Then we have

happy, carefree Gosta BerHng "weakest and strong-

men"

est of

perennial playboy of the northern

world of heedless joy and tragedy; and his impecunious followers the Cavaliers, the pensioners at

Who,

Ekeby.

forget poor old

Emperor said,

that has ever read of

Jan

Rufluck Croft, that lowly

of Portugallia,

"is wiser than

him can

who

as his good Katrina

Can we

we know."

ever

forget his arrival at the pier intending to protect his little

Glory Goldie Sunnycastle from her en-

emies, "Pride and Hardness, Lust and Vice."

And

of the

women, contrast the indomitable

Mistress at

Ekeby with

lem", a

flower mighty in her spiritual strength;

frail

fair

Gertrude of "Jerusa-

or with the fascinating Marianne, gay, frivolous,

lightsome, yet always introspective until she was

Hfted out of herself

by Gosta.

Impossible to mention them

whom for

the world

the better

all,

off

a goodly host,

and the happier

knowing.

To resume where Miss Lagerlof inimitable "The Story of a S.ory,"

left off in it

may be

her said

that "Gcsta Berling" was published in book form

HER WORK in

Sweden

f},)

Idealism in a world of realism;

in 1894.

a romance amidst the smother of gray Scandina-

vian pessimism, this saga of Gosta Berling, poet, philosopher, carefree vagabond of Loven's sunny

became the

shores,

countrymen gave

and her

epic of \'armland,

full

honour to

Soon

its writer.

the book was translated and published in

other European countries.

In 1899

the

all

appeared

United States in the translation of Pauline

in the

Bancroft Flach.

jVIiss

Berling,"

Lagerlof's three great novels,

"Jerusalem," and

Portugallia,"

whichever one of these critic,

with

one

will

"The Emperor

must forever remain

individual taste as to which

may

"Gosta

matter of

the best.

But

be chosen by the

always be tempted to place on a par

her great juvenile classics

"The Wonderful

Adventures of Nils" and "The Further Adventures of Nils."

brief

description of

Berling" perhaps after so

may

much has been

Consult the

map

"The Story

Gcista

not be out of order here said in the foregoing pages.

modern Sweden and

in the

province of Varmland one finds Lake Fryken,

and upon

its

shores the village of Sunne.

SELMA LAGERLOF

Marbacka Manor, that

here in the old rectory,

Miss Lagerlof grew to womanhood, and that she

about

now

hves.

This,

the setting for "Gosta Berhng."

Fryken is Lake Loven, it

it is

here

and the country round-

or, as

Lake

she so frequently calls

"Long Lake," and Marbacka is Liljecrona's Lov"Gosta Berling," "Liljecrona's

dalla of

and

of so

many

Home"

other of her stories.

At the opening

"The Story

Gosta Berling,"

the hero, an outcast minister of the gospel,

rescued by the Mistress of

bank where he had

What more this

When

Ekeby from a snow-

cast himself

magnificent figure in

masterful

lady

the

down

to die.

all fiction

than

seven iron works

first

Gosta saw her she was "on the way

home from

the charcoal kilns with sooty hands

and a clay pipe

in her

mouth, dressed

unlined, skeepshin jacket skirt,

in a short

and a striped homespun

with tarred shoes on her feet and a sheath

Ah yes, a wonderful woman

knife in her bosom."

Hear her own words, "If governor comes, comes, and

wave one

wave with two the bishop

wave with

three

all

and the aldermen and mine-owners dance to

music."

finger the

the chapter in

Varmland

HER WORK

And

to llio bachelors

wing

in the

house at Ekeby where Hved

manor

great

pensioners at

lier

leisured ease she l)roiight Gosta Berling,

drunken

preacher, poet, "lord of 10,000 kisses and 13,000

love and

not

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;who

who is

whom

Gosta Berling

love letters."

them

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

all

women

deceives

them

yet "strongest and weakest of

men"

loves

all

a drunkard, yet heroic, a scamp, yet noble and self-sacrificing,

a tremendous force for

tremendous force pensioners

the

who

woman's hospitable smithy.

From

for good.

find

and a

evil,

Christmas Eve

shelter

beneath

this

roof hold a revel in the old

the forge steps the devil in

full

panoply of hoofs and horns and reveals to them the

has

terrible

compact which

their

benefactress

made with him

to atone for her sins.

shameless

these

cavaliers

righteousness drive forth the one

them.

And even Gosta

hypocritical

sits

so,

self-

who had sheltered

Berling,

debted to the iron mistress,

And

most

lately in-

quiescent during

her humiliation and expulsion.

For a year the pensioners run the seven estates to suit themselves.

Their

lives are filled

pranks and insane adventures. at Ekeby? " the people ask.

with

"How are

mad

you

all

" Milk and honey flow

SELMA LAGERLOF

"We empty

there," answers the poet Gosta.

mountains of iron and fields

fill

The

our cellar with wine.

bear gold with which we gild

life's

the

misery,

and we cut down our woods to build bowling

alleys

and summer houses."

And

Milk and honey indeed!

while the pen-

sioners dance the seven estates go to rack

and

ruin,

the old mistress stalks about the country with a beggar's crutch.

It is during these mad

meet the fascinating Marianne

Dohna, the lowly broom

women who

girl,

pranks that we Sinclair,

Ebba

Anna and many other

could not resist the charms of Gosta

Berling's personality.

Above

all,

we remember the

gentle Countess Elizabeth who, conscience stricken at her

her

own unwelcome

home and

passion for the poet, deserts

pettish husband.

Divorced and

a homeless wanderer, fate brings her at last to a refuge at Ekeby.

preme

sacrifice.

Here she asks

They

are married

Gosta a su-

and through

her influence Gosta Berling's redemption

complished.

The manor house

contract with the devil pensioners

rebuilt,

ac-

the

cancelled, the rule of the

ended, and together the Countess and

Gosta spend their lives in glorious self-renunciation.

At the end the

old mistress returns

home

to die.

HEIl

For her ancient

sin

WORK

f50

was the storm

bringing ruin and destruction in

God

of its

let loose,

path, but at

the end sweeping the heavens clear of clouds.

Thus has

Lagerlof woven from the skeins

]\Iiss

countryside legend a wonderful tapestry of

Vtirmland.

crude figures

tapestry of rich colours and great

but her gentle humour, her ever

it is,

present idealism, and the invariable delicacy of

her style have set

apart from anything which she

or any other Scandinavian writer has done.

Miss

Lagerliif's

next work, a book of short

stories entitled "Invisible in 1894.

Many

of the stories are

Swedish sagas, and in spirit of

Links" was published

all

based on the old

them we

the very

feel

the North; the romance which broods

over the desolate forests and peoples the wilderness

The

with supernatural beings. is

intended to convey

llie

relation of

to these manifestations of nature.

hidden half-comprehended

way

the book

title of

human For

thyir

beings

some

lives

are

linked with the animating spirit which controls the

elements. Unlike the characters of "GostaBerling"

the

people

these

tales

are

mostly humble

peasants, fisher folk and other toilers, and as one

SELMA LAGERLOF

40 critic said,

the events are narrated so that one

not only sees the immediate story in hand but

The

the entire hves of the individuals involved.

book was translated by Mrs. Flach and published in this country in the fall of 1899.

The

critics

here were extravagant in their praise of Miss Lagerlof as a short story writer, comparing her

favourably with Kipling, Hawthorne, and Poe.

Following the publication of "Invisible Links"

King Oscar (widely

Sweden and

known

his son Prince

as a talented

Eugen

and successful land-

scape painter) extended financial aid to Miss Lagerlof

who

also

was awarded at

pend by the Swedish Academy

The same

of her achievements.

time a small

this

acknowledgment

year, in

company

with Sophie Elkan, the author, she made her

The immediate

trip to Italy.

was "The Miracles

Sweden

1897,

sti-

first

result of that trip

of Antichrist," published in

and

this

country in Mrs.

Flach's translation in the spring of 1899.

In this book Miss Lagerlof showed herself completely at

home among

tales of Sicily. of the

the legends and folk

rich in the

warm

colours

South and apparently her understanding

HER WORK of the hot blooded Sicilians

the

introspective

Swedish

as great as

There

people.

are

characters in this book long to be remembered

but

it is

in the

development of the theme that we

chiefly marvel.

legend

Sicilian

comes he

shall

She takes

as her text the ancient

which says:

"When

Antichrist

There

seem as Christ.

shall

great want, and Antichrist shall go from land to

And

land and give bread to the poor.

many

find

followers."

colorful tale of

modern

Upon

he shall

she builds a

this

Sicily at the

time when

revolutionary Socialism swept the island, making

heavy inroads upon the influence

An Englishwoman,

of the Church.

coveting the wonderful image

of the Christchild in the church at

Rome, makes

an exact duplicate, except that upon the crown of the

"My

spurious

Kingdom

image is

scratched the legend

only of this World."

While

pretending to kneel before the shrine she takes the

holy image and puts in counterfeit.

its

place her earthly

Months afterward a miracle comes

to pass in that the church bells ring,

image of the Christchild door.

and

The monks cast

tear

and the true

found standing at the

down

the false statue

into the marketplace, restoring the

SELMA LAGERLOF

sacred one to

dom

The image whose

niche.

its

only of this world"

King-

picked up and

carried into Sicily where as Antichrist, the personification of agnostic ideals,

many

works

miracles

of material aid to the poor and destitute of theland.

To put spirit

broadly Antichrist represents the

Socialism,

whose kingdom

was

only

of this world, recognizing always the rights of

man but

ends with the Pope advising Father of

restoration

the

The

story

Gondo

as to

admitting naught of God.

Christianity

the

Sicilian

towns which have been won over to Socialism.

"Father Gondo," said the Pope,

you held the image burn him.

him? little

Why

Why.'^

"when

sternly,

your arms you wished to

Why

were you not loving to

him back

to the

Christchild on the Capitolium from

whom

did you not carry

he proceeded?

"That

You

what you wandering monj^s could

could take the great popular

your arms, while

movement

and Antichrist would

but an imitation

him

his

of Christ,

Lord and Master.

lying like a child in its

it is still

swaddling clothes, and you could bear feet;

do.

see that he

it is

to Jesus'

nothing

and would acknowledge

But you do not do

so.

HER AVORK

You in

cast antichristianity on the pyre,

turn will cast you there.

When

fear him. .

shall

and soon he

do not

he comes to storm the Capitol,

meet him and we

shall lead

him

to Christ."*

"From

a Swedish Homestead, " Miss Lagerlof's

next book was published in 1899, and was brought

out in this country in the English of Jessie Brochner, in 1001.

The book of a

made up

of a novelette

"The Story

Country House" otherwise known as "From

a Swedish of

Homestead," the remarkable "Queens

Kungahalla" and eight other shorter

stories.

Of these only three "The Fisherman's Ring,"

"Santa Catarina

Money Chest"

Siena" and "The Emperor's

are laid elsewhere than in Sweden,

the former in Italy, and the third in the "black

country" around Charleroi, an allegory toucliing

upon the labour troubles that then beset Belgium. It

is,

however, the

"The Story

of a

first

story in the vol nine,

Country House" that has

at-

It should be borne in mind that this story was written before the wide spread Fabian and Christian Sociahsm, and as such may be taken as rather a remarkable prophecy by Miss Lacier! )f. â&#x20AC;˘

tA new edition of Miss Lagerlof's

later

book was published in 1916 in format uniform with work, in response to the demand.

this

SELMA LAGERLOF

Here as

traded the greatest attention. as anywhere in her

beauty underlying

work runs that vein all

clearly

of mystic

In the hands

she does.

of the grim Scandivanian realists this story

would

have been almost too harrowing, but handled with Miss Lagerlof's delicacy of touch, fantasy nearly on a par with Portugallia."

The

story

becomes a

"The Emperor

deals

student at Upsala University

with

who

young

goes into the

northern woods to recoup the family fortunes, and

who

loses his reason

pity

when

death

through

self

reproach and

his great flock of sheep are frozen to

l^efore his eyes in a storm.

This youth of

the landed gentry then becomes a peddler of odd trinkets throughout the countryside as

"The Goat"

to his reason

until

and to

through love he

first trip

"From

1899, Miss Lagerlof

to the Orient from which

great classic, "Jerusalem."

company

only

restored

his family.

Following the completion of

Homestead, "

known

of peasants

a Swedish

made

her

came her second

few years before a

from Nas, a severe parish of

the sturdy rural district of Dalecarlia, had

made

a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to join a colony

HER WORK

formed by a Mrs. Edward Gordon of Chicago who

had established a mission there made

u]) for

the

most part of Swedish-Americans.

Thus the

historical

background

of ''Jerusalem.'*

Their aim was practical as well as spiritual, for the mission conducted a school, a hospital, and otherwise aided in

Not only were lem

of the

much needed

public works.

their early experiences in Jerusa-

most harrowing nature through the

rigours of the

unaccustomed climate, the fevers

which assailed them, and the scanty bounty of a desert land but also there

rumours

of the

most alarming sort

of the pilgrims in the

came back

Sweden

of the

conduct

Holy Land. and to

ascertain the truth of these rumours,

probe the cause of the saying, then prevalent in

Sweden, that "Jerusalem

made

Miss Lagerlof

kills,"

the journey to Palestine in 1899-1900.

Only too truly did she substantiate the grim northern acceptance of an inevitable fate in the

Holy Land. true; for the

"Jerusalem

unhappy

kills!"

Dalecarlians,

their bracing northern climate,

to the hardships of the desert.

among them, but with

fell

was

all

too

removed from an easy prey

Death had stalked

that determination which

/ SELMA LAGERLOF

has won for the Dalecarlians the term of "the

backbone

of the

their task.

Swedish nation" they held to

to the charges,

was substantiated Hberal pohcy

that the Swedish mission in

its

toward Christian and Moslem

alike

had earned

the enmity of the other missions there, making

easy

traffic

for

the stories which caused such

heartache in the Dalecarlian homesteads.

Of these conditions Miss Lagerlof wrote:

"Here the Catholic speaks

evil of

the Protestant,

the Methodist of the Quaker, the Lutheran of the

Reform

sect.

Here envy

fanatic looks askance at the

man

lurks; here the of

sound

ideals;

here orthodox contends with heretic; here one finds neither pity nor tolerance; here one hates for

God's highest glory's sake every .

Here

human

Here

the evil tongue's Jerusalem.

the

soulhounder's

being.

Jerusalem.

Here one

persecutes without cessation; here one murders

without weapons.

this

Jerusalem that

Perhaps one of the greatest lof 's artistry

was the task

of fiction this

background

tests of

kills."

Miss Lager-

weaving into a work

of facts,

which were at

the time a matter of pressing national importance.

take facts as they are, retain the panorama-like

HER WORK

truth for a background, and then create in

foreground a work of art which

anytliing

than an obvious and laboured superstructure

The raw

which few have accomplished.

feat

tlie

colours of the background are yet too new, too

stark in their insufficiently understood meaning, to

work

into a creative story.

Yet on her return from the Holy Land,. Miss Lagerlof wrote the

and had the

of "Jerusalem," it

hailed as her

The book was published

Sweden

but was not brought out in this country

1915 in the English of Velma Swanston

until

Howard who has later

volume

satisfaction of seeing

masterpiece. in 1901,

first

translated

all

Miss Lagerlof's

work and who is her authorized representative *

in this country.

Just here a word in regard to Mrs. Howard's untiring

work

in the cause of

America may perhaps be

Selma Lagerlof

in order.

born but at an early age came to

She was reared

Swedish

this country.

constant association with both

Swedish and English scholars and

home

She

both languages.

equally at

As a young woman she

returned to Sweden where she worked for some

SEL.MA

LAGERLOF

years as a journalist, somewhat astounding the

American methods

leisurely Scandinavians with her

One

newspaper work.

—

a "scoop" on her Swedish colleagues

of her first assignments

idol,

This meeting was the

many

warm

first of

friendship between author

Later on at home

—was

Selma Lagerlof.

interview with her literary

that developed

and

translator.

in America she achieved success

as a writer, as a translator of Scandinavian litera-

In Miss Lagerlof 's work,

ture and as a lecturer.

however, she finds her greatest delight for in Mrs.

Howard's translations we mediately and

feel this

sympathy im-

perceive also that through her

illuminative translations

get as deeply into

the inner meanings and subtleties of Miss Lagerlof's creations, as it is

possible to

do through an

interchange of languages.

In "Jerusalem" (Volume

Miss Lagerlof

—the psycholobackground, as one might say—the pilgrim-

concerned with the preparation for gical

age.

tring

The whole book

laid in Dalecarlia, cen-

around the ancient farm

of the long line of

Ingmarssons, "Big Ingmar," "Strong Ingmar"

and so

on.

Here we

Swedish people in a

see the very soul of the

series of separate,

but linked

IIKIJ

WOUK

pen-pictures, the history of

farmer family and the

homestead is

the peasant to

the

"Jerusalem"

this

hand against

religion,

Hearts are broken

love.

which enables Karin to

Ingmar Farm

of a

fantacism

attachment

pitted on the one

in the struggle

summons

Among In

itself.

life

on the other against

the

crisis of religious

Dalecarlia

aristocracy

emotion

two generations

Swedish parish.

in a rural

sacrifice

to obey the inner voice which

her on her religious

pilgrimage,

and

which leads her brother, on the other hand, to

abandon the

girl of his

heart and his

personal

life's

happiness in order to win back the farm.

Of the book, Edwin Bjcirkman, the Swedish

American

critic

and writer

alone are enough to

said,

make

"The first

chapters

immortal," while to

quote J. B. Kerfoot again, this time from Everybody's "'Jerusalem'

is,

on the

simplest stories yet, in

story of us

all.

may

some strange way,

And because

and a woman and a a child

surface, only one of" the

seer

its

author

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these

three

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

it is tlie

a child in

one,

read 'Jerusalem,' or a sage and be

equally enthralled."

Here

sharp contrast with the irresponsible

Viirmland cavaliers of "Gosta Berling," we have

SELMA LACERLOF

the outwardly stolid and plodding peasants of

Through the witchery

Dalarne, or Daleearlia. of

Miss Lagerlof's style we see their cloddish exbut we also see them right down to the

terior,

cores of their very hearts

her

see

why

and

of the

Swedish nation."

we encounter a people who for

who

"is

through

the Dalecarlians have earned the

name of "backbone first of all,

And

souls.

it right.f^"

"is

Here

centuries have asked

a race

duty.^^";

recognize no class differences,

who know no Here we

nobility except that of character.

see a

people already deeply religious, stirred to their

very depths by the Helgumist movement.

In the opening chapters which comprise "Book

One" we

first

meet Ingmar Ingmarsson ploughing

in his ancestral fields

science.

and battling with

his con-

this "Little"

Ingmar;

sullen churl

an Ingmarsson with no standing

an Ingmarsson carries a

all

burden upon

in the

community;

that illustrious line

who

right

his conscience.

that wrong, to marry Brita

who had

strangled

her new-born babe and bring her to rule over the

Ingmarsson farmstead, after a term

in prison

would

And

"Little"

Ingmar, as he plodded up and down

the

field after

only

make matters

worse.

woitK

iii:i{

the plow took his troubles to his long dead father

"Big"

Ingiiiar as

he was known the country round.

daring feat, this collociuy with the dead, for

even so daring a novelist as Aliss Lagerlof, but with sneh delicacy the reader feels

carried out

no is

reached, and in

decision

what he considers

face of

tlie

certain ostracism, Ingniar goes to

The

si>nse wliatt-ver of the bizarre.

down

to the city

meet and marry Brita as she comes out of prison.

But here comes out the true Dalecarlian Instead of being shunned Ingmar

stuff.

restored to

standing in the community for his action and wins the

title of

"Big" Ingmar.

Book Two

carries us

Swedish peasant

life

on to that panorama of

which ends with the dramatic

departure of the Dalecarlians for Palestine.

In structure and technique

common novel

has nothing in

with the American or English idea of

writing,

yet from episode to episode

follow the characters,

and deeper

l)it

l)y

into their souls,

bit getting

and

little

deeper

little ,

understanding more clearly the inevitability of their destinies.

sj'mbolist.

Someone has

called

Perhaps symbolism

Miss Lagerlof a is

good a term

as another for that strangely fascinating texture

SELMA LAGERLOF

which

knits

the

all

chapters

"Jerusalem"

together in one compelling epic.

The second volume, lem

in the

called in Swedish "Jerusa-

Holy Land,"

Halgumists

deals with the lives of the

in Palestine, but

ends as the first volume

began in the ancient farmhouse

of the Ingmarssons.

This was published in Sweden in 1902, the year following "Jerusalem in Dalecarlia."

It has not

yet appeared in America.*

Miss Lagerlof's next book "Christ Legends"

was published

in 1904

and was brought out

in this

country in Mrs. Howard's translation in 1908. This

a collection of simple

visible miracles

little tales

of the

and inner mysteries surrounding

the Christ from the time of His birth and up to the time of the Crusades.

The Swedish feeling the

school authorities at this time

need of a school reader which would

serve to keep ahve the rich store of folk lore and historic

Swedish

tradition life,

and

which at the

may

the background

same time teach the

be mentioned here that announcement already has been made by Doubleday, Page & Co. of the second volume of Jerusalem under the title of " The Holy City Jerusalem, Vol. II." Velma Swanston Howard the translator has been at work upon this book for nearly a year and has only completed her * It

work

time for

fall

publication.

WVM WOHK

wonders of the country's geography, commissioned

Miss

Lagerlcif

such

write

book.

"The

Wonderful Adventures of Nils" and "The Further Adventures of Nils," (1906 and 1907) were the result. If

aught were needed to secure forever the

place of the writer in the hearts of her countrymen, these books accomplished the purpose. in this country in

1907

and

1911

Published

Mrs. Howard's translation

respectively,

they immediately

achieved a popularity which none of her previous

They were

books had enjoyed up to that time.

ognized as classic stories for children of

rec-

ages and

all

were circulated widely through the regular book channels, schools,

and

well

through

special

library

reading

lists.

circles,

practical

point in regard to the popularity of these books

that they have appeared in the reprint editions,

where they have been put of

in price within the reach

many, many thousands

wise could not edition of

own them.

of children

who

A handsome illustrated

"The Wonderful Adventures

with pictures by

other-

Mary Hamilton

of Nils,"

Frye, also has

been issued with success. In the face of such wide distribution

seems

SELMA LAGERLOF

almost superfluous to give here any descriptive note of the two books.

Little Nils Holgersson,

Morten Goosey Gander, the

flock of wild geese

and the other characters met there are now

much

a part of the web and woof of story tradition

American

in the

mind

as Andersen,

Grimm

Although these books were Miss

and Aesop.

Lagerlof's first perfectly

child

work

home

for children

before

Indeed, by many. Nils

they showed her

a juvenile audience.

considered the author's

crowning achievement.

The year

From

the

following, 1908, appeared

Marsh Croft"

novelette of that

including

title

"The Story

at the first

and eight shorter of a

translated

Story" quoted

"The

Girl

stories,

in the

From

the

a piece of work as powerful and

same time

part

Girl

a volume containing the

early part of this sketch.

Marsh Croft"

"The

as delicately idealistic as the

"Jerusalem."

The volume was

by Mrs. Howard and published

in this

country in 1910.

"Liljecrona's

two years

later

Home"

appeared

1911,

and

was translated and published

HER WORK country

this

While

in the translation of

many

the

short

Anna

Barwell.

Sehna

stories

Lagerlof have been laid in Viirmland, and have

employed some

the legendary characters of

^'Gosta Berling," here

a whole novel centring

around the musician who, although he had a comfortable home, a loving wife, fine children, and

a bounteous farm, must needs

fritter

away

his

with the roystering cavaliers at Ekeby.

not luxury and good cheer which tempt

time

"It

me away,"

he plays on his violin when begging forgiveness

from

wife,

his

glory, but

life's

"not love

seductive changes

must

bitterness, its riches I

its

And

here in this book

musician come

home

world and with his

Its sweetness,

feel

about me."

see at last the restless

to stay, at peace with the

own

restless stormswe})t soul.

Like "Gosta Berling" "Liljecrona's in

women, nor

for other

Home"

laid

the author's beloved Viirmland and the Lovdalla

(home) around which the like

tale

written

much

Miss Lagerlof 's own iNIarbacka that one might

even say

was taken from

"The Legend most

it.

of the Sacred

delicate tales of the

Image" one

of her

Holv Land, translated

SELMA LAGERLOF

by Mrs. Howard, was made up separately Christmas

gift

book here and has enjoyed great

popularity.

"The Emperor Sweden

1914,

appeared in

Portugallia"

and

Howard's translation

country in Mrs.

this

1916.

Dr.

Lagerlof's

latest collection, published last year in

under the

title,

legends, essays,

"Men

and Trolls"

Sweden

made up

and addresses.

For any comparison with "The Emperor

PortugaUia" we must go back to "Jerusalem"

and "The Story

touching simplicity, artistic

Gosta Berling," for in

message, and

its spiritual

universality

so fresh in the public

its

comparable only to

the highest points of the author's work. story

its

The

mind that a summary

perhaps unnecessary but for the sake of com-

pleteness I should like to set

down

here a brief

outline.

From try has

the highest critical judgment in this coun-

come genuine

praise such as probably

of her previous books has received is

In this romance

seen the fulfilment of that aim which

found

in all her

none

may be

work, of establishing that invisible

HEIt

WORK

between God and man

link

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of

the seen and

unseen, of deep spiritual motive and outward

Hildegarde Hawthorne, one of the

action.

country to recognize the genius of

critics in this

Sehna Lagerlof says

"The Emperor

New York

galHa" in the

"Who shall

first

of Portu-

Times:

convey the poignant pathos, the serene beauty,

human heart The very breath

the deep and delicate understanding of the are revealed in this simple story?

whic'li

the beauty of great art, the unconsciousness of

life is in it,

greatness.

The

setting of forest

cated, yet intimately

that

is,

and

evil,

after

all,

felt,

and mountain, barely

indi-

the hint of magic and of mystery,

forever present in

the contact of good

life,

the joy that becomes sorrow, the sorrow that grows

to a loftier

and keener

gether into a

web

joy, all these are here, all

of rare texture, strong

and

woven

to-

fine."

Speaking of the spiritual message that Miss Lagerlof brings in this book Prof. Stanwood Cobb, of the English

Annapolis,

Tagore and

Department compares

calls

at the

her

Naval Academy

Rabindranath

her "a cosmic genius."

Of the subtlety

of its beauty, Ina

Ten Eyck

Firkins, in the Bellman says:

"Thought plate;

acts upon her pages like sunlight on a sensitive no material medium is evident, but after the exposure

the impression

revealed, delicate, distinct, truthful."

SELMA LAGERLOF

While a reader impressed by to the pubHshers to call the

its

book "a

beauty writes story, a song,

an appeal, and a benediction."

But to return to the

"The Emperor

story

itself:

of Portugallia"

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Swedish Pere Goriot, was called Franceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and of the transcendent power an

fatherhood in

an epic

alchemy which turned to

fine gold

that which

before the whole world was dross. It

small wonder that Jan of Rufl3uck Croft

never ceased to

time that his

of the

talli

little

daughter came into the world because upon that

day a great change came

into his

life.

When

first

the tiny bundle was placed in his arms and he

became conscious

another heart beating in

unison with his own, the churlish peasant was transformed.

The

toil-worn clod

became a being

love and happiness, the constant companion of his little girl.

the very next day after her

birth he carried her to the door of the cottage,

and

as the

ruddy rays

humble

of the departing

sun bathed father and daughter in their splendour,

christened

her

Glory

Goldie

Sunnycastle,

Godchild of the Sun.

And

then, the irony of fate that sent the growing

EH WORK

out into the world to earn

girl

and Katrina might not ently

was

all

too

lose their

the

first few-

of the Sun.

Jan took her absence, how he refused to

believe

of her, telling the neighbours that she

ill

was away reigning over her Empire and that ())K'

Appar-

needed money, nothing

more was heard from the Godchild

How

that Jaii

home!

etisy, for after

the

containing

letters

money

he, the

Emperor

of Portugallia

of Portugallia,

would

day welcome her home with imperial splendour,

constitutes as poignant

and as deeply searching

a story as Miss Lagerlof has ever done.

But this

cold.

Northern study

ghosts and mental derangements. deed, that script,

"It

Ibsenesque is

well, in-

we have her," says the Boston Tran-

"for otherwise

we should

possess but a one-

sided understanding of the Northern lands."

In the climax we see poor Jan's sacrifice

good and the

spiritual

awakening

made

Glory Goldie

accomplished.

HER PI^YS Since winning the Nobel Prize, Selma Lagerlof lias

first

written

two

plays

was a dramatization

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; both of

successes.

The

"The, Girl From the

SELMA LAGERLOF

Marsh

Croft." It

Finland,

still

Denmark,

was from

playing

Norway, and Holland.

Mrs. Howard's translation of "The Girl From the

Marsh Croft" that Marie

Claire made, in connec-

tion with the original Swedish, her dramatization of the

book

for the

French stage.

pastoral

Royal Theatre,

comedy put on

last season at the

Stockholm,

Miss Lagerlof's second dramatic

success.

Ill IIEH

UNLIKE

HONOURS

many great

figures of literature

Sclma Lagerlbf has received tion in her

own

lifetime,

country and by foreigners.

Not

full

both

recogni-

in her

own

the least of her

honours does Dr. Lagerlof count the tribute that has been paid her work abroad, and she treasures vol-

umes

of her

books which have been translated into

many strange languages. Her popularity in America, France, and Germany has been every bit as great as at home. in

popular and

In England, too, her works rank

critical

British novelists,

regard with the best of the

and large editions of both "Jeru-

salem" and "The Emperor

of Portugallia"

have

found a ready sale and co-incident with the American uniform Northland Edition,

it is

announced

that one of the large English publishers will do likewise.

Besides her popularity in the French,

English, and

German speaking

Lagerlof's books

countries,

Miss

have been translated into Rus61

SELMA LAGERLOF

Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Dutch,

sian,

some

while

Icelandic,

her books

Italian,

have ap-

peared in Arabic, Hebraic, Armenian, and Japanese.

Of her honours at home

it is

almost unnecessary

She was created Doctor

to speak.

by the University

of Literature

Upsala in 1907 and two years

later was awarded the Nobel Prize of $40,000 for

given by that august body

literature.

This prize

of eighteen

Immortals, the Swedish Academy, and

woman who

in choosing the only

received

made

it,

so far ever has

they announced that the award was reason

"for

the noble

idealism,

the

wealth of imagination, the soulful quality of style

which characterize her works." Five years elected a

later,

member

her not only the

1914^,

of the

first

Dr. Lagerlof was

Academy, thus making

woman

winner of the Nobel

Prize for literature, but also the

woman member The award

of the

first

and only

Swedish Academy.

Nobel Prize to

INIiss

Lagerlof

was made at a banquet given December

10, 1909,

at the

Grand Hotel, Stockholm, by King Gustav.

Her speech form

of the

of a story

acknowledgment took the novel which

typical of the best of her

HER HONOURS work.

here quoted in part, as translated by

Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard:

"Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen:

"A few days ago I sat in a railway carriage on my way to Stockholm, It was drawing on toward evening;

was dark outside and quite dim

in the

]My travelling companions were dozing,

coach.

each in her corner, and

quietly listening

I sat

to the rumbling of the train as

sped along the

tracks.

"As

I sat there, I

of times that I

"The old

and now

people.

afraid of solitude,

I must

autumn

Varmland,

had been

living in

in the greatest solitude,

was obliged to appear among so many was as though

had become somewhat

and movement back there

life

and

in the

grew troubled at the thought that

make my appearance

"Then felt

had journeyed up to Stockholm.

entire

home

began to think of the number

I got to thinking

in the

about

world again.

father,

a sinking at the lieart because he was not

him thai

ing, so I could loll

the Nobel Prize.

been so glad of

I it

knew

as he.

and liv-

had been awarded

that no one would have

Never have

met any

SELMA LAGERLOF

one who had such love and esteem for Hterature

and writers as had he; and

known

that the Swedish

great literary prize!

"And if

he only could have

Academy had given me a

was a

him about

to be able to tell

real aflQiction

it.

my thoughts began to play. now riding to my old father

then

were

Heavenly Kingdom!

not

'Think the

seem to have heard

why

such things happening to others;

shouldn't

they happen to me?'

"When

meet

mused, he

father, I

will

probably

be sitting in a rocking-chair on a veranda, facing a sunny garden

of flowers

full

naturally he will be reading

And when he push back me.

sees

And he

will say,

'Good

birds;

'Frithiof's

will lay

his spectacles, rise

and

down

and

Saga.'

the book,

and come toward

day,'

and 'Welcome,'

and 'So you are out walking,' and 'How are you,

my girl?' â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the same old "Then, when he has

way. settled

himself in the

rocker again, he will begin to wonder

come

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to him 'Surely

there

why

have

nothing wrong at

home?' he asks suddenly. "'Oh, no, father, relate the news,

all is well';

and I'm about to

but decide to hold

back a

little

HONOURS

IIElt

while,

and take a roundabout way.

come

to ask

you

some good

for

advice,' I say,

'The

assuming a troubled expression.

am swamped

have just

fact

with debts.'

'"I'm afraid you won't get much help line

from me,' says

father.

Varmland, "You

in that

'One can say

will find

of this

homesteads

place, as they used to say of the old in

is,

everything here but

money.'

'"But

it's

money

not in a

sense that I'm in

debt," I say.

"'So *

Now

it's

tell

worse than that,

all,

because

it.^'

asks father.

from beginning to end,

'"It's only fair that *

was your

you should help me,'

to sit at the piano

and

And do you

us read Tegner and Rune-

let

berg and Andersen twice every winter?

came by

first

can I ever repay them

I say,

you

sing Bellman ballads to us children.'

way

girl

fault at the start.

remember how you used remember how you

big debt.

for teaching

In that

Father,

to love the

sagas and their heroes, and the fatherland

human "As chair,

life

in all its greatness

and

how and

all its frailty

.''

I speak, father straightens himself in his

and a lovely

light

comes into

his eyes.

'I'm

RELMA LAGERLOF

glad I had a share in getting you into that debt,' he says.

"*You don't mean

Academy

tell

Ine that the Swedish

says father looking

Then he understands that

it is

in the eyes.

And every

true.

wrinkle in his old face begins to quiver and his fill

up with

"'What

shall I

eyes to

mined

tears.

say to those

this matter,

who have

deter-

and to those who have named Consider, father,

for the honour.'^

not

only honours and gold they have given me, but think

how much

when they dared

How

world!

gratitude

his fist sit

must have had

to distinguish

shall

me,

me before the whole

ever cancel that debt of

.f^'

"Father

away the

faith they

sits

and ponders a while; then he wipes

tears of joy, shakes himself,

on the arm of the

chair.

and

strikes

don't care to

here any longer and muse on things which no

one, either in heaven or on earth, can answer!'

he says.

'If

you have received the Nobel

Prize,

I shan't trouble myself about anything but to be

happy.' " Your Royal Highness,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;since

I got

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;^Ladies and Gentlemen

no better answer to

all

queries.

HER HONOURS it

only remains for nie to ask you to join

toast of gratitude, which I have the honour to

propose to

tlie

Not only honoured.

Swedisli

in literal ure

Academy."

has Selma Lagerlof been

In her article in the Vale Review on

"Four Scandinavian Feminists" Hana Astrup Larsen considers her influence upon the feminist

movement

Sweden.

Miss Larsen

Miss Lagerlof as "the author sellers'

two

'best

Bible, the

most

of the

Sweden next to the

refers

woman in Sweden, and the only one Ellen Key whose fame has spanned

beloved

be-

sides

the

She then goes on to say

w^orld."

"When

she

abandoned her habit

reserve

and appeared as the outspoken champion suffrage

the

international

suffrage

congress

held in Stockholm, in 1911, the feminists of

considered

won

in years.

preserved

Sweden

the most important victory they had

Her

among

characteristically

speech, which

worthy to be

the classics of the movement;

Northern

and

breathes

the

Northerner's passionate love of home.

"'Have we done

nothing,'

she asks,

'which

SELMA LAGERLOF

with man?

entitles us to equal rights

on earth has been long

own

answers her

has created the loved.

Man

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as

home and made

beneath,

woman

happy and

has created the state and

the

threats

Witness the hatred

classes; witness the stifled cries

all

be-

made

have not succeeded

beloved or happy.

between the

She

his.'

question by saying that

great; but all his efforts

making

long as

Our time

from

and revolutions.

this

very moment, when governments are totter-

ing,

admirably constructed though they be, when

social revolution appears at our

right here that the great

the man's

field of

very door

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

it is

woman's invasion

labour and of the territory of

the state begins!'"

This speech has been translated into

all.

the

languages of Europe and has been circulated widely

throughout

movement.

this

country by the

woman

suffrage

IV HER HOME

A ND /

home which

so at last

we come is

to Dr. Lagerlof's

imbedded

so deeply

For a knowl-

everything that she writes.

edge of her work

it is

well to understand her love

of the place of her childhood.

Miss Lagerlof's

The

early years of

literary career, in fact

from 1897 to

1908, were spent at Falun in Dalarne or Dalecarlia,

the

home where

those

sturdy

she got so close to the hearts of

self-reliant

peasants

Marbacka Manor, the home Liljecrona's Lovdalla of so little

In 1908, however, she returned to

"Jerusalem."

happy

we met

many

her birth, the

of her stories, the

farmstead where she breathed

in the

wealth of legend and folk lore which gave the

world "Gosta Berling" and the

But

let us

her return to

have the author

Marbacka and

the old place to it

its

rest.

herself tell us of

of her restoration of

ancient state as she had

through childhood. 69

known

SELMA LAGERLOF

70 111

his

journey homeward from Lapland with the

the

little

"The Further Adventures of Nils" boy is set down at a place in Viirmland

wild geese

Marbacka where he

called

with Mrs.

Brown Owl.

"The very year

Miss Lagerlof continues

that Nils Holgersson travelled

with the wild geese there was a of writing

into conversation

falls

woman who thought

a book about Sweden which .would

be suitable for children to read in the schools.

from Christmas time

She had thought

until the following

autumn, but not a

book had she

this

written.

last she

line of the

became so

tired of the whole thing that she said to herself:

*You

are not fitted for such work.

compose

stories

and legends, as

Sit

down and

usual,

and

let

another write this book, which has got to be serious

and

instructive,

and

which there m^ust

not be one untruthful word.' "It was as good as settled that she would abandon the idea.

But she thought, very

naturally,

would have been a joy to write something beautiful about Sweden, and quish her work.

maybe

was hard

Finally,

was because she

for her to relin-

occurred to her that

lived in the city, with

only gray streets and house walls around her.

HOME

UVAi

that she could

Perhaps

make no headway with

the writing.

she were to go into the country, where

she could see woods and

fields, it

might go

"She had never imagined that wonderful to come home!

As she

better.

would be so

sat in the cart

and drove toward the old homestead she fancied that she was growing younger and j'ounger every

minute, and that soon she would no longer be

an oldish person with hair that was turning gray, but a

little girl in

short skirts with a long flaxen

As she recognized each farm along the

braid.

road, she could not picture anything else than

that everything at days. sisters

home would be

as in bygone

Her father and mother and brothers

antl

would be standing on the porch to welcome

her, the old housekeei)er

window

to see

would run to the kitchen

who was coming, and Nero and

Freja and another dog or two would come boimd' ing and jumping *'

she

The nearer felt.

up on

her.

she approached the place the happier

was autumn, which meant a busy time

with a round of duties.

must have been

these varying duties which prevented

all

home from

SELMA LAGERLOF

ever being monotonous.

were

farmers

digging

way the

All along the

and probably

potatoes,

they would be doing likewise at her home.

That

meant that they must begin immediately to grate

potatoes

make potato

and

autumn had been

The

flour.

a mild one; she wondered

everything in the garden had already been stored.

The cabbages were

had been picked, and

" She it

this

now

certainly was! in

was

was the pond, which of carp

was

the apples.

But she did not observe She thought, rather,

quite in her

the

same.

There

youth had been

and where no one dared

fish,

father's wish that the carp should

full

because

left in

Over there were the menservants' quar-

peace. ters,

hops

was very much changed,

the evening.

everything

that

all

had heard that

and

out, but perhaps the

still

the larder and barn, with the farmyard bell

over one gable and the weather-vane over the other.

The house yard was

a circular room,

with no outlook in any direction, as in her father's

cut

down

time

much

had been

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;for he had not the heart to

as a bush.

"She

lingered

KR HOME the shadow under the

big

mountain-ash at the entrance to the farm, and

As she stood there a

stood looking about her.

strange thing happened a flock of doves :

came and

beside her.

lit

"She could hardly

believe that they were real

birds, for doves are not in the habit of

about after sundown. beautiful

moving

must have been the

moonlight that had awakened them.

They must have thought

was dawn and flown

from their dove-cotes, only to become confused, hardly knowing where they were.

saw a human being they flew over to would

set

them

When her, as

they if

she

right.

"There had been many

manor when her parents

flocks of

doves at the

lived there, for the doves

were among the creatures which her father had one ever men-

taken under his special care.

tioned the killing of a dove,

put him

humour.

in a

bad

She was pleased that the pretty birds

had come to meet her tell

in the old

home.

but the doves had flown out

Who could

in the night to

show her they had not forgotten that once upon a time they had a good home there.

"Perhaps her father had sent

his birds with a

SELMA LAGERLOF

greeting to her, so that she would not feel so sad

and lonely when she came to her former home.

"As she thought

of this, there welled

up within

her such an intense longing for the old times that her eyes

filled

with tears.

by many holiday all

had been beautiful

They had had weeks

in this place.

hard

Life

work broken

They had

festivities.

toiled

day, but at evening they had gathered

around the lamp and read Tegner and Runeberg, '

Fru' Lenngren and

had cultivated

MamselV Bremer.

grain, but also roses

and jasmine.

" 'Nowhere else in the world do they to get so

these

little

thought. just

much

out of

life

homesteads 'There was

They

know how

as they did at one of

just

childhood!'

she

enough work and

enough play, and every day there was a joy.

How I should love to come back here again! Now that I have seen the place, it is hard to leave it.'

"Then to

them

she turned to the flock of doves and said

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;laughing at herself

"'Won't you long to

fly to

come home.'^

all

the while:

father and

tell

him that

have wandered long enough

HER in

strange

so that I

Ask

j)laces.

may

HO.MIO

liini if

he can't arrange

soon turn back to

childhood's

home.'

"The moment

she had said this the flock of

doves rose and flew away.

them with her It

was as

She

eyes, but they vanished instantly.

the whole white

tried to follow

solved in the shimmering

"The doves had only

company had

dis-

air.

just

gone when she heard a

couple of piercing cries from the garden, and as she hastened

thither she

saw a singular

There stood a tiny midget, no

taller

sight.

than a hand's

breadth, struggling with a brown owl.

first

she was so astonished that she could not move.

But when the midget cried more and more pitifully, she stepped

" '

up quickly and parted the

understand that you take

tiny folk,' said the midget, being, like yourself,

formed by an

"The boy

akhough

fighters.

for one of the

'but I'm a I

human

have been trans-

elf.'

did not

mind

telling her of his

adven-

tures, and, as the narrative proceeded, she

who

SELMA LAGERLOF

him grew more and more astonished

listened to

and happy. " '

What

luck to run across one

who has

travelled

over Sweden on the back of a goose!' thought

all

she.

'Just this which he

down

book.

over that matter.

Now It

relating I shall write

need worry no more

was well that

came home.

think that I should find such help as 50on as I

came

to the old place!'

"Instantly another thought flashed into her mind.

She had sent word to her father by the doves that she longed for home, and almost immediately

she had received help in the matter she had pon-

dered so long.

Might not

answer to her prayer?"

this

be the father's

MISS LAGERLOF TO-DAY

HERE

Marbacka and

at her winter

spends her time,

in Falun, Dalarne, she

writing

much

less

home

than of old now for the

demands upon her time and energy

are

many and

great.

But ever more generous

of love

from her warm human understanding and

tender woman's heart.

the outpouring

Through her ready knowl-

edge of the other Scandinavian languages, and with English, French, German, and Italian she

keeps abreast of

all

the great world movements.

lover of solitude, she has nevertheless been

visited

by many Americans and

to each

and every

one she put more questions than did the interviewer.

Woman

Christian

suffrage.

temperance, and the war in

Science, all

its

Socialism,

relations to

neutrals are subjects of which she cannot hear

enough from Americans.

Both Marbacka and Falun are

homes redolent

the rich 77

typical Swedish

store

tradition

SELMA LAGERLOF

behind her

The winter home

art.

at Falun

picturesque old cottage which was built nearly

200 years ago, and unlike the prevailingly austere architecture

province

the

beauty and charm that

sets

has

quaint

apart from

its

neighbours.

Within

warm works

an atmosphere of simple dignity, for

hospitality,

amidst

Miss Lager lof

surroundings

lives

hair her eyes look at

and

harmony with

From beneath a crown

her personality.

of white

and through one, kindly yet

penetrating, and always ready to twinkle happily

at the

humour which she

sees in

life.

For years

she has lived in these two homes with her aged

mother, lavishing love, not only upon those near

and dear to

her,

but upon

Lagerlof's father died

all

Miss

humanity.

when she was a young

girl,

but her mother lived until about a year ago.

Of the Americans who have Lagerlof perhaps the only

called

one to establish a

friendship which has lasted for years, closer

as time

goes on,

Velma Swanston Howard. latter's first visit to

much

upon Miss

and grows

her translator, Mrs.

The account

of the

Miss Lagerlof at Falun shows

of the author's personality.

Mrs. Howard,

MISS LA(JEULOI" T()-DAY as iiientioned before,

was engaged

7!)

journalism in

Stockholm, and had been told by her friends that

Miss

saw

never

Lager lof

Mrs.

interviewers.

Howard, with American energy, however, opened a correspondence which finally resulted in an invitation,

not for an interview, but simply for a this first visit

Mrs, Howard said

"Miss Lagerlof received me with the

She

whom

one

cordiality

There was no feeling of strange-

of old friendship. ness.

visit.

one of those rare personalities with

may

think aloud without fear of being

misunderstood.

She never asks a personal ques-

tion.

She

on the shady

a ravishing listener. side of forty

She was then

—a woman of medium

height, with fine, fair face, splendid head superbly set

on neck and shoulders.

hands

—she wears

nated me.

beautiful white

a five and a half glove

Her sense

was a twinkle

Her

—

humour was keen.

in her eye,

fasci-

There

a twist about the mouth,

a certain sly humour that preceded her speech, while her chuckle was inimitable.

"'Shall

we go

ently studying

to the park?' she asked, appar-

how

best to entertain me.

"*If you do not object, I should prefer to stay

-where we

are.'

Her

relief

was obvious.

Then

SELMA LAGERLOF

80 she

fell

was

curiosity

about

to questioning insatiable.

She was eager to know

women.

American

She

admired

their

She was immensely

freedom, vivacity, initiative. interested in

Her

about America.

Mary Baker Eddy.

That a woman

should have founded a religious cult of such tre-

mendous following amazed and delighted

her.

'"I have not been allowed to interview you,' I

'Now

eleven o'clock. I

we parted that

laughingly said as

I shall

night,

have to write how

have been interviewed by Sweden's most be-

loved author.'

"That assured

interview, which

me was

Howard, "sowed the seed culminated in

lish translator.'

at Viirmland,

summer

Stockholm friends

a friendship that

becoming Miss Lagerlof's EngI

had two unforgettable days

of 1914,

not to be had," concluded Mrs.

last visit to

and although

Sweden

in the

hostess

was at

work on a new book we had many happy hours together. is

Strangely enough,

panelled with

the

dining -room

Washington State landscapes,

painted by Miss Lagerlof's uncle,

who

lived

some

years at Seattle."

Sweden's most popular author now passes her*

MISS LAf;EULOK T(>-DAV

summers

Marbacka Manor, the home

of her

youth, whieli she rebought after twenty years' absence.

She continues to employ there, to the cha-

grin of

overseer, a corps of aged servitors

its

youth went to the development of the

Her

fifty -eight fruitful

whose estate.

years find her with a gener-

ous income from her books and plays, and

with her a joy to spend her time and her substance in the service of

humanity and

of her loved ones.

SELJVIA

LAGERLOF'S SWEDEN

map of Sehna Lagerlof's Sweden giving as far as possible the exact geographical names of the places Dr. Lagerlof gave fictional names in her books. Herewith a key to the

Actual places in Roman letters. Author's fictional names in Italic. ACTUAL GEOGRAPHICAL NAME FICTIONAL NAME Loven or Long Lake Lake Fryken Rottneros Ekehy Ojervik Sjp Bjorne Sundsberg Lovik V. Emtervik Amberg Brohy Lake Rotinar Bjbrksjon Lysvik Sandvik Bjorkefors Fors .

See:

"The Story of

Gosta

Berling"

"The From

Girl

the

Marshcroft"

Sunne

Bro Borg

Herresta

"Legends"

Svartsjo

O. Emtervik

Etc.

Ndrlunda Big Marsh

On Klar

River Bordering Klar River

"The ^Liljecrorids Lovdalla

Marbacka

Story of Gosta

BerHng" " The Emperor Portugallia" "Liljecrona's

Doveness

Dove Lake

Raglanda Munkhyttan

Skacks Skacks Lake

^ >

Home"

See:

"The Emperor

J Portugalia"

See:

The Parish

Southwestern Dalarne

"From a

ITpsala Fifty Mile Forest

Home-

Falun

stead"

Swedish

Nas Dal River Gagnef

See:

"Jerusalem"

Floda 'Miss Lagerlof's own native home where "The Story of Gosta Berling" and most of her other books were written. 2Miss Lagerlof's winter home where "Jerusalem" was written.

»y.-.<-.Y- ::•••..:

The Northland

Edition

OF THE WORKS OF

SELMA LAGERLOF NINE VOLUMES BOUND IN LIMP LEATHER Translated by Velma Swanston

Howard

The Emperor of Portugallia Jerusalem

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils The Further Adventures of Nils The Girl from the Marsh Croft Translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach

The Story of Gosta Berling The Miracles of Antichrist Invisible Links Translated by Jessie Brochner

From a Swedish Homestead Each volume,

net,

Nine volumes,

$1.75.

(These volumes

may

boxed, net, $15.75

also be obtained in cloth)

attractive booklet on Selma Lagerlof and her works will be sent free on request. Booklets on Kipling, Conrad

and O. Henry

may

also be obtained

PUBLISHED BY

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

NTRAL UNIVEkoii

AA 000

947 931

versity of Californj

DATE DU: 7 1977 University of California

FACILITY SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY 17 • Box 9biJoa Lot Parking Drive -^nt; ^°

ne Neve

90095-1388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

RetumthiimatH!^^